Days 2781 - 2794

Aka Monday 4th July - Sunday 17th July 2022

A kinda miracle happened this fortnight, starting on Wednesday 6th July Cabinet Ministers started resigning! Thanks to Johnson’s ignoring/downplaying Pincher’s sexual misconduct, along with all the other misconduct and corruption, many Ministers and senior Government officials had had enough and resigned. With, I think a total of 54 ministers, ambassadors etc. actually left, which resulted in Johnson resigning on the 7th…kinda. 

He’s still Prime Minister and has said he will only go when the new Tory Leader is elected, which is a couple of months away. And who knows if he will go then! This is Johnson we’re talking about, and he’ll do whatever he can to keep as much power as possible. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to pull some trick! And now we’ve got weeks of leadership candidates competing to be elected leader, moving further and further away from reality and to the far right to appease the Tory party membership. Anyway, these are the comic book goodies I got this fortnight:

…I also got a few albums, starting with:

…a Link Wray compilation. Everyone knows the epic ‘Rumble’ and I thought it was time to explore further into the Link Wray universe. I also got:

…’Fell From The Sun’, which is a collection of laid back house music, as it says on the album “records that were made to accompany the sunrise; they slowed the pace on the dancefloor itself, right down to 98bpm. Woozy and hypnotic, this was the perfect post-club soundtrack”. And it’s a great compilation, with great tracks like Primal Scream’s ‘Higher Than The Sun (Higher Than The Orb)’, The Grid’s ‘Floatation’, One Dove’s ‘Fallen’, Transglobal Underground’s ‘Temple Head (Pacific Mix - Airwaves)’ and The Aloof’s ‘Never Get Out Of The Boat (The Flying Mix)’. A truly great collection of songs! ‘La Torre Ibiza Volumen Cuatro’, is the fourth in this series of collections of post-club/sunrise songs, which I haven’t listened to yet, but the previous albums were full of great clubby, but not clubby songs, songs for dancing too, but also to chilling too as the sun rises…and this month’s Kyle Starks Sticker Club stickers arrived:

…I also got the latest ‘Lego Star Wars’ magazine:

…with a version after Obi-Wan had had his revenge! And from Monday 11th July the hot weather started…and I don’t do well in hot weather…my blood is too thick for it and I get sluggish and worn out and done in, so instead of spending time out in the sun, it’s more spending time indoors with the air condition! Enjoying a few lunchtime drinks without get all sweaty and sticky. But the worst was to come as on Sunday 17th July the 40+ heatwave started!

And I did this fortnight’s G2 Crosswords:

…and the new crosswording week get’s off to a damn fine start as we only had to cheat on one of Monday’s 18 clues. We had a little stumble over not knowing that ‘censured’ can mean ‘rebuked formally’. But the rest of the clues were all dealt with and dispatched in rapid succession, roll on the rest of the week’s grids…

…Tuesday’s crossword goes just as well as Monday’s, we only had to cheat on one of the nineteen clues. We didn’t know that an ‘alcove by an open fire’ is called an ‘inglenook’. The rest of the clues mostly fell like tenpins, a couple with a bit chewy, but we got ‘em in the end…

…Wednesday’s crossword doesn’t go quite as well, we had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 24). We did learn that the ‘shoulder blade’ is could a ‘scapula’, but didn’t get ‘minion’ from ‘servile dependent’…perhaps today’s political events (aka ministers resigning en masse throughout the day!) has distracted us a tad…

…Thursday’s crossword goes excellently as we didn’t have to cheat on any of the twenty-three clues. I guess the tangible air of change and improvement in the air has spurred the little greys on, and they aced today’s grid…

…and we bump down to Earth with Friday’s crossword as we had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (four out of 25). I guess that the little grey cells were burnt out after yesterday’s clean sweep. Aw well! And we did learn that a ‘fiefdom’ is ‘something controlled by a single dominant person’, that a ‘toper’ is a ‘lover of alcohol’, that an ‘epigram’ also called a ‘quip’ and that ‘retsina’ is a ‘Greek wine’…

…and we end the week on a sweet note as we only to cheat on a twelfth of Saturday’s crossword clues (two out of 24). We only stumbled on not knowing that Mahmoud Abbas is President of the Palestinian National Authority and not getting ‘ultimate’ from ‘finest of its kind’. Not a bad week…roll next week’s crosswords!!!

…and the new crossword week gets off to a damn fine start with Monday’s crossword, as we only had to cheat on an eleventh of the clues (two out of 22). The little grey cells strolled through the clues like it was a sunny day, we get a little stuck with ‘controversial hip-hop performer from the 1980s’, trying to think of a specific rapper, but we got a couple of the intersecting letters and then it all fell into place = ‘gangsta rapper’! And we learnt that a ’shashlik’ is a ‘mutton kebab’ and that s ‘saluki’ is a ‘tall, slender dog with a silky coat and large drooping ears’…

…and things seriously drop off with Tuesday’s crossword, as we had to cheat on nearly a sixth of the clues (four out of 26). The heat is starting to get to us…or more arcuately the lack of sleep caused by the heat has knackered the little grey cells and we just couldn’t get a proper grip on this grid. Like we missed ‘Moor’ from ‘African of mixed Arab and Berber descent’ and the clues ‘move in discomfort’ (for ‘squirm’) and ‘compelling need’ (for ‘motive) don’t feel quite right, like they are too far removed from the answer…or maybe I’m annoyed we didn’t get them! But we did learn that ‘Tuner’ was ‘the Fighting Temeraire artist’…

…and we’re back on top with Wednesday’s crossword, we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 24). The little grey cells have bounced back from yesterday and trounced the clues today! Only stumbling on not knowing that an ‘ocarina’ is a ‘small wind instrument with finger holes’ and forgetting that ‘voracious’ is a synonym for ‘all-consuming’, maybe today’s crossword went better than yesterday’s because we did it at home and not during our lunch hour???...

…and Thursday's crossword went super-fine, and we only had to cheat on one of the 24 clues. We didn’t know that ‘Thomas Hardy’ wrote The Mayor of Casterbridge, looks like the little grey cells have well and truly bounced back…will they be a clean sweep by the end of the week?...there’s only one way to find out…

…Friday’s crossword went super swimmingly as we only had to cheat on one of the 21 clues. The little grey cells stormed through the clues and we only had trouble with not knowing that ‘Wesley’ was the surname of ‘18th-century clergyman brothers Charles and John’. I think the dip in temperature to something more temperate, more tolerable for those of us whose blood is too thick of the sun, give the little grey cells a bit of reprieve to focus on the clues…

…and the crossword week ends on a sour note with Saturday’s crossword, we had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (four out if 23). I think the week long hot weather has knackered the little grey cells and we couldn’t quite get to grips with the grid. I do wonder what will happen when we get the high 30/low 40 heatwave next week! We missed a couple of straight forward ones – ‘earthy’ from ‘crude’ and ‘vocalist’ from ‘singer’, but we did learn that ‘Midi’ is a ‘southern part of France’ and that ‘Ruhr’ is a ‘major industrial region of north-west Germany’…