Inheritance

I’m currently waiting for a new webcam to be delivered. It was meant to be with me on Friday and it’s now Sunday. I guess that’s not so bad really but I’m used to knowing when things will arrive and normally the estimated date of delivery is spot on, I think that’s why I’m feeling disappointed at the moment. The webcam I currently have is actually pretty good, I bought it a looong time ago for Skype calls to Spain and never used it that much, it lived in a box. It’s only over the last little while that it’s been attached to the computer and working ok. I think it was 720p as I know I bought a good model originally.

Current webcam model

I’m a bit of a brand whore and certain brands I like while others I avoid. Maybe I’m a bit of a marketeers dream but I would like to say that I only buy things when I need them, but that’s rubbish. I don’t need a new webcam even if I am going to be upskilling my YouTube presence. There’s an old webpage where I discuss or show which brands and companies I like, click here, looking at it, there have been a few changes but not that many. For instance, I would still buy a Logitech steering wheel rather than move over to Thrustmaster.

Current Set Up - Soon To Change
Current Set Up – Soon To Change

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about our current brand of politician and how society is made. I don’t think my conclusions are fully justified and I recently had a chat with the Penguin just to get some counter-argument to my thoughts and ideas. I’m not the greatest at setting out reasons even though I can become quite convinced with my conclusions. Obviously I think the Universal Basic Income is a great idea I think it would go some to help those who are struggling. I think my main thought process starts with a – let’s be nice to people – approach and looks at society from that.

This communication is about getting money. Specifically getting money from your parents or someone else who “leaves” their money for you. The idea that when you die your possessions and money get moved over to members of your family seems wrong to me, when looking from a particular point of view. I believe that there are too many people who think it is their right and correct place to be in power or leading when in fact they are just shit at those jobs. I see it all the time in society and professionally. One of the main things that contributes to this overbuild sense of purpose is the idea that people are born to a particular station or place in society. These sorts of thoughts are what private schools create as does wealth and a sense of family destiny. All of these things annoy the fuck out of me. I do wonder that these annoy me because I grew up with very little and when my parents die I will only inherit my father’s debt, they don’t own any property. I won’t get a Brucey-Bonus to help me pay off any of the money I owe. I will be just me working to pay for the things I own.

There was a study which looked at the richest people in Florence, Italy, and compared them to who was the richest SIX hundred years ago. Something like ninety percent of the families were the same families from 600 years ago. Having wealth generally creates wealth and stops others in society from gaining their own independence. This idea of a ruling class is screwing this country, and others, over. Now, before I get on to the idea of removing our monarchy and such institutions I will try and discuss the main thesis in this communication.

I think I’m coming around to the idea that people are allowed to inherit a maximum amount, let’s say thirty grand, and all the rest goes to the state. Now, hopefully we would have a state that can spend the money in a decent way for the better of society rather than the shambles we currently have in charge of this country.

Let’s suppose your mother built up a successful business and has made a ton of money. Good for her. Now, when she dies, that business becomes owned by the state. Any property your family had goes into state ownership and if you want it then you have to earn the money to buy it back. How do you get the money? Do it yourself you lazy fuck. It wasn’t your idea to build that business. It wasn’t your effort. You have had a privileged start to life because you aren’t poor. Go and build your own things.

I’m not sure how any of this would work legally. I’m not even sure how I can persuade other people about this. There is a massive instinct in humans to look after the tribe and make sure that everyone in the tribe does well. We want our things to continue after we are dead and the best way to manage this is to let our family, our DNA, run these things. To have this work well we would have to spend a large amount of time persuading everyone that it is for the best of all. The problem with that is that people are mostly selfish and for good biological reasons. But, selfishness doesn’t go with running a fair society and looking after the people. It’s why to current government is in power.

If you want to be rich and build your own business then that’s great. Go ahead and do it. Measure your success by the size of your property portfolio. Lord it over all the little people as you go about in your chauffeur driven Jag. But, once you die it all gets given back to the state. You made yourself rich off the backs of people you used and in the end everyone starts again from the same place. I guess I think this is a way to level the playing field even though it’s not that thought out.

tldr: you aren’t allowed to pass on anything you have once you die.

Smash – Offspring

I’m not sure why I bought this album. I suspect it was for the lyric below. I’ve not really listened to it.

Drivers are rude
Such attitudes
But when I show my piece
Complaints cease
Something’s odd
I feel like I’m God
You stupid dumbshit goddam motherfucker!

The Offspring

Megabuild Progress

So, as time goes I progress on my Minecraft Megabuild. Even as I continue to build I keep coming up with ideas for new things and extensions but I have decided that once I’ve completed the inside and possibly adjusted the route of the underground railway approaching the build I will stop. I’d love to make a launch control like the one at Kennedy Space Centre but maybe another time. I need to start playing on a new world. This server is now known as Season Two and Season Three has already started. I expect another couple of weeks of tidying up this thing and then I will start recording the tours. I’m keep planning how this is going to work. I’ve practised recording a video with audio and it went ok. I just need to sit down and plan the sections. I think I’m going to make each video around five minutes long covering a single aspect of the build each time.

River and Rocket
River and Rocket

I’m currently fitting all the control systems to the rocket. Really this is just a bunch of switches and toggles in places that look right. I’m also moving all the material I excavated from the hole into rocket storage. I guess my plan is to have this thing be able to blast off and then build a new world somewhere. I’ve got my cabin sorted and I’m pleased with the view from there.

Top Half Of The Rocket
Top Half Of The Rocket

I’m not sure how much time I’ve spent on this. It’s been around an hour a day for quite a while. I’ve been spending time collecting the resources as all this has been made in survival game mode.

Minecraft Statistics
Minecraft Statistics

I’m waiting on a new camera and then some more time just to sweeten off this model and then it’ll be record time. I’m looking forward, it’ll be a new skill and one that I’ve kinda tried before but the result was terrible!

Gantry and Beach Base
Gantry and Beach Base

Here you can see my beach house, tree farm, beach bar and monolith. There’s also a nether-portal and if you know what you are looking for you can see Beach Station. Anyway, just wait for the videos!

Slippery When Wet – Bon Jovi

I’m not really that sure where to start with this album. It has been such an influence on me since I bought it in the 80s sometime. I was about 14 or 15 when I got this. I guess I bought it after seeing something on Top Of The Pops or hearing one of the singles a lot on the radio. This was the beginning of my descent into metal. I will have played this album over and over again. There was a time period when I had this projecting from the speakers and I was using a rowing machine because I must have become self-conscious about my body. As I write this I’m getting the feels for around Brize Norton camp which was 1987 so let’s place this in summer the of ’87. My discovery of Iron Maiden and AC/DC would have been around this time too.

The keyboard opening of this album amazed and still amazes me. I love it. The way it links in with the main riff of Let It Rock is brilliant. The song itself is a slow and heavy celebration of everything about the genre.

I’m not that much of a fan of rock ballads and I think I pretty much tolerate them nowadays but historic me loved them and always wanted a decent ballad on every album. This album has them and they are good if disturbing. Without Love explains that “she” is not young, but still a child and also a prostitute – the 80s were troubling for lyrics and anything approaching female equality in movies and songs. If this communication gets read in Cornwall I’m sure I’ll be corrected if I’m wrong about anything within these words. Never Say Goodbye makes me want to slowly bleed to death these days but it would have affected me emotionally when I was a moody teenager. It celebrates fucking in a car, I’m pretty sure.

Social Disease starts off with sound effects from a porn set and I always gave a wry smile at that point in this album. It felt rebellious and bad to be listening to something this rude. Nowadays who cares? I’m sure there are plenty of folk who will be shocked by what exists but now I’m older not a lot shocks me. Even stuff made to shock doesn’t shock me. Partly I think it is because “I’ve seen things” and so extreme stuff can get shrugged off but I also think it’s about my politics. There’s that idea that as you get older you become more conservative and selfish [although I could argue they are the same thing]. I find I become more and more left wing as I get older. Anyway, this song is a good’un.

Want a happy song? Then Wild In The Streets is for you. Such an upbeat and happy tune. I’m sure there’s some cowbell in there at the beginning. If it isn’t then it should be, I reckon I could write songs better than Jon. This is another song about fucking in a car. I guess that must have been a thing that happened.

Get the crowd going and waving their hands with Raise Your Hands. I have no idea if I’ve ever seen them play this live but it’s an upbeat song with a great chorus and obviously written to be played live and get the crowd going. Always include a list of all the places you want to visit so you can shout out to them on the world tour. It’s lovely.

I’ve played You Give Love A Bad Name on stage and it was great fun. A good song. We played it terribly. But it was still fun. Oh, do you remember those days? When people could gather in safety and enjoy something collectively. I so look forward to those days again but I will be sad that people will forget the pain and suffering that this government caused through inaction and incompetence. Don’t you go telling me that it must have been a tough job and they did their best – it is quite clear that their best isn’t up to the job of governing. They are a shit-show of people and should be replaced. A pandemic isn’t the time to push your petty ideas of social change. Fuck them.

I think I’ve played Living On A Prayer too. I seem to remember asking for a count in to the song from the drummer and then completely ignoring that count and playing at my own speed. There’ll be a version of it somewhere on my YouTube channel I guess. Everyone loves a song where they can pretend to sing the chorus. Just watch out for the key change. Oh, and fuck key changes. I’m convinced they are lazy writing and mean you could think of a way to change your song. I know people love them but to me they are like fade-endings. Lazy. Yes, I’m being critical of skills that are far ahead of mine and I should say anything but I have!

Go and get this album. Try not to worry about the 80s lyrics and learn the history of rock.

Do I Want This Much Detail?

Yes – I suspect I do.

I’ve found a website which looks through all your GT Sport data and makes in nice and clear. I’m not sure what this means. I’m not sure if I want this much detail but I am sure it’s cool. There are a couple of sites that do this:

KudosPrime
Gt Sports Stats

Both of the above sites should link to my profile on those pages. This is what I have foiund so far:

My GT Sport Stats
My GT Sport Stats

I’ve only driven 35,409km. I think I probably need to get that increased. I’m also concerned about my driver rating, below, but what I can do about it I’m not sure.

My Driver Rating Within GT Sport
My Driver Rating Within GT Sport

I guess I just have to keep plugging away at this in between bouts of Minecraft building.

Slipknot – Slipknot

Back in the day I remember watching Chris Evans’ television show TFI Friday and I’m pretty sure I quite liked the show. It was a good mix of fun and frolics. One Friday though things were going to change. They showed a band called Slipknot. I think they played Wait And Bleed. I don’t know. All I know is that it was fascinating and amazing and such a different sound to anything else I had seen. Oh, they also wore boiler suits and masks but that didn’t bother me. There were probably complaints about the music but who cares. I bought the album and it was this one.

I listened to this album yesterday while I was experimenting with a computer monitor set up and it turns out that the last few songs aren’t that great. I’ve checked the track listing and there are some demo versions on my version of the album and so I won’t count those because Get This was there as a very pleasant surprise.

All you need from this album are the first five or six songs which is good because I didn’t really recognise any after Tattered & Torn. In my opinion everyone should have this album. I don’t think many will like it but it’s an important piece of art. It won’t make you feel good and it will assault your ears but you’ll be a better person once you’ve experienced it.

742617000027 – A nice start to this album because it sets the mood.
(sic) – A pretty sweet song. This batters you brutally around the head. Wait, what’s that? Scratching in a metal album, what is going on? “Fuck You All”.
Eyeless – Something about eyes I guess. I’m not a lyrics person but rather the beat, pace and riffage get me. This has a few greater moments. When you get to shout out “Nothing” and then “Motherfucker”.
Wait and Bleed – look, some people love it. It’s a good song but it’s not up there. I’m not sure why it lacks for me but it does. I’m happy when they play it but there are others that are better.
Surfacing – I love this song. It’s fantastic. I think I want it played at my funeral.
Spit It Out – another great song. What is that sound at the beginning? This one makes two of my favourite songs called “Spit It Out”.

Fuck it all! fuck this world!
Fuck everything that you stand for!
Don’t belong! don’t exist!
Don’t give a shit!
Don’t ever judge me!

Michael Crahan / Christopher Fehn / Paul Gray / Craig Jones / Nathan Jordison / Corey Taylor / Mickael Thomson / Sidney Wilson

Slip Of The Tongue – Whitesnake

Whitesnake were MASSIVE in 1987. I’m really it’s David Coverdale and assorted guest members of the band, a bit like Megadeth being the two Daves and another two. What happened in 87? Well, Whitesnake created a fucking monster of an album which I haven’t written about yet. This album though was the next one. This is what happens when you employ Stevie Vai and let him “Vai-up” your sound. There is not a problem with Vai-ing up your sound and I guess this album stars the voice of Coverdale and the sounds of Vai. It’s a good, slutty album. It perfectly encapsulates what cock-rock and slut metal is completely. Songs about sex and easy women, headlining the Monsters Of Rock Festival and general classic 1980s sexism. You know that trope with a woman writhing around on the bonnet [hood] of a car? That was Whitesnake.

Let’s look at some of the song titles shall we?

Slip Of The Tongue
Kitten’s Got Claws
Cheap and Nasty
The Deeper The Love
Slow Poke Music

This album also has a remix of Fool For Your Loving because it’s a good song and nothing sells or makes an album better than you putting on a remix of an old hit. I don’t have a problem with it.

I never saw Whitesnake. MH, best mate at school, saw them before this album and after the 87 smash hit. The band had different members then. Check out the list of members on Wikipedia. Mind you, they did/do have Tommy Aldridge on drums and that guy is a legend.

Coverdale has an amazing rock music voice.

Slave To The Grind – Skid Row

When I bought this album I was initially disappointed. I felt that Skid Row had moved from the LA Sound to a heavier, deeper almost thrash sound. But, after all these years I recognise this as a great album. I prefer it over Skid Row with the heavier sound and lower cock-rock influences. I fondly remember seeing the band a few times in the early 90s and this brings me back to those times. Watching Sebastian Bach tell Brent Council to fuck off and then play “Get The Fuck Out” to a crowd of 60,000 in Wembley Stadium was great. The band had been warned not to play that song and Bach read out the letter to the crowd. Good times.

This is an excellent album and I enjoy it still. There are great songs, a ballad- cos that’s what rock does, and heavy not-quite-thrash songs.

Monkey Business is great.
Slave To The Grind is great.
Get The Fuck Out – is a song for 2020, and good.
Riot Act would require a lot of mosh-pit.
Mudkicker is heavy and bouncy.

Look, someone has put this on YouTube. I was there, man. Wait for the incitement to riot! But it was a great show.

“You’re standing too close what the fuck’s with you, you ain’t my old lady and you ain’t a tattoo, no need to whimper, no need to shout, this party’s over, GET THE FUCK OUT”.

Some Things We Know – Says Fooyah

Before I start I want to question whether Diego Maradona dying warrants this much attention from the news. BBC Radio 4 have done ten minutes out of the last twenty five including on-the-scene reporters in Argentina and Naples. There could be a number of reasons why I feel antipathy towards this, none of them good! Firstly I don’t care for soccer. Secondly I’m not sure we should celebrate someone who fell so greatly from grace. Lastly, I’m not sure I can get over the “hand of god”, and that’s bad as I honestly don’t care about soccer, but apparently I did back in the 80s.

This communication is about the news because, while browsing the apple news app I saw the following:

Headlines Like These
Headlines Like These

Now, I know almost every headline is clickbait, but this once got me annoyed. The fashion these days for telling the story in a headline without telling the story is rather irritating and seems quite immature to me. I’d be more likely to click on a link if they actually told me what the story was about. I can’t be bothered to look through all the adverts and shitty webpage design to actually get to the point that I wanted to know.

“These are the areas of Kent with the highest corona cases . . . . “

That’s the kind of headline that is driven by the need to get people eyes-on the adverts on your page. I should get back to the problem with the Jupiter story.

“Double Planet” is in quotes. I mean they could just say that Jupiter and Saturn will align for the first time in 600 years. They aren’t a double planet. You don’t need to mention double planet. Just say they will be aligned. More importantly is that they will be aligned relative to the Earth, but maybe that bit doesn’t need to be explained.

The bigger issue for me is the “astronomers say” part of the headline. I know some people struggle with the idea that some scientists have opinions and we’ve seen that a lot over this last year. When science doesn’t know the answer different people will come up with different interpretations of what it means. Essentially the data aren’t that good. The more data we have the more science works out what is going on and the more scientists agree about what it means. Some data are notoriously fuzzy, such as coronavirus transmissions and a lot of the social sciences, but that doesn’t mean that with more data we won’t figure things out. Interpreting fuzzy data is hard and it means there are going to be problems. For example, give the same set of data to 100 economists would probably end up with 100 different hypotheses. That’s partly because economics is not a solid science but the main problem is that the data are fuzzy and there are too many variables to be controlled for.

Of the experiments and things we have data for the motion of the planets is one of those that is pretty much locked in with certainty. The variables are minimal and although we have corrected the original Newtonian motion with general relativity the four hundred year old ideas of Newton still work the vast majority of the time. Jupiter and Saturn WILL be close to each other in the near future. FACT. You don’t need astronomers to tell you that. Anyone can work that out. We know where the planets are and where they have been and where they are going to be. We are that good.

I do wish that headline writers had more cahunas to tell it like it is. I feel that copywriters hide behind the use of quotes as a “get out of jail free” card for if they get sued. OK, time for me to leave you to the delights of clickbaity headlines. Enjoy.

Staring At A Blank Page

My next few albums are going to take some time to get around and review properly. It turns out that the S section of the alphabet contains many albums of superior meaning and quality and therefore the album review misses the purpose that it was brought into existence. I started writing the album reviews as a way of regularly having something to write about, it seemed easy to write a little bit about each album I owned and could be used in between me writing more complex longer communications about how to fix the world. Now I’m at a section of the reviews that will take time to write properly and so this page exists to make me feel as though I have contributed to my own site. I feel I should go back and re-write the Slam review as I didn’t really do it justice considering the contribution it has made to my life.

Another staple on these pages would be film reviews. I regularly go to the cinema and then I write about the film I’ve seen here. There is a convoluted writing form I follow which has grown organically, mentioning the tide and scoring and referring to the rating method. But Covid has screwed that up. I can’t go to the cinema and I therefore am lacking in content for this site. I guess I could write about films I have seen on streaming services, I’m not sure that fits in with my list of rules, even if they aren’t written down. I think the film reviews are to create a diary, to remind me of things I have seen, to act as a “look I am busy really” kind of thing. No one is busy at the moment.

I haven’t really watched that much television recently as I’ve been trying to increase my reading. I bought a Kindle and I am going to say that I love it. I have read more books in the last six months that I have for the two years prior. I now make sure I spend time after 2100 reading my books. I turn everything off. Sometimes my eyes hold out for about ten minutes before tiredness kicks in and I give up trying but sometimes I get to read for about an hour. Look, I even read the monster Anathem recently, although I’m still unsure what went on and I need to read it again at some point in the next couple of years. I’m currently working my way through Brave New World, but a bit like the Beatles, I’m not that impressed. I can tell it’s a seminal piece of work but – shrug. So far I have read the following since mid-June:

The Hydrogen Sonata – Iain M Banks
Cryptonomicom – Neil Stephenson
The Laws Of Gravity – Ira Rosenberg
Fleet Of Knives – Gareth L Powell
Anathem – Neil Stephenson
The Angry Chef – Bad Science and the Truth About Healthy Eating – Anthony Warner
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

There would normally be many things I have done and places I have seen and then they get written about within these communications. I haven’t really been anywhere or done anything. I haven’t been to the Lake District this year. I didn’t get to stay at any lovely RAF bases and I haven’t seen the inside of my tent. It’s all a shame really. I guess this is the sacrifice I make to ensure that people don’t die. Whenever I hear people moaning about how the lockdown has meant they can’t go out I remind them, sometimes just inside my own head, that people are dying. This pandemic is a strange one as it’s not killing twenty percent of people in my street, it’s killing people few and far between so the population isn’t scared of it.

I can’t write about the news because it’s all shit. I can’t write about politics because it’s all shit. Maybe I need to try writing more about my personal philosophy but my language skills might not be good enough for that. I’m not moaning that I am not allowed to do anything. I’m not moaning that I’m bored. I’m happy enough and I’m lucky enough to be in a position of financial stability and able to entertain myself reasonably well. I am the lucky one.