Days 3341 to 3344

Aka Monday 15th – Thursday 18th January 2024

…not much to say about these few days. The usual mixture of working and relaxing, which included starting to read ‘Bad Karma’:

…which is about two ex-military mercenaries coping with the disabilities and ailments that occurred during their years in the military and private militia, and trying to set things right…and my copy of ’Annie On One’ arrived:

…which I was reminded off when reading tributes following the passing of Annie Nightingale, so I thought it be appropriate (and past time) to pick up a copy. And it’s a nice collection of tracks, covering a nice mix of genres, like Flowered Up’s ‘Weekender’, a dubby remix of Primal Scream’s ‘Rocks’, the epic ‘Theme’ by The Sabres of Paradise. A very enjoyable compilation…and I did these few day's G2 Crosswords:

…and Monday’s crossword kicks of the crossword week with a band! The little grey cells solved 95.24% of the clues (aka 20 out of 21), with little to no trouble! An easy grid for the little grey cells to ease themselves back into clue solving after a restful weekend, with the only cloud being that we didn’t know that an ‘Okapi’ is a ‘Giraffe-like animal’. Still a mighty fine way to start the week…

…and the little grey cells continue to knock it out of the park with Tuesday’s crossword, solving 95.65% of the clues (a la 22 out of 23). The only grey cloud was not getting ‘sentient’ from ‘able to feel’, which is semi-obvs in hindsight, but also kinda not! But that aside, still a strong performance… 

…and the mighty fineness continues with Wednesday’s crossword as the little grey cells solved 95.24% of the clues (also known as 20 out of 21), we only failed on one clue and that was because we simply did not know that ‘Vanuatu’ is a ‘pacific island country’. Our lack of geographic knowledge is a weak spot in our clue solving repertoire, but still, the little grey cells are flying high…

…and with Thursday’s crossword things are getting repetitive! Again, we solved all bit one of the 23 clues, a 95.65% success rate and it would have been a clean sweep, if we had known that a ‘curved line on a musical score’ is called a ‘slur’. Aside from that the little grey cells powered through the clues like a hot knife through butter…and I did the Metro's Cryptic Crossword:

Days 3339 & 3340

Aka Saturday 13th January and Sunday 14th January 2024

…a chilled weekend this weekend, I did Saturday’s G2 Crossword:

…and we end this crossword week on a perfect note, as the little grey cells smashed all 24 clues to grab a clean sweep! Whoop! Whoop! A supremely nice way to end the crossword week…the postman delivered these four-colour beauties:

…of these, I‘ve read ’Pine and Merrimac’ #1, a fun private eye story, setting up our detective loving couple of Kent and Parker, the lovely town of Jamesport, with hints of a dark past, and the mystery of the missing girl they are hired to fine, and ‘Tales of Syzpense’ #4, which I got for the Les Mort 13 story (Dream Weaver is a perfectly fine superhero passing on the mantle story, but nothing out of the ordinary), which is a weird, almost dreamlike tale of Les Mort 13 and their world. And it’s hard to describe, things happen, magic and mystery happen, but it has a dream-like logic to it, where everything feels slightly off. Fun times…and on Sunday I went for a Morning Walk, and it was pretty nice, cold, but not freezing and a bit hazy, like you could hardly see the works across the Thames Delta. But it was good to be up and about early, getting some fresh air and steps in, 8,261 steps in total in one hour fifteen minutes and 21 seconds, covering 6.33km and burning 602 calories:

…and I finished reading ‘Not Forever, But For Now’:

…and it was an odd read. The only thing I knew about the story is that it was about a family of assassins, and yeah, that side of things is well explored. But the story is also replete with, what I can only describe as, sexual abuse, horror and philosophy and I was thinking that as the story goes on the metaphors would be revealed and what I thought was sexual abuse is something else. Except it doesn’t. When I finished reading the story, I thought that “well, that was bit odd, not his best, but I don’t feel cheated or that I’ve wasted my time” and then I read the acknowledgements and authors note. Within which Chuck Palahniuk explained that this story is about the pain of addiction, both the pain of the addicted and the pain of those close to them”, and a lot of things slot into place, giving a whole new slant on the story. And it does a great job of convening that emotional emptiness that addiction can bring, those islands of fun and pleasure surrounded by oceans of dullness and robotic behaviour, just going through the motions until you hit land…and I watched the original (American) film of ‘Man On Fire’:

…and it’s a weird watch, especially when you’re familiar with the Tony Scott/Denzel Washington version. There’s the look of both films, the ‘80s ‘Man On Fire’ looks ultra ‘80s, while the Scott/Washington ‘Man On Fire’ looks super modern and gritty and real and much more violent. And the way they tackle the story is different, the Scott/Washington ‘Man On Fire’ feels very nature and realistic, whereas the ‘80s story feels very surface and less violent, although that’s probably just down to the times the films were made in. The biggest difference, to me, was how the relationship between Creasy and the daughter (Sam in the ‘80s and Pita in the Scott/Washington ‘Man On Fire’) is portrayed. In the Scott/Washington ‘Man On Fire’ the relationship feels natural and mutual, whereas the ‘80s version has a touch of ‘Lolita’ about and took me out of the story…

Day 3338

Aka Friday 12th January 2024

…I finally got Liam Gallagher’s live album ‘Knebworth ‘22’:

…I was a big Oasis fan, especially those full-on rock ‘n’ roll early years, and even through the later albums weren’t great albums, they still had some gems on them, amongst the more Oasis-by-numbers songs. But I’ve been a tad disappointed by Liam and Noel’s solo albums as they just don’t have that “spark”, some good individual songs, but most of the songs don’t stick in my mind. So, I left this album on the shelf, with the idea to pick it up when it was on sale, which is what I did…and it’s not a bad live album, but it’s not a great live album. The songs are good and the performance from Liam and his band is good, but it doesn’t touch the heights that Oasis got to and it kinda acts as a reminder of what was. As a side note I’ve been listening to Andy Bell’s side project GLOK/Andy Bell’s Space Station, and they have been great ambienty, E2-E4-ish guitar and effects albums/EPs/songs…and I got these New Comic Book Day gems:

…of which I’ve only read ‘Outsiders’ #3, which continues the trend of covering what Warren Ellis and John Cassidy did with ‘Planetary’, but from within the DCU. And it’s a weird read, the meta is truly dialed up, and it kinda feels like characters from outside the DCU have crashed landed in the DCU and are trying to find their feet, figure out how the DCU works. Be interesting to see what this is all building to…and I did today’s G2 Crossword:

…and we’re back on track with Friday’s crossword, we solved 91.67% of the clues (a la 22 out of 24)…or the clues were easier! Except they weren’t, this was another super chewy grid, but the little grey cells put their heads down and ploughed through the clues. Only getting stuck on not getting ‘ordinal’ from ‘Minister’s book’ and ‘tourist’ from ‘grockle’ (which google says is a derogatory term for a holidaymaker, especially one visiting a resort in Devon or Cornwall), which is nice to know…and today's Metro Cryptic Crossword: