Weeknotes 310

Hello.

On Thursday afternoon I started feeling grotty so I stumbled home from the office and missed the Christmas party. I spent Friday in bed and had to bail on meeting Joe at the pub.

I’m a little better today and it seems likely I’ll be well enough to go back to work tomorrow, which is what life is all about.

I don’t think it’s the famed “super flu”, just a headache and fatigue. Maybe I need a holiday.

Thus only two visits to the gym, which is disappointing but I’ll let myself off the hook for that one. I enjoyed what little of Revelation Space I heard in that time, although I’m already worried I’m going to start losing track of characters, locations and dates if I don’t pay fierce attention. (Didn’t have that problem with Piranesi.)

I paid an accountant to do my tax return and they told me I have a massive unexpected tax bill because I was on the wrong tax code all year. I do like paying tax and living in a society but… how can this happen when HMRC already know everything about my income? Sigh.

January’s always an expensive month because it’s when various annual bills are due, and this time it’s going to be mega-expensive. Better not spend any money in December!

Another envelope-pushingly dull episode of Pluribus. This one did at least have lots of beautiful locations and a more interesting central character, so in isolation it would’ve been a decent 45 minutes of television, but in the wider context of a show that’s already stretching the theoretical boundaries of tedium it felt unearned and rude.

I mean, I thought Fly was a great episode of Breaking Bad, but that’s because the show was so relentlessly eventful that I appreciated the respite, whereas Pluribus has me so starved of substance that I’m desperate for anything to happen.

I feel — appropriately enough — as though the rest of the world is gaslighting me a bit with its enthusiasm for this show. Apart from Kottke I haven’t seen many high-profile complaints about how utterly naff it is. I mean, “most watched show ever”? Not Severance? Not For All Mankind? I honestly don’t understand what’s got into you people.

As my mind wandered during this week’s episode I mostly thought about how The Leftovers was a far more compelling end-of-the-world story than this.

I watched The Legend of Ochi which was strange and beautiful and impressive for its budget. The writing and performances created a bit of unnecessary emotional distance but overall I got drawn into it on a weird fairytale level and it made me want to rewatch The Dark Crystal.

Four days of work left this year.