No change in my weight last week.
This was a little disappointing, but then I'd forgotten I was expecting to go out for a meal, so that was a load of calories I wasn't otherwise compensating for, but also I... well, I was going to say cocked up, but that's not the right phrase. I did actually make the error I made deliberately, it's just I didn't think it was an error at the time.
Basically, I decided to try to mix my eating schedule and plans up a little bit. In particular, I wanted to try doing things on different days, as I've grown bored of my eating patterns. Unfortunately I made some poor choices and, in particular, ended up buying/making more bread than I needed.
As such, I basically had to eat some higher calorie meals more often than I should have done, so what I'm saying is the disappointment in a lack of weight change really stems from poor planning.
This week, I'll probably blame it on the fact that several people at work brought in cakes, but the real reason is I seem to have lost any real impetus. I'm still walking and so I'm continuing with the exercise, it's just that the good diet days seem to keep being balanced by days where I go off the rails a bit.
This became very apparent the other week when I started looking at the plans for the next chunk of the diet, which will take me up to the end of the year. Basically across this whole last period of about 4 months I've basically only lost about a stone. Now that's not a thing to be sniffed at, it's just that if you look at the graph of my weight, it went down at the beginning, but then has bimbled around the same sort of value for a while.
I think a big part of the problem has been my trips to Sainsbury's mid-week. When it came summer I decided to try varying my diet by eating things like strawberries and melon instead, but the problem has been I've then also almost always bought something really bad too. My particular Achilles heal being things from the bakery section. What I've effectively been doing is turning the mid-week thing into something like I used to do before I went on the diet.
The 'saving grace' is that otherwise my diet has been relatively good, so I'm not back to the old days where I gain weight, but these naughty things I buy have basically cancelled the good days out.
What makes it slightly more annoying (and slightly perverse) is that I've gone right off salad. Salad was a godsend previously as I could use it at the weekend to bulk out meals a bit without hugely increasing the calories. Also, I could snack on carrots and things like that.
But I think I've grown really bored of it, so there's even more impetus for me to find something different to eat, and there's not much you can replace it with. As I say, that's particularly weird because of course summer is when you traditionally eat salad, and I've grown bored of it because I've eaten it all through winter!
Which feeds into what I was saying above - my trying to mix up the eating schedule a bit, which resulted in me buying a bunch of baked potatoes (they were on special). My theory was to have 1 potato and half a tin of beans/chilli. Calories this was okay and would work quite well. Trouble was, because they were on special I ended up with what turned out to be loads and so had to have them during the week, and the only way I could do that and not end up throwing them away was double up (2 spuds and a full tin) which was therefore a whole load of calories.
As the 7 Ps would have it - Proper Prior Planning and Preparation Prevent Piss Poor Performance.
Friday, 12 August 2011
Thursday, 11 August 2011
broke my scanner
The other week I mentioned about how F1 is on its summer break.
A particular hope I had is/was that I would be able to use this increase in spare time to get a bit of scanning done. As an added 'bonus' I actually dropped a couple of TV shows that hadn't really turned out to be as interesting as I'd hoped.
These were "The Hour" which I'd thought was going to be about the founding of a TV show back in the 50s at the BBC, but seemed to be intent on becoming a conspiracy thriller. This might have been okay, but didn't really appeal, to be frank.
The other was The Killing, which was also okay, but didn't really grab me. It was a murder mystery thing, but was taking the approach of having the one murder that was heavily investigated across the whole length of the show. This would probably be okay, but I have so say it did seem to be trying overly hard to throw lots of red herrings at you. Also, the surrounding elements felt a bit tired to me - political campaign and cop obsessed with their job over their life... yawn.
Anyway, I dutifully sat down to do a bit of scanning last week... and promptly broke my scanner :/.
Id' actually broken it a while back - basically, I'd put a crack in the hinge that you use to lift up the lid for the scanner. The lid had been listing badly as a result for ages, and I guess it chose that day to finally make its way all the way through and break off.
The bit that had broken off was itself not too bad a problem, but, and this is a bit difficult to explain, with it missing it made the whole process of scanning really difficult.
Basically, I was having to slot the lid back into place every time I put the lid down, which was difficult to get right. Also, it made the pages prone to slipping around once I'd put it on, meaning I was missing bits of the pages and having to re-adjust.
You may think why not scan without it, well I tried that too. The real problem is you need some way of evenly applying pressure to the page so it all sits totally flat on the bed of the scanner. If it doesn't you get bits out of focus and distortion effects. The scanner lid generally has a nice, flat, padded surface designed for the job.
Eventually I tried to break the other bit of the hinge off so I could use it and this worked better, but I also ordered a new scanner as it's still not very efficient.
This was particularly annoying, given the point I made the other day about how efficient I was at the weekend - I could have gotten loads down, but it was only possible to do a little bit.
A particular hope I had is/was that I would be able to use this increase in spare time to get a bit of scanning done. As an added 'bonus' I actually dropped a couple of TV shows that hadn't really turned out to be as interesting as I'd hoped.
These were "The Hour" which I'd thought was going to be about the founding of a TV show back in the 50s at the BBC, but seemed to be intent on becoming a conspiracy thriller. This might have been okay, but didn't really appeal, to be frank.
The other was The Killing, which was also okay, but didn't really grab me. It was a murder mystery thing, but was taking the approach of having the one murder that was heavily investigated across the whole length of the show. This would probably be okay, but I have so say it did seem to be trying overly hard to throw lots of red herrings at you. Also, the surrounding elements felt a bit tired to me - political campaign and cop obsessed with their job over their life... yawn.
Anyway, I dutifully sat down to do a bit of scanning last week... and promptly broke my scanner :/.
Id' actually broken it a while back - basically, I'd put a crack in the hinge that you use to lift up the lid for the scanner. The lid had been listing badly as a result for ages, and I guess it chose that day to finally make its way all the way through and break off.
The bit that had broken off was itself not too bad a problem, but, and this is a bit difficult to explain, with it missing it made the whole process of scanning really difficult.
Basically, I was having to slot the lid back into place every time I put the lid down, which was difficult to get right. Also, it made the pages prone to slipping around once I'd put it on, meaning I was missing bits of the pages and having to re-adjust.
You may think why not scan without it, well I tried that too. The real problem is you need some way of evenly applying pressure to the page so it all sits totally flat on the bed of the scanner. If it doesn't you get bits out of focus and distortion effects. The scanner lid generally has a nice, flat, padded surface designed for the job.
Eventually I tried to break the other bit of the hinge off so I could use it and this worked better, but I also ordered a new scanner as it's still not very efficient.
This was particularly annoying, given the point I made the other day about how efficient I was at the weekend - I could have gotten loads down, but it was only possible to do a little bit.
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
the green hornet
I have to confess I know next to nothing about the Green Hornet.
I've seen Dragon - the Bruce Lee story, so I know there was a TV series and that Lee played Kato, the martial artist that kicked bad guy ass, but apart from that, nothing. Oh, and it was obviously set in the 60s.
I'm also vaguely aware of Seth Rogan as a comedy actor. He was in the somewhat underrated Zac and Miri Make a Porno, but I can't say I've followed his career with any particular interest.
However, despite knowing nothing and seeing some non-to-positive reviews, I quite enjoyed the film. I think, however, that it could have been a lot smoother.
Mainly, I think the problem was that the original wasn't as obviously comedic as they'd intended it to be. I think they managed to hit the right level of action and they managed to get the more subtle/thematic gags down well, but what they didn't get was the more instantaneous humour.
Basically, as a bit of a film nerd I'm reasonably good at spotting ADR. ADR stands for Automated Dialogue Replacement, and is basically intended for overdubbing replacement lines onto a film, usually because the sound was rubbish due to equipment failures or because, say, there's a wind machine drowning everything out.
However, you can also use it to add lines (which is why it's also known as Additional Dialogue Recording) and the film is absolutely crammed with it. Now to be fair, it wasn't until watching the commentary that it was confirmed that the ADR was deliberate and was used to insert more gags, where they basically describe it as a god send. But the point is that has to be a worrying sign, if you're sticking gags over the top of loads things in order to boost the laughs.
As I say, the problem, I think, was they made an action movie with some humorous ideas and themes, but then realised that people don't tend to laugh out loud at humorous themes - they laugh at jokes.
And the jokes they've added are generally good; the action movie with humorous themes they made was quite good, it's just the way the first has been layered onto the second makes things clumsy and in a quite jarring way, though as I say, that may be because I'm a bit of a cinefile.
It also didn't help that some of the thematic humour they're going for undermines the film. For example, they try to flip on the head the idea of having a charismatic and memorable villain (your hero is only as good as your villain) - here he's a bit non-descript and while they do make mileage of that, it still fundamentally undermines the film. They also make a good fist of flipping the idea that the women is just eye-candy / a love interest for the hero, yet she still appears wrapped in a towel after a bath and dressed in her skimpys.
I dunno - it all just felt like it was a collection of some good ideas and some good action scenes (There's an odd tendency to really focus on the deaths of the villains, given the rating. Not in a gory way, the camera just seems to try to make sure to get the deaths full screen with a little pause. I think it's trying to make a point, but it just across as odd - especially when some of the deaths are a bit random/forced.) but the rest of the script could have done with going through a few more drafts.
I've seen Dragon - the Bruce Lee story, so I know there was a TV series and that Lee played Kato, the martial artist that kicked bad guy ass, but apart from that, nothing. Oh, and it was obviously set in the 60s.
I'm also vaguely aware of Seth Rogan as a comedy actor. He was in the somewhat underrated Zac and Miri Make a Porno, but I can't say I've followed his career with any particular interest.
However, despite knowing nothing and seeing some non-to-positive reviews, I quite enjoyed the film. I think, however, that it could have been a lot smoother.
Mainly, I think the problem was that the original wasn't as obviously comedic as they'd intended it to be. I think they managed to hit the right level of action and they managed to get the more subtle/thematic gags down well, but what they didn't get was the more instantaneous humour.
Basically, as a bit of a film nerd I'm reasonably good at spotting ADR. ADR stands for Automated Dialogue Replacement, and is basically intended for overdubbing replacement lines onto a film, usually because the sound was rubbish due to equipment failures or because, say, there's a wind machine drowning everything out.
However, you can also use it to add lines (which is why it's also known as Additional Dialogue Recording) and the film is absolutely crammed with it. Now to be fair, it wasn't until watching the commentary that it was confirmed that the ADR was deliberate and was used to insert more gags, where they basically describe it as a god send. But the point is that has to be a worrying sign, if you're sticking gags over the top of loads things in order to boost the laughs.
As I say, the problem, I think, was they made an action movie with some humorous ideas and themes, but then realised that people don't tend to laugh out loud at humorous themes - they laugh at jokes.
And the jokes they've added are generally good; the action movie with humorous themes they made was quite good, it's just the way the first has been layered onto the second makes things clumsy and in a quite jarring way, though as I say, that may be because I'm a bit of a cinefile.
It also didn't help that some of the thematic humour they're going for undermines the film. For example, they try to flip on the head the idea of having a charismatic and memorable villain (your hero is only as good as your villain) - here he's a bit non-descript and while they do make mileage of that, it still fundamentally undermines the film. They also make a good fist of flipping the idea that the women is just eye-candy / a love interest for the hero, yet she still appears wrapped in a towel after a bath and dressed in her skimpys.
I dunno - it all just felt like it was a collection of some good ideas and some good action scenes (There's an odd tendency to really focus on the deaths of the villains, given the rating. Not in a gory way, the camera just seems to try to make sure to get the deaths full screen with a little pause. I think it's trying to make a point, but it just across as odd - especially when some of the deaths are a bit random/forced.) but the rest of the script could have done with going through a few more drafts.
Tuesday, 9 August 2011
way too efficient
I thought about including this in the smaller posts, but I think I need to explain in more depths.
Basically, last week I made a decision to start washing my own clothes. One of the big problems of my flat is, due to the size, I don't have a washing machine. Even if I did have a washing machine, I don't have any space to hang wet clothes up and a tumble dryer would be even less practical than a washing machine.
You can actually get washing machines that do dry as well, but that's beside the point - there's not the room to put it in and it's a rented places so it's not really my decision.
Now there is actually a laundrette at the end of the road, but the problem I had when I first moved in was find the combination of time and quietness of the laundrette to be able to use it. As with most laundrettes, the problem is available drying space.
A cycle in the medium sized washing machine takes about twenty minutes, but drying those clothes takes at least half an hour. This means clothes are finished quicker, but there are also lots more washing machines than there are dryers - by my reckoning 12 washing machines of varying capacity and 6 tumble dryers.
That obviously creates a bottle neck, which, as I say makes finding the ideal slot difficult - you can turn up and while it doesn't appear there are that many people, all the tumble dryers are in use and there's clearly a queue of people waiting to use them. A queue which is exacerbated by the fact people will have left the tumble dryers going while they go and do stuff, so their clothes may have dried, but you're hardly in a position to take some else's clothes out of the dryer.
I therefore started using the laundrette in the town where I work and getting them to do a service wash for me.
This would only cost me a couple of extra quid on top of the machine cost and had the obvious advantage that I wouldn't have to spend the time doing it myself or worrying about finding a slot, etc.
However, just recently I've noticed that the charges seemed to be creeping ever upwards.
When I first started using it I seem to recall it was only about £6 for a load, but recently I've been charged nearly £10 for a load. Clearly a part of this reflects thing like inflation - the charges for the use of the washing machine and dryer have gone up. Also, the service charge has obviously gone up - it started out as being £2 but is now more like £3.50.
Fundamentally I wouldn't have minded these, my real problem is they seem to operate the process in a way that maximises the cost.
As I mentioned above, most laundrettes have differently sized washing machines. The ones that are broadly equivalent to your machine at home are the smallest and cheapest, then the next largest, which tend to hold the equivalent of those upright machines you used to get are a little more expensive, then there's the huge ones that are quite expensive, but do take a huge load.
Basically I always give them my washing in a black bin bag and they clearly use the medium machine irrespective of how much I put in there. They also do exactly the same amount of drying, irrespective of load size.
I can tell this because if I give them two bags then the price only goes up by a relatively small amount and it's always the same amount - an amount that corresponds to switching to the big machine instead of the medium sized one.
Now while I wouldn't say they're ripping me off, clearly using a medium sized machine for a small load represents an un-necessary cost. Also, as I say, with all the prices going up, it's now regularly costing me about £10 and with the occasional double load I must spend the best part f £50 on washing a month!
Which is way too much, so I've decided to start to try to use the laundrette at the end of the road. My plan is to use it on alternate weeks (well, fitting in with the Grand Prix's), which means I'll probably always be using the big washing machines and spending a lot on drying as I'll always be doing big loads, but there is a hidden advantage.
Using the service wash it effectively means my clothes have a two week cycle, since they sit at the laundrette for a week. Well, now I'll get them instantly, so I may be able to cope with a smaller wardrobe, which is useful as I loose weight.
Also, because I now get up at stupid times in the morning, which I didn't used to do back then, I can go when the laundrette has only just opened, meaning I should be pretty much guaranteed access to the dryers.
You know I've just realised that this whole huge post has nothing to do with the title. What I was going to say was that I did the whole washing and drying thing and was therefore trying out my new schedule (it was also a flat cleaning weekend) and it got to mid afternoon and I realised I'd done everything on my to do list and was at a bit of a loss for something to do - I'd been way too efficient, where I'd been allowing plenty of time to get things done.
It's like with the washing from leaving my flat to getting back it was only 1h15mins where I'd been worried it might take the best part of two hours.
Basically, last week I made a decision to start washing my own clothes. One of the big problems of my flat is, due to the size, I don't have a washing machine. Even if I did have a washing machine, I don't have any space to hang wet clothes up and a tumble dryer would be even less practical than a washing machine.
You can actually get washing machines that do dry as well, but that's beside the point - there's not the room to put it in and it's a rented places so it's not really my decision.
Now there is actually a laundrette at the end of the road, but the problem I had when I first moved in was find the combination of time and quietness of the laundrette to be able to use it. As with most laundrettes, the problem is available drying space.
A cycle in the medium sized washing machine takes about twenty minutes, but drying those clothes takes at least half an hour. This means clothes are finished quicker, but there are also lots more washing machines than there are dryers - by my reckoning 12 washing machines of varying capacity and 6 tumble dryers.
That obviously creates a bottle neck, which, as I say makes finding the ideal slot difficult - you can turn up and while it doesn't appear there are that many people, all the tumble dryers are in use and there's clearly a queue of people waiting to use them. A queue which is exacerbated by the fact people will have left the tumble dryers going while they go and do stuff, so their clothes may have dried, but you're hardly in a position to take some else's clothes out of the dryer.
I therefore started using the laundrette in the town where I work and getting them to do a service wash for me.
This would only cost me a couple of extra quid on top of the machine cost and had the obvious advantage that I wouldn't have to spend the time doing it myself or worrying about finding a slot, etc.
However, just recently I've noticed that the charges seemed to be creeping ever upwards.
When I first started using it I seem to recall it was only about £6 for a load, but recently I've been charged nearly £10 for a load. Clearly a part of this reflects thing like inflation - the charges for the use of the washing machine and dryer have gone up. Also, the service charge has obviously gone up - it started out as being £2 but is now more like £3.50.
Fundamentally I wouldn't have minded these, my real problem is they seem to operate the process in a way that maximises the cost.
As I mentioned above, most laundrettes have differently sized washing machines. The ones that are broadly equivalent to your machine at home are the smallest and cheapest, then the next largest, which tend to hold the equivalent of those upright machines you used to get are a little more expensive, then there's the huge ones that are quite expensive, but do take a huge load.
Basically I always give them my washing in a black bin bag and they clearly use the medium machine irrespective of how much I put in there. They also do exactly the same amount of drying, irrespective of load size.
I can tell this because if I give them two bags then the price only goes up by a relatively small amount and it's always the same amount - an amount that corresponds to switching to the big machine instead of the medium sized one.
Now while I wouldn't say they're ripping me off, clearly using a medium sized machine for a small load represents an un-necessary cost. Also, as I say, with all the prices going up, it's now regularly costing me about £10 and with the occasional double load I must spend the best part f £50 on washing a month!
Which is way too much, so I've decided to start to try to use the laundrette at the end of the road. My plan is to use it on alternate weeks (well, fitting in with the Grand Prix's), which means I'll probably always be using the big washing machines and spending a lot on drying as I'll always be doing big loads, but there is a hidden advantage.
Using the service wash it effectively means my clothes have a two week cycle, since they sit at the laundrette for a week. Well, now I'll get them instantly, so I may be able to cope with a smaller wardrobe, which is useful as I loose weight.
Also, because I now get up at stupid times in the morning, which I didn't used to do back then, I can go when the laundrette has only just opened, meaning I should be pretty much guaranteed access to the dryers.
You know I've just realised that this whole huge post has nothing to do with the title. What I was going to say was that I did the whole washing and drying thing and was therefore trying out my new schedule (it was also a flat cleaning weekend) and it got to mid afternoon and I realised I'd done everything on my to do list and was at a bit of a loss for something to do - I'd been way too efficient, where I'd been allowing plenty of time to get things done.
It's like with the washing from leaving my flat to getting back it was only 1h15mins where I'd been worried it might take the best part of two hours.
Monday, 8 August 2011
odds and bobs
Thought I'd continue the smaller thoughts from last Friday.
Phone Hacking
The big news while we were away at Silverstone was the shit really hitting the fan at the News of the World over phone hacking. It's something that's been bubbling away for months, with several papers - the guardian and evening standard are the ones I know of - really rootling around trying to expose practices at several of the tabloid papers.
If you follow the news and current affairs you'll know all about it, but I have to say I'm in two minds about it.
Clearly the hacking of mobile phones was a practice that was endemic to, if not all of the British press, then certainly the News of the World journalists. And the real thing they've done wrong, to me, is deploying that technique on a routine basis and for everyone they ever came into contact with - good or bad.
Now clearly they were breaking the law and clearly hacking the phones of people like 7/7 victims is appalling. And I personally find the whole tabloid obsession with celebrity that means they also go around hacking and papping celebs appalling. Also the PCC was clearly a load of old pish.
The trouble is, if you neuter the press and make them always play by the law then you also remove their power to uncover real matters of public interest. With a free press and real investigative journalism you have the ability to hold those in power (be it politicians or heads of company) to account. So while I find a lot of what they did (and do) tasteless, I hope the baby doesn't get thrown out with the bathwater.
Work
Work has been horribly busy just recently.
I seem to have wound up in the situation where I'm processing more bids, yet also having to run projects and do other stuff besides. It doesn't help in particular that a key member of staff has been sent to do a contract down in the South West. Also while they've taken on some new staff, they're mostly part-time and the maternity cover for a work colleague has effectively been done away with before she's come back.
To be frank, what would really help would be a pay raise. that's kinda mercenary of me, but it's been years since I had a raise and while we've had a few additional benefits, none of them are of particular use or interest to me.
Shaving
Now here is a completely random one - I've decided to start shaving every day.
Okay, not every day, but every day for work. Previously I used to shave every other day - specifically on Sunday's Tuesday's and Thursday's. Now for reasons I can't be arsed to explain, I actually shave in the evenings, so I'd therefore be clean shaven on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Part of my reason for doing this was because good razor blades are expensive. I also have a very tough beard that blunts most blades quite quickly. So, by shaving alternate days I'd save money, as well as the more obvious time and effort.
However, recently I've noticed that my beard grows quicker and is also darker and stronger. I've always had a heavy beard, but now on those days I didn't shave it looks live I've not shaved in days.
I therefore decided to start shaving for every work day and it's been working out okay. I sometimes suffer from shaving rash, and to avoid this I have to use quite a light technique and so the slight irony is that where I used to go alternate days of very cleanly shaven then clearly unshaven, now it's like I'm permanently stubbly.
I think, on balance, it's better though, as the stubbly days were getting quite bad.
Phone Hacking
The big news while we were away at Silverstone was the shit really hitting the fan at the News of the World over phone hacking. It's something that's been bubbling away for months, with several papers - the guardian and evening standard are the ones I know of - really rootling around trying to expose practices at several of the tabloid papers.
If you follow the news and current affairs you'll know all about it, but I have to say I'm in two minds about it.
Clearly the hacking of mobile phones was a practice that was endemic to, if not all of the British press, then certainly the News of the World journalists. And the real thing they've done wrong, to me, is deploying that technique on a routine basis and for everyone they ever came into contact with - good or bad.
Now clearly they were breaking the law and clearly hacking the phones of people like 7/7 victims is appalling. And I personally find the whole tabloid obsession with celebrity that means they also go around hacking and papping celebs appalling. Also the PCC was clearly a load of old pish.
The trouble is, if you neuter the press and make them always play by the law then you also remove their power to uncover real matters of public interest. With a free press and real investigative journalism you have the ability to hold those in power (be it politicians or heads of company) to account. So while I find a lot of what they did (and do) tasteless, I hope the baby doesn't get thrown out with the bathwater.
Work
Work has been horribly busy just recently.
I seem to have wound up in the situation where I'm processing more bids, yet also having to run projects and do other stuff besides. It doesn't help in particular that a key member of staff has been sent to do a contract down in the South West. Also while they've taken on some new staff, they're mostly part-time and the maternity cover for a work colleague has effectively been done away with before she's come back.
To be frank, what would really help would be a pay raise. that's kinda mercenary of me, but it's been years since I had a raise and while we've had a few additional benefits, none of them are of particular use or interest to me.
Shaving
Now here is a completely random one - I've decided to start shaving every day.
Okay, not every day, but every day for work. Previously I used to shave every other day - specifically on Sunday's Tuesday's and Thursday's. Now for reasons I can't be arsed to explain, I actually shave in the evenings, so I'd therefore be clean shaven on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Part of my reason for doing this was because good razor blades are expensive. I also have a very tough beard that blunts most blades quite quickly. So, by shaving alternate days I'd save money, as well as the more obvious time and effort.
However, recently I've noticed that my beard grows quicker and is also darker and stronger. I've always had a heavy beard, but now on those days I didn't shave it looks live I've not shaved in days.
I therefore decided to start shaving for every work day and it's been working out okay. I sometimes suffer from shaving rash, and to avoid this I have to use quite a light technique and so the slight irony is that where I used to go alternate days of very cleanly shaven then clearly unshaven, now it's like I'm permanently stubbly.
I think, on balance, it's better though, as the stubbly days were getting quite bad.
Friday, 5 August 2011
sods and bits
Turns out if you want Sky Sports 1 and/or 2 via BT Vision (their TV thing) you have to pay an additional subscription, so there goes that idea :(.
Anyway, this last few weeks I've really been struggling to cover all the stuff I wanted too in the blog. This is something of a turn-around from the usual situation, where I'm struggling to find enough to talk about for all five days.
I therefore thought I'd do a bit of a roundup of some things that are either too old to really talk about or can be quickly summarised. I hope I'm not shooting myself in the foot!
The Weather
One of my pet sayings is that the weather in the UK seems to come with exclamation marks and the early part of this was a classic example.
So we've been bimbling along at a fairly cool range of 15-20 degrees maximum during the day. Not technically shorts weather, but I've been steadfastly wearing them anyway. And then this last weekend there's a sudden change and we bounce up into the high twenties, with the temperature gauge on my car bobbling around the low thirties (all that metal tends to boost the temperature a bit).
Those sorts of temperature are all very nice, but when they happen suddenly, with no chance to acclimatise, I find it a bit unpleasant. Interestingly, though, I think I'm coping with the high temperatures much better now that I've shed some weight. It also gives me more reason to praise my aircon, which has again been giving me a bit of respite in the evenings and helping me get to sleep at night.
Dentists
On Monday I had a long session at the dentists, as I needed two fillings :(.
My teeth seem really susceptible to decay so I've been kinda lucky I've not had need of a filling in a while. Although I have to say I think actually the filling he put in was because one dropped out a while back.
Once I got home I looked in the mirror to see it and to me it seemed to be where I'm sure I'd had a filling a long time ago. And I also specifically remember a time when I was eating and something very hard and crunchy was suddenly in my mouth and the bits I spit out looked like the amalgam they use in fillings. I remember asking him about it at the next check-up I had and he said nothing had changed, but I'm sure it was one that fell out.
Especially given that it was a really big hole and filling he put in - it couldn't have eaten away that much in such a short period of time.
I'm not a huge fan of the dentist. It's not like most people who hate the sound of the drill, but simply the pain. My teeth are really sensitive and even when fully numbed I can often still feel pain. This was the case on Monday, when I really couldn't feel half of my face, yet when he was deep in there, rooting around close to the nerve there was occasional stabbing pain from it. Also, my gums can be really soar when they've been poked and prodded about.
However, the thing I was most pleased about was that once the pain killer had worn off there wasn't any lingering pain and my gums were fine. Normally Id' expect pain from the swollen nerve and my gums for days, but it was all fine.
The bad news was that, because the other filling is also on the lower jaw, but on the other side, he only did the one filling, so I've got to go back again.
Things that go "squeak" in the night
On Tuesday night I had the aircon on, as mentioned above and that sent me off to sleep in a nicely cooled room, but later on it was obviously getting a bit stuffy in there as I woke up and had to open some windows.
I don't really like opening windows while I'm asleep, as it makes me feel a bit paranoid, and the windows don't really have a latch setting where you can open them enough to get a good flow of air in, but they're still locked, if you see what I mean. Anyway, point is that I opened them up a bit, though not fully wide and went back to sleep.
Until about 4AM when there was a sudden rattling noise on the window sill and then this really weird squeaky/growly noise outside. It's really difficult to describe, but it was like the sort of noise a guinea pig makes crossed with the sort of noise a dog makes when it's trying to get its toy out from under a chair.
Clearly some sort of beast (my guess is a squirrel) had jumped onto my window sill (those pesky big trees again) and... well, I'm not sure. Maybe it was trying to get in though the window or maybe it just sounded like that because its claws were scrabbling on the sill.
It gave me a real shock and I yelled out to try to frighten it away. Not sure if I did or it had already gone, but it really woke me up and I spent the rest of the morning watching stuff I'd recorded and listening out for it to happen again.
Actually I went on a bit more than I intended there, so I'll pick these short thoughts up again next week.
Anyway, this last few weeks I've really been struggling to cover all the stuff I wanted too in the blog. This is something of a turn-around from the usual situation, where I'm struggling to find enough to talk about for all five days.
I therefore thought I'd do a bit of a roundup of some things that are either too old to really talk about or can be quickly summarised. I hope I'm not shooting myself in the foot!
The Weather
One of my pet sayings is that the weather in the UK seems to come with exclamation marks and the early part of this was a classic example.
So we've been bimbling along at a fairly cool range of 15-20 degrees maximum during the day. Not technically shorts weather, but I've been steadfastly wearing them anyway. And then this last weekend there's a sudden change and we bounce up into the high twenties, with the temperature gauge on my car bobbling around the low thirties (all that metal tends to boost the temperature a bit).
Those sorts of temperature are all very nice, but when they happen suddenly, with no chance to acclimatise, I find it a bit unpleasant. Interestingly, though, I think I'm coping with the high temperatures much better now that I've shed some weight. It also gives me more reason to praise my aircon, which has again been giving me a bit of respite in the evenings and helping me get to sleep at night.
Dentists
On Monday I had a long session at the dentists, as I needed two fillings :(.
My teeth seem really susceptible to decay so I've been kinda lucky I've not had need of a filling in a while. Although I have to say I think actually the filling he put in was because one dropped out a while back.
Once I got home I looked in the mirror to see it and to me it seemed to be where I'm sure I'd had a filling a long time ago. And I also specifically remember a time when I was eating and something very hard and crunchy was suddenly in my mouth and the bits I spit out looked like the amalgam they use in fillings. I remember asking him about it at the next check-up I had and he said nothing had changed, but I'm sure it was one that fell out.
Especially given that it was a really big hole and filling he put in - it couldn't have eaten away that much in such a short period of time.
I'm not a huge fan of the dentist. It's not like most people who hate the sound of the drill, but simply the pain. My teeth are really sensitive and even when fully numbed I can often still feel pain. This was the case on Monday, when I really couldn't feel half of my face, yet when he was deep in there, rooting around close to the nerve there was occasional stabbing pain from it. Also, my gums can be really soar when they've been poked and prodded about.
However, the thing I was most pleased about was that once the pain killer had worn off there wasn't any lingering pain and my gums were fine. Normally Id' expect pain from the swollen nerve and my gums for days, but it was all fine.
The bad news was that, because the other filling is also on the lower jaw, but on the other side, he only did the one filling, so I've got to go back again.
Things that go "squeak" in the night
On Tuesday night I had the aircon on, as mentioned above and that sent me off to sleep in a nicely cooled room, but later on it was obviously getting a bit stuffy in there as I woke up and had to open some windows.
I don't really like opening windows while I'm asleep, as it makes me feel a bit paranoid, and the windows don't really have a latch setting where you can open them enough to get a good flow of air in, but they're still locked, if you see what I mean. Anyway, point is that I opened them up a bit, though not fully wide and went back to sleep.
Until about 4AM when there was a sudden rattling noise on the window sill and then this really weird squeaky/growly noise outside. It's really difficult to describe, but it was like the sort of noise a guinea pig makes crossed with the sort of noise a dog makes when it's trying to get its toy out from under a chair.
Clearly some sort of beast (my guess is a squirrel) had jumped onto my window sill (those pesky big trees again) and... well, I'm not sure. Maybe it was trying to get in though the window or maybe it just sounded like that because its claws were scrabbling on the sill.
It gave me a real shock and I yelled out to try to frighten it away. Not sure if I did or it had already gone, but it really woke me up and I spent the rest of the morning watching stuff I'd recorded and listening out for it to happen again.
Actually I went on a bit more than I intended there, so I'll pick these short thoughts up again next week.
sods and bits
Turns out if you want Sky Sports 1 and/or 2 via BT Vision (their TV thing) you have to pay an additional subscription, so there goes that idea :(.
Anyway, this last few weeks I've really been struggling to cover all the stuff I wanted too in the blog. This is something of a turn-around from the usual situation, where I'm struggling to find enough to talk about for all five days.
I therefore thought I'd do a bit of a roundup of some things that are either too old to really talk about or can be quickly summarised. I hope I'm not shooting myself in the foot!
The Weather
One of my pet sayings is that the weather in the UK seems to come with exclamation marks and the early part of this was a classic example.
So we've been bimbling along at a fairly cool range of 15-20 degrees maximum during the day. Not technically shorts weather, but I've been steadfastly wearing them anyway. And then this last weekend there's a sudden change and we bounce up into the high twenties, with the temperature gauge on my car bobbling around the low thirties (all that metal tends to boost the temperature a bit).
Those sorts of temperature are all very nice, but when they happen suddenly, with no chance to acclimatise, I find it a bit unpleasant. Interestingly, though, I think I'm coping with the high temperatures much better now that I've shed some weight. It also gives me more reason to praise my aircon, which has again been giving me a bit of respite in the evenings and helping me get to sleep at night.
Dentists
On Monday I had a long session at the dentists, as I needed two fillings :(.
My teeth seem really susceptible to decay so I've been kinda lucky I've not had need of a filling in a while. Although I have to say I think actually the filling he put in was because one dropped out a while back.
Once I got home I looked in the mirror to see it and to me it seemed to be where I'm sure I'd had a filling a long time ago. And I also specifically remember a time when I was eating and something very hard and crunchy was suddenly in my mouth and the bits I spit out looked like the amalgam they use in fillings. I remember asking him about it at the next check-up I had and he said nothing had changed, but I'm sure it was one that fell out.
Especially given that it was a really big hole and filling he put in - it couldn't have eaten away that much in such a short period of time.
I'm not a huge fan of the dentist. It's not like most people who hate the sound of the drill, but simply the pain. My teeth are really sensitive and even when fully numbed I can often still feel pain. This was the case on Monday, when I really couldn't feel half of my face, yet when he was deep in there, rooting around close to the nerve there was occasional stabbing pain from it. Also, my gums can be really soar when they've been poked and prodded about.
However, the thing I was most pleased about was that once the pain killer had worn off there wasn't any lingering pain and my gums were fine. Normally Id' expect pain from the swollen nerve and my gums for days, but it was all fine.
The bad news was that, because the other filling is also on the lower jaw, but on the other side, he only did the one filling, so I've got to go back again.
Things that go "squeak" in the night
On Tuesday night I had the aircon on, as mentioned above and that sent me off to sleep in a nicely cooled room, but later on it was obviously getting a bit stuffy in there as I woke up and had to open some windows.
I don't really like opening windows while I'm asleep, as it makes me feel a bit paranoid, and the windows don't really have a latch setting where you can open them enough to get a good flow of air in, but they're still locked, if you see what I mean. Anyway, point is that I opened them up a bit, though not fully wide and went back to sleep.
Until about 4AM when there was a sudden rattling noise on the window sill and then this really weird squeaky/growly noise outside. It's really difficult to describe, but it was like the sort of noise a guinea pig makes crossed with the sort of noise a dog makes when it's trying to get its toy out from under a chair.
Clearly some sort of beast (my guess is a squirrel) had jumped onto my window sill (those pesky big trees again) and... well, I'm not sure. Maybe it was trying to get in though the window or maybe it just sounded like that because its claws were scrabbling on the sill.
It gave me a real shock and I yelled out to try to frighten it away. Not sure if I did or it had already gone, but it really woke me up and I spent the rest of the morning watching stuff I'd recorded and listening out for it to happen again.
Actually I went on a bit more than I intended there, so I'll pick these short thoughts up again next week.
Anyway, this last few weeks I've really been struggling to cover all the stuff I wanted too in the blog. This is something of a turn-around from the usual situation, where I'm struggling to find enough to talk about for all five days.
I therefore thought I'd do a bit of a roundup of some things that are either too old to really talk about or can be quickly summarised. I hope I'm not shooting myself in the foot!
The Weather
One of my pet sayings is that the weather in the UK seems to come with exclamation marks and the early part of this was a classic example.
So we've been bimbling along at a fairly cool range of 15-20 degrees maximum during the day. Not technically shorts weather, but I've been steadfastly wearing them anyway. And then this last weekend there's a sudden change and we bounce up into the high twenties, with the temperature gauge on my car bobbling around the low thirties (all that metal tends to boost the temperature a bit).
Those sorts of temperature are all very nice, but when they happen suddenly, with no chance to acclimatise, I find it a bit unpleasant. Interestingly, though, I think I'm coping with the high temperatures much better now that I've shed some weight. It also gives me more reason to praise my aircon, which has again been giving me a bit of respite in the evenings and helping me get to sleep at night.
Dentists
On Monday I had a long session at the dentists, as I needed two fillings :(.
My teeth seem really susceptible to decay so I've been kinda lucky I've not had need of a filling in a while. Although I have to say I think actually the filling he put in was because one dropped out a while back.
Once I got home I looked in the mirror to see it and to me it seemed to be where I'm sure I'd had a filling a long time ago. And I also specifically remember a time when I was eating and something very hard and crunchy was suddenly in my mouth and the bits I spit out looked like the amalgam they use in fillings. I remember asking him about it at the next check-up I had and he said nothing had changed, but I'm sure it was one that fell out.
Especially given that it was a really big hole and filling he put in - it couldn't have eaten away that much in such a short period of time.
I'm not a huge fan of the dentist. It's not like most people who hate the sound of the drill, but simply the pain. My teeth are really sensitive and even when fully numbed I can often still feel pain. This was the case on Monday, when I really couldn't feel half of my face, yet when he was deep in there, rooting around close to the nerve there was occasional stabbing pain from it. Also, my gums can be really soar when they've been poked and prodded about.
However, the thing I was most pleased about was that once the pain killer had worn off there wasn't any lingering pain and my gums were fine. Normally Id' expect pain from the swollen nerve and my gums for days, but it was all fine.
The bad news was that, because the other filling is also on the lower jaw, but on the other side, he only did the one filling, so I've got to go back again.
Things that go "squeak" in the night
On Tuesday night I had the aircon on, as mentioned above and that sent me off to sleep in a nicely cooled room, but later on it was obviously getting a bit stuffy in there as I woke up and had to open some windows.
I don't really like opening windows while I'm asleep, as it makes me feel a bit paranoid, and the windows don't really have a latch setting where you can open them enough to get a good flow of air in, but they're still locked, if you see what I mean. Anyway, point is that I opened them up a bit, though not fully wide and went back to sleep.
Until about 4AM when there was a sudden rattling noise on the window sill and then this really weird squeaky/growly noise outside. It's really difficult to describe, but it was like the sort of noise a guinea pig makes crossed with the sort of noise a dog makes when it's trying to get its toy out from under a chair.
Clearly some sort of beast (my guess is a squirrel) had jumped onto my window sill (those pesky big trees again) and... well, I'm not sure. Maybe it was trying to get in though the window or maybe it just sounded like that because its claws were scrabbling on the sill.
It gave me a real shock and I yelled out to try to frighten it away. Not sure if I did or it had already gone, but it really woke me up and I spent the rest of the morning watching stuff I'd recorded and listening out for it to happen again.
Actually I went on a bit more than I intended there, so I'll pick these short thoughts up again next week.
Thursday, 4 August 2011
weighty issues
So it's been a while since I did an update about my weight and related issues.
Last I mentioned I'd been on holiday for the Grand Prix and subsequently put on a little bit of weight, although I was pleased it wasn't a huge amount.
Last week there was no change in my weight - it stayed at exactly 19 stone 6 pounds, and I do mean exactly - both weeks the scales said 6.0 pounds exactly.
I kinda understand why it stayed exactly the same, though I won't say I wasn't a little disappointed. Basically, I didn't do very much walking (the weekend in particular I seem to recall being a bust due to the weather and other issues) and I wasn't very sensible on the diet front.
This last week was much better, as I lost 3 pounds, which I'm rather pleased about.
I wouldn't say I was back into the groove properly with the dieting and exercise, but I am getting back there.
I did my short walk I do before work and I went for reasonable walks at the weekend. Ideally I need to walk during lunch as well, but unfortunately since Homebase closed down I feel a bit odd parking in their car park, which is what I used to do when I went for a walk around the industrial estate. To be fair, this was also been hampered by the need to go to the post office for e-bay stuff most lunch times over the last couple of weeks, so it's not entirely down to that.
I also was closer to my diet.
Well, I say that, actually I slipped quite a few times, but still lost weight. They weren't big slips and there weren't as many, so I guess that explains it.
On my side (?) I did have some really bad nights sleep and I do seem to burn calories when that happens. Not that I'd use it as a proper dieting technique, obviously, but it does seem to have an effect whenever t happens.
In terms of targets and stuff, I've set a new one after the middle of this diet phase turned out to have a net no change, which is to get down to around 18 stone. I'm not entirely expecting to make it, as the change-over point to my next diet period is around the August Bank Holiday, so there's not long to go, but hopefully I'll at least be able to get a good way below 19 stone.
Wow - below 19 stone! I'm not that far off being "fat" rather than "obese"!
I've been umming and erring over what to set as my next target for my next weight loss phase. This one runs up to Chrimbo and has a late autumn holiday, which I'm planning to do a similar thing to what I did last year, although I'm going to have to be really careful about the whole splurging on junk food thing.
It would be nice to set a target that's fairly easy to achieve and then break it next time, rather than my usual thing of too ambitious a target that I then don't get anywhere near too.
Last I mentioned I'd been on holiday for the Grand Prix and subsequently put on a little bit of weight, although I was pleased it wasn't a huge amount.
Last week there was no change in my weight - it stayed at exactly 19 stone 6 pounds, and I do mean exactly - both weeks the scales said 6.0 pounds exactly.
I kinda understand why it stayed exactly the same, though I won't say I wasn't a little disappointed. Basically, I didn't do very much walking (the weekend in particular I seem to recall being a bust due to the weather and other issues) and I wasn't very sensible on the diet front.
This last week was much better, as I lost 3 pounds, which I'm rather pleased about.
I wouldn't say I was back into the groove properly with the dieting and exercise, but I am getting back there.
I did my short walk I do before work and I went for reasonable walks at the weekend. Ideally I need to walk during lunch as well, but unfortunately since Homebase closed down I feel a bit odd parking in their car park, which is what I used to do when I went for a walk around the industrial estate. To be fair, this was also been hampered by the need to go to the post office for e-bay stuff most lunch times over the last couple of weeks, so it's not entirely down to that.
I also was closer to my diet.
Well, I say that, actually I slipped quite a few times, but still lost weight. They weren't big slips and there weren't as many, so I guess that explains it.
On my side (?) I did have some really bad nights sleep and I do seem to burn calories when that happens. Not that I'd use it as a proper dieting technique, obviously, but it does seem to have an effect whenever t happens.
In terms of targets and stuff, I've set a new one after the middle of this diet phase turned out to have a net no change, which is to get down to around 18 stone. I'm not entirely expecting to make it, as the change-over point to my next diet period is around the August Bank Holiday, so there's not long to go, but hopefully I'll at least be able to get a good way below 19 stone.
Wow - below 19 stone! I'm not that far off being "fat" rather than "obese"!
I've been umming and erring over what to set as my next target for my next weight loss phase. This one runs up to Chrimbo and has a late autumn holiday, which I'm planning to do a similar thing to what I did last year, although I'm going to have to be really careful about the whole splurging on junk food thing.
It would be nice to set a target that's fairly easy to achieve and then break it next time, rather than my usual thing of too ambitious a target that I then don't get anywhere near too.
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
the thin red line
Well this wasn't quite what I was expecting.
I have to say I wasn't expecting much. I knew it was a war film and I knew it was an old war film (as in a film set in an old war, rather than being black and white or something), but if I'm totally honest I wasn't entirely sure if it was WW2 or the Korean War. Certainly the imagery suggested that sort of time period, rather than, say, Vietnam.
What I really wasn't expecting was something akin to an art house war movie. Indeed, I didn't actually think there was such a genre. And, to be frank, I didn't find it particularly enjoyable, so maybe there isn't.
I've read that the reviews for the film have been generally good. I can kinda understand that - it has the feel of being the sort of film critics would quite enjoy, but I found it a bit pretentious, if I'm honest.
Let me explain it this way - when I'm out walking I tend to listen to audio books. With the amount of walking I do I've actually gotten through quite a few and one of the themes of stuff I've listened to has been "classics". Now by classics I actually mean those well known things that most people are aware of but have never actually read.
In particular this has focused on science fiction, but there have been a few others too. Anyway, the point is that a few of the books actually stretch back to Victorian times and the one of most importance here is Frankenstein.
In particular, when I was listening to Frankenstein I was rather struck by how purple (or flowery) the prose is. In modern writing guides you're encouraged not to fanny about with fancy words, not least of all because, as I did here, purple prose can be kinda boring.
But also, and of most relevance here, I was struck by how eloquent the Monster is. As I'm sure you know, Frankenstein creates a human and while the film version of Igor bringing him a criminal's brain isn't in the novel (it's not actually the case that Frankenstein stitches human body parts together in the book - it's more of a chemistry thing) the idea she presents of a newly created man being able to learn language to quite the level of eloquence that he manages is, frankly, daft. Not to mention that he teaches himself to read.
And that's a big part of the problem I had with this film.
Every so often there'll be a chunk of narration from some of the soldiers. The soldiers aren't presented as being anything other than ordinary soldiers, yet these voice over's are incredibly fanciful and thoughtful and extremely eloquent. They're not the words of soldiers, in other words, and I found that horribly jarring.
I think, if I'm honest, taking out that narration and chopping some of the early stuff out to make it a less bum-numbing sub-2 hours in length, I'd have enjoyed it a lot more. Certainly the basic story that's there and the messages it's trying to convey worked, but those bits of narration were like being slapped with a wet fish.
I have to say I wasn't expecting much. I knew it was a war film and I knew it was an old war film (as in a film set in an old war, rather than being black and white or something), but if I'm totally honest I wasn't entirely sure if it was WW2 or the Korean War. Certainly the imagery suggested that sort of time period, rather than, say, Vietnam.
What I really wasn't expecting was something akin to an art house war movie. Indeed, I didn't actually think there was such a genre. And, to be frank, I didn't find it particularly enjoyable, so maybe there isn't.
I've read that the reviews for the film have been generally good. I can kinda understand that - it has the feel of being the sort of film critics would quite enjoy, but I found it a bit pretentious, if I'm honest.
Let me explain it this way - when I'm out walking I tend to listen to audio books. With the amount of walking I do I've actually gotten through quite a few and one of the themes of stuff I've listened to has been "classics". Now by classics I actually mean those well known things that most people are aware of but have never actually read.
In particular this has focused on science fiction, but there have been a few others too. Anyway, the point is that a few of the books actually stretch back to Victorian times and the one of most importance here is Frankenstein.
In particular, when I was listening to Frankenstein I was rather struck by how purple (or flowery) the prose is. In modern writing guides you're encouraged not to fanny about with fancy words, not least of all because, as I did here, purple prose can be kinda boring.
But also, and of most relevance here, I was struck by how eloquent the Monster is. As I'm sure you know, Frankenstein creates a human and while the film version of Igor bringing him a criminal's brain isn't in the novel (it's not actually the case that Frankenstein stitches human body parts together in the book - it's more of a chemistry thing) the idea she presents of a newly created man being able to learn language to quite the level of eloquence that he manages is, frankly, daft. Not to mention that he teaches himself to read.
And that's a big part of the problem I had with this film.
Every so often there'll be a chunk of narration from some of the soldiers. The soldiers aren't presented as being anything other than ordinary soldiers, yet these voice over's are incredibly fanciful and thoughtful and extremely eloquent. They're not the words of soldiers, in other words, and I found that horribly jarring.
I think, if I'm honest, taking out that narration and chopping some of the early stuff out to make it a less bum-numbing sub-2 hours in length, I'd have enjoyed it a lot more. Certainly the basic story that's there and the messages it's trying to convey worked, but those bits of narration were like being slapped with a wet fish.
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
fuck you, bernie, fuck you very much
So from next year, the BBC will not be showing all of the F1 Grand Prixs live - http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/9550930.stm
As with all sport, I'm sure there are some who are pleased there's going to be less of it on TV, but obviously this is my sport, so I'm bitterly disappointed. It is not a complete disappointment. As I understand it, the BBC will show half the races live, but for the other half of the races they will only show highlights.
I'm unsure how qualifying and practice will work. The impression I get is that if the BBC are showing the race live they'll also show all the practice and qualifying, but if they're not, then they won't. Also, the BBC 5live radio commentary will still continue, so access won't be completely blocked.
But part of the point of Formula one is watching the race live. Well, I say that as someone who often records the race and watches it on a delay, but we're talking a short delay, not several hours. And we're talking an active decision I make and that allows me to go for a walk.
In particular, I'm puzzled what will happen with the qualifying - when it says extended highlights, does that mean highlights shows for qualy and the race? Or just the race?
I'm also worried about which races the beeb will show. The calendar each year is somewhat fluid, so it's difficult for them to say ahead of time, but the worry is the phrase they use about how which races they show will be "negotiated" with Sky. Firstly that sounds very much like Sky are in the driving seat, but also it means there's a good chance they won't show the good ones live.
Of course, the irony is they're doing this half-deal thing just when F1 is producing a season where almost all the races are interesting. In previous years you could have easily said "don't bother showing x, y and z races, because they'll be boring" but this year even the likes of Monaco and Hungary have been interesting.
There's the possibility the races may be watchable via the BT TV service, as it has Sky 1 & 2 on it. I don't have that, but I could get it. I don't want Sky and I couldn't actually get it, as I understand it. Obviously I live in rented accommodation, but I think my landlord would be okay with it, but the problem is there are some hefty tress in the line of sight (he used to have it) and they block the signal.
Certainly Virgin isn't an option. I explored that before, and they were quite emphatic that they wouldn't put two boxes at the same property, which seemed ridiculous, but there you go. Also there's no guarantee F1 will be shown on Sky1 or 2 - there are 4 sky sports channels. I guess worst case I can listed to it on 5 Live and then watch the highlights show.
But the overall point is I'm seriously unimpressed. It seems ridiculous to me that Bernie charges so much for the telly rights that it's priced the BBC out. Now I do wonder what would have happened if the BBC had said it was too expensive - would he have just gone with Sky? He's always said it would remain on free-to-air TV.
Would ITV have picked it up again? Probably not at such high prices, and C5 and C4 would never have been able to afford it. Except it's now clear that this issue of highlights clearly ticks the FTA box for Bernie, so my guess is, if the beeb had said no, all races would have been shown live on Sky with only a highlights package then shown on one of the terrestrial channels.
To be frank, I've always been a bit dismissive of the ideas of the teams taking over F1 or other moves to get rid of Bernie, as getting the teams to act in unison is surely a bit like herding cats, but now I have to say it's got to be the way forward. I'm sure the teams (with their need to get maximum exposure for their sponsors) would not have approached things in this fashion.
As with all sport, I'm sure there are some who are pleased there's going to be less of it on TV, but obviously this is my sport, so I'm bitterly disappointed. It is not a complete disappointment. As I understand it, the BBC will show half the races live, but for the other half of the races they will only show highlights.
I'm unsure how qualifying and practice will work. The impression I get is that if the BBC are showing the race live they'll also show all the practice and qualifying, but if they're not, then they won't. Also, the BBC 5live radio commentary will still continue, so access won't be completely blocked.
But part of the point of Formula one is watching the race live. Well, I say that as someone who often records the race and watches it on a delay, but we're talking a short delay, not several hours. And we're talking an active decision I make and that allows me to go for a walk.
In particular, I'm puzzled what will happen with the qualifying - when it says extended highlights, does that mean highlights shows for qualy and the race? Or just the race?
I'm also worried about which races the beeb will show. The calendar each year is somewhat fluid, so it's difficult for them to say ahead of time, but the worry is the phrase they use about how which races they show will be "negotiated" with Sky. Firstly that sounds very much like Sky are in the driving seat, but also it means there's a good chance they won't show the good ones live.
Of course, the irony is they're doing this half-deal thing just when F1 is producing a season where almost all the races are interesting. In previous years you could have easily said "don't bother showing x, y and z races, because they'll be boring" but this year even the likes of Monaco and Hungary have been interesting.
There's the possibility the races may be watchable via the BT TV service, as it has Sky 1 & 2 on it. I don't have that, but I could get it. I don't want Sky and I couldn't actually get it, as I understand it. Obviously I live in rented accommodation, but I think my landlord would be okay with it, but the problem is there are some hefty tress in the line of sight (he used to have it) and they block the signal.
Certainly Virgin isn't an option. I explored that before, and they were quite emphatic that they wouldn't put two boxes at the same property, which seemed ridiculous, but there you go. Also there's no guarantee F1 will be shown on Sky1 or 2 - there are 4 sky sports channels. I guess worst case I can listed to it on 5 Live and then watch the highlights show.
But the overall point is I'm seriously unimpressed. It seems ridiculous to me that Bernie charges so much for the telly rights that it's priced the BBC out. Now I do wonder what would have happened if the BBC had said it was too expensive - would he have just gone with Sky? He's always said it would remain on free-to-air TV.
Would ITV have picked it up again? Probably not at such high prices, and C5 and C4 would never have been able to afford it. Except it's now clear that this issue of highlights clearly ticks the FTA box for Bernie, so my guess is, if the beeb had said no, all races would have been shown live on Sky with only a highlights package then shown on one of the terrestrial channels.
To be frank, I've always been a bit dismissive of the ideas of the teams taking over F1 or other moves to get rid of Bernie, as getting the teams to act in unison is surely a bit like herding cats, but now I have to say it's got to be the way forward. I'm sure the teams (with their need to get maximum exposure for their sponsors) would not have approached things in this fashion.
Monday, 1 August 2011
hungarian grand prix
I'm gonna do a proper post tomorrow about the announcement over the coverage; today I thought I'd talk about the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Generally speaking, the Hungarian Grand Prix is boring. The problem is a real lack of any overtaking - generally it's won from the front as overtaking is really difficult.
I'm putting that as a kind of excuse, because I didn't really watch the Grand Prix properly. I mean, I had it on, but I also had a few things to do so a good chunk of it I sort of had on in the background.
Well, more fool me, as it was actually a fairly good race. Now to be totally frank, I don't think that was entirely due to the improvements in the racing brought by Pirelli's excellent tyres and the other rule tweaks. A big chunk of it was because the weather was changeable.
It didn't really ever seem to rain properly, but it started damp and then there was a splash of rain towards the end. As ever, changeable weather makes races more interesting.
But it has to be said that they really seem to have done a good job with these new tyres and regs. There were points when it wasn't clear how long tyres would last and choices that had to be made and that's what you want. A lot of the problems of recent years have been because things had become so predictable - and predictably excellent.
Unfortunately, as I say, I didn't really plan things out properly to watch it fully, but then, as I say, it's always been dull in previous years. Apparently the drivers love it though, and there's a really good view for the spectators, but watching on telly nothing tends to happen.
It didn't go so well for Lewis, which was a shame. To be fair, he did kinda deserve his penalty, as he was trying to spin the car around right in the middle of the track. You could understand why he was keen to get back after his spin so quickly, but it wasn't really safe.
And unfortunately from a championship point of view, Vettel ended up finishing second, which means he's still way out in front. It's clear the others have now pretty much caught up with Red Bull, but Vettel has such a lead I'll be amazed if he doesn't have it sown up in a few races.
The Grand Prix now takes its summer holiday, which is a bit of a weird concept, but then the season is much longer nowadays, with more races, so it's understandable.
It should give me a chance to catch up with scanning, though. I admit my slackness started earlier, but the whole thing with the shower (I now have a shower!) meant it was impossible to do any.
Generally speaking, the Hungarian Grand Prix is boring. The problem is a real lack of any overtaking - generally it's won from the front as overtaking is really difficult.
I'm putting that as a kind of excuse, because I didn't really watch the Grand Prix properly. I mean, I had it on, but I also had a few things to do so a good chunk of it I sort of had on in the background.
Well, more fool me, as it was actually a fairly good race. Now to be totally frank, I don't think that was entirely due to the improvements in the racing brought by Pirelli's excellent tyres and the other rule tweaks. A big chunk of it was because the weather was changeable.
It didn't really ever seem to rain properly, but it started damp and then there was a splash of rain towards the end. As ever, changeable weather makes races more interesting.
But it has to be said that they really seem to have done a good job with these new tyres and regs. There were points when it wasn't clear how long tyres would last and choices that had to be made and that's what you want. A lot of the problems of recent years have been because things had become so predictable - and predictably excellent.
Unfortunately, as I say, I didn't really plan things out properly to watch it fully, but then, as I say, it's always been dull in previous years. Apparently the drivers love it though, and there's a really good view for the spectators, but watching on telly nothing tends to happen.
It didn't go so well for Lewis, which was a shame. To be fair, he did kinda deserve his penalty, as he was trying to spin the car around right in the middle of the track. You could understand why he was keen to get back after his spin so quickly, but it wasn't really safe.
And unfortunately from a championship point of view, Vettel ended up finishing second, which means he's still way out in front. It's clear the others have now pretty much caught up with Red Bull, but Vettel has such a lead I'll be amazed if he doesn't have it sown up in a few races.
The Grand Prix now takes its summer holiday, which is a bit of a weird concept, but then the season is much longer nowadays, with more races, so it's understandable.
It should give me a chance to catch up with scanning, though. I admit my slackness started earlier, but the whole thing with the shower (I now have a shower!) meant it was impossible to do any.
Friday, 29 July 2011
silverstone 2011 f1 gp part 4
So, race day at last. I appreciate this is some serious overkill, but I don't get to go to an actual Grand Prix every year so you'll forgive me posting multiple things about it.
I've also actually not got much to say about race day itself. We basically headed straight down to our assigned seating in Stowe and stayed there all day. There was less in the way of on track action, with the final races for each of GP3, GP2, Porsche and of course F1.
I didn't take quite so many pictures, either, as from experience I tend to try to take photos on the less important days and concentrate on the actual racing on Sunday.
So here's the last batch of photos:
In between races the martial's were often out on the track, giving it a good clean.
This is the second of the GP2 races. Both the GP2 and GP3 support formulas have multiple races. They're a bit bonkers in the lower formulas - young kids with no sense of self preservation and a desire to prove themselves good enough to advance to the next level, so you get a lot of overtaking.
In years gone by there would be loads of odds and sods by way of entertainment, but not so much in later years - they tend to have the big concert at the end instead. This is Fernando Alonso going around in the first ever car entered by Ferrari, which was 60 years ago.
Alonso gave it some beans and actually got a few power slides on in the car. It's owned by Bernie Ecclestone and we were having some fun imagining what he was saying to him about driving like that when Alonso got out. Amusingly, the driver's parade actually set off without Alonso as it was straight after this.
During the race you're normally too into it to take photos, but here's a shot of a Red Bull during the actual race.
And here's one of Lewis and Alonso, I believe.
Overall it was a cracking race. We got to see some overtaking at Stowe and, as always, there's so much going on that before you know it the race is over.
We had about an hour to wander back and so hung around to watch the post race interviews on the screens, then it was back to the hotel for dinner and bed. But this time it was bed knowing we could have a nice lie-in!
Of course the holiday didn't actually stop there.
Tuesday we drove back to my Dad's and I have to confess I was rather unimpressed with my Dad. The drive up he'd been really careful and cautious, but on the drive back he drove like a loony.
Basically, I think this was due a conflation of circumstances. On the drive up it was very early in the morning, so it was dark and it was also raining horribly, plus he was totally unfamiliar with the car. On the way back it was early afternoon by the time he got behind the wheel and was now somewhat more familiar.
But also he was insistent about using the A303 on the way back. I thought this was a bad idea as it's more complicated than the motorways, but it's also a longer route and if you encounter any problems, it can easily grind to a halt. You can also easily get stuck behind a tractor or caravan.
Now that's okay if you're just doing the journey to Devon, but we would only get to the A303 having spent about 3 hours on the road already. And guess what - we got stuck because some van had broken down near Stonehenge and was blocking the road. That added the best part of an hour to our journey time. And that was after we'd had to follow some old fart pootling along on the road to get down to the A303.
And because of that and the deadline for picking his dog up from the kennels, he put his foot down. What also didn't help is that when we eventually got to Devon and went to pick up the dog, the route was all country lanes, so he's bombing around, nearly crashing into everything from fences to other cars and tractors.
I was not impressed.
And not least of all because he's insistence on going down the A303 clearly added 2 hours to the total journey time.
I've also actually not got much to say about race day itself. We basically headed straight down to our assigned seating in Stowe and stayed there all day. There was less in the way of on track action, with the final races for each of GP3, GP2, Porsche and of course F1.
I didn't take quite so many pictures, either, as from experience I tend to try to take photos on the less important days and concentrate on the actual racing on Sunday.
So here's the last batch of photos:
In between races the martial's were often out on the track, giving it a good clean.
This is the second of the GP2 races. Both the GP2 and GP3 support formulas have multiple races. They're a bit bonkers in the lower formulas - young kids with no sense of self preservation and a desire to prove themselves good enough to advance to the next level, so you get a lot of overtaking.
In years gone by there would be loads of odds and sods by way of entertainment, but not so much in later years - they tend to have the big concert at the end instead. This is Fernando Alonso going around in the first ever car entered by Ferrari, which was 60 years ago.
Alonso gave it some beans and actually got a few power slides on in the car. It's owned by Bernie Ecclestone and we were having some fun imagining what he was saying to him about driving like that when Alonso got out. Amusingly, the driver's parade actually set off without Alonso as it was straight after this.
During the race you're normally too into it to take photos, but here's a shot of a Red Bull during the actual race.
And here's one of Lewis and Alonso, I believe.
Overall it was a cracking race. We got to see some overtaking at Stowe and, as always, there's so much going on that before you know it the race is over.
We had about an hour to wander back and so hung around to watch the post race interviews on the screens, then it was back to the hotel for dinner and bed. But this time it was bed knowing we could have a nice lie-in!
Of course the holiday didn't actually stop there.
Tuesday we drove back to my Dad's and I have to confess I was rather unimpressed with my Dad. The drive up he'd been really careful and cautious, but on the drive back he drove like a loony.
Basically, I think this was due a conflation of circumstances. On the drive up it was very early in the morning, so it was dark and it was also raining horribly, plus he was totally unfamiliar with the car. On the way back it was early afternoon by the time he got behind the wheel and was now somewhat more familiar.
But also he was insistent about using the A303 on the way back. I thought this was a bad idea as it's more complicated than the motorways, but it's also a longer route and if you encounter any problems, it can easily grind to a halt. You can also easily get stuck behind a tractor or caravan.
Now that's okay if you're just doing the journey to Devon, but we would only get to the A303 having spent about 3 hours on the road already. And guess what - we got stuck because some van had broken down near Stonehenge and was blocking the road. That added the best part of an hour to our journey time. And that was after we'd had to follow some old fart pootling along on the road to get down to the A303.
And because of that and the deadline for picking his dog up from the kennels, he put his foot down. What also didn't help is that when we eventually got to Devon and went to pick up the dog, the route was all country lanes, so he's bombing around, nearly crashing into everything from fences to other cars and tractors.
I was not impressed.
And not least of all because he's insistence on going down the A303 clearly added 2 hours to the total journey time.
Thursday, 28 July 2011
silverstone 2011 f1 gp part 3
Saturday started off with another early rise and the coach in to the circuit. We actually went with a tour company, as it just makes everything so much easier.
The weather on Saturday was better described as "sunshine with occasional showers", where it had been "showers with occasional sunshine" on Friday. This made things more pleasant, but unfortunately for Practice 3 it was again wet, so the F1 cars didn't really come out much.
We actually sat in Abbey for the start of the day, so here's some more pics:
On day 2 we started off at Abbey. My Dad's comment was that Abbey wasn't very good, but that was based on the old circuit. Nowadays you can see the start/finish straight, the pits and across the track down to village and the twisty-turny bit.
This is where they exit the pits and you can clearly see that it goes up hill. This is part of the compromise that they've had to make with the new paddocks. Because Silverstone is a circuit that's grown up organically and not been designed from scratch, there are a few unfortunate compromises.
This is one of the big compromises - from Abbey and the main stands along the straight, you can't really see into the closer garages because of how the track rises up. I think I'd be a bit miffed if I was here for the race and was expecting to see the top end teams pitting.
What you can see across to are the lower teams, but they're not really the main attraction. As I say, it's part of the compromises that could only be solved by even bigger wodges of cash, and the paddocks itself was hardly cheap.
Here you can actually see multiple cars going around the various bends that are the new part of the circuit. Our exploits didn't really give us much chance to look at the new bits of track.
Another arty shot, I'm afraid.
After that we wandered down to the International Pit Straight stand, but that was pretty full.
Basically the new paddock complex is down at the opposite end f the circuit to the old complex, as that allowed them to build a bigger building. This also meant the start finish has moved, but they've kept the old start finish and paddocks as well. So now there's the (old) "national" start finish and the (new) "international" start finish.
I have to confess that these stands were a bit of a mixed bad. In Abbey you could see across the new part of the track, which was interesting, but where you should have been able to see into the pits, because of how the track rises up, your view of where the top teams are is blocked. The actual exit of the pits involves driving up a hill.
As I understand it, they're going to redevelop all that area to give people better stands and views, but I think really they need to tweak the circuit so that it's level and then goes up a proper little hill.
We ended up sat in Club again, but in a slightly different position, so here's the photos:
Second up for Saturday we stopped in Club again. It was a different stand, but gave a similar view. This shot looks down the new start/finish straight. You can also see the famed carbon fibre super shed.
Here's another of those stuck together shots, only I missed the middle out, so it looks a bit weird, but shows you club corner and the other bits.
This is looking out along Vale. What you're actually looking at is the old Vale - the new Vale is much tighter and carries on straight for a bit further. You can also just see the pit lane entry.
This hopefully gives a good impression of how our stand was pretty full during this practice session.
Felipe Massa and Jenson Button. A somewhat prophetic shot as they'd be battling to pass each other around Vale during the race.
Schumacher, and also shows you how changeable the weather was on Saturday too - black clouds are rolling in.
Just some on track action. I think Club would be my preferred spot, if money were no object.
I do like the Lotus livery - that black paint finish is very evocative of the old days.
Anyway, our next action was to wander round to Stowe, where our actual seats where. On the Sunday, there's assigned seating, but on Saturday and Friday you can get into any stand if you have the 'roving' pass.
We didn't actually sit in our actual seats, just in the same stand. We did this mainly so my Dad could scope out the area a bit for race day - get familiar with where we needed to go and where the facilities were. I didn't mind, as Stowe's a good place to sit anyway, though it is unfortunately not a covered Grandstand.
Here's the pics from Stowe where we watched qualifying:
We finished off the second day at Stowe. We weren't quite in our actual sets for race day, but this gives you a good feel for what we could see. Jenson would start his move against Felipe here and there were a few other good overtakes too.
One of the Williams. This was actually qualifying for the race, so my attention was more on that than taking pictures.
Mark Webber, I believe, in the Red Bull.
The day ended with us going back to the hotel and this time going out to an Italian restaurant just across the way from the hotel. It was very nice and we ended up eating there on Sunday as well, though that was partly because the other place we tried was closed.
Then it was home again for another early night as we had to get up bright and early again for the coach in. On all three days I have to say the traffic wasn't that bad. In years gone by it used to be a nightmare getting in to the circuit, but they've done a lot of stuff to add to the road capacity around there and they've got it all worked out nowadays in terms of making some roads one way and directing the flow of cars in a sensible fashion.
The weather on Saturday was better described as "sunshine with occasional showers", where it had been "showers with occasional sunshine" on Friday. This made things more pleasant, but unfortunately for Practice 3 it was again wet, so the F1 cars didn't really come out much.
We actually sat in Abbey for the start of the day, so here's some more pics:
On day 2 we started off at Abbey. My Dad's comment was that Abbey wasn't very good, but that was based on the old circuit. Nowadays you can see the start/finish straight, the pits and across the track down to village and the twisty-turny bit.
This is where they exit the pits and you can clearly see that it goes up hill. This is part of the compromise that they've had to make with the new paddocks. Because Silverstone is a circuit that's grown up organically and not been designed from scratch, there are a few unfortunate compromises.
This is one of the big compromises - from Abbey and the main stands along the straight, you can't really see into the closer garages because of how the track rises up. I think I'd be a bit miffed if I was here for the race and was expecting to see the top end teams pitting.
What you can see across to are the lower teams, but they're not really the main attraction. As I say, it's part of the compromises that could only be solved by even bigger wodges of cash, and the paddocks itself was hardly cheap.
Here you can actually see multiple cars going around the various bends that are the new part of the circuit. Our exploits didn't really give us much chance to look at the new bits of track.
Another arty shot, I'm afraid.
After that we wandered down to the International Pit Straight stand, but that was pretty full.
Basically the new paddock complex is down at the opposite end f the circuit to the old complex, as that allowed them to build a bigger building. This also meant the start finish has moved, but they've kept the old start finish and paddocks as well. So now there's the (old) "national" start finish and the (new) "international" start finish.
I have to confess that these stands were a bit of a mixed bad. In Abbey you could see across the new part of the track, which was interesting, but where you should have been able to see into the pits, because of how the track rises up, your view of where the top teams are is blocked. The actual exit of the pits involves driving up a hill.
As I understand it, they're going to redevelop all that area to give people better stands and views, but I think really they need to tweak the circuit so that it's level and then goes up a proper little hill.
We ended up sat in Club again, but in a slightly different position, so here's the photos:
Second up for Saturday we stopped in Club again. It was a different stand, but gave a similar view. This shot looks down the new start/finish straight. You can also see the famed carbon fibre super shed.
Here's another of those stuck together shots, only I missed the middle out, so it looks a bit weird, but shows you club corner and the other bits.
This is looking out along Vale. What you're actually looking at is the old Vale - the new Vale is much tighter and carries on straight for a bit further. You can also just see the pit lane entry.
This hopefully gives a good impression of how our stand was pretty full during this practice session.
Felipe Massa and Jenson Button. A somewhat prophetic shot as they'd be battling to pass each other around Vale during the race.
Schumacher, and also shows you how changeable the weather was on Saturday too - black clouds are rolling in.
Just some on track action. I think Club would be my preferred spot, if money were no object.
I do like the Lotus livery - that black paint finish is very evocative of the old days.
Anyway, our next action was to wander round to Stowe, where our actual seats where. On the Sunday, there's assigned seating, but on Saturday and Friday you can get into any stand if you have the 'roving' pass.
We didn't actually sit in our actual seats, just in the same stand. We did this mainly so my Dad could scope out the area a bit for race day - get familiar with where we needed to go and where the facilities were. I didn't mind, as Stowe's a good place to sit anyway, though it is unfortunately not a covered Grandstand.
Here's the pics from Stowe where we watched qualifying:
We finished off the second day at Stowe. We weren't quite in our actual sets for race day, but this gives you a good feel for what we could see. Jenson would start his move against Felipe here and there were a few other good overtakes too.
One of the Williams. This was actually qualifying for the race, so my attention was more on that than taking pictures.
Mark Webber, I believe, in the Red Bull.
The day ended with us going back to the hotel and this time going out to an Italian restaurant just across the way from the hotel. It was very nice and we ended up eating there on Sunday as well, though that was partly because the other place we tried was closed.
Then it was home again for another early night as we had to get up bright and early again for the coach in. On all three days I have to say the traffic wasn't that bad. In years gone by it used to be a nightmare getting in to the circuit, but they've done a lot of stuff to add to the road capacity around there and they've got it all worked out nowadays in terms of making some roads one way and directing the flow of cars in a sensible fashion.
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
silverstone 2011 f1 gp part 2
After first practice, we met up with my sister and her friends.
They were camping, where me and my dad were staying in a hotel. I know that sounds 'unfair' but there's a bunch of things that are a bit private that explain why that was the case.
Anyway, having met up with them we set out to get our fanvision. These used to be known as Kangaroo TV (the devices themselves still had Kangaroo on them) and are basically like little TV sets, but also allow you access to all sorts of other goodies too, including statistics, news and various commentaries. The advantage with these sets is that you get to have your own system that you can carry around with you and plug your earphones into. That means that you can hear stuff (F1 cars are amazingly loud - to the degree that you really have to experience it before you'll believe just how loud they really are) and watch stuff no matter where you are.
The only problem with them is that they seem to have scaled back since they became Fanvision - they used to have loads of places to pick up a set, but they only had 3 at Silverstone, so there was a huge queue. Also, even though we pre-ordered, we still had to queue up.
Thankfully the queue did move quite quickly, so we weren't too long. I think we actually made a bit of an error here, as we got two units between five of us. They're actually quite small things, so I think 3 between five would have been better. Also, despite having used them before, the others failed to bring headphone splitter. Both me and my dad had them, but that still meant only 4 people could listen.
This was partly solved because we had a separate radio unit, but that person was listening to the on-track announcer commentary, rather than 5 live, which we listened to during the F1 bits. To be fair, this was something of a double edged sword, as it meant that person could here commentary during the whole thing, whereas fanvision only showed pictures and commentary during the actual cars-on-track stuff - the rest of the time it repeated highlights.
Anyway, we'd wandered up to the Village area to get our fan vision, which meant we were about a quarter of the way around the track. We kept going and eventually completed a full circuit of the track. It stayed rainy and cold throughout the day, but we managed to time it such that we were mostly sat in a stand when it happened.
Village itself is where they've made the most radical changes to the layout of the circuit. We actually walked along the bit of the circuit they've cut off, which included walking under the famous Bridge section. This area is also now a focus for the entertainment and concession stands.
The next stand we sat in was up at Luffield. This was another good place to sit, especially as it had the camera on a wire. This gave some great shots and was interesting to see it buzzing along its cable, which is apparently 400 meters (a quarter of a mile!) long.
Our second port of call was Luffield, up at the top end of the circuit. This is a compilation shot showing the Luffield area, which as you can see has a whole bunch of bends in it.
This is the old BRDC building.
If you were of a non-sane persuasion, available entertainment included bungee jumping. This is actually over in Village, where there's loads of the concessions and stands and stuff.
You can see the track was mildly moist for second practice too.
You can't see it in any of these shots, but this is where the cracking camera was that swooped around showing you the cars. It gave some really cool shots.
The next stand we went in was at Copse. This was a less good position, I'd say, but we watched some stuff there while it rained. So here's those photos:
Our third stop on Friday was Copse, where you can look over at the old Paddocks. It's when you see the old ones that you realise how much of a step change the new area is.
These are actually GP3 cars, if memory serves. It's good that they now have a clear progression of formulas.
It rained quite a nit while we were sat in Copse.
As you can see, plenty of spray being kicked up. I'm fairly sure this was actually the GP3 qualifying, so they were kind of forced to go out, despite the damp.
The last section was us walking down past Maggets and Beckets and on down to Stowe. I wanted to watch some on track stuff, but I think the others were feeling a little too fatigued, damp and miserable. I can understand this, as it had been a long, wet and rather cold day.
Our final mission was to drive to the hotel. I have to confess that if I'd been on my own I'd have probably tried to load up with some caffeine before attempting this. As it was, I felt really tired, but the presence of my dad in the car navigating kept me awake.
For dinner we just got some hotel bar grub and then went straight to bed.
They were camping, where me and my dad were staying in a hotel. I know that sounds 'unfair' but there's a bunch of things that are a bit private that explain why that was the case.
Anyway, having met up with them we set out to get our fanvision. These used to be known as Kangaroo TV (the devices themselves still had Kangaroo on them) and are basically like little TV sets, but also allow you access to all sorts of other goodies too, including statistics, news and various commentaries. The advantage with these sets is that you get to have your own system that you can carry around with you and plug your earphones into. That means that you can hear stuff (F1 cars are amazingly loud - to the degree that you really have to experience it before you'll believe just how loud they really are) and watch stuff no matter where you are.
The only problem with them is that they seem to have scaled back since they became Fanvision - they used to have loads of places to pick up a set, but they only had 3 at Silverstone, so there was a huge queue. Also, even though we pre-ordered, we still had to queue up.
Thankfully the queue did move quite quickly, so we weren't too long. I think we actually made a bit of an error here, as we got two units between five of us. They're actually quite small things, so I think 3 between five would have been better. Also, despite having used them before, the others failed to bring headphone splitter. Both me and my dad had them, but that still meant only 4 people could listen.
This was partly solved because we had a separate radio unit, but that person was listening to the on-track announcer commentary, rather than 5 live, which we listened to during the F1 bits. To be fair, this was something of a double edged sword, as it meant that person could here commentary during the whole thing, whereas fanvision only showed pictures and commentary during the actual cars-on-track stuff - the rest of the time it repeated highlights.
Anyway, we'd wandered up to the Village area to get our fan vision, which meant we were about a quarter of the way around the track. We kept going and eventually completed a full circuit of the track. It stayed rainy and cold throughout the day, but we managed to time it such that we were mostly sat in a stand when it happened.
Village itself is where they've made the most radical changes to the layout of the circuit. We actually walked along the bit of the circuit they've cut off, which included walking under the famous Bridge section. This area is also now a focus for the entertainment and concession stands.
The next stand we sat in was up at Luffield. This was another good place to sit, especially as it had the camera on a wire. This gave some great shots and was interesting to see it buzzing along its cable, which is apparently 400 meters (a quarter of a mile!) long.
Our second port of call was Luffield, up at the top end of the circuit. This is a compilation shot showing the Luffield area, which as you can see has a whole bunch of bends in it.
This is the old BRDC building.
If you were of a non-sane persuasion, available entertainment included bungee jumping. This is actually over in Village, where there's loads of the concessions and stands and stuff.
You can see the track was mildly moist for second practice too.
You can't see it in any of these shots, but this is where the cracking camera was that swooped around showing you the cars. It gave some really cool shots.
The next stand we went in was at Copse. This was a less good position, I'd say, but we watched some stuff there while it rained. So here's those photos:
Our third stop on Friday was Copse, where you can look over at the old Paddocks. It's when you see the old ones that you realise how much of a step change the new area is.
These are actually GP3 cars, if memory serves. It's good that they now have a clear progression of formulas.
It rained quite a nit while we were sat in Copse.
As you can see, plenty of spray being kicked up. I'm fairly sure this was actually the GP3 qualifying, so they were kind of forced to go out, despite the damp.
The last section was us walking down past Maggets and Beckets and on down to Stowe. I wanted to watch some on track stuff, but I think the others were feeling a little too fatigued, damp and miserable. I can understand this, as it had been a long, wet and rather cold day.
Our final mission was to drive to the hotel. I have to confess that if I'd been on my own I'd have probably tried to load up with some caffeine before attempting this. As it was, I felt really tired, but the presence of my dad in the car navigating kept me awake.
For dinner we just got some hotel bar grub and then went straight to bed.
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
silverstone 2011 f1 gp part 1
My week off started on the Thursday, when I drove down to my Dad's in Devon. This was essentially going the opposite way to the Silverstone circuit to some degree, but the idea was that me and my Dad would go up in the one car and share the driving. The easiest thing to do was therefore for me to drive to him and then we could go up from there.
I obviously packed in the morning. Naturally I over packed - this is a function of the fact my suitcase is quite big (I was actually using the smaller of the two suitcases I own) and the fact that the weather forecasts were for changeable weather. I therefore had something to cover every possibility bar snow. I figured snow was fairly unlikely, even for a British July weekend.
The drive up to Silverstone was hell.
We basically had to set off at 4AM, which meant getting up at 3AM. Due to the added combination of excitement and an unfamiliar bed, I got very little sleep that night. It rained, mostly heavily, all the way up. This wasn't helped by the chronic squeak of my wipers - they're relatively new, expense Bosch wipers, but for some reason they squeak like a bastard.
Now, for those that don't know, a GP weekend actually covers three days. There are two practice sessions on the Friday - one in the morning and one in the afternoon, a final practice on Saturday morning and qualifying on Saturday afternoon, with the actual Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon.
My memory from previous times I've been was that 1st practice starts at 10AM, but this year it started at 9AM (they made similar noises about it being earlier on the commentary). We unfortunately didn't arrive until 9AM, meaning the first practice session was just getting under way when we were trying to get in.
To my mind this was a serious error on the planner's part. by making it 9AM you make it more likely people are all going to arrive close to the start time. It also means it overlaps more with normal rush hour. If it had been 10AM, people would have drifted in a bit more.
Instead, when we got to the nearest gate we discovered a huge queue that didn't appear to be moving. Initially we panicked and made some half-hearted attempts to go to other gates, but then we finally just waited in the queue. It was moving, but very slowly and I initially thought it might be because they were checking bags.
However, when I got to the front, I discovered that the real issues was a combined problem of there not being enough people on the gates, processing tickets, and the way they'd designed the tickets. Basically, there was a tear off bit for each of the three days on the one ticket.
The tear off for Friday was next to the one for Saturday, meaning that, if he wasn't careful at making sure the perforation was clean he could take off or damage Saturday by accident too. This meant it was necessary for him to fold the perforation over several times. And, as mentioned, there were only a couple of people on the gate, meaning the whole thing was horribly slow.
Anyway, when we eventually got in, we went straight in to the nearest stand, which happened to be at Club corner. This had a really great view of the new paddock complex and you also therefore got a really good view of the pits and the start/finish straight, as well as Club corner and down to Stowe. Were I picking spots to sit, money no object, that would be a top contender.
So here are some photos for what we saw at club:
This is the new Paddocks complex. I'm sure it's all very swish and everything, but to us regular fans it doesn't mean a great deal. Still, it keeps Bernie happy and that helps to ensure the future of the British GP.
This shows you the new pits that are obviously an integral part of the new paddocks. What you can also clearly see here is the big bit of grass that separates the pit lane from the wall where the engineers sit. To be honest, the new paddocks is a bit of a compromise, as they'd have had to alter the track to really fit it in well - more on that later.
I obviously packed in the morning. Naturally I over packed - this is a function of the fact my suitcase is quite big (I was actually using the smaller of the two suitcases I own) and the fact that the weather forecasts were for changeable weather. I therefore had something to cover every possibility bar snow. I figured snow was fairly unlikely, even for a British July weekend.
The drive up to Silverstone was hell.
We basically had to set off at 4AM, which meant getting up at 3AM. Due to the added combination of excitement and an unfamiliar bed, I got very little sleep that night. It rained, mostly heavily, all the way up. This wasn't helped by the chronic squeak of my wipers - they're relatively new, expense Bosch wipers, but for some reason they squeak like a bastard.
Now, for those that don't know, a GP weekend actually covers three days. There are two practice sessions on the Friday - one in the morning and one in the afternoon, a final practice on Saturday morning and qualifying on Saturday afternoon, with the actual Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon.
My memory from previous times I've been was that 1st practice starts at 10AM, but this year it started at 9AM (they made similar noises about it being earlier on the commentary). We unfortunately didn't arrive until 9AM, meaning the first practice session was just getting under way when we were trying to get in.
To my mind this was a serious error on the planner's part. by making it 9AM you make it more likely people are all going to arrive close to the start time. It also means it overlaps more with normal rush hour. If it had been 10AM, people would have drifted in a bit more.
Instead, when we got to the nearest gate we discovered a huge queue that didn't appear to be moving. Initially we panicked and made some half-hearted attempts to go to other gates, but then we finally just waited in the queue. It was moving, but very slowly and I initially thought it might be because they were checking bags.
However, when I got to the front, I discovered that the real issues was a combined problem of there not being enough people on the gates, processing tickets, and the way they'd designed the tickets. Basically, there was a tear off bit for each of the three days on the one ticket.
The tear off for Friday was next to the one for Saturday, meaning that, if he wasn't careful at making sure the perforation was clean he could take off or damage Saturday by accident too. This meant it was necessary for him to fold the perforation over several times. And, as mentioned, there were only a couple of people on the gate, meaning the whole thing was horribly slow.
Anyway, when we eventually got in, we went straight in to the nearest stand, which happened to be at Club corner. This had a really great view of the new paddock complex and you also therefore got a really good view of the pits and the start/finish straight, as well as Club corner and down to Stowe. Were I picking spots to sit, money no object, that would be a top contender.
So here are some photos for what we saw at club:
This is the new Paddocks complex. I'm sure it's all very swish and everything, but to us regular fans it doesn't mean a great deal. Still, it keeps Bernie happy and that helps to ensure the future of the British GP.
This shows you the new pits that are obviously an integral part of the new paddocks. What you can also clearly see here is the big bit of grass that separates the pit lane from the wall where the engineers sit. To be honest, the new paddocks is a bit of a compromise, as they'd have had to alter the track to really fit it in well - more on that later.
This is the new podium. It's a bit in the middle of nowhere, and the plan is to redo all the stands so that you get better views of it. This year they opened up the circuit so the fans could get on the track in front of it.
One of the Lotus's coming down to Vale Corner, just before Club.
This gives you quite a good feel for the weather - big black cloud, but the track's got sun on it for a bit. You can also see there's a healthy crowd and it's only Friday morning practice. This is what they mean when they talk about atmosphere - we love a bit of motor racing in Britain.
A Red Bull.
Lewis entering the pits. It was actually quicker going in the pits, owing to the fact you cut off vale, club and abbey corners.
Young mister Kobayashi got off onto the Astroturf, which was soaking wet and was a tad unlucky. It could have been a lot nastier as his car almost flipped over when it hit the grass.
This is the martial's recovering Kamui's car. It's remarkable the crashes they can come out of completely fine nowadays.
Bit of an arty farty one, I'm afraid. It's a Mercedes and I'm pretty sure it's Schumacher.
Monday, 25 July 2011
deutsch uber ales
So, the German Grand Prix this last weekend and it was another cracker.
It saw Red Bull clearly not as dominant as they have been previously, with both the Ferraris and McLaren's really taking the race to them. Of course it's going to be a real struggle for anyone to catch and overtake Sebastian Vettel in the standings. And somewhat ironically the fact both McLaren and Ferrari seem resurgent could actually make it more difficult for them to catch Vettel, as they may effectively end up taking points off each other
Vettel's so far in front that it would probably need Vettel's car to expire for several races in a row and that's a pretty slim chance as the cars are way too reliable for that nowadays. I have to say he did seem a bit down throughout the weekend.
I'm not sure if it was the added pressure of it being his home race or the general increase in competition from the other guys, but I half expected him to admit to having a stomach bug or something. He really did seem out of sorts and his performance wasn't that great.
If the comments that he's just not that good a 'racer' as the like of Lewis and Alonso (meaning he's not that good at overtaking) have been getting to him then he did nothing to dispel these, as he seemed to get stuck behind several people - Massa in particular - and was unable to overtake having sailed up to the back of them, when you get the feeling the like of Lewis would have gotten past.
It was a good race, though, and that without the forecasts for rain not coming to anything. And it's a quick turnaround for the next race in Hungary this coming weekend, then we get the summer break before the race at Spa in Belgium, which is always a highlight.
In other weekend news my e-bay auctions I had on went well, with nearly everything going. A few things didn't sell and I relisted them at cheaper start prices. That happens occasionally and I always puzzle over quite why some things sell and others don't.
Actually, sometimes I find it really rather dispiriting, as some of the stuff I'm selling I've held on to because they represent the core of my nerdom. They're kinda the defining elements that define me as a fan of certain things and when I can only sell them at what it would cost to post them (or even at a loss or not at all), it almost feels like a slight against me.
Obviously I know it isn't, but it can be depressing. Heck, it's depressing full stop - I'm not a hoarding pack-rat because I like getting rid of stuff!
The thing that does annoy me, though is when I reduce something (say it started out at £20, it doesn't sell, and then I reduce it to £15 and it does) and it ends up going for what I originally had or more (so people bid it up to £20+). I especially don't get that when there's lots of watchers - if no-one was interested at all, you'd expect it to get no watchers, but if 10 people are watching it and that happens I find it a bit mystifying.
And I still don't have a shower.
There were some bullshit excuses about pipes and stuff, that were basically "we're too cheap to get the plumber in like we promised".
To be frank I'm now resigned to having to use my landlord's shower for the foreseeable future. And I've decided to turn the negatives - can't do scanning, can't dl fansubs - into positives and use that time to watch stuff on DVD so I can start to clear backlog and have more stuff to get on e-bay.
It saw Red Bull clearly not as dominant as they have been previously, with both the Ferraris and McLaren's really taking the race to them. Of course it's going to be a real struggle for anyone to catch and overtake Sebastian Vettel in the standings. And somewhat ironically the fact both McLaren and Ferrari seem resurgent could actually make it more difficult for them to catch Vettel, as they may effectively end up taking points off each other
Vettel's so far in front that it would probably need Vettel's car to expire for several races in a row and that's a pretty slim chance as the cars are way too reliable for that nowadays. I have to say he did seem a bit down throughout the weekend.
I'm not sure if it was the added pressure of it being his home race or the general increase in competition from the other guys, but I half expected him to admit to having a stomach bug or something. He really did seem out of sorts and his performance wasn't that great.
If the comments that he's just not that good a 'racer' as the like of Lewis and Alonso (meaning he's not that good at overtaking) have been getting to him then he did nothing to dispel these, as he seemed to get stuck behind several people - Massa in particular - and was unable to overtake having sailed up to the back of them, when you get the feeling the like of Lewis would have gotten past.
It was a good race, though, and that without the forecasts for rain not coming to anything. And it's a quick turnaround for the next race in Hungary this coming weekend, then we get the summer break before the race at Spa in Belgium, which is always a highlight.
In other weekend news my e-bay auctions I had on went well, with nearly everything going. A few things didn't sell and I relisted them at cheaper start prices. That happens occasionally and I always puzzle over quite why some things sell and others don't.
Actually, sometimes I find it really rather dispiriting, as some of the stuff I'm selling I've held on to because they represent the core of my nerdom. They're kinda the defining elements that define me as a fan of certain things and when I can only sell them at what it would cost to post them (or even at a loss or not at all), it almost feels like a slight against me.
Obviously I know it isn't, but it can be depressing. Heck, it's depressing full stop - I'm not a hoarding pack-rat because I like getting rid of stuff!
The thing that does annoy me, though is when I reduce something (say it started out at £20, it doesn't sell, and then I reduce it to £15 and it does) and it ends up going for what I originally had or more (so people bid it up to £20+). I especially don't get that when there's lots of watchers - if no-one was interested at all, you'd expect it to get no watchers, but if 10 people are watching it and that happens I find it a bit mystifying.
And I still don't have a shower.
There were some bullshit excuses about pipes and stuff, that were basically "we're too cheap to get the plumber in like we promised".
To be frank I'm now resigned to having to use my landlord's shower for the foreseeable future. And I've decided to turn the negatives - can't do scanning, can't dl fansubs - into positives and use that time to watch stuff on DVD so I can start to clear backlog and have more stuff to get on e-bay.
Friday, 22 July 2011
cleanse me
So I'm still shower-less.
And it's really starting to get a bit boring.
Basically, as mentioned earlier this week, it stop working last Friday, so it's now a week since it's been out of action and I've been using my landlord's shower. Now this isn't exactly convenient from a showering point of view - I have a 'slot' from 7AM to 7:30AM, which means I don't really have any flexibility - but also it really highlights how interconnected things can be.
So it's my shower that's out of action, but this is stopping me from doing things on my computer like scanning magazines and downloading fansubs. But why?
Well, the stop cock for the shower are in the roof. In order to get up into the roof, you have to go up through the hatch. And my computers sits underneath that hatch. So, to get up, he has to move my PCs out of the way so that the ladder will fit and he can go up.
I download fansubs by leaving my computer on while I'm at work and it gets on with it. It's hardly safe or practical to leave the computer running if he's going to be moving it. Also, the other day it was clear he'd loosened the power lines (either accidentally or deliberately), as I had to push them in properly for my main machine to boot up.
Which also explains why I can't do any scanning. Basically, when I'm in scanning mode, I leave the scanner on the desk and the magazines in various states of disassembly. Unless it's the weekend, it's basically impossible to do an entire magazine in one sitting, so this is a necessity. But I can hardly leave them lying around if he's going to move them about to get up into the loft.
Of course there's the attendant problem that, being anime mags, most contain plenty of pics of scantily clad women, which would hardly be a good thing to leave lying around for him to see. I'm sure to his eyes it would look like a bunch of porn mags - especially the megamis and nyan types, which, let's be frank, are basically soft core porn mags.
The most annoying thing is that it doesn't seem like it's going to be fixed any time soon. Basically, if I get back tonight and it's not done, he's said he'll get the plumber in. Trouble there, of course, is plumbers are often rather heavily in demand, so God knows how long it will then take.
This weekend it's the German Grand Prix. I think they rotate the race in Germany between two different tracks. I think I'm right in saying it's Nurburgring this year, but it's not the full Nurburgring, it's a shorter loop circuit they have there.
Anyway, I'll be watching that this weekend, as well as hopefully polishing off this summary of my holiday so I can post it all next week.
I'll also be hoping to make lots of money via e-bay of course, if I'm going to afford all this dental work I need doing!
And it's really starting to get a bit boring.
Basically, as mentioned earlier this week, it stop working last Friday, so it's now a week since it's been out of action and I've been using my landlord's shower. Now this isn't exactly convenient from a showering point of view - I have a 'slot' from 7AM to 7:30AM, which means I don't really have any flexibility - but also it really highlights how interconnected things can be.
So it's my shower that's out of action, but this is stopping me from doing things on my computer like scanning magazines and downloading fansubs. But why?
Well, the stop cock for the shower are in the roof. In order to get up into the roof, you have to go up through the hatch. And my computers sits underneath that hatch. So, to get up, he has to move my PCs out of the way so that the ladder will fit and he can go up.
I download fansubs by leaving my computer on while I'm at work and it gets on with it. It's hardly safe or practical to leave the computer running if he's going to be moving it. Also, the other day it was clear he'd loosened the power lines (either accidentally or deliberately), as I had to push them in properly for my main machine to boot up.
Which also explains why I can't do any scanning. Basically, when I'm in scanning mode, I leave the scanner on the desk and the magazines in various states of disassembly. Unless it's the weekend, it's basically impossible to do an entire magazine in one sitting, so this is a necessity. But I can hardly leave them lying around if he's going to move them about to get up into the loft.
Of course there's the attendant problem that, being anime mags, most contain plenty of pics of scantily clad women, which would hardly be a good thing to leave lying around for him to see. I'm sure to his eyes it would look like a bunch of porn mags - especially the megamis and nyan types, which, let's be frank, are basically soft core porn mags.
The most annoying thing is that it doesn't seem like it's going to be fixed any time soon. Basically, if I get back tonight and it's not done, he's said he'll get the plumber in. Trouble there, of course, is plumbers are often rather heavily in demand, so God knows how long it will then take.
This weekend it's the German Grand Prix. I think they rotate the race in Germany between two different tracks. I think I'm right in saying it's Nurburgring this year, but it's not the full Nurburgring, it's a shorter loop circuit they have there.
Anyway, I'll be watching that this weekend, as well as hopefully polishing off this summary of my holiday so I can post it all next week.
I'll also be hoping to make lots of money via e-bay of course, if I'm going to afford all this dental work I need doing!
Thursday, 21 July 2011
holiday bump up
Considering what I ate on the holiday and the surrounding days, I'm rather surprised that when I weighed myself on Sunday I'd only put on 1 pound.
Well, actually, that's going by my rounding up way of doing things. I think it was probably more like 2 pounds if you take the decimal points way of doing it. But still, 2 pounds isn't a huge amount.
Or rather, 2 pounds isn't as much as I was expecting. It's a lot of weight, representing around 7,000 additional calories consumed, over and above what I needed for my base metabolism and the exercise I did. And I did a lot of exercise - the GP weekend involved walking some 15 miles, I reckon, and that's just the walking. There was all the lugging of stuff around and the calories I would have needed to keep me going without enough sleep and all that.
But the point is I'm not even going to pretend I ate anything like sensibly, but I still only put on a couple of pounds, which probably suggests I did do a hell of a lot to burn those calories off. If I had dieted or even been moderately sensible I bet I'd have lost half a stone.
You also always have to bear in mind that, when you're big, your metabolism is higher because you're burning extra calories just to kept yourself warm and when you're moving to shunt all the extra weight around. So, in other words, sensible (i.e. balancing my metabolism) is somewhere in the region of 3,250 calories, even now.
I think I've managed to confuse myself, as I'm now not sure if I'm arguing my two pound gain was good, bad or better or worse than expected. In many ways I'm actually just trying to fill a blog post where I would normally have an entry about my diet and exercise, only I've been off the diet and the exercise wasn't properly monitored.
What it all does mean is I won't be making my original target, set back when I started this stretch of the diet. Indeed, overall, I'm unlikely to have lost very much weight at all across this period. That's not great, obviously, but at least I've not had a net gain - it will definitely be a few pounds lower than at the start, it's just not going to be as much as I'd hoped/planned.
Well, actually, that's going by my rounding up way of doing things. I think it was probably more like 2 pounds if you take the decimal points way of doing it. But still, 2 pounds isn't a huge amount.
Or rather, 2 pounds isn't as much as I was expecting. It's a lot of weight, representing around 7,000 additional calories consumed, over and above what I needed for my base metabolism and the exercise I did. And I did a lot of exercise - the GP weekend involved walking some 15 miles, I reckon, and that's just the walking. There was all the lugging of stuff around and the calories I would have needed to keep me going without enough sleep and all that.
But the point is I'm not even going to pretend I ate anything like sensibly, but I still only put on a couple of pounds, which probably suggests I did do a hell of a lot to burn those calories off. If I had dieted or even been moderately sensible I bet I'd have lost half a stone.
You also always have to bear in mind that, when you're big, your metabolism is higher because you're burning extra calories just to kept yourself warm and when you're moving to shunt all the extra weight around. So, in other words, sensible (i.e. balancing my metabolism) is somewhere in the region of 3,250 calories, even now.
I think I've managed to confuse myself, as I'm now not sure if I'm arguing my two pound gain was good, bad or better or worse than expected. In many ways I'm actually just trying to fill a blog post where I would normally have an entry about my diet and exercise, only I've been off the diet and the exercise wasn't properly monitored.
What it all does mean is I won't be making my original target, set back when I started this stretch of the diet. Indeed, overall, I'm unlikely to have lost very much weight at all across this period. That's not great, obviously, but at least I've not had a net gain - it will definitely be a few pounds lower than at the start, it's just not going to be as much as I'd hoped/planned.
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
kick ass
So I mentioned this week's rental was The Thin Red Line, but a couple of weeks back I actually watched Kick-Ass, so I figured I'd review that first.
I'm not the biggest fan of Mark Millar's comics. I've read a few and he seems quite good at big ideas, but the actual stories tend to lack finesse and always feel a bit artificial, somehow. Take something like Wanted - great idea of the bad guys win and a great power-trip fantasy of loser turns super-assassin, but the actual comics when you read them are a bit thin - things happen too fast, there's too many info dumps and lumps of exposition, the main character never really struggles.
The Wanted film is almost totally different to the comic, as it kinda flips the central concept on its head. In Kick-Ass they've not done that, but they have significantly rewritten it. They've hacked out some of the dodgy bits and given it a more traditional narrative structure, but kept the central concept.
That central concept being why aren't there any real heroes?
Of course, actually there have been a few people who've dressed up in tights and done a bit of vigilantism, but it's a fair enough question.
The answer is actually fairly easy to work out. The vast majority of heroes have superpowers or use magic or have access to impossible technology - that sort of thing. No real world human has that sort of thing.
But then superheroes generally fight supervillains, and those don't exist either, so why would you need the powers if you're going to fight ordinary criminals?
Well the film gives a pretty solid answer to that question as well - because of things like guns and knives and gangs. You'd stand a pretty good chance of getting killed or at least badly maimed. The Punisher probably comes closest to how a real life superhero might work, but he's more like an anti-hero.
I think you can tell that I thought the film worked quite well, as it takes that basic big idea and goes at it in a fairly realistic way. To be fair, the comic also made similar points, but the comic had some rather unpalatable stuff in it too, which this removes or changes.
Where it did loose me a bit was towards the end, where it kinda tried to realise a comic book fantasy, but by doing so got a bit too far away from that realistic tinge. But apart from that, I really enjoyed it - it looked great and sounded fantastic (but then there were 4 composers!) and had plenty of blackly comic stuff in it.
Something I did quite like was that you could probably enjoy this if you had only a cursory knowledge of comic books, but if you really know comics, there was a lot of extra stuff to enjoy. This also worked at multiple levels, with some more obvious nods, but also a structure that reflects some classic themes of comic books characters.
As this was a Blu-Ray, I guess I should also note that there were plenty of extras - a full commentary and then a documentary that was roughly as long as the film itself, and a few other bits too.
I'm not the biggest fan of Mark Millar's comics. I've read a few and he seems quite good at big ideas, but the actual stories tend to lack finesse and always feel a bit artificial, somehow. Take something like Wanted - great idea of the bad guys win and a great power-trip fantasy of loser turns super-assassin, but the actual comics when you read them are a bit thin - things happen too fast, there's too many info dumps and lumps of exposition, the main character never really struggles.
The Wanted film is almost totally different to the comic, as it kinda flips the central concept on its head. In Kick-Ass they've not done that, but they have significantly rewritten it. They've hacked out some of the dodgy bits and given it a more traditional narrative structure, but kept the central concept.
That central concept being why aren't there any real heroes?
Of course, actually there have been a few people who've dressed up in tights and done a bit of vigilantism, but it's a fair enough question.
The answer is actually fairly easy to work out. The vast majority of heroes have superpowers or use magic or have access to impossible technology - that sort of thing. No real world human has that sort of thing.
But then superheroes generally fight supervillains, and those don't exist either, so why would you need the powers if you're going to fight ordinary criminals?
Well the film gives a pretty solid answer to that question as well - because of things like guns and knives and gangs. You'd stand a pretty good chance of getting killed or at least badly maimed. The Punisher probably comes closest to how a real life superhero might work, but he's more like an anti-hero.
I think you can tell that I thought the film worked quite well, as it takes that basic big idea and goes at it in a fairly realistic way. To be fair, the comic also made similar points, but the comic had some rather unpalatable stuff in it too, which this removes or changes.
Where it did loose me a bit was towards the end, where it kinda tried to realise a comic book fantasy, but by doing so got a bit too far away from that realistic tinge. But apart from that, I really enjoyed it - it looked great and sounded fantastic (but then there were 4 composers!) and had plenty of blackly comic stuff in it.
Something I did quite like was that you could probably enjoy this if you had only a cursory knowledge of comic books, but if you really know comics, there was a lot of extra stuff to enjoy. This also worked at multiple levels, with some more obvious nods, but also a structure that reflects some classic themes of comic books characters.
As this was a Blu-Ray, I guess I should also note that there were plenty of extras - a full commentary and then a documentary that was roughly as long as the film itself, and a few other bits too.
Tuesday, 19 July 2011
crappy start of the week too
Sunday evening/night didn't exactly go according to plan either.
I had an important meeting Monday morning which it turns out I was really nervous over. I didn't actually think I was - I didn't feel nervous, but the almost total lack of sleep I got would tend to suggest otherwise. I guess it didn't help that I started watching Top Gear quite late and it was quite an entertaining episode.
Of course, my nervousness could have been because of my dental appointment. The dentist always seems to cost a fortune and bring me bad news.
The bad news on Monday was particularly bad - I need two fillings, one rather urgently. I really can't understand how come one of the cavities has gotten as big as it appeared on the X-ray since my last appointment. It seemed huge, but he didn't mention it last time.
Including the cost of the hygienist (now there's money for old rope) it's going to set me back more than £200. And looking at it on the X-ray it's not something I can really put off.
The meeting for work actually went pretty well, I think. It was not really in my technical area, and I was obviously more than a little tired from the lack of sleep, so I didn't really contribute much, but the people we're working with seemed to be talking the same language as the customer.
The real difficulty to it is going to be the timescales - there's very little time available.
I have to confess, though, there's another piece of work I'd much rather being doing, but it's been a while since we've heard anything, so I don't think we've won that.
And yesterday I returned to find my shower was not actually fixed. He's bought a new one and had started fitting it, but has discovered that the fittings are in different places to the old one, so it looks like a much more serious job.
I'm sure it won't be long, but I hat being tied in to things like having a set slot to go and use his shower. Part of the reason I am uninterested in flat/house shares (which would save me a lot of money) is that I don't like being in a situation where I'm either dependent on or could be frustrated by other people (obviously I'm speaking domestically here, but I think it's probably true generally - I'm a bit of a control freak).
I had an important meeting Monday morning which it turns out I was really nervous over. I didn't actually think I was - I didn't feel nervous, but the almost total lack of sleep I got would tend to suggest otherwise. I guess it didn't help that I started watching Top Gear quite late and it was quite an entertaining episode.
Of course, my nervousness could have been because of my dental appointment. The dentist always seems to cost a fortune and bring me bad news.
The bad news on Monday was particularly bad - I need two fillings, one rather urgently. I really can't understand how come one of the cavities has gotten as big as it appeared on the X-ray since my last appointment. It seemed huge, but he didn't mention it last time.
Including the cost of the hygienist (now there's money for old rope) it's going to set me back more than £200. And looking at it on the X-ray it's not something I can really put off.
The meeting for work actually went pretty well, I think. It was not really in my technical area, and I was obviously more than a little tired from the lack of sleep, so I didn't really contribute much, but the people we're working with seemed to be talking the same language as the customer.
The real difficulty to it is going to be the timescales - there's very little time available.
I have to confess, though, there's another piece of work I'd much rather being doing, but it's been a while since we've heard anything, so I don't think we've won that.
And yesterday I returned to find my shower was not actually fixed. He's bought a new one and had started fitting it, but has discovered that the fittings are in different places to the old one, so it looks like a much more serious job.
I'm sure it won't be long, but I hat being tied in to things like having a set slot to go and use his shower. Part of the reason I am uninterested in flat/house shares (which would save me a lot of money) is that I don't like being in a situation where I'm either dependent on or could be frustrated by other people (obviously I'm speaking domestically here, but I think it's probably true generally - I'm a bit of a control freak).
Monday, 18 July 2011
crappy weekend
What a crappy weekend.
It started out being rubbish on the Friday, when I made the stupid decision to bake a cake. I think I mentioned before last week was holiday from the diet and stuff, so I thought I'd go out on a blow-out. That was fine, except baking a cake was definitely the wrong decision. A far better decision would have been to make some fairy cakes or something like that, as it would have put far, far less of a burden on me to have to eat such a lot of bad stuff.
Actually, technically it started with the shower buggering up. This was inconvenient, but I think it's clear from what I posted last week that I was expecting it to be a relatively simple fix - some pipe was blocked or something.
When I got back my landlord told me that the shower was completely knackered, he'd taken it off the wall and couldn't get a new one until Monday at the earliest. That meant I'd have to use his, which means I've been wandering into his house at 7AM every morning to use his shower.
But Saturday's rubbishness really got going when I went to the recycling centre. Now exactly where and how it happened I don't know, but as I was driving away I realised I had a load of wet pain on me. Whether this was from some area of wet paint they'd painted or because of something someone had spilt or what I don't know, but it's ruined my coat.
It's white emulsion paint by the looks of things and I had a half-hearted attempt to hand wash my coat and it had no impact on it whatsoever. I mean, I'm not fundamentally bothered about the coat - it's very old, the zip is knackered and it's now too big for me, but the point is it was another area where I was trying to hold on and not spend any money. Now I've got to as the summer is providing to have lots of spells of shit weather and I can't really go to work in a coat spattered with white paint.
And that was another shit thing - the weather was rubbish this weekend. Every time I thought I had a bit of slot to go for a walk it was raining or just about to. It's nearly August, it shouldn't be like this, surely.
Saturday evening I watched the Thin Red Line, which was shit. I've seen good reviews, but I thought it was awful - like an attempt at an art house war movie and way too long with it. I'll review it properly, but there's three hours of my life I won't get back.
Because my PVR recording went tits up I was also forced to watch a bunch of stuff on Saturday. Not that I minded the stuff itself, it was more that because stuff often expires after a week on the iPlayer (which is otherwise marvellous) I had to watch it all on Saturday, just in case.
Sunday the rubbishness was initially focused around the photos and posts about the Grand Prix. I'd thought I'd be able to rattle them off in an hour or two, but it took well over four hours and I'm still only about half way through. I guess that four hours actually includes the time I spent on putting some e-bay auctions together, but I'm pretty smooth with that now, so I don't think that took much time.
Of course e-baying is always a bit depressing, so I didn't really enjoy that either. Especially as I realised now I've somehow missed a couple of things I was keen to get on.
I'll continue tomorrow.
It started out being rubbish on the Friday, when I made the stupid decision to bake a cake. I think I mentioned before last week was holiday from the diet and stuff, so I thought I'd go out on a blow-out. That was fine, except baking a cake was definitely the wrong decision. A far better decision would have been to make some fairy cakes or something like that, as it would have put far, far less of a burden on me to have to eat such a lot of bad stuff.
Actually, technically it started with the shower buggering up. This was inconvenient, but I think it's clear from what I posted last week that I was expecting it to be a relatively simple fix - some pipe was blocked or something.
When I got back my landlord told me that the shower was completely knackered, he'd taken it off the wall and couldn't get a new one until Monday at the earliest. That meant I'd have to use his, which means I've been wandering into his house at 7AM every morning to use his shower.
But Saturday's rubbishness really got going when I went to the recycling centre. Now exactly where and how it happened I don't know, but as I was driving away I realised I had a load of wet pain on me. Whether this was from some area of wet paint they'd painted or because of something someone had spilt or what I don't know, but it's ruined my coat.
It's white emulsion paint by the looks of things and I had a half-hearted attempt to hand wash my coat and it had no impact on it whatsoever. I mean, I'm not fundamentally bothered about the coat - it's very old, the zip is knackered and it's now too big for me, but the point is it was another area where I was trying to hold on and not spend any money. Now I've got to as the summer is providing to have lots of spells of shit weather and I can't really go to work in a coat spattered with white paint.
And that was another shit thing - the weather was rubbish this weekend. Every time I thought I had a bit of slot to go for a walk it was raining or just about to. It's nearly August, it shouldn't be like this, surely.
Saturday evening I watched the Thin Red Line, which was shit. I've seen good reviews, but I thought it was awful - like an attempt at an art house war movie and way too long with it. I'll review it properly, but there's three hours of my life I won't get back.
Because my PVR recording went tits up I was also forced to watch a bunch of stuff on Saturday. Not that I minded the stuff itself, it was more that because stuff often expires after a week on the iPlayer (which is otherwise marvellous) I had to watch it all on Saturday, just in case.
Sunday the rubbishness was initially focused around the photos and posts about the Grand Prix. I'd thought I'd be able to rattle them off in an hour or two, but it took well over four hours and I'm still only about half way through. I guess that four hours actually includes the time I spent on putting some e-bay auctions together, but I'm pretty smooth with that now, so I don't think that took much time.
Of course e-baying is always a bit depressing, so I didn't really enjoy that either. Especially as I realised now I've somehow missed a couple of things I was keen to get on.
I'll continue tomorrow.
Friday, 15 July 2011
water, water... nowhere?
So this morning, as is my usual routine, I took a shower.
Only I got about half way through when suddenly water stopped coming out of the shower. It's a power shower and the motor was still running, but no actual water was coming out of it. It was all a bit odd, actually, as it was more like the pipe had become blocked somewhere than something bursting, but it's quite a big pipe.
Anyway, as I say, I was only about half way through, which is always a tricky thing to negotiate. I decided to go and grab a half bucket of hot water and, not wanting to get too graphic with details, wipe myself down with a flannel.
It worked okay, but I'm not at all keen on the idea of continuing it as a general practice. I've let my landlord know it wasn't working (I stuck a note through his letterbox - he doesn't tend to get up until several hours after I've gone to work!) and hopefully it'll be a quick fix. If not I could be shower-less for the next few days.
I guess timing wise it's not too bad and I can wallow in my own funk over the weekend, but Monday I've got an important meeting, so I want to clean myself up before then. I guess in theory I could use my landlord's, but as mentioned he's a late riser and I've never found shower before bed to be particularly successful. Partly because my hair always seems to end up badly mussed up, but also because I sweat a lot at night (I sweat a lot in general).
I've been lending some serious thought to moving, actually. I'm a bit bored of where I am at the moment and with the ever rising cost of fuel, living closer to work looks increasingly attractive. Also, in terms of work, our customers tend to be across the other side of Alton to where I am, so it would tend to simplify any meetings and trips.
Ideally I'd be looking to rent somewhere in Alton. That would mean I could generally walk to work, saving a lot of fuel. Also, if I get somewhere with better facilities I'd save on some of my other expenses. In theory these two saving might cover the additional expense of a place in Alton (property is not cheap, especially as it's a commutable train journey to London), though I'm currently getting away with not paying certain bills - water and council tax in particular.
The other barrier of course is you generally need to put down a deposit and pay the first month or two in advance and at the moment I just couldn't afford to do that. Well, also, there's the issue of the vast quantities of stuff I've still got (DVDs, books, comics, CDs, games, magazines). The ironic thing of course being that if I was to watch and then sell or throw away as appropriate it would likely solve both problems - the stuff would be gone and the stuff would be converted in a wedge of cash I could use to pay the deposit, etc.
Sorry, this turned into a bit of a random moaning session. Plans for the weekend are pretty boring - clean the flat and then do the sorting out that's left post GP, which will hopefully include some slightly more interesting posts about the GP for next week.
Only I got about half way through when suddenly water stopped coming out of the shower. It's a power shower and the motor was still running, but no actual water was coming out of it. It was all a bit odd, actually, as it was more like the pipe had become blocked somewhere than something bursting, but it's quite a big pipe.
Anyway, as I say, I was only about half way through, which is always a tricky thing to negotiate. I decided to go and grab a half bucket of hot water and, not wanting to get too graphic with details, wipe myself down with a flannel.
It worked okay, but I'm not at all keen on the idea of continuing it as a general practice. I've let my landlord know it wasn't working (I stuck a note through his letterbox - he doesn't tend to get up until several hours after I've gone to work!) and hopefully it'll be a quick fix. If not I could be shower-less for the next few days.
I guess timing wise it's not too bad and I can wallow in my own funk over the weekend, but Monday I've got an important meeting, so I want to clean myself up before then. I guess in theory I could use my landlord's, but as mentioned he's a late riser and I've never found shower before bed to be particularly successful. Partly because my hair always seems to end up badly mussed up, but also because I sweat a lot at night (I sweat a lot in general).
I've been lending some serious thought to moving, actually. I'm a bit bored of where I am at the moment and with the ever rising cost of fuel, living closer to work looks increasingly attractive. Also, in terms of work, our customers tend to be across the other side of Alton to where I am, so it would tend to simplify any meetings and trips.
Ideally I'd be looking to rent somewhere in Alton. That would mean I could generally walk to work, saving a lot of fuel. Also, if I get somewhere with better facilities I'd save on some of my other expenses. In theory these two saving might cover the additional expense of a place in Alton (property is not cheap, especially as it's a commutable train journey to London), though I'm currently getting away with not paying certain bills - water and council tax in particular.
The other barrier of course is you generally need to put down a deposit and pay the first month or two in advance and at the moment I just couldn't afford to do that. Well, also, there's the issue of the vast quantities of stuff I've still got (DVDs, books, comics, CDs, games, magazines). The ironic thing of course being that if I was to watch and then sell or throw away as appropriate it would likely solve both problems - the stuff would be gone and the stuff would be converted in a wedge of cash I could use to pay the deposit, etc.
Sorry, this turned into a bit of a random moaning session. Plans for the weekend are pretty boring - clean the flat and then do the sorting out that's left post GP, which will hopefully include some slightly more interesting posts about the GP for next week.
Thursday, 14 July 2011
return to work
So I'm back at work after my week away for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
I'm anticipating writing a bunch of posts next week about how it was and also uploading some photos to various places. Hopefully I'll get it all done this weekend.
Today I'm back at work and it's a bit of an odd experience - a bit of a culture shock, in a way. Usually when I take holiday I try to do it so that I don't return to a full week. It can be a bit of strain going from holiday to a full week of work. However, I wouldn't usually come back on a Thursday - Tuesday or Wednesday, yes, but Thursday, no. I mean, the week is virtually over and I'm coming back to work - it feels very odd.
Especially when it turns out we've won a piece of work I bid on and the start up meeting has already been arranged for Monday and we've received the contracts and stuff. Not that I mind those going ahead in my absence, because it's a part of the job that I've been lined up to do, but that I don't really have any particular interest in.
There have been moves afoot to take me down a project management type role, and I've resisted it as much as I was able. It's something hat I have to confess doesn't really interest me, but it also scares me a bit. I'm not sure I really want that sort of responsibility. I don't fundamentally mind responsibility, but when it relates to contracts and the paying of money I get a bit worried because I just don't know what I'm doing.
I'm anticipating writing a bunch of posts next week about how it was and also uploading some photos to various places. Hopefully I'll get it all done this weekend.
Today I'm back at work and it's a bit of an odd experience - a bit of a culture shock, in a way. Usually when I take holiday I try to do it so that I don't return to a full week. It can be a bit of strain going from holiday to a full week of work. However, I wouldn't usually come back on a Thursday - Tuesday or Wednesday, yes, but Thursday, no. I mean, the week is virtually over and I'm coming back to work - it feels very odd.
Especially when it turns out we've won a piece of work I bid on and the start up meeting has already been arranged for Monday and we've received the contracts and stuff. Not that I mind those going ahead in my absence, because it's a part of the job that I've been lined up to do, but that I don't really have any particular interest in.
There have been moves afoot to take me down a project management type role, and I've resisted it as much as I was able. It's something hat I have to confess doesn't really interest me, but it also scares me a bit. I'm not sure I really want that sort of responsibility. I don't fundamentally mind responsibility, but when it relates to contracts and the paying of money I get a bit worried because I just don't know what I'm doing.
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