Author: Warren Ellis

It is coffee-roasting season. First try with the peaberry I bought earlier in the year. I love that golden seam that appears in the bean.

ON DECK: I have two big jobs to finish this week, so I’m going full-focus on those until they’re done. There’s also a project I want to start here, but I need some clear thinking time first.
INBOX: 83. Anything that doesn’t require immediate action will be batched at end of week, probably!
LISTENING:

READING: re-reading THE DOMINANT ANIMAL by Kathryn Scanlan
LAST WATCHED: caught a bit of HAMLET AT ELSINORE, made for tv in 1964 – check out that cast
CONDITION: very much fighting the urge to hibernate now
OUTSIDE: love this short story by Oz Hardwick, “The New Humans.“

The storm stripped the sycamore pretty hard. If the rain stays off, I can spend the weekend clearing the fall and repairing garden and machinery. But somehow I doubt it will.

Rewatching CORIOLANUS:

Sorting out the day’s listening.

Yesterday was an absolute trash fire, brightened only by a brief exchange of messages with Gazelle Twin and the arrival of a piece of art from Andrea Mutti.

ON DECK: Mix for DEPARTMENT OF MIDNIGHT 105 arrived overnight
INBOX: 76, but a bunch of those are delivery notifications.
READING: the long introduction to the Arden Shakespeare Complete Works. Watching THE WARS OF THE ROSES last month got me thinking about Shakespeare again for the first time in a while. I ended up watching CORIOLANUS, Branagh’s HENRY V and McKellen’s RICHARD III, and THE HOLLOW CROWN, and I’m having some thoughts about the Histories, which I never read. Many of my generation have an allergy to Shakespeare due to school, but I was of the lucky cohort who got to do MACBETH at school and HAMLET at A-level, and was only forced to read one of the comedies (AS YOU LIKE IT). But I never revisited him much, and this winter I think I might.

The weather is coming in. Between weatherfronts right now. Next couple of days will be dark and wet.

Yesterday, I got somewhere between 15 and 20 pages of script down, and finished two pieces. I sat around for a while after, read some of the new Enard, and then slept for 8 hours and 45 minutes, and did NOT want to wake up or get out of bed. The hibernation instinct is strong. But there is much to do. I should roast some coffee beans tonight.

Okay. I need to mark up the boards and start writing a to-do list for when the weather lifts next week.

BASAK GOING AS A RSU, says the chyron on Bloomberg TV. I have no idea what that means. This is why I love having Bloomberg TV playing silently on the big screen – lots of little charts and newsflashes and jargon that is entirely alien.

It is Halloween, but I don’t have time for that. Luckily for me, I have no small children or friends, so I don’t have to worry about it – I have writing to do and stuff to pack ready for storage to buy some more space in the house for Xmas doings – family members now with low mobility means I have to create more space than usual.

It is 55 days to Xmas.

ON DECK: One script down already, into the next, waiting on various other things still
INBOX: 71 and dropping
LISTENING: BLACK DOG, Gazelle Twin
READING: finished RUSSIA CONTAINER last night
CONDITION: my heart rate variability has kicked up out of my usual range, but my usual range is rock-bottom (I have hypertensive stress), but my resting heart rate has also kicked up, to 74. I’ve been feeling out of whack for a few weeks. Once the storms pass, a few days of garden work is required, I think. Because, although the light is bright and beautiful right now, we have what looks like a monster on the way – woke up to several Met Office alerts.