2014 — 22 September: Monday
The sun may well be beating its rays against my patio door as I sup my cup and listen to the Vivaldi but it's the central heating's end-of-hibernation activity that gives the autumnalistic game away.
Last night's...
... entertainment1 brought me to about the middle of Season #2 of "Scandal". To describe it as over-heated gothic opera (without singing) with an over-stuffed blender full of plot and plot holes (aka implausibilities — I hope) in about equal measure is barely to do it justice. So different from the home life of our own dear guvmint with its set of Whitehall and Westminster warriors...?
One can hope, but that way madness lies.
IBM's relatively...
... recent acquisition of the Israeli Trusteer Rapport security code (that several banks semi-insist I run) had passed me by, but I recently decided to explicitly make sure I at least had the latest level of this code. Of course, since then I've been hearing from it weekly as it whinges about the IP address of one of the machines at a bank I no longer use. It also reassures (?) me that it is substituting a known good address. "What? Me worry?" As Mad's Alfred E. Neuman used to say. And may still do.
I find it...
... a mite depressing to find myself agreeing with some of what our Middle East peace envoy Mr Bliar has to say here. Apparently he feels "unreformed Islamism is incompatible with modern economies". The fact that he seems to advocate violence against the fringe of extremists who advocate violence doesn't bother him unduly. I wish I was that clever.
Unencumbered (as usual)...
... by the thought process, I set off down to Soton several hours ago, but spotted the "Boat Show" road signs just in time to divert a little further down the motorway. To that new branch of Waterstone's in Ringwood, in fact. As demonstrated by this fine little trio of further acquisitions:
I'd read, and noted, Francis Wheen's review of the King and Crewe book on its first appearance in (unaffordable) hardback just about a year ago, and I'd also caught a couple of radio items more recently about this sort-of biography by Geordie Greig of his friend Lucian Freud.2 I admit I knew nothing whatsoever about Thatcher's ironing board. Being a retired chap with plenty of spare time left on my parking ticket and, as it were, no particular place to go, I also took the opportunity to stroll for the very first time in 33 years around basically the whole (quite charming, small, but not exactly thriving) town while I was there.
I could see no sign of the hi-fi place that 'Drew' relocated into from Eastleigh's Pinpoint Music. And the only other bookshop I found — not counting WH Smith etc — is in the process of shutting down, though not before I snaffled a DVD of a 2001 film I'd never even heard of (with its amazing cast) for a wallet-jangling £1-99:
I got back home just as the washing machine was doing its final spinning. And now, following my late bite of lunch, I think it's well past time for my next cuppa, too.
The fact that...
... I have a SHIELD Tablet PC from Nvidia doesn't stop me enjoying the moon landing conspiracy theory take-down here.
It's possible...
... to get too bound up in your work:
:-)
When he's not...
... busier configuring web servers for me, or Python scripts, my chum Brian (aka The Man In Black) can sometimes be caught in a Southampton Ukulele Jam session:
Priceless.
It's past time...
... to catch up on some further "Futurama". Always good to see a half-century of Harvard education being put to good use:
We were easily the most overeducated cartoon writers in history, earning critical acclaim, multiple Emmy awards, and a worldwide nerd fan base, but we weren't smart enough to figure out how to avoid cancellation (three times).
(More here.)
When the venerable...
... collar of a venerable polo shirt finally parts company from the equally venerable torso bit, I cannot kid myself what's left is worth keeping3 any longer. Bad enough that there are already two holes in my present 'fresh-on-today' shirt, too. In addition, that is, to the more conventional ones. <Sigh> At this rate, I shall have to visit Marks & Spencer again, dagnabbit. I hate it when that happens.