This was a pretty quiet fortnight. I was still feeling under-the-weather, so much so that I had another GP appointment, this time via telephone conference, who recommended that I continue to take it easy, up my Vitamin D intake (to 3,000iu), use ibuprofen instead of paracetamol for pain relief, and Propanol. And it has helped, but at the end of the fortnight I was still nowhere near being back to 100%, better, but further to go. And I’m not sure that being back in the office actually helped. It was helpful in that I was moving about, nit stuck sitting down for eight hours, but it was more strenuous, and I was knackered by the weekend.
Also, on Friday 6th August the hard drive in my laptop died. There was a weird clunk, and the laptop froze, froze forever. When I rebooted it, all I got was the black screen of death saying that it could not detect the hard drive. Luckily, I had most of my stuff backed-up, so I didn’t lose too much stuff, and thanks to modern capitalism my new laptop arrived on the Sunday. Which meant I spent several long hours setting up the new laptop, reinstalling my favourite programs and files and websites and trying to remember my passwords for things. But at least I was back online and once the external disc drive arrives (it seems that today no laptops are made with internal disc drives!!!) it’ll all be back to normal.
And aside from all that:
The postman delivered the new Bob Stanley compilation ‘Choctaw Ridge’:
…which was okay, but not that memorable, and ’Steeple’ Vol. 2 and ‘American Vampire 1976’ #10:
…’Steeple’ Vol.2 was originally published online and continues the story of Billie and Maggie as they get used to their new lives, Billie as a new priestess in the Church of Satan and Maggie as the new curate, tackling werewolves and “ancient evil from the unknowable depths of the Pacific Ocean”. If you know John Allison’s work you know what fun this collection is and if you don’t know his work, then (a) you’re missing out and (b) you’ve got a lot of fun comics to read!
I also brought Total Film magazine, due to its special feature on John Carpenter:
…and the latest Lego Star Wars magazine:
…and ‘Love + Light’ by Danial Avery:
…some very nice techno for the body and mind…and I got this fortnights New Comic Book Day gems:
…and I saw ‘The Suicide Squad’:
…which I thought was okay, there are some excellent individual performances, Idris Elba as Bloodsport is superb, and some funny moments, and on paper it should be a perfect film for me (kaiju’s, a great cast, James Gunn writing and directing, etc.) but it’s missing something and doesn’t quite hold together. Maybe it’s a mis-balance of humour and bloody violence, but whatever it is, it’s something that I can’t put my finger on. But subsequent viewings have left feeling more favourable to the film.
…and I read ‘American Vampire 1976’ #1-10:
…which was okay, but at times felt rushed and hurried and more like a film adaptation than a story written as a comic…and I read ‘Skybound X’ #3 and ‘Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton’ #2 (and the ‘Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton’ story in ‘Skybound X’ #5):
…and you can’t go wrong with some Kyle Starks goodness…and I did this fortnight’s G2 Crosswords:
…and Monday’s crossword gets the week off to a poor start, as we had to cheat on a third of the clues (seven out of 23). Last week might have been a bit of a false dawn ☹ and the little greys just couldn’t get to grips with the grid. But we did learn that ‘pianissimo’ means ‘very softly’, that a ‘roti’ is an ‘Indian flatbread, cooked on a griddle’, that ‘Cayenne’ is the ‘capita of French Guiana’ and that ‘salutary’ means ‘beneficial’. So not a good start to the week, but an educational start…
…things pick up with Tuesday’s grid, the little grey cells were back on-line, and we only had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 23). The little grey cells easily chewed through the clues, learning that ‘arraign’ means to ‘call before a court to answer an indictment’ and that ‘coddle’ means to ‘cook in hot (not boiling) water’…
…and things pick down with Wednesday’s grid, the little grey cells are back off-line and we had to cheat on a quarter of the clues (six out of 25). We’re still feeling under the weather and our little grey cells are suffering. Like how could be miss ‘vets’ from ‘checks closely’, but we did learn that ‘basmati’ is a ‘type of long-grained rice’…
…and things pick up again with Thursday’s grid, we only had to cheat on a seventh of the clues (three out of 21). So far, the weeks been a bit of a rollercoaster, seems that ill health is not conducive to crosswording! We also learnt that Angela Carter was a novelist, short story writer and poet, and passed away in 1992…
…Friday’s grid bucks the trend and the little grey cells do an okay job, we only had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (four out of 24). The little grey cells aren’t back to full strength, stumbling on a few of the clues (we should have gotten those four we missed, like ‘groggy’ from ‘dazed and confused’), but they did chomp through most of the clues in double quick time, so we maybe on our way back…
…and Saturday ends the week on am okay note, we had to cheat on only a sixth of the clues (three out of 18). At the start the little grey cells found the grid hard to get a grip on, but then it flipped and the clues tumbled like bowling pins, leaving just three that we should have, but didn’t get (like ‘peanuts’ from ‘a paltry sum of money (informal)’), so an okay, but not grand week…
…and Monday’s crossword gets the week off to a lacklustre start. We had to cheat on a quarter of the clues (four out of 19) and the little grey cells found it hard to get started and get a grip on the grid and we missed some easy ones, like ‘swayed’ from ‘moved back and forth’. But we did learn that ‘wont’ means ‘(old) custom’ and that ‘Dublin’ is a ‘city on the Liffey’. Hopefully the little grey cells were just rusty from the weekend and things will pick up for the rest of the week…
…things pick up a tad with Tuesday’s grid, back to almost normal, as we only had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (four out of 24). The little grey cells are obvs still a little knackered and under-the-weather and not back to 100%. But we did learn ‘Anjou’ is an ‘old French province in the Loire valley, an English possession from 1154 to 1204’ and that ‘Rivera’ was a ‘Mexican mural painter, married five times (twice to Frida Kahlo), d.1975’…
…things continue to perk up with Wednesday’s grid as we only had to cheat on an eleventh of the clues (two out of 23). Maybe the little grey cells are getting back to their full heath!?! They certainly sailed through the majority of the clues! Learning that ‘moot’ can mean ‘debatable’ and that ‘cavil’ means ‘nitpick’…
…and we also get a clean sweep with Thursday’s grid, as the little grey cells powered through the 25 clues, only getting stumped on one of them. For ‘Don Quixote’s squire’ we went with ‘Pancho Sanza’ when the actually answer is ‘Sancho Panza’. So close to a clean sweep…
…things dip down with Friday’s grid, the little grey cells had obviously overexerted themselves yesterday (although I may have been distracted by my hard drive failing and losing everything I had on it!) and we back to having to cheat on a fifth of the clues (five out of 24). We did learn that ‘headland’ means ‘cape’, that ‘Popocatepetl’ is an active Mexican volcano, that ‘Erse’ means ‘Gaelic’ and that ‘Rider Haggard’ is the ‘author of She’…
…and Saturday’s grid ends the week on a lacklustre note (mirroring the start!) as we had to cheat on a fifth of the clues (four out of 22). I think today’s poor performance was due to a combination of the little grey cells not being back to full health and being distracted by my IT woes. But we did learn that ‘Monmouthshire’ a ‘Welsh county’, that ‘hors d’oeuvre of sliced raw meat or fish’ are called ‘carpaccio’ and that Sir Joseph Swan was a light bulb pioneer…
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