aboveboard
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The blog returns
20six is back in action; its disappearance was temporary. I shall carry on as usual.
Airfix, the firm that used to make model aeroplane kits, packed up and is to be revived by Hornby. A review of a programme about it to be shown on telly next week ended: 'But will the children of the electronic era be interested in toys that need patience, skill and the legitimate use of glue?'
Modern Times (a question and answer section about modern manners) in today's Times has a question from a woman who says that her father, aged 87, is a noisy eater. This so appalls her husband that he doesn't want to eat with him again. The woman asks for advice. The columnist, judging by his usual replies, is a live and let live person, a don't rock the boat person. He tells the woman to persuade her husband to be more tolerant. I would tell her to visit her father without her husband. Her father is a noisy eater because, I imagine, no one has had the guts to tell him so.
My father is a noisy eater. Whenever I stayed with my parents after I'd left home, I ate breakfast before they did, so I was spared my father's slurping. It drove me nuts.
Thought for today
Politeness is a tacit agreement that peoples' miserable defects, whether moral or intellectual, shall on either side be ignored and not be made the subject of reproach.
Arthur Schopenhauer, 1851
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1.12.07 20:31
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My annual review
It's that time of year again, the time when I struggle to compose my annual newsletter to send with my Christmas cards. I produced the first one twelve years ago as a project to learn how to use the DTP program on my new computer. It was fun to do and, though saving no time, saved my having to think what to write on each card. Recipients appreciated it, least they said they did, so I continued each year. I have much to write about but the difficult part is making it interesting for a variety of people. Keeping items short and snappy is the tricky bit. I am no journalist. Fitting my efforts onto two sides of A4 is another problem. Photocopying the finished newsletter in the local stationery shop (worrying that I've missed a mistake) is the final one.
Quote for today
The funeral of the deceased lady having been 'performed,' to the entire satisfaction of the undertaker, as well as of the neighbourhood at large, which is generally disposed to be captious on such a point, and is prone to take offence at any omissions or short-comings in the ceremonies, the various members of Mr Dombey's household subsided into their several places in the domestic system. That small world, like the great one out of doors, had the capacity of easily forgetting its dead; and when the cook had said she was a quiet-tempered lady, and the house-keeper had said it was the common lot, and the butler had said who'd have thought it, and the housemaid had said she couldn't hardly believe it, and the footman had said it seemed exactly like a dream, they had quite worn the subject out, and began to think their mourning was wearing rusty too.
Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, 1848
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2.12.07 20:08
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The sun shines
There was not a cloud in the sky this morning. What a pleasant change. I intended to spend all day working on my magnum opus but couldn't resist the lure of outdoors. I put on my boots and jacket and off I went, hatless and gloveless, it was that warm. A large pond, which for two months earlier in the year was occupied by a solitary swan, was now occupied by two swans. The first swan had found a mate. I wonder if they'll build a nest.
I ran out of podcasts this morning but found another one on this computer. It was in the Photos folder instead of the Podcast one. My index finger must have let go of the mouse too soon when I downloaded it from my USB stick. Finding a file in the wrong folder must be the digital equivalent of finding something that has slipped down the back of a sofa.
Thought for today
The rise of the West had much less to do with democracy than the rise of secularism. The West's advance was chiefly related to the decline in the influence of religion that sought the truth by 'looking in' to see what God had to say, and its replacement by looking out, deriving authority from observation, experimentation and exploration.
Peter Watson, The Times, 1 December 2007
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3.12.07 19:38
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Wonders sometimes happen
In October, when I changed the route of my early morning walk from the summer one to the winter one, I was dismayed to find that a section of pavement had been neglected by the council and was so overgrown by weeds that it was barely visible. I wrote a letter drawing the council's attention to this and asked them to have the pavement cleared. Within a week my letter was acknowledged with a postcard saying that my letter had been passed on to another department. I was not optimistic.
This morning, as I walked along the unlit stretch dodging the brambles and trying not to slip on the grass, I suddenly realised that I was on tarmac again. Part of the pavement had been cleared! I was so amazed that I went out again when it became light to see what had been done. About half the length of the pavement had been reclaimed; men were working on the other half. Compared with its previous state, the pavement is now like a motorway.
Thought for today
What we call public opinion is generally public sentiment.
Benjamin Disraeli, 1880
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4.12.07 19:34
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Fictitious death
Yesterday evening's episode of Spooks on BBC1 saw off the heroine. She died, supposedly, after a (not so) lethal injection administered by someone who, having made a miraculous recovery from paraplegia, had defected to the bad guys.
It was a novel but implausible story. A person who is unconscious enough to fool some that she is dead, needs special care. Without it she will die. The body deteriorates quickly if the blood pressure is low. Pressure sores will develop unless the body is turned often and pressure areas, such as heels and buttocks, are protected. The airway of a deeply unconscious person lying supine is likely, guaranteed I think, to become obstructed. This itself will kill them.
The death of someone dying in unexpected or unnatural circumstances has to be reported to a coroner. He or she will order a post mortem. Even if officials can forge certificates and bypass procedures, they cannot bypass nature. Someone who has been unconscious for a few days is not going to suddenly sit up and toddle off into the sunset as the heroine did last night while the rest of her team stood round her, unknown to them, empty coffin.
Quote for today
It happened to be an iron-grey autumnal day, with a shrewd east wind blowing--a day in keeping with the proceedings. Mr Dombey represented in himself the wind, the shade, and the autumn of the christening. He stood in his library to receive the company, as hard and cold as the weather; and when he looked out through the glass room, at trees in the little garden, their brown and yellow leaves came fluttering down, as if he blighted them.
Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, 1848
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5.12.07 20:34
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One Christmas job finished
I printed my annual newsletter this afternoon. Apart from the photocopying tomorrow, that's it out of the way for another year. I had to print it three times because I kept finding mistakes. No matter how carefully I check something there will always be a mistake. A few years ago I used the wrong form of principal; I put principle, and had to ditch all my thirty photocopies. At least I spotted the error before I had posted them. Another year I wrongly used the word metaphor; it should have been simile. That still bugs me. Chances are the recipients have long since forgotten.
Thought for today
Men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they were born, the city apartment or farm in which they learned to walk, the games they played as children, the old wives' tales they overheard, the foods they ate, the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets they read and the God they believed in.
W Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge
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6.12.07 20:06
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At home in the city
I received a promotional CD about the VW Tiguan this morning. The accompanying leaflet announced that this new vehicle was 'At home in the city'. It looks like an SUV. Hardly necessary in a city I would have thought. The leaflet continued: 'Every inch has been intelligently designed to handle all the city can throw in its way'. Like what? Rubbish, bricks, bottles? I imagine the only off-roading done in a city is on-pavementing.
Thought for today
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?
W H Davies
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7.12.07 19:33
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