Tag: penguin

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528km – Part 2 More Fells

While the second day in the Lake District was spent wandering around Maryport on the Cumbrian coast I did learn a reasonable amount about the Romans in Britain. The weather while there was pretty poor with low visibility and often rain.

Maryport Harbour Wall
Maryport Harbour Wall

I visited the Roman museum there and I was going to visit the town’s museum about the sea and fishing but it’s one of those museums that only opens on even numbered days or something like that. There is, nearby, the only discovered remains of a Roman Milefortlet which was a fort placed every Roman mile along the coast to protect the country.

Roman Milefortlet 21
Roman Milefortlet 21

There was also the remains of a salt pan from medieval times.

Salt Pan
Salt Pan

All fish and meat was preserved using salt and much of that salt came from pans like this where the water evaporated leaving the sea salt. This is much like the process used in Maldon. Later that day I drove back to the campsite via Buttermere and the wonderful cake and ice creams that are served there.

Maryport Boat
Maryport Boat

So, my last full day in the Lake District was going to be walking more fells. I decided to try and complete the Langdale Pikes. These are quite close together so once up at height it should be easy to get around. That is if the weather was clear. I started my walk later than normal because the weather was due to clear after midday [it was more like 15:00 but you know, they can’t get it correct all the time]. It’s also worth noting that the temperature at altitude is lower than that in the valleys. So, around 600m up the temp was around 12C rather than the 20C in the valley, along with wind this means clothing must be carried.

I took a route up from the New Dungeon Ghyll hotel up along Mark Gate towards Loft Crag. My first stop was at Thorn Crag, which is written on the map a little way off from where it is and I used a second app on my iPhone for working out where I was with more accuracy. Pretty much all the while I was at the top I was in cloud. This only abated after I had spent a little time at High Raise.

So, here’s the list of fells and pikes reached and where they figure in the Wainwright list:

  • Thorn Cragg  [not on the list]
  • Loft Cragg [number 93 by height – 2270 ft]
  • Pike Of Stickle [number 83 by height – 2323 ft]
  • Harrison Stickle [number 71 by height – 2403 ft]
  • Pavey Ark [number 88 by height – 2288 ft]
  • Thunacar Knott [number 77 by height – 2351 ft]
  • High Raise [number 57 by height – 2500 ft]
  • Sergeant Man [number 69 by height – 2414 ft]

A couple of things stick in my mind; rock climbing up to the top of Pike Of Stickle which was fun but only because I missed the footpath by about three metres. The footpaths were not clear to me at the top an I did a lot of dead reckoning about taking bearings etc. The cloud didn’t help much either. Whenever there was a break in the weather I tried to look for footpaths and remember where they were going.

View From Pavey Ark
View From Pavey Ark

Eventually when I got back down the mountains it was much later than normal for me. I try to walk early in the day to give myself time in case things start going wrong but the weather forced me to walk at a particular time.

Finally I leave you with a picture of a Roman article. I mean, it’s a penis isn’t it?

Snake Temple
Snake Temple
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The Meg

This afternoon I traveled to the Cineworld cinema at Rochester to see The Meg. The tide was high and the Medway looked nice and pretty as I drove by various parts of it. I rated this film on IMDB and you should read about the scoring system in this communication. Here’s my tweet showing my score:

Well, what can I say about a film that is almost an exact remake of Jaws? It’s not exactly Jaws but it’s pretty close. Firstly, before I give spoilers about the film, I want to make a point about one of the adverts. It was for Facebook and it was trying to say that Facebook is sorry for the way they have allowed selling of data and fake news type things. They are trying to rebuild the trust in the company. Look, I don’t want to seem stupid, but Facebook makes its money from advertising and selling your data. If they full stopped your data being used then the company would have to find another income stream. Anyway, they say that they want Facebook to get back to doing what it was originally for. Keeping in touch with families and friends.

Except that’s not what Facebook was originally about. I mean it is for most users but Facebook started as an online way to rate the attractiveness of students at a university. Just saying.

So, the film? It was a pretty good fun film. There were, of course, many moments where I thought it was absolutely bollocks but those were easily ignored because the story was kinda OK.

So, the idea there is a thermal layer below which more species lurk is pretty fine, placing it so far down isn’t though. Ships and submersibles can’t get there. Also, there’s a massive issue with the nuclear submarine at the beginning being so far down, they can’t get there. Along with the idea that they were attacked above the thermal layer by a Megalodon which couldn’t get above the layer or the sub was below the layer but no-one at that point knew about the layer. That occurs in the first few minutes. But, let’s ignore that shall we?

When they track the Meg attacking boats they decide to go and investigate in their own boat. But they had a HELICOPTER on the research platform. Strange choice really.

Their ship can travel faster than a Meg through the water, this seems pretty poor. I love the fact that they had twenty minutes to get to a shallow area to trap the Meg and in those twenty minutes they managed to rig up many extra gadgets to try and kill the shark.

How come when they got to the shallow area it was really deep for the underwater shots?

How come you can see really far in water? Pretty sure you can’t.

Anyway, I still enjoyed it. Those you expect to die, do. Those you want to live, do. They all seem pretty happy at the end of the film even though there has been massive death and destruction. I guess we ignore all the pain.

Right at the end of the film they projected the French word for the end:

Fin

I laughed. I didn’t notice anyone else laughing. Oh well.

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528km – Part 1 The Lakes

Just over a week ago I drove to the Lake District to spend some time camping and walking. My main objective was to escape the 30C heat in the South East and replace it with more normal 20C temperatures in the mountains, well, in the valleys anyway. I camped at Burns Farm camp site and it was well sited, within the peaks of Latrigg, Blencathra and Clough Head.

Burns Farm Campsite
Burns Farm Campsite

In this picture you can see Latrigg and my tent highlighted with arrows.

That first night I drove up to the Under Skiddaw car park and walked the little way to the top of Latrigg. It’s nice to see the lakes from this angle and gaze down on Keswick. Then I drove into town and walked along the banks of Derwentwater. It is so easy to take gorgeous photos of this lake in the sunset.

Derwentwater
Derwentwater

So, on the Sunday I got up and made coffee in my new cafetiere I bought solely for camping trips. The coffee was nice. The previous day I had checked out parking spots for my Sunday walk and I had decided to park at Thirlmere village hall car park where the parking was £2 for the day and the footpath I was planning to use started at that spot. When I got there on the Sunday though there was a notice up saying that the car park was being used for a private event for two days. So I headed 500m back and parked at Legburthwaite Car Park which turned out to be free!

I headed up the mountains via Stybeck Lane and then up towards Brown Crag. Brown Crag isn’t an official Wainwright Fell and so while pretty it doesn’t count towards my total.

From there I walked up towards Whiteside [number 84 by height 2317 ft]. From there it was a reasonably simple ridge walk to the following listed mountains, I used my walking poles for the first time and I found them useful for the open trekking rather than steep climbs.

  • Raise [number 12 by height 2889 ft]
  • Stybarrow Dodd [number 21 by height 2770 ft]
  • Watson’s Dodd [number 40 by height 2584 ft]
  • Great Dodd [number 19 by height 2807 ft]
  • Calfhow Pike – not on the Wainwright list
  • Clough Head [number 74 by height 2381 ft]

I wasn’t sure I was going to complete the last two peaks because there was a very long walk back to the car if I completed those. As it was I chose to do them anyway and the walk back hurt but was nice and fun.

The view from Clough Head was quite stunning.

View From Clough Head
View From Clough Head

There were two choices for the route down Clough Head, one along a very clear footpath [when seen in satellite view] and one down a steep scree path which is much steeper but shortens my walk back by some distance. After chatting with friends I chose the red scree path and it was fine. It was quite steep and thin but it was easily passable. In the picture above you can see a little of the bottom part of the path.

Once I got back to the car I drove the short distance to The Lodge In The Vale and had a lovely Persian cake with a cup of tea. It was very much deserved.

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You’re Welcome

So, while travelling to Maldon, of salt fame, in Essex, yesterday I passed two things that amused me. First we should have a picture of Maldon.

Maldon, Essex
Maldon, Essex

More importantly we should have the things that amused me. Here we have Tom Tit Lane:

Now, Tom Tit is also Cockney Rhyming Slang for shit.

The next geographical amusing thing is Butts Green Garden Centre, again in Essex, although over to the east of the county, which is the weird part of the county.

So, as I named this communication, you’re welcome.

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Timing

I’m currently working through the tests and track challenges on Gran Turismo. This is largely due to a corrupted save file that lost my 400 or so cars. So, I decided to start again. It amused me that one of my sector times was:

The Devil's Coming
The Devil’s Coming

I was then amused even more when I was typing in “The Devil’s Coming” into the WordPress media file editor the following tweet appeared in my desktop side bar.

The guy’s a lying prick. Ha ha.

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Quite Warm

Well, with temperatures hitting 33C today it’s time to write some stuff about this. I mean it’s so hot I have adjusted my plans for the day to keep indoors as much as possible. The hot weather is lovely. There, I said it. I can’t remember feeling cold and I am wondering about all my cold weather clothes, but it is nice to finally have a proper summer.

It feels as though the last many years have had summers where the skies have been mostly grey. While it’s been warm, the cloudiness has detracted from the feel of a proper summer and the country has looked dull. This year, the weather has been blue skies and proper clouds. It’s been good. While I was alive in 1976 I don’t remember anything about that summer. I broke my arm and the plaster kept going soft. That is all I know, but I have zero direct memories. Having looked it up on Wikipedia that summer seemed vicious. Worse than the current one in terms of temperatures.

My main problem with this heat is social. People are going to die. There will be a bump in the total deaths because heat kills people. We know the grass is pretty brown at the moment but those human deaths will come. Whether there’ll be a big news thing about it I don’t know.

The biggest problem with this weather is it highlights the problem of anthropogenic global climate change. Humans are causing a massive change in the way the Earth’s weather systems work and it will quite likely cause wars. The current heatwave pretty much covers the entire northern hemisphere. Everywhere is having a massive issue with the heat. The 1976 heatwave was pretty localised. While weather does not equal climate we should be aware that these events seem to be coming far more prevalent than they were. most predictions tell us that the extreme weather events are becoming more common. So while those stupid fuckers in the right wing press keep saying this isn’t as bad as 1947 or 1976 they don’t seem to realise that isolated events are now more common.

In this country the winters are going to become more extreme along with the summers and it doesn’t really look like there’s a massive move to try and counter this. When we study the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere we can see that we are already past the point of no return. There will be utter damage to the climate. Humans have caused this. Humans have also known for about 50 years that we are causing this. There are heavy metal songs from the 1980s going on about climate change FFS.

Eventually these changes are going to cause a massive change to the way of life. Governments around the world should be preparing their populations for this. Everyone needs nudging in the correct direction. There needs to be less individual transport. Flying needs to be reduced. Consumption needs to be reduced. Power consumption needs to be reduced. It all needs to change. Everyone needs to understand that the things they take for granted and assume they are entitled to will be gone. The world needs to change.

I am not an optimist about any of this. I don’t think that any of the political systems currently in use around the world will do anything because of the way they work. I don’t think anyone is properly preparing for this. If I expect the worst then maybe I’ll feel very slightly less bad when the billion displaced people can’t find acceptance in any country once their land disappears below sea level. I mean we can’t even accept those refugees and asylum seekers currently displaced by the shit in the current world.

Hopefully I’ll be dead before the water wars start.

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ICIF Proceedings – A Selection

Selections from the transcripts of the International Court of Insurance Fraud, Filmstrasse, The Hague. Tidal conditions are irrelevant.

The Pearl
The Pearl

Judge R. Chester: State your name and occupation.

Will Sawyer: Will Sawyer, building safety investigator and licensor.

Judge R. Chester: Please tell the court a brief history of your experience.

Will Sawyer: I’m a military veteran and also SWAT team member, part of the Hostage Rescue Team. I got blown up. Lost my lower leg. My doctor fell in love with her patient but that’s not creepy at all because we are married now with twins.

Judge R Chester: Thank you. Can you please give us a run down of what happened from your point of view when the Pearl was consumed by fire.

Will Sawyer: I was employed by the owner of the building to inspect the fire and safety systems, my job was to approve the works and then the insurance company would agree to insure the Pearl.

Judge R Chester: Do you think that being paid by the building owner to approve his building is a conflict on interest?

Will Sawyer: Err, nope.

Judge R Chester: Shouldn’t this building have had insurance approved before breaking ground and then you would inspect as the construction evolved?

Will Sawyer: Err, maybe. But then we couldn’t have ripped off the story of the Nakatomi Tower.

 

Intermission.

 

Judge R Chester: Mr Sawyer, please tell us why this building was taken over by violent gangs.

Will Sawyer: The building project was blackmailed through threats of removing unionised workforce. The Pearl owner decided to pay off these criminals rather than inform the authorities and then managed to track the details of these payments through all the shitty money laundering countries. He then kept the names of these international criminals in a safe in the top of the Skyscraper. The crime bosses wanted those details removed. There are apparently copies of this file elsewhere but those aren’t explained.

Judge R Chester: How did the crime bosses intend to get the memory stick?

Will Sawyer: By setting the building on fire above the open floors it was intended to blackmail the building owner. He would hand over the names he had collected. Neglecting to mention the copies he had made.

Judge R Chester: So it didn’t really matter?

Will Sawyer: I guess not.

Judge R Chester: Let me get this right. The whole episode is moot as there were copies of the file elsewhere?

Will Sawyer: Yes.

 

Intermission.

 

Judge R Chester: Did the insurance company representative strike you as odd?

Will Sawyer: Yes, he did seem rather slimy and twisted. It was obvious he was a baddie. But, then he was in insurance and no-one likes them.

 

Intermission.

 

Judge R Chester: Was it necessary for the police to turn up at the park where you believed the ground crew were waiting with your blues and twos on?

Head Of Local Police: Yes, we always prefer to give warnings to criminals we are trying to sneak up on.

 

Intermission.

 

Judge R Chester: Did you not see the sports ground nearby within the area you were searching for the ground crew and also, how come you know so much about base jumping?

Head Of Local Police: Err, we needed an old industrial area to have a fire fight.

 

Intermission.

 

Judge R Chester: Mrs Sawyer, how come you can’t use an iPhone and what are you doing to make it stop working?

Sarah Sawyer: We’d prefer to watch Die Hard. It’s far more realistic.

Judge R Chester: Court adjourned.

 

 

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Probably Not

I went for a swim after work today, it was nice to get out of the heat for a while and get my arms moving. However, I was a little perturbed by one of the posters in the cafe area of the gym. To be honest there are many gym-type posters that are disturbing showing body shapes and types that are not achievable by most. This does seem to be changing over time as the advertising world recognises that people are who they are and don’t really buy into the perfect body. Unless you watch Love Island.

Don't Go Here
Sports Injuries

So, on first inspection this poster seems pretty good. It’s for a sports injury clinic and that should be a good thing. A special place for all to go to ensure that those niggles get sorted out. But, let’s look a little closer at some of the treatments offered:

  • Osteopathy – not a fucking thing and doesn’t do anything. Read my previous, controversial, communication.
  • Sports Massage – could be OK, I don’t really know what it entails.
  • Therapeutic Massage – again, I’m not sure what this is and I should probably discuss this in a future communication. I’ll look into it. I doubt it’s anything good.
  • Aromatherapy – massage with nice smells. Doesn’t do anything.
  • Physiotherapy – probably the only legitimate treatment on this advert. Go see a physiotherapist for those sorts of things. Don’t see woo.
  • Nutritional Therapy – most likely bollocks. If you want diet advice see a DIETICIAN, they are a proper profession. Anyone can call themselves a nutritionist.
  • Acupuncture – bollocks squared.

Look, the issue with this clinic is not that they offer some legitimate therapies the problem is that they also offer a load of bollocks and so you can’t assume they will be good at any part of their job. It’s the company you keep that defines who you are.

Don’t go here.

I’ve just had a look at the website for this clinic and it is a beauty. I will add it to my communication drafts with the hope that I one day complete writing about it.

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Incredibles 2

Yesterday I sauntered over to the cinema. It is a large quiet room with air conditioning. It is a good place to visit during this heat. If only I could bunk off work to get there also! There are two films I’d be interested in, Skyscraper [which will be terrible] and Ocean’s 8 [which would be fun]. I noticed that many of the boats were up on mud flats and that means that the tide was quite low. When I went for a run 9 hours later the tide was still quite low so I must’ve missed high tide.

I rated this film on IMDB after watching it and I’m not sure about my rating this time. You should read this communication for an explanation of the grading system.

So, what about this film? It was good, but not good enough for a score of 8. I’m not sure what I thought. It left me very slightly cold. Perhaps that is more to do with my current mood and feeling with our politicians and global leaders who are arseholes. This film was a good Pixar movie. It had your classic baddie, although I’m not really sure what she was trying to achieve. I think I need to go and read some reviews by proper journalists so I can focus my thoughts.

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Fixed Now

When I got back from cadet camp a while ago I noticed, somehow, that my internet connection bandwidth had dropped quite considerably. I think I had to restart the modem/router for some reason and when I logged into it I noticed that it was getting a download bandwidth of only 20Mb/s. Now, I say only, because I was getting 60Mb/s before I went away.

I restarted the hub a few times but this didn’t increase the capacity and I also left it for 24 hours thinking it might pick itself up. It didn’t. So I contacted BT. The low upload bandwidth was noticeable when attempting to upload pictures to the cloud and the download was affect some streaming services, although 20Mb/s was still good enough for most things.

I tried to use an online tracking fault thing the BT have on their website but navigating it was pretty terrible. Eventually I chose to use the online chat. They performed the same tests that the website interface had performed and then they asked me if I wanted to raise a fault.

Yes please.

When I managed to log in to the fault tracker it registered a voice-fault. I found this curious as I had a data fault but because they travel down the same line it was a voice-fault. BT also do mobile and TV and stuff so maybe that’s another reason for their curious naming of the fault. But, I didn’t know that so I phoned BT and said it was a broadband fault. They explained the previous bit to me and then said the engineer [who is really a technician] had found three problems at the exchange and fixed them. I should head home and restart the modem/router.

Which I did and nervously anticipated the result.

Hub Information

Well, that seems a lot better. I checked it using some external speed testers, although it’s bandwidth and not speed.

Test 1

I’m happy now. I have the broadband service that I pay for. It’s all fixed and the whole process was pretty simple. Well done BT.

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