Elvis, Tebay, and Moon Debates...

One of the candidates
looking for the debate.

Have you found yourself a stiff breeze? Marvellous. It comes and goes where I am, but things are definitely cooler this week. Huzzah for us all. In other news, the competition to find... the campaign to elect... the scramble for the bottomiest bottom of the barrel continues in Westminster. As I can't vote for any of the shockers involved, it makes no difference if they debate on TV or fly to the moon. Perhaps they should do that? Six weeks of titting about down here is going to take its toll. Regardless, in the near future, someone terrible will take over from someone else terrible and it'll have nothing to do with the vast majority of us on planet Earth. Still, there's a breeze. So that's good.

Well yeah, that too. But I was
talking about my novel tbh.

Writing News

Record breaking heat meant a pause on the WIP. But all was not lost. Under the waft of a Costa ventilation panel, I read the entire story so far. It took me two hours, with only a brief pause for the odd correction. And you know what? It's not bad. As I'm at the stage where the entire thing is a shower of shite and there's bucket loads of work to be done, a mid-point reflection of not bad is supremely encouraging.

Austin Butler as Elvis.

Culture

I warned you last week I'd be decamping to the cinema to escape Monday's temperature. Well what better way to keep cool than a three-hour shift to watch Elvis. I'm not an Elvis fan but overall I think I enjoyed it. It definitely chose a specific version of his story to share, but isn't that the way with biopics? It looked good, sounded great, and Austin Butler did a bang up job. I still think Rocketman is the pinnacle of the genre (and Bohemian Rhapsody continues to make me mad. Poor Freddie. He deserved so much better.) Moving on, the news series ofVirgin River has arrived on Netflix and is just the right balance of stunning locations and instantly forgettable plots. Dive in if you feel the need.

Taco Saturday!
Look what I'm
capable of when I
can be arsed to chop. 

Food and Drink

Like last week, the urge for salad is sometimes overtaken by the urge not to chop vegetables every night. This week it was an Indian takeaway that mixed thing up. Also, a stop at a charging point in Tebay services meant a tin of pistachio cookies were purchased in mysterious circumstances. (The mystery being why I only bought one. They are FIT.) 

Allonby

Out and About

Tebay was en route to Allonby. It was impossible to stay indoors on Tuesday and much more preferable to spend three hours in an air-conned car to get to a place that was ten degrees cooler. So yeah, that's what happened. Ta, Allonby. I'd never heard of you before last week but your breezy coastline and far-away distance provided everything I needed on the hottest day of my UK life.

I'm hoping next time I won't talk about the weather so much. How non-British of me! The one good thing about recent events (except it isn't really a good thing at all) is how I've noticed far less newspapers with 'sunbathers in Bournemouth enjoying the temperatures' style headlines. It's hard to tell as I've blocked the worst of the tabloids on my timelines and the last time I was in a paper shop, was pre-Internet. If I've got it wrong, and the press are still as thick as custard about climate change, then ignore me. But I don't think it's possible for us to be thick about it. We don't have that luxury any more. Not after last week.

What a depressing way to end the weekly update! Let's change that. What's been the highlight of your week? I'm going with listening to old episodes of Off Menu on my road trip out of the heat. Laughing at funny stuff makes everything feel better, so let's crack on and keep doing that.

Have a lovely week, folks.