Penguin – Page 47 – Fooyah

November 12 2019January 26 2020

iVardensphere – Electrowerkz

Smith and I travelled to attend the Beat Cancer 2.0 festival last night. Last year we saw Freakangel play somewhere in east London and now the fund raising jaunt returned in a bigger venue and with eight bands. The gig was based in the large room downstairs at Electrowerkz and there was a small bar set up but there wasn’t really a lot of space. It looked like there was a wedding going on in the Tube Train room – you’ll know what I mean if you’ve been there.

So the music started about ninety minutes late. The organiser blamed Lufthansa as the headline band, iVardensphere, were in Germany at the beginning of the day and without planes had to get to London. They managed this and set up but the running order was late by a long way. I had an important event to attend the next morning and so while the event was scheduled to finish at midnight I didn’t mind that once the delay was announced it made seeing all the bands rather problematic. I guess most people attending didn’t have to march through a town in a Remembrance Parade eight hours later.

First band up were Drakenwerks who I had missed by turning up late to another gig when they supported Nachtmahr. My notes say that the band was made of a man and woman, they were OK and played upbeat electronics with a hint of EBM.

Drakenwerks - Electrowerkz — Drakenwerks – Electrowerkz

The lighting rig seemed to consist of single colour washes for each song. In the above I caught a “green” song.

Then there was Vain Machine. Two chaps from the USA and it was their first time in London. It was a bit too goth for me. They even played a terrible cover version of “I was made for loving you” by Kiss.

Vain Machine - Electrowerkz — Vain Machine – Electrowerkz

Then there was the band of the organisers. The people who run this charity gig had a band and they played. It was experimental bullshit. A wall of noise. It was terrible. They were called Bein-E. Their full name was a massive German word but I only saw it on one piece of literature and didn’t make a note of it.

Bein-E - Electrowerkz — Bein-E – Electrowerkz

Then there was Cygnosic. This band was much more upbeat. The vocals were “growly” and while I didn’t understand what they were saying it was an improvement on most of the previous bands. The only problem was that their songs had no variation within. The structure was a single unit and lasted three minutes and stopped. I needed some form of difference as the song progressed. Judging by the accent of the singer when he spoke the band were from Spain or maybe Italy or similar [if they are Portuguese then I’ve probably offended a whole country!].

Cygnosic - Electrowerkz — Cygnosic – Electrowerkz

It was now 23:00 and there were three bands to go. iVardensphere wouldn’t finish until around 01:30 and I had stuff I was required to do the next morning. I had to call it a day and drive home. I’m gutted, but at least I have seen the Sphere before. They were really good both previous times but I can’t change my schedule. I’ll see them again one day soon I expect.

I missed:

Nature Of Wires
C-Lekktor
iVardensphere

So, after all that I saw five bands of varying degrees of not-good and the one band I really wanted to see I couldn’t as I had to get home to parade the next morning in Maidstone. I was gutted but also aware of my commitments and limitations. It was good to see the Smith.

November 3 2019November 3 2019

No Bonfire

Went to a watch a celebration of the maintaining of our style of parliament by exploding things as though the parliament had actually been changed.

We didn’t also celebrate the capture, torture and state sponsored murder of the team who didn’t manage to change the foundations of this country by not having a bonfire.

Sparkler? It isn’t but looks cool, it’s the smoothness of it.

It’s time we had a massive change to our system of society. Only radical change will save us.

November 2 2019November 2 2019

Terminator: Dark Fate

Last night I snuck over to the cinema at Rochester [it’s really in Strood] and watched the latest Terminator film. There’s a couple of things I need to cover here before I get to the actual review.

Firstly, the tide. The Medway river by the cinema is tidal and amusingly this area is on the will-be-underwater-by-2050 list. Anyway I couldn’t really see the water but I could see lots of white seagulls sitting on the mud flat dotted around being lit by the streetlamps. So my deduction is that the tide was low if the mud flats were exposed.

After I watched the film I rated it on IMDB but there is a guide to how that works and that guide is this communication. Once rated I tweet the result:

I rated Terminator: Dark Fate (2019) 8/10 #IMDb https://t.co/Ujd2hfjqqS
— Ian Parish (@iparish) November 1, 2019

So, here’s the review. I really enjoyed this film. I laughed and I smiled and I thought it was good enough to watch again one day. There wasn’t a huge amount I could criticise about it, there didn’t seem to be too many plot holes or things to wind me up.

In my humble opinion the Terminator films only include the first two. Any Terminator films made after T2 have been terrible. This one bucks that trend and while it still isn’t as good as the first two I think it can proudly take third place [out of the three I recognise].

There were a couple of issues with the film but the problem was more the reaction created in me. I laughed out loud a couple of times and no one else did in the auditorium. I’m pretty sure that part of the film was meant to be funny but I’m the only one who laughed out loud. This could be a product of my current mental state, but I don’t know, I’ll react as I see fit. There’s a line about “driving faster”, that’s when it was just me.

My one minor criticism is that C5 Galaxys don’t start that quickly. There are procedures but I’m happy to ignore that because the filming inside the aircraft was amazing and I sat almost open mouthed at the beauty and poetry of that scene. This film took fight scenes, put them in places done before in other films but then showed those other films how to do it properly. Really impressive.

Linda Hamilton and Arnie were both great. Sarah Connor is delightfully grumpy, rightly so, and sounds like me when I’ve got a swear mood on.

I guess the one thing with Terminator films is that the humans need to win and there’s only so many ways you can kill a Terminator. That’s the limiting factor with Terminator films.

October 30 2019October 30 2019

Happy Place

I’ve just had a lovely calming weekend as part of the Directing Staff on the RAFAC Personal Awareness Course at the Armed Forces Chaplaincy Centre, Amport House. When I say as part of the directing staff really there’s just Carol and me ably assisted by George. It’s a shame that Jayne couldn’t make it this time, she’s always a delight to be around.

This was my fourth time in this place and I have really enjoyed every time. It is my understanding that this retreat is being moved to another house soon and I hope it has the same “getaway” feeling to it. You see, that’s the point. It’s a safe space for people to talk and exist. It’s away from the world. It’s a [slightly under-maintained] old house with calming spaces giving the chance to discuss and listen knowing it’s OK to do so.

I’ve been here before:

There’s so much to say but plenty I can’t say because the whole idea of the weekend is to experience new things and scenarios. I wouldn’t want someone [somehow] stumbling across this website and reading everything that was going to happen. The chairs above look lovely but are in fact not-plumped. When you sit in them you sink. But, they allow for discussion and relaxation. The whole building is a maze and I pretty much get lost every time. You can walk from one end to the other without going outside but sometimes you just know it’s easier to be outside the walls moving in obvious directions.

So, here’s to my colleagues and to another round of this brilliant course at Beckett House.

October 25 2019October 25 2019

Beauty And A 40mm Beast

On the one sunny day this week I went to Chatham Dockyard because I’ve got an annual ticket and I’m going to use it. I was hoping to see the rope gallery but all the tickets for the tour were gone and I’m a bit gutted because it’s not often you find yourself in a room a quarter of a mile long. So this communication is going to cover some other aspects I saw.

The above panoramic photograph was taken in the loft space which was built after the slipway was filled in and the floor was used for storing boats for ships. This room has been used in a Bond film but I can’t remember which one.

Dockyard cranes are quite spectacular and I do love the sheer utility of them. I don’t have anything else to say about them.

This AA gun is one of two on HMS Cavalier and it’s an impressive piece of kit. I’d love to have a go. The whole C Class Destroyer is so amazing. I still think that humans are so good at creating machines of death that we don’t deserve to be here.

October 23 2019October 23 2019

Given Up

I’ve given up. Or rather I keep trying to give up. I’ve always kept an eye on the news and I’ve always voted. Voting is the minimum a subject in the country can do to be part of the “democratic” process. I’m not going to descend into a rant about how general elections are controlled by those people who can’t make their mind up which direction this country should take. Instead I’m going to explain why I keep trying to give up.

I don’t understand patriotism. I don’t understand national anthems. I don’t understand this loyalty to an area of land.

However, over the last three years I have yearned for a time when the politics in our country was just a little corrupt and secretly filled with hatred. Since the referendum on membership of the EU was announced I have soaked up all the news and it has made me ill. Then there was the election across the pond. I soaked up all that too. It made me ill.

Trying to keep apace of all the lies told over there and, since de Pfeffel Johnson, over here and the lack a recriminations about the lies took its toll. Trying to care about what those cunts say and then do kicked my emotional and mental health suffer. I’ve written before about lying in politics. The current stage of “lack of honour” in politics means we can’t take anything they say as the thing they are going to do.

All of this and the lack of “THINGS I CAN DO ABOUT IT” makes me feel like I should just give up thinking about it. I should zone out and try to just do the few things I can. I will continue to vote in elections and wherever else possible. I will also continue my membership of a political party because that is literally the least I can do at this time. However, it is also the most I can do at the time.

I feel like I’ve been permanently angry for the last three years. I feel like I’ve been consistently let down for the last three years. I do think that in twenty years when the UK asks to be let back into the EU [or never managed to leave] then the social studies will show that the level of mental and emotional health dived to a low over these five years. It will show that the country suffered and those stupid acts of politicians will have had many lasting effect on the population of this country. They are fucking us all.

October 22 2019October 22 2019

Remote

Over the weekend I tried something out not because I wanted to but really just because I should have been able to do it. While I was at RAF Wittering I spent some time on the Playstation remote play feature just really checking that it would work. As I’d been feeling remote recently through stress and poor sleep I didn’t spend a great deal of time playing [in fact I practised some statistics] but I did confirm that I can play the Playstation when I have a wifi signal.

While on military bases I either use the wifi provided by BT on some bases or, on others, there is a private contractor service called Media Force. In my experience they provide excellent coverage [except in my room at Shawbury] and for £10 you can get a week’s worth of 24Mb/s connection.

The Media Force connection at Wittering was enough to get my PS4 working remotely via my laptop:

I only played a very arcade type game as I didn’t really have the time to get into a specific game. But, I proved the system worked. For the PC version you connect a Dualshock4 via a USB cable. This system worked well.

I then tested the system on my phone. It’s an Apple iPhone running iOS13+. I apologise for the crappy picture because I was using my laptop to take the photograph and both of its cameras point rearwards [towards the user].

In this setup the Dualshock4 is connected via BlueTooth which is pretty cool. You just have to re-pair the controller with your PS4 when you get home. I’ll definitely be using this system more in the future!

September 29 2019September 29 2019

Youthful Revolution

There used to be a time when protesting caused changes. When a massive show of anger by the people caused politicians to stop doing what they were doing. I wouldn’t say they changed their minds because I honestly don’t think that’s what happens. Politicians cow down to massive disruption because they fear for their own futures and it makes them look as though they listen.

In 1981 there was the Brixton Riots. I remember the news of these. It scarred my impression of Brixton for a long time. But at then end of the riots there was an inquiry and things changed. The racist policy of stop and search was covered with a new code of conduct for the police. It didn’t do enough and nearly twenty years later the Macpherson Report pretty much said that lots of the previous recommendations had been ignored and the police were still institutionally racist. I guess change is slow, but it does happen.

The Poll Tax riots of 1990 caused the eventual downfall of the Thatcher government and the Poll Tax was removed by John Major and replaced with the council tax. In this situation the riots changed the direction of the government.

On the 15 February 2003 easily over one million people marched through London to protest the imminent Iraq war. Those people were right. But it did fuck all. Look at the shit we are in now with the middle east.

On 10 November 2010 over half a million people marched against the conservative policy of austerity [which has killed thousands]. It did fuck all.

On 20 July 2019 London’s streets were filled with people protesting the imminent leaving of the EU by the UK. Regardless of the fact that pro-Brexit marches can only get a few hundred people together this march has done fuck all.

When the political class is as entitled as they are [consider Rees-Mogg lying on the benches] then they don’t give a shit about what they are doing to the country. They will carry on with their idealistic policies whatever happens because there are no consequences to them. They don’t give a flying fuck about the poor, about the weak, about those struggling. They have a complete lack of empathy. They just don’t understand what actual real fucking life is like.

So. The world and this country needs to change. Radically. We can look after everyone while at the same time making sure that things will work for the future. It is possible. But it isn’t possible with the current political leaders in power. Revolution is needed. A fully written constitution and a decent respect for all people must happen.

Time to be revolting.