I just checked, and my last non-book blog post was 8th June! That was ages ago! It is 8pm, and I’ve not got my daily steps done because work was too busy today, so I’m stuck at my desk on my walking pad and, for once, don’t have a book review I need to write… so here we are.

What has been going on? I don’t even really know. Work has been draining, and there has been a heatwave, so after 3 pm it’s boiling hot in my office, and I’ve got stuck in an anxiety loop which is definitely not helped by my menstrual cycle, but I don’t think that is entirely to blame. I need to get a grip of myself again. It’s the usual hits which I’m sure I’ve talked about before.

It’s so exhausting having anxiety issues; it’s like exercise: you have to fight against it all the fucking time because if you stop, your defensive muscles just waste away. I wish I could not get sick over driving the car, or talking to anyone other than my husband.

Anyway, I don’t want this to turn into a woe-is-me post so here are a couple of bright spots from recent weeks!

Avenue Q

We went to London a couple of weekends ago to see the revival of Avenue Q on the West End. I’d seen it years ago in my local town hall when it toured and loved it; I knew Husband would love it too and we had a great time. Some of it is a bit dated, and I don’t think it would be written the same now… but it’s great fun, especially watching how they operate the puppets and play all the different characters.

We also visited the British Museum, which, FYI, only has air con in the rooms with books, so it is about 1000 degrees in there at the moment! I hadn’t been there for years and, despite some rooms being like a sauna, really enjoyed it. Like a nerd, I also took a little field-notes notebook and wrote down notes on interesting things, which I think has helped me retain some information.

Seeing the Rosetta Stone was very cool. And also this proof that the X-Men were in Ancient Egypt.

I love a good museum visit!

Count Binface

There has been a hilarious turn of events in UK politics in the last couple of weeks.

Human Garbage and elected MP Nigel Farage is in big trouble for accepting £5million from a crypto-billionaire and not declaring it (coincidentally, he changed his Reform party’s policies to be more crypto-friendly around the same time). If you don’t know who he is, he’s the main dickhead responsible for Brexit. He’s kind of like our Trump in that he’s known for being sleaze personified, and I don’t understand how anyone can ever look at him, or literally anything he has ever done, and think he has once had a thought for the interests of anyone but himself, but especially not the poor or working class.

Along with the £5mill he’s also in trouble for accepting more money from some questionable friends (one of whom is nicknamed ‘Posh George’). He whined out some pathetic weak excuses for these obvious political bribes (including the classic “Russian hackers somehow”), and then tossed all the toys out of his pram by resigning as an MP.

Unfortunately, he also announced he is immediately standing in the byelection that this triggers. He says this is because he wants the people of Clacton-on-sea, his constituency and probably the safest Reform seat in the country (because it’s an economically deprived seaside town full of people who hate immigrants), to give him a “mandate” by re-electing him to the job he just quit… all this is costing about £385,000 of taxpayer money. If he gets reelected, the enquiry into his finances that he’s trying to dodge will restart, and he’ll probably get sacked anyway… But at that point he can cry “establishment witch-hunt” to his supporters. Then Clacton has to have another byelection, at another £385,000 of taxpayer money.

In an astounding turn of events, all the major political parties decided they were not going to play his game and none of them is standing candidates. This leaves the only other significant candidate as Count Binface, along I think 33 other random blokes,  including some of the Monster Raving Looney Party guys and ex-husband of Billie Piper who’s now a far right loudmouth.

Count Binface (see his official website; there are some great clips of him on the news on there – including him making an absolute fool of a Sky presenter) is a novelty candidate who stands in  high-profile elections (including the recent Makerfield by-election that led to Andy Burnham’s successful coup against PM Kier Starmer). In the UK, anyone can stand for a local election as long as you get 10 local signatures and pay a deposit, and it’s a beautiful tradition. Count Binface is an “independent space warrior” who wears a bin-shaped helmet on his head, and he’s hilarious… and honestly somehow actually a more serious candidate than Nigel fucking Farage.

So now Farage looks like a complete twat whatever happens. He either loses an election to a guy with a bin on his head, or he wins an election (most likely) where his only significant competition was a guy with a bin on his head.

Also, it means Count Binface is doing lots of interviews, which is fantastic. I have become a bit obsessed with watching them.

This has really restored a little bit of hope for me. It’s definitely a bright spot.

We also now have a new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, who has talked a pretty big game, but it’s too early to tell if he’s actually going to make any of the significant changes that will be needed to make any real long-term difference to the state of things.

what else?

• Really enjoyed rewatching Spider-Man Far From Home in preparation for Brand New Day on Saturday.
• I watched Ghosts Australia and really enjoyed it. It took a couple of episodes to find its groove but I like it. They’ve mixed up the ghosts and their powers a bit, and I think it also drops in some interesting bits about Australian history and culture we don’t get to learn about in the UK. (I’m also very excited for the Ghosts movie!)
• We finally finished Spider-noir on Prime and I really came around to it. I love how shit Ben Reilly is and his awkward web swinging.
• I’m really into making salads with cottage cheese and fresh peaches at the moment. I’d kind of forgotten all about cottage cheese so I’m having a moment with it! (I even accidentally bought the fat free version and it didn’t taste like sadness like fat free yoghurt does)
• I watched Cranford a while back and omg it’s so delightful! 100% now in my comfort watch rotation, with the other Elizabeth Gaskell adaptions – Wives & Daughters and North & South. I think Cranford can be found on streaming but I ended up buying a DVD(!) box set off eBay because I couldn’t find the other 2 anywhere.
• Very excited for Fable 4 after the game play footage, still repeating Fable 3 but it’s hard to find the time for gaming these days.