2014 — 12 October: Sunday
My liking for fresh air1 is being overcome by my distaste for motorway noise (which seems particularly bad this unsunny Sabbath) and the more-than-a-tad-autumnal nature of Nature's temperature out there. Nothing an extra layer (or several) and a nice, hot cuppa won't help me combat, of course.
The morning browse...
... includes a second leaker in US intelligence, or how "anyone engaging in modern communications has unsuspectingly provided the NSA with valuable information" — I somehow doubt my Amazon shopping history will topple Western civilisation. And if the NSA can pick up anything useful from my high-IQ but signally-challenged smartphone they will be doing a whole lot better2 than me. There's some depressing reading here, too.
Meanwhile, our beloved London mayor BoJo, when not reassuring us that although his city hosts "thousands of terrorist suspects" they are being monitored, has somehow found time to write a new book about Churchill. I'd assumed he would be far too busy preparing for his re-entry into the House of Commons, where he can better pose a more credible threat to the boy Dave's leadership. Note how close together the Telegraph's photo shows BoJo's eyes to be? Like Borg.
I refuse to be sidetracked by their popular link to the story about a dwarf stripper impregnating a bride on her hen night.
Isn't democracy...
... a Thing of Wonder? Evidence:
On 21 October, 91 hereditary peers in the House of Lords can vote to replace the 7th Baron Methuen, who was that extreme rarity among hereditaries, an engineer, and, even more staggeringly, not a Conservative. Inevitably, given the blood requirements for joining a register of the eligible, and the traditionally low number of idealistic redistributionists in the relevant gene pool, applicants are almost as guaranteed to be conservative minded as they are to be male, white, asset-rich and obsessed with blood sports and genealogy, death duties and subsidies. Moreover, given that gout, apoplexy and carelessness around guns no longer provide any reliable form of population control in this demographic, they are apt to be elderly.
Oh, good grief...
... whatever will 'they' think of next? (Mushrooming sales link.)
Last time I visited the site, they had a neat tape deck gizmo to fit into a PC and convert old cassette music to MP3s. But it was already too late for me by then.
Oh, good grief (2)...
... you can get money back from Red Bull if you didn't actually develop wings after drinking the foul-tasting stuff. (Link.)
I'm pleased to find...
... I correctly assumed the Tony Palmer currently chatting to Cerys on BBC 6Music is the same chap who wrote this fascinating book:
I bought my (visibly faded!) copy in Cambridge in August 1971. How is that even possible? [Pause] I recall being told by an ex-colleague that the father of one of his wives had appeared in the 'Oz' trial — I hope, and assume, for the defence! The ridiculous conviction, not to mention the quite ludicrous "summing up" by Michael Argyle, always struck me as a significant travesty of justice.
I wonder...
... when it started raining? And when did it become nearly time to start thinking about an evening meal, too? I don't want to admit I'm unobservant, but I will admit I can become a little focused at times.