2012 — 28 September: Friday
Though the concept remains hard for me to grasp1 this would have been our, and is still my, 38th wedding anniversary. Now if only you were still here to celebrate it with me, Christa. <Sigh>
Happy anniversary, my love. Tea! That's what I shall have to settle for. And some pre-shopping breakfast. At least the sun is shining, I note.
I may have stumbled...
... across a little shard worthy of "Pseud's Corner":
Prayers have been answered: Kingsley Amis's novels Lucky Jim and The Old Devils are being reissued in the United States... Why has Amis been out of print in the United States for so long? Taste enters into the equation: strict High Tories as a rule prefer the mandarin prose of Evelyn Waugh or Anthony Powell, just as the sanguine among us favor P.G. Wodehouse, who never left the sunny side of the street. Academic snobbery must also be inculpated: the Amis oeuvre tenaciously avoids subsumption into fashionable critical narratives, and Girl, 20 will never appear on an American college syllabus. But finally there is that familiar specter haunting Amis père — his son Martin.
Though the bulk of the piece is fine, I always get mildly irritated by words2 whose precise meaning slightly eludes me; nor had I realised it was possible for a living son to haunt a dead father.
Invasion of the talented crustaceans
Self-explanatory, I trust:
On the horns of...
... an ethical wotsit. Winchester City Council informs me that I would be committing electoral fraud were I to fill in dear Mama's request for a postal vote on her behalf (which I am legally able to do) and then vote on her behalf (which I am not legally able to do even with all the Power of Attorney gubbins), because — despite her dementia — the Law in its aged wisdom maintains that she may have a "lucid day" on which she would be able to cast her vote meaningfully. As I remarked to the young female advisor: "You haven't met my mother, have you?". She also admitted my 'fraud' would be difficult to prove.
The irony is that when her GP was assessing her mental competence a couple of years ago, when she was rather higher up the gentle decline that she has been sliding steadily down, one of the questions asked was the classic "Who's the current Prime Minister?". Her answer at the time: "I don't know, and I don't care" struck me as perfectly rational, no matter how random were the firing of the synapses that prompted it.
Did I say the sun was shining? Well, it's now chucking it down. Time (12:38) for a spot of lunch, methinks, while the car gets its wash out on the drive.
Is there something...
... slightly sad about finding this article so interesting and amusing? Besides, it linked to two excellent XKCD cartoons. And didn't quote any of my own PIN numbers.
Golf is...
... not only a good walk spoiled, but the reason I missed hearing Kermode and Mayo's film review show live, as it was shunted a couple of hours earlier by the stupid game. So I called in on Roger and Eileen for a cuppa and a chat. However, the podcast "with added Frenchman" of today's show is completely wonderful. And "Looper" sounds pretty good, too.
Anniversary aside to Christa
38 years?! Kind of unbelievable, don't you think? How strange this Life business is. Definitely time (21:03) for another cuppa :-)
Some time ago I mentioned form "BD8" from what I called, at the time — three days after Christa died — the Department of Dead People forms guys. And also the message that I'd long ago heard was carefully stencilled on anti-personnel explosive devices: "This side towards enemy". I thought I was being satirical, but from the photos of weaponry confiscated at American airport security checks it turns out I wasn't that far off the mark:
Amazing what people carry in checked luggage. I always used to pack extra books in case I ran short of reading material. I don't think I could see myself packing a set of Claymore mines, somehow...