2010 — 10 April: Saturday

Just finishing A Civil Campaign while listening to that excellent 5-CD compilation "Good morning, Vietnam". And, before you know it, it's midnight again. And, inspired by some browsing over at Roger's I've been enjoying a late supper having just popped the Oxford Book of English poetry into my Amazon shopping basket. (His edition was the 1972-ish one compiled by Philip Larkin but the one I have my eye on is edited by Christopher Ricks, who did a fine job on The state of the language a frankly unbelievable 20 years ago now.)

Time is funny stuff. Still, tomorrow is another day, as Christa was wont to say. Let's see what the new day brings. G'night.

I suspect...

... I shall find out, later today, whether less than four hours of sleep is enough (but the book was simply too good to put down — "I've started, so I'll finish!") Meanwhile, at 09:14 it's deliciously sunny and a nice fresh cuppa is on hand to chase away cobwebs. Some aspects of this solo life of mine could, in some light, be viewed as redeeming features :-)

Ever onward, at least as far as my next crockpot concoction.

I think this is a bit of a stretch:

As the social environment shifts, so may women's mate preferences. While Stone Age forces once wired women to associate strong cues of masculinity with their children's chance of survival, times are changing. The promise of improved health care in America could be one example of a shift.

Jena Pincott in the WSJ

Amazing what can be researched these days.

Comment would be superfluous... dept.

Something to chew on, with the breakfast:

Of course, there's another mitigation that was tweeted Friday by security researcher (aka hacker) Alex Sotirov...
"I uninstalled Java more than a year ago and haven't had a single problem with any website," he wrote. "Why are people still running Java in the browser?"

Dan Goodin in the Register

And, as I start to wonder about lunch, I've just had to try to assure dear Mama via a phone call that £100 is (these days) a perfectly reasonable charge for the day or so it will take a local gardener to tidy up her shrubbery for her. I delicately hinted that she's allowed herself to lose track of prices here in the Benighted Kingdom. Her only response beyond the puzzled "Good gracious" was that old chestnut "When are you going to visit?" Good question.

It's 12:49 and I'm listening to an amusing album called "Let there be rockgrass" by Hayseed Dixie — a twisted country version of AC/DC — thanks, Brynja! (I shall have to introduce her to my Señor Coconut album, methinks. Kraftwerk with a Latin makeover.)

Later

Well, I was certainly awake at 02:40 this morning, so I can only assume my music was busily drowning out the sound of an explosion in Chadwick Road. Crikey. It's about 1.4km away as the crow flies (or as any bird, I guess). Another pothole, I suppose... Right here in River City, heh?

Definitely time for an earlier night... And it's only 22:30 or so. That'll learn me :-(