2013 — 30 September: Monday
Since I'm old enough to remember one Chancellor's vague promise to squeeze the rich "until the pips squeak"1 I have no intention of sitting here listening to another expounding his privileged viewpoint on further punishment of the work-shy. Most people spend most of their working lives trapped in a long-broken financial system that benefits (if one dare still use that word) very few but those who would like to consider themselves the great and the good.
And recall what the current President of the USA had to say some months before he was elected to that puppet rôle for the first time:
"those with money, those with influence, those with control over how resources are allocated in our society, are very protective of their interests, and they can rationalise infinitely the reasons why they should have more money and power than anyone else."
Since US guvmint employees are on the verge of being sent home without pay I'd say there are still a few bugs in the system over there, too.
Is it just me...
... or is it getting hot in here?
Good to know the appropriate guvmint minister has my back (as it were).
Oh, the shame!
I have just — very belatedly — saved myself a further £50 and restored my 24x7 US Public radio NPR feed from satellite by the simple expedient of, erm, replacing the f*****g fuse! Now why didn't I try that in the first place? And, by the way, where the hell have I put my little cache of spare fuses? I ended up filching a 5 amp one from a spare plug, replacing the dud 3 amp one. Grrr.
Needless to say, I'm too late with this "repair" to catch this week's Harry Shearer programme. [Pause] And, adding insult to injury, when I came to use yesterday's brand, spanking new upgrade to my Xara graphics program to amend my A/V system diagram I made the unpleasant discovery that it preferred to hang, rather than open and save my graphics files. Back, therefore, to the previous generation until someone in the software house spots this irritating behaviour, and fixes it.
Whatever happened to the concept of testing code before releasing it into the wild? Could it be that they forgot to disable the "trial" mode that disables the save function? How embarrassing...
Thanks, Mr Postie
He just managed to beat the drizzle, bearing a Canadian DVD of a film I've not seen for very many years:
I'm off on a little post-prandial expotition. It doesn't do to stay stuck indoors all the time, does it?
Of course, one...
... doesn't like to return empty-handed, does one? And I remembered to take my Waterstone's card with me this time:
I was quite surprised to realise that this is my eleventh book by Baker during the last 23 years, the previous one being the quarter-price bargain collaboration with his wife that I gleefully pounced on in Borders nearly seven years ago; I was less surprised to discover it's my fourth book from Mr Ig Nobel :-)