Summary: Christmas day, 37 miles, walked quite a bit across the icy patches. Boxing day- 46 miles, only 1 icy walk. I am able to sleep once more.
Presents:
Christmas is not easy, though some instinct tells me it should be.
I want a new name for this holiday, ‘Christmas’ will be expunged, but a replacement is not clear. It could be something ridiculous like "winterval" but such a word should only be used for making fun of Birmingham City Council. The driver from VW said "Happy Hogmanay" to me, which is the best suggestion yet; even if it is for New Year.
Hope for a complete melt tomorrow, I need to get out on that bike.
In lieu of cycling: pulled the ivy crawling up the house front. Its fingers reached obscenely through air-bricks, the TV-antenna and into roof-spaces. It pulls away easily but not without loads of noxious dust that has left me with a thick throat and hacking cough. That stuff is poisonous isn’t it?
Desperately need some exercise- but the black-glazed roads are a bruising threat.
I’ve been gardening, you can’t see it in this photo.
Seven: great film from a long line of thrillers in this genre.the film has: Silence Of The Lambs, The Abominable DR. Phibes, all those gritty New York distopia storys including Batman. It doesn’t matter that the story wasn’t desperately original, it was however, so well executed…
Besides: it’s damned cold tonight, -3°C and dropping. I am though, warm, acclimatised and well fed. Hope the car’s service doesn’t sting too much next week.
Schools’ are out: and I feel less daunted by christmas this year, can’t remember last time it seemed this way. Something that hasn’t changed is the winder holiday is certainly ruined by Christmas, but not letting that happen from now on. this Whisky tastes fine (Iona, from the Tobermoray distillery).
From yesterday: a very feint one
This cheered me up today, I made the kids watch it in one lesson because it amused me so much. Poor kids.
Deep, bone-aching tiredness. I know, I say this every year, but you can’t get used to this. The holiday promises to be: Whiskey, snow, chocolate and fine company. Bet I don’t end up clearing the gutters though. Christmas day is in the middle of the holiday this time, so shouldn’t spoil the break too much.
Consider this: slow gradual change to lower energy light-bulbs that produce less heat, so the thermostat asks the boiler for more, thus offsetting the benefit & raising the house’s power consumption again. I suppose the reduction in overall consumption must be felt when the heating is off. Erm, hold on…
The Copenhagen summit: world leaders meet to tackle the world’s second biggest problem. Wonder when talks start for the main one, the one that causes this all. Not heard a peep for years so it must be building up to be a big one.
More news reaction: Govt. have moderated the new rules for vetting adults who will work with children. Now there will only be 9,000,000 people vetted instead of the proposed 12,000,000 in England. It’s not clear how much vetting costs compared ot a full CRB check or how the numbers are divided, The CRB check is I believe £50, and registration £65 for each entry. We must be looking at a figure close to £1,000 million for both.. Good that there hasn’t been any recession, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to afford it. We live in an extremely wealthy country as you can see.
I have been vetted via a CRB check this term, but I neglected to commit any crimes since the last check a few years ago. Oops.
I’m out of chocolate.
In work a bit early, but a strange atmosphere- there was hardly any screaming. Most of the girls turn up about 08.20, so that’s when it reaches a real crescendo- enough to hurt your ears and leave you with mild tinnitus. Girls scream to greet each other, they scream to agree about things, and scream when discussing television programmes: at other times they scream for no apparent reason at all. Sometimes, I can’t bear to ask- the explanation could be so intensely mundane that my mind would go.
Poorly computer (again gasp): On Windows 2000, the System32system file is corrupt, meaning no bootup. I don’t know how this happens, but last night Kaspersky raised the alarm and offered to delete some infected files. It will be a few days until I can SFC file checker from the boot-up floppy discs. Last time I tried that technique, however, it failed- no repair worked.
What a pain, it’s all the time setting up the OS that’s at risk, no important files are in danger though. Just time- a precious commodity at this end of term.
Why is this a news story? : Knox-Kercher murder case. Why, of all the murder trials going on in the world has this one floated to the top of the popularity ratings of the media.
A vague guess: it’s a story starring pretty people. Some papers are discussing their ‘surprise’ that this crime was committed by people who are not the archetypal evil criminal.Maybe it is a surprise if you take the hollywood-shallow notion that criminals are possessed by some evil force, in the christian understanding of the word.
Holly recommends Mike Leigh’s "HAPPY GO LUCKY" (2008) on Channel 4 tomorrow. Take note.
Spirit of Turpentine 