2015 — 27 May: Wednesday
The fact1 — that I own just one title by the (now late) Tanith Lee doesn't enable me to lay my hands on it or, indeed, remember anything about it. Yet my books DB suggests I bought it as recently as December 2006. "My mind's going, Dave. I can feel it." Nor, until I glanced at some of the comments attracted by her obit in the Grauniad, did I know she'd written a couple of scripts for "Blake's 7". With the wisdom of hindsight, that's perhaps not an item to put on one's CV.
Another loss reported, too. The photographer Mary Ellen Mark. At least I can still find the only book I have that features her fine work, though only as of 1978. She shares space in it with Annie Leibovitz here:
Next? Tea, breakfast, and who can say? Perhaps an adventure. Weather looks reasonable.
Taking care...
... not to repeat a recent culinary incident with either (or both) undercooked and elderly food I've just thoroughly grilled a couple of sausages, added a freshly-nuked cooking apple, and slapped the whole lot on a slice of that delicious Pane Pugliese for my rather late post-adventure lunch snack. Yum.
Snouts. Troughs.
Oh, good grief. Caveat emptor.
Banks and other companies have paid £18.8bn in compensation on more than 9m policies since January 2011, with the total cost expected to reach £24bn...
about 45m PPI policies [were sold] between 1990 and 2010 ... alongside loans and other credit deals with the promise that payments would be covered if borrowers were unable to work. But in many cases, clauses in the
policies meant customers could never make a claim and some were unaware that PPI had been added to their loan.
Doubtless the junk phone calls offering to chase "my compensation cheque" for me (for a fee) will continue. As it happens, I was brought up with a healthy dislike of debt (a little odd, given my family circumstances) and a fierce determination to clear my mortgage long before I retired. When my father died, dear Mama had to sell up and relocate to cheaper digs up in the Midlands. There was simply no way I was going to let that happen to Christa. After all, we had a deal!
The Deal Was For 50+ Years...
Of course, she rather spoiled things by dying a mere 33 years into the planned 50.
I'm no stranger...
... to the sinful delights of a good, long, soak in the aural pleasures to be found in the basement of HMV for a gentleman of leisure. But I was genuinely surprised to see the extent to which vinyl seems to be making a comeback. Querying this trend with a sales chap of not far short of my age we mutually agreed (in light, for example, of 24-bit digital audio, sampled at 192KHz, with more channels than ears [should you wish it]) that the yoof of today — forking out over £18 for one warped album of snap, crackle, pop, wow, flutter, hum, compressed dynamic range, limited playing time, and cutting lathe distortion / equalisation — is clearly either or both overpaid and underinformed.
I sold my last vinyl albums over 30 years ago. Bite me.
Waiting...
... on my front door step was further evidence that Richard Davenport-Hines has carved out for himself a delightful biographical niche:
There's an Eric Gill anecdote linking him to Keynes; it was somehow unearthed by the wonderful Fiona MacCarthy. I noted its first appearance in (where else?) a Grauniad article of hers nine years ago and have winkled it off their web site despite their having moved things around more than somewhat since then.
There is great ebullience in Gill's early work at Ditchling, a true sense of discovery. He was already working at the extremes of the domestic and the risqué his placid mother and child carvings contrasting with the sheer effrontery of such works as Votes for Women, an explicit carving showing the act of intercourse, woman of course on top. Maynard Keynes bought the carving for £5. When asked how his staff reacted to it, he replied: "My staff are trained not to believe their eyes."
In a moment...
... more like an hour, actually, of weakness I appear to have acquired some new music...
... and I've been enjoying some of it while skipping delightedly through the Keynes. Just reading about his exploits and achievements is exhausting enough. Nor did I know that John Buchan took against him big time, and portrayed him quite unkindly as the "shifty stockbroker called Joseph Barralty" in The Island of Sheep... "a first-class, six-cylindered, copper-bottomed highbrow. A gentlemanly Communist. An intellectual who doesn't forget to shave... liable to enthuse about monstrosities, provided that they're brand new and for preference foreign."
Blimey! Can't be doing with chaps like that, can we? Meanwhile, I've yet to make a start on any of this:
It's already time to think, albeit vaguely, about an evening meal, too. Where does the time go?
The Oil Drum...
... is no more, but this piece on 20 concepts not taught in Business School, and this neural workout (PDF file) on money creation in the modern economy (from the Bank of England), are both extremely good reading. Try wrapping your head around page 19 of the latter!
Had I only...
... remembered she was writing under another name, I might have found my copy more quickly:
Or not. I've given up wondering how my memory works.