Category: Vague – where should it go?

Where vague stuff is placed for filing

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Fucking Stairs

So, Sally and I went to the Electrowerkz venue in Islington on Friday 1st May for an AC Club night.

The event started at 20:00 and continued until 06:00 the Saturday morning. We spent most of Friday evening getting ready and then drove in to London where we had booked a parking space via Just Park. The route into London was easy enough and the parking spot was simple to find. After parking we took a three minute walk to Electrowerkz and arrived at around 22:30. It was quite cold but I left my jacket in the car I couldn’t be bothered to carry anything, but this meant I also forgot my hat, which I had spent an hour sewing and embellishing. That was slightly annoying!

Once in the club we wandered around the various rooms to see what was happening. There were three main music rooms, a chill out area and some specialist areas. I’d been to Electrowerkz before to see Aesthetic Perfection and Combichrist. I really like it as a venue, it’s small and dark, it has a real atmosphere about it. Much like cinema seats I would not like to see it in daylight.

The layout of the club required lots of walking up and down awkward stairs. Awkward stairs are ones where the rise/step calculations, while mathematically fine, do not induce a sensible physical step pattern. I was fine as I had big boots on. It turned out that Sally’s shoes were somewhat less comfortable for walking down stairs. She did last until 04:00 in her shoes though which is pretty good going.

The TheatreOfSin had the main stage was quite cold and well air-conditioned so we didn’t spend much time in there. The bars were all pretty nice places and the other two music rooms were full of happy people dancing. The atmosphere was gentlemanly and completely unthreatening. I’ve been to a couple of clubs [literally less than 10] and I often fine the atmosphere quite oppressive and angry. Electrowerkz had a friendly atmosphere and feeling about the place.

The PFI [PureFuckingIndustrial] room created a slight discussion about the music. I would never describe it as dance. I don’t even like calling it dark dance. But, if I am honest with myself, then I would suggest that the songs are constructed in the same way and have many of the same elements. I would then go on to mention that the lyrics are quite possibly as far from happy dance as is possible.

The HELLFIRE room was playing Rammstein when we entered and progress to some Ministry. Definitely the more “metalwith a twist” room. A live feed of the music was played into the Chillout Room which had a tube carriage doubling up as a bar. The Hellfire bar was decked out like the set of the film Alien, it was quite impressive.

At one point I was chatting with Pete. He was impressed with my outfit and also my mark of ownership. Quite randomly a man [who possibly is a member of a famous band] came along and handed Pete a very nice top hat, which then meant that he gave me his top hat.  My hat problem was solved, although there were too many top hats in the club for it to be a cool look. I do need to get a decent top hat though, in time for the M’era Luna festival in the summer.

We left at around 04:30 to get home just as the sun was coming up. Overall it was a really enjoyable night and I am looking forward to doing it again. The recovery time is longer than I can remember from my days at university, but then I am quite old now!

The evening will be remembered for many great and wonderful things, but this communication is entitled “Fucking Stairs” because that’s pretty much all I heard every time we walked from one room to another!

I can’t wait to go again. It was great.

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Thunderbirds Are Go

So people. What I thought of Thunderbirds Are Go:

Quite simple really. I loved it.

TBs

The show looked brilliant. The mix of miniatures and CGI was perfect. For a great example of where this works well you could see Moon. For examples of where just CGI doesn’t work see Star Wars Episodes 1-3. The whole look was organic, more natural than pure CGI.

I have no idea of which Tracy brother is which. I just can’t do similar faces and names. I will probably end up knowing them by colour. Quite clearly Kayo,  Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward and Parker were obvious. The others? No idea. My facial recognition fails me completely.

The vehicles looked and sounded brilliant. I had two “moments”. The first was when TB2 took off from Tracy Island and there were a couple of “boom” sounds that made me shiver. Then, and this is just brilliant, when TB1 flew there were condensation clouds behind shock waves that made my hairs stand on end. Yes, I am that much of a nerd.

TB1a

TB1b

Who cares if the story was over the top, that’s just what we want. Overall, this was a great piece of television. It is something I am really looking forward to sharing with my children The wait for something like this has been too long!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nerd Stuff:

The animators have been very clever. They have given the humans a slightly shiny face in homage to the plastic models of the original series AND at the same time they have avoided falling into the UNCANNY VALLEY. Well done. Any more realistic and people would have felt an urge to throw up and turn off. Also, creating a smooth surface with certain reflective properties saves a ton of rendering time.

If you aren’t sure then think about why in Toy Story ALL the characters have plastic faces [rendering time] and then think about Monsters Inc, only one character has hair, why? Rendering time and computer power. I saw a documentary about Pixar where they essentially said that if they tried to re-create Cars using the computer power available when they made Toy Story the rendering would have taken around 2000 years. Computers are awesome.

 

[I had watched the Reggie Yates documentary called No Strings Attached, but I got bored. It was a modern documentary with reviews and reminders bracketing every advert break and that ruined it. Not worth watching.]

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East Kent Coast

Some pictures from the East Kent Coast.

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Best Bike Trip Ever

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

France 99 Montage
Montage

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

France 99 Departure
France 99 Departure

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

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

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

France 99 Cavaliere
France 99 Cavaliere

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

France 99 St Tropez
France 99 St Tropez

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

France 99 Alpine Pass
France 99 Alpine Pass

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

France 99 Alpine Snowball
France 99 Alpine Snowball

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

France 99 Lake Annecy
France 99 Lake Annecy

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

France 99 Geneva
France 99 Geneva

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

France 99 Alpine Waterfall
France 99 Alpine Waterfall

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

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

Odd memories:

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

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

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Flight Sim Gallery

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

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Amazing

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

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

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Blue Bell Hill

As I ‘ve mentioned before in this forum I do feel lucky to live here. My normal running route now takes in part of the North Downs Area Of Outstanding Natural Beauty. This is a photo I took from the top of Blue Bell Hill overlooking the valley of the Medway.

Kentish View
Kentish View

I think the real view is much prettier, this doesn’t really capture it!

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Wrong and Right

Spot the difference between these two pictures [the lights being on is not the one I’m after]. The top picture indicates a very bad way to leave the car.

IMG_7731.JPG

The following picture shows the correct way to leave a car. There is NEVER any excuse for leaving the wipers in any position other than STOP.

IMG_7732.JPG

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Busy Skies

The weather this morning was cold, calm and crisp. This meant that there were plenty of contrails over the South East of the UK.

IMG_7697.JPG

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Time

I’ve been feeling that I don’t have time to do all the things I want to. I’ve been adding to the “things what I do” list and unfortunately I don’t see a lengthening of the day to allow me to do these things. I think this means that I have to give up or lower my priorities of “things to do”.

Things what I have done regularly:

  • Running
  • Rowing [erg]
  • Listening to podcasts
  • Listening to music
  • Playing Gran Tursimo
  • Watching American Football
  • Watching Babylon 5
  • Write stuff on this website
  • Go to the cinema regularly

New things what I do:

  • Write music
  • Play on the PC
  • Play on the PS4 more
  • Watch Hawaii Five-O
  • Listen to more podcasts
  • Learn new music
  • CCF

I’m not too happy. All of these new things have to be prioritised. I could do with about an extra 4 hours a day to myself. I have to work and look after my family so once that’s all done I get little time to do all the things I want to. I don’t even consider myself to be a busy person. How do you get to do things if you are VERY busy? I don’t get it.

Now, I guess I am lucky that I do get time to do these things and I should be grateful and I think I am. I get to do things that I like doing, I just have to ensure that I balance my time successfully.

I have also come to the conclusion that I need at least an hour of “brain dead time” each day, preferably once the house is nice and quiet. I can cope with less than an hour if planned and I extend the time another evening. Oddly enough some things which I really enjoy don’t count as part of that hour. Gran Turismo is great and I play it a lot [not so much recently]  but it doesn’t count as part of the hour, it’s something I have to concentrate on and work at, the rewards are good. Cinema doesn’t count towards the hour but most TV shows do. I guess that means I need an hour of stuff to watch each day, to keep the brain fresh!

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Disaster Area 10 Oct 2014

Shredder

Disaster Area played a couple of songs at the MGS Arena on the 10 October 2014. This should really be a page under the DA section on MyMusic but I am moving those pages to communications to tidy up my menu etc.

Set List:

  • Symphony of Destruction
  • Highway To Hell

Disaster Area is:

  • Shredder Shillito
  • Destroyer Martin
  • Punisher Parish
  • The Anvil Gymer

Here’s some pictures, if I can get a video I’ll embed it on this page too.

A little later in the gig most of Disaster Area joined Iron Maidstonian to play a couple of Maiden songs:

  • The Number Of The Beast
  • 2 Minutes To Midnight
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Location, Location and a Camera

I spent the day at RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire and while there an RAF Tornado flew past at high speed. I was fortunate enough to take a few photographs, of which the following is the best. I haven’t cropped it or anything. [the other 5 photos were ok-ish].

RAF Tornado

My favourite thing about this shot is that you can see the Navigator/Weapons Officer looking at the ground as they fly by.

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Essex Fog

This communication is much unlike Ronseal products. This IS Essex fog but Ronseal products don’t do what they say on the tin [great marketing though!].

IMG_7541.JPG

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View

I had a run recently, I try to run about three time a week. The running is for two main reasons; keeping fit, eating more. Anyway, I’ve bought an OS map and have investigated other routes I could do in the area of the Medway Gap.

A Run

The views in this area are just stunning. Here’s a picture I took while descending the North Downs.

IMG_7521.JPG
North Downs
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Heuristic

This Fooyah communication is going to deal, on a basic level, with too much stuff. It is part of a series that I have been working up to for a long time explaining the way I think about things and how it is the correct way to think about things. I expect to expand on many of these themes over the coming dark months.

My recent communications including those about Osteopathy, Special K, Multitasking, Losing Mass and my Homoeopathic Discussion have all required a reasonable amount of knowledge and also some research.

I often mention that all claims should be appraised critically. I am not advocating cynicism, merely that we have the right to reserve judgement until we have investigated things ourselves. I think there are some basic areas of life where we can do this with little effort. Most claims on adverts can be investigated to see how they stand up to scrutiny. Claims made by friends can be investigated using the internet and maybe even a library!

I have been listening to sceptical podcasts for about 8 years now, moving from one to another as I hear about new ones. I have heard many discussions about the evidence for certain claims made in all walks of life and I think I have a good grasp of reality. Spending all that time listening to people explain logical fallacies and scientific evidence and how we know what we know has given me a good tool box to use to ask the rights questions and find out for myself. I have also read a number of scientific books explaining the meaning of evidence and the scientific method. Again, these have given me a good understanding of what it takes to be a sceptical thinker. I am, of course, open to biases like all people but I try to use the evidence available to question those and seek what is the real world.

Now, I can’t be an expert in many things, in fact I would argue I am an expert in none. I have developed heuristics. I have tools that I use to shortcut my knowledge process. There are certain people and presenters whom I trust and when they say they have looked at the evidence and come to a certain conclusion then I listen. I understand fully that one day they may be wrong but their credentials are good for now.

I also rely on the self correcting nature of science. About a year ago there was a story that made the news all over the world. Scientists had discovered particles travelling faster than the speed of light. This headline appeared everywhere. I was instantly worried as nothing should be able to travel faster than the speed of light [information can’t if you want to get technical]. The scientists weren’t that sure of their results and had opened the problem out to the press and the world, but it was reported as fact. Over the next year many people investigated it and they found the mistake. The particles hadn’t travelled past Einstein. Was this celebrated in the world’s press as a great achievement of the scientific method? No. It was consigned to page 13 in a tiny paragraph. Science corrects itself, that’s the great thing about it.

If I hear a claim that I think is dubious or not, then I do not pass instant judgement. I will investigate myself if it is approachable and see what the evidence is. If it is beyond my understanding then I will rely on others within the community to offer their understanding of what the evidence is and what that means.

In the case of news reporting around the world it is hard to investigate this myself and so I have to rely on the news organisations. This is why I look at quality broadsheet websites and the BBC website. I often rant about the BBC New service as they are meant to be the best but they fail [in my view] so often. For their “what’s going on in the world” section I have to trust them at the moment. There isn’t really any other news organisation that is comparable. It will be interesting over the next few years as social media tries to form a coherent news machine, but I fear it will be controlled by corporations and governments, restricting the views and news that we see.

We all have heuristics. Mine takes me on a journey of learning to seek the evidence.

The great thing about science is that it is right whether you agree with it or not.

Places to seek the truth:

Read some books:

By Robert Park
Voodoo Science: The Road from foolishness to Fraud (Oxford, 2000)
Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science (Princeton, 2008)

By Carl Sagan
Demon Haunted World

By Ben Goldacre
Bad Science
Bad Pharma

By Michael Shermer
Why People Believe Weird Things

These books will start to give you the mental tools to evaluate and critically appraise information that is presented to you. This is not an easy journey, takes time and is never complete.

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Ongoing Works

This is a picture of a path at RAF Linton-on-Ouse. Either they ran out of money, expect people with very longs legs to use it or are just plain lazy.

Linton Path
Linton Path

Perhaps, as this base is where they train future fast jet pilots, it’s a lesson in looking forward and being aware. All I know is that I don’t understand how this could be considered logical.

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Storm

The 18th July was a good day. It was the end of my twentieth year of my teaching career. It was also the hottest day of the year. My car said 33C at one point.

That night there was also the most almighty storm. I was sitting watching television when it went darker than normal and so I went into the garden. I saw a sight I can tell you. The sun was setting in the west and it was bright in that direction but to the east and south it was dark and foreboding. There was no noise but there was a lot of lightning over towards Maidstone.

Before The Storm
Before The Storm

 

Lightning
Lightning

After a while I could hear what I thought, at first, was rain but it was a slight breeze going through the nearby trees. Then all of a sudden the wind really picked up. It became a constant driving wind and then the rain came, large spots at first and then torrential. The lightning and thunder was just spectacular.

An Evil Arrives
An Evil Arrives

These are two videos I took to show the electric storm over the Weald of Kent.


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It’s A Passat But Not Original

I like my car. It has enough power to be interesting and yet is also comfortable. It is rather family orientated as it’s an estate and full of old sweets and cake crumbs.

Just for fun, here’s a list of things that I’ve had changed on the car because bits broke [I am not listing things you would replace regularly]:

  • Boot door
  • Rear windscreen wiper motor
  • Front headlamp units
  • Rear light units
  • n/s wing mirror (x2)
  • n/s cv boot (x2)
  • both front springs (blame a pot hole)
  • both rear door locks
  • radiator
  • fuel injector on number 4 cylinder
  • Front VW badge

The boot currently contains two bikes, a bass guitar and some shopping bags. What else would you expect?

The wing mirror has some interesting stories [sorry, I wrote interesting, but I meant boring]. The first wing mirror replacement was needed after an incident on Christmas Eve of 2013. There had been storms the day before and various trees were knocked into Pilgrims Way near where I live. Someone had been along and cleared the trees from the road and made the journey passable. Unfortunately at one spot the tree trunk still stuck into the road by about 15cm and perfectly at wing mirror height. The first time I drove this road I noticed this and managed to avoid the tree. However, the next time I drove this way it was dark and my headlights were pretty poor [they’ve since been replaced]. As I came to the point where the tree was sticking out into the road there was a lorry driving towards me and I couldn’t move out to avoid the trunk [to be honest I had forgotten the trunk was sticking out]. I was driving the car in one direction and my wing mirror hit the truck which stubbornly refused to give way or move. My wing mirror was ripped off. A few days later as I drove past this spot I noticed a lot of wing mirrors in the hedgerow, probably in the order of 10s. There were quite a few cars in the village with their nearside mirror broken, I think that tree trunk claimed a number of kills for the week that it stuck into the road.

The next wing mirror I had to replace was because someone drove down the street too fast and clipped my mirror, it smashed the glass and the holding mechanism and so needed replacing again.

The front springs decided to die after I hit a pothole with the near side wheel and this broke the nearside front spring. I didn’t notice this at the time as the car was held up by the off side spring, although I did notice that the car was handling slightly strange. After about a day the off side spring broke on the way to work and for the last few kilometres I was driving without any suspension on the front. The car did not like the speed humps near my place of work and it didn’t like turning corners. It did look rather cool though as the front end was lowered by a few inches! A truck was called and the car got fixed [for a very tidy sum – from the garage’s point of view].

There are a few things I am expecting to need replacing over the next year or so [although I will get a newer car in 18 months so I am hoping that these bits last that time].

  • Driver’s door locking mechanism
  • Driver’s door window (it doesn’t work which makes getting car park tickets interesting)
  • n/s differential or front n/s bearing
  • Air intake trunking

Sometimes I hear a new rattle or noise from the car but I fix that by turning the stereo up a little bit more! That way my car is always working properly.

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