Days 2169 - 2175

 Aka Monday 26^th October 2020 - Sunday 1^st November 2020

Another Covid restricted week, but nowadays all that means is that there are less people in the office, wearing masks in shops and not going to the pub (because the restrictions have taken away the joy/fun of going to the pub), but our glorious (lots of irony been used here) PM announced on Saturday that we are going back into a month long national Lockdown (in England) from 12:01am this coming Thursday, so this week’s NCBD is going to be the last one for a month ☹ The annoying thing is that this could have been avoided if the Government had acted like a Government and thought through their actions…mmm, is it a good idea to re-open schools, colleges and universities, encourage everyone back to work and to go out and eat. Did no-one suggest a phased re-entry to “normal life”? Also, why is the national ‘Test and Trace’ system so bad. And why are so many members of the public just ignoring the guidance to wear masks indoors, to avoid getting to close to people, etc.

On a work related topic, I’ve taken the lead on our Team Challenge, where we the staff take forward ideas to address issues raised in the last Staff Survey, which was kinda undersold to me, but it’ll be fun to get back into work stuff that involves more brain power. Aside from that I made a Lego Iron Man:

 …read a load of comics, which as I’m trying to catch-up to today’s date (I’m about a month and a half behind on this blog) will get very, very, very short reviews:

‘Dracula Motherfucker’ - awesome

‘Once & Future’ #7 - #12 – really great

‘Department of Truth’#1 – interesting start to the series

‘Moonshine’ #21 - fun

‘Adventureman’ #4 - fun

‘Big Girls’ #1 - #3 – an interesting new series, be interesting to see where it goes and how it handles the topics it’s addressing

‘Willow’ #4 – so-so, feels a little drawn out

‘Firefly: Blue Sun Rising’ #0 – interesting start to the next chapter in the Firefly story

‘Angel and Spike’ #14 - fun

‘That Texas Blood’ #2 - #4 -  nice neo-noir story, has a slight feel of ‘Criminal’ about it

‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ #18 - fun

‘Savage Dragon’ #253 – fun superheroics

‘Our Encounters With Evil’ – a great horror story (with some comedic touches, but not a straight up horror comedy)

…and watched a load of horror films, as it’s Halloween:

‘Tucker & Dale Vs Evil’ – very fun

‘Bram Stokers Dracula’ – a great retelling, Gary Oldman is on top form as Dracula

‘Halloween’ – you’ve got to watch ‘Halloween’ on Halloween

‘The Thing From Another World’ – a fun ‘50’s monster flick

‘John Carpenter’s The Thing’ – one of my favourite films, just awesome

‘Dog Soldiers’ – another awesome favourite film

‘The Beast Must Die’ – another awesome favourite film

‘Fright Night’ – a great ‘80’s horror flick

…I also picked up this week’s (the last for a month ☹) New Comic Book Day gems:

 

…and the postman delivered ‘Claremont Editions Volume Two’ and like the first edition it’s a great collection of the more laid-back sound of house/disco and Balearic:

 …and I did this week’s G2 Crosswords:

…and the week gets off to an okay start, the little grey cells managed to avoid the bogeyman and only had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (four out of 23) for Monday’s crossword. A slight stumble in going for ‘rude’ in response to ‘vulgar’ and not checking if it fitted with the intersecting clues/letters, otherwise we would have realised it was wrong and might have could for the right answer of ‘lewd’, but one lives and learns for another day. And talking of learning, we learnt that a ‘Coypu’ is a ‘South American beaver-like rodent bred for its fur’, that a ‘dumpling’ is a ‘dessert made by baking fruit wrapped in pastry’ (for some reason I always thought dumplings were savoury) and that ‘sedge’ is a ‘grass-like plant’ (not that kind of grass, man!)…

…Tuesday’s crossword goes just as well, cheating on a sixth of the clues (four out of 25). No major problems, although we should have gotten ‘romp’ from ‘rough play’ and with ‘narrow pathway high in the air’, we got stuck thinking about flight paths and missed the obvious ‘catwalk’ and a spot of learning. Learning that ‘ait or eyot’ are synonyms for ‘islet’, and that Gothenburg is in Sweden…

…and Wednesday’s crossword goes pretty okay, we only had to cheat on a seventh of the clues (three out of 21). The little grey cells are still dodging the Shape. All while learning that ‘Esau’ was ‘Isaac’s eldest son’ (that might have been a re-learn), that ‘scherzos’ is ‘fast movements in triple time’ and that ‘filial’ means ‘as expected from the daughter or son’…

…things pick up with Thursday’s crossword, only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out 24). It’s looking like the little grey cells might make it to the end of the film, safe and sound, as they sauntered through the clues like they were day-tripper, only stopping to learn that ‘capriccio’ is a ‘short lively piece of music with improvisation’ and that the ‘Scylla’ was a ‘sea-monster devouring sailors trying to escape from Charybdis’, onwards and further upwards for tomorrow’s grid…

…the Shape is catching up to us in Friday’s crossword, as we had to cheat on two ninths of the clues (four out of 18). Which is better than I thought we’d do, although, again, we got stuck on a clue because we misunderstood the meaning of the clue – ‘appropriate for one’s own use’, in which we took ‘appropriate’ to mean ‘suitable’, by if we’d remembered that it can mean ‘take’, we would have gotten the right answer of ‘colonise’. The other three clues we just couldn’t get, but we should have…

…and with Saturday’s crossword we’ve dodged the Shape, as we only had to cheat on a tenth of the clues (two out of 19). We have a few scrapes, we should have gotten ‘argy-bargy’ and ‘youthful’, but we made it to the end of the film mostly safe and sound…