Days 829 and 830

Aka Thursday 9^th and Friday 10^th May 2019

A couple of quiet days, I watched ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales’ which has the surface of the first few ‘Pirates…’ films, but none of the fun or heart. It felt like a hodge podge of the previous films, with unnecessary backstory for Jack and Barbossa, and a reheating of past story elements, like a ghost ship and CGI'd baddies who have been doomed due to their interaction with Jack, a love triangle (of sorts) between an earnest young man, a feisty young woman and Jack. Just a poor film that squanders the obvious talents of the cast and crew. 3/10.

…I also picked up the latest Maps album, ‘Colours. Reflect.Time. Loss.’, which is just great, with sound like a cross between the Pet Shop Boys and Spiritualized, or if New Order were influenced by Shoegaze and not punk/post-punk. Both Sides and Howl Around are particularly highlights from the first few listens. 8/10.

...and a copy of John Higgs new book 'The Future Starts Here: Adventures in the Twenty-First Century', which if it's half as good as Mr Higgs previous books means that it will be twice as good as most other books and will be very good in deed:

…and the Postie delivered my copy of the 'Buffy'/'Firefly' Free Comic Book Day issue, which came with a free copy of DC's ‘Year Of The Villain’ (which feels like a good story drawn out into an unnecessary event story and kinda makes me glad I’m not reading many DC comics at the moment (and the same with Marvel, where, to me, it feels like the series are overly connected and cross-overing, and too complicated/convoluted, compared to the Marvel comics I read in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s)):

…and I did the G2 Crosswords, Thursday’s crossword keeps up the “doing well” streak as I only had to cheat on an eleventh of the clues (two out of 22) or a Stranger Things result as the cool kids call it. Would have been a clean sweep if I’d gone for ‘slim’ and not ‘diet’ and if I’d known that a ‘contralto’ is a ‘female singing voice’, but at least it’s a new bit of knowledge for the little grey cells:

 …and Friday’s crossword goes even better, only had to cheat on a thirteenth of the clues, two out of 26, the little grey cells firing on all cylinders, the answers flowing like honey on a Summer’s day and I learnt that ‘Osmium’ is the ‘densest of all naturally occurring metallic elements, Os':