HOORAY! Another day off 'skool'!

Er, well, not 'skool' exactly but hospital.  As I told you earlier, Wednesday was a horror story when I awoke to see a whole half inch of snow covering everything which - natch! - resulted in the entire country grinding to a halt.  Thus, despite my valiant efforts to reach Taunton I only made it as far as Yeovil, normally only 20 minutes away, where I became stuck for an hour before returning home.  So, not really a day off but today I opened the curtains to see a whole inch and a half of that filthy white stuff, whilst the BBC warned me on my radio that the end of the world is nigh.  Good, I thought, and instantly returned to bed!  Fortunately, my 'death ray' treatment appears not to be too time critical and although I am supposed to be 'zapped' every day, Monday to Friday, it doesn't seem to matter if I miss the odd day.  So, on my 'day off', I was able to have a leisurely breakfast and read the Daily Mail which for once was quite interesting, especially the book reviews.

The first one to take my attention was a review of what The Mail calls its "Book of the Week", a history of The (Royal) National Theatre  - I always add in the word "Royal" to their title because that is its proper title even if all those left-wing 'luvvies' hate it and try to hide it.  Mind you, that never stops them racing to the Palace if they're up for a 'gong'!  Even so, if you are a RNT fan, as I am on a selective basis, then this is full of good gossip.  I was rather taken with the semi-comical/semi-tragical story of Daniel Day-Lewis playing Hamlet and walking off stage in Act I because he thought the 'ghost of Hamlet's father' was the actual ghost of his father, the poet Cecil Day-Lewis!  He never returned and his understudy, Ian Charleson, had to take over on the spot!  Alas, the tragedy continued because Charleson died of AIDS eight weeks after the run ended. Heh! Theatre, you couldn't make it up!

More uplifting, in all senses of the word, is a book on the subject of the Apollo moon missions.  I still remain convinced that those missions to the moon are the very greatest pinnacle of human enterprise.  To a lad brought up in the world of piston engine aircraft and growing into another world of jet engines and then into the space age, it was all quite incredible!  According to this review, however, the author does not forget to include the human, and humorous, element of this great adventure:

Gus Grissom […] was initially rejected by Nasa because he suffered from hayfever. He calmly pointed out that, as far as he was aware, there wasn’t any pollen in space. So they let him in.

Oh dear, another two books I must buy.  Does anyone know just how many books you can squeeze into a Kindle?

 

 

Comments

[Stephen Bayliss]

I have about 800 books on my kindle but since you can archive them in Amazon's cloud and then reload them in seconds, the answer is probably thousands. I archive them in collections (folders) by genre once I've read them

[David Duff]

Thank you, Stephen, I never knew any of that but when I mention it to 'SoD' he will instantly snap that he told me all that ages ago! Bloody kids!

[Whitewall]

Aren't snow falls supposed to be a thing of the past?

[Bob]

Congrats, David. Considering your attitude toward climate science I'm relieved you don't think the moon landings were faked in a Hollywood studio.

[JK]

Bob?

You retired from NASA i believe you've hinted? Engineered satellites and other sorts of kit to study stuff?

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2361/study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses/

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2836/antarcticas-contribution-to-sea-level-rise-was-mitigated-by-snowfall/

One last question Bob - Who'd you allow to take over after you engineered such expensive and, presumably, technologically athletic climate studying instruments now orbiting?

[Glesga]

Whitewall, is global warming supposed to prevent snowfall?

[Whitewall]

Glasga, that was the impression I got!