2015 — 7 September: Monday
'molehole' is searched for the strangest things. This morning's example asked if the "Oban CPU" was a real thing. Well, I visited Oban precisely once (in 1971) and I admit I still use the acronym CPU from time to time. But not in close conjunction. Unlike a rumour I found1 about what was then a code name for a next-generation Xbox (whatever that is) CPU.
It's a lovely sunny morning and I can hear some plums whispering "Stew me" from the depths of my fridge. I shall oblige them shortly.
Having first made sure...
... my chum Len had the necessary leisure to accompany me, I briefly inspected the Highways Agency traffic website before we set off for another visit to the remarkably well-stocked shelves of the new(ish) branch of Waterstone's in Ringwood. My simple lunch was delayed hardly at all by the queue on the return journey a little before the motorway section. Besides, hunger is a great (indeed, sometimes a necessary) appetiser when faced with my "cooking". A nice little book haul, too, sweetened as it was by a £10 discount:
It's now three months since I finally completed my collection of Edmund Crispin SF anthologies (a task that took me 38 years) so I decided to have a go at the first of his "classic" detective stories. This one dates back to 1944.
The gem by Erwin Schrödinger combines two of his sets of lectures. "What is Life?" came from lectures he gave at Trinity College, Dublin in February 1943. "Mind and Matter" from the Tarner lectures at Trinity College, Cambridge in October 1956. His granddaughter Verena translated a brief set (16 pages) of autobiographical sketches that he wrote in 1960. These are thrown in at the end to complete the delicious pudding.
Vinen's book looks like being the most authoritative history yet written of the UK's weird 18-year history of peace-time conscription aka "National Service".
There was also...
... a Blu-ray waiting for me on the doorstep. It had made it safely here from Quebec. Whether I am mature enough an audience for it remains to be seen:
I need more tea.
It should be no surprise...
... that I've failed to note I'm already half-way through my third voyage with Aubrey and Maturin:
Indeed, I'm currently in the middle of a terrible storm in the South Atlantic that rivals both the Pacific hurricane in Herman Wouk's "The 'Caine' Mutiny" and the China Seas typhoon in Joseph Conrad's "Typhoon". Though what I chiefly recall of the latter title (which I was most reluctantly force-fed at school) is the word "physiognomy" that was entirely new to me at the time! What a way to kick off the first chapter:
