2015 — 18 December: Friday

Pausing only long enough to fling on some clothes1 I made another — this time, successful — attempt at the supplies run2 which is why, at 09:09, I can now finally contemplate my first cuppa and even some breakfast in due course. Quite why the local citizenry turns en masse into such a frenzied swarm of locusts? lemmings? at this time of year puzzles me but, in the face of such determined insanity, one can only adopt Yossarian's 'group-think' survival strategy and join in...

The things I do for Mrs Hubbard and her blasted cupboard. Right. What's next?

The Raven

I have many interests that briefly flare and die out as I totter along Life's Highway. I even mention some here, from time to time. Anamorphic art for example. (Fred Leeman's 1975 book "Hidden Images" is always worth dipping into.) But today's raven took flight (as it were) when I followed a link from an interesting piece by Frank Wilczek on perspective. This contains an illustration by István Orosz that (with only minor-league delving) brought me to another lovely image...

Anamorphic Raven

It's combined a (very) long-time favourite poem of mine by Poe with some interesting art and the story behind its creation. What's not to like?

Just back...

... from an unexpected trip out to Sainsbury's at Badger Farm, where I fell happily upon my first "well-fired" white loaf in, probably, six years. Indeed, I've just self-indulgently buttered a slice and enjoyed it. I'd forgotten how big the store there is relative to my habitual (and far more local) Waitrose. It will be interesting to see the susceptibility of this loaf to the spores that thrive in Technology Towers.

In Search of the Lost Chord

I enjoy the BBC's Late Junction radio programme, on Radio 3. There's an eclectic mix of music and, although I hate about 15% of it, the other 85% always compensates. But it goes out late and doesn't fit the reading, thinking, listening, emailing, watching, whatevering, sort of things that I do on those three weekday evenings. So I download the programme audio files (essentially 320kbps MP3s), keeping them to play when it better suits me. Here's a typical file, curated by the delectable Verity Sharp:

BBC Late Junction

Playing it "blind" is a musical "Lucky Dip". But if you stick the Programme ID (PID) — "b04sv91s" — on the end of the generic URL "www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/" you can browse that episode's web page (click the pic above) to see the music playlist. Scooping up that list takes Brian's bit of Python less than five seconds:

Music playlist

  

Footnotes

1  And pop in a chewing gum.
2  Made much more pleasant by a half-time interval chat with my chum Geoff in which we managed to set the world back on its proper axis. Again.