Ah. It is the time of the season where we Brits pretend to care about tennis. Now I’m not denying that some people do like tennis, but I mean…c’mon. It’s not the most thrilling sport to watch most of the time, but Wimbledon is something else. It dominates the airwaves, the conversation, and people who otherwise can’t even say they have even a passing interest in tennis find themselves sat for hours in front of the telly, sweating through the summer eves, watching a couple of dudes or a couple of ladies or a four-way mixture of the two, bang a ball back and forth between each other.
I’m into it.
If it lasted any longer than two weeks, perhaps I wouldn’t be.
But enough about tennis, because I have literally nothing else to say on the subject. Let’s look back on the week and have a little chat about what I have been…
Playing…
I played Hollow Knight last summer, very specifically while the World Cup in Russia was on. It’s a strange and specific memory of being very hot, and very happy to be able to have seemingly endless games of football on in the background while I played this excellent Metroidvania on Switch. Quite accidentally, roughly a year later I have started playing Hollow Knight once again, this time on Xbox One through Game Pass. It is no less brilliant a second time around, in fact, being slightly more confident in the combat system and having my favoured controller in hand is making it an even better experience. It’s a melancholic game, leaning into the lean storytelling techniques you may be familiar with through the Souls series, and that atmosphere is what draws me deep into its labyrinths. I intend on spending a lot of time there.
Mario Maker 2 is making sure the Switch doesn’t gather dust while I do though. I got it to make levels but have found it difficult to pry myself away from just playing them. The Story Mode is an inspired run through the variety of different courses it is capable to design with the tools available, all blessed with a dusting of Nintendo magic and dressed up in a silly, but fun conceit which revolves around gathering funds to rebuild Peach’s castle. Then there’s the basically infinite number of user created levels. Of course, some of them are really, really¸ bad, but there are some geniuses, some evil, out there waiting for you to give their creations a go.
Reading…
It’s been a while since I’ve read any philosophy, but this little Penguin published book drew me in and I’ve found myself spending a little time with the Stoic, Seneca. On the Shortness of Life is a good read for anyone looking for decent entry points into philosophy, in terms of his accessibility in language, although a decent base in classical philosophy (we could all do with a little Socrates in our lives anyway) might help interrupting some of his arguments.
My progress through Clash of Kings continues, albeit slowly. I can’t remember Theon being so aggravatingly horny in the show as he is in the book, but then it has been a long time since those early seasons, and it does make sense considering what happens to him later on…
Listening to…
Every week something on this list of stuff gets neglected for some reason or another, but it is hardly ever music. I’ve got a car! I drive to work! I’ve got to listen to something, right? Wrong. I’ve been cramming podcasts into my ears this week, so most if not all new music has passed me by. I have however been digging on some more Bob Dylan having actually watched the Netflix doc Rolling Thunder Revue. It’s really good, and so is Bob Dylan – but I think that may have been established by now.
Watching…
Stranger Things has always really struck a chord with me, the whole vibe is just right up my street. The soundtrack, as everyone already knows, is killer, and I’ve always enjoyed its nostalgic, influences-on-it’s-sleeve stylings. S3 started pretty slow for me, but last night I crushed 3 episodes in a row and really got into the groove with it. Perhaps that was just because those mid-season episodes were far better than the introduction eps, with a far greater focus on ramping tension than putting pieces into place, but I also feel as if Stranger Things, and most Netflix produced shows are designed to be binged, and the pacing follows suit.
Running…
Every week I try and stretch out my long run by a little, which actually means I am running the furthest I have ever run on a weekly basis at the moment. Although I’m not trying to break myself on these long runs, I am also keen to keep my pace relatively high. Average pace for Friday’s session was 7:09 – going below that would certainly be no crime, but I don’t really want to dip below 7:15, so I’ll push up by a half mile or so next week and see where I am. Once I reach that 10-mile point, I might stick with it for a while, keeping on 10 for 3 out of 4 long runs. That forth run might be a handy place to start running half-marathon distance, but we’ll see – it’s summer now, easy enough to make plans. When that cold weather starts rolling in we’ll see if I can keep my motivation high.
And that’s it! That’s all the stuff this week.
Which frees me up to go away and watch more tennis…
Which is not a sentence you will not find me writing again for an entire year.
run into words 