2015 — 23 September: Wednesday
The several hours spent cancelling my sleep deficit1 mean, for once, I've entirely missed "Breakfast" on BBC Radio 3. I expect I shall survive.
Hemingway in love
I found this in the "Smithsonian" magazine, of all places. Source and snippet:
She had the 'I get what I want' hubris of a very rich girl who won't be denied. The Pfeiffer clan owned the town of Piggott, Arkansas. Pauline's old man owned a chain of drugstores and God knows what else — maybe all
of Arkansas.
Back then, to be honest, I probably liked it — poverty's a disease that's cured by the medicine of money. I guess I liked the way she spent it — designer clothes, taxis, restaurants. Later on, when reality got to
me, I saw the rich for what they were: a goddamn blight like the fungus that kills tomatoes.
I remain dubious about the "fiduciary obligation" Hotchner feels to tell this story after all this time. But then, he does have another book coming out...
Brian Greene's piece on Einstein is more in line with my expectations. (Link.)
Big Pharma...
... is a wondrous institution. It has distanced itself from Turing Pharmaceuticals. Whose boss, I notice, is a financial bean counter by another name. Amazing. (Link.)
The only reason John and I...
... moved dear Mama into full-time care2 in mid-2010 is perfectly and horribly exemplified by this uncharming story. The daily home visits she had been receiving after "release" from hospital were clearly both totally inadequate and horribly superficial. Her GP was equally clearly delighted with our decision and co-operated fully with our plans.
Mind you, things had been pretty similar over in Meisenheim back in the late 1980s when Christa's parents made their decision to move out of their rambling mansion and into the local old folks' home. They still had each other, but knew neither would be able to cope on their own.
I clearly missed...
... a bit of a Gaiman treat yesterday. That's what "get-iplayer" is for, of course. I liked his poem, Orphee, very much.
[Pause, for supplies shopping.]
I realise it's a while...
... before Easter rears its ugly head yet again, but I can't resist quoting from one of Jaci Stephen's TV columns in "New Statesman" on the topic. "The Easter story", she noted, "stimulated the moralistic and death-wish spirit. Closet stigmatics3 emerged with distressing regularity, and bishops took it upon themselves to fill our screens with talk of doom and destruction." Her piece concluded, some 10 witty paragraphs later:
The highlight of Easter was Alan Bennett's visit to Leeds City Art Gallery in Portrait or Bust (BBC2, Monday). Pondering a picture of the crucifixion, he drawled, in that familiar voice, "What always used to puzzle me as a child, was that apart from the hair on his head, Jesus ... any Jesus, never had a stitch of hair anywhere else; never a breath of hair on that always angular chest. God seemed to have sent his only begotten son into the world without any hair under his arms." It's not the Easter message we wanted, but it'll do.
There's probably...
... a word to capture the process of cleaning one Dyson sucker by using another one. "Recursive", perhaps? Dyson make mighty fine dust suckers, but they are pigs to clean out thoroughly. That's entirely enough housework for one day / week / month / whatever. One doesn't wish to overdo this sort of thing.
Should I ever intend to...
... become an alcoholic I have a newly-dusted and quite amazing stash4 of hooch to kick me off. Contents include an unopened 375cl bottle of Smirnoff vodka with a £3-99 price tag and an unopened bottle of Hine cognac at £6-99. (That may well have been an 18th anniversary present from an ex-IBM colleague who, last I heard, was raising furry animals in Wales these days.) I suspect the half-empty bottle of Gordons gin is half-empty because it's the one we bought in Guernsey in the late 1970s and then opened to keep Lesley Flux happy back in December 1981 when we hosted a little Xmas get-together. The started bottle of Campari was Christa's (only she could drink the stuff) and the two of Kahlua for / from Peter. Two bottles of Cointreau, too.
But what about David? Well, there's an unopened small bottle of Jameson Irish whiskey Big Bro bought for me last year (or was it Junior this year?) and an unopened (but, I think, still relatively new) bottle of "custard stuff" aka Advocaat (which goes very nicely with ice-cream and fruit).
Hic! Actually I had to stop typing while I listened to Purcell's "Funeral Music for Queen Mary" — recreated for a modern orchestra — at a fairly realistic volume (0dB). Glorious. Better make an evening meal, I guess. I'm starving. [Pause] Fascinating to compare the Wendy Carlos "Title music" from "A Clockwork Orange" film score as it, too, is a modern re-creation of Purcell's Funeral March music. Indeed, that was the first version I ever heard, though I've now downloaded the version by Baroque Brass of London and the choir of Clare College, Cambridge.