Sunday Morning Stuff is back and I’m writing it on a terribly warm Saturday night because on actual Sunday morning I’ll be going to work and…
It’s hot. Difficult to think about anything else other than how hot it is. We’re just not really cut out for 30 degrees here in Blighty, no one has a pool, or AC, just naff fans and an increasingly irritated attitude. My current solution is cold beer.
Certainly helps with the attitude at least, better than this cracked out old fan.
But a bit of sun is good for our pasty limbs, so let’s celebrate some real summer weather by reminiscing on what I have been…
Reading…
I’m on to book two of The Song of Ice and Fire – Clash of Kings. The first book reads pretty closely to the TV adaptation, but an entirely new and entirely strange character in a drowned fool called Patchface pitches up pretty early in book two and I don’t know what to make of him, yet. He creeps me out, I can tell you that. Will be interested to see how else things begin to diverge from what I have already seen.
Listening to…
A few tasty new albums have hit my ears this week.
Hello Meteor have delivered another ultra-chill, slightly trippy, and always dreamy album of ambient electronica by the name of An Unfamiliar Place. The music, across any of their albums, never really veers off into any unexpected avenues, but it does consistently generate a particular and mesmerising vibe that can be enjoyed in the background, or in the foreground of your brain.
Also catching my ear are new records from Daphni, and black midi. The former is as hot a dance EP as it’s lead track Sizzling suggests, whilst the latter is a freaky album which is pretty much impossible to pin down, such is the range of influences they wear on their sleeves, and the gleeful freak-outs upon which they embark.
Return to Centre from Kirin J Callinan has also been stuck on repeat since its release a couple of weeks ago.
Watching…
I guess the sunnier weather has prompted my imagination to start plotting my next escape from the country, as I have been diving into the late, great Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown. It’s a show I watch, and re-watch on a regular basis. Bourdain is the ultimate travel show host, endearing, charming, and very much real, which feels like a bullshit thing to say but when watching the show I always feel like he simply doesn’t have the time, care, or inclination, to not say exactly what he really thinks, and as it turns out, he is extremely good at doing exactly that. Although I love the locales, the strange joy of watching someone eat and drink to exhaustion, and the bevy of excellent guests, I watch for him.
Anthony Bourdain died last June. I didn’t start watching his shows until after he was gone but every time that Josh Homme and Mark Lanegan theme tune plays, I feel a pang of loss. The world is lesser without his presence within it.
Playing…
I’ve apologised once before on a Sunday Morning Stuff for just playing AC: Odyssey and not really getting into anything new. So that again, I suppose.
I feel like I’m less sorry this time though.
Running…
Not to toot my own horn but I’m running very bloody well at the minute. Fastest 5 mile, longest run, and fastest 5k on my running app have all been clocked this week. The peak was of course the 5k as this was at a real event, a lovely little out and back Parkrun at Rutland water. Still not my all-time 5k PB, but I feel like I’m only a couple of weeks and a good race off leaving that time (19:07) in the dust. Longer runs and weekly double sessions seem to be doing the business, and I’m having a marvellous time doing it as well, and that is genuinely the main thing. I wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t fun.
This laptop is getting way too hot on my lap so I think that’ll do us for this week.
I’m off to press this beer can against my forehead.
run into words 