2013 — 10 May: Friday
Today's a day for another walk1 and, having nipped out yesterday afternoon for a foodie top-up, I may also be able to squeeze in a cuppa over with Roger & Eileen. Despite yesterday's non-gale I note that almost all the pink blossom is now absent from my Japanese cherry tree, and the white from the pear. Meanwhile the tired-looking tulips are now surrounded by quite a crop of bluebells. Nature marches ever on, it seems.
I'm baffled
Someone a lot brighter than me will have to explain why the former Archbish of York — the now even nobler Lord Hope — can state that church policy "at the time" did not require the name of a suspected sexual abuser in their (rank) ranks to be automatically passed to the police for investigation and apparently sees nothing "iffy" or conscience-troubling. Where does it say that in the bible, I wonder?
One might have hoped his all-seeing omniscient imaginary invisible friend2 would have said something to him, but to be fair I suppose if you go round listening to (or worse, acting on) the supposedly superior brand of moral advice and guidance on offer from imaginary invisible friends these days — while simultaneously occupying a senior position in the church hierarchy — you might well find yourself quietly sedated and locked away just like a Russian political dissident in the good old days. How times change.
Everybody loves children, it seems, but not always in the "best" way be they church officials, politicians, or beloved celebrity entertainers. (Link.)
I share...
... our current education secretary's unfamiliarity with the "Mr Men" series. It seems there's a lesson plan that depicts the rise of Hitler as a Mr Men story, about which he has very amusingly commented here.
Back from today's walk...
... only to learn that Eileen is indisposed and on antibiotics, so no biccie for David this week. The weather was well-nigh perfect for our route, and I've returned just in time to turn away one of my opportunistic gentleman callers, who's starting his next annual round of cold-calling in hopes of some tree-trimming work. And to catch some, at least, of the Kermode and Mayo film review programme. Ever onward.
Starting from...
... first principles, I assume that everything in my world that has a physical reality must be somewhere. Case in point: my 10m HDMI cable.3 Len swears he returned it to me. Brian swears he bought it for me but never actually borrowed it. Mike swears he never borrowed it. They are all correct since the cable was (as usual) in the last place I actually looked for it. More to the point, it's now back in use connecting BlackBeast's third digital video output to the Kuro. And, acting on hints received, I've managed to reset the resolution of that connection to the 1920x1080 it should always have been but which (for no good reason) the ATI Radeon chooses not to honour until you explicitly tell it to. The control Win8Pro allows me to exert is not up to the job, oddly.
Silly me. I thought the operating system was supposed to be like Sauron's ring...
Naturally (!) I still have a few minor HDCP-related issues with disappearing screens and/or migrating windows as I make or break the connection to the Kuro but the bottom line is that I can now finally play video files back on the PC and watch them in full hi-def on the screen at the other end of the room with accompanying audio delivered over an optical digital connection. That merits another cuppa, I think.
While I'm on a...
... technological roll — and as it's now 66 months since Christa died — I decided it was about time I took my new "top oven" out for a spin. After all, it's been sitting quietly in my kitchen for nearly three years yet I've only ever used the grill and the hobs so far, and still have no current plans to explore the main oven. (One doesn't want to rush things, after all.)
So tonight, I'm going to see how I get on with "chicken breasts in a delicately spiced lemon, apricot and ras el hanout marinade". It smells good so far... [Pause] Blimey! Absolutely delicious!