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Pleasant Atmosphere

Today is a nice day. I’m not a big weather fan, but today it’s sunny without being dazzling and fairly warm without being unpleasantly hot. (If blinding sun and blistering heat is your thing, you may not agree with me.)

I had a brief errand to do this morning, and instead of my usual approach—to rush to my destination as fast as possible and hurry back—I took a longer route through our nearby park, pulled off my jacket and wandered around dreamily for a while. It was really nice. I didn’t even fret about skin cancer! (I’m very pale and get little sunlight…) There were a few people about, but the place seemed so peaceful and relaxing. I’ve forgotten what relaxing is in recent times, i.e. probably the last 20 years! Must do this again sometime; since our dog got ill (and later died), going through places like parks just hasn’t crossed my mind.
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Death on the Nile

Or, is the war over? (Same link as yesterday—current Middle East news from BBC—so if you’re reading this in 2004, it will likely be irrelevant!) Okay, okay, enough about the damned war!

Having mentioned the new David Suchet Poirot episodes the other day, I thought I might as well give a link to the story here. The first (of at least three) will be Death on the Nile. I can’t wait!
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Movies & Stuff

Movies. We have watched movies. Which was nice.

Thursday night, we finally got round to seeing From Hell. The original Alan Moore/Eddie Campbell graphic novel was one of the few recent comics I’d fancied reading, but I never got round to that either. I don’t know how faithful the movie is. But there are worse ways to kill a couple of hours.

Johnny Depp’s cod Michael Caine accent was perhaps questionable, but who cares? The Deppster is Godlike. *sigh* Acting-wise, I guess the invincible Robbie Coltrane stole the show. I love Robbie.
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To Blog or Not To Blog?

Well, now the April Foolery is over with, we can reasonably expect that our media friends will be giving us strictly legitimate reportage. Right? Uh, yeah. So Saddam is dead or wounded (obviously; in fact, I’m surprised he didn’t stand in open desert with a target stuck on his chest) and coalition victory is nearing. Let’s all give a jolly good cheer for Our Lads™, and let’s not spend another negative moment pondering the avoidable deaths! Bravo, democracy.

Today, mom and I were actually talking about stuff to do when this interminable move is finally settled. A holiday was even mentioned! Hey, I’m up for that… I’ve had occasional breaks, but not a real holiday since I was a kid. A lot of neat things can come out of resolving this situation, but I still think getting there is gonna be a lot of stress.
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I Can’t Support the War

So the war atrocities are well underway. I would prefer to not even think about it, let alone rant about it, but there it is on the box incessantly.

Blair wants us to give our support to this sordid affair. His ‘address’ last night was even less convincing than usual, because he didn’t even seem able to muster his usual wild-eyed fervour. F**k you, Mr. Blair. Whether Saddam Hussein is stockpiling chemical weapons or not, we are the aggressor in this instance—we’re causing innocent deaths, the number of which our official propaganda will never disseminate. I can’t/won’t ‘support’ a cause that produces the hideous carnage we’re seeing all over our screens. I will sympathise with the troops who have do this filthy work; I hope most of them come out of it in one piece.
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The New Real Deal

Countdown to war. What a surprise that Saddam showed no interest in the Bush ultimatum. This is really the kind of ‘history’ I have no desire to live through… but who gets to choose?

My Jobcentre appointment today didn’t go that badly, really, in spite of my being awfully uncooperative.
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