In Jazz They Call It Improvising

 

Another half-assed post today, I'm afraid. What is wrong with me?

Well, to be honest, it's mostly that I just seem to be really busy. I have no idea why. It's 6.30 in the evening now and this is the first chance I've had to think about writing a post. Let me walk you through my day because that's what everyone wants from a blog about MMORPG gaming, isn't it? Someone running through a repetitive list of mundane daily chores. Oh, wait...

Anyway, like it or not, that's what we're getting, so buckle up. Buckle in. Which is it? Or maybe it's buckle down. 

Okay, we're doing that are we? Alright then. I did an English degree, albeit nearly fifty years ago. I ought to be able to do this without looking it up.

There's "Buck up" but I'm not talking about that one. That's completely different. (Or is it...?)

Then there's "Buckle in", which I can't in good conscience say I've ever heard anyone say. I've heard people say "Strap in" or more likely "Strap yourself in", which obviously means the same thing, there or thereabouts. A strap has a buckle, after all, or it's not much of a strap.

What is it that Bette Davis says in All About Eve?  In my head I hear her saying "Buckle up. It's going to be a bumpy ride" but I bet that's not right. It's been almost as long since I saw All About Eve as it has been since I did that degree. In fact, I first saw the movie at one of the college film society showings, although I have seen it on television since. But that was in the eighties. Hardly surprising I can't remember the exact line.

 Hah! The exact line is "Fasten your seatbelts! It's going to be a bumpy night!" Bette's not buckling anything. Not up, in, down or sideways. She's fastening.

That didn't help much, did it?

Let's come at it from the other side. What I meant was something like "prepare yourself". I wasn't trying to suggest it was going to be difficult, let alone turbulent. Just that you should face the fact that it's coming, like it or not, so you might as well accept it.

I'm not sure any of the buckles or straps quite do the job there. I think I actually was unconsciously eliding the "pull yourself together" encouragement of buck up with the "get ready for trouble" implicit in buckle in. 

All of which gets us precisely nowhere. Bloody philology.

So, Beryl wakes me up at about 7.30am, which is an hour later than usual, probably because the heatwave has receded and it's nice and cool. She won't get on the bed and settle down because she wants to play but it's too early for all that nonsense so she goes off and lies down at the top of the stairs while I lie around in bed for half an hour, listening to Hancock on the radio until I'm properly awake.

To be strictly accurate, it's a fairly modern recreation of one of the "Missing Hancocks", one of the shows from the fifties that was scrubbed or skipped or lost, recreated by a bunch of actors impersonating the original cast. I stopped listening to the real Radio 4 sometime around Brexit, for obvious reasons, and I've never started again.

I only listen to Radio 4 Extra now, which is a weird hodge-podge of old sitcoms, drama, whodunnits, panel games and documentaries, all running on a daily loop so that if you listen all day, you'll hear everything three times. Which I often do. Hear things three times, that is, not listen all day. 

The big attraction for me is that it's the only station that has absolutely no news at all. I'm more than happy to hear the same awful 1980s sitcom dredged up from the dregs of Radio 2 if it means I never have to find out what's going on in the real world.

I get all my news from various entertainment websites through Feedly, which does give me a slightly (More than slightly.) skewed world view. I know a lot about the legislative program when it comes to things like the collapse of the live music infrastructure in small venues around the UK, the problems bands have touring in Europe post Brexit and the issues arising out of huge companies gaining monopolies over ticketing.

I know who's died within hours of them joining the choir invisible, which is presumably what they are doing, since most of the celebrity deaths I get to hear about are musicians. On the other hand, I didn't know Bill Oddie had died until someone at work told me. I'm not surprised Stereogum and Pitchfork didn't think it was worth mentioning but shame on the NME! The Goodies had five singles in the Top Twenty back in the seventies and Bill Oddie wrote all of them.

I just want to make it clear I don't think that's a good song, by the way. Or even a funny one. Bill Oddie wrote a lot of much better, funnier songs than that, although he didn't write any of them for The Goodies. But that was their biggest hit. #4 in 1975. You can see why we needed punk to come along...

Anyway, getting back to the plot, after I get up and have breakfast (A wholemeal bagel and a piece of wholemeal toast, both with sliced banana, and a cup of tea.) I go and do the weekly shop, as I always do on a Wednesday. After that, I catch up with all the Blaugust posts from overnight and leave a few comments. (Is this historic present working? I think it was at the start but not any more. I'm going to drop it.)

Since I was at the PC I sorted out the issue with Stars Reach not updating. It's ready to play now but it's 7.45 PM as I type this and I still haven't found the time to log in.

Then I had a bath and after that I moved a whole load of stuff out of the "conservatory" (Lean-to, really.) into the car so I could take it to the recycling center, where I had a 2pm appointment. After that I hung out the washing that I'd had to bring in last night because there was rain forecast. 

Then Mrs Bhagpuss asked me if I wanted to take Beryl on Paw Patrol. That's what we call a twenty minute loop around the neighborhood that Beryl likes to do at least every couple of days so she can reacquaint herself with the messages left by all the other local dogs and add her comments. It's dog blogging, basically.

Not long after I got back, I got a text telling me I had some stuff I needed to do, relating to the sale of my mother's house. That involved logging into a website, reading a bunch of legal nonsense and printing it out so I could sign it and get it witnessed, which is going to have to wait until the weekend when I'm at work because I don't talk to any of the neighbors except about dogs so I can hardly pop round and ask them to witness me signing a legal document. Put a paw-print on it, maybe.

That took me pretty much up to lunch and lunch took me up to the time when I needed to get in the car and go to the recycling center.

After I'd done that, I had to take two bags of clothes and two more of books to the charity shops. I say "shops" because there are about half a dozen in the same road but at any given time only one or two of them will be accepting donations. Today was a good day. The first one I tried took the lot. 

Since I was there, I went round all the rest just to see what I could find. I do not want to get into a death spiral of clearing stuff out only to fill the space with more kipple but I'm okay with the odd replacement, now and again. I got a book by Peter Bogdanovich called " "Who The Hell's In It?", which should make a good bathroom read.

I always forget Bogdanovich was a writer. I think of him as a director but he was a critic before he directed, just like Truffaut, Godard and the rest of the Cahiers du Cinema crew. And now I want to watch some of his movies again. And Truffaut's. Not Godard's, though.

By the time I got home it was about three in the afternoon. I'd said I was going to look for some places we might go away for a couple of days in September so I did that for about an hour until Mrs Bhagpuss and Beryl came back from visiting a granddaughter. I sent her links to a few holiday ideas (Mrs Bhagpuss, not Beryl or the kid.) and then I just had time to read some more Blaugust posts before it was time for tea. 

After tea I sat down at the PC again and booked one of the places, under Mrs Bhagpuss's instructions, and then I got myself up to date with Blaugust before starting this post at half-past six. And even then I only got as far as Bette Davis before Beryl bounced in to tell me it was playtime, which took up another forty-five minutes.

And now here we are, gone eight in the evening and I haven't logged into a single game yet because I haven't had time! This is most days at the moment. No wonder I only play games in short bursts.

I'm going to say I think this will improve, in respect of the blog, when a) Blaugust finishes and b) the days get shorter. I do a lot less around the house in the Autumn and Winter and that frees up a lot more time for gaming. And I do think Blaugust leads to a lowering in quality all round, approximately commensurate to the increase in quantity. There are a lot of filler posts and I'm writing too many of them.

Can do better. Will do better. 

Tomorrow, with luck, I might actually play Stars Reach for half an hour and then I can post about it, which will be the only reason I'm playing it. In the meantime, I'm sure everyone's already seen Wilhelm's report. Also there're the new updates for  both Neverness to Everness and Wuthering Waves this week so it's not like I'm short of something to play or to write about.

But now, though, I'm going to have to slap a couple more pictures in this post, think of a title, press Publish and then go take Beryl for her final walk before I wash up and go to bed, where I plan on watching some more Dr. Who and maybe another episode of the positively bizarre anime Chainsmoker Cat, which I'm determined to get through if only so I can blog about it.