Aka Monday 17th July - Sunday 30th July 2023
Still catching up, but when this is up, I’ll only be a month (or so) behind! The biggest thing for me this fortnight was getting the 10th anniversary edition of John Higgs ‘The KLF. Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned A Million Pounds’:
…which when I first read it really inspired me, showed how limits don’t have to hold you back and you just have to go for it, work around problems and issues, with your final goal always in mind, but being open to changes, new ideas that get thrown up as you work towards that goal. And it’s about one of my fav bands. Although the one thing it didn’t help me with is my inner lazy critic, who highlights that “you’re no artist, you have nothing to say, leave it to others”!
Also had a work evening out to the local bowling alley and it was nice to get back in the bowling groove, even though I’m sure that the lanes are shorter than they should be. Still managed to get 120+ scores, so I’m not completely rusty 😊
But I did feel v rough the next day, likely it was a Saturday so I could nurse my hungover in comfort! And it carried over to Sunday, so there was no Morning Walk as I still felt super rough till the early evening! But I did go for a few Morning Walks before that, the first on Thursday 20th:
…which covered 5.36km in 7,029 steps in one hour, four minutes and 20 seconds, burning 509 calories. The next Walk was on Sunday 23rd:
…which took one hour, one minute and 45 seconds, covering 5.23km in 6,789 steps and burning 498 calories. And the final Walk of this fortnight was on Wednesday 26th:
…which covered 5.26km in 6,895 steps, burning 498 calories over one hour, three minutes and ten seconds…on the way back from a Walk I got the latest Mojo:
… I was mostly intrigued to get it for the cover CD, I’m not a big fan of any of the artists/bands on the front cover, but Mojo’s curated cover CD are normally worth getting…except this time! I guess I’m not a big punk fan as none of the songs moved me. Most of them were competent, there was talent behind them, and some contained cool elements, but as whole songs there just wasn’t enough in them to get me excited and pogoing! I also got the latest Lego Minecraft and Lego Star Wars magazines (for the cool Enderman and AT-TE):
…the latest Kyle Starks Sticker Club stickers arrived:
…as did Folk Implosion’s ‘Natural One’ single:
…which I got because it is a classic song, a trip-hoppy rocker, and has a classic remix from UNKLE, which takes the song to the next level, and it’s been missing from my collection for too long. And Primal Scream’s latest album, 'Reverberations (Travelling In Time)', arrived:
…which is an enjoyable listen, especially if you compare it with the rest of their music-making history. The songs on this album are mostly jingle-jangle indie, but good!, and on occasion with a bit more edge, moving more towards a Jesus & Mary Chain sound. You can hear the band exploring this sound as much as they can and you can see why they changed things up for their next album and were searching for their sound (which I feel is being more collaborative and working with others to create something outstanding, better than the individual players). There is also the recent controversy concerning Martin Duffy, and as I don’t know all the ins and outs (and the truth is probably not as extreme as what has been alleged) I think the best thing to do is to link to this video by James Hargreaves, which I feel takes an unbiased look at what has been alleged...and I got these comic book beauties:
…and I picked up a small Lotto win (would be nice to pick up a large or even medium Lotto win one day!):
…and I did the first week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and Monday’s crossword gets this crossword week off to a damn solid start, as we only had to cheat on 11.11% of the clues (two out of 18). The little grey cells were well rested after the weekend and sailed through the clues…except for two. One that we should have gotten, ‘livid’ from ‘furious’, and one we could have guessed, maybe, ‘Webster’ from ‘US lexicographer – Jacobean playwright’, ‘cos we know about his dictionary, but we didn’t make that leap…
…Tuesday’s crossword is a tiny tad of a problem, we had to cheat on 15.79% of the clues (also called cheating in three of the 19 clues). Not outrageous or disgraceful, but not a v good performance, just somewhere in-between. We did learn that ‘viva’ means ‘oral exam’, but we missed ‘sallow’ from ‘looking unwell’ (we had all the letters except the first and just couldn’t recall the right letter/word) and we got a little confused with ‘subject of an experiment’, thinking about aims and objectives and results and the like and forgot the literal answer of ‘guinea pig’!!! Ah well, just a little bump in the road, hopefully…
…Wednesday’s crossword goes a tad better than Tuesday’s crossword, as we only had to cheat on 12.5% of the clues (three out of 24). An average performance really, we missed ‘in on’ from ‘with private knowledge of’ and ‘Para’ from ‘one trained to drop into action’ (which was either too obvious or too cryptic!), but we did re-learn that an ‘adult insect’ is an ‘imago’…
…and there’s not much to say about Thursday’s crossword as the little grey cells smashed it, crushed the clues and we didn’t have to cheat on any of the 23! Hail Eris! And roll on tomorrow’s crosswords…
…things don’t go quite as well as yesterday’s, but Friday’s crossword still went pretty damn well. We only had to cheat on 8.00% of the clues (a la two out of 25). Not bad going at all, damn solid. Although, in hindsight, we should have gotten ‘anxious’ from ‘troubled’ and ‘impersonate’ (we got stuck on think and take something off a person/yourself or another things)…how will tomorrow’s crossword bring the crossword week to an end…
…and we end the crossword week on a pretty damn solid note with Saturday’s crossword. We only had to cheat on 8.33% of the clues (aka two out of 24). We only stumbled on not getting ‘scrutiny’ from ‘searching look’ (too busy thinking of things where you look at something searchingly and not about what looking at something to check it out) and we missed out on getting ‘Anglia’ from ‘Latin name for England’, we plumped for Albion instead. Roll on the next crossword week…and I did the second week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and Monday’s crossword gets the new crossword week off to a flying start! We only had to cheat on 4.55% of the clues (a la one out of 22). The little grey cells just rocketed through the clues like a hot thing through a soft thing! And we learnt that ‘conceitedness’ is a synonym for ‘vanity’. A damn solid start to the week…
…and the damn solidness continues with Tuesday’s crossword. We only had to cheat on 7.69% of the clues (aka two out of 26). The little grey cells did a solid job, but we were lucky. Like we didn’t know the answer to ‘deprive of by deceit’, but we had the intersecting letters ‘r_o_’ had the word we could think of that fitted was the answer ‘rook’! Or ‘oyster’ from ‘small edible muscle on each side of a fowl’s back’, we didn’t know that that was the answer, but with the intersecting letters ‘oyster’ was the only word that felt right! And we learnt that ‘Sage Derby’ is a ‘green-and-white herby cheese’ and that ‘maladroit’ is another word for ‘clumsy’…
…and the little grey cells were on fire with Wednesday’s crossword! Smashing through the clues like a water jug through a wall! Meaning that we didn’t have to cheat on any of the 24 clues, just a clean sweep, baby!!! Which probably means that tomorrow’s crossword will be a nightmare…
…and we’re back down to Earth with Thursday’s crossword, as we had to cheat on 12.5% of the clues (a la three out of 24). Slightly miffed that we forgot that ‘mischievous’ is a synonym for ‘puckish’, but overall the little grey cells did well and we learnt that ‘Van Dyke’ was a ‘Flemish portrait painter, who settled at the court of Charles I in 1632, d. 1641’ and that the ‘board pulled by a speedboat for a person to stand on’ is called an ‘aquaplane’…
…and things pick up with Friday’s crossword. The little grey cells powered through the clues like no-one’s business! Meaning that we only had to cheat on 4.76% of the clues (aka one out of 21). V close to another clean sweep, but we had a little trouble with ‘empty’ and picked the wrong answer and not ‘evacuate’, we were thinking along the lines of there being a void or a container being empty, not of empty as verb, but still a damn solid performance…
…and Saturday’s crossword is practically a walk in the park for the little grey cells and we only had to cheat on 4.35% of the clues (aka one out of 23). We maybe v hungover from last night, but that doesn’t stop the little grey cells. Except for not knowing that ‘proper’ is another word for ‘right’. Aside from that little hiccup a damn fine performance…and I did some Metro Cryptic Crosswords:
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