2012 — 19 July: Thursday
Further proof arrived overnight illustrating the idiocy of the Intelligent Design crowd. What kind of apprentice designer unleashes a horsefly on the world? One of my knuckles has disappeared1 and if I could bottle the overall effect it would ruin the sales of itching powder. Still, in slightly more cheerful news, I managed to find and apply a dab of acyclovir to a nascent itch on my lip and have successfully zapped a cold sore. Also overnight.
These things come in threes, of course... I thus await Big Bro's arrival :-)
He's driving back down from Manchester this morning and expects to arrive in time for that moveable feast, lunch. I've no idea how long I will be enjoying his company this time. At least one night, I assume. I don't know whether my email about the closure of the care-home got through to him as some of his aviation world chums seem to be less than wholly convinced of the utility of such new-fangled hi-tech and don't have networks he can leech off. But I do know another visit to see dear Mama was one of the reasons for his return here. And that ain't now going to happen.
Breakfast, and a tad of...
... supplies shopping before he gets here. The sun is shining and there are small patches of blue visible at the moment. Amazing for July. Good design.
In former times, the...
... highest affordable network bandwidth was available via "sneakernet". I was using a variant of that — "Toyotanet", perhaps? — an hour ago as I dropped off a stick of files with Brian. And was promptly repaid with some anti-allergy pills (Loratadine) from Mrs Brian before I took her over to her dental appointment. Of course, an Intelligent Designer would have no need of such biochemical assistance. Nor dentists, for that matter.
Now here's a pithy little comment attracted by Suzanne Moore's piece on social media:
Social media is to reality what an inflatable woman is to sex.
Tee-hee. Or, recalling Roxy Music back in March 1973... "In every dream home a heartache". (Too much more info here.)
More than two...
... decades ago, Apple had to stop its (demonstrably false) advertising claims of being the first supplier of RISC desktop PCs in the UK market. But I don't recall them being ordered to publish retractions in ads featuring Acorn. Today it seems they've been ordered to publish ads stating that Samsung didn't copy the iPad with their Galaxy tablet devices. Could the Jobs Reality Distortion Field be fading, I wonder?
Big Bro est arrivé and, after the mandatory cuppa, is suggesting he takes me out to lunch. I've lined up an afternoon treat for him in lieu of the care-home. [Pause] And, after a post-lunch diversion into the great Metrollops, I now have another form of anti-slip carpet technology to try out underneath the rug in my entrance hall that acts as a sacrificial dirt-catcher.
It's 18:51 and the sun is shining. How unusual! [Pause] Tonight's initial blast of entertainment? "Tinker, Tailor" which (Mark Kermode asserts) is not about spies, or spying. We shall see. [Pause] What a gloomy, tediously slow-paced, film. Getting (most of) the period detail right merely confirmed that the early 1970s was an unjolly good period to bury, rather than resuscitate.