Ian – Page 9 – Fooyah

June 3 2023June 8 2023

Cobbles, Company, and Cocktails

I recently had a lovely weekend with friends of over thirty years in the Belgium city of Leuven. It was a celebration of getting old for one of us and we got together for probably the first time in twelve years. We live in different ends of the country and in different countries now so getting together is just a little bit harder than meeting up at the Star Of India or King Willy IV. It’s odd but when comparing technology from now to then and the ease of keeping in touch I feel it’s amazing we ever did anything. Imagine having to phone call people and organise things “live”.

So, trains, cars and cars on trains meant that we had a weekend in Leuven. It’s a very pretty town and had a lovely atmosphere, probably aided by the fact it’s a university town. On the Saturday we just met up, found our lodgings and drank and ate. On the Sunday we ate, drank, ate and drank and somewhere in the middle of that there was a visit to a little brewery on the edge of town. It definitely was not Stella Artois which has it’s home at Leuven.

Leuven has a large pedestrian area, although there were many bicycles on the loose! The roads were nicely wide and there were statues here and there. Effectively within the main ring-road the place is safe, quiet and impressive.

At night the town is gorgeous. It’s well lit and oozes sophistication – apart from that one little street which has a McDonalds – the rest of it is lovely.

This past week I also spend some time in the UK equivalent town of history and cobbles. I went to Canterbury. The streets are thinner but just as full of tourists as Leuven. There were many eateries but not so many bars which is a shame I guess. Canterbury is a university town and also the home of christianity in the UK – not that that fact is a draw on me going there. I’ve been in the cathedral and so am not that fussed about getting inside there again.

You can see from the picture above that Canterbury does pretty well in the “cobbled streets and old buildings look” category. Maybe Leuven is a bit better as they rebuilt the whole town after the first world war and made it look like it did before!

May 30 2023May 26 2023

Zombie Live – Rob Zombie

I’ve seen Rob Zombie live. At M’era Luna one year. It was a really good show. I couldn’t tell you if this album is a good one but I expect it is. You would only really publish a live album if you thought it was worth it and well produced. Sometimes I think there is too much Zombie on my phone.

The more important fact about this album is that it is the last in the current round of album reviews. I started this just over ten years ago on 28 April 2013 with a communication about AC/DC’s Live At Donington Album. Zombie Live is the last. Ten years and the idea was that writing about albums would give me something to write even when I didn’t have anything going on or thoughts I wanted to get out there. In those ten years I’ve been through a lot. Ten years is a long time really. It’s also roughly the length of time that my music taste has diverted off into electro-industrial, aggrotech and EBM. So, guess what? I’ve bought new albums!

There will be a second round of album reviews, this time covering albums by bands I’ve discovered in the last ten years. Some albums have already been reviewed and so that causes a mild problem as I will have to check this site before writing the next review. I might try and indicate where the review did happen in the before-times. So, the next round of album reviews will cover bands like the following:

Aesthetic Perfect
Combichrist
Hocico
:SITD:
Wumpscut

I might manage to get this round of reviews done before the ten years is up. It depends on when I get time to edit this thing. I’ve been distracting myself with Fortnite, flight sims and cadet stuff.

May 29 2023June 3 2023

You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby – Fatboy Slim

You know what? I like this album. I know it’s not my normal level of stuff but the way it’s mixed and the hooks and beats are impressive. Teenage me would have hated this as it’s just taking other people’s work and making it your own but that feels like cheating. Older me appreciates that if it emotionally affects you then it’s probably a good piece of music. I guess it could make you happy or even sad, both of those outcomes would still make it an impressive piece of music.

Right here, right now
The Rockafeller Skank
In Heaven
Praise you

These are the songs that stand out when looking through the track listing. It doesn’t mean that these are the only ones I like. Just that these are the ones I know and could probably name if I had them playing. I suppose a good video – Praise You – helps a song too!

May 28 2023May 26 2023

Youthanasia – Megadeth

Youthanasia is not on my phone. This album list is made from a list on my network drive provided by my Sonos system. There are two areas of music on my NAS drive. One area is my iTunes library which is synchronised with my phone and the other area is music I could possibly listen to when I’m at home but don’t want on my phone. I suppose I should probably update my Sonos listing a little as I’ve not done a hardware update communication for a while. Things have slowly changed since the last comm. The fact that this album does not appear on my phone gives you all the information to understand what I think of it.

May 27 2023June 3 2023

Zeit – Rammstein

This is the latest – at time of writing – offering by Rammstein. It’s a very good, well crafted album. The problem is I don’t think I’ve listened to it enough to know all the songs. Here’s the thing with Rammstein. You know what you are getting and you know it will be excellent. There will be heavy riffage and amazing vocals with little bits of genius keyboard. They make great music. So, even without actually knowing all the details of this album I’m going to say it’s brilliant. Because it will be.

May 26 2023

You Goddamned Son Of A Bitch (Live) – Revolting Cocks

This band are part of the godfathers of industrial. Beers, Steers and Queers was the first RevCo song that I heard and got me into them. I probably bought this album to see what their other stuff sounded like. It’s great. I saw this band live at Infest Festival and they were pretty good there too.

This album has songs such as; We Shall Cleanse The World, 38, Attack Ships On Fire, Union Carbide, and No Devotion. All of these are great and I highly recommend all the Revolting Cocks back catalogue to you.

May 21 2023

Third Or Fourth Time

So, I’ve had Covid, again. I felt utter rubbish a week ago and after a couple of days, before going back to work I decided to use one of my few covid tests. It turned out to be positive, which was a bit of a surprise. There followed five days of isolation. I got better slowly and have reached the point when I hope my viral load is low enough not to infect other people. I would say that I felt like poo for around six days. I slept a lot. Had a headache. Ached. I think I feel fine now, but am worried about some longer lasting effects. I want to have a run but I am actually quite bothered that my lungs aren’t up for it.

To pass the time I’ve been playing computer games and working through some television series. I’ve played Gran Turismo, Minecraft, Fortnite, and Minecraft Dungeons. I’ve also been flying around the world in X-Plane flight simulator. It’s an on-going project and I am flying up the eastern seaboard of the USA. I’ve just landed in Nantucket. Next is probably Boston or maybe Nova Scotia.

The television shows I’ve watched have been The Last Of Us. Which I enjoyed about fifty percent of. I’m not sure it’s as great as I had heard. I think the world gets caught up on memes a lot now. For instance I’ve not watched Tiger King or Squid Games. I’d rather wait and watch this stuff in my own time, I don’t like getting carried away with the hype. I have historically found that hyped shows and films turn out to be not good. I’ve also watched the first season of Altered Carbon, which was good looking although I needed pins and yarn to keep up with whatever the fuck was happening. Oddly in that series the best character is not the lead but a hotel.

I’ve been reading too. I spend around an hour on each activity and then circle around the things I’m doing. Adding stuff on this site is also a good distraction from time. I read Beneath the World, a Sea, by Chris Beckett and I can honestly say it was one of the most disturbing books I’ve read for a while. I will liken it to Heart Of Darkness although I am pretty sure someone else will have made that comparison before me. I really enjoyed the book and will be buying more by the same author. I’m just about to start a book about a scientific look at psychology and what pseudoscience there may be used around the world.

While doing boring house stuff I’ve been listening to podcasts and one of the main ones I’ve been enjoying is The Curious Cases Of Rutherford and Fry. It’s a short podcast covering science stuff and answering listener questions each episode. It’s a delight and the relationship between the presenters and producer is excellent. I was aware of both presenters before the podcast having read books by Rutherford and watched some TV by Fry. In a recent episode Hannah Fry asked people to download an app to their phone to help scientists model a pandemic outbreak. This freaked me the fuck out and I looked at the date of transmission and it was either December 2017 or January 2018. What the actual fuck?!

I know science has spent a lot of time looking at pandemics and how they spread. But this seemed prescient. Although, ask a thousand questions and eventually one will seem important. To think of what we’ve been through since the end of 2017 and the struggles the world has faced. How many people died because of Covid and the people who couldn’t see each other. It’s been horrific. There is a television programme associated with the science study and it’s called Contagion, because of course it is, and was broadcast or streamed on BBC4. It’s not available at the moment on iPlayer but I am definitely going to watch it. To see what happens.

May 19 2023August 9 2023

First Flight – It’s A Place

As part of my journey around the world in a flight simulator I am heading up the eastern seaboard of the USA. I’ve just left Florida and was looking for another place to land when I saw an airstrip called First Flight. This made sense when I looked on a map as it is at Kitty Hawk Sands in North Carolina. I landed at the airport and then saw something so I taxied my plane to it.

X-Plane - I Went There — X-Plane – I Went There

Hopefully the plane has off-road capability. After the flight I looked this stuff up and it’s all monuments to the Wright Brothers’ first powered flight. I’m impressed with the scenery in the simulator. The only thing it doesn’t get right is the grass being a shit colour instead of green.

I’m slightly amused by the monument as there is a road in a circle around it so you don’t have to walk around the thing. Just park up somewhere and see it from a distance.

I landed on runway 21 and then taxied up to the monument which was a bit cheeky really. My next flight is going to be over Norfolk Navy base and then maybe on to Washington DC to see what the scenery there looks like. I don’t think it’s going to be too long before I’m back home and at RAF valley where this thing started.

May 18 2023May 19 2023

Ron DeSantis’ Florida

As part of my around-the-world tour I have made it to Florida. Currently, the state is suffering from what we would call – WLS – or wanker leader syndrome. It’s a shame really. I really liked my time there at the Kennedy Space Center, but I don’t think I’d want to visit now. Other places with more liberal laws can have my money.

Nasa VAB - Kennedy Space Centre — Nasa VAB – Kennedy Space Centre

May 17 2023June 8 2023

It’s Gotta Hurt

I was playing some Team Rumble mode Fortnite the other day trying to get headshots with an assault rifle for some stupid quest. Then I got Thundersticked.

I died shortly after that. But not from the stick through the chest!!