2012 — 23 September: Sunday

I suspect much of Britain is still a'bed1 but not dear Mama's little boy. The lure of a cuppa, once sleep has fled...

Today's game plan is for Peter to collect Michelle from the vicinity of Kew Underground and whizz down here shortly after lunch. My task is then to nip over to the care-home with her so she can say "Hail and Farewell" to her grandmother. Good luck with that, Mich!

My current kitchen calendar doesn't say whether this is the vernal equinox. It was, however, five years ago on this day. It's certainly cool enough.

Blood Count

Naturally(?), having reminded myself that I'd heard this Billy Strayhorn track five years ago, I had a sentimental desire to hear it again. Copernic's desktop search turned up just one hit on "Strayhorn", which was a 30-minute BBC Radio 3 Jazz Library podcast on Joe Henderson. That was grand, and I enjoyed hearing it again, but it didn't contain the track I wanted. Thus, having asked Mr Wikipedia a salient question or two, I've now found out the hard way that Amazon has "improved" its MP3 purchase and downloading process (in their opinion).

Personally, I've no wish to use their new Cloud Player facility, and also resent having to turn on "1-Click" purchasing, let alone register my "device" (BlackBeast, in this case), just to play a nice bit of music I've just paid for...

That said, Duke Ellington's 1967 tribute album "And his mother called him Bill" is now safely tucked away locally — and, I gather, remains available to me in this "Cloud" thing somewhere. Furthermore, I've just played the exact track I wanted. A mere 45 minutes after setting out on my musical quest. Phew! I think I deserve some breakfast.

Silly questions

Why do you suppose BlackBeast suddenly loses its ability to "discover", let alone "see", my Buffalo NAS? It's all been working perfectly for the last ten months. And why is the only way to restore things to (ha ha) 'normality' to shutdown both devices and then power on the NAS ahead of BlackBeast? I know, I know, it's a Windows system. What do I expect?

Finite State Machines? Don't make me laugh. [Pause] Now that I've opened my curtains I can clearly see we picked the right day for our walk yesterday. It's rather wet out there. [Pause] Still is as the afternoon thunders down the track toward me.

I don't think...

... I can afford too many visits from my young relatives. One destroyed the light-pull cord in the downstairs cloakroom. And, because her feet are so relatively close to her head, was then unable to reach high enough to operate the light. The other dropped the toilet seat (hard, judging by the volume) on to its base up in the bathroom. I shall have to check for cracks. Meanwhile, my hover-mower has gone to join its strimming chum, and some of the ski stuff (or maybe it was diving stuff — I'd stopped paying close attention) has also vacated the loft. Plus my "Hunger Games" trilogy has been snaffled. And then I had to feed and entertain the blighters.

Still, at least Michelle saw her grandmother in all her mindless befuddlement, even if she herself went unrecognised. As did I, and I only saw her three days ago. While I'd be the first to admit it's not much of a life for the ol' dear, most of the alternatives are a whole lot worse.

  

Footnote

1  It is, after all, only just 06:00.