lucius septimius 3/29/2020 7:24:05 AM

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Occasional Reader 3/29/2020 7:25:55 AM

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Good morning.

Police in Derbyshire, UK use drones to surveil people who are out for long walks:

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/03/1984-comes-to-britain.php

“Not essential”, they say.

Because for some reason, it’s better from an epidemiology perspective for you to take your one permitted daily walk by going around the block and running into lots of your neighbors, as opposed to driving out to the equivalent of a national park and walking in the wilds without anyone else around you. Madness.

Occasional Reader 3/29/2020 7:30:44 AM

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In #1 lucius septimius said: I've noticed my desire for food has gone down over the past week.  I wonder why.

Less exercise?

buzzsawmonkey 3/29/2020 8:04:30 AM

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Note to Kosh:  Re the Python "Tomkinson's Schooldays," two more thoughts.  The "school bully" was closely modeled on the head prefect in the Malcolm McDowell film "If...", and the fumbling introduction is probably a riff on the last scene in "Tom Brown's Schooldays," wherein Tom Brown hears that his old headmaster, Arnold of Rugby, is dead, and he goes, grief-stricken, to the old school to pray in the chapel.

Side-note: Having read "Tom Brown," Kipling's "Stalky & Co.," Arthur Calder-Marshall's "The Fair to Middling," and any number of Billy Bunter stories, I found myself picking out various lines and sections in the "Harry Potter" books where Rowling had clearly cribbed from these earlier works.  For those unfamiliar with "The Fair to Middling," Arthur Calder-Marshall was one of the British intellectuals who went Catholic, not Communist, and the book details the various adventures of students from a school for "special" orphans, and their masters, when they are permitted to go to a nearby fair.  A number of instances of temptation, resisted or not, and/or retribution for their past behaviors, occur; think of it as an overtly-religious amalgam of "Harry Potter" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

lucius septimius 3/29/2020 8:20:16 AM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 3:

Not really -- little change in that department.  I did have an awful bout of hiccups last night -- started around 3 AM and kept me awake until 5.  They were so bad my chest hurts today.

doppelganglander 3/29/2020 8:44:14 AM

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Reply to lucius septimius in 5:

The pollen count is 8918 today, the second highest ever recorded in Atlanta. Could allergies be suppressing your appetite?

I've become very interested in making food but not in eating it. Lots of stuff in the freezer. My son is going so stir crazy, he made his own tortillas. 

lucius septimius 3/29/2020 9:04:24 AM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 4:

Have you ever read Tom Brown at Oxford?  I have a copy somewhere that I was given when I was taking my doctoral exams.

buzzsawmonkey 3/29/2020 9:12:00 AM

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In #7 lucius septimius said: Have you ever read Tom Brown at Oxford?  I have a copy somewhere that I was given when I was taking my doctoral exams.

Never even seen a copy.  Now that you mention it, I may have heard of it dimly, but long after my major period of school-story reading.  Have you read it?  Is it good?

buzzsawmonkey 3/29/2020 9:21:34 AM

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Regarding the McDowell film "If...", at the time it came out in 1969, the era of social upheaval, everyone was taking the title to obliquely mean "this could happen here," or something of the sort---when actually it was a snark at Kipling's famous poem.  The movie is a '60s-violent remake of Jean Vigo's 1933 film "Zero de Conduite" ("Zero for Conduct").  

By the way, the sadistic Head Boy/senior prefect in "If...", who is clearly sexually abusing the younger boys, is named "Rowntree," which is the name of an English manufacturer of cheap candy whose most well-known confections are "Fruit Gums."  I strongly suspect the name was chosen with intention.

lucius septimius 3/29/2020 9:24:54 AM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 8:

As with most sequels it is not as well known nor as good.  But it has some very good scenes.  Much of it deals with the transition from Rugby and encountering people from a much wider range of social backgrounds.  There is a wonderful scene where he is visiting his best friend during summer break.  The fellow was studying for his exams and had papered the walls of his rooms with maps of ancient Greece and Rome.  In each map were pins with wax heads of different colors representing the great statesmen of antiquity.  He would test himself by rearranging the pins for any given date.  Tom makes a signal error mistaking the pin representing Niceas for the "purple foppish pin" that is Alcibiades.  His friend scolds him by saying "You just up from Rugby and don't know your Thucydides better than that?"

buzzsawmonkey 3/29/2020 9:27:51 AM

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Reply to lucius septimius in 10:

It sounds like a fun read, and it might get me to crack open "Schooldays" again; I've still got it, but haven't really looked at it in a while.

Kosh's Shadow 3/29/2020 11:22:36 AM

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Read Tom Brown's Schooldays a long time ago, but I knew there were more stories of that genre.

I know of If... and that it was a remake, but I haven't seen it, and I had forgotten about it.

And the school bully was way too polite and classy compared with the one I knew.

buzzsawmonkey 3/29/2020 12:31:54 PM

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Reply to lucius septimius in 10: Reply to Kosh's Shadow in 12:

There are two "school-story" books that are constantly mentioned, with derision, by the protagonists in Kipling's "Stalky & Co."; "Eric, or Little By Little," and "St. Winifred's, or, the World of School."  

Never seen, let alone read, either of them, but it would probably be interesting.

lucius septimius 3/29/2020 2:23:18 PM

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Occasional Reader 3/29/2020 3:28:30 PM

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In #14 lucius septimius said: Pollen count is 8918.

That’s parts per million?!  Holy effing effety eff.   DC Is thought of as having a lot of pollen; and we are at 128.

lucius septimius 3/29/2020 3:30:16 PM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 15:

It's the second highest ever recorded her in Chambodia.  We get it bad every spring.  Everything is yellow.

Kosh's Shadow 3/29/2020 3:53:03 PM

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In #16 lucius septimius said: It's the second highest ever recorded her in Chambodia.

The coughing fields

buzzsawmonkey 3/29/2020 4:01:56 PM

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In #14 lucius septimius said: Pollen count is 8918. 

Time to dance the pollen-aise!

doppelganglander 3/29/2020 4:14:36 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 18:

You can tell who's observing quarantine in my parking lot by checking out how much pollen they have on their car.

buzzsawmonkey 3/29/2020 4:32:13 PM

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Kosh's Shadow 3/29/2020 4:51:16 PM

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Heard of a van that is loaded with bodies
Packed up and read to go
Heard of some grave sites, in the middle of nowhere
A place where nobody goes

The sound of coughing, the social distance
I’m getting used to it now

Live in under quarantine, live all alone
I cant go out on the town

Can’t go to party, can’t go to disco
Can’t go fooling around
Can’t go dancing or lovey dovey

Cause that’s not allowed