"Nothing but the rain"
I had a run around Mote Park in Maidstone the other day. It was lovely and warm, slightly too warm for efficient running, but I made reasonable progress and listened to a favourite podcast, The Scathing Atheist.
One of the nice things about the park is that at points you can see trees nearby and the North Downs in the distance and nothing of Maidstone in the middle distance, the place is lovely and peaceful.
Every two weeks I spend a terrifying ten minutes standing on the edge of the school’s property watching what seems like the entire world pass by in symphony. There are around 1400 pupils who pretty much leave the site all at once. Through the narrow gates of what I have labelled the school castle.
At the same time there are buses, school buses and many cars trying to use all the roads entering the centre of the picture. It is horrifying watching cars in a hurry and kids who don’t look and buses fully laden navigate this chaotic corner.
My current working theory as to why there are not many accidents here is down to the nature of the corner. The exact fact that it is quite chaotic causes people to slow down and be more aware. I do think that if there was a zebra crossing or similar put here there would be more accidents. The exact nature of busy unpredictable systems is that people slow down and look more.
Ask yourself this. When driving on a motorway do you fully concentrate at all times? When driving near your home do you fully concentrate at all times? Of course you don’t. It’s human nature to diminish tasks when they seem routine. Do you turn the stereo down when getting close to an unknown destination? Of course you do. It’s all about applying brain power from one activity to another. I know that I almost lose the ability to talk when driving near junctions or when I need more observation power. It’s almost as if multi-tasking didn’t exist!
I’ve been known to investigate the northern and tidal reaches of the Medway, read here. Today I wandered the area near Teston bridge. For a small country park it was well organised and had loos. The paths were clear and the highland cattle were well behaved. It’s a lovely little area.
The photo shows the area that isn’t the park. The open access area is where I am standing. over the Medway is other stuff.
The lock is pretty impressive and looks quite new, for a lock. There was a boat navigating its way downstream as I was there. The genius of man never fails to impress me.
This is the weir next to the lock.
I am slightly worried that these communications are becoming much like a travel blog but without the glamorous locations. My suspicion is that there are too many photos and not enough on here of an analytical nature. I will change that over time. I guess there are many pretty things that are worth sharing here. Whenever I am ranting it’s never a pretty topic or particularly clean language.
Driving home from a reasonably unsuccessful shopping session yesterday I saw smoke. While the shopping did not result in me buying anything I did gather information on what particular design of product I would like so more successful than unsuccessful but not a success. I chose to take the “country” route home which means coming off the motorway a junction early and using the new bridge. This is not a shorter route and nor is it quicker. When I was young we would have called this “one of mum’s shortcuts” which obviously weren’t. But, there is a wonderful corner. It’s a blind, off camber, over the crest corner. If you don’t know it’s there you won’t make it. It feels great to drive it although I would prefer a car with a more positive accelerator feedback system. In the diagram below you can see the bridge under construction [A], the corner [B] and the best direction of travel [C].
There have been accidents here. The press have come out to take photos. But there are signs and you should drive sensibly. If you don’t know the road it will probably surprise you. If you know the road and come off then tough shit I guess, I just hope you don’t hurt anyone.
Before we had taken the corner I noticed smoke above the village and I tried to use some parallax measures to work out if it was from houses or the quarry just before the conurbation. It was definitely in the area of the houses. My next thought was I hope it’s not in Belgrave St because they won’t get a fire engine down there. It’s a Victorian street with just enough room for parking on both sides and a car’s worth of gap down the middle. Anything larger than a car won’t fit. I’d hate to live down there, emergency access would constantly bother me. I’d also have way more fire alarms than I currently do.
I think I’m probably a little paranoid about fire and escaping the house. I never lock the locks in windows. I keep keys on hangers by the door and even brief visitors about where these things are kept. I have plenty of fire alarms. Whenever I am in a new building I scan for emergency routes out. I honestly do count the rows to emergency exits on planes, forwards and backwards. I want to know how to get out.
Driving down the straight towards my village and it becomes apparent that the smoke is coming from roughly near my house. Given my predisposition to worry about fire I worried about the fire. I have an in-my-head scenario of driving home one day and seeing my house burning or just gone. As I turned down my street I could see people out wandering around trying to see what was happening and then a fire engine turned in behind me. I could see smoke rising from behind the terrace and realised it was a garden fire. I just hoped it didn’t spread to the houses. I sped up down the street so the fire engine could get in position.
The fire turned out to be a shed and some fencing that was burning furiously. The smoke was drifting past the back of my house. After parking I went in and looked out of the window at the back of the house. I could see firemen fighting the fire. I wandered down the street to look at the fire engine and see if more man-power was needed. A brief chat with the man operating the pump and then back to my house.
This morning there is ash in the garden slowly being washed away by the rain.
The best thing about this is that no-one was hurt.
This was the second fire in the gardens along this street. It was the first I hadn’t helped fight. It was the first during the day time. I’ll maybe write about the very first another time.
I met up last night with two friends whom I have known for ages. Smith I have known since I was a kid and Jimbo I met while we were in the Air Cadets together. Oddly both went to the same school as me but they were in different year groups. You didn’t mix with other year groups in school in those days. On the matter of friendship I am currently in touch with no-one from my friends at school and I am not bothered by this fact [why should I be?].
We met in Green Park and I noticed all the anti-terrorist barriers and it saddened me slightly. It is such a shame that politicians and those we think are in charge believe they have to adjust the beauty and freedom of the city for our safety.
First drink was in the Running Horse Tavern at 128 Piccadilly. It was a nice atmosphere there and busier than I expected. I think we lowered the average age of patrons though.
Feeling hungry and wanting spice food, dinner was partaken at Masala Zone in Camden Town. It was one of the first times I really looked at the artwork on the walls, some of it was beautiful.
Happy fun times. pic.twitter.com/6am3JUr6VV
— Ian Parish (@iparish) April 29, 2017
Although you can spend a whole evening in a curry house that doesn’t mean that you should. We walked the very short distance to the World’s End pub. A heavy metal pub with curious art work including a collection of butterflies mounted and displayed proudly on the wall.
I like heavy metal even though my tastes have evolved over time but sometimes, when you want to chat, loud music is a little obnoxious. So a walk down towards Mornington Crescent was required.
We attended the Lyttleton Arms for a while. It’s a nice pub. A few years back I did shots in there with my niece. But, the pub had an 80s disco playing. Too loud for comfortable chatter. Which is a shame. Another move required.
The Cobden Arms proved to be a sanctuary of calm and quiet. No music or if there was I didn’t notice it. We spent time here chatting before walking back to the transport hub of 51°31’49″N 0°07’27″W.
I’m in a reasonable amount of distress. It concerns comments by one of the leaders of a UK political party, Tim Farron.
This was a clip from a BBC News article.
Apparently before this particular interview Tim Farron had said that he firmly believes “we are all sinners”.
I’m a sinner, apparently. I have sinned against god. I was innocent before I was born but after that moment the gates of hell opened and are waiting for me to die. Well I don’t fucking care. I don’t know the theological definition of sin but as far as I’m concerned god can fuck the fuck off. I don’t believe in god. Therefore I can’t sin against him. The idea of original sin is a bullshit-illness that the church invented to make sure you buy the cure, the church.
As for gay sex being a sin. The argument is pretty similar. Fuck the fuck off. If two or more people want to do consensual private stuff then who cares what that is. It’s up to them as responsible adults to make their own choices about these things. There are some caveats, you can’t cause harm. The extreme case of harm is the German case of a man being killed and eaten, but he consented to those actions, this was not acceptable in the laws that society has consensually agreed. This is against the law.
Now, by mentioning law there’s the issue of countries where homosexuality is illegal. Well, they should fuck the fuck off too. If it’s consensual and non harming then it should be within the law. It’s quite easy to figure out what’s right and wrong by using the following principle:
Do no harm
Yes, these things get complicated. But, by and large, consensual activities are just that.
Apparently political leaders, according to Tim Farron, should not:
“pontificate on theological matters”
I’d go one step further and say that no-one should pontificate on theological matters. Theology is bullshit. The interesting bit is the sociology that comes from religion. Everything else sucks and should fuck the fuck off to the iron age stories and writings whence it came.
Don’t take moral advice from a shitty book written by misogynistic, un-scientific fuckwits from over 1000 years ago [I chose 1000 because I can lump the Koran into that as well].
My current distress stems from the fact that I am a member of the Liberal Democrat Party. I decided to part with money to fund a party that will work against the Brexit thing. I do not think the referendum was fair, well-argued or gave a majority result. There was too much misinformation before the vote. I have pretty much always voted Lib Dem and so it was logical to use some of my money to fight for the causes I believe in. The fact that their leader is a religious twonk shouldn’t sway me from membership because their policies are still the same. I have argued against personality politics for a long time.
My general distress stems from the idea that a LEADER, someone who wants the responsibility to lead the country, relies on knowledge of and the actions of a god who doesn’t exist. The idea of praying to the invisible sky fairy to solve a problem and then you believing it has helped you worries the hell out of me. Have the balls and accept your position, don’t rely on fairy tales.
Let’s look at the current Prime Minister. Completely religious and believes she is doing god’s work. Probably believes she will be judged by god for her actions. Not that she will be judged by the people or by history but by god. It’s an escape clause, it’s a way of removing responsibility for your actions if you think the sky fairy approves.
Let’s look at a previous Prime Minister, Tony Blair. He arguably took this country into an illegal war where hundreds of thousands died. But that’s OK in his head because he prayed and god will still accept him. Well fuck that shit.
I want a leader who is willing to take the responsibility them-self. Someone who will hold their hand up and be judged by their own actions and what the people and society as a whole thinks of them. I don’t want someone who invests so heavily in cognitive dissonance to justify what they do.
I will continue to be a member of the Lib Dems. I will continue to give them money. Someone has to support the only party that could achieve an amount of power and actually gives a fuck about this country.
Babylon 5 is a space station 5 miles long. The adventures of this ship are chronicled in the TV documentary Babylon 5. Using interviews, memoirs, video messages and data harvesting a company managed to recreate what life will be like on Babylon 5. There are some stark warnings from the future for the current political elite.
Babylon 5 series 1 episode 1. Goodbye life. Hello escapism. See you in a year or so.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) April 4, 2014
So this tweet was dated 4th April 2014. That’s when I started working my way through Babylon 5. If I had paid more attention to when I started watching this then I would have tried to tweet the following two days earlier:
Babylon 5. Season 5. Episode 22. “Sleeping in light”.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) April 5, 2017
So, it took me three years and 2 days to complete the series. I don’t think that’s too bad. There’re 120 or so episodes and that averages out at one episode every ten days. It was a damn enjoyable experience. Jase gave me the box set a long time ago and I’ve been using them as a way of stabilising thoughts and also watching sci-fi. I haven’t stayed exclusive to this series and I have watched others along the way.
The stories are excellent and this show deserves the accolades it gets. I really enjoyed it. Obviously some episodes aren’t as good as others but overall this was a great TV show.
I am currently working through the spin-off series, Crusade, but there is only one series of that. Then there will be the B5 films.
Crusade. Episode 1. “The war zone”.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) April 6, 2017
If you want to see when I watched all the episodes of B5 then look at my offline-online twitter archive and search for “Babylon 5”.
Since April 2013 I have tracked my daily movement. I started using the rather stylish but shit Up by Jawbone. I bought this while in Washington DC and I loved it. The problem was that they don’t last long. I had three within a year, all replaced by guarantee.
My general thoughts are that this was a new company and reasonably new tech. It seems necessary that their early models would be rubbish to force improvement in the product. The early iPhones were shockingly bad in terms of the technology involved but at least the product worked as advertised.
To see previous communications about the Up by Jawbone, click or touch here.
In October 2015 my final Up band died and I switched to a Garmin Vivofit. Eventually I stopped wearing a watch because the Garmin on my right arm had a clock which pretty much negated the need for a separate timepiece on my left wrist.
At the end of March 2017 I had to replace the batteries in the Vivofit. They had lasted over two years. I don’t recall replacing them before and probably would have written about it within these esteemed communications. The replacement procedure was easy. The device worked within acceptable parameters after syncing with my phone.
While I was in Cyprus I swam in the sea twice in two days. I didn’t take my Vivofit off. I failed to remember that the seal may not have created a seal post battery replacement. On the penultimate day of the trip the Vivofit slowly drowned. I took it off.
When I got back to Blighty I took the Vivofit apart and let it dry out properly for a few days. In the mean time I had started wearing a watch again. I’m not young enough to want to look at my phone for the time. I like my watch. It is a nice looking watch.
I also ordered a Garmin Vivomove as I wanted to track my steps. When this arrived the clock face was too large for my tastes. I didn’t like it. for what it was it seemed quite expensive too. If it had been a third of the price I probably would have kept it and used it occasionally. But the look/price ratio wasn’t the correct magnitude.
When I put the Vivofit back together it seems to work fine. There will be some salt ingestion and I pondered rinsing it out and drying it thoroughly again but I think I won’t. I’m trying to be brave, I’ve taken the batteries out and the Vivofit is currently in a drawer in the bedroom. So, I have decided to give up counting steps.
This unnerves me greatly. But the arguments are sound:
If I feel too unsettled I can always put the batteries back in the Vivofit and start wearing it again. But overall, I consider this a positive thing. I managed about forty years of my life without a fitness tracker and maybe I can manage some more now. It’s always worth challenging yourself, even if it’s the obsessive part of you.
There’s not much better than having a cake and cuppa at Lashenden Airfield when the weather’s lovely and warm. While it wasn’t lovely and warm yesterday it was a nice time to watch the coming and goings of this little airfield in Kent.
There were people learning to fly, people having pleasure flights and people falling at an acceleration rate of slightly less than g from 11,000 feet.
What’s better than a Wokka flying overhead?
Three Wokkas flying overhead.
iPhone photos. No telephoto. Sorry. #avgeek #wokkas pic.twitter.com/4OYZz0MhiU
— Ian Parish (@iparish) April 2, 2017
Everyone should love the sound of these elegant beings. They are gorgeous.
I recently had a day trip with the cadets to RAF Brize Norton. We visited three main areas of the base:
I learnt a lot and saw two types of aircraft I hadn’t seen before. The weather was quite grey and so the photos are a bit of a washout, I don’t do Photoshop. The low cloud base did mean that the aircraft would take off and about fifteen seconds later they would climb through the cloud.
I recently ordered a day-sack cover from a company using Amazon. It arrived and I was somewhat shocked.
The rest of the box had that paper-stuff in it to hold the rain cover in place. I have written about this before in this communication.
While this sort of packaging excess does seem a waste I’ve got some other ideas. Fuel use for transporting goods is largely dependent on the mass of the object. So although the box added something to the mass it was still reasonably light and so not a huge carbon drain. If the box is recycled then it doesn’t really matter about how much cardboard there was. There’s probably more carbon used in making the plastic wrapper of the item than in the box, as long as the box comes from a sustainable source.
So, upon reflection this excessive packaging may not be as bad a first thought.
I do think that eventually everything will be labelled with a “carbon factor” to make people aware of just how much carbon they emit and how well we are fucking the planet. Because we are. It is fucked. Utterly fucked. I am glad I will be dead in one hundred years. There are going to be wars over water, food and power. I am just very sorry that my children, or potential grandchildren, will be involved in that and the people to blame will all be dead. My parents’ generation and mine have screwed this planet over.
I could be calmed, I guess, by fluffy cat or dog pictures. But they don’t distract me from the bullshit. They reinforce our collective ability to ignore all that is going on.
I don’t understand the Sunday night gig thing. I do know that the law changed a while back to allow dancing and music for public entertainment on Sundays but I don’t understand why so many gigs are now on Sundays, in London. Can’t the cities in the rest of the country have the Sunday gig? Sunday nights out are a big inconvenience.
First band up were already playing when Smith and I got into the venue. They were called Car Bomb and they were shit. Some of the crowd really liked them, but I couldn’t get on with their music. There didn’t seem to be any method or pattern to it at all, there wasn’t really any good riffing or beat.
There’s a possibility I’m too old for the newer styles of metal like core-metal and nu-metal. Code Orange were the next band. They had a drummer singer and a bassist who ran around and got the crowd going but who didn’t sing. There was also a female guitarist but I’m not sure if mentioning that is sexist or not. They were much better than the first band and they actually had some songs that had a good rhythm. I’ve got written down that they were core-metal with some good riffage. I don’t think this is my thing.
And we come to the finale. Gojira are a French metal band along the lines of Mastodon but less pretentious? I have listened to some of their stuff and think it’s better than Mastodon.
The sound was BIG. The light show was excellent. There was a video backdrop and it fitted very well with the songs and general atmosphere. The crowd was heaving and packed.
This was a good gig and it was nice to get back to the heavy metal sound.
Unfortunately I felt incredibly rough during the show and I left early. It had been a long weekend with lots of travelling. I feel bad for leaving Smith there, but I needed to get into fresh air and home. At least I saw the first half of the show. Gojira seemed overwhelmed at the support they had in London.
These communications contain many items concerning the virtual radar system that lives in my loft and you can see a selection here. A short while ago I decided to buy an pre-amp and filter for my system to improve the range and number of aircraft being received. So, this communication now requires a large number of pictures to give you an idea of what this means.
In the above picture you can see that there are around 20 aircraft and the black area [the range of the receiver] doesn’t quite reach Norwich, Portsmouth, Bristol or Calais. There is the NW-SE block as described before.
This coloured splat gives pretty much the same information but uses colours for the ranges of aircraft at different altitudes.
I bought a filter which only allows signals close to the 1090MHz requirement through to the USB stick I bought. It also acts as a pre-amp so there is an overall 14 dB gain.
Here is the whole Virtual Radar system living in the loft:
Once this kit was turned on I looked at the DUMP1090 output from the Raspberry Pi and pretty much shat myself at the number of aricraft shown:
When this view is compared to the twenty or so aircraft that I had before you can see an immense improvement in the receivers ability.
Virtual Radar Server is a program I use on the RPi for a more detailed view, there are quite a few customisations you can create also. It is the software that will create the splat over time, keeping track of the aircraft and their position.
The distances have increased as has the overall coverage. I now track around 100 aircraft at a time. For a small sum of money the overall increase in detail has been terrific. I can now reach over northern France, over Wales and a lot of the channel to the SW.
A side by side comparison.
Saw a lovely part of London today when I walked along the Regent’s Canal today. I was learning some maths in town and I had to walk from St Pancras to the venue and rather than walk along the main roads I took the tow path. I’m glad I did.
I also saw this exquisite book shop. There was music playing from loud speakers as I walked past and plenty of vinyl on display.
I also saw a lovely old industrial building that, if I had loads of money and the relevant experience I would turn this into a music venue.
It’s a shame I don’t have money, the contacts, the experience or any industry knowledge at all!
When I got back home I went for a run and jogged past this quality piece of Kent countryside. I think this is the second burnt out car to grace these pages!
But, there is good news: This lovely view over the Medway and Tonbridge and Malling Borough.
The Scala is a curious venue in Kings Cross. It might not actually be in Kings Cross geographically but it is close enough to the station and so that is where I proclaim it to be. I had been here before to see Therapy? and quite liked the venue. This time I was watching VNV Nation who I very briefly saw last year at M’Era Luna when they got a harsh review from me but Smith and I were rushing off to see Hocico so we only saw them briefly.
Doors were at 7pm and we got in there around 19:30 hrs after grabbing some food at a Cho Zen [where I had never eaten before]. The room is up three flights of art-deco stairs [I think they were art-deco] and around a few corners. It’s not an easy venue to fire exit I imagine.
This particular tour was a compendium tour. I hadn’t realised that, I think Smith and I got tickets because we thought the atmosphere and people would be quite similar to Slimelight and we figured the music would be bearable. There was no support. Just straight in to VNV Nation playing loud and proud.
I didn’t know a great deal about the band before this gig and I still don’t really but I can tell you the singer is Irish. He also has similar issues with people using camera phones as I do. After the first song he said that he is happy with people videoing or photographing the band but everyone needed to turn off their flash/lights and also keep the camera in front of their own face, not block those around. In terms of the flash he is spot on. Why use a low powered flash in that sort of scene, it won’t work, it’ll just ruin your final product.
One of my issues with people and cameras is they use the digital zoom to get a “better close up” but the problem is they would be better off taking a full zoomed-out picture and then cropping. Digital zoom and cropping achieve roughly the same thing but less jerky.
So, I need to speak about the songs. All of their songs are pretty good. They are well constructed and good to dance to. The lead singer was good at getting the crowd going and he was really the only one doing any movement as the others were stuck behind electronic stuff.
They played two slow songs. During a song, which may or may not have been a slow one, the singer got the lights turned down and the room was lit by people holding the lights on their phones up. This was very nice and atmospheric.
https://www.facebook.com/42907656257/photos/10154257794271258/
This was a good fun gig. Nearly three hours of a single band playing their greatest songs from over twenty years of work. I enjoyed it. I’d happily see them again.
The “scene” wasn’t as alternative as I was expecting. There weren’t that many people who were part of the dress up scene such as the ones at Slimelight or M’Era Luna.
In part of the O2 arena complex there is an exhibition at the moment entitled Star Wars Identities. I went to see it today. The Millenium Dome as people my age remember it, the white elephant of bullshit that cost nearly a BILLION pounds for a year’s worth of exhibition about stuff at the turn of the millennium [although they got the wrong year, it should have been 2001 obviously]. I went to the dome in 2000 and it was shit. Then it lay empty as far as I know and at some point O2 coughed up money and it seems to be a half decent venue. I’ve not seen a band there but I have seen tennis and it was OK for that. The outer part of the arena seems to consist solely of places to buy food.
The exhibition was a little underwhelming. I knew there were going to be outfits, models and robots but I didn’t realise just how much “identity” was going to be in it. It was very nice to see the stuff from the films and I really enjoyed that but I’m not a fan enough to want to see developmental sketches and stuff like that. Just show me the real stuff.
The opening video section was about how Anakin and Luke were both heroes. How the choices they made changed them. And then there was more stuff but I had stopped listening. I just wasn’t interested in trying to shoehorn a reason for this exhibition into the exhibition. It wasn’t necessary. This sort of thing would have been good just by itself.
The best bit was being given a wrist RFID thing that meant I could create my own Star Wars character as I went around. By answering questions and making choices about my fictional life I would end up with a character.
I chose to be a wookie. There were nine other question stations and in the final hall area I could see the chosen character on the wall. I also got an emailed version which will appear below.
There was an expensive lot of tat being sold in the regulation shop at the end of the exhibition. I bought a few things including these glasses.
So, here is my character:
Here is my biography:
I was raised on the gas planet Bespin, where members of my community made their living working as engineers in Cloud City’s reactor core. On holidays my friends and I would traditionally relax in the luxurious floating spas.
My parents raised me with a mix of independence and support, and I inherited my natural abilities from them. Later on I spent some time with the wise Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, whose guidance left me with knowledge I still use every day in my job as a fighter pilot.
I remember this one time when I crash-landed on a strange planet. I didn’t let this affect me too much, though; instead I became a successful trader of scrap metal and found a home among the Jawas.
People often tell me I’m a generally organised and prepared person, I also tend to be adventurous and curious. But the most important thing to me is universalism: after all, as they say, equal rights for all and special privileges for none.
I have only a low sensitivity to the Force, but the Emperor saw potential in me. When he offered me limitless power in exchange for my allegiance, I fought the urge to join him and his evil minions and rejected his offer.
Overall it was expensive for what it was, although I expected that. I remember seeing a Lord Of The Rings exhibition at the Science Museum years ago and that was great. I’m glad I went as I love the photo I took of the Tusken Raider and the view from the cable car.
I also took a trip over the Thames in the cable cars sponsored by Emirates.
The chaos of the Trump press conference yesterday scared the shit out of me. I watched some of it on C-Span and it’s obvious the man is crazy.
He called on Jon Sopel of the BBC to ask a question. Trump then accused the BBC of bias and lies and Jon Sopel replied:
Impartial, free and fair.
Damn right. BBC News might not be the best in the world and it might be annoying to me as I have written about it plenty of times before but it is the BEST that we have in this country. What was worrying about Trump’s comments was that shortly after that I saw tweets where people were backing him up and claiming that the BBC are bad.
Trump launches stinging attack on media. Couldn’t be stinging enough in my view https://t.co/zk6qh1DKT3
— David Vance (@DVATW) February 17, 2017
These people don’t get it. The BBC News isn’t perfect but it is the best we have in this country. It saddens me intensely that there are those who are wrong and blast the BBC at all opportunities.
Some places just make you feel “right” when you get there. I’ve always loved Electrowerkz since seeing Combichrist there a few years ago. It’s a dark and brooding place with a calming courtyard bar:
There are quite a few other bars and rooms and levels but the venue can be turned into smaller venues by cunning closing of routes. The first band on last night we called Lectures. They seemed to me to be like Coldplay, a kind of public school, well written, guitar based music which bored me. At the end of their set Smith decided they sounded more like the Doors. They still bored me.
Would I see Lectures again? No. Was it OK? Yes.
The headliners were Lea Porcelain. When they opened it sounded like Blade Runner music by Vangelis. It was synths with a little bit of nasty, a good start. After that though they kinda settled into what I would call standard dark electric but far away from aggrotech.
I’d watch this band again if they happened to be on somewhere I happened to be but I wouldn’t seek them out. During the set I am sure I heard them say they were from Israel but looking into them a bit it seems they are from Frankfurt so I’m not sure what’s going on there!
While waiting for my fish and chips to cook last night at the world’s most homo-erotic chip shop I saw a magazine with the following advert:
The Young Men’s Christian Association has a Wellness Centre which I guess promotes wellness.
WELLNESS is NOT a DEFINED MEDICAL TERM. Therefore it means fuck all in this context. It’s why promoters of bullshit use the term, because it DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING. Look, I used bold and block caps there! I must be annoyed.
Even the logo looks new-age and bollocks.
Of the services offered at the religious centre (which probably isn’t religious but the name is) some are utter bullshit before we’ve even had to look into them and some are possibly iffy by association. I have looked at their website and I will quote so in the following.
I have rubbished this within these communications and so I can tell you now, it is bollocks. On the website there is information about osteopathy and babies. Just don’t.
They claim to be able to help with
I very much doubt this as there’s no good evidence to show that osteopathy works for anything. They even lost “lower back pain” recently. Have a look at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). God, this makes me so sad.
“Oh but it worked for me/my relation”
No, it probably didn’t. We humans are terrible at separating out what really happens and our experience.
It feels nice. It massages you. It costs you money. They claim it helps you but these are all self-limiting problems and while a massage can do damage it might help you.
Grade A bollocks. They claim it works:
Acupuncture is the insertion of fine needles into the skin at predetermined points to affect the internal levels of energy. It may be deficient, excessive or stagnant and therefore not flowing in the most efficient manner. When energy, called Qi, in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is not in balance then we see symptoms, at all levels. Some symptoms are obvious, such as those affecting the physical, others less so, such as those that affect the emotional and mental.
There is absolutely NO evidence for Qi. In fact different practitioners will use different locations on the body to cure the same thing. It doesn’t work.
Acupuncture and other traditional Chinese medicine was promoted during the Barefoot Doctor scheme the communist government of China so that Doctors, who were short on real medicine, could “do something” to keep people happy even though it clearly didn’t work.
See “massage”. This is all bollocks. Aromatherapy smells nice. Reflexology feels nice. It doesn’t do anything else. The Wellness Centre says:
Boosting the immune system means nothing. Is a good preventative medicine for what? Encourages the body to heal itself, now I’m laughing, such a wishy washy phrase.
This is probably the most important here and possible the one that can the most effect but I would worry about the company that this service keeps and I would prefer to book myself into a proper clinic. Yep, having looked over the website this seems quite legit. It’s just a shame it’s in a house of crap.
This is another that is probably good. Physiotherapy is a protected term and so it should be the real stuff. The problem is it’s hard work and some people obviously want the quick fix of bullshit medicine (see above). The chap’s website looks pretty flash but overall this is the second worthwhile thing on here.
This is bollocks. If you want the proper stuff you go see a DIETITIAN, that is a legally protected term for someone who has qualifications in diet. ANYONE can call themselves a nutritionist because it’s not legally protected. She claims she is a Naturopathic Nutritional Therapist, this fills me with utter fear. Naturopathic is a nonsense term invented to sound great but mean nothing. According to her website she can help with the following:
Some of these things are diet related but I wouldn’t want a quack telling me what I’m allergic to. Proper allergy testing takes a long time. Oh, and notice that Cancer is mentioned in there. Fucking Cancer. from the website:
“There are numerous studies suggesting a link between some foods and certain types of cancer. However, it would be a broad statement to claim that diet can directly cause or treat cancer.”
I can correct her if you want. It would be ILLEGAL to claim to be able to cure cancer. It shows just how fucked up these people are when they make iffy claims.
I know nothing about pilates but isn’t it posh yoga? Just helps you move.
There are more claims on the website of these people and I will cover a few of them here with my crude guide to efficacy.
Food Intolerance Tests – more than likely bullshit.
Hypnotherapy – I’m becoming convinced it’s bullshit.
Neuro Linguistic Programing – bullshit.
And, I’m done. There’s only so much I can take of this bollocks. Look, it says Wellness. It doesn’t mean anything. Don’t go there. It’s in a christian association building for fuck’s sake.