Days 1038 - 1044

Aka Monday 2^nd December 2019 - Sunday 8^th December 2019

This week I finished reading ‘Frozen Hell’, which is the first completed draft of ‘Who Goes There?’. It mostly differs in having an additional opening three chapters, set at the UFO crash site and setting out how The Thing was dug up and transported back to the base. While it fleshes out some of the characters a bit more it doesn’t add much to the overall story and you can see why these chapters were removed. Without them the story becomes much tighter and claustrophobic, making ‘Who Goes There?’ a classic. But as a big, big fan of The Thing it’s great to read this first draft and to see more of the characters and spend a little more time in that world…

…I also started, and finished, reading the ‘The List’, a novella set in the ‘Slough House’ universe and a nice tight story with plenty of spyish twists and plans on top of plans, with a nice twist/double-cross at the end. Looking forward to jumping back into the ‘Slough House’ universe proper with ‘Real Tigers’ (after finishing ‘The Wichita Lineman’, a biography of the song, and ‘Keep Music Evil’, a biography of Anton Newcombe and The Brian Jonestown Massacre, and all the comics and magazines and newspapers on top of those!) and reading 'The Drop', which is set later on in the series…

…I also picked up these New Comic Book Day beauties:

…and I watched ‘I Am Not A Serial Killer’, which is a nice indie film about an odd kid who suspects his neighbour of being a serial killer/murder, but it’s not as clear cut as that, especially as our narrator has mental health issues and thinks that he might have a tendency towards serial killing himself. Aside from the “flash” of the serial killer aspects, the film also looks at the long-term love/ageing with the love of your life and being an “oddball” in a small community. 6.5/10.

…and I did this week’s G2 Crosswords:

…and Monday’s crossword gets off to a pretty good start, as I only had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 23). And I’m not sure how I got some of the answers I did get, like ‘rennet’ for ‘substance used to curdle milk’, if you had asked me that question I would have said that I didn’t know, but because I had gotten the intersecting letters it just came to me/the little grey cells, almost like magic 😊 And I learnt that ‘Durban’ is a ‘South African seaport’…

…things took a bit of a dip with Tuesday’s crossword, I had to cheat on a fifth of the clues (four out of 25). It was just a bit of a struggle for the little grey cells to get started and chew through the clues, but once the first few were done the rest (except for those four) came pretty quickly. And I learnt that ‘plaids’ are ‘long pieces of tartan worn over the shoulder’ and a ‘bandeau’ is a ‘narrow piece of ribbon worn round the head’…

…while things went well with Wednesday’s crossword, with only having to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 24) and it would have been better if I hadn’t of had a brain hiccup. With ‘nice to look at (4, 2, 3, 3), I went with ‘soft on the eye’ instead of the very well known ‘easy on the eye’! And I had completely forgotten about ‘gamesmanship’, for ‘winning by dubious tactics’, which is ridiculous as ‘School for Scoundrels’ is one of my favourite films and it is based on/inspired by Stephen Potter’s gamesmanships books. A right ‘doh!’ moment!!!...

…Thursday’s crossword goes a tad worse, with having to cheat on a fifth of the clues again (four out of 22). Some of the answers came easily to the little grey cells, like ‘sumo wrestling’ from ‘Japanese professional sport – mustering owls (anag)’ and some they dragged up from old memories, like memories from watching and reading stories set in Antarctica‎, to get ‘Amundsen’ for ‘Norwegian polar explorer, d.1928’. And I learnt that the ‘humerus’ is an ‘arm bone’ and that ‘Genoese’ means ‘from the capital of the Liguria region of Italy’…

…and the mehness continues with Friday’s crossword as I, again, had to cheat on a fifth of the clues (five out of 26). The little grey cells could get most of the clues, with them falling like dominoes, but couldn’t chew through those five, just hit them like a brick wall. Even when some of them should have been gotten, like ‘franchise’ from ‘right to vote in an election’ and ‘scrunchie’ from ‘elasticated band for fastening hair’, but I did learn that ‘Lear’ was an ‘author of nonsense poems and limericks, d.1888’, that ‘Quito’ is the ‘capital of Ecuador’ and that ‘someone from Dar es Salaam?’ is an ‘Tanzanian’…

…and Saturday’s crossword blows away the mehness by being an almost cakewalk! I only had to cheat on one-twenty-fourth of the clues (one out of 24). I’m not sure if this grid was easier or if the clues were more from my wheelhouse or if my little grey cells had just been chugging Red Bull and swotting up since the mehness set in? But whatever it was, if I had gotten ‘facile’ from ‘over simple’ it would have been a complete whitewash and reversal of the last few grid days…roll on next week’s grids…

Days 1031 - 1037

Aka Monday 25^th November 2019 – Aka Sunday 1^st December 2019

…this week was, again, a bit of a quiet week, except for Friday night, which was a works night out, which did get a bit drunken and noisy and fun…and with a minimal hangover the next day, which was nice…

…I also finished reading Stewart Lee’s ‘March of the Lemmings’, which collects Stewart’s Observer columns, about Brexit, from 2016 to 2019 and a transcript of his live show ‘Content Provider’. For me the main draw for getting this book it the footnotes Stewart writes, where he explains where bits and parts of his columns and show came from or expands on the point of the joke/text or just a general anecdote spurred by part of the article/show. And they add extra laughs (or thoughts) to the ones already there. 10/10.

…and I got these New Comic Book Day gems:

…and ‘The Drop & The List’ arrived, a collection of two novellas set in the Slough House universe, arrived…now I just have to finish reading ‘Frozen Hell’ so that I can get to, or at least read ‘The List’ as the ‘The Drop’ is set later on in the series of Slough House books…

…and I read ‘Faithless’ #1 - #6, which was advertised as an erotic satanic thriller, and it certainly ticks the erotic and satanic boxes, it feels very much like the old satanic films, like Rosemary’s Baby, and it is certainly 18 rated, but it also feels like not much happens over the six issues and I’m not sure if I’ll be back for the next miniseries (but maybe for the TPB)…

…and I did this week’s G2 Crosswords:

…and Monday’s crossword gets the week off to a pretty okay start, with only needing to have to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 25). The little grey cells are still making a good go of it, but did miss a couple of easy ones – ‘eons’ and ‘steaming’ (we went with ‘eras’ and ‘steaming’), but I did learn that ‘hubble-bubble’ can refer to a ‘hookah’…

…Tuesday’s crossword went a tad better…I only had to cheat on one of the 21 clues – ‘disdainful (12)’ and for some reason me and my little grey cells couldn’t figure that that meant ‘supercilious’, we must have been too tired from  figuring out the rest of the grid, some of the clues did take a little chewing over to get the right answer from them…

…Wednesday’s crossword was a bit more tricky and took a lot more chewing over by the little grey cells and even after that I had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (four out of 24). And some of them, like ‘Don Quixote author’ = ‘Cervantes’ and ‘less than average tidal rises and falls’ = ‘neaps’, I had no chance of getting and I still think that 21a, like other similar clues, should have had a “(slang)” in the clue as ‘peanuts’ is a slang term for ‘a derisory amount of money’, if it had said “(slang)” I might not have gone for ‘pitance’ (no sour grapes here m’lord! And they’re not compounded by me misspelling ‘pittance’!)…

…but Thursday’s crossword restores the balance a little as I only had to cheat a ninth of the clues (two out of 18). Although I really should have gotten both of them, ‘avid’ from ‘eagerly desirous’ and ‘offer’ from ‘volunteer – proposal’, but at least the little grey cells have gotten things back on track…

…things dip back down a tad with Fridays’ crossword as I had to cheat on a fifth of the clues (four out of 19). I think it was just a matter of being a tad tired and not make that final leap to the answer, like with 15d ‘trill (6)’ I got stuck on the word ‘shrill’ and couldn’t think of anything else, let alone the right answer ‘warble’, which should have been easy to get after a little chewing over by the little grey cells, ,at least I learnt that ‘Handel’ was the ‘Water Music composer, d.1759’…

…and Saturday’s  crossword brings the week to a satisfactory close, as I had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 24) – although I’d argue that ‘electronic sound reproduction’ is a bit of a misleading clues for ‘audio’, but then again, I guess that if all the clues were straight ahead it wouldn’t be much of a challenge to complete a grid! And  I learnt that ‘hitherto’ also means ‘formerly’ and re-learnt that a ‘toreador’ is a type of ‘bullfighter’ (and the worst thing is that I had all the letters, because it came up on a previous crossword, but I just couldn’t recall what the first letter was!!!)…