mintybloggydiarythingy 2.0

Week from Monday 1st June 2026 - I did one of those L-O-N-G phone calls to the ELF CENTRE to organise my next rounds of pre-HORSEPICKLE blood tests. You have to wait until after eleven-thirty on a Wednesday before you can book an appointment these days, and then you have to listen to twenty minutes of terrible electronic Mozart before you can get through to a person to make your arrangements. But at least I shan't have to TAKE A GAMBLE the next time, going all the way to the general obstacle, only to find that I can't be seen to on a 'WALK-IN' basis... The LiDL-TREK ladies have been having a better time of it in their version of the GIRO D'ITALIA... ELISA BALSAMO sprinted three-for-three in the opening stages, thus wearing the PINK JERSEY. But she lost it by quite a few minutes in the Stage Four TIME TRIAL. However, she's still leading the RED JERSEY points competition by a comfortable margin and keeps winning everything that isn't too hilly, thanks to the...

Week from Monday 11th May 2026 - Meanwhile In Blooskyland, a couple of SOFT MACHINE recordings have exchanged hands... I posted a picture of the CD cover that I did for the recent SWISS WEBCAST, so naturally I had a few replies from the curious. It appears that the original broadcast is no longer there, so opportunities for 'acquisition' have now been lost (It hasn't yet appeared on the SUGARMEGS archives either, surprisingly - although there is ANOTHER recent show in Portugal that will no doubt need hearing at some point!). Luckily, I captured the "CONCERTO-JAZZ" broadcast on the night and I do have THE FILES! I sent a link to my Scottish chum "CBQ" and he in turn has sent me his own 'naughty' recording of the Softy gig in KINROSS, which I look forward to getting into. But I have a couple of other "PROJECTS" to do before I give it my FULL attention. I recently got sent some rather good soundboards from BRAND X's 1978 "M...

Week from Monday 4th May 2026 - I had my COVID JABBING over the weekend, which naturally led to a couple of daze ZONKED OUT with the "Spikevax Fever" - including all the fun stuff like nauseous retching, reduced appetite and crashing headaches, as well as spending most of the ensuing day-and-a-bit in fevered semi-consciousness. It's a CATCH-22 sitch... I get FREE priority vaccinations because I'm "IMMUNO-COMPROMISED", but that is also the probable reason for my reacting so badly to the drug itself! Meanwhile, I have a chat with the HAEMO-ONCOs on Tuesday, so I made sure to get my relevant BLOOD TESTS in earlier, before all that was in my system! TUESDAY PHONECHAT... Indications are that certain critical blood 'NUMBERS' are creeping upwards again ('Free Light Chains', 'Serum Free Lambda' and all that sort of hoohah). But they are nowhere near the 'UP IN THE THOUSANDS' count that they were when I was first diagnosed with MYELO...

Week from Monday 27th April 2026 - ...in the end, the only way I was able to save a copy of THIS MONTH's bank statement was to do a screenshot of the account page. To recap, since the new "improvements" to the bank's website, previous months statements are there as PDFs, but not the latest one, even several days after I got the notification that it was! Sorry to bang on about this, but ill-advised "improvements" to bigbiz websites are a particular bugbear of mine, along with most forms of advertising... FIREFOX has now released as version 150. A lot of the 'fixes' apply just to WINDOZE and MAC, and I'm not that fussy about any improvements they might incorporate for the management of multiple TABS - 'cos I don't roll that way! - but I did notice a couple of the new features in my own LINUX and ANDROID versions. The built-in PDF EDITOR has all that you could possibly want from a PDF editor now, and they've upgraded the built-in LANG...

Week from Monday 6th April 2026 - I don't think I fell for too many APRIL FOOLS' DAY hoaxes, although one of my daily GEOGRAPHY QUIZZES had all the answers refer to non-existent fictional places from books and movies, thus impossible to find in yer regular atlas! They also tricked me into thinking that I'd forfeited my twenty-something days' WINNING STREAK and had to start from scratch! Yes, OF COURSE I have been following the ARTEMIS II space mission in all its geeky detail, staying up late into the night so that I can catch everything LIVE, tuned into Mission Control and the voice of CAPCOM, and taking naps with my headphones on! I feel like I'm that nerdy eleven year-old kid all over again! Besides, it's all a lot more compelling (and comprehensible) than anything that's happening on THIS planet currently! On Tuesday morning I did my 'accounts' for the beginning of a new FINANCIAL YEAR. It didn't take very long! I don't have to file a S...

Week from Monday 16th March 2026 - I thought it might be nice to have a "TWIN PEAKS"-a-thon, so my Sunday evening was spent watching the "FIRE WALK WITH ME" movie, followed by the 'international' version of the PILOT EPISODE (the one with the alternative ending). I think this may well become my new SUNDAY THING, so I'll continue with the first actual TV episodes next weekend... This week's YOUTUBE-ing project... I revived the recording of the occasion when I, posing as "Eamonn Fitzquackahoot", performed the "EUROVISION SONG" in public, accompanied by The Artists Formerly Known As JUMP, Formerly Known As LOUD FARMER, Eventually Known As TV BY TEARS. I isolated the vocals for better clarity (paying special attention to RABBITHOLE's MC-ing). I also pasted in some bits of my original 'primitive' demo tape... It's a 'LIVE COMEDIC EVENT', the sort "YOU [DEFINITELY] CAN'T DO THAT ON STAGE ANYMORE"!...