I found out about this cool feature on PlayStation.com where Sony will create a short video detailing your playing history over the five years of the PS4. Here’s mine:
Mortal Engines [1400]
Before you read this review of a terrible film please be aware this is published Fooyah.net communication number 1400!
This afternoon after a break of quite a while I went to the cinema. The last film I saw was First Man and that was pretty shit. When I was browsing which film to see this weekend there weren’t really any that moved me but out of all the choices I chose the one with massive cities roaming the Earth. Normally about this time I also mention the state of the tide. It’s one of those things that has developed over the last few years, I mention Rochester or wherever else I went and then I also comment on the tide. I think it was low, but when I was driving along the road I did see a lovely lighting of the river:
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This picture perfectly sums up what the view looked like. The sun was glowing through the clouds and created a great light, but you’ll have to trust me as you can see that I took the photo with perfect timing to block the sun with the CCTV warning sign. What a terrible photograph!
I also rate all the movies I see on the IMDB website. There are warnings and you should read this communication which deals with how that rating system works.
I rated Mortal Engines (2018) 6/10 #IMDb https://t.co/xPUKyH8AEk
— Ian Parish (@iparish) December 16, 2018
I’m not sure that 6/10 is right. This film left me feeling oddly empty. It didn’t do anything for me. Let’s get a few things out of the way first this movie is based on a stupid, but fun premise. The story was full of clichés. The love story was boring. The terminator was a bit of a surprise and didn’t really fit in any of the plot. In fact it could have been removed and the story would have worked perfectly well. This movie even had a “I’m you father” moment. What shit!
Overall this film was quite boring and dull. It did nothing to excite me or make me feel there was danger or any imposing sense of doom. Terrible. Normally when I see a film I get snippets of sentences and words I am going to write in this communication. Not a lot came to me during this film. The only thing that did bother me was the suspension on these cities. It seemed impressive to be smooth enough to keep the buildings standing through all manner of surfaces and turns.
Perhaps this film should be interpreted through the lens of Brexit and political leadership. A massive city [London, for it is she] is heading to destroy the known world and ruin everything the world has because the “leader” is determined that his mission must succeed. The “leader” is willing to ensure that his plan works at all costs. He is willing to destroy the peaceful land-dwellers using a weapon of ultimate power. The city can’t be turned and must be kept on course no matter how deranged the plan.
This film also illustrates the problem with “class” and being born to the right family. It’s not really dealt with towards the end of the film but it is very clear early on that people born below should stay there and have nothing to do with the leadership of the city. We have that in our own society. This is built into our collective psyche from a young age. We are bred to accept our position and that those who come from certain families are there to serve the country and look out for us.
Think about how many fairy stories and pantomimes have someone born to rule who gets lost and resumes command once their birth story is discovered. Think how many princesses end up poor and in the shit until their true identity is discovered. Think how many poor people are only allowed to get to power if they are beautiful and marry a prince. Think about all those Disney cartoons designed to keep women and the lower classes away from dreaming about doing good and ruling.
Then, you have the royal family. From an early age we look in awe at these people. These poor fucks, whose own human rights are abused, are born into such a one-way life that they don’t dare escape. The role of these people is to rule over us. We fawn over their lives and loves and we have books about their children and photographs in all the newspapers. Their weddings and childbirth are treated like national celebrations because we have even more people to rule over us. It is in our nation’s psyche to be subservient to those in authority. Look at the power projecting from all the TV shows about the royals. Those gold trappings, the army, the flypasts, the glitz, the carriages, the clothes the fucking bullshit. It’s all designed to enforce their position and authority over us plebeians.
The houses of parliament are designed to keep reminding us that they have the power. That they deserve the power. That we are subservient to them. Nothing has made this clearer to me over my existence than the petty bullshit infighting in parliament over this Brexit bullshit. A broken system of representatives who are failing to do the best for the country as a whole. They’ll be ok in the end. I’ll be ok in the end as I have a decent profession. But it will fuck our country over. I mean we already have millions in poverty and families relying on foodbanks. This country is a disgrace and the time for revolution is nigh.
I honestly have come to the conclusion that we need riots and mass civil disobedience to force a change in the way this country is governed. We need to remove the barriers to social progression. We need all people to be represented equally and we need those in charge to do what is right for the country as a whole and not just play bullshit games with the future of the country because it serves their own egotistical ambitions.
But this won’t happen. Not here. We aren’t citizens. We are SUBJECTS. We have been trained to obey and follow the rules. We all believe that those in power are there because it is their right. That they will do the best for us. Look at the last two years. What a shit-show.
I read recently that one of the main reasons the first world war ended was that there are a massive popular uprising in the German empire and that the Kaiser resigned because of that. The next day the war ended. It wasn’t anything to do with us winning or being better than the Germans. It was because their people decided to revolt. Do you know what our ruling classes did? They forced our society to become more observant of the ruling classes and forced large parades on the people to force the masses to forget about revolution. It happened in Russia, in France many times and Germany. We were next but it was all suppressed. The ruling classes held us down and created more generations of subjects. Women only got the vote because they fought for it. Our collective experiences as SUBJECTS forces us to accept these pathetic imperialist ways.
Look at our national obsession for stately homes. I go around them and my anger increases all the time. These massive houses built on the profits of the poor and downtrodden. All that money used for a few while the many have to accept their fate to living a life of shit and misery while the ruling classes continue to benefit.
While I’m on this I’ll have a side swipe at religion. Mostly because it reinforces this whole idea that there is a plan for us. That there is destiny and no matter how shit life is down here once you die and, as long as you’ve followed their rules, you get to live forever in heaven where the big boss will rule over you. Religions are great. It’s how you keep the power. It’s how you enforce the populace to be subservient to you.
In summary. We are screwed because we so readily accept the idea of class and being born to elevation.
God, I’m such a lefty on some matters that it surprises me so much. I thought we were meant to become more selfish and cunty [sorry, I spelt conservative wrong there] as we got older. All I see more and more is the delusion our people are under and the pain and suffering of those oppressed by the rulers of this land.
And O you mortal engines whose rude throats/Th’immortal Jove’s dread clamors counterfeit
Killing Is My Business . . . And Business Is Good! – Megadeth
This is a Megadeth album which I came to late. My start with Megadeth was watching a BBC2 documentary called “Heavy Metal”. In the film there was a clip of Megadeth playing Peace Sells at an outdoor venue in Northern Ireland. Quite a while after watching the show I kept playing the riffs over and over in my head and I thought I ought to get the album. I wasn’t quite a full on thrash metal fan and I remember being disappointing at the opening song Wake Up Dead. “just another thrash band” I thought. The song “Wake Up Dead” is listed on this site as one of my favourites, THREE classic riffs in one song.
When I got hold of this album a good few years later I was surprised and shocked. It has a very much less-polished feel that the other albums, I guess as you would expect for a band’s first album. It’s faster and more melodic than Metallica, which, given the history, you would expect. MegaDave play hard and fast melodies and it’s their signature sound.
Last Rites / Loved to Deth – piano opening getting you to think you’ve got the wrong album and a little wiggly guitar work and BLAM – Megadeth riff hits you. A fast, heavy, bruising song.
Killing Is My Business – that opening riff is ace. The bounce and feel of it is enough to get anyone jumping around. The songs ends in a speed fueled repeating chorus, lovely.
The Skull Beneath The Skin – the title sounds gross but is really probably just a line from a biology text book. Cantering opening and then a Dave scream with a climbing riff followed by ring chord strokes and then – Kaboom! A galloping ride of guitars and drums over the fields. It’s always amazed me how some riffs are so amazing and then bands only use them for tiny sections of their songs.
Rattlehead – Here I Come. A bass line I can’t comprehend, smash cymbals pushing you to jump either way and this is a dose of metal you need.
Chosen Ones – Oddly this is not a song that sticks in my head. It’s not that it’s bad, it just doesn’t quite do it for me.
Looking Down The Cross – very wiggly at the start. A good song with a blisteringly paced kick drum through. Excellent.
Mechanix – If you want a proper version of Four Horsemen by Metallica then this is where to come. I remember seeing Megadeth play this live at Cambridge and it blew me away. Amazeballs.
These Boots – you can guarantee that there’s always one shit song on a Megadeth album and this is the one on this album. They are like The Crue, chuck in one song that’ll annoy everyone. I do not like this one.
No Rhythm
Having recently bought another PSVR to train myself to get better at playing on it [I normally feel sick super fast] I thought I’d give Beat Sabre a go. It’s a game where the two PlayStation move controllers become light sabres and you have to destroy blocks as they move towards you in time with the music. You end up a little tired and if you complete a level well then it’s quite satisfying. It’s a bit like that disco dancing arcade game but for people who don’t like moving their feet.
Here’s what my view looks like, except for the fact that inside the PSVR it’s a wraparound view.
It’s interesting to see that video as I wouldn’t have said I move around that much and that my view tends to be quite static and then you realise that’s an illusion caused by the brain to make you able to see things while you are moving. I would imagine that VR could be used for some lovely research into how the brain works.
This next view is what I look like outside the VR world.
I think a game like this is a little more of a workout than the Nintendo Wii but overall it’s absolutely nowhere near as good as getting out for a run.
I have had some issues where the right hand controller isn’t detected and I think that’s down to the outside light coming through the front door, it’s simple to fix.
Rock Band and Guitar Hero had a training area to try and get up to speed with the hard stuff and I might have to slow the songs down in Beat Sabre to get the extreme version playable and practiced. After getting used to a song I reckon I’ll be ok for full speed. Let’s wait and see.
The game is officially called Beat Saber but that’s plainly spelt wrong. Hence nearly everything I’ve written is Sabre. It’s the English way of spelling the French word. The following is from the Online Etymological Dictionary [a favourite website of mine].
saber (n.)
type of single-edged sword, 1670s, from French sabre “heavy, curved sword” (17c.), alteration of sable(1630s), from German Sabel, Säbel, probably ultimately from Hungarian szablya “saber,” literally “tool to cut with,” from szabni “to cut.”
The Balto-Slavic words (Russian sablya, Polish szabla “sword, saber,” Lithuanian šoblė) perhaps also are from German. Italian sciabla seems to be directly from Hungarian. Saber-rattling “militarism” is attested from 1922. Saber-toothed cat (originally tiger) is attested from 1849.
Not Live
A couple of years ago I chose to get rid of my Sky TV subscription and that felt good. No more of my money would be going to any Rupert Murdoch entity. Around that time I also bought a FreeSat decoder so that I could record live TV shows onto a hard drive. I don’t record that many TV shows and ultimately the box is largely used for steaming content to the television rather than used the TV itself, the Blu-Ray player, the PS4 or the Apple TV. It’s kinda ridiculous how many things that are connected to the TV.
About a week ago the FreeSat box was reporting that it wasn’t getting any satellite signal. That was a little weird but I think I just turned the box off and on again and it seemed fine. Then, over the weekend, it dropped the signal, only thought one cable was connected [there are two] and wouldn’t find any signal. Whether this was a problem with the box, cables, dish or LNB I have no idea. The dish has been up for longer than I have lived in this house. The LNB was new when I upgraded to Sky HD a long time ago and the cables snake their way around the house and get bumped around a lot because I moved the TV room from close to the dish to the other end of the house a long time ago. I’ve never had any problem with satellite signal before.
I pondered the time and effort and cost in trying to work out where the fault was. I could get a signal detector from eBay for about £20 and use this to see if the box is at fault. I could hook up the old Sky box and see if that was getting a signal. After that I would probably have to pay someone to come and check the cables and LNB. I thought about this and decided that actually I don’t watch any real live television. Over ninety percent of the content I watch is streamed or already recorded onto the HDD in the box. There isn’t a huge amount of live TV I’m interested in.
After a little thought I decided I’d just remove the FreeSat box and get a streaming device so that I didn’t have to use the PS4 all the time for watching moving pictures and sound on the TV. I did try the TV built in apps but they are quite old and while the TV is almost “smart” it’s not that smart and the performance might not be that good. Also, I don’t think the sound output would be brilliant via the ARC.
Having looked around the various streaming devices I could have bought an Amazon stick thing but I don’t want any Alexa stuff in the house. This abode is definitely a “Hey Google” home, I didn’t want to add even more confusion. I also wanted to be able to have a remote control with the device for other people to use. I didn’t want the device to be Google voice activated, I wanted a decent UI and control system.
These criteria essentially led me to the Roku stick. I don’t need 4K streaming and so the £25 device was suitable. Looking online it supports all the services that I use with the exception of NFL Gamepass and Eurosport. I’m happy to stick with Gamepass on the PS4 and Eurosport is only need for one weekend each year when the LMP1 cars are racing around their spiritual home.
Yesterday evening I removed the FreeSat box, although I had some wiring issues as I’d forgotten where the power cables went in AV corner and I did need to move all the devices around. There is very limited space in AV corner and you definitely need your aluminium foil hat going anywhere near there! The Roku device was easy to plug in and works really well. I’m impressed with it as the device is cheap, simple and works as expected. Maybe one day I’ll go 4K but this would require me to upgrade the PlayStation as well and I’m not ready for that level of investment.
Yesterday I managed to get all my services logged in and now I am set up. All of my viewing content is now delivered via the ADSL connection and I’m now slightly fearful for an internet outage. It is good to have a high bandwidth though. There is a slim possiblity that I will write about this again in the future to indicate how it’s going with no live connection. I’m pretty sure I’ll be fine without it but my parents might struggle when they visit [a very small concern].
Costly Wonder
Within visible distance from my house, about a mile away over the fields, I can see looming lights and flashing brightness. I had thought it was set up for a weekend when a friend performed some music thing at the Monastery down the road. There’s an actual piece of St Simon Stock’s skull down there and I think it’s where they draw their power. Have a google for Aylesford Monastery if you want to find out more.
Next to the monastery at the moment is a large temporary theatre showing a pantomime once or twice a day for about a month. It turns out that the lights and glitz are connected to the pantomime and it’s meant to be a Winter Wonderland.
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I went there. No, I’m going to sound like an untrustworthy snob and I probably am but I don’t really like the health and safety aspects of carnival rides that are routinely reduced to fit on the back of a truck and moved around the continent. I do not think that all the best possible safety aspects are adhered to.
The Winter Wonderland consisted of lots of rides, a few food stalls and ticket outlets. It’s one of those places where the workers aren’t trusted with money, like in a Roman nightclub, and you have to buy tickets at centralised locations and use those tickets to go on rides. Twenty five tickets would set you back the discounted price of GBP20 or it was GBP1 each.
A ride on the shittiest ride was three tickets. The dodgems were five tickets a car and to me that sounds expensive. I was thinking maybe GBP3 would be more reasonable but I now realise I’m old and grumpy and harking back to the old days when things were cheap. I don’t get out much and perhaps that explains why I thought everything was pretty expensive.
The ice skating seemed reasonable though. GBP10 for an adult ticket which lasted for the entirety of a three hour window. I managed an hour and forty five and so I think I got my money’s worth along with a hurt wrist after having to do an emergency stop into the barrier with my arm. There’s plenty to remind me I’m getting old. Aches and pains and a natural tendency to moan about how expensive things are!
Ordination
On a bit of a whim I decided to get ordained in the Church Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster. I think this will allow to undertake certain duties within the Church. I really do feel as though I have been touched by His noodly appendage.
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I’m looking forward to undertaking my new duties as part of this Church. I’ve owned a copy of the Gospel for a long time.
I’ve had a FSM on my car for a while because those stupid fish really annoy me. I’m not sure how many people understand the concept of the Church but maybe they should. I’m always amused when people say “but that’s not a real religion” and my response is “what’s a real religion and how do you know?”.
I haven’t yet decided to go full Pastafarian but I might. I probably need to ask someone to get me a metal colander as a gift though.
Killers – Iron Maiden
There’s something about the raw power and sound in this album that has stayed in my core. Along with Iron Maiden, Killers has that kick in the teeth, it pushes you around and beats you up with its riffs and lyrics. I bloody love this album. My feelings for the first two albums often goes against the grain of general fandom. In my view Iron Maiden were good until the end of Seventh Son. After that they went shit. Or maybe I just grew out of them?
The Ides Of March – Borrowed from Samson and written by Bruce before he was part of Maiden. This opener gets you ready for the onslaught.
Wrathchild – rolling bass line with bouncy riffs. A great song.
Murders In The Rue Morgue – such a melody that I get shivers down the spine.
Another Life – You can imagine jumping around to this song in an East End pub in the early 80s. The riff change halfway through is ace.
Genghis Khan – This song pops with the main riff. What out for the speed change that doesn’t accelerate it just knocks you flat.
Innocent Exile – Another bouncy tune that keeps me jumping around the room.
Killers – Entirely about stalking someone and killing them. What do you expect from a band named after a medieval torture device?
Prodigal Son – Devil’s got hold of my soul. But with a ballad feel. Although it’s not a ballad.
Purgatory – high speed danger in this song. It races along daring you to join in.
Drifters – The symbol crashes on the off beat excite me in this song. Just one of those things. This song canters along with room for a breather at the end of each verse.
This whole album encapsulates a teenage yearning for power and respect. You can feel the angst in the writing and the production. It still excites me after over thirty years of listening. I bloody love it.
“Sanctuary” isn’t on this album and so probably wont’ get mentioned until “Live After Death”. That’s an “L” album and so won’t be too far away. As a clue I’ll let you know that “Live” is simply the best Maiden album.
Old Memories
Being part of the cadets at work has given me some brilliant experiences and I absolutely love. I often feel like I’m just a big kid really, soaking in all the experiences and seeing some amazing things, some of which I’m not even allowed to talk about. When I went to Cyprus last year it was twenty nine years since I had last been and had those experiences. I went to Akrotiri in 1988. I went one better with a recent trip!
In 1986 October time just after I had been to my first annual camp at RAF Coltishall my squadron went to Crowborough Training Camp for a week of activities. I have a few distinct memories of being there. One evening we watched a scary movie, I think it was Alien, and we had to do this in the girls’ block as that was where the TV and VCR were. When we left it was foggy and we all ran down the hill to our billet as fast as we could.
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I knew that one day we were meant to be going rock climbing and abseiling at High Rocks but it was raining and instead we went to watch Top Gun in the cinema at Brighton. We were full of that film for the rest of the week.
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A memory that came back to me after looking around one of the billets this past weekend was that we had a music box near the door where the power was and we played the Top gun soundtrack a lot along with “In The Army Now” by Status Quo and also “The Final Countdown” by Europe. I loved these songs at the time and I loved the feeling of belonging and having a good time together. I can still remember my team from that Crowborough camp; Nick Filler was I/C, Charles Randall, Vanessa Payne, Gummy and me.
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This recent visit and my first time back to Crowborough comes thirty two years later. I’m back at this place with a bunch of new recruits who are learning the skills to be good leaders and enjoying that feeling of being part of something larger than themselves. I hope they enjoy it and get as much from it as I did.
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I’m not always sure that I appreciated every moment while I was a cadet but i do look back with such fondness. So much so that I’ll be heading back to my old squadron for a meal next year to celebrate thirty five years since 309 was given squadron status.