Category: DuckandHat

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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:

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.

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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.

Apollo 14 Command Module
Apollo 14 Command Module

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!

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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 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.

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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].

Shipon a ship being fixed.
Boat on a ship. The boat is being fixed.

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:

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.

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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.

Fireworks
Fireworks

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.

Sparkler?
Sparkler? It isn’t but looks cool, it’s the smoothness of it.

It’s time we had a massive change to our system of society. Only radical change will save us.

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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 Big Space
The Big Space

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.

Cranes Are Lovely
Cranes Are Lovely

Dockyard cranes are quite spectacular and I do love the sheer utility of them. I don’t have anything else to say about them.

40 mm Bofors AA Gun
40 mm Bofors AA Gun

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.

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Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans

Another warm day means another period of time spent in the cinema watching glorious films. Well, they aren’t all glorious but some are. The tide was high on the way in and lower on the way out of the cinema in Rochester, UK. It’s a thing.

I then rated this film on IMDB and there is a discussion of the method for scoring films in this communication. You should read it to see why I would rate a Tarantino film lower than this one! I then sent a tweet.

I sat watching this movie thinking how lovely it was and laughing at the jokes. I’ve got a feeling that I will watch it again just because I enjoyed it that much. I suspect there are many layers to the jokes and the more I watch it the more I’ll see. It was good fun.

Having read about Boudica on the interwebs I like the idea that we have no idea where her final battle was. It was somewhere between London and Wroxeter which is a pretty large area to cover. Also, when you read about how the Romans treated her family it makes perfect sense that she became this fearsome leader of the tribes inhabiting Great Britain at the time.

This was a good fun movie with an excellent cast and great writing. It’s a who’s who of comedy.

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Dora and the Lost City of Gold

I went to see this film because it’s the summer holidays for me at the moment. It is slightly ridiculous that I have only worked through August in about five of my years. It’s an interesting thing that for me the summer only starts at the end of July, when teachers talk about “the summer” we don’t meant the meteorological summer. Just for giggles I think the following are my five years of working in August:

  • Post GCSE I worked on a farm driving tractors.
  • Between lower and upper sixth form I drove tractors.
  • Post A Level I worked at Cossor Electronics for a year until I went to university (two summers).
  • I was one of the student union officers and so worked the summer of 1994 in Beit Quad, Imperial.

Back to format now. The tide was on its way in and was covering most of the mudbank but the grass on the bank was still visible, it wasn’t visible on the way home. I didn’t see the seal from last time but it didn’t matter. The weather was really nice and the who vista was very pretty.

After watching this film I rated it on IMDB and there’s a communication which discusses the scoring criteria here. It is then usual for me to embed the tweet:

My web editing software doesn’t really like pure HTML being entered and for a long time it would warn me of errors, but my code was correct. I use WordPress btw.

So, the film. I really enjoyed the whole thing. It was good fun. There were many nods to the cartoon series it made it fun. It was really a more modern Goonies [which I can’t remember so will have to dig out].

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Three Little Ones

Part of my recent trip to the Lake District was walking some new Wainwrights. I travelled up to Keswick for a week. I’m hoping to get back there later this year for some serious ridge walks and possibly ticking off another ten or so of the categorised mountains.

Derwentwater from the Ashness Bridge
Derwentwater from the Ashness Bridge

Just look at the gorgeous views you get from even half way up to high. This is the view from just above the Ashness Bridge.

Watendlath Tarn
Watendlath Tarn

If you keep driving or walking up the road from Ashness you get to Watendlath, a tiny hamlet high up in a hidden valley. It’s an amazing space and the tarn is lovely. This is just the sort of space you can imagine walking around a mini peak and finding people having sex, you know, the usual.

Hills and mountains can’t be everything and so it’s also important to see aircraft. I went to the Dumfries and Galloway Air Museum at the old RAF Dumfries. It was a curious place with planes looking rather dishevelled and in good need of a paint job.

Fairey Gannet
Fairey Gannet

This one along with the Lightning was the best looking plane. There was a Saab Draken, a JP and a Westland Wessex, but they didn’t look great. The Dassault Mystere was doing OK.

Dassault Mystere
Dassault Mystere

There needs to be a list of hills walked and their placing in the Wainwright list so here you are:

  • High Rigg [209 with a height of 354m]
  • Great Mell Fell [155 with a height of 536m]
  • Loughrigg Fell [211 with a height of 336m]
View From High Rigg
View From High Rigg

I did also walk Latrigg but this is about the fifth time I’ve done that one and so it shouldn’t really get a mention here. I did some rowing on two of the Lakes while I was there, Derwentwater and Grasmere.

Exploring Islands in Derwentwater
Exploring Islands in Derwentwater

Keswick is a lovely place I think, maybe very slightly less so during Convention time because it makes it so busy and full of people, but still such a wonderful place to visit.

Grasmere from Loughrigg
Grasmere from Loughrigg

Next time I’m up here in the summer I think I would like to go swimming in the Lakes. It looked very inviting and paddling wasn’t that satisfying. I’d rather be out there adventuring. I think my swimming is good enough. I’m not fast but can keep a steady pace going, much like my running. I can’t wait to get back up to the north west again.

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RIAT 2019

Freece Tricolori

I went to RAF Fairford a short while ago to attend the Royal International Air Tattoo. RIAT is a huge airshow which takes place each year at RAF Fairford. I’d never been to this particular airshow before and so I was quite excited. There were also a few aircraft types I had never seen static or flying before:

  • F35
  • Su-27
  • P8
  • F18 (a friend told me I had seen some at RAF Waddington years ago)
  • Patrouille de France
  • Freece Tricolori

Nearly all the other types of aircraft I had seen static or flying before. I have to say now that the very best displays were the F16s and F18. They were both incredibly impressive given how old their design is. The Flanker was amazing, utterly brilliant.

Here is a selection of some of the photographs I had once I’d returned home. Not all the credit goes to me, the kids took quite a few of the photos and did a good job.

  • Spanish Harrier
    Spanish Harrier
  • Freece Tricolori
    Freece Tricolori
  • NATO Elephant Walk
    NATO Elephant Walk
  • Breitling Jets
    Breitling Jets
  • Patrouille de France
    Patrouille de France
  • Flanker Landing
    Flanker Landing
  • A Moody Red Arrows Shot
    A Moody Red Arrows Shot
  • Min Radius Turn F-16
    Min Radius Turn F-16
  • Flanker
    Flanker
  • Freece Tricolori
    Freece Tricolori
  • Double Concorde
    Double Concorde

The weather was a little cloudy at times but we coped. Photographs look better with a mixture of blue sky and fluffy Simpsons clouds.

The noise was amazing and I just loved the sound of the afterburning jets taking off and pulling many G to show off their capabilities. I also met some old friends while at the tattoo and it was lovely to arrange to meet them. I even managed to bump into George who is a colleague from the PAC at Amport, I knew he attended and I was hoping to see him.

I’m not too happy with the media page for the photos as I think the photo is too small on that, so the images link to the actual image file, I might get around to learning how to adjust that one day.

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