Suspects.

How is it the end of June already? Where did it go?

And tomorrow I have to travel to Birmingham for a conference.

I am telling myself that I survived the Hot Summer of 76 in an un-airconditioned office where, if one opened a window in came the noise and fumes of a heavily traffic-polluted thoroughfare.

Of course, I was Much Younger in those days.

I see that it is supposed to get somewhat cooler (and wetter) on Weds.

Last week's bread held out pretty well.

Friday night supper: ven pongal (South Indian khichchari).

Saturday breakfast rolls: the ones loosely based on James Beard's mother's raisin bread, 50:50% strong white/einkorn flour, perhaps a little lacking in the mace department.

Today's lunch: (this ran into several difficulties including oven problems and a pyrex plate going smash on the floor, but got there in the end) salmon fillets baked in foil with butter, salt, pepper and dill, served with baby Jersey Royal Potatoes boiled and tossed in butter, garlic-roasted tenderstem broccoli, and white-braised green beans with sliced baby red pepper.

But this is just plain bizarre: reading the AI summaries rather than watching the series or presumably, reading books.

What is even gained thereby?

It's so massively Point Thahr Misst about why one consumes story-telling that I can't even.

Why not just go straight to: this work manifests [whichever of the whatever the allegedly number it is of standard plots it is] tout court?

I guess these are the people that live on Soylent and pride themselves on 'rawdogging' airflights?

Have they completely eliminated enjoyment and fun from their lives, and if so, WHY????

Conversely, and in the interests of pleasure, there has recently opened a bookshop entirely dedicated to romance, in Notting Hill. (I do cringe a bit at calling it 'Saucy Books'.)

Back in the day, in Charing Cross Road, there used to be a dedicated Romance section alongside Murder One and the SFF section in the basement, all in one bookshop, but that has long been one with the dodo.

I was a little startled to see, quite so high up in the chart of UK's best and worst seaside towns, Dungeness. Which isn't really even a town (Wikipedia describes it as a hamlet), more a sandspit at the end of the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Light Railway, famed for lighthouses, shingle beaches, nature reserves, Derek Jarman's Prospect Cottage, and a decommissioned nuclear power station ('Long journey ahead' for nuclear plant clean-up).

[A] barren and bewitching backdrop for a getaway. A vast swathe of this shingle headland is designated a National Nature Reserve, cradling around a third of all British plant species, with some 600 having been recorded, from rugged sea kale to delicate orchids. Exposed to the Channel and loomed over by twin nuclear power stations, Dungeness has, over recent decades, become an unlikely enclave for artists and a popular spot for day-trippers, horticulturalists and birders alike.

Looking at the criteria scored on, it really is rather weird: completely lacking in the hotels, shopping and seafront/pier categories and not much for tourist attractions but scores high on peace and quiet and scenery.

Perhaps there is a larger number of people looking for this kind of getaway experience, invoking a certain eerie folk-horror vibe, than one would suppose. Not really a Summer Skies and Golden Sands kind of experience, take it away, The Overlanders.

Surprised that somewhere like Margate didn't rate higher.