2014 — 23 March: Sunday
A gloriously-sunny morning1 and a nice, hot cuppa. Looking good so far.
How odd. There's just been a lady on R3 talking to the host about Crispian Steele-Perkins. He's going to be attending an afternoon tea today down in Devon complete with his "flourish" of trumpets. I recall a "Chris Steele-Perkins" whose book "About 70 photographs" I bought in June 1981, though I somehow doubt it's the same chap. Oh well, ever onward.
Sigh
I've been battering against the huge (and, in my case, dusty) philosophical gulf dividing a theoretical proposition: that book is still somewhere2 in the house and a practical reality: I have yet to unearth it. Still, the 45-minute hunt has worked up an appetite for some breakfast, over which I shall (not for the first time) vaguely contemplate a cost/benefit analysis of, and the possible logistics of, carrying out some form of book stock check. Funnily enough, I don't recall having a "Book Sorting for Dummies" title anywhere.
Usually, just the thought of the work entailed3 in doing something that silly makes me sufficiently weak at the knees that I have to sit down until the urge has passed. And, so far, it always has. It's a minor problem — I (like to think) I have it under control. The implications are otherwise a bit depressing. And to think, as a kid, I used to consider the benefits of microfilm. (Shudder.)
As I've mentioned, the (now late) Colin Wilson revealed similar issues in his autobiography "Dreaming to some purpose" a decade ago:
Of course, I spent far too much on books and records. In July 1961 I note that I had 5,000 books and 1,500 records in the house. By 1963, I had 10,000 books and 4,000 records. Today I have about 25,000 books and the same number of records. This probably goes a long way towards explaining why we never had any money.
I have retained only 19 books from that distant era (1963) and, of those, three were brought over from Germany by Christa and one was the 1961 "New English bible; new testament" that my parents gave me... Gawd knows why they did so, and gawd knows why I still have it.
While my phone gently steeps...
... itself in some sort of System Update perhaps I should listen to some Beatles from 1968? Or I may just go for Badi Assad's rather more recent version of "While my guitar gently weeps" from her 1998 album Chameleon. Who knows? And who knows how long it will take my phone to upgrade 67 apps, for that matter? I didn't even know I had that many. The only one I use with any regularity is DVD Profiler, which can help me to stop making expensive mistakes while browsing the shelves of places like HMV. As long as I remember to take the phone with me. And use it.
All done, but I have immediately disabled the unwanted NFC that started up without so much as a "by your leave". The last thing I want is for my phone to chat with nearby devices just because it can, and some bozo thought it was a Good Thing to let it do so by default. These things should come with a health warning about safe hex.
I don't recall any mention of hail, but that's what we've just had. Ironically, WinAmp's selection has just segued from "Too darn hot" to the engaging theme song from "The Bridge" — a track called "Hollow Talk" from the Choir of Young Believers.
I mentioned to someone...
... the other day (Brian? Len?) that Christa used a mail-order firm called "Jolliman" for some of my clothes including, unless I miss my guess, my favourite RAF-style blue sweater. I've just turned up what was probably the last catalogue they sent her, for Autumn 2007. It's amazing what I can find while I'm actually looking for something else.
Hot Rats
Back in the day — in this case, 9th October 1975 — you needed a PhD just to pop a lab rat into a microwave oven. This appeared on page 123 of "New Scientist":
I was writing audio/visual training material to teach people how to program ICL 1900 Series mainframes down at the 'assembler' level at the time, but I can't help wondering what Frank Zappa would have had to say. Yikes!
If I keep looking for...
... long enough, I find that missing books tend to pop out of the woodwork. Though rarely where I expected to find them:
It tickles me to note that the two books I bought before and after this one have both already rated mentions here in the ¬blog:
Maine's is here (for example) and the Kliban here, complete with a picture of the cover.
After quite some time...
... "away", I've decided to finish watching the remaining episodes of "House". I had stalled just one episode into Season #7.