2015 — 18 May: Monday
An exchange of emails1 has clarified the size of the hole about to be punched in my finances by a new garage door. A like-for-like replacement (except that 'Garador' is now owned by a German outfit called 'Hormann')...
X1 Hormann Horizontal Canopy 7'0x6'6 In White Installed and all waste removed from site including the old door £415+VAT Total £498.00
... of my 30-year-old specimen leaves £2 change from a £500 note. On a par, in fact, with the cost of BlackBeast Mk III. But a bit lower-tech.
A cup of tea and another pink flesh grapefruit soothes the sting on a rather damp morning that can only bring further floral encouragement to the jungle that surrounds the house. Meanwhile, I may just have to sneak out on a further food-raid today.
Despite...
... the neat (if lazy) turn of phrase herein...
All parties are always, to a greater or lesser degree, split, often around many axes. For decades, the Conservatives were divided into "wets" and "dries", then "Eurosceptics" and "Europhiles", then socially liberal "mods" and morally upright "rockers". These bifurcations persist. But the argument that is most intriguing and most fissile today is between the Runnymede Tories and those Conservatives who dislike the human rights industry, or the specifically European variety, or intellectual abstractions in general. The left are natural dialecticians.2 Most Tories think "dialecticians" are the people you phone when the fuses blow.
... I've long doubted that the view from the top of the UK's greasy political pole is worth even a tiny fraction of the time, cost, and effort needed to ascend it. The prospect certainly leaves me stone cold.
I'm delighted...
... to renew my acquaintance with the many amusing wonders here. I discovered the site eight years ago today. It's awesome. Try not to splutter at Brian Pulido's "Lady Death" (Swimsuit 2007 issue).
Having browsed...
... Taschen's online catalogue I was taken with this "Table of Contents" from a book due out next month:
Despite having given up on broadcast TV for the last few years, I know over 30 of these titles from spinning silver disks. It strikes me as an admirable selection. But, pray tell, where are Bones? Carnivàle? Castle? The Larry Sanders Show? The Mentalist?
The first film...
... I saw by Canadian director Ron Mann was "Comic Book Confidential"; it caught my attention by featuring Shary Flenniken. Despite my total lack of interest in ingesting anything much in the drug line beyond tannic acid, I followed that with "Grass", which I snaffled off-air a decade or so back. Now, I learn Mann's just directed a documentary about Robert Altman. It's going straight on my little list.
Recall the maximal perversity...
... of the Universe? That would explain why the model of kitchen sink that would have made a perfect replacement for my 34-year-old one... was discontinued by the manufacturer just last month. Grrr.
Nice story
Not that I know anything about underground comix, of course. After all, I've only been a fan for about 45 years. (Link.)