2012 — 24 September: Monday
I vaguely hoped my unconscious policy (alternating early and late mornings) might see the rain clearing away before I rolled out of bed, refreshed after all my Dadly and Unclely duties yesterday. Not so. The rain continues to chuck it down, all unaware. Still, at least I don't yet have any need to venture out in it, though today does involve a birthday lunch treat at the 'Plough' in Sparsholt.1
The hollow feeling suggests I could well make good use of some breakfast.
Tips of icebergs
Peter and I talked briefly yesterday about the pros and cons of my ceasing to use SSIs for my web pages. It would enable a degree of serving resilience currently lacking by making all the pages completely static, with no need for any server-side page-building activity. But that would bring with it two disadvantages:
- a fixed-size overhead penalty on every page as about 30 extra lines of HTML code are placed in each file
- the potential of requiring rather more work from me (never a smart idea) the next time I want to change the basic structure (as opposed to the CSS-controlled visual style) of my little webbed world
However, until and unless I develop an entirely new interest (or, heaven forbid, set of interests) my present six-year-old site structure does me fine. The most recent change about 18 months ago was to add "Bits" to my top level structure and navigation bar when I finally decided to describe the various pieces of computing technology hereabouts. Apart from that, I can easily use "Other" to accommodate all sorts of stuff behind my firewall, no matter how little of it appears visible2 externally.
It remains, at 10:41, wet and windy out there. Yuk.
I've just re-read...
... and, I confess, laughed again, at this "Senior health care solution" that Peter told me about two years ago:
He's a shocker... and I still blame his mother :-)
I really wish...
... I could write like this. Let alone think like it! It reminds me of that Gerald Kersh line:
...there are men whom one hates until a certain moment when one sees, through a chink in their armour, the writhing of something nailed down and in torment
I found it quoted by Harlan Ellison in the In Memoriam section of Nebula Award Stories #4, edited by Poul Anderson (1969). Who said reading SF was a waste of time?
As I sit here...
... in the now quite splendid later afternoon sunshine, gently digesting the last of the delicious lunch (thanks again, birthday boy!), I note that dear Mama's annuity payment from Dad's long-defunct company's long-defunct pension scheme has just gone up a little. And the 3-DVD set of Wim Wenders 1992 film "Bis Ans Ende Der Welt" was waiting for me on the doorstep...
I've never seen the film, which came and went quite quickly in the UK, but I did very much enjoy the music from its soundtrack, which I recently supplemented with a couple of items missing from my CD version (compare the track listing here) but available to download:
Opening Titles (Original Score) / Graeme Revell Summer Kisses, Winter Tears / Julee Cruise Move With Me / Neneh Cherry What's Good / Lou Reed Last Night Sleep / Can Fretless / R.E.M. Days / Elvis Costello Claire's Theme / Graeme Revell (I'll Love You) Till The End Of The World / Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds It Takes Time / Patti Smith And Fred Smith Death's Door / Depeche Mode Love Theme / Graeme Revell Calling All Angels / Jane Siberry Humans From Earth / T-Bone Burnett The Adversary / Crime & the City Solution Sleeping In The Devil's Bed / Daniel Lanois Sax And Violins (LP Version) / Talking Heads Until The End Of The World (Album Version) / U2 Finale (Original Score) / Graeme Revell
As for the film itself, the only trouble is I've lost my lovely resident in-house interpreter so most of the documentary extras are likely to be rather lost on me. No matter: I seem to have snaffled it at just the right time as this edition has now doubled in price on Amazon since I placed my order.
BBC Radio 3 this coming Sunday night holds much promise. I rate Bulgakov very highly on the strength of his "Master and Margarita". [Pause] And today's "Piano, A to Z: F for Fingers" was so delightful it sent me straight back to pick up the five others I'd managed to miss so far. (Link.)
Why waste...
... the time and money that a public inquiry would soak up looking into the degree of alleged boorishness exhibited by a Tory guvmint minister and chief whip? Let's be honest: the sort of unmoronic, non-plebeian, chap who seeks that sort of "job" in the first place — let alone one who then claws his way up the greasy pole to attain it — is surely, by definition, going to be capable of being more than a bit of a boor from time to time? Or have I missed something?
And why do I keep picturing the late, great, Ian Richardson's superb portrayal of the monstrous Francis Urquhart back in 1990? That bit of folk wisdom about "when you're in a hole, stop digging" also comes to mind :-)
Thank goodness, at least the boy Dave still has every confidence in him. If the PM's on your side, what could possibly go wrong? (Recall SuperMac's night of the long knives for one example.)
Much later
Well, I thought I did pretty well. I lasted for nearly 50 minutes of the Wenders film before turning, with relief, to a batch of "Big Bang Theory" for some (by then) much-needed lighter viewing. It's a long time since I've seen such a concentrated dose of wooden acting. I haven't quite given up yet, but at least I can now understand the polarised opinions.