Blog ≫ 2020 ≫ Knives Out
We watched a film! This happens very rarely, but Knives Out1 was available to watch at no cost to us, as Clare has an Amazon prime account. It's an excellent murder mystery with a great cast. We watch a lot of murder mysteries, I was sure I had called this one, but it kept us guessing. Daniel Craig's accent is very distracting, but an awesomely enjoyable film.
Today not too much going on, it's a cousin's birthday so the boys are going round there in a bit. We took our lunch out to the park, so have done a bit of exercise already. While they're out I may go for another run, to make a three day streak. My Garmin has been nagging me, first that I am "detraining" and now that I'm "unproductive". I've had a lazy couple of weeks I think, only going out once per week when it was very hot. It's actually plenty hot enough today, so I might suffer if I do go.
Gig anniversary, twenty-nine years ago today I was at Monsters Of Rock, with AC/DC, Metallica, Motley Crue and a couple of bands I had way less interest in. Seems I've misdated this one for years as I claimed this a couple of weeks ago too. I will update that. Also nineteen years ago today (and in fact nineteen years ago most days about now) I was at The Darkness, this one at the Barfly.
I finally started Hilary Mantel's The Mirror And The Light1 so time to update my furlough reading list. This one is going to slow me down for a bit.
| Author | Book | Thoughts |
|---|---|---|
| Ian Rankin | Westwind1 | Dated thriller, shame. |
| Ian Rankin | Doors Open1 | Really good crime caper in Edinburgh but with no Rebus. |
| Suzanne Collins | The Hunger Games1 | Borrowed from the children, very good. |
| Suzanne Collins | Catching Fire1 | Hunger Games part 2, read this even quicker, a bit darker. |
| Suzanne Collins | Mockingjay1 | Hunger Games part 3, joyless and grim. Very 2020... |
| Karen McManus | One Of Us Is Lying2 | Another one liberated from the children's bookshelf. A Breakfast Club whodunnit, dying to be a film, not at all suitable for a ten year old... |
| Robin Paige | Death at Glamis Castle3 | Edwardian era mystery written by Americans. I read one of these before. Quite atmospheric, though a little twee. Sort of romance / crime. Written in accents, with plenty of "of the time" attitudes. |
| Jed Rubenfield | The Interpretation of Murder4 | A charity shop find, one you always see, have had it kicking around a long time. Historical crime fiction again set in New York 1909, featuring Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Great, but complicated and fairly unlikely! |
| Muriel Spark | Loitering With Intent5 | Branching out a little this time, it's not even a crime. |
| Julie Wassmer | Murder on the Pilgrims Way6 | Going back to the familiar now. Fairly gentle and local crime. Forgot I had this one from when we met the author in Waterstones. Mostly predictable and cosy but I did not get the actual end murderer correct. |
| Reginald Hill | Blood Sympathy7 | Even more familiar, have read this before, but keen to revisit this crime series. Very enjoyable. |
| Robert Webb | Come Again8 | Time travel action rom-com, not very good, feels like two unrelated stories in one with no resolution. |
| Reginald Hill | Born Guilty9 | Joe Sixsmith again, hoping I enjoy all of this series as much as the first one. Dated and a little complicated but lots of fun. |
| William Golding | Lord Of The Flies10 | Like I'm doing GCSE English! I had not read this before but we had it in the house. |
| George Orwell | The Road To Wigan Pier11 | Might be a bit bleak but again I already had this one in the house as part of a George Orwell box set. I took a break from this to read my new books. |
| Bill Bryson | Shakespeare12 | Something else we had in, a short read but brilliant. We know almost nothing about Shakespeare. |
| Kate Atkinson | Case Histories13 | Birthday present, have seen these Jackson Brodie stories on TV and liked it a lot. This story is awesome but horribly sad in parts. I think sometimes murder can be sad though. |
| Kate Atkinson | One Good Turn14 | Another birthday one, Jackson Brodie book two, set in Edinburgh. Loving it so far. |
| Arthur Conan Doyle | The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes1 | Read before, but reading again with thing one. |
| Hilary Mantel | The Mirror And The Light1 | Book three of the Wolf Hall trilogy, another birthday present. |
We've been pushed down into fifth place in the coronavirus death charts, probably some suspicious juggling of figures on our part. More Or Less always has great details on suspicious stats. They called the "we're on target to deliver this many tests" very early, and the government have finally had to admit, er yes, it wasn't right to count "tests that had been put in the post" which resulted in entirely fake numbers. This government is such a lying cheating embarrasment.
| Country | cases | deaths |
|---|---|---|
| USA | 5529789 | 172606 |
| Brazil | 3317832 | 107297 |
| Mexico | 511369 | 55908 |
| India | 2589208 | 50084 |
| UK | 317444 | 41361 |
| Italy | 253436 | 35392 |
| France | 215521 | 30409 |
| Spain | 358843 | 28617 |
| Peru | 525803 | 26075 |
| Iran | 341070 | 19492 |
No work updates from either of us. Clare's timetable is looking quite favourable but we're not counting our chickens yet. I wonder what lovely gifts she'll buy me if she gets a big redundancy pay off? If all goes perfectly it looks like she'd get more of a pay off than me, but hey, I said no chicken counting! I'm going to start looking for a new job when the boys go back to school. So nearly two more weeks of sitting about. Wonder how much of a dent I will make in my book.
I've closed down the new popbitch project today. It proved about as successful and popular as the popex one. Maybe we'll try it again another day. It did have some interest at first but when people saw we wanted them to pay it put everyone off. Then when we made it all free, it was too late, and no-one came back. While I've got the terminal open I might do some work on my chores reminder15 and my holiday packing reminder16.
Coronavirus weekly death graph for USA + Brazil + Mexico + India + UK + Italy
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