Day 2970

Aka Monday 9th January 2023

…first day of the new year working from home and it feels a touch…odd. It’s nice have little distractions and accompaniments to hand, like Youtube, dvds, the radio, music, but it’s a lot easier to snack to an nth degree. Which is why, partly, when I went to get the paper this morning I took a longer route, got some steps, bridge climbing and walking uphill in before getting my normal paper (although the walking app crashed and lost all the data!):

…it was also an excuse to pick up the Metro and give its crosswords a go:

…I don’t mean this to be cruel or big-headed, but the Metro crosswords are a little easier than others, so I’m using the cryptic as training for bigger, better cryptic crosswords…but it’s proving difficult! I also did a little circuit of weights to get some more exercise in. And I now feel knackered!

And there was a load of fallout from the early release of the Spanish edition of ‘Spare’ by Harry Windsor. And a lot of it boils down to “experts” giving their guess on why he said what he has said and what his families reaction to the book is. All the time ignoring that none of the media involved actually know the people involved, with most taking the majority media line of Harry and Meghan (or more often just Meghan) bad and the other Royals good. Although it is a useful distraction from how terrible things are in the country. Keeps the cost of living crisis, the strikes, etc off the front pages…

Later on, after I’d finished working I’d listen to some music I’d gotten from JunoDownload ages ago, but hadn’t gotten round to listening to. Mostly disco-y house and a little bit of experimental electronica. And then I watched some more Season Two episodes of ‘Elementary’…and as usual I did today’s G2 Crossword:

…and Monday’s crossword went pretty damn good, we only had to cheat on 11.11% of the clues (two out of 18). The little grey cells just chewed their way through most of the clues, like they were ice-cream. And we learnt that ‘Du Pre’ was a ‘Cellist, d. 1987’, although we did miss the easy in hindsight ‘crop’ from ‘cut – cultivated plant’. Still, we’ve started the crossword week off in great style…