Weeknotes

second one in a row - is this becoming a thing?

Beach huts, Blyth

Hello you lovely people. I hope you've had a fabulous week.

Reading

Audiobook of Stanley Tucci's What I Ate In One Year, read by the author. Love me a bit of the Tucci. I've listened to this before, but needed something for various car journeys and there's nothing quite like Stanley Tucci's mellifluous voice to keep you company on a long motorway trip. If I'm being a bit picky he gets a bit name-droppy at times, but his love of food shines through no matter whether he's at home with Felicity and the kids, or hanging out with Guy Ritchie.

Currently reading Dangerous, by Essie Fox. Huge thanks to Karen Sullivan at Orenda Books for the ebook copy. Disgraced Lord Byron is associated with the deaths of women in Venice, so he turns detective to unveil the killer and clear his name. Gloriously decadent thus far. I'll report back.

In other #bookpost news (albeit self purchased), I was very excited to get my copy of Craig Mod's Things Become Other Things, which I've been looking forward to for absolutely ages. I love Craig's newsletters about walking through Japan. Very much looking forward to reading this.

After a slight screwup with tickets, I'm off to see John Connolly for the afternoon on Monday in Pontefract. I'd originally booked a ticket for Beeston on Monday evening, but it turns out there's more than one Beeston in the UK and it was the one in Nottingham rather than the one in Leeds. Ooops. Promptly booked the afternoon off instead and going to hear him talk about his new book, The Children of Eve. Saw him last year at Stanley Library, an absolutely fantastic night out.

If you get the chance to hear him speak, I highly recommend it. The books are great too - one of my first blog tours was for one of his books.

One last bookish thing - David Goodman's superb A Reluctant Spy is 99p on Kindle at the moment. Or out in paperback next month. Hugely recommended. Fabulous book!

---

Watching

Continuing the Tucci them, watched Conclave last weekend. Fabulous stuff, full of intrigue and twists and bald/balding men in fancy frocks. Tucci and Fiennes on superb form.

Also watched A Real Pain, with Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin. Loved Culkin in this, though the story didn't entirely work for me. Not sure why, maybe it was coming straight after Conclave. Worth a watch.

On a different note, Cleaner hooked me from the premise - "ex-soldier turned window cleaner works to rescue 300 hostages in a London skyscraper". Directed by Martin Campbell of GoldenEye/Casino Royale fame, it's as daft as a box of frogs, but with some competent (if daft) action sequences. Plus it's just over an hour and a half long, so pretty much the perfect length for a movie. That said, A Real Pain was exactly 90 minutes, so you can't have everything.

TV-wise, we're now in the home stretch for the magnificent second season of Andor. Somehow each week's three episode arc just keeps getting better. Some of the best TV I've seen in a long time. It's Star Wars but without the lightsabers and woo-woo Force stuff. Gritty and real and mesmerising. Next week can't come soon enough, though sad to know that's it done.

Also on TV, just started watching The Studio on Apple TV. Gloriously meta, packed with guest stars which don't feel like guest stars (if that makes sense). Episode 2 is about a film doing a one-shot take, but is in itself composed of a single half hour long shot (yes, they cheated slightly but it's fabulous). Hugely recommended.

Listening

This month I'm off to a few gigs - Bryan Adams at the FD Arena this weekend, Throwing Muses next weekend, then the fabulous Wet Leg at the O2 Academy at the end of the month.

I last saw Bryan Adams play Gateshead Stadium back in the mid-nineties. He puts on a great live show, so very much looking forward to belting out some of the classics (possibly with a loo break during Everything I Do).

Throwing Muses at the Brudenell is a last minute thing, managed to grab tickets on resale. I've only recently discovered them as part of our Friday night whisky & vinyl sessions at my friend's house. Now ploughing through back catalogue at pace.

I loved Wet Leg's first album (another friday night whisky & vinyl find) and the new song is delightfully catchy.

The Consumed

A trip up to Newcastle to see my Mam is not complete without nipping to the coast for fish & chips. Now I'm a sucker for a fish finger sandwich and can't resist it when I see one on the menu. This one was slightly more square than I was expecting, but the fish was delicious, there were a *lot* of chips and the side of samphire was *chef's kiss*. I bloody love samphire.

Photos

Couldn't find LokiCat the other day. He wasn't in his usual spot under the bed, but I found him curled up on the sofa on a blanket in a sunbeam. Fortunately I had my little Sony camera with me and captured this. He's a handsome boi.

Other things

Out walking Amber the other night and found that someone had installed a new bench in the grassy area nearby

Great idea. I love a bench. But it's a bit weirdly positioned. This is the view from the bench:

And this is the bench itself:

Now I'm no park planner, but surely putting the bench the other way round is a much nicer view. And if your kids/dogs/whatever are playing on the grass, you'd actually be able to see them, rather than having your back to them.

Hey ho. At least it's there if you need a little sit down.

Amber and I also discovered some ducks on last night's walk, opposite the house.

Not sure what they were doing there other than chilling. Probably bemoaning the lack of any duck-friendly benches. Amber was very interested. I told her that ducks are friends, not food.

She seemed unconvinced.

Right, that's quite enough of that. Pub tonight, so we'll see what new and exciting records my friend has got his hands on, and I'll have a dig through the whisky collection to see what tonight's dram will be.

As ever, be excellent to each other and enjoy the sunshine if you have any.

Smooches

D x