"Nothing but the rain"
Where vague stuff is placed for filing
It’s about time I updated the home network diagram from this communication. The original communication was written in January 2014 so three years seems a reasonable length of time for an update. It shouldn’t really be a surprise that the network has grown. There are some notable additions:
I don’t have any “smart” kitchen appliances or anything like that, I’m not sure I see the point of them! Click the picture for a pdf file.
I went and visited Scotney Castle today. The sun was shining and it was lovely out, a little cold but largely nice. The skies looked great, far better than all the grey we’ve had recently. The car managed 62 mpg on the way home, so I’m quite happy with that. Scotney is a lovely large house that definitely isn’t a castle. The owners deliberately ruined the old castle to create a good looking folly after the newer house was built.
While wandering around the newer house I noticed a wooden panel in the library.
Now this is quite disturbing. When you focus on the words it becomes obvious that there may be secret Star Wars fans when the house was designed in the 1800s!
Apparently the phrase should be:
I care not for quotations of kings and queens. Also, they are quotations, not quotes.
This morning I went for a run through some of the Kent countryside. I would embed a map of the route from my running app but it crashed after about two miles. So, here’s a map from Google Earth.
It was a good run through a gentle fluttering of snow. I enjoyed it and listened to the Cognitive Dissonance podcast from Chicago. The paths were particularly pretty at times and I took two photos.
Just had quite a jam-packed weekend. Spent a little time at three establishments while the cadet team succeeded in their competition. Here are a few photos of the sights.
This place was built for the First World War transition of troops across the channel. Don’t be impressed by the aluminium cladding, just inside are wooden framed original buildings that smell and creak with history.
The above is an unheated literal brick out-house that has three urinals and three proper toilets. There are a few toilets in heated buildings but too many people for them!
I love a nice Gate Guardian. This one is very pretty. It guards the helicopters at this base.
This room is part of the SNCO Annex. It’s about 10ft by 8ft with a small en-suite. Can’t grumble, it was dry and warm. The wi-fi helped make it more like home.
That door is an illusion, it’s a thin door to make the rest of the room look bigger!
I would to have a go in this and drive it around. It would be great fun!
Next time I’m out and about I’ll take some more photos. Sometimes I can give information about it all and sometimes I can’t, it’s just not sensible to do that.
Many of the communications within this domain are based on films I have seen or television episodes. Whenever I go to the cinema I rate the film on the IMDB website. You should see this communication which will explain my scoring rationale. A good thing about the IMDB site is that you can download your data.
So, here’s an idea of what how many times I have used each score.
Now, the odd scored films are a worry and definitely against my general rules. The film that scored 9 was The Imitation Game and the shittiest film that scored a 1 was God’s Not Dead 2.
The mean score of my ratings is 6.36 and this compares to an IMDB rating mean score of 7.05. I don’t know what this tells us.
The top of the table is here:
I’m not convinced that the TV Episode and TV Series scores should be in there, but can’t be bothered to remove those rows from my spreadsheet. Now, I know you want the list of the bottom films so here they are:
A couple of religious films at the bottom, possibly not a surprise, but then maybe they could have made good religious films instead. I’m not against religious films, they are just badly made. And then there’s the Sci-Fi. It’s a shame that some Sci-Fi is terrible, but terrible exists in all genres.
I first thought about doing this as a joke. We will see. It distresses me so much that Trump will be President of USA. I’m not sure I’ve talked a great deal about it here. Perhaps I will over time, however, I am trying to avoid news.
I’ve been having a bit of an Anime resurgence. I’ve started watching some on Netflix and it made me think about my “collection”. Now, I don’t collect films any more. I went through
a phase of wanting DVDs, just wanting to own them. I have quite a few I’ve never watched.
Apart from Dark City and Serenity on the far left the others are all Anime. I really like the bold colours and stories. I like reading cartoons too. There’s something about the simplicity of the drawings, the lack of chaos in the colours. I just like it.
Looking at that list I know I own Urotsukidōji parts one and two but they don’t seem to be in the family cabinet. Well, that makes perfect sense, they are borderline porn.
I had a minor melt down on Twitter last night. Everything had got to me.
I don’t think I can follow the news anymore.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) January 9, 2017
I mean, I know I should be informed, and I want to be informed. But it depresses me so much.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) January 9, 2017
from looking at the news I know that my country [I’m not that patriotic] is screwed and being led by incompetents.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) January 9, 2017
Brexit is a bad thing for the UK. It already is a bad thing. It saddens me so much that we have no sense of society.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) January 9, 2017
We have no sense of cohesion with our fellow man. The 20 miles of water between UK and the mainland seem so much more now.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) January 9, 2017
The idea that we would want to be part of something bigger, some society of people, a gang with common interests, that idea is lost.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) January 9, 2017
Parliament MUST vote for the best interests of the country. They must stop this utter madness.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) January 9, 2017
If Brexit depresses me then the actions of the [soon to be] most powerful man on earth make me suicidal.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) January 9, 2017
He is a proven liar. An immoral, racist, misogynist, a child, a narcissist. The rest of his team are largely no better.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) January 9, 2017
Trump is a liar and a pompous prick. Theresa May hasn’t a fucking clue what to do.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) January 9, 2017
I just feel sad at it all. Sad for the loss of humility and humanity.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) January 9, 2017
There have been many times we have needed a strong press, the freedom to investigate, a sense of purpose.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) January 9, 2017
We need a strong press more than ever. But, I fear, the press is dying and there will be little or no “keeping the bastards straight”.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) January 9, 2017
And then:
So, I’m off to watch something funny. Because everything else is just sad.
— Ian Parish (@iparish) January 9, 2017
I got a proper christmas present from Jo and this is the first part of it. It’s a model of the Millennium Falcon coming in at about 75mm long and 50mm wide. I have R2 and an X-Wing to make yet. This was pretty fiddly! There were about thirty pieces of metal sheet to pop out and then fit together. My eyes are possibly slightly too old for this shit! But it does look good.
If you want to see a 360 degree version, and who wouldn’t, then click here. One more view:
Yes, I know the word “christmas” should be spelt with a capital letter. But I don’t care.
After seeing Rogue One (again) Mr O and I decided to visit a military museum. Rather, what we did was use the POI thingy on the Sat Nav and it came up with the Military Museum in Aldershot. I’d never been to this garrison town before and it is something to behold! Plenty of red signs everywhere.
We journeyed from Guildford to Aldershot. The road was a curious one making its route atop a ridge.
After arriving at the museum we noticed the gates were locked shut. We weren’t that far from a set of armed guards securing the base itself so we tried a search for something else. This time we checked the website to make sure it was open. Off we set for Tangmere Museum. It would appear the Mr O misread the website as it clearly states it opens in February. But, we weren’t aware of that and so drove to Tangmere near Goodwood.
Along the way we saw many lovely countryside sites with layers of fog which, if we had a decent camera, would have been great photos. It was very picturesque. Except for one bit. We had seen a race course on the top of a hill and we were discussing whether it was Goodwood or not and BLAM. The sun was directly in our eyes along the line of the road. I came to a halt. I couldn’t see shit. The sun was literally in line with the road.
We had to try and drive for about 200m without being able to see. I found that if I moved my head so the door pillar blocked the sun I could just make out the left and right sides of the road. I still couldn’t see anything in front but we ambled along and hoped that someone else would stop if they were coming the other way. It was a curious experience and one I don’t really want again. We should have made a note of the time because there would be a decent set of mathematics to be done to check where the sun was and how much it aligned with the road. If I had the inclination we could probably work out where and what time just from the facts I have already said.
Another set of locked gates indicated closure. Bugger. All we wanted now was a cup of tea and some cake. We knew Goodwood circuit was nearby and so we drove to that. Everything there was also closed. The day had turned out to be a series of closed places that we wanted to visit. We had to drive back to (near) Reigate for a cuppa.
The journey itself was fun, interesting and a delight. It’s just a shame everything we were trying to see was closed.