2012 — 30 October: Tuesday
For the first time1 I was awake in time to hear the start of the "Today" programme. Not that the headlines are cheery. But the talking heads waffle on, fatuous as ever. As a pair of them started comparing "9/11" and hurricane Sandy in terms of New York's response I flicked over (I should say, back) to the breast-soothing stuff on the next channel 'down'.
I have yet to hear from Carol. But I gather her local little brook — the Hudson — is undergoing quite a storm surge. It remains to be seen whether that's got anything to do with the fact that I had to stop and restart my local Apache server (that I run as a service on BlackBeast) this morning. It's the first time I've had to do that since I installed the Xampp package quite a few moons ago now. The only change since I shut the PC down yesterday evening was that I'd defragged the system drive. Finite State Machines? Don't make me laugh.
Only eight minutes to go until sunrise. And Stravinsky's Circus Polka (composed for a young elephant) :-)
Heaven forbid!
What else can we blame?
Indeed, it is worth comparing Italian officials' response to the L'Aquila quake with the response of Enlightened thinkers to the Great Lisbon Earthquake of November 1755. That quake, which killed up to 100,000 people, became a key reference point for Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire, Rousseau and Kant. They wrote about and argued over it for years. Kant in particular challenged the idea, then a given, that quakes such as this were acts of divine providence, punishment from on high for mankind's errors. That simply didn't make sense in relation to Lisbon, a devout Catholic city, in which virtually every church was toppled but the notorious red-light district was left standing.
Puzzling
Finally! A piece of science I can relate to! (Link.)
I must say, the carpark of the Waiting Rose is gloriously empty at a minute or so after 08:00. And there's a null queue at the 'deli' counter, too. This is excellent. [Pause] Right, time I wasn't here since I now need to be there. The sun is shining... [Pause] And back again, after 7 miles or so and a light lunch at the Nameless Pub. Warm in the sunshine, but pretty damn' cool in the shade and the breezes. The rest of the afternoon starts here.
As if I...
... don't already have enough to listen to. Oliver Sacks and his hallucinatory encounter with a spider? (Link.)
I really (I mean really) dislike the way it's getting dark outside — it's only 16:37 dagnabbit.
Problems, problems
Now I have to decide where to lunch with Len tomorrow. I wonder if the "Wheatsheaf" at Braishfield has re-opened again, yet?