2016 — 23 May: Monday
I've clearly been polishing off the rest of the sleep deficit, as it's already gone 10:00 and I'm just about conscious. All this bright sunshine and intermittent rain has been giving my local set of botanical experiments all sorts of wrong-headed ideas about getting far too lush, far too quickly. Unnamed multi-tentacled horrors are springing up all over the "garden", front and back.
Yesterday's...
... entertainments1 veered between "Sense8" — a Wachowski/Tykwer/JMStraczynski extravaganza more than somewhat reminiscent of "Cloud Atlas" — and the rather more grounded tales of "Para Handy". Although I've also tried half an episode of "Love, Nina" I think I prefer the original book to this Nick Hornby adaptation/simplification. Experiencing Alan Bennett transformed into a Scot with a different name is a cognitively-dissonant step too far.
The less said about the Python hacking, the better. Still, at least my Films list is updated.
A piece...
... about overused words losing their meaning got off to a very poor start...
... wondering about the meaningless of certain words ...
I must be getting very old. I mean, I know (from years in IBM) that any noun can be verbed, but I didn't know adjectives could be nouned.
Ahead of...
... tomorrow's flying visit from Iris, to drop off her accumulated batch of "Spectator" magazines for me, I thought I'd dash round with the cute mini-sucker. Of course, I ended up stripping it down and cleaning it out (for, I think, the third time in nine years). My naïve hope that the near (Dy)son(ic) speed of its cyclone would convey all the grot safely as far as its little holding tank was dashed a long time ago.
Now, how best to display my Danish-oiled piece of gnarly tree to its best advantage?
This afternoon's...
... batch of truly excellent music has been "A Breath of Fresh Air", which seems only fitting following all that dust removal. It arrived in Technology Towers some 30 years after I'd first heard it when it came out on vinyl:
There's a demo version of Pink Floyd's "Embryo" on it (the 1970 sampler "Picnic" had the same version without2 their permission). I bought an American import CD to get it — not that I'm any kind of completeist, you understand.
I'm looking forward...
... to enjoying all three of these, for vastly different reasons:
The only other film I've seen by Sorrentino, for example, was the extraordinarily good "This must be the Place" with Sean Penn. "Orange" established itself as a firm favourite during the first two seasons. And who could fail to boggle at the antics of Wall Street traders?
I shall be starting, however, with this latest book in the "Vorkosigan" saga. Blame the shiny dustjacket for the lousy quality of the scan:
I must also admit I was startled by news of the death of a major character in much the same way as the loss of Bush threw me more than somewhat in the Hornblower saga many, many years ago now.