BBLCC

The other day the family went for a walk around the local reservoir. It’s not that far and quite a quiet and picturesque place to be. It was calming. While there I took part in a photograph competition between some of my close friends. We also built a tree swing and had some fun rushing in an arc.

Burham Brick Lime and Cement Company
Burham Brick Lime and Cement Company

The area we walked through used to be a brick factory. It’s next to the river and in the old days bricks were cooked (?) here after the materials were taken from the North Downs. Then, they were placed on boats and shipped to wherever needed them. I do believe some ended up in Buckingham Palace.

Anyway, you can always find interesting things just lying around. Sometimes these are burnt out vehicles but other times these are discarded bricks with interesting insignia. See the picture I took of a 1910 brick. Someone somewhere will find that brick very interesting.

Great Stour

Yesterday a few of us went canoeing and kayaking [whatever the difference] on the Great Stour. We went from the Grove Ferry Picnic Site to somewhere near Lampen Stream. It was a lovely couple of hours on the river.

Dead On A Sunday Night

Mevagissey Harbour
Mevagissey Harbour

I have recently spent some time in the glorious county of Cornwall. It was my first time there in over two years, much like it’s a new thing for anyone to go anywhere at the moment. It was lovely.

We stayed at a campsite near St Stephen and close to St Austell. We did some things. It was great. Plenty to do and plenty of relaxing to do also. The first night we had fish and chips from a shop in St Austell, a place which seemed dead on a Sunday night.

Tropical Biome - Eden Project
Tropical Biome – Eden Project

Monday was all about getting some clothes bought from a shop in Truro, then we headed to the Maritime Museum in Falmouth. This had some lovely exhibits from the history of sailing and water transport. I also saw a real angler fish and I was unhappy at how small it was. About 12cm long. That is about as long as they grow. I was disappointed. Tuesday we went to an aviation museum because it can’t all be boring stuff. Then we visited Carne beach which was lovely. Dinner took place in Mevagissey.

Sexy Bridge
Sexy Bridge

Wednesday’s main event was admiring the Eden Project and learning about the world’s plants and ecosystems. Thursday we visited HMNB Devenport and met with my Marine Commando nephew for a guided tour of HMS Albion, a look at some of the marine landing craft and also a sneaky look at some of their weapon systems.

Eden Project
Eden Project

Friday we visited a police officer friend of mine on the Rame peninsula and played frisbee golf at Mount Edgecombe country house. It was a great day. The following Saturday we travelled home to chill out a bit as Sunday we visited more friends and toured their orchard.

Deepest Darkest Essex

While driving with my parents to a restaurant/café for lunch I noticed this strange thing by the road. It seemed pertinent to stop and tell my children of the punishment methods of the past. People I give you the Great Canfield Stocks and Whipping Post.

Green Street Stocks and Whipping Post
Green Street Stocks and Whipping Post

The sign explains that the stocks were replaced to commemorate the start of the third millennium. I’m quite curious to know what was in this position before these and the history of them. The sign explains the stocks were last used in 1860 for a case of drunkenness and also that this site was where Elizabeth Abbott was burnt as a witch in 1693. The sheer terror I feel with how we used to treat people is only masked by the general terror I feel for how we treat people these days. I’m not sure we’ve moved on that far.

This is comms#2023 and I’m still trying to work out what to replace my “events each year” thing. Give me some time and when I get a chance I will figure this out. Things have been a little busy recently with work and also my car being off the road because some cunts stole the catalytic converter. I’m currently waiting for it to be towed to be repaired along with getting a courtesy car.

Dog

I went to the cinema to watch the film “Dog”. Let’s get something quite straight here, “Dog” is a shit title for a film. Even when the protagonist calls the dog “dog” all the time. The weather hasn’t been great and so a trip to a warm building to be entertained seemed a good idea. The river Medway was almost as high as I’ve seen it as the tide was high and there was a low pressure over this area of the world, causing tides to be a little higher. After I watched the film I really struggled to work out what score to give the film on IMDB. I had to think about the scoring system explained here and then I ended up giving a 6.

I’m not entirely sure this film deserves a “six” out of ten but I didn’t actively want to leave the cinema so I think it gets that score by default. I’m still not sure I enjoyed this movie or whether it’s any good. OK, well, it’s not a good film but is it terrible? This was billed as a buddy movie and the fixing of two broken animals. I found the first few scenes quite full of toxic masculinity while the man walked around the Rangers Headquarters which I assume are somewhere in the north west of the USA. I don’t know and I’m not that fussed. It was interesting as people were in all stages of militarisation while also getting ready to be deployed somewhere. I found it quite funny, it’s not how bases work.

Our lead character has brain problems and suffers migraines and fits. He’s desperate to get back to working for a “security company” so that he can earn money because there isn’t a social security net in the USA and they treat their veterans like shit. In my time of dealing with the military it is clear that people in the military love it and also absolutely hate the fuck out of it. Then, when they leave, they miss it and aren’t really supported or looked after. I find it frightening that the state can ask these people to do its bidding for them but then not give a shit afterwards. Very tory I guess.

This film was not as funny as expected, the trailer made it look better. So it wasn’t a comedy. It tried to be a social commentary with the hip Portlanders being funny and people living off grid on a cannabis farm, but it failed at that really. We should have seen our soldier struggling with life and he seemed quite switched on to me. If you want a better movie covering all of these issues then you need to see First Blood. It’s a far better film. Nothing in this film really surprised me or bothered me. It could have been so much better. Oh well.

This is communication number 2013 and so here are some things that happened in that year:

  • Chelyabinsk meteor.
  • Benedict XVI resigns, fuck the pope.
  • An industrial building collapses in Bangladesh and kills 1134 people.
  • Super Typhoon Yolanda kills 6241 in Philippines and Vietnam.

Moonfall

Going to the cinema within twenty four hours of a bender weekend in LA might not have been the best of ideas! But I went anyway. I’d like to convince myself that I watched a lot of this movie but, to be honest, you didn’t really have to, so there were definitely parts that I skipped through some voluntary eye shutting.

On the way to the cinema I took note of the tide and it was actually quite high. No mud bank to be seen. The water was a little choppy from the high winds being experienced. Driving over the Medway motorway bridge required more concentration as the car got blown around a little. I think there are storm warnings out for a few days this week. After the film I rated it on the IMDB website and there is a whole communication covering the grading system written here. I then tweeted the result from my PC as I’ve removed Twitter from my phone for mental health reasons [good ones].

I knew this film would be terrible but I didn’t really to be as bad as it was. It really struggled with the whole “I know something that everyone else thinks is stupid” thing. Most of the film was irritating. It looked great but that doesn’t really help when the story, plot and script are all pretty shit. At least I knew what I was getting myself into.

I did spend most of the movie wondering who the actress who looked like Halle Berry was and it turned out to be Halle Berry.

This is communication number 2010 and so here are some things that happened in that year:

  • The final CRT television is manufactured.
  • A magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile.
  • Deepwater Horizon explosion.
  • Germany makes final reparation payment for WW1.

Spider-Man: No Way Home

Yesterday I went to see this film. Given the omicron variant is being a bitch I had to balance out all the variables. I booked the largest screen/auditorium and made the the seats were definitely spaced from other vectors, facemasks were worn. A group of young men were there not wearing facemasks and I don’t think they were all exempt but there’s no folly like the stupid invincibility of the young. Wearing a facemask actually show that you care about others, you are reducing your airborne vectors, you are being considerate. These young men, quite clearly, aren’t aware of that or just don’t care. It’s easy, I think, to want to think about others and do your best for them. I really should remind myself that the tories have one a majority the last few general elections when the alternative was a society trying to help people.

It was dark, cold and foggy on the drive to the cinema and with roads closed near the village the journey was a bit longer than hoped for. The tide looked low on entry to the cinema. I could see all the mud flats and they were covered in seabirds having a rest from attempting to fly with almost zero visibility. After watching the film I rated it on IMDB and there is a communication that covers all the rules for the ratings here. I then tweet my result and because I have re-installed twitter onto my phone I could do that straight after the rating rather than having to use the PC to send it.

I didn’t hate this film. But I didn’t really enjoy it. But I was happy to see how the story was resolved and how they would figure certain aspects out. I don’t like superhero films and stories because it always ends up – who has the bigger fists wins – and that’s a lazy trope. It’s toxic masculinity class 101. Anyway, this film was mostly dull. I don’t like Dr Strange as a character and I didn’t really like most of the plot. It felt as though they had run out of ideas and just needed to bring back all the baddies because being creative is too hard.

From here on there be spoilers.

This is a film about selfishness. Utter selfishness. Peter Parker could have fixed it right at the beginning by not changing the spell every few seconds. Dr Strange could have stopped the spell and then re-started it but apparently the rules in this universe don’t allow for that. Peter Parker was selfish at the beginning and then ruined many people’s lives and cost millions of dollars of damage. He could have fixed this at any point by hitting the button on the McGuffin. The problems created in this film are so easily stopped. Press the fucking button.

The reason he doesn’t press the button is this universe Peter Parker believes that people should be given a second chance, that they have the chance at redemption. What christian wank this is. Just accept christ on your deathbed and say you are sorry to the imaginary man in the sky and you are redeemed and accepted into heaven. Parker wanted to fix these terrible people without their consent. I’m not sure what was meant to happen after that? Were they going to live in his universe? If you had the amazing power of being a bad superhero do you think you could go back to living in the suburbs? I’m not sure that would end well. The reason these people become bad is that they are egotistical cunts.

What was the end game? It seems Parker came up with a plan but with no idea how to resolve then ensuing issues. This is another classic modern trope taken from the real world examples of Iraq and Afghanistan. If you look back at the end of WW2 there were plans put in place to rebuild Europe and Japan. There was never a plan for Iraq and Afghan. Right, ok. This has gone political. I probably need to stop. Look, the thing is, Peter could have hit the button at anytime and fixed it all. He didn’t. He’s a selfish prick.

I was hoping we could see some Miles Morales, but it didn’t happen. I feel that the script could have been loads better with the other spidermen. I felt stale and slow. It didn’t really work. Perhaps the writers need to watch some buddy movies, or some where they get the team together.

So, this is communication 1998 and I’ve been writing a few things that happened in each year as I get through the publishing of communications. The last few have been interesting as nothing of note has stuck out at me on the wikipedia page and I so there’s this blank area when I wasn’t really into news as such. I just didn’t take that stuff in. Anyway, here are some things that happened in 1998:

  • Andrew Wakefield’s lying study into MMR vaccines and the lies told by the media of the day launch the anti-vaccination movement.
  • The second Congo war starts, it will leave 5.4 million dead.
  • Google Inc is formed.
  • An oil pipeline in Nigeria explodes killing 1,082 people.

Tasman Sea

It’s been tough, this last term. There’s plenty to moan about and discuss. But I’ll leave that to private conversations rather than let everything be out in the open on this site. If you can believe it I have my limits. I’m typing this as my flight sim heads across the sea from Hobart, Tasmania to an airport in New Zealand. I’ve got about fifty minutes to go. This is the longest over sea flight I have done and I keep looking at fuel levels. I think I might travel the length of New Zealand and then island hop to Hawaii, after that I’m not so sure how to get to the Americas. Maybe I’ll head to Galapagos and the South America. I honestly don’t know. I’m not even sure what the maximum range of my aircraft is. I can tell you that the T7 that I’m flying seems remarkably “loose” in the sky and I’m not sure if that’s the updated aircraft or just my flight sim. I guess I’ll find out when I try and land.

I’ve been tweeting the flights for a while now and I’m looking forward to whatever I’ll do when I return to the start point. I’ll need a new challenge but I’m also hoping that X-Plane 12 will be out by then. If they could make a version that uses multi-core rather then a single core then that would make me very happy. I don’t know how complicated that is but I do know they use an Apple computer for writing everything. I get a reasonable performance at the moment except over very built up areas and so multi-core could sort that out for me.

I’ve been checking online every now and then for PlayStation 5 stock. I was curious but I didn’t think I’d actually end up with a decent result, but . . . the other day I checked Argos and then Currys/PCWorld and it turned out there was a bundle in stock at PCWorld. Well, what could I do? I didn’t think I would buy one but the dream of GT7 on a 4K TV with raytracing got me and I clicked the order button. It’s coming on Tuesday. I need to rationalise AV corner now and think about getting game saves etc over from one machine to another. It’s probably time for the DVD and Blu-Ray player to go. It’s very rare that we actually watch anything on disc and the PS5 can be called into use whenever that ability is needed. I’ve promised myself I’ll try and get into more games over the next year. I want to use the games I have in the library. I will possibly report back on if it’s good or not in about a week.

The kids play mostly PC games when they are here. One on a laptop and the other uses my beast of a machine. I use my own PC for flight sim mostly. My fingers don’t really operate at a ASWD level, they are too used to a PS5 type controller. I could learn but there are other things I’m going to try and learn to push my brain a little. I guess I might reveal those things sometime in the future.

I’ve recently actually paid for a couple of albums. I’ve had Children Of The Dark by Mono Inc. in my head for ages and decided it was time to try and purge the earworm. It turns out that didn’t work and I keep getting their songs going through my head. I’m looking forward to seeing them in concert at sometime in the future. I’ve been wondering about whether it is best to buy an album or to stream music and I’ve mentioned that before on this site. For me, I thought buying an album meant more of the money I’ve spent would go to the artist. If I don’t listen to the songs many times more of the money in terms of royalties goes to the artist than if I just streamed the songs. Now, Daniel Graves from Aesthetic Perfection has said that he makes more money from streaming that album sales because I guess some people play individual songs over and over. I don’t know if it would make my contribution more to the artists as I often only play a song a couple of times and not over and over. It’s something I’m going to think about over the next week or so.

Well, I arrive in New Zealand in about ten minutes so I need to head back to the flight simulator and get ready for landing. I’m really worried about the handling of the aircraft and I hope I don’t crash on the landing as by my own imposed rules I would have to start the flight again!! Keep an eye on Twitter for progress.

This is communication 1997. Here are some things that happened in the year 1997 ACE:

  • Hale-Bopp makes its closest approach to Earth.
  • The UK hands Hong Kong to China.
  • The country went Diana mad. I was left remarkably unfazed by the whole thing and didn’t really care.
  • The Prius goes into production.

Not Quite Caves And Cliffs

I’ve been busy over the last while playing Minecraft now and then. This video is long overdue as it’s a walk through of the latest base area, which I think was finished a few months ago but I just hadn’t got around to recording the walk-around. Things have been quite busy. This last weekend gave me the opportunity to spend some time setting up the recording software again [it hadn’t been used really since the new screen was purchased]. It took a while to figure out how to create new scenes and get widescreen recording to work nicely. However, this Minecraft video is in standard 16:9. Why? Because I don’t think Minecraft looks good in ultra-widescreen. I’d rather put a decent product onto YouTube than one where I think I’ve compromised in video quality. I’ll be uploading some flight sim stuff soon and that will be in lovely widescreen.

Comms#1993, here are some things from that year.

  • A 21st birthday party ends in hilarity.
  • A bomb in a van under the WTC explodes killing 6.
  • Waco siege, Texas. 76 die.
  • Jurassic Park is released [first DTS film].
  • Marine dumping of radioactive waste is banned.
  • Doom is released.

November Happenings

Sometimes it’s hard to keep finding “content” to fill these gorgeous pages. Often this site requires me to go to the cinema or at least go somewhere so I can then write about the terrible/great experience. Recently it feels that I’ve not done much. I mean I have but it’s just the boring same old.

Last Sunday I helped supervise some of the cadets who are entering a national competition in a couple of weeks, nothing exciting there. This past week I had two days off work ill and actually slept for the entire day for the first one. Then yesterday I ran a weapon training session and range for some of our new recruits. Oh, today I’m heading into town this morning to take part in the Remembrance Parade which I guess is something important but not always something I’ll take photographs at or write about each year.

This week just gone I’ve either been too tired or ill to cope with opening up the editing software and writing stuff here. I’ve actually just reminded myself that I started the album reviews for this exact problem, if I don’t have anything to write about then I can write an album review and publish it easily. So, this week I’ll probably publish a few of those. It also means I get to listen to those albums to remind myself of the specifics.

I do know that I’ve felt ill since the return to work in September. My lungs don’t feel correct and if I go for a run in the cold it really knackers those air bags. Not sure what’s going on, it’s not SARS-Cov-2 as I’ve repeatedly tested with both LFT and PCR. There are big issues with the LFT but it’s the best thing we’ve got at the moment I guess. I don’t think the government should be pushing them so much but they are blinded with their “success” of just under 150,000 deaths so far. Fucking twats. I honestly will not understand why anyone would still vote for the tory party after everything that has happened. They are in over their heads and horrible. Some people I talk to seem to think that voting labour endorses complete socialism or communism and they can’t bring themselves to do it. Happy to trudge along with the stupid cunts we have now in charge instead of wanting to help people. Let’s be clear, the government response to this pandemic has been disgraceful.

I’ve been playing Minecraft a little recently and am trying to give myself little projects in that as time goes on. I’ve just built a bubble elevator for one of the kids so they can build a sky base and we’ve worked on somewhere to attempt to kill the Wither. We’ll see how that goes. The last time we tried it I had to reload the world from a back up as our entire base got destroyed. My next job is to build an underground area in a few chunks a long way away for us to attempt to kill that bastard. We want a beacon. I think we’d also like some elytra but we are working on that. I don’t think we’ve found an end portal yet.

I keep being tempted with buying a PS5 but I will only play one game on it and so I don’t think it’s worth getting for just that. Especially when that game is available on the PS4. I haven’t pre-ordered my copy yet but I will. It comes out around the time of my completion of half a century of rotations around the sun. I’m currently having a go on Assetto Corsa on the PC and it’s ok but I possibly need to connect the steering wheel to the PC and that means moving it from the front room which seems like effort at the moment. Using a PS4 controller works reasonably well given my extensive experience in racing sims.

There’s nothing currently on at the cinema which I can be arsed to see. The only film I could possibly go to is Eternals but I dislike superhero movies so much that I reckon it’s just not worth going. My biggest issue is that the resolution to these films is always who fights better and never a negotiation or discussion. It’s never a cerebral conclusion it’s always fists and I fucking hate that.

I guess it’s time to start doing things to get ready to parade through Maidstone. Maybe later I’ll complete some more album reviews. I know that the Use Your Illusions are coming up and it’ll be fun to see what I think of those albums thirty years later.

This is communication number 1986 and so here are some things that happened in that year of our lord:

  • Chernobyl disaster.
  • M25 motorway is opened.
  • 2000 people die in a limnic eruption in Cameroon.
  • Top Gun is released.
  • Consensual sex between men is legalised from the age of 16 in NZ.