Personal – Page 27 – Fooyah

April 28 2019April 28 2019

Sundays

I woke up this morning with a mild worry that I hadn’t added to these communications for a while. I then thought about a really easy one to write, it wouldn’t take a huge effort and required no pictures or special formatting. Then, as I approached the computer, I forgot entirely what it was I was going to write about.

Anyway, I’m missing American Football loads at the moment. Some people have talked to be about it and I suddenly realised that there hasn’t been any NFL since early February and I’m bored. I’m very much looking to August when the pre-season starts.

There was a power cut in the village and it turned out that we were being electricitised from mobile generated burning diesel fuel and being quiet but pretty loud if you lived nearby, at least the sound was a constant thrum rather than anything that swells and dips.

The power is back on now and I even had a text from the power company telling me there was going to be a short break in the power supply. I was out, which isn’t much use, because there are certain elements in my house that like to be powered down properly. The PS4, the NAS Drive and the PC all moaned at me about not being powered down correctly. At least the Pi seems un-bothered by it all. Also, IP acquisition from the router can be iffy sometimes on a power up, the SONOS system has issues occasionally.

I bought some Bic 4 coloured pens. I think I’ve come around to the idea that four colours in one pen is incredibly useful, especially when doing work-trips and cadet stuff. It’s got absolutely nothing to do with me spotting pilots using them while I was at RAF Wittering recently.

I bought a board game called They Come Unseen. It’s a strategy game where you either play a submarine commander or a soviet bad guy. I’ve not played it yet, but am looking froward to doing so. I’ll probably do it in a few years, it’d be quite a cool thing to do with some CCF staff on a camp, but I suspect they won’t be up for it.

The first box that came with They Come Unseen had parts missing which was quite a surprise so I let Amazon know and they posted a complete version to me the next day and it was easy to send the original one back.

I really want to go to the Royal International Air Tattoo. I’ve never been and I think it will rival an 80s Mildenhall airshow for experience.

Will I go and see End Game? That is quite a question. I find I don’t really care about the MCU but I suppose I will go and finish the story.

April 23 2019

Being Dutiful

A short while back I finished watching the television series called “Tour Of Duty“. There were three seasons and I enjoyed all of them. I thought it was well acted and well written. It was a good series to watch. It also reminded me of watching it while I was at university but I doubt I watched the whole series back then.

Tour of duty. Season 3. Episode 21. “Payback”. The is the last episode.

— Ian Parish (@iparish) April 13, 2019

I really did spend some time worrying about what to watch next. It seems weird to settle down in front of the television and not know what to watch and as I have got rid of all live decoding equipment I must have something that I intend to watch, I can’t just scan through the channels until I find something to numb the mind. I would probably find this an annoying waste. I try to make sure that my time is employed productively and staring at something I don’t care about would bug me.

I’ve got Brooklyn 99 on the go as a kind of filler, it’s about 25 minutes and so is easy to watch now and then when I want to fill some time. But I needed something serious to watch as well. I spent two years watching Babylon 5 and enjoyed it all. I’m kinda watching Star Trek Voyager on Netflix but only now and then when I want something else to watch. I might spend the next few years working through all of the Star Trek stuff, that should be fun.

While I was out for a run about a week ago I listened to Skeptics With A K, a Merseyside based podcast about science and skepticism, and Marsh mentioned the early 2000s series Farscape as an alternative to watch while Dr Who was off the air. Some other shows were mentioned but that struck a chord with me and I was desperate to remember that series to search for it once I got home.

Farscape reminds me of watching the television when I lived in Brentwood. I shared a house with some other reprobates and I think we got a digital TV box which was quite exciting back in the day. The actual house was horrible, there was a split down the entire front centre of the house and the windows in my bedroom didn’t shut properly which is fine in the summer but I had two duvets and extra blankets over me in the winter. I think I lived there just over a year before I moved back to Kent.

Anyway, when I remember Farscape I remember the lounge in that house and the people I lived with. Well, I can remember two of them particularly but some others I can’t even remember faces. I worked not far away in Brentwood at the time and our immediate neighbour was a pupil of mine.

Anyway, I have found Farscape on Amazon Prime and have started to work my way through that television series. I am enjoying it so far. When it premiered I remember it being hailed as an Australian series with Jim Henson puppets and the market was definitely there.

Farscape. Season 1. Episode 1. “Premier”.

— Ian Parish (@iparish) April 19, 2019

There are four seasons and a spin-off series I think. Let’s see how long it takes me to get through this!

April 22 2019

Our Lady

So a church caught fire and burnt.

After all the aftermath and destruction of the Notre Dame fire, the alter and cross remained untouched. Please explain to me how you don’t believe in God after seeing this. pic.twitter.com/xUFmB7VnRG

— Kaylee Crain (@kayleecrain__) April 16, 2019

I have to say I watched and listened quite unpassionately. It seemed slightly sad that such a building could burn but then that is a risk with everything the human race has built. Fire is one of the greatest everyday risks to human life and property. It’s why we buy fire alarms. It’s where the poor go to live and then get caught up in greed:

If only the UK government had reacted this fast to another fire in 2017.#Grenfell #NotreDame
Poverty v Grandeur pic.twitter.com/L4GJHg3Tu0

— David Gillian (@davegillian) April 16, 2019

I’m sickened by the speed at which there has been a rush to donate and offer help to a building built to honour a god that doesn’t exist when compared to the problems faced by poor scum and black people who lived and died in the tower at Grenfell.

The systematic oppression of people in this country is so advanced that we/they don’t even notice it. All through history the poor and workers have been abused by those with money to increase the amount of money the wealthy have. It’s such a process of oppression that we even love TV shows and films which reinforce the idea of status and place in society. If you aren’t angered by the donations to a fucking church then you lack empathy.

My current thesis about British society is that those who lack empathy tend to be tories and end up in power largely because they don’t care and can’t care about others because they lack empathy. You would think it’s not that hard to want to care for others and want to help those who are less fortunate than yourself but just look at the state of UK politics over the last thousand years. The people have fought for everything they have got and yet there is still so far to go.

The Vote. Workers’ rights. National minimum wage. Guaranteed holidays. Health care. Food.

All of these things were fought for. They weren’t given to the people. Those in charge don’t “give” things to us. We have to fight for them.

I am convinced it’s time for a new revolution. A new form of government to do the best for people. A new form of responsible capitalism that doesn’t ruin the planet and force mass consumerism. We are killing this planet and killing ourselves. They don’t care about the rest of us, they care about themselves.

I don’t care about the church. It’s fucked over so many people for its entire existence. I care about the people and looking after each other. Let’s put the money where it should be.

April 21 2019April 21 2019

War Machinery

Took a few hours out of the busy schedule the other day to visit the Historic Dockyard at Chatham. This is one of the places this country built and serviced warships for over four hundred years. I found the positive spin put on it all in the introduction video to be full of cognitive dissonance but I guess that’s how it goes. It was rather “Great Britain ruled the seas and controlled the world” it was kinda a Brexiteer’s wet dream with promises of glory and power. It completely ignored the human aspects and damage this country has done around the world. Anyway, enough from this old lefty, let’s have some pictures.

I like the way the light enters this room. It’s part of a building that contained the first smithery. There were a few buildings like this where all the metal work was completed. It’s quite impressive.

HMS Ocelot is a spy submarine and the last Royal Navy ship to be built at Chatham [they built more afterwards, but for other countries’ navies]. It’s quite impressive being given a tour around this beast. I think I’d love to see a more modern submarine, the whole concept of living under the sea is rather freaky.

HMS Cavalier is a destroyer now permanently moored in wet-dock at Chatham. I would have liked to have seen the engine rooms and murkier areas of the ship, but that would probably need specialised tour guides and so this one is a self tour.

It’s a great place to visit and I have been here a few times in the past. I’m not sure if I’ve written about it before though. I’ll go and have a look! well, my cursory search has highlighted no references within this website to the dockyard, that seems strange but there you go. This is the first. It’s a lovely day out.

April 17 2019April 17 2019

Early Air Pioneers

Until about four days ago I didn’t know that the first powered flight of an aircraft in the UK occurred on the Isle Of Sheppey. The island isn’t that far from here and so I went to have a look at a beach.

Upon some investigating it turns out that the first purpose-built aircraft factory was on Sheppey and built by the Shorts brothers. Then it turns out that they then build the first airfield nearby in 1909. This is amazing and I don’t know why I didn’t know this before this week.

I had previously known that Shorts used to make aircraft at Rochester and used the Medway there as the aerodrome. It is here that they made the Sunderland and other famous planes.

Eventually they moved production to Belfast and now the company is known as Bombardier. It would have been magnificent to see sea planes taking off and landing on the river Medway, such an age of exploration and adventure. This would have made Rochester such a target during the second world war as there was a Royal Navy shipyard and also an aircraft manufacturer there.

On Sheppey I drove to the old RAF Eastchurch site which is now three prisons built on Crown land. It was strange driving to the museum as there was lots of security along a public road. It felt like entering an RAF base. Two of the prisons there are high security and the walls were impressive. The third prison is an open prison and the museum is on the land of that prison with a cafe nearby run by inmates.

The key to the things I have marked in the above photo runs such:

The museum
The first aero hangar in the UK
The RAF base water tower
The original airfield control block
The E-W runway
The N-S runway

There are plenty of features there to see and the person running the museum was really friendly and told me loads about the history. It’s strange to me all these old air force bases that are now re-purposed. I guess I hanker for the old days of aircraft everywhere.

One of the buildings on the site still shows the scars of war with bomb damage on the brick wall:

The museum is based in one of the original base buildings and certainly contains lots of lovely information about the early days of aeronautical exploration in this country.

Inside the building was a photograph taken at Muswell Manor on the east coast of the island and one of the early headquarters of the Royal Aero Club. In that photograph the following people are pictured:

The Short Brothers
Frank McClean
Frank Hedges Butler
Warwick Wright
JTC Brabazon
Wilber Wright
Orville Wright
Charles Rolls

That is an amazing collection of rich people who had the money to start the aviation industry in this country and the world. The Wright brothers had come across the Atlantic with their flyer to try and create interest and also start manufacturing the product. This they managed and the Short brothers built the Flyer under licence. The rest is pretty much history as we know. I hadn’t even been aware that the Wright brothers had come over here!

Near Muswell Manor is a statue to the Short Brothers. It stands as a marker for the start of aviation in this country and the adventuring that started at Shellness.

April 17 2019April 17 2019

Hellboy

Yesterday I went to the cinema to watch Hellboy. I pretty much went just to spend a couple of hours being entertained as I had some spare time. Of course, I noted the state of the tide and it was low.

From the picture you can see the mud flats or banks of the river closest to the camera and these are normally hidden at high tide. Also, on the very left you can see a barge just sticking out and the is one of two which live in a freshly dredged area of the mud bank. Even more exciting is the existence of cranes on boats. Seriously, there are cranes that work from boats, how amazing is that?

I should probably explain a little about the film now. I rated the film on IMDB and tweeted my result. There’s a communication here explaining the rating system.

I rated Hellboy (2019) 4/10 #IMDb https://t.co/4fppvES82I

— Ian Parish (@iparish) April 16, 2019

This film was pretty poor. I’m not sure what it was about really. Something to do with the rightful heir of the UK I think. The film starts at Pendle Hill in Lancashire and something to do with witches and King Arthur [who most definitely wasn’t a real person, like Robin Hood wasn’t]. Then we head to Mexico to see a vampire, which is fine.

Over the course of the movie London is laid to waste and that seems a reasonable metaphor for the current state of politics. There was some fighting stuff and a man who can change into a killer leopard at a whim, but who takes drugs to stave off the change, but manages to change back to human without any trouble. I don’t know. This film was pretty shit.

I did like Hellboy’s crown of flames hovering above his head in the last fifteen minutes of the film, that was pretty cool.

April 15 2019April 15 2019

Aesthetic Perfection – O2 Islington

Last night I went to the O2 Academy in Islington with my niece to see Aesthetic Perfection. We drove into town as it just makes it easier to get home and not worry about running to get the last train. After arriving we had burritos for dinner and then headed to the venue.

Machine Rox were playing, this was a slight surprise as they weren’t on the bill as far as I knew but we watched them anyway.

I didn’t mind them. The singer owned the dress she was wearing and that was excellent. I couldn’t understand what she was singing though and that seems to be a bit of a flaw. The drummer doesn’t really do much and the guitarist is pretty cool in his silver outfit and lights on his head. They were OK.

Next up was Amelia Arsenic. I hadn’t heard of her before this series of concerts and so was curious. She came on stage and explained that her band were stuck in Cincinnati and she’d been hit by a car the day before. She had a computer set up to play the music and her performance was really good. I could understand what she was singing and really enjoyed the show.

I can’t remember how many tracks she sang but I was impressed. On my next pay day I think I’ll be buying some of her work. I don’t think there are enough female artists in this genre and it’s good to see more. She had a wonderful confidence and even came and sang the last verse in the crowd.

Priest were up next. I’m still not sure what to make of this band. I enjoyed it for a while and his signing impressed me but the songs didn’t vary much and were built around his seemingly classically trained voice. I thought I detected a slight French accent but I may have been wrong there. Apart from the outfits there didn’t seem to be much going on stage.

I’ve just checked and the band are from Sweden, so that explains why I thought they were French. I did like that the singer called themselves:

The Cybernetic Trinity known as Priest

It was a nice touch. I don’t think I’d need to see more of them though.

The headliners were Aesthetic Perfection. I’ve seen this band a few times and have always enjoyed the show. They were the second EBM type band that I started listening to and so are one of my original favourites along with Combichrist. Also, now that Joe Letz plays with AP I think that means I have seen him perform more times than any other musician.

I was curious to see how the band handled the new guitar influences on the new album but the keyboardist played the guitar on two songs and I think it worked. I like the new album a lot and so to hear the songs live was very exciting.

The band played a solid set and it was very enjoyable. It’s nice to be part of a crowd that really sings along and joins in. These guys are excellent showmen and the addition of Joe Letz brings the album sounds to life. I always think that live drummers add more to the sound than they cost. I really like it when electronic bands do that.

This gig was good fun and I enjoyed it immensely. AP are still one of my favourite bands and I will continue to see them when they come over. A good solid evening of music.

April 13 2019

Pet Sematary

I’m having a cup of Earl Grey tea as I write this because for some reason I want Earl Grey tea. I’m not sure why but I had to go and buy a box of tea bags just to satisfy this craving.

This afternoon I went to the cinema at Rochester, the Cineworld one, the one I always go to, and I watched another horror film. I’ve a number of things I want to talk about here but first there are some formalities to get through. The tide was quite low and I did’t take a photograph this time but I did look at the lovely murky water as it journeyed past to the Thames Estuary.

I also rated this film on IMDB. I then used the app feature to share my opinion with the world because I know the world wants to know what I think.

I rated Pet Sematary (2019) 4/10 #IMDb https://t.co/70zReeZbqQ

— Ian Parish (@iparish) April 13, 2019

So, the things I want to say are in broadly two themes. The first is what I thought of the film the other is why I think I dislike horror movies.

I haven’t read the book and I haven’t seen any other film version. So, this film was a bit shit. But that might because of what I write in the next paragraph. My issues are the following:

IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH A PET CEMETERY. A cat nearly gets buried there. That’s it. All the rest of the action happens upon a special fucking hill which people only go and visit when it’s night time because otherwise they’d see it’s just a hill. WITH STEPS. This place you aren’t meant to go has STEPS.
This is surely a love story? The ending seemed perfect for a sort of “let’s get together” type of film. I’m not sure I was meant to empathise with anyone, I didn’t really. I did like John Lithgow though, it’s hard not to.
A cat being evil isn’t a surprise. We all know they can be evil fuckers. It didn’t really seem that evil in the end. It just scratched someone.
They did kill a kid and well done to the film makers.
Trees aren’t scary.

While I was watching this film I was trying to work out why I don’t enjoy horror movies. It’s not like when I was a young teenager and I saw loads of classics and each one affected me quite a bit back then:

The Omen (all parts)
Poltergeist
Amityville
And probably a few others

I think I struggle with these themes now because I don’t believe in any form of soul or afterlife. I don’t believe in anything after death. There’s no evidence and all religions which offer the afterlife are cons.

I am subject to jumps and foreboding but I think in horror films it’s not done subtly enough for me. It’s obvious when there’s going to be a pop-scare. The music seems too leading, I guess these slasher flicks seem to grate rather than entertain. I mean, if you lived in this sort of universe you’d fix up all lights and basement rooms during the day time and make sure everything worked well in the house. Who’d walk around a house in the dark when they hear the noises of the undead?

Do you know what I watched last night that was better than the last two films I saw at the cinema:

UNDER SIEGE

It was amazing. I enjoyed every minute of it and I have every time I’ve watched it since seeing it at the cinema in 1992. There might be too many bullets in each magazine but as films go it is great fun. Well done to those who made it. It still works well twenty seven years later [it hurt writing those numbers]. Except Steven Seagal is clearly a nutter now.

April 13 2019April 13 2019

Soulless

I went for a walk through Maidstone yesterday and happened to have a cup of tea at the cafe in the House Of Fraser store at one end of the Fremlin Walk shopping experience. The following photograph was taken through a window while sitting and drinking.

Upon initial inspection the place seems nice and pretty but when you gaze for longer you can see how horrible and soulless the design is. All the buildings are the same, the colours are all pastel shades meant to compliment each other and the trees are evenly spaced. The place has no soul. It has no organic-randomness. It’s a designed space and I think it looks horrible.

Towns are organic growing places where new buildings should have purpose and style along with individuality. We shouldn’t have everything looking the same, it should be interesting and varied. Too much order is a bad thing, although you could argue it is very efficient but at the same time it lacks a certain quality.

Places like this don’t looked lived-in. They look forced. I shall go and find some contrasting pictures over the next week to continue my thesis. I’ve got some ideas of where to go.

This view was quite nice [note the lack of buildings though] although I missed getting the best symmetry. Maybe I should return to try again?

April 12 2019April 13 2019

Lego 66 – Magazine Kits

Here’s another couple of Lego models for me to catalogue. These came attached to one of those magazines that cost around GBP5. But I think the models look quite cool.

It’s probable that the U-Wing is part of the rebellion against the established government of the galaxy. If we use a neo-con view of the world then we would probably think they are rebel scum, all those terrible people fighting for the rights of everyone. Could it be that they are the bad side?

April 12 2019April 12 2019

Lego 65 – Model 31087

This is a Lego beach buggy. It’s pretty rad and I think you should chuck some Beach Boys on a music player somewhere.

April 11 2019April 11 2019

Not A Neo Con

I found an advert which, I think, lies! I was looking through the newspaper that my parents read and I found the advert below. Now, let me first explain that I do not agree with the “news”paper that my parents read and given my personal politics it stresses me that they still get this heap of shit delivered to their door. I have offered to pay for a different paper but they have refused. I’m not sure why they still read the Express but it is a vile piece of work.

This advert is along the lines of what started me into this skeptical hole in the first place. Originally my father gave me a magnet that surround the fuel line in a car and then magically makes the car engine more efficient. I’ve written about it here. At first glance it seems reasonable that something might increase the fuel efficiency of an engine, but if it’s that simple don’t you think the manufacturers would do it anyway?

I wrote about a fuel chip I saw advertised in a motorcycle magazine here. It seems that this device is making very similar claims. Notice that if you want, you can get your money back if you aren’t happy with the results. This is a classic scam because no-one cares enough to ask for their money back.

Having looked at the website in this advert and the one for tank chip they both are in association with the same company.

Hamilton Direct

This company is based in Paignton in Devon. They seem to peddle a lot of bullshit. Don’t buy anything from them.

The bike insurance people Bennetts did a proper testing regime on the tank chip and they found it makes no difference. You can see their results here: Bennetts.

If the product seems to good to be true then the chances are that it is.

April 10 2019April 10 2019

An Avatar

I’ll probably mess around and update this one soon, but this is my current Gran Turismo driver:

I think you can just see two decals for this website as advertising. Pretty poor placement by me and perhaps I should change the colour.

April 9 2019April 9 2019

Mutability

A few summers ago my project was to build an ADS-B receiver and use the data collected to upload to an aircraft tracking website. If you want to see what I see then go to:

360 Radar

I don’t remember the details about how I found this but the project was good fun and I got the Raspberry Pi in the loft with a decent aerial, filter and pre-amp, and it was all working fine. I was using a lovely piece of software called Virtual Radar Server and was able to use this as a web server and people could see the aircraft on web pages served by the Pi.

360 Radar is good because it using multi-lateration to detect the positions on military aircraft. This is pretty handy for spotters like me and it also works well when I take cadets to RAF Wittering for some Air Experience Flying, I can see where my cadets are in the air.

Over the last few months I’d been receiving outage warnings from the 360 guys. It would appear that my Pi had stopped sending them data and while I live in a flight-busy area of the country and there’s plenty of contributors here every little helps. I had the occasional outage and this seemed to be when the router reset and the Pi wouldn’t re-find the existing wi-fi network. I just had to power cycle the Pi and everything worked fine. The outages seemed to be occurring more over the last while with the Pi stopping feeding every few days.

At first I thought it was a wi-fi issue so I bought some new ethernet-over-power adapters and linked the system into the route via a wired connection. This also meant I could ssh in to the Pi even if wifi was the original problem. I tried to work out how to turn the wifi connection off entirely but just ended up changing the SSID the Pi looked for as a simle way of ensuring the wired connection took preference.

After a week of testing I was still getting outages and my initial thought was that the VRS software was making the Pi work too much. I’m not sure why I thought that but I looked up ways to remove VRS. This was not the easiest as I had installed it years ago and couldn’t remember how it ran within the OS. I eventually managed to remove the Mono service and this stopped VRS running.

It was at this point I worked out how to use the log file of the MLAT client and I could see that all the software seemed to be working fine it was the Dump1090 program that didn’t seem to be sending data internally. I figured that Dump1090 had somehow stopped receiving the signal from the aerial. It all worked fine after a reboot and so I decided to replace the USB dongle that was decoding the ADS-B signals. I ordered a FlightAware USB stick and at the same time decided I would rebuild the Pi OS from scratch to have a “clean” build.

Once the new USB stick arrived I turned off all the systems and followed the excellent instructions from the 360 Radar guys to rebuild the OS of the Pi and just run a lite version of what I had been doing before. This took a while as I mistakenly thought the Pi wasn’t uploading to 360 because I was looking at the wrong server details. After an email to the support chaps it turned out I was contributing and a couple of hours of troubleshooting by me hadn’t been worth it!

So, the Pi sits in the loft, chugging away supplying data to 360 Radar, in return for which I get free access to their excellent tracking site. I’m running dump1090-mutability along with the MLAT-Client from 360. I’d really like to be able to allow you all to see the output of this but Mutability doesn’t have an external feed and I am not opening up my 80 port for the world.

April 8 2019April 8 2019

Us

Yesterday I drove to the western half of Kent to see the film Us. I had to cross the Medway, much like the Romans about two thousand years ago but without the battle and invasion part. The cinema I went to is the Cineworld at Rochester. I picked the film Us because it was lowest on the list of films I’d least like to see that were being shown.

If you look carefully at the picture of the bridge you can see the work done to strengthen it. It has been reduced from four lanes to three due to the increased sizes of lorries allowed on UK roads by previous governments leading to a drop in rail freight and an increase in traffic. You can see the tide was middling.

As is custom I rated the film on IMDB and tweeted the result, this communication deals with the rating system:

I rated Us (2019) 4/10 #IMDb https://t.co/XDxzCsQgRW

— Ian Parish (@iparish) April 7, 2019

I rarely go to see horror films because most of the time they are stupid. Once you accept that supernatural stuff is just that – outside of natural and therefore doesn’t exist – you find ghost stories quite terrible. I’m still working through what I thought about certain aspects of this film, I guess it has got me thinking.

This film crossed many genres and I was surprised by that. But overall I found it a little boring and tired. Maybe I’ve seen too many of these types. Maybe I haven’t seen anything new for a long time. The reason I went to see this was I had heard it was meant to be pretty good. Shortly I am going to read some proper reviews to see what they say, to gain some insight into why other people thought the film really good. I can’t write too much here without spoilers.

There was a bible passage mentioned a few times throughout this film, it was Jeremiah 11:11. This is what it says:

Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them.

Not sure what it’s about but it does seem that the Lord is being a bit of a malicious prick.

I suspect this film is full of metaphor and I’m just missing the point.

I have just been and read the review of this film written in The Guardian. I don’t think there’s a great deal of insight in the review. It got 4 stars and I’m not really sure why.

UPDATE: I found someone who’s better at metaphor than me so if you want please read Eli Bosnik’s blog post.

March 31 2019March 31 2019

Nachtmahr – Electrowerkz

Last night was a chance to listen to some classic Austrian Industrial music at Electrowerkz. It’s in Torrens Street, Angel, which is a tiny little cul-de-sac with a smart pub at its entrance and an Alien-themed industrial-alternative club for other people at the other end.

I think last night was the forth time I’ve got clothes on and ready in another person’s driveway. I park in spaces that people don’t use, but I’m not a thief, I pay for the privilege to keep my car there.

First band on at Electrowerkz was Dunkelsucht. This probably translates to either dark thoughts or depression. I’m not sure and in this day and age it’s terrible that I haven’t looked up which it is. Maybe I’m too lazy. OK, I just went and did it and it apparently means Dark Investigated. I suspect not!

This band comprised a male singer and a female computer controller type person. They are from Switzerland and I quite enjoyed them. It seemed quite pop-like to me, but I suspect that in reality it’s quite heavy stuff? I’m never sure and I hate the fact that it’s all so subjective. I wrote in my notes that it was OK, they had good beats and I enjoyed it overall. I did find that in the middle of a few songs it suddenly went strange with melodies that seemed out of place.

The next band on were DKAG and I’ve seen them before a number of times. Smith and I stayed in the bar. I spent thirty seconds watching them, just to check they were the same. There’s a limit to how much I can take. I’ve kinda come to the conclusion that I really enjoy about forty five minutes of any band and show but after that I start to get bored because all the songs sound the same. I think that’s either because I enjoy M’era Luna and the shorter sets that I generally see there or the causation is the other way around and I just find shorter sets more interesting.

The headliners were Nachtmahr. As with the last time I saw them here there were only two of them. The singer, Thomas Rainer, and the computer controller were all by themselves. I know there were about five people on stage at M’era Luna although two of those were female stage show actors.

Nachtmahr - March 19 — Nachtmahr – March 19

Nachtmahr played for a solid ninety minutes and if I’m honest I only started to struggle in the last fifteen or so, even given my rant a couple of paragraphs ago. They were pretty good, but I don’t think Rainer is a natural frontman. To me he looks like he’s playing an act, which all singers are to an extent, but he seems uncomfortable with it. I don’t mind that though. I’ve paid to see a show and I don’t want my musicians to look like they aren’t enjoying it.

This set had a load of classic songs you would expect to hear. I enjoyed it a lot.

What I found most interesting at the venue was that I would say it was easily a 50-50 split in the sexes of those attending. There was also a wide age spread from around 18 to around 65 from the looks of the people I saw. It was quite probably the most diverse audience I have seen yet for a gig. It was such a nice atmosphere, really enjoyable. A good night.

March 30 2019March 31 2019

Words Not Justified

The normal “I’m working hard for you” leaflet came through the door yesterday from the local MP Tracey Crouch.

There are paragraphs explaining what she’s doing for “infrastructure” which largely means traffic management because that’s the sort of stuff that pisses people off on a daily basis. It’s something that is easy to do but doesn’t really solve the bigger issues. I guess there are legitimate reasons for an MP to get involved with this at a local level.

There’s a paragraph about how the MP is helping to look after the older people and this is good news as we should all learn to look after people and be nice. But the cynic in me can’t help but think that it’s old people who vote for the Tories.

I was impressed that Tracey Crouch resigned her ministerial position over her own party’s government not changing the law on Fixed Odds Betting Terminals. It just about forced the government to do something but the idea that it needed a minister to resign for the Tory government to want to do something to help people shows what contempt they have for the poor.

My biggest issue is with the following text at the top of the news leaflet:

“I want to reassure residents that I am working hard to deliver a Brexit that 65% of local people voted for.

These are challenging times but I believe that Chatham & Aylesford residents voted to leave the EU full in the knowledge of all the varying pros and cons and that is what I will strive to deliver.”

These words have angered me immensely. First, I want to break down the 65% number. The records for the referendum are broken down by local council area rather than constituency area. Tracey Crouch is MP for Chatham and Aylesford which contains part of Medway and also part of Tonbridge and Malling local council areas.

Medway voted OUT at a rate of 64% of those who voted but when total electorate is taken into consideration only 46% percent of those eligible to vote voted to leave the EU. [total electorate=192524, remain=49889, leave=88997 using numbers from Electoral Commission website].

Tonbridge and Malling voted out at a rate of 55.7% of those who bothered to turn up to vote. Once again, once the total electorate is taken into consideration the rate who voted to leave the EU is 44%. [total electorate=93019, remain=32792, remain=41229].

How my local MP can claim that 65% of local people voted to leave is ridiculous. She is taking the most extreme value possible from the referendum results. As her constituency contains residents from both the local authority areas it seems extremely likely that the actual number who wanted Brexit is remarkably low. By combining both areas the overall result is 44% to leave the EU.

My next problem with the few words the MP wrote in the leaflet is that she believes residents voted to leave the EU full in the knowledge of all the varying pros and cons. I disagree with this statement in its entirety. From polling we know that many people have differing views on what they were voting for. For some it was to end immigration, for others it was to stop those bloody Europeans interfering in our laws and so on. I suspect that all of those who voted to leave would explain what they wanted differently. The national debate was framed poorly and used fear of immigration to push a point while not explaining that we aren’t part of Schengen and so have control anyway.

If we had told people that their phone roaming charge would probably come back once we leave the EU I think some would have changed their mind. If the electorate had understood that to sell things to the EU we would have to maintain their current standards for manufacturing and all future standards without any say in those regulations I thin they would have changed their votes.

If people had a multitude of things explained to them then they may have voted differently. Obviously you are going to have those people whose views can’t be persuaded by facts or those who are just racist but I’m sure plenty would have voted differently if the benefits of being in the EU had been stated more clearly and if people had understood how the EU works.

The whole process of the referendum was driven by hate and fear and pushed by the right wing press. People didn’t understand what they were voting for and they all had different ideas of what the result would be.

So, the numbers don’t really stack up to support the MP’s view of how to approach all the decisions she needs to make during this period of debate on leaving the EU in parliament. I honestly believe that an MP should always do what is best for the future of the people in their constituency even if that means fucking them over and getting voted out because the people didn’t like it. We all like eating sugary desserts while fully in the knowledge that we will develop type 2 diabetes. The people don’t always know what is best for them.

Also, the concept that people understood what they were voting for two years ago is plainly ridiculous. Even if you asked people now I don’ t think they can agree on what “leaving the EU ” really means.

This whole thing is tearing this country apart and while we are doing this we are ignoring the general causes of the decision by not giving a shit about the chronic under investment in everything over the last ten years. We should be spending money to look after people and invest for the future. Instead we are slowly creating and economic and social collapse to suit the vagaries of personality in the tory party.

March 21 2019March 23 2019

Phishing Phone Calls

I don’t normally answer the landline phone at home. Mostly because I am not in but also because it’s only my parents who might phone me on it. I used to have a phone which was wireless but about a year ago I decided to buy a simple wired home phone and plug that in. About two weeks ago I decided to answer the phone while it was ringing as it would save my mum then phoning my mobile.

It wasn’t my mum. It was a lady with an Indian accent calling to say she was from BT Open Reach. I was curious as to what she was going to say so decided to go along with her selling or stealing plans for a while.

Have you noticed that your internet connection is sometimes fast and sometimes slow?

I hardy ever notice any speed difference in my bandwidth but I went along with it any way as I wanted to see what she would do. I don’t particularly recall what she said next and to be honest the line was so bad I didn’t really hear clearly anyway. Eventually I told her she must think I’m stupid and that she was clearly phishing for details or control of my computer. I also told her it was illegal to phone me as I am subscribed to the TPS. She swore at me and called me stupid and hung up the phone.

Better to have her talking to me than someone else who might fall for her trickery.

Then, again, recently I answered the phone at the weekend because I thought it might be a family member getting in touch. It wasn’t. It was a gentleman with an accent claiming to be from BT Open Reach and that they had monitored my internet connection and there were issues. Had I noticed that sometimes the connection is slow?

Yes, I responded sometimes my internet connection is slow. I then kept him talking for about ten minutes as I waited for my computer to start and I asked a few questions. Eventually he wanted me to enter an address into a web browser. I honestly couldn’t understand what URL he wanted me to type the phone line was again a terrible connection and so I had to get him to spell it out a few times. It was something to do with a site called enydesk. I’ve just googled that and it turns out it was probably anydesk but his accent was quite strong that I got the initial letter wrong.

I didn’t type this into my computer. I just kept the guy talking. I also asked if he was UK based, while he clearly wasn’t, he gave an address somewhere in London. So I explained that it was illegal for him to be phoning me as I’m a member of the TPS. He just kept asking me to enter the address into a web browser.

Eventually, he decided he wasn’t going to get anywhere with me and he asked why I was talking. Because all the time he was talking to me he wasn’t talking to someone who might actually believe him. This seemed to upset him slightly. He called me a “fucker” and hung up.

This scam bothers me because I can imagine many older people easily being taken in by this. Actually even some younger people could be taken in by it too. It’s possible too many people are too trusting. I don’t know what they were planning to do with my computer but had I typed that address into a browser and then entered the code they were going to give me they would have had access to all my data and everything I did on this machine. They are the fuckers.

I got their UK number. The scam was sophisticated enough that caller ID would have shown a legitimate phone number. It was 01206 504914. I suspect these people internet their calls into a UK outgoing number to try to appear more legitimate to people who have caller ID.

Later that day I was chatting to a friend and while he has a land line for the internet connection he has never plugged a phone into the wall. I decided to unplug my phone. It’s still sitting there on the shelf but will soon be chucked into the electronic graveyard box in the cupboard. I just need to inform the two people who would possibly call my landline and then it’s done. No more wires for phone calls.