Aka Monday 28th November to Saturday 31st December 2022
…still catching up so this will be pretty brief. For a chunk of this month (or so) I spent under the weather. Just after Christmas I got a cold and it knocked me for six. Leaving me feeling super tired and weak and snotty. It took lots of energy to just stay awake. Felt v rough. But that was the end of the month and there were fun times before that. To start with my Kyle Starks Sticker Club stickers arrived:
…and I got a few comicbook gems, from New Comic Book Days and Kickstarters/Unbound campaigns:
…and some groovy magazines, including 'Empire' with a nice Nic Cage feature:
...and 'Uncut':
…and this month’s cover CD is collection of “15 tracks of the month’s best music” and they are always very hit and miss, by its very nature it’ll be covering a wide spread of music, and I prefer the curated cover CDs, the ones that cover a specific genre, artist, year, etc…but there was a good ratio of quality here, in particular ‘Palm Trees’ by Fran, ‘Star Hill Song’ by Meg Baird, ‘Change of Heart’ by Margo Price, ‘The Open Door’ by SUSS, ‘Bet The Farm’ by Whitehouse and ‘The Black Fens’ by Simon Scott. And some nice article on The Stooges, Margo Price, Gong and New Order…
…'Mojo' magazine had a curated CD, a Pink Floyd Companion, and liked a few of the tracks, ’Fearless’ by Mary Lou Lord, ‘Blue Sands’ by The Chico Hamilton Quintet, ‘Love, Pain & Sorrow’ by Snowy White, ‘East-West’ by The Butterfield Blues Band, ‘Us and Them’ by A Camp and ‘Theme From The Film Oce’ by Clare Torry, overall a bit meh. But the magazine itself had some nice Stones pics and an article on Jerry Lee Lewis. As does 'Vinatge Rock':
…and I got the latest ’Lego Batman’ magazine:
…and the postie delivered some goodies (a sweet downtempo compilation from the Claremont 56 label, an interesting book about British music magazines and the ‘Danger Man’ boxset, which I’ve heard lots about, being a ‘The Prisoner’ fan, and look forward to diving into):
…and I picked up some meagre Lottery wins:
…and I watched ‘Glass Onion’:
…and it was great! A perfect pre-Christmas treat, and it equally the fun and joy of watching ‘Knives Out’. Really looking forward to the next Benoit Blanc film and ’Poker Face’…and I watched ‘Violent Night’:
…which was okay, a nice actioner Santa film, but sometimes it felt a little to knowing. And on Christmas Day I got a great ‘Columbo’ book and cash money (and store cards) and chocolate and body spray:
…and I did the first week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and Monday’s crossword went…okay, it was a bit chewy and we had to cheat on a ninth of the clues (two out of 18), but we managed to get through it with a little perseverance. Using our knowledge of the common groupings of letters, like knowing that if the last but one letter is an ‘N’ it’s more than possible that it’s part of ‘…ING’. And we learnt that the ‘moulding between ceiling and top of a wall’ is called a ’cornice’…
…and Tuesday’s crossword was a mini-disaster of Truss-like proportions! We found the grid very chewy and we had to cheat on a quarter of the clues (five out of 19). A very not good performance, hopefully a one-off and the little grey cells will be back on top form for the rest of the week. On the positive side we did learn that a ‘tick’ can mean a ‘second’, that ‘warm frothy milk for little ones?’ is called a ‘babycino’, that ‘quartz’ is ‘colourless glass made of pure silica’ and that ‘Deists’ are people who ‘they think there is a God’. And we missed ‘pompom’ from ‘decorative woollen ball’ because we misread the clues as ‘decorative wooden ball’!!! Hopefully tomorrow’s grid will go better…
…and we’re back like Icarus, soaring up, up, up in the sky, as we only had to cheat on one of the 24 clues for Wednesday’s crossword. The little grey cells were back today and chomped through the clues like Pacman! We were let down by our poor geography knowledge, but it does mean that we learnt that ‘Yerevan’ is the capital of Armenia…
…and like Icarus Thursday’s crossword brings us back down to Earth, as we had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (four out of 23). A tricky, chewy grid today. We missed some, like ‘carnage’ from ‘mass murder’ (we always thought of ‘carnage’ as general chaos and disruption and not genocidal or serial killer leaning), but we learnt that a ‘real’ is an ‘old small silver Spanish coin’ and that a ‘rapid series of ascending or descending notes on the musical scale’ is called a ‘glissando’. Hopefully tomorrow’s grid goes better…
…and things pick up a tad with Friday’s crossword, we only had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 25). It was still a chewy grid, but the little cells managed to chew it better than yesterday, although in hindsight we should have gotten those three, like ‘vacuum’ from ‘empty space’! But one lives and learns and moves on, roll on Saturday’s crossword…
…and Saturday’s crossword ends the crossword week on a pretty sweet note, as we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 24). It was a chewy grid and on the first run through we only got a few answers, but when we and the four long words (at the top, bottom and either side) it got easily to work out the ones we missed, kinda working backward from the intersecting letters. And we learnt that ‘echt’ means ‘not fake’ (but we should have gotten ‘dinosaur’ from ‘person not willing or able to change’…)
…and I did the second week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and Monday’s crossword gets the crossword week of to a damn solid start, as we only had to cheat on an eleventh of the clues (two out of 22). The little grey cells made short work of the clues, only stumbling on not knowing that ‘ecru’ is a ‘very light brown’ (although I think we may have had this one before!) and that the ‘patella’ is the ‘kneecap’. Will this damn fine solid start continue? There’s only one way to find out…
…and Tuesday’s crossword carries on the damn solid start, as we only had to cheat on a thirteenth of the clues (two out of 26). The little grey cells are on a charge! And we learnt that ‘lean’ can also mean ‘list’, although we did miss ‘teeter’ from ‘be about to topple over’…
…the little grey cells are flying and on Wednesday’s crossword we got an almost clean sweep! We only fell down on one of the 24 clues, we didn’t get ‘humdinger’ from ‘superlative example’…
…and we hit a tad largeish bump with Thursday’s crossword, and we had to cheat on a sixth of the clues. I guess the little grey cells had burnt themselves out. Which would explain why we missed three ones that we should have got (at least with a little thinking), but we did learn that ‘Ewell’ is an ‘upmarket village near Epsom in Surrey. Hopefully today is just a blimp, a bump on the road…
…and we’re back on fighting form with Friday’s crossword, as we only had to cheat on a tenth of the clues (two out of 21). The little grey cells have bounced back! And we learnt that ‘souvlaki’ is a ‘Greek dish of grilled lamb on a skewer’ and that the ‘bottom of the boat’ is called a ‘bilge’…
…and we end a pretty damn fine crossword week on an okay note, we had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 23). Not bad, but not great either. I guess the extreme cold (or at least the extreme change in temperature) got to the little grey cells, but we did learn that Jacques Tati was the director, writer and star of Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (1953) and that Vita Sackville-West was an author and garden designer, d.1962…
…and I did the third week’s G2 Crosswords:
…which didn’t go very well at well! Even that is a bit of an understatement. We had to cheat on a quarter of the clues (five out of 21), a terrible start to the week. The little grey cells just couldn’t get to grips with the grid. But we did learn that a ‘newel’ is a ‘stair post’ and that a ‘canard’ is an ‘item of fake news’. Hopefully tomorrow goes better…
…and things did go better with Tuesday’s crossword, we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 23). I guess the little grey cells were still groggy from the weekend and needed a day to get their breath back. Annoyed that we didn’t get ‘dropouts’ from ‘their studies are incomplete’, but we did learn a ‘lour’ is a ‘scowl’…
…and Wednesday’s crossword goes pretty okay, we had to cheat on an eighth of the clues (three out of 23). A bit of a drop compared to yesterday, but still okay. And we learnt that ‘Mazurka’ is the ‘Polish national dance music’…
…things pick up with Thursday’s crossword, we only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 25). An easy-to-chew grid for the little grey cells. We also learn that the ‘cote’ is the ‘French coast’, although we should have gotten ‘para’ from ‘section of text (abbr)’…
…and the little grey cells find Friday’s crossword to be pretty damn easy to get through. We only had to cheat on one of the 21 clues, although we’d forgotten that a ‘document setting out a client’s case’ is called ‘briefs’, a d’oh moment…
…Saturday’s crossword ends the crosswording week on the finest of damn fine notes. A clean sweep! We didn’t have to cheat on any of the 24 clues, the little grey cells just sailed through the clues like a knife through butter…
…and I did the fourth week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and Monday’s crossword got the crossword week off to a damn solid start. We only had to cheat on a ninth of the clues (two out of 18). Which was probably the best we could have done, as this was a chewy grid! Took longer to get through than normal. Still a bit gutted that we missed ‘foil’ from ‘hinder – prevent’ and ‘twisted’ from ‘distorted’, but roll on for the rest of the week…
…Tuesday’s grid goes even better! We only had to cheat on one of the 19 clues. The grid was a little chewy, but yesterday had obvs warmed us up and we learnt that ‘Faro’ is both an Algarve city and a card game…
…and Wednesday’s crossword goes one better, and we didn’t have to cheat on any of the 24 clues. The little grey cells smashed it out of the park!!! Can they do it again tomorrow…
…nope, no we can’t. But we did do pretty damn well and only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 23), only slipping up on going for ‘spare change’ for ‘coppers’ and not ‘small change’! But we did learn that ‘espouse’ means ‘adopt’…
…and Friday’s crossword goes even more pretty damn well as we only had to cheat on one of the 25 clues. It started off as a chewy grid, but half way through, with some intersecting letters, it all snapped into place. Except for ‘frilly’, which we didn’t get from ‘ruffled’ (I think we were stuck on it being ruffled as in nervous or upset)…
…and the Christmas crossword week ends on a pretty fine point. We only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 24). Again is started of as chewy, but we soon got a hold of it. Except for not getting ‘turkeys’ from ‘they get roasted at this time of year’ (can’t believe we missed it, especially at this time of year, but we got stuck on chestnuts and over snacks), but we did learn that ‘rondeau’ means ‘piece of music’. A pretty damn fine, solid crossword week…
…and I did the fifth week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and Monday’s crossword, the post-Christmas crossword, goes terribly, terribly, poorly. We had to cheat on over a quarter of the clues (six out of 22). We just couldn’t get to grips with this crossword, maybe we’re still in that turkey-coma stage of Christmas? And that’s why we didn’t get ‘cheesemongers’ from ‘traders in Derby and Leicester’ (we got as far as cheese_n_ers!!!) or ‘chasm’ from ‘deep opening’. But we did learn that a ‘tocsin’ is an ‘alarm bell’, that a ‘lied’ is a ‘romantic song for solo voice and piano’, that ‘Ida’ is a ‘G&S princess’, and that ‘Bologna’ is the ‘capital of Emilia-Romagna’. Hopefully the rest of the week will go better…
…yep, things do get better with Tuesday’s crossword, the little grey cells have perked up and we only had to cheat on one of the 26 clues. The little grey cells just stormed through the clues, only falling when we didn’t know that ‘Dubrovnik’ is a ‘Adriatic port city’. Easy peasy…
…we dip a teeny tiny bit with Wednesday’s crossword, as we had to cheat on a twelfth of the cues (two out of 24). The grid was just a tad chewier than yesterday and we didn’t get ‘aloo’ from ‘potato (in Indian cuisine)’, we thought that there was a g in there, and we tots missed ‘asunder’ from ‘apart’, which we should have easily got, but hey ho, this happens from time to time…
…and Thursday’s crossword goes pretty well, kinda. We got all the clues we could get but we had to cheat on a sixth of the clues (four out of 24) as we just didn’t know the answers and couldn’t guess them! So, we learnt that ‘Nabokov’ was a ‘Russian-American writer, d. 1977’, that the ‘Oriole’ is the ‘American songbird’, that ‘Umbria’ is a ‘region with Perugia as its capital’ and that ‘Lebanon’ is a ‘Arabic-speaking country with a cedar tree on its flag’. Hopefully tomorrow goes better than today…
…and Friday’s crossword did go better, we only had to cheat on a tenth of the clues (two out of 21). We may have a stinking cold, but the little grey cells are still blitzkrieg-ing through the clues, but we should have gotten ‘orthodox’ from ‘conventional’ and ‘acreage’ from ‘area of ground’…so maybe the cold is having a slight effect on the little grey cells…
…and Saturday’s crossword ends the crossword week, and year, on a pretty damn fine note! We only had to cheat on a twelfth of the clues (two out of 23). We couldn’t get ‘vice’ from ‘deputy - failing’, but we did learn that ‘Little Nell’ is a ‘character in The Old Curiosity Shop’. Roll on the new year, hopefully this has set the tone for next year…
…and I did a load of cryptic crossword (but from the Metro, so I’m kinda at the beginner level of doing cryptics):
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