Week 123: plonk(er)
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Now the maxinated can enter France without proof of a negative test result. Itās topsy-turvily much harder to re-enter the (yet more disease-ridden) UK, so thereās a risk of catching the virus and being stranded abroad, but I guess I can privilegedly cope with that if it happens.
I have ordered the tests needed for returning and having returned, and man the enterprising startupsā hastily developed webistes are shonky. (Iāve used a couple, as if to spread the risk of one being dodgy.) Makes you think.
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Itās been humid, and has anyone noticed itās tricky to tell if you have a fever or itās just really humid? Well, I think itās just really humid.
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Some work. Among other things (well, of course among other things) going through and using the nicer
pathlib
where previously Iād usedos.path
, which is a bit pointless but I can think of more pointless ways to pass the time. It turns out that some parts of the Python ecosystem break if you use aPath
in place of astr
, so itās not that simple a change. -
In weeknoteses past, Iād admitted to enjoying the radio broadcasts of an newspaper columnist (who has really disgraced himself in the last fortnight). Later (still more than a year ago) Iād concluded, partly from the plummy voiced company the guy keeps, that heās actually a berk and I resolved to read and listen to better people. And I was delighted to stop my subscription to the newspaper of record earlier this year, without even having to speak on a telephone (because itās not like the customer retentions department is responsible for the editorial hatefulness). So hooray for me, is that growth?
Which reminds me I enjoyed Jeremy Clarksholeās farming series, notwithstanding a bit where he blames a poor crop of oilseed rape on not being allowed to sicken bees, and some things that went unsaid about the negative externalities of sheep farming. Which is not a shock to me ā Iām entertained by lots of his and his colleaguesā work ā we can contain multitudes. I think the wrinkled motormouth is a textbook case of āwe are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.ā
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āHey guys I was today years old when I learned thatā¦ā No, sorry, but yesterday I read something about the transport of grapepickers in the 70s, which made me wonder where the āplonkā word (for cheap wine) comes from, and I learnt itās probably an alteration of ā[vin] blancā (but who knows?).