In The Background

Did you know that there are people who need to have the tv series Friends being screened in the background so they can lull themselves to sleep? It seems that the show has been a mainstay of the streaming service Netflix for several years, but now they're dropping their screening, and there's been an outcry from fans who desperately need the comforting familiarity of the many episodes to drop off to. According to the article I was reading about all this, it's the predictability of the rhythms of it all that do the job for these folk, sending them happily to the land of nod. I certainly didn't know this, or suspect anything like it, until I read about the phenomenon today, and I don't think the new information has in any way enhanced my life

Indeed, the way in which I found it out, idly scanning the news just to fill in time, frankly, is strangely reminiscent of what these viewers, or, rather, half-viewers are doing. I'm feeling acutely guilty at the moment at just how little of real value I've accomplished today. I've read hardly anything of genuine value, requiring effort and attention. Just trivial stuff off the phone, with me sometimes scrolling pointless comments on the pointless stories simply to fill in time, it being too much trouble to extend myself further.

So instead of feeling complacently superior to those who employ an old favourite comedy as a narcotic, I'm worrying that I'm only too ready to embrace my own version of brain-rotting substances at the first opportunity. 

Keeping Still

Nephew Ashraf popped round today to help us make some sense of the problems we're having with the electrics of the household. Not quite solved everything yet, but achieved a reasonably steady state. Stayed on the hill; a deliberately quiet, unadventurous day was in order and we've been enjoying it.

On The Move

18.06

A grey day. A lazy day. A sleepy day. A snuggling day. Neat descriptions from The Missus. And we’re on the road. So far, so good. Now supping tea at Ayer Keroh.

20.15

Now munching dinner on the hill after one of the easiest passages north we’ve ever experienced. Talk about smooth-sailing!

22.23

Now installed in Maison KL with most things working. Will be able to stop moving soon!

22.45

Spoke far too soon. Sudden blackout meant we needed to deal with dicey things going on in the main fuse-box. Now celebrating the equivocal joys of home-ownership as things remain dicey. But grateful for a roof over our heads.

Covering Up

Spoiler alert: more first world moaning ahead.

I don't know about you, but I'm feeling increasingly out of sorts with the barrage of advertising I encounter online. Somebody somewhere seems to think I need to subscribe to a course in tai chi for the elderly and interrupts every video I'm watching to tell me so. I'm never going to subscribe to any such course, largely on account of the fact I find the ads so irritating. And weirdly patronising. As are the ads for the six month course in AI that I'll never get involved in.

And why is that every story in the Graun online gets covered up with ads as I'm reading along, often meaning I lose track of where I'm up to? I'm used to the idea of reading as a reasonably soothing activity. Now the online version of the activity is usually mildly unsettling and occasionally feels impossibly fragmented.

The irony of it all is I never buy anything advertised, so if I'm being tracked by the surveillance capitalism they talk about, why don't the capitalists give up on me as a sad loss? I won't mind at all.