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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 17th, 2023

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  • It is 2.4km to my nearest shop (and most of that to reach a bus stop, as it happens). I have walked there from time to time, but I wouldn’t do an actual grocery shop there anyway: we have the weekly groceries delivered.

    I have brought a full grocery shop home in a large rucksack that kind of distance, and more, in the past when on holiday, but I wouldn’t want to do it regularly.

    I have also known a couple of other people who do that kind of distance with a huge rucksack for a monthly top up of specific things that their local shops don’t carry, but they are both weird in several ways other ways. Good weird, but still weird. This is not something that the majority of people that I have known would even consider.


  • I don’t know whether it is ‘the best’ but one that I find springs to mind quite often is a moment with a new Christmas present once. It was one of those walk-along-then-spin-and-shoot robots - a very simple thing, since this was in the early '70s. However, my memory is of utter joy and entrancement as I set it going then leapt out of the way, on to the furniture, before it opened its chest and fired.

    It must have been a present from my parents, so they were probably happy that I liked it. Whether they were quite so happy after the first hour or two of the same thing, I don’t know.




  • As far as TV is concerned, Murderbot, The Eternaut, Babylon Berlin & Your Friends and Neighbors continue to be the best that we are watching at the moment - pretty much in that order.

    Film:

    • The Penguin Lessons (2025) - Steve Coogan puts in a fine, morose performance here. It takes a while to engage, but pays off well in the end. Nothing groundbreaking, but well worth a view.

    • The Salt Path (2025) - a solid adaptation of the book which, perhaps inevitably, focuses more on the emotional journey of the couple than the incidents of the walk as the book tends to. It did not entirely grab me and felt rather overlong as a result, but still an interesting and well acted tale.




  • Catching up after a couple of weeks away, so:

    The Righteous Gemstones - after an unfocussed start to the 4th and final season, it has picked up again in the second half. One more episode to go.

    Sirens - the new, much vaunted miniseries, and another in the ‘aren’t rich people terrible’ genre. I have only seen the first ep so far. I will continue, but that episode didn’t really live up to the hype, IMHO.

    The Eternaut - Intriguing Argentine apocalypse tale. Also only the first ep so far, but I am definitely hooked.

    Murderbot - I’ve been looking forward to this one, having read the first few books. It has been cricitised for being slow, but I am enjoying it so far.

    Poker Face - the return of this neo-Columbo show. It is as undemandingly entertaining as before.

    Babylon Berlin - halfway through season 1 and it continues to be stylish, grim and gripping.

    Your Friends and Neighbors - and another ‘aren’t rich people terrible’ tale, which is developing engagingly.





  • Not specifically for the eyes or posture, but for overall approach and attitude to situations like this:

    • Marcus Aurelius’ quote: Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil. - and stoicism in general.
    • Imagine them sitting on the toilet. You can’t take them too seriously like that.
    • Take a longer perspective: consider whether this interaction will be of any significance at all in 10 years time?