Aka Monday 4th January – 31st January 2021
As mentioned in my last update I’m well behind on keeping this blog up to date, so in this entry I’m going to cover all of January 2021 (well the bits that haven’t already been covered). On Monday 4th January the Government announced that the entire nation will go into a third National Lockdown/Tier 4 restrictions are being imposed on the entire nation, which doesn’t really change things for me as Essex was already under a Tier 4 Lockdown. Just more working (either from home or in the office) and more not working, but not being able to fully enjoy the free time.
Except that work announce that (a) reception would be completely shutting done, not even skeleton cover and (b) that there would a review of business support staff, with an aim to cut 30 FTE posts, with year on year £1million pound savings, so that’s a good start to the New Year! And one of my managers test positive for Covid-19! Aside, from fretting about my job, during this month I:
…binge watched 'Person Of Interest', which is still as fun and prescient as it was when it first came out. I also watched ‘Odd Thomas’, which was a great fun watch, kinda like an upbeat/less dark ‘Donnie Darko’, both ‘Ghost Riders’ films - 'Ghost Rider' and 'Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance', which were flawed, but entertaining, and ‘Seven Dials Mystery’, which was an okay watch, but felt a bit nonsensical (I haven’t read the original story, so I don’t know if that’s down to the adaption or not)…
…read some fun and interesting and thought-provoking comics (but not as many as I should have):
…and I read a “proper” book, Mark Thomas’s ’50 Things About Us’, which looks at preconceived ideas about Britain and provokes a lot of thoughts…
…I also brought part 1 of the new DC Partwork, which contains stories written by Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore and illustrated by Andy Kubert and Simon Bisley, against others, so it should be a great read. And part 1 of a magazine series celebrating Oasis. And the new Secret Machines album ‘Awake in the Brain Chamber’, which is pretty good, but not as good as the earlier Secret Machines albums:
…I also built a Lego TIE Interceptor…
…and the postman delivered my RHLSTP raffle prize and this month’s Kyle Starks stickers:
…he also delivered a load of other stuff that I haven’t had a chance to read/listen to/watch yet:
…and I went for a Long Walk on Saturday 9th January 2021:
…and I went for a Long Walk on Saturday 16th January 2021:
…and I went for a Long Walk on Saturday 23rd January 2021:
…I didn’t go for a Long Walk on the 30th as it was pouring it down and I didn’t want to catch a cold.
…and I did this month’s G2 Crosswords:
Week 1
…and Monday’s crossword gets the week off to a slightly shaky start as we had to cheat on a quarter of the clues (four out of 19). A guess that the little grey cells and I hadn’t clicked back into the solving frame of mind, like we really should have gotten ‘boycotted’ from ‘ostracised’. But we did learn that ‘voracious’ means ‘gluttonous’ and that ‘toothsome’ means ‘scrumptious’…
…but we bounce back with Tuesday’s crossword as we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 24). Would have been even better if we hadn’t gone straight for ‘comma’ for ‘punctuation mark’, if we had considered the intersecting letters we would have gotten the answer – ‘colon’. But it did help settle us in and take our time and after that the little grey cells really powered through the clues, knocking the easy ones for six and slogging through the harder ones, grinding out the answers. We did like 7 down, ‘kid’s mother’ = ‘nanny goat’. And we learnt that ‘rhapsody’ means ‘joyous emotion’…
…and Wednesday’s crossword goes even better as we only had to cheat on one of the 23 clues. The little grey cells just dashed through the clues, scattering answers in their wake, only hitting a brick wall with 17 across ‘underhand behaviour’, and for some unknown reason we couldn’t get ‘trickery’…
…and things take a nose-dive with Thursday’s crossword as we had to cheat on a fifth of the clues (five out of 25). A guess the brick wall was hanging around from yesterday! And we should have gotten four of those five, still don’t know why we didn’t get ‘spawn’ from ‘fish eggs’, too stuck on ‘roe’ I guess, but we did learn that ‘sierra’ means ‘mountain range’…
…things pick up with Friday’s crossword as we only had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 24). No more brick walls! And the little grey cells are back firing on almost all cylinders. And we learnt that ‘rosemary’ is an ‘evergreen herb (that’s for remembrance)’, that ‘obsequious’ means ‘ingratiating’ and that ‘sentinel’ means ‘lookout’…
…and Saturday’s crossword ends the week on a high-note as we only had to cheat on one of the twenty-two clues, for some reason we couldn’t get ‘twerp’ from ‘fool’. But for the rest of the clues the little grey cells just powered through them tossing out answers one after the other, easy peasy stylee…
Week 2
…and Monday’s crossword gets the week off to wobbly start as we had to cheat on a fifth of the clues (five out of 26). The little grey cells found half the clues straight forward to deal with, some we were too eager on and got wrong (like ‘recovery from a low point’, we assumed the answer was ‘return’, but it was actually ‘upturn’ or ‘occurring before birth’, we went for ‘neonatal’ when the answer was ‘antenatal’) and the other others were a struggle. Although we did learn that ‘Tosca’ was a ‘Puccini opera of 1900’…
…things pick up with Tuesday’s crossword, the little grey cells did a stella job, powering through the 24 clues, and we only had to cheat on one of them. And we learnt that ‘Olio’ is a ‘spiced stew of various meats and vegetables’…
…and the little grey cells keep up the good work with Wednesday’s crossword, it did take a bit more grinding out to get the answers, but we did and we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 24). Learning that ‘truism’ is a synonym for ‘platitude’ and that the national conifer of Lebanon is the ‘Cedar’…
…and things take a real tumble with Thursday’s crossword as we had to cheat on nearly a third of the clues (six out of 21), maybe the little grey cells are drained from the last couple of days? For most of those six, we should have got them, like ‘forget’ from ‘neglect’, but we did learn that ‘semolina’ is a ‘hard wheat flour used in pasta and puddings’ and that ‘farrago’ means ‘jumble’, hope the rest of the week will go better…
…and things pick up with Friday’s crossword, with the little grey cells back up to their normal selves, as we only had to cheat on one of the 23 clues. Somehow, we missed that ‘improper’ is a synonym for ‘inappropriate’…
…and Saturday’s crossword ends the week on an up note, as we only had to cheat on a seventh of the clues (three out of 21). We did miss a couple of easy ones, ‘cosmetic’ from ‘superficial’ and ‘throw’ from ‘light cloth covering for furniture, but we learnt that ‘Delft’ is ‘glazed white and blue earthenware’…
Week 3
…and Monday’s crossword goes pretty bad and we had to cheat on a third of the clues (eight out of 23). A terrible performance, maybe we’re picking up a head cold from the cold weather. Probably wasn’t the best idea to go out for exercise when it’s cold and wet and miserable! It was a real grind to get the ones we did get, we just couldn’t get a handle on a lot of the clues, like we didn’t understand the clue of ‘each of two’ for ‘either’ and for some we went too fast on and guessed wrong, like plumping for ‘trial’ from ‘practice session’, when the answer was ‘drill’. Hopefully tomorrow will go better…
…and things do pick up with Tuesday’s crossword, almost back to our normal levels, and we only had to cheat on sixth of the clues (four out of 23) (almost an Illuminati score!). Hopefully yesterday’s performance was just a wobble and not a trend! And we learnt that ‘limpid’ means ‘clear and bright’ and that ‘imbue’ can mean ‘soak thoroughly’…
…and Wednesday’s crossword goes almost perfectly as we only had to cheat on one of the 25 clues. The little grey cells just powered through the clues, leaving beautiful answers in their wake. And we learnt that ‘efface’ means to ‘totally rub out’ (we had gone for ‘erased’, ah well)…
…while Thursday’s crossword goes terribly. We just couldn’t get a handle on the grid and had to cheat on a quarter of the clues (five out of 21). In hindsight we should have gotten most of those five, but we just couldn’t make that deductive leap to the answer ☹, but we did learn that ‘Saki’ was the ‘pen-name of short story writer HH Munro, d. 1916’…
…and Friday’s crossword goes even worse and we had to cheat on almost a third of the clues (seven out of 24). Again, we couldn’t get a grip on the grid and in hindsight we should have gotten most of those seven. Like with ‘very unusual’ we got ‘odd____’ but couldn’t make that leap to ‘oddball’. But it’s not all bad news, we did learn that a ‘groyne’ is a ‘structure designed to slow costal erosion’…
…and Saturday’s crossword ends a terrible week on a positive note as we only had to cheat on a ninth of the clues (two out of 18). We just missed ‘bevy’ from ‘throng’ and ‘artless’ from ‘unsophisticated’. Hopefully the little grey cells are over their slump and we’ll be back to sunny uplands next week…
Week 4
…and Monday’s crossword gets the week off to an okay start, as we only had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (three out of 19). The little grey cells seem to have bounced back over last week’s not good performance. Although in hindsight, and with the intersecting letters, we should have gotten ‘ambition’ from ‘hope for the future’ and ‘tinpot’ from ‘inferior’…
…and Tuesday’s crossword goes better, we only had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 24). The little grey cells just strolled through the clues, sniffing the flowers and leaving answers in their wake, like confetti. And we learnt that ‘colours flown at sea to indicate nationally’ are called ‘ensign’, that ‘Islay’ is a ‘Hebridean island, known for its malt whiskey distilleries’ and ‘unvarnished’ can mean ‘bald’…
…we also had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 23) on Wednesday’s crossword. It feels like the little grey cells have bounced back after last week and are strolling through the clues like it’s a summer’s day. A little annoyed that we didn’t get ‘exorcise’ from ‘drive out’, but we did learn that a ‘hilltop’ is a ‘brow’ and that sesame seeds are used to make tahini…
…and Thursday’s crossword goes even better, we only had to cheat on a thirteenth of the clues (two out of 25). The little grey cells are really knocking it out of the park, home tuns after home runs. Although we really should have gotten ‘expanse’ from ‘wide area’ and ‘woeful’ from ‘deplorable’, but K Cera Cera…
…and Friday’s crossword goes almost as well, we only had to cheat on a twelfth (two out of 24). And the two we didn’t get, we had no chance of guessing, which means that we learnt that the ‘Orinoco’ is a ‘Venezuelan river’ and that ‘Nash’ was the surname of an ‘Anglo-Welsh dandy, d.1762 – American poet, d.1971’…
…been feeling knackered for most of this week and it seems to have hit the little grey cells today, even with having a lie in and not going out for a morning Long Walk, we had to cheat on over a quarter of the clues (six out of 22) for Saturday’s crossword. But we did learn that the ‘Exe’ is ‘Devon’s main river’, that ‘Hollande’ was the ‘French president, 2012-17’ (we thought it was Sarkozy, we missed a whole President!) and ‘Duncan’ was ‘Shakespeare’s fictional king of Scotland in Macbeth’…
