Worked from the office for Monday and Tuesday, with the rest of the week working from home…and during the week I picked up the following albums:
…Richard Norris’s ‘Music For Healing’, during the first UK Lockdown Mr Norris released, weekly, twenty minute ambient songs, written to help people cope, and deal, with the stress and worries of Covid and being in Lockdown. This album collects edited versions of those tracks, which still maintain their otherworldliness and beauty.
…Amorphous Androgynous’ new album ‘We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal’ and its remix album ‘We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal Remixes’. ‘We Are Immortal…’ is a forty-minute psychedelic song-cycle/track composed of six suites and it maintains the quality of previous Amorphous Androgynous albums and mixes. It’s forty minutes of head music you can just get lost in. The remix album is a companion piece, but I haven’t listened to it yet.
…and I got The Avalanches new album ‘We Will Always Love You’ and The Kills collection of b-sides and rarities ‘Little Bastards’, which I also haven’t had a chance to listen too yet. I also picked up this week’s New Comic Book Day comics:
…and got the latest stickers from Kyle Stark’s Sticker Club:
…a great illustration off Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, one of my favourite double acts (especially in the ‘80’s/’90’s Justice League).
…I also did some Christmas shopping and got myself this tasty little set:
…at least I managed to resist buying the Playmobil De Loren set (at least for now!) And I went for a Long Walk on Saturday:
…and I did this week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and Monday’s crossword gets the week off to a good, solid start, with only having to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 23). The little grey cells were well rested and just knocked the clues out of the park. And we learnt that ‘Tamil’ is a ‘language of southern India and Sri Lanka’, that ‘osmium’ is a ‘metallic element used in alloys, Os’ and that ‘Antwerp’ is a ‘Belgian port’. Except for those three, the clues fell easily…
…Tuesday’s crossword threw us a bit of a wobble and we had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (four out of 25). But it did have one of our favourite clues ‘HEADGEAR?’, for ‘caps’. Slightly annoyed that we went for ‘clank’ for ‘noise of metal on metal’ and not ‘clang’. Although we did learn that a ‘mattock’ is an ‘agricultural tool shaped like a pickaxe’ and that ‘Euler’ was a ‘Swiss mathematician, d.1783’…
…conversely Wednesday’s crossword went excellently as the little grey cells solved all the 21 clues, with no cheating needed. Superb performance by the little grey cells…
…and Thursday’s crossword went almost as well, we had to cheat on one of the 24 clues. We couldn’t get ‘advised’ from ‘recommended’, but the rest of the clues were easily dispatched by the little grey cells…
…and Friday’s crossword went terribly badly, we had to cheat on over half the clues (eleven out of 18). A very poor performance, we just couldn’t get a handle on this grid. But we did learn loads, that ‘peripatetic’ means ‘travelling from place to place’, that ‘befit’ means ‘suit’, that ‘inveigh’ means ‘complain bitterly (against)’, that ‘ab initio’ means ‘from the beginning (Latin)’, that ‘Fino’ is a ‘very dry and pale sherry’, that ‘Trial By Jury’ is an ‘one-at Gilbert and Sullivan opera’ and an ‘apostle’ was an ‘early Christian missionary’…
…and things pick up with Saturday’s crossword, but only a tad. We had to cheat on a quarter of the clues (four out of 19), which is almost a triumph compared to yesterday’s grid. Not sure if the little grey cells have picked themselves up or that the grid was easier! And we learnt that ‘Mantua’ is a ‘city in Lombardy (where Romeo goes when banished from Verona)’, that ‘querulous’ means ‘peevish’, that ‘NB’ means ‘nota bene’ and that ‘Hector’ was the ‘greatest fighter in the defence of Troy against the Greeks’…
No comments:
Post a Comment