2014 — 18 August: Monday

There's been a Federal decision to mandate video recording of all judicial interrogations in North America, which (I seem to recall) is basically a Christian state. It's felt, probably correctly, that shining video lights on to such processes is on balance a Good Thing. Meanwhile, one of the first acts of the new Islamic state I keep hearing about was to outlaw photography. I wonder why?

It's hard to be certain about such things rather more than 50 years later, but I suspect I was a curious child in both senses of the word. One of my kinder nicknames was "Why?", after all. Take religion, for example. I was never on the hook to attend the mysterious "Sunday school" I kept hearing about, but I do remember that the overt behaviour of my peers who did was just as beastly as those who didn't.

Speaking of which, niece #1 (during whose visits we invariably end up chatting about books, films, or music) told me she'd found "Lord of the Flies" — which I still vividly recall reading in 1962 — a "horrible" story.¹ Like me, she still finds much to admire in that literary genre nowadays marketed as "Young Adult", and this despite being born (how can I put this delicately?) only two days after my marriage in 1974.

It also occurs to me...

... that, much as I adored the 'Narnia' books of CS Lewis — and read them all² several times each, without once noticing at the time all the Christianity that Lewis had liberally sprayed throughout them — I actually learned all the Christianity I felt I needed to know not from the stultifying "RE" lessons once a week in Junior school but from the tales I was buying in Wilmslow of Don Camillo's life in the valley of the river Po. And that was several years before my visit there in early 1965.

Blame NPR, which has just played a "death is not final" debate notable more for heat than light. (The side that was on the side of the angels asserted at one point, in what was clearly felt to be a crushing blow, that Carl Sagan himself, on page 302 of "Demon-haunted world" no less, expressed a belief in the evidence for this; the other [in my opinion, more rational] side hooted with derision at this ridiculous claim.) The programme is called "Intelligence squared US" and the moderator at one point called it "Oxford-style debating on American shores". Still, at least the motion was defeated by 4% after a 15% shift. Good god!

Leaves on my...

... Japanese decorative cherry tree are starting to change colour. That, and another drop in the temperature this morning (sufficient to trigger the central heating), powerfully suggest that this year's summer may be on the exit ramp.

I appear...

... to have dodged a bullet from last week's Microsoft updates, four of which have now been "pulled" for re-working. Sheer luck. Again, problems with a font cache. Amazing. The "mitigation" if your PC is affected is a horrible process, described here. I shall uninstall them "just in case"... [Pause] I've had to settle for uninstalling just the two that I could find. The other two, although initially visible in the list, both went AWOL mid-way through the process, after I'd been forced to perform a restart. Sad to say, therefore, I am now missing:

Update to support the new currency symbol for the Russian ruble

I long ago stopped allowing these things to install themselves. I shall now break myself of the habit of allowing them straight on to BlackBeast when they first appear. In future, I shall wait for at least a week after initial release, also "just in case". I recall Peter telling me, after his week in Redmond in November 2007, how unimpressed he had been with what he saw of their software engineering processes.

36 years ago...

... almost to the day, I gave up (after nine months) my dizzying success as a young 1st-line manager³ in ICL. As I was considerably younger, and generally far less-experienced, than just about everyone else in 'my' group...

... I wasn't the least surprised, or upset, to have been paid rather less than some of them. Fast forward to today. It seems CEOs are earning 143 times more than the average workers in their companies.

Britain's executives haven't got so much better over the past two
decades. The only reason why their pay has increased so rapidly
compared to their employees is that they are able to get away with it.

You think?

I wouldn't dream...

... of commenting on Sarah Palin's suitability (or ability) as a film critic, but I spluttered with delight on reading the first comment the article attracted:

My dance card...

... for the coming week is nearly full, dagnabbit. I've already been out on a supplies run after the weekend's depredations. I've planned a walk with Mike tomorrow. There's a lunch on Wednesday with Iris (with, possibly, some computer acquiring to be gently discussed). And a lunch with Len on Thursday. Let's hope the weather doesn't turn too foul. The Bank Holiday is nearly upon us, too. Where's the year going?

Footnotes

¹  She had failed to notice Golding's technical error in that book, by the way. Clue: Piggy's glasses. It helps if you're myopic.
²  With the exception of "The Silver Chair" for reasons noted here. In fact, I only bought and read that title for the first time much later but, for mysterious reasons that passeth all understanding, failed to note its precise date of acquisition. I have clues: it's a 1968 reprint, priced at 3/6, and I was in the Lower Sixth at the time. I also know I bought it from the bookshop halfway down the steep hill in St Albans.
³  Primarily to get out from underneath my own (intolerable) 1st-line manager at the time. He had been an RAF pilot, but I fear he truly had no business being in (or anywhere near) the computer industry, let alone in the software Education and Training arm of it. Ironically, he resigned one day before I did, to go off and be the bursar at the school for the kids of the international staff working on the Joint European Torus. I expect he did very well there.