When Audi put super bright LED lights on the front of their cars I was really impressed. They looked cool and were possibly a good safety feature.
Then everyone got in on the act. Citroën, Porsche, VW and the other day I swear I saw a KIA with these lights.
Now I’ve changed my mind. They aren’t cool. They are annoying. Always on and too bright if these lights were the reason you bought a car then get your head examined. They are the automobile equivalent of a snake shaped belt buckle.
I’m not convinced of any safety argument either. If manufacturers want lights on all the time because they know that most drivers can tell when to flick the switch then change your name to Volvo.
Bands I have seen
This is a memory test. Trying to list the bands I have seen live. I guess this page will be edited as I remember the hazy days of long ago before children.
1st Concert
Iron Maiden (support: White Dwarf) 10 December 1988, Wembley Arena
After that:
AC/DC, Wembley Arena, Donington, Wembley Stadium
Aesthetic Perfection, The Underworld
Alice in Chains, Cambridge Corn Exchange twice, Download ’13
Asking Alexandria, Wembley Arena
Bon Jovi, Wembley Arena, Wembley Stadium, Twickenham
Bullet For My Valentine, Wembley Arena
Combichrist, Wembley Arena
Dan Reed Network, Wembley Arena
Diamond Head, Milton Keynes Bowl
Elvis Presley (kind of), Wembley Arena
Evile, Brixton Academy
Faith No More, Wembley Stadium
Gary Moore, Wembley Arena
Great White, Wembley Arena
Guns ‘n’ Roses, Wembley Stadium twice and Milton Keynes Bowl
Iron Maiden, Cambridge Corn Exchange twice and Earls Court
Jose Gonzalez, Shepherds Bush Empire
Killing Joke, O2 Academy Islington
King’s X, Wembley Arena
KMFDM, O2 Academy Islington
Level 42 (the shame), Wembley Arena
Lostprophets, Brixton Academy
Madonna, Wembley Stadium
Megadeth, Wembley Arena, Cambridge Corn Exchange, Milton Keynes Bowl, Brixton Academy
Metallica, Wembley Arena, Earls Court, Donington, Milton Keynes Bowl
Ministry, Brixton Academy
Motley Crüe, Wembley Arena, Donington
Nine Inch Nails, Wembley Stadium, Brixton Academy
Prince, Earls Court
Peter Green – Chatham Theatre
Queensryche, Donington
Rammstein, Wembley Arena
Senser, Portsmouth somewhere, Underworld
Skid Row, Wembley Arena, Wembley Stadium
Slayer, Wembley Arena Earls Court
Suicidal Tendencies, Wembley Area
Testament, Wembley Arena, KoKo
The Almighty, Cambridge Corn Exchange, Milton Keynes Bowl
The Black Crowes, Donington, Brixton Academy
The Darkness, Wembley Arena
Treponem Pal, O2 Academy Islington
Ugly Kid Joe, Wembley Stadium
UK Subs, The Square
Van Halen, Wembley Stadium
Wat Tyler, The Square
White Lion, Wembley Arena
Winger, The Astoria
Wolfsbane, Cambridge Corn Exchange twice, The Marquee
Yngwie Malmsteen, Shepherds Bush Empire
For the Download 2013 list click here.
Hot Air Balloons
Here’s a photo of four hot air balloons gliding over the Kentish sky one evening. Trust me, there are four. See if you can spot them.
Negative Quesitons
This is another of those annoying language things that stems from my rather literal language processing unit. See my previous post about starting letters. I am not far enough into the spectrum to follow instructions or comprehension literally but I do struggle trying to answer negative questions in a true manner. Once again there common usage issues that I believe to be amazingly wrong but most people seem to accept them.
If something is amazing then the following:
Is that an amazing aircraft manoeuvre?
is easy to answer. Yes for agreeing with the statement and no for disagreeing. However the question:
Isn’t that an amazing aircraft manoeuvre?
is remarkably hard to answer. I believe the vernacular is to answer “yes” if I am saying that it is an amazing manoeuvre. But if I answer “yes” then I think I am agreeing with the statement which is
Is that not an amazing manoeuvre?
and that reverses the meaning of my answer. Arrrrggghhh! Similarly other questions can confuse me enough that I answer very differently. So, if I had just seen an amazing manoeuvre then the following would be the conversation:
“wasn’t that an amazing manoeuvre?”
“It was amazing”
This means I have not answered an impossible question and also managed to keep my head from exploding with diverse logic implications.
Other examples are:
“aren’t you going to the cinema?”
“isn’t that band great?”
So, please don’t ask me perfectly normal questions, it just hurts.
PS3 Insurance no more
The other day I got a letter from Domestic and General who are the people who underwrite my PS3 insurance. My payments are to increase from £4.99 to £7.99! That’s a 75% increase! Now even given the ironic situation of times past I have phoned D&G and cancelled my policy. Somehow £60 a year seemed ok but nearly £96 is ridiculous. I’ve also cancelled my Sky+HD insurance as I’ve just had a new box.
Now, if the PS3 dies I’ll buy another. They are cheap enough. Then I’ll do my best to fix my classic 60 Gb model. It’s lovely! Lots of USB ports, PS2 backwards compatibility (suck on that you later model users), multimedia card slots and SACD playback because, yes, I bought some of those!
Now I just need to remember to back up my game saves regularly.
Red Grapes
Here are some red grapes, spotted while walking the dog.
Patriotism
I always feel a twinge of patriotism whenever I see the Union Flag or Cross of St George on the back bumper of a car. Seeing the red, white and blue or just red and white makes a touch of “proud” run through my blood.
The person who spent around £5 on a bumper sticker or magnet obviously has a price limit attached to their patriotism because the vehicle is more often than not built in a different country. BMWs with the England flag, Mercedes with the Union flag and Chevrolets with a Cornwall flag.
I believe that if you are that patriotic then your car should reflect your taste in flag adornments!
Actually, I’m not that patriotic. I have some teams I follow and watch mainly the Essex cricket team, the England cricket team and the New Orleans Saints. I wouldn’t say I’m a fan. I tend to watch on tv and have a little emotional investment but it’s not the end of the world if they lose.
Following a team or patriotism or religion just satisfies our human need to belong to a tribe. None of them can be suggested to be a better form of tribalism than the other. Country, Jesus, town, county, country, football team It’s all the same thing really.
Yellow flower
Just a nice flower plant on the dog walk.
Looking in the mirror
Here’s a tip for some of you drivers out there. It stems from my experiences as a motorcyclist and now as a driver, although now I’m not travelling quite as fast. The bike was an 1100cc machine and my car is a diesel estate!
I noticed in the past that whenever I was coming up behind a car on a motorway and that car was indicating to pull out into my lane that the driver would (I assume) check the rear view mirror or door mirror. Now, if the driver looks once and gets a snapshot of the road they would see me in the outside lane. What would be interesting is that the driver would have no idea of how fast I was travelling unless he/she spent a long time staring in the mirror. To get an impression of speed the driver would have to look again in the mirror to see how my position relative to him/her had changed in the time that had passed.
I believe it is for this reason I had cars pull out in front of me causing me to brake many times. It is quite simple that to judge a speed you need two reference times to see position change. Hence drivers need to look in their mirrors twice before pulling out in front of traffic in the next lane. Most drivers are ignorant of this fact of physics given that cars still pull out in front of me and I’m now in a car.
Perhaps drivers don’t care about other road users and I’m in the minority. Gosh, I think I’m better than most.
I am writing
Two minor things that annoy me are symptoms of my inflexible understanding of language. I will talk about negative questioning, which troubles me, another time but for now here are two main methods of starting a letter:
Dear Sir,
I am writing to inform you that the programme you showed . . .Dear Sir,
I wish to inform you that the programme you showed . . .
Both of these annoy me. In the first case it is obvious you are writing so there’s no need to state that. Just start by saying
“I found the programme you showed the other night rather sexless”.
The second method of starting a letter would have me reply
“you can wish all you like but you won’t get it”.
I do understand that language is fluid and evolves but we could always force a correction in usage if we insist on decent use of the English language.
I must be on the spectrum somewhere but I don’t interpret language literally it just annoys me when people are inaccurate.
Red sky at night
Over the vineyard.
No pak choi ahoy
So my vegetable plot grew well but my pak choi are gone! Not eaten by humans though.
See the carcass of my work:
All done by these:
Mind you it’s been a good talking point with my son. Haven’t trapped any in a jam jar, will do that next year when he’s older.
Whose next top model?
My wife and I have finally given up on %%%%% Next Top Model, where %%%%% is a variable string representing one of the following:
America’s, Britain’s, Canada’s, Australia’s
I estimate I have seen fourteen series of America’s Next Top Model, three seasons of Australia’s Next Top Model, two of Canada’s and four of Britain’s Next Top Model. Now I will watch no more. Finally I have become bored with the format. It was fun watching young women argue and shout at each other while living in the same apartment. It was fun learning about the industry of fashion, which is still one that I think is mostly a crock of shit. I don’t see that fashion does anything useful. It was fun watching girls cry when their hair is cut short on the advice of the experts, but finally I am bored and moving on to other things.
It always struck me as interesting that the girls who shout the loudest are usually the ones who fail. See also X Factor and other such shows. Those who have humility are usually the ones who succeed.
No MORE. Thanks Tyra Banks for the show but it is time to move on.
An aside: whenever I have spoken to pupils at work, it is a boys’ school, they like to claim I am “gay” for watching a modelling programme. This is interesting, as I explain, because what I am watching is half naked women and commenting on how they look and NOT getting hit by my wife. They don’t get it.
Latest Tech
Here’s the latest tech I’ve bought. I’m a bit of a Logitech fan so this was always going to be something of theirs.
Really nice sound and rechargeable batteries to carry it around.
Lego 2 Model 4642
Made this for my son. Glued it with small amounts of superglue so hopefully he won’t pull it apart. He played with it in the bath. It isn’t very stable as a small amount of water will cause it to overturn.
Lego 1 Model 8092
The first in a series of posts about Lego models I make (with the kids in a few years time). I made many when I was younger and also some over the last decade.
So this one was a present from Penguin after the birth of my second son. I bought him a “new dad” present and he reciprocated. Nobody remembers the dads.
Anyway, Lego model 8092, Luke’s landspeeder from the Star Wars universe.
Fiction
Picture of part of my bookshelf. Note the fiction title surrounded by reference books!
Ambition
Think I’d like to break into the top 10000. Doing ok at the moment on Angry Birds. Have spent far too much time playing it though.
Now I’ll have to keep going!
Just put an iPhone dock in the kitchen and cleaned the microwave top as that’s where it goes. Then looked at wall and thought I’d wipe it. Whoops! Now have to clean the whole wall! Shouldn’t have touched the wall.
This is not a dirty house I should point out. How often do you clean your walls?
Update: 29 August 12:00
Wall now clean, although from picture you’ll have to decide if I cleaned it or just re-dirtied the clean bit!
What happened next!
It wasn’t weather, it was aliens landing. Wow, who’d thought Hollywood could get it so right?
Aliens have landed in Kent. This is the view of the Burham Nature Reserve where Romans defeated the Kent tribes and crossed the river.
