March 2026 – Fooyah

March 29 2026

Phoenix Lake – Saltbox Nottingham

I have very mixed feelings this weekend as I was meant to be in Germany watching a bunch of my favourite bands in Oberhausen. Smith and I had to cancel that because the war in Iran caused him to have flight delays and that pushed his return from a holiday past this weekend. So, E-tropolis will have to wait for another year or so, band dependent. When I told Dave I was sad about this outcome he invited me to help him photograph some bands in Nottingham and I love a road trip so agreed. I guess I was the Best Boy for the evening! I helped set up video cameras and then guarded the equipment from people. I also was sent out to get emergency batteries and a USB memory stick for the audio desk output. The bands were ok, here’s my review:

7eventh Sea – shouty metal. Had a backing track that sounded electronic but this was drowned out while the rest of the band were playing. They had some good start-stop riffs.

Aethoria – my favourite of the evening. The singer had a great voice and looked like she was really enjoying the gig – which for me, makes all the difference. I want my artists to be involved and happy. One guitarist was supertechnical in his playing but from where I was watching the sound mix wasn’t great. I still enjoyed it though.

Black Lakes – It was core-metal I think. I didn’t really enjoy it as much as Aethoria but they were quite good – I liked the boxes they used to raise them up a bit at the front of the stage. The bassist played a left handed guitar but upside down and in a right handed way, this was strange. When I wrote a message to Smith about this I said the bassist looks like a middle-aged teacher, he was a lot less metal looking than the rest of the band.

Phoenix Lake – this was a home town show for this band and that meant it was a shame the venue wasn’t as busy as it could have been. Also, some twat-man shouted out “get your top off” a couple of times and that’s just cuntish. This band were melodic metal and it was ok. The guitarist was playing some whizzy stuff. There was a backing track that also had guitars on it so the single guitarist could play solos and things without the band losing the overall sound. Overall it was ok. If I had to see a band again it would be Aethoria.

It was quite nice to see the bands mixing around after the gig. I didn’t talk to any of them, that would be a major stress, so why would I? Dave chatted to them and as I was his assistant I stayed in the background, I’m not the one trying to make a career out of this.

Now, considering we drove from Maidstone to Nottingham the whole thing was really good fun. The journey home was a little more stressy as there were road closures on the M1, M25, and M11 which meant we had a few detours. I got home at 0300. The next day was not pleasant as this was the second late night in a row and it turns out my body does not react to that very well anymore. For pretty much all of Saturday I felt as though I was incredibly hungover – I wasn’t but that’s what it felt like.

March 20 2026

Project Hail Mary

I went to the Cineworld Cinema at Rochester to see this film. Apparently I went to an early preview because after watching the film I couldn’t rate it on IMDb and that’s a whole thing for me. I used to only rate films I saw at the cinema. But, over the last year I’ve been watching some terrible films on Amazon Prime and realised after wasting an hour that I’d seen them before. I’m a sucker for cheap science fiction films! So, now I try to rate everything I watch, cinema, films, series etc. I do this so I can see if I’ve watched a thing before and save wasting time and being disappointed (again). For instance I recently subjected myself to the Melania “film”. It was utter shit. Absolute shit. I will probably remember that I ‘ve watched that film but some cheap sci-fi films look the same. I did look at the level of the river when I drove to the cinema and it was definitely low.

After watching the film I eventually managed to rate it on IMDb. I have a communication from the dark, distant past where I explain how the rating system works. I rated this film 8/10. I’m not sure I’d pay to watch it again but I would watch it if it turned up in a streaming service.

This film is based on a book by Andy Weir. They’re the same person who wrote The Martian. I’ve read Project Hail Mary and I really enjoyed it. I know Andy Weir tries to make things as scientifically plausible as possible. They try to keep the tech within current knowledge and they specifically did that with The Martian. With this film, as it involves exotic matter from space, there are allowances made for the fuelling system. Also, there are going to be radiation shielding issues, but that’s minor really.

I thought this film was great. It stuck close to the book and that’s important as the book was well constructed and thought out. Possibly the film is a touch long, it was over two hours. But I know there are compromises to editing a film and it’s more likely this film got that correct. All the important stuff was there. All the major issues that I could remember from the book were present in the film. I guess I’d rather have a film with a coherent story that’s over two hours rather than something that’s a special effects promotion that adds little – think super hero films.

There was just enough humour in this movie. I laughed out loud a few times and that’s a good sign. There’s a certain humanity to the causes of humour, I think if you can make things funny then you’ve got a good view into the human condition.

March 13 2026

The Bride!

I went to an early evening showing of The Bride! at Cineworld, Rochester. It’s a film that had been on my radar because it looked so colourful and designed. The river level was low upon entry to the cinema. After watching the film I rated it on IMDb, there’s an old communication that explains the rating system here. I rated The Bride! as 6/10.

I really enjoyed this film. I liked the visuals, the sound, the acting, all of it. I don’t think I’d watch it again though and that is why this gets a “6” from me. Sometimes when I watch a film I’m constantly thinking about what to write on this site. This process improves my watching experience and allows me to interact with the film rather than be a passive watcher. While watching The Bride! it took quite a way into the film for me to even think about what to write here. That means I was engaged and enjoying myself. I wasn’t trying to work out criticisms or trying to remember specific parts of the film to comment on here. This is genuinely a good film.

I liked the pro-women stance taken by the movie. The way it empowers the female cast at tells their story was really good, it’s well written. The only thing that bothered me, and I’m still not sure what it was there for, was Mary Shelley. The story didn’t need her. Maybe I’m wrong and it’s vital but I think it works without that. Jess Buckley was fantastic in this and her characterisation was amazing. Overall, a great film.

March 8 2026

I’m A Nimby Now

It depresses me but in all honesty I have decided it’s time to resist the developments of housing around the village where I currently live. Firstly, the already approved development will obliterate the view from my house. The south face of my house overlooks fields all the way to the river. I can see houses in the distance but everything is green or brown depending on the season, sometimes it’s a golden fertile wheat colour.

One day all of this view will be houses. There’s an approval for 950 homes in those two fields you can see. I’ve written about it before here. I do understand the need for housing. I do understand the need to build. I don’t understand approving farming land for building when there’s quite a bit of brownfield site around. I also worry about infrastructure. Where I live the roads are congested already. The main road south through Aylesford has a weight restriction. There is a waterworks and all the shit-carrying trucks pass through Eccles. This is the only route they can take. Pilgrims way has become almost too busy since the bridge connecting the west and east banks of the Medway was built – this was to avoid all the Peters Village new traffic using Pilgrims way, but really all that’s happened is everyone uses Pilgrims Way as a rat run.

There’s around 850 dwellings in the village at the moment. The Trenport expansion would mean 950 more. We don’t have capacity on the roads, the doctors are overwhelmed and there are no buses through the village. The whole thing is a shit show. I wouldn’t mind I suppose if we actually built high density housing but we don’t. We build shitty detached houses with too few parking spaces. We need urban development that is concentrated. We need to build like the old towns. We need to have housing that blends with the feel of the local area. What we don’t need is the utter shit that developers build these days. I do feel a sense of helplessness about this. Damn.

In the graphic above that I stole from some local newspaper you can see the proposed areas of development. The area marked “1” is already approved and will more than double the size of the village and destroy my calming view of the world which was a large part of why I bought my current property. This development does include so called “road improvements” but the increase in traffic is going to be utter shit. The area labelled “3” is misleading as it’s mostly a large lake. There will be houses built there, for “later living” which I assume is for retirement people. If’ I’m being 100% honest I can see myself moving to there in around ten to fifteen years assuming it’s bult and suitably priced.

The red area is now proposed for even more housing. only another 200 dwellings. Like, what the actual fuck? This lovely rural area nicely connected to local motorways and convenient for commuting, away from Tonbridge – the authority within which it sits – is going to become a wank-stain. I’m upset about it. Why aren’t we building high-rise buildings on brown field sites? Time to get out I think. Time for me to have a run around the countryside and appreciate it before the cement trucks start arriving and plaster the area in dust and concrete.

March 8 2026

Sinners

I took a trip to the cinema. Cineworld are showing films that are nominated for awards so last night they showed Sinners which came out sometime last year but I missed it then. I think the tide was low as I drove along the promenade, I’m not really sure as it was quite dark, I think this was the latest I have been to the cinema for a while. On the way out I couldn’t really see either, oh well. I rated this film on IMDb and you should read this communication before ranting about the rating.

I really enjoyed this film. It took a surprise turn for me about half way through as I knew very little about the story. Lets take some things in order. First, I hadn’t realised the twins were played by the same person. This shows just what an amazing job they did filming the main characters. The differences between the characterisation and how they looked was amazing. The filming was perfect. I though they were just two actors who looked similar! I will admit that I’m not great at faces and struggle to describe people, maybe that helped the filmmaker.

The music in the film was stunning. The use of the blues in what felt like a historically accurate world was amazing. You could feel the music. The scene where the club opens and the music transitions through various genres, blending the visuals and sounds, left my jaw on the floor. It was so clever, so well filmed, so natural. It fitted exactly. It was impressive.

The film was a period piece and it felt utterly accurate. Now, I have no idea really what it was like in the 1930s. All I can say is that nothing removed me from that headspace. Even an electric guitarist turning up and wazzing away felt right. I was really impressed. Look, it was a great film.

Vampires. The surprise addition to what I thought was going to be a revenge film. At some point there was a strange scene involving someone turning up at a farmstead who was steaming – I hadn’t realised they were burning in the sun – and then they increase the clan membership by two. Some indigenous people show up and are refused access to the vampire because racism.

My general understanding of vampires used to be, before The Lost Boys, that they hated the cross and sunlight, also garlic. The Lost Boys opened me to the idea that a vampire needs to be invited into a building to be able to enter a home. To me, this is a “new” thing introduced by The Lost Boys. I hadn’t realised it was part of a longer lasting lore about vampires and it appeared in this film. It turns out that the whole invite thing is a very old tradition with vampires. Some older traditions have them impervious to sunlight! This film used garlic, invites, sunlight and the classic stake through the heart tropes. It was executed really well.

Some people left the cinema at the very start of the credits. I waited. I’m not sure why but I wasn’t in a massive rush to get anywhere. I’m glad I waited. There was a mid-credits scene that very nicely brought the whole story back together. It was a really nice touch.

March 3 2026

Time Conventions

We have rules and ways of describing things to other people so that everyone understands the same things. It’s why we have a glorious number of words that specifically describe a particular thing. We can use language to be highly specific and be very clear our meaning. When we use words most people have an understanding of the subtle differences in words and their meaning.

You’re acting like an idiot.

This phrase often gets complaints “you called me an idiot”. And while I might be suggesting you are acting like an idiot I am definitely not calling you an idiot. This type of language is used all the time by politicians where they say one thing, hope the populous interprets in a particular way but also have the deniability that they didn’t say what everyone thought they did. This happens more these days with all the fascists in charge in the USA and the rising of Reform in the UK. If you listen all their language is veiled so that racists understand what they are really saying. Apparently it would be bad form to say overtly racist things, people don’t like that.

I didn’t expect to get going about language in this communication but there’s always going to be some form of political messaging behind what I write. It turns out that 2026 is the tenth anniversary of me being permanently angry. I’m permanently angry because of the obvious lies promulgated during the Brexit campaign and when called out people ignored it. The fact that Johnson et al lied to force the Brexit vote a particular way just to try and heal the divisions within the tory party has boiled my piss for ten years. Here is the image I saw that started this communication:

State Of The Union - Timings — State Of The Union – Timings

I’m not going to discuss the remnants of humans that appear in the image because I don’t have enough space on this server to get that vitriol exorcised. My problem with the image is more to do with the time stated that the State Of The Union will start.

This took place on Tuesday 24 Feb at around 2100 EST. This would have been around 0300 GMT on Wednesday 25th February. As you can see in the image the broadcast via C-Span was due to start at midnight. BUT there is a problem here caused by how midnight is defined.

The general understanding would be that the broadcast was due to start at midnight Tuesday into Wednesday. So Tuesday night time. If I had arranged to meet you at midnight on Tuesday you would assume that we are meeting Tuesday night. However, 1200am is defined as the very start of the next day. So the C-Span graphic, because they used 1200am and not “midnight” means the midnight in the Monday to Tuesday night time. Had C-Span written “midnight” then I think we would have had a better idea of what they meant but the fact they went with the highly specific 1200am means we should interpret that as the specific time in the Monday night time.

Now, because how we speak and the way we use language is versatile, it can be argued that the real meaning of 1200am 24th Feb should be interpreted the way most people would interpret it. If I was to say to you “let’s meet at midnight on Tuesday” only an absolute pedant would turn up on the Monday night time. Midnight Tuesday is the absolute start of Tuesday and not the time going into Wednesday. But, because of how language works we know that Tuesday night time was meant. It could be that we even add some form of qualifier: “I’ll meet you at midnight Tuesday night” which is still ambiguous but less so.

I guess there are two possible outcomes that result in a correct meeting of people. Outcome one is that someone asks a clarifying question to ascertain the correct evening people are meeting. Outcome two is that both assume the correct evening without any clarification. The moral is if someone says “at midnight” then we need more clarification about which actual night time they require.