Days 2621 - 2627

Aka Monday 24th January - Sunday 30th January 2022

Another quiet week, a result of the post-Christmas/NYE festivities blues and general Covidness, there’s just not much to do and/or people are a tad skint to do anything major…but I did get ‘Pig’:

…which I haven’t watched yet, but it’s had some very good write ups…as well as this week’s New Comic Book Day beauties:

…along with the latest ‘Electronic Sound’ (mostly for the Pepe Deluxe article):

…and ‘Heavenly Remixes 3 & 4, Andrew Weatherall Volume 1 & 2’:

…which has some classic remixes, essential for every home…and the postman delivered the new edition of Anne Billson's BFI Film Classics book on ‘The Thing’:

…and there was no Long or Medium Walk this week to give myself a little break/rest…and I did this week’s G2 Crosswords:

…and Monday’s crossword gets this week off to a rocking start as we only had to cheat on one of the 22 clues. The little grey cells were flat out and soaring through the clues today. The only grit in the engine was the ‘Albanian capital’, geography is one of our weak points, which we now know is ‘Tirana’…

…and we’re still flying high with Tuesday’s grid, only had to cheat on a thirteenth of the clues (two out of 26), The little grey cells are just powering their way through the clues. Although our lack of geography knowledge did trip us up a little as we didn’t know that ‘Baku’ is the ‘capital of Azerbaijan’…

…and after a strong start we start hitting some turbulence with Wednesday’s grid. We had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (four out of 24). I guess the little grey cells are getting a little burnt out…or the clues are getting harder. We did learn that ‘ascetic’ means ‘self-denying’, that an ‘eclogue’ is a ‘pastoral verse’, that ‘wreathe’ means ‘surround’ and we should have gotten ‘swept’ from ‘wielded a broom’!...

…and we’re still struggling a little with Thursday’s grid, we had to cheat on a seventh of the clues (three out of 24). The little grey cells are still struggling a little, the grit is building up in the engine, so to speak, and we missed the obvious ‘owl’ from ‘hooter’, but we did learn that ‘dissolute’ means ‘debauched’…

…we get a little reprieve with Friday’s grid, only had to cheat on a tenth of the clues (two out of 21). Again, our lack of geography meant that we didn’t get ‘Wadi’ from ‘gully in north Africa that remains dry except during rainy season’, but we learnt that ‘cloche’ can mean both a woman’s hat and plant protection…

…and we end this week on a slightly sour note as we had to cheat on over a fifth of the clues for Saturday’s grid (five out of 23). It is an Illuminati score, which we haven’t had in a long while, but we should have done better. Maybe sending the week in the office has burnt out the little grey cells? Either way, we did learn that Shakespeare’s Malvolio was a ‘spoilsport’, that ‘rubicund’ means ‘with a healthy reddish complexion’ and that ‘rood’ can mean ‘crucifix’…