We Really Need Some Fun

Everything that I am watching or reading seems to be very dark. There may be good final conclusions but the journey is very dark indeed. The book I am reading "Maroc" by Daniel Easterman seems to introduce characters just to be offed and the bad guys seem to get away with whatever they want.

Then I have started "The Killing" on BBC iPlayer and that is a Scandinavian Noir and from the title you are probably aware that the overall premise in not too good, but it is absorbing and drags you into it although it pulls no punches.

"Ragnarok" on Netflix is again Scandinavian , and dubbed (much prefer subtitles) but generally the dubbing works , and I am on to series two where against the odds the controlling baddies have started getting some comeuppance and there are a few humorous one liners , it is in the same universe as "American Gods" , and although it is not obvious early on the Norse Gods / Giants war becomes more and more significant and with the proto Thor / Loki / Odin characters  it is very watchable.

I need to pick up on a short comedy although Ben Miller is rather excellent in "Professor T" and I still have "Wellington Paranormal" so with that and the music I listen to I can hedge myself against the dark things that I am watching and reading.

Today I have been listening to a lot of Julian Cope and Teardrop Explodes so I will share the excellent "Try,Try,Try" from "20 Mothers" with you , in what is possibly my last post this month on Seven Days In.

So Much For Ragnarok

I've just finished Neil Gaiman's "Norse Mythology" and it is an excellent read, not as long or bawdy as Stephen Fry's "Mythos" but no less entertaining.

There's lots of things in it that are mirrored in Game of Thrones (never ending winter and frost giants) and lots of other genres, but the stories are told in the style of a fireside teller whereas Stephen Fry aligned them with contemporary equivalents, both excellent story telling methods, and I was looking forward to the end game of Ragnarok, the end of all things.

One thing this book brought home to me is that Loki is a particularly nasty piece of work, sort of Joffrey with added intelligent malice. Maybe it's that I think Tom Hiddleston's Marvel take can be endearing at times, although I suppose that engenders the nastiness of Loki, he can be nice as pie as he is engineering someone's murder or betrayal while covering his own tracks and framing someone else to take the blame.

So Ragnarok came and it , to me, was just another story, Fenris Wolf and The Midgard Serpent are Godzilla like figures and too big o seriously defeat, although they are defeated which means that the gods but have suddenly increased in size or the creatures decreased in size. Also it was a case of listing who killed who, more like a shopping list than a battle narrative. Still I suppose that's what you would get if you were sitting round fire.

As I am writing this 6Music are playing a lot of Drum and Bass as though it is some kind of revelatory genre. I've always wondered why Drum and Bass never features any Bass, it's just a fast repeated drum sequence and then songs / pieces are built up over that. I have no problem with it, but it does amaze me how so many people say they don't want to be pigeonholed and then decided they are part of some grouping.

So for post 1943, I'm going back to 1943 for "2 O'Clock Jump" by Harry James which is a decent piece of jazz, although I saw something called "Praise The Lord and Pass The Ammunition" by Kay Kyser and the comments on the Youtube post are frightening (right wing snowflakes taking offence at anything not like them) especially with the song being like a cheery church quire, and almost a justification for Ragnarok. I had originally heard the line on the amazing "Texas Jerusalem Crossroads" by Lift To Experience. I thought the line was blackly funny, and it is until you read those comments.