Pinch and a punch for the first of the month, I say, tapping Squish lightly on the arm. We lie in for a while watching Love, Death and Robots, an anthology of animated sci-fi shorts which gives us a lot to chew over. Broadly, we hate the photo-realistic shooting ones, which are far too much like videogame trailers–some of the others flaunt their adult animation by using nudity and sexual violence for mere shock value–but there are some real gems here, and some beautiful pieces of animation, and it’s interesting to recognise adaptations of short stories by sci-fi luminaries like Alistair Reynolds, J.G. Ballard and Peter F. Hamilton.
Not much else happens. I type up all the books I’ve read this June, for a long-interrupted blog series, and find great pleasure in the way my fingers rattle across the keys. Since I’ve updated my laptop, I’ve realised that a fair amount of my low writing productivity over the past months can be blamed on sticky shift keys and the general lack of pleasure associated with my old keyboard. All of these blogs have been written up from my handwritten diary entries, which is an enjoyably low-effort manual exercise, and gives me a certain degree of pride in my rudimentary touch-typing skill set.
It being a hot day, I sit out in the sunshine and doodle manicules in the margin of The Anatomy of Melancholy wherever I find an interesting passage–later I sit in and watch the tennis. I try to make a meeting on Microsoft Teams for form tutors at my new school who will teaching Year 7 from September–how exciting is that going to be, having my own tutor group–but I don’t find out what time it is due to differences in the Teams set-up between their email and mine. I come in at the end after everyone’s left and have a quick chat with the Head of Transition, who is very welcoming and understanding. Covid’s played havoc with my plans to visit the school and meet the department, but there’s hope I can squeeze a visit in this Friday, which is an inset day at my regular school.
A Fool Grows Wise 