Days 2092 - 2098

Aka Monday 10^th August - Sunday 16^th August 2020

I worked from home this week, which was lucky because it got so, so hot. Way too hot to do anything except relax with a cool drink. But work had to be done, and as I was home, I could do in my shorts with the fan on full blast and a fancy drink with plenty of ice cubes close by. Thankfully, the heat only lasted till Friday, when it started to break…which meant that I was able to get some proper sleep! Some nice things that happen this week included:

…the reissue of ‘Happiness’ by The Beloved:

…I knew ‘Hello’ and ‘The Sun Rising’ from when they first hit the charts, but hadn’t heard the rest of the album, or the b-sides and demos on the bonus disc. And I’m pretty impressed with it and a bit disappointed that I didn’t get the album when it first came out. It’s kinda like a more commercial Screamadelica, a mixing of club/house music and indie rock sensibilities, with some tracks verging on almost pure acid house.

…the Global Communication boxset:

…which includes remastered versions of '76:14' and ‘Blood Music: Pentamerous Metamorphosis’ and a third disc of singles, demoes, remixes from that time and a cover/remix of 5:23 by Lone. ’76:14’ is still a classic ambient album that is still beguiling, transporting, enchanting, relaxing, enveloping, and beautiful as ever. A practically perfect album and everyone should have a copy. The bonus disc is equally great, but as a compilation it’s not as consistent, ranging from ambient to deep house. But the real discovery for me was ‘Blood Music: Pentamerous Metamorphosis’. I don’t think that I’ve given it a proper listen before, but it’s is glorious. Just glorious. An equal too, and maybe superior too, ’76:14’. Like ’76:14’ it’s the kinda album you can put on and just listen too repeatedly, as the music takes you to another dimension, anther realm. A superb boxset. The thing that connects all of the music in this boxset is their timelessness, the ability to transport you, envelope you, and the emotions they evoke.

…and my DJ Yoda tape/memorystick shaped like a tape arrived, but I haven’t had a chance to listen or watch the mixes on it yet:

…I also brought the new Uncut, ‘cos of the feature on the 'Goats Head Soup' reissue, which has got me looking forward to the reissue and re-discovering the album:

…and I picked up this week’s New Comic Book Day gems:

 

…and got the first set of ‘Colossive Cartographies’…:

 

…Sunday was spent caught up with newspaper supplement reading, reading ‘Adventureman’ #1 and playing Super Mario with my nephew…it’s amazing how easy he finds it to use the many different controls and buttons, while I spend most of my time trying to remember how to jump or running round in a circle! ‘Adventureman’ #1 was a fun read, playing with pulp tropes and fiction vs reality, while setting up the series’ modern world and introducing us to Claire and her family. Defo looking forward the next issue!

…and I did this week’s G2 Crosswords:

…and last week’s hot streak continues with Monday’s crossword as we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 24). The little greys were on fire, I think the early morning heat is good for them, and they were popping clues like they were bubbles. Leaving pretty answers floating down. But we messed up slightly with ‘fiftieth anniversary’, we got the ‘golden…’ part, but went with ‘golden wedding’ and not ‘golden jubilee’, and I’m not sure about the physically part of ‘attack physically or verbally’ as a clue for ‘belabour’, but a pretty good start to the week…

…and things take a tumble with Tuesday’s crossword as we had to cheat on a quarter of the clues (six out of 23). We should have gotten most of those six, but I think the little grey cells got overheated and we just couldn’t make that leap, like we should have gotten ‘Miles’ from ‘boy’s name – a long way’ or ‘ratty’ from ‘irritable’. But we did learn that ‘macadam’ is a ‘road surface’ and that a ‘treadle’ is a ‘foot-operated lever’…

…and we tumble further with Wednesday’s crossword. We had to cheat on over a third of the clues (seven out of 25). A very bad performance, except that we would never have gotten five of those seven. Which means that we learnt that ‘Iambi’ are ‘metrical units with an unstressed and a stressed syllable’, that ‘dagger symbols used as reference marks in printed matter’ are ‘Obeli’, that the ‘Zambezi’ is a ‘river running over the Victoria Falls’, that the ‘Kon-Tiki’ is the ‘raft built by Thor Heyerdahl for his 1947 crossing of the Pacific’ and that a ‘flange’ is the ‘flat rim on a wheel to keep it on a rail’, hopefully tomorrow goes better…it couldn’t go much worse!...

…and Thursday’s crossword is pretty blah, we had to cheat on a fifth of the clues (five out of 24). I think the lack of sleep due to the heat has sapped the little grey cells of their ability to make that leap to get the answer from the more cryptic clues. Like, we couldn’t get ‘canoeist’ from ‘paddler’, which looks pretty much obvious in hindsight, but we just couldn’t see it when trying to work it out. Or ‘opinion’ from ‘view’, we got stuck thinking along the lines of vista, panorama, that kinda thing. As the heat isn’t letting up, I’m guessing that tomorrow’s crossword won’t go that well…

…and Friday’s crossword goes meh, like most of this week, as we had to cheat on a fifth of the clues (four out of 22). I’m defo blaming it on a lack of sleep due to the hot weather. Like how can I remember ‘schadenfreude’, but not ‘exuberant’? Or working out ‘cassoulet’ from ‘’lost cause (anag) - French dish), French cuisine is not my speciality, yes, I had the letters, but to guess their correct order first time is pretty good going. Small victories, I guess? And we learnt that ‘Rubens’ was a ‘Flemish artist, given to painting women, d. 1640’ (well we knew he was an artist, but not the other stuff) and that ‘Weimar’ is the ‘city near Leipzig where the 1919 - 1933 German constitution was adopted’. And any grid that starts with The Killer has got to be a good one…

…and we end a pretty poor week on a high note with Saturday’s crossword as we only had to cheat on a thirteenth of the clues (two out of 26). But it would have been even better if we hadn’t jumped to conclusions about ‘baccarat’ being the answer to 1 across ‘card game played in casinos’, we assume that it wouldn’t be an obvious answer, so went for the most obscure card game we could think of and didn’t even bother to check if it fitted in the squares. But, no, the answer was ‘blackjack’ the most obvious answer, which we had dismissed! But that’s okay, because the rest of the answers came easily enough. Except for ‘grass cut when green and stored as fodder’, which we now know is ‘silage’ (which I had thought was some kinda liquid farm waste!)…