Weather Report

Weather report (as in the weather)

Probably asked this before. Before you get the forecast, you get the last few hours, then what the weather is doing now. Under some circumstances I can understand the retrospective. If there's been hurricane winds during the night, people might be waking up wondering why their chimney is on their car, or why they've woken up with their bed down on the allotments. Or if there's been severe weather and they're thinking: “don't remember there being a river outside the bedroom window”, or “is that the postie with snow-shoes on?”, or “were we always this near the cliff edge?”. If it's just that there's been light drizzle, do we all really need to share that?

The 'what we've got now' may be useful, to anyone incarcerated, working in a basement plantroom, or otherwise unable to access a window. Otherwise, there's a simple choice for the: 'what's the weather now?' question. Window or TV screen. The window is more likely to be up to date, and locally accurate.

So the question is this: what, exactly, is the point of dragging out the forecast with the post-cast and the present-cast bits?

Weather Report (the band)

I often forget just how much I like Weather Report, and just how good they were. Of all the fusion jazz bands, they were the one most likely to hit you with moments of sublime beauty, with surprises, with a stunning range of capabilities. Overstocked with musicians that composed as well as performed to virtuoso standards.

So today I've listened to the two self-titled (eponymous if you want to go straight to pseud's corner without passing Go) albums. There first from the dark and ancient seventies, and the second from the mid-eighties. I've also tested the new kitchen stereo's ability to play MP3 CD's. It works. One CD to last almost all day if you need to leave it going and get on with something.

Car trouble

Turned left. Boingggg. Judder. Turned right. Same thing. I've had a broken spring. Apparently I was lucky that it didn't puncture the inner wall of the tyre. Glass half full they are, at the garage. Luckily, they could fit it in at short notice. Lucky for them, broken springs cost a fortune to replace. At least on my car they do.

They're very nice at the garage, but they do this soften the big bill blow thing. “Take a seat, and we'll be in in a mo. Talk you through what we did.” I'm sure it's a good way of keeping most of their punters happy. Letting them know that, actually, they didn't think of a number, treble it, then add the parts and the VAT. I don't want that, though. By all means give me the idiot's guide walkthrough, and don't underestimate the lowness of the idiot-level I can attain, but any more than that and my eyes glaze over. The car's had to be dropped down there. It's needed picking up. I've had to reorganise my day, and therefore my week and therefore a good part of next week. All I want to do is get out of there. With as much of my sanity and bank balance as I can reasonably expect to hold onto.

With my car, sanity-wise, that's not so very much. I changed the headlight bulbs. “It can't be this difficult” I thought. How many mechanically inept old blokes does it take to change two headlight bulbs. I had a mirror to see what I was doing and got my hand caught. Twice. “I'll look it up on line” I thought, “it really can't be this difficult.” Google Ford Focus change headlight bulb. Even the most bullish say allow an hour to do both and be patient, many say, forget it, take it to the garage. To change lightbulbs.