2012 — 8 April: Sunday
I managed to imbibe one whole HP Lovecraft story before the eyelids slammed together in protest last night.1 Very adjectival it was, too (though I'd been forewarned of this). Meanwhile, BBC 6Music appears to be on something of a dance culture weekend so I'm on the point of reverting to Radio 3 for the duration. I'm not quite as "down" with the "yoof" as I like to think, it seems.2
Today's planned blast of fresh air and lunch on the hoof should clear the cobwebs. It's not actually raining out there, but could scarcely be described as "bright". Or not at 08:10, at least.
Every time I...
... get out, this classy lady sucks me back in (as it were):
The court system — there to discipline the most violent instincts both of offenders and the offended into something civilised and just — made a deliberate decision to
incarcerate him. It wasn't a jury trial either; no 12 people symbolically represented the rest of Britain in deciding that Stacey's behaviour was something we consider illegal. It
was just one district judge, citing "public outrage" — which isn't a reason to put someone away. There was public outrage when Janet Jackson's boob fell out at the Super Bowl
and I don't see her in jail.
And it isn't illegal to be a stupid bastard. Maybe it should be — but that would be terribly impractical. Imagine if there were an uprising against the new law? All the stupid
bastards on one side, the rest of us on the other. That's not a fight we can win. They'd be too stupid to understand the rules or too bastardy to follow them.
Sometimes, I get a faint intimation that modern culture is passing me by on the other side of the street.
Once more unto...
I re-read. Here's one of the reasons, beautifully expressed by Tessa Hadley:
You think you know a novel so well that there must be nothing left in it to discover but the last time I reread "Emma" I found a little shepherd boy, brought into the parlour to sing for Harriet when she's staying with the Martin family. I'm sure he was never in the book before.
I don't remember a little shepherd boy, dammit. [Pause] Right. Breakfast onboard. Lunch packed. Clothes to throw on, and it's time to hit the open road. [Pause] And back again, 6.4 miles or so later, after a pleasant variation of one of our local strolls along the Itchen that took us from Shawford over to the top of St Catherine's Hill, and back. Lunch was on a bench at St Cross. The drizzle held off until just after I got back into my car. Excellent.
Names and shamed?
We neither of us knew there was a carved monument to the people who pushed through the construction of the Winchester bypass in the face of fierce local opposition:
Unusual kerning. I would hate to see a movie featuring this set of people.
Despite the far-from-subtle clue in the title — Talking Heads:77 — it still puzzles me mightily to consider that this album is 35 years old. So, just think how much older I felt when I was playing "Strange Days" by The Doors before it. 1967... now there was a year, and no mistake! Time (19:28) for my evening meal and some moving pixels, perhaps.
As seems to be...
... almost on the point of becoming a habit, I've just tracked down an album by an artist (new to me) played nearly 15 hours ago on Nemone's early morning show, confirmed I like her stuff by playing through several of the 30-second clips the BBC makes available, nipped over to Amazon, and downloaded it in MP3 format. My choice was "It all starts with one" by Ane Brun. [Pause] Lovely voice. Track #6 ("Lifeline") reminds me instantly of the story of that name by Heinlein but, tell me, why do I also remember the name of the protagonist of that story (Dr Pinero) when I haven't read it for probably 45 years? Weird.