Tag: penguin

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Storm

The 18th July was a good day. It was the end of my twentieth year of my teaching career. It was also the hottest day of the year. My car said 33C at one point.

That night there was also the most almighty storm. I was sitting watching television when it went darker than normal and so I went into the garden. I saw a sight I can tell you. The sun was setting in the west and it was bright in that direction but to the east and south it was dark and foreboding. There was no noise but there was a lot of lightning over towards Maidstone.

Before The Storm
Before The Storm

 

Lightning
Lightning

After a while I could hear what I thought, at first, was rain but it was a slight breeze going through the nearby trees. Then all of a sudden the wind really picked up. It became a constant driving wind and then the rain came, large spots at first and then torrential. The lightning and thunder was just spectacular.

An Evil Arrives
An Evil Arrives

These are two videos I took to show the electric storm over the Weald of Kent.


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Spectacle

In Maidstone, or rather the Penenden Heath area of Maidstone, there stands a small row of shops. An off licence, a newsagents/corner shop/pharmacy and a chip shop. The chip shop is convenient for me, it’s on the way home from Maidstone and serves pretty good food. This shop is named Cornfords.

I like this shop for three reasons:

  • The food
  • The till
  • The art

This is a great little chip shop. The food is good and hearty (which I think now means fatty and bad for you).

The cash register is a lovely old-fashioned mechanical till. The next time I am there I will try and take a good quality photograph of it, but there is a similar one below:

Finally, and the reason for writing this communication, I love the art in the shop.

Cornfords Chip Shop

This is a piece of mirrored glass work about two metres wide. Maybe next time I’ll try and capture the piece better but I’m slightly conscious that the shop people might think I’m crazy. I have wanted to take a photo of this art for quite a few years and last night I finally did as the shop was pretty much empty when I went there. This picture doesn’t really capture how bright and colourful the picture is. If anyone sees anything else like it then perhaps you can let me know.

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Something Special

It’s nice to see the (nearly full) moon in the early morning. It’s no wonder that we are practically programmed to be in awe and wonder at the world. It’s a bit of a shame we are destroying that world.

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CCF Camp BZN

I spent a week at RAF Brize Norton recently with the Combined Cadet Force RAF Section from work. I had a great time but more importantly all of the cadets we took had a good time. We were very busy and it was extremely tiring but I got so much from it.

Here’s a list of things that we did (mostly because I can’t be bothered to compose prose for this):

  • 5.56 shooting at the outdoor range. After over twenty years of not shooting a weapon I was very happy with my twenty shot grouping.
  • Grob Tutor air experience flying with 6 AEF at RAF Benson.
  • RAF Section Visits to:
    • Air Traffic Control
    • Fire
    • Armoury
    • JADTEU
    • 47 Air Despatch
    • Survival Equipment
    • SERE
    • Dog Handling
    • DMTS
    • Support Eng Flight
    • XXIV Squadron
    • Parachute Training School
  • DCCT – I managed to pass my RAF shooting test with a score of 65/75
  • Low Ropes
  • High Ropes
  • Laser Target Practice
  • Ten Pin Bowling

The Officers’ Mess was a delight and a wonderful building that overlooked the runway about half way along. My only problem was that the Friday of camp was the Officers’ Summer Ball and while my room overlooked the runway it also was directly above the bar and next to the funfair that was set up for the ball. That night I slept in the cadets billet as a supervisor rather than not sleep in my room in the mess.

Here’s a selection of photographs I took during the week. I can’t share some of the really cool stuff we saw because it’s covered by the OS Act.

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Transformers: Age Of Extinction

I went to see this at the cinema last night. It was the first time I had seen a film in about two months due to commitments elsewhere. Over at IMDB I rated this film a 4/10. Go to this page to see what that means.

Overall, I just got fed up with this film. I was quite happy with the first hour of the film. It was a Michael Bay film and so I wasn’t expecting much. I’m not a massive Transformers fan and I wasn’t excited about this film but it was something to see. This film was 165 minutes long and after the first 60 I felt every minute of the remaining CGI fest. This film could have been 2 hours long and much better for it. It suffered from what Phil Plait calls “too-much-stuffism“.

The characters were two dimensional. The story line was fantastical. The acting was poor. Kelsey Grammer was pretty good but Stanley Tucci was absolutely over the top and brilliant he was the only high point of the film apart from a gratuitous top-of-the-legs-shot of Nicola Peltz. This isn’t really a film I’d show my children eventually as once you’ve seen one battle between Transformers you have pretty much seen them all, there wasn’t anything that stood out as new or different.

While I was writing this I had a lovely idea of a sentence to end this communication.

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Daily Fail

I shouldn’t really pick on the Daily Mail because it is like shooting fish in a barrel. This was the MAIN headline earlier today:

Daily Mail Headline

Firstly, my response to this is “you are stupid and you should say NO to her”.

A bigger issue with this, apart from the celebration of the outliers of society rather than concentrating on reinforcing the good of society, is that this was the FIRST story on the Daily Fail website today. I’ll say that again: The FIRST.

Today there are massive public sector strikes, the government are bringing in a snooping law and there are wars still killing people around the world. Even the soccer world cup is on at the moment and this was what the Daily Fail chose to inform the world about. Tossers.

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False Debate

Well, I have had this communication as a draft title since 8 April 2014. I thought I should write some more on sceptical thinking matters since I wrote the piece on osteopathy. I have returned to this matter today because for the last few days the virtual world has been lit up by the news that the BBC are no longer going to be allowed to have quacks and frauds on TV programmes to give the “two sides to every story”.

In a nutshell you take a generally accepted view on reality and interview an expert in that subject and then because you can’t appear to be biased you give a nutter the chance to speak about what they think. So you might have someone on the news or science programme discussing evolution and to “balance” the argument (there is no argument, evolution is pretty much done and dusted) you get some religious nut who really thinks the Earth is 6000 years old and therefore evolution can’t exist.

When a view of reality is considered fact (as far as we can accept it) you then have to understand that it takes a huge amount of evidence to over-throw those views and not just someone from a lobbying group going on about how climate change doesn’t exist.

Here’s the link to the Telegraph’s new story.

Just in case you were wondering, here’s some things that are scientifically accepted:

  • Gravity
  • Evolution by natural selection
  • Immunisations
  • Anthropogenic Climate Change

Here are some things that are considered bullshit:

  • Young Earth creationism
  • Homoeopathy
  • Chiropractic
  • Osteopathy
  • Reflexology
  • Zero loss power machines
  • Astrology
  • Crystal energy

Here are some things you are welcome to argue the toss about but there is never going to be proof of the positive:

  • Existence of god and or gods
  • Telepathic powers
  • Mediumship
  • The “soul”
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Rainbow

Here’s a picture of a rainbow over Barrack Block 15. Lovely times.

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Station Visits

This communication is another in the long running series about my cadet experiences in the Air Training Corps. I have a sneaky feeling that I didn’t always fill my 3822 in all the time as I am sure there were more visits than this, but this is the only record I have. To see other communications on this topic just search for 3822 in the box on the right.

30 Jul 1986 RAF Neatishead – RADAR
22 Nov 1986 RAF Uxbridge – Range
26 Aug 1987 RAF Little Rissington
18 Feb 1988 USAFB Mildenhall – RADAR and refuelling
13 Apr 1988 Trodos Radar Station – RADAR
1 May 1988 RAF Alconbury – Propulsion
27 Jul 1988 RAF Waddington – Swimming pool
27 Jul 1988 RAF Cranwell – Leadership
16 Aug 1989 USAFB Lakenheath – Everything
17 Aug 1989 RAF Coltishall – AEF
18 Aug 1989 RAF West Raynham – Supply, RTU, Fire
6 Aug 1991 RAF Swinderby – Airfield
7 Aug 1991 RAF Newton – AEF
9 Aug 1991 RAF Donna Nook – Bombing Range

As a teaser the next set of communications considers my shooting career in the cadets and will, I assure you, be scintillating.

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Special Courses

Continuing the interestingness of my Air Cadet record of service I now give you the section on Special Courses.

Junior NCO Course – Carver Barracks
30/31 March 1989 L98A1 Training – Carver Barracks
21 May 1989 SNCO Drill Instructor – Carver Barracks
22 – 27 October 1989 Adventure Training – Blackshaw Moor
21 – 26 October 1990 Adventure Training – Anzio Camp

There will be more to follow. This was a short section of the 3822.

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