Without Lifting A Finger

I ordered a bottle of Châteauneuf du Pape from a restaurant near the Sihl bridge, drank a few glasses. There was always an awful mess in that room, I won’t deny it, a jumble of books and files. I did that on principle, because in my opinion it’s everyone’s duty in this well-ordered land to maintain little islands of chaos, even if only in secret.

6.0 Or we might try to draw the responsibility more narrowly and apportion it more exactly. And not use equations and integers but instead express matters in traditional narrative terminology. So, for instance, if Tony And there the photocopy—this version of a version—stopped. “So, for instance, if Tony”: end of the line, bottom of the page. If I hadn’t immediately recognised Adrian’s handwriting, I might have thought this cliffhanger a part of some elaborate fakery concocted by Veronica. But I didn’t want to think about her—not for as long as it was possible to avoid doing so. Instead I tried to concentrate on Adrian and what he was doing. I don’t know how best to put this, but as I looked at that photocopied page I didn’t feel as if I was examining some historical document—one, moreover, requiring considerable exegesis. No, I felt as if Adrian was present in the room again, beside me, breathing, thinking. And how admirable he remained. I have at times tried to imagine the despair...

The  Severn bore  is a  tidal bore  seen on the tidal reaches of the  River Severn  in south western England. It is formed when the rising tide moves into the funnel-shaped  Bristol Channel  and  Severn Estuary  and the surging water forces its way upstream in a series of waves, as far as  Gloucester  and beyond. The bore behaves differently in different stretches of the river; in the lower, wider parts it is more noticeable in the deep channels as a slight roller, while the water creeps across the sand and mudflats. In the narrower, upper reaches, the river occupies the whole area between its banks and the bore advances in a series of waves that move upstream. Near Gloucester, the advancing water overcomes two  weirs , and sometimes one in  Tewkesbury , before finally petering out. Bores are present on about 130 days in the year, concentrated on the days immediately following the  new  and  full ...

Another good "clip" from Sense of an Ending . And a mysterious night viewing of the Severn Bore. For the third time (promise it's the last): Sorry for the Kindle jumble. * I don’t want to give the impression that all I did at Bristol was work and see Veronica. But few other memories come back to me. One that does—one single, distinct event—was the night I witnessed the Severn Bore. The local paper used to print a timetable, indicating where best to catch it and when. But the first occasion I tried, the water didn’t seem to be obeying its instructions. Then, one evening at Minsterworth, a group of us waited on the riverbank until after midnight and were eventually rewarded. For an hour or two we observed the river flowing gently down to the sea as all good rivers do. The moon’s intermittent lighting was assisted by the occasional explorations of a few powerful torches. Then there was a whisper, and a craning of necks, and all thoughts of damp and cold vanished as t...

Saw the film a month ago or so and have been meaning to reread the novel. Get a sense of the literary vs the cinematic. Which could lead to a reviewing of the film. Ad infinitum. * A "condensed" quote re History (good licks throughout the book). I won't try to right the formatting wrong. Sorry, Julian. “History is the lies of the victors,” I replied, a little too quickly. “Yes, I was rather afraid you’d say that. Well, as long as you remember that it is also the self-delusions of the defeated. Simpson?” Colin was more prepared than me. “History is a raw onion sandwich, sir.” “For what reason?” “It just repeats, sir. It burps. We’ve seen it again and again this year. Same old story, same old oscillation between tyranny and rebellion, war and peace, prosperity and impoverishment.” “Rather a lot for a sandwich to contain, wouldn’t you say?” We laughed far more than was required, with an end-of-term hysteria. “Finn?” “ ‘History is that certainty produced at the point ...