Penguin – Page 53 – Fooyah

February 21 2015February 21 2015

Facemask

When I’m drafting communications I tend to write a title and then put a little bit of text in the body so I remember what it was I intended to say. I have no idea what this communication was going to be about and so this can only be labelled as random.

There’s a flag on the play.

I love that saying. It normally means that a great football play is about to come back because someone couldn’t keep their aggression in check in a game which is entirely about aggression.

With respect to previous communications I would have to say that I am still angry. Being completely without religion I don’t understand why people believe the things they do. I also don’t understand the people who back them up.

Let’s state quite clearly why so many media outlets and people do not show Mo cartoons or mention how crazy religion is. Because they are scared. No one wants to take responsibility for approving a cartoon and then having some crazed religious twats find their house and kill them. That seems fair to me. But then they don’t say that’s the reason. They waffle on about not causing “offense”. It’d be nice if publishers said what they really think. We are scared at being targeted and killed or maimed by the maniacs who believe they are doing god’s work.

Our religions are so contradictory that we suffer because of them. Islam is a religion of peace except for all the barbarity in the book. Christianity is a religion of love and peace except for women because they aren’t worthy and don’t forget all the barbarity in their book too. God is all loving except for all the people who sin and are going to BURN forever in hell. These ideas are fucking crazy. They make no sense.

Now, I don’t like the idea of a pope and I have little respect for anything he will say. Let’s remember that the Catholic church has SYSTEMATICALLY covered up child rape and refuses to pass information to the authorities. It has caused endless hardship and disease because of its stance on contraception. It has more money that it knows [recently discovered a ton of cash in a Swiss bank account]. But worst of all the Pope said something along the lines of “if you insult my mother expect a bash on the nose” while defending the Charlie Hebdo killings. FUCK YOU Pope. You’d expect a religion of peace and love to preach that all people should talk to each other. They should learn to forgive and spread love. Oh no, not the religion that hides abuses of children.

I’m not really sure that the apologists saying it’s not really Islam know what is going on either. Killing people just because they published some cartoons can only be motivated by the flawed thinking that religion promotes. Non-believers don’t go around killing in the name of non-belief. There are plenty of examples of Christians and Muslims killing in the name of their religion. Killing for their god. Killing because someone doesn’t believe the way they do. Killing because a book or someone sanctioned it. Can’t we all just be a little grown up about this?

Killing is bad.

Perhaps you should try discourse? Discuss why you feel so offended or upset about something. Oh yeah, you have sincerely held deeply religious beliefs and they can’t be scrutinised or questioned. Bollocks. All ideas can be questioned and scrutinised. They are ideas. Evidence needs to be presented and then a conclusion made.

You aren’t allowed to draw a picture of Mo. Why? Because a book says so. Except for all the previous pictures of Mo in your culture. Not being allowed to draw Mo is a recent thing. Remind why women have to be covered up? Oh, someone says so because otherwise men will be distracted and rape the women and that will be the woman’s fault. Grow the fuck up. Do something worthwhile, educate your people. Education will improve livelihoods and the economy. Education will help create a fairer society and improve living standards. But at the same time it will erode your power.

[still angry apparently and in need of a penguin on my shoulder telling me good things]

February 21 2015

Kingsman: The Secret Service

I saw this film yesterday at Cineworld Cinemas whose iPhone app now uses Passbook and so I don’t have to print out a ticket. Good work Cineworld.

As ever I have rated this on IMDB, but you need to see this communication to explain the ratings.

I rated Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) 8/10 #IMDb http://t.co/v6tX4pL914

— Ian Parish (@iparish) February 20, 2015

Firstly, it might be worth noting that I went food shopping before this film with the intention of popping the cold stuff in the fridge at home before heading to the cinema. The traffic was at a standstill to get home and so I ended up eating the ice cream in the car on the way directly to the cinema. Even then, there were road works that meant I was delayed on the A228. I arrived at the cinema at 17:04, the film was meant to have started at 16:45. The luck was in for me as I arrived just as the last advert was playing. The frozen stuff in the car survived as it was pretty cold outside.

I was somewhat surprised that this film was a 15. You don’t tend to get many films that are above a 12A nowadays. For each rating you rise, the overall takings drop.

So, the film was funny, slightly gory, predictable and just bloody good fun. They nearly broke through the fourth wall and I loved the self referencing. This is well worth seeing. I will likely watch this again sometime soon.

The use of Elgar in one of the final scenes was inspired.

Not much of a review or spoilers. Recently I’ve done too much of that.

February 11 2015February 11 2015

Best Bike Trip Ever – The Maps

From the previous communication you should be aware of a bike trip I did in 1999. This contains the maps. This is a digital version of the original map that I used to navigate France. Mostly I let Daryl lead the way and I would mark the map just so I knew where we were heading.

This is the NORTH part of the map (if you click the map it is a LARGE file). Yellow is day two. Day one was Harlow to Boulogne. Orange is day three and the green is the last day.

This is the SOUTH part of the map (large file size warning). Yellow is day two. Orange is day three. Pink is day seven, mustard is day eight and green is day nine.

February 11 2015February 12 2015

Best Bike Trip Ever

It has taken a while to get around to writing this communication but I hope to give you some of the flavour of my best ever bike trip.

In the summer of 1999 Daryl, John, Chris and I headed off for a week long tour of France. Our aim was to get to the Mediterranean and stay at a place Daryl had visited on his previous trip. I was riding a Honda NTV 650 v-twin called Libby. I had a top box, tank bag and pannier set. The top box had a tool kit and emergency stuff. The tank bag and panniers held clothes and camping equipment. This is a picture of us in Old Harlow just before we set off for the ferry.

Just after this photo was taken we travelled about a mile to rev up the engines outside my mum’s workplace and waved to her. Then we set off for Dover. After a smooth channel crossing we headed to Boulogne where Daryl and I camped the Friday night.

The first day was a journey to Nevers in the centre of France. We headed south, had coffee and lunch in Paris, negotiated the Champs-Elysees and the enjoyment of the traffic around the Arc De Triomphe. The open road beckoned and we stayed in a Formula1 hotel on the edge of Nevers for the Saturday night.

Sunday and we headed south. Coffee and cigarettes at Clermont Ferrand, Le Puy (curiously twinned with the borough in which I now live) and then Daryl and I bombed down to the coast. We reached the Mediterranean late that night but I was exhilarated. To have travelled on a motorbike all the way to the south coast of France seemed fantastic. All the pain and ache had been worth it. We found a campsite and set up for a few days.

We stayed at Cavaliere for four nights. Spending time visiting the local area, St Tropez and generally lazing around. Daryl and I had an afternoon on a nudist beach which was a curious experience. Eventually our final night, Wednesday came along and we started to get ready for the journey home.

On the Thursday we worked our way to the Alps. We stopped off in Turin and saw the weir featured in the film The Italian Job and then wound our way into the mountains. Daryl and I stayed in a wonderful campsite near Lanslebourg. The views were fantastic. The next section of the journey was to get to Geneva or as far north of there as possible. We traversed the Col De L’Iseran which at roughly 7500ft is far taller than any mountain in the UK. The motorbikes weren’t happy with the low air pressure hear but they did keep working.

Daryl and I tried to run but found that we needed more oxygen, a few paces was really all we could muster although we did manage a snowball fight.

A few more miles of gorgeous alpine roads and we were stopping for lunch, coffee and a cigarette at Lake Annecy. The three lads on the trip had a swim. It was noticeably less buoyant water than the sea as it was freshwater.

From Annecy we found Geneva and there was a rock festival at the lake’s edge. We paid for an expensive McDonald’s from a trailer at the festival and then wandered out to the fountain.

At one point there was an odd wind that blew from the lake and we looked at each other. Time to see how far we could get before the storm arrived. Daryl and I made it to nearly the top of a mountain pass in the dark, wind and rain but when the lightning is below you and there are trees falling into the road you have to make a decision. We turned back down the pass and blagged ourselves a hotel room. Once inside we tried to wring out our bike clothes and sleep. The next day all was calm and we could see that we were probably only half a mile from the hotels at the top of the pass when we turned around. It was still the correct decision though.

Saturday was upon us and we headed for Calais. This was a very long day motoring along A roads until we decided that motorways would get us home quicker. That night we spent in tents on the beach at Calais. A ferry home and then two hours more biking and we had competed our journey. It was such a remarkable thing to do and great fun. The pain was worth it. If you aren’t sure what pain there could be then try spending 15 hours on a motorbike while attempting to map read, put glasses on, smoke and get caffeine into your system.

There are highlighted maps in the next communication. Up to you if you want to see them!

Odd memories:

Buying ham and cheese at a shop in Cavaliere.
Driving on the wrong side of the road one early morning.
Riding without a helmet on some alpine passes.
Attempting to smoke a cigarette while riding with a helmet on.
Cigarettes that only cost 20F per packet (about £2 then).
The woman in the blue swim suit.
Wearing my panama hat whenever I didn’t have my helmet on – I was paranoid about getting burnt.
Bombing along a French country road at 105mph just because it was straight.
Paris being crazy but great.
Le Puy looking beautiful as we approached.
Daryl being freaked out by a pretty big insect in the tent.
Daryl and me having radios to chat to each other while riding.
Gunning the throttle at a set of lights in Nice and Daryl zooming off as he thought the lights had changed.
Seeing Mont Blanc.
The alpine tunnels.
Smoking
Ordering stamps in Monaco
Bombing through the tunnel at Monaco
Coffee in Monaco (and a cigarette)

Could be called the Fairmont Hairpin or the Lowes Hairpin

By the way, this was first drafted on December 16 2011. It’s taken me three years to get around to completing this communication!

February 11 2015February 10 2015

Flight Sim Gallery

Well, I have X-Plane installed on the home PC and good fun it is too. I’ve downloaded lots of extras including some HD mesh scenery. Here are a collection of screen shots I have taken [for no real reason].

February 10 2015February 10 2015

Selma

This is a belated communication as I saw Selma about five days ago. I normally write up a film quickly after seeing it but this time I was pretty busy on Sunday at the AST competition and so this has had to wait.

I rated Selma (2014) 6/10 #IMDb http://t.co/aNEak17a3i

— Ian Parish (@iparish) February 7, 2015

So, I rated this a 6/10. In reality it should have been an 8 but then you have to understand my scoring system which is explained here. This was a very good film covering some of the most important issues of the 20th century. It was well acted and well filmed. I would recommend that all go and see it.

Upon reading around the film it turns out that LBJ was more for equal rights than the film makes out. The claims are that the film is not a documentary. Hmm, I’m not sure. If you take something like the civil rights movement and want to make a film about it then I think you have to make it accurately.

While watching this film I was constantly reminded of my main life rule:

Do no harm

The extended version of this is that you can do what you want but make sure you cause no others any harm. This seems a perfectly good rule. It’s essentially the same as my mum’s saying:

If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all

And also similar to the following quotation from the most excellent Tim Minchin:

Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will break my heart.

There was so much hate in this film from ignorant people who had grown up in a segregated society. The USA is still not mended from these issues. Go see it and then promise to do something good.

February 6 2015

Air Force

Here’s an update on my Armada. January is complete, just imagine what it’ll look like at the end of the year!

January 31 2015January 31 2015

American Sniper

I went to see this film last night. Here’s what I thought of it on IMDB:

I rated American Sniper (2014) 4/10 #IMDb http://t.co/1EDYTFJedX

— Ian Parish (@iparish) January 31, 2015

I think I’m possibly too old for these films. I just wasn’t impressed. It might be that I had already read some reviews and they weren’t very positive or it might be that I’m just a grumpy old lefty.

MILD SPOILERS FOLLOW

I grew up with war films. I thought they were exciting. I thought they generally made war look glamorous. The motives behind wars always seemed justifiable. Then I saw lots of Vietnam movies and you start to realise that war is used by governments to maintain their economic advantage over everyone else. I should probably write another communication about my views on war and killing people. So, back to this film.

A man, who loves his country so much, sees something bad and gets angry, he signs up to be a Navy Seal. He’s a good shot with a rifle. He trains to be a sniper and then gets sent off to war. Along the way he marries a woman. We’ve all seen Navy SEAL training videos, we know what they do and that they are tough. Nothing new there. The training part of the film completely missed all of the important aspects of training. It looked like a video game where the first 20 minutes teaches you how to play the game.

Being sent off to war and then being liberal with the truth means our man gets even more angry at everything and kills plenty of people fighting for their own country. He carries a bible all the time, because god obviously justifies all the killing. His tour fucks him up and when he returns home he’s not the man he used to be. He bears a grudge against a “baddie” sniper and keeps returning to Iraq in the hope of getting the baddie first. Our baddie has a wife and children but we aren’t allowed to know his reasons for being in this war especially as he’s not an Iraqi.

Sniper boy gets more and more disturbed but we aren’t really shown this. We get snap shots throughout the movie but no in depth analysis. We have an Iraqi tour followed by a bit of home life where he’s obviously troubled but it’s all superficial. Finally our boy kills their boy and he wants to come home, he’s done his job. Never mind the Americans that are still getting killed.

In the end our sniper does good and becomes himself again once he helps veterans. We see him talking to a shrink and after a couple of minutes he appears to be normal again. Bollocks. This film was entirely uncritical of any elements of war. It would have been far better had we seen more of the other characters and their fight with normality. also, this film has been compared to The Hurt Locker, which I also thought was shit.

This is essentially a cowboy movie for the modern MTV-editing age where we aren’t allowed to have feelings and thoughts and questions. Did I say, it was directed by a cowboy star? Some of Clint’s movies have been awesome and great. This one was shit.

January 22 2015January 22 2015

Ex Machina

Overall, this film is worth watching. Hence my IMDB rating:

I rated Ex Machina (2015) 6/10 #IMDb http://t.co/bNRyhFshWl

— Ian Parish (@iparish) January 22, 2015

As ever, you should see this guide to my ratings.

Firstly I think I should point that there are certain elements of this film that don’t ring true. The single person who invented the world’s most used search engine is also a stunning engineer able to create wonderful human looking androids along with inventing a new medium for the processor which also happens to be AI capable. This is not how I suspect it will be done. However, let’s get over that.

First thing: the house was lovely, a wonderful creation, I hope it’s mostly real.

Second thing: Ava looked awesome, really impressive graphics and design, very organic.

Now, the story line. This was generally good although I was reminded a lot of Blade Runner as it progressed. My mind kept going back to the voice of Gaff shouting:

It’s too bad she won’t live! But then again, who does?

The story told us to be wary of recluse like figures who are really intelligent. They will use you to fulfil their own aims. Then, towards then end there was a switcheroo which was nice. I liked the manipulation in this film. I liked the simplicity of the sets and the wonderful scenery, although there were random cuts of foliage to remind you we were in the wilderness [which creates quite a few logistical issues for me].

Overall, at times this film may have seemed slow but I think that’s a reflection on modern film making where action is the requirement rather than making people think. This is worth a watch.

January 21 2015January 21 2015

Amazing

Isn’t our planet amazing? It always manages to impress even when not doing much at all. This is the view of a rainbow over Maidstone, early 2015.

Maidstone Rainbow I don’t have anything else to say which given the context of recent Fooyah.net communications is a good thing.

January 12 2015

Armada

This is my 800th communication on Fooyah.net. As I have been quite angry recently you should be pleased to know that I have taken up paper folding for some of the day to calm me.

This is my armada of planes so far this year. Thanks to Penguin for the gift. Only another 300 or so to go!

January 10 2015January 10 2015

Books

I have to admit that I am still angry. The events of the last week have really annoyed me.

There’s all this hate in the world. Wouldn’t it be easier if we just followed the basic rule of “do no harm”. It’s not hard. It’s just three little words.

Now, I’ve an idea where we can start. Let’s have a look at the books where religious people get their morals and guidance.

“I will … smite Egypt with all my wonders.”
“God wants to be remembered forever for the mass murder of little children.”
“Kill … before the Lord and … sprinkle blood round about.”
“Both parties in adultery shall be executed.”
“God sends evil spirits that cause humans to deal treacherously with each other.”
“Beating your children will make them wise.”
“Jesus sits on a white cloud with a sharp sickle in his hand. When the angel tells him to reap, he kills all the people with his sickle”

“Christians and Jews (who believe in only part of the Scripture), will suffer in this life and go to hell in the next.”
“Allah will punish the disbelieving Jews until the Day of Resurrection.”
“Those who oppose Allah and His messenger will burn in the fire of hell.”
“Allah curses people by making them deaf and blind.”
“Disbelievers will be given a painful doom.”

So, if your book of guidance includes passages like those above don’t you think it’s time to stop using that book for your religion. It’s no good saying we only look at the good bits that are relevant to us today, it doesn’t work like that. You lend credence to the whole book. It doesn’t take much to turn bored angry teenagers and men into violent arseholes and it happens everywhere but you using this book [just the good bits] mean that all of the book can be used to proselytise.

If your book says crap like the verses above then it is time to change the fucking book.

The Russian headline is there above to show that even non-religious countries can be fucking stupid. What a crock of shit. It feels like there’s a storm coming with all these governments cracking down on human rights.

Now, there’s a 0.001% of all people who are very very nasty [I made that statistic up]. But what atheists don’t do is go around doing things in the name of their religion or a shitty holy book.

How about we change all religious and governing rules into the following:

Be good, do no harm

There, that wasn’t so hard was it.

January 8 2015January 8 2015

Sincerely Held Beliefs

This is a follow up to my previous communication. I think there’s more to say and yet I don’t want to add to that published communication. I am still on a rant though so feel free to skip to the album reviews if that’s what you prefer.

To draw a cartoon of Mohammed or any picture of him would be claimed to insult a deeply held belief that it is wrong to draw the prophet because it says so in a book. I am sure that this belief is “sincerely held”. I am sure that people have lots of beliefs that they consider to be deeply held and very important. However, just because your belief is deeply held it doesn’t mean I have to respect it.

If you have the beliefs then I can have my own. Maybe I’m a pastafarian, I have a holy book and a community that agrees with me. I can even claim they are deeply held and sincere beliefs. Once that happens you have your view and I have mine. Then we have a problem. Who is right? Who’s view is more important? They are both sincerely held beliefs with no ultimate authority.

Oh, sorry. We do have an ultimate authority. The law of this land. The law decides what is ok to do. The argument is made in front of the judiciary and then a decision is made. Part of living in this country is that I must accept what the law says. I might not agree with it, but I have to accept it. If I want to change it then I must petition government and the lawmakers. If I don’t like it enough then perhaps I would move to a country where I agree with their laws more. You are not at liberty to impose your views and ideals on me in this country.

I don’t care if you have a sincerely held belief. That shouldn’t get have anything to do with your actions or behaviour towards me or my society. If you want change then you do it through the correct methods.

January 7 2015January 7 2015

48.8592°N, 2.3703°E

I am following the press and jumping to, quite sensible, conclusions about the motivations for the murder of 12 people in Paris. They were murdered because they did the job that is necessary in a free country.

It is currently believed that the 12 people were murdered in revenge for printing a cartoon depicting Mohammed a few years ago.

If you know me or read these communications you will understand that I don’t “get” religion. It is quite obviously a false representation of the universe. However, I do understand why people are religious. I get that. However, I am quite at liberty to think your beliefs are crazy. I am also at liberty to tell whomever I want that I think your beliefs are crazy. I don’t do this [too much] because for some reason it is considered bad to insult someone’s beliefs in a sky-fairy, zombie god child or burning bush. That, I also don’t understand. Why is it so taboo to say what I think about a virgin woman impregnated by god to have a son who he knows he will kill, oh, and then resurrect? Why can’t I even question religious holidays and ceremonies without feeling as though I am committing a massive faux pas? Isn’t it crazy that we have whole degree courses and careers dedicated to studying something demonstrably at odds with evidence? I digress.

As I have removed religious texts from my moral guidance I need to explain that there is no ultimate right or wrong, no ultimate moral authority. We, as a society, have decided over time what we consider to be acceptable behaviour and what is not. Originally these rules were derived from religion but they aren’t anymore. Laws change over time to reflect how society changes and what society [generally] accepts. Yes, there are always going to be people on the fringes of societal behaviour and beliefs and these people will make lots of noise but they can fuck off. Our judiciary makes the decisions and I am glad I live in a free country. I am NOT going to use the free speech argument because I honestly don’t think we have that in this country [UK], I am unsure that it is enshrined in law. It can’t be because an hate speech or aggressive tweets could land you in lots of trouble, we also have thought crime in the UK.

Whether you are religious or not you probably agree that killing someone is a BAD thing to do. It’s immoral. It’s against society. You may or may not extend that to the state killing by using the death penalty or going to war. I do think that war can be justified but I struggle with that very much. It is clear to me that we have a duty to give people freedom. My current thoughts are that “freedom” means a free and fair judiciary [thanks to JPW] and a liberal penal code, this may or may not occur within a democracy. For example: it is wrong to outlaw homosexuality, although legalisation was a recent thing in the UK. It is definitely very WRONG to have the death sentence for homosexuality. This paragraph could go further but I need to move on.

In what is generally called The West we are free to insult our politicians and other leaders. We can draw cartoons of them. We can write songs about them. We can make fun of them. For them it is considered part of the job [where is Spitting Image now?] This is freedom. It is our laws that allow us to do that. This should be a freedom everywhere. If you can’t do these things then I hope that one day you will be able to. You will have a long struggle ahead but we can all live in a world where we can rip into those in power.

We also make fun of religion. If my joke makes you question your religion then your religion isn’t up to much is it? If you can’t accept my joke, my valid point or the fact that your holy book was written many years after the events and from hearsay and is not really what happened then YOU have the problem. If the historical evidence doesn’t fit your religious narrative then the problem is yours. You are very welcome to insult me, my thoughts and beliefs and my ideals. I am still free to have those views.

If the image on the left is fine, but the image on the right offends you then I guess you have the right to be offended. However I have the right to produce this image. You need to get over it. Stop being outraged.

Killing 12 people because they belonged to an organisation that published some cartoons, some drawings proves that you are fucked up. You represent the worst of your religion. The worst of Islam and you do a disservice to all Muslims. While we must remember that 3 people killed 12 others today we should also remember that the vast majority of Muslims do not go around killing people because they hold different views and morals. They accept that, much like politicians, people will question them and what their holy book says.

It’s been quite a while since the major Christian faiths went around the world killing everyone and fucking things up quite a bit. But they did do it. And they did it in the name of religion. For a thousand years you could be killed or imprisoned for being the wrong religion in the “western” countries. But, we matured. We moved religion to the fringes and outside government. We now have religious and cultural freedom. Not yet in the USA though. There are MANY problems with the religious right and Christianity imposing crazy laws to oppress the rights we take for granted [and many Catholic countries too]. I am not claiming we are perfect. We aren’t, there’s still progress to be made. We spend more on dog food that we do on feeding the poor.

It appears these 12 murders were committed in the name of Islam. Islam needs to stand up to the fringes of its society and push-back, it should reform those fringes. Islam needs to shout as loud as possible that it is a reformed religion and extremism won’t be tolerated. It’s easy to take young men and radicalise them. It’s what young men are good at. In the West we have sport, PlayStation and music videos. We can distract many from the outliers of society, but we don’t always succeed. We still have people who do bad things. It’s what happens in any society. We try to minimise that though. We do this through freedom of the press, freedom of society, freedom of the judiciary.

I know this sounds all high and mighty. I can see that people would think I am shouting “aren’t I a good atheist and all the religions, especially Islam bad. Isn’t the West wonderful with its freedoms and Coca Cola”. Well, at the moment, most world wide terrorism is Islamic. It’s Islamic states that sponsor this terrorism. What country has the death penalty for atheism? Saudi Arabia (where women can’t drive too). I am not trying to hold the UK up as a beacon of excellence. We do plenty wrong, like invade a country illegally on dodgy evidence and then rationalise it post hoc. We have tortured. We have spied on our citizens. We have interned people with little evidence. We are not perfect. But we are at least trying to do the best we can. Also, if I want to question politicians I can. I can become a politician if I want. I can drink whenever I want I can eat what I want. I can believe in what I want. I don’t have to go to church. I am free to live my life how I want to.

We should not be surprised that murders like these things happen. What is abhorrent though is the reasoning behind these killings. Religion can be a good thing, I’m not sure it’s necessary, but it exists for now and so we should tolerate it when it is a force for good. Also people seem to take it so seriously. But we should NOT accept ANY reason or organisation that legitimises and encourages murder.

If you would like to read more cartoons that uses Jesus, Mohammed, Moses and a barmaid as its main characters then you should read JesusandMo.

“Here we stand.” Brilliant by @alexmassie on #jesuischarly http://t.co/AMIJUVYQMY

— Iain Martin (@iainmartin1) January 7, 2015

Here’s a cartoon:

January 5 2015January 5 2015

All Part Of The Plan

“It was meant to be”

“It’s my destiny”

“Whatever will be will be”

What a load of shit. All of these sayings just lend credence to the idea of agency behind your life. The concept that someone or something is controlling YOUR life. The idea that the great zombie sky fairy is looking out for just you and not necessarily any of the other seven billion people on this planet.

The idea of agency is so built into us that it’s hard to get rid of it. It takes a lot of effort to give up thoughts of our destiny and the plan.

We are so enamoured with the concept of agency that we see it everywhere. Hollywood makes films constantly suggesting that there is a plan for us all, look at the messages and what you are told. There are bullshit books that tell us about the universe working for us, see The Secret or the bible or any other religious text referring to a sky-fairy.

Your life is mostly in your control, but you will regularly get fucked over by things outside of your sphere of influence; politicians, bankers and the economy and mostly just random events. There’s a great lie enforced all the time by the media suggesting that we can control the economy and that our politicians are able to tinker with the tax rates to build a stronger country. This is rubbish. The amount of the economy that the government has direct control over is not enough to impact our growth or economic health. We are pretty much at the mercy of such a complex system where there is no overall control that it is more comforting to think we can blame particular politicians. We feel uncomfortable with the idea of randomness and things just happening.

I might get started on agency and our belief in control with respect to the monarchy and society as a whole. How we give our trust to government and yet fail to understand the randomness of the world. But, I shall leave that to another communication.

You are the person who can change your life. There is no destiny. There is no great plan. However much you aim to control your own life you are still going to be subject to random events, things that are outside of your control. Other things are going to mess you up.

There is no plan.

January 3 2015

Birdman

Right, before I type more I need to collect my cup of tea from the kitchen. Perhaps you can look at this tweet:

I rated Birdman (2014) 8/10 #IMDb http://t.co/03HtGS0etG

— Ian Parish (@iparish) January 3, 2015

So, this is where I tell you what I thought of the film. I really liked it. I’m not sure what the fuck I watched but I thought it was great. I’m going to write this before I go and investigate the film and figure out what happened so that you get a more “raw” review.

I liked the story line. It was quite brilliant casting as Michael Keaton was my first movie Batman and I pretty much still think of him as such. He acted brilliantly. The style of filming with the camera walking around the theatre was great. I loved the sound track although I would say that jazz drumming is not my thing it really added to the film, it made it more simple than a different type of score would have.

The filming or post production was really clever as they removed the camera from the reflections in the mirrors. This made it feel more ghostly as the camera moved around. All the cast were great and I think their performances really made the film.

This whole thing was a great experience. Well worth seeing.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS FOLLOW

I’m not sure if the writer, Raymond Carver, is meant to be fictional or actually existed. It’s something I’m going to look up.

I thought the film caught the paranoia of stage actors brilliantly. Along with their terrible egos. Now, I don’t really know any stage actors, I’m just extrapolating from my days treading the boards.

I’m not sure if the whole telekinesis thing is meant to be real or just a figment of his imagination. I hope it’s real, but then, TK doesn’t really exist!

I’m not sure what the last scene meant although I know what it was.

I am now going to go and read a little about this film. It’s unlikely I’ll post that stuff here. Go read it yourself.

January 3 2015April 15 2021

Simulation

If you are a regular reader of these pages you will know that I love playing Gran Turismo on the PlayStation. I always have. My relationship with GT goes back to when it was first released and playing it with my landlord when I lived in Gillingham. GT and Crash Bandicoot are two reasons I bought a PlayStation, or PSOne as it is now known! You can see other communications about GT here and my gallery here it’s been a while since I added new photos to the GT gallery and I should try and do that soon (it’s a quite lengthy process).

Gran Turismo defines itself as The Driving Simulator. Which is probably about right. It’s quite likely to be the most realistic driving game on the market, especially in terms of the physics model it uses. I haven’t played any other driving games really and so I can’t comment. I am also not a racing driver so it would be hard to me to comment on the realism. It amuses me when people describe certain computer games as unrealistic. How would you know? If I was a real racing driver I probably wouldn’t be playing GT.

I recently bought a new home PC. See this communication and the follow up to that. this made me think I could have a flight simulator and I tried installing FSX – The Microsoft Flight Simulator, last version. It turns out that FSX hates Windows 8.1. Some people got it to work and some didn’t. I didn’t want to spend ages digging into why it wasn’t working and the only way I got it to work was to turnoff some graphics function which made it look pretty rubbish on the big screen that I have. So, I had to turn to the only other alternative AFAIK.

X-Plane [I could link to the official site but then you could JFGI]

If you want to see why this is a good program then go no further than Randall Monroe’s What If? blog and see how he used it. I downloaded the demo version and played with it a bit. It is pretty good. You are stuck to the Seattle area in the demo but most of the rest of the game functions well. If you want you can use this program properly and use it professionally. Also around the time of doing this I ordered the X-Plane 10 Global edition. It contains the scenery of the world in it. All of it. I ordered this from the USA website as I didn’t want part of the profits going to a third party seller. It seemed the fairest way to buy it. I didn’t read the small print as I ordered it though. It could take six weeks to arrive. Customs issues apparently.

Here are my tweets.

I’ve ordered @XPlaneOfficial Global edition but I ordered it from the US, over Xmas, I’m waiting. And hoping.

— Ian Parish (@iparish) December 19, 2014

Number 1 son just took the Goshawk for a flight. He was pretty good. pic.twitter.com/cTDErPHNgR — Ian Parish (@iparish) December 21, 2014

Just arrived! 60GB now installing. pic.twitter.com/jVfWCSum20

— Ian Parish (@iparish) December 28, 2014

Just read the instructions. It’s 75GB and about 6 hours to install! — Ian Parish (@iparish) December 28, 2014

It looks like I ordered it 8th December and it was waiting for me after I got home on the 28th December. I guess that’s not bad. I’ve also installed a Saitek joystick and throttle (HOTAS) comnbination. I’m currently getting to grips with all the buttons and programming some functions into the joystick.

Here’s a gallery of some of my screen shots so far. I have been tweeting them so you might have seen them before. I’m trying to work with real time and weather in the program so far hence my flights are taking place around the world. I also need to work on my landings. Currently the Sabre is my favourite plane. It’s fast enough to be fun but easy to handle.

I spelt “Harbor” the American way, for accuracy.

I’m quite curious as to whether there is another type of simulation game I would like. On the Megadrive I played a submarine simulation but I would get bored quite quickly and send out a “ping” just to liven things up. I think a nuclear power station simulation would be a bit of a laugh, but then you’d try to recreate the “big ones”, Three Mile Island, Windscale, Chernobyl and see if you could have stopped the outcome. It’d probably take up a bit more technical knowledge than I have and then I’d get kidnapped by some dodgy regime to set up their nuclear program [Oh, no, that’s what Imperial did in the 80s, teach various countries their nuclear knowledge].

I don’t think I would find playing the Sims that exciting. Much like PlayStation Home doesn’t really bother me. I’m not that sociable in real life I don’t what to spend “virtual” time being sociable. I like games that challenge just me. I’ve played SimCity, but I played it once, for about 12 hours, non stop. And then I stopped.

With racing cars and aircraft you can make things happen fast. It’s about getting the timing correct. I’m not that sure that any of the following would bother me much:

Train Simulator
Fairground Simulator
Farm Simulator
Goat Simulator [it exists]
Car mechanic Simulator

Also, I don’t have the time.

January 3 2015January 4 2020

Long Time

This is the follow up to this communication. I am happy to say that after about 10 days of waiting I finally picked up a new tower PC from PC World in Chatham. I have been using it to waste plenty of time.

The main reason I bought the computer was to do some music stuff in collaboration with my best mate. I’ve been inspired to have a go and create stuff. This is a new direction for me. If you want to know more then pop over to twitter and see what happens.

Still playing around with our first ever song! No idea how long this will take. Am aiming for 4 ish songs buy the summer!!

— DBL_MF (@DBL_MF) December 22, 2014

So, I have the computer back. It took about 2 days to set it up to my liking. Most settings copied across from my Microsoft account which was nice. If you want to see more reasons for me getting the PC then look at the next communication.

I’m happy again, but I don’t have enough time to do all the things I want to. Too many projects.