Category: Personal

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Grasshopper and Harvey

This year has been mostly used for watching the science fiction television series Farscape. I always have something on the go, things I’ve watched compulsively [although paced if that’s not a contradiction] probably started with the West Wing, then Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, Tour Of Duty, Firefly [obviously], The Prisoner along with many others. I’m not sure how many of these I have written about, you could search for them in that little box at the bottom if you want, but I definitely wrote about Babylon 5 it took three years to watch!

Farscape

My Farscape journey began after I listened to a podcast where one of the cast is slightly obsessed with Dr Who. In that podcast another person mentioned Farscape as a TV series and I remembered living in Brentwood in a house share and watching it as a TV show when digital TV started in around 1999. I remembered liking it and thought I’d watch it. It then turned out that Amazon Prime had all the shows and my next TV series was sorted.

I started tweeting every episode that I watched but this stopped at some point. I’m not sure why but I have had some mental health issues recently and so I guess I just stopped tweeting. It’s a bit of a shame as my B5 list is complete. But, there we go, no point regretting that for the obscure point that I could look back and see when I watched each episode. I think I may have stopped because I was watching some episodes when I should have been at work! I definitely also watched some while I spent time at RAF Wittering, which I have done a lot this year. If you want to see the tweets and why wouldn’t you? Head over to my online-offline twitter archive and search.

There’s an awful lot I liked about this TV show. The characters are instantly likeable, except Rigel of course, but even then in the end you kinda want good things for him. The writing is well done and the in-jokes work really well. I don’t think the series is that over the top and it definitely manages well with the “horny aliens on a space ship theme”. Moya is amazing. Chiana is my favourite. I love the way that Crichton references loads of Earth based characters and themes all the way through the show.

The way that John Crichton interacts with Harvey in his own head was perfect and comical, while at the same time being a central part of the later series. This was managed really well. As was the cartoon episode where most of it takes place in Crichton’s head.

I was never really put off by the puppets and considering this show was started twenty years ago I think it is pretty damn good. The reliance on CGI nowadays removes that organic feel from many shows and something gets lost. This series works really well with the puppets and make-up to create amazing storylines and effects. It’s probably not for everyone and it definitely hits that fantasy science fiction spot but I would recommend it if you want to fun ride.

This ultimate love story comes to an end and I look forward to whatever series I choose to watch next. Goodbye Farscape.

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Does Everyone Know This?

I guess it had to happen eventually. Over the summer I had to get some glasses. This is so I can see stuff that’s close to me. My eyes are getting old and I now need help to see stuff properly. It’s not that bad yet and sometimes I forget to wear them at work but for reading small text I definitely need them. It isn’t convenient to keep pushing them up and then down when transitioning from close to far stuff and most of my effort at work seems to be lifting the things onto my massive forehead whenever I look up from my computer.

I’m somewhat surprised by the folding mechanism on the glasses and I think this is some strange secret that you have to discover once you get glasses. Maybe most people don’t discover this because they are right handed? Maybe it’s only the lefties out there who have to deal with this strange asymmetry in glasses.

When I close my glasses I would naturally close the left arm first. This leads to the glasses not folding smoothly. It appears there’s a particular way you have to close glasses to do it correctly.

Glasses Right Over Left
Glasses Right Over Left

See in the above picture how the right arm sticks up quite a bit when the glasses are closed left first. I might have to google this once I’m done writing as perhaps there is a design aspect of glasses of which I was unaware.

Glasses Left Over Right
Glasses Left Over Right

When glasses are closed left first, or right over left, you can see that they fold nice and flat and will fit into most cases. I do think this is a classic case of the world not managing well with left handed people. I may be wrong but when you look at glasses there isn’t any obvious asymmetry and I am now going to get the ruler out and start measuring bits to see how it works. There’s a discussion thread from 2006 on this page.

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Not My Language

What’s wrong with the following picture?

Why Is It Like This
Language Choices

Yep, that’s right. I don’t speak American English. I speak English English. I mean, why even put a qualifier after the English language selection if there isn’t a choice. Why??

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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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Not Fitting In

I guess this is a follow up to my choices communication last week. I finished that by saying that I expect to wake up sad at what this country is. I do believe it’s worse than that. I went to bed last Thursday, the day of the General Election, not really thinking about what the next day could bring but hoping for change. When I woke up I looked:

I am not pro-Labour. But I had hoped they would win. Because I care about people and do not want the conservatives leading this country for the next five years. I am not a member of the Labour party, I am a member of the Green party. The Green party has policies that closely match my own ideas about governance and the future of this planet. Next closest would be either the Lib Dems or Labour. The Lib Dems are damaged after being in a coalition with the tories and also electing a religious nut as their leader.

I do think that I feel depressed at what I see is a selfish choice by the country. I do not trust Boris, I have never liked the tories. I have never agreed with what they have done. I didn’t particularly agree with Blair and New Labour but at least they spent money and then saved the economic place of this country. The tories then forced austerity onto this country and the life expectancy shows that. The poor are going to suffer because people are selfish.

I do not feel as though I am part of this country. I do not stand with the beliefs that have arisen from this election. This country has in reality, it turns out, always been a bit racists and a very entrenched in its views of class and society. The country seems to believe that poor people are poor because they deserve it or did something wrong. That isn’t the case.

It’s quite telling that the first thing I did Friday morning was think about where in the world I can live, somewhere I feel my views are shared by those around me. Somewhere tolerant. Somewhere I could feel at home. I’ve never really felt comfortable with the retrospective jingoistic bullshit that this country falls for all the time. God, what a country of assholes.

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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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Choices

Tomorrow we faces choices. Everyone gets the chance to have their say and express what direction they want this country to go. You can vote for whomever you want. That’s the point of free elections in this country.

The theory is that you should vote for the person in your constituency who you think most closely represents your views and who you think can best express those views in parliament. Ideally you would vote for a candidate who you think is best for your area even if they went against your overall politics for the country. You are choosing who you want to represent your views to the Palace Of Westminster. It’s easy isn’t it?

The problem is that the theory doesn’t really match up with reality. People end up voting for the leader of the party that they most identify with. OR they end up voting for someone because they detest the other. It’s worrisome and I keep trying to tell myself that I don’t care but, annoyingly, I do.

For many years I voted for the person I most wanted to represent my views. I had many arguments with Smith about tactical voting and that it was wrong and that we should vote properly. I mean, I once voted Not-Tory in the constituency of Westminster where the tory majority was about 20,000. To be fair, my vote didn’t matter at all but I did think that my views were counted. I don’t feel like that anymore.

The current first past the post system is flawed. All voting systems are flawed but some are less flawed. In some ways we had the referendum on voting systems and people elected to stick with the FPTP system. People are stupid.

I am now resigned to voting tactically even when I belong to a different political party. I’m voting to ensure the country has the best chance for proper social change, support for everyone, protecting the future and essentially being a humanist. I will admit there are some problems with the party leaders but one is much less worse than the other. To me, and my bloody empathy, the choice is clear.

Do what you want. Choose what you want. That’s the point.

I’m slowly getting used to the idea that most people don’t agree with me. I don’t think I’m wrong, I don’t think they are wrong, I’m just more right.

I expect to wake up Friday morning and be sad at what this country is.

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Regular Visitor

This year I have been travelling to the Cambridgeshire Lincolnshire borders to stay at the sleepy extension to Wittering village. This compound used to fly Harriers until that type was grounded due to budget cuts. For now, RAF Wittering is home to 5AEF flying Grob Tutors and the A4 Force, the base is home to a massive logistical section of the UK armed forces.

Most RAF bases have a gate guardian. A retired aircraft looking out over the entrance to the base, guarding the way. At RAF Wittering the gate guardian is, fittingly, a Harrier. This year I have spent more time at RAF Wittering than I have visiting family. I’ve been there for overnight trips to take cadets flying with 5AEF and I’ve been there over weekends to help out CE SATT develop their SAAI course.

She Who Must Not Be Named
She Who Must Not Be Named

I am very happy to say that I am now a qualified SAAI which means I will now be used extensively to train and test cadets and adult volunteers on weapon systems. This journey has been quite a long one, starting five years ago and gradually building up experience and waiting for the correct timings to fit into life. The hard work hasn’t stopped yet. I now have to plan and create more lessons along with learning another weapon system so that the progressive training will continue next year.

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It Was Better Than That

The other night the colours on display in the sky stopped me in my tracks and I just stared. The red was so deep and rich, contrasted with the black of the approaching night. I tried to take a photograph that would capture the hues but I don’t think it really does the sunset justice. Photographing atmospheric events is tricky and probably requires a deep investment in time and getting the DSLR out. I took this photograph with my iPhone and while the camera is good it’s not great. Also, I don’t do much in post. I like the shot to work. The things I will do are crop and maybe white balance adjustment. I rarely use filters as they seem to be a little “cheat”.

Sunset Colours
Sunset Colours

This view is in stark contrast to the view this morning through the window of . . . . nothing. There is fog out there and my normal uninterrupted view of around ten kilometres of countryside is reduced to 0.05km.

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