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: