Before I went to bed I took half of a small sleeping pill. I’ve always been loath to take a sleeping draught, or powedr, or anything of the sort. Anything that lethe-wise eases you but hasn’t been blessed by the angels of the still. I figure it’s a recipe for auto-bonhamization, or whatever you want to call it. I was assured it was safe and effective, and sure enough, I swiftly drifted off - although that was due to massive and cumulative exhaustion.
To my surprise and delight I found that I was conversing with people inside a large northern European landscape painting about the efficacy of these things, and how they let you just sleep straight through to - well, say, what time is it? Seems like ten. Then I realized I was awake, not inside a painting, and while there were a few people milling about who insisted it was surely 9, I realized out was dead dark outside. I looked at my phone, thinking don’t be four. Don’t be four.
3:16 AM
I cursed and smushed the pillow and closed my eyes and sought to return to the cocoon of unknowingness, and I must have done so. I awoke again and discovered it was now 3:45, and the only thing to do was to find the other half of that damned useless pill and toss it down the hatch. Which I did. The alarm woke with its usual Jetson doorbell, and I felt rested, and refreshed, and set on a new journey: a life of sleeping aid addiction lies ahead now, I’m sure.
I did have a dream that I was being chased by a very large hulking person who I had attempted to shoot in self defense, this being a good idea at the time, but I’d failed, hid the gun, and run away in the back yard, taking shelter under the neighborhood’s house. But the bully found me and was about to do painful things when some workmen showed up and beat him unconscious. We then leaned he was transgender, and everyone was annoyed because now we’d get in worse trouble, somehow.
Well. Up and over for a find breakfast and a silent reading of the Telegraph with Denis, each finding something to lament in the pages. A college in Nottingham has appended trigger warnings to a medieval collection of Canterbury Tales because of “expressions of Christian faith.” You do wonder what people who sought out the texts might have expected, and whether exposure without sufficient warning would have caused the horrors of being shook, or something.
The university explained that the warning was introduced due to the text's depiction of Christianity from a 14th-century perspective and its historical context.
"Even those who are practising Christians will find aspects of the late-medieval worldview... alienating and strange," a spokesperson for the University of Nottingham said in a statement.
In 2017, the University of Glasgow in Scotland admitted it had issued similar warnings to theology students enrolled in the module “Creation to Apocalypse: Introduction to the Bible (Level 1).” The warnings said that a lecture on Jesus and cinema sometimes “contains graphic scenes of the crucifixion."
I don't think it's a matter of "what is wrong with the students" but "what is wrong with the teachers who are afraid of the students."
Took a walk down the High Street. Paused by the abandoned church I showed you last time. I don’t know why I didn’t show you the heads, but there are two heads. There have to be.
Neither seems impressed with the way things have been going.
Given the number of creative types here, I always wonder if this refers to an unproduced script or unsold novel.
Down to the village green. The tourist season is long past but the shops are still open. One sells antiques, with the usual shirts of baleful provenance, stacks of magazines left over when Dad died, and a lot of Star Wars toys left over when Dad died. You think that’s not the stuff left behind by Dads but of course it is.
Let's look at some British version of Hunt & Gather finds. Outside:
The Everyready sign has Indian writing. You wonder if someone nicked it before he was transfered back home.
I love the bike color. I understand he sells a lot of vintage bikes. It does seem to be the thing you could ride around here without afffectation. Or, of course, with lots of affectation.
The typeface, the phone, the art style: very much of a particular time.
Buzby was a yellow (later orange) talking cartoon bird, launched in 1976 as part of a marketing campaign by Post Office Telecommunications, which later became British Telecommunications (BT)
Buzby appeared in a series of television commercials with the catchphrase: "Make someone happy with a phone call".Buzby's voice was provided by Bernard Cribbins, and the character was animated by Charlie Jenkins of Trickfilm Studios, London
The campaign spawned many marketing items, such as toys, badges, a comic strip in TV Comic, and books, and lasted until well into the 1980s. British Telecom produced and sold a "Buzby" wristwatch with Buzby perched on the second hand.
An ancient text:
Fairgrieve and Young wrote a lot of these, he says with utter authority, based on one google search. Its origin:
That got a lot of play. Or maybe it came pre-scorched and scoured.
I wanted to buy some “vintage” drink coasters (mostly 90s, alas, although I suppose that’s vintage now) but the owner wasn’t around. I’ll be back, but if they go for more than 50p, forget it. On the way back I watched some bees work the ivy.
A few colorful spots here and there. It’s definitely fall, though. Damp and cool.
On the way back I decided to listen to Smile after all, as well as Raskin’s Laura, which seemed apt for a day like today. Cool, windy, overcast, but so much leftover beauty.
The evening shot:
And to bed, perhance to wake at 4:01 and pill-pop.
Tomorrow: droning on and on. (There is an update today. Sorry about yesterday.)
