2015 — 11 September: Friday
Always nicer to start the day without a blast of garlic1 before one's morning cuppa... "Change passwords, Mr Spock." "All done, O Captain my Captain."
Again, a lovely...
... sunny morning, but who knows what evil lurks in the minds of the weather gods? Breakfast next, methinks, and then maybe a supply or two.
An email just in from Mr Bezos suggests "things" are still ticking along. Must remember to update the account details on my 'smartphone' too, of course. The Android SHIELD Tablet PC, having first insisted on yet another OTA software upgrade, has already nagged me appropriately. Fair enough; I use it a great deal more than I do the phone.
The outgoing torrent...
... of video titles was momentarily halted, yesterday, when I skilfully negotiated the exchange of a spare hdmi lead for this little 1998 BBC comedy gem...
... adapted by the late Malcolm Bradbury from the novel by the late Mark Taverner (the chap who also went on to write "Absolute Power").
The El Reg item...
... on the 30th anniversary of "Joyce" brought back a few memories. I bought my Joyce from a Dixons in Soton as soon as they got a delivery, to use for a book on CICS programming that I was then foolishly under contract2 to write for Ellis Horwood, the publisher based in Chichester. As I remarked in an email to Carol at the time:
All this talk of books reminds me guiltily that I've yet to make a start on the CICS book for my external publisher. I've got until February or so to deliver the manuscript, and am seriously thinking about buying a cheap word processing system (Amstrad have just brought out a 256K RAM, monitor, keyboard, printer, one diskette system for £399) just to help out.
Even a robustly-titled...
... academic paper arguing — if I read it correctly, and assuming it wasn't merely a satire pitched way above my IQ and/or pay grade — for less nuance in Sociology made for entertaining reading while I munched my delicious sardine salad lunch. Source and snippet:
One of the pleasing things about these lectures is the way Foucault refuses to let his Parisian audience settle into a dismissive reaction. He scolds them (p. 246) about finding an economic analysis of the family simple-minded and amusing by reminding them of Pierre Rivière's description of his peasant parents' marriage. ("I will work on your field", the man says to the woman, "but on condition that I can make love with you." And the woman says: "You will not make love with me so long as you have not fed my chickens.")
I arrived there by following one of the links here in an equally interesting piece.
[Pause]
While listening (for the first time in a couple of years) to the BBC Radio 5 Live Kermode and Mayo film review programme, and hearing about a film called "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl", a news-break tells me our clueless leaders have just rejected the latest proposals for changing our current laws on "assisted dying". They are profoundly wrong to do so in my opinion.
The 50 years or more...
... that have elapsed since I read dear Mama's copy of Dodie Smith's novel have eroded the finer details, though I remember enjoying it at the time. And the "Clive James"? — a no-brainer:
