test please delete

[ladymuck]

I have bread, I have bacon. I have a hunch what I'll be having for lunch.

[NickFitz]

First order of business, it transpired, was going to the Royal Mail delivery office out in the Delta Quadrant Business Park to pick up the parcel I missed the other day.

Then, as one of the wormholes leading out of there goes past it, to Sainsbury's. Didn't really need much, but it's as good a route back as any. As usual, I somehow ended up spending, comparatively speaking, loads anyway

Now I'm considering whether to have lunch and if so, what.

[ladymuck]

I have bread, I have bacon. I have a hunch what I'll be having for lunch.

Bacon sandwich, no sauce just a bit of salt and pepper, with tomato, duly scoffed.

[NickFitz]

Walk briskly walked, green and red rings closed

But not just any walk… this is an M&S walk. And a Specsavers and a Waterstones walk; for I have been to town

I had a Waterstones gift card from Christmas two years ago which hadn't been used, and according to the small print on their website these expire after two years and the money is forfeit. I wasn't sure what date it had been bought, but I figured I must be getting close to the cut-off if not past it. And I also wanted to get some hearing aid batteries free with the vouchers that came with them. And I had an on-phone voucher for a discount on M&S Belgian chocolate biscuits, plus Sainsbury's are still doing rubbish Southern not-fried chicken so I wanted to get some of the M&S version instead.

So to town I walked, got the batteries, got the chicken and biscuits, and found that my gift card was still valid in Waterstones; and got some exercise into the bargain

I spent the £10 gift card on the Selected Poems of Pablo Neruda. His work was recommended to me by Carol Ann Duffy when I interviewed her back in 1980, and I did read some of it in the university library back then. Having wandered amidst the Christmas bric-a-brac and ghost-written celebrity autobiographies that infest bookshops at the current season, I found myself in the poetry section, and the book caught my eye. Taking it down, I saw that the back cover carried a recommendation by… Carol Ann Duffy. And so, forty-one years later, we come full circle

[NickFitz]

Now I'm considering whether to have lunch and if so, what.

I didn't have lunch in the end, preferring to head off to town while I still felt the motivation. But upon returning, I had a cup of coffee with a couple of raspberry jam doughnuts

[ladymuck]

I didn't have lunch in the end, preferring to head off to town while I still felt the motivation. But upon returning, I had a cup of coffee with a couple of raspberry jam doughnuts

I do like a nice doughnut. You've now inspired me to pick some up from Sainsbury's tomorrow. I have to pop in to pick something up from Argos so I may as well take a diversion via the bakery section.

[ladymuck]

Surgeons E4 (that's a lot of your innards to lose in one op!) watched during dinner. Now watching all-new Trucking Hell with a mince pie as it's turned up on the My5 app at last.

[NickFitz]

Tea has been chicken madras, with rice and naan. Very nice indeed

[NickFitz]

Now watching all-new Trucking Hell with a mince pie as it's turned up on the My5 app at last.

And there's an "extended version" from S5 of The Repair Shop on iPlayer too

[NickFitz]

First thing on the box tonight was "The Beatles: Get Back" Part 1: Days 1-7. I'm quite certain I'll watch this again, more than once, but these are my initial thoughts:

• It's bloody amazing. But if you aren't into the Beatles, I would assume it isn't. Nobody has to like the Beatles, so if you don't, don't worry about it (unless you think it might make you like them and you think you might like that).
• I'd almost forgotten how enjoyable yet tortuous the creative process can be, because I seem to have fallen into the usual trap of just knocking out the work clients want while thinking wistfully of having ideas of new things that could be made. I am choosing to see this as a source of inspiration, not a cause for regret
• The film Let It Be was lies, even though it was constructed from the same film stock. I assume this was because that made for a good selling point at the time. For example:
  • Most of the time (in this first part), any antagonism between the members of the group seems to be the normal stuff of people trying to make something together;
  • They are often very obviously having a huge amount of fun working together;
  • They obviously don't mind Yoko, and even really enjoy jamming along as she does her wailing thing after George leaves (except George, obviously, but he never seemed to have a problem with her before);
  • Adding to the "Nobody had a problem with Yoko" notion: Yoko and Linda are seen having an animated conversation which can't be heard because the mics are on the blokes, but anybody who's either met or is a woman can tell that Yoko is basically saying "FFS, boys! They just be like that" and Linda is nodding back the universally known body language (amongst women) for "I know, right! But WCYD?"
• The music is bloody amazing, and all the more so for the fact that we can see it as the Meccano set they started out with and then the tower crane in the Lewis's toy department's Christmas display that they ended up making

And, amazingly, they've only got as as far as breaking up the band. And George was right to leave, because John and Paul simply weren't giving him the respect he deserved. But there's two more parts to go…

Then I watched some other stuff, but who cares about that? The Beatles is everything that matters unless, as previously noted, it isn't for you, which is fine

Goodnight all