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2014 — 6 March: Thursday

Should I be reassured by the power struggle going on inside BlackBeast between Windows Explorer and the latest build of my TextPad editor as it snuggles down for the duration of its stay? (I realise "probably not" is generally the right answer.) But, having read the release notes, I now nurture a faint hope that the troubles I've been having are a 64-bit Win8.1 issue that has at least now had some attention¹ paid to it.

Another...

... early cuppa this morning. But then, I did turn in before 22:00 last night for a change. Smile, David. The boidies are singing and it's pension day. Plus I have another lunch date.

But not before...

... yet more "good grief!" I'm sorry, but if a chap (even an old, and now dead, chap — Arthur Danto) regarded Andy Warhol² as "the nearest thing to a philosophical genius the history of art has produced" then I can but profoundly disagree... Julian Spalding once wrote a similar review called The Eclipse of Art. I enjoyed his little verse. It brings to (my) mind a faint aroma of performing formaldehyde:

At least Marcel Duchamp had the good sense to get out of the urinal business, give up on art, and turn to chess. (Link.)

Why didn't I...

... know about this? [Pause, for a supplies run.] What you gain on the swings (of the empty aisles and plentiful choice in Waitrose just after it's opened) is slowly but inevitably lost (on the roundabouts of the commuter and school-run crawl on the drive back). <Sigh>

Blimey!

I've spent years, nay decades, thinking "Eurydice" was pronounced in four syllables as U-RID-Duh-Sea. Apparently not, if Dr. Sarah Walker is correct. Silly me. Mind you, she was born in Barnsley.

Annoyingly...

... I've unexpectedly had to spend what was left of the afternoon (quite spoiling the effect of a nice lunch and a chat) preparing and collating six essentially identical letters (and six copies of the Power of Attorney docs, and six copies of a letter from the Royal Mail) in an attempt to persuade six fine financial institutions³ to use my address now that the mail redirect from dear Mama's former bijou property is about to time out at the end of its final⁴ extension.

This is all very tedious. And time-consuming. And probably costly. And so boring!

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Footnotes

¹  Perhaps the number of users of this much-maligned system has finally reached a critical mass in the other sense of the phrase. Roll on Service Pack 1 next month...
²  Robert Hughes knew Warhol in the early days, and latterly came to regard him as one of the stupidest of chaps. I formed a similar opinion on initially reading, and then latterly skimming, Warhol's diaries. Consider his diary entry for 2nd October 1984, for random example: Jean Michel [Basquiat] came over to the office to paint but he fell asleep on the floor... I woke him up and he did two masterpieces that were great. Emperor's new clothes, indeed.
³  Strictly, five fine ones, who have been known to send her money (or news of potential money) from time to time, and Brenda's gang of tax thugs (who only ever seem to want to take money away from her).
⁴  Naturally, they didn't tell me when I last extended it that that would be the final extension, thus lulling me into a false sense of something or other. (Complacency, perhaps?)