This and that

Living in the future: friends phoned from a log cabin in the middle of the South African veldt, to ask if Nemesis was a character from Greek myth.

Living in the past: there is still no cure for the common cold. I feel dreadful.

"One could have had such wonderful conversations."

I've just been listening to a radio programme about the Marquis de Sade ("Great Lives", on BBC 7: available on iPlayer, for those who have access). Which might have carried more weight in my mind if the academic defending him didn't keep reminding me ineluctably of Margaret Rutherford in Passport to Pimlico...