Most of today was spent either working or procrastinating.
There was a brief post-thunderstorm excursion to withdraw cash for the washing machine repair tomorrow, during which I made the error of buying a red bean croissant taiyaki to try later. This turned out to be hot so I had to eat it on the spot, ruining my dinner and making me feel a little ill from the excess of sugar. The croissant was tasty, though; I might try one of the other fillings to see if they are less intense.
As a result dinner was an unprecedented green salad: about half a head of lettuce, a handful of rocket and sliced starfruit dressed with passion fruit and pepper. Quite delicious, but now, a couple of hours later, I am getting hungry with plenty of hours to go before I have finished my work for tomorrow.
I finished The Power and liked it better than in the middle. There are some poorly thought out bits, most of them when there is no action or rousing excitement. Some outrageous but minor errors (like UNESCO as a UN agency dealing with refugees when it is practically the only one that doesn’t deal with refugees). The usual problem with Western novels about phenomena that affect the entire world but all the important stuff happens to Euro-Americans or to characters who are Euro-American in all but name (unless they are tinpot dictators in leopardskin, of course; those are never proper Euro-Americans unless they’re Trump). But some interesting ideas, some rousing exciting chapters, some really clever way of revealing timelines that I might not have picked up on had I been from another country or without interest in archaeology. Some of the characters became better, notably Roxy as she left her East End geezer gang family, and as Alderman abandoned attempts at writing dialect; others became less interesting, notably the increasingly dodgy American politician. But an interesting book on the whole, and one for the times with its meditation on how power structures society and the understanding of history.
I saw a criticism somewhere that it completly disregards race – there is, after all, a West African man rocketing around Eastern Europe. I wonder if that was not intentional: it seems to me to suggest that the earthquake in gender has so shaken society that race is not necessarily visible. This may feel implausible, but fully in the tradition of novels of this sort.
Better Call Saul (which I am catching up on before season 3 begins) goes from strength to strength. Unlike Breaking Bad, where I disliked almost every character through most of the series and didn’t really care if they died, here I find myself holding my breath for the inevitable fall. It reminds me of The Wire in that, except that here it’ll be their own personalities and relationships that do them in, not a system or society.
I would like to re-watch The Wire. I wonder if it will feel dated.