Little Rocking Chair

Day 96 I don't usually post the bigger size pics but you wouldn't see this one at its best otherwise. My Dad made this for the grandkid-to-be when he/she's about two years old:



Isn't it awesome? The runners can be removed so it can serve as an ordinary chair. It's such lovely wood, the grain shows up really well. I can picture the scene already: The London Olympics is on TV, the family gathered on the sofa & chairs at my sister's place, kidlet on the rocking chair to the side of everyone, rocking back & forth slowly, then my mother or my sister telling kidlet to PLEASE STOP ROCKING LIKE THAT because it keeps catching the corner of their eye & it's annoying. Kidlet smiles & carries on rocking because he/she takes after their mother who did annoying stuff like that as a small child (& still does).

In Other News

A separate post for everything else. Stuff in the news.

The General Election has been announced for 6 May. So a whole month of suffering all the right-wing loons who crawl out of the woodwork (no web link because it's all over the place) :(

Corin Redgrave dies at age 70 I know he'd been ill in recent years, but :( And Four Weddings And A Funeral was only on TV on Sunday. The only other thing I know him from is the BBC's Persuasion from the mid-1990s, he played Sir Walter Elliot as a totally unspeakable upper-class arse. If you haven't seen this, I do recommend it very highly - also stars Amanda Root, Ciaran Hinds, Simon Russell Beale, Susan Fleetwood and Sophie Thompson.

Dawn French and Lenny Henry split after 25 years of marriage Double :(

Discovery is in orbit and things are progressing well, but the Ku band has packed in completely - won't send or receive, so no onboard coverage on NASA TV. They're going to record the tile survey and edit/compress it in Windows Movie Maker 7 and then send it down from the ISS after docking & hatch open, apparently (cue discussion of PC vs Mac and Windows in general from space tweeps). There's alternatives and/or workarounds they can use for docking without Ku, I guess that's what the training's for. But NASA TV are replaying highlights of the crew's training, or stuff from previous missions in the absence of Flight Day Highlights. It feels like when it keeps raining at Wimbledon and they show you a 'classic' match from 1980.

There are now 49308493840328 potholes on my journey to/from work, more than there was immediately after the freezing weather had left its mark. I think the plan is to wait until the rest of the road is worn down to the level of the potholes and then claim they're "fixed".