Went to one of my favourite places recently. Got a flight with Smith to Hannover Airport after meeting Huw and Ruby at Heathrow, then a train to Hannover Hbf. We met up with a friend in town after visiting the aircraft museum. That evening we had some food at a rooftop bar. The Friday morning we had to get to Hildesheim and we got the train after our stay in the Panorama Hotel next to the redlight district. The train to Hildesheim was irritating as it stopped at Barnten for about an hour, actually kicking us off before another train came along and took us to our destination. Wristbands were collected and the bus to the airport worked. We arrived set up our camping area and rested. Zoe joined us for the afternoon and we played some card games. I was very drunk after supping something in the queue for the merchandise. Smith looked after me, thank goodness, and he has a better tolerance than me!
Unzucht – M’era Luna 2026
As with previous years’ write ups I will transfer my notes from my phone to here just as they are:
Saturday
Mortes – main stage. Pretty boring goth stuff. Two blokes and a female dancer.
Xandria – main stage. Female singer. Operatic metal. Much better than the first band. Pretty standard for their genre. They played THREE consecutive songs with key changes – gah!
Back to tent for a rest and then alcohol.
Unzucht – main stage. Fucking solid. Loved it.
Hocico – main stage. Pretty shit. Left after a song.
Lunch – somewhere, something. I can’t remember.
Tyske Ludder – club stage. Heavy but not as good as wanted.
Megaherz – main stage. Sound issues in first song!! Fucking loud. Middling band overall. I was expecting better. Mid tempo rock. Played Rock me Amadeus.
Combichrist – main stage. Fuck Yes! Pit.
Birthday Massacre – main stage. Too drunk to notice. It was OK I guess.
Back to tent.
Nachtmahr – club stage. Great. Place was packed and couldn’t see the band. Met Huw and Ruby.
Front Line Assembly – club stage. It was ok but got a bit boring so went for shower.
Front Line Assembly – M’era Luna 2026
Sunday
Final Selection – main stage. Upbeat goth electronic. Pretty decent goth voice. No variation within songs though so left during third song to see:
Synth Attack – club stage. Hard fast, distorted electro.
Sotiria – main stage. OK goth metal.
Went back to tent for a drink. Could hear Eisenfunk.
Jesus On Ecstasy – club stage. Heavy goth metal. Enjoyed. Goth.
Food.
The 69 Eyes – main stage. Goth rock. Nothing special.
Neuroticfish – could hear from tent. seemed fine. Drank some.
Aesthetic Perfection – club stage. Fucking great.
Aesthetic Perfection – M’era Luna 2026
Die Krupps – club stage. Fucknig great.
Die Krupps – M’era Luna 2026
After that is was back to the tent to get kit, then walk to the bus, get the train and walk to the hotel. Monday morning was nicely relaxed. Breakfast followed by a walk to the station. Train to airport. Met SCOTT from Phoenix, AZ. He was loud but fun. Drank lots as it seemed I was dehydrated. Flew back to Heathrow, got the car, almost got charged an extra £495 for parking and had to press the button to talk to someone. It felt like that took forever but it was soon sorted and drove home.
I just like aircraft. I don’t know why. But they are cool and I find them fascinating. On the recent Germany trip I took some pictures and forced Smith to go to the Aviation Museum Laatzen-Hannover. We’ve been visiting Hannover for quite a few years so this was my chance to visit this place which I’d seen from the train enroute to Hildesheim.
A380 – Heathrow Airport
This A380 was hiding from us at Heathrow. Smith and I left from Terminal 3 which was a little different to previous years when we used Terminal 5. The parking was slightly more complicated than at T5 but I coped. I had booked Meet and Greet parking and this worked well except for the number plate recognition camera part of it.
A400M – Hannover Airport
This Luftwaffe A400 was doing engine runs at Hannover Airport. It was starting up engines on one side only and running them. I’m not sure of the reasoning for this but I took this picture while waiting in the passport control queue.
Dornier Do 28 D “Bauernadler” – Aviation Museum Hannover-Laatzen
This little D028 was sitting outside the museum and, considering we had walked what felt like a long way, was a welcome site. We had got to the museum after walking through some bizarre urban exhibition area.
AN-2 – Aviation Museum Hannover-Laatzen
It was quite nice to see an AN-2. It’s such a proper rugged looking plane and we could also get in and look around. I half expected to see Indiana Jones in the back and some chickens and crates – it had that sort of feel.
AN20 Cockpit – Aviation Museum Hannover-Laatzen
The AN-2 cockpit. Lovely.
Junkers Jumo 004 A-022 – Aviation Museum Hannover-Laatzen
This engine was pretty cool. In fact all the engines were pretty cool. Smith wasn’t as impressed but he’s wrong. Above is the 22nd ever produced production jet engine. Really impressive to see this.
F104G Starfighter – Aviation Museum Hannover-Laatzen
The F104 is a silly plane. It’s too long and the wings are too small. Impressive to see one this close though and you could also have a look in the cockpit. The instruments seemed so basic, I can’t believe people flew these things and knew where they were going and also trained to intercept or bomb particular places!
Messerschmitt Me 209 V1 – Aviation Museum Hannover-Laatzen
D-INJR as recreated here in a 1:1.8 scale model was the world’s fastest propellor powered plane for about 25 years. It held the record from 1940ish until a highly modified Bearcat beat it later. I will say the Bearcat I saw fly at Duxford a few years ago was pretty impressive.
Aerospatiale SA-318 C Alouette II – Aviation Museum Hannover-Laatzen
A lovely example of a helicopter. The Alouette looks like it does a great job – excellent.
Boeing 747-87UF – Hannover Airport
I saw this B747 while waiting to leave Hannover airport and fly back to the UK. The freight look makes it look quite sinister I think. This particular plane shuttles between Brussels and Hannover mainly, nice to see.
Airbus A319-131 – Hannover Airport
This was our plane for the flight home. I tracked it coming into Hannover and got a couple of shots of it landing. It’s a pretty cute Airbus but not quite as neat as the A318. It was late arriving as, for some reason, the air conditioning wasn’t working properly at Heathrow and they had to delay the flight to make the aircraft comfortable for the passengers. We arrived back in the UK not too delayed though.
I spent time at the weekend with some old friends at the Bentwaters Cold War Museum. It’s an old building and collection at the old RAF Bentwaters in Suffolk. The museum had about seven aircraft and a little cafe and shop. The coolest part of the museum is the battle command centre within the building showing how the first stages of a non-nuclear World War III would have been led. Bentwaters was home to A10 Warthogs and the job of those aircraft was to be the second wave of A10s into Germany after the first two days of a ground war. It was a really interesting visit and super fun to be with old friends and making fun of each other as we always have.
RAF Bentwaters TACAN Sign
There were plenty of people volunteering at the museum who are ex-service people who gave great talks about the base and the roles of various people. It was really interesting. After the visit I chose to drive to Rendlesham Forest and inspect the site of the famous UFO sighting in 1980 or so. The forest was nice but the ground was mostly sand and that was annoying to walk on. I had a great time.
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.
On a local footpath there’s a gate post with some stickers on it. I’ve walked, cycled, or run past these stickers many times and I finally got around to trying to figure out what they are. There were two and one of them looked like a rave sticker and I couldn’t find any information on the internet about them. The second sticker though . . .
A Stand In The Park – sticker found locally
I searched the interwebs to find out what sort of thing or mindvirus had spread its way to Kent. Now, to be honest, I’m well aware that Kent has its issues. It still has conservative MPs FFS and also a Reform led county council who are doing an amazingly shit job at everything. The whole county is, how do we say it, a bit right-wing. I guess I’m trying to make a little difference in this world through attempting to influence people and putting a little money into causes I think are worthwhile. So, I looked for A Stand In The Park and I found their website. The homepage sstates the following:
No agenda
No religion
No leaders
That all seems quite reasonable I suppose but if you are organising a collection of like minded people then you very much have an agenda and leaders. Someone is doing the organising. It looks like the organisation was started in the early days of the Covid Pandemic [or plandemic as ASITP calls it, showing some of their ideology straight away] when some man stood in Hyde Park [Sydney, Australia] because they wanted to connect personally and infectiously rather than online. I guess you’re free to pass on a deadly disease to other people if that’s what you want to do, but were all the other people turning up accepting of the fact they could die or kill others close to them if they became infected?
So, the front page of the website just looks like a group of people who had some distrust about the messaging of the pandemic and they wanted to meet up. I don’t really have too much of a problem with that. They were wrong to do so and they probably ended up killing people through infection but, sure, meet up if you want. There’s a “click here for more” link and I did and the following bulleted list turned up.
What I find really interesting about the list is that there’s some of it that I, a complete lefty, can agree with. There are ideas that I think many people would agree with.
Cost of living
Unnecessary surveillance and unreasonable use of force
Rental crisis and public services stretched and underfunded
Lower class ignored, rich getting richer
Media and govt inflaming division
Justice system broken
Funding of wars
Poverty and homelessness at all time highs
Resources being sold
The things I’ve listed I reckon are probably thought of as issues by many people. I know that this organisation is based in Australia but we have the same issues here in the UK. It seems perfectly reasonable to have the concerns raised about society. My issue is that the best way to fix these things is higher taxation and a wealth tax. In the UK the government systems have been broken deliberately over the last fifteen years by a conservative government underfunding every area of public life. Then we had Brexit which has caused such financial damage to the country that the only way to try and fix it is to re-join the EU but under worse conditions than before. Yes, so many areas of UK are underfunded, but why do you think that is? It’s because of who the country voted for. It’s because we had a series of incompetent liars as prime minister.
So, this organisation attracts you because you think the government has made some “errors” over the last couple of decades along with having an idiot in charge for Covid times. So it would seem reasonable to meet like minded people and stand with them in the park for a while to try and get a point over to those in charge. Standing In The Park attracts you with legitimate concerns but then you meet people who will try and convince you of:
Wokeness and cancel culture
Chemtrails
Excess immigration
C19 “truth”
“vaccine”
Attacks on children’s minds
All of a sudden a group that seemed concerned for freedom too much government control [while wanting a government to fix the things it considers important] now wants us to believe a few extra things that are affecting the world. We are starting to move into the right wing propaganda and conspiracy theory world. This group starts off thinking what I consider to be good things and might attract you because of that but once you are there you will be talked at by people who believe in chemtrails. Here are my explanations of the things in that list:
Wokeness and cancel culture – this is what people who want to be openly racist complain about. “You can’t say what you think these days”. “They cancelled us because they didn’t want to hear what we have to say” etc. Wokeness is about following the evidence and having empathy for people. That’s it. Nothing particularly bad there. I think one of my favourite phrases I heard recently was “reality tends to bend towards leftist thinking”. We know people struggle in a world that refuses to accept them, so if we are more accepting then we can make people happier. Want to be racist? Sure, go ahead but find out the consequences when you do. Being a racist isn’t a protected class so if you are a racist you can go fuck-yourself. If you want to spout hate then that’s fine, go ahead but we don’t have to have you saying that shit in this venue – go fuck yourself. There’s a reason the tory government passed some bullshit freedom of speech law about publicly funded bodies. It because they couldn’t stand the idea that universities were not booking people who spout hate and right wing politics. So, they forced them to have to accept them. Cancel culture is literally just “consequences”.
Chemtrails – bullshit nonsense made up by low-information people.
Excess immigration – now you know when people talk about “excess immigration” what they really mean is people coming to this country who aren’t the right colour. It’s always veiled in a way that everyone could support – problems with public services – but really it’s just racism. We don’t like people who look different to us so we don’t want them here.
C19 “truth” – hey, if you want to know the truth why don’t you pay attention to the various public inquiries going on at the moment. Does it turn out that the PM at the time was an idiot, liar, self-interested cunt? Yes. Does it turn out that had we locked down earlier we could have saved thousands of lives? Yes. Will he be prosecuted and called to pay for his decisions? No.
“Vaccine” – vaccines work. My motto with reference to vaccines is “get that shit in me”. We know they save lives. We know there work and are considered safe. Now, you have to understand what “safe” means. Sometimes people will have a reaction to a vaccine and sometimes it won’t be nice. But overall more people will be healthy and alive than if we didn’t have the vaccine. That’s why there are government pay-outs to people injured by vaccines. It’s best for virtually all of society to be vaccinated so stop being a selfish prick and get pricked.
Attacks on Children’s minds – I don’t know what this is about but I think if you asked the group they would explain how woke gender ideology is damaging children. This is curious. They are saying that by accepting children for who they are and looking after them damages them? I guess first off you have to accept that there are more than two sexes. Then you also have to understand that gender is a different thing. Then you also have to understand that sexuality is different still. It’s a lot to take in I suppose, especially to people who have a very rigid view of the world. Gender affirming care is literal health and metal care. Do you know what happens to kids who aren’t supported? They kill themselves. By being nice and accepting to people we are saving lives.
I had already seen enough on the website to understand that after an initial stand with these people in the park because some of their ideas seem reasonable I would soon be listening to someone who hates the “trans” and blames that on chemtrails and HAARP. It wouldn’t take long, especially if I was easily influenced, for me to be thinking lots of right wing thoughts and attacking the woke. I looked at the Facebook page of ASITP. Just to see what other information I could find about them, the website covered lots but also not much at the same time. I looked to see who ASITP follow on Facebook, some highlights are:
Turning Point Australia
The Light Paper Australia
Stand In The Light
Wake Up America
Turning Point USA
These are all right-wing organisations. Yes, I’m opposed to them. I don’t like their ideology. I clicked on a few of the indivisuals that ASITP follows on FB and it turns out that quite a lot of them are conspiracy people with posts about 5G masts, vaccines, and so on. So, A Stand In The Park, an organisation that has no agenda or leaders have clearly shown their true colours by being full of agenda and misleading information that deliberately harms people. I won’t be going along to the park to join them. I also feel bad for those people who are drawn in to this crowd with legitimate concerns for society that I listed at the top of this communication but then get dragged into full on right wing hate.
A few days ago I went to Dartford – somewhere I’d not been before – and spent some time with Jock and their family at the theatre. Dartford seemed a curious place, the railway station building was very curvy and pretty, the car park for the station was not on any road signs but was reasonably priced for the evening. The road to the station passed next to one of the platforms and it seemed a little strange for the train to be right next to the road. I was visiting the Orchard Theatre as Jock’s son was in a battle of the bands there. The theatre was pretty much next to the station but as we approached it had scaffolding and was cordoned off. We walked around the building following the signs for the entrance and didn’t find one. We walked around the building twice. There were definitely arrows pointing in a particular direction so we were following the correct route.
After two complete circuits of the building and no entrance found a local asked us if we were looking for the theatre, yes, we replied. It’s over there and he pointed to what looked like an industrial park. Not far away we could see a marquee style tent and a small banner saying Orchard Theatre. It turns out that while works are being done on the actual theatre the whole organisation had moved to a temporary location in a tent. To be honest, it was quite well done and there was plenty of seating, toilets and a bar, you know, all the usual theatre stuff. We met Jock and his family and then proceeded to the auditorium to watch the battle commence.
The first three bands were under 18s and then after the first break it was the grown ups turn. The first band, Kaira, were a thrash metal band and I’m not sure that the audience was ready for them. I didn’t recognise their songs but I did like their style of music. Next up was Blacktone, They played some great songs and really looked like they were enjoying it, the singer was super excited! The final youth band was Wishbone, who played indie music with some excellent close harmony vocals – it wasn’t my kind of stuff but they did well struggling through some technical difficulties. We all voted for Blacktone.
Of the adult bands I think the first band, One Hash Brown, were musically the best. They seemed to have quite an indy sound and it wasn’t my style of music but they did well. The middle band were called The Resolve and they genuinely looked like a middle-aged divorced dads band. They played some classics and were well polished. The final band, Cabin Pressure, played well but again, it wasn’t my style of music.
Of the younger bands, Blacktone won and will now have that excellent ego boost and the chance to spend some time in a recording studio. I’m glad they won. The Resolve won the adult part of the competition and as they played the best crowd pleasers I’m sure they deserve it. I’m sure all the other bands will go on to do good things. It’s great to see such talent and musicians trying to make it in the tough music business.
I short while ago I went to the Hazlitt Theatre in Maidstone to see Alasdair Becket-King perform his show King Of Crumbs. I really enjoyed it. I found his humour lovely with many callbacks. He coped with a “mildly irritating” but “excitable” person in the front row really well. I know one of the sons found this person annoying but that’s just how life goes I think. I didn’t mind particularly. The show wasn’t that long, coming in at about an hour and twenty. The coordination between ABK and the lights and computer imagery was really impressive, it was a well rehearsed show.
It’s a shame to live in Kent at the moment with its reputation of being full of racists, which I guess it is. ABK asked about that after a lefty joke and he was assured that the theatre was friendly people who care and not full of the Kent stereotype. It’s not great that the county is tarred by those who are most vocal.
We have rules and ways of describing things to other people so that everyone understands the same things. It’s why we have a glorious number of words that specifically describe a particular thing. We can use language to be highly specific and be very clear our meaning. When we use words most people have an understanding of the subtle differences in words and their meaning.
You’re acting like an idiot.
This phrase often gets complaints “you called me an idiot”. And while I might be suggesting you are acting like an idiot I am definitely not calling you an idiot. This type of language is used all the time by politicians where they say one thing, hope the populous interprets in a particular way but also have the deniability that they didn’t say what everyone thought they did. This happens more these days with all the fascists in charge in the USA and the rising of Reform in the UK. If you listen all their language is veiled so that racists understand what they are really saying. Apparently it would be bad form to say overtly racist things, people don’t like that.
I didn’t expect to get going about language in this communication but there’s always going to be some form of political messaging behind what I write. It turns out that 2026 is the tenth anniversary of me being permanently angry. I’m permanently angry because of the obvious lies promulgated during the Brexit campaign and when called out people ignored it. The fact that Johnson et al lied to force the Brexit vote a particular way just to try and heal the divisions within the tory party has boiled my piss for ten years. Here is the image I saw that started this communication:
State Of The Union – Timings
I’m not going to discuss the remnants of humans that appear in the image because I don’t have enough space on this server to get that vitriol exorcised. My problem with the image is more to do with the time stated that the State Of The Union will start.
This took place on Tuesday 24 Feb at around 2100 EST. This would have been around 0300 GMT on Wednesday 25th February. As you can see in the image the broadcast via C-Span was due to start at midnight. BUT there is a problem here caused by how midnight is defined.
The general understanding would be that the broadcast was due to start at midnight Tuesday into Wednesday. So Tuesday night time. If I had arranged to meet you at midnight on Tuesday you would assume that we are meeting Tuesday night. However, 1200am is defined as the very start of the next day. So the C-Span graphic, because they used 1200am and not “midnight” means the midnight in the Monday to Tuesday night time. Had C-Span written “midnight” then I think we would have had a better idea of what they meant but the fact they went with the highly specific 1200am means we should interpret that as the specific time in the Monday night time.
Now, because how we speak and the way we use language is versatile, it can be argued that the real meaning of 1200am 24th Feb should be interpreted the way most people would interpret it. If I was to say to you “let’s meet at midnight on Tuesday” only an absolute pedant would turn up on the Monday night time. Midnight Tuesday is the absolute start of Tuesday and not the time going into Wednesday. But, because of how language works we know that Tuesday night time was meant. It could be that we even add some form of qualifier: “I’ll meet you at midnight Tuesday night” which is still ambiguous but less so.
I guess there are two possible outcomes that result in a correct meeting of people. Outcome one is that someone asks a clarifying question to ascertain the correct evening people are meeting. Outcome two is that both assume the correct evening without any clarification. The moral is if someone says “at midnight” then we need more clarification about which actual night time they require.
I recently went for a Karting session at Buckmore Park. It’s local to me, it’s genuinely about three miles from where I live. Some people from work had booked for a practice session and I joined them as someone who likes racing sims and pretending I can go fast. The others are going to be part of a team completing a 24 hour race so I’m just there for the giggles really. For 30 minutes of driving I think the cost was pretty fair. I think I’d like another go sometime soon. I spent last evening thinking about the laps and letting the knowledge I had sink into my brain, I think I’d be faster next time – knowing a bit more about what to expect.
Buckmore Results
It was a chilly day and after about fifteen minutes my hands started to ache a lot, I had to try and make sure I was stretching my hands during the “straight” – it’s not that straight but it was close enough to give the hands a rest – maybe I was gripping too hard? So, I was ten kilograms heavier than the next person in the group and I was within about two seconds of their time. I consider this to be reasonable. Afterwards I was hot, cold, thirsty and also ached a lot. It’s not a gentle thing, this karting. I am slightly worried I’m getting old and my body breaks a little quicker these days. Maybe it was the lack of sleep the night before? I don’t know. I probably will keep doing these stupid things to prove it’s not my body breaking.
