2016 — 13 November: Sunday
Today is a good day for a minor-league contemplation of DIY tips for keeping cheerful in the face of mortality.1 Today's theme is recent TV shows. Inspired by email exchanges, by the Clive James book on "binge watching", and by last night's batch of "Bones", my selection criterion is a simple one: what set of long-format TV fiction — material strongly dependent on a story/character arc — have I watched more than once in the past nine years?
Here's my list. Your mileage may vary:
- "Battlestar Galactica" (this grew on me)
- "Big Bang Theory"
- "Bones" (some genuinely moving insights)
- "The Bridge" (gripping)
- "Californication"
- "Castle" (only half-watched, I fear)
- "Game of Thrones"
- "The Good Wife"
- "House of Cards" (horrific)
- "The 'L' Word"
- "The Mentalist"
- "True Blood" (but not the appalling final series)
- "Weeds" (a total hoot)
I revert to music, films, and books for most of my in-house sustenance. Perhaps I should specify "emotional" sustenance. Though delicious dark chocolate ginger biccies also have an important part to play, too. Bite me.
The guest...
... on "Private Passions" (Geoff Dyer) is being irritatingly fascinating both in what he says and in his music selections.
Having read a...
... back-page article in the August issue of "Scientific American" about an April 2016 study reported in the "Lancet" — it examined 192,000,000 participants in 1,698 measurement studies across 200 countries between 1975 and 2014 — I did something I haven't done for a long time: got on my bathroom scales. I then calculated my current Body Mass Index (weight in kg/[height in metres, squared]).
Drum roll, please. My BMI is 24.57 — a supposedly healthy (but obese) point.
To be classed as just above "underweight" would need me to weigh 136lb in old money. I'm sorry, but for a six-foot chap to weigh 9.75 stone strikes me as absurd. I was skinny enough back in July 1969, dagnabbit. (Pictorial proof.)
Next week's lunch...
... on Thursday will be followed by the film "Arrival". Quite a while since I last set foot in a cinema... Wonder if I get a pensioner discount?
I've read...
... this piece on libertarianism twice now, and am still baffled by parts of it. It reminds me of some of the guff spouted by Heinlein characters. (Link.)