The Sound of…
I had a quiet day today in almost every respect. I managed to get something approaching a reasonable sleep last night, my first for a couple of days. I’m not sure what the problem is but it’s more than likely suppressed anxiety. I keep thinking it’s dissipated, but it still lurks.
Apple
In the garden earlier I could hear birds in the trees and hedges, the big cats in the zoo, children playing in a garden somewhere down the street and the sound of a couple of people talking somewhere. The air smelled clean apart from a hint of fox. There was no traffic noise. There was no noise from the airport. I really liked it. I know that sooner or later the world will start up again, but part of me wishes it wouldn’t. I read a couple of things today pondering the world “after” and may write about them tomorrow night.
I watched the last episode of Star Trek : Picard. I was really looking forward to the series when it was announced, and it’s had its moments, but overall I’ve found it unsatisfying. The writing reminds me of Star Trek: TNG, but that was 30 years ago (!) and a lot has happened in TV since. In December 2017 I wrote:
The tenor of my criticisms of a lot of this stuff is that, in a golden age of television, including genre television, too many shows aren’t rising to the challenge and being all they could be. I would expect writers, producers and directors with ambition and talent to look at how genre TV has developed since Babylon 5, through Buffy, and The Wire, and in more recent times through Twin Peaks, Game of Thrones, Jessica Jones, The Deuce and Sense8, and raise their game accordingly…
That remains my view, and I’d add Legion, The Man in the High Castle and Westworld to that list. I hope season 2 of Picard, when it comes along, is substantially better.
Picard shares an actor, Alison Pill, with Devs., episode 5 of which is now available. Devs. continues to impress, delight and beguile. As usual, the online reviewers find it difficult to cope with anything that requires patience and thought.
Metaphor of the day
By spooky coincidence, this Devs. episode meshed perfectly with an article in this week’s New Scientist on quantum theory. New Scientist always has articles on quantum theory and I always do my best to at least get the gist of them, usually without a lot of success. In light of the present circumstances I’ve just taken out an annual subscription to avoid having to go to the shop to buy it. My other magazine subscription is Fortean Times, the new edition of which is waiting to be read.
Spooky walk
On my walk tonight I did something that I haven’t done in nearly 20 years of mobile phone ownership: I dropped my phone and it landed screen down. The screen itself did not shatter, I’m pleased to say, though there are chips, but the fingerprint sensor is no more. I’m discovering just how much I have come to rely on it, and am now going to have to go and find all the passcodes I’ve forgotten for banking apps, etc. More annoyingly, I’m due an upgrade in June and my plan was to stick with this device since it has been working perfectly. Since there is nowhere open to get it fixed, I’m going to have to change it when renewal time comes. A ‘first world problem’ I know, but a nuisance nonetheless.
No cycle today, but my evening walk, complete with spooky streetlights in the mist, was enjoyable, notwithstanding dropping my phone. Down on the main road I couldn’t work out what the sudden noise was until I realised it was 20.00 and there was a nationwide moment of applause for health and care workers. My contribution was to wave at a nurse getting onto a bus. Afterwards I worried that she hadn’t realised what it was and thought I was just some random guy waving at her. So it goes.
Temperature continues to be in my normal range–35.5°
Tonight’s music:
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