barkingstars

I am going to keep this one short. This week has been another week of very hot weather. Very hot for London and very hot for me, a pale person of Celtic origin. I’ve spent most of the time struggling to sleep and feeling nauseous.

To make things worse the people I work with also seem to have lost their minds in the heat. They have been driving me to distraction.

In short, my week of culture has been almost non-existent. I have switched to survival mode and just getting to the end of week in one piece has been my only focus.

Books

This week I finished reading A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine (aka Ruth Rendell). I enjoyed A Dark Adapted Eye so much I thought I’d launch into another. I can see that these Vine books split readers, with critics complaining that they are slow. What I really enjoy about these books is exactly that: it is slow because it is detailed, it is immersive. The plot matters, but the psychology of her characters matters even more, and that takes time. I’ll be reading more Vine novels.

TV

Speaking of murder mysteries, I’ve just started watching Ludwig starring David Mitchell as a puzzle setter, who through a rather convoluted series of events, finds himself impersonating a detective and starts solving murders.

Of late I have despaired of comedy dramas. All too often they are not funny enough to be comedies and not dramatic enough to be dramas. The joy of Ludwig is while its premise is silly (although aren’t all murder mysteries a bit silly) it has real heart, and I usually laugh out loud at least three or four times each episode. If you’re in the market for a murder mystery show then this is definitely for you.

I’ve also finished season 2 of Poker Face. Now, I’m aware that Natasha Lyonne is drawing fire for her position on AI, but frankly I couldn’t care less. I’ve really enjoyed the series and liked every episode, although I felt the last episode was a bit, I dunno, overwrought or convoluted. Anyway, I’d be happy to see more but after Lyonne’s recent debacle I guess that won’t be happening