2012 — 17 June: Sunday
It's easy to overdose on punk music.1 Still, the sun is shining, the requisite amount of sleep turned up, and I'm sure I can find a little something with which to assemble a packed lunch for our marathon rambling in a couple of hours.
I would say "All's right with the world" but that's most unlikely to be true. The sore throat is continuing to fade, though it's always a bit grim first thing in the morning. Tea helps. The hotter and more copious, the better. Time for cup #2 already, in fact.
I gather it's "Father's Day". Well, who gnu?
My reader...
... and his or her boundless curiosity continues to amaze me. Here's the longest single search string entry from my server log so far this month:
While I confess I have yet to get the round tuit needed to tackle the Epic of Gilgamesh, I can at least offer as a suggestion these rather more scientific collections of fascinating evidence for global catastrophes in the (relatively) recent human past:
My interest was first sparked by a chapter in Eric Frank Russell's "Great World Mysteries" back in 1962 or so. It dealt with what little was then known about the Tunguska 'explosion' in June 1908 — an event skilfully folded by Julian May into her Intervention title that bridged between the Saga of the Exiles and the Galactic Milieu trilogy.
"Keep watching the skies" :-)
I left a full...
... virus scan running before setting off for today's 8 mile ramble, which is how I now know I have somewhat over 1.5 million items salted away here and there on BlackBeast. Though what they all are, gawd only knows. It's now 15:12 and I shall treat myself to a quick shower. It was both warm and quite humid out there.
The drive back was enlivened at one point on the A272 when it became obvious that I'd somehow engaged the Romulan cloaking device. There's no other logical explanation for the lady BMW driver who was pointlessly overtaking a bunch of cars and heading straight for me at high speed in my lane. Had I not slowed down almost to a halt (as Mike put it, as he aimed one of his fingers quite rudely at her while saying something very unflattering about her that I couldn't possibly repeat) we would have been flattened.
One way to go out with a bang, I suppose.
I cannot even...
... begin to describe how depressing I find this Gallup survey result:
I conclude that the sooner this God chappie activates the Rapture and uses it to lift up all the — shall we say "cerebrally-challenged"? — brethren from our midst, the better. Of course, I could be wrong :-)
There's more, here, in a New Yorker piece.
I can only sympathise
A letter in the current issue of "Private Eye" creased me up. Its writer explains how — although greatly admiring the magazine — after reading for the last year the non-stop litany of dishonesty, greed, corruption, double-dealing and so on in high places... "to his endless shame" he's now reverting to the ostrich position, and cancelling his subscription.
He's obviously not quite as masochistic as I am :-)