Aka Monday 7th March - Sunday 13th March 2022
I was too tired for a Medium Walk this week, a long week in the office and the lure of staying in dead and slobbing out was to much to resist…this week I picked up some meagre Lottery winnings:
…and I picked up ’The Rush’ #4:
…an invocative horror set during the Klondike Gold Rush that lives up to it’s longer title - This Hungry Earth Reddens Under Snowclad Hills…the postman delivered a load of good stuff, starting with ’Mind Fluid: Jazz New Beats Volume 2’:
…a collection of trippy hip-hoppy jazzy songs, which I got for The Herbaliser track ‘Blowin’ It', which as far as I can tell is only available on this CD or the original 12’. And it’s a nice down-tempo smoky room jam (although I haven’t had a proper listen of the other tracks yet, but as there are tracks from DJ Food and Fila Brazillia)…I also got Eric Prydz’s ‘Call On Me’ EP:
...which I ordered after watching a video on it’s history (how it started out as a live mix by Thomas Bangalter & DJ Falcon, which several other musicians “were inspired by” and made they own versions), which kinda made me nostalgic for that time when French/Filter House was massive, songs like ‘Music Sounds Better With You’, ‘ Gym Tonic’, etc…I also got a few comics:
…’Beatdowns Per Minute’ #1, which I backed on Kickstarter, but haven’t read yet…and ’Phonogram (Vol. 1)’ #2-6:
…I brought the first issue when it first came out, but didn’t get the rest of the series at the time for budgetary reasons, but I did get the follow up series’ and would have gotten the tradepaper back, except, as I understand it it doesn’t have the backmatter, so I got the individual issues. As the backmatter was about the bands and music of the Britpop era and the authors (Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie) thinking behind the story and is, for me, as enjoyable as the story itself (which is about how music is magic and magic is music, and how cultists try to bring back a dead goddess)…I also got Chris Schweizer’s sketchbook:
…which is chock-a-block of top-notch art, just a beautiful way to spend time, flipping through and absorbing the great art…I also re-watched ‘The Blues Brothers’:
…which is a great funny film with awesome music from great artists, such as John Lee Hooker, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, James Brown and Cab Calloway. And The Blues Brothers themselves! Just a fun film that entertains from start to end. And always perks me up if I’m feeling down…and I finally got to watch ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’:
…which is great film, a top-tier MCU film, full of great action, pathos, humour and hope. It does a great job of capturing that friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man flavour and graduates Peter from being an apprentice of Tony Stark into being his own hero and not having the Stark resources to fall back on. Like the majority of MCU films and TV shows, it does a great job on building on previous story ideas, specially the Multiverse from the ‘Loki’ and ‘What If…’ TV shows, knowing that they have laid the ground work for this far-out element, that they don’t have to spend half the film explain what the Multiverse is. Which means that the film can concentrate on emotional beats and the great action pieces. It’ll be interesting to see what Marvel/Sony do with him next and how the other MCU films reflect what Peter did…and on Wednesday I got a call from the heart consultant, with the results of my recent CT Coronary Angiogram and Transthoracic Echocardiogram. In a nutshell, they found nothing wrong and recommended that I have a lung function test, as my symptoms are still there and the issue could be to do with my lungs/chest. On one hand it’s good news, there’s nothing wrong with my heart/cardiovascular system, but on the other hand I still get chest pains, shortness of breath, fatigue, wooziness and panic attacks and don’t know what is causing them (although I’m pretty sure that the panic attacks are a symptom and not a cause). So, it’s back to the GP…and I did this week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and Monday’s crossword got the week off to a grand start as we only had to cheat on one of the 22 clues. The little grey cells only stumbled on not knowing that ‘Tuvalu’ is a Pacific island country, before independence the Ellice Islands’…
…and Tuesday’s grid goes even better as didn’t have to cheat on any of the 26 clues! The little grey cells were well and truly motorin’ like gangbusters and the clues had no chance, toppling like tenpins…
…Wednesday’s grid goes damn well as well, we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 24). A few tougher clues today than yesterday! We stumbled on not getting ‘beer mug’ from ‘bitter container’ – we went for ‘pint pot’ on our first pass and didn’t consider the intersecting letters! – and ‘pusillanimous’ from ‘timid’…
...things took a tumble with Thursday’s grid. We had to cheat on a sixth of the clues, we were back in the office today and I think the associated stress and anxiety wearied the little grey cells a tad and we falter on too many of the clues. But we did learn that an ‘awn’ is a ‘barley bristle’, that a ‘Jacaranda’ is a ‘tropical tree with blue trumpet-shaped flowers’ and that ‘Glamorgan’ was ‘one of 13 historic counties of Wales, split into three in 1972’. A little annoyed that we didn’t get ‘reservoir’ from ‘man-made lake’, especially as we had all the intersecting letters!...
…and things pick back up with Friday’s grid. We only had to cheat on one of the 21 clues. After yesterday’s stumble the little grey cells got up, perked back up and smashed it! And we learnt that a ‘scherzo’ is a ‘playful composition’…
…and Saturday’s grid ends the week on a sixth of the clues (four out of 23), not a great end to the week, but not a terrible end. Probably down to the panic attack we had on the way back from getting the paper. Focusing on the clues need help to relieve things, although we did miss ‘parabola’ from ‘path of a projectile subject to gravity’, and we learnt that ‘Omsk’ is a ‘Siberian city’ and that a ‘lutz’ is a ‘skating jump’…
No comments:
Post a Comment