2013 — 13 August: Tuesday
The central heating thermostat in my hallway suggests it's a mere 19C1 which sounds to me much like a chancellor's autumn budget statement will be coming along any minute. Unless, of course, I've already blinked and missed it.
Mustn't miss all those patches pouring out of Redmond this evening...
Depressing, yet...
... unsurprising, in my always humble opinion:
Depression is common, and economic struggles have added to our stress and anxiety. Television ads promote antidepressants, and insurance plans usually cover them, even while limiting talk therapy. But a recent study suggests another explanation: that the condition is being overdiagnosed on a remarkable scale.
Jolly good news for Big Pharma, of course. Personally, I've found giving up TV keeps me cheerful :-)
As does a masterly piece of understatement, such as this:
It's not normal to get your testicles bitten off, of course, but it can happen, especially now in Sweden.
The cupboard...
... of the motherly Hubbard is now somewhat fuller. It also occurs to me that some (probably all) of the opened jars of "stuff" lurking in its depths could do with chucking out since, for the most part, they've now been sitting there — undisturbed — for nearly six years. We domestic devils do like to live dangerously.
By the way, Christa, your local Post Office, having first metamorphosed into a Martial Arts centre, is now transforming again, this time into a Purveyor of Fine Indian Cuisine. Rather different business models, I expect.
Returning from...
... the second of today's little expotitions, I sadly realise that I was actually more pleased to have found a "Microfibre Noodle Mitt" (just proven brilliant for cleaning my DNA from the Tablet PC's touch screen) and six "Microfibre cleaning cloths" (Christa only seemed to have, or I could certainly only ever find, one such cloth and very useful it has proved to be, too) than to have found this little trio of (I hope) entertaining pixels:
"The Assassination" sounds like a cross between "Election" and "If...". "Parker" is the latest variation on a theme of "Point Blank" taken from the Richard Stark (Donald E Westlake) thriller "The Hunter", and "The Guard" has an enticing cast. We shall see.
Definitely time for a (now rather late) gentle bite or two of lunch. Let's hope no more teeth disintegrate!
Rather later
I don't think any of my chums quite understand my Austen-addiction. I've been dipping in and out of various bits of the (large amount of) fan fiction that has been written. Much of it is execrable. Some is merely ludicrous. But every now and then — and putting to one side undue concerns about spelling, grammar, and (often) 'Americanisms' — there's a cleverly-plotted little gem, or an amusingly original idea as a starting point for a "What if...?" variation. For example, one story took its inspiration from the film "Groundhog Day" (itself, a firm favourite of mine) and revisited the day of Darcy's disastrous proposal to Lizzy at Hunsford.
OK, so it's not quite Raymond Queneau's Exercises in Style but 9/10 for effort, certainly. [Pause] Oops. BBC 6Music's Tom Ravenscroft (son of John Peel) has just been contending with a studio digital meltdown and has had to resort to vinyl. His Dad would have been tickled.