w/e 2022-01-23
Hello!
This week was unusually sociable, compared to the past couple of years, with not only having a couple of people round for dinner but also going round to neighbours’ for a nice chatty evening. Two social engagements! Amazing.
I did a couple of days of work this week, dragging that old Django project slowly into 2022. I also spent Monday afternoon sitting in the garden reading because it was so beautifully sunny it seemed rude not to. I’m sure surprisingly warm sunny afternoons in January are completely fine.
In migraine news, having gradually raised my Amitriptyline dosage to 75mg a day with no effect on my weekly-ish migraines, I am now weaning myself off them before trying Topiramate. The nice doctor said I was being very patient in giving these time to work. Having been seeing GPs about migraines for over thirty years it’s just nice to have found one who seems interested in preventing them, rather than merely signing the repeat prescription for Zolmitriptan.
§ We continued to make use of our temporary NOW subscription, starting with Mare of Easttown which, it turns out, isn’t about a horse. It was very good. While the detective-with-a-troubled-personal-life idea is rather tired, this worked well as Mare’s personal life wasn’t just an after-thought to make the character more interesting, but was a fundamental part of the whole story. Kate Winslet was great, and I soon forgot she was English. The only odd loose end seemed to be Guy Pearce’s character who didn’t really add much to the otherwise tightly-plotted narrative and web of relationships.
§ We also watched Landscapers, the four-part dramatisation of the murders that were the subject of the drama documentary in which I played the husband a while back. With David Thewlis and Olivia Colman as the rather odd husband and wife it would have been hard to screw this up and it was mostly very good. I felt a bit uneasy at times that it was pitched a bit towards comedy — laughing at this peculiar couple who were convicted of murdering and burying her parents felt awkward.
But I really liked the interesting style of the whole thing. There were times characters stepped out of the set, past the camera operators, across the black studio to another set, where characters from different time periods commented on what was happening. There were many non-realistic touches like this and, while I’m not sure they all worked, I am thirsty for any TV dramas that try to portray events in anything but standard realism. It’s so, so rarely done that I am grateful for any such attempts to try new things.
§ Slow progress continues to be made in The Last of Us Part II, only halted by bouts of motion sickness. Maybe I’m moving around too quickly and jerkily as I scour the deserted locations for supplies?