13 September 2013 (Friday) - This n That

I had a phone call from work yesterday to ask if I could do the late shift today. Being an obliging kind of chap I was happy to do so, and so wasn't out of my pit quite as early as usual on a working day. Over brekkie i watched Blake's Seven with a small dog asleep on my lap. Today our heroes were having a fracas with Space Rats. Space Rats were clearly supposed to be an inter-galactic version of Hells Angels. They were supposed to be scary. However they came over as being akin to the fan club of Co-Co the Clown's hypothetical stunt double which wasn't scary at all.
Whilst watching lame early 1980s sci-fi I was very conscious of today's date. September 13. The late 1970s lame sci-fi show Space 1999 all started off from the events purported to take place on September 13 1999.
When I watched that program on Saturday mornings as a teenager that date seemed to be so far into the future as to be unreal. Now it's fourteen years into the past. Where have the years gone?

As I had time to spare I took a scenic route to work (through the fog) via Elmstead where I picked up a geocache. The description of the cache said to look out for the llamas; I was rather disappointed not to see any.

As always I listened to the news as I drove. It is now official - the space probe Voyager 1 has left the solar system and is in inter-stellar space. The pundits made great show of the announcement, and glossed over the fact that the actual exit took place over a year ago. They also had tame experts being interviewed who explained about galactic distances and the impracticality of travel to other stars with today's technology. And in a novel break with tradition the people presenting the show took what was being said seriously.

The pundits rather glossed over proposed changes to the Post Office. Apparently "thousands of our remote communities rely on the national mail network as a lifeline". Really? In this modern electronic age do people really use snail-mail quite so much. And if someone chooses to live in the back of beyond then they must be able to afford to do so. Why should people who live in sensible places subsidise them? It transpires that it actually costs seventy quid to post a letter to the more remote parts of Scotland, but currently all that is actually paid on such a letter is the price of a stamp. Presumably everyone else posting letters to sensible places is subsidising those who can already afford to live in the back of beyond. Why should I subsidise those who are already demonstrably far better off than I am?

Meanwhile can anyone honestly say that they are surprised to hear that more money is to be milked from the Harry Potter franchise. Whilst Harry himself won't feature in this latest round, there will be enough of a crossover to ensure that millions of fans will hand over more of their hard-earned cash.
I wish I could come up with a money-making idea like Harry Potter. Somehow I don't think "Les Aventures Du Le Singe Et L'Oiseau (qui est un batard)" will somehow catch the public's imagination.

Talking of which my French-learning associate had a day off today so I was not able to inspire and enthral him with the latest exploits of our simian friend and its avian nemesis. I'm sure it will all keep till Monday.
Without being able to impart my linguistic skills, the day was rather dull.

As I came home tonight the weather forecast made me sit up and take notice. The BBC radio people said that Sunday would be torrential rain and howling winds all over the country. When I got access to the Internet I saw that the same BBC said light winds and dry until 7pm on Sunday on it's weather page. I wish they would either make up their minds, or be honest and say they have no idea what the weatehr is going to do...


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