2014 — 5 April: Saturday

Not even the pleasing tinkle1 can quite suppress the irritation of observing the return of the ill-behaved invocation of my TextPad editor that causes it to sulk (when it's opened a file via WinSCP) rather than allowing me to perform a "Save as" to create a new one based on it. Most odd.

If history is...

... any guide, however, the splendid people who administer IBM's pension fund may yet ease my existential angst by writing their annual letter to me any day now2 offering their annual, tiny, guvmint-mandated sop to counteract some of the effects of all that nasty guvmint-mandated "quantitative easing" they've been over-indulging in. The only other major upwards twitch that I can currently foresee is when I'm finally permitted to start receiving the State Pension (should that actually still exist in another 18 months from now).

And I've just heard a professor of dentistry called Ian Needleman claiming that top athletes should improve their oral hygiene. The phenomenon of nominative determinism lives on, though I'm merely an amateur comiconomenclaturist.

Golly!

I had no idea that this innocent little paperback, with its lurid but affectionate homage to pulp fiction cover artwork, has only just been allowed out to play in North America. I've had the unconstitutionally-protected freedom to read it since I bought my own copy in September 1988. Without even having first had to import it from anywhere exotic, like, say, the home planet of "intergalactic alien tyrant Xenu":

Scientology book

I'm no fan of football, and thus have paid minimal heed to Fantasy Football Leagues. However, I was idly wondering who would win a grudge match between Hubbard and the Pope. Both strike me as equally phantasmagorical phigures of phun.

Big Data

This is a refreshing piece. (Link.)

Germ theory of democracy

This too! (Link.)

There's been a...

... late substitution in one of the current crockpot's stash of ingredients, caused by my forgetting to buy any more cooking apples. Since I've used plums as an expedient in the past, I thought I'd give a couple a chance to sacrifice themselves for the sake of my tastebuds. Report3 to follow. The day, which has been one of almost continuous light drizzle from a grey sky, has shot by. I wonder where it went? We certainly lucked out with our decision to walk yesterday.

  

Footnotes

1  Of, in this case, the second movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 9 (Wikipedia offers [what Flanders and Swann called] a Köchel "rating" of 271 and a name of "Jenamy" or "Jeunehomme").
2  I missed the delivery (while I was slicing and dicing) but can now joyously reveal that my "Post April 2005 Supplement" has soared up from 28p a month to 29p. Cool! I receive this supplement so that IBM doesn't get into trouble by breaching the Age Discrimination legislation. It was previously payable only to people aged between 63 and 65. It applies to precisely two months of my Pensionable Service, and is subject to a cost-neutral actuarial reduction factor...
3  Actually very tasty. Yum.