Aka Monday 31st May 2021 - Sunday 27th June 2021
…still trying to catch up with the blog, so this’ll be a quick one covering a lot of time. During this four weeks we enjoyed a Bank Holiday (Monday 31st May), had to go into the office as my Wi-Fi connection to Work’s servers kept dropping out and the only solution we’ve found is using an ethernet cable to connect directly to the router, which limits where I can work, which can be a bit of a hindrance, and also spent much of the month feeling under-the-weather ☹ Most of the tine I feel tired, worn out, a little breathless and a little nauseous. It’s probably just an aftereffect of my second Covid jab, but sometimes it felt like I was having a heat or heart attack and I was tempted on a couple of times to go to A&E, but in the end, I only took a couple of days off work and only went on one Long Walk this month:
…also this month I brought:
…The Avalanches ‘Since I Left You’ reissue, which is a little disappointed as I thought that the tracks on the bonus disc were full tracks, but it turns out that the bonus disc is a mix and there’s nothing on the reissue to tell you that…
…‘Smoke StackLightin’, The Best of Howlin’ Wolf’, which I haven’t listened too yet, but I do like the Howlin’ Wolf tracks I’ve heard on compilations and films…
…‘Elvis Presley: The Searcher’ and ‘Way Down in the Jungle Room’, which have some great Elvis tracks on them…
…the reissue of
‘Pure Phase’ by Spiritualized (and this month’s Electronic Sound has it had a great
feature on Spiritualized/Jason Pierce and the album reissue program)…
…the 'Supernatural’ Season 15 boxset…
…got Lego Jurassic Park magazine for the T-Rex model and a Lego 1985 Audi Sport Quattro S1, as a little treat/pick-me-up…
…this month’s Mojo Magazine, for the ‘Sticky Fingers’ article and the cover CD and ‘90’s Dance Pop’ magazine, as the artists and bands and groups who started/came out of the ‘90’s ae top-notch…
…and this month’s New Comic Book Day beauties:
...and the postman delivered loads of stuff:
…my ’Killtopia’ Kickstarter…
…’The Legion Of Night’ #1-2…
…’Lazarus Risen’ #5 (which came out a year ago, but because of Covid never arrived in the UK)…
…Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds Best Of ‘Back The Way We Came Vol 1. 2011 – 2021’, which I wasn’t sure about as I can’t really remember what any of the previous NGHFB songs sound like! But it came with a bonus disc and if I don’t like the Best Of it gives me a clear reason to not get any future releases…
…DJ Format’s cool ‘Devil's Workshop’ album, like a psych album made with a hip-hop/sampling mindset…
…the Jeremy Brett ‘Sherlock Holmes’ boxset arrived, and this is the best Sherlock Holmes so far, just beats out any other version…
…’When Quiet Was The New Loud’, an enjoyable look at the ‘New Acoustic Movement’ from the late ‘90’s from which Coldplay, Travis, Turin Brakes and many others came from…and this month’s Kyle Starks stickers club stickers arrived:
…and I read a load of comics:
…the fun ‘Collapser’ #1-6 and ‘Doom Patrol’ #1-7, nicely merging straight ahead super-heroics and Morrison-like specialness…
…the highly enjoyable ‘6 Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton’ #1…
…the fun‘Savage Dragon’ #259,
…‘Die’ #17, gearing us up nicely for the upcoming finale…
…the interesting ’Time Before Time’ #2…
…‘The Legion of Night’ #1-2, like a mash-up of peak ‘90’s Marvel and Clive Bakeresque horror…
…re-read the excellent ‘Velvet’, a great spy thriller…
…‘Secret’ #1-7, an intriguing spy/private espionage thriller…
…and the so excellent that excellent is a good enough word to use ‘Bad Machinery’ Vol. 8, Vol.9 and Vol.10…
…and the lowlight of the month was being attacked by my nephew. He has a condition that means he has trouble dealing with his emotions and on the night of Sunday 6th June 2021 he had a bad turn and I ended up being hit, bitten and spat at, which put a downer on the net few days. I know that he’s not doing it on purpose, that he’s not in full control, but it’s still hurtful and takes a while to get over. And yes, I know that my nephew is the one who needs looking after, that these episodes aren’t pleasant for him, but it hurts when the rest of family does check how I am, not even an “You okay?”, but after a few days we patched things up and things are back on an even keel…
…and I did the first week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and Monday’s crossword gets the week off to a slightly wobbly start, as we had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (three out of 19). But we learnt that ‘sangfroid’ means ‘coolness under pressure’, that ‘ethane’ is a ‘colourless gas used as fuel, C2H6’ and that ‘smarmy’ means ‘ingratiating’. And on the other hand, we wouldn’t haven’t gotten those three, so maybe it was a pretty decent start…
…Tuesday’s grid keeps up the wobbly/maybe decent trend, as we had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (four out of 24) again. And again, we wouldn’t have gotten those four, so we learnt that Nell Dunn is the author of Up The Junction, that ‘arboreal’ means ‘tree-related’, that ‘Cecilia’ was the ‘virgin martyr, patron saint of music, killed c. AD 230’, and that ‘ingle’ means ‘(fire)place’…
…Wednesday’s grid went terribly, we had to cheat on a quarter of the clues (six out of 23). On the first pass we only got two answers, and we weren’t 100% about one of them! I think the little grey cells were feeling the aftereffects of our 2nd Covid jab. It just took forever to get anywhere with the grid, and we missed some obvious answers. But we did learn that a ‘sconce’ is a ‘decorative wall bracket for holding candles’ and that ‘Aeneas’ is the ‘mythical Greek leader in the Trojan War’…
…things pick up with Thursday’s grid, we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 25). The little grey cells tore through the clues, pausing only to learn that ‘Mistral’ is the ‘cold north wind in southern France’ and that ‘Cygnus’ is the ‘Northern constellation, the Swan’, which is kinda obvious in hindsight…
…things dipped a little with Friday’s grid, we were back to cheating on a sixth (four out of 24) of the clues. Maybe because we were a little hasty and weren’t checking intersecting letters, but we did learn that ‘Bantu’ is a ‘language group that includes Swahili’ and that ‘organza’ is a ‘material made of silk or a silk-like fabric’…
…and Saturday’s grid ends the week on a high note as we only had to cheat on an eleventh of the clues (two out of 22). The aftereffects of the 2nd jab seem to be wearing off and the little grey cells are getting back to normal. And we learnt that ‘pusillanimous’ means ‘lacking in courage’ and that ‘pibroch’ is ‘martial music played on the bagpipes’, all in all a good finish to a good crossword week…
…and I did the second week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and Monday’s crossword gets the week off to an okay start, we only had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (four out of 26). We missed an easy one, ‘cochineal’ from ‘red food dye’ (I think because of a combination of post-Covid jab lurgy and the heat, because everyone knows that the red colour in Smarties comes from bugs, aka cochineal), but we did learn that ‘Acre’’ is an ‘Israeli port city’, that ‘Louis’ was ‘American world heavyweight boxing champion for 12 years, d.1981’ and that ‘Thurso’ is the ‘most northerly town on the Scottish mainland’…
…the lurgy is still affecting Tuesday’s grid, even though we only had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 24) we missed another easy one, ‘eyeball’ from ‘look at (informal)’, but we did learn that a ‘firedog’ is also called an ‘andiron’ and that ‘Omaha’ is Nebraska’s largest city’. A pretty straight forward grid, but the lurgy made is harder to solve that it should have been…
…Wednesday’s grid is a repeat of Tuesday’s, we had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 24) and we missed a couple of easy ones – ‘torment’ from ‘great anguish’ and ‘myopic’ from ‘lacking foresight’, but we did learn that a ‘chef’s hat’ is called a ‘toque’, but the lurgy has subsided enough for us to go back to work…
…and we Thursday’s grid the lurgy was back with a vengeance (Covid test came back negative, so it’s not that, it seems to be more heart-related now), and we had to cheat on a quarter of the clues (five out of 21). Not good. Although I’d argue that summon and not judo is a better answer to ‘Olympic sport similar to wrestling, developed in Japan’, but we did learn that ‘Anna Sewell’ wrote Black Beauty and that ‘Actinium’ is a ‘radioactive element, Ac’…
…still feel under the weather on Friday, but we were able to trounce the grid and only had to cheat on an eleventh of the clues (two out of 23), learning that ‘milieu’ means ‘social circle’ and that ‘congenital’ means ‘innate’ (which we should have guessed when we had the intersecting letters)…
…and Saturday’s grid end the week with us feeling very done in (and almost going to A&E, thanks to our anxiety kicking in!), but on a crossword high note. We only had to cheat on an eleventh of the clues (two out of 21). Forgetting that ‘conjectural’ means ‘hypothetical’ and learning that a ‘mitre’ is a ‘joint between two pieces of wood, forming a corner’. Aside from the lurgy and feeling at death’s door a pretty good crossword week…
…and I did the third week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and Monday’s crossword was a bit of a shambles, but we did get an Illuminati score (having to cheat on five of the 23 clues), which we haven’t had in a long, long while. A couple we should have gotten as they were past answers (‘Honshu’ from ‘mainland of Japan’ and ‘Shag’ from ‘kind of cormorant’) and some we just missed (‘mentor’ from ‘trusted counsellor’). But, on the positive side, we learnt that ‘Bologna’ is not only an Italian city but also an American smoked sausage and that the French call petrol ‘essence’, so not a great start to the week, but not a terrible start either…
…and it’s Groundhog Day with Tuesday’s grid, another Illuminati score (having to cheat on five of the 23 clues) and we missed a couple of obvious ones, like ‘exhort’ from ‘urge on’ and ‘boastfulness’ from ‘braggadocio’. But we did learn that ‘Loire’ is ‘France’s longest river’, that ‘odium’ means ‘state of disgrace’ and that ‘Rossini’ was an ‘Italian composer of 39 operas, d.1868’…
…and it’s non-Groundhog Day with Wednesday’s grid, the little grey cells have bounced back and we only had to cheat on a thirteenth of the clues (two out of 25). Maybe the little grey cells are getting used to the heat and are coming back to their normal? And we learnt that ‘heraldic black’ is ‘sable’ and that ‘minim’ is a ‘(in music) note with a time value of half a while note’…
…things dip a little with Thursday’s grid, we had to cheat on a seventh of the clues (three out of 21), but still within good solving norms. And we learnt that ‘Cromer’ is a ‘Norfolk seaside resort’, that ‘coir’ is a ‘fibre from coconut husks’ and that a ‘sceptre’ is a ‘symbol of royalty’…
…the dip continues, but only a little, with Friday’s grid. It was a pretty straight forward grid, but we still had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (four out of 24), which is within norms, but at the lower end! But we did learn that ‘Walloon’ is a ‘French dialect spoken in Belgium’ and that ‘Truro’ is ‘Cornwall’s only cathedral city’. Once again, our lack of geography and foreign knowledge let us down…
…but things level out with Saturday’s grid, and ends the week on a fairly okay note, as we only had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (three out of 18). It started out dreadfully, on the first pass we only got two of the 18 clues and thought it was going to be a nightmare, especially when we for ‘extinct mammal resembling an elephant’ we went not for ‘mastodon’, but instead misspelt ‘mammouth’!!! But we took our time, relied on the intersecting letters and managed to grind out a pretty decent go of it. And we learnt that ‘copperplate’ is a ‘style of neat round handwriting’ and that a ‘spinney’ is a ‘small clump of trees’, so not a bad end to the crossword week…
…and I did the fourth week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and Monday’s crossword gets the week of to a bad start, a very bad start. We had to cheat on a quarter of the clues (five out of 19), the little grey cells just couldn’t get to grips with the clues, maybe it’s still a hangover from the heat and second jab?, and we missed some easy ones, like ‘esoteric’ from ‘arcane’, but we did learn that a ‘hinged window’ is called a ‘casement’ and that ‘Jeremy Frog’ is a Beatrix Potter character…
…Tuesday’s grid went much, much better and we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 24) and neither of those we knew. So, it looks like the little grey cells are back on form! And we learnt that ‘Amati’ was an ‘Italian violin maker, d.1684’ and that an ‘Abaca’ is a ‘Philippine banana tree with leaf stalks used to make hemp’…
…Wednesday’s grid keeps the winning up, we only had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 23). In hindsight we missed a couple of easy ones, but we did learn that the ‘eldest son of a French king and heir to the throne’ is called a ‘dauphin’…
…Thursday’s grid is a little groundhoggy, but in a good way, as we only had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 25) again. And we learnt that a ‘lovage’ is a ‘large edible plant of the parsley family’ and that ‘granita’ is ‘crunchy flavoured water ice’ aka a posh word for a slush puppie!...
…and it’s Groundhog Day again with Friday’s grid as we only had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 23) again. The little grey cells have found their groove and they’re just dancing away. And we learnt that cowslip and oxlip are examples of ‘primula’ (a genus of mainly herbaceous flowering plants in the family Primulaceae), that a ‘borzoi’ is a ‘large Russian wolfhound’ and that ‘quince’ is a ‘pear-shaped fruit used in jams and jellies’…
…and Saturday’s grid ends the week on a high note, as the little grey cells pretty much stormed the castle and we only had to cheat on one of the 22 clues. After a cautious start the little grey cells sailed through the clues, except for not knowing that ‘bergamot’ is an ‘extract from a dwarf citrus fruit used in Earl Grey tea’…
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