Month: October 2016

Posted on

Helvellyn

On 28 October I decided, after reviewing the weather, that I would attempt to scale Helvellyn the third tallest mountain in England. By attempt I mean that I would either get to the top or turn around very quickly, there aren’t that many escape routes. I parked the beast in Glenridding and check my equipment. Then I sauntered purposefully towards Mires Beck. I had planned to contour around Birkhouse Moor but in retrospect I shouldn’t have because I will need to head back there to complete that fell.

The Beast At Glenridding
The Beast At Glenridding
View from the path up to Mires Beck
View from the path up to Mires Beck

At the Hole-In-The-Wall I chose the Striding Edge route. This was more ridge-like and climbing than I had expected and I made sure that I slowed down and was thinking through everything carefully. It was a long way down both sides to either Red Tarn or Nethermost Cove and it would hurt, a lot.

Striding Edge and Red Tarn with Helvellyn hidden.
Striding Edge and Red Tarn with Helvellyn hidden.

Striding Edge was mostly clear but with quite a wind chill and the cloud base was above the ridge but below Helvellyn. Parts of this ridge were challenging and I was always aware that my phone didn’t really have any signal, there weren’t many other people out either. Once the ridge was completed I had to find a way up the last scramble to the top. I saw the memorial to the airmen who landed a plane on top of this plateau.

Crazy Plane Stuff
Crazy Plane Stuff
Helvellyn Summit
Helvellyn Summit

I had planned to walk back via a route near Raise, but chose to take the slightly shorter route down Swirral Edge and take in Catstye Cam. Had I stayed atop Helvellyn for about twenty minutes longer I would have had lovely clear weather up there. When I got to Catstye Cam the whole area was clear. After that it was a slog along good paths back to Glenridding.

Helvellyn from Catstye Cam
Helvellyn from Catstye Cam

While I was walking I realised two things. One, I don’t like uneven steps made of stones, I’m much happier taking many little steps along a smooth path. Two, my left knee doesn’t like going down hill. The second thing was more a memory than a new thought. I have done plenty of hill walking to know my physical limits.

Ullswater from Catstye Cam
Ullswater from Catstye Cam

Now I am tempted with completing all the Wainwrights. I have no idea how long it would take me.

 

Some additions:

I heard RAF jets on my ascent. But I didn’t see them. This is about the fifth time I’ve heard planes but not seen them. I should probably get to the Mach Loop sometime.

Here are my walking statistics for the day, although they don’t include any information about altitude:

Posted on

Storks

Drove the short distance to the Cineworld cinema at Rochester. As it’s half term it was time to see Storks. Below is my rating on IMDB, but it is traditional that you first read the scoring system placed in a communication here.

So, it was a kids film. Not a great one at that. A touch annoying in places. The wolves were the coolest part of the film.

 

So, the main bird touches the girl [I don’t do character names] and sees her future. We see her at school, learning, getting a degree and it bloody well ends with her getting MARRIED. The film seemed to imply that the ultimate goal for a girl was to be MARRIED. Since when do women have to be married to be valid members of society? Perhaps she could have been president? Perhaps she could have been winning a Fields Medal? This little section of the film irritated me. It stereotyped women. I was possibly wound up by the trailers for Disney films which reinforce the feudal ideal where you have to be *born* to the right family to have worth. Fuck them all.

Posted on

Rams Lose

Yesterday I sauntered to Twickenham. It was time to see another NFL match as part of the NFL International Series. Normally these matches are at Wembley but I was interested to see Twickenham as I had only been there once before for a Bon Jovi concert. I followed Google Maps all the way there, even though that meant going around the North Circular. Once I found the car park I had to allow security people [who I assume know what they are looking for but I doubt it] to look in the boot and under the bonnet of my car. These “security” steps annoy me as they aren’t evidence based.

Then I walked the short distance to the stadium and boy is it a fucking ugly stadium:

I waited for my ticket to arrive and had food. The pre-game show was performed by Craig David, it was shit. Then there was the national anthems and time for the annual “Jason having a moan at Ian” thing. I don’t stand for anthems. I don’t understand why I should. I also don’t get the patriotism associated with anthems. They annoy me. While it has nothing to do with the blacklivesmatter movement I’m not against their movement. I wrote some stuff here. I’ve probably written loads of stuff about my feelings towards patriotism but you can search for it yourself.

The match was interesting. Not the best one I’ve seen but good enough to justify the money I spent on the ticket!

In the final quarter we were hoping that the Rams would score and bring the game to a tie for overtime. That would have been quite exciting. But they threw an interception in to the end zone with about forty seconds to go. Such a shame, but a good afternoon anyway. I supported the Rams as I had previously when I saw them at Wembley. They are the first team I have seen twice. Also, Rich couldn’t be there and he’s a Rams fan so it made sense to support them. I would never support the Patriots. It is quite possible I have seen the Jaguars twice but the following should clear that up.

I am now going to attempt to log the games I have seen so that at least I have some form of record.

2008
San Diego Chargers @ New Orleans Saints [New Orleans won and are my team following this match]

2010
Denver Broncos @ San Francisco 49ers [49ers win]

2011 – I’m reasonably sure I saw the Bears this year, but am not sure.

2012
New England Patriots @ St Louis Rams [Patriots won – boo]

2013
San Francisco 49ers @ Jacksonville Jaguars [49ers won]

2014
Miami Dolphins @ Oakland Raiders [Dolphins won]
Detroit Lions @ Atlanta Falcons [Lions won]

2016
New York Giants @ LA Rams [Giants won]

Posted on

Psych

I recently completed watching the entire run of Psych. That might make it sound like I did a complete binge-watch of eight seasons but I have completed the show over seven years. I watched some on terrestrial TV, I recorded some from ITV4 and I also bought the DVDs when I got to the last four series.

I have enjoyed the show thoroughly. It is well acted, written and photographed. I consider it a good use of my time. Like many of the TV shows I have loved it mixed developed characters with fun, jokes and seriousness. I even sat on my sofa and laughed out loud on occasions. Dulé Hill and James Roday were perfect in the lead roles and this is the second series I have watched with Dulé Hill, the previous being The West Wing, a show that left me with similar feelings to this one. Anyway, Mr Hill responded to my message:

So this was a nice touch from someone who I assume is a nice person. However, I would also add that I have no wish to meet my heroes as they would all too easily disappoint.

In other news, but not new news, as this happened ages ago I got followed on Twitter by John Forbes Nash. Yes, that John Forbes Nash. I have no idea why he followed me or how he found me on Twitter. I was quite excited by this. I was also very saddened when he died in May 2015.

Posted on

Aesthetic Perfection – The Garage

Last night I took a little journey to The Garage in Islington to watch Aesthetic Perfection. Now, Mesh were the headline band and I had listened to them in advance and I didn’t like it or find it particularly interesting. I was primarily there to see Aesthetic Perfection and to take my niece out for her birthday. It is a good thing that AP tend to tour once a year because that makes her presents easy to organise. This is the second time she has seen AP and my fourth.

The first band on were called Empathy Test, which I have a suspicion is a reference to Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? However, they weren’t much to my liking. There was a singer, two keyboard – programmer types and a drummer. All their songs were well constructed and perfectly fine but not enough to get me going.

Empathy Test
Empathy Test

Next up were Aesthetic Perfection. I like the Garage as a venue, the roof is nicely curved and I remember seeing Front Line Assembly here a few years ago. The sound was impressive and clear with a stage and rig more suited to music production than Electrowerkz, although Electrowerkz wins in coolness of a venue.

Aesthetic Perfection
Aesthetic Perfection

Because this was an acoustic set there wasn’t a drummer and I missed that a bit. I do think that a live drummer adds quite a bit of organic sound to a set. Now, I know they started with Antibody and played more songs but I can’t remember what all the songs were. I should have written them down as they played. The set was good, but missed Spit It Out and Motherfucker, which are songs I do enjoy.

What was nice about AP being second on the bill was that I could get home at a sensible time, but not sensible for a Sunday. It was a very good gig, not quite as good as at M’Era Luna last year but still pretty good. The rest of the Garage seemed to appreciate it also. Especially as I think AP’s music is a little more harsh industrial that the electronic of Empathy Test and Mesh.

Daniel Graves - AP
Daniel Graves – AP

Final band on last night were Mesh. Obviously many of the crowd had come to see this band, there were lots of Mesh t-shirts being worn. I decided to listen to a couple of songs. The first was OK and the second was just OK. I didn’t think it was anything special but I did like the stage set up. They had four 1m square LED screens made to look like a mesh of wires which was quite clever. It wasn’t enough to keep me there. We left.

Mesh
Mesh

In the picture you can see two of the large LED mesh based displays.

It was a very nice evening. We will hopefully see Aesthetic Perfection again next year.

Posted on

Vines

Just two pictures of a local vineyard for you. The ground is chalky and “south” facing. Most of the vineyard slopes upwards south to north. What this means for the flavour of the grapes and the ultimate product I have no idea.

Vineyard 1
Vineyard 1

And:

Vineyard 2
Vineyard 2
Posted on

Hidden Signs

While I may have gone on about the new bridge and road system around here a little bit that might indicate just how much the bridge changes things for what used to be a quite isolated part of Kent sandwiched between two major conurbations. I do think the new bridge will change that.

Part of the road changes that happened also mean a number of road speed limits have changed to reflect the expected increase in traffic and to reduce the risk of accident [I assume].

Here’s a map of the roads that had a previous limit of the national speed limit:

previous speed limits
Previous National Speed Limit

The newer safer speed limits have reduced the 60 zone down to the following:

Current 60 Zone
Current 60 Zone

This has kinda taken the “fun” out of driving these roads but I guess they are safer now and quite often people would dawdle along at 40 and then NOT slow down for the villages to 30 because they are wankers.

The construction company have put in new road signs but the one at the end of Bull Lane is obscured by branches until you get quite close. This picture shows the BEST view of the sign you get.

Hidden Signs
Hidden Signs

It’s only a safety thing. Let’s not worry.

Posted on

On Target

Just want to add a fooyah.net/wordpress communication to point out that this is a quality landing:

nomanssky

I did share this from the PS4 to my Twitter feed but the much bigger audience here deserves to see this neat not-crash as well.

Posted on

Deepwater Horizon

Popped over the river last night to see Deepwater Horizon. Use the new bridge. As is customary I rated this film on IMDB and you should see my guide to the rating system to get an idea of what the numbers mean. Otherwise you have no relative scale.

This film was quite enjoyable (?). While travelling to the cinema I was hoping that they would explain the mechanisms of oil exploration and also the culture of poor safety that lead to the explosion. I also wanted a cunning thriller with footage of inquiries mixed with the main story that I had seen in the trailers which was an action film. I just didn’t want a simple action film.

The film started with an explanation of why rigs get blowouts and some audio from the actual inquiry. This was a good start. The majority of the film was the action part of the film with some lovely shots of the Bristow helicopters flying out to the rig. The film showed the interplay between the BP officials and the workers of the people who owned the rig.

bristol copter

There was quite a bit of tension building with plenty of build up of the explosion that didn’t come. Then finally it happened and the race to escape the rig commenced. The action sequences were pretty good and the fire safety while filming must have been quite impressive.

Once the main action thrust of the film was over there was some short footage of the inquiry and a roll call of those who died in the explosion. Overall this film was ok. It could have been so much better by turning it into an investigation film with the action intercut with people figuring out what happened. I guess those films aren’t as exciting to modern audiences and probably don’t get made that often.

Privacy Policy Proudly powered by WordPress