2013 — 16 October: Wednesday
If pink is your colour1 the morning sky is quite a feast at the moment, the moment being in the vicinity of the 07:30 news headlines.
Alas, I'm having trouble logging into my webmail this morning. Though only via Thunderbird, not via my trusty web browser. Odd.
The eighth circle of Hell
Well-captured here by Gustav Doré...
... was reserved for the punishment of those guilty of simony which, as eny fule kno, was the buying and selling of church offices. The very fact that the crime (some might say "sin") was commonplace enough to have its own noun should have set alarm bells ringing about the foundations of the whole unholy holy edifice, surely? One wonders what the modern day equivalent (with the revolving door between the armed forces and defence procurement jobs, for example, or fiscal oversight authorities, bean counters, tax officials, and large multinational banks) might be.
There's an interesting assessment here of two translations and (for contrast and comic relief, perhaps?) Dan Brown's novel. (Link.)
I was blissfully...
... unaware — despite having been a mole — of this sort of subterranean development. In Notting Hill, too. (Link.)
It's nearly five...
... months since my trip to Bournemouth during which I bought Cheryl T Cohen Greene's interesting memoir of her life as (among other things) a sex surrogate. Perhaps predictably, I've now caved in and bought the film ("The Sessions") based on the essay written by one of her real-life clients, the late Mark O'Brien. As for my latest batch of Bruno Heller's "The Mentalist", who needs an excuse to watch more of the sparks flying between Simon Baker and Robin Tunney? Not me.
Being a vaguely...
... curious sort of chap, I was browsing the User manual for one of the newest Oppo Blu-ray players (the BDP-103, as it happens) and found this charmless little sentence quite well buried on page 31:
Due to the "Analog Sunset" provision, as of January 1, 2011 all Blu-ray Disc players made and sold going forward will not be able to pass high definition video (720p, 1080i, or 1080p) via Component Video outputs.
I had no idea they could!
I shall be heading...
... for the wilds of Winklechestershire for a meal and a video evening in a few minutes. I'm hoping the rain continues to stay away. It was a thoroughly wet morning and a pretty drippy afternoon until just a couple of hours ago.