Hellooooo!

Hope you’re well and staying safe in these weird times. It is hard to watch the news and see yet again oppression and incompetence from the leaders we have but they can be beaten. Stay true to yourselves and don’t let them try to make you afraid to speak up and keep your loved ones safe. Yesterday was watching some journalists (Deadline London – great as it uses non-UK journalists for different views) debate the week’s news and one made the point that despite the virus many people don’t want the return of normal -normal wasn’t working. Everything I see on the news at the moment underlines that we have created a world that’s not fit for purpose – people die through lack of care or decent policing. We need to work on how to make this place better it is not easy, but it is vital.

Trying to get back into the swing of things so let’s try a quick weekly re-cap. Work actually not too bad at the moment with interesting options on the horizons and this week mainly been working on finally getting the garden right. Lockdown is great for finally getting the house in order.

What have I been watching?

It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood – Very strange to see a film treating the 90s as nostalgia but this is a tale loosely based on a reporter meeting the children’s TV presenter Mr Rogers. Tom Hanks is excellent here as a man that the reporter wants to try to unpeel but who seems genuinely modest and more interested in those he meets. Mathew Rhys is also excellent as the reporter carrying a lot of trauma. A film about working through issues and forgiveness particularly from a male perspective is quiet refreshing. It’s a little surreal but heart-warming

The Avengers – No not the Marvel kind this was a 60s TV series I’ve been meaning to investigate for ages. It is famous for being very sixties and weird but the first two seasons it’s a different grittier beast – a Doctor loses his fiancé to drug dealers so works with a mysterious potential spy named Steed. Its quite weird seeing gritty crime drama with lots of London gangsters, then in season 2 I’ve just found the Dr is recast. We shall see…

Coming soon – I resume The Untamed - my June plan is to finish this!

Blogging

Key aim for June is I want to finish Subjective Chaos – hopefully by tomorrow I will have completed Blurred Boundary then I’ve three in fantasy to read and five in SF. That’s doable now my reading speed is back up and running. Its been a good reading week and you can find

David Mogo Godhunter by Suyi Davies Okungbowa - a blurred boundary mix of urban fantasy and post-apocalyptic fantasy. Neatly delivered in three novellas. Well worth a looklook here

Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett – read a book too often eventually you stop finding too much more to take away from it and this one is pretty much just a funny book.more info here

Kindred by Octavia E Butler – the best books are the ones that don’t just give you a book hangover but make you seriously re-appraise your world. You need this book in your lives.find out why here

Current Reading

Gideon The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir – oh my I like this book it has attitude

The Alchemy Press Book of Horror edited by Peter Coleborn – horror short fiction

Stormblood by Jeremy Szal -a new space opera series looking at technology that changes the body – I’m intrigued

Take care and see you soon