2014 — 13 December: Saturday

I last saw evidence of Big Bro's mammoth Mini restoration project six months ago. Here's a reminder of the "before" state. You can click it to see the "after":

Before

I still don't know why one would ever want to do such a thing, but I'm delighted to see from this overnight photo (of the car's arrival, finally, back home1) that the elaborate brickwork of his car port is still in excellent nick:

Mini GT at home

Just teasing you, Big Bro. It's very pretty (though I have my doubts about the colour; I would have thought BRG would be more suitable).

You may not know I toured Cornwall2 as navigator in a bog-standard mini on a camping holiday. I confess it's not really something I would wish to do again in this shiny new millennium. A fortnight bouncing around in a mini is about 13 days longer than strictly comfortable. Christa's beloved Mini Cooper S — already over eight years ago; how's that possible? — was much roomier. Bite me.

Although...

... I've long since given up watching broadcast TV, I've just downloaded last Tuesday's BBC4 programme about the shocking weirdness that is quantum physics, partly because Roger had recommended it to me. Twenty minutes into it, and we're taking time out to be shown (subjected to?) some fake Berlin cabaret. The information density continues its apparently inexorable slide. Simply listening to the soundtrack is perfectly adequate. [Pause] Just reached the two-slit experiment. And the Copenhagen interpretation... "spooky action at a distance". And thence to John Bell.

Time for the reality that is tea. And to contemplate the 'fact' that I may have been premature in ejecting my December 1980 copies of Fritjof Capra's "The Tao of Physics" and Gary Zukav's "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" from my overburdened bookshelves.

Great Zot!

I'm listening to Jacob Rees-Mogg actually agreeing with Ken Livingstone on the issue of UK involvement with CIA torture and the need for the sort of transparency here in the Benighted Kingdom that our transatlantic cousins, albeit reluctantly, still seem to enjoy. In fact, he's even suggested that the boy Dave demand an unredacted copy of the US report so that the UK can find out what went on in Her Majesty's Secret Service. Now, there's a radical idea.

It wouldn't...

... feel like a Saturday without noting a couple of DVD deliveries, would it? The Edward Burns title arrived from Italy, but has an "Inglese 2.0 Surround" audio track. Of course, understanding the synopsis printed on the back cover is a bit trickier.

Incoming DVDs

Actually, there was a third arrival... a copy of "Kings" to replace the one that's gone AWOL at some point in the last three and a half years.

  

Footnotes

1  A delay — I can only assume — caused by the need to scour New Zealandland for a matched pair of wing mirrors, or perhaps it took him that long to find his "AA" badge.
2  For a fortnight in the summer of 1970, shortly after you'd emigrated.