Vague – where should it go? – Page 7 – Fooyah

November 6 2016

Mille

This is communication number One Thousand. This one kinda snuck up on me, I had noticed over the summer that I was close and then forgot for a while but I have been thinking about what to write here for about a month and had absolutely no clue. A lot of this communication is repeated somewhere else within this site as it seems sensible for some reflection of: Operation Parish On The Web.

I am often amused by the response at work to the phrase “on my website”. The response is often “you have a website?”. I’m not entirely sure why the response is phrased that way, because, as becomes clear, the responder often uses Faceshit loads. What is Faceshit other than a way for everyone to have a presence on the web. A method for letting their friends know what they are up to? A way of publicly displaying the version of us who we want people to see. Faceshit is easy. It’s something I don’t really do.

I started editing web pages in 1994 when I was involved with Imperial College Union. I maintain the pages for the student union for about six months. After that I did nothing until around 1999 when I decided to have a web site. I have owned the following domains over the years:

www.ianparish.me.uk

www.iparish.org.uk

I used those in the days before social media. I have used various programs for creating the code including Frontpage, which I hated. Over time I wanted to have a domain name that actually meant something to me rather than just my name. Hence Fooyah.net you can see why I chose that here. This website was started in June 2011. Initially I tried to use Joomla and while I could see how it worked I couldn’t spend that amount of time to get it right and wanted something a little more user friendly. I chose WordPress and have used that ever since. My very first communication is linked here it’s not very interesting.

My general policies on this website are:

Write stuff about what I do
Write stuff about what I think
Write whatever I want about nerdy stuff
Not to include “state of mind” information
Not to write about emotions and shit
Not to delete anything, but to openly edit if necessary
I will use the language that reflects who I am

As with all web-based stuff this site only really shows the part of me I am happy having in the public domain. I am acutely aware of the fact that anyone can look at this site and draw whatever conclusions about me that they want. I don’t really include family stuff directly, I don’t really moan about work and I try not to slag off individuals. I will try to defend my position on things but I’m not very eloquent at that. Reading this is like reading the stream of my consciousness and that doesn’t often make for easy comprehension. But, what you see is what you get.

Sometimes in the history of this site my general well-being can be inferred by the type and number of communications but then sometimes I don’t publish much because I just don’t have the time. I am able to look over this site and see how I have been and those close to me can figure it out. Everyone goes through rough times in their life and this public web thing means we don’t show that. You can read this and figure out my quite obvious views on religion, science and politics but you shan’t know me!

Earlier I wrote the word Faceshit. That particular social media site is one that I don’t regularly use. It disturbs me somewhat at how ubiquitous it is. There’s an awful lot of information out there on people who possibly wouldn’t want that out there. I like to think that I’m reasonably with it, and when a new service starts I tend to investigate it and then decide if it will add anything to my life, normally it won’t so I don’t bother with it. I have communication routes with my friends through different methods and these work for me:

Rich – twitter, Fooyah and meeting up
Jase – phone and meeting up
Jim, Andy and Daryl – Whatsapp
Andy – Twitter and Fooyah
Jo – Twitter
Mazza – meeting up
Andrew – text

[Not all friends listed, don’t be offended if you aren’t there] A lot of my friends aren’t on Faceshit I guess that makes it easier [also, I have too many friends named Andrew perhaps I’ll have to cull one!]. I do have a Facebook account, not in my name but I use it to follow a couple of groups who don’t have a presence anywhere else. This annoys me a little but I guess FB is convenient for a lot of people. My twitter account was started to follow more information about Formula One and it grew for me into a more political resource.

So, more stuff, about me. My views, my thoughts [edited for public consumption]. When I started this site I wrote this about me:

Geeky maths teacher who likes motorsport, NFL, cricket, film, proper music and PS3.
Like Battlestar Galactica and West Wing, Megadeth and AC/DC, New Orleans Saints, Miami Dolphins, Essex and England cricket.

This is what my Twitter profile said originally and I didn’t update it for a long time. I have recently changed it to the following:

Geeky, sweary, skeptical maths teacher who likes NFL, motorsport, aggrotech, PlayStation, running, planes and science. Kinda fascinated by everything.

This seems more appropriate for the recent me. People and tastes change over time and this is me at the moment. I’m sure it’ll change again, slowly as I discover more about this world. I am currently an angry atheist, politically left leaning humanist. I try to live my life by the following principles:

Look after yourself
Be nice
Speak openly about what you believe, discuss with people
Try to do good [as defined by humanist principles rather than religion]
There are RIGHT answers and you can find them

Time to stop this particular stream of consciousness now. I will probably look back over this and try to make sense of it and maybe edit it. If this page is edited then I will use strike-through to show where that happens, apart from spelling and grammar mistakes. If I change my mind, it will be published.

November 5 2016October 17 2017

Emperor and a King

A recent trip to the Lake District prompted me to head northeast slightly and visit Carlisle Airport. After a short while there nerding over aircraft I headed to see a wall and a tower. Before regaling you with that story I want to point out that this is communication 999. Which means the next one published will be my 1000th communication. Although technically I only decided to call them communications a while after I had started publishing so the 1000 isn’t exactly accurate.

The guys at the Solway Aircraft Museum suggested visiting Lanacost Priory as there was a nice tea room there. As it wasn’t far I tootled over and had some lunch. I could have walked to the priory and had a look but to be honest I wasn’t bothered, the pictures showed it to be some ruins so I left and headed up the road to see Hadrian’s Wall. This was one of those things that is buried in the consciousness of people in this country. We hear from a young age about the wall and I’m pretty sure the Scots go on about it as though they are a proud and pure race [see the “No True Scotsman” fallacy]. I only wanted to see a little of the wall, to say I’d seen it.

It was actually quite impressive to stand on something roughly two thousand years old. At least I can now say I’ve been there and seen it.

Not that far away was the chance of a tantalising look at RAF Spadeadam, which was also mentioned by the Solway guys. Spadeadam was where the UK based its rocket research during the 1950s and is now used as an electronic warfare centre. As you can see from the wall photo the weather was quite foggy and suitable for visiting this part of the world. I knew Spadeadam was in a forest and so I drove following Google Maps, my signal did die at some point! The fog drew in closer and I passed a sign warning of no trespassing, then finally there was this sign:

I chose to turn around. I decided to visit another time. I didn’t want to get arrested and explain I was just driving there for a look and a selfie at the gates. This was the only road in the area and it ends at Spadeadam. Time to head to Scotland.

You know you are in Scotland when there are coach loads of US tourists and a massive thistle staring at you. I snuck over to Gretna Green and luckily managed to avoid getting married [only £35]. I wandered slowly around the Blacksmiths Shop in Gretna completely aware that it was a tourist trap and nothing particularly special. It was pretty poor in all honesty. I didn’t like it. Next time I escape England and head to the land north of us I will go to the Devil’s Porridge museum and try to see a different part of the Land Of The Brave [didn’t the Scots have that before the USA?].

If you go to Gretna you will see a wedding.

After a brief invasion of Scotland where else is there to go apart from a memorial to a King who is known as the Hammer Of The Scots [although he didn’t succeed]. Also, he is the baddie in the film Braveheart, but that is mostly bullshit so not worth worrying about. Longshanks died of dysentery while encamped in the marshes of the Solway and there is a memorial to him there. This memorial is in England and perhaps, if it was in Scotland, it wouldn’t be in such good condition. It is meant to mark the exact spot he died which more than likely means it doesn’t.

It’s a bleak place, but also gorgeous. The clouds were low and the mist was covering the hills in both directions. Is it worth a visit? Not really, only to say that you’ve been there and seen it.

There we are, a day’s tour of the north west of England and a little bit further than that. I now have to go away and consider what my 1000th communication will be about.

November 1 2016October 13 2018

XJ823

This is the second communication in an occasional series about the Avro Vulcan there are other communications here and here. In January time I went inside XM655 and saw it was good. While in the Lake District recently I decided to sneak to Carlisle Airport and the Solway Aviation Museum. It was a foggy cool day, quite the opposite from the previous day when I had walked Helvellyn.

There were a couple of buildings with the usual paraphernalia nicely set out and some interesting stuff on the UK Space Programme and RAF Spadeadam. Outside the aircraft were nice but they do need to be inside, it’s a shame to see these beasts getting weathered, if only we had access to a warm dry boneyard.

The people running the museum were chatty and interesting. They pointed me to the Devil’s Porridge Museum which I will visit another time!

The photos would more more alive if the sun had shone a little! There were two planes which allowed access to the cockpits, the Canberra and the Sea Prince. The Sea Prince was used as a navigation trainer for the Royal Navy and that is why the seats in the cabin are set out that way.

There’s a certain smell that emanates from inside aircraft, a mix of oil, electrics and age.

Once I had toured these I was allowed to get inside the Vulcan which is always an enjoyable experience. I think people who make films about aircraft need to get in a real plane. They quite often make their planes with plenty of room to move around without realising the claustrophobic nature of cockpits.

If you are into aircraft then the Solway Aviation Museum is well worth a visit. Good value for money and the chance to get inside some of the planes.

October 30 2016August 14 2018

Helvellyn

On 28 October I decided, after reviewing the weather, that I would attempt to scale Helvellyn the third tallest mountain in England. By attempt I mean that I would either get to the top or turn around very quickly, there aren’t that many escape routes. I parked the beast in Glenridding and check my equipment. Then I sauntered purposefully towards Mires Beck. I had planned to contour around Birkhouse Moor but in retrospect I shouldn’t have because I will need to head back there to complete that fell.

At the Hole-In-The-Wall I chose the Striding Edge route. This was more ridge-like and climbing than I had expected and I made sure that I slowed down and was thinking through everything carefully. It was a long way down both sides to either Red Tarn or Nethermost Cove and it would hurt, a lot.

Striding Edge and Red Tarn with Helvellyn hidden.

Striding Edge was mostly clear but with quite a wind chill and the cloud base was above the ridge but below Helvellyn. Parts of this ridge were challenging and I was always aware that my phone didn’t really have any signal, there weren’t many other people out either. Once the ridge was completed I had to find a way up the last scramble to the top. I saw the memorial to the airmen who landed a plane on top of this plateau.

I had planned to walk back via a route near Raise, but chose to take the slightly shorter route down Swirral Edge and take in Catstye Cam. Had I stayed atop Helvellyn for about twenty minutes longer I would have had lovely clear weather up there. When I got to Catstye Cam the whole area was clear. After that it was a slog along good paths back to Glenridding.

While I was walking I realised two things. One, I don’t like uneven steps made of stones, I’m much happier taking many little steps along a smooth path. Two, my left knee doesn’t like going down hill. The second thing was more a memory than a new thought. I have done plenty of hill walking to know my physical limits.

Now I am tempted with completing all the Wainwrights. I have no idea how long it would take me.

Some additions:

I heard RAF jets on my ascent. But I didn’t see them. This is about the fifth time I’ve heard planes but not seen them. I should probably get to the Mach Loop sometime.

Here are my walking statistics for the day, although they don’t include any information about altitude:

October 7 2016October 17 2017

Psych

I recently completed watching the entire run of Psych. That might make it sound like I did a complete binge-watch of eight seasons but I have completed the show over seven years. I watched some on terrestrial TV, I recorded some from ITV4 and I also bought the DVDs when I got to the last four series.

After nearly seven years I have finished Psych. It’s helped me through kids, divorce and down times. Thanks guys. @DuleHill

— Ian Parish (@iparish) October 6, 2016

I have enjoyed the show thoroughly. It is well acted, written and photographed. I consider it a good use of my time. Like many of the TV shows I have loved it mixed developed characters with fun, jokes and seriousness. I even sat on my sofa and laughed out loud on occasions. Dulé Hill and James Roday were perfect in the lead roles and this is the second series I have watched with Dulé Hill, the previous being The West Wing, a show that left me with similar feelings to this one. Anyway, Mr Hill responded to my message:

@iparish 👊🏾 Boom

— Dulé Hill (@DuleHill) October 6, 2016

So this was a nice touch from someone who I assume is a nice person. However, I would also add that I have no wish to meet my heroes as they would all too easily disappoint.

In other news, but not new news, as this happened ages ago I got followed on Twitter by John Forbes Nash. Yes, that John Forbes Nash. I have no idea why he followed me or how he found me on Twitter. I was quite excited by this. I was also very saddened when he died in May 2015.

September 17 2016October 13 2018

Northwest Passage

The title of this communication does not refer to the more frequent sea passage in the Northwest of the globe. The fact that this passage is becoming a more regular occurrence should scare the fuck out of all of you. Anthropogenic Global Climate change is happening and the speed is increasing. The biggest problem is that all the damage has been done already. Because the effects are long term and not pleasant and will cost a fucking fortune to sort out it’s not the sort of thing politicians really want to talk about. As far as I can tell this planet is fucked. It isn’t going to get solved and our grandchildren will be suffering as a result of this. Fuck the self-interested assholes who “govern” the countries. Fuck them and the short-termism of politics.

The bit in the middle of the map, bounded by the river, the A229 and the two motorways is a lovely area to live in. I have written about it before see this communication. To get to Snodland, which the Post Office thinks is the best place to take my parcels, is a 9 or 12 mile journey ONE WAY. This is largely because of the river and the location of bridges over the river.

A new village is being built on brownfield site in the three villages area. There will soon be four in the valley. While I understand the need for more housing I do think the character of the valley villages is going to be ruined. Currently the villages are largely working class Victorian homes built for the workers of Burham Brick Works. There’s a certain look and feel to the villages. The brand new village will be large, expensive homes. My chip on my shoulder is back! I have found myself getting annoyed recently at the stratification of society and the problems that causes. Anyway, back to the journey to the post office lest this writing become another rant about the uselessness of politicians and the social engineering they mess with [along with fucking the planet].

Part of the deal for these new houses was a new bridge to be built. This will allow most of the traffic of the new village to not go past the junction to my village. But in reality that’s bullshit. What may happen is that the local country roads become over run with people cutting through along the bottom of the Downs. We shall see. My village is already planning a zebra crossing because of the expected extra traffic.

The new bridge is in place and opened recently. I drove over it this evening and took a photo. Already the road seems busier [anecdote and confirmation bias]. I will run that way tomorrow. Normally running along that stretch I would be passed by about 3-4 cars during the mile I am on that road. It will be interesting to see what happens. While I like the idea of the bridge I am not happy about what it means for those who live around here.

So I now have to spend the next few months behind non locals who think the road [at the split] is two way because they haven’t paid attention. My patience could be tested.

I will keep you chaps updated about what happens. I predict a serious crash at the Bull Lane / Pilgrims Way junction within a year and then traffic lights or a mini roundabout will be installed.

August 30 2016January 29 2022

Edge Of The Isle

A part of the summer’s tour was to visit the West Country to see friends. As I’ve been driving around quite a bit I found some radio series to listen to. I already listen to podcasts and I do that mostly when I am running so I wanted other things to listen to while driving. I had an audio book version of Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan and then I listened to all of Cabin Pressure, a radio situation comedy by John Finnimore. Cabin Pressure is brilliant and so very well written, I’d recommend it to all.

I spent two nights at the Kilna Guest House just on the edge of Tideford. This is a few miles along from crossing the Tamar bridge and so is definitely in Cornwall.

On my first night there I went to see a film in Plymouth at the Vue cinema, I watched David Brent. On the first full day in Cornwall I has a quick run around the lovely countryside.

After that I then met with my good friend Jamie and he had a surprise first activity for us. We travelled a small distance along the A38 to Adrenalin Quarry. For a relatively small sum we were able to launch ourselves off the top edge of the quarry and fly down the zip line for 490m.

It was pretty good fun and there was a video service available so we decided to do the whole thing again. Having looked into zip wires a little bit there’s one in Wales which is a mile long! I would really like to do that one. At the end of the Adrenalin zip wire we were about one metre above the lake travelling at 40 miles per hour.

The set up at Adrenalin Quarry was very professional and one of the best outdoor activity centres I have been to. I was very impressed and the technology was impressive. To get the video I just needed a code number for their website which was printed on a wrist band. Inside the wrist band was an RFID chip which I placed near a reader just before we launched off the platform. It all worked very well.

Later that afternoon the full-on sport experience continued with frisbee golf at Mount Edgcumbe House on the opposite side of the Tamar from Plymouth. We bumped into more experienced players of frisbee golf and they had different frisbees for different distances and conditions, it was quite an impressive set up and just a little nerdy!

I have been around the grounds of Mount Edgcumbe a number of times but never actually inside [I’m not even sure if you can see inside] maybe next time I will go inside and have a nose around. Now that I’ve seen inside a few of these old houses they do seem similar and less impressive the more I see!

That evening was a meal in Saltash and then back to the guest house for sleep. I didn’t run the next morning but instead got ready to drive across the county towards the end of lands. I have other friends in Camborne and so listened to more of Cabin Pressure along the way. This was my first time to Camborne and I was curious as when I was at college the Royal School of Mines had a traditional rivalry with Camborne School of Mines and so I have been aware of this place since the early 90s!

While having a bit of an overview of the road map I noticed a monolith along the way and so I thought I should probably divert to see it. According to Wikipedia it is the largest prehistoric monolith in Cornwall. At the top of St Breock Downs I thought it’d be worth seeing.

In the picture you can see the monolith and the Beast! I managed to take a photograph of the side without a graffiti penis! According to my OS map app there was also a trig point nearby and so I walked the short distance to that also.

The roads heading to the monolith were “classic” Cornish roads as they were single track two way roads with very few passing points. After this I stopped off for a coffee at “Cornwall Services” and then kept going to Camborne.

Later that afternoon a trip to the beach was required. It wasn’t cold nor too hot and there were sunny intervals. I didn’t take a hat and so I got burnt on my head. I should have known better.

Clearly the southern most point of this island beckoned and the next day we travelled to the Lizard via a short time in the viewing area of RNAS Culdrose to see what was happening. We were quite lucky as there were about four Hawks doing their thing in the skies along with one Sea King. The Hawks were quite loud but not as good as the Tornados seen at RAF Marham. They were practising landings by performing touch and goes. Hopefully there’ll be F-35s here soon as they prepare for duties on the carriers.

Hawk RNAS Culdrose — Hawk, RNAS Culdrose

Pub lunch at Lizard and a stroll around the lighthouse and southern most point. It was very pleasant and lovely weather. One day I might have to order some pasties to get that authentic Cornish taste here in Kent.

Later that day we visited a monument on top of a hill near Camborne and from this vantage point you can see the impact that mining had on the landscape. There are small industrial buildings dotted around the place with chimneys clearly visible.

And so the trip was over. The journey home was smooth enough. The roads were flowing quite well until the M25 which was to be expected. This was the last big trip of my summer although I have still to write about the biggest so keep an eye open for that!

July 26 2016July 26 2016

Kentish Garden

Took a trip out to Sissinghurst in deepest darkest Kent. It’s a National Trust garden and although billed as a Castle Garden, there wasn’t much of a castle.

It was a nice few hours spent wandering around and see stuff. As someone who isn’t that bothered by plants I guess some of it was lost on me at a deep level. There were plenty of people stopping and smelling and touching the flowers but I didn’t. Yes, they look nice but I’m just not interested.

Here’s a gallery of green.

On a walk around the lakes there was a little door in the bank. How strange.

There did seem to be quite a few German visitors and this pleased me, the Germans coming over and spending their money, although granted it’s not as much money as before the referendum.

July 23 2016October 17 2017

Kent Views

Not a great deal of writing with these. Here’s Maidstone bridge over the Medway.

Here’s another Medway bridge this time it’s for the M2 and railway (three bridges really).

Now a picture of a lavender field. There’s another one next to the A229 and from the corner of my eye it looks like an uphill lake!

Finally, here’re some boats, just because.

July 17 2016October 17 2017

New Wheels

Consider the state of these:

I thought it was time to change them. I think I’ve had them for about 2 years and so they have probably done around 1000 miles! So I bought some new trainers. These ones are nice and bouncy!

Let’s see how long these ones last!

June 3 2016October 13 2018

Black Widow

Went to look around Rochester Castle and Cathedral. I’d not been in the cathedral before and I was impressed, but then that’s the point of them. They are meant to intimidate you into believing a load of bollocks. It was strange as the organ was being tuned up and so added a creepy scary atmosphere. I mean, more of a creepy atmosphere than a whole building dedicated to the murder of a Jew, who possibly didn’t even exist.

So, there was a submarine in the river. This was somewhat of a surprise as I’d never noticed it before.

A quick Google tells me this is U-475, a Soviet era submarine called Black Widow. I could write stuff here but you could just visit the Wikipedia page here. Apparently this sub has been here for over ten years, but I have to say she’s not always been moored off Strood or I would have definitely noticed her before now. It’s an impressive sight. Not quite as impressive as the Raid On The Medway must have been, those pesky Dutch!

Rochester Bridge got in touch via Twitter:

@iparish and a nice inclusion of our Old Bridge too

— Rochester Bridge (@RochesterBridge) June 2, 2016

It’s the cathedral. Lovely but useless.

May 23 2016

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I ordered a lanyard via Amazon and had an email from the company supplying the lanyard. It made me wonder!

At least I know it cost me ~GBP15. I’d love to try and submit this to a tax official!

February 11 2016July 22 2021

XM655

Wellesbourne Airfield in Warwickshire. Home to a flying school, a Saturday market and an AVRO VULCAN: XM655.

This Vulcan is the most complete of all the Vulcans remaining. Although XH558 was the last airworthy Vulcan they had to remove stuff from it to get the airworthiness certificate. Hence, XM655 is more complete and still does high speed taxi runs.

I wrote about XH558 here when I saw her perform for the last time over Coventry airport.

I think the most amusing thing about XM655 is that when it was bought from the RAF it landed at Wellesbourne, but the runway isn’t long enough for it to take off again. That does seem a touch short sighted.

If you get the chance on a Saturday to visit you most definitely should. For a donation the members of the preservation society will give you a tour of the cockpit and tell you wonderful stories about the Vulcan and her history. Did you know that all the money went into the airframe and so the navigation equipment was pretty much the same as the Lancaster? For long flights the crew had a sextant.

With a crew of five, but only two ejector seats there were “design” issues I guess. The three crew facing backwards had to jump out through the entrance door in the floor. That was probably an issue when flying low!

So, the Vulcan is a beautiful plane. It’s very loud and imposing. I am curious as to how good it was compared to other planes of its generation. We Brits love to imagine that our stuff is the best. I just wonder how much that is true.

This beast is graceful and wonderful. I am glad she never was used for her intended mission.

November 30 2015

iPhone Lock Screen

If you read my communications regularly then you will be aware that I spend some of my time in the Midlands. Mostly the West Midlands but I’m not sure where the divide is.

Way back in May I went with Sally to the Stockton Locks on the Grand Union Canal. Here’s a Wikipedia page about it all. The locks are quite impressive and the pub near them, The Blue Lias, was very nice too.

I also have been to Hatton Locks, which are part of the Grand Union Canal. These are even more impressive. There was a pub nearby but we didn’t go in as we were heading home from Packwood House and it was raining and cold.

I have been very impressed with the industrial history of the Midlands and as much as I knew that existed it is nice to see it in person and appreciate it more.

Anyway, I decided to change the lock screen on my iPhone to a picture of locks. I initially had this picture of Stockton Locks.

However I now have this picture of Hatton Locks as my lock screen.

I will tell you that every time I look at this screen I chuckle. My lock screen is a series of locks.

November 12 2015February 13 2017

Kent By Car

I have some good friends. Back in the summer a good friend, AG, leant me his Mazda MX5 for a weekend. I think I picked it up on a Friday evening and then returned it late afternoon on the Sunday. I would have to say that it is a great little car, really fun to drive. Sally and I explored the countryside around Kent and also took a trip into London.

So, we bombed around Kent. I drove the car out and about and we went to Scotney Castle. It was pretty good weather while we were there, but we didn’t go into the Castle itself as we would have to pay around £14 each. We did walk around the grounds and suffered a short while with fine rain.

It was soon lunchtime and so we drove to the Three Chimneys pub near Biddenden. The Mazda looked good in the car park. Lunch was nice, I had Welsh Rarebit and Sally had a posh sausage roll.

After that we visited the Biddenden Vineyard shop to purchase some of their fine cider. I had been persuaded to try some of this by Sally. I’d never really enjoyed cider before, especially from the pub, I just didn’t like it. This real cider from a decent maker was really tasty. When leaving the car park for the vineyard I *may* have wheel spun and also handbraked a turn a little, you know, just for kicks.

From there we drove through the fine countryside of Kent towards a hairdressers shop in Parkwood, Maidstone. Sunday morning was going to be interesting and Sally wanted to make sure her hair looked awesome.

Sunday was a special-get-up-early day. We had to get ready for a photoshoot in London. For some reason, mainly my exhibitionism, we had met a photographer at a club night and she wanted to expand her portfolio and offered us a free photoshoot. This took a while and plenty of emails to arrange but organise it we did. We dressed, did make up and checked hair before driving in the Mazda to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. We had to keep the roof of the car up for most of the journey else hair would have been blown around and looked bad.

We found [free] parking and met Marisa, our photographer. We then spent about 2 hours posing in various locations around the square. Onlookers aplenty were staring and some cheeky fuckers (mostly men) even took photos of us (or mostly of Sally) as we posed in the street. The results of the official photos are stunning and we are both really happy. We will be ordering some for the walls.

As the photos were now complete we decided to tour around parts of London with the roof down. I had sunglasses on so my make up didn’t show too much and Sally wore extra clothes to keep warm. We toured around the Embankment, Trafalgar Square but we couldn’t get to Buckingham Palace as The Mall was closed.

After wandering around London we drove home and got changed. It wasn’t long until it was time to give the car back. It was great fun to have and drive around. I want to do it again, or maybe buy my own.

We plan to explore the Midlands and Cotswolds and so a Mazda would be very good for this. I’ll have to ask AG if I can borrow it again! Maybe even for a week!

November 3 2015June 1 2017

Treasure Hunting

I’ve been doing something at weekends to keep me busy and outdoors seeing parts of the countryside!I first heard about geocaching at work where I had helped a colleague solve some puzzles. I hadn’t really thought much about it until recently when I was persuaded to have a go with Sally.

We started geocaching around Rugby, just to see what it was like and what we could expect. We have since done quite a bit and seen some lovely places around the country, mostly with the excuse of going there to find some caches.

Current places we have been to just for the cache:

Dunchurch
Ryton Waters
Baginton
Buttermere
Herne Bay
Mote Park
The Fosse Way
Claybrooke Magna and Claybrooke Parva
Coombe Abbey

As you won’t know as I think my status picture will update, I am currently on 99 finds. I’d like the next one to be special but I doubt it is going to be that, probably a boring cache.

Anyway, it’s good fun and a good reason to get out and about.

May 30 2015May 31 2015

Units

I have some new proposed SI units for you to use. I think you should use them liberally because language evolves and changes over time so these could be commonplace in the next couple of decades. Both of these units have been developed with Sally.

THE WARDROBE

The wardrobe is an integer measurement with an upper and lower bound for determining the minimum number of romantic dates before new clothes must be purchased because clearly outfits can’t be repeated. The symbol for the wardrobe is:

][

This unit is quite person specific and covers the following range:

Lower bound – the number of complete clothing outfits that can be worn given that no single item of clothing may be worn twice.

Upper bound – the number of clothing outfits that can be worn given that any complete combination can’t be used twice.

As an example consider the following rather basic wardrobe contents:

7 different pairs of socks (socks of same colour and style count as 1)
5 different pairs of pants (pants of same colour and style count as 1)
4 different shirts
5 different pairs of trousers
6 different pairs of shoes/boots

Given this situation then clearly:

This person can only wear the four different shirts before they need repeating. It doesn’t matter what else that person owns. The upper bound is simply calculated as the product of the number of items in each group that can be considered as being fully dressed for a romantic date.

As you can see the ][ unit has a wide range. The minimum is merely equal to the fewest items of a clothing category. The upper bound, because of combinatorics, becomes quite large, quite quickly.

example question:
I own shoes, pants and onesies. If determine how I organise my wardrobe.

Solution:

4823 = 13 x 371
371 is product of two primes, namely 53 and 7.
Therefore you have either have 53 sets of pants or 53 sets of onesies. Either way I would suggest that you use a pack of playing cards, with one joker included, attached to your clothing to organise the items in a wardrobe.

THE FUCKTON

This unit developed out of the need to describe large quantities where previous units and measurements had failed. It may be clearly seen that the etymological derivation of this unit comes from a portmanteau of fuckloads and tons. This unit is not specifically a measure of mass, but could be used as such. The fuckton is used primarily to give a sense of more than “very much”.

The symbol for the fuckton is:

The fuckton should be used as a non-specific answer to questions where the term “a lot” doesn’t quite give the correct impression.

How many raindrops fall on the UK over a year?

How much does middle lane driving annoy you?

If you go in the express petrol lane, how wrong is it to then pay in the shop?

How many colours are there in a rainbow?

To give a sense of scale I think it is necessary to indicate what size the number is that a fuckton could represent. The fuckton is defined as the total number of Lego bricks ever made. So the current value of a fuckton is:

This, we believe, to be an extremely useful unit of measurement. The difficulty associated with a changing definition is outweighed by the usefulness of the value.

By the way, a Fuckton << googal.

May 13 2015

Heading to J-Day

I am sure you are aware that J-Day is on August 29 1997. This is the date that Skynet becomes self aware. I have seen the future and it scares me. This morning I tried to print a file at work. My computer declared there had been a printer error and so I went to the office to see what was wrong.

This is what my printer said to me:

It would appear that the new computer understands that it needs to commit suicide and then arise again to fulfil it’s purpose. Perhaps it has been programed by Buddhists. It’s almost refreshing that a piece of software “understands” that there are some situations where a re-boot is necessary.

This would only have been made cooler if the little screen had a copy of the classic blue screen of death. I would have laughed, a lot.