2013 — 25 December: Wednesday
Xmas comes but once a year1 while credit card bills go on forever. I've just been invited to check my latest one, and I haven't even finished my initial cuppa, dagnabbit. But the weather has eased off, leaving the Great Outdoors smelling quite fresh at the moment. Mind you, Hampshire is one of the counties most badly-affected by power cuts.
Probably not...
... only in sunny California. Source and snippet:
Eady complained that immediately before performing the sun salutes that so often open yoga routines, pupils were told 'to thank the sun for their lives and the warmth that it brought'. Most parents (and readers) would barely register this innocuous story-book sentiment. But Eady, deploying the sort of paranoid hermeneutics that fire evangelical worries against product labels or "backwards-masked" messages in rock music, believes that children were being told to worship the sun. Moreover, Eady suggested that behind the program lurked a shadowy, hedge-fund-backed foundation whose founders believe in the spiritual benefits of Ashtanga yoga.
Personally, I find it hard to make out any of the lyrics in rock music, whichever way the tape spools (as it were).
Also in Aeon is this "sort of" assessment of the now-late Colin Wilson. Perhaps oddly, the book of his I most enjoyed was his 2004 autobiography "Dreaming to some Purpose". It contains much that is scurrilous and highly entertaining. Your (s)mileage may vary.
I wouldn't wish...
... to be accused of any undue lack of Yuletide spirit. Perish the thought. To that end, my current breakfast cereal topping is therefore a tasty mix of stewed plums and stewed cranberries. How much more festive can you get?!
Shades of episode #1...
... of Season #1 of "Black Books" and Bernard's dubious pocket-based accounting system for his book shop.
When I retired, Christa ceremoniously presented me with a small, brown envelope hand-labelled "Receipts".
"What's that for?" I asked, somewhat dubiously. (And, I admit, redundantly.)
"Keep all your receipts", quoth she. "You never know when you may need them."
Fast forward 85 months:
I haven't needed any of them yet. This now-bulging bag, by the way, is 15" tall. And could yet yield astonishing insight into my changing dietary preferences over a six-year period of single-handedly propping up the foody bits of Waitrose. Not to mention a couple of book shops. And petrol stations. Etc.
I doubt if...
... this is true — but it should be:
Support line: "You're not our only customer, you know." Customer: "Yes, but we're one of the few with tactical nuclear weapons."
Amazing...
... what you can find when you're looking for something completely different:
Dad loved to play ragtime. And — it's just occurred to me — I actually have no idea what happened to his baby grand piano after he died and before dear Mama moved up to the Midlands late in 1975. Perhaps it wasn't just my stuff she loved to dispense with after all?