2016 — 7 March: Monday
Not quite so frosty this morning.1
I've heard...
... the invention of email attributed to more than one person over the years. The BBC seems confident they have identified the "culprit" (Ray Tomlinson @ who-knows-where) this morning. Their website is so far not confirming it, but El Reg does.
Duchess of Kitsch?
Not heard her called that before. She was an entertaining writer, certainly:
The auction is such a gallimaufry that to define the Duchess's taste is almost impossible. On the one hand, she and her husband were notable art collectors and patrons, whose friends included Lucien Freud. ("He painted me when I was 50," she told a television interviewer, "and it bore no resemblance to me at all — but now I'm 80 it's a very good likeness.")
This is...
... just true enough not to be funny, but it made me smile:
They are political bellwethers, guiding lights who illuminate the incorrect path more accurately than any deeply held principle or bank of knowledge could. It is a depressing truism that, if it wasn't for Iain Duncan Smith, this writer would have practically no political opinions whatsoever. I often have to ask myself who I trust more: my own intellect, or the opposite of whatever Duncan Smith has just said to Andrew Neil on the Daily Politics?
I regarded...
... Kubrick's swan-song as a bitter disappointment. Mind you, I'm no great fan of Arthur Schnitzler, but the film was so dreadful that, with Christa's agreement, I ejected the DVD unfinished on our only viewing, many years ago. Of course, that meant I'd overlooked its soundtrack.
Having just heard Jocelyn Pook's "The Masked Ball" from it (as picked by this morning's guest), I will now give it a fairer hearing.
[Pause]
Excellent stuff.
I'm losing touch...
... with the lingo of today's El Reg youngsters:
But then, Pluto is pretty well, erm, far out.
Having posted...
... that which needed to be, bought the top-up foodstuffs for keeping body and soul in some form of contact for another couple of days, given the Mazda a refreshing drink, and also bought (as I approach ever nearer the UK State Pension age) my first-ever bread knife2 I'm now supping the cup that warms, and very much enjoying my second tranche of Pook3 of the day:
Just don't ask me to explain what it's all about. The fourth track ("Oppenheimer") started with a recording of "Oppy" recalling what he'd said — that line from the Bhagavad Vita about becoming "Shiva, the destroyer of worlds" — in the wake of the Trinity A-bomb test. It is particularly eerie.
Life in an IBM Communications dept.
(Shades of Ivor Cutler's "Scots Sitting Room"?) I only once encountered the Bhagavad during my IBM career. That little saga (involving a committed Christian [and perfectly competent programmer] who took umbrage at the thought of giving any publicity on a Corporate bulletin board to a Yoga class) ended with an email to my friend Iris (who had, of course, started all the trouble in the first place!):
================================ Date: 12 April 94, 12:13:17 BST To: Iris Lee IRISLEE at WINVMJ Security: IBM Pantheistic Re: Yoga Why shouldn't IBM 'promote a practice which is so closely tied to Hinduism'? After all, it promotes carol singing here in December each year. Perhaps its fervent support for the trees of Hursley Park means we have some Druids among us, too! Surely, IBM (if it's to espouse "its policy of religious neutrality", and if such a policy exists) should simply not 'take sides' at all in such matters? Or, to sort of quote further, "I, along with many (SUBSTITUTE BELIEF AND VALUES GROUP NAME OF YOUR CHOICE HERE)" believe I'm right, you're wrong, and everyone else is so thick that it's dangerous and daft to let them think for themselves... There's nowt so queer as folk! D
(I invented the security classification on the spur of the moment. I really could [as they say] write a book!)