This morning I took a trip to the Cineworld cinema at Rochester. The tide was waning. It was mid-morning and so the perfect time to go see a film. The cinema was pretty busy as End Game is just out and people are trying to get their viewings in. When shall I go?
I rated Missing Link on IMDB as is customary, there’s a communication here which explains the scoring system.
Took a few hours out of the busy schedule the other day to visit the Historic Dockyard at Chatham. This is one of the places this country built and serviced warships for over four hundred years. I found the positive spin put on it all in the introduction video to be full of cognitive dissonance but I guess that’s how it goes. It was rather “Great Britain ruled the seas and controlled the world” it was kinda a Brexiteer’s wet dream with promises of glory and power. It completely ignored the human aspects and damage this country has done around the world. Anyway, enough from this old lefty, let’s have some pictures.
Smithery No. 1
I like the way the light enters this room. It’s part of a building that contained the first smithery. There were a few buildings like this where all the metal work was completed. It’s quite impressive.
Ocelot
HMS Ocelot is a spy submarine and the last Royal Navy ship to be built at Chatham [they built more afterwards, but for other countries’ navies]. It’s quite impressive being given a tour around this beast. I think I’d love to see a more modern submarine, the whole concept of living under the sea is rather freaky.
Cavalier
HMS Cavalier is a destroyer now permanently moored in wet-dock at Chatham. I would have liked to have seen the engine rooms and murkier areas of the ship, but that would probably need specialised tour guides and so this one is a self tour.
It’s a great place to visit and I have been here a few times in the past. I’m not sure if I’ve written about it before though. I’ll go and have a look! well, my cursory search has highlighted no references within this website to the dockyard, that seems strange but there you go. This is the first. It’s a lovely day out.
Here’s another couple of Lego models for me to catalogue. These came attached to one of those magazines that cost around GBP5. But I think the models look quite cool.
It’s probable that the U-Wing is part of the rebellion against the established government of the galaxy. If we use a neo-con view of the world then we would probably think they are rebel scum, all those terrible people fighting for the rights of everyone. Could it be that they are the bad side?
Within visible distance from my house, about a mile away over the fields, I can see looming lights and flashing brightness. I had thought it was set up for a weekend when a friend performed some music thing at the Monastery down the road. There’s an actual piece of St Simon Stock’s skull down there and I think it’s where they draw their power. Have a google for Aylesford Monastery if you want to find out more.
Next to the monastery at the moment is a large temporary theatre showing a pantomime once or twice a day for about a month. It turns out that the lights and glitz are connected to the pantomime and it’s meant to be a Winter Wonderland.
WinterWonderLand
I went there. No, I’m going to sound like an untrustworthy snob and I probably am but I don’t really like the health and safety aspects of carnival rides that are routinely reduced to fit on the back of a truck and moved around the continent. I do not think that all the best possible safety aspects are adhered to.
The Winter Wonderland consisted of lots of rides, a few food stalls and ticket outlets. It’s one of those places where the workers aren’t trusted with money, like in a Roman nightclub, and you have to buy tickets at centralised locations and use those tickets to go on rides. Twenty five tickets would set you back the discounted price of GBP20 or it was GBP1 each.
A ride on the shittiest ride was three tickets. The dodgems were five tickets a car and to me that sounds expensive. I was thinking maybe GBP3 would be more reasonable but I now realise I’m old and grumpy and harking back to the old days when things were cheap. I don’t get out much and perhaps that explains why I thought everything was pretty expensive.
The ice skating seemed reasonable though. GBP10 for an adult ticket which lasted for the entirety of a three hour window. I managed an hour and forty five and so I think I got my money’s worth along with a hurt wrist after having to do an emergency stop into the barrier with my arm. There’s plenty to remind me I’m getting old. Aches and pains and a natural tendency to moan about how expensive things are!
I don’t think this will last long. I’m having another go with the PSVR. It’s a virtual reality set for the Playstation. The last time I used one I felt sick almost immediately and got cold sweats. I expect the same to happen again, but this time I have a plan. I am going to keep working at it and try and overcome the sickness.
The other night I set it up and then tried a few of the simpler, slower, non-moving experiences and I coped quite well with that. As I felt good I went on to have a go at driving in Gran Turismo. I did a couple of laps of an oval in a slow car and felt OK. I then managed a few more laps in the same car around Brands Hatch GP circuit. By that point I was tired and starting to get very slight cold sweats. I stopped.
I reckon, that with time and sensible use I might be able to play it enough to be happy with the financial costs. It will take time.
The principle reason that made me get a PSVR again is that I should be able to hook it into the PC and get the flight sim working in VR. This will be an amazing improvement to the sim. This should be reasonably simple so I am going to wait for a time when I have a whole day uninterrupted to do this. I find that setting things up on the PC either take twenty minutes or four hours. There isn’t really an in-between.
I recently had to spend some time in the company of the NHS. In case you aren’t sure what the NHS is, well, it’s a health service that I pay for through my National Insurance contributions. I pay these in the knowledge that the money will either help me when I need it or help other people. Maybe I’m an odd one because I am happy to pay my fair share of money to help others who are less fortunate than me. I consider this a social duty. I will quite likely rant on here one day about how we should make everybody pay their fair share, too many people in this country try to avoid paying to help others. While that might seem very black and white it’s not and the arguments are complicated.
There’s a communication that has been in draught form for about three years where I explain my politics and the reasons behind it, but it will be long and rambling and possibly unpopular. As an idea of what I think I am currently considering the idea that many wars are caused by those in power aiming to maintain their fragile grip on power and to do that they send millions of “little people” to their death. That’s not my final thought, it’s just part of the things I’m considering. This came about because the end of World War One was more caused by the German people rebelling and the Kaiser resigning than any military gains by the allies. The UK government then did its best to quash any forms of rebellion in the UK. It’s why the Eton arseholes still rule us. Anyway, you can see my thoughts degenerate into anger and swearing quite quickly. Another day for the reasoned arguments.
The point of this communication is to praise the lovely people I met at the hospital and how they couldn’t have done more to keep everything happy and safe. So many of the professionals who came and talked to us had heavy accents but I don’t care about that. In fact I’m glad about that. It highlighted how much our medical service relies on people who come here from abroad and our country is better for it. The whole system worked well and all the workers were brilliant. It’s never an easy time being in hospital and I have nothing but praise for the people who helped us.
It’s so galling then that our government continues to bolster itself into a situation that will culturally and financially ruin our country for the next thirty years at least. This along with the chronic underfunding of all public services over the last ten years truly has ruined our country. I am so fucking angry at these things. But maybe that’s for another day.
After a visit to the RAF Museum at Hendon I came into contact with a couple of not-Lego models that while not-Lego certainly look nice and have a good size. These are Cobi blocks and it looks like they are made in Poland.
I went to visit the RAF Museum at Hendon. It’s a lovely place, partly because it costs nothing to go in* but also because it’s full of aircraft.
*there are parking charges.
My main issue with the museum is that the aircraft are parked close together and it’s hard to get decent photographs of them. Also, some of the rooms are pretty dark and getting the white balance correct is a pain. Maybe I need to be a better photographer!
I recently traveled to London for the day. I did plenty of walking along with a few train rides and underground journeys. Not going to say a huge amount about what I saw but here are some of the highlights:
HMS Belfast
National Gallery
Westwards
The Shard
The Tower and a pointy thing
There you are. Some of the classic sights of the city of London and Greater London and the City of Westminster.
