28th of December, 2003 POST·MERIDIEM 05:31
So, yeah, Christmas at home. Getting called “Robert” by six people in three
days, spending all day indoors with a bad net connection and stacks of
books. Turkey, potatoes, vegetables, Cadbury’s Roses, no alcohol, terrible
television (except for the Animatrix on TG4), going to bed four hours before
my body clock wants to sleep because lying in the dark thinking idly is
pretty darn attractive, considering the alternatives. I’m back now in Dublin
with our DSL connection; gosh, how did that happen?
The State of the Art, Iain M. Banks: This is a collection of short
stories, with the title story apparently the first Culture piece. (For those
unfamiliar with Banks’ sci-fi work, the Culture universe is one of the more
thought-through ones; AI is a long way from the Skynet of the Terminator,
there’s no great need to work, they consider whether they should intervene
in the civilisations they come across, etc.) It’s workable. I’m glad I
didn’t read it first of them; the rough edges are still there, and some of
the other short stories betray Banks’ identification with the Guardian
readers tribe, something I think is petty—I read widely enough that I’m
impatient with anyone who thinks you are what you read, because if so, I’m
pretty diluted.
English as we speak it in Ireland, PW Joyce, 1991 reprint of a 1910 book,
present from the mother: Joyce was born in 1827, grew up speaking Irish and
English, and spent most of his working life as a (primary school)
teacher. The book is the fruit of many letters and twenty years spent
writing down phrases and usage as he lived his life, and sometimes it does
read as that. The scholarship, in the modern sense, is execrable; sources
are barely given, nor dates, nor indications as to the extent of usage of
various idioms. That said, though, it’s great. It advances the theory that
the voiced and unvoiced dental fricatives—that is, /ð/ and U+03B8—end up,
colloquially in Irish English, as the “d” and “t” of Irish. Which works for
me, because I always had the feeling growing up that, for example, “thigh”
and “tie” got pronounced differently, though not differently enough for it
to be phonemic, else “turd” would have made it into our vocabulary.
Monstrous Regiment, Terry Pratchett: Funny, has weaknesses, but reads so
easily that it’s hard to begrudge him them. If you like Pratchett, you’ll
like this. Some people don’t, I believe, and they won’t. Meh, their loss.
Bravemouth, Pamela Stephenson: A year in the life of Billy Connolly,
narrated by his wife, formerly of Not the Nine O’Clock News and currently a
psychotherapist in Los Angeles. All the bits about Connolly are great; the
wife comes across as a hippy flake (“I’ve never understood how Billy regards
tennis as an upper-class sport ...”), but her interjections on that theme
are rare enough that the book remains worth reading despite her.
21st of December, 2003 POST·MERIDIEM 06:18
Since you were all wondering, I’m from http://tinyurl.com/29jfj , just at
the next intersection south and east of Ballyroebuck. Cheers for the
Mapquest pointer, Mackers.
15th of December, 2003 ANTE·MERIDIEM 01:07
Insights;
The taste of J&B whisky will probably always have me thinking of Louvain-la
Neuve. (Jameson’s not to be had there, if you, for some strange reason,
don’t
feel like drinking beer.)
I work much better when I’m drinking about half a litre of water every hour.
Where did that come from?
The mussels that Tesco in Phibsboro were selling for 3.50 a pack make a
very workable dinner—they’re pre-cooked, and it’s a matter of microwaving
them. Must buy more of them.
I’m teetering on the edge of living beyond my means. But, that’s good, I’m
getting the maximum utility from my income, and I won’t overspill.
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000214.html is an
anti-point. 871 words to say something that only idiots are unclear about.
“This is not Tolkien’s Middle Earth. But most people still think it is, at
least sometimes.” is ѕhіte.
I’m going to have to get my head around GPG sharpish. Nnngh, I really
dislike working with GNU software when I haven’t had exposure to a well
documented non-GNU program that does the same thing.
Happy birthday Cliph!
