Babylon 5

Babylon 5
Babylon 5

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.

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:

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.

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”.

Brooklands

This particular communication is very delayed. I went to Brooklands in between christmas and new year 2015. It was great. There are plenty of wonderful aircraft, some lovely cars and also motorbikes.

I didn’t take any photos of the planes, which is weird for me, but I did have my kids and so that probably stopped me being as free with a camera as I would have liked to be. I did take some shots of them in cockpits, but they don’t get published here.

I really want to talk about the stratospheric chamber!

The chamber is a “room” that will simulated the conditions at high altitude. This type of research was really important just after the Second World War. Fighters and jet planes were being designed to fly higher and fast and they needed to be tested safely under these conditions.

The Stratospheric Chamber looking like a Star Destroyer
The Stratospheric Chamber looking like a Star Destroyer

It’s the largest in the world and quite fantastic to visit if you know what you are looking at. Just the idea and audacity of building something so large that can simulate those conditions. It is quite a remarkable piece of engineering and well worth seeing. I have a feeling it was only recently declassified and that makes it that much more interesting.

I would love to write loads of stuff here giving details and very interesting things but, unfortunately I don’t have the time at the moment. Also, as this is only eleven months late, I can’t remember the plaques around the design!!

Rams Lose

Yesterday I sauntered to Twickenham. It was time to see another NFL match as part of the NFL International Series. Normally these matches are at Wembley but I was interested to see Twickenham as I had only been there once before for a Bon Jovi concert. I followed Google Maps all the way there, even though that meant going around the North Circular. Once I found the car park I had to allow security people [who I assume know what they are looking for but I doubt it] to look in the boot and under the bonnet of my car. These “security” steps annoy me as they aren’t evidence based.

Then I walked the short distance to the stadium and boy is it a fucking ugly stadium:

I waited for my ticket to arrive and had food. The pre-game show was performed by Craig David, it was shit. Then there was the national anthems and time for the annual “Jason having a moan at Ian” thing. I don’t stand for anthems. I don’t understand why I should. I also don’t get the patriotism associated with anthems. They annoy me. While it has nothing to do with the blacklivesmatter movement I’m not against their movement. I wrote some stuff here. I’ve probably written loads of stuff about my feelings towards patriotism but you can search for it yourself.

The match was interesting. Not the best one I’ve seen but good enough to justify the money I spent on the ticket!

In the final quarter we were hoping that the Rams would score and bring the game to a tie for overtime. That would have been quite exciting. But they threw an interception in to the end zone with about forty seconds to go. Such a shame, but a good afternoon anyway. I supported the Rams as I had previously when I saw them at Wembley. They are the first team I have seen twice. Also, Rich couldn’t be there and he’s a Rams fan so it made sense to support them. I would never support the Patriots. It is quite possible I have seen the Jaguars twice but the following should clear that up.

I am now going to attempt to log the games I have seen so that at least I have some form of record.

2008
San Diego Chargers @ New Orleans Saints [New Orleans won and are my team following this match]

2010
Denver Broncos @ San Francisco 49ers [49ers win]

2011 – I’m reasonably sure I saw the Bears this year, but am not sure.

2012
New England Patriots @ St Louis Rams [Patriots won – boo]

2013
San Francisco 49ers @ Jacksonville Jaguars [49ers won]

2014
Miami Dolphins @ Oakland Raiders [Dolphins won]
Detroit Lions @ Atlanta Falcons [Lions won]

2016
New York Giants @ LA Rams [Giants won]