Got up early one morning to do things. Here’s a picture of a thing I found while doing those things.
Well Known Place, Strange Time
Creativity Is Ruined
I don’t really think creativity is ruined. I do think that AI stuff is going to fuck over all industry and is morally corrupt. I’m not a fan of AI. But, a good thing is it might accelerate this last stage of capitalism. Anyway, here are some photos I took on a recent visit to Dorset. They were taken on my iPhone.
Good Times Bad Times
I have numerous posts about how much I enjoy the game Gran Turismo in all its variations. However, there are times when it is rather frustrating. I’d spent about twenty minutes on this licence test and at one point this was my time:
My first and current thought was “fuck you”.
Then there’s some other games I play and this time it just looked so gorgeous, except I wasn’t sure who the hell would build a chest at the end of a log sticking out over the edge of a mountain. It does look lovely though.
New Foresting
I recently spent some time with the Legend camping in the New Forest area of the UK. The campsite was somewhere we had stayed before and so we knew the area – I think this helps with camping – a decent knowledge of where in the campsite is best for sun, toilet access and noise. The camping setup was pretty cool with rooftop tent and a gazebo thing or event shelter as I think it is formally known.
On the first full day down that way in Hampshire we went to Dorset to try and hunt for dinosaurs. Kimmeridge Bay called and we answered. There’s a short toll road down to the bay and then there is a pretty decent sized car park. Coffee was required from a caravan selling snacks and things and then we visited the Sea Life centre, except I don’t think it was called that. I used binoculars to look at the crabs close up and they were broadly terrifying. I have a pair of binoculars that can work from about 50cm to infinity – they are super special. The bay at Kimmeridge was interesting. There’s the UK’s first oil field pumping station, a slipway and loads of broken rocks from the small cliff that genuinely looks as though it’s going to slip into the sea at any time. We saw big cracks in the ground atop the cliffs and a reasonable distance back, it could be a warning sign that the whole thing is going to disappear.
After the bay we chose to go to Swanage. I wanted to see what this town looked like because judging by name only it doesn’t sound a great place to be. I think because it’s a combination of Swansea and Sewage. We parked on the sea front and tried to find something to eat. This proved more difficult that you would imagine because it was 1530 hours and Swanage doesn’t seem to think that is an appropriate time to fill our tummies. We tried a few places but they were either closed or the chef had just decided to stop for the day. We found a bakery that was open and ate some food sitting on the sea wall. I sat in bird shit. Out in the distance of the bay we could see a RN Wildcat helicopter practising winching people from boats – there was a RNLI boat out there from which they were raising people. That would be an excellent experience! I have to say that Swanage seemed a really lovely little place, there was even a dedicated sea swimming area with lifeguards.
The next day we drove to see the world’s tallest unreinforced concrete structure which is a tower built in the 1880s or so in the village of Sway. Every heard of Sway? No. You haven’t. Why? Because there isn’t a main road passing through it. To go to Sway you have to go to Sway. Not many people find it. Why would you? Unless you knew about the world’s tallest unreinforced concrete building. After staring at the tower which is literally someone’s home we found a lovely little café and ate food although we were close to the kitchen shut up shop time. This seems to be becoming a theme! After the café we walked a short distance to a cute little shop that sold loads of fine foods and drinks. Conversations were had with the owner and we discovered that the butchers opposite was rather renowned and people drive hours to buy food from it. We didn’t buy anything from the butchers because I don’t talk to people. We did buy stuff from the hamper shop.
When you fancy a nice hot breakfast bap try to make sure you don’t go to a Sainsbury’s just after they have moved their heated food section because you’ll find they won’t have turned on that section yet and you end up with unhappy people fed up at Sainsbury’s being disappointing twice in one week. We drove to Keyhaven, another one of those places I think you have to travel to because you won’t pass through it – a bit like Norfolk. The reason for a visit to Keyhaven was to catch a ferry (small ten person boat) to Hurst Castle. The castle was built to protect the Solent from attack which means it’s two miles out from the coast along a shingle spit. I’m sure the ferries are great fun but both our trips were made triggering by the company we had on board. Heading to the castle two people got on board with their large dogs. The dogs were fine but the people were annoying. The return journey was hampered by two people from the USA on board being very American. The castle was interesting, lots of spooky nooks and crannies, flood risks and no running drinking water. Electricity was provided by a large generator with an exhaust into the courtyard and toilets were fuelled with sea water, as were the taps. It’s an impressive piece of engineering. Such a shame it had to be built. We could easily see the Needles and the Isle Of Wight, the island was about 1200m away. There were lots of birds around, mainly swifts and they were feeding a lot.
On the return to mainland, I’m not sure it counts as being off the mainland though, we found a tapas bar, The Cave, in Millford on Sea. We got there five minutes before food stopped being served but they were willing to serve us. It was an interesting place set around the village green. The village seems to revolve around the green and that reminded me of my home village. I guess I was fortunate to grow up in what would be considered a classic village layout with cricket being played on the green and pubs and shops around that.
The final day was about packing away and journeying home back to Kent. I think there were some issues with Google Maps because it kept saying some major roads were shut but they weren’t. I wonder if people were messing around submitting “closed road” warnings for giggles. None of the overhead gantries along the main route had any information about road closures so we followed what should have been a standard route home. I say standard because I got distracted near the M3-M25 junction by an A380 flying into the clouds and so I would have had to make a very risky move to make the junction. I chose not to take that junction and I got sent around parts of south west London I’d not been to since 1995. There were real road closures closer to home which meant I had to find alternative routes across the river Medway. While heading to the “new” bridge I thought I’d fill the car up with petrol. I queued around the local Tesco but the queue was because the petrol station was being torn down to make a new one. The journey home was a test of patience really. But I got there.
Jurassic World: Rebirth
I went to see the latest dinosaur film at Cineworld in Rochester. The tide was quite low on entrance to the film and it was still quite low on the way out so I really don’t know what’s happening with that. Maybe the tides stopped for a little while? I’ve never seen the water levels stay so consistent over three hours. I guess that the tide could have been waning as we arrived at the cinema, hit low and then started waxing as we left – this does seem more likely than the tides actually stopping.
The film itself was rather “meh”. There’s been enough Jurassic films now I think they can stop. Also, my opinion, you can’t beat the original for all aspects of story telling. So I rated this movie on IMDb and there’s a guide to the rating system here.
Some parts of the film were interesting but too much of it is just a rehash of all the other films. It was ok-ish.
The Hunting Grounds
The Legend and I recently took a cheeky trip to the New Forest. We arrived around lunchtime and cycled from Burley to a cafe on the old railway. Lunch was had and then a cycle back to the car. Because it was warm and we were dehydrated we chose to make an emergency coffee next to the car park using our emergency coffee kit. It was lovely. The weather was sunny and I might have had my head exposed which wasn’t great and necessitaed buying after sun later on.
That evening we stayed at a hotel in Highcliff, which is at the top of a cliff, that isn’t really that high but compared to a not-cliff I guess it is. We had a picnic dinner on the beach while looking out across the sea to the Isle Of Wight. We definitely had some cocktails because we were away and staying in a lovely area of the country.
The next day we had a reasonable English breakfast, although the bacon was so thin light was interferring with itself as it passed through the meat. The rest of it was good and the coffee, made with fresh beans, was much much better than the instant crap that was in the room. Our bikes had been stored in the hotel storage space so we knew they were safe.
After breakfast we drove to a New Forest car park and then cycled to Brockenhurst via the rest of the disused railway line. This route was new for me but it made better sense to the Legend because it linked up two parts of an overall route. This means next time we head down that way we can do a longer route and enjoy the countryside more. Drinks were had at a little cafe in Brockenhurst and we looked at the ford, but the water was so low there was no ford! Upon our return to the car we loaded up the bikes and headed home.
Both journeys were fortunately uneventful and although we hadn’t spent long in the New Forest it was lovely to get away and enjoy somewhere else. Now it’s time to look for disused railways and the such around our local area.
No Longer An Island
Many years ago the sea levels were different and there were a bunch of ports around the south east coast of this island that aren’t really ports any more. There are rivers and waterways that connect them to the sea but silt and level changes have created new land.
By Clem Rutter, Rochester, Kent. – Own work, CC BY 2.5, Link
I had a lovely time visiting the town of Rye. The aim was to find a hot chocolate cafe but we ended up in a Mexican restaurant and that was lovely. Great food and lovely Mexican music playing.
If I go to Rye again I will try to spend a little longer there and also look up more of the history. It is amazing that the Cinque Ports were once a thing but the geography changes have really made such a difference.
Lego 68 – Model 76923
According to this website the last Lego model I made was in 2020, it has been a while! I’m not sure why it’s been this long, probably my kids no longer need my help with Lego and I haven’t bought any – where do I put it? This model was bought for my cake-day by the Legend and it super pleases me. It covers two things I really enjoy; cars and gaming. This model is the Lamborghini Lambo V12 Vision GT Super Car which exists within the game of Gran Turismo 7.
I need to go and buy the car in the game and then take some scapes photos with it. I will post those here when I have completed that side-quest.
I’m hoping the car drives well. I’ve got a few races still to complete in the standard section of GT so I will be working on that.
My First Mesh
My house is too small to require a mesh wifi system. The router works pretty well when there are four rooms and they are two up, two down. There are a couple of areas of weak signal, especially when using 5G because there are brick walls in the way. A quick swap to 2.4G and it’s sorted though. The 5G signal has a higher bandwidth but the higher frequency doesn’t penentrate solid substances as well as the 2.4G signal.
I have installed a mesh at another house. It was a mostly harmless process. The TP-Link Deco system connects to the internet modem with an ethernet cable and then it all works! I did have to log in to the modem/router and tell it to turn off the wifi that it produces. Then everything is connected via the Deco unit. There are two mesh wifi transmitters and also a LAN going to a simple switch that connects the entertainment stuff up to the internet.
There is a gaming console connected to part of the extension of the mesh and even thgough there is a double wifi lan connection to the internet there haven’t been any complaints about latency. I am impressed.
Adventuring Summer 2024
The Legend and I have spent some time away adventuring and generally enjoying being away from things. We stayed in Crowborough initially and investigated things around there. I had to do some car “repairs” as I broke part of the bottom of the car being slightly impatient. We visited Pooh Sticks Bridge on a rainy day, which did keep the riff-raff away. Then we also tried to find the source of the river Medway. This wasn’t that easy. I knew where the source was and it is a spring on some farmer’s land. We walked to the spot but then could only really see the bushes and ferns covering the spring. We could hear running water but could only make it out a little further downstream where there was a small bridge. It was all rather overgrown but it was pretty cool to be in that spot.
The Crowborough campsite was below part of the approach pattern for Gatwick airport. Many aircraft flew overhead and it was great tracking them on the phone. There was also an amazing sound some of them made when flying over. It was a strange howling sound that I think is something to do with their engines spooling down or flaps extending. I’m not sure but it was gorgeous.
We then travelled down to the New Forest. The campsite was positioned on an old RAF Base and we were set up at one of the aircraft dispersal points along the perry track. The campsite was busy but after a couple of days most people went home so it became quieter and calmer.
We visited the Bovington Tank museum and had a ride in a tracked vehicle, watched a tank battle show and saw plenty of tin cans that burn soldiers alive if hit. Later that day we drove around collecting new supplies for our camp. We had a day of cycling which was lovely. I had never really explored the New Forest and it was great just pootling along enjoying the experience.
I think possibly the best adventure was travelling the Kimmeridge to see the Sea-Rex. This is a skull of a pliosaur which was discovered in the cliff face of the Jurassic Coast. There is a BBC programme about it and this was most of the reason we visited this place. The display was really nice and we even got to see the Steve Etches at work in the lab. We had lunch at the pub opposite and then drove to Tyneham. This village was suggested as a place to visit by one of the workers in the Etches Collection.
Tyneham is an abandoned village. Everyone was relocated during the second world war and have never been allowed back to live. There’s a big local campaign but it hasn’t got anywhere so far. It was interesting to see. My most interesting piece of information was that when the village was compulsory purchased all the money went to the “squire” as he owned all the property. The villagers were given only the value of the vegetables in their gardens. I see most of the world in terms of a class struggle between the poor and the wealthy. This classically highlights this struggle that is a very long way from being resolved.
On the return from Kimmeridge and the Jurassic Coast we drove past a shop selling pretty cool outdoors and biking stuff. So we hung a quick u-ey and visited that place. I would recommend Guardhouse Sports to you. I bought the Legend her birthday present. While packing away and getting ready to return I saw some nice aircraft heading to Bournemouth airport ready for their airshow. There were a couple of RAF Tutors and then, the most gorgeous Saab Draken and Viggen of the historical flight. I’m not sure I’d seen these flying before so it was great to see them.
It was lovely to be away. Such a relaxing time.