Aka Monday 14th August to Sunday 3rd September 2023
Still behind, so this will be a romp through this tri-week…except for the important bits!
One big part of this tri-week was my back/rump pain was still there, even after rest up it would return when I was back in the office. After a normal day in the office and all the walking about that that entails (versus having spent the last week and a half rest up to let it heal). I guess that it shouldn’t have been unexpected as after spending a chunk of time resting my body isn’t used to normal use! (although the returning ache was more centred around my waist than the rump, so maybe is a different back pain/problem!)…luckily the issue cleared up and by Monday 28th, a Bank Holiday no less, I was able to “celebrate” I went for a Morning Walk:
…and I walked 5.35km in 1 hour, 6 minutes and 33 seconds, which took 7,163 steps and burnt 201 calories. All of which made me v tired and I had a nice siesta. My next Morning Walk was on Thursday 31st August:
…and we even extended this Morning Walk a tad, as I really need to lose weight and the almost month off to recover from the rump pain/ache, hasn’t helped. Although the rump pain/ache started to return about a third, maybe a half-way through the Walk, so I’ll need to make sure that I warm up and down properly to prevent it getting worse and putting me out of action. Anyway, I covered 6.11km in one hour, 12 minutes and 40 seconds, taking 7,966 steps and burning 581 calories. Next Morning Walk was on Sunday 3rd September:
…still got a slight ache in the right leg/rump and get a certain amount of stiffness after the walk, but not enough (yet) to stop doing this Walks and I covered 6.30km in 8,344 steps, burning 593 calories in one hour, 16 minutes and 59 seconds. And when I got home I did some weights and come noon I was worn out and hungry like a wolf (but almost too tired and worn out to cook!), but in a good way…and on Tuesday 29th August 2023 Nadine Dorries finally sent in her resignation letter, something like 79 days after she said that she was resigning as an MP with immediate effect, she finally quit and one more clown has gone from having a direct say over this Country. And if I wasn’t so far behind with this blog and would go into more detail…and I used a ‘Harry’s’ razor for the first time…and it wasn’t great, a step up from a Bic disposal razor, but no where as good as a Gillette…and this is the one I’ve been putting off. And it’s probably the biggest thing I’ve been involved with in like a decade or more. And I’m not going to write much about it as it’s still too raw (I’m writing this on 21st November), but my nephew, who has Autism, had a review which recommended (on the 23rd) that he be sectioned for observation. A week after this recommendation was made it was confirmed (on the 30th) and two places identified…and I just feel like I’ve failed him. I just have a reel of the arguments and fights (he could get violent at times and would hit, kick, bite, spit and shout – but these were not often and his new medication had greatly helped him, give him greater control of his emotions, reducing the occasions where he lost control), interspliced with clips of hospitals from horror films, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, etc). Just wish I hadn’t let him down and had dealt with the flare ups better. 90% of the time is was quiet and kept to himself, 8% he'd be talk to you about a film or tv show or his favorite things or making jokes...and I’ll end it there as it’s getting to much to think about…on a happier note I got the latest Lego Star Wars magazine, as one cannot have enough Storm Troopers:
…I also got the latest Mojo magazine:
…and the cover CD was pretty poor, just lots of jingle-jangle indie that doesn’t stir any emotion, any feelings, except for the Shop Assistants ‘All Day Long’, a girl-group song with touched of Jesus & Mary Chain, and The Wedding Present’s ‘My Favourite Dress’, wasn’t bad, was okay, but the rest just didn’t move me. And the actually magazine was a bit of a brief read, a nice feature on Gram Parsons and on Hawkwind’s ‘Space Ritual’ tour/live album (which did make me get the album!) and some useful reviews, but the rest of the features didn’t intrigue me…and during this tri-week I picked up these gorgeous comic books:
…although I’ve already got the stories, I brought the 2000AD Partwork ‘Zenith’ Volume Two (which collects Phases III and IV, interludes 3 and 4 and some other ‘Zenith’ odds and ends):
...partly (a) so I have a reading copy and don’t have to spoil my “better” versions of these stories and (b) for the odds and ends and backmatter that I didn’t have. This is the third collection I have of this story (when it was original printed, when it was first released as stand-alone volumes, and now in a “reading copy”) and it’s still impactful, scary and exhilarating. An epic story reaching its satisfying conclusion, great writing and great art, a real benchmark of (British) comics…and I brought a few CDs, and my discovery of The Stones early days continues:
…and there’s some very good songs in here and you can see the band growing and becoming more comfortable as they get more experienced. I also got this special edition of The Stone ‘Hot Rocks’:
…not sure why through, as I’ve got all (or at least most) of the tracks, but it’s a nicely package collection and a little treat, from time to time, doesn’t hurt…and, inspired by this month’s Mojo’s article on it I got Hawkwind’s ‘Space Ritual’…which is a groovy listen, defo a space rock epic, but not a great listen, the songs haven’t stayed with me as time has gone past…and I finally got the first season of ‘True Detective’:
…I am a big non-fan of Matthew McConaughey, so I kinda ignored this show, but it’s consistently gotten good reviews and high praise from critics and friends, so I think it’s time I give it a try (plus it was on sale and if I don’t like it there’s always ebay!) (Future me - long story short, I greatly enjoyed season one of True Detective)…and the postman delivered DJ Shadow’s ‘In Tune and On Time’ DVD/CD:
…which is a fun watch/listen, just the sheer technical ability on display is top-notch and when you add to that the musicality…it’s just amazing…and picked up some Lotto winnings:
…and I did the first week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and there’s not much to say about Monday’s crossword, as the little grey cells just smashed it! And we didn’t have to cheat on any of 22 clues! Last week’s excellence continues! The little greys defo had a good rest over the weekend, but will it continue…
…and we bump back to Earth with Tuesday’s crossword as we had to cheat on 11.54% of the clues. I guess the little grey cells were a bit burnt out from yesterday’s clean sweep. That would explain why we didn’t get ‘posterity’ from ‘all future generations’ or ‘principle’ from ‘rule or standard of proper behaviour’, bur we’re slightly annoyed with the answer to ‘getting here is a sign of progress’, ‘somewhere’, it’s such a vague answer! Like ‘somewhere’ could be in the opposite direction of where you want to go, that’s not progress! Bah humbug…
…and we maintain with Wednesday’s crossword, we had to cheat on 12.5% of the clues (three out of 24). Aside from those three clues, it was pretty easy grid today. We learnt that ‘primogeniture’ is the ‘right of succession belonging to the eldest child’, that the ‘Elbe’ is the ‘river rising in the Czech Republic and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven in Germany’, and that ‘bran tub’ is a ‘place to find a surprise gift’, what a bran tub is…we didn’t know! But Google says that it is “a lucky dip in which the hidden items are buried in bran”, which is nice to know…
…not much to say about Thursday’s crossword, the little grey cells played a blinder, even getting answers to clues we didn’t know the answer too! Like, ‘dolphin’ is the answer to ‘pile or buoy for mooring boats’, we know v little about boats and sailing, but we had the intersecting letters and ‘dolphin’ was the first thing to come to mind and bang, bing, bong it was the answer! The only one of the 24 clues we had trouble with was not getting ‘aslant’ from ‘at an angle’, but a super performance anyway, just cheating on 4.17% of the clues…
…and Friday’s crossword continues the solid performance, as we only had to cheat on 9.52% of the clues (aka two out of 21). The little grey cells sailed through the clues, like a fine summers day, although we’re a little annoyed that we didn’t get ‘truncate’ from ‘cut off’, but we did learn that the ‘Hindu god of rain and thunder’ is called ‘Indra’, which is cool…
…and we end this crossword week on a pretty damn solid note! We only had to cheat on 8.70% of the clues (a la 2 out of 23). The little grey cells sliced through the clues like a knife through butter, only getting stuck twice! Once when we misspelt ‘teensy’ as ‘teeney’, from ‘very small (informal)’ and for some reason we got stuck on ‘(strong) drink holder’ and didn’t get ‘hip flask’. I think we got to stuck on strong as meaning a physically powerful holder and we didn’t think of it meaning strong alcohol!!! But still a damn solid performance to end the week…and I did the second week’s G2 Crosswords:
…and Monday’s crossword gets the crossword week off to a damn solid start, as we only had to cheat on 9.52% of the clues (aka two out of 21). We over-thought ourselves with ‘clear packaging’, thinking the answer was saran wrap, a brand of clingfilm, rather the general term ‘shrinkwrap’! And we missed ‘veiled’ from ‘hidden’, it’s like the answer was veiled from us 😊 <tumble weed rolls by>…
…we stumble a tad with Tuesday’s crossword and had to cheat on 13.04% of the clues (a la three out of 23). We missed ‘employ’ from ‘take on’, we were thinking along the lines of taking on a task or challenge and just missed ‘employ’, we got outfoxed by ‘flying fox or koala bear’, trying to think of what class of animal they were, and didn’t notice that both names are a ‘misnomer’, but we did learn that a ‘thick soup or stew’ is called a ‘pottage’…
…and Wednesday’s crossword continues Tuesday’s stumbling, as, again, we had to cheat on 13.04% of the clues (a la three out of 23). Although this was probably the best we could achieve, as we didn’t know that ‘Ormolu’ is ‘brass used to decorate furniture’ or that a ‘Jeroboam’ is a ‘three-litre champagne bottle’ (we did know that ‘Jeroboam’ was a size of champagne bottle, but we thought it was spelt differently!). But, we might have guessed ‘ordain’ from ‘direct’, fi we’d taken a but more time pondering…
…which went okay, not great, but not terrible. We had to cheat on 12.0% of Thursday’s clues (three out of 25), so just a tad below average. Annoyed that we forgot that ‘a mountain in Scotland of more than 3,000 feet’ is a ‘Munro’ (well we knew that a ‘Munro’ is a mountain at least) and that we had totally forgotten that a ‘Tench’ is a type of fish (‘freshwater game fish of the carp family’), but we did learn that the Goblin Market is a narrative poem written by Christina Rossetti and published in 1862…
…things picked up a tad with Friday’s crossword as we only had to cheat on 9.52% of the clues (aka two out of 21, and one of those was a hyphenated word and we got the first word, so really it should be 7.14% or 1.5 out of 21!) And the first clue we got wrong, ‘melting point’, from ‘state-changing temperature’, we only got wrong because we assumed the answer was ‘boiling point’ and we didn’t check the intersecting letters! So close to a clean sweep! But we did learn that ‘Guinea-Bissau’ was a ‘West African country that declared its independence from Portugal in 1973’…
…Saturday’s crossword ends the crossword week on a pretty damn fine solid note, as we only had to cheat on 4.17% of the clues (aka one out of 24). The little grey cells were on tip top form and only stumbled on not getting ‘realm’ from ‘sphere’, we had gotten stuck on ‘sphere’ as being a shape and not the more ethereal type, such as sphere of influence, but still a damn fine performance…and I did the third weeks G2 Crosswords:
…which went nearly okay, we did struggle a little with Monday’s clues, but managed to get the majority of them, but did have to cheat on 16.67% of them (aka the better sounding three out of 18). Like I said, we did struggle a bit with today’s grid and missed three should’ve-been-easy-to work clues, so we didn’t get ‘bonhomie’ from ‘friendliness’, or ‘porch’ from ‘place to shelter by the doorway’ or ‘notepad’ from ‘a place to write?’, which we really should have gotten. Roll on tomorrow’s crossword…
…and things kick up a notch with Tuesday’s crossword as the little grey cells almost get a clean sweep, only stumbling on 5.26% of the clues (otherwise known as one out of 19). It wasn’t the easiest of grids and our spelling ability (which is fair to middling) was put to the test, like we knew that ‘reticence’ was the answer to ‘uncommunicativeness’, but we weren’t sure how it’s middle was spelt! And we learnt that ‘sclerosis’ is the ‘hardening of tissue or a body part’. Not a bad go around, but will it continue…
…and there’s not much to say about Wednesday’s crossword…except that the little grey cells totally smashed it! And we didn’t have to cheat on any of the 24 clues. It was a real slog to get through the grid, and we were tempted to cheat, but we kept at it and the little grey cells pulled us through to a clean sweep! Woo and hoo…
…which went almost perfectly! We only had to cheat on 4.35% of Thursday’s clues (aka one out of 23), as the little grey cells powered through ‘em like Pac Man through ghosts! And we learnt that a ‘Grig’ is a ‘small eel’…
…and Friday’s crossword see’s us take a slight stumble, as we had to cheat on 12.0% of the clues (a la three out of 25). Just a chewy grid and the little grey cells just couldn’t make all the connections, so we missed ‘notify’ from ‘send word’ and ‘evasive’ from ‘hard to pin down’. Yeah, we just couldn’t make that final leap for those two clues, but we did learn that ‘exeunt’ is the ‘instruction for actors to leave the stage’, which is nice to know…
…and we end this crossword week on a fine note. The little grey cells strolled through the clues, only having to cheat on 8.33% of them (aka two out of 24), learning that ‘Lorraine’ is a ‘region of north-east France’ and that ‘Amati’ was a ‘Italian violin maker, d. 1684’, not a bad way to end the week…
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