Summertime Blues

Things are fairly quiet at the moment, I don't know about where you are but summer has been a non event here, each day brings rain, mist, heat, humidity, generally uncomfortable weather neither one thing nor the other.

Even wargaming doesn't seem to be lifting my spirits, despite getting a fair amount of time in, I shall be playing one of Kevin's 800+ boardgames on Monday, only fair as he has now fought three games of War and Conquest with me. It will be a rerun of the Waterloo campaign, a block game and as I always fancied being Napoleon, having met the tortoise you will remember, I hope to achieve victory for the Emperor.

Having no painting of my own to do, the decision to paint a new army has been put off until Winter strikes, I have volunteered to finish off the last three units of my sons Carolingian army, the first of which I completed on Thursday. I am not basing them as my style is different to his. I don't know when we will next see them across the field of glory as he has found his inner DIY self and has a new house to sort.

I did manage to catch up with some of my favourite TV shows and binge watched them only to be left slightly disappointed after the long wait. Veep, a very clever political comedy has turned to vicious nastiness rather than funny nastiness, you would have to watch it, there are new script writers and they obviously are not as sharp as the originator Armando Iannucci. It could be heading for my recycle bin. Silicon Valley still holds me due to the excellent supporting cast, the lead character is simply not believable, he is a computer genius who invents some fantastic programme but doesn't make a penny out of it while everyone else around him does. He is just too dumb.

The Man In The High Castle has just hit the bin, this was touted as better than SS-GB, yes I know anything was better than that, an alternative history in which Germany and Japan won the war and conquered America, or large parts of it. The plot revolves around film which shows the Allies actually winning the war despite the fact they obviously didn't, are the films fake, are they real, do I care. Confusing as all this is what finished me was the Japanese character seemingly going back in time to another reality, my brain hurt, bin.

I can do confusing, as my continuing interest in Preacher shows, if you have not read the comics, sorry, graphic novels, then God gets fed up and comes down to earth for some quality time and Preacher decides to confront him over the mess he has made. Preacher has an Irish vampire and a murderous girlfriend for company, I particularly like the vampire.

Cassidy (vampire) and the lovely Tulip (killer)

On Wednesday the usual suspects at the bar waxed lyrical about The State, Channel 4's piece on ISIS, I decided to give it a watch, the storyline following the two brothers I enjoyed but I found the one pertaining to the woman doctor hard to swallow. She is a firm believer and her son is shown to be brainwashed but overnight she decides she has had enough and both flee back to the UK where she is shown to be unrepentant, so why flee? The day to day madness of ISIS was shown very well and it really is terrifying.

What now, nothing as far as I can see, too much reality and social propaganda for me to enjoy the box these days. I need a good book.

Oh, I almost forgot, the boys from Kurupt FM are back on People Just Do Nothing or PJDN if you are a fan, a brilliantly funny programme of a group of people caught up in their own small world. If a character ever deserved his own show it is the wonderful Chabuddy G played by Asim Chaudhry.