It’s time to say goodbye to a pair of excellent companions. These Merrell shoes have been with me for around ten years and it’s time to let them go. These are the second pair of Merrells I have loved. They have been everywhere with me. The waterproofing hasn’t worked for many years, they are “air conditioned” and finally I think I have to admit that they no longer are cushioned at the heels. I spent a long time walking around in them at the weekend and my heels noticed every bump in the ground. It is a shame and emotionally hard to send these off to the great dump in the land but they need to go.
Farewell Old Friends
I’m slightly annoyed as the newer version of these shoes are shaped slightly different and fit slightly different and I am not sure I like the change. I’m going to have to wear them around the house to get used to them. Eventually I will put the magnet things on them.
The next one occurs in this country after I’m dead (probably) so I made sure to experience this one. I almost forgot but I had set an alarm and so I went outside around 1800 last night and spent ninety minutes enjoying the spectacle. As I only remembered quite late I grabbed a box from upstairs, dusted it, and made a pinhole. It worked quite well. Here’s the view at 1850 hours local time:
August 2026 Solar Eclipse
The box was highly textured and so that’s the bumpy look to the image but he occlusion is clear. Later on it got darker and cooler which was lovely – it’s been too hot here the last few days and the day of writing this it is going to be a lot hotter, damn anthropogenic global warming. The best the eclipse got for me was around 1913 hours and here is that picture:
August 2026 Solar Eclipse – As good as it gets
I remember an eclipse from the past, I think it was in the late nineties. I was definitely in the garden at the ancestral home and made a pinhole camera for that one. I think it was the one that was best viewed in Cornwall but my memories seem mixed about all that, emotional and picture memories aren’t lining up I think. Yes, I did briefly look directly at the sun, but very briefly I’m not a complete twat!
Went to one of my favourite places recently. Got a flight with Smith to Hannover Airport after meeting Huw and Ruby at Heathrow, then a train to Hannover Hbf. We met up with a friend in town after visiting the aircraft museum. That evening we had some food at a rooftop bar. The Friday morning we had to get to Hildesheim and we got the train after our stay in the Panorama Hotel next to the redlight district. The train to Hildesheim was irritating as it stopped at Barnten for about an hour, actually kicking us off before another train came along and took us to our destination. Wristbands were collected and the bus to the airport worked. We arrived set up our camping area and rested. Zoe joined us for the afternoon and we played some card games. I was very drunk after supping something in the queue for the merchandise. Smith looked after me, thank goodness, and he has a better tolerance than me!
Unzucht – M’era Luna 2026
As with previous years’ write ups I will transfer my notes from my phone to here just as they are:
Saturday
Mortes – main stage. Pretty boring goth stuff. Two blokes and a female dancer.
Xandria – main stage. Female singer. Operatic metal. Much better than the first band. Pretty standard for their genre. They played THREE consecutive songs with key changes – gah!
Back to tent for a rest and then alcohol.
Unzucht – main stage. Fucking solid. Loved it.
Hocico – main stage. Pretty shit. Left after a song.
Lunch – somewhere, something. I can’t remember.
Tyske Ludder – club stage. Heavy but not as good as wanted.
Megaherz – main stage. Sound issues in first song!! Fucking loud. Middling band overall. I was expecting better. Mid tempo rock. Played Rock me Amadeus.
Combichrist – main stage. Fuck Yes! Pit.
Birthday Massacre – main stage. Too drunk to notice. It was OK I guess.
Back to tent.
Nachtmahr – club stage. Great. Place was packed and couldn’t see the band. Met Huw and Ruby.
Front Line Assembly – club stage. It was ok but got a bit boring so went for shower.
Front Line Assembly – M’era Luna 2026
Sunday
Final Selection – main stage. Upbeat goth electronic. Pretty decent goth voice. No variation within songs though so left during third song to see:
Synth Attack – club stage. Hard fast, distorted electro.
Sotiria – main stage. OK goth metal.
Went back to tent for a drink. Could hear Eisenfunk.
Jesus On Ecstasy – club stage. Heavy goth metal. Enjoyed. Goth.
Food.
The 69 Eyes – main stage. Goth rock. Nothing special.
Neuroticfish – could hear from tent. seemed fine. Drank some.
Aesthetic Perfection – club stage. Fucking great.
Aesthetic Perfection – M’era Luna 2026
Die Krupps – club stage. Fucknig great.
Die Krupps – M’era Luna 2026
After that is was back to the tent to get kit, then walk to the bus, get the train and walk to the hotel. Monday morning was nicely relaxed. Breakfast followed by a walk to the station. Train to airport. Met SCOTT from Phoenix, AZ. He was loud but fun. Drank lots as it seemed I was dehydrated. Flew back to Heathrow, got the car, almost got charged an extra £495 for parking and had to press the button to talk to someone. It felt like that took forever but it was soon sorted and drove home.
I just like aircraft. I don’t know why. But they are cool and I find them fascinating. On the recent Germany trip I took some pictures and forced Smith to go to the Aviation Museum Laatzen-Hannover. We’ve been visiting Hannover for quite a few years so this was my chance to visit this place which I’d seen from the train enroute to Hildesheim.
A380 – Heathrow Airport
This A380 was hiding from us at Heathrow. Smith and I left from Terminal 3 which was a little different to previous years when we used Terminal 5. The parking was slightly more complicated than at T5 but I coped. I had booked Meet and Greet parking and this worked well except for the number plate recognition camera part of it.
A400M – Hannover Airport
This Luftwaffe A400 was doing engine runs at Hannover Airport. It was starting up engines on one side only and running them. I’m not sure of the reasoning for this but I took this picture while waiting in the passport control queue.
Dornier Do 28 D “Bauernadler” – Aviation Museum Hannover-Laatzen
This little D028 was sitting outside the museum and, considering we had walked what felt like a long way, was a welcome site. We had got to the museum after walking through some bizarre urban exhibition area.
AN-2 – Aviation Museum Hannover-Laatzen
It was quite nice to see an AN-2. It’s such a proper rugged looking plane and we could also get in and look around. I half expected to see Indiana Jones in the back and some chickens and crates – it had that sort of feel.
AN20 Cockpit – Aviation Museum Hannover-Laatzen
The AN-2 cockpit. Lovely.
Junkers Jumo 004 A-022 – Aviation Museum Hannover-Laatzen
This engine was pretty cool. In fact all the engines were pretty cool. Smith wasn’t as impressed but he’s wrong. Above is the 22nd ever produced production jet engine. Really impressive to see this.
F104G Starfighter – Aviation Museum Hannover-Laatzen
The F104 is a silly plane. It’s too long and the wings are too small. Impressive to see one this close though and you could also have a look in the cockpit. The instruments seemed so basic, I can’t believe people flew these things and knew where they were going and also trained to intercept or bomb particular places!
Messerschmitt Me 209 V1 – Aviation Museum Hannover-Laatzen
D-INJR as recreated here in a 1:1.8 scale model was the world’s fastest propellor powered plane for about 25 years. It held the record from 1940ish until a highly modified Bearcat beat it later. I will say the Bearcat I saw fly at Duxford a few years ago was pretty impressive.
Aerospatiale SA-318 C Alouette II – Aviation Museum Hannover-Laatzen
A lovely example of a helicopter. The Alouette looks like it does a great job – excellent.
Boeing 747-87UF – Hannover Airport
I saw this B747 while waiting to leave Hannover airport and fly back to the UK. The freight look makes it look quite sinister I think. This particular plane shuttles between Brussels and Hannover mainly, nice to see.
Airbus A319-131 – Hannover Airport
This was our plane for the flight home. I tracked it coming into Hannover and got a couple of shots of it landing. It’s a pretty cute Airbus but not quite as neat as the A318. It was late arriving as, for some reason, the air conditioning wasn’t working properly at Heathrow and they had to delay the flight to make the aircraft comfortable for the passengers. We arrived back in the UK not too delayed though.
I recently realised that I have some reward points in my X-Plane shop account. It looks like I’ve spent enough money to get some “free” extras. So I purchased the L29 for X-Plane. I’ve been flying around in it and it’s nice and smooth. It doesn’t react to anything as fast as the other military planes I have but it’s nice.
L29A – X-Plane
The picture is me flying from Hildesheim to Hannover checking out my new scenery files. Now, it turns out that the title of this communication is a reference to a Monty Python sketch that is about an albatross. The problem is that the L29 is really called the Delfín and it’s the L39 that is the Albatross. Oh well, maybe I’ll get the plane correct next time!
I went to the cinema to see this film. There aren’t that many films on at the moment that aren’t made for kids because it’s the school holidays and Cineworld are catering to that audience. I might even go and watch The Odyssey again just to have a few hours in the cold – it’s been extremely warm recently. I might even have to see Evil Dead Burn just to get a few hours out of the house. Anyway, I think it was low tide along the estuary, I’m writing this quite a while after actually going to the cinema. After watching the film I rated it on IMDb, there are rules to this to ensure consistency so you should read those before complaining about my score. Controversially I rated this film 7/10.
I enjoyed this film. I’ve been watching a lot of older “classic” films recently, having started The Godfather series. Raging Bull was a good film. It feels like these types of films, historical epics I would call them had the time to develop characters and understanding. I can appreciate how the film was made and that it was very good. It just affected me less than I was expecting. I don’t know why.
I’m not sure how I saw this was an event but the Saturday looked good and Smith couldn’t make it so I dragged my kids along to this event. Based in Mote Park in Maidstone this is less than a mile from where I work and very local. I didn’t really know what to expect or even where in the park this was but it seemed like a fun thing to do. I did manage to arrange parking at work so I could avoid traffic jams after the festival.
I was mainly interested in the bands on the heavy stage which was a little stage in the corner of the festival area. I watched The Offspin who were an Offspring tribute band and they were pretty good, but I only knew about 4 of the songs they played and I didn’t know them that well. I enjoyed them though. Then I went to see Whitesnake UK on the main stage. I mean, Whitesnake are a UK band but I guess the cover band has to make themselves different some how. Apart from one song, I knew everything they played and it was absolutely great. I do love me some 80s slutty rock. The band opened with Bad Boys and closed with Still Of The Night! Stunning.
Whitesnake UK @ Rock The Mote
Next I watched most of the Kiss tribute band and it was fun even though I didn’t really know any songs. But next up were Live Undead – a tribute to Slayer and I was definitely looking forward to this. They opened with Hell Awaits, played War Ensemble and all the greats. The only one they missed in my opinion was Mandatory Suicide. But it was a great show and there was a mosh circle/pit in front of me. Really enjoyed their set.
After returning from the car I caught a little of War Pigs as I walked just outside the venue. I found this amusing, the level of “nasty” music when there was what looked like a church gathering in the park! Once inside I heard the last of the Ozzy set, it seemed they did a good job and then I waited for the Metallica tribute.
Some Kind Of Metallica @ Rock The Mote
What I liked about the Metallica tribute was they didn’t try to be Hetfield on stage. They were just some lads playing Metallica songs rather than trying to emulate the band as a whole and I liked this. Their set was chosen by the fans so they played ten songs including a few I quite dislike – Whiskey In The Jar and Nothing Else Matters. But every other song was absolutely brilliant and I really enjoyed their set. The crowd loved it so much that the band had to ask the pit to calm down three times! It was a great day with great music. I think going to see cover bands is great – you get all the best songs and nothing from the new album which hasn’t been released yet.
For whatever reason a while back I decided to build a “big thing” in Minecraft and I kinda broke my own rules while doing it. Until this point I had made it a mission that all builds shouldn’t be able to be seen from the main base on the shoreline. I failed to do that with this build:
The “Platform” in the Minecraft world
So, I am going to build some sea cliffs to hide the superstructure of the platform. I’ve started the basics of the sea cliffs and we will see what happens. I’m looking forward to it, but I’m also scared at the same time. There’s a lot of work to be done.
I didn’t book IMAX for this film, perhaps I should have, it did look gorgeous throughout. But, I am getting ahead of myself. There are standard details that must be included before thoughts on a film otherwise what is the point? I went to the Cineworld cinema at Rochester and the tide was about two thirds of maximum height and I wondered if it was ebbing or flowing and, given how long the film is, would I be able to tell when we left the theatre? It turns out the tide was flowing as when we left it was definitely high tide, the film was long but not that long! After watching this film I rated it on IMDb, there is a system explained in this communication, so when I tell you I scored The Odyssey 8/10 you will understand why it gained that score.
At the end of this film my initial thought was “that could’ve been longer”. There were so many little stories along the way and each of them could have been their own film. I think I almost felt cheated out of something remarkable and simply got something quite extraordinary. Can you imagine seeing almost three hours of film and then wanting it to be twice as long! This film was a delight from the start to the finish. I don’t care for the manufactured controversies about casting, those people are bigots and they can go fuck themselves. This film, was utterly great.
I know that they messed around with the actual story. Everything you can possibly do to get this story filmable means you have to make changes. I don’t know enough about Homer’s version of the story to be able to make meaningful comments about those changes. All I can tell you is that I enjoyed this film.
The overall theme of the destruction of civilisation seems pertinent for right now. Perhaps it works for every age? Perhaps humans constantly think that the before times were better times. I feel that way but mostly because there are fascists in charge of many countries around the world and we definitely were making social progress but that is in reverse now. The difference between this film and society today is that Odysseus was aware that he was responsible for the breakdown of society. He broke the rules of society to further the cause of some “righteous war” and that led to the destruction of the entire society. The fascist leaders of today do not see anything they do as wrong, they are constantly “right” and “justified” and that will surely send them all to hell [I know it doesn’t exist, it’s just an expression].
Perhaps I see every film through the lens of my perception of society. OK, yes, I do. I definitely do that. I see society reflected back in film and how much it disappoints me. Maybe I shouldn’t do that? Maybe I should accept films for what they are without pushing my ideals onto them. Maybe I could accept that superhero films are actually good? Ha, ha. Nope. Not doing that. Superhero films are bullshit, fascist, immoral wank stains.
One of the weekly events that happen in Gran Turismo is a time trial around a particular circuit in a particular car. When I logged in recently there was a timed lap challenge around Spa-Francorchamps in a Porsche. I always try and do these events as they are an easy way to make some in-game money. With this particular circuit the game seemed very strict with track limits – there were bollards on some corners and if you touched them it invalidated the lap. Here is my laptime result:
Gran Turismo Spa-Francorchamps Online Time Trial Result
The world record is 2:30.316 and then levels of greatness are done in terms of percentage time added on. I managed to get a GOLD time on this circuit. This makes me very happy. I’m normally somewhere around a mid-silver. I’ve only had two gold times before. I think this will bag me a million in-game credits.
Gran Turismo Online Results
Above is my overall results from the online challenges and races. I don’t really enjoy the races because it’s quite common to get bumped off the circuit and all your qualifying practice and time are just ruined. The time trials are more interesting and a better way to compare yourself to others.
