2014 — 18 February: Tuesday

Further sleep has been made unlikely1 so I shall now focus on my kettle. I do like my cuppa in the morning, even though — these days — I seem to have to make the thing myself :-)

In fact...

... the list of things I like can now be (slightly) further expanded to include both that fancy bread I mentioned and (on the evidence of three and a half hours, so far) the vastly expensive and quite entertaining (if rather silly) tosh that is "Game of Thrones". But an IMDB score of 9.5. Really?

Despite the...

... heavy rain earlier (while I was out trying to fix the echo in Mother Hubbard's cupboard, of course) there are currently bits of bright sunshine trying to break through. This will only further encourage the foolhardy daffodils. At this rate there may even be another little country ramble on the cards for tomorrow.

It's been...

... over a quarter of a century since I took a crack at Elaine Scarry's fascinating (and somewhat horrific) book...

Elaine Scarry book

... and — pushing aside any crass attempt to comment on nominative determinism — I note with interest the publication of her latest 640-page tome: "Thermonuclear Monarchy: Choosing between democracy and doom". Her heart is definitely in the right place, however, as she makes a Second Amendment argument for nuclear disarmament. Even if her professorship at Harvard is in aesthetics and general theory of value. (Link.)

I still somehow feel I learned all I really ever need to know about thermonuclear weapons-based politics from a weird combination of the following:

And, of course, spending far too much time in the few left-wing bookshops I've managed to find over the years. I long ago concluded that I would only ever want to be at Ground Zero "when they drop the Big One".

While waiting...

... for the horribly dark sky's latest load of rain, making my next cuppa, and admiring yet another rainbow, my post-prandial little treat2 has been the snaffling of four "Classic albums" (each in 320Kbps format MP3, and costing £1-99) from the February offer in the Google Play store. Makes a change from Amazon...

Cue the phrase: I can't believe I didn't already have [insert album title to suit].

One of these titles...

... has been almost endlessly recommended — the other, not so much:

DVD plus BD

We shall see! [Pause] Meanwhile, I found Season #1 of "Game of Thrones" very entertaining.

  

Footnotes

1  By the not-unwelcome sound of Mr Eastleigh's giant drains-and-gutters suckage lorry stopping at each road drain in turn, rather like some gigantic humming bird on a nectar-fuelled frenzy.
2  I find I rather thrive on a fairly constant supply of little treats these days. Helps take my mind off the appalling guvmint, apart from anything else.