Days 3551 - 3557

Aka Monday 12th August to Sunday 18th August 2024

Man!!! Monday was super-hot, like low 30 Celsius outside and inside, and in the office it got to 35 Celsius! Just well to hot too work properly. Yeah, the windows were open as fair as they would go (only a couple of inches, as a safety measure) and we had fans, but by lunchtime the fans were just blowing around hot air. But, the silver lining, was that it was a perfect to get some lollies in (the new tangy and berry Twisters), which were a bit of relive, but we were soon back to be hot, sweaty, sticky messes. And after work, and a big food shop, got home to an unaired room, opened up the window (with a coat hanger as prop to get the window as open as poss) and after an hour or so, with the evening/nighttime air, the bedroom was kinda back to normal, and defo not the sweatbox it was earlier!

Lucky the temperature gradually dropped over the week, so that by Friday it was much, much more bearable. It also helped that for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I was working from home and could dress more appropriate for the hot (or, and not wanting to get all erotic with you, not dress!!!). Friday was back in the office, but the temperature had dropped to the low/mid 20 Celsius, so it was a much more relaxed day back in the office, catching up with emails and other work, and counting down the hours to home time and the start of a week off of work…

Not much to report this week, partly because it was too hot to do much, spent too much time too hot and unable to decide what to do…couldn’t find a film I was in the mood, couldn’t find an album I was in the mood to listen, the same with TV shows, radio shows, books and audiobooks. The biggest thing that happened this week is that my friend is moving into their own flat and I did what I could to help them with it (if it all goes to plan they will be moving in next Monday), gathering the evidence to proof who they are and that they can afford it and that kinda stuff. And the little things that need to be changed, like updating one’s driving licence, insurance, setting up broadband and other utilities. I’m very excited for them, but also a little jel, as I’m still paying off my debts and am nowhere near getting my own place…although I should have paid off one credit card by this time next year, and the second one the year after, which free up a big chunk of money…I also picked up these New Comic Book Day beauties:

…and I got this month’s ‘Mojo’ and ‘Uncut’:

…both of which I got for the cover CDs, as I’m not a big fan of the artists/bands listed on the cover, and while it helpful to read them to keep up to date with forthcoming releases and news, these two cover CDs were real pulls. The ‘Mojo’ CD is a collection of tracks from 1974 as a “celebration of 1974, and it’s eclectic, sometimes uncategorisable music…runs the gamut from Americana to spacerock, from funk explosions to Krautrock meditations, from folk to afrobeat, and on into stranger, more esoteric zones” and there are some great tracks on it. The first track ‘Commune’ by Roy Harper kicks the disc off in grand style, with beautiful funky folky music, but then the singing starts and drags song into meh land. This would be a great instrumental track, bit alas it isn’t. And the Dylan tracks are Dylan tracks and I still don’t great why he is held up so highly. But Little Feat bring in some funky rock ‘n’ roll with ‘Feats Don’t Fail Me Now’, Hawkwind bring the spacerock with ‘The Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear in Smoke)’ ad Can continue this with ‘Dizzy Dizzy (single version)’. Then we have Marcia Griffiths’ reggae version of ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’, which sounds more cheesy and great, Harmonia’s ‘Dino’ is a great folky motorik groover and Arthur Russell continues that groovy, heads down funk vibe with ‘Instrumentals Volume 1 (Part 1), then Betty Davis up’s the dance vibe with the funky ‘Git In There’. Then we’re onto my fav track on this CD, Fela Kuti’s ‘I No Get Eye For Back’, which is a great hypnotic groover, just lifts you up for 11 minutes or so, and then we “come down” to King Crimson’s heavy instrumental groover ‘Red’. Some great tracks hear and artist’s to investigate…

…the artists/bands covered in this month’s ‘Uncut’ aren’t my cup of tea (except for Jimi Hendrix), si the cover CD, a sampler of ‘Big Star’, a band I have heard off, numerous times, but I don’t think I’ve heard their music. So, this was a great jumping on point, a chance to test out ‘Big Star’ and see if they live up to the hype! And, yeah, Big Star aren’t my musical cup of Tea, the songs are component and fine, but they don’t move me…and I did Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday’s crosswords:

…and there isn’t much to say about the start of this crossword week, as for the first four days, the little grey cells tots smashed it!!! Smashed it out of the park!!! Yeah, that’s right, four clean sweeps in a roll. Whoot! Whoot! But as was inevitable, we bumped back to down to Earth with Friday’s crossword:

…well, we say bumped back down to Earth, but the little grey cells did solve 95.83% of the 24 clues and only missed one. And we did kinda mess it up, the clue was ‘mistake in a printed work’, and from Chandler’s ‘The Big Sleep’  we knew the answer would be errata or erratum, and we didn’t bother to check the number of letters or the intersecting letters, and plumped for ‘errata’, which is wrong, the right answer is ‘erratum’. A good reminder of not jumping to conclusions…

…and Saturday’s crossword ends our, perhaps, best ever Crossword Week performance, on an also perfect note. We almost got another clean sweep, but we could only solve 95.65% of the 23 clues. We just didn’t know that ‘Fino’ is a ‘dry Sherry’. So, on one hand we did as well as we could have, we solved all the clues we could, or on the other we missed guessing ‘Fino’ and getting a fifth clean sweep…but there is always next week, onwards and upwards…I also did this Saturday’s Quick Cryptic crossword:

…which went pretty well…and I did some Metro Cryptic Crosswords:

Days 3537 to 3550

Aka Monday 29th July to Sunday 11th August 2024

This is going to be a quick canter through this fortnight! The biggest thing that happened this fortnight is that my nephew/niece got harassed by a stranger for “looking gay” and I’m not going to go into it, mainly because it makes me v angry. They were just being themselves, not bothering anyone and then this dick just ruins their day! So, getting back to more normal things, this fortnight I picked up some meagre National Lottery winnings:

…I got a few comics:

…including the issue of ‘Suicide Squad’ that had Grant Morrison as a character, which is a nice nod to his appearance in ‘Animal Man’ and his general ideas on superheroes and comics (it also came with a random issue of ‘Suicide Squad’ as well!)…my Chuck T’s completely died on me:

…and I got a few CDs:

…and some magazines:

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

…and the new crossword week get’s off to a damn fine start. Monday’s grid was a chewy one, but the little grey cells solved 96.0% of the 25 clues. We only stumbled with one clue, ‘whopping’, which we read as ‘whooping’ and totally missed the obvs answer of ‘outsize’. I guess we were still a bit sleepy and misread that clue…but this a nice corrective to last week, which felt like it was full of 80% scores…

…and there’s not much we can say about Tuesday’s crossword as the little grey cells aced all 24 clues!!! A clean sweep, baby! Hopefully, this means that we’re back on track, no more sub-90% scores…

…and the little grey cells are still on tip-top form with Wednesday’s crossword, they solved 95.45% of the 22 clues, only missing that ‘Impiously’ means ‘in a manner disrespectful of religion’, which is nice to know…

…Thursday’s crossword was a bit half and half, some of the clues were straight-forward and easy to solve, while others were chewy and one we completely spaced one – ‘prefab’ from ‘house which can be quickly assembled’. In the end the little grey cells solved 92.31% of the 26 clues, missing ‘prefab’ and learning that a ‘Beluga’ is ‘a Sturgeon’, which is useful to know…

…Friday’s crossword was a tad chewier and took awhile to sort out, with the little grey cells solving 91.67% of the 24 clues. There were only two clues that stumped us, which means that we learnt that ‘inlaid, decorative wood’ is called ‘Marquetry’ and that the Yemen is a neighbour of Saudi Arabi and Oman, which is useful geography knowledge to know…

…and Saturday’s crossword ends this crossword week on a damn fine note, as the little grey cells solved 95.83% of the 24 clues. There were a few chewy clues, but the little grey cells soon puzzled their way through to a solution. The only clue we couldn’t solve was who was the ‘son of Edward III and father of Henry IV’, our history knowledge is a little lacking (but not as bad as our geography knowledge) and we could only get ‘John of _a_n_’, we couldn’t get to the full answer of ‘John of Gaunt’. But a damn solid end to a damn solid crossword week, roll on next week…and the Quick Cryptic went well too:

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

…and Monday’s crossword gets this crossword week off to a grand start, as the little grey cells solved 95.24% of the 21 clues. They soared through the majority of the clues, like they were nothing, only getting stumped by not knowing that the ‘Magnolia’ is a ‘tree which may have white or pink flowers’, which is nice to know…

…and the grand start continues with Tuesday’s crossword, as we only missed out one of the 23 clues. Which means that the little grey cells solved 95.65% of the clues…but, but we should have got a clean sweep, ‘cos we should have gotten ‘kamikaze’ from ‘self-destructively reckless’, so obvs in hindsight…

…and thing stake a massive dip with Wednesday’s crossword! It was a v chewy grid and the little grey cells could only solve 80.95% of the 21 clues. Not a good performance, especially as we should known, or been able to work out, three of the four clues we missed – ‘nigh’ from ‘near, ‘in spades’ from ‘to a high degree’ and ‘overt’ from ‘unconcealed’, especially when we had the intersecting letters. Maybe it was down to the hot weather? But we did learn that ‘Clio’ is the ‘Muse of history’…

…and it’s a total switch around with Thursday’s crossword as the little grey cells aced all 23 clues and got a clean sweep! An Illuminati clean sweep baby!!! A nice comeback from yesterday’s disaster. Whoop, whoop….

…and the little grey cells are on a roll, as, once again, they aced all 23 clues for Friday’s crossword!!! Another Illuminati clean sweep baby!!! I think we can say that we have bounced back from Wednesday’s poor, poor performance…

…and we end this crossword week on a v high note, as, for the third time in a whole, the little grey cells aced all the clues!!! All 25 of them! A perfect, in both ways, end to the crossword week, whoop, whoop……and the Quick Cryptic went well too:

...and i also did some Metro Cryptic Crosswords as well: