Here's our Thalictrum, which Dave named Theo. Theo is blooming now, sending out clouds of tiny pink flowers. He seems a bit late this year, maybe because of the dry summer. We tried to keep him watered but he may not have been entirely happy. He seems healthy enough.
There has been no progress on the broken bench on Finchley Road. I first blogged it in May, it gained its warning cones not much later, and then some wag declared it postmodern art. But it's still there, looking worse and worse. It's stuff like this that convinces people that Britain doesn't function well anymore. I'm not sure why the council (or whoever is responsible, and maybe that's the problem -- maybe no one is) couldn't remove it, if not replace it, within the past four or five months. It must be on someone's radar because they put those cones out there. Why the foot-dragging?
I've been meaning to blog this picture for a while, mostly because it cracks me up. That hair! Yes, that's me in the early 1980s, at the age of 15 or so, playing video games at my dad's house. We had an Atari game system (which you can see on the cabinet behind me) that loaded games using a cassette player. It was cutting edge at the time! We played Space Invaders, Missile Command, Asteroids and other games on that console, which plugged into a color TV monitor (out of the frame at left).
I've been thinking about this picture, and my not-very-extensive gaming history in general, because of the revelations about Charlie Kirk's shooter and the fact that the guy apparently spent vast amounts of time online. I hear about young people nowadays who spend almost all their waking hours playing video games or plugged into some device. (As Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said, "Go outside and touch grass.")
I remember that I could only play on that Atari for a couple of hours before I'd start to feel yucky. I just had to get up and move around after a while. Maybe it's because the ergonomics of gaming were not as advanced back then, and I could only spend so long sitting cross-legged on the floor. Kids nowadays have fancy desk chairs. But I like to think I also had a built-in "off switch" that helped me know when I'd had enough. Some people don't have that.
I doubt kids sit cross legged on the floor at home these days when gaming. I imagine they will be less agile as they get older due to the lack of movement in general! I wish we could all tear ourselves away from modern technology, even if it's only one day a week.
ReplyDeleteToo many people don't have any kind of off switch at all. You had great hair! I'm useless at video games, by the time I work out what to do it's too late, the game is over and I lost. My oldest grandson was the genius with those and had to be banned from playing at age ten because his A+ grades were falling.
ReplyDeleteI think some games become addictive and it's hard to tear yourself away from them. Like blogging!
ReplyDeleteMost people, especially kids but not exclusively, don’t have that on/off switch. You’re fortunate. You were also fortunate to have all that hair at one time. But, wow, the style! The situation with the bench speaks volumes for city and neighborhood maintenance and pride.
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