2015 — 27 June: Saturday
I was asked quite casually yesterday whether I didn't sometimes feel the need for a holiday — "to get away from it all". Actually, I don't seem to. This morning I'm listening to news of British holidaymakers in the Med among those being sprayed with bullets by gunmen who clearly have a wholly different philosophical outlook on life than my basic "live and let live" approach. Despite the still statistically minimal risk it hardly seems a worthwhile benefit of tourism, does it?
Besides, (a) home is where the toys (books, music, videos, PC) and memories are, and (b) I'm still finding retirement itself an exhilarating 'rush' after nearly four decades of employment. And (with the exception of a couple of summer holiday stints in a sweltering aluminium foundry in 1968 and 1969) I never worked, for example, in a steel-melting shop. Nor am I now still a freelance writer. Recall Patrick McGeown's article "The Wordster" in New Statesman, 28 May 1965:
I like everything in this way of life for which I planned so long. I like my quiet room, my typewriter, my desk and the loneliness. The loneliness is especially dear to me after the noise of a steel-melting shop. And I like the little cheques. I remember reading many years ago of Cole Porter's first visit to London. A lady at dinner asked him, 'Which do you think of first, the lyric or the music?' 'The cheque,' answered Cole Porter.
I'm much inclined that way myself.
If I'm still here...
... to see October 2016 roll around1 I will have been receiving my deferred IBM "salary" for very nearly a full decade, too. I enjoyed work, but somehow I don't miss it at all. I miss Christa, of course; her death wasn't part of our planning though — as mentioned on this week's walking chat — given her longstanding health issues it really should have been. But we enjoyed our life together for just over 33 years, and that's a good store of very happy memories shared (I know) by Peter and by others who knew her.
Meanwhile...
... today's weather remains reasonably promising. Perhaps another little expotition? But not before another leisurely breakfast. And certainly not before another cuppa.
I was still musing...
... about my pension as I browsed a bit of a rant here which took me over to the blog here and then, via one of the comments, over to the ONS (at which point, as you might well expect, the "falling down a rabbit hole" effect really gets going). I barely made it out alive, clutching this little graphic with its oh-so-innocent Footnote #1:
I hafta smile as I recall my starting salary in the computer industry forty years earlier — £35 per week for a 37-hour working week. This was three hours less than I'd been working as "weekly staff" in the aviation world. Plus four weeks paid holiday per year (instead of two). And about £4 per week more in my pocket for much more congenial work. A no-brainer for a trainee writer with reasonable aptitude.
I've decided...
... it's been too long (about 15 years) since I was last lost at sea with Aubrey and Maturin. "Master and Commander" is the first book of the series, published in 1970 (though it was actually the second one I read after buying it in April 1985):
Although Peter Weir's 2003 film had the same title, it actually mashed together the first and the tenth titles from the original saga. Carol — to whom I'd introduced O'Brian some time in the early 1990s — had told me the film had quite favourable notices so we took Peter to see it in the cinema. Sadly, as I reported to her afterwards:
Peter has just pronounced himself more bored than he's ever been by any action movie, so we can rule his critical contribution out of court as totally inadmissible, I think. Christa, although not following at all times
with perfect clarity the less than perfect diction of Mr Crowe's mumbled performance (is that what constitutes acting historically, do you suppose?) thought it excellent and very enjoyable.
I thought it was a fine attempt, and I hope there will be many more; I suspect it's too much to hope for the complete canon, but I wouldn't complain. The director, and the cast, let alone the technicians, have
done Mr O'Brian proud, whoever he was. The film is wonderfully authentic looking and nicely paced. Grotesque and beautiful by turns. Some nice flashes of whimsical humour and some extremely well-made action
sequences separated by plenty of the day-by-day sailing and shipboard routine that doubtless gave rise to Junior's ennui.
Definitely one for the DVD shelf in due course.