When at work, the thought of spending a few days at home sitting with your feet up seems quite attractive. But when it's forced on you, and with the prospect of it lasting three months, the attractiveness disappears somewhat!
Anyway, yesterday I actually managed to get my arse outside for a wee while. Of sorts. Was collected by a friend in a car and we went up to Tesco at Milngavie to recycle some old clothes. I stayed in the car, but boring as that may sound, it was really nice to get out the flat for a wee while.
Today's excitement was that my delivery from Sainsbury's arrived! Whoo-hoo! Realising that traipsing round a supermarket isn't the easiest thing to do on crutches I went online the other day and registered with them, then placed an order and booked a delivery slot. It all arrived safe and well this morning. Getting the crate of Miller along the hallway to the kitchen exercised my ingenuity for a while, but I managed, and the bags were reasonably easy, if tiring. So now I'm all set for a period of self-sufficiency with enough food and drink to last a few days anyway, and a pile of DVDs to watch.
On the subject of DVDs, relatively recently, and for reasons which if you're bothered could be worked out by reading previous posts but which I will not bother specifying now, my DVD collection halved in size and I have spent the past few months buying replacements. Not direct replacements necessarily, but some films I've seen before and some I haven't. Having bought them though, I haven't actually got round to watching most of them yet! Well now's my opportunity. My task will be to work my way through my (smallish) DVD mountain while I'm being forced to stay indoors anyway. It'll save me spending ALL my time surfing anyway.
I found this picture on t'InterWeb recently and thought it was very interesting how society, or at least technology, has changed in a l
ittle over 50 years. It's apparently from a 1954 magazine, and in case you can't quite read it, the caption is:Scientists from the RAND Corporation have created this model to illustrate how a "home computer" could look like in the year 2004. However the needed technology will not be economically feasible for the average home. Also the scientists readily admit that the computer will require not yet invented technology to actually work, but 50 years from now scientific progress is expected to solve those problems. With teletype interface and the Fortran language, the computer will be easy to use.
I have to say I've a wee sneaky suspicion that it might not be an original article, but rather a later (recent) spoof with words added to an original photo, but leaving the words aside (and the slightly suspect grammar), the photo looks real I think.
Update 24th March: In a wonderful example of the 48 hour rule(*), I have stumbled across this article on Snopes which shows that this is, as I suspected, not an original article, but also, as I didn't suspect, isn't an original photo either! It's actually a photo taken in 2000 at the Smithsonian Institute of a mock-up of the maneuvering room of a nuclear submarine which
has been Photoshopped.The original image is on the right.
* the 48 hour rule states that if you mention or hear of something, then within 48 hours you will hear of it again.
While typing this post I had a call on my mobile from a very good friend I haven't seen or spoken to for a long time. She had read on this Blog about my wee accident and, clearly being bored at work, decided to give me a call.
Leaving aside the fact that it was really nice to speak to her, and great to hear she's doing well, I couldn't help being surprised at how her accent has changed.
Born in Northumberland she was brought up in Scotland, and apart from a brief spell living in the north east of England in the early 1990's she spent all her life in Scotland before moving to London in 1995, since when she has lived there, then in Nottingham and now in Buckinghamshire. So essentially she has always had a cultured Scottish accent, and having spoken to her fairly often when she was in London and slightly less often when she was in Nottingham she still had essentially the same nice accent, but it seems the move to Bucks has altered it a bit and, as I said to her on the phone, for much of the conversation I wouldn't have been able to recognise it as her speaking because she has a posh English accent now!
She won't thank me for that, but it's a fact. And it's not a bad thing. We all to some degree or other subconsciously take on board all sorts of influences in our lives, and it's natural that the way we speak, for example, should change over time to reflect those outside influences. Anyway, it was really nice to speak with her, and good to hear that her mum and brother are well too.
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