2012 — 4 October: Thursday
In all the time I've lived in my present house1 this is the first morning on which I've ever seen Orion's Belt quite low on the horizon, and from the back window of my once-study-now-books-warehouse — as opposed to seeing it from a window on the side of the house (which, in my case, I 'ave not got, as Henry Reed puts it so beautifully2). Of course, the fact that it was only 04:20 or so probably had something to do with it. And the reduced still middle-of-the-night setting of our clever new streetlights also helped.
If my brain insists on coming back online so ridiculously early what am "I" supposed to do? Make a cuppa, for starters. And browse the just-arrived TV Guide from my "hard working digiguide" team. They still email me a decade or so since I let my subscription lapse — a lapse that Mike regularly criticises, I might add. Still, the 'dramatic new documentary' examining the deliberate crash landing of a (I hope, elderly) Boeing 727 might almost be worth a look. (Channel 4, 11 October, 21:00.) Though that adjective 'dramatic' probably dooms it from the start, don't you think? ... Deleted.
From one of three links...
... sent to me yesterday as a "reward", I dived in, paddled around a bit, and found this:
We'd had some hope that Peter (who, at the time, was driving us slightly nuts3 by his 'focussed enthusiasm' for computer games rather than 24x7 school work) might try for a job at the Oceanographic Institute here in Soton as he'd enjoyed an Open Day there rather more than most of the 'educational' events to which we tried to expose him without being too obviously manipulative about it. It was not to be.
This also tickled me. Not to mention the fact that it's National Poetry Day (or Week?) and the subject is stars.
As I chomp my breakfast, I'm catching up on some BBC Radio 3 podcasts (including ones rescued from that ailing iPod). It amuses me to think that Big Bro and I live in two of the three countries that (still) haven't got around to writing down their constitutions. The third is Israel.
Time (10:58) for my lemonses nectarine ahead of today's lunch date. It's gloriously sunny out there, by the way.
Arriving home...
... in the already quite chilly early evening after lunch and a chat with Len, followed by tea and a biscuit with Roger and Eileen, I'm further warmed by the glow from this little set of incoming Amazonian goodness sitting patiently on my front doorstep:
The two CDs are both composed by Randy Newman's cousin, Thomas, the John Hodge play was the one I very much enjoyed last Sunday evening, the Simon Garfield is a title4 of his that I only discovered while pondering his latest one (on maps), and the Werner Herzog film was well-received by Mark Kermode back at the end of March (unless my fallible memory fails me).