So the heatwave’s back this week. We’ve been flirting with temperatures around 98 degrees, which is just lovely. Not. Today is the worst yet, and call me a wuss, but I’m having immense difficulty functioning in it.
Read More »Damned Weather
Got my ‘official’ letter giving the starting day of my ‘Work Experience Provision’ course today. Next Monday it is.
It says: ‘We would be grateful if you could arrive ten minutes early, due to the popularity of this training opportunity, we cannot guarantee your place if you arrive late.’ Notwithstanding the lousy punctuation (there should be a period after ‘early’), the idea of a course which is mandatory—if you’ve been unemployed for 18 months, you get shoved on this or lose your benefit—being ‘popular’ is absolutely hysterical.
Read More »Popularity Contest
Today apparently was the hottest day of the year so far. They’re saying it’s the hottest period we’ve had in the UK since the 1976 drought. (Of which I have only the vaguest of memories.) And… it’s set to be even hotter tomorrow! Wow. Wonderful. I’m so thrilled, I think I might wet my pants. Really.
Read More »If You Can’t Stand the Heat…
I’ve just finished reading Doug Warren’s official James Cagney biography. After the Orson one, I was in a biog mood (actually, a mood to read more on Orson, but that’ll have to wait), and mom recommended this, which she’d read and enjoyed some time ago.
I’m not a big Cagney fan, really. I think he was a great personality and a fine actor, but many of the films he appeared in were not to my taste. (Reading this book, ironically, I find they often weren’t to Cagney’s taste either.) With Cagney being a rather private person, and this book being authorised, it’s a pretty slim volume, and eschews a lot of in-depth probing… but there’s still some interesting insight.
Read More »Just a Job, Honest
Yesterday was Shopping Day™, and I went into Birmingham. The weather continues to displease me. First thing in the morning, it’s chilly; by noon, it’s blisteringly hot; by late afternoon, a cold wind has been added to the mix. I don’t know, maybe this inconsistency is what Global Warming is about. All I know for sure is, it’s incredibly annoying. Particularly the blisteringly hot bit… but then, I’m no Summer Fan.
Anyhow, I bought a video: Touch of Evil. Oh no! Another Orson Welles film! (I bought The Third Man last month.) Yeah, well, I’m a fan, and since I’m not buying books at the moment—I’m still slogging through The Stand at present, with about 260 pages to go—I’m spending what little spare cash I have elsewhere. As with The Third Man, it’s been at least a decade since I saw this one. We’ll probably watch it tonight, so maybe I’ll comment further tonight or tomorrow.
Read More »I Don’t Need No Steenkin’ Hot Weather