Yeah… I kind of missed the film last week, didn’t I? A sign of how damn tired I am from The Regular Job’s demands, which over the past two weeks have been enhanced by a self-inflicted demand to make sure the people who are looking after my usual duties have an easy go of things.
I am, at least, taking a good long break– I don’t put rump to office chair again until 19 July. I also don’t have a lot of projects in mind for the vacation period other than writing and some personal pen-work, which is good, because that mass of killingly-hot air which has been afflicting the north-west coast of the continent will arrive here… sometime tomorrow.
Although it will have shed some heat along the way, for which I am extremely grateful.
Here’s two films because there wasn’t one last week: One jolly interesting and one quietly amusing.
I don’t expect to be making up any entertainment deficits when I return, because I know my limitations. See you in three weeks, everyone, unless I melt in the interim.
†My son is, given his first vaccination status, going back to school for the first time since May 2020. He’s grown a LOT in the intervening time, and he’s also filled up his sketchbook, because it likes making visual art.
††The Wing Sung 618 is being set aside for amendment– there’s an interruption in the ink channel of the feed that requires force-filling of the collector. Unsatisfactory, in an otherwise darned good pen.
I think henceforth we might take it was given that Monday’s are unproductive, thanks to the thing I mentioned at the end of last month. It wasn’t an issue last week because, as it was a new thing, I forgot about it entirely until the next day. For the foreseeable future, though, Mondays are going to be opposed to writing.
†Two pages? Two?!In a whole week? Well, not really. That’s two pages today, while the rest of the week was spent trying to build up enthusiasm for any of the stories in the idea hopper.
I’m not particularly happy with that. I am absolutely putting it down to work stress; the volume of work has somehow kept rising throughout the COVID period. There’s supposed to be a slack tide in the middle of the month, damn it!
I was also dilatory on my Magic Brain Pills a couple of weeks back, and have perceived maybe not the black dog itself but certainly the smell of its cold, damp fur. A better effort at periodic swallowing since should see the chemistry back where I’d like it.
After running out my own seasonal ghost story for the year, I thought I’d follow the theme at least for this week. Today’s film is more in the line of the traditional seasonal ghost story, which if I take anything from the works of M.R. James don’t usually have that much to do with the season.
The other point of interest is that it’s being told by Algernon Blackwood. I’m sure some will have said who? to that name, so I’ll explain briefly that he was famous for writing creepy stuff in the first half of the 20th century. No, that’s not quite right– through the first half of the 20th century. He began a little before radio for home entertainment became possible, and was in the public eye long enough to make stuff like the following for an entertainment-hungry post-WWII public.
He’s sort of like Stephen King in terms of career length and popularity, although I think he’s got a better delivery when he’s reading his own work (King probably has him beat in the rock guitar department).
What's up at Ravens March. 