2012 — 3 May: Thursday
For some reason1 listening to reports of the majestically-named Top Chap2 at the Bank of England telling the world (in a BBC lecture) that, with hindsight, "light touch regulation" (of banks that had been allowed to grow too fast and lend [far] too recklessly and become too big to be allowed to fail) was inadequate and that "we should have been shouting from the rooftops" reminds me of that Upton Sinclair quote: It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary is dependent on his not understanding it...
"When, as it will, the economy returns to normal, our role will be to take away the punchbowl just as the next party is getting going,"
I don't drink punch. Nor did I listen to his lecture, so I have no idea if the word "sorry" ever popped out. It doesn't occur in the transcript.
Has anyone told...
... the Pope about this, do you suppose?
Just back from a PC delivery — Ubuntu3 has left my building. I shall simplify my network if it kills me :-)
It's cool and damp out there at the moment (the moment being 11:11, give or take). Here's a Nice Thing.
My next (minor) obsession?
When I mentioned this to one of my chums, he replied he thought its IMDB write-up "makes it sound like the red-haired stepson of Castle and Bones, with The Punisher as godfather". One can but hope.
Today's MP3 indulgence is the new album Visions by "Grimes" though quite why she — Claire Boucher — goes by that name, I have no idea...
Nor do I have the faintest clue what "Dance & DJ" means as a genre. Still, she was playing live in the BBC 6Music studio this morning and sounded most engaging, chatting to an obviously-captivated Lauren Laverne about Abbess Hildegard of Bingen, among other things. Nor does she have a phone ("I don't like phones"). Pretty cool, I thought. Pretty damn' cool.
Tea, Mrs Landingham? It is, after all, rapidly heading towards the middle of a dull, grey, drizzly afternoon.
Oh, dear...
For by no means the first time, I appear to have overwhelmed Windows Media Player when letting it out of its cage to play with my collection of MP3s. One wonders if I will ever learn? Probably not. But it was fun while it lasted. I must say: it does seem to be in more than a bit of a tizzy. I suppose when you've got a 3.4GHz set of four real cores, four hyper cores, and are ticking away at 25% CPU for an hour or more, you ought to feel more like you're achieving something, right?
While I was pondering my choices for my evening meal, I glanced (first time for ages) at the laments here. Not much changes, does it? Utterly emetic.
It's been too long since I last played Thomas Wilbrandt's 1984 album "The Electric Vivaldi", but it's perfect for this evening. [Pause] Completely perfect — Vivaldi was one of Christa's favourites... She would, I'm sure, have been both amused and shocked to see that a used copy of the double CD is available from Amazon at £80. Though it was the music that brought tears to my eyes, not the price :-)
Odd stuff, Johnny Memory...
I can usually recall more or less where I was, and more or less what was going on in my life, when I bought most of the books I've accumulated over the last fifty years or so. This is much more so the case than with most of the music I've acquired. Yet — as I've proved again, this evening — it's more often music that is so easily able — these days — to unleash torrents of memories and some powerful emotions.
It seems strange, too, that although I could easily lose myself in my video 'collection', videos and films themselves rarely seem to trigger the same synapses, even though I can recall which films I've seen with Christa — starting with Lindsay Anderson's O! Lucky Man back in mid-1974.
If the kitchen's still open, I think it's time for a spot of supper. It's 23:00 already.