Social – Page 15 – Fooyah

December 12 2018

Not Live

A couple of years ago I chose to get rid of my Sky TV subscription and that felt good. No more of my money would be going to any Rupert Murdoch entity. Around that time I also bought a FreeSat decoder so that I could record live TV shows onto a hard drive. I don’t record that many TV shows and ultimately the box is largely used for steaming content to the television rather than used the TV itself, the Blu-Ray player, the PS4 or the Apple TV. It’s kinda ridiculous how many things that are connected to the TV.

About a week ago the FreeSat box was reporting that it wasn’t getting any satellite signal. That was a little weird but I think I just turned the box off and on again and it seemed fine. Then, over the weekend, it dropped the signal, only thought one cable was connected [there are two] and wouldn’t find any signal. Whether this was a problem with the box, cables, dish or LNB I have no idea. The dish has been up for longer than I have lived in this house. The LNB was new when I upgraded to Sky HD a long time ago and the cables snake their way around the house and get bumped around a lot because I moved the TV room from close to the dish to the other end of the house a long time ago. I’ve never had any problem with satellite signal before.

I pondered the time and effort and cost in trying to work out where the fault was. I could get a signal detector from eBay for about £20 and use this to see if the box is at fault. I could hook up the old Sky box and see if that was getting a signal. After that I would probably have to pay someone to come and check the cables and LNB. I thought about this and decided that actually I don’t watch any real live television. Over ninety percent of the content I watch is streamed or already recorded onto the HDD in the box. There isn’t a huge amount of live TV I’m interested in.

After a little thought I decided I’d just remove the FreeSat box and get a streaming device so that I didn’t have to use the PS4 all the time for watching moving pictures and sound on the TV. I did try the TV built in apps but they are quite old and while the TV is almost “smart” it’s not that smart and the performance might not be that good. Also, I don’t think the sound output would be brilliant via the ARC.

Having looked around the various streaming devices I could have bought an Amazon stick thing but I don’t want any Alexa stuff in the house. This abode is definitely a “Hey Google” home, I didn’t want to add even more confusion. I also wanted to be able to have a remote control with the device for other people to use. I didn’t want the device to be Google voice activated, I wanted a decent UI and control system.

These criteria essentially led me to the Roku stick. I don’t need 4K streaming and so the £25 device was suitable. Looking online it supports all the services that I use with the exception of NFL Gamepass and Eurosport. I’m happy to stick with Gamepass on the PS4 and Eurosport is only need for one weekend each year when the LMP1 cars are racing around their spiritual home.

Yesterday evening I removed the FreeSat box, although I had some wiring issues as I’d forgotten where the power cables went in AV corner and I did need to move all the devices around. There is very limited space in AV corner and you definitely need your aluminium foil hat going anywhere near there! The Roku device was easy to plug in and works really well. I’m impressed with it as the device is cheap, simple and works as expected. Maybe one day I’ll go 4K but this would require me to upgrade the PlayStation as well and I’m not ready for that level of investment.

Yesterday I managed to get all my services logged in and now I am set up. All of my viewing content is now delivered via the ADSL connection and I’m now slightly fearful for an internet outage. It is good to have a high bandwidth though. There is a slim possiblity that I will write about this again in the future to indicate how it’s going with no live connection. I’m pretty sure I’ll be fine without it but my parents might struggle when they visit [a very small concern].

December 11 2018December 16 2018

Costly Wonder

Within visible distance from my house, about a mile away over the fields, I can see looming lights and flashing brightness. I had thought it was set up for a weekend when a friend performed some music thing at the Monastery down the road. There’s an actual piece of St Simon Stock’s skull down there and I think it’s where they draw their power. Have a google for Aylesford Monastery if you want to find out more.

Next to the monastery at the moment is a large temporary theatre showing a pantomime once or twice a day for about a month. It turns out that the lights and glitz are connected to the pantomime and it’s meant to be a Winter Wonderland.

I went there. No, I’m going to sound like an untrustworthy snob and I probably am but I don’t really like the health and safety aspects of carnival rides that are routinely reduced to fit on the back of a truck and moved around the continent. I do not think that all the best possible safety aspects are adhered to.

The Winter Wonderland consisted of lots of rides, a few food stalls and ticket outlets. It’s one of those places where the workers aren’t trusted with money, like in a Roman nightclub, and you have to buy tickets at centralised locations and use those tickets to go on rides. Twenty five tickets would set you back the discounted price of GBP20 or it was GBP1 each.

A ride on the shittiest ride was three tickets. The dodgems were five tickets a car and to me that sounds expensive. I was thinking maybe GBP3 would be more reasonable but I now realise I’m old and grumpy and harking back to the old days when things were cheap. I don’t get out much and perhaps that explains why I thought everything was pretty expensive.

The ice skating seemed reasonable though. GBP10 for an adult ticket which lasted for the entirety of a three hour window. I managed an hour and forty five and so I think I got my money’s worth along with a hurt wrist after having to do an emergency stop into the barrier with my arm. There’s plenty to remind me I’m getting old. Aches and pains and a natural tendency to moan about how expensive things are!

December 8 2018

Ordination

On a bit of a whim I decided to get ordained in the Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster. I think this will allow to undertake certain duties within the Church. I really do feel as though I have been touched by His noodly appendage.

I’m looking forward to undertaking my new duties as part of this Church. I’ve owned a copy of the Gospel for a long time.

I’ve had a FSM on my car for a while because those stupid fish really annoy me. I’m not sure how many people understand the concept of the Church but maybe they should. I’m always amused when people say “but that’s not a real religion” and my response is “what’s a real religion and how do you know?”.

I haven’t yet decided to go full Pastafarian but I might. I probably need to ask someone to get me a metal colander as a gift though.

December 5 2018December 5 2018

Old Memories

Being part of the cadets at work has given me some brilliant experiences and I absolutely love. I often feel like I’m just a big kid really, soaking in all the experiences and seeing some amazing things, some of which I’m not even allowed to talk about. When I went to Cyprus last year it was twenty nine years since I had last been and had those experiences. I went to Akrotiri in 1988. I went one better with a recent trip!

In 1986 October time just after I had been to my first annual camp at RAF Coltishall my squadron went to Crowborough Training Camp for a week of activities. I have a few distinct memories of being there. One evening we watched a scary movie, I think it was Alien, and we had to do this in the girls’ block as that was where the TV and VCR were. When we left it was foggy and we all ran down the hill to our billet as fast as we could.

I knew that one day we were meant to be going rock climbing and abseiling at High Rocks but it was raining and instead we went to watch Top Gun in the cinema at Brighton. We were full of that film for the rest of the week.

A memory that came back to me after looking around one of the billets this past weekend was that we had a music box near the door where the power was and we played the Top gun soundtrack a lot along with “In The Army Now” by Status Quo and also “The Final Countdown” by Europe. I loved these songs at the time and I loved the feeling of belonging and having a good time together. I can still remember my team from that Crowborough camp; Nick Filler was I/C, Charles Randall, Vanessa Payne, Gummy and me.

This recent visit and my first time back to Crowborough comes thirty two years later. I’m back at this place with a bunch of new recruits who are learning the skills to be good leaders and enjoying that feeling of being part of something larger than themselves. I hope they enjoy it and get as much from it as I did.

I’m not always sure that I appreciated every moment while I was a cadet but i do look back with such fondness. So much so that I’ll be heading back to my old squadron for a meal next year to celebrate thirty five years since 309 was given squadron status.

November 25 2018November 25 2018

Lord Of The Lost – The Garage

Smith and I traveled to the lofty intellectual heights of Islington last night to visit the Garage venue just outside Highbury station. On the bill were Lord Of The Lost, a German rock band, the venue was meant to be Electrowerkz but I think they sold more tickets than expected and they moved the gig to the Garage.

This was my third time at the Garage and again I was impressed. It’s smaller than I remembered, a nice, cosy (but not squashed) venue. I will say now that the sound in the place was pretty impressive and worked well. Probably better than Electrowerkz but I think this is largely to there being a little more space. Possible improvements would be a light beam a little further out from the stage to light up the bands a little more from the front rather than from a 3/4 position.

The second band were just finishing as we entered and they weren’t that impressive.

One of my favourites on as last support act were Unzucht. I’d seen them before at two M’era Luna festivals and I was looking forward to this.

They were good fun and played a decent set. They play a good hard riffage and then go and mess it up with an almost-ballad in the middle but I enjoy their style and it was good fun.

The headliners came on and I wasn’t really aware of the time but when I did look at my watch it was only 21:30 so for some reason there was an early curfew. It looked like they were setting up an urban-disco type thing.

Lord Of The Lost were good. It was a solid fun set and they seemed genuinely happy to be playing to a large-ish crowd.

I don’t really remember what songs they played but they started with “On This Rock” and ended with “La Bomba” which is always good for fun. Somewhere in the middle they played “Drag Me To Hell”.

It was a good evening and one that I ended too early really because I needed to be up early the next day [boo!]. Normally there would be more written here but I’m tired.

November 13 2018

The Nicest People

I recently had to spend some time in the company of the NHS. In case you aren’t sure what the NHS is, well, it’s a health service that I pay for through my National Insurance contributions. I pay these in the knowledge that the money will either help me when I need it or help other people. Maybe I’m an odd one because I am happy to pay my fair share of money to help others who are less fortunate than me. I consider this a social duty. I will quite likely rant on here one day about how we should make everybody pay their fair share, too many people in this country try to avoid paying to help others. While that might seem very black and white it’s not and the arguments are complicated.

There’s a communication that has been in draught form for about three years where I explain my politics and the reasons behind it, but it will be long and rambling and possibly unpopular. As an idea of what I think I am currently considering the idea that many wars are caused by those in power aiming to maintain their fragile grip on power and to do that they send millions of “little people” to their death. That’s not my final thought, it’s just part of the things I’m considering. This came about because the end of World War One was more caused by the German people rebelling and the Kaiser resigning than any military gains by the allies. The UK government then did its best to quash any forms of rebellion in the UK. It’s why the Eton arseholes still rule us. Anyway, you can see my thoughts degenerate into anger and swearing quite quickly. Another day for the reasoned arguments.

The point of this communication is to praise the lovely people I met at the hospital and how they couldn’t have done more to keep everything happy and safe. So many of the professionals who came and talked to us had heavy accents but I don’t care about that. In fact I’m glad about that. It highlighted how much our medical service relies on people who come here from abroad and our country is better for it. The whole system worked well and all the workers were brilliant. It’s never an easy time being in hospital and I have nothing but praise for the people who helped us.

It’s so galling then that our government continues to bolster itself into a situation that will culturally and financially ruin our country for the next thirty years at least. This along with the chronic underfunding of all public services over the last ten years truly has ruined our country. I am so fucking angry at these things. But maybe that’s for another day.

November 2 2018November 2 2018

Black Celebration 2018

I spent a lovely amount of time with Smith at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town on Sunday. The event was the Black Celebration music festival of all types of dark music. Of most interest was the band Suicide Commando. The event was promoted by the Flag Promotions company who run so very many of the gigs and concerts I go to. Obviously my music tastes are aligned with some of theirs.

Here are my reviews of each band in order of viewing. As is my usual behaviour I write notes on my phone during or after each act to help me remember what I’ve seen. That is why the comments may be pithy or short.

Machine Rox – were first up. We arrived towards the end of their set as Smith and I were having make-up issues. But they were ok. My notes indicate the following: female singer, there was a guitarist but I couldn’t hear him.

I liked the dancers who came on for the last song wearing outfits similar to the lead singer. It was a nice touch.

Next up were DKAG who are quickly becoming my most-seen band. They are supporting many bands over the next year. While the music is good there are no vocals and so unless I am wasted on alcohol I’m not that interested. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before but I like crowd interaction from the band, I want to know that they are enjoying it. Two guys with their keyboards doesn’t quite hit the mark.

There was now a short dinner break for me. The local cafe was very welcoming and the food was nice. Recommended. It was Mem’s Cafe on Kentish Town Road.

The return to the Forum meant the last few songs from Sulpher. This band sounded good and heavy with a decent industrial feel.

My notes are: guitars and heavy stuff. A little bit of samples mixed in. We saw about 4 songs and it was alright.

Let me explain the “alright” comment. This means I enjoyed it more than a lot of others. While “alright” might not seem a glowing review it means that the music was OK, suitable etc. [I’m trying to renormalise the term AVERAGE and OK to mean what they really mean].

Empathy Test came up next. I have seen this band before although I couldn’t remember exactly where or when. Smith and I had a discussion about who the lead singer was. Once they were on stage I figured out that they had played Infest last year and I saw them there. Here’s what I noted at the time: only 20 seconds in and I was done. Remember them from Infest. Boring vocals and drone-like. Slow. Female drummer who looks like she’s concentrating too much. Well constructed songs but boring.

Suicide Commando rocked the venue. I don’t mind the graphic visuals of people with holes in their bodies where holes shouldn’t be. This band was really good. A real uplift from the previous band.

I still maintain that a live drummer rather than a machine or dead person makes such a difference to a gig. I really enjoyed Mr Commando!

My notes say only the following:

heavy, fast and dirty. Great.

And then we get to Mesh. This might be the third time I’ve seen Mesh and they seem almost bored to be on stage. There’s not a lot of interaction. My only notes were:

Kinda boring

The Young Gods came on stage next. I knew nothing about them but I could see three white lights thinly blazing over the positions of the band on stage and I liked that set up. It worked really well. The first song was very Pink Floyd with a slow build up to not-a-lot and then a slow wind down. It felt like the crowd didn’t really know when the song finished. But, this band were older and clearly excellent musicians with that easy style of people who have worked together for so long.

My scrawled notes say:

Interesting but not really my stuff. turning into experimental upbeat music. Still quite psychedelic. Good beat to some songs. Enjoyable.

Finally we had DAF. A band I had seen at M’era Luna and a band that didn’t impress hugely. I get it that without DAF and other older bands that my style of preferred music wouldn’t exist but I’m also allowed to find their stuff a little boring. I think I would be the same with Nitzer Ebb and other bands from the 80s and 90s. Smith and I stayed for a while but in reality we both had work the next day and long-ish journeys home. Maybe I’ll see a complete Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft set one day.

October 25 2018October 25 2018

Not Really

This one is easy pickings really. Almost everything written in the Daily Express is rubbish and it has been amongst the leaders of our “free press” stoking the embers of racism and nationalism over the last few years. But, let’s stick with science:

I took this clip of the Daily Express two days ago. It’s a photo that was shared widely through the press and you’ve probably seen it.

It is a good photograph and quite stunning. Although we can’t see the right hand corner of the iceberg and I couldn’t see any other views of this iceberg so I wonder how rectangular it is and how many people’s brains will fill in another right angle.

I’m more interested in the words that the Express uses.

“Nature can do straight lines” – yep, knew that already. Pretty sure light travels in straight lines (at a basic level). Also, notice that the edges of the ice berg aren’t straight. There are bumps and lumps. So, it’s not straight. It just appears that way.

“Eerily perfect 90-degree angles” – hmm, have they measured that? Perfect 90-degrees is pushing it a bit. I mean they can be close to 90 but “perfect”. Bullshit. In the very NEXT paragraph they say the angles can be “about 90-degrees”. So they dismiss their own claim in the VERY NEXT PARAGRAPH.

“Perfect ice rectangle” – but it’s not perfect. What sort of person writes that word in a news article? We can’t see the rest of it. The picture is at an oblique angle so we can’t measure the sides. I doubt the Express have done anything like that.

So, let’s see what NASA said about their photographs:

“I was actually more interested in capturing the A68 iceberg that we were about to fly over, but I thought this rectangular iceberg was visually interesting and fairly photogenic, so on a lark, I just took a couple photos,” Harbeck said.

The photographer took the photos for a lark! Brilliant.

They aren’t all that rectangular:

In fact pretty much all of them are irregular in shape and so the odd one that looks a little special to human brains isn’t that exciting:

How do you get your kit to Antarctica? In a large plane of course. How do you land large plane? Make an ice runway:

October 12 2018October 12 2018

Radio

Over the last two years the news has become increasingly depressing. I think that is because everything I hear goes against my views of what our society should be. All the politics since the EU referendum and election of May and Trump has been frustrating. I have often switched off from one of my twitter accounts because I find it depresses me, makes me worried for the future and makes me feel helpless.

I have tried to cut down the amount of news I consider. Recently I have found that listening to BBC Radio 4 a lot hasn’t helped my mood. The presenters don’t seem to approach the discussions in the way I think they should and they seem to miss all the important issues facing this country at the moment.

I went through a phase of listening to music in the mornings and evenings while in the kitchen and I am now at the point where I miss the voices. I like the music but I miss the discussion of talk radio.

So, I spent a little time last night trying to get a radio station from New Orleans play over my Sonos system. I am pretty sure that this station, WWL, broadcasts only to the USA and the website I get directed to doesn’t work properly in my browser. I don’t do any VPN type thing yet, although that might happen at some point.

So, I spent a little while trying to find the URL I could use to add WWL to my Sonos system. Sonos uses TuneIn Radio to connect to streaming services and WWL doesn’t broadcast over that network. However, you can add stations manually if you can get a streaming URL.

It took a little clever Googling around to find a source that would work but eventually I did it. I have now added WWL to my sound system. I am looking forward to, once again, learning about the weather in Louisiana and how the traffic is near the big lake.

A previous communication in 2016 covered this media switch also.

Why New Orleans? Because I follow their American football team, that’s why.

October 8 2018

Migration

Well, that was a weekend! For some reason I decided to have a go at running my website [this one] from my own NAS drive. I figured this will save me money in the long run? won’t have to rely on GoDaddy who have hosted my website since its inception. I’ve not had any problems with GoDaddy but it’s a bit like car tax. When it comes around to paying for the hosting I just find I’d rather not.

So, I spent many hours staring at my computer screen. The first thing was getting the NAS to run as a web server and get the data out to the world. This took a little while to configure, especially the port forwarding and stuff, but I had done this for my Raspberry Pi and it’s web server so I did have some experience. I installed Webstation on the black box and got it working.

The next thing to do was trying to migrate my website from the GoDaddy servers to the NAS. However, this means running WordPress and that means the following have to be installed on the NAS drive:

Maria Db for the SQL database
Text Editor for getting into those pesky php files
phpMyAdmin to read and mess around with the SQL databases
WordPress

WordPress configured everything to run well and then I followed a web guide which had explained it should be easy to transfer the data with a little knowledge. I have a little knowledge and I think that makes me more dangerous than most! I FTP’d my site to my PC ready for uploading to the NAS drive.

I then tried importing the SQL database and setting up WordPress to read that database and work properly.

I failed at this about three times.

I failed terribly. To the point of uninstalling WordPress and deleting all the data and trying again. Each attempt took about an hour. It was quite frustrating because I do think I was close and only needed to change a “space” or “comma” in one of the php files and it would have worked wonders. But I started to despair.

So, I paid for some migration software. I already use UpdraftPlus and this automatically backs up my site to the cloud and they offered a migration package for about £20. Considering how much time I had spent doing all this it would have made more sense to spend that in the first place. But, you know, I wanted the experience. I do know a lot more about SQL and stuff now so it wasn’t a complete waste.

UpdraftPlus migration was easy to use and it even sent the files straight to my webserver. I thought that was quite impressive. It did take a long time though and I left it running overnight. I checked on it this morning.

The local version of WordPress was asking me to locate the backup files and then import them. As I was running a very basic and unmodified version of WordPress I hoped the import file would write all data to the SQL database and also import all the settings.

It did and quite quickly.

However, it did come up with an error reading one of the “upload” zip files. I think there must’ve been an error. Most of the website was working well and the WordPress dashboard was looking good. I think the database thought all these media files existed but Updraft couldn’t remove them from the zip file and so stopped working.

I FTP’d into the existing site and downloaded all the media files, about 5GB and FTP’d them to the NAS and hey presto. It all seems to work quite well. I am quite pleased.

I now have to go through and change the odd link here and there which won’t work because of the directory structure, but generally I am very happy with everything. I have a plugin which will crawl through and check links for me. I could also get Google to do a crawl for me, it worked really well last time to indicate some issues on the site.

This is the very first Fooyah communication on this new hosting. I am happy. If blurry eyed.

October 2 2018

Paying For It

It has struck me recently that while I stream quite a bit of music the money I pay for this doesn’t seem to get back to the artists. I know that each Spotify steam is bugger all. Each stream of a song is about 0.4 cents or pence it doesn’t really matter. For an artist to make a living from Spotify they have to be best sellers really. Now, I will listen to an album a large number of times when I like the music. But I might steam an album once or twice. It seems to me that if I know I like the songs then paying for the album means I will listen to it more, enjoy it more and contribute to the artist more.

Just paid for an actual album (download). More of the money will go to artist than streaming.

— Ian Parish (@iparish) October 2, 2018

So, my first album purchase in probably over a year goes to: Leaether Strip.

I decided to buy two albums. A “best of” and a later album. Ironically I’m going to share them here via Spotify you can always search for these on your preferred content provider.

I think it should be an aim to buy an album each month. Preferably using Bandcamp or something similar where more of my payment goes to the artist.

September 16 2018September 16 2018

Summer Time

This chronicles the summer holiday 2018. Just an idea of things I did because after almost a week, when I started writing this, I’m worried I’m wasting my time.

Sat – usual Sat stuff
Sun – run, Gran Turismo and cinema to see Skyscraper
Mon – Met Jo then went swimming.
Tues – Had a run and then met John.
Weds – Mostly food and fan shopping and ice cream lunch.
Thurs – stupid hot so cleared out a bedroom cupboard and started putting together a camping box.
Fri – bought camping supplies, a start on the M’era Luna costume and cinema.

Sat – run, more M’era Luna costume work.
Sun – wrote Fooyah communications, exercises, Gran Turismo, Death Of Stalin on Netflix, played No Man’s Sky, read a book.
Mon – Gran Turismo update, daily workout complete; drive 26.4 miles. Visit Spitfire memorial museum, RAF Manston Museum and Battle Of Britain memorial, all East Kent or Hellfire Corner, GT New track 4 laps then No Man’s Sky.
Tues – travel Maldon for the day, No Man’s Sky in evening.
Weds – snuck inot school to see new classroom, Gran Turismo, British Gas boiler service, No Man’s Sky, cleaned the car.
Thurs – run, finish M’era Luna costumes, Granturismo, No Man’s Sky, travel to London to see Freakangel in Hoxton.
Fri – shopping, had a nap, packed for trip, watched film Double Team, tried to complete Nordschleife circuit experience.

Sat – got up and headed to Lake District. Lunch at Wetherby. Petrol at Morrison’s Penrith. Campsite. Made camp. Dinner, read book. Checked out parking for Sunday walk. Up Latrigg – drove up, then parked in town to walk to the Lake. Reading upon return.
Sun – Got ready and drove to car park. Then did many many peaks and returned to the car. Had a cuppa at The Lodge in the Vale. Back to tent. Showered and dinner. Read.
Mon – Breakfast at Filling Station Café, eggs florentine. Drive to Maryport via Whinlatter Pass. Roman museum then to Milefortlet 21. Tea and cake at Buttermere, Booths for some cheese and rolls then back to tent. Watched Nanette and the Spiders web.
Tues – Coffee, drove to Langdale and completed the Langdale Pikes.
Weds – drove home. Washed stuff and packed for Thurs. also, went to Lakeside to get fuel, food and checked EE. Gran Turismo.
Thurs – got engine oil for car. Channel tunnel, drove to Bochum, stayed in cheap hotel.
Fri – drove to Hildesheim, queues for a long time. Pitched tent. Ate, drank, slept, ate, drank, danced in the disco.

Sat – M’era Luna day one. MINISTRY and the PRODIGY.
Sun – M’era Luna day two. Eisbrecher.
Mon – drove home and unpacked.
Tues – washing and cleaning all camping equipment. Fooyah blog posts. Went to see the Meg. Some Gran Turismo. Tour Of Duty.
Weds – swimming, food shopping, watched Sea of Monsters, walk in the park, dinner, Gran Turismo.
Thurs – rowing, watched Jumaji 2, watched Avengers Assemble, Gran Turismo, X-Plane, watched Tour of Duty.
Fri – Ebbsfleet, train, underground, monument, shard, national gallery, Trafalgar square, HMS Belfast, Kings X for fish and chips, train home.

Sat – Scoopid for ice cream, park and walk around the vineyard and playing PS You games.
Sun – Cleaned the garden and sorted it out. Had a run in evening.
Mon – dentist, stuff to dump, watched Channel 4 sci fi thing, cinema – Spy who dumped me.
Tues – run, head to Jason’s. Swimming and tea at Foxhills. Stay at Jason’s.
Weds – chill at Jason’s and then head to Look Out Discovery Centre. Lunch. Drive to Maidstone A&E. Subway and home.
Thurs – food shopping. Dossed. Watch Psych the movie in evening.
Fri – Head in to school and sort new classroom out. Afternoon run. Thought about cinema but decided against it.

Sat – chill day. Went to watch The Festival in evening. Been watching The Expanse season 3.
Sun – run. Went to Harlow to see sister. Lunch with parents at Harlow Mill. After home, more Expanse.
Mon – Bank holiday. Morning row – 60mins. Food shopping. Home, Expanse. Finished Expanse.
Tues – Went to school to put posters up. Then drove to Costco for lunch. Shopping and then the most almighty traffic jam. Ikea then Costco again. Home finally at 2230.
Weds – up. Breakfast. Row.
Thurs – RAF Museum, Hendon. Started Killjoys season 3.
Fri – doss morning. Watched Journey to Centre Of The Earth. More school stuff printing SoWs. Run. X-Plane.
Sat – up and headed to 5K inflatable assault course at Kempton. Lunch out at Magpie pub. Rtn. Polished shoes. Finished Killjoys season 3.
Sun – up run. Shopping. Lunch. Watched “Halt and Catch Fire”. Ironing.

So, it looks like I managed to “busy it up” but I also kinda wrote more stuff down so it just looks like I did more!

September 10 2018September 11 2018

In This Day And Age

During 2018 my work shoes died. Both soles split across the ball of my foot and while most of the time this was not a problem my feet got wet when it rained. So, I decided to get new shoes over the summer break. I don’t like shopping for shoes. I hate spending money on them. I am not a “shoe” person. But, I did think, it might be worth spending a little more on a decent brand of shoes to get a pair that will be comfortable and last.

Dr Martens it has to be then. I had owned this brand of shoe in the past and they are a solid brand. Good quality and lasting power. A pair of shoes that should serve me well. They were easy to find and bought after trying them on. I did think that they pinched a bit but surely that would wear off?

Last week I wore those shoes for one day and they destroyed my feet. I have open blisters on my heels and across the top of my feet. Bollocks. I didn’t “break” these shoes in over the summer. I struggled to wear them for the next two days. I took them off while performing my main role within the school and explained to kids that my feet hurt.

During spare moments I started to bend and break the leather so that it was softer and more forgiving. I have spent about an hour on each shoe making sure the leather is more flexible. I have used shoe-cream. I have hit them with a hammer.

I can’t yet wear these shoes as my feet need to heal. So, this week I am wearing some black boots that were issued to me by the RAF. And here’s the thing. Those boots don’t need breaking in and are comfortable straight away. NO BREAKING IN.

In May I bought some new walking boots. They are lovely. I wore them straight away. Guess what? They DIDN’T need breaking in and are going to last me another twenty years.

Five years ago I was issued parade shoes by the RAF. They DIDN’T need breaking in.

I’m annoyed that the DM shoes need breaking in. I’m annoyed I didn’t do that over the summer holidays. I’m in pain and annoyed by it. I’m hoping that in about a week’s time, once my feet are healed, that the new shoes will be more forgiving. It’s pathetic! [both my pain and that shoes need to undergo a process before they are comfortable to wear].

August 30 2018August 30 2018

Hendon Views

I went to visit the RAF Museum at Hendon. It’s a lovely place, partly because it costs nothing to go in* but also because it’s full of aircraft.

*there are parking charges.

My main issue with the museum is that the aircraft are parked close together and it’s hard to get decent photographs of them. Also, some of the rooms are pretty dark and getting the white balance correct is a pain. Maybe I need to be a better photographer!

Anyway, here are a selection of shots.

August 28 2018August 28 2018

Six And A Half Hours Later Than Planned

Today’s plan was reasonably simple. Head to Costco for lunch and a bit of shopping then head home and watch some TV. I expected to be back for about 16:00 [BST]. It initially went well. The lunch was bought and the stuff purchased, the car was filled and I went to leave the car park. Except I couldn’t because the road was busy. So I drove to the other exit thinking I’d go out by Ikea and head to the A13 and join the M25 there. But that way was blocked with traffic too. That was when I decided to look at my phone and see what Google maps was saying about the traffic.

It was fucked.

The maps app was reporting that the QE II bridge was closed. North and southbound. Bugger. I needed to use that to get back home. Alternatives exist but they are a pain and involve London.

Apparently two trucks had collided on the north side of the bridge. This meant both tunnel and bridge were closed. This meant the entire area because a car park. I decided to stop in the official car park I hadn’t left and leave the car and try and waste some time so I would start again when at least the traffic was moving a little.

I walked to Ikea, wandered around, found a few things to buy and then also went to the restaurant and ate some food. Periodically I would check twitter and maps to see if there was any movement. There was not.

I then thought it might be worth joining a queue again and maybe we would move a car’s length every minute or so, at least make some progress. So I drove to the Costco exit and joined a queue. The only times I moved forward was when a car not far ahead pulled a U-ey and we all move one car length. After an hour I turned around and parked in Costco again. To be honest I had made it about 50 m from the car park exit in that time so it wasn’t really like I had left!

A cuppa and toilet break in Costco and time to spend a little longer wasting time hoping that something would move soon. It wouldn’t.

While still trying to get out of Ikea and head directly north to the A13 it struck me it that heading south [the blue lines] and then heading east might work. The traffic seemed to be moving in those directions. Maybe I could then head north to the A127, rejoin the M25 or head into London.

The roads seemed reasonably clear. I got on the M25 anti-clockwise and I just kept following Google Maps. I headed down the M11, around the Olympic stadium in Stratford and then there were slight delays on the approach to the Blackwall Tunnel. After that there were no more delays. I think they had started to open the Dartford Tunnels at some point because the traffic seemed to be moving north at that point. The M25 was delayed and stopped from Dartford to about Stapelford Tawney, the delays were immense.

#M25 J31 incident on clockwise approach to #DartfordCrossing. HGV recovery operation complex and pictures from scene show the scale of task. We’re working with all available resources to get the scene cleared but it will take some more time due to damage and position of the HGVs. pic.twitter.com/dQzRVaQrKP

— Highways England (@HighwaysEAST) August 28, 2018

My overall thoughts are that I am glad no one was badly injured. Yes, it caused huge delays and would have cost a lot of money because of those delays, but hopefully everyone got home OK.

I got home around 22:30 [BST]. A little later than planned. I’m not annoyed. I almost enjoyed the adventure of it all. I had looked at cinema times but there were no suitable films, I had looked at booking into the Travelodge over the road but it was full, I had considered driving to my parents’ house but the issue was getting out of the car park!

BBC News – M25 and Dartford Crossing closed after lorry crash https://t.co/rLhYUTd43F

— Ian Parish (@iparish) August 28, 2018

The trucks had spilled fuel over the road and this meant it needed to be resurfaced. They also managed to crash just before the slip way for southbound traffic to enter the tunnel. Therefore there was no alternative to shutting the entire crossing.

Next time, for there will be another time, I will do my best to look at the roads heading in the opposite direction. Had I thought of that earlier I think I could have been home around 19:00 [BST]. Oh well.

August 26 2018August 27 2018

Shaming Farts

On a recent trip to Surrey I stopped off at Chobham services on the M25. You wouldn’t think I’d find much to comment on while having a quick wee break on a journey but “Oh My!”.

Every advert in the male toilets was for Shreddies and not the breakfast cereal.

Now, I will look at their website shortly and comment after but my initial reaction was:

WHY THE FUCK CAN’T WOMEN FART? WHO CARES?

My immediate next thought was:

We’ve had plenty of period shaming on women and now we shame them into smelling nice and pretty all the time and won’t allow them to perform normal bodily functions.

Well. I hope that the adverts in the ladies’ toilets were all for fart-pants for men, but i am unaware of those facts.

This advert is appalling. Women must remain clean and sweet and smell of roses for men. Women aren’t allowed to fart. Women should be beautiful for men. Farting is bad.

FUCK this company. I found this advert and all the other similar ones in the toilets sexist and shaming of humans for doing NORMAL human things.

Now, I’m off to look at the website and I’ll comment below.

So, they do men’s stuff too. Most of the web page is products aimed at men. It’s still disgusting.

“Fabulous idea, a great quality product with great styling, this could save many a marriage! A much needed product, fantastic innovation.”

Fuck this company.

Bank warns no-deal could see UK sink into recession – BBC News

*there are parking charges.