w/e 2021-06-27
Friday was the best and worst day of this week. A long-planned post-second-vaccine pub lunch was delayed a few days due to weather but Friday was the day when we walked the three miles to the nearest pub, sat on their outdoor benches, and enjoyed our first trip to a pub since February 2020.
That was very, very nice.
One pint later we went to order food, only to be told they wouldn’t be able to serve us for an hour and a half. This doesn’t seem like the end of the world now but it was a huge disappointment after such a build up, a long wait, and the initial high of drinking beer! At a pub! As if everything was good again! The place wasn’t even busy; there were many empty tables. Were they not expecting anyone to want food at … checks his watch in the past … 1pm?
There followed a grumpy hour’s walk home, cursing this stupid doomed world, to yet another cheese-and-bread-based lunch.
§ We finished watching season four of Better Call Saul this week which continued to be enjoyable. I also continued to find Mike’s storyline more interesting than the one revolving around Jimmy/Saul.
And we finished season three of Motherland which is still fun. I sometimes think it’s lost something since it started but then it comes up with some great moments, and Julia’s almost breakdown on the phone was a lovely, awful moment of seriousness.
We also watched Ant-Man because I thought it might be a bit funnier and less boring than most superhero movies. I guess it was, but it’s a low bar. There were some good lines, some of which were used to belatedly undercut the obligatory pompous exposition, so they could have their cake and eat it. It was entirely adequate.
§ It took a while but I finished reading Comanche Moon this week, the second (chronologically) of four parts of a series by Larry McMurtry. That was good, occasionally grim, and I still enjoyed filling in the past of the characters from the third part, Lonesome Dove.
I’ve no idea how these books fare in terms of their portrayal of Native Americans. I hope it’s reasonable, or at least not too bad. They’re often extremely, unnecessarily violent, but they’re not presented as dumb savages by any means. Much of the book is written from the point of view of various Native Americans and they’re no dumber than the white people who they realise are taking their land and killing their people.
§ That’s all. Have a good week!