Laptop and other stuff

We’ve had a week of lovely sunny days but
it’s been bitterly cold, here in the East
Midlands. Up North they’ve had a lot of snow,
but I haven’t seen any news reports about it
on the TV.
I’ve been into town most days, partly to get
out of the house and get some exercise, but
also to do some shopping and go to a few U3A
groups.
The U3A philosophy meeting last Tuesday was
a rambling discussion, all about personality/
existence and whether or not we thought we
had a soul – a ongoing existence after death.
The guy presenting this subject thought it
was comforting for a lot of people to believe
they had a soul, but he didn’t really believe
in this – and neither do I.
Do animals have souls? Our two cats are very
intelligent, and can experience pain and
pleasure. And what about other primates, to
whom we’re related?
This weekend we’re hosting family get-
togethers, as we often do. Mrs C made a very
nice butter bean (and kidney bean) casserole
yesterday, flavoured with all sorts of nice
things (from one of the Cranks cookbooks), and
today we’re having a gorgeous fish pie (Jamie
Oliver’s) – I’ve been doing all the veg
preparation (and most of the shopping) for
both meals.

Mrs C is a member of the Wine Society, and
we’re slowly drinking our way through a box
of its best Chilean red and white wines. We
started a delicious Merlot yesterday. A
couple of days ago I drank 500ml of one of my
old home-brewed beers – “Glen Brew” was the
name of the kit – and ended up with a bad
hangover the next day. I poured the remaining
3 bottles of this brew down the sink –
revolting stuff.

A friend called Ron, who is a computer boffin,
helped me set up a wireless laptop to the
internet in the past 2 days. “Easy one button
to push set-up” it said on the router box – it
took Ron over 3 hours to set it all up
(together with our old Windows 98 computer,
inside which Ron put in a new Ethernet
connection). I was amazed by his technical
ability – I would have spent hours and hours
on it if I hadn’t had any help. NTL weren’t
of any help – they don’t “support” setting up
wireless connections, so you have to get an
expert in to set it up.
So today I’ve spent some time putting on a
range of email and website addresses (plus
some Desktop shortcuts) on the laptop for
Mrs C, including some radio stations for a
bit of fun – it all works beautifully, and
I’m very impressed.
We watched a video of “Gideon’s Daughter”
last night – Bill Nighy in his typical role
of a distant upper class bloke, trying to
relate to daughter and make amends for his
past actions. Brilliant acting from all the
cast and a brilliant production. We're
planning to get out to the cinema tomorrow,
to see "Hidden" at "The Screen Room", which
claims to be the country's smallest cinema.
(PS. We went to see "Hidden" on 9 March)