It’s been way too long for one of these communications so here’s a Star Wars miniature that was made recently in the May festival of Lego.
Lego 67 – Model 75264
Megaliths
This area of Kent in which I reside has some decent human history going on. When mostly forested the island of Great Britain [it amuses me immensely that this place is named after a part of France, must make those racists really angry, especially singing Rule Britannia] had many locals doing their thing and trying to survive. Once people died they were buried in long barrows. These constructions had large stones, megaliths, placed at their entrances. There are a number of these in the Medway area and yesterday I used my exercise to go and complete my total of the East Medway Megaliths. These beasts were placed around 5000 years and and that is pretty darn impressive as far as I am concerned.
Kits Coty
In the past I’ve seen the coffin stone and I’ve also seen Kits Coty before as it’s on a running route I take. Here’s the view from Kits Coty, the weather was lovely but I am concerned that it’s been too warm for too long and the upcoming catastrophe of anthropogenic climate change is accelerating:
I’ve just discovered Scheduled Monuments which is a list of important stuff as agreed by the Secretary Of State for that stuff. There’s a lovely interactive map on the Historic England website. You can also download a PDF version of the map and it is gorgeous. So, Kits Coty is scheduled monument 1012939 and according to that website:
This example has a particularly well-preserved burial chamber and is also of high archaeological potential due to the survival of the remains of the burial mound and the flanking ditches. The burial chamber having been taken into guardianship, the monument is also of high amenity value.
Historic England
Little Kits Coty
Just down the Downs is a collection of stones called Little Kits Coty or the “countless stones”. I think I’ve written about them before but they are still just as pretty and nestled in a corner of a field. There is no path to them so you have to take on the traffic!
These boulders are also a scheduled monument as recognised by the Secretary Of State. These are number 1013673 and part of their description reads:
The atypical example of Little Kit’s Coty House represents an unusual variant of this class of monument but nevertheless forms part of the group of Neolithic burial monuments known as the Medway Megaliths. Being held in Guardianship, the monument is of high amenity value.
Historic England
The White Horse Stone
A small distance away is the White Horse Stone. It’s a single megalith but not quite as mega as the others in this area. According to Wikipedia there were other constructions here but they were destroyed in the 19th century.
This is monument number 1005181 and according to Historic England, again:
The White Horse Stone is a good example of its type, which survives well. The area immediately surrounding the stone is likely to contain archaeological and environmental information relating to the stone and the landscape in which it was erected.
Historic England
I would encourage you to look over the Historic England website as the maps, provided by OS, are absolutely gorgeous and the information there is pretty good. It also has listed buildings on the site and these are indicated on the map with little triangles.
Roman Villa, Eccles
Just south-west of my house lie buried remains of a Roman villa. It was in position from 65CE through to around 400CE which is pretty impressive. While it lies under farmland now it was excavated in the 1960s and it was quite an impressive size. Given how close it is to the site of the Battle Of Medway along with ease of access to the river and lying not far from where the Romans invaded it would have had prominent visitors and been of some importance. It is scheduled monument 1011770 and there are details if you follow that link. Wikipedia has improved over the last few years and there’s quite a bit of information there along with links to the original papers.
The walking route that is safest to travel from Little Kits Coty to the White Horse Stone involves using and underpass to get to the other side of the A229 Bluebell Hill dual carriage way. This underpass is quite pretty in shape and looks exactly like the launch tubes from Battlestar Galactica [imo].
Set Up
I spent part of yesterday setting up the final parts of the new PC. I’m very happy with the result. The new things are the PC itself and some peripherals like the keyboard, mouse and mat. Because the mousemat thing was too big for the old desk I bought a new desk for the PC. I was stuck with the sizes that the desk could be because of the tiny size of my dining room which is where it all lives. I guess I could have put the system somewhere else but I wanted this position for the easy access to a wired LAN.
I guess apart from tidying up cables I am done. It was very satisfying to wire in the whole system in its home for the next few years.
Green
Yesterday while out for my allowance of daily exercise I noticed how lovely and green everywhere was looking. The sun and warmth over the last month – not a good thing by the way – has really helped the flora develop. Every path I walked on seemed lush and vert. Here’s a photograph I took while at one of the river Medway inlets, the old brickworks wharf.
Here’s a very nondescript satellite view of where the photograph was taken.
Sonic The Hedgehog
Yesterday I took a half term trip out to see Sonic The Hedgehog. I know Sony spent a ton of money [or someone did] to change the look of the creature and I was curious to see what the film ended up like. Sonic The Hedgehog forms a massive part of my history, I played it a lot in 1991/2. I was in my first year at university and Big Jim had just moved into halls. He owned a Megadrive AND a television which seemed impressive, none of the rest of us had such stuff. Jase had a TV and I remember watching Rumpole with him on a tiny screen but everyone else relied on the communal television.
Big Jim never locked his door and he was happy enough for us to play his Megadrive when he wasn’t around. There were quite a few nights when I would get a bottle of wine, a few CDs, and head down across to Jim’s room to finish Sonic The Hedgehog. This was in the days before save-games on consoles and so every game was a fresh start. I can’t remember which level of Sonic it was now, but there was one where you would gain four or five lives every time you did it [100 rings]. This meant that the aim was to die before the end of the level and go back and get more lives. It was the only way to ensure you had enough lives to finish the whole game.
It would normally take about three hours, a few CDs and a bottle of wine to get the game done. It was good fun. It was also the start of my downfall I guess? I bought a Megadrive in my second year of university and that probably had the effect of ruining at least two of the educations being paid for by the state. It’s OK though. I realised my mistakes and have been paying it back to society for the last thirty twenty five years or so. It was worth it and without the Megadrive this site wouldn’t exist in this state.
The weather wasn’t great on the drive to the cinema but I did remember to look at the river to gauge the state of the tide. It was pretty low as all the mud bank was visible. Upon leaving the cinema the tide was lower as a boat that was floating earlier was then resting on the bottom of the river. So I left the cinema pretty much at lowest tide [not checked online].
After seeing the film I rated it on IMDB using a system I developed many years ago. This rating will probably cause some consternation amongst readers of this site, but I don’t care. I then tweet the result and here is that tweet:
I rated Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) 6/10 #IMDb https://t.co/Ibvb63PzVq
— Ian Parish (@iparish) February 20, 2020
You know what? I quite enjoyed this film. Yes, it was a kids’ movie, no, there wasn’t really enough adult humour, but overall it was quite good fun. You could watch any kind of kids/alien/monster film and it would be the same as this. Pretty sure I saw Monster Trucks a while back and it’s exactly the same. Alien thing befriends humans and then solves some puzzle or problem while being chased by the evil government. I think there was the possibility of more “Sonic” specific ideas that could have been placed within the film but I still enjoyed it.
I need to talk for a short while about Dr Robotnik. I wasn’t really aware of who was in the film before I went to see it and after a short while I recognised the facial contractions of Jim Carey being Jim Carey and I thought it was him but at the same time I didn’t recognise him. While watching the credits I had to wait quite some time before Jim Carey’s name came up and I was starting to worry that maybe it wasn’t him. It was. This film has Jim Carey being Jim Carey and it was glorious.
Command Module
It’s nice to collect whole sets of things. It completes the series, finishes the story. A long term aim of mine is to bag all the Wainwrights in the Lake District. It’s going to take a while as I live in the exact opposite corner of the country and it pretty much takes a day to get there. I’m trying to complete Gran Turismo Sport but I don’t think I’ll ever do it or if I do it will be after they bring out the edition for the PS5 [which I’ll buy obviously].
A recent trip to the Science Museum in London to meet up with the Fulham 5 meant another chance to see one of the Apollo Command Modules. There are twelve command modules around the world [USA + London]. I’ve seen three of them and I doubt I’ll ever get to see more than another two or three of them but it’s worth a try to see them all.
I’ve seen the Apollo 11 Command Module in Washington DC. The Apollo 10 Command Module in London and the Apollo 14 Module at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. I reckon there’s a chance I’ll see a couple more of them.
Above is the interior of the Apollo 14 Command Module. Just enough space for three humans to survive take off and re-entry. This conical cocoon sat atop the supply and Service Module that kept the astronauts alive. There was also the Lunar Module which they docked with in Earth orbit before performing a burn to take them out of the large gravity well.
If you think there’s not a lot of room in the CM then I suggest you go and take a look at one of the Soyuz capsules. They are much smaller and contain the same number of people. Those pesky Russians sure know how to make hard-working dependable technology!
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
It had to happen at some point. When a new Star Wars film is released I get the jitters and need to go, no matter how cool I think I am going to take it and wait. An opportunity came around pretty quick to see this one, so I took that chance and went yesterday to see the last of the Skywalker films [Pom and others who care, don’t read this until after you’ve seen the film].
I say a 4 o’clock-ish showing of the film as we finished work a little earlier than normal. The tide on this stretch of the Medway was about halfway but I don’t know whether it was ebbing or flowing. I could see half of the tidal flats reflecting the street lights from the opposite shore and the reflections broke up where the small waves lapped at the shore.
After watching the film I rated it on IMDB and then automatically tweeted the result. There is a whole communication covering how the rating system works and it is located here back in Feb 2014. This pretty much explains how I score certain films and what my criteria are. If you don’t like my score then perhaps read on, to see why I rated it as such.
I rated Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) 6/10 #IMDb https://t.co/wl1EWrUd8C
— Ian Parish (@iparish) December 19, 2019
I guess it’s time to explain why I rated this a 6/10. Apart from the fact that I probably won’t bother to watch it again.
THERE ARE POSSIBLY SPOILERS AHEAD. I haven’t written this yet so I don’t know, but it’s likely.
I enjoyed this film. I pretty much came out and thought to myself “It was OK”. That’s all. It was just OK. Nothing special about it. Much like when using the force I have learnt to let go of my feelings for this franchise.
Look, there were massive planet scapes, space battles, people dying, it all looked remarkably gorgeous. The planets were detailed although the production designers don’t seem to realise that planets can have all forms of terrain and weather, it’s how planets work but different planets are distinguished by their climate and flora. Just look at our [slowly burning] planet, we have all forms of weather and land type. Planets can be a mixture.
There were plenty of times when if I thought too much about what was going on I would be a little “What?”, how does that work, but, again, I’ve learnt to let go.
There is one thing I will say that annoyed me. Right at the end when all the rebellious little people turn up to help out they drop out of light speed in the cloud and I thought the whole point of that planet was to hide the fleet and you had to have the route fully mapped to be able to get into the secret area.
Richard E Grant was great.
Maybe my reaction to this film is more to do with where I am emotionally. It’s been a tough few months for me and I’m kinda divorced from a lot of feelings at the moment. Star Wars hasn’t affected me much. Even seeing the Emperor back didn’t do much for me. Who knows?
Then, there’re the general themes involved with this film. Much like a lot of our films and too much of the Disney stuff this film manages to further the ideas of family dynasty, family honour and christian dealings with sin. I’ll expand.
Too much of our society is obsessed with ideas of you being more than just you. It’s about the idea that you are who you were born to. Your history and family in the past is important. It matters if your father was Mr Boss, it matters which school you went to, it matters what your grandfather did. Why else do you think we have that shitty programme called “Who Do You Think You Are?”. It’s a BBC show about people’s family trees and what their ancestors did. It reinforces the notion that you are more than just you, you are also your family history. You have legitimacy because of what people who died before you were born did. I guess this is to be expected in a constitutional monarchy where our literal head of state depends on who their father is. This bullshit is reinforced by almost every aspect of our society and I fucking hate it. This film furthers those ideas.
Some powerful people seem to care about honour. Which i think is probably defined as caring about what others think of you. Currently it seems that a lot of our “leaders” don’t care about honour. They don’t care about what others think of them because they can get away with everything they say. If you think that’s extreme then be aware that the UK just voted for a known liar and racist to be its prime minister. People are selfish cunts.
Finally, because expanding my thoughts is hard work and I’m not the best writer in the world, the Star Wars films justify the best of christian values by allowing people to ask for forgiveness just before they die and allowing them to enter heaven. Vader atoned [?] for his sins by killing the Emperor [not very well as it turns out] and he gets reimagined as a jedi ghost. In this film, Kylo turns good right at the last minute and gets redeemed. What a crock of shit. It’s like Blair getting baptised after causing an illegal war. Such a bullshit view of the world but one that is enforced in our common culture.
These films perpetuate and reinforce these ideas of society and being born into your position in that society. They help youngsters learn that they must accept their place. There is no meritocracy. Only hereditary privilege.
Addendum [040120]: Saw this film again yesterday with a friend and I think it impressed me even less. Something Phil Plait complained about the Star Trek movie [reboot] was that it suffered from “too much stuff in it”, I agree with these comments about this latest SW film, which has JJ involved.
Jumanji: The Next Level
Drove the short distance to Rochester cinema earlier today to see the second (third) Jumanji film. I really enjoyed the first one and reviewed it in this communication. I’ve since watched the first (second) on TV and so this was a no brainer.
On the way to the cinema I generally try and keep track of what the tide is doing. The river Medway is alongside the cinema and it is the tidal part of the river, being downstream from Allington Lock. The tide was high and the river was looking pretty dirty from all the rain that has hit the county over the last week. There was quite a breeze too which means there were plenty of little waves. Also, on the river, there was a ship carrying a boat [or however you choose to define ships and boats].
This brings me onto what I thought about the film. I rated it on IMDB and there’s a communication here dealing with the rating system. I then share the result on Twitter:
I rated Jumanji: The Next Level (2019) 8/10 #IMDb https://t.co/JwNxuWoO3L
— Ian Parish (@iparish) December 14, 2019
This is simple. I enjoyed this film and thought it funny. It was good fun and looked great. A lovely story, perhaps very cliched, and some decent slapstick. It was all great.
No Bonfire
Went to a watch a celebration of the maintaining of our style of parliament by exploding things as though the parliament had actually been changed.
We didn’t also celebrate the capture, torture and state sponsored murder of the team who didn’t manage to change the foundations of this country by not having a bonfire.
It’s time we had a massive change to our system of society. Only radical change will save us.
Beauty And A 40mm Beast
On the one sunny day this week I went to Chatham Dockyard because I’ve got an annual ticket and I’m going to use it. I was hoping to see the rope gallery but all the tickets for the tour were gone and I’m a bit gutted because it’s not often you find yourself in a room a quarter of a mile long. So this communication is going to cover some other aspects I saw.
The above panoramic photograph was taken in the loft space which was built after the slipway was filled in and the floor was used for storing boats for ships. This room has been used in a Bond film but I can’t remember which one.
Dockyard cranes are quite spectacular and I do love the sheer utility of them. I don’t have anything else to say about them.
This AA gun is one of two on HMS Cavalier and it’s an impressive piece of kit. I’d love to have a go. The whole C Class Destroyer is so amazing. I still think that humans are so good at creating machines of death that we don’t deserve to be here.