Aka Monday 1st July to Sunday 28th July 2024
…and we start July with a bad back, but not bad enough to stop me from going into the office to work…I have read that if you have a bad back, it’s good to keep some movement going, not to completely rest up, but also not to push it to far and make things worse. So, I decided to go into work and it was mostly fine, or seemed to be fine, but when I woke up on Tuesday it was worse. So, I called into work to ask if I could work from home, but was told to take the day off and rest up. So, I did. Why dismiss a day off! I spent most of Tuesday in bed and it did really help and by Wednesday I could feel my back getting back to normal and was back to work (from home). Which was nice…the rest of these three days was pretty normal, working during the day, chilling at night (listening to music, reading, watching TV, films, Youtube, etc)…but as my back was getting back to normal I had a slight sneezing fit while lying down and managed to put my back out again! But eventually it healed up…I guess Thursday 4th July 2024 was the big day this month as it was General Election Day, which ended with Labour wining a massive majority, which should enable them to go further in pursuing a progressive agenda to fix/rebuild and improve the country (I write this in June 2025 and reader, it did not lead them to be bold or very progressive, but that’s for a later blog!) and it's was nice to see Liz Truss and Jacob Rees-Mogg bounced by the voters, two well deserved P45:
…however, for me, the big thing was visiting my nephew/niece in Scotland. And given the early start I got to see the town with no-one else about:
It was a great visit, nice to catch up and see how well they are settling in, going to watch the new Despicable Me film and just general mucking about. The worse thing was the journey, on the flight up we had to divert from Edinburgh airport to Glasgow, due to the rain causing a hole to form in the runway! So, we sat at Glasgow for what seemed like ages while the hole was filled in. And on the way back (unless I’ve got my journeys mixed up) the plane doors wouldn’t open/close properly, so we had to wait a while for this problem to be fixed, which also meant we had to wait for a crew to arrive, and one of the engines had to be started by a “jump motor” as it wouldn’t start from the cockpit! But, at the time, the annoyance and desire to get home overrode any concerns about getting on the plane! But everything was fine and all the waiting around gave me time to finish reading ‘Once Upon A Time…’:
…it was the perfect size for reading on the various buses and planes I took over the last few days, and once I’d physically gotten into the first few chapters and dug that it wasn’t so much an adaption of the screenplay, but more like an extended directors cut it was a good read, still don’t agree with the depiction of Bruce Lee though! The delay in the flight home meant I got to see a v nice sunset and, again, the streets of home were v empty and a tad spooky:
I also got a The Faces Best of:
…’cos when I was visiting my nephew/niece, we had watched an episode of The Simpsons that used ‘Ooh La La’ over the end credits and it sounded so good that I had to Shazam it, saw it was a Faces song and thought that I should give them a bit of a listen. I also got a couple of other albums:
…and I got some magazines:
…including the latest ‘Mojo’:
…which I got for the Jesus and Mary Chain article, an extract from the Reid brothers upcoming book about the Mary Chain, and for the CD of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds cover CD, which collects a range of tracks from their back catalogue. And enjoyed them, mostly the more recent songs, the earlier ones sound a bit meh, a bit rough and unfinished, but I am v tempted to dip into their back catalogue, maybe the album with the Kylie collaboration. There’s also a nice article on James Brown in the mid-‘70s and the usual news and reviews…I also got these four colour beauties:
…and I got the latest Lego Star Wars magazine:
…and I got a Lego Batman Mecha (although I haven’t assembled it yet):
…this month’s excellent Kyle Starks Sticker Club stickers arrived:
…and I got the ‘Monkey Man’ dvd:
…which is a pretty decent take on the Wick-style action flick, transporting it to India…and I did the first week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and there’s not much to say about Monday’s crossword, while our back may be aching and playing up, the little grey cells are on damn fine form and aced all 21 clues!!! Yeah, dude, another clean sweep to start a crossword week! Roll on the next grid…
…and there’s nothing much to say about Tuesday’s crossword either! The little grey cells smashed all 24 clues like a Tiger rolling through paper!!! No chewy clues, just straight answer after answer…
…and things wane a little with Wednesday’s crossword, no clean sweep today, the little grey cells could only manage to solve 94.44% of the 18 clues. It was a chewy grid and I think the little grey cells were a tad worn out and we missed ‘Olympian’ from ‘of Greek gods’, which is a super obvious answer, but we just couldn’t make that leap from the clue. Like I said, I guess the little grey cells were a tad burnt out…
…and the little grey cells are still a little burnt out with Thursday’s crossword, only solving 94.74% of the 19 clues. And, v annoyingly, we defo should have gotten that one clues we missed. How could we not get ‘hamstring’ from ‘tendon behind knee’!!! Especially when we had the intersecting letters, a v poor showing, but hopefully tomorrow’s grid will go better…
…and Friday’s crossword finds the little grey cells back on fightin’ form, as for the third time this week they aced all the clues! None of the 24 clues were too chewy to not be worked out by the little grey cells!!! But can we make in four clean sweeps with tomorrow’s grid…
…and no, we couldn’t get a fourth clean sweep with Saturday’s crossword, due to our lack of ballet knowledge!!! We could only solve 95.65% of the 23 clues, we only stumbled in not knowing that ‘Nijinsky’ was a ‘Russian ballet dancer, d.1950’. Once we saw the answer, it was super obvious, especially as we only really know two ballet dancers (Nureyev and Nijinsky)!!! Although, aside from that, it was a great performance and a great crossword week…and the Quick Cryptic went pretty well:
…and I did the second week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and we kick this crossword week off with a perfect start, as the little grey cells solved all 25 clues for Monday’s crossword!!! Another clean sweep to start the week, but can it continue…
…and Tuesday’s crossword goes almost as well as Monday’s, as the little grey cells solved 95.83% of the 24 clues, just missing another clean sweep, by not being able to get ‘ex libris’ from ‘bookplate’. We have heard the phrase ‘ex libris’ and knew it as “my library”, but we just didn’t link that up with being a ‘bookplate’, but we know now!!! And roll on the rest of the week…
…and things are a bit wack with Wednesday’s word grid, as we could only solve 86.36% of the 22 clues. But I would argue that ‘musician’s virtuosity’ is not a good clue for ‘chops’, for me, ‘chops’ as a phrase relates to an individual’s ability and you can have good chops, bad chops, mediocre chops, it doesn’t automatically mean virtuosity. Also a tad annoyed for missing ‘lark’ from ‘one’s up early’, but putting all that aside, we did learn that ‘vehement’ is a synonym for ‘fierce’…
…things pick up with Thursday’s crossword, as the little grey cells solved 92.31% of the 26 clues. They pretty much steamrollered all the clues, except for two. And those two, we didn’t know the answers to them and had no way of working it out or just plain guessing the answers. Which means that we learnt that a ‘diadem’ is a ‘small crown’ and that that is a flower called ‘Pink’ and that it is a ‘clove-scented flower’…
…Friday’s crossword was mostly a breeze for the little grey cells, and they solved 91.67% of the 24 clues. We did kinda mess up a bit though, with one clue, ‘seafood dish’, we just assume that the answer was sushi, didn’t even check to see if it had a enough letters(!!!) and clicked reveal to find out that the answer was ‘scampi’. Always check to make sure that the answer fits all the squares! But we did learn that ‘bridal gear’ is also called ‘trousseau’…
…and we end this crossword week on an okay note, not a great note, not a terrible note, just an okay one. It was a chewy grid and the little grey cells managed to solve more clues than I expected, but at the end we could only solve 85.71% of the 21 clues. I would argue that ‘open wide’ is a bit of a misleading clue for the answer ‘yawn’, but we did learn that ‘St Peter’s in Vatican City, for example’ is a ‘Basilica’ and that ‘trop’ means too much or excessively in French…which I nice to know…while the Quick Cryptic was pretty good as well:
…and I did the third week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and we get this crossword week off to a pretty standard start. The little grey cells solved 91.3% of the 23 clues, we missed two semi-obvs answer of ‘immortal’ from ‘enduring’ and ‘lute’ from ‘pear-shaped stringed instrument with a long neck’ (we, incorrectly, went with ‘lyre’). So, pretty standard, but will we get better over the week or worse…
…and things take a massive dip with Tuesday’s crossword, as we could only solve 81.0% of the 21 clues. A combination of a chewy grid, not knowing the answers and missing two that we could have gotten with a bit more thought. Those were ‘grit’ from ‘(true) strength of character’ (it should have been obvs from the use of true!!!) and ‘nurture’ from ‘help (something) to flourish’. I can only put missing them down to being super sleepy from waking early to catch our fight. But we did learn that ‘the years 1649 – 1660 in England’ are called the ‘Interregnum’ and that ‘notes of a chord played in succession’ is an ‘arpeggio’. Hopeful this is just a blip and the rest of the week will go better…
…and Wednesday’s was a chewy grid, a very chewy grid. The little grey cells could only solve 82.61% of the 23 clues. A pretty poor outcome, but I’m not sure that we could have done better. Of the four we missed you can argue that we should have gotten one of them, but the other three, we had no way of guessing them. Which means that we learnt that ‘serge’ is a ‘woolly material’, that ‘tyro’ means ‘rookie’ that ‘recourse’ can mean ‘choice’ (although you could argue that we should have known that) and that ‘peremptory’ means ‘overbearing’…
…and Thursday’s crossword goes pretty well, the little grey cells solved 91.3% of the 23 clues. But, we should have done better, we should have gotten a clean sweep, as we should have gotten ‘gung-ho’ from ‘super-keen’ and ‘seafarer’ from ‘one works on board’. Not a bad performance, but one that should have been much better…
…again, Friday’s crossword goes pretty well, pretty damn well, as the little grey cells solved 96.0% of the 25 clues. We only missed one answer, ‘academic’ from ‘purely hypothetical’, but we shouldn’t have missed it. But, maybe we missed it, ‘cos we were tired from the flight and not getting home till midnight…maybe…
…and we close out this crossword week on a bum note, as we could only solve 87.5% of the 24 clues. Maybe we were still a little tired from Thursday’s flight and long and late journey home, but we missed two obvs in hindsight ones – ‘uncalled-for’ from ‘inappropriate’ and ‘ascribe’ from ‘attribute’, but we did learn that the word for ‘suffering indigestion’ is ‘dyspectic’, which is handy to know…while the Quick Cryptic was pretty good as well:
…and I did the fourth week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and we get this crossword week off to a pretty poor start, a v chewy grid, and in the end the little grey cells could only solve 85.71% of Monday’s 21 clues. We did get blindsided by a couple of the clues, failing to get ‘usage’ from ‘particular meaning of a word or phrase’ and ‘dorsal’ from ‘on the back of an animal’ (we should have thought about aquatic animals and fish and their dorsal fins!), but we did learn that ‘Aurora’ is the ‘Roman Goddess of the Dawn’, hopefully things will pick up after this sluggish start…
…and things do pick up with Tuesday’s crossword, as the little grey cells solved 95.83% of the 24 clues. The only clue we missed, we defo should have gotten, and I don’t know why we didn’t get ‘speculate’ from ‘guess or gamble’. It is super obvs in hindsight…
…and things are continuing to pick up as the little grey cells solved 94.44% of Wednesday's 18 clues. The only difficulty came with not knowing that a ‘bower’ is a word for a ‘sheltered spot outside’, but it’s a nice word to know…
…but things dip down with Thursday’s crossword, a chewy grid, where we were only able to solve 84.21% of the 19 clues. V annoyed that, even with the intersecting letters, we didn’t get ‘sherry’ from ‘Spanish fortified wine’, but we did learn that Edward Lear is an English painter and writer, know for his nonsense poems and that ‘Tufa’ is a ‘porous limestone created by precipitation’, which is nice to know…
…and things pick up a tad with Friday’s crossword, but just a tad mind you, as the little grey cells solved 91.67% of the 24 clues. We did get outfoxed by ‘betters’, think around one’s better’s, so we missing another meaning and didn’t get ‘caps’, but we did learn that ‘Modena’ is a ‘city in Northern Italy, birthplace of Enzo Ferrari’. Hopefully this is a sign we’re back on track…
…and we end this trying crossword week on a slightly bitter note as the little grey cells could only solve 86.96% Saturday’s 23 clues. Although it’s tempered by us only messing up one of those three clues. As a State and Gazelle wearing we know that ‘suede’ is a ‘leather with a roughed surface’, so I don’t know why we missed it here! But we did learn that a ‘ballerina’s leap’ is called a ‘jete’ and that a ‘ball of thread’ is called a ‘clew’, which is nice…while the Quick Cryptic was pretty good as well:
…and I did lots of Metro Cryptic Crosswords:
No comments:
Post a Comment