Beach with other people? Nope. No interest at all.

Deserted beach, where you can roam, explore cliffs and rockpools and so on? Well, they have an atmosphere, so maybe sometime.

Forest? Yes, definitely. Hiking will take you away from anyone else, and there will be plenty of opportunities for wildlife spotting one way or another.

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s latest: Shroud. So far, it hasn’t grabbed me in the same way that Children of Time did, but I’m enjoying it and am interested to see how the worldbuilding goes.

Chumbawamba’s discography - or even just this one on repeat.

Cornwall. Same group of friends as the last 30 or so years, in about 6 weeks time.

I’m in the UK. I worked at a couple of places in the '90s - sysadmin and IT trainer - where this was considered perfectly acceptable at the time, but I definitely wouldn’t now. I’m no longer in IT at all, but I don’t think that it is seen as acceptable very widely anywhere now.

I work for a national charity in the UK. The organisation’s policies have been dragged into the culture wars, but have not succumbed so far.

My role isn’t directly involved with that side of things though. When planning, I am considering things like potential future supply chain issues, security of/access to services, potential threats, likely changes in resource use, likely changes to legislation and so on, all of which can be affected by national and international politics but, day-to-day, politics doesn’t have a great effect beyond those.

During WWII, my dad was posted to guard a munitions factory in Worcester. Mum worked in that factory. Evidently dad was initially interested in one of mum’s friends, but they hit it off shortly afterwards.

After they married, dad brought her back to a smallholding in rural East Anglia, where he lived with his parents and three siblings. They apparently thought that mum’s Worcester accent was Welsh.

Read using REadEra, play Forge of Empires - plus Lemmy via Voyager.

I had the usual lessons at primary school, but at the end of those myself and one other in the class still couldn’t swim. In the half century since then I have never found the need or the desire to try again.

Film

• Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) - An early Scorsese very much of its time. Ellen Burstyn’s performance holds up well, but it is difficult to find much else of enduring value in this one today - other than a portrait of the times.
• Moana 2 (2024) - Entertaining and wholesome enough, but adding nothing new.
• Minikillers (1969) - a short film without dialogue starring Diana Rigg immediately following her role in The Avengers tv show, and playing on her Mrs. Peel character: pitting her against a criminal gang that uses killer dolls. Rigg shines, and there are a couple of Avengers-like moments, but this is largely a curiosity for fans.

TV

• Miles From Nowhere - kiwi Moslem comedy not a million miles from We Are Lady Parts.
• Whiskey on the Rocks - Swedish satire based on an incident with a soviet submarine in the '80s. The first episode was great, but not sure whether it will hold up.
• Thou Shalt Not Steal - excellent aussie comedy that improves with each episode.
• Obituary - Irish dramady with a cold-case mystery underneath, Siobhán Cullen puts in a fine performance.

I have always read, but it is only in the last decade or so - prompted by the internet, of course - that have thought about counting the books that I do read. Since then, the lowest in a year has been around 6 (an extremely busy year) and the highest around 60. A normal year is probably closer to the latter than the former. I am half way through my 3rd book so far this year.

However, just at the moment I am reading that book - Consider Phlebas - partly as e-book and partly as an audiobook, depending on where I am and what I am doing. Does that count? I am finding myself doing this more often lately.

No, nothing like that really. Sure, my body was running on serotonin after a while so I was probably unduly relaxed and positive, but nothing like hallucinations or anything. When I found that that the no-sleep record was only 3 days longer than I had gone, I was a bit surprised, since it hadn’t really seemed that hard so far, but I am sure that I would have experienced something more serious before long.

Sweater, n. Garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.

― Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

No. I had nothing much going on for a while and just randomly decided to see what it would be like. Yes, it was ‘unusual’, but ‘unusual’ has been quite common for me over the years one way or another.

It was some time after this that I discovered what the record for not sleeping was at the time (around 10 days as I recall). It is probably just as well that I did not know that at the time, or I would have tried to beat it - not that I was being supervised or anything, so it wouldn’t have counted, but…

When I was around 16 or so I decided not to sleep or eat for a week, which I did - so it would be that.

I was fine, overall, but did get some leg cramps when I cycled 12 miles on the last day. I had no great desire to eat at the end - that had faded over the week, really, but it came back pretty soon once I did actually get something down.

Of course, it is a very different thing if you decide not to eat, and have no particular stresses or anything going on to being deprived of food.

Yes, I had read that they were all stand alone and I may do, but I will give CP a while longer before I do. I don’t dislike it, but following PHM, it is a rather different pacing.

• Finished Hyperion - excellent tale all round and I am impressed with Simmons’ breadth of styles within the each of the pilgrim’s tales. To me, the open ending was perfect and since there seem to be some division around the later books and they way that they resolve the mystery, I will leave it there for now. I may return to the other ones at some time though.
• Finished Project Hail Mary - which has a lot in common with Dennis E. Taylor’s Bobiverse books in overall approach. I suppose that they could be termed ‘procedural’ SF, with the focus being on the resolution of successive problems. Intellectually rewarding, but with limited emotional engagement, I found. It was certainly entertaining, and I enjoyed the worldbuilding but, between this and the Bobiverse, I far preferred the latter.
• (Re)Started Consider Phlebas - I had started this a few years back, but put it aside for some reason and never resumed. I can just about recall the overall scenes, but none of the detail. I have never read any of the other Culture tales and am eager to get to grips with these books. So far it is taking a while to develop, but I only started it a couple of evenings ago.

It proved to be a busy week, so I have not quite finished either Hyperion or Confessions…. However, I would definitely recommend Hyperion. Each section is better than the previous, taking in a great range of genres and telling some very human tales against some excellent worldbuilding.

Confessions is a curiosity, and probably not for everyone, but I am glad to have (almost) read it.

No - I have worn moccasins around the house, at least in the winter, since I was a kid and make-them-yourself kits were in fashion back in the '70s. No idea how many pairs I have had since then.

Moccasins.