An occasional journal
Weather
Weather of the Day: Rain
Jan 3rd 2018
Storm Eleanor blowing by. Nothing dramatic in these parts.
Admin1 is reading The Tottenham Outrage by MH Baylis, an intriguing contemporary mystery centred on (and sympathetic to) the Hasidic community of north-east London, coupled with a fictionalised account of the real Tottenham Outrage of 1909 — an event of which we had never heard, despite both living in the area for some years.
Admin2 is reading The Vinyl Detective: The Run-out Groove by Andrew Cartmel, a lively adventure which crackled along at either 45 or 78 rpm according to the cover quotes.
Coffee of the day: Percol Black & Beyond.
Don’t Swallow Litres, and Watch the Parkin Eaters
Dec 31st 2017
Storm Dylan failed to bring blowing winds, hard rain etc so here’s our New Year pudding. We scored 7 on the GWQ, bringing our yearly average to 8.92 which is an increment on last year.
Snow Is Falling All the Time
Dec 29th 2017
Actually it has all melted now, but not before the solar panels had recorded our first 0kWh day of the year.
Admin2 is reading A Death at the Palace by MH Baylis (thx Admin1); a young woman goes missing… We are watching Sé quién eres (aka I Know Who You Are); another young woman goes missing…
Coffee of the day: Ethiopian Espresso: sweet and fruity (thx Fiona)
The Moon by the Silvery Light
Dec 28th 2017
We watched Disparue (a young woman goes missing) and scored 7 on the Guardian festive quiz.
The House of the Rising Sun
Dec 26th 2017
Admin1 is reading The Crow Girl by Erik Axl Sund (3 books by 2 people) — compelling, but horrific and disturbing. Admin2 is reading You Should Come with Me Now by M John Harrison (thx again Admin1); fragments washed up on the coast of an imaginary country where “Patrick Hamilton (master of shabbiness) glares balefully at JG Ballard (master of beaches)”.
Pinker Than You Think
Dec 19th 2017
Garish sunset.
Admin1 is reading Babylon Berlin by Volker Kutscher — OK, but a bit of a slog. Admin2 went to the Cafe Scientifique – Festive Science-themed Quiz and won the top prize (a tiny bottle of gin).
Melting in the Sun
Dec 11th 2017
The blue skies of today reflected in the thaw.
Admin1 is reading The Bloody Meadow by William Ryan, a detective story set in the Stalinist USSR of the 1930s, and not as interesting as it sounds. Admin2 is reading The Double Silence by Mari Jungstedt.
Weather of the Day: Light Snow
Dec 10th 2017
What we got:
…and what was predicted yesterday:
Even so, today was our coldest December day for five years: 1.5 °C. We are watching Game of Thrones series 7 and scored 12 on the GWQ. Kudos to Gez, Dave and Audrey.
Ice Ice Baby
Dec 9th 2017
On the road…
…and in the trees
Admin1 is reading Post Mortem and Admin2 is reading Death Message, both by Kate London.
Late Bloomer
Dec 6th 2017
This unseasonal spring poppy has been struggling to unbox itself for weeks but has finally opened — just in time to get blown away by Storm Caroline tomorrow, probably.
Admin2 is reading The Pattern in the Carpet by Margaret Drabble, a book mostly about jigsaws in hundreds of tiny pieces.
Eyes in the Skies
Dec 5th 2017
Admin1 is reading Europa Blues by Arne Dahl. Admin2 is reading Munich by Robert Harris, which resonated well with current events.
Sunset
Dec 1st 2017
The snows are melted, the snows are gone. Admin1 is rewatching Fringe. Admin2 is reading No Echo by Anne Holt.
Snow Time
Nov 30th 2017
First snow of the winter.
Admin1 is reading Death Message by Kate London — excellent, involving and convincing, though reading her previous book first might have been useful.
Contrail Shadows
Nov 27th 2017
Early(ish) morning sky.
Admin1 is reading Places in the Darkness by Chris Brookmyre, his first attempt at proper SF, and what a disappointment. CB always does a lot of info-dumping (he does tell-don’t-show), but they’re usually entertaining rants — here they’re just dull. It comes across as very old-fashioned skiffy, with bits of his space station named after Heinlein and various real astronauts. Worst of all, he has a very shaky grasp of basic physics: eg, you can’t just turn off the “gravity” in a massive rotating structure!
We are watching Rellik and scored 9 on the GWQ.
Another Rain Another Bow
Nov 24th 2017
A bit bent because photographed in 3 parts.
Sleet as well today. Brrr!
Admin2 is reading Sleeping Beauties by Stephen/Owen King: bollocks with bullets.
We are watching Beck.
November Rain
Nov 21st 2017
There is a very faint rainbow in the top left corner.
Admin1 is reading The Cutting Crew by Steve Mosby, a very strange book. Set in a weird, dreamlike but quite recognisable version of Leeds (with bits of Prague and York thrown in), it starts out as Chandleresque noir — down these mean streets and all that — and progressively gets stranger. It’s definitely an example of New Weird, and confirms SM as a very interesting writer.
Coffee of the day: Mystery Coffee Mark 8: kicking!
Stairway to Heaven
Nov 18th 2017
Admin1 is reading The Double Silence by Mari Jungstedt — that was better, even if nothing much happened for the first 150 pages.
We scored 12 on the GWQ: props to Auds for reading the questions and to Dave for knowing an answer that nobody else did.
Drizzle Bow
Nov 14th 2017
Light rain and sunshine.
Admin2 is reading The Childhood of Jesus by JM Coetzee, which did not feature Jesus but was a good enough read in the vein of China Mieville or Adam Roberts, neither of whom are likely to win the Nobel Prize.
Sunrise
Nov 13th 2017
A dramatic dawn.
Admin1 is reading Black Flowers by Steve Mosby — another book-within-a-book metafiction, and not altogether successful this time.