So, I took a trip to the cinema at Rochester [not Rochester] to see The Mummy, by Lee Cronin, not a reboot more a reimagining. But there are things to be written here before we get on with what I thought about the film. For some reason I mention the tide in these communications. I do know the reason I’m just not sure when I started doing this. I think I mentioned the tide to avoid mentioning the actual time I went to the cinema as I might have skipped off work or something a little earlier than I was meant to. The actual details are hazy now and so I mention the water levels in the river for completeness.
High Tide On The Medway
The picture was taken just before I entered the cinema. As you can see the water was lapping at the wharf edge and so the tide was high, probably at its highest. When I left the cinema the central river channel was obvious and the mudflats were prominent. After I watch a film at the cinema I rate it on IMDb, there are rules to this and there is a communication here that covers the system. I have started to rate every film I watch – so those on television / streaming – because I have, on occasion, found myself rewatching something I thought was rubbish but had forgotten about. It’s only about thirty minutes into the film that I realise I’ve already seen it. This especially occurs with rubbish science fiction films on Amazon Prime. So many films have storylines that seem familiar and so that’s why it can take a while to figure out if I’ve seen it before.
Lee Cronin’s The Mummy – 4/10
This film scored 4/10 in my system. It was close to a six for a while as I was watching it but it got slightly too gross for 6 and I stopped caring about the people and so I only watched to the end just to see how they ended it.
My first though while watching this film was “I don’t think birds have that much blood in them”. I’m not really sure what that scene indicated. Perhaps the awakening of the demon. I know I always want to kill pet birds when I wake up. After that the film progressed mostly gently and it seemed fine. I liked the silence of the crashing aircraft but the fact the explosion sound was instantaneous to impact and we were viewing from over a kilometre away really annoyed me. Like really annoyed me. Explosion noises take time to travel to you or the camera – get it right Hollywood.
This film didn’t have the colour or fun of the previous Mummy film. It was dark and gross rather than bright and fun and not scary. I mean this one wasn’t scary. Some make up and odd noises isn’t really enough to make a film a bother. I know I’ve seen a few horror films recently and they don’t really do much to me. The worst I felt in this one was when one of the old ladies throws up. It made me gag a little which I thought was an interesting reaction. The rest of the film just seemed to rely on loud stupid noises and “creepy” looking children and make up. Mind you, I loved it when the small daughter called their teacher a “cunt”. Always nice to hear that word from the “innocent”. But, I hasten to remind you, it’s been done before. “Jesus fuck my cunt” I believe was in The Exorcist and that’s a really old film.
This film just wasn’t that scary. It seemed a touch slow as well. I don’t know. A lot of my opinions have probably changed over time and I’m being affected by watching things on streaming services. Perhaps once you’ve seen a lot of films you get to feel blasé about most new films unless they really tell an interesting story. I did comment to Smith the other day that the last film that really disturbed me was The Omen, the original when it was shown on Channel 4. That’s probably because I was young and hadn’t really dismissed supernatural stuff by then.
I spent time at the weekend with some old friends at the Bentwaters Cold War Museum. It’s an old building and collection at the old RAF Bentwaters in Suffolk. The museum had about seven aircraft and a little cafe and shop. The coolest part of the museum is the battle command centre within the building showing how the first stages of a non-nuclear World War III would have been led. Bentwaters was home to A10 Warthogs and the job of those aircraft was to be the second wave of A10s into Germany after the first two days of a ground war. It was a really interesting visit and super fun to be with old friends and making fun of each other as we always have.
RAF Bentwaters TACAN Sign
There were plenty of people volunteering at the museum who are ex-service people who gave great talks about the base and the roles of various people. It was really interesting. After the visit I chose to drive to Rendlesham Forest and inspect the site of the famous UFO sighting in 1980 or so. The forest was nice but the ground was mostly sand and that was annoying to walk on. I had a great time.
I recently went to the cinema at Rochester [Strood] to watch Akira, again. I have watched this film many times, firstly in the early 1990s and then whenever I feel like it. Smith and I went this time and this mirrored the time twelve years ago we watched it at the BFI. I also watched this film in 2020 when things were being shut down and cinemas were going to be closed for a long time. I’ve already rated this film on IMDb and so there’s no need for a rating here, but it obviously scores 10/10. I’ve seen it plenty of times and still really enjoy it. I did struggle a little this time with momentarily shutting my eyes in the last half hour of the film.
On a local footpath there’s a gate post with some stickers on it. I’ve walked, cycled, or run past these stickers many times and I finally got around to trying to figure out what they are. There were two and one of them looked like a rave sticker and I couldn’t find any information on the internet about them. The second sticker though . . .
A Stand In The Park – sticker found locally
I searched the interwebs to find out what sort of thing or mindvirus had spread its way to Kent. Now, to be honest, I’m well aware that Kent has its issues. It still has conservative MPs FFS and also a Reform led county council who are doing an amazingly shit job at everything. The whole county is, how do we say it, a bit right-wing. I guess I’m trying to make a little difference in this world through attempting to influence people and putting a little money into causes I think are worthwhile. So, I looked for A Stand In The Park and I found their website. The homepage sstates the following:
No agenda
No religion
No leaders
That all seems quite reasonable I suppose but if you are organising a collection of like minded people then you very much have an agenda and leaders. Someone is doing the organising. It looks like the organisation was started in the early days of the Covid Pandemic [or plandemic as ASITP calls it, showing some of their ideology straight away] when some man stood in Hyde Park [Sydney, Australia] because they wanted to connect personally and infectiously rather than online. I guess you’re free to pass on a deadly disease to other people if that’s what you want to do, but were all the other people turning up accepting of the fact they could die or kill others close to them if they became infected?
So, the front page of the website just looks like a group of people who had some distrust about the messaging of the pandemic and they wanted to meet up. I don’t really have too much of a problem with that. They were wrong to do so and they probably ended up killing people through infection but, sure, meet up if you want. There’s a “click here for more” link and I did and the following bulleted list turned up.
What I find really interesting about the list is that there’s some of it that I, a complete lefty, can agree with. There are ideas that I think many people would agree with.
Cost of living
Unnecessary surveillance and unreasonable use of force
Rental crisis and public services stretched and underfunded
Lower class ignored, rich getting richer
Media and govt inflaming division
Justice system broken
Funding of wars
Poverty and homelessness at all time highs
Resources being sold
The things I’ve listed I reckon are probably thought of as issues by many people. I know that this organisation is based in Australia but we have the same issues here in the UK. It seems perfectly reasonable to have the concerns raised about society. My issue is that the best way to fix these things is higher taxation and a wealth tax. In the UK the government systems have been broken deliberately over the last fifteen years by a conservative government underfunding every area of public life. Then we had Brexit which has caused such financial damage to the country that the only way to try and fix it is to re-join the EU but under worse conditions than before. Yes, so many areas of UK are underfunded, but why do you think that is? It’s because of who the country voted for. It’s because we had a series of incompetent liars as prime minister.
So, this organisation attracts you because you think the government has made some “errors” over the last couple of decades along with having an idiot in charge for Covid times. So it would seem reasonable to meet like minded people and stand with them in the park for a while to try and get a point over to those in charge. Standing In The Park attracts you with legitimate concerns but then you meet people who will try and convince you of:
Wokeness and cancel culture
Chemtrails
Excess immigration
C19 “truth”
“vaccine”
Attacks on children’s minds
All of a sudden a group that seemed concerned for freedom too much government control [while wanting a government to fix the things it considers important] now wants us to believe a few extra things that are affecting the world. We are starting to move into the right wing propaganda and conspiracy theory world. This group starts off thinking what I consider to be good things and might attract you because of that but once you are there you will be talked at by people who believe in chemtrails. Here are my explanations of the things in that list:
Wokeness and cancel culture – this is what people who want to be openly racist complain about. “You can’t say what you think these days”. “They cancelled us because they didn’t want to hear what we have to say” etc. Wokeness is about following the evidence and having empathy for people. That’s it. Nothing particularly bad there. I think one of my favourite phrases I heard recently was “reality tends to bend towards leftist thinking”. We know people struggle in a world that refuses to accept them, so if we are more accepting then we can make people happier. Want to be racist? Sure, go ahead but find out the consequences when you do. Being a racist isn’t a protected class so if you are a racist you can go fuck-yourself. If you want to spout hate then that’s fine, go ahead but we don’t have to have you saying that shit in this venue – go fuck yourself. There’s a reason the tory government passed some bullshit freedom of speech law about publicly funded bodies. It because they couldn’t stand the idea that universities were not booking people who spout hate and right wing politics. So, they forced them to have to accept them. Cancel culture is literally just “consequences”.
Chemtrails – bullshit nonsense made up by low-information people.
Excess immigration – now you know when people talk about “excess immigration” what they really mean is people coming to this country who aren’t the right colour. It’s always veiled in a way that everyone could support – problems with public services – but really it’s just racism. We don’t like people who look different to us so we don’t want them here.
C19 “truth” – hey, if you want to know the truth why don’t you pay attention to the various public inquiries going on at the moment. Does it turn out that the PM at the time was an idiot, liar, self-interested cunt? Yes. Does it turn out that had we locked down earlier we could have saved thousands of lives? Yes. Will he be prosecuted and called to pay for his decisions? No.
“Vaccine” – vaccines work. My motto with reference to vaccines is “get that shit in me”. We know they save lives. We know there work and are considered safe. Now, you have to understand what “safe” means. Sometimes people will have a reaction to a vaccine and sometimes it won’t be nice. But overall more people will be healthy and alive than if we didn’t have the vaccine. That’s why there are government pay-outs to people injured by vaccines. It’s best for virtually all of society to be vaccinated so stop being a selfish prick and get pricked.
Attacks on Children’s minds – I don’t know what this is about but I think if you asked the group they would explain how woke gender ideology is damaging children. This is curious. They are saying that by accepting children for who they are and looking after them damages them? I guess first off you have to accept that there are more than two sexes. Then you also have to understand that gender is a different thing. Then you also have to understand that sexuality is different still. It’s a lot to take in I suppose, especially to people who have a very rigid view of the world. Gender affirming care is literal health and metal care. Do you know what happens to kids who aren’t supported? They kill themselves. By being nice and accepting to people we are saving lives.
I had already seen enough on the website to understand that after an initial stand with these people in the park because some of their ideas seem reasonable I would soon be listening to someone who hates the “trans” and blames that on chemtrails and HAARP. It wouldn’t take long, especially if I was easily influenced, for me to be thinking lots of right wing thoughts and attacking the woke. I looked at the Facebook page of ASITP. Just to see what other information I could find about them, the website covered lots but also not much at the same time. I looked to see who ASITP follow on Facebook, some highlights are:
Turning Point Australia
The Light Paper Australia
Stand In The Light
Wake Up America
Turning Point USA
These are all right-wing organisations. Yes, I’m opposed to them. I don’t like their ideology. I clicked on a few of the indivisuals that ASITP follows on FB and it turns out that quite a lot of them are conspiracy people with posts about 5G masts, vaccines, and so on. So, A Stand In The Park, an organisation that has no agenda or leaders have clearly shown their true colours by being full of agenda and misleading information that deliberately harms people. I won’t be going along to the park to join them. I also feel bad for those people who are drawn in to this crowd with legitimate concerns for society that I listed at the top of this communication but then get dragged into full on right wing hate.
I listen to a lot of podcasts. I listen while I’m driving, playing PS5 games, running or just working around the house. Sometimes I run out of podcasts to listen to and I feel a mild anxiety about that, but I have a couple I don’t mind in reserve so that I have spares. Just for fun here’s a list of my current subscriptions:
Citation Needed
Cognitive Dissonance
Data Over Dogma
BBC Friday Night Comedy
Maintenance Phase
Opening Arguments
Pod Save The UK
Science Stuff
Skeptics With A K
The Bugle
The Know Rogan Experience
The Scathing Athiest
The Skeptic
The Sceptics Guide To The Universe
Where There’s Woke
God Awful Movies
The Sketicrat
A couple of times over the last few months some of the podcasts have asked for listener recorded intros which they add to their show. It’s a nice way of making the audience feel part of the show and adds to the character of the production. I have recorded two such introductions and so far, one of them has been used. If you listen to The Know Rogan Experience episode 62 you will hear my voice used as part of the introduction to the “main event”. I also get a name shoutout and this site gets mentioned. If I get mentioned on the other show I recorded for I will let you know.
After the aborted attempt at a short break in the Lake District I caught up with playing the game Hogwarts Legacy. I think I got it as it was reduced in the PlayStation store to about GBP15. This seemed reasonable and I had a go at playing it. I had started a game a couple of years ago but didn’t really feel it so left it alone. This time I paid a bit more attention to the details and the mechanics of the actual game and I also think that playing Horizon Zero Dawn gave me more of an idea of how these adventure stories work. It’s a new genre of game for me.
Hogwarts Legacy – A screenshot
After about 45 hours of playing the game I have completed the main storyline and while there are lots of smaller quests to complete and objects to find I think it’s time to stop. I’m not that used to playing games for three hours straight. Most of the other games I enjoy I can easily pop in and out of so short bursts of playing time are the norm for me. Minecraft doesn’t care how long you spend in the game and I always feel as though I have achieved something. Gran Turismo is normally played for about half an hour and then I’m almost bored, I find other things to do that are more interesting. I can also enter that game and undertake a single race, which including qualifying will get me the daily mileage completed bonus.
The thing that struck me most about Legacy was the lighting. It is very impressive. Likewise that’s what amazed me about the Horizon games. How the game was coded and the engine it used to ensure that the lighting was gorgeous! I loved the sunrise and sunsets within the game. They looked just wonderful. Sure, the mechanics of the actual game was fun too but to be able to stop and watch the sun within a virtual world amazes me.
A few days ago I went to Dartford – somewhere I’d not been before – and spent some time with Jock and their family at the theatre. Dartford seemed a curious place, the railway station building was very curvy and pretty, the car park for the station was not on any road signs but was reasonably priced for the evening. The road to the station passed next to one of the platforms and it seemed a little strange for the train to be right next to the road. I was visiting the Orchard Theatre as Jock’s son was in a battle of the bands there. The theatre was pretty much next to the station but as we approached it had scaffolding and was cordoned off. We walked around the building following the signs for the entrance and didn’t find one. We walked around the building twice. There were definitely arrows pointing in a particular direction so we were following the correct route.
After two complete circuits of the building and no entrance found a local asked us if we were looking for the theatre, yes, we replied. It’s over there and he pointed to what looked like an industrial park. Not far away we could see a marquee style tent and a small banner saying Orchard Theatre. It turns out that while works are being done on the actual theatre the whole organisation had moved to a temporary location in a tent. To be honest, it was quite well done and there was plenty of seating, toilets and a bar, you know, all the usual theatre stuff. We met Jock and his family and then proceeded to the auditorium to watch the battle commence.
The first three bands were under 18s and then after the first break it was the grown ups turn. The first band, Kaira, were a thrash metal band and I’m not sure that the audience was ready for them. I didn’t recognise their songs but I did like their style of music. Next up was Blacktone, They played some great songs and really looked like they were enjoying it, the singer was super excited! The final youth band was Wishbone, who played indie music with some excellent close harmony vocals – it wasn’t my kind of stuff but they did well struggling through some technical difficulties. We all voted for Blacktone.
Of the adult bands I think the first band, One Hash Brown, were musically the best. They seemed to have quite an indy sound and it wasn’t my style of music but they did well. The middle band were called The Resolve and they genuinely looked like a middle-aged divorced dads band. They played some classics and were well polished. The final band, Cabin Pressure, played well but again, it wasn’t my style of music.
Of the younger bands, Blacktone won and will now have that excellent ego boost and the chance to spend some time in a recording studio. I’m glad they won. The Resolve won the adult part of the competition and as they played the best crowd pleasers I’m sure they deserve it. I’m sure all the other bands will go on to do good things. It’s great to see such talent and musicians trying to make it in the tough music business.
I took a trip to the cinema just to go really. The selection of things to see wasn’t great otherwise I would have gone a few times this week. Part of me wants to watch The Magic Faraway Tree but I think I’ll choose a late showing to see that if I decide to go. Fuze was the only other film I considered worth seeing and that’s mostly because I knew nothing about it. There was a “secret screaming” show on Tuesday and I considered going to that but I’m not really a fan of horror films and it’d be even worse as I had no idea what this one could be.
On the way to the cinema I noticed that the tide was halfway and the river looked pretty as it was coloured red by the reflection of clouds in the east that were coloured that way because of the setting sun. It took me a while to figure out why the river was reddish and it turns out it’s a double reflection. After watching the film I rated it on IMDb and there’s a whole communication about how the rating system works.
Fuze – 6/10
I quite enjoyed this film. It was really nice to see London being represented for all the good things about London. I would say this is a classic heist movie. However, I didn’t really like the characters who were doing the robbery so that made the ending slightly harder for me. Perhaps the film managed to get the complexity of criminals presented quite well. I also thought there was too much double crossing going on to the point of the complexity of the plan made the outcome unlikely. Plans never work and there were just too many extra parts to this movie that didn’t quite make sense. However, it’s worth a watch and was quite good fun.
The plan for the first week of the Easter break was to spend the time in the Lake District. I have tents and I can camp. It would be a nice time. Penguin was travelling on the same day so we shared a lift to the north. The journey up was most pleasant. When I checked in to the campsite the people there asked me if I was aware there was a storm coming, they seemed to be mocking the weather as it was quite a calm day. I was aware the weather was going to be a bit wet. I got the tent set up. The rain started. It wasn’t too bad. I set off to Booths to get food for a few days. On my return and while I was cooking some dinner the wind started to gust.
I kept checking the weather app on my phone. The campsite had “360 degree views”, this sounds lovely until you realise that it really means at the top of a hill. There was cover from one direction only and that didn’t seem to be making much difference to the wind. Just after dinner it was gusting around 30kts. The tent was staying up but it wasn’t happy and the rain was starting to seep in. I had some thinking to do. I decided to sleep in the car, I could fold the back seats down and sleep lengthways in the boot with my feet towards the front of the car. I could put all my kit down the other side of the car. I emptied the tent.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and knowing now the outcome I should have removed the tent inner, shoved that in the car and then lowered the tent, stretching the poles to rest on the ground. During the night I slept quite well, I checked on the tent occasionally through the rear quarter light window. It looked ok. The car was hit three times by flying branches from a tree that was a good fifty metres away. The wind was gusting to 70kts. The weather was massive rain, sleet and occasionally hail. I staying in my cocoon until around 0800 when I decided I needed the loo and had to check the tent out.
Two poles had snapped. A lot of the tent pegs had been pulled out of the ground. Everything was absolutely soaking wet. The tent was still in place though. I decided to head for breakfast and a coffee and think what to do. I reckoned I could temporarily fix the poles and the tent would cope. But, the weather was still wet. Over the next few days the weather wasn’t really going to warm up much. The temperatures were due to stay around freezing overnight and around 5 or 6 during the day. This meant my tent would be cold and wet for the rest of my trip. I wouldn’t really have anywhere warm and dry.
I decided to head home. I could assess the tent damage properly. I could be in the warm. The weather at home was meant to be sunny and highs around 14C. I’m gutted I’m not in the Lake District. But I am also warm and happy. I’ll slowly eat through the food I bought and have some Cumbrian beer. The tent is currently in the garden drying out. Some clothes are hanging out there too to dry. There isn’t much wind and the sun is out. I have Hogwarts Legacy to play. I’m happy. Here’s to the summer trip and hopefully better weather. Rain is fine. Cold and wet is less so though.
