Grey, overcast skies in the later afternoon yesterday...

And into the evening: I was hoping for a thunderstorm but it wasn't to be. The dryness and the heat have combined to aggravate my allergies-- I could feel my sinuses expanding, slowly expanding, when I rose at 0300, but now, having just finished an episode of sneezing, while the sinuses are slightly relieved my throat is beginning to itch, presumably because all the obnoxious little molecules of Allergy have been shaken up in there. Venus is a dull yellow this morning.

 

 

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A recent high count: I read four (!) articles in the Times earlier. One of them I skimmed, it belonging to the category of 'man bites dog story': the Times editorialists admitting that the Demo Convention had 'low' points. Mostly it was "there was nothing truly cringeworthy or embarrassing" but Amy Klobuchar and John Kasich probably ought not to hope for too much adulation from the editors of the 'newspaper of record' in future. Two were science or at any rate 'science', fairly straightforward pieces about the measurement of a foot and a prehistoric reptile with a very long neck (which had been on the site since the 12th). 

There is a new 'Bill and Ted' movie eventually; an edited conversation between Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter was the fourth piece. The brief exchange toward the end, about friendship between men, was of interest. 

 

There is a recital from Riga Cathedral in an hour or so, featuring Messiaen's Apparition de l'Eglise eternelle performed by Iveta Apkalna. 

 

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Post Vesperas. Am watching an episode of Midsomer Murders; it is the first season with the 'fake' Chief Inspector Barnaby and he and the locals are still warming up to each other. In the course of a telephone conversation about police records etc, Dr Bullard intimated that Barnaby was being 'shirty', which accusation Barnaby denied of course.

Next scene. Dr Bullard has escorted Barnaby to the site where the needed records might be; when he seems not to be following Barnaby into the old building, Barnaby enquires if he isn't coming along. 'Oh, I can't go in there: too much dust'. 

Barnaby figuratively rolls his eyes, whereupon Dr Bullard pulls a face mask out of his coat pocket and offers it to him: 'You may want to wear this'. 'Why can't you wear one?' As he turns to return to his automobile, Dr Bullard responds, 'Oh, they don't do any good.' 

That struck me as amusing, in the current circumstances. 

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