2012 — 14 June: Thursday
Fun1 though the Leveson enquiry is, I'm not expecting any shattering revelations from the boy Dave's 'evidence' today. It's not a trial, after all. More like a tedious deflection-of-blame-and-responsibility exercise. Eny fule can see that the UK political process is far too closely coupled with the UK tabloid (and other) press. Nobody will openly admit that donations seek to influence policy, for that matter. It basically stinks.
Closer to home, I need to snaffle some supplies ahead of the weekend, and I then have a lunch date. Better not forget breakfast, too. Then there's tomorrow's central heating (annual) service in the morning, and a trip to see "Prometheus"2 in the afternoon. (Nearly 33 years since seeing "Alien" in Staines in October 1979, on the same day I bought the wonderful first edition of the Encyclopedia of SF. Not that I was traumatised, you understand.)
I wonder...
... how long my network connection was dropped? I only noticed because I was thwarted in checking my email. No biggie. It's time (11:59) I wasn't here in any case, as I now need to be there... as it were.
[Pause]
I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of FreeviewHD on Len's new A/V system. It may now be time to upgrade this (minor) portion of my own system, and thus remove the one remaining analogue video source. And, with luck, a modern matched pair of receivers would finally solve my occasional audio sync problems between the upstairs and downstairs systems when using them purely as radios. One lives in hope.
Hopeless
Listening to the 6 o'clock news leaves me unimpressed by the boy Dave. He'd managed to forget about a memo (19 November 2010) sent to him from our fragrant Culture Secretary
saying he (Hunt) was in favour of the BSkyB bid before he (Hunt) got the job (from the boy Dave) of overseeing the fitness (or otherwise) of this very bid.
"And, of course, we're not making a judgement one way or another?"
"Of course."
So, no real surprises.
And it's now raining again.
Rather later
One can, I've discovered, only spend a certain amount of time shifting music files around and correcting meta tags before madness sets in. So I took some time out to find the various bits of paperwork associated with the various gas-related bits of kit. Once I'd remembered leaning them all against the water softener it was plain sailing. And as I lean the cooker's instructions against my kettle socket, that was even easier.
After a short demo, I shall also be taking a closer look at several Foobar2000 functions that may yet prove handy. Given the amount of time I can spend using software, I sometimes surprise myself at what could strike people as my curious lack of curiosity in delving into the more deeply-buried functions. But then, the only software I ever really enjoy developing a close relationship with tends to be the odd bit of code I write myself.
I found many years ago that I can get as involved with that as the chap who played Civilisation II for a decade, pushing the simulation into a ghastly Orwellian future state of doubleplusungoodness. Maybe that's why I simply won't play computer games.