Dear Patreon #10 (Patreon)

Hello everyone,

It’s newsletter time! Well, technically it’s Press Any Chiodini time, but I’ll get to that in a moment. I hope you’re all doing well.

Where’s Press Any Chiodini, then? Truth be told, I need to take this week off from making an episode. This is partly down to the UK having a frankly preposterous September(!) heatwave - it’s currently 32c (89f) in my office without me running the two computers I use to make Press Any Chiodini, which is not an ideal working environment. The heat has basically flattened me this week and I can’t focus on much of anything. It’s also been a bit of a stressful one - a close family member had surgery yesterday and I was doing quite a lot of worrying about it. They’re absolutely fine, I’m pleased to say, but that’s been weighing on my mind quite a bit.

So all in all, this week has sucked a butt. I’m really excited to get into Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened, but I hope you’ll forgive me for making you wait a little while longer.

Right! With that said and done, let’s crack on with the newsletter.

Things I have been enjoying recently

And then I Woke Up is a novel by Malcolm Devlin - it’s a quick read and a clever take on the classic zombie story. I can’t say much more without spoiling things, so I won’t.

Baldur’s Gate 3. I wasn’t sure if I was gonna pick this one up but god it’s really, really good isn’t it? I’m playing as a human bard and having a nice time ruining people’s lives in Faerun. I have made some spectacularly bad decisions that have resulted in frankly astonishing amounts of murder, all of which have left me feeling quite conflicted. I think my favourite thing about playing BG3, though, is talking about it with friends. I’m in a whatsapp group with two pals - we frequently compare notes on how our campaigns are going and it’s really impressive to see how different everyone’s experiences are. My friend Stewart is absolutely doing a better job than I am, but I’m fond of Peep the bard nonetheless. My character is called Peep, by the way.

Making playlists according to BPM. Hear me out, it’s not as strange as it sounds. I’ve been trying to exercise a bit more recently, so I’m spending quite a lot of time on a treadmill in my local gym. I hate running but I really love walking fast - in addition, it turns out walking in time to the beat of AC/DC’s Thunderstruck is really, really satisfying. That gave me an idea, so I searched how many beats per minute it is (136, if you’re wondering), then searched for other songs with that BPM. Hey presto, incredibly powerful playlist. I think my favourite thing about it is you get so many different artists and genres but it all feels cohesive because you’re maintaining the same pace throughout. For example, I have a slightly slower playlist (115 bpm) - that one goes from Milkshake by Kelis into Head Like a Hole by Nine Inch Nails, straight into Heart of Glass by Blondie and it just works. 115 is also the beats per minute of Carly Rae Jepsen’s Cut to the Feeling, which I think might be one of the greatest pop songs of all time. So that’s nice. I’m aware that I sound very odd right now but trust me, search the bpm of your favourite song and then see what else comes up. The fast walking bit is optional.

How’s work?

Difficult! My brain really isn’t playing ball with this weather - I get very bad Seasonal Affective Disorder - and it’s very hard to knuckle down and get anything done at the moment. Ditto my hobbies, they’ve gone right out the window. Once the weather turns I’ll be fine, but for the time being HOO NELLY

How’s Watson?

She’s currently laying down on a cooling mat sleeping. It’s too hot to walk her at the moment so she is extremely bored.

How’s Blood Bowl?

The league is in its usual summer slump before a sudden flurry of games in Autumn, so not much to report. Games Workshop has finally revealed the models for the revamped (haha) vampire team though and they are GORGEOUS. I expect Hot Bobs season 4 to be 90% vamps, to be honest.

Right, that’s quite enough from me. I hope you’re all doing well and I look forward to gracing (cursing?) your screens again next week.