2015 — 27 November: Friday
November1 isn't that different from any other month, I suppose. But that doesn't stop me from feeling mild pleasure at the prospect of its imminent disappearance each year as it seems to have very little "going" for it. It's also mildly sobering thinking I've now run out of parents, uncles and (almost) aunts, so I guess it's just as well I have a fresh cuppa at hand and some very decent Haydn on the radio.
Don't go "wishing your life away"...
... dear Mama would say. See? I did (sometimes) listen :-)
I'm sitting here, mind in neutral, aware that it's currently too early to go anywhere or do anything. "Black" Friday? Pah! But I'm wide awake, nonetheless. On with the show. "The world is my oyster."2
Or, in the words of Yosser Hughes "I could do that! Gissa job!"
Back from...
... the relentless pre-weekend hunter-gathering needed to keep one step ahead of the equally relentless emptying of Mother Hubbard's cupboard, I can now relax, put my feet up, and... suddenly remember it's about time I made breakfast.
Having been tempted...
... into ordering some SF3 I also decided to pick up a new copy of "A for Andromeda" to see how John Elliot's 'novelisation' of Fred Hoyle's TV screenplay holds up half a century after my first reading. My original paperback evaporated long ago. As did the BBC's own copies of what was Julie Christie's first major rôle.
Time flies
Having just heard the last of the mini-interviews with Ian Rankin, who "stepped away" from his keyboard to "smell the roses", I'm reminded — mid-way through this latest insane batch of high-tech-assisted video list-making, having just catalogued my American Blu-ray of that wonderful film "The Name of the Rose"4 — that I read an interview with Umberto Eco in Der Speigel six years ago:
SPIEGEL: Why do we waste so much time trying to complete things that can't be realistically completed?
Eco: We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death. That's why we like all the things that we assume have no limits and, therefore, no end. It's a way of
escaping thoughts about death. We like lists because we don't want to die.
No comment. But (aside to Christa) there's yet another bud getting ready to flower on my favourite rose bush. My policy of entirely benign neglect seems to work well.
Somehow...
... I had managed to overlook our Noble Lords "taking note" of porn in a "mass debate" a couple of weeks ago. Kicking off with what I assume was a joke from the Bishop of Chester:
I shall avoid an echo of the confessional, but I can say that my first-hand knowledge of pornography is very limited. Of the range of vices available to me, I have been tempted by most, but not in any significant way by pornography. If the statistics are to be believed, that makes me a rather unusual, if not exotic, creature.
Well that, and the funny hat. Of course — if my recently-acquired knowledge of skilful rhetoric is any guide — it's not very smart to kick off by admitting "very limited first-hand knowledge" of any topic being discussed. See Harlan Ellison on "Opinions"...
Today's "lemonses"...
... is not only rather late (at 12:55 or so) but has taken the form of a glass of freshly-squeezed cytochrome P450, 3A4 enzyme inhibitor. Since I'm not on any prescribed meds I doubt it will do me much damage. (I can still recall the shocking contrast between the taste of the tinned grapefruit that was trotted out as a special "treat" in late 1950s family visits and the much nicer real thing.) I've also given in, and closed the patio door. It's just a tad too chilly for sedentary comfort.
Today's "logistics"...
... visit is also rather late (at 17:05 and still waiting). Whoops. The BBC Radio 3 news reader just mentioned the thwarting of a criminal plan to bring in cocaine "under the noses of the police" — perhaps not the best way of phrasing it.
It's always a treat...
... to have access to a film critic whose opinions are so at odds with reality that you can safely and reliably reverse them to be completely certain of finding a film you'll enjoy (only providing he hates it). Tonight, for example, I've been re-watching Neil LaBute's film of AS Byatt's 1990 novel "Possession". Christa and I both enjoyed this in the cinema, and again on DVD. And here's the wrong-headed opinion that confirmed my certainty of enjoyment:
One of the stupidest, most badly acted and clumsily directed films I have ever seen. And did I mention boring?
The poor chap couldn't be more wrong if he tried!