Days 3425 – 3431

 Aka Monday 8th April to Sunday 14th April 2024

…a(nother) very chilled week this week. Still resting up my gouty foot, so no going out partying or for exercise, so mostly the week was spent working, watching Youtube/Netflix/old DVDs, listening to music and reading. It also gave me the chance to catch up with my Lego building, firstly the Lambo a got for my birthday:

…and the classic Bond Aston Martin:

…the post man also delivered ‘Torpedo 1972’ #2:

…which is tad…rapey…and I think I will drop it…and I did this week’s G2 Crosswords, kicking off with Monday’s crossword:

…which get’s the crossword week off to a grand start, as we were able to solve 95.24% of the 21 clues, only missing one clue. We got stumped by ‘kind of research’ and didn’t get ‘postdoctoral’, we were thinking along the lines of the actually type of research, e.g. practical or theoretical, and not what level of research. But all in all, a grand start to the week…

…Tuesday’s crossword goes equally as well, we solved 95.83% of the 24 clues, missing just one. The clue proving troublesome today was’2023 Wimbledon champion’, mostly because we don’t follow much sport, and defo don’t follow tennis, so we didn’t know that ‘Alcaraz’ won Wimbledon in 2023…

…Wednesday’s crossword takes a massive tumble down, as we only solved 83.33% of the 18 clues! On the bad side, we missed three clues, but on the good side, we didn’t know the answer for two of them, and the third one, ‘Morocco’ from ‘kind of leather’, we have a vague memory of having been a previous clue. So, we relearnt that ‘Morocco’ is a ‘kind of leather’ and learnt that ‘Oleander’ is an ‘ornamental shrub’ and that ‘ab initio’ means ‘from the start’. Hopefully, this is just a mid-week slump and we’ll be back to normal crossword solving tomorrow…

…and Thursday’s crossword finds us still in slump town, only solving 89.47% of the 19 clues ☹ yeah, am improvement compared to yesterday, but not by much. A chewy grid and we missed two clues, one we should have gotten, ‘Q in the Nato alphabet’, for ‘Quebec’, and one that taught us that ‘pulchritudinous’ means ‘beautiful’. Roll on some less chewy grids please…

…Friday’s crossword finds us back on track, solving 95.65% of the 23 clues. A nice straight forward grid today, a few chewy ones, but not unsolvable. And we learnt that ‘fallacious’ means ‘unsound’, which is nice to know…

…and Saturday’s crossword brings this crossword week to a grand finish as the little grey cells aced all 24 clues!!! Woot, woot! Nice to get a clean sweep under the belt and to end the week on…and I did the second of Guardian’s Quick Cryptic:

…which, along with the Metro Cryptic’s is defo upping my cryptic solving game and in a few months/years I might be able to do the full fat Guardian cryptic and then The Times cryptic!!!

Days 3418 - 3424

Aka Monday 1st April to Sunday 7th April 2024

A pretty quiet week, mostly as I was under gout enforced rest…it did ease off over the week, but it did hurt like buggery for the first few days!!! On the plus side I did pick up some Lotto winnings:

…and some beautiful comics:

…and I got some great music:

…the Starsailor CD for the excellent Soulsavers remix of 'Poor Misguided Fool', the ‘The Time Has Come’ EP from U.N.K.L.E., for some glorious early UNKLE sounds/remixes, the 'Athletico, A Compilation' CD, for some top-notch early Big Beat (before it got narrowed down into the big breakbeat and rock guitar and hip-hop vocal path) and Jah Wobble’s Invaders of the Heart ‘Visions Of You’, which has some great Andrew Weatherall remixes from just as The Sabres of Paradise were forming…and the latest issue of ‘Disco Pogo’ arrived:

…and I can’t wait to dig into it! And I also did this week’s G2 Crossword:

…and this new crossword week gets off to a bumpy start, a very bumpy start! It was a chewy grid and a half, and we only solved 80.95% of the 21 clues. The only upside is that we just didn’t know the answers to the four clues that we didn’t get. A bumper learning experience you could say! We learnt that the ‘Bridge of Sighs’ is a ‘Venetian landmark’, and not a Parisian one as we thought, that ‘Delft’ is a ‘Dutch city famous for pottery’ that ‘Erasmus’ was a ‘leading Renaissance scholar’ and that a ’parvenu’ is a ‘social climber’. Hopefully the rest of this crossword week will go better…

…and we’re back to the smooth lands with Tuesday’s crossword, as we solved 95.65% of the 23 clues, missing only one clue. Which means that we learnt that an ‘aphoristic’ is ‘like a maxim’, which is nice to know…

…and there’s not much to say about Wednesday’s crossword, as the little grey cells smashed the clues into smithereens! Solving all 21! Getting a clean sweep!!! Woot, woot!!!

…Thursday’s crossword doesn’t go quite as well, but almost as well. The little grey cells solved 95.65% of the 23 clues. The only one we got stuck on was ‘1936 du Maurier novel’, which is ‘Jamaica Inn’, which we’ve heard off, but have no idea what it is about or who wrote it, but we know now…

…and it’s a similar story with Friday’s crossword, another 23 clues, another almost clean sweep, with the little grey cells solving 95.65% of the clues, leaving one that stumped us! This time we didn’t know that a ‘Knot’ is a type of sandpiper (from the clue ‘fastening – sandpiper’), but it’s nice to be back in the upper echelons of 90%...

…and we end this crossword week on a damn fine note, as the little grey cells solved 96.00% of the 25 clues. Again, we were stumped by one clue, so we learnt that ‘Tripoli’ is a ‘city in Lebanon or in Libya’, we knew it as a city, but didn’t know that there two cities called ‘Tripoli’…and I first of the Guardian's Quick Cryptic:

...which went pretty well, as a practice for the main cryptic crossword, allow us to build-up to the proper one and I did the Metro Cryptic Crossword:

Days 3390 - 3417

 Aka Monday 4th March to Sunday 31st March 2024

Another quick recap to turn to get up to date (again, still in late November!). The biggest thing to happen this month is probably when one of my teeth broke! It was one that had an existing filling in it and I guess that it got “loosened” and the tooth decayed and got rotten enough to break. Luckily though I had a six-month check up already booked, so it was relatively quick to get it sorted out. Oh…and it was my birthday (which I’m not that fussed about nowadays, had so many that they are no longer special!) and here are my birthday gifts:

…and a second oh, I also got gout!!! It flared up towards the end of the month and was way more painful than I thought it would be! Just glad that’s straight forward to treat…also, this month’s Kyle Starks Sticker Club stickers arrived:

…and I picked up these four-colour gems:

…and some other reading material:

…and some building material:

…and some listening material:

…and some watching material:

…and I picked up some Lottery winnings:

…and I did the first week’s G2 Crosswords:

…and we kick off this crossword week on the finest of notes, as the little grey cells aced all 25 clues! Yeah, baby, a clean sweep! What else is there to say…

…we didn’t get a clean sweep with Tuesday’s crossword, but we got so close! We solved 95.83% of the clues (23 out of 24) and got outsmarted by this clue ‘space indicated with a ‘P’’, which in hindsight is obvs, but we thought it was referring to a writing/manuscript or printing term, but no, it simply meant ‘parking’…

…things dip down a tad with Wednesday’s crossword, as we could only solve 90.91% of the clues (20 out of 22) for this chewy grid. We learnt that ‘cherry-red’ is also known as ‘cerise’ and we got super annoyed when we totally forgot that a birdwatcher is known as an ‘ornithologist’ (for the clue ‘twitching individual?)…

…and we’re getting back on top with Thursday’s crossword, the little grey cells solved 96.15% of the clues (aka 25 out of 26). As near as perfect performance as you can get, without getting a clean sweep! And we learnt that a ‘Dory’ is a ‘deep-bodied fish – flat-bottomed boat’, which is nice to know…although we had the intersecting letters and are aware of the film Finding Dory, as we could have had a guess at it…

…we’re still bobbing along with Friday’s crossword, we solved 91.67% of the clues (a la 22 out of 24). Another damn solid performance, with a chewy grid. But in hindsight we should have gotten those two clues we missed. We should have gotten ‘evident’ from ‘plain’ and ‘Chilli’ from ‘hot food’…

…and we end this crossword week on a fine and fair note, as the little grey cells solved 91.67% of the 24 clues, only missing two clues. Which was damn good going for such a chewy grid. Our first run through only revealed a few answers, it was real work to get the 22 answers we did. Slightly annoyed that we didn’t get ‘calculation’ from ‘reckoning’, we were thinking of ‘reckoning’ along the lines of confrontation, but we did learn that the ‘Madeira’ is a ‘Portuguese island in the North Atlantic’. A nice, but not grand, way to end the crossword week…and I did the second week’s G2 Crosswords:

…which get’s this crossword week off to a damn fine start, as the little grey cells solved 95.24% of the clues (also known as solving 20 of the 21 clues). A pretty straightforward grid, except that we didn’t remember that ‘iniquity’ is a synonym for ‘evil’. A solid start for the week…

…the fineness continues with Tuesday’s crossword, mostly…we missed two of the 23 clues, so we only solved 91.30% of the clues. Slightly annoyed that we didn’t get ‘pilchard’ from ‘small oily fish’, we thought of practically every other type of fish, except pilchard! And the clue for ‘loose end’, ‘one’s left dangling’, was just a tad too cryptic for us, but that’s been a case for a while. That the clues are becoming a tad more cryptic, while we’re expecting them to be more…factual…

…and Wednesday’s crossword maintains our consistency, as we missed another two clues, from the 21 clues total. Meaning that we solved 90.48% of the clues. Again, in hindsight, we missed an obvious one, ‘irreverent’ from ‘disrespectful’, but we also learnt that ‘exude’ means to ‘discharge steadily’. Does seem that we’re stuck in a good rut of getting all the clues, except for one or two, which isn’t a bad rut to be in, bit would be nice to get a clean sweep or two…

…well Thursday’s crossword takes us out of our rut, but not in a good way! We didn’t get three of the 23 clues, so we only solved 86.96% of the clues. We still missed one, that I think, in hindsight, we should have gotten, ‘earmark’ from ‘set aside’, but we did learn that ‘perdu’ means ‘lost in French’ and that and that ‘obverse’ means the heads side of a coin, “Since the 17th century, we've been using obverse for the front side of coins (usually the side depicting the head or bust of a prominent person).”, from the clue ‘heads (as opposed to tails)’…

…and we’re still out of our rut, in a bad way, with Friday’s crossword. Again, we didn’t get three of the 23 clues, so we only solved 86.96% of the clues. At least this time there wasn’t a clue or two in hindsight that we should have gotten, So, what did we learn? That ‘Thulium’ is a ‘silvery metal, atomic no 69’, that ‘Esther’ is an ‘Old Testament book’ and that ‘Erica’ is a ‘heathland plant’, which is all nice to know…

…and we end this crossword week on a damn fine note! Back in our good rut, of only missing one or two clues. We solved 96.00% of the clues, also known as getting 24 clues out of 25. Which is, as I said, is damn fine, especially as there were a goodly number of chewy clues. The only one we didn’t get, because we didn’t know the answer!, was ‘Cyclamen’ from ‘perennial flowering plant which grows from a tuber’. So, yeah, I pretty damn good crossword week…and I did the third week’s G2 Crosswords:

…and we get this Birthday crossword week off to a solid, but not damn fine, start, as we solved 90.48% of the clues, or 19 out of the 21 clues. Somehow, we forgot that the ‘Sphinx’ is a ‘puzzling individual – part lion, part human’, which is a super obvs clue! We also forgot that being ‘intent (on something)’, is being ‘focussed’. Like I said, a solid start, but with some clangers…

…Tuesday’s crossword continues the solidness, with the little grey cells solving 91.67% of the clues (aka 22 out of 24). And again, the two clues we missed were super obvs in hindsight. ‘Ambush’ from ‘sudden, surprise attack’ and ‘scream’ from ‘(a) hoot – or yell’. Maybe, we need to take a tad more time with the clues, so that we don’t miss this obvs ones…

…and we buck this week’s trend with Wednesday’s crossword, we don’t miss two super obvs clues. No, we miss four of the 18 clues! Although, they weren’t all super obvs. Yeah, so we solved 77.78% of the clues and learnt that ‘uxorious’ means ‘devoted to one’s wife’ and that tartaric acid, is the ‘acid found in baking powder’. Hopefully we’ve hit bottom for this crossword week, and we’ll be reaching our normal heights of crossword solving…

…and Thursday’s crossword takes us back to our normal levels of crossword solving, as we solved 94.74% of the 19 clues. We only missed one, we didn’t get ‘equivocal’ from ‘noncommittal, evasive’, which is a tad annoying, but at least we’re back in the 90%s…

…and we super back on track with Friday’s crossword, as the little grey cells powered through all 24 clues, solving each and every one of them!!! Woot! Woot!...

…and we end this crossword week on a damn fine note as we solved 95.65% of Saturday’s clues (a la 22 out of 23). A damn fine performance, only let down because we didn’t know that ‘Ulster’ was/is an ‘ancient province of Ireland made up of nine counties’, which is nice to know…and I did the fourth week’s G2 Crosswords:

…and we get this post-Birthday crossword week off to a damn fine and solid start, as the little grey cells solved 96.00% of the 25 clues! We only missed one, ‘presto’ from ‘fast (of a musical tempo)’, and it’s from our grey area of classical music terms, where most of our knowledge is based on there probably be an o at the end and some l’s in there…probably…

…and we’re still chugging along nicely with Tuesday’s crossword, the little grey cells solved 91.67% of the 24 clues. And of those two we missed, we shouldn’t off. We did get ‘ripsaw’ from ‘wood-cutting tool’, but dismissed it as the name of a GI Joe villain, rather than an actually, real life tool. And for the clue ‘pulls in’, we got stuck thinking about physically pull something and missed the straightforward answer of ‘earns’. A good lesson in sticking with your gut and not getting too caught up in the old thought process and missing the tree for the forest…

…and the little grey cells reached the peaks of crossword solving with Wednesday’s grid as they smashed all 22 clues and got a 100% clean sweep!!! They carved through the clues like a not knife through butter…

…Thursday’s grid was a mite chewier than yesterday’s and we only solved 92.31% of the clues (aka 24 out of 26), which isn’t bad, but it’s not a 100% clean sweep! We got caught out by not getting ‘gawky’ from ‘ungainly’ and ‘Euclid’ from ‘Greek geometer’, but it happens, from time to time, you’ve just got to file them away in the ole memory bank for next time…

…and it’s not a Good Friday for crossword solving, although that might be to do with the little hangover from yesterday’s leaving drinks! We only managed to solve 87.5% of the 24 clues. Not a good performance, but not our worse of the year, and looking back, the three clues we missed, we didn’t know the answers to them. So, we did the best that we could, I guess. And we learn that ‘chino’ is a ‘coarse cotton fabric’, that ‘Leipzig’ is a ‘city in Saxony’ and that ‘Oedipus’s subjects’ were ‘Thebans’…

…and this crossword week comes to a with a bit of a whimper, as we’re back in only solving 87.5% of the 24 clues territory (missing three clues). I guess it’s a combination of stilling feeling a little wrecked and some v chewy clues. Super annoyed that we didn’t get ‘avoirdupois’ from ‘system of weights’, as I’m sure it was a clue/answer in a recently past G2 crossword we did! We could remember a couple of the letters, but not all of them! But we did learn that ‘piquant’ means ‘pleasantly spicy’ and that ‘Assam’ is an ‘Indian state’. An okay way to end this crossword week, I guess…and I did some Metro Cryptic Crosswords: