These little guys are pretty much ready for transferring into their own individual pots, by a process which I believe to be known as “repotting”. Naturally, I shall keep you all in photos.
The average home computer user is bamboozled by technology jargon which is used to warn people about the most serious security threats online.
An article on the Beeb tells us what we already knew – that many Windows users don’t have a clue what they are doing, and their computers are going to be hacked into sometime in the next half hour.
My lack of sympathy is so powerful that you should be able to smell it from over there. In tomorrow’s news:
54% of car drivers are confused by all the jargon in the industry. Terms like ‘accelerator’, ‘brake’, ‘windscreen wiper’ and ‘cigarette lighter’ all kinda blend into one, and as a result these poor people have no choice but to crash their vehicle into the nearest eight-year old.
Grrr.
Book #17
An Equal Music, by Vikram Seth
At first I thought this was pretentious, verbose rubbish, all arty-farty music-loving claptrap of the wrong sort, and very slow to get going. I almost didn’t perservere with it, but then it started to get interesting, and I began to care about the pathetically tragic hero and his two main crises; namely his doomed attempt at reviving an ancient love affair with a hopelessly afflicted musician; and the potential loss of his beloved violin.
If you have a good technical understanding of string quartets, you will be able to appreciate this book much more than I did; I was forced to skim occasional passages where Seth’s first person narrator started to blather on in fragmented sentences about the sound of the larks, blah blah blah.
I expect that proper literary critics will have made use of some sort of orchestral analogy when reviewing this book, with its pianissimo start and its dramatic crescendo. Unfortunately that’s all the music words I can think of, woefully ignorant of Bach and Schubert, and still slightly under the impression that a viola is smaller than a violin, as I am. The proper critics will certainly have used the word beautiful, and in places it is frustratingly so.
There are some particularly pleasant scenes set in Venice, and in these parts it is easier to relate to the passionate writing about music. From Venice onwards, the novel becomes absorbingly gripping, but is never quite sad enough to move me to tears.
3/5
It doesn’t suck in a big way. But it sucks in a small way for the following reasons:
1. The people who “get it” and want the world to know about it. Hey, everyone, look at this gag that I found. And I recognised that it was a gag straight away, because I’m clever. You have to get up earlier than that in the morning to catch me! Haha!
2. Trustworthy sources suddenly aren’t so trustworthy. For an entire morning, you have to shut yourself off from the entire universe, because there’s a very real danger that someone will concoct an incredibly subtle gag. Too subtle, in fact, to be detectable. And though their intentions are good, the ensuing bedlam is something that we’re all better off without.
Don’t worry, I’m not talking about anything in particular. Just being a mard.
UPDATE: Oh, and I forgot to add – because the US are a few hours behind us, it is still morning there. So the madness isn’t going to be stopping before the end of the day. Sigh.
Mum will be all,
so, how’s your new job?
and I will be all teenage-shrug,
I’ve only been doing it for one day.
I don’t know.
Stop asking me questions.
Leave me alone.
You’re not my parents!
It’s so unfair.
Actor Christopher Eccleston has quit as Doctor Who after just one episode of the new series has been screened, the BBC has confirmed.
Shame that. I thought he was quite good. Read all about it.
Knowing as you do that in Casa Uborka we are too snobbish to watch any TV other than University Challenge and the occasional film, you will be astonished to learn that we have been making more use than usual of our television licence.
It may be a little early in the day to recommend the new series of Doctor Who, but it was amusing to watch it with two other grown-ups who are nonetheless younger than me and had never really seen it before. Not proper Doctor Who, anyway, like with Tom Baker, or Peter Davidson at a push. They were unimpressed by the two most impressively pleasing elements, namely the fact that the new producers had meddled only minimally with the theme tune and the TARDIS noise. They appeared to be judging it on quality of acting and plausibility of plot. The kids of today, really.
I was happy with it. It felt authentic. I thought it was a good job.
The other TV show that we have surprised ourselves by watching is Joey. We were reasonably well entertained by Friends, although the world didn’t end if we missed an episode; so we decided to give Joey a chance. The first show made us laugh, so we extended its trial period and have continued to do so on that basis. It’s okay, but we expect it’s about to jump its shark, with the introduction of a new love-interest who resembles Skeletor wearing a Sindy doll wig.
I shan’t bother to mention Help, because everyone knows about it by now. Uborka: you heard it here last.
