2012 — 21 August: Tuesday
If the fitting and cleaning instructions1 for the (thin, metal) Venetian blinds we bought ten years ago to help darken2 the TV end of the living room had been more honest and said something helpful like "Be sure to clean weekly, not weakly, else the sooty crud that builds up will take an hour of hard labour to (partially) remove a decade later" I probably still wouldn't have paid much attention because moving the screen was always more a fraught business than a viable option.
To tack further insult on to the end of this morning's Augean task, a phone call from "Big A/V stands" from a colleague of the now-holidaying James wondered politely if, by any chance, I had yet received my TV stand. She couldn't, it seems, find James's paperwork. Since we'd spoken late on the Friday afternoon, presumably just before he disappeared on his hols, I do hope he put all the paperwork through before grabbing his bucket and spade. [Pause] Well, it's now 10:09, and the second cuppa is helping. Breakfast will help even more.
I must say, there's a vaguely virtuous glow that follows an extended session of domestic cleaning. I expect the spiders will be able to rebuild their webs in no time.
"Once upon a time..."
... shortly before Peter was born, in fact, I bought a pair of ionisers. Not because I was particularly impressed by the various claims being bandied around at the time for the benefits of negative ions. I was more interested in their potential as electrostatic air cleaners. Fast forward to the time of the second waterbed disaster.
The pressing need to redecorate our bedroom3 could no longer be denied (even by me). But the ceiling in the vicinity of the ioniser that had been parked for many years on top of my wardrobe was black with a sooty fine residue that seemed to have bonded (on a molecular level) with the paint on the Artex ceiling. It took quite some effort to clean off.
Some four hours plus after foolishly starting to clean the blinds I have to say they're looking a lot cleaner. I've also realised they are not metal. They are thin plastic to which has been bonded a shiny silver finish on one side. Not as well-bonded, it turns out, as the dust of Ages. It must be time for lunch, surely? I'm starving! It's 13:48 and no sign of a courier's van so far.
Alternatives exist...
... to the venerable Apache web server. I've been reading about a couple of them, and Brian is quite keen (having just got "lighty" up and serving on his Raspberry Pi) to rejuvenate Wee Whitey with one of them some time soon. Just because it should be possible. The other candidate is Nginx.
Actually, given the static (file-based) web pages that I host on "molehole", this is quite an attractive proposition, too.
Well, this is a bit irritating. Len had called round all ready to lend his hefting abilities, but (as yet) there's no sign4 of a delivery van... and it's now 15:56. I expect if I put everything back in place there will be a cheery knock on the door.
Cripes!
I was actually being sarcastic (or do I mean satirical?) last Thursday when I mentioned the insanity of a Stasi-style country wherein half the population spies on the other half. Oops.
The agency, which is expected to hand over control of the PND to the new police ICT company soon, has acknowledged that the system could contain information on up to 15m people — one in four of all Britons.
My estimate was a little high. That'll learn me.
Who could fail to enjoy this tale of banking woe? (Link.)
I'm just guessing here, of course. But — at 20:54 — I somehow don't think I'll be hearing the courier's cheery knock today.