Days 3117 - 3123

Aka Monday 5th June – Sunday 11th June 2023

Still catching up, so this will be a v quick canter through this week. A pretty much standard week, hybrid working from home for a few days and the office for the rest of the working week…plus some overtime. Yay (except for when one gets burnt out and overtime is no longer a bonus, an extra, but is a burden, something one does to try to keep up!). What wasn’t usual is that on Friday Boris Johnson quit as an MP, over the Privileges Committee report, so that he wouldn’t be suspended and face a reaction ballot. Hoo-fucking-ray!!! Proof that sometimes good things do happen!

Back to the usual and I went for a couple of Morning Walks, one on Thursday, but I forgot to turn on the GPS, so all I know about the walk is that it took about 55 minutes, but I did take some pics:

…and the second Morning Walk was on Sunday:

…which covered 4.70km in 56 minutes and 50 seconds, taking in 6,190 steps and burning 445 calories. I also did my bit for the UK’s capitalist society by buying the following:

…I got some more Disney 100th Anniversary Lego minifigures, all doubles and a young “Day of the Dead” guitar player and  a Voodoo Priest:

…and I found an old Lego ‘Coco’ packet:

…and I got some music. I got London Brew’s ‘London Brew’ album:

…which I got ‘cos a heard one of the tracks on a free CD and liked it, liked it enough to get the CD, although I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet! Another album I got, but haven’t listened to yet, is the new Jenny Lewis album ‘Joy’all:

…I also got a digital copy of the Hack-Poet’s Guild album ‘Blackletter Garland’ (as I couldn’t find a CD copy, although I did pick the CD up in a few week’s time!):

…which I have actually been able to listen to and it’s a great collection of folk songs, with bits and references to other musical styles, like ambient and shoegaze, which make them sound v modern and ancient at the same time…and I got ’Best of the Rolling Stones – Jump Back’ CD:

…which I got cheap second hand, as I really wanted it for the liner notes. Little quotes/soundbites about each of the tracks on the comp. Well worth the couple of quid it cost (including P&P). I also got a few magazines, starting with ’Cinema of the ‘80s’ #2:

…which I mostly got for the article about John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’, but also for the articles on ‘Pale Rider’, ‘Big Trouble In Little China’ and ‘80s teen sex comedies, like ‘Porky's’. I also got the latest issues of Electronic Sound:

…for the Richard X article, Kid Koala and the news and reviews. I also got Mojo’s ‘Oasis Essentials’:

…which was a great deep dive in the Oasis catalogue, really getting over how great these songs and made me want to explore some of the less familiar songs, like the Beady Eye albums. But it also reminded me how the press can talk up the Gallaghers solo work, make it sound great in print, but when I listen to the solo albums, they come up short. I’ve got all of their solo albums and I can’t really recall any of the songs. They just don’t soar like the Oasis songs from their golden years…then I picked up these comic book goodies:

…and I did this week’s G2 Crosswords:

…and Monday’s crossword gets the week off to a damn solid start, as we only had to cheat on 11.11% of the clues (aka two out of 18). The little grey cells were on solid form and chomped through the clues like a hungry man through twiglets, only getting stuck on ‘using great care and thoroughness’ and not working out that the answer is ‘painstaking’. But we did learn that an ‘isthmus’ is a ‘narrow strip of land connecting two larger areas’, so, all in all, a very good start to the crossword week…

…and the damn solidness continues with Tuesday’s crossword. We only had to cheat on 10.52% of the clues (aka two out of 19), although, in hindsight, we should have gotten those two, ‘paramount’ from ‘of greatest importance’ and ‘screwball’ from ‘eccentric’, and a clean sweep. I think the little grey cells may have been a tad sleepy and that’s why we missed those two…

…and things knock up a tad with Wednesday’s crossword, as we only had to cheat on 4.17% of the clues (also known as one out of 24). And like yesterday, we should had gotten a clean sweep, as we should have gotten ‘Rector’ from ‘Church of England parson’, especially with the intersecting letters. But not a bad performance…

…and things knock down a tad with Thursday’s crossword, as we had to cheat on 8.70% of the clues (a la two out of 23). Yeah, the little grey cells struggled a touch with today’s grid and only having to cheat on two was pretty good going. We re-learnt that ‘caustic’ can mean ‘corrosive’ and learnt that 

…and things knock back up a tad with Friday’s crossword, as we only had to cheat on 4.00% of the clues (also known as one out of 25). The little grey cells powered through today’s grid like a thoroughbred racehorse, like the upcoming weekend had perked them up. Slightly annoyed that we didn’t get ‘gainful’ from ‘producing a reasonable amount of money’, but pretty good going, roll on tomorrow’s finale of the crossword week… 

…and there’s not much to say about Saturday’s crossword, just that we smashed it and got a clean
sweep! We didn’t have to cheat on any of the 24 clues! Easy peasy!