Personal – Page 2 – Fooyah

May 25 2026May 25 2026

Chez Kane – The Underworld

It was one of the hottest days of the year (so far) when I took the train to Camden Town. I had options for travel and I could have tried a newer method into the big smoke parking at Greenwich North and then tubing it for the peninsula. On the day, though, I decided to stick to super fast travel from slightly closer to home and I used the Javelin train from Ebbsfleet. My thought process was mainly that the train was more likely to have air conditioning than the tube line and I could also walk from St Pancras to Camden and enjoy the sights and sounds of the city.

I was attending this gig because Dave, the photographer, had mentioned it. After a short perusal of videos on YouTube I decided it might be a laugh and Smith came along too. The Underworld itself was lovely and cool very much unlike when we saw Combichrist there a few years ago. The crowd was definitely older than most other gigs I have been to recently but that matched the music style really – 80 cock rock.

First band on were a local band made from regulars to the Underworld. Steff Voxx played pretty decent heavy rock. They seemed to be enjoying themselves and they played well together, just what you would expect with a bunch of seasoned rockers like that.

Star Circus were the second band on and they played a solid set. Pretty much all of the music would be described as “rock”. There wasn’t really much metal but I enjoyed their set. Also, the singer/guitarist was a lefty and I have to appreciate that. The bassist is the latest in a long line of female bassists I admire.

Headliners were Chez Kane. That is the name of the singer and the rest were “her band”. If you look at the picture and feel you’ve been transported forty years into the past then don’t worry. It really was like that. The songs had a warm 80s feel to them and Chez explained that she was deliberately keeping that sound going, the songs of the 80s inspired her and she loved it. I can’t argue with that. The whole evening was nicely enjoyable. I went home with songs by Kenny Logins and Vixen running through my head.

May 19 2026

Top Gun

So . . . . I went to the cinema. The local theatre seems to be showing a lot of old films as a tribute to those films, I don’t know if that’s a countrywide thing but I guess it makes sense and gets bums on seats. I recently went to see Highlander and although it was a terrible film it was also amazing. So, it’s forty years since Top Gun was released and the cinema had a showing. They also had a double bill of the two films but I didn’t want to spend that long at the cinema. I decided to miss the last half hour of the Nürburgring 24 hour race and I drove to the cinema.

Upon driving along the wharf I could see that the tide was lovely and high. The waves were lapping at the sea wall, the tips of greenery poked through the surface and the shopping trolley embedded in the mud was hidden. Everything looked good for the world. I did rate the film on IMDb as those are the rules but because this is a film I have owned in multiple formats I had to give it 10/10.

I have written before about how bad this film is. The first 4’06” are pure genius and cinematic glory. It was enjoyable to see this film on the big screen. The flying scenes sure look amazing and the F14 is a stunning aircraft. I will give a big shoutout to the F5 though as, while the F14 looks aggressive as hell, the F5 is sleek and pretty. In the film they pretend to be Mig-28s. If you ever want to know what plane is in a film then it’s always worth looking at the Internet Movie Plane Database. Also, whenever I see an aircraft I search its registration just to get an idea of where it’s been hired from.

So much of this film shows emotionally stunted men trying to grapple with life and flying. The amount of “macho” is pathetic. We have a bunch of people who are really unsure about their masculinity and so have to act as hard as possible. It is trite. The romantic interactions are so poorly written it borderlines on abuse. I know this was the 1980s but please, let’s try and create realistic characters.

The story is pretty bad.

But, there are aircraft and that’s lovely.

May 17 2026

The Christophers

I popped to the cinema yesterday to watch The Christophers. I had zero clue of what the film would be about. The tide was pretty low on the way in to the cinema but it turns out it was even lower when I got out of the building so maybe my tide-judgement is slightly flawed. After watching the film I rated it on IMDb and I gave it 6/10. I’m not going to post a picture of the rating, what’s the point? It’s just a thing that shows the score I’ve just told you.

This film was a delight. I really enjoyed it. The story was compelling, the acting was fabulous and overall it was just lovely. Well worth a watch. The only thing I didn’t like was James Cordon turning up a few minutes into the movie and I was startled. Overall an amazing film.

May 16 2026

JetClock Update

It’s just about been a week of owning my JetClock zero and there are updates to write about. Firstly, I bought a 7″ screen to display the data and it fits nicely on one of the bookshelves. Given the screen was quite cheap I was surprised at the quality. It works really well, had a decent menu to adjust settings, and can be powered via a USB C.

The JetClock Zero itself is set to turn the display off in the night time and will also restart itself at midnight to make sure it keeps updates and “fresh”. The colours of the display can be customised as can the details that the clock shows. I’m impressed with the settings that allow changing the direction of view so the clock can show aircraft only from the viewing angle that makes most sense. If I had a view of the sky from my workplace I would have one installed there and it would point to the aircraft in real life. As it is I have the JetClock to show all aircraft in a 30km radius and that works well. Although my view to the north is obscured slightly by the North Downs my southerly view is unimpeded and I often see aircraft head to land at Gatwick so the range on JetClock seems appropriate.

A good feature of the JetClock is the logbook which is a webpage that collates the data relevant to your position and clock. The clock itself doesn’t detect the aircraft it’s all done by a server somewhere, the same with the logbook. The image above is a summary of the first week of data collection and you can see I’ve had around 2,500 aircraft within viewing range of my house. I love the data this side of the JetClock produces. Very impressive.

I am fortunate (?) enough to live in the south east of the UK so I have aircraft launching themselves from the following largeish airports:

Heathrow
Gatwick
Stansted
Southend
London City

For the smaller aircraft I have Rochester and Headcorn reasonably close so get lots of little planes. For the medium aircraft I am directly under the flightpath for Biggin Hill so I will get plenty of private jets and also a bunch of Spitfires. Occasionally I get a flypast from a Chinook or Apache as there are a few helicopter landing sites in Kent. This is a pretty good place for spotting.

May 9 2026

JetClock

I think I originally saw this product on Reddit. There’s a load of aviation geekery on that site and the JetClock turned up. Plenty of people have made their own aircraft indicator displays but of those I’d seen JetClock is the nicest and best looking. I knew I’d probably get one but waited for the right time. The company recently increased their product range to include a version without a display and also an Android app.

I bought the JetClock Zero as this seemed the most versatile version. I could use it on an existing display or I could buy my own screen if I wanted. Yesterday it arrived and the packaging was super nice. I don’t generally care for “unboxing” but the fact that the cables were in a reusable bag and the device itself was in a sealed bag made the whole experience really nice. It took a few minutes to set up the JetClock Zero but that was painless. I like the fact I can change the settings via a web-page but I am slightly concerned that the company aren’t asking for a subscription, I hope they’ve really thought that out.

Today I have ordered a 7″ display so that I can have the JetClock running permanently and on display. I know I want to put it in the lounge but I haven’t quite decided where and how it should be fixed yet. That’s some work to look forward to.

The Logbook is a lovely addition to the device. It’s an online database of aircraft that the JetClock has “detected”. The device doesn’t detect aircraft itself but relies on a server somewhere knowing the position of the JetClock and providing data to be displayed. I already have a Raspberry Pi in the loft that feeds aircraft data to an aggregation service and I have written about that extensively on this site. Below is an image of the logbook output:

I get pretty pictures of aircraft with the world map showing the routes my JetClock can see. I live in the south east of the UK and so aircraft are very common because of travel to and from London and also because the UK happens to lie on a line of the great circle from Europe and South West Asia to the USA. Another bonus for me is that Biggin Hill isn’t far away and plenty of smaller jets fly into there. I’m also sure that at some point over the weekend there will be a Spitfire popping over towards the White Cliffs.

JetClock has a “rarity” score for aircraft. I’m not sure you could do a lot to increase the likelihood of seeing these unless you take your clock with you as you go around spotting. As you can see within 24 hours of set up I’ve already had a plane with rarity of 100. Just as I was writing this I heard an A400 fly over and I’m a little disappointed that its score is only 52! Maybe I’ll do better with the AN-22 that fly over a couple of times a week!

This device is great. Super easy to set up. The customisation options are brilliant and it gives me all the information I could want. Highly recommend.

May 8 2026

Smash Into Pieces – Electric Ballroom, Camden

I spent a school night recently in the big smoke. I took a train from Ebbsfleet International Station to north-ish London and then tubed it to Camden Town. The reason for travel was to watch a few bands at the Electric Ballroom. I had a nice, but expensive, burger for dinner. I also bought two drinks and that came in at more than GBP20 in The Worlds’ End, I know I’m old but this seemed very expensive, I miss the days of drinks in the Officers’ Mess. The Electric Ballroom was a new venue to me and I liked it. There was plenty of space, the bars were large and one of them was sheltered around a corner, you could escape easily.

First up were Dark Divine, a band from Florida which isn’t their fault I guess. I enjoyed their music. The singer was a good frontman and worked the crowd well. They genuinely seemed to be enjoying themselves. The music was standard metal. The usual singer with a good voice doing growly stuff and the guitarist sand the deep growl. The lead singer was chatty with the crowd and really seemed to be enjoying the whole show so that was nice.

Second band was Enemy Inside which was our main reason for attending this gig.

I enjoyed their show. I felt it was, again, pretty standard metal. It was good fun although part way through I needed to move to the bar so I could rest my back. The damn muscles in my lower back have been painful for about two weeks now and standing watching a show was not helping. Enemy Inside were good enough for me to seek out their music on iTunes and pay for some albums. I’ll put it on when I’m working.

The headliners were Smash Into Pieces. Smith and I weren’t that bothered about watching them but we stayed for a couple of songs. To be honest it was nice to have an evening out and still get home at a sensible time which meant I wasn’t absolutely fucked for work the next day. Yes, I understand that makes me old, but that’s where we are in this life so far.

Smash Into Pieces seemed reasonably heavy to start. The guitars were pretty cool. But I have some observations. . . . The drummer wears a mask – whoopee do, seen it before. Some people in the crowd thought it was really cool. I didn’t care particularly. The light show was pretty cool with lasers and shit, again the youngsters seemed impressed. The singers voice was really weird. I did not like it. It grated. I listened to some songs when I got home to see what the rest of their produce was like and it was a lot more keyboardy and less heavy. The singers voice still grated and that’s a big no-no for me. It’s a bit like Muse – I’ve tried to listen to their stuff, really tried and I should like it – but I can’t cope with the voice. This band’s live voice was not good. Maybe he’s having a bad night but it was poor.

Overall, I had a good evening. Good company, Smith, nice food in my current dieting time of life and a couple of bands I really enjoyed in a new venue, in bed before midnight. Worth it.

May 5 2026

Highlander

I took a trip on the Bank Holiday to the cinema at Rochester to watch a film that is forty years old. I suppose it’s a marketing idea by Cineworld where they show old films to encourage more people to attend? I saw Akira recently and this time it was the turn of Highlander. The tide was very low as I drove towards the cinema, all of the mud banks were visible. After watching the film I rated it on IMDb and gave to 6/10.

I don’t really want to review this film as a modern release, I have much love for this film. I don’t think I saw it when it was released in 1986, I would have been fourteen but I think I saw it on television some time after that. When I was at university people would reference it. Queen did the soundtrack. It was quite a thing.

As a film the story makes some sense, but the plotting and script of this film is terrible if I’m honest. I’m not going to rip everything apart, the film doesn’t deserve this, it’s a classic. I will say that there are many scenes in the film that are just stunning and I was amazed at the reflections in the final fight scene. It was well worth the drive to the cinema. Also, there was footage of a Sepecat Jaguar jaunting through the Scottish Highlands towards the end of the film and, for me, this absolutely made the film. It was great.

April 21 2026

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy

So, I took a trip to the cinema at Rochester [not Rochester] to see The Mummy, by Lee Cronin, not a reboot more a reimagining. But there are things to be written here before we get on with what I thought about the film. For some reason I mention the tide in these communications. I do know the reason I’m just not sure when I started doing this. I think I mentioned the tide to avoid mentioning the actual time I went to the cinema as I might have skipped off work or something a little earlier than I was meant to. The actual details are hazy now and so I mention the water levels in the river for completeness.

The picture was taken just before I entered the cinema. As you can see the water was lapping at the wharf edge and so the tide was high, probably at its highest. When I left the cinema the central river channel was obvious and the mudflats were prominent. After I watch a film at the cinema I rate it on IMDb, there are rules to this and there is a communication here that covers the system. I have started to rate every film I watch – so those on television / streaming – because I have, on occasion, found myself rewatching something I thought was rubbish but had forgotten about. It’s only about thirty minutes into the film that I realise I’ve already seen it. This especially occurs with rubbish science fiction films on Amazon Prime. So many films have storylines that seem familiar and so that’s why it can take a while to figure out if I’ve seen it before.

Lee Cronin's The Mummy - 4/10 — Lee Cronin’s The Mummy – 4/10

This film scored 4/10 in my system. It was close to a six for a while as I was watching it but it got slightly too gross for 6 and I stopped caring about the people and so I only watched to the end just to see how they ended it.

My first though while watching this film was “I don’t think birds have that much blood in them”. I’m not really sure what that scene indicated. Perhaps the awakening of the demon. I know I always want to kill pet birds when I wake up. After that the film progressed mostly gently and it seemed fine. I liked the silence of the crashing aircraft but the fact the explosion sound was instantaneous to impact and we were viewing from over a kilometre away really annoyed me. Like really annoyed me. Explosion noises take time to travel to you or the camera – get it right Hollywood.

This film didn’t have the colour or fun of the previous Mummy film. It was dark and gross rather than bright and fun and not scary. I mean this one wasn’t scary. Some make up and odd noises isn’t really enough to make a film a bother. I know I’ve seen a few horror films recently and they don’t really do much to me. The worst I felt in this one was when one of the old ladies throws up. It made me gag a little which I thought was an interesting reaction. The rest of the film just seemed to rely on loud stupid noises and “creepy” looking children and make up. Mind you, I loved it when the small daughter called their teacher a “cunt”. Always nice to hear that word from the “innocent”. But, I hasten to remind you, it’s been done before. “Jesus fuck my cunt” I believe was in The Exorcist and that’s a really old film.

This film just wasn’t that scary. It seemed a touch slow as well. I don’t know. A lot of my opinions have probably changed over time and I’m being affected by watching things on streaming services. Perhaps once you’ve seen a lot of films you get to feel blasé about most new films unless they really tell an interesting story. I did comment to Smith the other day that the last film that really disturbed me was The Omen, the original when it was shown on Channel 4. That’s probably because I was young and hadn’t really dismissed supernatural stuff by then.

April 19 2026

Akira (2026)

I recently went to the cinema at Rochester [Strood] to watch Akira, again. I have watched this film many times, firstly in the early 1990s and then whenever I feel like it. Smith and I went this time and this mirrored the time twelve years ago we watched it at the BFI. I also watched this film in 2020 when things were being shut down and cinemas were going to be closed for a long time. I’ve already rated this film on IMDb and so there’s no need for a rating here, but it obviously scores 10/10. I’ve seen it plenty of times and still really enjoy it. I did struggle a little this time with momentarily shutting my eyes in the last half hour of the film.