Days 251 to 275

During these twenty-five days:

1. I got my haircut.

2. Brought some DVDs, The Mummy (much better than you would think from what the critics have said), Speed (almost as good as Die Hard), Robocop boxset (I’ve only watched Robocop 1 and 2, but not 3 as I’ve heard it’s not very good) and The Girl With The Gifts (which I haven’t watched yet), Eat Locals (written by Danny King and as good as his novels, with a great cast and director) and New Frontier (a great superhero movie) and watched T2:Trainspotting (which is pretty good, not as good as Trainspotting, but a worthy sequel).

3. Brought some CDs, Rest Assured’s Treat Infamy (a trancey house track that uses the same sample as The Verve’s Bittersweet Sympathy), John Carpenter: Anthology 74-98 LP (some great covers of the Maestros film soundtracks), Sizzla’s Rain Showers EP (a great reggae track with some great remixes), The Ganja Kru’s Super Sharp Shooter EP (with DJ Zinc’s epic Super Sharp Shooter track), The Caretaker’s Everywhere at the end of time (Stage 1,2 and 3), Headrillaz’ Return Of The Pistachio Rockers EP, the Jungle Brothers’ Because I Got It Like That EP (remixed for the big beat era), Guns N Roses Use Your Illusion 1 and 2 (a mixed bag ranging from duff to ok to epic rock and roll songs), the Wu-Tang Clan’s Saga Continues (which is so-so), Playgroup’s Unreleased Vol 2 (some great post punk disco tracks) and a compilation of Erol Alkan remixes (which also has some great post punk disco tracks).

And I listened to the Brian Jonestown Massacre singles collection (which covers all kinds of rock n roll genres) and Aufheben LP (a maturing of the BJMs indie, rock ‘n’ roll, shoegrazery and folky sound), the Spacetalk Records compilations Crown Ruler Sound and Beauty: A Journey Through Jeremy Underground's Collection, which have some great Balearic tracks (i.e. these comps cover all kinda genres, from  Jazz to Reggae to Latin to Funk to Soul to Folk to Disco to World, & Country), PP Arnold’s new LP, The Turning Tide (really nice soul music), John Carpenter’s II LP (like the first album there’s some nice tracks, but some are a tad too soundtracky), the Rolling Stones Live Licks LP (there’s some nice versions of Stones standards, but everything sounds a bit to polished), Beck’s first three LPs (there’s some good tracks, which tend to have been the singles, but lots of duff tracks), Guns N Roses Lies LP (which has some nice tracks, but also has the dodgy/racist ‘One In A Million’) and Soft Cell’s ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’ LP and ‘The Twelve Inch Singles’ compilation (which show that Soft Cell have got some great tracks which aren’t Tainted Love, but also have some bad tracks).

4. There were 4 New Comic Book Days:

and I actually read some of the excellent comics I brought:

including Goro #1, which introduces us to various family members, whose patriarch is in a coma. While it’s not clear where the story is going, it’s clear that this isn’t your normal family:

5. I saw Blade Runner 2049, which has an ok story, but looks really great, and Thor: Ragnarok, which is great and could be the best Marvel movie yet.

6. I had my ENT appointment but postponed till next month and saw my GP to discuss my various blood pressure tests, where I was kinda given the all clear. My blood pressure is high, but not in the danger zone, so I just need to have semi-regular blood pressure monitoring (basically each time I go back to my GP) and just get fitter and eat a healthy diet.

7. I watched Mindhunter Season One, a great series, which is kinda like David Fincher has taken his Zodiac film and expanded it to cover all serial killers and the FBI agents trying to understand them and to use this understand to catch serial killers, and Stranger Things 2 on Netflix, which is as good as season one and further develops the characters. The only bad point is that the two main new characters Max and her step-brother Billy aren’t really developed.

8. Brought a couple more of the 2000AD partwork and Sara Pascoe’s book:

9. Read ‘Turn Up The Strobe’, which is pretty good at covering the music that Bill and Jimmy made, but where it lets me down is that it doesn’t cover any of the music they made after the KLF ended (such as the 2K ‘Fuck the Millennium’ single and the One World Orchestra ‘The Magnificent’ track from the Help album), ‘Slayers and Vampires’, which is a nice oral history of the Buffy and Angel TV shows, although some bits do read a bit “oddly” in light of the allegations/revelations about Joss Whedon and what he got up to on set/with people working on his shows, and the Big Issue edited by Armando Iannucci, which included a hilarious discussion between Alan Partridge and Malcom Tucker on Brexit.