Who doesn't like a list?
Only weirdos, right? Right..? Oh, come on.
I was furloughed at the end of March. Suddenly faced with an unprecedented (*over-used word klaxon*) amount of free time (my partner was still working) and only being allowed to go out once a day, I had an amazing opportunity to fin out what it might be like to be retired.
Bit rubbish, it turns out. I'm hoping that when I eventually retire I'll have more opportunities to go to places/drink coffee/mooch about in shops, but the no-plan-for-today thing is still going to be there. It takes some getting used to.
I'd normally get up at six to get ready for a day in the office. Strangely, my own internal alarm clock means I'm generally staring at the ceiling and and considering a variety of randomness somewhere between 0630 and 0700:
- Do I need to pee, or can I carry on lying here for a while?
- Why does my back hurt?
- I. Need. Cappuccino.
- I wonder if I've won the lotto?
- Is Lotus biscuit spread the single best thing ever?
- What rhymes with Tuesday?
- What the fork am I going to to do today..?
I'm now working three days a week, but back in April, when coronavirus was still a bit new, an excess of free time was both thrilling and terrifying.
So, I decided I'd make myself a plan - a to-do list to ensure I was occupied, enriched and fulfilled. How exciting! I'll be able to do all the intellectual and fun things I'd promised I'd do, if only I had more time! Read! Blog again! Learn stuff! Listen to my record collection! Watch some box sets on Amazon! Write a book!
It was a relatively unchallenging plan, when you consider I hadn't actually read a book for years, hadn't blogged in 12 months and generally considered learning as being anything that made me go "Oh! Interesting!". As this could include reading what the ingredients are in a jar of Branston pickle, the bar was sat set mere microns above ground level. And let's face it, am I ever going to write that book?
So, the results, then? What did I learn, for instance?
Bugger all. April got away from me, so unless you count finding a new routine of websites to check each day, I've not learnt a lot. I do check the BBC's news site regularly, so I guess I'm better informed that usual. I also check Twitter often, so it's a reasonable assumption that I've probably, therefore, cancelled out any benefit in a micro-blogging shit-storm of cat memes, anti-face-mask ranting and people shouting into the www void... plus the thoughts of Formula 1 drivers.
Here you go then - broken down into books. box sets and music, is what I achieved (and I'm using that word very, very, lightly) in April:
Books
Clarkson - Driven To Distraction (2009): Yup. That Clarkson. And yup - 2009. A decade-plus ago, I used to ask people to get me books for Christmas or my birthday, before eventually realising I wasn't actually reading them. This is one of those ones.
When I read a bunch of Jezza's other collections of his newspaper columns back in the early 2000s, I thought they were hilarious. They're still funny, but time hasn't been kind to his world-viewpoint and I winced as much as I laughed. Taking a new car as the basis for each column, they sometimes manage to barely mention the motor, as Jeremy acidly points out society's stupidity from his point of view. To be fair, his output from 2006/7 isn't any more politically-incorrect that any of his other stuff, but I know I've changed in the last decade or so as I plough, increasingly dejectedly, into my 50s. To be fair to the Grand Tour titan, he has a bit too. Enjoyable, but not as much as I thought it would be.
Terry Lovell - Bernie's Game (2003): A frighteningly in-depth biography of the ex-F1 supremo, Bernie Ecclestone. Over 350 pages of detail of all of Mr E's financial shenanigans, shady deals, gentlemens agreements and political improprieties.
Bloody hard work, this one. Even for a die-hard F1 fan like myself, trying to remember what all the abbreviations stand for (FISA, FOCA, FIA, FOTV, GPDA, etc) and how all the individuals named fit it to the narrative is deeply challenging.
What you get (apart from a tendency to nod off) is an unsympathetic picture of Bernie as a dangerous, Machiavellian, genius. I probably should have read it whilst he was still in charge, of course.
Box Sets
The Expanse (Series 1) (Amazon): Space-based, political, sci-fi for grown-ups, set in the future! Sometimes graphic, violent and sweary, I enjoyed this a lot, although I did struggle to work out who the main characters were, and what side everybody was on - not helped by there being three lots off humans - from earth, Mars and The Belt. Unless they painted them in primary colours, the spaceships all look the same to me too.
Having got used to the idea that sci-fi/space stuff was generally the story of well-funded, well-intentioned pioneers (Star Trek) or terrifying aliens (er... Alien), The Expanse was a welcome change - grittier, emotional.... human.
Imagine my delight when I discovered that there are another three series available on Amazon!
The Boys (Series 1) (Amazon): Oh. My. God. If I thought The Expanse was different to what I was used to... If you've not seen this anti-superhero show, a simple indicator of what to expect is the number of warnings you get on-screen before some episodes; anything that you could be warned about is there. They had to use a small font to get it all on the screen. Some of the things I hadn't even thought of.
I love Marvel's superhero franchise, but this... wow. Imagine a different alternative reality where superheroes exist, but are managed by a greedy corporation. And they're broadly deeply-flawed, unpleasant, arsehats who appear wonderful to the public, but are nasty, dangerous, corrupt monsters when not being "Supes".
Incredibly, graphically, violent, the story follows Hughie - nice, nerdy, mild-mannered and shy. Until his girlfriend is senselessly killed, by accident, by a Supe. Enter Butcher - hell-bent on destroying all Supes in revenge for the death of his wife.
Here's the saviour of this gory tale, though - it's deeply, darkly, funny. One episode saw rubbish supe The Deep attempt to rescue a dolphin from captivity. It ends badly, but boy, did I laugh... and feel bad about laughing at the same time. A very interesting new experience for me - the blackest of black humour. Can't wait for series 2, out shortly.
James May: Our Man in Japan (Amazon): Undoubtedly the funniest of the Clarkson/Hammond/May trio, James embarks on a tour of Japan, Cue large amounts of droll, dry, wit, awkward cultural encounters, and May either being grumpy or pissing himself laughing. At times touchingly insightful, or wantonly rude, about the country and it's culture, it was a fun watch. Clearly (like Top Gear and The Grand Tour) there's a fair amount of scripted stuff, but the spontaneous bits sparkle.
He's back soon with a cookery show called "Oh Cook". Having done cars, nostalgia, putting things back together and Japan, it's a logically illogical move. I hate cookery shows. I'll watch it, though.
Music
Like all good dinosaurs, I still have my vinyl record collection. It's in poor condition - played to death, but dearly loved. Trouble is, a lack of space in a previous house saw the deck binned and the precious plastic boxed up. It had been nearly a decade since it had been played... until a recent house move gave me the space to un-box, and a birthday present of one of those budget portable turntables the opportunity to play. If only I had the time...
The deck is poor, to be honest. Lots of needle noise and some distortion and to say the built-in speakers are tinny is seriously offensive to respectable baked beans cans everywhere - even the value brand ones.
Hooked up to my Teac amp improved things though, and April saw me run through every one of my tatty 7" singles - all 200-ish of them. Both sides, mind - The B's are a treasure trove of non-album, instrumental, live and weird tracks and I loved every bloody second of playing them again, from Abba to the Zombies.
What happened in May? Well, quantity of books consumed didn't increase, but box sets went stratospheric. Another time, eh..?
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