2015 — 8 October: Thursday
I was sent an interesting link overnight that gives a much more sinister interpretation of the possible motives behind the DNA self-testing kit I mentioned. Yikes.
Having1 moved straight on to re-reading Lois McMaster Bujold's "A Civil Campaign" and paused, this morning, at the disastrous (and utterly hilarious) dinner party scene at the point just before the butter bugs unleash their own brand of escalating havoc, I've been following a (deconstructive) trail that seeks — unsuccessfully, I fear — to invert my opinion of the film "Love, Actually".
It began, oddly enough, with the (forgive the pun) re-vamping of "Twilight". There's a second piece in the Grauniad, congratulating Stephenie Meyer on this deeply subversive move...
The writer of this Grauniad piece links her own "analysis" to try to demonstrate that performing a similar set of gender-reversals in a fan-fiction version of the Richard Curtis film would make for a much-improved version. She compounds this folly (don't get me wrong; I've enjoyed a bunch of fan-fic in my time) by going on to link an "Atlantic" piece by Christopher Orr2 which, in turn, links to his own original review and opinion of the film from 2004.
I did say it was a trail, remember. And, as I've already admitted elsewhere, how to strike up meaningful romantic relationships is definitely not my personal area of specialist expertise, despite my baffling success with Christa...
Of more interest...
... are this piece by Martha Plimpton picking over some well-worn arguments of aspects of North American society that continue to baffle me, and some further "revelations" concerning JFK.
The sun is now shining, and I could do with some breakfast. I have a lunch date to look forward to. Those are always nice. And an email from Big Bro assures me he's been enjoying the Geoffrey de Havilland biography. Good!
What is one...
... to make of the glimpses given of life in Saudi Arabia in this piece? Words fail me. (Link.)
Re-drafting...
... of my new Will proceeds apace. I await one address before the infernal thing is done and dusted. Sadly, I have neither a mantelpiece nor a ticking clock to keep it behind. Or was that only where one kept the Title Deeds to the house? Thinks: better disinter those, too. I know I had them in a plastic shopping bag a while back.
I only realised tonight...
... after reading an elderly "New Statesman" column (12 July 1991) reviewing "Thelma and Louise" that film critic Anne Billson later recycled that column into her book "Spoilers". You'll find the bit that tickled me here. I knew it sounded familiar...
Nominative determinism?
Did they not previously even try to keep track? "US attorney general, Loretta Lynch, announced a pilot open-source programme to count killings by police..." (Link.)
Compare...
... and contrast. First, my sprightly view of yesterday's 'molehole' web page, as served, locally, by lighttppd running on BlackBeast Mk III right here in River City:
Next, observe both the subtle differences and the incremental extra load imposed by my use of Cloudflare and Google Analytics on the same web page as served to everybody except me by the Texas webserver:
Guess who read the story here? :-)