It has been a huge length of time since I last wrote on here and I’m not really sure what it is that caused this hiatus. I’ve been busy, but no busier than previously. I wonder if it’s a cognitive load thing in that certain aspects of work have been quite high loading and there’s only so much cognition I have? Who knows. I do know that this is probably one of the longest gaps between communications. I’ve just checked and the last communication and it was published or last edited on 10th January which is almost a month ago! I am horrified.
So, the reason for this communication is that I’ve been supporting independent artists again with their creation of content. This time it’s Faderhead. I pledged some money on Kickstarter for him to complete an album and I got my name in the thank yous along with a hard copy of the CD. I did this a while back for a previous album he produced. I don’t know why I’ve decided to support him, I mean I like the music, I guess it’s nice to feel involved with something like this.
Faderhead – Years Of The Serpent
Above is a picture of the CD and the note I got along with it.
This is communication number 2008 and recently I’ve been adding information about that particular year at the end. I can’t remember when I started it but the point was to count down to my 2000th comm. So, in 2008:
Stock markets plunge, fuelled by the sub-prime housing crisis.
I have decided to start a new film review service but don’t worry I’m not going to be adding these to this website. I’ve found that I often start watching the same film on Netflix or Amazon Prime but I only notice about fifteen minutes into the film. I get quite a few recommendations and neither service particularly remembers which films you have seen before and I don’t really go in for rating those films on those services.
Prime RecommendationsNetflix Recommendations
Now, I like space films which are clever or just space films which are well written. I’m not that fussed on how well made they are. I’ve even recently watched a spate of second world war films but not because I’m fascinated with the war but more because of the stories they hold and things I didn’t know about. Most war movies are utterly depressing and full to the brim of the definition of survivor bias.
Anyway, I’ve seen a lot of terrible films on both of these main streaming services so I have created a spreadsheet to start avoiding watching them again. I’ve only just started this so it’ll be interesting to see how long it takes before I’m referring to it before I watch something. I will also add to the list as I discover films I’ve already seen and try to write down what I think. I will not be adding the reviews of these films to this site. I’ve got plenty to write about here once I start heading back to the cinema and once things start happening again.
This is communication number 2005 and so here are some things that I note took place in that year:
The Airbus A380 makes its first flight.
The Provisional IRA downs all arms.
Hurricane Katrina
Drawings of Muhammad are printed in a Danish magazine.
It’s been just over a week that I’ve owned the PS5 and after the initial joy of cabling and getting it in place I have been messing with some of the settings to get the best experience. The good thing about modern appliances is that they can “see” what they are connected to and output the correct formats for whatever gear you have. So, the PS5 is outputting 7.2 sound into the amp. I did have a problem with the picture format though!
The Current Set Up
The above picture shows a real mix of technologies and brands. There’s a Logitech G29 steering wheel, an Nvidia Shield Pro, the Sony PS5, a Sony AV amp, a Sonos unit, some Bose speakers, the Philips TV, a Sony speaker and a Sony PS camera. I think it all works together pretty well and even if people freak out about it they should realise that audiophile types are rare and most people can’t hear or see the difference between many basic makes and low end cables! I used to think that expensive cables were a thing that could improve your experience, but the answer is “no” they do not. Most of my speakers are connected by quite think mains cable. There isn’t a need for expensive cables.
So, back to the picture output from the PS5. I tried selecting a 4K HDR output but the PS5 was adamant that the receiving device wouldn’t be able to handle this. The PS5 wanted to downgrade the signal to 1080P for HDR rather than 2160P. Well, if I have to choose resolution over HDR then it’s the resolution that’s going to win every time I reckon. Every couple of days over the last week I would remember this issue and I played with the TV settings trying to find the magic button that would clear the way for these signals. I was pretty sure that 4k HDR was possible on the television. I couldn’t find the correct combination of settings.
I once again tried messing around in the PS5 settings to see if there was a thing I could do to fix this. I even bypassed the PSVR thinking there might be a thing inside that unit that meant it couldn’t bypass a 4k HDR signal. I also tried plugging the PS5 directly into the television but this didn’t change anything – I am aware now that this is because only one of the HDMI inputs to the TV is really set up for the best quality signal. I tried googling again and found a Forbes page which looked promising. The page suggests setting an input device to “enhanced”. This seemed like some kind of BladeRunner reference but I decided to go ahead and see if I could find this setting. Then, I remembered the AV Amp.
Why an amp needs to have a HDMI throughput setting set to “enhanced” I am not sure. But there it was, in the amp settings. The option to allow the HDMI bypass to be set to “enhanced”. I switched this. Then I restarted all the devices, because it seemed sensible to do so. I headed over to the PS5 and it was in “screen set up” mode. It wanted me to set up screen size and some HDR settings. I was reasonably excited and once the settings were made the PS5 is now outputting 4k HDR. It took a week of not-really-worrying about it but also knowing in the back of my mind that I could improve the look of the games.
I will say that once I’m engrossed in playing a game I don’t really concentrate on what the graphics look like. I don’t really notice the little details. It’s something I’ve always been conscious of. It’s the gameplay that makes the difference for me as a player. I know there a people out there who quite like just watching games and I understand that the graphics can really make a difference to them, but, for me, if the game play is good enough then you don’t really notice the rest of it?
This is communication number 2003 and so here are some things that happened in that year:
Space Shuttle Columbia breaks up over Texas.
Massive protests against an illegal war in Iraq. Governments do not listen. This is the start of my realisation that governments do what they want, not what we want.
Two people [not Musk] start Telsa.
China launches people into space for the first time.
It’s been reasonably frustrating to see the current government be so utterly terrible at managing the country. I guess it makes sense in some ways, people who are good at being elected to represent the population of the country don’t really have to be good at project management. They just need to be good at getting elected. Mind you, in most constituencies they just need to be good at being selected to run in those areas. When you look at it you have to wonder why people vote for Jacob Rees-Mogg or Boris Johnson. They don’t vote for those people do they? Otherwise I’m pretty sure they would have to agree that one is a puritanical prick and the other is a liar. People vote for selfish reasons and the tories seem to offer the best deal for selfish people. Politicians are the worst people to have in charge of the massive projects this country is running. We need project managers and people who understand risk.
The current policy of not worrying about the Omicron variant and letting it run wild through the country relies on a couple of massive WISHES. The government aren’t worried about taking precautions, they are a reactive group of people who don’t have the balls to enact what is right for the country. It’s almost as if being popular enough to get voted for doesn’t make you very good at the thing you’ve been voted to do, especially so with the current bunch. For the UK to succeed we need all of the following WISHES to come true:
Not too many people need to self-isolate due to virus.
Not too many people end up in hospital due to new variant.
The vaccination programme means people don’t end up in hospital.
I am horrified at this approach. This gamble based on WISHES. We aren’t being pro-active. We are reacting. The problem is that the reactions happen two fucking weeks too late, because that’s how viruses work. It appears that the government still do not understand any basic biology. If we are really fucking lucky then hospitalisations will remain low and this works. We are hoping for luck. Fucking luck. We are playing with people’s lives while hoping for luck. Precautions are not being taken.
Less Severe
It’s A Numbers Thing
So, Omicron might be less severe. But we didn’t know that until very recently. We kept everything open because we are reactive remember. Let’s go with the best possible number there, 70% less likely to be admitted to hospital. 70%. This seems good. But what this means is that if we were to have a massive peak in infections any gains would be wiped out as the total number of admissions returns to bad levels. This would be bad if the policy had been to keep everything open and say have a massive surge in infections.
Massive Increase In Daily Cases
Fuck. That’s what has happened.
Now, I’m not claiming to be correct and I’m not claiming that we are fucked. I’m not saying the NHS is going to be overwhelmed. I’m saying the risk of that has increased massively and the government are playing a numbers game. Hoping for the best outcome. They are playing dice with the lives of the vulnerable and the unlucky. They are placing bets on being lucky and making everything look like they were geniuses. Quite clearly they aren’t geniuses. It turns out that lots of MPs are just selfish twats who don’t care about anyone:
Oppose Tougher Covid Rules
We currently have a bunch of MPs who don’t understand science, are willing to play dice with the lives of the country and who maintain a liar in power. It’s a fucking depressing world we live in at the moment and I only have so much anger I can maintain. Very soon it’ll be my chance to ignore the news again for a while. I need to get away from being a realist and play my PlayStation and enter a world of happy aliens I can shoot.
This is communication number 2001. Here are some things that happened in that year:
I remembered going to see the Matrix reissue when it was released and in my head it was about a year ago that I did that. Well, according to my own communication on this site I went to watch it in July 2019. Fucking 2019. Do you remember that? This means I went to see this original film twenty years after its initial release before SARS-Cov-2. Let me just repeat that, BEFORE. I’m not even sure I can remember what it was like in the before-times. Can you remember walking around and doing whatever you want without having to wonder why some cunts aren’t wearing facemasks? Can you remember a time when we didn’t have 150,000 dead in this country from this pandemic. I would ask if you could remember a time before having an incompetent and corrupt government but, they’ve been in power for a long time now and BJ was still as shit then as he is now. All he had to fuck up then was the Brexit agreement and that is going to shit still so we knew how our politicians acted.
Sorry, where are my manners? There are things we need to discuss first. The tide was pretty low as I drove along the riverside road. There are currently road closures in the village and so anywhere over “cinema side” of the local area is actually a bit of a pain to get to. As far as I know the gas people are trying to fix a gas leak somewhere along the main road into the village but someone decided to close the road as the hole is a little big? I’m not sure why it was closed but it is quite an inconvenience to many in the village. After watching the film I rated the film on IMDB and there is a communication from years ago where I discuss how the rating system works.
There are going to be spoilers straight after this tweet:
I didn’t dislike this film. I’m not enough into the canon to worry about what the fuck is going on all the time and how it affects the original storylines. To be honest I liked the original Matrix but the two sequels were shit I think. I know they had loads of money to make the films they wanted to make and they did, but I think when you try to narrow down the storylines to the point of making it make sense you end up with something that doesn’t work. Let’s face it, the Matrix looked gorgeous and has been much imitated since 1999.
I quite liked the first bit of this film where nearly every line was taking the piss out of the fact that they were making a sequel to the original trilogy. I thought this part worked really well. Normally I try and remember key points as I go through the film and sometimes [rarely] I write a note on my phone. I’ve not yet resorted to taking pen and paper but that might be worth it in the future. I also interact with a film by wondering what I will write about it on these pages. I don’t think I did much thinking about that last night. I was more concerned about a lot of things that didn’t seem to make much sense in the film.
In the film they talked about how The Matrix [game] Trinity was inspired by how Tiffany looks as Thomas Andersson sees her everyday in the coffee shop. They also explain how the game was released twenty years ago which means that Tiffany wouldn’t have had kids and possibly wasn’t married so Thomas could have approached her. There were a couple of things like this that didn’t quite make sense but you can do whatever the fuck you want with this film.
A bigger issue for me, and this is extremely similar to my complaint with Spiderman, is that Neo is told that going to get Trinity will cause a war and lead to the destruction of Io, the new human settlement. But fuck it, he’s going to get her anyway because Love. No weighing up of the death of thousands in a war, just a straight up obvious decision to go and get his beau. I did not like this aspect of the film.
I will tell you that this film looked gorgeous. It was really well made along with many themes of accepting who you are. This isn’t a surprise given the background of Lana Wachowski, the joint-writer and director. I’ve read quite a bit on social media where the general consensus is that Lana Wachowski created a gorgeous rebuff to the right wing of politics who had co-opted themes from the original film. Good on her. Fuck those people.
This is communication number 1999 and so here are some things that happened in that year, which is a newish thing I’ve been doing:
A fire in the Mont Blanc Tunnel kills 39 people, closing the tunnel for nearly three years.
Columbine High School massacre.
British TV presenter Jill Dando, 37, is shot dead on the doorstep of her home in Fulham, London.
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace is released.
The sovereignty of Macau is transferred from the Portuguese Republic to the People’s Republic of China after 442 years of Portuguese settlement.
Engineers and software people spend a lot of time and money fixing the millennium bug and because of the hard work the threat of mass computer failure fizzles out. But it was because we fixed it. Not because it wasn’t really a thing.
The Labour government spend a load of money creating the millennium dome. I think it was over a billion pounds. All to get ready for the celebrations of the end of the second millennium and the start of the third but because we have a stupid year numbering system most of the world gets this wrong.
Sometimes it’s hard to keep finding “content” to fill these gorgeous pages. Often this site requires me to go to the cinema or at least go somewhere so I can then write about the terrible/great experience. Recently it feels that I’ve not done much. I mean I have but it’s just the boring same old.
Last Sunday I helped supervise some of the cadets who are entering a national competition in a couple of weeks, nothing exciting there. This past week I had two days off work ill and actually slept for the entire day for the first one. Then yesterday I ran a weapon training session and range for some of our new recruits. Oh, today I’m heading into town this morning to take part in the Remembrance Parade which I guess is something important but not always something I’ll take photographs at or write about each year.
This week just gone I’ve either been too tired or ill to cope with opening up the editing software and writing stuff here. I’ve actually just reminded myself that I started the album reviews for this exact problem, if I don’t have anything to write about then I can write an album review and publish it easily. So, this week I’ll probably publish a few of those. It also means I get to listen to those albums to remind myself of the specifics.
I do know that I’ve felt ill since the return to work in September. My lungs don’t feel correct and if I go for a run in the cold it really knackers those air bags. Not sure what’s going on, it’s not SARS-Cov-2 as I’ve repeatedly tested with both LFT and PCR. There are big issues with the LFT but it’s the best thing we’ve got at the moment I guess. I don’t think the government should be pushing them so much but they are blinded with their “success” of just under 150,000 deaths so far. Fucking twats. I honestly will not understand why anyone would still vote for the tory party after everything that has happened. They are in over their heads and horrible. Some people I talk to seem to think that voting labour endorses complete socialism or communism and they can’t bring themselves to do it. Happy to trudge along with the stupid cunts we have now in charge instead of wanting to help people. Let’s be clear, the government response to this pandemic has been disgraceful.
I’ve been playing Minecraft a little recently and am trying to give myself little projects in that as time goes on. I’ve just built a bubble elevator for one of the kids so they can build a sky base and we’ve worked on somewhere to attempt to kill the Wither. We’ll see how that goes. The last time we tried it I had to reload the world from a back up as our entire base got destroyed. My next job is to build an underground area in a few chunks a long way away for us to attempt to kill that bastard. We want a beacon. I think we’d also like some elytra but we are working on that. I don’t think we’ve found an end portal yet.
I keep being tempted with buying a PS5 but I will only play one game on it and so I don’t think it’s worth getting for just that. Especially when that game is available on the PS4. I haven’t pre-ordered my copy yet but I will. It comes out around the time of my completion of half a century of rotations around the sun. I’m currently having a go on Assetto Corsa on the PC and it’s ok but I possibly need to connect the steering wheel to the PC and that means moving it from the front room which seems like effort at the moment. Using a PS4 controller works reasonably well given my extensive experience in racing sims.
There’s nothing currently on at the cinema which I can be arsed to see. The only film I could possibly go to is Eternals but I dislike superhero movies so much that I reckon it’s just not worth going. My biggest issue is that the resolution to these films is always who fights better and never a negotiation or discussion. It’s never a cerebral conclusion it’s always fists and I fucking hate that.
I guess it’s time to start doing things to get ready to parade through Maidstone. Maybe later I’ll complete some more album reviews. I know that the Use Your Illusions are coming up and it’ll be fun to see what I think of those albums thirty years later.
This is communication number 1986 and so here are some things that happened in that year of our lord:
Chernobyl disaster.
M25 motorway is opened.
2000 people die in a limnic eruption in Cameroon.
Top Gun is released.
Consensual sex between men is legalised from the age of 16 in NZ.
I went to meet a bunch of people in London. The congregation was meant to be part of a stag do. I mean, it was a stag celebration but I didn’t really attend most of it. The plan was brunch, a rugby match and then whatever followed. I knew that the brunch was going to be either outside or in a well distanced restaurant and so I was happy with that but as the time approached to attend a rugby match travelling via crowded trains and being in a stadium I felt unsure about the covid-ness of it all. Now, I had been to a gig where you had to show your vaccinated status to get in and there were quite a lot of people but it felt mostly safe. I didn’t want to be in an England crowd at Twickenham.
Belfast, London
Another things that’s been bothering me recently is the pay rises the government has paid teachers over the last ten years. I find this really interesting, partly as I’m a teacher and partly because I can’t believe teachers are not as angry as they really should be. Over the last ten years the government has deliberately followed a policy of austerity. This was their political choice. We now know it wasn’t necessary as when the covid pandemic hit they decided to spend a fuck-ton squared and even then the controls were so poor that BILLIONS was lost. Here’s a graph showing teacher pay over the last ten years compared to where it would be if we had JUST received pay rises in line with inflation.
Teacher Pay Rises Versus RPI
Back to the stag. We met at a place near Waterloo station but I walked in from London Bridge station which was about a twenty five minute walk along the South Bank. It was a really nice walk and I started on the river close to HMS Belfast and then walked past the City Of London, the Golden Hind, and a lot of eateries. Fortunately I didn’t have to walk past too many of those “people who stand still for money” as they annoy me intensely. The brunch was nice and the restaurant staff were very tolerant of the pranks played on the stag.
Cityscape, London
Here are some numbers for you wrt the pay. The pay rise over the last ten years amounts to around 13.2% total pay rise since 2010. Inflation in that time has caused an increased in prices of around 37%. For comparison the CPI, and clearly you are going to use whichever inflation measure works best for your argument, has increased 25% in that time period. I used the Office for National Statistics to get my data. If my pay had increased by the CPI it would be around 46,000 now which is still clearly above what I am actually paid. In essence I have had a real terms pay cut every year for the last [over] ten years.
MP Salary
There’s nothing like mixing up all your graph types when you are trying to make a point but I was curious how much MPs have awarded themselves over the same time period. They’ve had a pay rise of around 25% meaning that they are inline with the lower of the inflation measures. So, the people voting to not pay public servants according to the lower rate of inflation have awarded themselves that exact rate. We all know that’s not even the best of it. Over that time MPs have given themselves plenty of expenses to be able to pay for things that they would say are required as part of the job, and I would mostly agree, but I would also argue that many MPs play the system to enrich themselves. This pay doesn’t take into account any other jobs and directorships that MPs take on.
I think the problem is that too many of us do our job because we like being a teacher. We feel a “calling” or feel we should do the things that are considered normal of us. I personally don’t think that. I don’t feel the calling and I don’t feel this job is a vocation. This job is one that is bloody hard work and no one will be there to thank you at the end of it. That’s not how all this works. You don’t get a special seat in heaven. You just stop doing this shit one day and it leaves your life. Salaried jobs are bollocks. We should be paid for what we do and in a specific time frame otherwise the organisation is stealing from you.
Comms#1985 and so here are some things that happened in that year:
“Neighbours” starts on Australian television.
First mobile phone network in UK.
South Africa ends its ban on interracial marriage.
As part of my around the world trip I have reached the Himalayas and so have visited Tibet, Nepal and now Bhutan. The last of these is relatively small and only has four airports so after landing at Paro International I decided to fly past two of the airports and then land at Yongphulla.
Bhutan Complete
In the above image the black line is the direct route, the pink link a route leg I didn’t activate and the red line is the route I took. I’m flying a little Boeing Saab T-7, it has good feels and has the power of a military jet and so is able to cope with my rapid direction changes and approaches.
Thankfully I now have some time off work! It has been a hard few weeks and I need the rest. As if to let me know I spent all of Saturday lying on the sofa sleeping with aches and pains and general ill feeling. Even Sunday morning I wasn’t great but am feeling back to normal now, nearly, apart from a phlegm filled chest. It isn’t Covid, I’ve done many LFTs and also a PCR when I first started showing symptoms. I did the PCR using a postal service and next time I think I will make sure I go to a drive through centre, the results will be quicker.
My summer of letters has continued with a letter to my MP although nothing good will come from that. Teachers, and many other public servants, have had a massive pay reduction in real terms over the last ten years. My union, the NEU, published some graphs showing how pay had changed over the last ten years when compared to the RPI.
Teacher Pay Rises Versus RPI
Now this uses RPI rather than CPI and I’ve been over to the ONS to see what the CPI rate has been and I can say it has hovered around 2% over the last ten years being generous to the side of the government. Using that generous rate a teacher’s pay would be GBP 44,805. As you can see even using numbers that flatter the government teachers have suffered a real terms pay loss over the last ten years amounting to a current loss of about GBP 3,000. I am not saying we are more important than other professions who have had a pay freeze and I am not saying we should be given the whole amount now. What I am saying is that the government should recognise these facts and put into action some plan to help correct these issues.
Clearly given the governments we’ve had for the last ten years this won’t happen. They won’t see the unfairness of these increases and they’ll say that recruitment is going well. I would argue that while recruitment is going well it is due to the fact that the rest of the economy is fucked and people are having to retrain after losing their jobs and everyone thinks they can be a teacher. Just as a comparison MP salaries have increased an average of 2.2% per year compared to the teachers increase of 1.2% in the same time. Oh, and they can claim fucking loads of expenses and have subsidised food and drink along with massive benefits like swapping prime residence etc.
MP Salary
I’ve been describing accuracy of lateral flow tests to pupils as part of a conditional probability part of the statistics course and I keep forgetting a couple of the words used to describe how good the tests are. The government likes to bang on about the specificity of the LFTs and that is generally a good high number, around 99%. The specificity tells you how the probability of you having Covid if the test returns a positive result. It therefore seems there’s a 1%, or lower, chance of a false positive result. The problematic number is the sensitivity the LFTs have. The sensitivity tells you the probability of getting a false negative, if you have the disease but the LFT returns a negative result. This is a measure of how sensitive the test is to the disease. Currently, depending on who does the LFT, the sensitivity is running at 40% to 80%. So, LFTs will only be positive on around half the positive cases. This is a massive fucking problem and one the government either deliberately doesn’t mention or is just too stupid to understand. You can’t have a policy of opening up the country when the test you are using to maintain the safety of everyone only catches around 50% of the cases. The government are fucking idiots.
This is communication number 1980 [+-1] and so here are some things that happened in the year of my eighth birthday:
Saudi Arabia beheads 63 people who did a bad thing.
123 people dies when a Norwegian oil platform collapses.
I’ve been heading around the world in my Boeing/Saab T-7, just hopping from airport to airport. It started as a round the UK coast trip and I’m now in Nepal so I got distracted by more coastline and then mountains. This is not going to be an interesting communication as it is a list of every airport I have stopped at on this journey. X-Plane keeps a log of journeys and so I am able to write this here, also, I have a bit of paper covered with names of places and that is about to run out of space so I need to get this started:
Manchester, England. RAF Valley, Wales. Aberporth Airport, Wales. Bristol Filton Airport, England. RAF Lyneham, England. Lee On Solent Airport, England. Jersey Airport, Jersey. Quimper–Cornouaille Airport, France. Nantes Atlantique Airport, France. La Rochelle – Île de Ré Airport, France. Cazaux Air Base, France. San Sebastián Airport, Spain. Seve Ballesteros-Santander Airport, Spain. Santiago–Rosalía de Castro Airport, Spain. Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport, Portugal. Monte Real Air Base, Portugal. Humberto Delgado Airport, Portugal. Faro Airport, Portugal. Base Naval de Rota, Spain. Gibraltar Airport, Gibraltar. Rabat–Salé Airport, Morocco. Ben Slimane Airport, Morocco. Marrakesh Menara Airport, Morocco. Agadir – Al Massira Airport, Morocco. Tan Tan Airport, Morocco. César Manrique-Lanzarote Airport, Spain. Tenerife North–Ciudad de La Laguna Airport, Spain. La Palma Airport, Spain. Dakhla Airport, Morocco. Nouadhibou Airport, Mauritania. Nouakchott–Oumtounsy International Airport, Mauritania. Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport, Senegal. Banjul International Airport, Gambia. Osvaldo Vieira International Airport, Guinea-Bissau. Conakry Gbessia International Airport, Republic of Guinea. Faranah Airport, Republic of Guinea. Lungi International Airport, Sierra Leone. Monrovia-Roberts Airport, Liberia. Man Airport, Côte d’Ivoire. San Pédro Airport, Côte d’Ivoire. Félix Houphouët Boigny International Airport, Côte d’Ivoire. Takoradi Airport, Ghana. Kotoka International Airport, Ghana. Aéroport de Lomé-Gnassingbe Eyadema, Togo. Cotonou Cadjehoun Airport, Benin. Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos. Ibadan Airport, Nigeria. Benin Airport, Nigeria. Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Nigeria. Ajaokuta Airport, Nigeria. Bamenda Airport, Cameroon. Bafoussam Airport, Cameroon. Ngaoundéré Airport, Cameroon. Yaoundé Airport, Cameroon. Yaounde Nsimalen International Airport, Cameroon. Bata Airport, Equatorial Guinea. Port-Gentil International Airport, Gabon. Omboué Hospital Airport, Gabon. Agostinho-Neto International Airport, Republic of Congo. Kitona Base Airport, Republic of Congo. Luanda Airport, Angola. Porto Amboim Airport, Angola. Aéroport de Waku-Kungo, Angola. Benguela Airport, Angola. Welwitschia Mirabilis International Airport, Angola. Aéroport de Xangongo, Angola. Ruacana Airport, Namibia. Andimba Toivo ya Toivo Airport, Namibia. Grootfontein Air Force Base, Namibia. Uis Mine Airport, Namibia. Walvis Bay Airport, Namibia. Aérodrome de Lüderitz, Namibia. Aérodrome d’Oranjemund, Namibia. Air Force Base Langebaanweg, South Africa. Cape Town International Airport, South Africa. Air Force Base Overberg, South Africa. Port Elizabeth International Airport, South Africa. Margate Airport, South Africa. Maputo International Airport, Mozambique. Beira International Airport, Mozambique. Aérodrome de Nacala, Mozambique. Julius Nyerere International Airport, Tanzania. Moshi Airport, Tanzania. Abeid Amani Karume International Airport, Zanzibar. Aden Adde International Airport, Somalia. Iskushuban Airport, Somalia. Abdullahi Yusuf Airport, Somalia. Socotra Airport, Yemen. Salalah Airport, Oman. RAFO Thumrait Airbase, Oman. RAFO Masirah, Oman. Muscat International Airport, Oman. Fujairah International Airport, UAE. Khasab Airport, Oman. Dubai International Airport, UAE. Al Bateen Executive Airport, UAE. Jebel Dhana Airport, UAE. Delma Island Airport, UAE. Qeshm International Airport, Iran. Jask Airport, Iran. Konarak Airport, Iran. Turbat International Airport, Pakistan. Pasni Airport, Pakistan. Ormara Airport, Pakistan. Jinnah International Airport, Pakistan. Rajanpur Airport, Pakistan. Zhob Airport, Pakistan. Miran Shah Airport, Pakistan. Saidu Sharif Airport, Pakistan. Skardu Airport, Pakistan. Muzaffarabad Airport, Pakistan. Chilas Airport, Pakistan. Hotan Airport, China. Kushok Bakula Rimpochee Airport, India. Ngari Kunsha Airport, Tibet. Simikot Airport, Nepal. Jumla Airport, Nepal. Tribhuvan International Airport, Nepal. Tenzing Hillary Airport, Lukla, Nepal.
Heading Past Mount Everest
And so this journey around the world continues. I have just flown past Mount Everest after [not quite] landing at Lukla. After passing the highest place on Earth I headed to:
Tumlingtar Airport, Nepal.
I think is almost, kind of, half way around? I have no idea. We’ll have to see what the rest of this journey looks like.
This is comms#1979 and so here are some things that happened in that year:
Sid Vicious dies.
Compact Disk displayed publicly for first time.
The last British soldier leaves Malta.
A human powered aircraft flies across the English Channel.
Last night Smith and I went out! Out! To see a band! Well, two bands really but it was out and my first time in London since February 2020 when we saw Aesthetic Perfection. We got the train in and booked into our hotel room – proper full on night out! After getting changed we headed to Electrowerkz, which was quite close to the hotel and entered. I had forgotten my photo ID and the security people were very good at sorting that out as I had photos of all my ID on my phone, they accepted me fortunately.
Electrowerkz Welcome
I loved this touch of some old CRT showing a logo as we walked up the steps. It added to the feel of the place. We didn’t see the first two bands as we were drinking and chatting to the merchandise people. I think I bought some dog tags, but I have no idea where I put them, I’ll have to have a look shortly. I liked the few changes that had been made to the building and ambiance, the main floor looked really good.
Before The Crowds – Electrowerkz
Reaper is a band/person we had wanted to see for a long time as a couple of his albums are really good. A nice split between industrial and EBM. I enjoyed his set although I think there could have been some other songs added to make it greater but I guess you have to trust the artist and the things they want to play might not be what I want to hear.
Reaper – X-Junkie
I really enjoyed the Reaper set. It was about this time that I started to appreciate the new sound system in the room. I could hear all the nuance in the songs, which I knew quite well anyway, and this was a surprise as normally my hearing dies quite quickly into a gig and I can’t tell what’s going on apart from noise.
Nachtmahr – Electrowerkz
Nachtmahr were brilliant. They played a great set and the crowd really liked it. I don’t think this makes a top ten of gigs, but it’s definitely in the top half. I had a great time and danced quite a bit – I think the alcohol helped a lot with that. Overall this was a good gig. A couple of great bands and really good fun. Brilliant!
This is communication number 1977 and so in keeping with recent tradition I list below some events of that year:
Jimmy Carter pardons Vietnam draft dodgers.
The rings of Uranus are discovered.
Optical Fibre is used to transmit phone calls for the first time.
165 Killed in a fire in Kentucky.
Never Mind The Bollocks is released by the Sex Pistols.
