2012 — 7 July: Saturday
How appropriate. Traffic's "Hole in my shoe" (the one that's been letting in water) has just been played on "Sounds of the 60s". It's not actually raining at this minute1 but the BBC's weather animation suggests that's the merest fluke.
We shall rendezvous, but then probably head straight back home. No point getting soaked. [Pause] And so it came to pass. The rain, though not heavy, was sufficiently persistent to deter us. What a pair of wusses.
A sensible review...
... though you have to go to the West coast to find it in the words of a Nicaraguan poet, writer and political activist:
... what are we to infer from the sudden bestseller popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey and the two sequels that compose E.L. James's trilogy? In spite of their sophomoric tone and less than lucid writing, the story of (the oh, so beautiful) Christian Grey and Anastasia Steel, and their cat and mouse sexual game of sadist predator and virginal prey, has touched a chord in the collective imagination of readers, most of whom are women.
And one of whom is a chap. Although the three books originated in some "Twilight"-inspired fan fiction, I somehow doubt Big Bro would be pleased to see me introduce them to my nieces in the way I did with Stephenie Meyer's work. Anyway, my copies arrived today, accompanied by some music...
... I heard "South American Getaway" (a rarely-played Bacharach track from 'Butch Cassidy') on 6Music last week for the first time in years and realised it was unacceptably AWOL from my music library. Brian had introduced me to the Ashley Hutchings as a set of MP3s, and I (obviously) liked them enough to seek out the original 2001 CD.
Time for a spot of lunch, already. Then there's a bit of house-tidying I really should tackle. Suppose I'd better make up Big Bro's bed, too.
This kept a broad smile on my face. This not so much. And still it rains.
I think the...
... best way to describe the current state of my music collection (and its you-should-excuse-the-word "organisation") is FUBAR. Although, of course, I have only myself to blame. Well, that, and the fact that the database software I was initially using a couple of PCs ago insisted on only running on the PC I'd installed it on (even though I had absolutely no wish to run it on any but my 'main' PC at any one time) and further locked it down by insisting that the PC name of each new machine be whatever the previous system had been. Still, it taught me not to spend £150 on such an amateurish product... which is probably why I then spent even more on something laughingly calling itself FileMaker Pro.
The last time I can recall running what seemed to me to be an ideal DB program was back in my CP/M days on that 1985 Amstrad machine. Granted, System DeltaPlus on the Acorn RISC machine was "better", and ran (somewhat) faster, but that platform was basically doomed from very early on. Even I had to accept that.
But I ask you. Is there a species of sub-humanity more irritating than a computer programmer bright enough to write code but too dumb to empathise with (or even investigate) his (or her) users and their requirements? And don't just tell me to write my own. I've got better things to do with my time. Enjoy music, for one... if I could find the stuff.
I don't know whether it's the crappy weather or my low blood sugar. But at least I can fix one of those. It's 18:05 and has actually stopped raining, though the sky remains depressingly grey.
Untimely thoughts?
How can Roxy Music's "Siren" possibly be 37 years old? That makes no sense whatsoever. Then again, I took the car through the 34,000 mile barrier today, after allowing for the 14 it had on delivery and the one time (the day of Christa's funeral) it was driven by Peter and not me. It's just mind-blowing how quickly Time slips through our fingers. I can't say I like it :-)