Days 2358 - 2371

Aka Monday 3^rd May - Sunday 16^th May 2021

And I’m running behind again, so this’ll be a quick one. This was a quiet fortnight this fortnight, except for the last week, as my work laptop wouldn’t connect onto Work’s system from home. So, instead of spending the week working from home I spent one and a half days waiting for IT to sort out the problem, mostly spent waiting for them to get back in touch and a little time just watching the screen as they faffed about on my laptop changing settings, and not solving the problem, and the rest of the week was spent going into the office to work…and there were no Long Walks this fortnight,  but I made up for it with walking to and from work and up and down the office block…during which I picked up these New Comic Book Day gems:

…and got the reissue of the beautiful ‘Laser Guided Melodies’ by Spiritualized and ‘Foundations’ a compilation of tracks released on Deewee:

…I also picked ‘Possessor’, which looks like an intriguing sci-fi/horror film, the latest Empire magazine:

 

…and the postman delivered this month’s Kyle Starks Sticker Club stickers, ’Moof’ magazine and my copy of Rachael Smith's excellent ‘Quarantine Comix’:

…I also got this month’s Lego Star Wars and Batman Magazines:

…and watched ‘Nobody’, a really fun action flick, taking the ‘Taken’ template and adding a more nuanced approach and read ‘Kaijumax Season 6’ #1, a fun read setting up the final season of Kaijumax…and I did this fortnight’s G2 Crosswords:

…and Monday’s crossword gets the week off to a solid flying start, we only had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 23). The little grey cells were well rested after the weekend and monstered through the clues, only failing to get ‘hogwash’ from ‘claptrap’. And learning that ‘Tati’ was a ‘French comic actor and film maker, d.1982’ and that ‘Baku’ is a ‘port on the Caspian Sea, capital of Azerbaijan’...roll on the rest of the week’s grids…

…Tuesday’s grid goes just as well, we only having to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 23). The little grey cells are still flying and learning that ‘recalcitrant’ means ‘stubbornly resistant’, that a ‘salver’ is a ‘tray’ and that ‘Koblenz’ is a ‘city at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle’…

…things falter a little with Wednesday’s grid, we had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (four out of 25). The rain means no more soaring for the little grey cells ☹But we did learn that ‘nettled’ means ‘riled’ and that the ‘Cyclamen’ is a ‘plant of the primrose family with upswept petals and patterned leaves’…

…and things pick up a little with Thursday’s grid, cheating on only a seventh of the clues (three out of 21). The little grey cells getting back to their knife through butter manner. And we learnt a ‘Chandler’ is a ‘ship or boat equipment dealer’…

…and pick up a tad more with Friday’s grid, we only had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 24). The little grey cells ploughed through the clues, only hitting a brick wall with those three clues. But it does mean that we learnt that ‘Port Salut’ is a ‘semi-soft cow’s milk cheese from the Loire, developed by Trappist monks in the 19^th century’, that ‘Verdi’ was the ‘La Traviata composer’ and that ‘paisley’ is a ‘wool fabric with a colourful swirl pattern’…

…and things fall apart with Saturday’s grid, having to cheat on nearly a third of the clues (five out of 18). The little grey cells just couldn’t get to grips with the clues and it was a real struggle, missing some obvious answers. But, on the bright side, we learnt that ‘epigram’ means ‘quip’ and that ‘pernicious’ means ‘baneful’…roll on next week…

…and Monday’s crossword gets the week off to a pretty dreadful start, we had to cheat on almost half the clues (nine out of 19). I don’t think we’ve had such a bad go around on a grid in ages. We just couldn’t get to grips with the grid and missing ones we shouldn’t, like ‘gargoyle’ from ‘grotesque waterspout’, but we did learn that ‘quixotic’ means ‘unrealistic’, that ‘quartz’ is a ‘hard mineral consisting of silicon dioxide in crystal form’, that an ‘Armadillo’ is a ‘burrowing mammal covered with strong horny plates’, that a ‘Kittiwake’ is a ‘small northern grey gull with a shrill cry sounding like its name’ and that ‘bhindi’ is the Hindi word for ‘okra’…

…things massively pick up with Tuesday’s grid, we only had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 24), but they couldn’t have gotten much worse! We learnt that ‘melange’ is another word for ‘miscellany’ and that the ‘Crimea’ is a ‘Black Sea peninsula’. Have the little grey cells bounced back? Let’s see…

…things worsen a tad with Wednesday’s grid, the little grey cells are not back up to full strength and we had to cheat on a quarter of the clues (six out of 23). But that does mean we learnt things today, like that ‘not written in a key’ means ‘atonal’, that ‘Vanuatu’ is a ‘South Pacific country, where Prince Philip was revered as a spiritual figure’ and that ‘arabica’ is a ‘type of coffee bean’…

…and things perk up with Thursday’s grid, we only had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 25). The little grey cells cut through most of the clues like a hot knife through butter, learning that ‘umber’ is a ‘dark brown’ colour and a ‘nosegay’ is an ‘old-fashioned posy’…

…Friday’s grid goes nearly perfectly, the little grey cells are still firing on nearly all cylinders and we only had to cheat on two of the 24 clues, missing ‘sidestep’ from ‘dodge’ and ‘reassure’ from ‘hearten’. Have the little grey cells recovered from their rollercoaster, up-and-down ride of the last week or so? Let’s see…

…it looks like the little grey cells are back to their normal best, as we only had to cheat on an eleventh of the clues (two out of 22) for Saturday’s grid. Only missing ‘indirect’ from ‘oblique’ and learning that ‘fillip’ means ‘encouragement’, maybe the stress of this working week had fed into how we tackled these grids? But we seem to be back on solid ground…