Tag: picea

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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.

Vulcan cockpit
Vulcan cockpit XM655

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.

Vulcan Rear
Vulcan Rear

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

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Fucking Trousers

On the 2nd January 2016 I went to a Not New Year’s Eve party at Electrowerkz venue in Angel. Sally and I had been before to this event and really enjoyed it, details here.

We left home around 21:45 after spending a while getting ready in our outfits. There exist pictures from our previous outing but there are none of this visit. I had black nail varnish again and silver stripes over my bald head. We arrived near Electrowerkz about an hour later after driving in to Angel and parking on someone’s drive using the website Just Park. It’s not even a five minute walk to the venue. It was brilliant to be there again, it’s a really nice atmosphere, plenty of costumes, plenty of not-costumes and much good natured chatter and dancing.

There was quite a lot on and I was looking forward to seeing Shiv-r. I had downloaded two albums by them about a month before and I liked it. I also wanted to see the suspension performance piece in the courtyard.

Here’s what went on that night.

ClubAC1ClubAC2

I was mostly interested in the Theatre of Sin shows. They were pretty good. The two bands were good. Pretty Addicted were great and had a punky sound with a female vocalist. Shiv-r were a slight let down live, the frontman wasn’t as good as the singer from Pretty Addicted even though the music was more my style. I missed Mynxie Monroe as Sally and I were probably exploring the main areas of Electrowerkz. There are quite a few rooms and each has a bar attached.

The courtyard has a bar shaped like a tube train and the exit to the smoking area along with a staircase up the back of the building which gets to the cloakroom right at the top. There’s a room downstairs where Purefuckingindustrial was hosted, it was good music, very much my new stuff, see this communication.

If you move up the stairs, past the area where they were showing Game Of Thrones episodes on a large screen, you see phrases painted on the wall. These are from the film Aliens and I think it’s a great touch to give the place some atmosphere.

Turn right from the landing and you enter an Alien themed bar and through that you get to the Hellfire room. Good stuff in here a DJ playing a good mix of music.

Keep going through the Hellfire room and head up a small flight of stairs to end up in the “aircraft” bar. I think this is modelled on an airplane but it’s hard to tell really. There are aircraft windows up on the wall  and (not very) engine looking lights suspended from the ceiling. But, it’s a bar and we managed to be given an extra beer in here by mistake. Once through some more doors you end up in what I would call the main venue. It’s a small hall with a stage at one end. This is the top floor or the Theatre of Sin for the purposes of ClubAC.

Although Shiv-r hadn’t finished their set Sally and I went to the courtyard to see the dying mermaid from Cynth Icorn. There are videos available on the interwebs if you search, the one I found was on Vimeo. It was very curious to watch. A girl was suspended from the ceiling using two hooks through the skin by her shoulder blades. I think I understand now that skin is pretty tough stuff. I’m guessing it hurt quite a bit and towards the end of the performance you could see it was very tiring working against the pain. I was going to put a picture in here but you are intelligent enough to know whether you want to see it or not and can use the internet yourself.

Once it got to about 0400 we decided to head home. We both got goodie bags on the way out although mine was just an envelope and Sally’s was an envelope in a bag so I guess hers was a proper goodie bag. We got home around 0500 and went to sleep. It was a great night. Good people, brilliant outfits, reasonably cheap drink and excellent shows. Can’t wait to go again.

 

Oh, the title of this communication. The first visit to ClubAC was easy to title as Sally muttered fucking stairs a lot over the evening. This time there weren’t any major complaints, she had mentioned her trousers slipping down a couple of times, hence the title of this communication.

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Comicon

On the 22 November I got up and looked forward to a train journey from Rugby to Birmingham International.

Now, I live in Kent and the International train stations down this way go to the continent by TRAIN. You can get on a train at Ebbsfleet or Ashford and get off in Paris, Brussels or Disneyland [wtf would anyone want to go there?]. Birmingham International, by contrast, requires you to get off the train and go through the airport to board a plane. Same end result I guess but not as cool as a train going under the English Channel.

I like the trains from Rugby to Birmingham. They don’t cost a great deal, there’s a reasonable car park close to Rugby station, are always busy and comfortable. There were plenty of people dressed up at the station heading to Comicon in their cosplay outfits.

Sally and I had tickets to go to the MCM Birmingham Comicon at the NEC, we were meeting her brother there. I had bought an express ticket which apparently meant I could enter the hall an hour before Sally, whose brother bought their tickets. I think it’s worth pointing out that a glance through the official online programme produced absolutely no times that events were happening. This was annoying as it would have been nice to plan the day out while at home rather once in the venue and having to try and find a timetable.

Because I got in to the arena before Sally and her brother I went for a walk to figure out the lie of the land. I tried to find times of events, checked the autographing queues and looked at some of the shops there.

When it got close to the time for Sally to enter the event I wandered back and found her. I had expected a decorated hall with plenty of events. Comicon seemed to be a mostly trading event with many many shops selling all types of comic and anime stuff. There was an arena in a dome with some events but the cosplay was quite late in the afternoon and we decided to head home before then. We found a small stage area where the celebs were going to be paraded and interviewed. We hung around there to see Liv Tyler but didn’t listen to the interview. In one corner of the hall there was a Storm Trooper display:

They looked great. Although I think some of them looked a little short to be storm troopers.

We wandered around the autograph area where I saw various people from good sci fi shows over the years. I didn’t get their autographs as I don’t think that sort of thing bothers me. They are just people. Adding their signature to something may make it more valuable but doesn’t really change the product. I was quite impressed to see Virginia Hey as I remember her in Farscape. Steve Austin, of Six Million Dollar Man fame, was there too and I could see him. Liv Tyler also signed some stuff if you wanted.

I was already aware that these guys charge for signatures and it didn’t bother me particularly that they did but the prices really did vary! The bog standard celebrities were GBP5 for a signature. However, it would appear that the more famous you are the more you can charge:

That’s a lot of money just to be close to someone and see them sign something of yours!

On the way out of comicon Sally and I decided to find some geocaches as there were two within easy reach. It didn’t take long but as this was just after the Paris attacks it seemed weird to be nosing around near a train station and massive exhibition centre. We found two, as you can see below:

NEC Caches

I did buy a few comics direct from the writers who were based in writers corner. I have yet to read these but will report back once I have.

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The Lincolnshire Coast

Over a weekend in the summer Sally and I travelled to the North Sea coast and Lincolnshire. We drove from Rugby, towards Leicester and then followed the A46 to Lincoln and the coast. We had booked to spend a night on a campsite near Mablethorpe. The campsite was called Grange Leisure Park and was predominantly a caravan park but with good camping facilities. We didn’t use my tent [see this communication for a picture of that], we used Sally’s. It’s a pretty good summer tent although not quite as nuclear proof as my gorgeous Vango!

The Beast, Tent and Sal's Head

We arrived, set up base camp and then headed to Mablethorpe to experience the Great British seaside. Oh, wow, it didn’t disappoint. It was a classic seaside town. There was plenty of shops selling tat. Plenty of punters on holiday and a few crazy golf courses. One of the purposes of this trip was to start a crazy golf championship between Sally and me. Our aim was to play as many of these courses as possible along the coast in the two days we had planned to be there.

Within Mablethorpe we found the following courses: Pirate Hill, a win to Sally. Pirate not on the hill, a win to Ian. Dinosaur Park, a win to Sally.

So after that we spent some money in an arcade. It was fascinating. It was a huge place where you can win tickets for playing the machines. We won about 50 tickets quite quickly but then realised you need well over 1000 tickets to claim a prize. We just gave our tickets to someone at a ticket counting machine. We also played some of the “tipping point” games because they are quite fun, whereas the TV show is utter shite. So, at this point Sally was winning the golf competition and we looked around for somewhere to eat dinner. I found the Kings Head a few miles away and we travelled there for food. It was quite a “local” pub but was also friendly and welcoming. The food was delicious and very impressive, it was nice to be treated well and have the chef actually speak to us about what to eat.

opening image

The Lincolnshire coast is a rather amazing place if you like caravans, static or otherwise. We spent some time looking at the caravans for sale at the camp site and I was also amazed at the number of re-sale places along our journeys.

On the second day we packed up camp and headed along the coast road after having breakfast and another round of golf at Queen’s Park in Mablethorpe. Sally won this round. I was 3-1 down in the series. Breakfast was good though!

We drove towards Anderby Creek, a place that Sally had visited as a child. I’d not been there as far as I know. The only Lincolnshire coast place I’d been to was RAF Donna Nook in the 1980s. I think I wrote about it here. Anderby Creek was a small place with chalets and caravans. We spent time on the beach flying the kites and then had morning tea in the restaurant near the Cloud Bar. By the way, a cloud bar isn’t a bar. It’s a platform from where you can look at the clouds [because you can’t do that from ground level!].

Cloud Bar, Anderby Creek

Here’s us flying kites. I managed to mess up my control cables and so had to order more from Amazon. It turns out there’s a kite specialist shop in Hinkley which is close-ish to Rugby.

After Anderby we headed to Chapel St Leonards. The beach here was quite nice and there was another arcade we visited. But this trip was about the crazy golf and so we managed to find a course just outside Chapel on the road south to Skegness. The course was based on a theme of elephants and I managed to win this one. It was now 4-2 to Sally.

It was now time to head to Ingoldmells. This is a part of Skegness to the north of the town. There was a theme park where entry was free and you just have to pay for the rides. There were some awesome ice cream shops and the whole place was manically busy. There were also plenty of caravans. Check out the aerial view of the town and spot just how many caravans are packed into the area.

We had a wander around and ate some food at a fish and chip shop. I have to say I found the whole experience rather surreal. It was a very odd place. We found two crazy golf places. We played an indoor course which was reasonable fun. I won that. Then we found a Pirate course that was suspended above the beach. I also won that. The scores on the doors were 4-5 to me. I felt quite pleased at this although Sally wasn’t happy about it.

The journey home took a while. We skirted Skegness and headed home via Boston and Grantham as there were awful roadworks on the way to the coast near Newark. We also went through Melton Mowbray. I did my best to avoid heading to Coningsby, Cranwell, Waddington and the air museum near Newark. One day I will do a tour of the RAF bases of Lincolnshire.

I loved this short break. It was really good fun.

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Steve Jobs

So, took a trip, with Sally, to see the film Steve Jobs at the Cineworld cinema in Rugby [or rather on the outskirts of Rugby].

As ever, I have rated this film on IMDb, but you need to see this communication for an explanation of how the numbers work.

Before I start on the film I would just like to mention some ‘ealth and safety gone mad. There was a popcorn making dude working two popcorn machines in an alcove behind the concessions stand. I kid you not he was wearing one of these:

face-maskNow, I’m not sure what the issue is, as the popping cookers are closed while the popping process is in play but this made me giggle, quite a bit!

So, the film. You can read about it and the synopsis and where it all takes place. My opinion of Apple has always been one of suspicion and, although I am an iPhone whore, I am perfectly aware that Apple always steal other ideas and make them that little bit better. I don’t think they really do for originality. They do great design.

As a film this was very well made. I liked the shooting and the actors. I liked knowing a bit more about the history and seeing the characters over time. I did NOT like Steve Jobs. I had already read about him being an arse and this film [I know it’s fiction] largely represented him as an arse. Do I think he was a clever man? Yes. Do I like Apple products? Yes. Do I have to like him or think he was great? No.

This film is well worth seeing. I enjoyed it. Even though Jobs was an arse.

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Jurassic World

I went with Sally to a 4D cinema to see this film on 25th Aug 2015. In reality I went to see a 4D film and it just happened to be this one. There were other films on but they weren’t very action based or at the right time. Jurassic World it was.

The film itself was poor. I rated it a 4 on IMDB, see this communication about my ratings.

The 4D effects though were quite interesting. The row of seats upon which I sat all moved together, so when the helicopter flew our seats tilted left, right, forwards and backwards. If there was a gust of wind in the film there were (noisy) fans that blew air into us. When the camera got water over it we were sprayed with a fine mist from the chair in front. There were “knockers” in the rear of the seat so I felt like I was punched in the back and there were things that made my trousers move near my calves.

Overall I am glad that I experienced this but I don’t think I would pay to do it again. I don’t even like 3D films, the idea of spending extra money to get kicked in the back doesn’t excite me. If the film maker can’t make a film interesting enough in 2D then it will still be shit in 3 or 4D.

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Farewell Vulcan

Avro Vulcan Bomber RAF.JPEG
“Avro Vulcan Bomber RAF” by Sgt. David S. Nolan, US Air Force – DF-ST-86-11850. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons.

On the 13 Sept 2015 I saw the Avro Vulcan fly for my last time. I was geocaching with Sally near Coventry airport when I checked twitter and saw that the Vulcan XH558 had taken off from Doncaster heading to Coventry for a display. This wasn’t on the official list of shows that she was doing but I was excited and ran the mile or so to the end of the runway.

Before XH558 was due to arrive there was a short display by a Gloster Meteor and a DeHavilland Vampire.

Gloster Meteor
Gloster Meteor

Once these two planes had landed I could see the Vulcan in the distance. I had seen her recently while I was at RAF Cosford and the noise was stunning. It had been a long time since I had seen a Vulcan fly. I used to watch them at airshows in the 80s. The noise then was always incredible and I distinctly remember an occasion at a Duxford Airshow when she made my stomach shake. The Vulcan flew past a few times and did some lovely throttle-up manoeuvres. All in all it was great to see her fly for my last time. I’m glad I ran the short distance to the runway.

XH558
XH558
Vulcan
Vulcan

It’s a sad thing that she won’t fly again, but a good thing that she did.

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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.

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Holograms FFS

So, I have been spending time in Rugby to see Sally. It’s actually a really nice town and I like it a lot. The town has three markets a week, plenty of independent shops in the town centre and plenty of drinking establishments. It is well connected and easy to get to. There are a number of out of town shopping places and I hope these don’t detract from the town centre income. Many of the villages around Rugby are nice, pretty and look expensive.

There also happens to be a school where a game started. It is called The Rugby School and the game is Rugby Football. Now, as you might imagine, the town itself is very proud of this heritage. The game is named after the town. The game was invented in the town. The town doesn’t have a stadium for the purposes of playing the said sport and so it makes the most of its history.

I have two issues with Rugby and its branding along with rugby football:

History:
The evidence shows that William Webb Ellis was more than likely NOT the boy who picked up the ball and ran with it. He never mentioned this himself in the rest of his life. He worked as a vicar at St Clement Danes church in the Strand and then in the South of France where he died and is buried. The ONLY source is someone writing about WWE running with the ball about 40 years after the actual event. It is most likely that WWE wasn’t the boy. It is also most likely that rugby developed over time and Rugby School only tried to impose its own version when there were differences with the game around the country, just when it would have been handy to have history on its side.

By the way, it was perfectly ok to hold the football and run with it as long as you ran towards your own goal. What the boy did was run towards the opposing goal, this was illegal at the time.

As a good friend said to me recently.

You shouldn’t let facts get in the way of a good story.

Here’s the statue to William Webb Ellis outside the front of The Rugby School. Please understand he didn’t look like this. He was modelled on the sculpture’s own son.

More Important Things:
HOLOGRAMS were invented in Rugby. Denis Gabor worked for British Thomson-Houston in Rugby where he invented the hologram. The hologram FFS. In Rugby. There are holograms on nearly every bank card and bank note around the world. In terms of affecting most people and importance to the world holograms easily beats the game of rugby football. Jesus, HOLOGRAMS!

The Jet Engine was partially developed at the British Thomson-Houston labs in Rugby. Whittle used the manufacturing firm to build his first jet and then the company was involved with the development of the engine, mostly at the Lutterworth site. While many places can claim the jet engine Rugby is allowed some kudos. This, complex, beautiful piece of engineering has easily affected more people than the game of rugby football.

Rugby Cement is based somewhere locally. Oh, they are based in Rugby. They are now owned by Cemex but once their red trucks were seen all over the country. They still produce plenty of fine cement and other products. The cement works serve as a guide over the countryside to find your way back to Rugby. The industrial site looks awesome. It is arguable that Rugby Cement has affected more people than the game of rugby football.

RUGBY – home to holograms, the jet engine, cement and a game for men played with odd shaped balls.

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Combichrist – O2 Academy Islington

Early one Monday morning I returned from Germany and a music festival there. Some details are contained within this communication. After getting home and sleeping for a short while I had to get ready to see Combichrist at the O2 Academy in Islington.

Combichrist Setlist Fleece, Bristol, England 2015

The above set list is for a gig in Bristol although it looks pretty similar to the gig I saw.

Stereo Juggernaut and Controlled Collapse were the support bands. I seem to remember that both bands were pretty good and enjoyable.

Combichrist were pretty darn good. They were impressive and the crowd was very active. Having just come from a weekend at a festival where the crowd all stood where they were and didn’t rush the stage this was a very different experience. There were some quite violent people in the mosh pit and, maybe I’m too old, but this was a bit of a turn off.

Now that Combichrist have guitarists the older songs have been adjusted to keep the musicians busy. They have created guitar parts to the mostly synth music and I think this detracts entirely from the quality of the original songs.

Even with all that this was still a bloody fantastic gig. Not quite as good as being at Electrowerkz but close.

Combichrist
Combichrist
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All Ship Shape

It has taken a while for me to get back to this and I apologise to those who read this rubbish whenever I publish. I will get on top of it all soon. I have many draft communications and not many rants so it might actually be a pleasant read for you five.

Sally and I went to Bristol for the weekend, way back before the summer holidays. Why Bristol? Well, it’s a place in Britain and it has good engineering history. That’s about it, all of my reasoning for choosing Bristol. Oh, that and it’s not London.

We drove down (across) on a Friday. I think we left late to avoid a lot of the traffic but it didn’t matter, there was plenty. Also, it pissed down. Thoroughly terrible rain! On the way there we listened to an 80s mix on Spotify. It surprised me how much I knew about this music, given that I consider myself to be a metal-head.

We stayed at the Double Tree Hilton, which was chosen because it had a car park and looked close to the centre of town. When you check in to these hotels you are given a cookie [warm]. Not sure that makes it worth the price but it was a nice touch. We only had time for a drink in the bar before heading to bed. Breakfast was nice in the old kiln room of the hotel.

The Saturday morning we toured the SS Great Britain. It was a wonderful piece of engineering and I recommend everyone see it and learn about it. Brilliant. There was an Olympus jet engine as part of the museum, that was cool. We then did a harbour [harbor] tour of the Bristol Floating Harbour. It was fascinating and I also learnt why the phrase:

All ship shape and Bristol fashion.

Turns out the Bristol shipmakers had to cope with large tides, when the water was in the boats floated. When the tide was low the boats rested on the rocky floor. Therefore they had to be build stronger and better to cope with this. “Bristol fashion” means study, well built. The harbour tour was on a little boat called the Red Shank.

Red Shank
Red Shank

During this harbour tour we spotted a “green”, “emission less” boat used for tours and another boat which was the harbour’s fire boat. Somehow the conversation revolved around these for a short while and I started to make a matter-anti-matter annihilation joke and Sally laughed before I had finished. That was the moment I knew.

M-Shed was our next destination. It’s a museum of Bristol stuff. It had stuff in it. I can’t quite remember but I think there may have been a jet engine somewhere in there. There was definitely an exhibition of photographs taken showing local industry and people in their workplace.

After the M-Shed we walked around to the centre of the city and as sheer luck would have it there was a thing going on. The festival of nature had taken over one of the city squares and it seemed to be quite a big thing! There was a hashtag and it was well worth the time to take a selfie.

Following on from our journey around the festival of nature we went back to the hotel before heading out to dinner.

Dinner that night was at The Ox. It’s a steakhouse, if you can find it. We walked up and down the street a few times before seeing a tiny ox head picture above a door to a basement underneath the local Weatherspoons pub. We started with cocktails and then had dinner. We drank a Dr Gonzo, an Elevator, a Martini along with wine with the main meal. There was a meat platter to start and then I had steak and Sal had what seemed to be the world’s biggest burger. After breakfast we went to walk the length of the Clifton Suspension bridge (twice). Getting there was fun as lots of roads were blocked off for a cycling race, so we pretty much made up a route through the back streets making sure that our general progress was “up”. We made it and spent some time admiring the bridge. DSC_4634 I do think that if you don’t find bridges fascinating then you are potentially dead. They are glorious! The ingenuity of man continues to amaze me. It was time to head back to the real world and the south east and so we travelled home along the M4. I decided we should drive once around Swindon to see what it has to offer. I had made some disparaging comments about the town on the way to Bristol and I felt bad about that. It seemed a good thing to do, to see what Swindon was like. We drove in to the town centre. There really isn’t a great deal there, it’s awful. We did find the magic roundabout and drove around/over it just to see what that would be like. Magicfuckingroundabout Yep, it really is as crazy as the sign shows. It was strange driving over it. I just kept following the arrows on the ground and checking that nothing was in my way or coming to hit me! After that we found some sort of outlet centre and I bought a tea pot. That is how exciting my life gets sometimes! It also turns out that I might know some of the Spice Girl songs. They were playing in the car and I accidentally sang some lyrics and mentioned that I knew how the dance went in the video. I got quite a bit of grief for that!

There you have it. A very boring run down of the things Sally and I did for a weekend in Bristol. Great fun and very interesting, for nerds.

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Flag Of Destiny

I really am quite behind on updating this website. I have just been busy. That’s all. But, now I have a moment I can take the time to bore you all with tales of not daring-do.

After an excursion to London and our Canary Wharf apartment, we visited the Midlands. The Tuesday morning we carried our kit to the car, which was where we left it, and navigated our way out of London with a quick pass of City Airport, where planes were seen. The north circular and then the M11 facilitated our escape from the metropolis.

Later, Coventry beckoned. It was time to have a cuppa and biscuits with parents. This took us up to lunch time and so we headed to the Blue Lias pub next to the Grand Union Canal. The weather was lovely and so we ate outside (even though I don’t like doing that). There was activity on the canal with narrow boats and service boats travelling past. Then we walked up the set of locks nearby. These are called Stockton Locks. They are ingenious and very pretty.

Stockton Locks
Stockton Locks
Blue Lias
Blue Lias

After a lovely lunch we went to the centre of Coventry. Sally showed me around the town. I also got to see the cathedrals. I have to say I don’t like the new one. It’s depressing and ugly, along with windows that are likely to scare the crap out of kids and anyone who takes religion vaguely seriously. There was a display of children’s television programmes on at the museum in Coventry, the cathedral, museum and university were all next to each other. The display included some of the actual models used over the last 60 years of TV broadcasting for kids. It was a trip down memory lane.

While walking back to the car, and Ikea, we sneaked into a rather unassuming building that turned out to be the Guildhall. It was a very nice building with lots of history, fortunately this building survived the blitz. Coventry has mostly crazy ring road with interesting intersections.

One of the highlights of the half term was dinner at Simpsons in Edgbaston. On the Tuesday evening we drove to the restaurant. The food was quite simply, divine. The wine was gorgeous, the service impeccable and the overall experience was brilliant. I’m very much looking forward to sampling a similar meal in Kent soon.

Here’s a list of food that we ate:

  • Salmon and squid cracker canapé
  • Cheese and bacon ball canapé
  • Fancy bread
  • Mise En Bouche
  • Beef tartar
  • Ham hock with broth
  • Squab pigeon
  • Lamp
  • Corn caramel
  • Rum baba
  • Passion fruit soufflé
  • Very nice sweets

The return to Coventry from dinner was marked with a quick visit to Meriden. There’s a stick in the village green which is supposedly the centre of England.

Wednesday was similarly busy. A day in Birmingham was planned. We drove to and then parked in the Bull Ring. Karl and his two girls met us for drinks after which we wandered around the city looking for specific items of clothing for an event at the end of August.

Selfridges
Selfridges

We walked to the Custard Factory which was an eclectic mix of odd shops and weird stuff. The statue was pretty cool, although we didn’t find what we were looking for.

The Custard Factory
The Custard Factory

The Oasis is another collection of shops. I found some bits for the Asylum. It was time for lunch and we just had to have champagne cocktails at Bar Epernay. The snack food was lovely, as was the alcohol. There was a lovely view over the canal. What I didn’t understand though was why people would go to a champagne bar and just have a pint of lager?

Bar Epernay
Bar Epernay

We had a short walk along the canal to the Sealife centre. It was good fun to see the penguins swimming and, also, some otters running around playing. After the Sealife centre we found the car, packed up all our purchases and headed home. I’m looking forward to seeing plenty more in the Midlands.

Finally, the title of this communication? I saw a flag and asked Sally what it was. “The flag of destiny”, she replied. Fair enough.

Flag of Birmingham.svg
“Flag of Birmingham” by JimmyGuano – Own work. Licensed under CC0 via Wikimedia Commons.

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Burnt Sticks 2612W

At the end of May Sally and I went to stay in London for a couple of nights. I now give you a run down of those days including various comments and things I remember.

We arrived on a Sunday evening. After parking the car we walked to our apartment block, carrying enough kit to survive for two nights and days. We stayed in the Pan Peninsula West Tower on the 26th floor. The décor was interesting. The apartment was mostly black walls and floor along with no bedrooms (studio flat) and built in appliances. Many thanks to Mazza.

Once in the apartment we settled and spent time on the balcony overlooking the docks and most of London. We drank champagne and watched the sun set over most of London. The champagne sunset contributed to a partial completion of a promise I made a while back. I intend to complete the promise fully later in the year.

London Sunset

Once the sun had set we tried to find somewhere to eat food. The problem was that most places were shut, it being around 21:30 on a Sunday. I ended up downloading an app, signing up and getting kebab delivered to the apartment! Classy.

On Monday we made sure to get breakfast at a Café Nero in the Canary Wharf shopping complex. Now, I will admit that I really struggled with the layout of this shopping area. Here’s a link to the map, see what you think. It seemed there were three or four main shopping halls, all on different levels and all connected by strange walkways. The map seemed a fanciful sci-fi work of art to me and walking around stressed me intensely. Sally seemed to work out the map and so I relied on her to find our way.

The Shard At Night

A flight on the Emirates Air Line was next, taking a cable car from south of the river near the O2 Arena to the north side of the river near the Excel Arena. One shocking thing was that the price of a tube return from Canary Wharf to the O2, which is one stop, was £9-60 because it crosses a “zone line”, how pathetic! The cable car journey was much smoother than I expected, it was most enjoyable.

Cable Car

We then wandered around towards the Excel Arena before heading back to the O2 and looking at the Emirates display thing. They had a Lego model of a Rolls Royce Trent engine. This made me very excited.

RR Trent (Lego)

Our lunch was in a Brazilian themed restaurant within the O2 complex. There were lots of different eateries there but the Brazilian tempted us most.

Cocktails

The cocktails were very nice, as was the food.

City Airport from Cable Car

After lunch we wandered (by Tube) into the centre of London. A short visit to the M&M shop in Swiss Corner was completed. The whole shop smelt of chocolate, which was nice at first but sickly afterwards. Also, the people were just annoying. It was a shop that sold tat. M&M branded tat. It was full of shit. We purchased some M&Ms though, it would have been rude not to.

Next up was drinks at The Chandos, always a great place to go for a cheeky pint when near Trafalgar Square. We had lager and a short with mixer for me.

The Shard beckoned. You can feel this beast looming over London. The Eye Of Sauron is missing though, they need to create that and insert it at the top, then perhaps we could steal some tourists heading for New Zealand.

I think you’ll find that the Shard is really a Star Destroyer waiting to be launched.

Star Destroyer?

The observation deck of the Shard is on Level 69. I kid you not. This made me giggle a lot. I am sure there is an architect somewhere who wakes up every day with a wry smile at this.

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The view from the top is just stunning. We had a glass of champagne while walking the perimeter of the glass just staring out at London and its surrounds. We could see the QE2 Bridge, which is a bit of a Kent/Essex landmark and well known to anyone who uses the M25. Many of the buildings nearby were highlighted in electronic viewfinders so you could find out about them. Here’s a picture of Canary Wharf and the apartment block we stayed in.

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Although it was murky and not very bright we could see a long way. At one point a helicopter flew by at eye level. I liked this. Dinner that night was at a GBK somewhere in the freaky Canary Wharf shopping complex. The next day was the end of our London adventure. We packed and drove out by City Airport to head to the Midlands.

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The last thing I need to say on this matter is what were the burnt sticks in the apartment? Why would you have them? Why?

Burnt Sticks

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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:

wardrobe1

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 wardrobe2determine 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:

FT

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.

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Mad Max – Fury Road

Went to see Mad Max last night at Rochester Cinema (which is in Strood). I went with Sally and we had dinner before the movie. Well, I say dinner, we ate at McDonalds because we got to the restaurants too late to get food before the movie, mind you it was worth being late.

I rated this movie on IMDB, as I do with all movies I see at the cinema. You don’t get reviews for stuff I watch on the TV though. That would make this site tedious! You should read this communication about my ratings system.

I then thought about the movie some more and I got asked “What didn’t you like about it?”. This made me re-evaluate my IMDB score. So I changed my mind.

So, I should tell you what I thought. I would watch this movie again and that is the main reason for increasing the score from a 6 to an 8. I really liked the way it looked, was filmed and acted. Max didn’t say much, but then, he’s mad. This is, overall, a really enjoyable film.

But there were issues [potential spoilers follow].

The main tribe seem to have mastered modifying cars and trucks and keeping them running in the heat and sand of the desert, but they seem unable to design and build a water distribution device that doesn’t just pour everything in to the ground.

Why did they keep the rig attached to the truck they were driving for all the film. Really? What purpose did they have for it?

The tribes seemed to clear the fallen rocks very quickly and easily without any heavy lifting equipment laying around.

Motorbikes heading for 160 days across a salt lake. That sounds fine until you REALLY think how much food you would need. I’ve owned motorbikes. They run out of fuel after five hours.

If you can suspend the disbelief then this is a gorgeous, great film.

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Passion Dribble

Some of my Twitter followers may have been surprised at a recent tweet of mine:

I thought I ought give an explanation. I had bought some desserts for dinner with Sally.

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When she asked what they were I couldn’t remember what they were called.

Passion Dribble

Was my response. I think it was an accurate description of the dessert. Apparently there may be other connotations of that phrase. She laughed. A lot. I’m not sure what she was getting at!

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Chilston Park

On Sunday I went for afternoon tea with Sally at Chilston Park.

The weather was lovely and as we had arrived early we decided to wander the grounds. Unfortunately for me there was a large outdoor chess set not far from the house. We decided to play. From the outset it was clear I was going to lose. I’ve never been great at the strategy involved, I tend to get bored and just attack, just for the fun. Fortunately for me, our appointed time for tea arrived before I could lose the game in spectacular style. We went inside to have tea and cake.

Chilston Park
Chilston Park

The interior of the house was lovely with some odd lion/dragon things guarding the fireplace. There was a wonderful wooden staircase and portraits hanging everywhere. Our tea consisted of Lady Grey tea with some wonderful food.

Afternoon Tea
Afternoon Tea

This was a very pleasant afternoon in very pleasant surroundings, even the Hen Do was quite reserved and quiet. I am looking forward to the next time I get to do this.

Roofage
Roofage
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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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Henry Walton Jones

Here is a picture of my Indiana Jones Minecraft character. The Cylon version is staying at home to look over my lounge. Indiana is based in my work room. He looks great, I am happy to have him.

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