"Nothing but the rain"
I did a Gran Turismo Race Challenge. There were three laps around the Willow Springs Horse Thief Mile.
On the last corner I missed the tarmac and hit a bump, it was a big bump. The car launched into the sky. I managed to take some photos during the replay. They are below. A good thing is that I don’t know how the car landed. I launched and then passed the finish line in the air and so the race finished!
There have been legal reasons for a change in the status of my commission. I used to have a RAF VR(T) commission and currently still do but it will run out, have passed on at some point in the near future. My commission is now also, but soon to be solely, a Cadet Forces Commission. Not a great deal changes but my rank slides have changed and I no longer have lovely gold pins on my rank slides.
I now have exactly two sets of rank slides. One set are wedgewood blue and the other are colour matched to my jumper. The problem is that I have different jackets that are different shades of blue.
I spent the weekend at RAF Honington for a competition the CCF had been selected for. It was good fun even though I spent most of Saturday with a migraine and in bed. I did manage to watch them become best dressed in the organisation and also saw their drill routine.
Belated congrats to Maidstone Grammar School CCF (RAF) Section on winning uniform inspection at National Drill Championship. You did your school proud.
— Comdt AC (@ComdtAC) November 26, 2017
Here’s a few pictures of a proud base:
Sorry there’s not a great deal in this communication.
Last night I had dinner at the Hope and Anchor [lovely little pub and very nice] not far from the O2 Arena. I met up with friends, one of whom was over from the States, and chatted and moaned and then got locked in a prison transfer van.
The friend from the States was stuck in business meetings and the remaining four of us walked the short distance from the pub to Bunker 51 to experience an escape room challenge. We were put in overalls along with hand and foot cuffs and then given an hour to escape from a prison van using clues and ingenuity. We didn’t make it. We had one last clue to solve and just failed to escape. We were gutted. However, we were told that only 11 teams had managed to escape in the time this room had been running. Still not happy we didn’t make it. The current record is 3-1.
While I walked from the car park to the pub and venue the city was looking gorgeous. I took some photos.
![All This Will Go [post Brexit]](http://fooyah.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/20171115_221414900_iOS-1024x768.jpg)
This is a lovely photo:
Last night was one of those events I had been looking forward to for quite a while. Nachtmahr were playing a gig to celebrate 10 years in business and it was happening at Electrowerkz. I really like Electrowerkz, it’s a dingy little club in Angel with a small venue for concerts. I’ve been here before. This time I travelled with my niece and met Smith there.
Outside the door is a sign saying Hadley’s Hope. Inside it’s black and reminiscent of the landing site in the film Aliens, called Hadley’s Hope. There’s a bar decorated in a very Giger way.
Bands playing were:
We arrived near the end of the set for the first band so I shan’t comment. The Biomechanimal set was . . . not marvellous. They had a keyboardist pressing buttons on a bass guitar looking device, the bassist was busy but I couldn’t hear what she was playing and the singer was screaming so I couldn’t really hear what he was saying. I would say they were an industrial dance band with heavy overtones but I’m not sure they were any good. Fair enough if some people like their music but it didn’t really do a great deal for me.
Third band on the bill were DKAG, who I’ve seen before a couple of times. It’s very dance. Well constructed but a little boring with no lead singer to interact with. We went to the bar.
Finally, Nachmahr were on. I saw them at M’era Luna a few years ago and was slightly underwhelmed. This time though they were great. One “programmer” and the lead singer is all it took. The music was hard fast beat Austrian industrial and it was great fun. Really enjoyed it.
Some songs are in German, some in English. Rainer spoke in both. This was well worth missing a multitude of fireworks and bonfires celebrating the state sponsored death of a Spanish Catholic. Over all this rated about an 8 on the official scale of 0-10. I thin kthe Combichrist gig a few years ago got a 9.9 from me and so using that scale gives this gig an 8.
After the final song the venue was shifted around a little to be turned into the Slimelight club. The bar downstairs was opened and the BBQ started. I took a picture of the full moon glowing through the roof:
Finally, here’s a picture of three people at a bar:
After watching Blade Runner 2049 for the second time it was late at night and I was driving home. There’s a paper mill near me, there were two but one shut down and I suspect it will turn into housing soon. The other seems to be working well and has expanding recently. The original location of these next to a major waterway made sense after the war. This area used to make bricks and cement but is slowly changing to a mostly expensive housing area rather than making stuff.
There is a need for communities to make stuff and to be based near things where tangible things are made. You can’t fill whole swathes of the country with just housing for all the people who work away. I see so much of the land around me going to housing when more is needed for enterprise and making things. Society doesn’t just exist or work because of people living there, you need decent work for locals too [spot the socialist].
Last night when I took these photos it was misty and the light was lovely. Here’s the current paper mill, Smurfit Kappa.
The colours here were just beautiful and the way the steam and water vapour was drifting over the sky made this stand out. The darkness surrounding the plant broken by the light of the manufacturing makes this stand out like Eden in the wilderness.
Once I turned down Bull Lane the view was just as lovely but more monochrome. I stopped my car and turned the lights off. I only had a short while to take some photographs before another car turned on to the road. I probably suddenly appeared when I put my lights back on! This picture makes me think of the Exorcist poster.
I was tracking a VW Group jet into Biggen Hill Airport in south east London and noticed that the waiting pattern was out over the North Sea.
I decided that the views out there can’t be that great. I’m also curious as to whether there is a beacon somewhere in the middle there. I don’t really know a great deal about the navigation of planes. VFR is easy, but other than that I need to read up about it all. Maybe I need another visit to Pooley’s?
Here’s a closer look at the waiting room:
This Embraer has left a beautiful track for us to see. This is the waiting area for London City and Biggen Hill.
00:26:04 – Arc Light. – What’s up?
00:26:07 – B-52 strike. – Yeah?
00:26:10 – What’s that? – Arc Light.
00:26:11 I hate that. Every time I hear that, something terrible happens.
00:26:15 Charlie don’t never see them or hear them, man.
One day, a momentous day for colour, I happened to think the place of work was particularly lovely. Fortunately I have a camera in my pocket and so recorded it for posterity.
My phone didn’t really capture the colour well as it auto-corrects the white balance and can’t cope. So, the above image, which I don’t process apart from cropping, is not really what it looked like. With that we could get into a lovely discussion about how we experience things and human memory but it’s probably best not to. Just to act as a contrast to the relaxed lovely image above, here’s what my work normally looks like:
This is the dullest part of my work. The best bit is seeing learning and understanding along with challenging views of people and trying to create a more progressive society that is accepting of all.
I’ve got some Ordnance Survey maps of my local area and I’ve been to a few of the places that are mentioned locally. Just to see what they are. I regularly run past Kits Coty House and have got photos of it in this communication. The other day I was looking at Google Maps and I was slightly shocked that it mentioned a bunch of rocks I’d not seen. They aren’t on the OS map, but are mentioned here.
So, as it fits with one of my main routes for a run I went there and took some photos. Ladies and Gentlemen I give you, the Coffin Stone.
The coffin stone is one of the Medway Megaliths mentioned in this document.
I put some pictures on here from Gran Turismo Sport in this communication. However, I had used an iPhone app to get these pictures. I have now messed around with exporting straight to a USB stick from the PS4 and, not surprisingly, I get better resolution and quality pictures. So, here they are:
First, Triumphant:
And then there was more:
I know you aren’t that bothered by these pictures but I do like them and after winning [or losing] some races it’s nice to relax and mess around within the game without having to concentrate so much.
I like the photo feature from Gran Turismo Sport. Here are two more offerings:
There have been PYO Pumpkin signs around this way for a few weeks and I thought it would be something quite fun to do. Whenever I run the route by the Malta Inn I pass the field and so I knew where it was.
When I arrived the car park was half full with around 100 vehicles. There were many people working there and it was just the most bizarre site. Over in the far corner was a burger bar and drinks van! The whole field looked mostly empty with pumpkins and squash laying everywhere. There was some maize on the eastern flank.
It was like a battle field with dead men and the detritus of war littered over the field. But it was monetised. Many people were on hand to help and make sure you spent lots. All the pumpkins were ready cut and so there was a lot of time and effort that had gone into this enterprise.
I suspect there are going to be quite a few of these communications as we go through time. I have found the photograph mode in Gran Turismo and it is gorgeous. I need more time to get used to the settings and options. Of, course I’ve downloaded the extra Scenes pack from the PlayStation Store.
I need to re-take the above photograph so the cars are the same size. Also, to get all three rear lights on the RHS I had to angle the car a little unnaturally.
St Pancras station is where my usual train to London terminates so I like this view.
I lived for two years, and worked for four, around the corner from here.
IT arrived on Thursday. The day I had to spend 13 hours in work making the place look lovely and welcoming. The packaging was lovely, even though it was a day late. I had spent some money on the collectors edition, mostly for a pretty box, a book and a toy car.
Once I got home after circling the village a few times to find somewhere to park I turned on the entertainment centre and popped the disk in. Instantly there was a 13GB update file to download. This was slightly annoying. It would take me 25 minutes or so for it to complete and so I watched some TV, all the while becoming more and more tired. This was at the end of a very long day!
I did enter some bonus content codes in the Playstation Store and got my extra goodies delivered when the game did eventually start.
I can confirm that this game looks absolutely lovely. I know there will be critics out there, but I’m not fussed. People take what they want from a game. I’ve been playing GT since 1997 [yep, I’m old] and still enjoy it. The aim of getting faster lap times or winning a hard race, thinking about pit stop strategy and over-taking tactics pleases me. I just like it. It’s also a game you can spend ten minutes on or a few hours, when you start it up you aren’t locked in to playing for a certain length of time.
I’m not convinced about the photo mode within the game. I’d rather spend my time racing but I probably will end up spending some time within it as there are bonus points to be got!
Did I say it looks lovely?
I’ll keep posting communications on this topic, as it’s a handy conversation for me. I can also track my progress.
#PS4share pic.twitter.com/UeFfP5LZeU
— Ian Parish (@iparish) October 19, 2017
There haven’t been any new communications in a while because I have been going through about sixty of them to sort out embedded picture links. I wrote about this here, where I explained that some of my OneDrive pictures weren’t really working within my website.
I could see them, but I think that was because my computer was logged into OneDrive or at least had cookies saying it was logged in. When I checked in an “incognito” window the pictures didn’t show.
The main aim of this embedding was to save space on my server and use the space on my OneDrive allowance as I keep pictures there anyway. I’ve just checked my web server space and I have 100GB, I’m currently at I-Don’t-Know! The web managing tool doesn’t seem to have me down as using any space. Strange! I’ll have another look another time.
Anyway, all communications should have pictures that work! If they don’t work then let me know, my units of readers.
I’m not sure how I found out about the Demo Version of Gran Turismo Sport but I did. The full version is due out on what I call Gran Turismo Day.
In the mean time Polyphony have released a demo version available for about four days. I suspect this is to test the network architecture they have in place and to spot bugs. I’m not sure how quickly they can change and fix code for the Blu-Ray disk run but my guess is they will release a fix patch at the release date to fix known issues.
I have to say this game looks incredibly gorgeous as they always have. There are new tracks and I can’t wait to get driving around some of the tracks I have already learnt. I’ve taken part in a few races online and enjoyed it. I notice that the clutch doesn’t work in this version on the Logitech steering wheel but that isn’t a problem. I try to drive with flappy paddles when the car is designed that way and use the gear stick when the car has one.
GT sport #PS4share pic.twitter.com/Bhw8Y52SSE
— Ian Parish (@iparish) October 9, 2017
My second online race meant I had more time to qualify and I managed pole position. The race was the Suzuka East circuit which I did go on to win. My first race I qualified in tenth although I do not know what that time was based on. It would appear that GT is going to have races that start at a fixed time and then however long before that you join in you get practice and qualifying time.
I think it is worth pointing out that the quality of the resolution and video doesn’t really matter that much. I concentrate on the road, corners and braking points so much that the background is incidental. I know they put a lot of effort into it but I suspect it is mostly for people watching alongside or for overall sales, people probably buy these games based on overall graphics whereas the eye and brain doesn’t see things that way!
First win #PS4share pic.twitter.com/7rB4APya6J
— Ian Parish (@iparish) October 9, 2017
I’ve been messing around with the share function on the PS4 and even uploaded a video to YouTube. I couldn’t use the native app to do this, I had to copy the file to a memory stick and then upload from my PC. The quality of the shared video isn’t at full resolution so don’t be put off by the video:
I am looking forward to spending time playing the actual game soon.
Last night after work was complete I headed to Rochester Cineworld cinema with trepidation. I note that the tide was high as I drove along Chariot Way. I had booked in to see Blade Runner 2049. I knew it was a long film and I knew that a friend had seen it and loved it. Would I agree? I needed some food and now because of this I chose nachos. Blade Runner was such a gorgeous beautiful film of my teenage years and holds so much sway with my heart that this film could ruin it. I was nervous.
As is usual I rated the film on the IMDB database and tweeted the result.
I rated Blade Runner 2049 (2017) 10/10 #IMDb https://t.co/0qMYv8pL0P
— Ian Parish (@iparish) October 10, 2017
I loved this film. It actually worked very well with the original film. If you aren’t sure what sequels can do for a franchise then just understand that I care not for Star Wars after episodes 1-3 and 7. I forced myself to stop being bothered by them.
There’s a lot I could write but in essence I don’t want to spoil this film for anyone. Let me just say that the look, feel, sound, atmosphere and smell of this film is similar to the first. It is a gorgeous piece of film. It all works. The length of the film is entirely justified. I loved it.
I have become a vegetarian [nominally]. This decision took about a half a year from first thoughts about it to actually doing something about it. So first I’ll explain my reasons and then the process.
Firstly, I’m not that fussed about the conditions in which animals are kept or treated. If you want mass production to feed the human race then you have to accept that it’ll be done at the cheapest. While the conditions would probably affect me if I was to see them, it is poor regulation and market forces that has made all this possible. You don’t become vegetarian to stop poor treatment of animals, you become a politician or farmer.
I don’t have any issues with eating meat because animals might have souls or are sentient. Once it’s dead it’s dead and the remains may as well be eaten or used for the common good.
My reasons are split roughly between health reasons, feeding the world and environmental reasons. Cutting out mammal meat is a good thing to do for health reasons. Now, there’s no real reason to go in to details but at one point I had high cholesterol and although I thought my diet was largely healthy looking at advice certainly made me think about giving up meat. That was March time this year and giving up meat germinated in my mind.
It seems largely strange to me that I can go to the supermarket and buy pretty much any amount of food and whatever type of food that I want. I can even buy some to purposefully throw away. And yet, too many people in this world go without food, or are severely ill from not enough food. This is fucking disgusting. We can produce enough food to feed the current population of this planet but we don’t have a global distribution system. Except, we can globally move food around to get to my supermarket but we don’t care about those poor fuckers dying or malnourished.
If we transferred the food we grow to feed animals to feeding humans we could easily support everyone on this planet with plenty spare. We use field space for animal feed. That just seems crazy to me. Also, the field space used for tobacco is a disgrace.
The production of animals for food has a huge CO2 impact. We use / produce more CO2 for meat production than we do for just growing vegetables and corn. It would be very easy to argue that it’s immoral to continue to do this given the effect that CO2 has on our delicate planet. Now my argument is seeming a little vague because as I said earlier if I wanted to change the world I should become a politician or a farmer. I guess I like to think I’m doing my little bit. Anthropogenic Global Climate Change is going to fuck this planet over. I have zero confidence politicians will do anything about it until it is way too late.
Giving up beef will reduce carbon footprint more than cars – The Guardian
Potential contributions of food consumption patterns to climate change – American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Going vegetarian halves CO2 emissions from your food – New Scientist
The age-and-sex-adjusted mean GHG emissions in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents per day (kgCO2e/day) were 7.19 for high meat-eaters ( > = 100 g/d), 5.63 for medium meat-eaters (50-99 g/d), 4.67 for low meat-eaters ( < 50 g/d), 3.91 for fish-eaters, 3.81 for vegetarians and 2.89 for vegans. – Dietary greenhouse gas emissions
So, my reasons are colonic health and greenhouse gases. I have called this Nominally because while I have given up meat, if there is no other alternative I would eat some. I also had to eat all the meat in my freezer after I made the decision. That took about six weeks of occasional meals. My decision was made after returning from the M’era Luna festival in the middle of August.
I have had two moments where I just forgot! One day I went to the cinema after a run and my plan was to have a hot dog in the auditorium. I was queuing when it dawned on my I was vegetarian and I couldn’t have a hot dog. Well, my reader, bollocks to that. I ate two. The next “slip” was a week ago when a work friend brought in a pork pie to school and I just cut some and ate it. It took about five hours before I realised that I had eaten meat, when I kinda don’t. Oh well.
I don’t expect friends or people to make extra effort for me. If I go somewhere and there’s no alternative then I’ll eat meat. I’m not that fussed. It’s more a thing just for me.
One further, minor reason, would be that when going to music festivals it is best to spend as little time as possible in the portaloo. They tend to be smelly, dirty and quite horrific. A vegetarian diet over the course of the weekend contributes to reducing time spent in the cubicle. Eating meat extends the sitting time required.
I have noticed while looking through some of my older communications that the pictures aren’t loading. It took a little detective work to figure out that the pictures not showing were all embedded from my cloud storage.
I can’t see this from my computer as when I load the communications the picture still loads due to cloud storage cookies [I think]. When I use an incognito browser the pictures don’t load. They also don’t load on my phone and I haven’t signed in to my cloud storage in the browser application on that.
So, I have decided to upload all the pictures that were stored in the cloud to my web hosting company and then I can re-insert them into all the pages where they weren’t working properly. I suspect this will take around a month of playing a little at a time.
The existing photos need to be uploaded, which is easy. They I have to name them all, again quite easy, and then add them to each communication where they don’t show up from other browsers. I suspect that when I changed the file structure of my cloud storage the picture URLs somehow didn’t work the same way.
I’ll probably announce this update to great fanfare but it doesn’t matter a great deal. I doubt the people out there interested in the minutiae of my life really go searching for things I may have done over a year ago.