October was a month full of nice stuff. I visited friends, we had friends over at our home and I enjoyed the social time very much. We also had some quality time with the doggys, the local swimming pool was closing their outdoor area and made a dog swimming event. I also visited my friend in London for a couple of days. Last time in July, I was cold. And this time my packed clothes were too warm…. We visited Windsor Castle and Eton, my first time there. I enjoyed the visit, I like Castles and „typical English“ towns. And we had good food at The Ivy in Windsor. The next day we spent in the City, in posh Mayfair. There we visited the Fortnum & Mason store and I bought quite a lot of tea. It’s not that the tea is very special, I can also get very good tea in Germany. But in bigger stores like F&M, I can sniff the different teas without being watched by a salesperson, like here in Germany in our rather small tea stores. We also vistied Kensington Park, it was a beautiful late summer day! First time this year that I had luck with the weather during my visit. It was a really nice visit, not so busy like my last one.
Well, talking about UK trips: I am going to Manchester next year. I have been a fan of Oasis for many years. When they split up in 2009, I was really devasted. It wasn’t surprising but 2009 was a really shitty year for me with cancer, death, loosing my home, my social circles and on top of that the band that I loved split up. A couple of years later, the Gallagher brothers did music on their own. Which was good in Noel’s case and got really bad in Liam’s case. His voice sucked, his concerts sucked, I gave up on him. Then I stumbled last year over his instagram and saw that he had performed at Knebworth. A huge and legendary location. I was really surprised that Liam played there, that he was that famous play at this venue. I started to read comments that he really turned around. So I checked out his music. His voice is the best since maybe ever, he seems to be way more professional and he does really great music again. I listened to some of his newer albums where I found many songs that I liked very much (but I also liked that he played a lot of Oasis songs live). I got really excited when I read that he wanted to do a 30 year anniversary tour of Definitely Maybe. My most favorite album. Well, in October he announced this as a UK tour. I was thrilled and very very eager to see a show. I wanted to go to Manchester, the home of Oasis, the home of Britrock. Getting a ticket wasn’t that hard, after 15 minutes I could buy one for my preferred date in Manchester (after 5minutes I had already bought one for a not preferred date – already sold this one via the platform). I AM HYPED.
Boardgames (and other games):
We visited the Spiel Messe this month, after a longer hiatus. I enjoyed the day very much and we bought a selection of nice games like Beacon Patrol and Everdell Farshore, which I both tried already and like. I played quite a lot in October. We played games like Ark Nova, Seas Salt and Paper, Mysterium, Cascadia, Quacks, Takenoko… a very good boardgame month!
Not quite boardgames but related: we also had a great evening with Call of Cthulhu, the tabletop pen and paper game. It was the first time for our friends and they absolutely enjoyed it. There was also a game of Pathfinder which is a bit too much on the fighting side and too few on the investigation side for my taste.
I finished Final Fantasy 16 on the Playstation 5. This took me about 57 hours, I wanted to finish all side quests and monster hunts. I bought the PS5 for FF16 and it was worth every Euro. I absolutely loved the story and FF16 is now in my top 3 FF games.
Books:
Finished 7 books in October. King of Ashes by R. Feist was a big disappointment. I love his Midkemia books but this new series was just very boring. I liked Alle_Zeit by Teresa Bücker, it’s a book about… well, time. From a sociatal perspective. I also liked Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller, it was fast-paced and also quite surprising.
Films:
Films I liked: The Fabelmans, Stoker, Decision to Leave, Broker, The Wailing. I also re-watched Titanic. I saw this film twice in cinema as a teen. The film aged pretty well and is still extraordinary. Better than expected was the horror film Leviathan and worse than expected was Knock At The Cabin. It wasn’t bad but the ending was boring.
In England I saw the film Killers of the Flower Moon in the cinema. Well, that was the first time I left a film early. Partly due to the cinema’s ac being very high and delivering a scent of meat. Partly also due to the film being 3 hours long and boring in the first 1,5h. I lived Lily Gladstones performance, but I was so bored and tired of old white men talk with Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert DeNiro. It’s a typical Scorsese film, it’s not bad but it’s also very uncreative. I have no longer energy to watch such films in one sitting.
Well, concerning long films: I also saw Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour in the cinema in London. I didn’t know any song by her and I didn’t recognize any song during the movie. Her shows are really something special, wow. It was all so sparkling and so magical. But to me it also seemed somehow artificial? Every wink, every smile, every sentence seemed to be on cue. Like a musicial. It was still very good but also a very different kind of concert that I usually visit. Her songs were also…nice? But I think I didn’t remember anyone. Well, but it was a fun evening, especially watching the fans enjoying themselves, singing and dancing. First time I saw something like this in the cinema.
TV Shows:
I finished Sex Education, can’t remember much, but the ending was okay. I binge-watched Killing Eve. The show got worse with every season but I still enjoyed Sandra Oh’s performance and overall the show was entertaining.
The Fall of the House of Usher was quite okay. A bit weird was then watching Painkiller. Both shows were about families being in the pharma business and selling painkillers. But Painkiller was based on real events and the opioid crisis in the USA, really shocking.
My partner and I started The Crown and finished the first season. John Lithgow as Winston Churchill was just brilliant. I’m not a royalist but I still enjoy the stories about the English monarchy. I like the show so far.