Gregory Peck died today aged 87.
I didn’t sleep well. Kept waking up for some reason. At some stage Mirinda went down to sedate the dogs with anti-stress stuff and bar the doggie door but I wasn’t aware of them barking. Woke up hourly from 3am and eventually gave up and went downstairs at 5am.
Another gorgeous morning. No clouds, much sun. Pollen index is expected to reach 8 today! That is very high. Certainly glad I’m not allergic as I walk through grasses covered in pollen, that’s up to my neck. I set off clouds of airborne spores everytime I brush passed.
Nicole’s plumber didn’t finish yesterday so she worked from home again, today. She rang me from the beach during a ‘break’ and held the phone up so I could hear the ocean. I claimed she was holding a conch shell up to phone because that’s what it sounded like.
Stevie came in with the mother of all hangovers. He didn’t get home until 2am, “…pissed stupid.” He didn’t actually get into work till after 10 so he did manage seven hours of sleep at least. Light weight. Still, he looked awful. It augurs well for our snooker night next week.
Have finally finished the politics and religion section in Daily Like in Ancient Rome. What a drudge, that was. A few times I was tempted to give up and skip it but, after all is said and done, I’m glad I persevered.
Interestingly, the author sees the Roman change to Christianity as its greatest step. She spends a lot of time stating how lost they were, going from their own gods and beliefs to Oriental religions and, finally ‘found themselves’ in the Christian faith. This brought them a harmony, apparently.
Interesting to note how much of the Old Testament matches ancient myths and borrows carte blanche from them. It seems to me that the worship of one god who looked after everything and his son, who took it upon himself to take everyone’s sins on himself, just made it a lot easier. I mean, what’s going to make more sense: Having different sacrifices to different gods for different things or the simple act of muttering prayers to one guy.
If the timeline is advanced at bit (and not that far) we find the same old corruption sneaking in – buying your way into heaven is little different to sacrificing a better calf in order to please Jupiter, surely. Granted, it united a lot of people under one single religion, but I still think that was for expediencies sake rather than any sort of true belief. And, if I really think about it, can it really be a true belief if it’s ordered by the State?
Okay, call me cynic…I don’t care!
And Moslems are no different. And if only the Jews would say “Yeah, right, whatever.” The Middle East would be a lot healthier.
Something I noticed today is how simple US terminology has become under Bush: weapons of mass destruction, roadmap to peace, etc. It’s as if it has to be ‘real easy’ for Bush to understand. Or is it a case of ‘dumbing down’ the world? It’s a shame that with the richness of language and the possibilities of glorious turns of phrase, we get lumbered with these simplistic ones.
Had a nice and easy afternoon, testing a couple of BBC sites.
Being a gloriously sunny Friday, South West Trains were in a mess. To be fair, a train was vandalised at Clapham Junction which meant we all suffered further down the line. My train was 15 minutes late.
