Gonna hazard a guess this isn't what Jennifer Rush was referring to when she sang The Power of Love but 'ere we are...

Hearts!

There's been a lot of upheaval lately but we're not gonna talk about that; here instead are some recent distractions and encounters, carving out some time for fun in among needing to keep up with a million things at once. Starting with my latest rabbit hole in the video games: Platypus Reclayed!

There is just so much to love with this game, it ticks a lot of boxes for me in superb fashion; the tactile claymation art style is a joy; the mechanics are well balanced and accessible, and it has a delightfully mischievous atmosphere. Also, it really amuses me how during the boss battles, there's this epic! dramatic! music in the background and yet the action on-screen is these cute, chunky, plasticine ships 'avin' a bust-up; it's incredibly charming and I just can't get enough of it.

Of the bosses, Leviathan is my favourite - there's something about bashing the living daylights out of a thwacking great flying fortress in video games that is an evergreen source of joy for me (the Panzer Dragoon series is entirely responsible for this.) Also the mystery weapons are a treat; some of them are a good laugh, others are really endearing. Most notably, raining destruction upon an enemy boat with a volley of fish was a bloody hilarious moment, pure poetic justice, and getting a perfect score as a result was all the more satisfying for it. 10/10, no notes.

Oh yes, and the Plover. Yes, it may be the beginner's ship, and I do aim to improve my skills, work my way up to the more advanced ships and higher difficulty levels and all that stuff but seriously - how adorable is this ship?! Look at this roly-poly little treasure! The little round vents! They look like teddy ears! It's just so precious! (Seriously, if anyone is making plushes of these ships, let me know, because I would 100% be up for a cuddly little yellow Plover. It's just too cute and I can't get over it.)

So yeah, suffice to say I'm very keen on this game, it's a belter.

Moving on to other topics now, I recently chose to wrap up the Cats posts due to running out of steam but turns out the Cats aren't done just yet. These turned up in a local charity shop and coincidentally, that small one in the middle there, has been featured as a palate cleanser in a previous post! The world really is a small place for iffy cat ornaments.

Also, while doing my intermittent rounds of Youtube, in search of more mellow idents from bygone eras, I stumbled upon Rutland Weekend Television, a sketch show formatted in the manner of regional British TV, created by Eric Idle of Monty Python fame, and who did the theme song for One Foot in the Grave. Between the loose structure and surreal humour, as well as that particular sort of austere, vaguely haunting atmosphere of 70s TV, it has a bit of a dreamlike feel that I find quite enticing.

As with any sketch show, it's inevitably hit-and-miss, but there were enough moments that properly made me laugh, so I do have a fond view of it. In particular, the first episode offered up some gems, such as when Eric Idle, in a completely level and dry voiceover, mentions this bloke saving fish from drowning - that absolutely blew me sideways. Also the whole tangent about exploring cave networks underneath clergymen was a hoot; I just really have a soft spot for weirdness, played completely straight, in the guise of an informative broadcast. (Case in point, I'm also keen on things like The Day Today, On the Hour and Look Around You.)

Onto more out-and-about encounters now, starting with this street flower, which turned up on the same street as the Wheelbarrow of the Beast, just around the corner from the House of Spiders and a little way up the road from The Sinkhole City. My theory is that the satanic wheelbarrow came up through the first sinkhole and around the same time that the other one opened up a while later, the wheelbarrow had disappeared, so clearly it returned to the void from whence it came, via the second sinkhole.

Also going through a part of town I've walked through countless times over the years, on this occasion, I took a bit of a slower pace to appreciate the area, noticed a vast abundance of garages, and some intriguingly rickety old doors.

The main event is this recently disused garage complete with a ghost sign, which had previously been covered up by a more modern sign. The outdated area code on the phone number here puts this older one to some time before April 1995.

One row of garages, with a similar row just around the corner and another on the opposite side of the road. At the end of this row is an old door, looking like it leads to mysterious things...

The ivy here really does it for me, I'm imagining some kind of folky woodland adventure behind there.

Another garage across the way, near the impromptu bungalow.

In another part of town, on another day, we have a companion to the Gate to Nowhere; here are the Steps to Nowhere! After some research, I found out these are the Dams Steps, which used to be a public walkway, leading to Cotton and Silk Street, which are no longer there, replaced by Churchill Way. Nearby, there's also this machine, just down from where the Sutton Castings factory used to be (now a shit depressing car park...)

The picture isn't very well focussed but after zooming in, typing in what I could make out and doing a bit of reading, turns out it was manufactured by A. Ransome & Co , who were later taken over by John Pickles and Son, hence the barely visible "PICKLES" in the oval there. The thing that interests me most here is the way that usage of the area has evidently changed over time. I'm curious to know more about this machine, if it was used specifically in Sutton Castings of if it's just there for the industrial heritage aspect (there is a fair bit of this around town, case in point, there's a hoofin' great cast iron drill assembly outside a flat I used to live in!)

Anyway, that's enough rambling for now. There's plenty still to catch up with, it's just a matter of finding the time to do it.