Saturday Morning Brain Drain [23/10/21]

A place to let it all out.

23/10/21 Elliecoo 31
Image via Go Retro!

Red Alert! Red Alert! New content to read and see coming in one hour!!! Today is the inaugural Fur Face Friday on Saturday, please pause in playing on Brain Drain to give it a look. You can oooh and awww at the furry friends and Sheldon, then add your own nonhuman friends in the comments.

What I watched:  Inspector George Gently, a British crime drama initially set in 1964, and going on throughout the decade over eight seasons in ten years. It is based on the 46 novels by Alan Hunter. George is the veteran detective, and John Bacchus is his younger partner. Interestingly, George is very Zen, life has kicked him about, while John is turning into a raging asshole. The background locations are Newcastle upon Tyne and County Durham, with characters and bad guys starting with bikers with DA hairstyles, moving into hippies, and onward. I like watching the societal progression, the change of archaic attitudes towards woman and prejudice into a more liberated era; I wish that I could feel that we were living in superior times, but we are still pretty terrible to our fellow humans. Police were quite brutal, and the first few episodes ended in a swift hanging for the murder. According to Google, “The last executions in the United Kingdom were by hanging, and took place in 1964, before capital punishment was suspended for murder in 1965 and finally abolished for murder in 1969.” And, the old cars are impressive. I recommend this show.

Here are a few trailers/clips:

What I read: I sucked down the five books in K. F. Breene’s Leveling Up series, which may have resulted in a few bookovers, especially since I’ve needed to be up early for work. These books are my jam. Forty-year-old heroine, new to magic. Sentient house. Shifters, mages, gargoyles, vampires, a phoenix and a thunder bird, all misfits joining together under the auspices of Ivy House to fight for justice and fair play within the paranormal community. Plus, it is very, very funny.

I also read Payback’s a Witch (The Witches of Thistle Grove Book 1) by Lana Popović Harper. Harper is quite educated and moved to the US from several Baltic-area nations; she looks very cool to me. The book blurb says, “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina meets John Tucker Must Die meets The L Word in this fresh, sizzling rom-com.”, which is actually apt. In a nutshell, the daughter of one of four town-founding magical families returns to moderate a contest for town rule. The world building is perfect, and a sequel is due next May. It is a good book, and works as a stand-alone if you do not have the time to invest in a series.

What I listened to this week: Here are a few calming tunes: Mesa Redonda by Hermanos Gutiérrez (lovely); Paspatou by Parra For Cuva (also lovely); Far by Bartees Strange (kicks it up at 2 minutes in); and Love U More by Actors (not slow, but new-ish).

So, darling ones, hip, hot, DeadSplinterites, how are you? What have you watched, read, or listened to? Have you done anything fun, hmmm? What is going on in your world? Please check in, tell us how you are, and share what you are up to!

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About Elliecoo 555 Articles
Four dogs, one partner. The dogs win.

31 Comments

  1. currently reading neil gaimans american gods..its good..but i suspect im the last person on the planet that hasnt read or watched it yet

    and i watched the forgotten battle

    everyone tells me its really good..i just thought it was okay..tho i always enjoy seeing a non american perspective of ww2…and being able to understand all 3 languages in the movie makes me feel like a smartypants

    also im exceptionally biased against dutch films…so take my opinion with a grain of salt

    and listening to days n daze

    coz i like them..even though their lyrics hit a little too close to home….or maybe because they do

  2. Watched Dune. It was so-so. I was a bit underwhelmed but that might be because HBO kept freezing and making us restart our TV. Really killed the flow of the 2.5hr long movie. Note so self: do not watch new releases within the first week on HBO. I’d love to hear what others thought of the movie itself. I may be turning into a grumpy old fart with very high expectations of movies and shows. I find it lacked soul. I didn’t care about a single character….well maybe I cared about Oscar Isaac but that’s only because he’s age appropriate for me and hot.

  3. I habe been watching Murdoch Mysteries. It is up to 15 seasons  so I don’t know if I’ll ever get through them all but it is interesting enough. Often times predictable, sometimes not.

    I cringe every time a character says “ToronTo” with a hard T which is often.

  4. …ok…so the part about the last executions in britain reminded me of a few things…if you’ll excuse a quick excursion down a rabbit hole…in the states the title of this film was (iirc) “pierrepoint: the last hangman“…though in fact he wasn’t the last but the one who hanged the most people…& among them were both timothy evans (who in addition to later being found to almost certainly have been innocent was in his mid-20s with a mental age of approximately 10 & the vocabulary of a 14yr old) and derek bentley (19 when he died, illiterate to the point of being unable to “even recognise or write down all the letters of the alphabet” at the time of his arrest, like evans determined to have a mental age lower than his actual age…&) whose participation in the non-fatal shooting of a police officer by the guy he was trying to commit burglary with was responding to a police officer demanding the other guy surrender his pistol by saying “let him have it chris”…after which said chris went on to shoot & kill a different police officer leading derek to be sentenced to death on the grounds of joint enterprise…which were two of the cases the publicity surrounding which ultimately shifted public opinion enough for the death penalty to be abolished…for murder cases

    …there were still some things you could be executed for (though in practice I don’t think anybody was) for a surprisingly long time after that

    Beheading was abolished as a method of execution for treason in 1973.[31] Hanging, however, remained available until 30 September 1998[32] when, under a House of Lords amendment to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, proposed by Lord Archer of Sandwell*, the death penalty was abolished for treason and piracy with violence, replacing it with a discretionary maximum sentence of life imprisonment. These were the last civilian offences punishable by death.
    [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_Kingdom#Last_executions

    * – not to be confused with jeffrey archer…though, conviction for perjury & perverting the course of justice notwithstanding somehow he is nonetheless also lord archer…hooray for tory life peerages

    …anyway…dragging myself back out of the rabbit hole via something that might be more brain-drain-y…in terms of british cop shows & the 60s/70s…I’d note that one featured none other than brian “GORDON’S ALIVE?” blessed…& was called Z-cars (that’s a zed…’cause it’s british & that)…& another was called the sweeney & starred john thaw (who went on to become both inspector morse & somewhat ironically kavanagh QC)

    …technically I think thaw may have appeared in a few episodes of Z-cars but whether those are among the half or so of those that still exist I don’t know…either way both of those shows represented some pretty big leaps from the realm of dixon of dock green (which ran from the mid 50s until the late 70s)

    …&…that’s probably about enough out of me, I expect

    • @SplinterRIP, thank you for adding to the rabbit hole! I finally dragged myself out to get back to the housework after reading about the Piracy Act of 1698. I will have to see if the list of shows you have mentioned are available on BritBox. Also, I get a kick out of the repeated work of actors from your Island. “Look,  it’s Grantchester” (James Norton) as a main character in the Inspector Gently I saw last evening.  “Look,  it’s Endeavour” (Shaun Evans) as a motorcycle gang soon-to-be-corpse in an Inspector Gently.  But I never remember the actor’s names so I don’t add that part in my exclamation.

      • …I don’t know as I’d exactly recommend either but there’s a cop show called the bill which ran from the mid-80s until 2010) & a hospital-based one called casualty (which likewise began in the mid-80s & I think is still running) that function a bit like m.a.s.h. in that respect…a surprising number of people who subsequently became very recognizable turned up in those when pretty much nobody knew who they were

        …it’s definitely a thing, though…there are people who pretty much made a career across a bunch of different titles as “oh, it’s them…you know…they’ve been in tons of stuff…they’re usually [description of character that would qualify as a spoiler for thing currently being watched]”…which I think we used to call typecasting before spoilers were called that?

  5. I watched Only Murders In the Building. It was okay. Steve Martin was good, but I dislike stunt casting (Sting) and Tina Fey. It wasn’t campy enough to be really good, even the usually great Amy Ryan couldn’t save it for me. People who enjoyed Knives Out, I may be the only person in the world who didn’t, would probably like this.

    I read An Elderly Women Is Up To No Good by Helen Tursten, and found it to be very amusing. It’s a short collection of stories about Maud, the titular elderly woman, pushing ninety and living her best life. She finds drastic and inventive ways to remove all obstacles for enjoying her remaining years. While her methods may not be aspirational her determination to take no shit is.
    I’ve mostly been listening to the fantastic local college radio station.

  6. I watched Black Widow last night.

    I have lots of thoughts about it, and I’m going to say them without any spoilers in case someone hasn’t seen it yet. Overall I definitely liked it, and it’s one I will for sure watch again.

    Disney really fucked up not having a Black Widow movie sooner. I feel like we all objectively knew that for years, but with the timing and the plot of this movie, had it came out chronologically when it was set (between Civil War and Infinity Wars), it would have made Natasha’s decisions in Endgame all the more meaningful. Also she has some friends in Black Widow whom you would definitely call to come help kick the crap out of Thanos.

    Also some of the fight sequences in act III were boring. Like big explosive boom boom kaboom ones where I was like eh, you could have had more fun banter between the cast (because they had great chemistry) instead.

  7. I read the 3rd book of the House of Werth series and it was just as bizarre and delightful as the other 2. Thanks again, @elliecoo !

    I’ve read a bunch of non-fiction in the last week or so… Crying in Hmart by Michelle Zauner, which is about a half-Korean, half-Caucasion woman and her relationship with her (Korean) mother and her mother’s family. Very well written and very sad… I cried quite a bit reading this one, but I definitely recommend it if you like memoirs.

    Also in the non-fiction/memoirs  section – I wish I Could Say I Was Sorry…, and Safari Ants, Baggy Pants, and Elephants: A Kenyan Odyssey, both by Susie Kelly. That woman has had an interesting life. Not always very good, perhaps, but certainly interesting!

    Currently reading Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern  by Joshua Zeitz. I’m about 1/4 of the way through, and it’s fascinating.

    Fiction this week includes – Blood and Circuses by Kerry Greenwood, book 6 of the Phryne Fisher series (the books that Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries were based on). I blew through that one in a couple of hours. Good story, and not too many ridiculous coincidences to believe in!

    Bring Me Home for Christmas by Robyn Carr, book 14 (I think) of the Virgin River series. Apparently there are 21 books in this series… they’re listed as romance, but they aren’t, really. There are romances in them, but I wouldn’t call them romance novels, if that makes sense. It’s become more of the story of the town and the romance part is kind of incidental. I waver on whether I like these books or not, but I guess I like them well enough to keep reading them!

    Detective Inspector Huss by Helene Tursten, which was slow but worth slogging through. It’s the first of a detective series that is translated from Swedish and I’m not sure if the translation was a little awkward or if that’s just her writing style. I definitely liked it, though, and will be reading more of these. This first one takes place in the late 1990’s, and it’s a little odd to remember how it was without cell phones/mini-computers/cameras in our hands at all times!

    And, lastly, I read Under the Whispering Door by T. J. Klune. If you like whimsy, Klune is a great author (I read The House on the Cerulean Sea awhile back and it’s just as whimsical and just as good) who can really tell a story that draws you in. However, a warning! Have a whole box of tissues at hand before starting this book! I seriously sobbed through the last third of the darn thing.

    • @HoneySmacks you are my reading partner in crime. I read Under the Whispering Door as well, a bunch of it was sad (to me) whereas Cerulean Sea felt hopeful?

      Virgin River books and television, two thumbs up! They just signed on seasons 3 and 4.

      Love Phrynee Fisher, I like her relationship as a concubine in the books rather than her relationship with the detective in the television show. I bet there are parallels to the Flapper book? I bought Jicky cologne because Phrynee wears it.

      As for the wyrde House of Werth, the author cannot write them fast enough for me.

      You will like the K.F.Breene series mentioned today.

      Have a lovely weekend!

      • @elliecoo I believe it was Phryne Fisher who led me to the Flapper book! I was looking up an unfamiliar term and ended up Google-surfing for awhile. I have another book about social changes in the ’20’s coming in soon, too, from the same search lol.

  8. I started watching the Squid Game.

    I’m probably one of the last people on my shift to watch it. I get some of the characters circumstances because I’ve been there (desperate for money, deep in debt, wanted to hurt a former friend, dealing with shady people.)

     

  9. After a lifetime of hearing the title and not knowing anything about it, I read The Great Gatsby. I was surprised that I hated it. I completely regret reading it and not keeping the mystery of not knowing it.

    I’m watching all Halloweeny movies every night in October (but I don’t do horror or any actually scary stuff). A few off the top of my head: Edward Scissorhands,  Hello Again, The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), The Witches (1990).

    Been listening to a lot of Fitz and the Tantrums lately.

     

     

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