Lyrics: “I Am Disappeared” – Frank Turner, 2011
I blame the deluge of pre-album release promo material from Frank Turner in my (social media) life for indulging in a 15 minutes pipe dream this morning. I’m a lost cause. I didn’t follow through with it though.
Fandom I – Frank Turner | If I’m using numbers in any form or priority here, Frank has to come first. Not just because it’s only 5 more days till the new album will be out. [Note to self: Schedule time to listen to it at home in the morning before heading into work.] I am one of those fangirling types that listen to all the podcast interviews and read all the print (or rather online magazine) interviews he’s doing. There have been a few interviews recently and then of course the first two episodes of the “50 States in 50 Days” documentary, which I’ve mentioned earlier this week. I watched both episodes by now and very much enjoyed them and will definitely watch them once again before the last two episodes come out and probably all four in a row once more before my time (60 days?) to re-watch runs out. I might do sort of a review once all four are out, but what can I say so far? I like Frank! Obviously! Once again it’s been nice to see him interact with people who like his art (and him) in the patient, friendly, kind and empathetic way that he does. Not to mention the interesting tiny insights into life on the road.
So the pipe dream this morning? There are still tickets available for the 20 minutes show at 4AM in Camden Town next Saturday as part of the World Record attempt (most shows in different cities in 24 hours). This morning I checked the Eurostar train times and ticket prices. Add parking fee and ticket cost it would come up to about 300€. Which IS a lot of money for a 20 minutes gig. It would be cool to be a part of that world record attempt though, right? I then checked my calendar properly and saw that I’ve got another thing planned for Sunday evening and also a couple of hours of Green Politics activity Saturday morning (which I knew about). That’ s too much activity for a weekend. So there won’t be a crazy, expensive 20 hours trip across the channel for me.
I’ll see Frank play a show in Hamburg in 3 weeks anyway. But I admit I was tempted for a few minutes this morning.
Fandom II – Outlander | I’ve been re-watching the first half of season 7 (because I’ll be off Amazon Prime again by the end of next week) to refresh my memory before the second half will be released in the autumn (I think). I’m not an avid fan of the TV show anymore or at least I’m not following the news online all that much anymore. But I have to say: they do know how to make engaging television, whether they have stayed close / true to the books nor not. If I’d have to pick I’d always pick the books over the TV show, but as I’m more of a reader than a TV viewer anyway, so that’s no surprise. Re-watching this now tempts me to reread – if not the complete series – but at least the 2nd half, I guess. I’ve reread the first half a few times when I first discovered the series almost 15 years ago and then I think again when the TV show started about 10 years ago. The last one from 2021 contains some new clues about one character’s backstory, which made me want to go through previous ones to see if I can make sense of it or rather if it really was planted many many books before. I do have them all as audiobooks so maybe I should make more use of that, because when else shall I find the time to re-read old tomes? I’ve got so so so many new / unread books on my shelf as well.
Games Night Afternoon | I don’t know when the Friday / Saturday evening date to play board games with friends was switched to a weekend afternoon, but I like it. A sign of getting older? Maybe. If so, I’m fine with that too. I had a lovely afternoon with some friends today, playing games, but also chatting about this and that and everything as you do.
Current Read | The adult in me will now postpone sharing more random observations and thoughts to later this week, because I really should got to bed soon. I will read some more in bed, but at least I will already be in it. I’m currently reading “The Great Divide” by Cristina Henriquez, which is set in Panama over 100 years ago during the construction of the Canal. I sort of like it, even though the narrative is not structured like I would have expected it from the summary on the cover, if that makes sense. The summary mentioned 3-4 people and I thought the story would focus on them and I’m sure it will at some point and the various plots will come together. But at the moment there is still a lot of backstory to each one of these 4 people and side characters and backstory of the side characters. It will be interesting to see how it will all converge, but I’m about 1/3 in by now and hope it will start converging soon.
