The Bug
This, believe it or not, is a really neat DAB radio.
What makes it really interesting is that it has local storage — so it caches the current programme, enabling one to do instant rewind. It’s the beginning of TiVO for radio. Oh, and it’s also an alarm clock.
How I feel just now
While putting out newspapers for the recycling men, I noticed this cover from the Guardian Magazine.
Needless to say, I had been too busy to read it at the time. Interesting also that the computer is a Mac. And only 251 unread messages. Hmmm…
D-Day Gratitude
Lovely snippet from Quentin’s diary for June 6 anniversary:
“D-Day Yesterday, my father (in England) called my father-in-law (in the US) to thank him for his part in freeing Britain 60 years ago. I’m ashamed that it never occurred to me to do the same.
May those of us who are so ready to criticise what America has done since Vietnam never forget what it did beforehand.”
Amen. That’s one of the reasons I feel so infuriated about the damage Bush Jr is doing to his country.
Ten years on
It’s ten years since the OJ Simpson trial. Professor Alan Dershowitz was on Radio 4 talking about the extraordinary interest the trial generated. He recalled being in Jerusalem for a meeting with leading politicians when the Prime Minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) asked him to step into his office for a “confidential conversation”. After closing the door, Netanyahu said, “Tell me, Professor, did OJ do it?” Dershowitz replied: “Prime Minister, does Israel have nuclear weapons?” Nice riposte, eh? And a good story. Wonder if it’s true.
Game, set and match — to Linux
The IT infrastructure for this year’s Wimbledon tennis tournament will be powered by Linux.
Ulysses for dummies
There’s a lot of begrudgery around. Roddy Doyle, for example, has some fatuous views about Ulysses — “over-long, over-rated and un-moving”. (Which neatly summarises my view of Mr Doyle’s extensive oeuvre, by the way.) There’s also a lot of comment on the lines of “it’s such a long and difficult book, isn’t it?” To ease the plight of the intellectually challenged, the BBC has a Cheat’s Guide to the novel and solicits vox-pop views. (Sample: “Man goes for a walk around Dublin. Nothing happens — David Mosley, Newport Pagnell.) But it’s saved by appending Stephen Fry’s riposte:
“Lord help us all. ‘Pretentious drivel’, ‘better off with a good walk rather than reading dusty books’. What possible hope is there for a country which with such self-righteous philistinism scorns its own treasures? Ulysses is the greatest novel of the twentieth century. It is is wise, warm, witty, affirmative and beautiful. it is less pretentious than a baked bean. Read it. read it out loud to yourself. It won’t bite. It wasn’t written either to shock or to impress. Only pretentious barbarians believe artists set out shock: and how these philistines delight in revealing how unshocked they are. Those who attack it are afraid of it and rather than look foolish they prefer to heckle what they don’t understand. Ignore all this childish, fear-filled criticism, Ulysses will be read when everything you see and touch around you has crumbled into dust. Stephen Fry, London, UK”
Bloomsday Blog
The Guardian‘s Fiachra Gibbons has been following in Leopold’s footsteps and blogging all the while. The verdict? Lovely idea and a brave effort but a bit strained. Difficult to be funny to order. It’s the kind of thing that’s more cut out for an audio blog, I think. It must be difficult to attend to one’s surroundings while pecking at a laptop.
Bloomsday 100
It’s Bloomsday+100. My esteemed fellow-countrymen — cheerful descendants of all those who excoriated, despised and censored James Joyce — have now appropriated him for the booming Irish heritage industry. Nice piece by Andrew O’Hagan in last Sunday’s Observer about all this.
My friend Sean O’Mordha, a film-maker who created the best film about Joyce ever made (and deservedly won an Emmy for it), has sent me a Bloomsday present — a copy of John McCourt’s James Joyce: a passionate exile — which has some wonderful photographs. It’s also beautifully written — light and serious at the same time. And it vividly evokes the personality of the exasperating genius we celebrate today. I particularly like this picture:
It’s Michael Farrell’s portrait of Joyce. It was, writes Mr McCourt, “inspired by the story of fellow Irish artist Patrick Tuohy who, while painting Joyce’s portrait, started talking about the soul of the artist only to be interrupted by his sitter: ‘Get the poet’s soul out of your mind’, said Joyce, ‘and see that you paint my cravat properly'”.
The eternity game
Passing St John’s cricket ground this evening, I saw this…
… and was reminded of George Bernard Shaw’s observation that “the English are not a very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them an idea of eternity”. He was right, in a way. With those wonderful lengthening shadows and those breezy young chaps in whites, there was something quintessentially English and timeless about the scene. I guess that someone walking along the Madingley Road on the evening of June 14, 1904 would have contemplated esssentially the same spectacle — except of course that Gilbert Scott’s University Library tower would not have intruded upon it.
