Deryk's Musings

Testing MacJournal

2010-03-06T12:30:00.000Z

Actually making an entry on my blog. Gosh.

Bought it along with several other apps in a $19.95 bundle on Macheist.com - it’s a steal :)

Directly it’s here Mariner Software but $40 normally. Just FYI - not advertising. Looks pretty cool software so far.

Photography

2008-03-13T22:55:00.007Z

I should probably update this blog a little more often... furthermore, photos should make more of an appearance! I was inspired to make this post by a local taxi driver's photography blog which has recently been revamped.

I take hundreds of shots when out walking the fells, but also occasionally take some of the local area in general. Here's a small collection of my favourites of the local area (and a couple of walking ones and even not-so-local ones thrown in). They're not in any particular order, date or otherwise.

Coniston copper mines area

A neighbour's tree... looked nice against the shepherd's warning

From Coniston again...

Hoad Monument looking... weathered!

Glaxo from Hoad Hill (big lens)

Booths! (Why? Why not?)

Ulverston Lantern Procession 2006 finale
(It was better than last year's anyway)

A couple of pics on... such a lovely day.
My old workplace.

Yep... that's Barrow-in-Furness all right!

(I got mocked by kids for "bird watching" for this!)

"Some old weed" as a friend put it... up at Birkrigg.

Thought I'd captured its beauty quite well actually!

Shepherd's Delight this time!

"im in ur agricultural show lookin funneh"

Not quite so local... the O2 Dome

... and the Thames Barrier.

Le Tour de France

The highlights of 2007's lantern finale...

Finally the lunar eclipse from earlier in 2007.

Modern LED torches: not so dim

2008-01-05T01:34:00.000Z

Grabbed a Fenix L0D from this site:
http://www.glowgadgets.co.uk

I won't bother with pics as it's pretty much what you see in the youtube video that the owner of glowgadgets has done. There's probably no point in even reading my review, just watch this! It features a slightly older model of the same torch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isfuJ8ru7Xk

The tiny torch takes one AAA battery which powers a Luxeon Rebel LED. If you think LEDs are a bit dim, think again - these new chip types are literally blinding, as in you don't point them at your eyes or you *will* hurt them and get a nasty case of the temporary shinies :)

I actually work for an LED manufacturer (neither myself or the company I work for are affiliated with glowgadgets or fenix; I bought this out of personal geekiness and am reviewing it out of personal geekiness) and when dealing with Luxeon and other new chip based "light engine" type technology we do have to take care and follow certain safety procedures, that is how bright those things are out of one tiny point.

The chip in this tiny little torch (the chip itself is just a couple of millimeters in size) can put out a stonking 60 lumens, which is brighter than a standard (filament bulb) 3 D-cell Maglite which puts out around 40. At full 60-lumen power it will "only" last an hour on 1xAAA but as a general "everyday carry" torch that seems more than adequate. However it also has a very reasonable default mode of 21 lumens (3.5 hrs) or low power mode which is 7.5 lumens (8.5 hrs) - even this mode is brighter than most "bog standard" LED torches which just use 1-3 high intensity discrete LEDs (the sort you normally visualise).

I still can't get over this thing, I mean I do know what Luxeon chips are capable of (I do work for an LED manufacturer/distributor after all) but the implementation is fantastic, all the brightness and throw of a big-ol' 3-D maglite (and more!) in a package not much larger than a triple-A battery. Awesome. You may wonder why the company I work for doesn't tend to make gadgets like this to save me from ordering from a bloke in Bristol, but my answer would be that they're more into the large scale lighting and supplying to industrial markets.

Side note - I think the police tend to stick to their big maglites - you can't really club anyone with one of these ;)

The best thing though is the site, and the guy who runs it. I reckon he should've called it "Fenix Lights" as he's got the same accent and mannerisms as Peter Kay, except he's a lot funnier even if not on purpose. I've been watching his Youtube videos and reading his blog for the best part of this evening.

Highly recommended - but don't expect quick delivery if you go diving in there right now (5th January) as he's gone off to CES, Vegas until the 13th. I ordered mine on time and it was pretty darn quick, though his cutoff time is 3pm and I ordered at 3:05 so it took 2 days instead of next-day.

Again I'm not affiliated with Glowgadgets or Fenix, just thought I'd share this thing, and I'm doing so out of personal geekiness not because of where I work, just to clear up any bias theories (I liked LED tech long before starting there!) Though it helps having a related background. I'd never have known about it if I hadn't thought "those Luxeon chips we distribute at work would be nice in a torch" and Googled it.

Whilst the L0D is ideal for taking everywhere on a keyring, I think I'll get the Tactical T-1 next, as my full size beastie for walking/camping. That will do 60 lumens for TEN hours (or a more ridiculous 225 lumens for an hour and a half). The downside is it uses the more scarce and less affordable CR123A lithium cells rather than normal batteries like my L0D, but you can get rechargable li-ion CR123A's so it's not all bad.

BTW I did phone up to check on my order's progress, as I didn't fancy waiting for him to get back from CES. I got straight through to the "Doc" himself, about 2 rings, no automated systems, no call centres, as Peter Kay himself would say "No Nonsense". He operates an 0800 number but I didn't use it, as it costs money on my mobile; I called the geographical number instead. He was a very friendly chap who anyone can get on with, and he knows his stuff. I wish all businesses were like that.

Legendary torches, distributed by a legendary bloke who deserves and seemingly already has a bit of a cult following. Really chuffed.

Why isn't Linux succeeding? Because "Windows Is Free" (A TLUG Article)

2007-08-17T00:06:00.000+01:00

Windows Is Free (A TLUG Article)

Fascinating article, and absolutely true. I've been down that road before, and out of the vast number of people I've helped out on the classic casual basis (I tend to keep my knowledge quiet nowadays), I think there was one person who actually wanted to pay for Windows rather than grab a copy. We're probably talking about a sample of hundreds here.

I've taken a somewhat different view these days - that if I want something to succeed, I'll buy it. It's a bit like voting - if everyone says "I'm just one person, I'll never make a difference" then er, nothing would ever change.

Similarly, if nobody 'voted' for Windows then it wouldn't exist. Back in the 95 and Millennium days I would've taken that as a blessing; but these days it's really not that bad. Despite its teething troubles, I love Vista. Mac OS X is better still. Linux is... as the article says, free. (there are sacrifices).

But I'm a minority. Most people would just rather grab a copy of the best thing on the market. This comes as no surprise to me, but it's kind of amusing to think that reducing the crackdown on piracy would actually help Windows to remain popular.

One last thought - Apple don't protect their software. Yet I bought Tiger (OSX 10.4), and at about 1.5x the price it's possible to buy a home license for 5 computers. What a bargain! If I get a second Mac, I'd happily pay this for the next upgrade. Why? Because fairness needs to be equated into it too... if the company is fair to me, and doesn't assume that I'm a criminal (this is actually quite important), then I'm happier to be fair to them in return.

Maybe this is why kids are such yobs these days, because we're all so busy accusing them of being yobs that they figure they might as well actually *be* yobs - same hassle, but more fun. An interesting metaphor perhaps, but I digress...

Mozy Online Backup: Free. Automatic. Secure.

2007-08-15T23:04:00.000+01:00

Mozy Online Backup: Free. Automatic. Secure.

I've seen quite a few online backup ideas - first there's your own FTP storage on a nice big web host such as Dreamhost, but that requires you to do things manually and can be cumbersome. Dreamhost are also less than reliable these days.

For those on the Mac platform there's .Mac, but it's expensive.

If you have a gmail (cough, sorry, Googlemail) account there's gDrive as a free answer, but it's a bit "hacky" and you'll never know if Google might object and put a stop to it. Again you would need some software or personal routine for actually backing up your files.

Enter Mozy. Seems great! You get 2GB of free storage for your online backups, and software that automatically does routine online backups for you. The first one might be big, but after that it does incremental backups each time and so becomes less noticable. Your data is also encrypted, so nobody at Mozy will go er, mozying around your data, even if they wanted to. All this for free - it's good stuff!

Don't count on using it for sharing files (use Rapidshare or your own FTP for that) - it's purely for backup, and the software and general structure of the system tries to ensure this remains the case. In my opinion this is fine, it keeps the free version of the service speedy and reliable as it doesn't have the entire internet's worth of software/movie pirates piling onto it.

If you're on ADSL like me, then the prospect of uploading more than 2GB in your *lifetime* should send shivers down your spine, because uploads on ADSL are slow and drastically affect the line's performance. I think 2GB will more than suffice for most of my really important stuff such as documents, email and bookmarks. However you can get unlimited storage for $4.95/month if you feel the need.

It supports the Mac now too, which is great as I use both - and the site keeps track of each machine individually, including when you last backed it up.

One other thing - you can throttle the bandwidth so that it doesn't hammer your connection, and even choose the times in which the throttle applies (I went for 16:00 to 03:00 when we're all usually busy with the internet at home)

The only remaining problem is photos. A good photography session can bring back 2GB worth of raw files (digital negatives if you prefer), which can be worth keeping especially if you get some really high quality shots. Some photos can be priceless to yourself, even if they're worthless to others. I'm open to suggestions for offline backup solutions here, but I think a DAT drive (something like a DDS4 which is 20GB uncompressed) would be a decent answer - £50 from eBay, tapes are £2-4 each, and 20GB is enough for quite a few photos - even in raw format. The tapes are small, just sling one in your bag and store it in your drawer at work.

Is Windows Vista unable to find its own drivers? Here's your answer.

2007-08-15T22:35:00.000+01:00

Sick of Vista not being able to find its own drivers when you plug in something as simple as a USB pendrive? Even sick of the workaround of pointing it to c:\windows\system32\driverstore over and over and over?

Yeah, so was I.

After some rummaging on Google I found this article: Pete & Laura's World: How to fix Vista driver cache

The linked blog entry contains the commands you need to put into a batch file (just create a text file and rename it to something.bat) to rebuild Windows Vista's driver cache, so that it can find its own drivers again. This is the first answer I've seen to the problem that actually works, at least without messing around turning off UAC and such - run the batch file as Administrator, and 2 seconds later your problems are solved. Fantastic.

My understanding of the problem is that badly behaved drivers (usually designed for Windows XP) try to mess with the driver cache, which has changed format in Vista. This corrupts it, and because Microsoft thought it was safe now (with all the UAC protect-you-against-yourself security features they put in) they yanked the routine from XP which used to rebuild it on startup if it was found to be corrupted. As XP drivers sometimes work with Vista - particularly with printers etc - desparate users such as myself force them on and although the hardware works, the driver cache breaks.

In Microsoft's defence they do actually warn you not to install unsigned drivers, with a big red box, but who takes any notice of those when you just want your printer to work?

Apparently Microsoft know about this only too well and are bitterly regretting the decision, and intend to eventually bring out an update to fix it. Seemingly they don't regret it enough to fix it any time soon, though! For those who are tired of waiting, this is a great relief.

Here's that blog entry again - go check out the fix.

Free CD/DVD burning software

2007-08-15T22:13:00.000+01:00

Unimpressed by the overly bloated Nero Burning ROM (and also its price tag) when all you want is a simple CD burner? Me too.

As a Windows Vista user I have some simple CD/DVD burning support built-in, but I find it unsuitable... fiddle as I might with the settings, it's a choice of either a UDF disc that doesn't seem to work on Mac or Linux (boo, hiss!) - no matter what version of UDF you set - or a 'mastered' disc which creates a fairly standard ISO9660 disc but insists on creating an image beforehand which takes as long as the burning itself.

This is where third party burning software usually comes in.

CD Burner XP Pro was good, but it was last updated in 2004 and doesn't support Vista.

Windows Fanatics pointed out (some time ago) in this blog entry an app called FinalBurner. And hoorah, it works! It's not pretty but it's relatively easy to use, low overhead, and does the job reliably.

Until there's a Windows equivalent of Linux's fantastic "K3B" burning software, this is a good option.

Plus.net close webmail service

2007-05-19T19:42:00.000+01:00

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/news/viewnews.cgi?id=EEZAFlAplABmgWAOaP

When will the incompetency end?

I fell out with plus.net, previously known as one of the best ISPs in England (alongside Zen, who are still excellent) when I used them for work and used the IMAP protocol so that email would be stored on their servers. There was a policy in place for staff to make their own backups, given that our dying charity couldn't afford a proper backup system, but this seemed like a great double safety net.

Seemed logical at the time, after all, what kind of pathetic ISP not only breaks such a mission critical system, but doesn't even make backups?

Answer: plus.net.

Now they've managed to break webmail, leaking addresses to spammers (the absolute WORST thing you can do as an internet service, good effort lads) and rather than fix it, they've admitted defeat and closed their webmail service. Much like when they couldn't work out how to recover data, they gave up and said it was lost.

Good job I vowed never to use them again, eh?

Here's an idea plus.net - you can't run an ISP, so give that up too, and do the internet a big favour.

Come on t'internets, do keep up

2007-05-10T13:07:00.000+01:00

So bandwidth seems to cost around £1/GB at the moment. When you're doing things like downloading video or even streaming it, or in a media-rich world such as Second Life, it's very easy to use up your ISP's allocation, and the ones that offer some insane amount actually lose money before you hit that threshold. Then when you think that for every GB you download you pay £1, that can actually become expensive very quickly.

Others, such as Pipex Homecall, boldly offer "Unlimited downloads" and market it bigtime, and then sneak a clause in the fine print (locked in the basement of the company headquarters inside a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'beware of the leopard') saying "Actually, you can download unlimited so long as you keep to our Fair Use Policy of 1GB/week". Well um, that's not unlimited then, is it? In fact 1GB/week is extremely limited for Broadband, you can use it up in about an hour of downloading. This kind of misleading advertising needs to stop.

The availability of bandwidth (i.e. amount transferrable) simply does not match - anywhere near - the speed of the connections available or the requirements of today's media-rich internet services. And it's only going to get worse - pretty soon. Those of us pushing the boundaries may only be a minority now, but in the world of computing and the internet, things change very very quickly.

What about all this talk of 24Mb broadband? You'd use up your allocation on some ISPs within about 5 minutes!

Somebody start a revolt. I'm revolting enough already.

10 uses for audio cassettes

2007-05-09T13:04:00.000+01:00

BBC NEWS | Magazine | 10 uses for audio cassettes

Behold: All manner of funky ideas for cassettes, which have now been "declared" obsolete (by the media; read into that what you will) because some outlets have stopped selling them.

I think they're still very useful in cars, as many still have cassette players fitted. They failed to die out in cars due to those CD-to-cassette adapters you could get, and unlike an iPod they don't go flat or rely on trailing leads.

I was going to use cassettes myself in the car, after frustration at my iPod going flat after 2 minutes and issues with the adapter, but Minidisc was a better option (I have an MD recorder in the house, but not cassette, which has been relegated to the loft). Attempts to fit that, however, led to temptation in Halfords which then led to the purchase of a CD player.

As it turns out it's superb: it has the option to attach an MP3 player through a front port but I prefer to pop an MP3 CD in as it "just works" and can be left in the car (the idea of using cassettes in the first place). As a bonus it acts as the best-integrated bluetooth handsfree kit I've seen yet, automatically connecting to the phone as you turn on the ignition and using the existing speakers.

But I digress.

Not everyone wants to fork out £100 for a new head unit, especially the younguns on their first banger where it'd double the value of the car! Until the cassette player leaves the humble panel between the driver and passenger seat, and I've seen them included with relatively new cars too, I suspect the cassette is perfectly alive and well. You'll just have to go somewhere other than Currys.

King of Piel crowned

2007-05-08T17:41:00.000+01:00

Evening Mail article

Heh.... thought it'd be our mate Stretchy! After all he's already got the throne in the King's Head!

If someone throws a potato at his head, will he be crowned by King Edward?

Student, Denied Degree For MySpace Photo, Sues

2007-05-08T17:37:00.000+01:00

Slashdot | Student, Denied Degree For MySpace Photo, Sues

It's interesting to hear this.

I think it's quite troubling that people such as this student, and the employee of Barrow's Thorntons, can get into trouble for something they post "privately" amongst friends.

This is the issue with the Internet as it currently stands, however. If you're going to write something publically, you have to know that anyone in the public can view it.

Blogs need some sort of categorisation on who can view what, like:

Level 1: "These are my general acquaintances, co-workers, parents etc so show them only the professional stuff."
Level 2: "These are my friends so show the larking around and the booze-ups in all their gory detail."
Level 3: "These are my very close trusted friends so go ahead and show those diary-type posts where I'm baring my soul."

It's not like there's anything to hide as such, and I'm sure the same goes for many people concerned with privacy and the effect of the internet. But there are some things that you want to tell certain people and keep quiet from others. Issues like the one linked are just one type of many.

You can sortof do this with Blogger, but of course people need to register and the last thing people want to do is register for yet another blogging site. Maybe one day we'll be able to use one login and one friends-list for all these "Web 2.0" things... blogs, myspace, msn, etc etc. That would make things so much easier, don't you think? I mean even as a convenience, how many people have built up almost the same list on myspace, bebo, xanga, livejournal, msn spaces, that new google one (not blogger), the list goes on?

Someone needs to create a centralised friends list, basically, and make it work with everything. Any takers? Go make a fortune! I'm too lazy to be an inventor!

Old content re-imported

2007-05-02T17:20:00.000+01:00

I found that plenty of people were wanting to move from Blogger to Wordpress, but very very few wanted to do the reverse. What can I say, I'm weird.

For those who, like me, were struggling to figure out how to import from Wordpress to Blogger - the tool you want is called Blogsync GUI and it's available here: http://zeaster.blogspot.com/2007/02/blogsync-with-gui-coming-import-your.html

The only problems with it are:

Ability to import the author of each post. So right now I appear to be claiming credit for all of MG's posts. I will be fixing this very shortly.
No way to import comments. Luckily there aren't many (well, since I got rid of the 100,000 or so spams I had on Wordpress) so hopefully there will be some way to do them by hand.

Other than that, it's superb. The formatting of the posts, date, time and even labels have all been transferred across. Excellent.

UPDATE: comments are now imported. They didn't keep their time stamps, so I put those in by hand.

BBC does it again: On-demand service given the OK

2007-05-01T17:29:00.000+01:00

BBC NEWS Entertainment BBC gets TV on-demand service OK

Another fine example of the BBC leading the way forward and proving the license fee worthwhile, as the green light is given for internet downloads of TV programmes.

They can be downloaded within 7 days of broadcast, and kept for 30 days.

Others in the media industry just don't seem to "get it", for example with music and movies, something like this would be seen as a huge 'no-no' because of the potential piracy risks and intellectual property concerns. "Oh no," they say, "a very small minority might crack the 30 day limit and trade it, so forget it, everyone loses out because everyone's a potential criminal."

The likes of the BBC seem to see the light - that not everyone is seeking to use the downloads for some sort of evil deed, and that in fact... people will be delighted with the convenience of this service (even better than TiVo or Sky Plus), and any losses they do make to people cracking the 30 day limit instead of buying DVDs (a very small minority I'm sure) will be greatly offset by happy and loyal viewers. BBC wins again.

As I've said in the past, if the BBC and Google got together there would be an earth-shattering surge of Quality and Common Sense on the web.

Welcome to my all-new blog

2007-04-11T00:38:00.000+01:00

I decided to move to Google's Blogger, for several reasons:

Nicer interface (WYSIWYG option on posting)
Integration with other Google tools: Google are my heroes, they really know about the concepts of 'Quality' and 'Common Sense' and they make my internet life 100x easier. They wouldn't know "evil" if it hit them in the face (unless they're very good at bluffing.) Winners.
As above, with possible entries from a mobile. Oooooh, mobile.
It's actually got a very similar interface to Wordpress (who stole what from whom I wonder) but it seems more polished
Time for a clean slate (but I may transfer some or all old posts)
The code is hosted and looked after by Google, rather than relying on me to keep it up-to-date and defended against spam etc. Spam was a *massive* problem on my Wordpress installation, and I was almost willing to pay someone else to worry about it. Letting someone else worry about it for free = winner!
It will upload via FTP to my existing website, not only that but if this turns out unsuitable I can set up a 'cname' tag on the Custom DNS service of the excellent VirtualNames (who enabled my Custom DNS at 23:30 - burning the midnight oil eh!)... this means blog.deryk.co.uk would point directly to Google's servers, if I desire it to work that way.
Time for more sections. I'm a web developer and I know when to develop my own stuff and when to use someone else's software rather than duplicating effort. I think it's time for more of my own work, in addition to the blog.

Thanks for reading!

Happiness

2007-04-11T00:34:00.000+01:00

It's been ages since I posted on my blog, but I think I've found something worthy of discussion for once. Ironically as a professional web designer I know that failing to update is bad and loses audience at a rapid rate, but this isn't my job; it's my blog and I've hopefully got a good 60-70 years to go yet! So I believe in Quality over Quantity, at least for this site.

First of all please note that this has nothing to do with Depression, which is an illness. The article I'm about to discuss also addressed this point. It's about the happy/unhappy general state of mind. So without further ado...

I picked up the Daily Mail (I know I know, a tabloid) in the pub and there was an article by Helen Kirwan-Taylor, which is also located online at this address: Click here to read Helen Kirwan-Taylor's Happiness article at the Daily Mail website

The author essentially seems to be complaining about people trying to be happy. Not only that but she dislikes what she sees as a taboo on being unhappy (she's never visited Xanga or Myspace then? Being unhappy is *very* trendy right now amongst younger folk) and is quite, well 'happy' being unhappy thank you very much.

Her view initially seems to be that, basically, humans are all a bunch of miserable beggars and the sooner we can accept that the better. Initially it was a depressing article which I think undermines a very impoartant fact of life - that for the most part, the only person who can truly decide your outcome, or at the very least your outlook on life, is yourself.

Then towards the end of the article, I realised where her possible ignorance stems from - she completely misunderstands the meaning of "happiness". (Or to be really profound, perhaps she does understand it perfectly, but I digress. You'll see what I mean as I waffle on further.)

In her last few paragraphs things start to come together - she thinks that those who seek happiness are seeking the glitzy definition - namely: money, fame, possessions. And she'd be damn right - hell it's even a saying "money doesn't buy you happiness". What really got up my nose, to be honest, is how she denounces things like self-help material, therapists etc... people and resources who are there to help people feel "proper" happiness, not this stupid material-happiness that she is (rightly but inaccurately) moaning about.

Despite what I thought was quite a damaging article to anyone who's on the edge of positive thinking, I think that deep down she has the right idea and has just not expressed it effectively. It's not about accepting the fact that you're miserable, which is what she seems to be suggesting, but the underlying theory is the same - being happy with what you have. Making the most of what's available to you rather than living life with the "grass is always greener" approach. In my own opinion, it is important to have ambitions, but it is also imporant to try and be happy with what you have in the here and now. Think about how less fortunate we could be.... we could be starving and dying in a third world somewhere.

And, ironically, I bet a lot of the people in third worlds are how they're sometimes protrayed in the more balanced documentaries (yeah I know, I've not been there, but anyway - not the news where they're only ever seen dying) - actually quite carefree in relation to their situation, relative to ours. Even if this only applies to a minority, it just shows that happiness is a state of mind and nothing to do with environment, riches, anything like that.

In a world where we're all encouraged to Buy Stuff, and brainwashed by the retail industry to believe that Buying Stuff = Happiness, I think this lady's article is a very worrying reflection on how well it's worked. She has sortof understood deep down I think, but has been so well brainwashed that she can't express what it is she understands. The message being protrayed seems to be that "to be content you must accept being unhappy" (not an actual quote, just the gist)

Deep down I think she understands - and is indeed trying to say - that being truly happy means loving what you've got and how you are now, rather than being what she calls "happy" - owning possessions, being rich and famous etc. Because, as she rightly states (in a round-about way), if you chase after the materialistic definition and forget the real one, you will always be miserable. There will always be someone better off than you, someone richer, someone more famous, someone with more Stuff. Yet if you follow the state of mind, it's possible to be completely happy no matter what your situation - because it's *you* defining your own happiness, rather than other people.

Indeed I've seen these types saying "soandso is unhappy" around their own personal definitions without actually asking the person in question how they feel, and if anyone tried that with me (say because of my lack of history in some areas of life) I would hurt them. Severely. Nobody tries to brainwash me into their definition of why I should or shouldn't be happy.

And oddly enough I think that despite my initial reaction, I agree with her underlying views. Always have ambitions, and if you're the type who needs to (professional sportsmen etc) then strive to be the best of the best. But also remember that for every person who's "better off" in this life, there are probably at least 10 who are "worse off" and an infinite number who were never even born. So, nuts to it - enjoy what you have. It's better'n' nowt at the very least!

Update: Funny enough, as I re-read the article, I don't think I disagree with the author quite so much. She is generally saying the same thing as I am, but in a different way. There are certain things she says that I disagree with (such as the misleading headline, suggesting that the pursuit of happiness is *futile* rather than something that merely needs to be correctly defined), but the general idea is the same. However I thought it very thought provoking and worth sharing my own angle on it.

Happy New Year

2007-01-02T14:34:00.000Z

So I guess it's time for the obligatory look back at 2006.

World Events

All in all a fairly quiet year in terms of world events, except towards the end.

Bird Flu flapped around a little mid-year but the panic seemed to disappear just as quickly as it came.

The situation in Iraq continued to simmer fiercely, causing huge amounts of stress for Tony Blair as it became more and more reinforced that the people of the country didn't want us to be involved in the first place. However he continued to prove determined to cling on as PM for as long as possible even if it kills him, giving an "I'm going sometime, honest guv" speech to keep the media quiet.

North Korea made a few growling noises in the corner of our planet and were strongly in need of a slap. It's yet to be delivered.

A mass murderer went around Ipswitch, Suffolk killing 5 prostitutes. Nobody really knows why.

And finally, Saddam Hussain was hanged for his crimes against humanity. I'm going to dicuss this one briefly. He was an evil murdering scumbag and there's no question that he deserved what happened to him. I was grinning as much as the rest of the world at the news that he'd swung. But then I got philosophical. Sure he got a fair trial and that's fantastic, I'm glad that it got handled maturely to show how things are supposed to be done. But look at the rest of us, laughing and cheering at the death of a human being (ok he barely had any humanity, but you know what I mean), people dancing around his dangling corpse - sure he deserves it - but are we really that much better?

Sport

In sport, of course we had the World Cup. Yes, even I got a bit of the football fever around that time - when practically the entire population of the country are following something, it's nice to take part. Sadly, although England clung on for a good few matches and continued our skill at scraping through on the edge of our seats, we eventually got taken out during a truly nail-biting penalty shoot-out against Portugal in the semi finals. Oh well, next time!

The World Cup proved to be a great time for internet humour as Zinedine Zidane finished his career with a bang - literally. After headbutting Italian player Materazzi his actions triggered the great internet meme of Zidane headbutt animations involving video game characters, the giant kitten with its paws in the air that keeps finding its way around the net and so on.

Michael Schumacker retired from Formula 1 - in my opinion the biggest "end of an era" since Murray Walker retired as commentator. At least it means someone else might have a go at winning this year!

In tech news....

The virtual world of Second Life really began to take off, featuring frequently in international news. Interesting for people like me who were there early, as I remember it when it started about 3-4 years ago and only consisted of a small handful of regions. We all knew it was somewhat revolutionary, but not that it'd spark such an amazing growth, even drawing in big corporations like Vodafone. It's now used in very serious environments for training for example.

YouTube kind of sprung out of nowhere and suddenly everyone on the planet started using it. It was very sudden. Google promptly acquired it.

Internet Explorer 7 was released, pouring a bit of fuel onto the second great Browser War which was beginning to heat up. Whilst it's not up to the proportions of the old IE/Netscape war, it's still a case that most of the frequent/advanced users switched to Firefox in their annoyance at IE being so succeptable to popups and viruses. IE7 is a much better product than IE6, also featuring tabbed browsing, but if you're using an old version of Windows then you're out of luck. Upgrade to XP!

Windows Vista was released to manufacturing, but very few people are likely to use it until it's released to the general public in early 2007. I'm using the Release Candidate and am suitably impressed. The only thing that annoys me with it is the way Explorer works now - they've made it a lot less user-friendly by removing such important things as the "Up a level" button which I used extensively in XP.

The Wii was released towards the end of the year, and proved to be a huge hit. Nintendo already proved that they know what games are all about with the DS and the new DS Lite (as opposed to Sony's largely failed PSP where they were determined to make it into a mini DVD player). The other problem with the PSP was that all the games for it seem to be cut-down versions of PS1 or PS2 games, so they always have that "incomplete/cut-down/simplified" feel to them. Nintendo instead took the approach of making completely unique games for its DS such as the hugely successful Brain Academy, Nintendogs and of course the newer incarnations of Pokemon.

While they were on a roll with the Great Ideas (the touchscreen) they came out with the Wii and its unique Wiimote controller. Apart from sparking the inevitable "I want a wee for christmas LOLOLOLOLZORS!!111!!" it was a huge hit. I think it will continue to be so even with the very quiet ticking-over of the Xbox 360 (not hyped enough) and the release of the PS3 (extremely expensive - Sony's greed is going to get the better of them).

My life?

Marched onwards some more. I tried my hand at this relationship malarkey. April is a lovely girl and to be honest it seems highly unlikely that I'll meet anyone like her again. But the long distance issue (England and Canada) meant that it felt a bit forced and impractical to me, and really I didn't want to end up moving over there (or having the responsibility of dragging her over here) or to jump straight into the long-term implications that would arise from taking it a step further forward i.e. meeting up. So I let her go instead when the pressure was at maximum. It was a tough decision but sadly the right thing to do for my own sanity. I'm delighted that we're still friends - very few relationships end with friendship, or so I'm told.

I got more of a life, beginning my new found love for walking in March. I'd already been considering doing this (I was considering joining a rambling club at the time) when one of my mates brought up the idea in a thread on our messageboard and basically we went "mountain climbing" (if one can call it that with the little hills we have) just about every weekend. This was only interrupted on occasion when we discovered that we rather liked messing around in/by the nearby lake - Coniston Water - during the peak of summer. That was also a highly addictive (and social but lazy) pursuit!

On the back of all that I really got into photography bigtime. I always held it as an interest, but this became a serious interest as I got better and better cameras (now a Canon 30D) and there's little I like more than going around shooting scenery.

I can positively say it's the best summer I've experienced - rather than sitting at home sweating away and wishing it was cooler we found the best possible ways to enjoy it. We had a great time on the weekends and evenings and totally soaked up the sun (Sheryl Crow would be proud). Roll on Summer 2007!

And at the end of the year, another breakthrough as I landed a new job. I really did enjoy working at CAF, even though it got a bit "atmospheric" and low-morale last year, and I'll really miss some of the people there. But it seemed like the right time for me to move on, and I landed a job as a Web Designer at Marl International in my own hometown of Ulverston, which I start tomorrow. I couldn't ask for better really - it's about 1 mile from home, in the area where I'm determined to stay rooted, working for an international blue chip company. Wow. Bring it on! I'm looking forward to starting there tomorrow.

I'll stop there as I want to get a few things ready for tomorrow, and I've covered everything that was buzzing around in my head for now. Here's to 2007!

Fabric, London

2006-12-20T20:41:00.000Z

This is a guest article by MG

Dark rooms filled with clubbers under hypnosis from beats and breaks

Friday
--------
It all began the week before. The much hyped, well planned trip to London by the Manchester posse was approaching the declaration of participation stage. By crunch time, the one space void that could be filled hadn’t been done so. Jim had paid for his hotel bed, but couldn’t attend. Fish paid for his bus fare, but couldn’t afford it. I could neither attend (papers on Sunday) nor afford it (skint due to car expenses this month), but decided to say ‘FUCK IT’ and go anyway.

As a consequence of my decision, I needed a) money and b) cover for papers. So I borrowed £80 of what I paid into the car expenses for the month and accepted an offer from Fish to cover for the Sunday round (to whom I am near-eternally grateful). Cue Friday night and I was stood on Ulverston’s train station platform after a relatively hectic day working both professionally and voluntarily, awaiting a train that would begin my voyage down to the capital. Of course, during this time, I came across a spate of things I had forgotten to carry out in preparation. Charged phone? Nah. Pointed out all of those hard to find houses to Fish for Sunday? No tick. Brought all of the money I had in my possession? Any food? Water? Directions from the Oxford Road to Chorlton? Hmm, this could get messy… Still, that was probably the whole point of the next 48 hours or so.

The latter of those problems was at least partly alleviated by Rob. A couple of text messages and a phone call on arrival and I was outside Manchester’s BBC Studio hoping for the #86 bus to come and pick me up. Naturally, it went sailing by (hysterics), but a quick gander at the timetable and a question to the locals when the #85 rolled up and I was on my way to Chorlton. I just had to work out which stop I needed to step off at. Thankfully, I got blabbering with a random posse of cricket enthusiasts who knew the area well. We got talking about England’s triumph in the Test Match against the Windies at Old Trafford a couple of years prior and before I knew it, they were hinting that my requested stop was near. Good stuff.

I landed at the HSBC bank, instantly knowing where I was. This was a very good thing. I made tracks to Rob’s and once in, sat with Steve-O and Rob whilst they battled it out on PES6. I sat back and drank Stella whilst laughing hard at the brilliant commentary from both computer and themselves (hysterics).

Since we were up early the next morning, it was imperative that we got plenty of sleep. That meant a post-12 finish, then (hysterics) – and even longer for Rob and Lydia as the latter was working later than planned and had amassed a 15+ hour employment day by the time she hit Keppel Road. I left Rob waiting and hit bed…

Saturday
-----------
I awoke to the sound of Rob tapping on the door. 05:30AM. I didn’t want to rise, but knew that it was inevitable given the day ahead. So I got dressed, went downstairs and put the Ashes on… You can guess.

Getting to the Megabus stop required a taxi, so we hired one and got to the terminal at 06:15AM. That meant a 30 minute wait, which wasn’t ideal considering my tired condition! Not bringing any supplies meant a trip was due for water purchase, which wasn’t cheap at £1.10 for 500ml.

Then the bus arrived. Rob has scrawled down some codes that apparently were enough to let the four of us on, and once at the front of the queue, it was relatively plain sailing. Boarding the bus was, erm, interesting, as was found a converted replica of sommet like a double-decker #6, which was going to be highly uncomfortable for a 200ish mile journey! Once away, attempting to sleep proved highly difficult, with even my powers of adaptation proving relatively unsuccessful for the main (hysterics). However, once at Birmingham, we switched to a proper coach and all was well for the final ‘blast’ to the capital.

‘There’s Wembley!’ I cried, as the new arch came into view. What a nice surprise. It looked superb. Later came Lords (sweet), and the prestigious one-car garages on Park Road. We then arrived at our destination and went underground…

The London Underground instantly brought about some weird feelings. You know the ones… If you are a victim of a bombing down there you truly are fucked. Still, I wasn’t overwhelmed by this and carried on without worry. The tube is no different from when you see it on TV – another surprise, but is quite the achievement when you think about when it was developed and how important it is to the City. It is also smooth and rapid as (hysterics).

We reached our hotel destination, Bayeswater, a short deal afterwards. It looked like your average city centre, with our hotel only a couple of hundred yards away. Our hotel looked plush from the outside. As it also did from reception. Following this, though, was a stark contrast (hysterics). ‘Very’ and ‘basic’ could be attributed here. But then again, for £19 a night, you aren’t likely to get multiple star accommodation in London!

We dumped everything and headed straight out for some food. Unfortunately, we chose Burger King, which isn’t my favourite place to dine (hysterics), but two bacon cheeseburgers later and I was no longer hungry. Pub time.

You’d have expected me to start at this point, but I decided to wait until later. Wise move in the end. Pint -> Tube -> Camden. What a spot Camden is! Never seen owt like it. The market is highly diverse in every way, and the punters were out in full force to sample what delights were on offer. It was HEAVING. I bought some ridiculously strong orange juice that really woke me up (hysterics). Next stop, Tottenham. It was suitably rammed there as well, with walking slowly for long distances seemingly the order of the day… Erm, hang on! We shouldn’t be wearing ourselves out yet! We quickly decided on ‘pub’

We hit the tube once more and headed to Leicester Square. We found a Weatherspoon’s… Jackpot! It looked empty. Even better! Except, it was closed (hysterics). So we decided to hit the Yates’ next door. Expense time, no doubt. On entry, everyone in our party had to submit their ID for verification from a scanner machine! Madness.

Once in, I tried the new Becks Vier (after waiting 15mins at the bar), which was highly refreshing. Then it was onto this 5.5% Czech stuff that Carl highly recommended. This was warranted! During this time, we had found a nice corner to sit and have a laugh in. It was magic, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I wonder if similar things were around the corner?

The tube was our transportation device once more as we hit the hotel via KFC, which I thought to be a lot better than the Burger King prior, despite the fast-food part. The hot wings were mmmmm… Anyhow, our drinking progress was due to continue, so in the hotel we all convened in the bigger of our two rooms, wapped on one of Carl’s mixes and had an excellent craic. I love the pre-club atmosphere generated at these events – top drawer. That’s D.Ramirez at Sankey’s, Hybrid / Evil 9 / Zabiela at the Warehouse and the Fabric do in a month, now! The way it should be.

Following this period of preparation (i.e. suppage for me whilst the others dressed etc), we hit Farringdon and found this bar with some quality beats being played. Quality prices for drinks were being paid, too, with £3.60 a jar being the norm! I actually started to dance in parts, which was bad, considering I had a substantial period of time to do so when we hit the club. It was a great venue, and one that we will likely revisit when we hit Fabric again… Oops, musn’t say too much yet!

Then we hit Fabric. There was a queue to get in, but I don’t recall doing much of that – likely due to us having secured our tickets earlier. Once in, you travelled a small distance, and we managed to locate room 2. It was LOUD… The bass was shuddering through the floor and clubbers were already bouncing about to Terry Francis. The crew decided to chill for a bit, so we found a table and met up with some others who had similar ideas.

I decided to hit room 2 first. Due to the noise level, I attempted to find a ‘quieter’ section of the floor. As you may imagine, I had no luck, and eventually ended up dancing on the back of a stage with 4 or 5 other lads. I lasted a mere 30 minutes before I decided to head back to calmer confines. The 30 minute stint was good, but the sound levels were a little extreme to fully enjoy it all.

Another rest, then Room 1. This was to be the main area of the night for us. The room is, just, brilliant. No tricks / gimmicks are in here, just lots and lots of smoke, no primary lighting, a FANTASTIC laser light system that properly mesmerises, lots of punters and a soundsystem that beautifully complimented what was being thrust into it. I was endeared, I think I was in love. Its such a great place for the music I do love.

The ‘warm-up’ DJ was excellent. He played a collection of beats that had the crowd totally under his spell. Then Cobblestone Jazz came on, who others thought to be a bit too mellow, but I thought complimented the whole scenario well. It certainly wasn’t mellow, anyway! It was at this point where I discovered room 3 upstairs, which was slightly eclectic and a bit of a departure from room 1 for mine, so I headed back.

Then Craig Richards finally came on. He didn’t do very much, really. He was just consistent for 2 hours solid. But within that consistency was something called ‘build’. Mr Zabiela did it at Sankey’s in February this year. Onlookers would think ‘boooring’, whilst I was convinced a shift in gear wasn’t too far away. You just had to wait…

And then it came. Goodness me, what the hell those noises were, I have no idea. They were totally hypnotising. They were uber-weird, but ridiculously infectious. It was hands in the air – not in the ‘larging it’ frame, but more in the area of orchestral conduction. Richards was conducting his own orchestra with the amazing sounds that he derived from his tools. The latter part of his set, like Zabiela’s in February, was just absolute glory all of the way and was worth all the money I’d paid for the trip and more. Spectacular, awe-inspiring and one of my favourite sets I am likely to hear. If my body was running out of energy and my legs starting to wane, then Richards was the force that drove me onward towards close. At one point, Rob looked tired and seemingly was about to leave when WHAM, Richards delivered a staggering array of goods in emphatic style. That spot is a place for masters, and Richards has certainly mastered that room. I cannot emphasise how much I love that spot.

And then it came to an end. Richards got a highly-deserved ovation. But wait! On came Mathew Johnson for the finale. However, Marco Carola was on in room 2 (something I had totally forgotten about at this point), so I grabbed some more water and headed that way.

Carola has mixed a Fabric CD, and was on it as soon as I entered. Amazingly, the lighting system in there could be deemed as even better than room one’s with the main laser being multi-coloured and an absolutely joy to feast your eyes on. It was 06:30AM and I was still going strong, still lapping up every minute, still abundant with energy from the brain, telling my body to keep going regardless of any rational thought that may hinder. Carola came up with a piece of absolute GENIUS when it sounded as though he’d completely lost a mix, only to rescue it perfectly via an amazing sequence of beats and bleeps that I wish I could sample again. He is talented, that’s for sure.

And then we left. 06:45AM – very good going. Once out, we were collared by this taxi driver, who charged 7 of us £35 to get back to Bayeswater. This was 25mins of HARD driving away (he didn’t fuck about – there’s a junction. Brake. Brake. BRAKE… (slams on brake)), but this gave us a few more minutes sleep – which was vital for the 2 hours we were permitted before kick-out time.

Sunday
---------
Sunday was long, with a multiple-hundred mile journey back up to Ulverston ahead. First off, I grabbed a ‘breakfast bun’ from this outlet in Bayeswater. Except the shop I went in didn’t do ‘breakfast buns’ like they advertised externally, so I ended up with a toasted cheese, chicken and ketchup sandwich. Not bad considering, as I wasn’t in the mood for much anyway. I also had a stuffed Jacket Potato from a pub prior to the journey back, which was worth the £3.50 spent on it.

By the time I’d hit Manc again, I had to wait for 40 minutes for my train home. Then when I hit Ulverston, I found out that Chelsea had snatched a late winner and United had lost to make the gap 2. It’s tight, but we’re ahead. Just like the Fabric crew.

This is a guest article by MG, imported from Wordpress. Please ignore the 'author/contributor/posted-by' tag on this post, which is incorrect.

Cooking? Don't look at me. But wait...

2006-10-18T14:49:00.000+01:00

So often nowadays, whether it's at work or in the paper or on TV or wherever, there's a lot of discussion about the nation's health and how we're all rapidly turning American. As "convenience" foods have become much more readily available over the recent decades, people have forgotten how to cook. Worse still, they've forgotten how to pay attention to what they're eating.

When was the last time you looked at (and understood) the ingredients label when you buy something? Then consider the last time you just grabbed something and shoved it down your neck without taking any (or very little) notice of what it is or what it contains or how it was made or where it came from. There will be exceptions (our mate Danny for instance has woken up to this brilliantly and taken it a lot further) I'll bet in most cases the latter was a lot more recent and frequent.

It's generally accepted that the stuff we eat is not very good. It's full of chemicals (prompting the recent studies on whether we are "poisoning our kids" - not that I have any to poison) and often pre-cooked to oblivion so that most of the nutrients have been cooked out of them. Then we shove it in the microwave and blast it with radiation to 'cook' it. Before wolfing it down as quickly as possible so that we can get on with something else.

You can't rely on the government to look after us either, as a lot of people seem to do. It'd take a long time and a lot of red tape to finally and officially declare a particular ingredient or chemical (or even a particular product/company) as damaging, and meanwhile the damage has been done. Whilst it's not food, look at how long it took to offically acknowledge that tobacco can have serious long-term effects even though we already knew/strongly suspected it to be the case.

I sometimes wonder how nice it would be if we chose quality *fresh* (likely organic) ingredients and took the time to cook proper meals, then sat down with family and/or friends and treated it as more of an everyday social occasion. Quality, nutritional, enjoyable and non-damaging food? Sounds good. A time to sit down with the family and catch up with each other and talk about things? Sounds a good idea too.

Problem is it's easy to say - and many of us as a nation are indeed saying it, shortly before strolling to the microwave to shove another instant meal in. I'm definitely more guilty than most, making this seem a highly hypocritical article, as I just let everyone else do the cooking instead of taking the time and effort to practice it and do some myself.

A large part of it is of course time. In the oldern days the women stayed at home and did all the housework and had all day to prepare food. Now with the more modern society involving equal opportunities and most women working, that's no more. Now all members of the household come home after a long day's work (or school/uni or whatever) and the last thing anybody wants to do after a hard day at work is a chore such as cooking, we all want to relax. So what do we do, we chuck an instant meal in the microwave (or let our parents get on with it) and wolf it down so we can get on with something else.

With pressure from the other people in our social and professional networks to "hurry up and eat", it's difficult to take the time even if you wanted to. There's always someone waiting and pressuring for you to get back to work, or to get out to a social event earlier (or in our increasingly technological society, get back to them on IM or an online world) or whatever else so we just can't find the time.

So what can we do about it?

Is the answer to try and get the nation interested in cooking and proper food rather than treating it as a chore? How?

Feel free to discuss in comments.

Update time?

2006-10-18T12:47:00.000+01:00

So.. I haven't really updated this blog as often as I'd intended. I feel that that it does need to be properly written as I consider it a relatively professional site - as it's done in my free time, of course there are times when I concentrate on other interests.

So what have I been up to this year? Having a life, I guess. I've taken up a few new interests this year which I'll probably be discussing in more length in dedicated articles.

- Photography... I've always had a bit of an interest, but I've taken it up bigtime since being handed down a Canon G2 followed by a 30D, which is awesome.

I started out with landscape shots which I continue to enjoy doing, and now I'm also doing what I'd call "artistic" shots of whatever happens to be around me at the time.

Some of them have come out pretty well though I say so myself, and a few people now have suggested the idea of selling photos. I may take a foray into this soon, maybe I'll have some low-res shots for free on the site and charge for high-res versions or full series including shots that aren't available in the free area. Let me know what you think. I've also thought of outlets such as Flickr and Second Life as strong possibilities.

- Salsa and Merengue. I attend lessons on most Tuesdays. I've been for, maybe 10 or so sessions now, and enjoy it. Some of my personal traits let me down and make it difficult (whilst I'm a good communicator on a professional basis, personally I'm a shy and less-than-confident person), but it's just who I am and after various unsuccessful attempts to change those traits, I've found that the best I can do is work around them. The point is I enjoy the dancing, so stuff the rest really!

It's great exercise too, which is always a good thing. I don't do exercise for the sake of it (tried it once and got bored) but as a part of a genuine interest it's a major bonus.

- Mountain climbing. Or walking, if you prefer - after all, I don't go around with ropes and ice picks, but just go wandering up the paths. I still think mountain climbing sounds more impressive (perhaps I should've gone for a job in marketing). I really enjoy it as it's fun to do, there are some great sights, it costs very little (best things in life do), it's good exercise, it makes you feel a part of the world, it's an accomplishment each time, it's the perfect companion for my photography interest... I could go on but I'll stop rambling there. I try to go every Saturday, although I must admit other events have got in the way a lot recently as well as bad weather.

I'm sure there are others, but that's all I have time to write about right now as my lunchtime draws to a close.

On a completely different subject, I'm trying to be healthy like drinking lots of plain water, going out for a walk at lunchtime etc. It won't last :P

More detailed articles to come soon.

USA

2006-10-09T17:59:00.000+01:00

This is a guest article by MG

You just knew when you entered America. Well, at least you knew when contact was made with any person from these shores. Of course, there were Americans on the flight, but people such as the BMI attendant of Mexican descent on landing just oozed of USA. Then there was customs. Our officer was named ‘Hoopes’, which instantly reminded me of the US show ‘Cops’ that used to be a cornerstone of Sky One’s line-up before they decided to alter their programming strategy towards 100% coverage of US Dramas and UK celebratory fly-on-the-wall crap.

‘Cops is filmed on location with the men and women of Law Enforcement’ being the classic phrase mentioned in a deep voice at the beginning of each show – not that I was an avid viewer (no, really) (hysterics). Hoopes was a stereotypical American Cop (as were the majority of the males in customs) – you know the ones – fat, with a moustache as standard (hysterics). One by one we went through immigration, which involved having your fingerprints and photo taken in addition to the mandatory passport scanning. First up was my Dad: ‘You know what they call you John, ‘Jolly Roger’ Dixon? (ironically my Dad’s middle-name happens to be Roger (hysterics)). Next up was my Mum: ‘Your name? ‘Qulie?’, ‘Qulie?!’. Error! Next up was me: ‘Your address isn’t somewhere in Downtown New York, is it?’ I looked quizzically (this was a flight that had just landed from the UK!) ‘Erm, no’, I replied. ‘Oh that’s good, ‘cause that means that I don’t have to cuff you – Damn! I was kinda hoping for some action today’. Yeah, right…

Having safely negotiated that pathway, we were ready to leave the airport. It looked bright outside, but nothing was to prepare me for when I stepped out. It was absolutely roasting. I stood outside for around 2 seconds and immediately came to the conclusion that instead of parping about awaiting my Dad’s decision on what to do and where to go, that I’d look for shade. This proved wise. Unfortunately, our next move was towards a Taxi rank in the opposite direction. So we headed there whilst passing more Limousines than I have ever seen in the same location.

It turned out that the Taxi rank queue was primarily made-up of people who had just arrived on the same flight. During this time, Mum was actually talking with someone who lived on Mountbarrow Road! Madness. When our Taxi did eventually arrive, it was nice to sit in a cooler confine once more. The overriding factor of the taxi ride had to be the way in which the fare accumulated (i.e. it was rapid) in addition to it rising whilst at standstill! $12 for about 1.5 miles seems steep, but I guess it worked out OK at $3 per person.

This is a guest article by MG, imported from Wordpress. Please ignore the 'author/contributor/posted-by' tag on this post, which is incorrect.

Las Vegas Journals: Departure

2006-10-09T17:56:00.000+01:00

This is a guest article by MG

The trip had been planned for months. And for numerous weeks I had been putting it off. But then, as work pressures mounted nearer to the time of departure I was actually beginning to look forward to this holiday during my last few days in the offices at College. I somehow felt ready for a break… Somehow felt ready just to leave it all behind and explore a new part of the world for a couple of weeks without any constraints – something that on reflection with the latter, had me bound to a far too significant degree before the day of flying.

We had planned to leave HQ in and around 5AM in the morning in the attempt to check-in 3 hours before we boarded the aircraft that was to transport us over to the States. This seemed like an awful long time – moreso after deciding to have a few pints of Double Hop with a couple of mates on the night prior. I slept all the way to the airport, but failed to do so both in the long waiting period between arriving and boarding, with the plane journey also providing little opportunity for restbite.

The car park we eventually found was easily the most secure I’ve ever seen, and that includes the Manchester City Centre car parks that I have left my Corsa in during nights out in the past. There were all-sorts of authorisation and monitoring procedures that were in place, before our Grandad’s Primera was whisked away to another location. We ourselves were then swiftly ‘whisked away’ to Manchester Airport where the inevitable wait loomed.

We initially decided to wait in the main lobby, which was highly infuriating at the time due to some crappy US ‘comedy’ being broadcast at high volume within close vicinity. You know, the ones in which the ‘live studio audience’ basks in laughter for 80% of the show, whilst people such as my Mum just sit there silently whilst taking it all in. I’m not a fan of these. Moving away from this position was totally desirable at this time, and thankfully, Martyn had found a whole host of seats in a far quieter area, which subsequently allowed me to read the day’s edition of the Times in comparative peace.

As the time of boarding loomed, we made our way to the queue for our aircraft. Everyone seemed eager to board, which always makes me ask the question of why people are inclined to act like this when it doesn’t particularly increase the speed in which our transportation vehicle begins to move – especially when you also consider that unlike many other means of public transport, your seat has already been reserved for you. ‘Steady progress’ in opposition to ‘mad rush’ seemed far more logical, here. In light of this, we 4 all sat patiently until the queue was near-devoid of people.

Take off was sudden. At one point, we were moseying along, the next, the pilot opened up the jet thrusts and whoooosh! We were hurtling down the runway at high-speed. I wasn’t ready for that! Once in the air and following multiple attempts to swallow in order for my ears not to go totally crazy, everything seemed calm once more. Mum and Dad iterated that the take-off would be the most exciting feeling we’d have for another 10 hours… That seemed a long time in the future.

Our seats each had monitors built into the back of the headrests, giving those behind the visuals to an on-board entertainment system. Of course, in the nature of this set of people it was inevitable when I looked around to find that everybody was fiddling about with the options in double-quick time. Me being me, I decided to lay off it for a while before messing around. Instead, the on-board staff were swift in serving up breakfast, which was certainly a good idea. What I found most interesting about this was not the actual content of the breakfast itself (it wasn’t bad, but nothing to go out on a limb and start praising), but the descriptions strewn across the packaging. Words such as ‘Enjoy’ and ‘a light refreshment’ etc (I’m missing some of my notes) were branded across just about everything that was served. Is it me, or are advertising slogans, corporate branding and consumer messages getting way too simplistic? As much as these slogans are likely 100% fail-safe, I just can’t help but feel that there must be another way to do this… Another way to communicate with the consumer in instances such as these. It all seems lifeless, monotone and bland – much like the cuisine that was served, I guess… Hell, even the bog had the word ‘refresh’ next to the sink – it’s as if the method of turning on the tap should have had ‘F5’ splattered across it.

During the flight I was primarily a) trying to solve a 'Killer’ Sudoku puzzle that began with no numbers, which was deemed to be crackable in 35 minutes and not the 3 hours 35 minutes that it likely took me to complete and b) playing a Pokemon puzzle game (ala Columns) on the on-screen Gameboy Colour (Pokemon? Me? Ooh, err!). I had been playing Mario, but had died approximately 6,435,893 times and subsequently got bored of utilising the infinite continues at my disposal.

This is a guest article by MG, imported from Wordpress. Please ignore the 'author/contributor/posted-by' tag on this post, which is incorrect.

Old Farmhouse Family Fun Day 2006 Brief Review

2006-09-06T13:57:00.000+01:00

This is a guest article by MG

This was from an E-Mail I wrote to my work colleagues, so you'll quickly see the slant!

Hi everyone.

First things first, a substantially large thank-you to everyone who purchased raffle tickets for this event! The college as a whole raised £31 towards the final total – the sum of which will be mentioned later in this E-Mail.

For those who were in and around Ulverston on the 2nd September, you’ll know that the weather was ‘slightly damp’ (i.e. the heavens opened), which put paid to the majority of our outdoor plans! Of course, this played havoc with our projected people numbers, but we still foraged ahead with our indoor activities in an attempt to ignore the uncontrollable natural forces! The art of contingency was required to relocate many of our outdoor stalls to drier confines, but this went well, with numerous stalls being setup inside which didn’t overly cram the allotted area. We then sent out two clowns around town to promote the event, who of course, ended up highly soggy clowns as the rain teamed down in significant droves.

12 o’clock came around relatively quickly. Unfortunately I missed the opening ceremony (I was in the middle of another daily crisis – water lined the driver’s seat of my car due to me leaving the window open the day prior and I had lost my debit card and subsequently had to cancel it – issue 3 is now on its way!) but once I arrived, it was nice to see punters throughout the pub partaking in the activities. The pool competition went down a storm, with 24 lads competing for a pool cue and case donated by Eddie Sharp’s Sports in Ulverston. I reached the final (only to be beaten convincingly!), but the person who triumphed made a great gesture by handing his prize to a young lad (around 10 years of age – easily the youngest in the competition) who he’d beaten in the Semi’s. This was representative of the spirit of the day.

Meanwhile, a couple of acts performed live music. First up were a group of drummers (who were situated right next to the pool table. This was loud!) who played a standard percussive set. I really like the stuff these bands produce, with the music really fitting in with the vibe and atmosphere we had created – you can see why their type are often booked for these events. Following those was Martin Smith, whose mixed set of pre-recorded music, live singing and banter with the crowd proved to be a brilliant addition to proceedings.

Elsewhere, our stalls were proving highly popular, with guaranteed wins for all on the majority ensuring punters walked away with numerous prizes at a time. The football match (England vs Andorra) really fitted in well with the event, with the team putting in a professional performance throughout. England playing well certainly equates to more happy faces than not! During the half-time interval, we held a mini-auction, with Paul Rattigan doing a superb job as auctioneer! Donations of variable sizes were certainly abound – even a couple of beer glasses went for more than what you’d pay for at the bar with the liquid content inside!

Following the match, we did a whip-round all of the stalls to see how much we had made. Last year, £1,600 was raised for St Mary’s Hospice. With the rain thwarting a number of our planned activities, we were realistic enough to concede that such a figure never really had the potential to be reached on this year’s occasion. Our total at 7PM on the day was near to £920. Connections desperately wanted to top the £1,000 barrier, so Kelly initiated a final push on raffle ticket sales, in addition to adding the extras from change left in floats etc to see whether our newly-made target could be reached… Let’s just say that she did a terrific job.

The raffle itself was then held immediately after full-time, with a shedload of people winning prizes. This included 4 won by Furness College employees! The list is as follows:

Jo Anson – Woods of Windsor Perfume and Soap Box Set

Carol Blendall – Debenhams Teddy Bear & Lacoste Fragrance Set

Kate Richards – Max Factor Manicure Set

Mo Johnson – Complimentary Family Ticket to the New Owl Centre in Barrow (I can’t remember the name!)

The college won 4 prizes in opposition to BAE’s 5, though I am informed that they purchased over £40 worth of tickets cumulatively! As a sidenote, if the people who hadn’t paid for their tickets could do so in the near future, that would be much appreciated (Jo showed no hesitation in doing this on Monday morning – cheers!).

The best news was to come at the end of the day. It transpired that we had raised £1,052 for both causes, which in all, was a fantastic effort from all of the parties concerned with organising and running the event. Our first meeting back in April seems so far away in the past, so this result was especially pleasing given the weather conditions. I’m sure that at the very least, Feature Youth Club will find their slice of the final total to be highly useful.

Again, I thank you all for your support.

Matt (IS)

It really was a highly successful day - made all the planning worthwhile!

This is a guest article by MG, imported from Wordpress. Please ignore the 'author/contributor/posted-by' tag on this post, which is incorrect.

Sport: Does he finally get it?

2006-06-26T13:43:00.000+01:00

Been following the World Cup lately. I've never really been a fan of football (Soccer for any American viewers), but when it's put in your face as much as the World Cup has been, sometimes you just get converted. Have to admit I've loved every match so far. I've even thoroughly enjoyed being exactly the type of person I usually avoid - a cheering, lager-swilling bloke staring at a screen in a pub. It's not attractive, but boy is it fun.

Absorbing the culture and the atmosphere seems to be what does it. I find myself knocking back the English rubbish that calls itself "Carling" in place of my usual tipple, the finer cuisine of Real Ales. I will chant away to the likes of "Football's Coming Home" without a second thought.

I thought it was the alcohol and pub atmosphere that did it, but I watched yesterday's match from home with only a non-alcoholic beverage to hand and was still glued so I guess patriotism and wanting my country to win are a big part of it.

As usual with me, I've been partly inspired by the productions of Square-Enix (although the World Cup was the main factor). Final Fantasy X featured "Blitzball", roughly like an underwater football, as a major part of its game and storyline. It's always taken fiction/stories to teach me about the real world, it's just my particular learning style. Anyway, the story behind Blitzball taught me the importance of such games - how they bring people (even different cultures) together, provide a welcome distraction from the worries and stresses of reality etc. In a world that seems to be falling apart and everything going wrong, you can forget about it all as you get immersed in these sporting performances. You can follow the elite, or the underdogs, and be assured that whoever you follow, it's worthwhile and exciting. Sharing a common interest with the majority of the civilised world also gives you a lot more to talk about and makes it much more fulfilling. Did I mention it brings people together?

I spent my first game ignoring Blitzball and 'filtering out' all the characters' discussions about it. I spent the second game getting involved with it (because I like to cover everything in FF games) - surprise, the second game was much more fulfilling.

I know if I get stuck in a lift with some random person, I'd rather be able to strike up a conversation about football or some other sport than "the weather" or "the inconvenience of the present situation"

Perhaps I'll make time to try and learn the game properly, and even some others. I need to properly pick a team to support, too, apart from "England". Then it'll make it worthwhile. Man. United seems a bit cliche to me, but they're probably the closest half-decent team to home, and it's who most of my mates support (and therefore I've rooted for them in the past) so it seems likely that they're the ones to go for. I never used to understand the attraction of "supporting"* a particular team, but I get it now - without someone to root for, it's little more than 22 grown men kicking a pig's internal organs around a field. When you're following one particular team, it's a whole different ball game...

* As a sidenote, when I was a youngster I used to think "supporting a team" meant you had to contribute money towards it! I had no money, and my parents weren't about to pay for something like football, so I didn't bother trying. What a muppet (hysterics)

Feature Youth Club Camp Review Spring 2006

2006-06-05T19:39:00.000+01:00

This is a guest article by MG

What madder way to spend the May Day weekend than ferrying 17 children 40 miles from their homes for the yearly spring camp? There weren’t many alternatives on my agenda, so off we went!

Friday

In hindsight, I had taken Friday off from College as a precautionary measure in order to try and sleep as much of the day off as possible prior to preparing for the excursion that lied ahead, but like the idea of utilising the public holiday to sleep in on the morning after the event had ended, this never materialised! I feel groggy… Instead, I was awake at 9AM sharp and unable to take my mind away from the forthcoming events enough in order to rest further, so it was inevitable that I arose and began to sort things out. This included a fruitless trip to Drew’s house, Esso for fuel and Forbuoys for a mobile phone top-up.

During the later morning and early afternoon, I received a number of calls from Drew, who was frantically attempting to arrange the collection of various bits and bobs that were missing from the camp’s desired make-up. This included a specialist cheese, a large inner-tube and two bags of logs, with the latter requiring a trip to the outlet on the side of Park Road in Barrow; which on a Friday afternoon with the A590 allowing no more than crawling speed had the potential to be tricky, if not considerably time-sapping. After considerable consultation with the said accomplice, it was the latter camp ingredient that I was asked to collect. Time to hit the lanes! (even though I had initially intended to sit in the sun listening to Steve Gerrard’s Kiss 100 mix from a few years back whilst piddling along in the queue) (hysterics).

Once onto the lanes, my target was to reach the junction that Paul (Coulthurst - deputy-head of IS who sits directly to my left in the office, who may want me killed for the endless department-related questioning he gets from yours truly) drives to on his way to and from Ulverston 5 days from 7. The said junction lies next to the petrol station on the entrance to Dalton and inevitably, I never found it (hysterics). Where I did find, however, was the Furness Footwear store that lied close enough to my destination for me to think that the extended drive may have been worthwhile. Unlike Mr WhiteVanMan (one of my few positive memories from the SKT ‘experience’), who must have been highly annoyed with my slow-speed exploits – even if he wouldn’t have got much further down the track with the increased volumes of traffic travelling in both directions. Seemingly, speed isn’t everything!

On arrival at my destination I was approached by a barking dog, who thankfully decided to keep his distance to a less than threatening 20 metres after I abruptly ground to a halt and offered a stubborn stare. This triggered the inevitable game of awaiting the owner’s arrival to see what the animal was making a fuss about. It never took long for him to emerge (hysterics). ‘It won’t hurt you!’ was the tone of message from the owner that both him and most others usually attempt to reassure me with. Of course, I was totally apprehensive but managed to leave the site with both the logs in the boot and myself unscathed. Next destination? Hollywood Park to pick up Mr Stretch from work so we could watch the Grade 1 Champion Hurdle at Punchestown on TV later on, in which the Jessica Harrington trained Macs Joy steamrollered a top field under the precise steering of Barry Gerraghty.

It was then time to pack. Out came the large rucksack and in went what turned out to be approximately 75% of what was actually required for the weekend that lied ahead. Oops! I’ll elaborate on what I forgot later. What followed was a frantic half hour of getting things just right before heading off to the Comm Tower to meet whoever was to accompany us to our destination. As it turned out, I didn’t have much of an idea of who was actually going to be in attendance, but as always with these camps madness most certainly comes as standard!

I arrived to find the usual group of cars, wandering children, groups of parents

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and… Oh, hold on a minute - where’s Paul? In his absence I joined the group of wanderers and had a chat with a few of the parents before he came to join the party. They all seemed pretty relaxed about letting their children out of their reach for the weekend (hysterics). And I must admit, I was relatively relaxed at this point until the imminent introduction of Paul, who instantly had me in preparation mode once he’d arrived with the mini-bus – he looked as though he’d been put through the wringer all afternoon! I’ll have to iterate that if I do have time off work like I did on that Friday to prepare, then I’m only a call away to help prepare in any way possible…

What ensued was a period of attempting to organise who was present, where bags were to be deployed, where children were to be deployed, where incoming money was to be deployed… You get the picture (hysterics). Anyhow, we were struggling for room for the (very) large bags on the minibus, and were highly thankful for the usage of a blue pick-up from one of the parents to assist with the transportation effort – it took a fair burden off squeezing everything such as supplies, gaming apparatus, food and children onto the bus! And then it was just about time to set off.

This was to be the first time I’d ever driven to Keswick. And only the second time in which I had driven a car full of passengers. First point of note for those not in the driving seat once in the car was to fasten their seatbelts; not because I was going to be driving at speed, but because of the legal requirements attached with carrying younger passengers in vehicles. Once on the road, it was all going nicely until we hit the undulating roads. This is where a) my lack of driving skill and b) my car’s puny 1l engine was to be fully put to the test. Manoeuvring a car along tight roads is not exactly something I specialise in, and the road towards Windermere isn’t exactly what you could tag as wide and spacious, so driving along that stretch at any sort of speed had the potential to be unnerving. Thankfully I managed fine, although less can be said when combining part of a) with b) on some of the steeper climbs in and around the Keswick area. Inhabitants in cars behind must have been furious at regular intervals as regular speeds became pedestrian crawls as I struggled to find revs whilst negotiating climbs of any significant gradient (hysterics). At one point we hit a mere 15mph with a trail of vehicles in my wake! Road rage may have been on the agenda if the car ground to a halt (hysterics).

Slow speeds aside, we reached Isthmus without hitch. It’s nice to see that Young Cumbria have spent a good chunk of money resurfacing the road that leads into the car parking area – what was there prior was likely a nightmare for most cars’ suspensions! All my car suffered was a thorough coating of dust that was being kicked up from the mini-bus on entry, which is likely not good for the bodywork, but is better than a knackered suspension all the same!

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Of course, on arrival all of the kids leapt out of the bus and got substantially over-excitable. In a similar fashion, the leaders decided that a brew was most certainly in order, so we left them to it for a short while… Although this was short-lived (hysterics). It was apparent that both Paul and Drew were relatively tired, so the two main principals were near-instantly showing frustration with the children’s hyperactive behaviour and I was swiftly under the impression that we may have been in for a difficult weekend. So I decided to overview some of the more lively of the crew outside, which gave me sight of the local scenery and take some photos of the wonderful views from the cottage’s veranda:

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Since a small entourage of cars had already been at the site, the usually laborious task of unpacking what was squeezed into various forms of transport had already been partially taken care of. With a small number of bags and the weekend’s consumables on the bus, though, we still needed to devote time to getting everything extracted and put in their appropriate places. It turned out that Paul had visited the same log outlet as I earlier in the day at this point (hysterics). Amongst other things, apparatus such as Robinson’s cordial bottles and sponges (i.e. Water fight ammunition) had to be kept well away from ‘unauthorised personnel’ (i.e. children). Likewise footballs at this point, also (hysterics).

As usual, there were a couple of things to establish before the night walk. Most apparent on this occasion was a getting together of those who were overly hyperactive for a ‘briefing’ by Drew, who was clearly irate with that particular bunch’s lack of control and seeming stupidity. And then there was the setting of the ground rules, which culminated in the list shown here.

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Note rule 1 (hysterics). You can likely imagine the time it took for a bunch of youngish children to conjure a list such as that – lets just say that by the time we had finalised the rules it was time to get ready for the walk!

With last year’s Spring night walk being cut impromptly short due to Youth Hostel curfew restrictions, it was refreshing to know that I would actually have the opportunity to complete the trek this time around. The route was the usual one; exit cottage, wander through field (populated by animals – the children have a tendency to wave the light from their torches at them, which could I always think may have potential repercussions!), progress along the waterfront, navigate through the local wood and approach the foot of a small hill before deciding whether to proceed upwards or turn back to Isthmus. This time around, we decided to climb, though this didn’t provide the first opportunity to take in views from up on high!

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Scaling the larger hill that later lied in front of us proved particularly energy-sapping -as we inadvertently chose to tackle the relatively steep slope head-on! Numerous questions were asked as to why we were bothering climbing the hill in the first place (hysterics), with this exercise proving particularly useful later on in the evening! As it transpired, our direct route up the hill resulted in us reaching the summit in double-quick time following a point-to-point route setup by Paul. The views at the top were pleasing for the eyes, so much so that it was disappointing that I couldn’t really take any photos of any merit due to my lack of knowledge in night photography. Oh well… As per, descending to the foot of the hill turned out to be far more hazardous than the travel in the opposite direction (quite a few ended on their backside at various points!), although Drew did give a few tips on how to increase the level of traction by planting your feet sideways that will certainly be taken on board from here on in. As usual, there always seems to be more obstacles directly in the path of the route of descent (hysterics), but despite slightly veering off course and ending up taking a different route back to town level, the group remained relatively unscathed.

On arrival at the cottage (following numerous questions of ‘are we there yet’ from the children!), it was apparent that a fair number were worn out – we saw a lot disappear a great deal earlier than usual! This made the leaders’ jobs a little easier, which is always relieving following a long day. I took the job of drying the washed pots and hit the mattress in good time… Minus a sleeping bag – read the camp list next time, Mr Dixon (hysterics).

Saturday

5:30AM? Back to sleep!

Surfacing occurred a couple of hours later. The weather looked bright, and thus raised hopes of a warm day. What followed was the usual staggered emergence of children whilst protagonists Drew and Natalie did a fine job of preparing the morning’s cuisine, which the majority of the children quickly wanted to snap up once ready! Ever popular, and no wonder - these breakfasts have become customary on FYC camps, and help provide sufficient fuel for the activity filled hours that lied ahead.

The crew that helped to facilitate our activities arrived slightly later than usual this year, and I for one thought that this was a good move. It had the general effect of being more relaxing, in addition to giving the kids their first play on the beach in conditions of broad daylight prior to their arrival. It also gave me the opportunity to take some photos – some of which have turned out very well:

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Preparing for the activities had already been meticulously taken care of by Drew, but as usual, nature’s forces make it impossible to plan the exact conditions for the day. Thankfully, conditions were just about perfect, which in turn meant that no major plans of contingency had to be implemented. It promised to be a good day.

Once everyone had donned their waterproof gear, it was time to move the boats and make our way to the shoreline. I was on leader activity rota, so myself and Paul were to hold back from the canoeing and swap over with Andrew and Natalie later on at the finish in order to go Ghyll Scrambling, which always gets the pulse racing and adrenaline flowing at just the thought of participating. I’ll come onto that later. Before the crew voyaging onward, we were required to tie 2 sets of (2) boats together to make 2 rafts (? – I’m poor at these nautical terms!). This was to help assist the children get from A to B, which can prove difficult if boats have members who have lost will power of include those who don’t try at all in them! Once the rafts were secure, it was time to head off.

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And off they went. That left myself, Paul and Pete. My first priority at this point was to attempt to capture the views that were right up my alley, so I grabbed the camera and attempted to try and produce some artsy photography. The results can be seen in the following links.

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Wow! There are some startling pictures there. My Dad reckons that in photography, you should near-always have a focal point of the picture, but I am a huge fan of how the landscape has been captured in the majority of these photos. They really look the business and are close enough to what I saw in reality to thoroughly impress me. That camera (Canon Powershot S70) is some piece of kit and I will be taking lots (and lots) of photos with it in the weeks to come (this has now been qualified as of 05/06/06!).

Back in the kitchen, Paul was in conversation with Pete about… Well, a whole manner of things (hysterics). Mountain climbing was one of the main areas of conversation (this may likely have TTR readers in hysterics) (hysterics), in which Pete reeled off a number of mountains that he himself had climbed in recent years (Mount Cook, for example) and reeled off a string of mountains that his wife had scaled during her lifetime. This list was fairly extensive and very impressive! Many of the world’s tallest and a fair number of those in the Himalayans were mentioned throughout. Far more hardened warriors than myself (or indeed, the TTR crew) (hysterics).

When we had found out that we were a few lunchboxes short, Pete offered to construct some ‘power sandwiches’, with margarine, ham, cheese and mayo being the fillings of choice. He didn’t hold back much and it looked as though we were going to be not wanting for more fuel when we hit the Ghyll later on. Prior to that, though, we needed to drive to the car park at which the boats had set off en route to. So I hopped in the car, Paul got onto the bus and off we went. Our travels took us to the front of cottage barrier, where we encountered a far less removable barrier in the form of a modded Vauxhall Corsa that was blocking the majority of the road as a result of some relatively poor parking. Paul wasn’t best pleased at this (hysterics), and he had reason not to be as getting the mini-bus through the gap was going to prove highly arduous. I ‘hopped’ back out of my car and set about directing him and the bus through the narrow opening. It was tight, with a nearby bush getting the heavy compression treatment as the bus drove through it (hysterics). This took a considerable amount of time – too long considering that what should have been a simple task was being stupidly inconvenienced. Having finally managed it, it was then the far easier task of getting my car through… Assistance, please! With my car being considerably smaller than the bus we had less trouble navigating and even managed to spare the bush of any more unnecessary punishment (hysterics). Job done! Not so. Paul decided to write a note for the car’s owner and had just returned to the bus having placed it on their windscreen when a group arrived back… It was them. We waited. They picked up the note. We still waited. I fully expected Paul to return to the car and give them an ear bashing, but just as I thought that was inevitably going to happen, we set off. Maybe he had thought against it? Not so, as it transpired – he just never saw them. That would have been interesting.

Our drive took us to a pay and display car park on the lakeside. We had arrived with the boats seemingly playing team games nearby, although the primary objective at hand was attempting to find a suitable place to park, with the option eventually taken being to ditch the vehicles and help those who were coming off the water.

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The kids looked either happy, drenched or both (hysterics), as they wandered up to meet us. As a consequence, I looked underdressed in my shorts and t-shirt (hysterics) – clothing that wasn’t going to be particularly advisable for the wading that was forthcoming. However, despite the lack of gear available, Natalie kindly offered her set before she headed back to the cottage to start preparing the barbecue. She’d done well – they were relatively dry, although obviously it felt a little weird putting them on with totally dry skin! The plan following the loading of the boats and transfer of items cluttering the bus was to get everybody onto the mini-bus and drive up to the area in which we were to Ghyll Scramble as soon as possible. This was in order to a) alleviate the potential of paying a car parking fee and b) get everyone fed. Everything was going well, until we tried to move…

No we hadn’t broken down (hysterics). It turned out that the bus keys had gone walkabout. Oh dear! A small search party of leaders was quickly put into action, but after 5 or 10 minutes of looking in all of the obvious places it was clear that we needed to empty the bus and conduct a more thorough scouring of the area. ‘What happens if we don’t find the keys?’ was the question of choice at this point. The answer of ‘the bus doesn’t move’ was fired back – which would have been tedious / funny due to its position in the car park (i.e. slap bang in the middle) (hysterics). We eventually found them, but the said period seemed to take an eternity to pass! Apparently they were lying around on the floor somewhere external to the bus – fair to say that was a case of difficult situation averted! We positioned everybody back onto the vehicles, including myself on the bus floor due to lack of seating! I wasn’t looking forward to the trip back when I, and everyone sat around me would be soaking wet from the aftermath of the scramble (hysterics). When on the move, my position on the floor gave me the view of Paul carving his way through countryside, whilst the twisty road threw me around quite a bit. Thankfully I survived!

On arrival at the car park, it was time to serve lunch. Power sandwich time! Pete had appeared to spare the first one of mayo, but the second was no-holds barred in terms of excessive filling. Considering I’m not the biggest mayonnaise fan on planet earth, I think he did a good job (hysterics). The other primary objective here was to ensure that the kids didn’t manage to pull off their usual trick of making the floor look like a dumping ground for waste… Thankfully, we accomplished that, too.

Once fuelled, it was time to head off. I felt somewhat relieved to be with the second group – the first lot usually reach parts of the Ghyll that are notoriously deep and I didn’t particularly fancy a total drenching. Indeed, that was likely to come on Sunday during the water fight, but I’ll come to that later. Meanwhile, we had navigated our way to the notorious run. This is where Mark (group leader & instructor) began setting ‘challenges’ for the crew to try and achieve. First up, the ‘stay as dry as possible’ challenge. Ah, an easy one – as regular readers will have become accustomed to know, I always try to ensure that this is paramount at all times on this particular journey! Of course, some of the children didn’t want to entertain Mark’s ideas and instantly got themselves drenched (hysterics). Myself and Liz, the two leaders in attendance, certainly had different ideas to that lot!

Mark’s next idea was to get into groups of two and hold hands whilst attempting to stay dry. He was what I deem as, ‘pushing it’ at this point (hysterics). I stayed right at the back and stuck to my original game plan. Further on he had the idea of groups of 3 linked, and then 5 with the leaders set in the middle so we ‘couldn’t get out of it’. Unlike Liz, I refused to budge when Mark gave me the look to advance (hysterics) – they could definitely carry out that stuff on their own whilst I individually struggled on up the shallow gorge. Later challenges involved groups linking hands in a circle before trying to advance (erm, yeah right! Although one group did do fantastically well at this) and the final challenge of crawling through an optional tunnel that ran underneath a road…

Liz was never going through that tunnel and quickly headed up to the road. I would have usually done the same, but for some unknown reason, I felt as though I wanted to crawl though it. As to why I had this idea, there is little explanation. And little was certainly the operative word here. I first watch the majority of the kids go in and look relatively comfortable, to which my thoughtful response was ‘no problem, here, I’ll be reet’. So I headed on up after Bradley had gone through… And saw what confronted me. At this point I was far less confident. Ahead of me was approximately 10 metres of long, narrow tunnel – the type of which Snake from Metal Gear would negotiate with total simplicity, but also the type which a relatively unfit and weak Matthew Dixon would make look ridiculously difficult to pass through. For some reason, though, this didn’t deter me, so in I went.

The approach adopted was a flat, all four stance that although didn’t bode well for speed, kept me flat whilst in there. Then it was time to crawl. What became immediately apparent was the fact that I was inadvertently utilising my buoyancy as a piece of body armour at various points as I slithered my way through. What ensued was continuous mutterings and groans during my painfully slow progress (likely for both myself and those awaiting my arrival at the other side – if I ever was to get there), but according to Paul I must have been relatively calm as he heard no audible evidence of swearing! (hysterics) He may be right on the latter count, but as for the former, I’m not so sure. Nearer to the end of my journey was a medium sized obstacle that I thought may hinder progress (and once you’re in there, you don’t want to be for too long), but I safely avoided it and crawled through to the finish where it seemed to take an eternity for me to get out. Looks like Pete’s sandwiches did the business!

Unlike myself, lots of kids were eager to pass through the tunnel once more. I sat and watched in minor disbelief as some passed through in a matter of seconds, making my effort look pitiful. Even the other leader named Mark passed through with significant speed, though I guess he’s more used to this sort of thing! Oh well. This was to bring an end to the afternoon’s activities, so we all trundled down back to base at snail speed (some of the younger children were obviously flagging) and got rid of our waterproofs. Of course, my antics had kept me relatively dry, but a number of the kids were totally satched and headed off to get changed. In particular, I recall some of the lads creating a hell of a racket whilst in the changing rooms, which only stopped momentarily after I arrived to see what all of the fuss was about. Yes, not all of them had flagged – some not one jot (hysterics).

After a relatively quiet bus journey home on the floor, we arrived back at Isthmus to find Drew and Natalie preparing the barbecue. And doing a fine job, too! Natalie won the creativity prize for the weekend:

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Paul and Andrew admire their own creation

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Meanwhile, the interim period provided a good opportunity for all to get freshen up, with Sol deciding to don a ‘new’ set of clothes – so new that his top still had the label on!

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Whilst we awaited food, Drew had setup a target large, hoisted inner-tubing that was to be utilised as a target for a football. He went up first… ‘This isn’t going to be as easy as I thought!’ were the words muttered before he let one go that hit the bottom edge of the tire. He wasn’t wrong in his estimation. Shot after shot was fired at the target, with none really looking close to going through the narrow opening. Especially Paul’s shot, which missed the target by the widest margin of all – i.e. a good number of metres high and wide to the right (hysterics).

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All shots were failures on the night, bar one from Tom that somehow managed to find the centre of the target. Well done to him! Meanwhile, the plentiful-talked about Pinata was due to make an appearance. It was Sol’s birthday! I myself had been wondering what all the fuss was about (the Pinata, not Sol, obviously), but all questions were answered in due course. What ensued was fairly brutal (hysterics). Competitors were blindfolded outside of striking distance of the target, which was to be clubbed (hard!) once over with a plastic bat.

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The target took a fair mauling, before Jack decided that it was destroyed enough to run off with it. This, of course, triggered the rest of the kids to run after him and in the matter of seconds the perpetrator was the victim of a multiple human pile-on that looked something like this:

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(hysterics). Jack later claimed the pile-on to be everyone else’s fault bar his own – claims that were obviously miles off the mark! And that was food time. Good stuff – even Pete’s power sandwiches were beginning to filter away and leave space. What wasn’t good stuff was when I phoned Brooksy to enquire about the Chelsea vs Man United result from earlier in the day. ‘You didn’t know?’ was his response. Uhoh. Turned out that there was bad news and even worse news. The bad news was enough: Chelsea had won comfortably by a score of 3-0. The worse news put me in a foul mood. Wayne Rooney had left the pitch on a stretcher. This was not good, and after hearing unfathomable opinions to the contrary from numerous other people I had to go and lie down. I won’t waffle on – as I write this it turns out that he may play a part in Germany, so I’ll show you a picture of what happened to the bunk above the one I slept in the night prior when pressure was applied to the mattress:

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Then it was back out… To oversee a fire. The barbecue flames from prior hadn’t gone out and a number of kids were having great fun trying to stoke it. Paul was there initially,

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but eventually left the scenario for me to supervise. What followed was an hour (yes, an hour) of me trying to ensure that none of them got caught by the flames. This was a continuously arduous task, but one I managed to deal with once the flames had died down and thus left those in attendance both bored and wanting to go elsewhere. Which was good, for me, as I was sick of telling them to both keep away and not use sticks as external lighters! It got agitating at times, that’s for sure, but thankfully all who played with fire survived and once devoid of instigators we could head indoors.

This is as much as I can recall of day 2. The football had messed with my mind in a considerable fashion and after more drying of pots (which was likely therapeutic at the time), bed was hit and sleep subsequently sought after.

Sunday

It turned out that the 3 lads who were sleeping in the alongside beds the night prior had bogged off somewhere else to sleep. Fair enough (hysterics) – it must have assisted me with obtaining more shut-eye than usual! Today’s itinery featured the highly-anticipated water fight (i.e. an opportunity for the leaders to ‘get their own back’) and visit to the local park for a lounge and play. Again, we started a little later than usual and as a consequence this helped facilitate a relaxed atmosphere. It transpired that the 3 lads had slept in the common room that evening, and on entering we found a number of them sat watching cartoons on the TV. This also helped make the scenario more settled as the cookery experts in the engine room prepared breakfast.

With it being a bright, warm day, I wasn’t as overly apprehensive as usual about participating in the main activity – even if there was a cool breeze that had the potential to quickly change my perception. After fuelling up, the usual process of preparation took place; kids got changed into clothing that was near-inevitably going to get drenched, leaders did likewise, leaders prepare weapons of choice (which this year was interesting – the bailers (3l-5l Robinson’s cordial bottles with their bases removed) were all devoid of lids! We thus had to round up a number from the bottles in use in the kitchen in order to plug the gaps), whilst the kids are rounded up for a briefing. The ‘briefing’ allows the other leaders to initially discuss and subsequently put tactics into place for the battle that was forthcoming, and of course, when it came, we were primed for whoever was foolish enough to come at us. As usual, when it did come, it came in trickles in opposition to droves, which of course led to those on the front line being ‘sacrificed’ before the rest decided to come down. In the traditional mark of unfairness, we had decided to strategically place a number of bailers on the beach that were devoid of lids as a decoy… And as predicted, this worked perfectly as those who thought they were in luck were either drenched on arrival or whinging about how unfair it all was. They should have learned to prepare more thoroughly by now, but until that day, the leaders’ dominance in this field shall continually prevail. Kids were sprawled across the beach, which made targeting them ridiculously easy and great fun (hysterics). Then came the obligatory ceremonial dunkings for those deemed ‘worthy’ enough (hysterics). Paul is great at this – with his technique of making victims feel helpless being compounded by the reception of the inevitable torrent of water from those nearby!

I myself wasn’t doing too badly in the ‘drowning’ stakes. The kids had inevitably landed some blows, in addition to Drew launching a cheeky broadside close to the end of the session, but the sun had done its job – leaving Natalie to ask how I’d managed to avoid getting satched, with ‘being a wimp’ the answer of obvious choice (hysterics).

Once the battle had subsided, we left and did the usual ‘hanging around’ whilst everyone else got showers – the highlight being the impressive trials bikist practicing his skills on a nearby set of rocks at short level.

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Following my turn and the arrival of a fleet of parents, it was time to pack everything onto the various vehicles that were to return back to the Comm. Tower once we visited the park in the afternoon. Despite taking less back than we came with (i.e. the majority of consumables had been ‘consumed’), the extra storage space provided – especially by the pickup – really helped out a great deal. In past camps where we’ve often had to make the most of limited space, this time around we had near-plenty, which saved energy expenditure and time outlay alike.

On exiting the site, the walk to the park wasn’t particularly brisk (some of the kids were travelling at an average of 2mph as they messed about!), but with the pleasant conditions in attendance it was certainly making the slower speeds bearable enough.

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Penny’s down!

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We cut through the town centre, where I got this terrific shot that looks the part in Hi-Res:

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As we reached the park, the children were obviously starting to get hungry. Cue a picnic! The conditions were more than adequate for such an activity, but Sam and Bradley still had enough energy for a kick-about prior. Whilst the rest played on the park, a quartet of us set up a square and passed the ball around prior to eating. At this time, we were trying hard not to interfere with the local game of cricket (hysterics).

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Today’s sandwiches weren’t quite powerful as Pete’s the day prior, but following consumption I still had enough left in the tank to play football for a fair while whilst the majority headed for the park. First up, keep-ball, with the leaders forming a team against the youngsters. Despite our ‘efforts’ to ensure fairness, this was relatively one-sided, with myself, Drew and Natalie working well in tandem – the latter of whom managed to conjure a beautifully struck version of ISS’ ‘chip pass’ that landed directly at my feet from a good distance away. Feats such as these certainly raise the barometer during low-level action! (hysterics). Last up was the action of grabbing some jumpers and putting me in nets. First shot, easily saved. Second shot from 8 yards would have troubled even the best – Sam rammed the ball home in emphatic style leaving me with absolutely no chance (hysterics). What ensued was a good laugh – just how kick-abouts are meant to be. This is certainly a good thing in my case, as I haven’t exactly mastered a significant number of skills (hysterics). After some clean hitting, it emerged that a number of the leaders and parents needed to head back to the main site to pick up their vehicles for the journey back – me included. We were heading away from the park site when we passed Drew’s car… With a parking ticket attached. Drat! He likely wouldn’t be pleased when he found out. When scouring the nearby signs, it was unfortunately then obvious that where the car was parked was inside a disc / permit zone. Ah well, it happens. We decided not to let the news out early and headed back to Isthmus.

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Erm...!

On arrival, our task was simple: get the vehicles back to the park and get y’am. We accomplished this. Once at the park, finding a spot where we could quickly load the cars & buses and depart without obtaining any sort of fine was the main priority. We found the places, but waiting for the kids seemed like an eternity was passing by (hysterics). Thankfully, no wardens were on parade and all managed to set off without hitch. At this point, the kids in transit were fairly quiet (!), so we wapped on Cream Ibiza Arrivals, thinking that there may be some merit in playing something a bit more commercial than what I’m used to. The CD was poor. Great tracks such as Cass & Slide’s ‘Perception’ and Ananda Project’s ‘Cascades of Colour’ had been mixed in with utter tosh such as… Well, most of it. Indeed, the majority of the music had a place on a piece of trash such as this, but other tracks certainly didn’t. The passengers slept through most of it, too, which kind of led me to believe that I should have put on a better CD, but I guess it was very apt as Aurora’s cover of Duran Duran’s ‘Ordinary World’ came on just as we hit Ulverston. Indeed, back to normal after a mad weekend…

From here, we convened at the Comm. Tower and those left cleared off soon enough. I sometimes think it’s a shame that we can’t get everyone together right at the end, but when I think about it, I guess that’s a consequence of decentralising the kids in transit – which is by no means a bad thing. We were left with a relatively clean bus (wow!) and not much in the way of stuff to get rid of – that’ll be coming next month at the Summer camp (yes, it is now June! Time has been thin). I’ll end it here. Again, it was a highly successful camp, with huge kudos being directed to those who made it tick, and I hope I can be saying things of a similarly positive ilk when I conjure the next camp review.

This is a guest article by MG, imported from Wordpress. Please ignore the 'author/contributor/posted-by' tag on this post, which is incorrect.