Category: JCBFan

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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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Missing Link

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.

My main thought while watching this film was:

The water looks amazing.

Every scene with animated water was just beautiful. The complex movements in the water was amazing and seriously well done.

Overall, this film was really good fun. There were plenty of points to laugh out loud, even for grown ups, and overall the message was lovely.

I enjoyed it. I wonder if I’ll write that about End Game?

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War Machinery

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
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
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
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.

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Costly Wonder

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
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!

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Another Go

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.

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