Today is 24 February, which in European date formation is 24/2. I doubt that EBM day is widely recognised because it is a tiny sub-genre of music and definitely not as well known as pi day or Star Wars day or even Fulham 5 day. EBM is Electronic Body Music a genre of electronic music that combines elements of industrial music and synth-punk with elements of dance music [Wikipedia]. I only found out about EBM because of seeing Rammstein at Wembley Arena in around 2009.
If you are wondering why EBM day is the 24 February then you only need to understand that one of the biggest bands in the movement is called Front 242. I’ve seen them at M’era Luna and I’ve got a load of their albums. I prefer some other bands but I’m very happy to have 242 as the lead proponents of EBM and the use of their name to create EBM day.
I went to the cinema to watch the film Argylle. There wasn’t much else on and although I wasn’t that bothered about seeing it, the film was the best choice possible. The Cineworld cinema at Rochester is alongside the river Medway and this part of that river is tidal. For a reason lost to time this is important as I now mention that the tide was low when we arrived at the cinema. I could see all of the mud banks at the side of the river. It was a lot higher when we left and travelled home.
After watching the film I rated it on IMDB and there’s a system for the ratings, you should read that here. I used to then tweet the result when I was on Twitter but I left that platform when Musk took over. It had already descended into a whirlpool of the worst of mankind and I’m glad I left because there’s only so much hate I can tolerate. I rated this particular film 4/10. It was a borderline 6 but it didn’t hold my attention enough and I only thought the film was worth watching for one particular scene.
This film was just about ok to watch. There were many plot “twists” along with many time when I wasn’t really following what was happening or who to trust. This was a Hollywood film and so it all ends up very happy. I’m not sure if I’d recommend this to other people, maybe only if they have a little time to waste and don’t mind a silly film.
My one recommendation is that everyone watch the scene where the two lead characters shoot their way out of the evil lair. The use of smoke in this scene was inspired and it looked amazing. It’s well worth watching that scene alone, but you don’t need the rest of the film that surrounds it.
Over a recent weekend I travelled to Portsmouth with the Legend. We stayed in an hotel near the sea front but we didn’t get a seaview window, unless you craned your neck, which was a little disappointing. The journey down to Portsmouth was via a car. But the best journeys over the weekend were not by car. Although there were jobs to be done on the island of Portsea as well as one job just off the island we decided to make it adventurous and on the first afternoon we travelled to the Isle Of Wight for my second ever trip there.
Solent Flyer – 12000TD Hovercraft
The Solent Flyer took us across the Solent to Ryde on the Pile Of Shite in about ten minutes. The maximum speed was around 35mph as measured on my iPhone speed app. The ride was pretty smooth and the whole experience was really good fun. Things I noticed – there are two engines, once the first one starts the skirt inflates a little. Shortly after that the second engine starts. Hovercraft float on a cushion of air and that air is retained by the skirt – I have a piece of repurposed discarded skirt at home now – the forward motion is provided by the big fans at the rear of the machine. I’ve been trying to get technical details off the internets but all I can find is length and payload.
I’ve just found some engine specifications and they are MAN V12s specially designed for hovercraft. They are 24.24 litre capacity and are air cooled as hovercraft don’t touch the water. Each engine produces around 1079HP and means the hovercraft could travel at up to 50 knots. The lift fans are electrically powered by the diesels and then the thrust fans are shaft powered. Noise inside the passenger cabin was surprisingly low.
Both outward and return journeys were smooth and I was super impressed with the transition from ground to water, there was no noticeable difference, which I should have expected. The windows are a struggle to keep clear because of sea-travel and big fans so the views weren’t amazing but I could see enough. After travelling to Ryde I asked to see the cockpit (because I’m a child at heart) and it was super impressive. Ryde itself was a bit of a shithole. But at least I have now been to the Isle Of Wight twice. The previous time was to celebrate Dave Goddard’s birthday in 1994 I reckon.
Earlier in the week I had read that both of the UK’s aircraft carriers were alongside in Portsmouth. During the last visit I had definitely seen the control islands of one carrier but hadn’t realised they were both in. So, we booked a harbour tour by boat from the historic dockyard. Things I noticed – entry to the dockyard is free, you just have to ask, it’s the individual “attractions” you pay for. The security search of bags at the entrance was poor because I took my lock-knife in by mistake – I keep it with me along with a torch because – reasons. We got tickets for the harbour tour.
The tour was on a catamaran and it had loads of seating inside the main cabin which was warm. We sat by a window. There were some noisy people on board but I tried to remember that other people do and are allowed to exist. This noisy group wanted tea to drink – I was surprised (but shouldn’t have been) that the first thing they thought of was buying tea. The tour started with HMS Warrior, then left the confines of the quay and passed the two carriers.
HMS Prince Of Wales
The Prince of Wales had a lot of scaffolding on top and was clearly undergoing a serious amount of maintenance. This is what a few billion GBP gets you and it is massive. 280 metres long and it towers above everything else in the local area. It would have been nice to see them from the top of Spinnaker Tower but it was shut for work. The Queen Elizabeth was meant to be departing Portsmouth that evening but during pre-checks they had discovered an issue with one of the propeller drive shaft couplings and so her departure was cancelled. I believe the PoW is being sent instead to scare off the Yemeni “rebels” but it will take about a week for it to be made ready. It could take that long to remove the scaffolding!
HMS Queen Elizabeth
Another form of transport over the weekend, assuming transport is to change the location of a person or thing [I understand that a person is a thing], was the lifts in the hotel. They were swift and could apparently take up to eight people. The upper lift capacity figures have always amused me – like they are joking right? It’s purely a weight force limit rather than the number of people you can physically fit into the space. I can tell you that three people was enough, especially when one of them was an over six foot tall boxer. There were university boxing championships going on in the city.
After the harbour trip and after nearly buying a piece of HMS Victory’s wood – because who wouldn’t want a piece of that – we headed to the village of Tangmere about half an hour away. Tangmere is home to a military aviation museum and around six years ago Mr O and I tried to visit there but it was closed for the winter, I think we ended up at Goodwood. So, I had finally made it to Tangmere. It’s quite exciting driving around the corner and seeing the road guarded by an RAF Phantom!
RAF Phantom – Tangmere Museum
This was a pretty nice little museum. I won’t talk to people but thankfully the Legend does and so I learnt about the RAF Sector Clock along with some interesting stories about pilots and their dashing bravery. There was a good display of aircraft including two actual speed record breakers – A Gloster Meteor and a Hawker Hunter. Also, there were Harriers, a Lightning, a Spitfire, a Lysander and a Sea Vixen. Very nice they all were too and looked after well. Overall, a top weekend.
I’ve spent a little time recently flying in X-Plane. Now that my journey around the world is complete I’ve decided to spend some time learning start up and shut down checklists to get a real feel for the aircraft. I’m currently playing with the T-6A Texan that the RAF uses as a basic jet trainer. It’s a good little aircraft. Here are some views that I’ve photographed recently:
T-6A Sunrise Looking Lovely
T-6A Early Morning Cruise
RAF Wittering – Through The Ages
I’m really enjoying the whole – potter about a bit – approach to exploring the UK. I’m trying to improve my take-off and landings at the moment, a little crucial you might think, but making them smooth and “butter” is taking some time.
Well, I’ve finally done it. I’ve got all the Trophies in Gran Turismo 7, or any PlayStation game, and I am happy. For the last couple of months I have been either working through challenges, racing online, or grinding to get money. I had three trophies to get when I thought a Platinum was within reach. I had to complete 50 races online, this was easy, just time and frustration at people trying to knock me off the track, but I completed the 50. I had to take 100 pictures using Scapes mode, this was time again especially as I didn’t just want to keep pressing the shutter button – I wanted most of the pictures to be a decent quality. The final trophy was to buy three absolute classic cars.
A Detailed Version Of My Actual Car In a Car Park – Taken within GT7
A Jaguar valued at 20,000,000 credits
A ford valued at around 5,000,000 credits
A Ferrari valued around 9,500,000 credits
These cars appear occasionally in some in-game dealership and so not only did I need the money to get them I also needed to keep checking the dealership to buy the car when they appeared. I think this has taken around a month. I managed to get the Jag and Ford easy enough but have spent the last two weeks waiting for the Ferrari. I also as orking hard to secure the 9,500,000 credits I needed. Part of me considered using actual real cash to buy some in-game credits but they are about GBP15 for 2,000,000 credits and so I asn’t going to spaff GBP60 or so real money on an in-game car. The grinding continued.
Yesterday morning I checked the game store and the Ferrari was in there. However for whatever reason was decided it now cost 20,000,000. I was a little gutted as I had already saved 9,500,000 for the original price. I decided that I could wait and then it struck me. I have loads of cars I don’t care about and so I sold some of the racing cars I own. This I did and very quickly made the required purchase price.
I now own a Platinum trophy in the cybers and I’m very happy. There’s still plenty of the game I have left to complete. I’ve got to get gold in all the new licences, win every standard race and then maybe compete a little online. Oh, there are also the challenges or mission things to do so I have plenty more things to be getting on with.
So, yesterday the Legend and I took a trip down to Ashford to watch the new Wonka film. Why Ashford? To experience the 4DX cinema there; moving seats and jets of air and water. I would normally use this section to explain what state the tide was in but as we didn’t drive near any tidal waters I can not. I guess I could look it up but what’s the point in that?
I rated this film on IMDb and I gave it six out of ten. For more information on the rating system please read this communication.
So, I enjoyed the film. I was a little put off at the beginning when there was singing and this turned out to be a musical but I coped quite well with that I think. The overall look and feel of the film was in keeping with previous versions and the story worked really well. The fact that this was written by part of the Ghosts team and it also had some amazing British actors in it meant that overall it was an excellent film.
As with previous 4DX experiences I think a good film doesn’t need the gimmick. It’s fun to experience now and then but I wouldn’t make it my usual cinema experience.
Well, this has been a while. I can’t even remember the last film I saw at the cinema so this review will probably not follow the standard procedure. I can tell you that I observed the tide on the way to the cinema and the tide was low. I could see all the mud banks along the Medway. As is customary I scored this film on IMDB and because I have deleted my twitter account I can no longer place those shared scores on this as an embedded picture. So, I rated this film 8/10 and you should read the scoring system here. I am able to share the average review score:
So, now to the review. I find it curious that Cineworld emailed me to let me know this film was subtitled. When I checked with them before they said it stops people moaning at them once they realise they have to read actual words. There was a small child in the cinema and I don’t think they could read well and they got bored and made some noises throughout the film, but then that’s not really their fault, the parents should have been more thoughtful about their child’s experience.
I really enjoyed this film. I really liked the placement in time and place. End of the war Japan, which is when Godzilla first appears. The politics was very interesting and I think it’s interesting to see the burnt out results of Tokyo following the bombing by the USA. The overall story was fantastic, if a little sentimental, but it showed the social conventions and character development over time. The human story was, as ever, really important to the story and the monster is almost a by-product.
The fight scenes were great and I really enjoyed every aspect of this film. I will watch it again, but I’m not sure I’d pay money to do so, hence this film scores an 8. This is a good film.
Not long ago I wrote about my death in The End and how I lost all my lovely stuff. Clearly this is in my Minecraft world and I had spent ages trying to find the End Portal. Once I had opened the portal I decided to pop through to see what it looked like. This was a silly mistake as the only way back was to kill the Ender Dragon, which wasn’t going to happen or die. So, I died. I lost my kit.
Then, one day, while musing this loss, I figured I could sneak through to the end with an Ender Chest. If I could get all my kit and dump it in the Ender Chest it should appear in the Overworld chests that I have already used to transport stuff. There’s a time limit to objects that have been dropped and that is five minutes of render time. I hadn’t been back to the End so everything had existed for a very short time. If I could get through the portal and collect my stuff and dump it in a chest before the five minute time limit then I would be a happy person again and not have to grind to get all my stuff.
I built an Ender Chest and loaded just enough kit for me to survive in the End for a few minutes. All the good stuff was stored back at my spawn point. With bravery I headed through the portal and into the End. I managed to find my kit, place the ender chest, pick up some things and die. I dropped all the stuff again.
Once more I headed through the portal and found my kit. This time I managed to place the remaining bits into the Ender Chest and then I died, happy in the knowledge that my kit was safe and there for me once I respawned in the Overworld. I was happy once more.
I was recently wandering around one of the largest shopping centres in this area with the wonderful Legend when I spotted a dispenser of Traditional Chinese Medicine. I had noticed this shop in the past but hadn’t been bothered to take a photograph. Not this time though. I managed to use my phone to collect the lovely information on their sign.
To Be Honest The Answer Is “Nope”
I think I was drawn to the sign because of the very opaque tape over some of the health claims and I was tempted to look further into what had been once claimed. But let’s have a brief about the things that are problematic. This would be ALL OF IT.
Traditional Chinese Medicine – TCM – is absolutely not a thing that works. During the post WWII period China sent doctors out to the countryside to look after people. Well aware that some places would not have drugs or suitable medicine (defined as stuff that works) the government sent the doctors out with a book that also had a load of stuff that didn’t work. This book had a list of medicine and, for the worst case scenario of no kit, a list of not-medicine that might keep the locals thinking they were being helped. So most of this traditional “medicine” is not.
A Barefoot Doctor’s Manual instead showed what the worst equipped Chinese medics would have to resort to under the worst circumstances.
Dunning, B. “Mao’s Barefoot Doctors: The Secret History of Chinese Medicine.” Skeptoid Podcast. Skeptoid Media, 24 May 2011. Web. 16 Nov 2023. <https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4259>
So, Traditional Chinese Medicine does not work. I am quite concerned about a number of the conditions that the shop claims they can help with; infertility and miscarriage seem to be playing on the emotions of people going through tough situations. A lot of the others are of a similar vein. I’ve looked at their website to gain a better understanding of what they claim but the website just seems to sell boring things and cleverly makes no actual medical claims. They sell; tea, soups, capsules of some various herbs and stuff. It’s all pretty boring “boost your immunity” stuff. The website does have a blog page but the most recent post was 2021.
I do find it amusing and worrisome that people will pay money for this and that practitioners have probably paid money to get “trained” in this stuff. Just think of all that effort and resource that could be put to use in something that actually works.
One of the things I’ve been doing in Minecraft is searching for the End Portal. I don’t have any real ambition to kill the dragon but it is something within the game that can be done and so why not? I started the other day using Eyes Of Ender and throwing them into the sky. I found the stronghold and then got stuck. The entire area I had searched didn’t have the End Portal, none of the corridors went to the special room. I used a few more Eyes Of Ender when I was in the stronghold but I couldn’t find the room.
This led to me looking for another mapping software. I had used Bedrock-viz because it allowed me to make a web searchable page and I could see the map without being on the gaming PC. For some reason though, the recent Minecraft updates have messed this up and bedrock-viz ends after ten seconds and doesn’t produce a new map. I did the googles thing and I found uNmINeD which produces a lovely looking map from the data files.
Minecraft World New Map
I found that the End Portal was hidden just a few blocks of digging through a wall. I had enough Eyes Of Ender or whatever they are called once I found the room so I thought, why not, let’s open the portal. I did and then thought, well I might as well go through and see what it’s like. So, I did that. I was NOT aware that I couldn’t get back without killing the Ender Dragon. This caused a bit of a problem because my load out wasn’t set up to kill the Ender Dragon, it was just my roaming around the countryside loadout.
I DIED.
I lost all my lovely kit as I respawned over 1000 blocks away because, like an idiot, I forgot to set my respawn point when I got to the village with the portal. What an absolute idiot. I had really nice stuff. I’m gutted. I just stared at the screen for a few minutes once it happened. Bollocks.
