While You Were Sleeping

In 1972 Geoffrey Hoyle wrote a children’s book titled ‘2010: Living in the Future’. In it he describes how we would all be wearing jumpsuits and work a three-day week by now.

According to the BBC, Hoyle’s book became somewhat of a hit lately and was even reprinted. They also published a list of famous prediction hits:

• Arthur C Clarke: Network of geostationary communications satellites
• HG Wells: Nuclear weapons, world wars, rise of air power
• George Orwell: Monitoring of population as standard

— From London.

A not very appetizing image painted by The Economist:

“Britons bought more than 7m cookbooks in 2009. They watch thousands of hours of cookery shows on television. (…) It is hard to know how much actual cooking follows. In 2009, the British also spent some $13.6 billion on chilled ready meals. The figures conjure up sad visions of a nation slumped collectively on the sofa, watching cookery shows while forking supermarket curry mouthwards from a microwave tray.”

You go, Jamie Oliver!

— From London.

This year I’d like:

1. the move to do itself;
2. a job I love;
3. full legal status in the US;
4. the ability to fly home whenever the hell I want;
5. for Jason to graduate;
6. an African Grey parrot.

Go on. We haven’t got all day.

— From SF. 

“It is a minor thing in a major life, but one word I will always associate with Richard Holbrooke, who died on Monday, is slivovitz. That is the name of a plum brandy, glasses of which, in press dispatches from the Balkans in the nineties, always seemed to be being slammed down on tables during contentious negotiations in field tents with war criminals.” (Amy Davidson of The New Yorker as part of a collection of short tributes to Holbrooke.)

I have fond memories of my late grandfather drinking slibovitz (he pronounced it with a ‘b’ not a ‘v’) on most Friday evenings after dinner. He would get out a bottle and pour himself a shot and it would have this sweet alcoholic smell. 

— From London.