Category: JCBFan

Posted on

Godzilla Minus Zero

I took a trip to Rochester to watch the Godzilla Minus One sequel. I remember really liking the original so was looking forward to this, even though I knew nothing about it. The tide was super low, I reckon I should learn about moon phases and the tide, because they are connected, but for now I’m happy to be surprised when I see so much of the base of the M2 bridges. We had to park near the river because the car park was mostly closed. I’m hoping they might actually resurface the place!

The M2 Bridges In Fog and Low Tide
The M2 Bridges In Fog and Low Tide

After watching the film I rated it on IMDb and this particular cellular spectacular got an 8/10 from me! There is a guide to judging the films within this communication. This feels like a rare event, a film scoring 8 or more. Looking through past judgements I have Hope coming in at 8/10 and The Odyssey as a 10/10.

I really enjoyed Minus Zero. We could sit and chat about the idea that zero is neither positive nor negative but we could also discuss that it could be both. I liked the title. I hadn’t really remembered much about the first film and it took a while before I understood where the characters were and who they were. The film did explain these things as new people were introduced. I remember liking the flying scenes in the first movie. I was not disappointed with this movie. There was plenty of flying and I really liked it.

I’m not into superhero films because they are always “whoever hits hardest wins” and not really about brain power. But this film requires humans to force a fight between two kaiju and it was great. I liked their powers, I liked the storyline, I liked everything. My only, very mild, gripe was too much of a child shouting at the end of the movie, but then that did fit with characterisation so I can tell myself to get over it.

There was some lovely interactions in the film showing the distrust of Americans and the effects of the war. It’s good for a film to show how war affects normal people. It’s not their fault and they end up being killed in action or just “collateral damage”. This film, and the previous, showed the effects of war really well and those plot points will stick with me. It’s all too easy to see the “enemy” as an evil collective, but in reality most people are normal.

Posted on

Spider-Man: Brand New Day

I went to see a film at Rochester cinema. The tide was absolute tip top high as I drove along the road by the river Medway. I wasn’t sure how long the film was but I was curious to see the change that would happen when heading home. I rated this film on IMDb after watching it and I gave it a 6/10. There’s a whole list of rules for the scoring system so you should read this communication.

I quite enjoyed this film. I’m not really into superhero movies, I find them remarkably childish and immature – he who has the biggest fists wins. This film had some humanity in it. I liked the fact that Peter Parker had bruises and was hurt. I think we need to talk about physics and all that at some point but overall this was good fun. I definitely wasn’t expecting Jean Grey to turn up!

Posted on

Mighty Fine, Damn!

I’ve been to Wales, again. It was lovely. I stayed in Penmaenpool near the toll bridge, this is a village(?) close to Dolgellau. I saw many things. There were dolphins, seals, metal birds, trains, boats, canoes, aqueducts, sheep, cows, herons, lakes, rivers, tiny well maintained roads, mountains, and power stations. I even had a guided tour of Rheidol Power Station which was very cool, we saw the generator room and the turbine room. During the tour the guide suggested we visit the dams as one of them could be driven over and they were an important part of the generation system. So, we went there before returning home.

We drove through Gonigan, Pontarfynach [Devil’s Bridge], somewhere called Cymystwyth and then many miles of single track mountain road through the Elan Valley. When I say many miles, it was a loooong way. No phone signal. Just an assuredness that we would somehow get out at the other end. I didn’t know if we would see the dams and reservoirs or even if we were on the correct road. It turns out that the Elan Valley is a “dark skies” park. This makes sense. We definitely felt as though we were in the middle of nowwhere!

Elan Valley and Reservoirs
Elan Valley and Reservoirs

On the map look at the yellow road with the green dots. That’s the road we followed hoping to find the dams. We did find the correct dams and drove over the first one!

Craig Goch Dam
Craig Goch Dam

There was a car park on the east side of the dam. We stopped for a short while and took some pictures. I really liked the texture of the dam and the design of it. Considering it was made in the 1960s it looked a lot older and I liked that. After seeing this we drove home, there was plenty of mountain road left to traverse and then A roads before we got into England and motorways!

Craig Goch Dam Reservoir and Dam
Craig Goch Dam Reservoir and Dam

The whole energy generation system was pretty impressive including how they built in a large drop for the water before Rheidol power station meaning that more energy could be extracted from the water. The power station wasn’t generating while we were there but there was a controller room which oversees all the water system. I was impressed.

Posted on

Noisy Metal Birds Of The Loop

I recently returned from some time in Mid-Wales and it was great being there. The temperatures was nice, ~20C, and there was even rain! We managed to see plenty of aircraft and heard many more. One day while near Llyn Tegid we saw some Texan IIs and Typhoons. I don’t have any pictures of those. It appears that they use this valley as an entrance to the Mach Loop. A little later while at our holiday cottage I saw this beast fly by:

A400M - Atlas - Mawddach Valley
A400M – Atlas – Mawddach Valley

On the day we actually chose to go to the Mach Loop we didn’t actually see anything when we were up high but we did see the US Air Force doing some stuff:

MC130J - Mach Loop
MC130J – Mach Loop

Then while walking up to a vantage point we had a couple of F35s pop by:

F35 - Lightning II - Mach Loop
F35 – Lightning II – Mach Loop

We could often hear Hawk T2s flying around but I don’t think we saw one. They were often messing around at around 20,000ft so the noise was clear but the images weren’t. Shame really, would have been nice to see them, they were the only “regular” we didn’t see.

Posted on

Rock The Mote

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
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
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.

Posted on

The Odyssey

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.

Posted on

Teeny Bubbles

I recently had the good fortune of visiting some hydrodynamics labs in Sheffield University. Gosh, it was great to see experiments set up covering all aspects of my degree. I got talking to some of the techs and teachers there – super to have technical conversations. IT got me thinking about another conversation in the staff room recently – apparently other people don’t see the world in terms of force diagrams! Like who doesn’t?

Degradation of a steam turbine blade caused by cavitation
Degradation of a steam turbine blade caused by cavitation

This image is of a turbine blade from a steam powered electricity generator. All power stations use steam to turn turbines. This particular blade was hanging and had sensors so that different resonant frequencies could be generated. If you hit the blade gently in different places you get different harmonic tones. If you look at the bottom of the blade you can see where water bubbles have cavitated in the low pressure and then collapsed causing damage. It’s quite incredible to think that happens.

When this was explained to me I didn’t say the only reason I know about cavitation, it felt a touch embarrassing. When in the second year at university I owned a Sega Mega Drive. One of the games I had was 688 Attack Sub. I know that if you tried to travel too fast in the submarine then other subs and vessels could hear you because you caused cavitation around the propellor. Cavitation was a thing to be avoided.

Posted on

Disclosure Day

I went to the Medway Towns to watch this film, the trailers had made it look pretty good. On the way to the cinema I found Temple Manor, again, a very old building in the middle of an industrial estate and open at “various times” but not the day I visited. I think I’ll have to keep my eyes open to head over on a day it is open. The tide was waning and about two thirds height upon entry to the cinema. After watching this film I rated it on IMDb and there is a guide on this communication to explain the scoring system. I rated this film 4/10.

I wonder if I have a psychological limit for the length of films? I know I was watching this one and at some point, I didn’t look up how long into the film, I thought “can’t this be over already”. Maybe it is a length of film thing or maybe that was a measure of what I thought about this particular film? This is a well-made film. All the components are there. For some reason I just wasn’t grabbed and carried along. Maybe it was too long, maybe the film itself couldn’t hold me enraptured, but the film is just a bit “meh”?

The background of this film was one of impending world war. This was subtle until it wasn’t. It played out in a couple of scenes but it wasn’t there for others. It was inconsistent. The idea that the world would be convinced by some video appearing on a news show is somewhat childish. I look at online sources these days and part of me wonders how much of the footage or photographs is just wrong. There are some good news sources at the moment, places we can trust, but there’s so much out there that is incorrectly labelled or blatant lies that I don’t think people would be convinced. Then again, the lies do convince a lot of people. Perhaps I’m wrong about this.

The action scenes in this film were suitably actiony. But at the same time they felt somewhat overused and tired. Oooh, maybe that’s how I’m feeling at the moment. I’ve seen too much of the world and now nothing really surprises me anymore? Films need to be clever to make me feel good about them? I don’t think it’s that. I watched The Godfather recently for the first time and that held my attention and I really enjoyed it. It is also a rather long film. So maybe the fault is modern cinema?

I left this film feeling underwhelmed. I pretty much shrugged it off. It was remarkably “meh”.

Posted on

Orchard Battle

A few days ago I went to Dartford – somewhere I’d not been before – and spent some time with Jock and their family at the theatre. Dartford seemed a curious place, the railway station building was very curvy and pretty, the car park for the station was not on any road signs but was reasonably priced for the evening. The road to the station passed next to one of the platforms and it seemed a little strange for the train to be right next to the road. I was visiting the Orchard Theatre as Jock’s son was in a battle of the bands there. The theatre was pretty much next to the station but as we approached it had scaffolding and was cordoned off. We walked around the building following the signs for the entrance and didn’t find one. We walked around the building twice. There were definitely arrows pointing in a particular direction so we were following the correct route.

After two complete circuits of the building and no entrance found a local asked us if we were looking for the theatre, yes, we replied. It’s over there and he pointed to what looked like an industrial park. Not far away we could see a marquee style tent and a small banner saying Orchard Theatre. It turns out that while works are being done on the actual theatre the whole organisation had moved to a temporary location in a tent. To be honest, it was quite well done and there was plenty of seating, toilets and a bar, you know, all the usual theatre stuff. We met Jock and his family and then proceeded to the auditorium to watch the battle commence.

The first three bands were under 18s and then after the first break it was the grown ups turn. The first band, Kaira, were a thrash metal band and I’m not sure that the audience was ready for them. I didn’t recognise their songs but I did like their style of music. Next up was Blacktone, They played some great songs and really looked like they were enjoying it, the singer was super excited! The final youth band was Wishbone, who played indie music with some excellent close harmony vocals – it wasn’t my kind of stuff but they did well struggling through some technical difficulties. We all voted for Blacktone.

Of the adult bands I think the first band, One Hash Brown, were musically the best. They seemed to have quite an indy sound and it wasn’t my style of music but they did well. The middle band were called The Resolve and they genuinely looked like a middle-aged divorced dads band. They played some classics and were well polished. The final band, Cabin Pressure, played well but again, it wasn’t my style of music.

Of the younger bands, Blacktone won and will now have that excellent ego boost and the chance to spend some time in a recording studio. I’m glad they won. The Resolve won the adult part of the competition and as they played the best crowd pleasers I’m sure they deserve it. I’m sure all the other bands will go on to do good things. It’s great to see such talent and musicians trying to make it in the tough music business.

Posted on

ABK

I short while ago I went to the Hazlitt Theatre in Maidstone to see Alasdair Becket-King perform his show King Of Crumbs. I really enjoyed it. I found his humour lovely with many callbacks. He coped with a “mildly irritating” but “excitable” person in the front row really well. I know one of the sons found this person annoying but that’s just how life goes I think. I didn’t mind particularly. The show wasn’t that long, coming in at about an hour and twenty. The coordination between ABK and the lights and computer imagery was really impressive, it was a well rehearsed show.

It’s a shame to live in Kent at the moment with its reputation of being full of racists, which I guess it is. ABK asked about that after a lefty joke and he was assured that the theatre was friendly people who care and not full of the Kent stereotype. It’s not great that the county is tarred by those who are most vocal.

Great show.

Privacy Policy Proudly powered by WordPress