Days 2705 - 2711

Aka Monday 18th - Sunday 24th April 2022

We still feel tired and knackered and wore out after having the Covid…just feel not-right, even when feeling okayish there’s a inkling, a feeling that any minute now it all come crashing down and you’ll be back to feeling wore out, unsteady and disconnected from the world. On Tuesday I had an appointment with the Chest Nurse at my GP surgery. I had to wait 25 minutes past the appointment time to see her and when I did she didn‘t seem to know what my appointment was for. So, the first few minutes were sent with her going through my notes and then I explained my symptoms and how they occurred and she gave me a prescription for a spirometer, to test my breathing and for a Ventolin inhaler (two squirts in the morning and two in the afternoon) and a form to book a chest x-ray at the local hospital. Let’s hope they work/provide some useful information…aside form that it’s been a quiet week, I got this month’s ‘Mojo’ and ‘Uncut’ This month’s ‘Mojo’ is okay:

...an average interview with Liam G and not much else. The main reason I got it was for the Grateful Dead cover CD, as I’ve always heard of the ‘Dead but have never, knowingly, heard any of their music, so this was a good opportunity to dive in. And it’s pretty unmemorable, just competent rock ‘n’ roll jams that are just there and when the songs end they don’t stick around in the memory. ‘Uncut’ was a bit better:

...although their cover CD was much better, just the generic “best of this months releases” boredom, but there was a nice article on the 50th Anniversary of The Stones ‘Exile on Main Street’ and interview with Glen Mattlock, but pretty flat aside from that. I also got this week’s New Comic Book Day gems:

…and I got ‘Everything Is Beautiful’ by Spiritualized:

…their latest album and a companion to the previous album ‘And Nothing Hurt’. And it’s just great, it doesn’t devastate greatly from the Spiritualized template, but it does everything you want from Spiritualized, a great blend of rock ‘n’ roll, gospel, soul, folk, Avant Gardeness, and it does it near-perfectly…I also picked up DVDs of ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ and ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’:

...to complete my collection of physical copies of the MCU (once a collector, always a collector!)…I also rewatched ‘The World’s End’:

…which, as I get older, gets more resonant. And I watched ‘Fresh’:

…which is pretty messed up and is kinda like if Leatherface got a make-over and went corporate and it does a great job of creating a vibe, a feeling of helplessness and desperation…on Sunday the Mail on Sunday published an article quoting unnamed Tories accursing Angela Rayner, Deputy Leader of the Opposition (and Labour) of distracting Johnson at PMQs (and possibly other Parliamentary events/debates) by flashing her legs ala Sharon Stone in ‘Basic Instant’:

...and it’s just another example of how low so much of the UK press, and the Mail in particular are. No actually evidence, just unnamed sources, but why should that stop them from engaging in some misogyny and the chance to throw mud at the opposition and to try to protect Johnson. Just disgraceful…changed gear totally, I also picked up this week’s Lotto winnings: 

…and I finally got round to make that Lego AT-AT…

…and I did this week’s G2 Crosswords:

…and Monday’s crossword gets the week off to a stonking start as we only had to cheat on one of the 22 clues. The Bank Holiday’s haven’t dulled the little grey cells! They chomped through the clues, only stumbling on not knowing that a ‘ha-ha’ is a ‘concealed ditch in landscape gardening’…

…it’s Tuesday, it’s after a Bank Holiday, so it’s back to work…and it took its toll on the little grey cells and we had to cheat on a thirteenth of the clues (two out of 26). Okay, not much of a toll, but after the Covid, a full day in the office is knackering! But we did learn that a ‘Greengate’ is a ‘variety of plum’ and that Adam Bede is a George Eliot novel…

…Wednesday’s grid is also affected by the knackering, and we had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 24). But we did learn that ‘Yalta’ is a ‘Crimean resort, where Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill met in February 1945’ and that ‘truculent’ means ‘aggressive and discourteous’. And it’s a weird tiredness, it creeps up on you, like a fog, and then you’re gone, like you’ve done a couple of marathons followed by a few cross-countries. Not nice. And sleep doesn’t cure it…it just festers…

…the tiredness continues with Thursday’s grid as we had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 24). We fell on not knowing that ‘calico’ is a ‘coarse printed cotton cloth’, that ‘Ephesus’ was an ‘ancient Greek city in modern Turkey, site of the Temple of Artemis’ and the tiredness means that we forgot that ‘Hammerstein’ was the ‘South Pacific’s librettist’…

…and Friday’s grid gets us back on track, we only had to cheat on one of the 21 clues. I think the nap we had after work helped to refresh the little grey cells a little, enough to help us grind through the clues and only failing when we didn’t get ‘skittish’ from ‘excitable and unpredictable’…

…and Saturday’s grid ends the week on a stonking note as we only had to cheat on one of the 23 clues. We still feel tired and knackered and wore out, but we did manage to know, work out and guess all but one of the clues. Our lack of monastical knowledge mean that we didn’t know that a ‘Cistercian’ is a ‘member of a monastic order, noted for austerity and a vow of silence’…anyhow, like I said, we are feeling tired, so time for a nap…