2016 — 21 April: Thursday

I've been distracting myself this morning1 by replying to a chum's wail of toe (or ankle, at least) following a downhill tumble he took last Sunday.

Sleep fled...

... somewhat earlier than usual, so I gave in, made a cuppa, wrapped myself in a dressing gown (and around a chocolate ginger biscuit), and fired up my next batch of "Late Junction" to keep me on my musical toes. Now it's 06:19 and I'm wide awake but not exactly raring to go.

Well, golly!

I'm just, utterly, unshocked:

Guvmint snooping

Who would be? What state anywhere, ever, trusts its citizens (or subjects, in this case)?

I wonder...

... if this long, long, long-overdue report is still on schedule for publication this month as forecast last October? Six months without news is pretty impressive. Perhaps the EU referendum has displaced it. Or could its content simply be highly sensitive?

If, like me,...

... you were enchanted by these tales as a child...

Little grey men

... you'll understand why I snaffled this morning's radio portrait of the unlikely author. Much nicer little grey men than those now sanitising the Chilcot Report (in all probability).

The NHS wants to screen me with ultrasound for an abdominal aortic aneurysm and my bank wants to halve the already miniscule interest rate on the savings account I've been keeping Big Bro's little stamps fund in. Capitalism, heh?

I was surprised...

... on my return from Dr Fang to see the porch thermometer insisting it was 26C, which is clearly unnatural. And I was annoyed, on being told the X-ray showed a "little void" underneath one of Fred's previous fillings, so I'll be back there in another couple of weeks. Still, we had a nice chat about two-component composite material that is both chemical-setting and (with a bright enough light) photo-setting.

My post-dental treat is to move straight on to "Gods and Pawns" which is #8 in Kage Baker's "Company" sequence — this one is a collection of linked stories. It's the penultimate title in the "main" sequence, so far as I can tell. Things are coming nicely to the boil. "Plots within plots" to borrow a phrase.

Just spotted a terminological inexactitude on my jotting from Monday. Big Bro's pool temperature in NZ is, in fact, now dipping down to 19C (and not the 22C I typed for some reason).

Having carefully scoured...

... all the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS release material, I'm now in far less of a hurry to move in that direction. Interesting to see that some of the "flavours" get support for only three years, not five.

  

Footnote

1  From this afternoon's upcoming session with Dr Fang, alas, in the wake of last week's pickaxe-wielding investigations by the chirpy hygieneist.