Category: house

In the Darkness Shineth

Our Christmas tree is up at last and festooned with coloured lights instead of the normal plain ones.
A1 is reading What the Dark Whispers* by MJ Lee. If I was a publisher’s reader and this was a first novel, I might say “Shows some promise, but needs work. Reject with encouragement.” But MJL has published 30 crime novels in the last ten years and really should have sorted out his plotting. (Example: An apparent suicide pays for self-immolation petrol with his own credit card, and the baffled cops are unable to identify him.) And the book badly needs a proofreader.
A2, inspired by an article by Aditya Chakrabortty, is rereading Kingdom Come by JG Ballard. In an imaginary future, suburban blokes string St George’s flags from lamp-posts, trash Asian shops and try to burn down asylum hostels. Couldn’t happen here.

Head Scratching Time

Thanks to channelling our brainpower, we scored 12 on the GSQ tonight after our delicious dinner of roast chicken and apple crumble; our best score this year so far.
Ai is rereading The Sacred Art of Stealing by Christopher Brookmyre. A2 is reading Trapped* by Camilla Lackberg and Hendrix Fexeus; a special unit in the Department Q/Peculier Crimes mould recruits a mind-reader to solve a series of murders committed with stage magic equipment.

Miaow

Haven’t seen anything interesting lately so here are our cats keeping the bed warm.
Admin1 is reading Righteous Prey by John Sandford (reliably entertaining). Admin2 is reading Bewilderment by Richard Powers which was much better than I anticipated after the snorefest that was The Overstory: a steal from Flowers for Algernon, which he quite rightly referenced, with lots of environmentalism and a serving of schmaltz but a good dollop of skiffy sensibility too.

Cubist Collage

Outside is shrouded in clouds and sodden with rain, so here is a view from inside.
Admin1 is reading The Last Astronaut by David Wellington, a highly derivative cross between Rendezvous with Rama and Alien, complete with chestburster scene. How this awful, badly characterised and idiot-plotted novel got on the Clarke Award shortlist is one of the great cosmic mysteries.
Admin2 is rereading Time out of Joint by Philip K Dick. Nothing is real.

Finding Jesus

Baby Jesus has been missing from our Nativity scene for years now but Admin2 found him in the cupboard while reading the gas meter. Admin2’s mother made the set from a kit of plaster of Paris moulds back in the olden days. Jesus looks like a self portrait.

Admin2 is reading Under the Wave at Waimea by Paul Theroux but abandoned it because surfing is boring. Admin1 is reading The 22 Murders of Madison May by Max Barry.
We scored 10 on the GWQ.

Will You Love Me to Marrow?

We have been keeping an eye on our tiny courgettes, hoping that they would eventually grow big enough to be worth eating. Yesterday we found this long-as-your-arm monster hiding under a leaf.


And here it is baked and stuffed. Yums!


Admin1 is reading The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell. Admin2 is reading The Lantern Men by Elly Griffiths which was implausible and stupid.

All the Family


With this lot on our team we managed to score 11 on the GWQ. Thx Gui, Lee, Bi & Fi, C, G & D.
Admin1 is reading Transcription by Kate Atkinson; finely written, but I wasn’t convinced by the denouement. Admin 2 is reading America City by Chris Beckett, a fabulous book about the power of publicity to change for the worse an America changed for the worse by climate change, and topical in the week of Hurricane Michael.

In the Air Tonight

Our new toy tool: a drone with a movie camera, bought to look at the solar panels to see if they need a clean (and definitely not to have fun with). It’s pretty difficult to control in small spaces, but Admin1 is slowly improving with practice. This is the highest we’ve taken it so far.
Admin1 is rereading The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell.
Coffee of the day: Costa Rica Montanas del Diamante Tarrazu; smooth and citric.