I’ve been flying around the world in my T-7 and it’s been fun so far. I’ve covered the coasts of Europe, Africa and the southern Arabian peninsula. Once I got to Pakistan I decided to follow the mountains across Asia. I’m not sure what I’ll do once I get to the Pacific coast. Now that I’m deeply in the Himalayas the airports become a little more challenging. I’ve crashed at a couple – Jumla and Lukla. I’ve crashed mostly because of high descent rates but also because of running out of runway. The little T7 doesn’t have reverse thrust and I’m gradually learning the limit of the braking.
Crashed At Jumla
This map shows the route I flew to get from Simikot to Jumla and the fact that my aircraft is pointing the wrong way is not because I’ve started to taxi but more due to the fact that the plane was tumbling along the runway after an “aggressive” approach.
Jumla Approach
If you expand the image you can see where the runway is and I know it looks fine but I didn’t manage it the first time. I did ok on the second attempt which is not really what you want a pilot to be especially good at!
This is comms#1978 and so here are some things that happened in that year of our lord [what a load of crap].
The first GPS Satellite is launched.
Jimmy Carter proposes cancelling neutron bomb development.
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is first broadcast.
Last night Smith and I went out! Out! To see a band! Well, two bands really but it was out and my first time in London since February 2020 when we saw Aesthetic Perfection. We got the train in and booked into our hotel room – proper full on night out! After getting changed we headed to Electrowerkz, which was quite close to the hotel and entered. I had forgotten my photo ID and the security people were very good at sorting that out as I had photos of all my ID on my phone, they accepted me fortunately.
Electrowerkz Welcome
I loved this touch of some old CRT showing a logo as we walked up the steps. It added to the feel of the place. We didn’t see the first two bands as we were drinking and chatting to the merchandise people. I think I bought some dog tags, but I have no idea where I put them, I’ll have to have a look shortly. I liked the few changes that had been made to the building and ambiance, the main floor looked really good.
Before The Crowds – Electrowerkz
Reaper is a band/person we had wanted to see for a long time as a couple of his albums are really good. A nice split between industrial and EBM. I enjoyed his set although I think there could have been some other songs added to make it greater but I guess you have to trust the artist and the things they want to play might not be what I want to hear.
Reaper – X-Junkie
I really enjoyed the Reaper set. It was about this time that I started to appreciate the new sound system in the room. I could hear all the nuance in the songs, which I knew quite well anyway, and this was a surprise as normally my hearing dies quite quickly into a gig and I can’t tell what’s going on apart from noise.
Nachtmahr – Electrowerkz
Nachtmahr were brilliant. They played a great set and the crowd really liked it. I don’t think this makes a top ten of gigs, but it’s definitely in the top half. I had a great time and danced quite a bit – I think the alcohol helped a lot with that. Overall this was a good gig. A couple of great bands and really good fun. Brilliant!
This is communication number 1977 and so in keeping with recent tradition I list below some events of that year:
Jimmy Carter pardons Vietnam draft dodgers.
The rings of Uranus are discovered.
Optical Fibre is used to transmit phone calls for the first time.
165 Killed in a fire in Kentucky.
Never Mind The Bollocks is released by the Sex Pistols.
I went for a run earlier today and I ended up thinking about a number of things about this film, mostly to do with how annoying it was. I keep wondering if it was genius or shit to have the story told three times from different points of view. I think I have settled on “shit”. I know the film was trying to be clever but as I get older I am convinced it is the job of media to push for equalities of rights and to make the world a better place. All the undertones of modern film should be progressive. Just maintaining the status quo doesn’t do enough. We live in a world where people are treated differently because of who they are and that’s wrong. We also, very obviously, live in a world where there is a pandemic of violence and mistreatment of women. Rachel Parris said it well in the recent episode of The Mash Report.
So, the concept of telling this story in three parts, two of which are from a male point of view and one of which wasn’t even involved in the rape is bollocks. By focussing two thirds on the film with a male point of view demeans the actuality of what happened to the woman. The fact that we see the rapists point of view as part of this film is shocking and sad. It tries to justify the rape with the emotional intelligence of a fucktard. The c(o)unt doesn’t think he did anything wrong.
The fact that the court trial focussed on the woman’s sex life and things she had said to her friends speaks volumes as we STILL DO THIS TODAY. Women are blamed for the violence that happens to them. Men are excused from being violent sexist pigs because the whole world and rules for everything are designed for men by men.
This film missed the chance to do so much. It could have sent a message around the world, it could have been a commentary on the modern world [same rules as 700 years ago]. It even had it’s own #metoo moment but it got lost in bullshit men fighting it out for their honour. I bloody hate this sort of film and probably shouldn’t have seen it. I thought it would be a good use of some spare time. Live and learn eh?
This is comms#1976
23000 die in Guatemala after an earthquake.
An explosion at an ammunitions factory in Finland kills 40.
This year has been an experience for a number of reasons, Covid being the most/worst important, and heating my house and having hot water being my second stressy thing. I think the heating and hot water started to be a little temperamental in February and because we were in the second or third wave of Covid it took ages to get the boiler seen. Lots of parts were replaced and then eventually it died properly. Fortunately it died a few days before I had booked to get a new boiler installed. So, finally, the new boiler is now installed and I have efficient heating and lovely hot water.
Hopefully The End Of Woes – A New Boiler
I did have a mild panic that the walls of the boiler might not be iron based and therefore the magnets wouldn’t stick but it turns out I needn’t have worried. I mean, where else would people stick shit like that if the boiler was made of plastic??
I am aware that having a new gas powered boiler right in the middle of a gas supply crisis is a little worrisome. It bothers me too. I looked into a heat exchanger and, firstly, I can’t afford one, secondly, a friend who is a green energy expert said to leave it a few years for the technology to catch up. I would love to have installed some green energy heating device but I’m stuck. I am hoping to get ten years of use out of this boiler before things become too expensive or illegal to run. Then, with luck, I’ll be able to install some green tech and feel happier about my contributions to fucking this planet over.
This is comms#1975 and so here are some things that happened that year:
An earthquake in China was predicted but it still kills over 2000 people.
I went to the cinema to watch The Last Duel. It wasn’t on at a suitable time at my local cinema so I went to Ashford – even then I couldn’t book online and I had to just turn up and pay there because the Ashford cinema is in a different “booking category” to Rochester and the online website won’t let you pay the difference, you have to do it in person. So, I have no idea what the tide looked like as I drove to the cinema. I can tell you the M20 to junction 9 is as boring as ever and it feels like it takes ages but I think it’s only fifteen miles.
After I saw this film I rated it on the IMDB website. If, while watching a film, I’m starting to think what score I would give it, then the film isn’t holding my attention. It didn’t take long for me to wonder where on my scale of film scoring this film stood. I then shared this score in Twitter because it gives me something nice to embed right now:
This film was as boring as shit. I really didn’t enjoy it and I did consider leaving, but there was a person at the end of my row and I had driven more than normal to get here. Most of the characters were assholes and the only nice character was the lead female who, because of when the film is set, has all her rights fucked over.
So, this is a film in FOUR chapters. We get to see the same scenes over and over and I really didn’t like this aspect. No doubt someone will tell me how clever it was and how the mood really changed from one chapter to the next, but mostly, it was boring and while the differences were there they were over emphasised and could have been more subtle. Three times we got this whole story. Then the final chapter concerned the start of the film because, tension or something.
The first chapter seemed to be all castles and horses and battles and there were dates up on the screen but who is able to follow those and really piece together a time line? I don’t think a film should have dates, you should be able to make the film understandable without those things. Maybe just one at the beginning so we know what era of misogyny we are dealing with. Now, there might be a stroke of genius in the overall “feel” of each chapter but it wasn’t stark enough for me. The first chapter was horses and battles and boring as fuck. The second chapter was wine and fucking and the third was oppression of women. If the film was design with clear artistic differences between those three then they failed as I felt only the first chapter had a different taste.
I did wonder how many times can you have horses galloping up to castles and I got bored. Were we meant to recognise the different castles and the local politics of the time? I hated some aspects of this film. It’s also hard to recognise French named places when the cast constantly talk in American English but switch to French accents when pronouncing names, I could be being generous there, but I wasn’t “ready” for the French and it took me ages to finally get what they were saying.
How long would it take to bleed out from a femoral artery wound?? Not long and that’s what the final scene had for me. Do they not do first aid?
This film could have been so easily made to actually say something. It could have pushed the parallels between the legal system then and what happens now. It could have highlighted the plight of rape victims in modern times and it could have made so much more for women’s rights of the past and today, but it didn’t.
I just read something about Jean De Carrouges life and it turns out that he went to Scotland to garner support from the Scots to attack the North Of England. The film does not make this clear in the slightest and I left the film under the impression that he was fighting the Scots from the north of England. A small point, but actually quite a difference.
Anyway, all those irritations aside, the main character in this resided at Carrouges in France and this excited me as, when I finally understood the name, was somewhere I had been. I went on holiday near there in around August 2008 or so. I had a look around the chateaux in the village. The chateaux was built by Jean De Carrouges, the main chappy in this film. I don’t think I was aware of that side of the story when I visited it. Why would I be. It doesn’t seem that a duel from 700 years ago would interest the locals. I hope they get a reasonable source of income from the fame produced by this film.
Carrouges Chateaux
There was an art exhibition on in the Chateaux while I visited and I remember liking it a lot. I can also remember that the day was chuffing hot.
Art in the Carrouges Chateaux
This is Comms#1974 [+- 1] and so here are some things that happened in that year of the mostly common calendar used in business and governments around the world:
174 die in a fire in Sao Paolo.
The F-16 Viper flies for first time.
India becomes the sixth nation to have and operate nuclear weapons.
Something went wrong. I’ve recently been adding some extra information to my communications, partly to keep track and partly to add content that might be interesting. I’ve been using the “posts” count within WordPress and at the end of each communication I write a little about what happened in that year, just as an extra. I did try this somewhere in the 1600s as I thought it would be fun but I got bored and couldn’t be bothered. Then I started it again in communication number 1897.
There has been a problem along the way because the communication number I have been using at the end of each post is now out of synchronisation with the number that WordPress thinks it is on and I have no idea how that happened. Either I can’t count [which is likely] or WordPress can’t count, which is also quite likely as there is no fool proof method for computer systems to count things. So, this communication will not have any exciting information at the end of it to bring the comms# into line with the WordPress number and to make sure that I hit 2000 spot on, or close enough. It’s almost embarrassing that the count on this site is going to be 2000+-1.
So, for a little extra content here is an embedding of my most popular YouTube video when scored by views:
This video was recorded just at the beginning of my lockdown in 2020 and features my new Philips Ambilight TV.
I think I got to hear about this album from a television show I watched in Australia, something like that. It’s a side project of the singer for Jane’s Addiction and as such, this is an OK album. I enjoy the songs when they pop up on a shuffle but I don’t think it’s an album I would normally reach for unless it’s summer time and maybe I’m outside in the garden, it’s got that kind of feel to it.
This is the first of the “U” albums and it’s a quite exclusive club. Definitely not as many as “T”, thank goodness. We’ll be at the end of the list soon I guess unless the “W”s have a surprise for us.
This should be communication number 1973 because all the other communications before this one have been building up to number 2000. That’s why I started added year-information-stuff. But now there’s a controversy. WordPress thinks this is number 1972 and not 1973 and I really am unsure why.
I get a “posts” count at the top of my WordPress page and have been using that to figure out the particular comms# but systems have gone wrong somehow. Now I don’t want to repeat a load of information and maybe I should make the content dynamic somehow but I’m going to stick with the system I have been using and hope WordPress catches up with me soon. Maybe this is my “millennium bug”.
Had a trip where we swung by the RAF Museum in Hendon. It’s free to enter so it’s a great place to go. If there was payment then I would have to balance to cost with what is there and so the greatness would depend on the exhibits and the cost giving me a measure “value”. Now, I’m into aircraft and this is free. So it’s an excellent place. Actually, it is an excellent place and not by default.
Short Sunderland – RAF Museum Hendon – they built 749 of these!
Now, I can’t just swan off to places like this in the work week without actually having good reason and so we did bring some cadets with us to have a look around. You might be disturbed by this but I think the motivation to leave school for some and have a day out of lessons is actually overcome by the fear that they will miss something important and, if I’m honest, we didn’t bring as many as I had hoped. It’s there choice but what have we done to education if children think a day out with friends learning about “other things” is not worth the effort?
EH101 – Hendon
This beast is one of the prototypes of the EH101 and it is pretty fucking big. It’s in the corner among all the other aircraft and this one is just huge. We were just hanging around and one of the museum helpers came over and asked if we would like to look inside. Well, you don’t need to ask aircraft nerds twice! So we took up the offer and wandered around the cabin – it was big enough to “wander around” – and then we sat in the cockpit as we were invited to. Really grateful to have had the experience.
EH101 Cockpit – RAF Museum Hendon
Here’s a picture of me pulling a stupid face – I want to point out that I was deliberately making stupid faces – but I guess you can disagree with the deliberate part of that if you want.
Comms#1972, here are some things that happened that year:
The Godfather premiers in New York.
I was born.
A fire in a nightclub in Osaka kills 115.
US Officials own up to the Tuskegee syphilis study.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time recently flying around the world, in a flight simulator. Let’s make that clear, I’m playing a game on a computer. I’m not doing this in real life. This started as a coastline tour of the UK from RAF Valley heading south and I just got stuck following coasts all the way to Pakistan. One day there will be a list on this site of all the airports I’ve landed at, well, at least since I’ve been keeping a list, which I think starts in Africa.
I’m going to skip the coastline of India and head across the Himalayas to see some mountainous scenery. I’m not sure where I’ll go once I hat the coast again, and I’m not sure when I’ll head back to the UK. Maybe I’ll just do a trip around the eastern hemisphere for now? I don’t know.
The Coast Of Hingol National Park
While I’ve been flying I’ve been learning more about operating the aircraft and trying flight plans etc. I think I’ve just about managed to program a plan into the flight computer, but I haven’t yet followed it because I keep seeing valleys to get low down in.
China India Border With A Friend In Tow
I had been using some software to add other players into my game, but no one is really around where I am so I’ve been using the PC to generate other planes. This picture shows another T7 following me. I was worried it was going to shoot me down as I have combat turned on, but they just kept their distance and left me alone. It was quite nice to have someone else in the sky, even if it’s just an “AI” plane.
Just Over Surigh Yilganing Kol
So, I#ve recently landed at Leh, in India and I think it’s the first landing I’ve made in India. I’m not sure. The borders around here are a little hazy! Looking at Google maps I’ve just missed K2 and I won’t be going back for it. I’ve got to keep on moving eastwards.
This is comms#1971, so here are some things that happened in that year:
Gosh, it has taken a while to get to this point but this is the last of the “T” albums. Once I complete all the albums alphabetically it’ll be time to go back to the beginning and start reviewing all the EBM, aggrotech, albums that I have. Sorry about that but I don’t think there is an end to this portion of this site. If you think these are boring just wait for my list of airports I have used in the Round The World Trip in X-Plane!!
I saw Wat Tyler at a gig in the Square in Harlow way back when I had more hair than now. They were funny and I bought this CD at the merch table. This album is the perfect mix of well written songs and joke songs which make me laugh. I love it.
Here are some of the highlights:
Justify Your Book – is it just me or is the singer’s voice remarkably sexy here?
It Makes Me Belch – heavy riff and shouty vocals with a great hook into the chorus.
Hops And Barley – such an amazing wholesome song.
Coming Home – a lovely sea shanty from before sea shanties being popular.
Perry Groves – apparently a song about soccer.
The Definitive Love Song – a bit of a Freebird rip off with spoken lyrics to make you laugh.
Dodgepotterydo – a song with the lyrics of Rolf Harris songs sung to the tune of “Stairway To Heaven”.
James Whale – sung to the tune of “I just called to say I love you” but with a chorus of “James Whale you’re a fucking cunt, you’re a fucking cunt”. If you aren’t sure who James Whale is then think Piers Morgan but slightly less offensive.
Ruder Girl – If I can find the lyrics I will put them at the end of this communication.
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – you will love this.
Wet Wet Wet (The Fucking Bed) – hilarious.
The Little People Make Lurve – a classic operatic story of elves and dwarves and shit.
Gosh, we’ve reached the 1970s in terms of communications and here are some things that happened that year:
