Tag: picea

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All Ship Shape

It has taken a while for me to get back to this and I apologise to those who read this rubbish whenever I publish. I will get on top of it all soon. I have many draft communications and not many rants so it might actually be a pleasant read for you five.

Sally and I went to Bristol for the weekend, way back before the summer holidays. Why Bristol? Well, it’s a place in Britain and it has good engineering history. That’s about it, all of my reasoning for choosing Bristol. Oh, that and it’s not London.

We drove down (across) on a Friday. I think we left late to avoid a lot of the traffic but it didn’t matter, there was plenty. Also, it pissed down. Thoroughly terrible rain! On the way there we listened to an 80s mix on Spotify. It surprised me how much I knew about this music, given that I consider myself to be a metal-head.

We stayed at the Double Tree Hilton, which was chosen because it had a car park and looked close to the centre of town. When you check in to these hotels you are given a cookie [warm]. Not sure that makes it worth the price but it was a nice touch. We only had time for a drink in the bar before heading to bed. Breakfast was nice in the old kiln room of the hotel.

The Saturday morning we toured the SS Great Britain. It was a wonderful piece of engineering and I recommend everyone see it and learn about it. Brilliant. There was an Olympus jet engine as part of the museum, that was cool. We then did a harbour [harbor] tour of the Bristol Floating Harbour. It was fascinating and I also learnt why the phrase:

All ship shape and Bristol fashion.

Turns out the Bristol shipmakers had to cope with large tides, when the water was in the boats floated. When the tide was low the boats rested on the rocky floor. Therefore they had to be build stronger and better to cope with this. “Bristol fashion” means study, well built. The harbour tour was on a little boat called the Red Shank.

Red Shank
Red Shank

During this harbour tour we spotted a “green”, “emission less” boat used for tours and another boat which was the harbour’s fire boat. Somehow the conversation revolved around these for a short while and I started to make a matter-anti-matter annihilation joke and Sally laughed before I had finished. That was the moment I knew.

M-Shed was our next destination. It’s a museum of Bristol stuff. It had stuff in it. I can’t quite remember but I think there may have been a jet engine somewhere in there. There was definitely an exhibition of photographs taken showing local industry and people in their workplace.

After the M-Shed we walked around to the centre of the city and as sheer luck would have it there was a thing going on. The festival of nature had taken over one of the city squares and it seemed to be quite a big thing! There was a hashtag and it was well worth the time to take a selfie.

Following on from our journey around the festival of nature we went back to the hotel before heading out to dinner.

Dinner that night was at The Ox. It’s a steakhouse, if you can find it. We walked up and down the street a few times before seeing a tiny ox head picture above a door to a basement underneath the local Weatherspoons pub. We started with cocktails and then had dinner. We drank a Dr Gonzo, an Elevator, a Martini along with wine with the main meal. There was a meat platter to start and then I had steak and Sal had what seemed to be the world’s biggest burger. After breakfast we went to walk the length of the Clifton Suspension bridge (twice). Getting there was fun as lots of roads were blocked off for a cycling race, so we pretty much made up a route through the back streets making sure that our general progress was “up”. We made it and spent some time admiring the bridge. DSC_4634 I do think that if you don’t find bridges fascinating then you are potentially dead. They are glorious! The ingenuity of man continues to amaze me. It was time to head back to the real world and the south east and so we travelled home along the M4. I decided we should drive once around Swindon to see what it has to offer. I had made some disparaging comments about the town on the way to Bristol and I felt bad about that. It seemed a good thing to do, to see what Swindon was like. We drove in to the town centre. There really isn’t a great deal there, it’s awful. We did find the magic roundabout and drove around/over it just to see what that would be like. Magicfuckingroundabout Yep, it really is as crazy as the sign shows. It was strange driving over it. I just kept following the arrows on the ground and checking that nothing was in my way or coming to hit me! After that we found some sort of outlet centre and I bought a tea pot. That is how exciting my life gets sometimes! It also turns out that I might know some of the Spice Girl songs. They were playing in the car and I accidentally sang some lyrics and mentioned that I knew how the dance went in the video. I got quite a bit of grief for that!

There you have it. A very boring run down of the things Sally and I did for a weekend in Bristol. Great fun and very interesting, for nerds.

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Flag Of Destiny

I really am quite behind on updating this website. I have just been busy. That’s all. But, now I have a moment I can take the time to bore you all with tales of not daring-do.

After an excursion to London and our Canary Wharf apartment, we visited the Midlands. The Tuesday morning we carried our kit to the car, which was where we left it, and navigated our way out of London with a quick pass of City Airport, where planes were seen. The north circular and then the M11 facilitated our escape from the metropolis.

Later, Coventry beckoned. It was time to have a cuppa and biscuits with parents. This took us up to lunch time and so we headed to the Blue Lias pub next to the Grand Union Canal. The weather was lovely and so we ate outside (even though I don’t like doing that). There was activity on the canal with narrow boats and service boats travelling past. Then we walked up the set of locks nearby. These are called Stockton Locks. They are ingenious and very pretty.

Stockton Locks
Stockton Locks
Blue Lias
Blue Lias

After a lovely lunch we went to the centre of Coventry. Sally showed me around the town. I also got to see the cathedrals. I have to say I don’t like the new one. It’s depressing and ugly, along with windows that are likely to scare the crap out of kids and anyone who takes religion vaguely seriously. There was a display of children’s television programmes on at the museum in Coventry, the cathedral, museum and university were all next to each other. The display included some of the actual models used over the last 60 years of TV broadcasting for kids. It was a trip down memory lane.

While walking back to the car, and Ikea, we sneaked into a rather unassuming building that turned out to be the Guildhall. It was a very nice building with lots of history, fortunately this building survived the blitz. Coventry has mostly crazy ring road with interesting intersections.

One of the highlights of the half term was dinner at Simpsons in Edgbaston. On the Tuesday evening we drove to the restaurant. The food was quite simply, divine. The wine was gorgeous, the service impeccable and the overall experience was brilliant. I’m very much looking forward to sampling a similar meal in Kent soon.

Here’s a list of food that we ate:

  • Salmon and squid cracker canapé
  • Cheese and bacon ball canapé
  • Fancy bread
  • Mise En Bouche
  • Beef tartar
  • Ham hock with broth
  • Squab pigeon
  • Lamp
  • Corn caramel
  • Rum baba
  • Passion fruit soufflé
  • Very nice sweets

The return to Coventry from dinner was marked with a quick visit to Meriden. There’s a stick in the village green which is supposedly the centre of England.

Wednesday was similarly busy. A day in Birmingham was planned. We drove to and then parked in the Bull Ring. Karl and his two girls met us for drinks after which we wandered around the city looking for specific items of clothing for an event at the end of August.

Selfridges
Selfridges

We walked to the Custard Factory which was an eclectic mix of odd shops and weird stuff. The statue was pretty cool, although we didn’t find what we were looking for.

The Custard Factory
The Custard Factory

The Oasis is another collection of shops. I found some bits for the Asylum. It was time for lunch and we just had to have champagne cocktails at Bar Epernay. The snack food was lovely, as was the alcohol. There was a lovely view over the canal. What I didn’t understand though was why people would go to a champagne bar and just have a pint of lager?

Bar Epernay
Bar Epernay

We had a short walk along the canal to the Sealife centre. It was good fun to see the penguins swimming and, also, some otters running around playing. After the Sealife centre we found the car, packed up all our purchases and headed home. I’m looking forward to seeing plenty more in the Midlands.

Finally, the title of this communication? I saw a flag and asked Sally what it was. “The flag of destiny”, she replied. Fair enough.

Banner of arms of the City of Birmingham (1976–).svg
By JimmyGuano – Own work, CC0, Link

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Burnt Sticks 2612W

At the end of May Sally and I went to stay in London for a couple of nights. I now give you a run down of those days including various comments and things I remember.

We arrived on a Sunday evening. After parking the car we walked to our apartment block, carrying enough kit to survive for two nights and days. We stayed in the Pan Peninsula West Tower on the 26th floor. The décor was interesting. The apartment was mostly black walls and floor along with no bedrooms (studio flat) and built in appliances. Many thanks to Mazza.

Once in the apartment we settled and spent time on the balcony overlooking the docks and most of London. We drank champagne and watched the sun set over most of London. The champagne sunset contributed to a partial completion of a promise I made a while back. I intend to complete the promise fully later in the year.

London Sunset

Once the sun had set we tried to find somewhere to eat food. The problem was that most places were shut, it being around 21:30 on a Sunday. I ended up downloading an app, signing up and getting kebab delivered to the apartment! Classy.

On Monday we made sure to get breakfast at a Café Nero in the Canary Wharf shopping complex. Now, I will admit that I really struggled with the layout of this shopping area. It seemed there were three or four main shopping halls, all on different levels and all connected by strange walkways. The map seemed a fanciful sci-fi work of art to me and walking around stressed me intensely. Sally seemed to work out the map and so I relied on her to find our way.

The Shard At Night

A flight on the Emirates Air Line was next, taking a cable car from south of the river near the O2 Arena to the north side of the river near the Excel Arena. One shocking thing was that the price of a tube return from Canary Wharf to the O2, which is one stop, was £9-60 because it crosses a “zone line”, how pathetic! The cable car journey was much smoother than I expected, it was most enjoyable.

Cable Car

We then wandered around towards the Excel Arena before heading back to the O2 and looking at the Emirates display thing. They had a Lego model of a Rolls Royce Trent engine. This made me very excited.

RR Trent (Lego)

Our lunch was in a Brazilian themed restaurant within the O2 complex. There were lots of different eateries there but the Brazilian tempted us most.

Cocktails

The cocktails were very nice, as was the food.

City Airport from Cable Car

After lunch we wandered (by Tube) into the centre of London. A short visit to the M&M shop in Swiss Corner was completed. The whole shop smelt of chocolate, which was nice at first but sickly afterwards. Also, the people were just annoying. It was a shop that sold tat. M&M branded tat. It was full of shit. We purchased some M&Ms though, it would have been rude not to.

Next up was drinks at The Chandos, always a great place to go for a cheeky pint when near Trafalgar Square. We had lager and a short with mixer for me.

The Shard beckoned. You can feel this beast looming over London. The Eye Of Sauron is missing though, they need to create that and insert it at the top, then perhaps we could steal some tourists heading for New Zealand.

I think you’ll find that the Shard is really a Star Destroyer waiting to be launched.

Star Destroyer?

The observation deck of the Shard is on Level 69. I kid you not. This made me giggle a lot. I am sure there is an architect somewhere who wakes up every day with a wry smile at this.

20150525_151243129_iOS

The view from the top is just stunning. We had a glass of champagne while walking the perimeter of the glass just staring out at London and its surrounds. We could see the QE2 Bridge, which is a bit of a Kent/Essex landmark and well known to anyone who uses the M25. Many of the buildings nearby were highlighted in electronic viewfinders so you could find out about them. Here’s a picture of Canary Wharf and the apartment block we stayed in.

DSC_4348

Although it was murky and not very bright we could see a long way. At one point a helicopter flew by at eye level. I liked this. Dinner that night was at a GBK somewhere in the freaky Canary Wharf shopping complex. The next day was the end of our London adventure. We packed and drove out by City Airport to head to the Midlands.

DSC_4373

The last thing I need to say on this matter is what were the burnt sticks in the apartment? Why would you have them? Why?

Burnt Sticks

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Units

I have some new proposed SI units for you to use. I think you should use them liberally because language evolves and changes over time so these could be commonplace in the next couple of decades. Both of these units have been developed with Sally.

THE WARDROBE

The wardrobe is an integer measurement with an upper and lower bound for determining the minimum number of romantic dates before new clothes must be purchased because clearly outfits can’t be repeated. The symbol for the wardrobe is:

][

This unit is quite person specific and covers the following range:

Lower bound – the number of complete clothing outfits that can be worn given that no single item of clothing may be worn twice.

Upper bound – the number of clothing outfits that can be worn given that any complete combination can’t be used twice.

As an example consider the following rather basic wardrobe contents:

  • 7 different pairs of socks (socks of same colour and style count as 1)
  • 5 different pairs of pants (pants of same colour and style count as 1)
  • 4 different shirts
  • 5 different pairs of trousers
  • 6 different pairs of shoes/boots

Given this situation then clearly:

wardrobe1

This person can only wear the four different shirts before they need repeating. It doesn’t matter what else that person owns. The upper bound is simply calculated as the product of the number of items in each group that can be considered as being fully dressed for a romantic date.

As you can see the ][ unit has a wide range. The minimum is merely equal to the fewest items of a clothing category. The upper bound, because of combinatorics, becomes quite large, quite quickly.

example question:
I own shoes, pants and onesies. If wardrobe2determine how I organise my wardrobe.

Solution:

4823 = 13 x 371
371 is product of two primes, namely 53 and 7.
Therefore you have either have 53 sets of pants or 53 sets of onesies. Either way I would suggest that you use a pack of playing cards, with one joker included, attached to your clothing to organise the items in a wardrobe.

THE FUCKTON

This unit developed out of the need to describe large quantities where previous units and measurements had failed. It may be clearly seen that the etymological derivation of this unit comes from a portmanteau of fuckloads and tons. This unit is not specifically a measure of mass, but could be used as such. The fuckton is used primarily to give a sense of more than “very much”.

The symbol for the fuckton is:

FT

The fuckton should be used as a non-specific answer to questions where the term “a lot” doesn’t quite give the correct impression.

How many raindrops fall on the UK over a year?

How much does middle lane driving annoy you?

If you go in the express petrol lane, how wrong is it to then pay in the shop?

How many colours are there in a rainbow?

To give a sense of scale I think it is necessary to indicate what size the number is that a fuckton could represent. The fuckton is defined as the total number of Lego bricks ever made. So the current value of a fuckton is:

This, we believe, to be an extremely useful unit of measurement. The difficulty associated with a changing definition is outweighed by the usefulness of the value.

By the way, a Fuckton << googal.

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Mad Max – Fury Road

Went to see Mad Max last night at Rochester Cinema (which is in Strood). I went with Sally and we had dinner before the movie. Well, I say dinner, we ate at McDonalds because we got to the restaurants too late to get food before the movie, mind you it was worth being late.

I rated this movie on IMDB, as I do with all movies I see at the cinema. You don’t get reviews for stuff I watch on the TV though. That would make this site tedious! You should read this communication about my ratings system.

I then thought about the movie some more and I got asked “What didn’t you like about it?”. This made me re-evaluate my IMDB score. So I changed my mind.

So, I should tell you what I thought. I would watch this movie again and that is the main reason for increasing the score from a 6 to an 8. I really liked the way it looked, was filmed and acted. Max didn’t say much, but then, he’s mad. This is, overall, a really enjoyable film.

But there were issues [potential spoilers follow].

The main tribe seem to have mastered modifying cars and trucks and keeping them running in the heat and sand of the desert, but they seem unable to design and build a water distribution device that doesn’t just pour everything in to the ground.

Why did they keep the rig attached to the truck they were driving for all the film. Really? What purpose did they have for it?

The tribes seemed to clear the fallen rocks very quickly and easily without any heavy lifting equipment laying around.

Motorbikes heading for 160 days across a salt lake. That sounds fine until you REALLY think how much food you would need. I’ve owned motorbikes. They run out of fuel after five hours.

If you can suspend the disbelief then this is a gorgeous, great film.

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Passion Dribble

Some of my Twitter followers may have been surprised at a recent tweet of mine:

I thought I ought give an explanation. I had bought some desserts for dinner with Sally.

IDShot_540x540

When she asked what they were I couldn’t remember what they were called.

Passion Dribble

Was my response. I think it was an accurate description of the dessert. Apparently there may be other connotations of that phrase. She laughed. A lot. I’m not sure what she was getting at!

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Chilston Park

On Sunday I went for afternoon tea with Sally at Chilston Park.

The weather was lovely and as we had arrived early we decided to wander the grounds. Unfortunately for me there was a large outdoor chess set not far from the house. We decided to play. From the outset it was clear I was going to lose. I’ve never been great at the strategy involved, I tend to get bored and just attack, just for the fun. Fortunately for me, our appointed time for tea arrived before I could lose the game in spectacular style. We went inside to have tea and cake.

Chilston Park
Chilston Park

The interior of the house was lovely with some odd lion/dragon things guarding the fireplace. There was a wonderful wooden staircase and portraits hanging everywhere. Our tea consisted of Lady Grey tea with some wonderful food.

Afternoon Tea
Afternoon Tea

This was a very pleasant afternoon in very pleasant surroundings, even the Hen Do was quite reserved and quiet. I am looking forward to the next time I get to do this.

Roofage
Roofage

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Fucking Stairs

So, Sally and I went to the Electrowerkz venue in Islington on Friday 1st May for an AC Club night.

The event started at 20:00 and continued until 06:00 the Saturday morning. We spent most of Friday evening getting ready and then drove in to London where we had booked a parking space via Just Park. The route into London was easy enough and the parking spot was simple to find. After parking we took a three minute walk to Electrowerkz and arrived at around 22:30. It was quite cold but I left my jacket in the car I couldn’t be bothered to carry anything, but this meant I also forgot my hat, which I had spent an hour sewing and embellishing. That was slightly annoying!

Once in the club we wandered around the various rooms to see what was happening. There were three main music rooms, a chill out area and some specialist areas. I’d been to Electrowerkz before to see Aesthetic Perfection and Combichrist. I really like it as a venue, it’s small and dark, it has a real atmosphere about it. Much like cinema seats I would not like to see it in daylight.

The layout of the club required lots of walking up and down awkward stairs. Awkward stairs are ones where the rise/step calculations, while mathematically fine, do not induce a sensible physical step pattern. I was fine as I had big boots on. It turned out that Sally’s shoes were somewhat less comfortable for walking down stairs. She did last until 04:00 in her shoes though which is pretty good going.

The TheatreOfSin had the main stage was quite cold and well air-conditioned so we didn’t spend much time in there. The bars were all pretty nice places and the other two music rooms were full of happy people dancing. The atmosphere was gentlemanly and completely unthreatening. I’ve been to a couple of clubs [literally less than 10] and I often fine the atmosphere quite oppressive and angry. Electrowerkz had a friendly atmosphere and feeling about the place.

The PFI [PureFuckingIndustrial] room created a slight discussion about the music. I would never describe it as dance. I don’t even like calling it dark dance. But, if I am honest with myself, then I would suggest that the songs are constructed in the same way and have many of the same elements. I would then go on to mention that the lyrics are quite possibly as far from happy dance as is possible.

The HELLFIRE room was playing Rammstein when we entered and progress to some Ministry. Definitely the more “metalwith a twist” room. A live feed of the music was played into the Chillout Room which had a tube carriage doubling up as a bar. The Hellfire bar was decked out like the set of the film Alien, it was quite impressive.

At one point I was chatting with Pete. He was impressed with my outfit and also my mark of ownership. Quite randomly a man [who possibly is a member of a famous band] came along and handed Pete a very nice top hat, which then meant that he gave me his top hat.  My hat problem was solved, although there were too many top hats in the club for it to be a cool look. I do need to get a decent top hat though, in time for the M’era Luna festival in the summer.

We left at around 04:30 to get home just as the sun was coming up. Overall it was a really enjoyable night and I am looking forward to doing it again. The recovery time is longer than I can remember from my days at university, but then I am quite old now!

The evening will be remembered for many great and wonderful things, but this communication is entitled “Fucking Stairs” because that’s pretty much all I heard every time we walked from one room to another!

I can’t wait to go again. It was great.

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Henry Walton Jones

Here is a picture of my Indiana Jones Minecraft character. The Cylon version is staying at home to look over my lounge. Indiana is based in my work room. He looks great, I am happy to have him.

IMG_8176.JPG

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