2013 — 9 December: Monday

The morning has a distinctly colloidal feel to it, even with my glasses on. Aah, the benefits of an ancient chemical, rather than classics, education. Instead of knowing the derivation1 of the word I can still recall the properties of a colloid. And, unlike some of my less heathen (and more lit-up) neighbours my only Xmas decorations are the cobwebs festooned around the alien life-forms springing up in the back jungle.

And I would have remarked...

... to Christa — had she still been here — that the triffids are now springing up nearer the house in the front bit, too. This is, I hafta say (nine and a half years later)...

Front garden, 2 July 2004

... not quite how it looks, these days! My bad. Perhaps 2014 will see some progress out there? (Where can one buy flamethrowers? And napalm?)

I've been out on the foody trail to tide me over for a bit, and my next adventure is a lunch rendezvous. The mist has mostly dispersed but it's still less than 5C out there. And a balmy 19.9C in here.

Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer

Apparently I belong to the Comic Con classes. If I didn't regularly browse the Grauniad's web site I would have missed this. But then, had I read the piece more closely first, before diving straight into the Amazon link, Jeff Bezos would now be poorer, too. That'll lern me. You don't get nowhere if you're too 'asty.

Being completely unsocially networked, I was equally completely unaware of this heartwarming little ditty written in response to some tittle-tattle from that ghastly piece of crap the Daily Mail. (Link.)

I would be...

... pleased by the news of five new hi-def TV channels from the BBC if I had any reason to believe that they would show anything I actually want to watch. Still, BBC 4 and BBC News in hi-def is marginally better than nothing, I suppose. Perhaps I will load that custom Humax PVR firmware after all.

  

Footnote

1  Mind you, if I hadn't culled Christa's copy of Skeat's Etymological Dictionary of the English Language from my shelves I'd have more of a fighting chance. What? Doesn't everybody read dictionaries for pleasure?