July has been an unfocused month with too much clutter, both real and virtual. I prioritised work but, outside of that, I’ve been unreliable. I should know better – the first thing to do when feeling swamped is to clear everything down, making it easy to see what needs doing. By the end of the month, things were better, but July was a little chaotic. All that aside, it has been fun – my first trip to Brighton in over a year, visits from old friends, and the Horkos ceremony. Rosy was in Hebden Bridge most of the time and we had several visitors, including Tom visiting from the US.
Being back in Brighton was strange. So many little things had changed since my last visit. The first thing I did after getting off the train was to visit La Choza which I’ve missed a great deal. The food tasted even better than I remembered. I caught up with a few friends but for once took care not to overstretch myself. It was lovely to celebrate Katharine’s 50th.
It’s been another quiet month for walking – total 375,006 steps, average 12,097, and the biggest day being 20,856. I’m continuing to visit the gym, although it’s hard to adjust to the new routines. I’m also struggling with my ongoing injury, but a new physio seems to have spotted the issue, a weakness in my right leg. I have a new set of exercises which will hopefully fix things.
My writing is going well. I was particularly pleased with a new story, The 4th Film. I produced a complete text for the True Clown Stories kickstarter, as well as an initial text for the secret project, which is now off with a designer. The substack has passed a year old. I considered whether to stop there, but I’ve decided to refocus on short, weird horror stories.
I didn’t watch many movies in July and missed several interesting new releases. Terminator 2 was a fun nostalgia trip, although it’s amazing how small it appears compared to modern CGI. Skywalkers: A Love Story didn’t always work as a documentary, but contained some stunning footage. Muffy and I went to the Blackpool IMAX for Deadpool 3, which was a competent MCU movie.
I’d planned to be travelling on July 4th but after the election announcement, Rosy and I decided to stay up all night for the results. After the chaos and mismanagement of the last few years I was delighted to see the back of the old government. I even made party poppers for the results I was most looking forward to. Staying awake was hard work, but I was determined to see Jacob Rees-Mogg lose his seat. I’m not particularly excited about the new government, who seem to have taken expectation management to a ridiculous level. But it’s good to feel like there are adults in charge.
This post was slowed down by me breaking my webserver with a botched Linux upgrade. I wasn’t able to restore things from Jetpack backups, so I rebuilt everything from a four-year-old OS image. I’m not sure everything is 100% back to normal, and I think I’ve broken all the permalinks. A lot of hassle that I didn’t really need.
A few years back, I helped a friend with rhymewave, an online rhyming dictionary. I was delighted when he showed me a link to Still Number 1, a track by Hindi rapper Emiway that refers to the site.
Weird to see H&M selling T-shirts of NIN’s Downward Spiral as fashion:
