Aka Monday 11th
May - Sunday 17th May 2020
…and I was back in
the office for one day as a super-sub, but the rest of the week was spent
working from home. With the usual interruptions from family members and the internet/wi-fi
signal dropping out now and then (on Friday I had to restart the app I was
working on 17 times), but what can you do?
…well I listened to some Jamiroquai,
a greatest hits album (of the hits between 1992 and 2006) and his latest album,
‘Automaton’, both of which I got at least six months ago, but I do have a lot
of music to listen to (and DVDs & Netflix watch lists to watch and books
& comics & magazines to read). And they weren’t bad, the early Acid Jazz-era songs stand up and the more recent songs have a nice disco edge, but
(aside from ‘Canned Heat’) nothing really stands out. The songs are perfectly
fine, but they don’t fly, they don’t take you higher and don’t make you want to
explore his other albums. At the end of listen I felt like “they were nice
songs, but I don’t feel moved to listen to more”. 6/10.
…watched ‘Badlands’,
a tale based on young lovers going on a murderous journey across several
American states. It’s an odd film, the plot is pretty simple, with the focus on
Kit Carruthers, played by Martin Sheen, and Holly Sargis, played by Sissy Spacek, with little focus on the outside world and it’s reaction to Kit and
Holly (until the end when they are captured) or why Kit and Holly are doing
what they are doing, and the countryside they travel through. And it is a
beautiful looking film and it has obviously been an influence on other films
since it was released 47 years ago. With ‘Natural Born Killers’ and ‘True Romance’ being two examples that spring immediately to mind (especially with
‘True Romance’ and ‘Badlands’ both using versions of Carl Orff’s ‘Gassenhauer’),
so it maybe that the use and referencing of ideas and themes from ‘Badlands’ by
other media has dented and dulled its impact. In that respect it kinda reminds
me of the song ‘Little Red Rooster’, The Stones covered Howlin’ Wolf’s version
and Wolf’s version may have been recorded first, but, for me, The Stones
version adds more oomph, more dirt and raunchiness and, for me, is the definite
version. 6/10.
…continued to
watch ‘Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries’, a series about a female detective in
1920’s Melbourne, Australia. A kinda 'Miss Marple', but featuring a sexy, no
nonsense, liberated, modern woman, what would have been a staple of Sunday
night TV. The stories have a nice balance of murders/mysteries of the week,
touching upon issues like drug use, interracial relationships, and medical
ethics, but staying on the pre-watershed side of things, staying adult and kid friendly,
and character development (although the series can occasionally lapse into scenes
of girl-power for girl-power’s sake, which can feel a little clumsy). The characters
are based on familiar stereotypes, but the actors bring a charm and likeability
that raises them above stereotype, and the stories allow them to develop, all
of which makes ‘Miss Fisher’…’ highly enjoyable. 8/10.
…made a Lego
Escape Pod vs Dewback Microfighters set:
…some new comics
arrived, finally new comics 😊:
...I took a Long Walk on Saturday:
…I also did this week’s
G2 Crosswords:
…and Monday’s crossword was a bit of toughie and we had to
cheat to nearly a fifth of the clues (five out of 23), but it does give us an
Illuminati score 😊. Me and my little grey cells just couldn’t
wrap ourselves round those five, and we should have gotten ‘scarce’ from ‘hard
to get’, ‘obstacle’ from ‘a spanner in the works?’ and ‘slap’ from ‘cuff’,
which we kinda did, as we went for ‘clip’, as in clip round the ear, so we got
the intersecting letters! And we learnt that ‘marsala’ is a ‘fortified wine
from Sicily’ and that a ‘supplement to a will’ is a ‘codicil’…
…things perk up with Tuesday’s crossword as we only had to
cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 25) (which is becoming a bit of a
trend, not getting three clues). Most of the clues we just chomped through with
no problem (so much that I’m thinking of downloading an app that’ll teach me
how to do cryptic crosswords, proper crosswords 😊) and those three we should have got, but
c’est la vie, there is always tomorrow…
…things continue to perk up with Wednesday’s crossword, we
just had to cheat on a tenth of the clues (two out of 21). The little grey
cells just smashed through the clues, except for ‘quick and skilful’ where we
first thought of ‘adroit’ but decided to go with ‘artful’ only to find out that
the answer was ‘adroit’! D’oh! But we did learn that the ‘Oxeye’ is a ‘plant
with daisy-like flowers’…
…and Thursday’s crossword goes pretty okay, not stellar, but
not terrible. We had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (four out of 24). Most of
the clues were simple enough for the little grey cells to deal with, although
we did slip up by not getting ‘adherence’ from ‘sticking together’, going for
‘Artamis’ and not ‘Aramis’ for ‘one of
the Three Musketeers’ (looking back I think I may have confused an aftershave
with a Musketeer!) and ‘convene’ from ‘call together’, but we did learn that a
‘concise and witty remark’ is an ‘epigram’…
…and Friday’s crossword takes us into a spinning nosedive as
we had to cheat on nearly half the clues (seven out of 18). Some of the answers
we just didn’t know, others we just let slip through our metaphorical fingers.
But we did learn that a ‘Lapp’ is a ‘nomadic inhabitant of northern
Scandinavia’, that ‘alleluia’ is a ‘shout of praise to God’, that ‘chanticleer’
is the ‘name for a roster in fairy tales’ and that a ‘fool’ is a ‘dessert of
pureed fruit and cream’. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better crossword day…
…and it is, Saturday’s crossword is almost a clean sweep as
we only had to cheat on a nineteenth of the clues (1 out of 19). The little
grey cells have really picked their game up after yesterday’s disaster. And
it’s only because we went for the wrong monkey for 15 across ‘monkey’, we went
for ‘Bonobo’ when the answer was ‘Baboon’, close but not close enough, still a
pretty good end of the week…
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