Wellesbourne Airfield in Warwickshire. Home to a flying school, a Saturday market and an AVRO VULCAN: XM655.
This Vulcan is the most complete of all the Vulcans remaining. Although XH558 was the last airworthy Vulcan they had to remove stuff from it to get the airworthiness certificate. Hence, XM655 is more complete and still does high speed taxi runs.
I wrote about XH558 here when I saw her perform for the last time over Coventry airport.
I think the most amusing thing about XM655 is that when it was bought from the RAF it landed at Wellesbourne, but the runway isn’t long enough for it to take off again. That does seem a touch short sighted.
If you get the chance on a Saturday to visit you most definitely should. For a donation the members of the preservation society will give you a tour of the cockpit and tell you wonderful stories about the Vulcan and her history. Did you know that all the money went into the airframe and so the navigation equipment was pretty much the same as the Lancaster? For long flights the crew had a sextant.
Vulcan cockpit XM655
With a crew of five, but only two ejector seats there were “design” issues I guess. The three crew facing backwards had to jump out through the entrance door in the floor. That was probably an issue when flying low!
So, the Vulcan is a beautiful plane. It’s very loud and imposing. I am curious as to how good it was compared to other planes of its generation. We Brits love to imagine that our stuff is the best. I just wonder how much that is true.
Vulcan Rear
This beast is graceful and wonderful. I am glad she never was used for her intended mission.
On the 2nd January 2016 I went to a Not New Year’s Eve party at Electrowerkz venue in Angel. Sally and I had been before to this event and really enjoyed it, details here.
We left home around 21:45 after spending a while getting ready in our outfits. There exist pictures from our previous outing but there are none of this visit. I had black nail varnish again and silver stripes over my bald head. We arrived near Electrowerkz about an hour later after driving in to Angel and parking on someone’s drive using the website Just Park. It’s not even a five minute walk to the venue. It was brilliant to be there again, it’s a really nice atmosphere, plenty of costumes, plenty of not-costumes and much good natured chatter and dancing.
There was quite a lot on and I was looking forward to seeing Shiv-r. I had downloaded two albums by them about a month before and I liked it. I also wanted to see the suspension performance piece in the courtyard.
Here’s what went on that night.
I was mostly interested in the Theatre of Sin shows. They were pretty good. The two bands were good. Pretty Addicted were great and had a punky sound with a female vocalist. Shiv-r were a slight let down live, the frontman wasn’t as good as the singer from Pretty Addicted even though the music was more my style. I missed Mynxie Monroe as Sally and I were probably exploring the main areas of Electrowerkz. There are quite a few rooms and each has a bar attached.
The courtyard has a bar shaped like a tube train and the exit to the smoking area along with a staircase up the back of the building which gets to the cloakroom right at the top. There’s a room downstairs where Purefuckingindustrial was hosted, it was good music, very much my new stuff, see this communication.
If you move up the stairs, past the area where they were showing Game Of Thrones episodes on a large screen, you see phrases painted on the wall. These are from the film Aliens and I think it’s a great touch to give the place some atmosphere.
Turn right from the landing and you enter an Alien themed bar and through that you get to the Hellfire room. Good stuff in here a DJ playing a good mix of music.
Keep going through the Hellfire room and head up a small flight of stairs to end up in the “aircraft” bar. I think this is modelled on an airplane but it’s hard to tell really. There are aircraft windows up on the wall and (not very) engine looking lights suspended from the ceiling. But, it’s a bar and we managed to be given an extra beer in here by mistake. Once through some more doors you end up in what I would call the main venue. It’s a small hall with a stage at one end. This is the top floor or the Theatre of Sin for the purposes of ClubAC.
Although Shiv-r hadn’t finished their set Sally and I went to the courtyard to see the dying mermaid from Cynth Icorn. There are videos available on the interwebs if you search, the one I found was on Vimeo. It was very curious to watch. A girl was suspended from the ceiling using two hooks through the skin by her shoulder blades. I think I understand now that skin is pretty tough stuff. I’m guessing it hurt quite a bit and towards the end of the performance you could see it was very tiring working against the pain. I was going to put a picture in here but you are intelligent enough to know whether you want to see it or not and can use the internet yourself.
Once it got to about 0400 we decided to head home. We both got goodie bags on the way out although mine was just an envelope and Sally’s was an envelope in a bag so I guess hers was a proper goodie bag. We got home around 0500 and went to sleep. It was a great night. Good people, brilliant outfits, reasonably cheap drink and excellent shows. Can’t wait to go again.
Oh, the title of this communication. The first visit to ClubAC was easy to title as Sally muttered fucking stairs a lot over the evening. This time there weren’t any major complaints, she had mentioned her trousers slipping down a couple of times, hence the title of this communication.
On the 22 November I got up and looked forward to a train journey from Rugby to Birmingham International.
Now, I live in Kent and the International train stations down this way go to the continent by TRAIN. You can get on a train at Ebbsfleet or Ashford and get off in Paris, Brussels or Disneyland [wtf would anyone want to go there?]. Birmingham International, by contrast, requires you to get off the train and go through the airport to board a plane. Same end result I guess but not as cool as a train going under the English Channel.
I like the trains from Rugby to Birmingham. They don’t cost a great deal, there’s a reasonable car park close to Rugby station, are always busy and comfortable. There were plenty of people dressed up at the station heading to Comicon in their cosplay outfits.
Sally and I had tickets to go to the MCM Birmingham Comicon at the NEC, we were meeting her brother there. I had bought an express ticket which apparently meant I could enter the hall an hour before Sally, whose brother bought their tickets. I think it’s worth pointing out that a glance through the official online programme produced absolutely no times that events were happening. This was annoying as it would have been nice to plan the day out while at home rather once in the venue and having to try and find a timetable.
Because I got in to the arena before Sally and her brother I went for a walk to figure out the lie of the land. I tried to find times of events, checked the autographing queues and looked at some of the shops there.
When it got close to the time for Sally to enter the event I wandered back and found her. I had expected a decorated hall with plenty of events. Comicon seemed to be a mostly trading event with many many shops selling all types of comic and anime stuff. There was an arena in a dome with some events but the cosplay was quite late in the afternoon and we decided to head home before then. We found a small stage area where the celebs were going to be paraded and interviewed. We hung around there to see Liv Tyler but didn’t listen to the interview. In one corner of the hall there was a Storm Trooper display:
They looked great. Although I think some of them looked a little short to be storm troopers.
We wandered around the autograph area where I saw various people from good sci fi shows over the years. I didn’t get their autographs as I don’t think that sort of thing bothers me. They are just people. Adding their signature to something may make it more valuable but doesn’t really change the product. I was quite impressed to see Virginia Hey as I remember her in Farscape. Steve Austin, of Six Million Dollar Man fame, was there too and I could see him. Liv Tyler also signed some stuff if you wanted.
I was already aware that these guys charge for signatures and it didn’t bother me particularly that they did but the prices really did vary! The bog standard celebrities were GBP5 for a signature. However, it would appear that the more famous you are the more you can charge:
Lee Majors £25. Liv Tyler £45. Prices for autographs, not prices for a quick grope!!! #comiconbirmingham
That’s a lot of money just to be close to someone and see them sign something of yours!
On the way out of comicon Sally and I decided to find some geocaches as there were two within easy reach. It didn’t take long but as this was just after the Paris attacks it seemed weird to be nosing around near a train station and massive exhibition centre. We found two, as you can see below:
I did buy a few comics direct from the writers who were based in writers corner. I have yet to read these but will report back once I have.
Over a weekend in the summer Sally and I travelled to the North Sea coast and Lincolnshire. We drove from Rugby, towards Leicester and then followed the A46 to Lincoln and the coast. We had booked to spend a night on a campsite near Mablethorpe. The campsite was called Grange Leisure Park and was predominantly a caravan park but with good camping facilities. We didn’t use my tent [see this communication for a picture of that], we used Sally’s. It’s a pretty good summer tent although not quite as nuclear proof as my gorgeous Vango!
We arrived, set up base camp and then headed to Mablethorpe to experience the Great British seaside. Oh, wow, it didn’t disappoint. It was a classic seaside town. There was plenty of shops selling tat. Plenty of punters on holiday and a few crazy golf courses. One of the purposes of this trip was to start a crazy golf championship between Sally and me. Our aim was to play as many of these courses as possible along the coast in the two days we had planned to be there.
Within Mablethorpe we found the following courses: Pirate Hill, a win to Sally. Pirate not on the hill, a win to Ian. Dinosaur Park, a win to Sally.
Dinosaur Valley
Pirate Hill
So after that we spent some money in an arcade. It was fascinating. It was a huge place where you can win tickets for playing the machines. We won about 50 tickets quite quickly but then realised you need well over 1000 tickets to claim a prize. We just gave our tickets to someone at a ticket counting machine. We also played some of the “tipping point” games because they are quite fun, whereas the TV show is utter shite. So, at this point Sally was winning the golf competition and we looked around for somewhere to eat dinner. I found the Kings Head a few miles away and we travelled there for food. It was quite a “local” pub but was also friendly and welcoming. The food was delicious and very impressive, it was nice to be treated well and have the chef actually speak to us about what to eat.
The Lincolnshire coast is a rather amazing place if you like caravans, static or otherwise. We spent some time looking at the caravans for sale at the camp site and I was also amazed at the number of re-sale places along our journeys.
2-1 down now. @trusmoov — Ian Parish (@iparish) August 20, 2015
On the second day we packed up camp and headed along the coast road after having breakfast and another round of golf at Queen’s Park in Mablethorpe. Sally won this round. I was 3-1 down in the series. Breakfast was good though!
We drove towards Anderby Creek, a place that Sally had visited as a child. I’d not been there as far as I know. The only Lincolnshire coast place I’d been to was RAF Donna Nook in the 1980s. I think I wrote about it here. Anderby Creek was a small place with chalets and caravans. We spent time on the beach flying the kites and then had morning tea in the restaurant near the Cloud Bar. By the way, a cloud bar isn’t a bar. It’s a platform from where you can look at the clouds [because you can’t do that from ground level!].
Here’s us flying kites. I managed to mess up my control cables and so had to order more from Amazon. It turns out there’s a kite specialist shop in Hinkley which is close-ish to Rugby.
After Anderby we headed to Chapel St Leonards. The beach here was quite nice and there was another arcade we visited. But this trip was about the crazy golf and so we managed to find a course just outside Chapel on the road south to Skegness. The course was based on a theme of elephants and I managed to win this one. It was now 4-2 to Sally.
It was now time to head to Ingoldmells. This is a part of Skegness to the north of the town. There was a theme park where entry was free and you just have to pay for the rides. There were some awesome ice cream shops and the whole place was manically busy. There were also plenty of caravans. Check out the aerial view of the town and spot just how many caravans are packed into the area.
We had a wander around and ate some food at a fish and chip shop. I have to say I found the whole experience rather surreal. It was a very odd place. We found two crazy golf places. We played an indoor course which was reasonable fun. I won that. Then we found a Pirate course that was suspended above the beach. I also won that. The scores on the doors were 4-5 to me. I felt quite pleased at this although Sally wasn’t happy about it.
The journey home took a while. We skirted Skegness and headed home via Boston and Grantham as there were awful roadworks on the way to the coast near Newark. We also went through Melton Mowbray. I did my best to avoid heading to Coningsby, Cranwell, Waddington and the air museum near Newark. One day I will do a tour of the RAF bases of Lincolnshire.
Before I start on the film I would just like to mention some ‘ealth and safety gone mad. There was a popcorn making dude working two popcorn machines in an alcove behind the concessions stand. I kid you not he was wearing one of these:
Now, I’m not sure what the issue is, as the popping cookers are closed while the popping process is in play but this made me giggle, quite a bit!
So, the film. You can read about it and the synopsis and where it all takes place. My opinion of Apple has always been one of suspicion and, although I am an iPhone whore, I am perfectly aware that Apple always steal other ideas and make them that little bit better. I don’t think they really do for originality. They do great design.
As a film this was very well made. I liked the shooting and the actors. I liked knowing a bit more about the history and seeing the characters over time. I did NOT like Steve Jobs. I had already read about him being an arse and this film [I know it’s fiction] largely represented him as an arse. Do I think he was a clever man? Yes. Do I like Apple products? Yes. Do I have to like him or think he was great? No.
This film is well worth seeing. I enjoyed it. Even though Jobs was an arse.
I went with Sally to a 4D cinema to see this film on 25th Aug 2015. In reality I went to see a 4D film and it just happened to be this one. There were other films on but they weren’t very action based or at the right time. Jurassic World it was.
The film itself was poor. I rated it a 4 on IMDB, see this communication about my ratings.
The 4D effects though were quite interesting. The row of seats upon which I sat all moved together, so when the helicopter flew our seats tilted left, right, forwards and backwards. If there was a gust of wind in the film there were (noisy) fans that blew air into us. When the camera got water over it we were sprayed with a fine mist from the chair in front. There were “knockers” in the rear of the seat so I felt like I was punched in the back and there were things that made my trousers move near my calves.
Overall I am glad that I experienced this but I don’t think I would pay to do it again. I don’t even like 3D films, the idea of spending extra money to get kicked in the back doesn’t excite me. If the film maker can’t make a film interesting enough in 2D then it will still be shit in 3 or 4D.
On the 13 Sept 2015 I saw the Avro Vulcan fly for my last time. I was geocaching with Sally near Coventry airport when I checked twitter and saw that the Vulcan XH558 had taken off from Doncaster heading to Coventry for a display. This wasn’t on the official list of shows that she was doing but I was excited and ran the mile or so to the end of the runway.
Vulcan confirmed serviceable, leaving Doncaster circuit enroute to Coventry.
Before XH558 was due to arrive there was a short display by a Gloster Meteor and a DeHavilland Vampire.
Gloster Meteor
Once these two planes had landed I could see the Vulcan in the distance. I had seen her recently while I was at RAF Cosford and the noise was stunning. It had been a long time since I had seen a Vulcan fly. I used to watch them at airshows in the 80s. The noise then was always incredible and I distinctly remember an occasion at a Duxford Airshow when she made my stomach shake. The Vulcan flew past a few times and did some lovely throttle-up manoeuvres. All in all it was great to see her fly for my last time. I’m glad I ran the short distance to the runway.
XH558Vulcan
It’s a sad thing that she won’t fly again, but a good thing that she did.
XH558 has landed safely. Thank you for following. — XH558 (@XH558) September 13, 2015
I’ve been doing something at weekends to keep me busy and outdoors seeing parts of the countryside!I first heard about geocaching at work where I had helped a colleague solve some puzzles. I hadn’t really thought much about it until recently when I was persuaded to have a go with Sally.
We started geocaching around Rugby, just to see what it was like and what we could expect. We have since done quite a bit and seen some lovely places around the country, mostly with the excuse of going there to find some caches.
Current places we have been to just for the cache:
Dunchurch
Ryton Waters
Baginton
Buttermere
Herne Bay
Mote Park
The Fosse Way
Claybrooke Magna and Claybrooke Parva
Coombe Abbey
As you won’t know as I think my status picture will update, I am currently on 99 finds. I’d like the next one to be special but I doubt it is going to be that, probably a boring cache.
Anyway, it’s good fun and a good reason to get out and about.
So, I have been spending time in Rugby to see Sally. It’s actually a really nice town and I like it a lot. The town has three markets a week, plenty of independent shops in the town centre and plenty of drinking establishments. It is well connected and easy to get to. There are a number of out of town shopping places and I hope these don’t detract from the town centre income. Many of the villages around Rugby are nice, pretty and look expensive.
There also happens to be a school where a game started. It is called The Rugby School and the game is Rugby Football. Now, as you might imagine, the town itself is very proud of this heritage. The game is named after the town. The game was invented in the town. The town doesn’t have a stadium for the purposes of playing the said sport and so it makes the most of its history.
I have two issues with Rugby and its branding along with rugby football:
History:
The evidence shows that William Webb Ellis was more than likely NOT the boy who picked up the ball and ran with it. He never mentioned this himself in the rest of his life. He worked as a vicar at St Clement Danes church in the Strand and then in the South of France where he died and is buried. The ONLY source is someone writing about WWE running with the ball about 40 years after the actual event. It is most likely that WWE wasn’t the boy. It is also most likely that rugby developed over time and Rugby School only tried to impose its own version when there were differences with the game around the country, just when it would have been handy to have history on its side.
By the way, it was perfectly ok to hold the football and run with it as long as you ran towards your own goal. What the boy did was run towards the opposing goal, this was illegal at the time.
As a good friend said to me recently.
You shouldn’t let facts get in the way of a good story.
Here’s the statue to William Webb Ellis outside the front of The Rugby School. Please understand he didn’t look like this. He was modelled on the sculpture’s own son.
More Important Things: HOLOGRAMS were invented in Rugby. Denis Gabor worked for British Thomson-Houston in Rugby where he invented the hologram. The hologram FFS. In Rugby. There are holograms on nearly every bank card and bank note around the world. In terms of affecting most people and importance to the world holograms easily beats the game of rugby football. Jesus, HOLOGRAMS!
The Jet Engine was partially developed at the British Thomson-Houston labs in Rugby. Whittle used the manufacturing firm to build his first jet and then the company was involved with the development of the engine, mostly at the Lutterworth site. While many places can claim the jet engine Rugby is allowed some kudos. This, complex, beautiful piece of engineering has easily affected more people than the game of rugby football.
Rugby Cement is based somewhere locally. Oh, they are based in Rugby. They are now owned by Cemex but once their red trucks were seen all over the country. They still produce plenty of fine cement and other products. The cement works serve as a guide over the countryside to find your way back to Rugby. The industrial site looks awesome. It is arguable that Rugby Cement has affected more people than the game of rugby football.
RUGBY – home to holograms, the jet engine, cement and a game for men played with odd shaped balls.
Early one Monday morning I returned from Germany and a music festival there. Some details are contained within this communication. After getting home and sleeping for a short while I had to get ready to see Combichrist at the O2 Academy in Islington.
The above set list is for a gig in Bristol although it looks pretty similar to the gig I saw.
Stereo Juggernaut and Controlled Collapse were the support bands. I seem to remember that both bands were pretty good and enjoyable.
Combichrist were pretty darn good. They were impressive and the crowd was very active. Having just come from a weekend at a festival where the crowd all stood where they were and didn’t rush the stage this was a very different experience. There were some quite violent people in the mosh pit and, maybe I’m too old, but this was a bit of a turn off.
Now that Combichrist have guitarists the older songs have been adjusted to keep the musicians busy. They have created guitar parts to the mostly synth music and I think this detracts entirely from the quality of the original songs.
Even with all that this was still a bloody fantastic gig. Not quite as good as being at Electrowerkz but close.
