Days 2900 - 2927

Aka Monday 31st October to Sunday 27th November 2022

A pretty quiet month this month, no political turmoil, aside from the usual Tory incompetence and sleaze, and work and a little bit of a social life. And I’m still trying to catch-up, so, again, this’ll be a brief one…the biggest thing for me this month is that I got to see ‘John Carpenter’s The Thing’ on the big screen:

…‘John Carpenter’s The Thing’ is one of my favourite films, but I’ve never seen it in the cinema, so when the local cinema was showing (for one day) I had to see it! And it was great. Watching it on a massive screen really showed of the snowy and icy setting, the characters really felt isolated and alone in the middle of this whiteness and the cinema sound system showed off Ennio Morricone’s score. The only downside was that I didn’t have the cinema to myself!

I also watched ‘Barbarian’ and ’Smile’:

…’Smile’ was a decent horror story, it does a great job of building tension and has some nice jump scares, but the ending feels a little abrupt. ‘Barbarian’ also does a great job of building tension and of flipping expectations. You start of thinking that it’s going to be one type of story and then flips it and then flips it again. Impressive…and I picked up some great music:

…covering drony shoegazing (the 13th anniversary edition of ‘Exploding Head’ by A Place To Bury Strangers, with a bonus CD of singles, demos and b-sides), old fashion odd rock ‘n’ roll (‘Black Lace And Voodoo Drums – Lux And Ivy Dig That Sound’) a snapshot of an early punk jukebox (‘Sex: We Are Not In The Least Afraid Of Ruins’), ‘80s movie nostalgia (‘Life Moves Pretty Fast’), beautiful techno (Daniel Avery’s ‘Ultra Truth’) and pastoral psychedelia & funky folk (’Deep In The Woods’). 

The lowlight of this bunch is ‘Sex: We Are Not In The Least Afraid Of Ruins’. The first Sex compilation, ‘Sex: Too Fast To Live Too Young To Die’, was great, but this second one doesn’t reach the same heights. It’s okay, but there’s too many “joke” inclusions, like Max Bygraves’s ‘You Need Hands’ and Ron Moody’s ‘You’ve Got To Pick A Pocket Or Two’. The highlight is ‘Deep In The Woods’. The subtitle is “Pastoral Psychedelia & Funky Folk 1968-1975” and the collection does live up to this. It’s a really great collection of songs which have a foot in that folk/acoustic camp while exploring a wide gamut of styles, from psychedelia to chilled out to funky. Highly recommended.

…and I picked up these four colour gems:

…and these magazines (although I’m going to have to not read ‘Little White Lies’ until I see ‘Glass Onion’):

…and the postie delivered:

…’Disco Pogo’ #2 is a great collection of writing about current and past dance/electronic music and ‘Alternative Posters’, a collection of superb alternative film posters by NEEDLE (which came with a free ‘A Clockwork Orange’ print!)…and I picked up some merge Lottery winnings:

…and I did the first week’s G2 Crosswords:

…and Monday’s crossword got the crossword week off to a good start, not great, but not terrible, as we only had to cheat on a seventh of the clues (three out of 21). I guess the little grey cells were preoccupied with seeing John Carpenter’s The Thing on the big screen tonight to fully focus on the clues. Which would explain how we missed ‘Maine’ from ‘New England state’, but we did learn that ‘Elia’ was the ‘pen-name of essayist Charles Lamb’ and that ‘Ogden Nash was an American poet who died in 1971…

…Tuesday’s crossword went much better, we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 23). The little grey cells are back fully focused on the clues, only stumbling on not knowing that a ‘codicil’ is a ‘supplement to a will’ and that Edna O’Brien is an Irish novelist…

…and Wednesday’s crossword keeps that momentum going as, again, we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 23). This time we didn’t get ‘primp’ from ‘titivate’ and ‘pensive’ from ‘thoughtful’, will this damn fine streak continue…let’s find out…

…not much to say about Thursday’s crosswords…just that the little grey cells smashed it and we didn’t have to cheat on any of the 25 clues. Smashed it…

…things take a teeny, tiny stumble with Friday’s crossword as we had to cheat on one of the 21 clues. We just didn’t know enough about windows to get ‘dormer’ from ‘kind of window’, but the rest of the clues? Well, the little grey cells just powered through them like a wrecking ball! Roll on tomorrow’s crossword…

…and Saturday’s crossword ends this crossword week on a damn fine note, with the little grey cells smashing though the clues and only having to cheat on a twenty-fourth of the clues (1 out of 24)! We didn’t know that ‘Mombasa’ was a ‘Kenyan sea port’, otherwise it would have been a clean sweep to end the week!!! Roll on next week…

…and I did the second week’s G2 Crosswords:

…and we get off to a grand start to the crossword week with Monday’s crossword as we only had to cheat on one of the 18 clues. The little grey cells chewed through the clues like mice through wires! And we learnt that ‘punctilious’ means ‘strictly attentive to detail’…will we be able to continue this for the rest of the week…

…things tumble a tad with Tuesday’s crossword, as we had to cheat on a tenth of the clues (two out of 19). I guess the little grey cells are a little drained from recent performances, ‘cos we should have gotten ‘peseta’ from ‘old European currency, equal to 100 centimos’, but we did learn that ‘cretonne’ is a ‘heavy cotton patterned fabric used in upholstery’…

…things pick up a tad with Wednesday’s crossword, as we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 24). We learnt that ‘portico’ is a synonym for ‘colonnade’ and that a ‘tarn’ is a ‘mountain lake’. Is this the start of an upward trend? Let’s find out…

…and the little grey cells smashed Thursday’s crossword! We didn’t have to cheat on any of the 23 clues! A nice clean sweep to set up the weekend…

…and the smashing continues with Friday’s crossword as, again, we didn’t have to cheat on any of the 25 clues! I’m starting to worry that the little grey cells may be burning themselves out and that we’re heading for a fall…

…no fall yet, just a teeny tumble with Saturday’s crossword, as we had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 24). I guess that the little grey cells were a little burnt out, but not enough for a wipe out! We didn’t get ‘destined’ from ‘bound’, as got stuck on thinking just about bound as being tied up or constrained! And for some reason we didn’t get ‘avouch’ from ‘affirm’, but it was still a pretty damn fine performance…

…and I did the third week’s G2 Crosswords:

…and Monday’s crossword goes pretty damn well1 We only had to cheat on an eleventh of the clues! The little grey cells were on full power today, only faltering when we missed ‘by George’ from ‘good gracious!’ and ‘screamer’ from ‘!’ (although I’m not sure how you’re meant to get ‘screamer’ from ‘!’ without prior knowledge that that is the answer)…

…and things get better with Tuesday’s crossword, we only had to cheat on a thirteenth of the clues (two out of 26). We missed ‘lizard’ from ‘man who lounges in hotels and bars looking for woman to support him’, which we should have guessed from the intersecting letters and ‘lounge’! But we did learn that a ‘guava’ is a ‘tropical fruit with yellow skin and pink flesh’…

…Wednesday’s crossword went even better, we only had to cheat on one of the 24 clues! And we should have got that one, ‘vicarages’ from ‘where parsons live(d)?’, but we didn’t chew it over enough for the little grey cells to crack it. C’est la vie…

…and the upswing continues with Thursday’s crossword, as for the second day we only had to cheat on one of the 24 clues! And we learnt that ‘Lambrusco’ is a ‘light sparkling Italian red wine’. Will this hot streak continue or fade away? Let’s find out…

…and it does continue with Friday’s crossword, we only had to cheat on one of the 21 clues! The little grey cells have been powering through the clues like Pacman through pills! And we learnt that a ‘Jewish skullcap’ is called a ‘Yarmulke’…

…and Saturday’s crossword continues the upswing and ends the week on a high note, as we only had to cheat on one of the 23 clues. Whoosh!!! The little grey cells are flat out flying man! And we learnt that a ‘skirmish’ is an ‘engagement that did not last long!’…

…and I did the fourth week’s G2 Crosswords:

…and the new crossword week gets off to a bit of an iffy start as we had to cheat on a seventh of the clues (three out of 21) for Monday’s crossword. I guess the little grey cells were a little rusty after the weekend! And that’s why we missed ‘Comma’ from ‘butterfly with orange and brown wings’ or ‘Durham’ from ‘north-east English county’ and ‘rosy’ from ‘flushed’, hopefully it’s just a one off…

…there’s not much to say about Tuesday’s crossword ‘cos the little grey cells completely smashed it and we didn’t have to cheat on nay of the 23 clues! Woo Woo! Makes up for yesterday’s go…

…and Wednesday’s crossword went almost as well as yesterday, we only had to cheat on one of the 23 clues. The little grey cells are back on their tip-toppermost! And we learnt that ‘Le Havre’ is a ‘port at the mouth of the Seine’…

…things dip down a tad with Thursday’s crossword, as we had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 25). We had forgotten that the ‘high open grassland of southern Africa’ are called ‘veldt’ and we missed ‘textbook’ from ‘conforming to established standards’, so not a bad performance, but we could have done better…

…and we do a tad better with Friday’s crossword, as we only had to cheat on one of the 21 clues! The little grey cells smashed it and we learnt that the ‘dahlia’ is the ‘native Mexican relative of the daisy’…

…and we end the crossword week on a downer as we had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (four out of 24). We found this a very chewy grid and the little grey cells worked hard to get those 20 clues. But we did learn that a ‘ship’s boat’ is called a ‘pinnace’, that ‘Patriarch’ is the ‘title of heads of the Eastern Orthodox Churches (eg in Istanbul or Moscow) and that a ‘rowan’ is a ‘tree with orange-red berry-like fruits’. Hopefully this is just blimp and not a coming back down to Earth…