Yesterday I was in work helping move our HQ from one side of the site to the other. We have new offices and stores, which will be nice. The cadets did most of the work and I’m really pleased with the results. We’ve now got a good space for administration of the unit and filing etc. We had a box of biscuits left over from a competition in April and so I carried them to the cadets, thinking I would make their day. But, as it turned out the Kent and Sussex Air Ambulance landed just as I brought the biscuits over. The cadets were super excited by the Leonardo AW169 and the biscuits were a long second place.
Kent Air Ambulance
Obviously it’s not a good thing that the air ambulance lands near you. It means you either live in a hospital or airfield, or something terrible has happened to someone nearby. I do hope that whatever and whomever was affected are ok as can be.
Air Ambulance operated by SAS
Given that summer camp didn’t happen this year for reasons of pandemic it was nice to be close to an aircraft and also hear the start up sounds that I miss so much. It’s a really impressive piece of kit and I thought it was pretty quiet – other staff thought it was loud but then they aren’t often around twin afterburning jets.
Specialist Aviation Services Kent Air Ambulance
Later that day I took part in our virtual sports day. I went for a 10 km run but made sure that kilometres 2-6 were at a “competition” pace. I did not enjoy anything from about 3.5km into the race onwards. But I did it and got what I think is a respectable time.
1km time – I’m happy
These times have now been added to the virtual competition and while I know I’m not the fastest, there will be points for participation. One member of staff I spoke to managed the 5km in 18 minutes. They have longer levers than me though and age on their side.
5 km – not to be repeated
So, an interesting day. Helicopters, commissions, books, DVDs and VHS tapes all needed to be sorted out. Then the challenge of not killing myself while trying to run “fast”.
This was an omission I had to correct. So, I did. I went and built a monolith at the Beach House but it looked too small. 1 x 4 x 9 didn’t really work that well so I doubled it. You have to keep the correct ratios and here it is:
Monolith and Portal
It’s a 2 x 8 x 18 which is a lot of obsidian that I had to make down in one of my mines. I have perfected my lava quenching techniques though! I think it looks good just floating in the air and although I touched it while building the thing I won’t be going near it, just in case.
TMA 2, Portal and the Beach House
This view has all the important bits of this end of the world. My beach house, the portal and the monolith. There’s also the remains of a tower showing top centre which was to indicate the way back – I’ve since got rid of most of it!
Monolith and Portal
I’m currently working on a *secret project* and there will be another video released soon showing the Empire. I’m not expanding the area but I’m tidying up some of the impact of building in the meadow area. Ultimately I would like to continue the *secret project* to the rest of the Empire but I think that would be too tedious. I have other things I want to do, like learn redstone and also get a shulker box and beacon.
While out for a walk yesterday this monster of a beetle was seen and then photographed.
Stag Beetle
The body and horns must’ve been 5cm in total. It was the first time I had seen anything like this and once I was home I looked it up. It was a stag beetle. It’d be good to see another one in the wild one day. Also while walking across the middle of the field I noticed a few house martins eating insects over flying over the field. It was a lovely sight and something I’ve not seen for a long time. I can remember martins and swallows from my childhood but I don’t recall any since then. Maybe I just wasn’t looking.
It’s been a little while since I wrote on here but in all honesty I’ve been struggling to find things to write about. You see, nothing’s happening. We are in this lockdown and work is odd at the moment. I have been in to work three times since 17 March. Those three times were supervising and not doing my real job but at least it was somewhere else to be. I’m in a couple of times over the next week and that might be more interesting. Working at home places really interesting pressures and thoughts on you. I keep trying to manage engagement with the time that I have. I’ve also spent time in a better world, my Minecraft world. Even though there are creepers and zombies and witches and I died in that world a few days ago, it’s a far more enjoyable place than the real world at the moment.
Each day I try and have two races on Gran Turismo. Sometimes I’m not in the mood but mostly I am. It’s a nice half hour distraction from the world and it can be really enjoyable. The issues with racing online still exist and the idea that you will lose because someone else is entirely incompetent is annoying but normally it’s worth it. Of the current daily races I have enjoyed racing around the Mount Panorama circuit at Bathurst. I’ll probably write a little about my favourite cars sometime soon as I noticed I’d completed over 3000miles in my Mazda! That’s more than some people drive in the real world in a year.
Anyway, in a race yesterday I started in second position. My time of around 2’07” is pretty good but the person on pole had 2’05” and I’ve no idea how they got that. I’m not convinced I’ve really hooked together a complete decent lap but to lose a further two seconds from my time would be hard work. Also, I suspect there are people out there even faster. It looks as though GT matches you with people of a similar ability and time so I don’t know what the fastest time in the world is. Mind you, I guess there are people playing a lot more than me. I know I’ve been playing from 1997 ish but to get loads better at these circuits you just need to get practising.
For whatever reason at the start of the race yesterday the person in pole didn’t accelerate at the start and I zoomed past them. I was in the lead from the first corner and didn’t look back. Well, I did, I used my mirrors to see what was behind me but you know what I mean. The thing about being in the lead is that there’s a lot more to lose if you stack it going into a corner so it does make me more hesitant and cautious on corner entrances and exits. This can cost time and so I have to monitor the gap to the car behind. For this race it was around 1.8 seconds for the whole race and only moved by a few tenths. I sometimes get an adrenaline build up on the last lap as I get excited about winning. This time I calmed that and kept telling myself to keep a clean lap and remember where I tend to oversteer on the exit of corners when I put the power down early. Mount Panorama is a glorious circuit and very tricky, the section at the top of the mountain is horrible and fantastic at the same time.
Below is a screen video clip of the final positions along with my “win” celebrations and the delivery of my daily workout car. If you complete 26.6 miles in a day you get a free car. Most of these I don’t use. There are around 500 cars in the garage and I’m not fussed by them.
I’m pretty sure this was my first ever fastest lap in a race. I’m very happy with that. I don’t know what lap times other people got but it doesn’t matter. I was out in front with a clear road and that does make it a lot easier. You don’t have to judge what other people are going to do and brake slightly early because of the concertina effect. You can pretty much put down qualifying laps, just while hoping that you don’t get nudged or whacked by someone forgetting to break, or by someone who is just an asshole.
I am quite convinced that the physics of the car is different in the race compared to qualifying and I’m not sure why. I get a little more understeer during races and I suspect, but do not know, that it’s due to the air modelling the game does. Driving a car through mostly still air is very different to driving through disturbed air and I have noticed a very minor difference in steering and braking while racing in the pack with other cars around. There is a definite effect and the car doesn’t behave as it does on qualifying. It’s something I think I need to investigate.
Recently I’ve come to a decision which wasn’t that easy but I think it needed to be done. This is not a common thing to do and as much as I was emotionally invested I think I have done the right thing. I have decided to change my NFL team allegiance to the Green Bay Packers. I have been a New Orleans Saints supporter since 2008 when I saw them play at Wembley Stadium versus the San Diego Chargers. Before that I guess I was a Miami Dolphins supporter like quite a lot of people my age.
When Channel 4 started on UK television back in 1982 it started showing American Football and because it was new a number of people at school started watching it. If you have to chose someone to support and it doesn’t come from family pressure then lots of people chose the Dolphins in those days. NFL remained an important part of my life through university as we would watch the Superbowl each year while playing drinking games. I don’t think there was a Superbowl for about five years where I remember past the first quarter.
I’ve always kept an eye on NFL but came back to watching it more seriously when I got my own home and Sky TV. I know there are massive issues with the sport regarding health of players, treatment of women, racial inequality, pretty much everything but I still enjoy it. If I was completely moral about it I would probably not watch it anymore but I enjoy it. I’m not sure what that says about me. I don’t watch boxing though, I think it should be banned. If I’m honest with myself I probably think NFL should be banned. While I’m at it I also think the same about horse racing.
A few years ago I learnt that the Green Bay Packers didn’t have their own cheerleading team and that seems the correct thing to do. Cheerleading purely reduces women to sexual objects and nothing else. The last match I saw at Wembley had male cheerleaders too but that doesn’t stop it being a terrible thing. Just letting men do it as well doesn’t change the fact that it’s terribly sexist and objectifying. Some things just need to be stopped. Saying we’ll allow everyone else to do that thing doesn’t make that thing correct.
Also, upon investigation the Green Bay Packers are the only major sports franchise in the USA which is community owned. All the other teams are owned by individuals who have too much power. That’s why they buy sports teams. I’m all for community ownership of businesses and utilities, which is exactly what state ownership is. It seems the best way for the money to cycle around. I decided around the time I found this out that the Packers would be my third team. So, at that point, in order, my allegiance goes Saints, Dolphins, Packers. After that I don’t really care how the list goes as long as the Patriots are at the bottom.
What caused me to change my views? What about the New Orleans Saints made me want to leave them and choose a team from fuck knows where? Three things:
Drew Brees is the current Saints Quarterback and he is an amazing sport person. He can throw a ball really well. I have a NFL jersey with his name on the back. But, he has some questionable personal views. How much can I ignore those and just appreciate him as a sports person? Well, I was coping at that. A while back he appeared in a video by Focus On The Family. Any group called that sort of name in the USA tends to have questionable views about the humanity of humans. FOTF are anti-LGBT. Fuck them. Also, Brees defended his position along with asking pupils to take their bibles to school, which in itself isn’t an issue but religious people tend to have unwaving harsh views on certain types of people. When this event happened I was saddened but at the same time I knew that he was a great sportsman and his personal views don’t matter with respect to that.
Then, Drew Brees made a comment about not respecting anyone who doesn’t respect the flag. He was talking about people taking a knee during the national anthem. That comment almost tipped me over the edge. You can do what the fuck you want during your country’s magical song. I don’t care. I haven’t stood for a national anthem for years because I don’t understand what it is I am standing for. When I sit down I don’t hurt anyone. If your views are offended by someone sitting, or kneeling, then you are the one who needs to change. Shortly after his tweet the Brees family did correct it and apologised and said they would do what they can to help. This was too little too late and I mentioned to friends that it might be time for me to change my NFL team.
Protesting the systematic and racist treatment of black people in a country with a massive history of racism and slavery [much like our own] and doing so peacefully is perfectly acceptable. It IS racism if you then can’t get employed because the owners of teams don’t think you are the “right” person. When your peaceful protests don’t work and change the system then you need to make more vocal protests. The oppressors will respond with their own violence and then you know you are doing the right thing. The police violently attacking protesters who are there to complain about police brutality is hilarious as well as very sad. If you don’t think institutions can be racist then you clearly haven’t read a book.
The turning point for me in my journey to changing my team allegiance was hearing about how the Saints organisation had lent support in terms of time and people to the local catholic church to help it “manage” the PR around the child abuse cases going on in Louisiana. Now, my views on the child rape criminal organisation aside, it seems to be the easiest answer ever: do we lend support to an organisation which has covered up child rapists systematically over the years? If you spend more than one second trying to think that the answer is “no” then that is too long. You see how easy it is to fall on the correct side of this argument? Piece of piss.
So, that was the moment. When I learnt of that support for the church I chose to leave. Will they care? No. Do I care? Yes. I am now a supporter of the Green Bay Packers. I just need to learn where Green Bay is and hope it’s lovely and warm like Louisiana. I will be spending this summer watching last season’s games and getting up to date with the news. I will also be buying a block of cheese for my head. Go Packers!
There’s plenty of discussion around at the moment about statues of mostly dead famous people who were wealthy. They also had the unfortunate problem of being slave owners or traders or racists etc. This is causing a lot of discussion across the country and in my mind it’s one of those binary things that means subtlety doesn’t really come into it. A statue can either be in place or it can not. Those are your choices. So, it’s quite tricky to decide what is right for us to do. There is no room for nuance in these matters where the outcome is either yes or no.
A statue on display or the naming of a building or football team or military base venerates that thing. Let’s take the Colston statue which was torn down in Bristol. Colston made a load of money and was very influential in the Bristol area and also a MP. He made this money, or a large part of it, from the slave trade. The slave trade was wrong and many countries current wealth relies on the fact that slaves were used as part of its history. So, in my view, this is an easy one. Remove the statue from public veneration in the city. I will explain later what I would like to see done with it.
That was the easy one. Let’s think about this using someone less controversial and who many people won’t have heard of. Then we can thought experiment around with it to see where we go. So, in Kirriemuir there is a statue of the early AC/DC singer Bon Scott. Now, I adore the songs of AC/DC and I love the lyrics that Bon wrote. I remember watching the video “Let There Be Rock” and I cried at the end when it came up with the title “For Bon . . “. He was an influential singer and songwriter and so this is easy. It is currently morally right for that statue to be in the town where he was born. Was Bon Scott an angel? Most likely not. Did he piss off a few people in his life? I expect so. Is there any credible evidence that he did bad things? Not that I’m aware.
Now Bon Scott had a lot of sex. As far as we all know it was consensual. So, what if evidence arose that he had raped someone? I think that would be enough evidence for a public discussion about whether the statue should remain. I think it should be removed. Will people still listen to his music? Quite likely. It is a sad world currently where the level of rape and sexual assault is underestimated and under reported because it’s not seen as “serious”. The #metoo movement should have opened our eyes, I fear it did not, to the fact that almost EVERY woman has had some experience of sexual assault and it’s seen as “not a problem”. This attitude even affects the way I write this, as I’ve re-drafted it a few times because it was almost natural to minimise the effects of rape and its consequences because of its portrayal and current standing in society. I have corrected this thought process with the words I changed and feel ashamed of my first draft as I know three women who have been raped. This minimising societal reaction to female sexual assault needs to change.
Let’s ramp up the level a little bit. Let’s say that Bon Scott fucked a child. Now, by definition, this is non-consensual and also this offence is accepted as fundamentally wrong by all. In this case I think the public mood would be very different and there would be immediate public argument for the removal of the statue. It’s is not a good sign in society when the age difference of the victim plays such a large role in the outcome of public mood. There is still much work to be done for crimes to be recognised and taken seriously.
All I did in that thought experiment was to have a singer of a band that most people don’t listen to have a dubious past. Our emotional attachment to the statue is minimal and we can clearly see how wrong-doing would change our perception of the necessity to have the statue on public display in a town or city. There is some argument to be made about whether we celebrate the art of a person but not that person and I struggle with this a bit but then I think the actual answer is easy. We remove that art. So we listen to the songs of Gary Glitter anymore? Do we listen to the songs of the LostProphets anymore? No. It’s easy isn’t it.
If you feel the need to defend people because of “what they did for our country” then maybe you need to look at the history of the country and re-evaluate your conceptions about the righteousness of that country. Maybe the country was built on the pain and suffering of millions and maybe that country needs to do something very serious to compensate for that. Defending these statues also means that you possibly need to look into your own thoughts and why you feel uncomfortable facing up to the horrors of your country. What is it that you are defending? What is it that you align with so strongly that you think a slave trader should be on prominent display in a city built on the slave trade and the human suffering that caused. Maybe you need to think a little bit about your white European elitism and privilege.
So, there are now calls for statues of Baden-Powell [homophobe and racist] and Churchill [eugenicist] to be removed. I’d even support the removal of any statues of Roald Dahl [anti semite]. I don’t have a problem with these being removed. It’s like the easiest question ever. Should we venerate people who had “troublesome” thoughts? No. Easy. It’s done. Just think back to the Bon Scott thought experiment. I personally think that our collective veneration for Churchill is strange. Yes, he led the country through the second world war, but was he just the man who happened to be the leader at that time?
It turns out that people are complicated and any form of veneration leads to complex thoughts and problems. Does owning a book by Roald Dahl make you an antisemite? No. Does it mean that you endorse his views? No. Are you allowed to enjoy his stories? I guess so, if you wish. Should the nation have a statue to him on public display for the nation and world to see? No. The nation would endorsing his views.
To make things better this country needs to recognise the pain in the past and make reparations for that. This country needs to do that, I suspect it will not, to make things right. A verbal apology doesn’t really cut it does it? Remember gay mathematician Alan Turing who helped win the second world war. He died after being hounded and sentenced to chemical castration because of homophobic laws. The government “apologised” in 2009. Turing died in 1954. What does the apology do? It’s just words. People are still hounded in society because they seem “different”. To make an apology work you have to be willing to change your behaviour. If you want to apologise for things in the past then we need to fully accept the past and be ashamed we need to change our society for the better and accept all people for who they are while denouncing behaviours that aren’t nice. I’m not sure that shame is a natural part of most Britons I know.
What to do with those statues? We keep them. In a national hall of shame and sorrow. We put these racists, homophobes, slavers, murderers and elitist figures into a large display area. Then, next to each figure we need to have displays showing why their statues were made in the first place. We need to list the “good” they did. Then next to that there needs to be an explanation of all the bad they did and things we now disagree with. Along with that there needs to be a list of all the work the country has done to right those wrongs. What money has been paid. What projects have been produced and how this country admits to its past along with what has and is doing to make sure the future is fairer to all.
Some of you might cry that “everyone was like that at the time”. We, no they weren’t. There were people who weren’t homophobic, there were people who weren’t antisemites, there were people who weren’t slave traders, there were people who weren’t responsible for the killing of thousands, there were people who weren’t sexists. There were people who argued against those things. Those are the people we should venerate.
One of the drawbacks of this lockdown [and by drawback I mean an entirely trivial thing that doesn’t really matter] is the inability to see new places. In the past I would often go for trips to see what is out there. During my normal summer break I would have travelled the length of this country seeking out new things. I would also have travelled to Germany to spend a lovely weekend watching bands at the M’era Luna festival in Hildesheim. The last three months have been spent at my house or in the local countryside [I am aware of the privilege there and I’ve written in the past about how I feel lucky to live where I do]. While I’m happy enough with my surrounds it is nice to get out and about. I miss seeing new things. I miss growing with experiences. I miss just sitting in a darkened room for two hours while images flicker in front of me.
Because I’ve not been doing anything new I haven’t been using my “big” camera. I’ve had plenty of projects to keep myself busy and the tech in my house just mysteriously keeps improving but I miss trying to get that lovely shot. Trying to frame a picture and get the camera settings correct so that the image “works”. By now I should have had trips to RAF Brize Norton and RAF Wittering, I should have been teaching weapon skills and I would have taken myself to the Lake District to bag some more mountains while camping at a site nestled between them. While the iPhone has been everywhere with me and I’ve taken some photographs with it I’d rather be out there doing proper stuff. I’ll have to think about how to do that. Maybe at the weekend. but, currently
A reasonable length of time ago I started to learn how to teach mathematics the year was 1995/6. During that academic year I received my second placement at a school in Kingston Upon Thames. I was living in Ealing at the time and my first school was The Featherstone High School in Southall and it was a couple of stops away by train. However, to get from Ealing to Kingston was not the easiest of journeys and meant about an hour on public transport. So, I decided to get a motorbike. That teacher training year was a surprise to me for two main reasons:
I discovered that I really loved teaching and decided to stay in that profession. My plans up to then had been to join the RAF as an educational officer.
I bought a motorbike, which I consider instant death traps, and I loved it.
So, I took my motorbike test in 1996 I think. I couldn’t remember the braking distances for different speeds and so one of my my flatmates, Greg, came up with the formula:
Braking distances formula where x is speed in MPH and result is braking distance in feet
Using this formula gives you the braking distance in feet when x is in miles per hour. Effectively it splits into two parts; the x is the thinking distance which is roughly one foot for each mile per hour and the x^2 is essentially the kinetic energy factor. I actually used this formula to work out the answer to the question in my motorbike driving test and got it correct although the tester was somewhat surprised I was using feet rather than metres even though both were acceptable in those days.
This distance is an estimate and cars nowadays will be able to stop in much shorter distances. The more you pay for your car the shorter the distance to stop [ish]]. Basically it’s one hundred metres to stop from 70 mph. That’s quite a distance and would probably surprise most people to see it laid out. It’s the length of a running track straight. When I try to visualise distances in the hundreds of metres I visualise a running track opening out to a straight line and then going across the school field. Humans are generally rubbish at estimating distances because it’s not something we do that often. Distance estimation is important in application of fire when shooting and you need to estimate distances quickly using visual clues to make sure you aim at the correct stop to hit the target. Bullets fall down to Earth, accelerating at 1g.
Now we get to the main point of this communication. In my experience over the last two months people are either:
Stupid
Unable to estimate distances
Unable to understand risk
Unable to follow instructions
Think they are indestructible
None of those things is mutually exclusive so maybe it’s all of them. My evidence is purely anecdotal and comes from my experiences of going to the supermarket. I have been to work thrice since the UK lockdown started and the few people there have been good at keeping their distances. My place of work is still open to the children of key workers and there have been some in allowing sections of this country to still function. The only other place I have mixed with the public is at the supermarket. I haven’t really ever had food shopping delivered and decided I wouldn’t start now and take a slot from someone else who needed it. Going to the supermarket is something I normally enjoy. I don’t know why but I like seeing the shop. If you think that is strange then I really love supermarkets abroad, I think they are such an insight into the people and I will happily walk up and down every aisle to see what’s there.
My normal supermarket is a Sainsbury’s nearby. In fact I’ve been using them for a while since my Nectar points balance went negative due to their errors. I’m not sure of the economic implications of a negative Nectar balance but I decided to shop there for a while. The first time I went to the supermarket they had set up a queuing system with lines on the floor where people could stand. I am not convinced these lines are two metres apart because two metres is probably further than you think but they are apart and so I’m not going there to measure them. That first time queuing someone was chatting to the person behind me and had to be asked to move away. I mean, I thought the instructions were pretty clear. Two metres is two metres. It’s more than the height of a standard house door. If you stand there with your arms outstretched you shouldn’t be able to tough another person’s hands with their arms outstretched.
Inside the store my experience was mostly positive. People seemed to be mostly keeping their distance. Most aisles are around two metres in width and so if you go down the sides you are probably a good distance away. I did find that some people weren’t following the instructions and while I waited at “pinch points” other people would go between me and the person I was waiting for. This, I think, is mostly to do with people not having patience or any altruism. I tried to do the right thing by keeping my distance but some people weren’t doing their best. This was a little frustrating. Mostly I found the experience OK and I don’t think I was too worried by the other shoppers, by and large it was OK.
A few weeks into the lockdown in the UK I went to a local Tesco store because I needed to buy some clothes. The Tesco has a larger selection of clothing and I honestly didn’t want to go to the Asda at the top of the hill because I was being snobbish. The queuing system outside the Tesco worked well but once inside I found there were problems. Tesco have placed arrows on the floor to try and make their customers move in the same direction and allow more people to browse particular products. That seems perfectly sensible but when a good proportion of the customers decided NOT to follow the one way system – WHICH IS THERE FOR THEIR SAFETY AND HEALTH – then the system fails. I was a good boy and followed the rules in place. That evening I found that a lot of customers either didn’t see the arrows or just ignored them. Too many people passed too close to me. My observances are:
People wearing face masks and gloves seem more likely to pass close.
Younger adults don’t give a shit.
Tesco don’t enforce the system – but how could they?
Kids don’t know better so that’s fine – don’t take kids shopping unless your situation requires it.
I hated the time I spent in this supermarket. It was frustrating and increased my stress levels to very high. I just wanted to get my stuff and get out. I really don’t understand why people won’t follow guidelines in place to keep them safe. I’m pretty sure they haven’t understood the risk assessment of these activities. Let’s look at these problems I saw:
Face masks and gloves – the evidence is that face masks don’t protect you from the virus. What face masks do is reduce the chance of you passing on the virus if you have it. Now, if you have symptoms you shouldn’t be outside at all. But, you could be asymptomatic, or you could be at the infectious stage just before you get symptoms. Wearing a face mask gives you a false sense of security and so you put yourself into more risky situations. I saw this is Tesco, I saw people wearing rushing around and getting close to people and they were the ones wearing face masks. Gloves won’t do shit. Gloves, again, give you a false sense of security and make it more likely that you will touch stuff. The best thing you can do is wash your hands before you go out and then wash your hands as soon as you get back. Do your best to not touch your face in the times inbetween.
Younger people – they have that sense of invulnerability that I once felt and I get it. They are going to do the things they want to do. But it could be that they are a massive vector for the virus because they are more likely to be asymptomatic. In a recent exercise walk around a lake I saw a group of around twenty youths all together. I understand and no one is really going to be able to tell them what to do.
Tesco decided to implement a one way system. I have spent a while thinking about this and my stress levels at Sainsbury’s are less because they don’t have a one way system. Therefore there isn’t a system for people to follow and so I don’t get annoyed when they don’t follow it. I still get annoyed by people passing too close but there isn’t the added issue of those people also blatantly ignoring the safety arrows of directionality.
I haven’t seen many young kids when I’ve been out and about. I understand that there are family situations that would make it hard for people to leave kids at home and I am sympathetic to them. You can only tell youngsters to do so much. This, of all the transgressions, seems the one that’s OK.
I go to Tesco rarely. This is to minimise my annoyance at people not following the system. I don’t wear a mask and I don’t wear gloves. In my head I model the water suspended droplets flowing around people as they move around and I try to avoid those areas. I hold my breath at certain times and I try to minimise the risk to myself. I don’t know if I’ve had the disease and I don’t know if I would be immune. I hope I have had it. I would like to be in the position to know that I don’t have to worry about getting it. I would like to be able to do my work and help others knowing it is unlikely I can pass it on and also unlikely I can catch it again. These are all things I do not know. The most important thing for people to do now is to reduce their own risk of getting the disease or passing it on. Until there is a vaccine available everyone is likely to get this at some point. Everyone is going to get ill and there are going to me many more deaths. What we need to do is minimise the risks to all and keep the health services going by spreading out the infection rate.
A couple more things to mention; the virus is called SARS-CoV-2, that’s the official name, the disease you get from the virus is called COVID-19. The virus belongs to the common cold virus family and not the flu virus family – they are very different shapes. The R value that the media are going on about is really the R0 value. That’s pronounced R Nought or R Zero. I think the media have been a little lazy on this one but that could be just me. There are other R values and it’s important to talk about the one you mean. This one is the only one being talked about in the media so maybe I should be softer on this issue.
I’m missing seeing other parts of the world. I’m currently stuck in a small triangle within Kent and while I do appreciate the luck I have in being in this area I am also bored of it. I would like to visit RAF bases, I want to see other people and I would like to be atop mountains. Normally by now I would have been to the Lake District and also we had plans to go to RAF Halton, RAF Brize Norton and RAF Wittering. I miss those things and as much as I know I sometimes struggle socially I do miss the people.
So, I’ve started playing X-Plane about 30% seriously. I’ve been learning how to use navigation equipment within the aircraft and I’ve even started playing with the radio settings but my last attempt at that failed and I got told off by the game for not following the ATC instructions! I recently got some payware in the form of an aircraft model, the T-7A, and it’s a nice plane. It flies easy enough, can get up to speed quickly and has a glass cockpit. I’ve even figured out some small parts of the autopilot.
UK Tour Scottish Islands
It’s slightly frustrating having to move my view around from the HUD to other parts of the cockpit to see the instruments and I’ll have to think about how to make that easier and quicker – maybe I need a second monitor? – but I’ll cope for now. One of the things I’ve always struggled with first person shoot em ups is that quick glances never seem to be that and moving the view can be time vital. Also, I’m not very good at them.
I’ve been flying around the country as part of this summer’s tour. The first few flights were down in the south over Kent and Cornwall but now I’m heading around airport hopping. A rough idea of places been so far are: RNAS Culdrose, Llanbedhr, RAF Valley, BAe Warton, RAF Leeming, Leuchars, RAF Lossiemouth, Kirkwall, Shetland, Stornoway, Prestwick, Glasgow, Isle Of Man, Belfast, Barrow.
Window Seat
UK Tour Belfast
UK Tour
Over South Shetland
A selection of screenshots
This has been good fun so far. I think I’m going to head down the east coast next. Let’s see where I end up!
I’ve been concerned recently with my lack of emotion and terror at the current Covid-19 and lockdown situation. Even when this started and I self-isolated on 17 March 2020 I was very much “oh well, I’ll have to do that” rather than feeling any particular angst at the need to do that. The last two months have had me working pretty hard remotely and only seeing one particular triangle of Kent. I’ve been to work, the supermarket and dropped the kids off. That is all I’ve done. I’ve not been anywhere else and it seems to feel completely normal. The economy is screwed, people are dying and risk-management has never been more complex and I’m just OK – I’ll get on with it.
I don’t know if this is a particularly British response to things. We seem to be a nation of people who by and large do as they’re told. That’s why we haven’t had political revolution in this country for four hundred years. It’s why, after the first world war, we didn’t have a massive change in society and leadership along with the rest of Europe. It’s probably why we tend to think we are better than everyone else. So, if the government tell us to do something by and large we do it. Sure, there are some groups who don’t understand or don’t care but this country has largely stopped for two months.
We like to think that those in charge are capable of being in charge. It is clear to me that this current government is a far from capable as possible. We would have to go back quite a way before I thought we had a government that actually cared. Those leaders at the top are lying, racist wankers. They have no talents. The people get the government they deserve. If you voted for these scum then you are to blame for the utter lack of planning, caring, organisation and intelligence in leadership at the moment. This makes it even more bothersome that I’m rather calm at the moment.
I do wonder if there is only so much panic and worry the human person can cope with. Eventually that all becomes tiresome and something has to give. It could be your mental health and the panic doesn’t die but other aspects of human behaviour and thought get amplified. This is not a good place to be. I feel that my behaviour has been more of a “oh well, let’s just get on with it” attitude. But not because the government tells me to, but more of a – this is the situation now and so I should do my best to be within that system. I guess I am being that “get on with it” British person. I know the risks to me are quite slim. I know there’s a decent chance I’ll come out of this fine. I am also glad I have a state income at the moment and if that fails then there are much larger problems with society and a lack of money is not going to matter.
I guess humans [extrapolating from n=1 : me] seem to adjust to change quite well and will do as they are told. I will say once again that I do not trust a single word of advice from the government but I also understand risk, biology and mathematics to a certain degree and so am able to understand what to do. I occasionally imagine what it would have been like eighty years ago. In the skies above my village there would have been bombers, fighters and all hell breaking loose. People living in my house at that time might have struggled mentally and might have gone mad, we don’t have those stories. But, those people living in my two up two down might have gone about their daily business thinking that this is what life is like at the moment and we still need to get the bread.
I do have a constant sense of anger at the government and the lies they say along with how terrible they are. The older I get the more I see the inequality and the uselessness of those in charge. I’m not sure I have ever really been so impressed with a government looking back through my time. We’ve had the following prime ministers Callahan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May and now Johnson. Of those that I remember I think two of them might have been just about OK and did the best they could. I am not endorsing everything they did – illegal wars for one thing and PPI for another – I’m just saying they were less bad than the others. There is far too much that needs to be done and too few people who really see the need. I said to a manager of mine recently that I’m always angry. I am. I’m like Dr Banner but without the green alter ego.
