Tag: penguin

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CCF Camp STM

I recently returned from spending a week at RAF St Mawgan [EGHQ] in the wonderful countryside of Cornwall. We were booked onto camp with three other schools, one of which was from Northern Ireland. It was a very good week and extremely enjoyable. I do, however, think that I wasn’t quite my normal self as I was still tired from the last year. I didn’t really stop at Easter because of the Cyprus camp and so hadn’t really had any time to rest.

Vigila
RAF St Mawgan – Vigila

During the week the following experiences were offered:

  • Ironing of clothes because they don’t travel well
  • FAMEX
  • Zip Wire at Eden
  • AEF with No 3. AEF from Colerne
  • Drill
  • Eden Project proper this time
  • Waterpark (not really, a bad description really, but most pale when you’ve been to the one in Ayia Napa)
  • CPR training
  • Camp photo
  • Survival Equipment Section Visit
  • Coasteering
  • Command Tasks
  • Laser Tag and field craft lessons
  • 25m range with the L98A2
  • Much cleaning of the block

Of all this the coasteering was my favourite and I shall add photos when I get hold of them. I was in the water and so didn’t have any electronic recording equipment on me. Jumping from rocks into the sea was great. Traversing the cliff face and then swimming through a water ridden cave was absolutely brilliant, the highlight of my week.

There was also an unfortunate incident where a teddy bear was kidnapped by the TLA and taken hostage. This was hilarious, but you probably had to be there.

I also met my first ever known libertarian, who was also quite religious. I suspect that most libertarians are religious because everything gets sorted out in the end. He and I had some lovely conversations and managed to stay within a framework of respect.

It’s funny how I never meet anyone with the same taste in music as I have. This camp proved interesting because someone else there had heard of the bands Front242, the Revolting Cocks and also VNV Nation and Combichrist.

So, here are some photos and I may add some more when I get hold of them.

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Not Exactly *IN* Eden

As part of a cadet activity mentioned in the next communication I had the opportunity to fly over the Eden Project on a zip wire. Of course in this age of recording I kept a video. I found the experience entirely not-scary but pleasant and enjoyable. I was also quite tired at the start of the week and so my exuberance was slightly muted.

I now need to head to the “really long one” in Wales.

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429 km

It seems it is quite traditional for me to drive all over this country during the summer while also traversing others. Part one of this manic adventure was out in the south west and gorgeous Cornwall. I had a lovely time. Here are some of my best photographs, just appreciate the lengths I go to show you lovely places and things.

426 km

This quaint fishing village, now mostly tourism, has a lovely old bridge and speedboat rides.

Looe Bridge
Looe Bridge

Also, I don’t think I quite captured just how beautiful this next scene looked in real life, but I only took a quick shot with the phone rather than a proper camera.

Sunglow in Looe
Sunglow in Looe

417 km

Cotehele House is lovely. But, whenever I visit these old houses it reminds me of the blatant and appalling class difference in this country and how this is reinforced by these old “stately” homes. These rich wankers are here “to look after us” and wasn’t life simpler when there was a Lord Of The Manor. Well, fuck you British history, I hate this sub-conscious reinforcement of “place in society”. I dare you to watch Disney stories and spot how they reinforce the order of birth-right.

The house was pretty though. This picture is just the quayside so not even the proper part of the estate!

Cotehele Quay
Cotehele Quay

416 km

Kit Hill is a local Marilyn. There was a road all the way to the top, although I think I would have preferred to park at the bottom and walk up by myself.

Kit Hill
Kit Hill

449 km

Lantic Bay was a lovely secluded bay on the south coast where the blustery wind couldn’t quite reach. The sand was shingle and coarse so it hurt to walk on it, but the views were bloody lovely. The air was warm and the sea was cold. There was a short walk from the car park to the beach down the rugged cliff side and it amused me how much people were struggling on the way back up. I found it too easy and it made me want to go running more!

Lantic Bay
Lantic Bay

496 km

At Godrevy Bay I found muscles. Not undiscovered ones in my body but loads on the rocks.

Mussels
Mussels

397 km

Went on a rainy trip around HM Naval Base to see the warships from the river and a short while later we saw the Dutch Frigate leaving for the open sea. The following ships were alongside: two Trafalgar class submarines, HMS Sutherland, HMS Ocean, HMS Bulwark, HMS Albion and some RFA ships.

Dutch Frigate
Dutch Frigate

396 km

At the National Marine Aquarium I saw sharks and turtles and jelly fish and loads of pretty stuff.

Very Pretty
Very Pretty

This is a carnivore:

Green Turtle
Green Turtle

192 km

Wandered around this stone circle in the rain:

Stone Circle
Stone Circle

My first impression was that the queue seemed quite long and I tried to book tickets online while standing in the queue but the next available session was in three hour’s time. It seemed a slow moving queue to me. Then we went to the restaurant. There were four queues but the food selection was down one side of them and the system wasn’t CLEAR. It was not a pleasant experience.

As it rained we used the bus to drive us the 2km to the stones from the visitors centre. This was the only time my ticket was checked. When we got to the stones we wandered around but I am largely uninspired by them. They seem more impressive from the road as you drive by.

If you want to visit. Pay to park and then walk to the stones. If there’s no one checking tickets just walk through. If there is someone checking tickets you can still get a good view from the free-viewing-area. Don’t pay the money.

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God’s Covenant

Because it’s not like me to be controversial but apparently there are people who believe that the rainbow is a direct sign from god reinforcing his promise not to kill everyone [again].

Anyway, here’s a rainbow from this evening.

Rainbow
Rainbow
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War For The Planet Of The Apes

I went to the cinema to see a Planet of the Apes film. It is usual for me to travel to Rochester and I did the same thing for this film. I rated it on the IMDB website and you can read a discussion of how I grade films in this communication.

I wasn’t really sure whether to make this a 4 or a 6. I only went for a six because I thought it better than everything I recorded as a four, but I wasn’t that impressed. I wrote about the previous film here.

This film looked bloody gorgeous. It was beautiful. It was computerised. It was 3D which does fuck all for me. The apes looked great.

Now for the story. It was pretty shit. Maybe I missed loads of deep ape-becomes-man subtext with all the staring shots into Caesar’s eyes and face but I’m not sure. If the director was making large philosophical statements then I missed them. I’m really one for deep and thoughtful metaphors.

This was a slow war. The middle 7/8 of this film was slow and boring. Stuff happened but it didn’t really matter. There’s a virus somewhere. There are humans killing each other and apes because if there’s one thing we do really well it’s killing each other. There’s a prison break out and some stupid comedy. Mostly though, this film didn’t really matter. There wasn’t a meaning in there.

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It Was Nothing

Literally.

About a week ago I had been playing Crash Bandicoot quite a bit on the PS4 [ I have to say it’s incredibly frustrating] and one evening when I went to play it the PS4 said the disk wasn’t in. Now, I hadn’t taken it out so I assumed that it must be stuck in the drive somehow without the PS4 recognising it was in there.

I turned the PS4 on and off and tried a few things before looking online and finding plenty of pages that could offer tips on when the disk keeps ejecting but not many for when you can’t eject a disk. Eventually I found a page, and many crappy YouTube videos, of how to prise out a stuck disk. After taking off the shiny cover I had to turn a screw and the disk would slide out.

Except it didn’t.

So, the next step seemed to be to removed the optical drive and see if I could get the disk out that way. For this I needed time and screw drivers. So I spent a while following the dismantle instructions and then realised I need Torx T9 screw driver, which I didn’t have. So, I made the short trip to Halfords and picked up a set.

Once I had returned home I started taking away the screws for the power supply but even with the correct screw driver these didn’t really want to come undone. I was getting frustrated at the screws in the PS4.

At this point my son asked for a torch to see under the chest for some toys. I told him where the torch was and he reported back that he could see a PS4 disk under the chest. Well! That was a surprise. So I went and looked. Obviously it was the Crash Bandicoot disk and I had spend a week trying to get the PS4 to eject a disk it had already puked and somehow left under the chest.

Reasonably cheered by this I went to put the PS4 together again and then test putting in a disk. Check the game ran and then ejected the disk well.

The system is working fine. There wasn’t any need to stress!

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These Will Probably Get Removed

After such a busy week spending time visiting cool stuff around East Anglia, I had to spend a few more hours at work because I was playing in the band. Disaster Area has been going a while and we normally open the Rock Evenings. Last Friday was no exception although normally we have been practising the songs for a few months rather than the two run throughs we managed an hour before the show.

We opened with Crazy Train.

And continued with Learn To Fly. There will probably be official videos somewhere on Faceshit.

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Baby Driver

Yesterday, I took the vehicle to Medway Valley Leisure Park to watch Baby Driver. The tide was low. I don’t know how much leisure you need to be a leisure park but there is:

  • Cinema
  • McDonalds
  • Bowling
  • Bingo
  • Hotel
  • Gym
  • More restaurants

That’s probably enough to make it a “park”. I rated this film on IMDB and this communication deals with my system. There are likely spoilers ahead.

My overall thought was that this film suffered from a “bit too much stuff” in it towards the end, all the action became a little too much and I just wanted it to go away.

The opening twenty minutes of this movie was pretty darn good. The car chase was a car chase and nothing particularly seemed above and beyond anything else we’ve seen. I’m not sure there are always cop cars just around the corner, ready to chase and a Subaru like that would have left them standing, easily. But, movie, you can have that one for free, because this was entertaining.

I liked the idea of the music, the soundtrack to this film was brilliant but after this opening part of the film the dancing and lovely movement seemed to die. The main point for this film stopped happening. The choreographed walking and camera work stopped and this became just another heist movie. The heists weren’t even that clever.

The top man of this film wouldn’t have employed the nutter chap, I can’t remember his name. This guy was too much of a loose cannon and so wouldn’t have made the team. The plans were quite meticulous and he would’ve fucked things up straight away.

The last job these guys pull goes tits-up. It’s the aftermath of this that became too much for me and I quite like action movies. Lots of shooting and people being bad shots. Lots of driving that was quite implausible. Lots of “stuff”. And the choreography had disappeared or I failed to notice it.

I normally find that my ratings tend to mirror the meta-score on IMDB, but not this time. This was rated around 8/10 instead of my 6. I’ll probably try and read some reviews to see just what it was the critics liked about this movie. Oh, it also had a shit title.

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Width Looks Good

I wrote a while ago about moving over the BT Broadband and leaving Sky TV. I still don’t miss Sky TV. I stream most TV now and can do so with multiple devices at the same time.

I received a few letters from BT offering me a new deal for when my contract is finished. I tried to use the web address to look at these offers but I have to say that the BT web design was quite shit and I got to a point where I didn’t understand what the web page wanted me to do.

So, I phoned them and spoke to someone. This person could see my offer, explain it to me and also take my instruction to accept the offer. Essentially I could let my broadband [and phone] price increase at the end of my contract, or I could UPGRADE to the next level of broadband for the same price that I pay now.

Doesn’t seem much to that decision does there? I had to sign up for two years but as they are the only company supplying high bandwidth to my village it’s not like I’m likely to change.

Here’re my latest stats:

Quite Happy
Quite Happy

I think that’s pretty good for copper to the house, although it is fibre to cabinet.

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