Appreciation time !

Hello everyone,

Apparently it's International Women's Appreciation Day today. Which gives me a good excuse to say nice things about people. But first ... a thumbnail is required ...

Ladies of NASA ! Did I really never post these ? Oops. This was a good little set with some interesting history within the material that came with it.

Let's start with a few amazing people who I know. First up there is the ever wonderful LTK, who listens to the jokes, natters away and loves the various screenshots coming through. And then there's the Lark, who has been a great cinema buddy (not much lately although I really enjoyed The Handmaiden - special film), hopefully there will be another Comic Con this year although that depends on the organisers and a certain virus that's doing the rounds. They've both been amazing friends over the last few years.

As for virus stuff - I think I'm outside of the danger period that I was keeping an eye on ! The incubation period is supposed to be something like 14 days and I'm ok. It's now 14 days since getting off the flight from Canada and I was seeing that as the danger period times. Mind you, I did forgo heading into Cardiff on Friday but that was more because it was later than ideal and there was nothing interesting in the Cardiff cinemas, less due to the case of virus that's been announced for someone in Cardiff.

Still, it's ok to be cautious. (Not ok to be crazy about it though, there's too much panic buying happening at the moment).

Back to ladies ! Special mention for the Sleepymum and Sleepysister too. I'll see them again in a few weeks for the Mothers Day weekend.

Special mentions for the Purple Pixie, Snow Queen, Fork Lady, Alex, Sarai and Krinza. Especially Krinza who helped me through a few really rough times with the various Warcraft dramas that happened over the years.

Before I go any further though, if you know me and don't see your name here ... that's cos you are far more amazing than my brain is and it's full of holes due to cricket balls.

There's a few amazing ladies who have recently joined the team I'm in too, in the project, in commercial and in finance too. And then there are the Finance Angels who have been extremely patient over the years with me too and perhaps taught me a few things along the way too.

We get fantastic support from the ladies in the wider teams at work too, although we're switching teams at the moment so we're switching to different people to help us out.

Mind you, there's also a couple out in the wider world of people who make it possible for us to keep doing what we do. I've named one of my ships Strength of Atlas but these two are definitely the strength of atlas. One of them has pulled an airliner down a runway for charity ...

Where to next ? I'm definitely still well invested in the gaming world and am doing that thing again where I have two streams on. (One's on laptop). Huge shout outs for :

Fuzzyfreaks - who is always massive crazy fun watching the streams. It's always something different, something amusing, maybe shocking too, always whole hearted. May she keep streaming for many years to come. When she does role play streams, you're never bothered if the plot doesn't advance because it's just too much fun watching her character interaction.
Also Teacakes - who is as lovely as both varieties of nommy teacake.
HelloitsKolo - is on the laptop at the moment playing Breathedge, a wonderful human being who is just so nice ! She's also built a wonderful, generous community who just did wonderful things for the Special Effect charity.
HeyChrissa - wonderful Chris who has sadly walked away from the streaming scene now and we definitely miss her. But she'll move on to bigger and better things I'm sure. Chris was the one who is the reason I started talking in stream chats, to join in with her own lovely community.
Tashnarr - is a relatively new streamer for me. I never really watched while she was doing the creative streams, although those were still excellent streams. There were just other people on ! Tash is another lovely person, with a cheeky, chirpy, giggly, definitely no nonsense attitude and a pleasure to listen to.

And then there's Maggie Krohn and Random Tuesday. Plus Community Leader Susie who has been wonderful to follow on the Twitters. Oh ! Pip Warr too, previously of Rock Paper Shotgun and they lost their best, most interesting person when she disappeared from there. It was great keeping up with the adventures of Humhum, simple and excellent drawings, great character, lovely humour.

The various streams have been great to listen and lurk in. Definitely beats any telly you can think of.

Dwagon commander salutes you all.

I just had a look back through those Elitecember pictures too - varied quality but there's a few in there that I really like and I owe a lot to Steph (@sourfruitjunkie) and Aria (@genkisoda) of the Inklings for encouraging me to try drawing more by showing techniques and above all, showing Fun in drawing.

To the wider world ? Let's see :

Sarah Taylor is an inspiration in the world of cricket. Her wicket keeping (retired now) was a joy to watch. There comes along a player in every generation who is special, who does their thing in sport just so much better than everyone else. And then there are the once in a lifetime people who take it to a whole new level. I don't think I'll ever see a better wicket keeper than Sarah Taylor. She's battled the mental demons too, (the short with Katherine Brunt is pretty special there too) which is tough for anyone. She's quieter off the field but when she does post, there's someone wonderful there.

Of the twitter people I follow, Marina Sirtis is another very special one. From Star Trek TNG, to Stargate, to numerous other parts over the years, she's always bringing that presence to the screen. And she's fun (and different) to follow on Twitter.

You can't mention Stargate without talking about Amanda Tapping who is quieter on Twitter but still fun to follow. I suspect the quiet is due to busy. She's been involved with a number of fun, interesting shows, with Sanctuary being another highlight. She always seems like she has a lot of fun doing what she does. Always try to have fun with whatever you do.

Susie Goodall and Dee Caffari from the yachting world have also been inspirational. It's been great following their progress in both the Vendee Globe and Volvo Round the World race.

Yes. It felt like it was time for a gratuitous picture of a boat. It had almost gone round the world at that point, with just one more leg to go to the finish.

I think that's my brain emptied for now. These are but a selection of wonderful people. There are many more. Including those who I'll think "I should have added them too !", probably 5 minutes after posting !

See you next time. I may have pictures of black holes.

Comic Con fun

It was Comic Con already last weekend !

Time is marching on fast. A good day out with a great friend. I'll have another post coming up later for the cricket at Lords, no friend at that one but I did get hugs. More for the other post ...

There seemed to be more cosplay on show this year. Some of it fun like the one above, some amazing;

Hello Queenie

Some furry ... they must have been cooking in those ! The Excel arena by London's docklands isn't the most hospitable arena place. The air systems really can't cope with so many people inside and it gets a bit steamy. You'd think they'd do something about that !

Lots to see though. From the Pikachu and Team Rocket, Detective Pikachu is definitely a movie I want to see.

Great chocobo.

Love the attitude on this one.

Definitely attitude there. Dunno about the fella behind though. Maybe he's just been told that this Dalek just incinerated his ride home. Love the Alice here too. Oh ... I've been in the Stellaris too and just completed the Determined Exterminator part of the achievement quest ...

This is Comic Con though, so the merch game is strong. There's one that I suspect my neighbour will be acquiring ... Genki Gear has awesome stuff !

All of these were tempting but I managed to escape with just the "Dice are not your friends" t-shirt.

More there from Teeturtle.

Amazing models there.

And I was so close to acquiring one of these to put together.

I'll have a picture coming soon for Team Donut day. Check out Rekha Sharma on the Twitters. She's awesome and has been a great part of shows like Battlestar Galactica and lately on Star Trek Discovery.

But eventually it comes round to time to seek out that home in a galaxy far far away.

We hear you roar Mr Mayhew and we salute you.

It's almost time to get back to the Pew Pew but not before :

A cute cheery wave for an Until Next Year.

A good show again. My friend and I weren't feeling that great on the Sunday so we had a relaxed start and cruise around the show. A lot more cosplay was on show, from the hired outfits to full on custom specials. It all looked amazing and we definitely appreciated seeing it all.

Star Wars Advent 2018 Day 11 and something short ....

Day 11 ! Almost half way through and I think I need more books.

You always need more books.

Today is a short Jedi who I thought was Anakin for a bit (apparently it's a character from one of the animated series, the same series as the ship next to him). Before I move on to the books, I need to give a big shout out to someone ...

I have my first Christmas card of the year ! It's over there on the left with the Santa. It's from the ever wonderful Margaret Krohn, who I've followed for quite a few years so far. And will continue to, especially after meeting this wonderful person at the Roll4it con over the weekend. Let's see, she's :

The inspiration of the Vanu Sovereignty (Planetside 1+2);
(This is how I first became aware of the Maggie)
Layla the Vampire Slayer (watch out for groin punches);
Possessed of a wonderful voice and heavenly smile;
Staff Sergeant Khang of the Stargate programme;
Keeper of incredible Beasts;
Co founder of Roll4It;
MagMom and inspiration for more than a good few of my creative ideas :

(that's a recolour from a lovely Ilse original)
Ace stream broadcaster and producer;
An oh so skilled player of games;
(I could have grabbed an Iain M. Banks there !)
Short of stature and far larger than life;

And Queen of the Space Vikings leading a community of oh so lovely people.
(2 communities with Roll4it)

And I've missed so many things out there. Link's on the right in the Lovely Gaming People section.

To the books !

Something of a theme today. On the left is Hogfather by Terry Pratchett. Discworld does Christmas and in fine style too. This one felt rather different to the usual Discworld books. It felt like it had a certain urgency that wasn't there in the other books. There was also far more mystery involved with what precisely had happened overnight to the Hogfather.

Great book, thoroughly recommended.

Next up is the Game Players of Titan by Philip K. Dick. Another enjoyable book, set mostly on Earth in a future where aliens from the moon of Titan are exerting a perhaps not so benevolent oversight of the human race. Gotta admit that I don't remember this one so much ! A highly appreciated present from another lovely little lady.

(and I'm rushing now because I hear the dinner bell).

The last one is one of the best books I have read. It's Time Enough For Love by Robert Heinlein.

However, this wasn't a favourite book when I started, in fact I rather loathed the central character, Lazarus Long mostly because of the impression I got from another book, The Cat Who Walked Through Walls. The story picks up with this nigh on immortal character on the verge of death from old age (at about 3000+ years old). He is refusing rejuvenation therapy due to pretty much giving up on life and love.

But then as his memoirs are taken, he steadily remembers that whole hearted love for life, people and living and the character gets stronger and stronger. And there are some amazing, dramatic, heartbreaking vignettes all the way through the book.

Especially Bert the intelligent Mule. And the growing realisation that he would not age while the little girl he rescues matures, falls in love with him, starts a new family and grows old. There is so much emotion and heartbreak running through this one.

I think I need to read this one again some time soon.

I better get that dinner !

With that first card coming through, it's a happy christmas to you all. Every one of you who has hung in there up to this point. And please do check out the wonderful Maggie K.

Trips away, trips future, gaming ?

I did the traveling thing last weekend.

Good to see the mum and sister and one of the Double D boys again. Thoroughly enjoyed that bit of the weekend.

Me bringing the bluray up and us watching a couple of films on the Saturday is becoming a tradition too. This weekend it was Star Wars The Last Jedi and the first Fantastic Beasts film. I'm fearing for Star Wars now ... I still enjoy watching The Last Jedi, mostly due to watching Rey's emergence and definitely for the fun character which is Rose. But it really feels like they are scraping the bottom of a creativity barrel in Star Wars now. Solo was a mixed bag of good and contrived bad and Last Jedi was going down the Alien Covenant / Prometheus path in what it was doing to the established This Is Star Wars stuff.

On the other hand, I thought Fantastic Beasts was an amazing film on first watching and that feeling continued through to the second watching. It has a delightful humour running through the film, Eddie Redmayne's performance is inspired and it has a nice little mystery plot waiting to burst out as soon as the introductions are done. The sequel should be fantastic.

I did, of course, pick up loot.

The marshmallows are lush, the brownie was gorgeous and the Creme Egg (yes that is an Easter Egg) is cursed in that it is still in my mum's fridge.

I am regretting my life choices though. I left this in the shop :

And the shop is now 200 miles away.

A good trip. I'm looking forward to downtime next weekend though, ahead of a switch in what job I'm doing which will see me immediately have a couple of days out of the office next week.

Yes. They are letting me out of the office again ....

But that's work and it isn't marshmallows.

They are definitely tasty. And too good to scoff down in one session. I have a couple at a time, savour them and then the remainder go into that tin with a fairly well sealable lid to keep them fresh.

Oh ... trips future also includes me being highly likely to head up to Chester for a meet up of the Roll4it crew. I already avidly follow what they're up to, especially Maggie Krohn, FuzzyFreaks and Enter Elysium (links over on the right hand column !). They've brought a good bunch of people together who make very watchable content and it'd be good to say hi. And then maybe visit something touristy around the Chester area the next day.

Indeed one phrase I never thought I'd hear myself say again is "AWESOME Love you Maggie" (some readers will know why !) yet that is one phrase that came out today. I like doing those photo edits for people and other assorted doodle level of thing. I don't have much talent as an artist but I do like making ideas come to fruition through photo editing. It's awesome when the creations get a happy reaction from the people they're intended for. That makes it so much more worth it making the Thing.

Here are a couple of the latest :

The credit has to go to the original artists as all I did was do a couple of recolours on the Mag Gran on the left and I gave the one on the right a wink.

Yet these did not just get a "That's great Sleepy, love it !", the Mag Gran is now one of her chosen emotes and the Mag Wink became the icon for her Discord server for about 5 minutes (the icon is now a festive UFO).

Seeing the creations actually put to use makes me very happy.

I was going to talk about gaming too .... Maybe another day because there's a lot in that list. It's the first day of another Steam sale and I already have a couple of games in the basket :

Bomber Crew - a cartoonish simulator of a WW2 bomber and its crew. (link to Enter Elysium playlist)
Glass Masquerade - a glass mosaic puzzle game which looked amazing when Katherine Of Sky (link to playlist) showed it off.

And then there's Skyrim .... which I might acquire on Special Edition for £15. I'm also considering resetting my Elite pilot again back to zero. That's the pattern I had way back in the original Elite, where I'd get to Dangerous or Deadly, get bored and start again. I find it more fun to build up and consistently change things than to grind through doing exactly the same routines.

There is that thing though with the games where sometimes, the game is more fun to watch someone else play than it is to play it yourself. Games like Blood Bowl, which is on the wishlist ...

More about the gaming soon ! And the Lego. I owe you a couple of Lego posts, I still have the Ladies of NASA kits to build and then there's Star Wars Advent approaching ....

Cya soon.

Best dad ever

Gosh this one's going to be a tough post to write but let's start with a picture.

My dad passed away yesterday. I wasn't there but mum said it was peaceful and without pain.

But this isn't about the end, it's about the 75 years up to that point. This will only have a little bit about how good a dad I had but I hope it paints some of that picture.

Before you ask, I'm ok. The family's holding things together, as is our way. You have to keep on functioning, despite what you might be feeling. And that's what we do. (Although we will go to bits when we need to and in my case, writing has always been a better way to express my feelings than anything that goes from brain to gob).

I've been very lucky with my parents. They've always supported me, my sister and my brother when he was still with us. Pretty much everything they did was to support us kids.

What did he get up to ?

He pointed the way for me to get into the cricket. He hadn't played for a long time before I did but supported me all the way. As he did with my sister and her horse riding. He gave me my first start at work, which prepared me for going into full time work. (And it was very handy for giving me a cash injection too !).

They bought our first cars and supported us kids into getting our independence. Not as a pushing us out the door kind of independence, we were always welcome and encouraged to come back to stay. There is always a place for us to crash there. In fact, this actually extended to allowing one of my ex girlfriends (this was uni) to stay there rather longer than she ought after that incident when I rescued said ex from what could have ended up being a nasty domestic violence incident.

He was a very keen gardener (and there were very many tasty veggies coming out of that garden too !). He built a house for us in Northern Ireland. Not many people can claim to have done that ! Things were a struggle for the family quite a few times but we kids were insulated from that by remarkable parents ... but not so much that we weren't able to deal with hardship when it presented itself later.

He taught me that if you read up on how to do things, you can do anything.

Outside of what was gifted us through our genes, we've never been that lucky as a family. But through the inspiration of people like my mum and dad, we've hopefully come out ok. But that's for you all reading out there to judge.

There's more, like the couple of trips to Wembley to see Rotherham play plus that day when Rotherham played Swansea and the referee incited a pitch invasion. I enjoyed getting out to see Yorkshire play cricket at various grounds too. Cos that was time with my dad, which was always precious.

Proud of him ... and my mum, sister, brother while he was with us. Everything he touched had its own little bit of awesome with it.

Best dad ever. I'll miss him.

Space .... and an appeal ...

Yep ! More internet spaceships. But a bit more later too about a friend.

I suspect it's showing that I've been enjoying my time back in Elite since restarting the character ... I've definitely been in the game a lot (albeit in short-ish doses befitting my current attention span) and that's in comparison to spending a few months away from it after completing the preparations for the April Fools post.

I suspect the Plan this time is better. And that's to eventually own every ship in the game, trying them all out, instead of ignoring most of them and just driving up to the big ones. Who knows, the keenness to play may evaporate at some point as I find something different. Like going back to the game that pushed me back to Elite ! That'd be Bounty Train.

So what did I do at the weekend ? Outside of watching the cricket that is ! Well done to England again today. Great win and hopefully I'll watch almost 5 days of great cricket starting from Friday (the almost is because I'll be working in the morning on Friday).

I'm organising my time in Elite a fair bit around the weekly community goals. This time around the community goals were first to bring lots of rare booze to a station in the Harma system and the second was to protect the people bringing in the booze. So a trading run and a combat run and an excuse to try out a little fighter or two :

That's the Imperial Eagle ship called Katherine Of Space and I'll come back later to why the little fighter has that name. (Ha ! First pic becomes the thumbnail for the post and that's the thumbnail this post needs !)

The first fighter was an Eagle ship called the Elizabeth Sparrow after one of the more memorable characters on the HeyChrissa discord chat server. A name from a little fighter definitely befitting a little fighter.

I enjoyed taking the two ships out for a spin, although I was learning a little about handling them in flight too. Elite works partly on Newtonian physics, so if you Go Very Fast in a particular direction, you stay going Very Fast in that direction until the thrusters compensate. One idea I have is to turn off what's called Flight Assist in game to let me quickly flip around to bring the guns to bear. Doesn't quite work like that .... Because you end up several km away (and out of gun range) and moving further away.

Need to learn better space combat tactics.

That's the Elizabeth, which joined the growing fleet at the weekend. I now have 10 of the 31 that players can buy and the in game cash is coming together to buy a lot of those remaining. The community goals help a lot with that ...

But that's gaming. Gaming's fake. It's not real life.

It can be good to effectively hide in the gaming though. When I'm in the game, I'm only thinking about the next trade stop, I'm in the second to second of staying alive in combat, finding the next target and trying not to bite off more than I can chew. Where I'll be exploring next.

I'm not thinking of the state of my outsides or all the other problems I have. The gaming is an escape.

Which brings me back to the Katherine Of Space ... Why that name ?

It started as a tribute to KatherineOfSky, who is one of those lovely gaming people. Perhaps a clutching at a straw for finding names. Maybe.

But it's gone on from there as I remember a Katherine that was and a Kate that is. Katherine was someone lovely who used to be in the same team as me, who had a small smile that I still remember. I mirror people and how they feel and when walking past Katherine on the way to grab a coffee, if a smile was seen from the Katherine then it made me feel so much better.

Katherine was lost to us due to breast cancer a few years ago and inspired my Pink Hat cricket tribute where I wore that Pink Hat for a season of cricket. I thought about attaching charity collecting to that but ... I'm just too frail to support that. But it did inspire lots of questions, which I answered with memories of someone lovely. Here's the pic of that Pink Hat.

The Kate that is is someone I met a few years ago with the Psoriasis group. The mob hasn't had a chance to meet up since but it would be good to see Kate again before it's too late.

This Kate is a single mom who has been fighting all the challenges. She's a single mom, she has fought the life changing condition of Psoriatic Arthritis which isn't just the signs you see on the outside, it viciously attacks the joints on the inside too and as it's an auto-immune disease, the treatment severely damages the immune system. And she has terminal cancer as well.

But we know our Kate will keep on fighting as long as she can.

Hopefully long enough to meet up with us Patchy People of the Psoriasis group again and also for ...

Time for an appeal ! A couple of the ladies of the Psoriasis group have put an appeal together to provide the funding for Kate and kids to have a chance to build some great memories together. HERE'S THE LINK !

I very rarely post links to charity pages but I think this one is worth it. Only met once but some people you meet ? You get an instant feeling that they're great people.

Memories are very precious. I still hang on to the great memories of my nan and the good memories of my granddad, both are no longer with us.

I'm still hoping for a miracle that would see the Kate-that-is stay with us for a good while longer.

And if I name any of those Internet Spaceships after anyone, one that is a pretty little fighter has to be named as tribute to the Kate-that-is.

Hot Racing

First up,

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there ! I've just given mine a call. He's doing all right, which is better than usual ! He's been breaking more things, including his arm which just came out of plaster. Hope he'll be ok.

We both tend to bull on through our problems and just do things anyway, which tends to aggravate the problems. Well, I do when I summon up the motivation to start. That's a really bad habit. I need to actually initiate more jobs that need to be done (like the washing is out of the machine but I need to hang it up).

I will go back to the doctors ... soon. What I really need to do is stop helping the feet by aggressive cleaning, it just does more damage. There's a lot of scar tissue on my feet I think and trying to clean that up sees me going too far and causing damage. But it is getting there, ever so slowly and not helped by me attacking it.

Enough about me though. Too hot ! Far too hot !

I was out again on Friday for a fun games and dinner session and I think that pretty much finished me off. Wasn't feeling at all well yesterday. Not ill, just out of sorts and not really wanting to do much apart from watch Le Mans. (Hence the washing going on today instead of yesterday). I did manage to head out for pizza, although that would have put the kybosh on attempting to sleep normally.

One year, I'll actually stay up for the whole of the Le Mans race. I've done a couple of all nighters this year thanks to a Stellaris game that has a magic "just a few more months to next tech" factor. But I wasn't particularly feeling interested in playing games yesterday, instead catching up on a few videos.

I'll try and keep up with some onrunning series but a lot of the time, I'll relegate the playlists to a slow mode, where I give up trying to keep up with releases and just watch a few at a time in my own time. So what am I watching at the moment ? It sometimes starts as evaluating a game, sometimes because I really like the presenter/player, sometimes because watching the game is more enjoyable than playing it.

Watch Dogs 2 with Hannah is on in the background at the moment - it's an open world game that tries to have as much fun as possible with its setting and does what it does quite well. Not bought it ... yet.
Rezrog (with Katherine of Sky) looks very promising as a game. Could be odd mechanics though. It's a dungeon crawler game where you take one single hero through to beat the dungeon.
Dungeons II with Aavak is a dungeon builder game. I think I got this as a freebie but this time, it's evaluating the game. I haven't actually watched one of these videos yet.
Factorio (with Katherine of Sky again) is a factory building game. You crash land on a planet with rather nasty wildlife and have to build a factory to research your way into a rocket. I've tried starting this and it intimidates me ... Or is that trying to get one of the tough achievements on my first run through.
Northgard with LadyShelab is one that interests me as a simple/depth real time strategy inspired by the old Settlers games. Another I probably won't buy but it is interesting ...
Transport Fever with Shenryyr is a new take on doing planes, trains, automobiles and boats. Not buying this one because the game has too many bugs but I'm enjoying listening and watching.

Some of them have that gift of making the game fun and interesting, it does help if there is a wonderful voice there like the warm voice of Katherine of Sky and the about-to-break-into-song voice of Radderss on the streaming. There might even be a break into laughter (and lots of swearing) Chrissa stream later.

On the gaming for me front there is Stellaris (of course). I've abandoned my boring pacifist far too strong and dominating the galaxy race for a race of pure evil.

Yes. We burned the neighbour's long lost holy book before invading them and replacing all their leaders with our people. Our next plan is to confiscate the tea and force them to have coffee instead (you can't actually do this in game). I may have overdone it again on this one, my race has a silly powerful economy although I have affected that somewhat by choosing a ring galaxy (has all the planets concentrated into a band, means more star systems under your control)

Le Mans ! It was an epic race this year. Much different to previous Le Mans, where the competition was between the manufacturers of the top cars. The result of the entire event was in doubt this year after much mechanical gremlin trouble was had.

Toyota brought 3 cars, 2 of which dramatically failed on track within 30 minutes of each other and couldn't be dragged back to a garage where the third Toyota was being mended. They got the third stricken Toyota out again and it finished 9th after losing 2 hours.
Porsche brought 2 cars, 1 of which lost 90 minutes to having a broken front end fixed. (It's where the electric motor lives). The second Porsche broke down within 2 hours of the finish. Very dramatic again. At the time, a LMP2 (fast prototype, not hybrid) car was leading ....

And was overhauled within 30 minutes of the finish. But that wasn't the closest finish ... An Aston Martin and Corvette of GTE Pro were locked in battle right up to the final lap, where the Corvette ran out of tyre grip and binned it off the track. Pressure tells ... and the result said Aston Martin win.

Another epic Le Mans. The trick is to ignore most of it and wake up for the drama. There is a story that unfolds through these races. Like the two broken cars that came out again to win. Like an Audi last year (I think !) that had a major accident coming back on three wheels .... which was repaired and out again before the crash barriers were fixed. Like last year's Toyota disaster where the car leading by a lap failed with 5 minutes to go.

Winning for 23 hours 55 minutes does not win a 24 hour race ...

Huge cheers again for the entertainment this year around. I must get my passport updated (and my outsides fixed) so I can go to the actual event.

I didn't manage to stay awake this time. Again. I had mixed feelings there because I knew I would have problems due to the pizza if I tried for sleep, I just emerged when the problems were about to become ... a problem. So to speak. This year I went for nappage at 3.30am and emerged at about 9.30am. Caught up via the Twitters, there are a lot of active Twitter accounts that capture the most important events.

I'm off work again tomorrow, which should help my feet out if I let them.

It's been a good weekend. I resisted going to Weston air show, which sounds like it was a good idea because the M5 road there was supposedly at car park stations. Le Mans was even more epic organised unpredictable chaos than usual and Friday's games and dinner was extremely enjoyable.

(We'll just ignore the not feeling great yesterday !)

Tick of Doom

Ask not who the tick ticks for, it ticks for thee.

Ok. Perhaps not the quote you were looking for. I think that's "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."

We've lost another couple of great people today ! You've probably heard about the most prominent, well known of the two. That's Gene Wilder, who was responsible for bringing in so much magic, mirth, merriment into my childhood with his brilliant performances on film and the small screen. He'll definitely be missed but we'll remember him for his work.

People's work is what defines them. It's what they leave behind.

The other fella gone today is a fella called Darrell Ward. He was a rough, tough, Alabama trucker who put so much colour into the Ice Road Truckers programme over the last few years. I usually wait a few weeks before watching series and then watch a few episodes in a go. But he's one reason why I usually watch programmes like Ice Road Truckers immediately. (Or the day after - it's only the Bake Off that I watch on the day - and Robot Wars because of spoilers).

Oh wait - I need a thumbnail pic and I just conveniently mentioned the Bake Off :

They were back last week and on form again. Definitely great entertainment for midweek.

Oh and not a good thing to watch before shopping or things may escape. Wonder if me worsening over the weekend is due to grabbing a box of Jaffa Cakes ? I blame Bake Off. (I believe I'm sensitive to the orange layer).

Yep. It'll be bittersweet when Ice Road Truckers starts up again in just over a week. It'll be starring Darrell Ward and it's a shame that it'll be his last series.

Tick of Doom ?

I emerged from the pit of sleep over the weekend to find an occasional tick coming from my PC. I heard it but didn't realise the significance until later. You should keep an ear open for odd sounds from PCs, it tends to be the precursor of things that may melt the machine, like fans getting in trouble.

In this case, it's coming from an old hard disc that came from my last PC. I'll transfer the drive over from old machine to new one when I do a new build. It's just so much easier that way to copy all of the data over. It was slightly different for this machine though, as a shortage of hard discs had made the price sky rocket. After a while, prices stabilised (helped by BestBuy's failure leading to savage discounts which I took advantage of) and I moved over to a new big hard disc.

This time it's ... RIP old hard disc but no real bother to me as I'd mostly stopped using that drive a while ago. It does have some data on that I'll miss ... but not enough to get the data recovered.

How about me ?

I was hoping for some good healing over the long weekend. That hasn't really happened. Perhaps due to those Jaffa Cakes. I'm a little more torn up than I was but ... not crippling. That's the frustration with my outsides, they will improve and then suddenly get worse again.

I will go back to the Doctors about this at some point. Just not yet. What I do need to do is find that balance between keeping it clean (because the damage likes that) and not aggravating it when I'm getting it clean.

I've been quiet lately haven't I ? I guess I haven't had that much to talk about, plus I've been putting my mental energy into work. Oh and a game called Hearts of Iron ... It's a World War 2 grand strategy game and while it has its faults, flaws and annoying bugs, I've been enjoying it. Definitely enjoying it enough to finish a session at 5.30am this morning. Oops. But it did lead to my chosen country, USA, winning WW2.

It's not a game that really ends though. Whereas in the real world, we stopped when the Axis powers were defeated and the Allies were staring at the Russians in a Cold War that lasted over 50 years. In the game, wars keep popping up from the same old events again. It's a criticism but it's one of those things where you have to remember that it's a game and one thing the game needs to do is to encourage the wars so the player has something to do and something to keep them on their toes. Something to keep them interested.

I'd like to say that the new Deus Ex game I mentioned had been completed over the weekend but ... it's another modern game that isn't finished enough to be stable on your average PC. Mine's a pretty well running PC (somehow) but it's having trouble where the game crashes. That kinda kills the desire to keep on playing. So I haven't been back in since the second attempt. A shame, because the last one was amazing. It did what it did perfectly, it didn't try to do everything which was part of why it succeeded. I think this one is trying to do too much and it is tripping up over those visuals.

Still, it isn't another No Mans Sky. I was so hyped about that game but it looks like they have mucked up just about everything they could have got wrong in that game while still producing something playable. That's kind of an achievement in itself.

And I'm rambling again ...

Still here, still got the issues with my outsides. It's hard to remember that it's so much better than it used to be, it just doesn't want to finish the job of healing.

Frustrated with some of the gaming, although enjoying other games. It's a credit to how good the Paradox games are that you're prepared to tolerate the bugs and work around them. Sometimes they aren't even bugs, just things you didn't realise were a thing*. If a game keeps you going until 5.30am, it's doing something right.

*(like planning a naval invasion, wondering why they wouldn't GO and then realising that your landing craft weren't up to it yet - the game didn't tell you this).

Sad at losing a few people too. It doesn't matter how well they are known. People matter, even if only a small number of people miss them. Everyone matters. And that's where I'll leave you today.

Keep ... mattering !

Earning All of the Stickers !

Someone lovely sent me this pic yesterday :

Love it.

But how about dem stickers ? How do they fit into Life Of Sleepy ?

I put away the Launndry. I have to admit. This doesn't happen too often. I leave everything hanging on the radiators and in the airing cupboard until I want to use it. (This would change if it wasn't just me living here). It's partly down to me having probably a few too many Things than I have space to put them. I should look at thinning out the t-shirt collection a bit, keep the awesome, get rid of the mundane. As for doing the laundry, I do mine on the Friday or early Saturday so it has a chance to dry over the weekend. Very important to have those dry, clean shirts and trousers for work !

Sparkly things are awesome.
(Sometimes mundane is good though because sometimes you need something plain).

"I wore a bra today" - nah. Hopefully this will never happen, outside of doing something for fun. I would totally be up for going in drag if it were for a good cause. Although I do need to lose some weight. I'm not obese but I am overweight. I'm a fair bit over my ideal weight for the activity I'm doing at the moment and it causes a complication or two. I suspect my loss of sleep due to too much acid is down to being overweight.

On other people's weight - you should be exactly the weight that you are comfortable and confident at. I know some big people who rock that size. I knew some thin people who are really desperate to get the curves. Be who you are meant to be, whether that is tall, short, wide or thin. Own it and the confidence you have in yourself will make you stunning.

"I didn't spend all my money" - but not for lack of window shopping ... Let's see. Things on my I Want That list at the moment :
Tickets for Silverstone - both the endurance cars and Formula 1.
Tickets for Le Mans endurance cars. Entry to the circuit is cheap for endurance cars and extortionate daylight robbery for Formula 1 but I would like to do it again some time. Le Mans would be an epic trip. But ... it can be better to (half!) watch these things on the telly and get the full story, rather than the filtered down scope you get from being there.

Lego ! All the Lego ! I'd love a Millenium Falcon, which would get made into an Elite Anaconda.

(picture courtesy of the Twitter people)

That's a pipedream although getting the Lego Le Mans Technic car to build while the 24 hour race is on is a definite possibility. Only £80 from Argos ...

I'll regularly look up the music people and the games too to investigate adding more goodies to the libraries. But I resist spending the money if I think the price is too high. So although I think her voice is amazing, the Lisa Miskovsky albums are staying on the shelf at £8.

"Almost made it to the gym today" - I've never been one for training. In fact, when I did do regular training, I gained nothing in terms of stamina and lost ever inkling of my extreme running speed. I'm like Ledley King, a footballer who played for Spurs. He couldn't train because his knees were too fragile but was able to maintain a level of fitness and skill that let him stay in the first team.

I was a bit like that with the cricket. Using a bike*, doing a paper round and a lot of walking kept me fit enough to have a baseline I found acceptable for the cricket. And then I'd get match fit and up to skill levels during pre season practice. Cricket fit me really well because I could recover from puffing and wheezing during the reset between balls.

*a funny story from uni is that during the off season, I was cycling into uni every day. I gained stomach muscles. I'd never had them before !!! Awesome ! But come preseason training, I literally could not bowl the ball in the net. It was going everywhere !!! These stomach muscles that I'd never had before were triggering completely at random and throwing me off. Awkward ...

There we go folks - training can be bad.

"I didn't eat all of the chips" - I actually didn't yesterday and I won't tonight. HAHA :-) But only because last night was a raiding of the Chinese and tonight will be a pasta bake. No chips in there :-).

(and now I'm madly chuckling at getting that badge in completely the wrong way)

Last one ! "I didn't hit snooze today".

Ok, I did actually, all 3 working days so far this week. Except it's a snooze that keeps the radio on instead of turning it off. I'm weird (you knew that already!), I seem to find it easier to get rest in the morning in the hour or so before getting ready to work, than in the hours after you go to bed.

I need to find that Switch Brain Off And Find The ZZZzzz's mental programme again.

Closing time ! I just spotted this on Facebook too, which I also found pretty funny :-)

Hahaha. Spiders are evil. I am scared witless in the time between it roaming free, when I catch it in a trap and when I manage to evict it outside. Especially the spiders that are bigger than the spider trap.

Shudder !

I enjoyed my stickers, I hope you did too !

Gravity ... too high ...

Wow - the tireds have hit again.

I feel like I'll be sleeping for a significant amount of this weekend. Or at least I hope I will be. Sleep's still been at a premium lately. It feels like it's been taking ages to nod off again. I suspect that tendency is partly down to keeping on those computer games for a little bit too long at night.

The RSI tendencies in my right wrist and some other upper body issues have definitely been woken up again by a little too much stick time. The Elite piloting position is not exactly ideal. I need to clear off the upper level of my desk again so I can put the keyboard there and have the flightstick in a central position so I'm not twisting my body to do the piloting thing. At the moment, keyboard and flightstick go side by side, so the stick is off the the right. I'm moving around anyway because when I'm doing the piloting, I'm pretty constantly checking over the laptop that's at my 9 o'clock position compared to my place sitting at the pooter.

I also keep a watchful eye on the telly, which usually has the news on mute while my laptop pipes music over to my amp and speakers. (That's done better lately actually - I tweaked some settings in the network that's given a little better Quality Of Service, translation - it's not doing the dropouts much now)

What is happening with the migrant situation ? It seems like we've allowed the situation in Syria to get totally out of control, causing mass migration out of that country. They have the impression that the West is the Land of Milk And Honey, so they're heading here instead of the actually much richer and closer Oil Baron Gulf.

It's amazing how perceptions twist according to the whims of our media services. We now have Help The Immigrants campaigns popping up everywhere, a few months ago a neo-nutter political party called UKIP got rather too much share of the vote here on a manifesto based around kicking out immigrants, partly supported by our media. Yet now the media and the sheep who follow their whims have now gone full circle.

It's curious how the flavour of the month changes isn't it.

I sympathise with the situation the migrants find themselves in but the question I have is for the people saying "Bring them here". Ok. Where will they go. Britain is already overcrowded. Most of Europe is overcrowded. We are still having to struggle under the yoke of austerity. There is no money to house them, feed them, support them. Will everyone signing the Bring Them Here petitions offer up enough room in their house to put an immigrant family in ?

I'll let you answer that for yourselves. What you do is your own business, just think about the consequences of what you ask for. Personally, I need to sort the house out before I'd be happy to have visitors, let alone people joining me living here. I'd actually like that but I'll be the one choosing who it is.

Some of what I've put up there is born out of tiredness making me a bit grumpy. There's that difference between a group of people saddled with the tag "Refugee Immigrant" and the genuinely wonderful singular Person who is looking to make a new home. Like ...

The wonderful bubbly chuckly smiley one who is working so hard to make a success of her talents (not an immigrant herself but from a family that has embraced the English culture).
The tall blonde KFC lady who recognises me when I go in there, asks me how I'm doing and has a truly wonderful smile to go with finding me the bigger bits of chicken.
The possibly Greek group who run the chippie. They start getting my order ready before I've even asked for it.
The group who run our Chinese. People come from far around to go to our Chinese.
That lovely Yogscast girl who was born here but is so well travelled, she's a child of the world.
The Irish Miss L who always looks as if she's going to burst out laughing if she sees me, in anticipation of possible Antics from the Sleepy One. Not spotted her lately, wonder if she's seen me first and kept an eye out for potential Antics from an unseen hidey hole ...
And a few more.

It's what people put back into the society they live in and that goes for people born in the country and those who move in. Too many of the natives are destructive (just look at Bristol drivers). Too many migrants don't want to fit in. But for all of them, there's the ones who contribute so much. Our society integrates around them and hopes to avoid the chav fraternity.

Last bit on the immigrants - it's not their fault. It's the fault of the rest of the world that they're in a position that they have to avoid Crazy People. And that's the people with the lack of political will to send our people into danger to sort out the Crazy People and the people who will most certainly condemn our leaders for doing so. They'd be far better off not emigrating, if the Crazy People allowed them to stay in their native country.

Back to me - when I'm feeling down or tired or frustrated, it's other people who pull me back up again. Like getting the texts in from the bubbly chuckly smiley one. Like getting the messages in that give me so much encouragement. All the smiles and banter from the canteen girls and the canteen daemon.

It's having people (and definitely one in particular who thinks she's a pain in the butt with it !) who communicate, who try and see what I'm up to with the daft messages, the people who make me think I'm part of their world.

You guys and girls give me a massive lift. Definitely something amazing that helps keep me going when my body isn't giving me the energy to feed the hyperactive monkey in control of my brain. To ignore the pain when my body likes to remind me I've been too silly with it over the years. To remind me that I'm not alone when my mind is feeling isolated.

To the person who got this far in my Wall Of Text. You're awesome.

I have a hopefully restful weekend coming up with tonnes of sport on the telly, plus the opening night of Strictly. There's an England cricket match on tomorrow, which will compete for my attention with qualifying for the Grand Prix and an England rugby match. That'll keep the pooter busy too, which will keep me away from the games which my hands haven't appreciated. My Elite pilot is propping up the bar in Hutton Orbital anyway. I'm not planning to move them because I'll have to go back there at some point to collect a Community Goal reward and it is 90 minutes supercruise travel away from the entry point of the system.

And if you look out the window tomorrow and see the Flying Pig Acrobatic Squadron doing a display ? I'll have summoned up the energy to do some tidying up. They're warming up the engines now ... after hitting Publish, I'm going to be putting the washing out to dry ...

Having a Mind Blank

It's a bit of a joke around me (I believe ...) that I'm ... shall we say vulnerable to the charms of Pretty Ladies ?

The Mind Blank when confronted with the charms of a Pretty Lady has happened quite a few times for me. It still happens, regularly. It's in my genes, my upbringing, whichever part of that bit of brain that determines what we're attracted to.

That was one for Kim of Yogscast, who has made me go wibbly both from her videos and the two times I've actually met her. It was in reply to her posting on Twitter that she was looking out for the red pandas at Bristol Zoo and ... couldn't resist following that with something simple that hopefully made her chuckle. (Except I don't know if it did, because there was absolutely nothing in return as per usual).

Too good to go unseen. At least that's what I think. And I know a few amazing Small Pretty Ladies too. Yep. That means you. The Pretty Lady who doesn't think she is actually Pretty. Every lady has their own special beauty. You are gorgeous. Even if you don't believe that, I do. Which makes it true.

Although you know the wierd thing ? The ones who should be most beautiful somehow manage to spoil it through a disdainful attitude for those around them. I call it the Curse Of Pretty. It's like they forget that the beauty that shines most is the beauty of kindness to other people. The smile that will come out for everyone. Even that slack jawed shy boy who is stammering to get sensible words out. But there are some who will :

Look at you as if you're a stain in the carpet;
Refuse to reply to work based requests;
And generally be unpleasant to those around them.

You'll know a few of them I'm sure. They're not really worthy of your attention. Give it to the kind people instead. People like (in no particular order ...)

The one who stopped my heart when she came in to the office in her Christmas Party outfit. That'd be how our Snow Queen got that name. She's an amazing little lady who I hope remembers that soon. (I keep attempting to remind her because she's special and has helped me out lots in the past)

Our Irish colleague aka Warpath who ran acceptance. People always remarked on us having a flirty attitude with each other. That was true up to a point, she's actually married now so that flirtiness never went past a certain point (besides I was more interested in Pretty Contractor Lady who worked for Warpath). It made what could have been fraught into something more fun and successful. I got on really well with the acceptance ladies of that time and it meant we got a lot more for both my organisation and their organisation. It was great. We got things done. And it meant I got to talk to Pretty Ladies, albeit because they at one point flat refused to talk to my bosses.

But one lesson there ... what people didn't realise much is that behind the flirty outside, the calculating bit of my mind was going "Ok, she's trying to charm me into saying yes. That means her argument is super weak." That's like the tendency of games sellers to use scantily clad pretty ladies as selling points. Doesn't work with me as I instantly think their game is being sold on an image that has nothing to do with gameplay that isn't strong enough to earn my money.

And that Big Everquest Cosplay girl at NEC Comic Con definitely gave me a mind blank, she got the amount of material very close to how the adverts tried to sell Everquest.

And that would be a Mind Blank brain go "help help help" closely followed by me trying to catch sight of amazing little Cupid's Gift who I was escorting that day to remind me of a Truly Very Pretty Lady. I'll get the Wow Brain Gone mind blank with CG too when seeing her again for the first time in a while but then she'll give me a hug and by the time she's satisfied with Hug Time, the marbles in my brain will be back in the right order and I'll be able to be part of a sensible conversation.

That's a really important thing. I'll have that Mind Blank from a Pretty Lady giving me some attention but what really holds my heart is the conversation. The person behind the Pretty. Actually, that's more important for me than how people look. A Beautiful Mind ? Never seen that film but that phrase sums up how I get on with all people. I'll mirror people. Aggression (like on the road) breeds aggression. Politeness brings politeness. Smiles bring wibblyness followed by my grin coming out.

Give smiles. They make everyone feel better.

Smiles over messages are great for that too. LTK (I need to find you another nickname!) is another of those Pretty Ladies keeping me honest over the text messages. She thinks she's a pain in the ... elbow (I have a bone chip there so it aches sometimes) but she's been great for inspiring lots of these posts coming out. Cos I know she reads pretty much every one of them. I can't quite believe she does that but that's my self conscious getting in the way of my self esteem again.

I think the core reason for Mind Blank-ism is that low self esteem. It combines with a disbelief that this amazingly beautiful creature is willing to talk to me, so it takes me a few moments to summon up more than a daft grin.

Have I dug myself enough of a hole yet ?

Haha - I'm about to have more of those Mind Blank moments listening to the album that just started. It's Lucy Rose's new one, Work It Out. She has a great voice. Hopefully there will be enough time tonight for the next album, Felt Mountain by Goldfrapp. Tracks like Utopia make me stop and just listen to sheer beauty.

Who else ? The Kim I made the pic above for had that Mind Blank inducing tendency too. She had the cutes combined with a maverick personality which promised unpredictability and lots of fun. But ... she just doesn't interact very much. Even on her signing up for a dating site twice (before I found Cupid's Gift via there) and sending her a couple of intro messages (counting as non creepy I hope). I mean, why do you go on those sites if you're not willing to interact with people ? She wasn't alone in that though. Loads of women on that site will just not reply to the non creepy intro messages.

I think I'm very lucky that Cupid's Gift replied on that site, because she's done wonders for that ailing self esteem of mine. When one of those messages come in, I am highly likely to find a pole to distractedly walk into. While CG gives me that impression that someone else might think I'm a pretty good guy, LTK reinforces that fragile confidence by telling me that someone thinks I know what I'm doing. Something at work I'm not going to go into here damages that confidence at pretty much every opportunity (and is why I'm looking to be elsewhere), so having someone I trust saying I'm good at Stuff does wonders for me and enables me to work harder and better.

I feed off confidence. I need it to be motivated and successful.

It's why my English language grades at school suddenly rocketed from a disinterested low C to a high A at GCSE. Because my teacher changed from a fuzzy old Reverend to ... someone who wore summer dresses a lot and who I accidentally called Mom once in front of a few people in the class.

Yep. Almost as embarassing as a mind blank.

And I probably had better leg it now before I get myself into too much trouble !

Stay kind. It's beauty.

Walking with Dinosaurs ?

Had a great night Thursday evening.

I don't get many chances to see Cupid's Gift but we managed to be in the same place at the same time on Thursday to watch Jurassic World. It was pretty close to her birthday too, so there were a couple of extra thingys in my bag. An Easter Egg too ! (Yes it was in date).

I must have chosen good things because I got hugs.

Hugs are awesome.

Movie ?

If you watched Jurassic Park, this is slightly different. It's in an established park and there's all the chance to do things Bigger ! Better ! With More Teeth ! We see a few old friends come back in with the dinosaurs. None of the original cast are involved, although there is a nice nod to the late great Richard Attenborough.

It follows the usual formula of having a few kids go off into danger they are completely unaware of (haha - where would plots come from if you couldn't do this ?). It sets up the various protagonists (human and dino) without those introductions outstaying their welcome. The action builds steadily into a massively spectacular and boneshaking climax. You feel for the characters (especially the dinos)

Almost the film of the year. (There's a few too many daft plot things in there for it to be a genuine film of the year). Definitely one of the best this year so far. My advice, watch Jurassic Park again first as a warmup. But don't watch JP2 or JP3 as these were poor and may discourage you from seeing what is a quite excellent movie.

Yep. Go see it.

Of course me enjoying the movie could have partly been down to the company ;-)

We get on really well me and CG. There are the text messages that bounce between us that always have me breaking out into that silly grin (no matter my mood before!) when I see/hear one come in. When we see each other, we'll talk until we literally have to be required to be elsewhere. On Thursday, the place we ate our after dinner movie (Coal's Bar - yum) was shutting. Yep. Last people there.

I was home before midnight, honest, after dropping off this lovely lady at her home. And not even knowing that I'd be at war with our work's IT would dispel that happy mood. Although I did wear this as a statement of what I thought of the pooters we're forced to slave over :

Mine is in purple. Purple rocks. And that definitely sums up my attitude when I have to walk away from the machine before it gets drop tested from our 2nd floor office window.

It would have been the dinosaur picture (modelled by avatar dwagon) but that was in the wash (oops, bad planning !).

Oh - I did a probably bad thing yesterday. I blame work's canteen for not having any decent meat for the sandwiches which forced me to go to the Mall for lunch. Yep. Forced. Honest.

I did manage to resist the Thorntons temptation (this is really, really tough) but ... somehow an iPad Mini 2 walked out of PC World with me. Oops. I've been investigating getting one of these for ages now, for the iOS games as well as using it for eBooks. I need to read more, it's bad that I've gotten out of the habit.

And now I'm (slightly) hooked on the Fallout Shelter game. It's a freebie to promote Fallout 4, which I am curious about but definitely won't get on release. The developer/publisher, Bethesda, have a well established reputation for making games that get an immensely popular reputation but aren't actually that great. Gameplay is everything in games and the Bethesda systems tend to be a little bit flawed. Plus we've seen a string of high profile games have disastrous releases lately, some of them (Assassins Creed Unity from Ubisoft) still don't work right and Batman Arkham Knight has been pulled from sale because it was so badly broken.

Advice - save your money and let other people do the real world testing on stuff. It's a timid attitude but we're not all loaded, are we ? Save your money until you're assured that it's worth spending. Bravery is an applaudable characteristic but does have its cost. And it's silly being brave over buying stuff, save the bravery for when it'll help people. Or is that heroism.

I'm having this strange urge for pizza plus my tummy is telling me it needs something inside it so I'd better go but :

Evenings out with Pretty Ladies are awesome
(My back agrees, it started releasing yesterday and it's pretty much pain free today - that's what a happy attitude can do !)
Be wary when you get bombarded with shiny offers
Trust other consumers over the advertising and sales people
Dinosaur movies can still be incredible.
And I've cleared enough cable recording box space to let me watch Interstellar tonight.

Now looking forward to Minions, the next Terminator movie and seeing Pretty Lady again.

Let's put it to a vote

The world has its eyes on Britain at the moment ...

That includes Wales, home of the Dwagons, Ireland, home of the Giants of the Causeway and those barbarians north of the border. Scotland is it ?

Just joking there. Ireland was a much loved home while I was in primary school (last millenium) and I adore that accent. I've been going wow hearing it again, we've had a recent joiner and we've been occasionally swapping war stories. Yep. I been about 200yards away from a bomb going off. Only a little one, it knocked off the front of one of the stores in Lisburn. Different times. Yeah, you had the end days of the Troubles but it was also safe enough that 8 year old me was trusted to walk through town to the bus home.

Wales has the dragons. Watch them around the sheep though.

And I had the pleasure to work with some amazing people up in the Scottish part of the organisation in my previous project.

Yep. We been voting again. No matter who wins our elections, we're always deeply unhappy with the result.

I don't believe the fault is in the ideologies of the parties. I don't think the parties know what their ideologies are any more, they're just saying anything to chase votes. The trouble comes from them chasing votes from different parts of the population. There are also those deeply entrenched ideas (which I have too and I'm struggling to throw them off) about who we should be voting for. People vote Labour all their life, people vote Conservative all their life.

Some people voted LibDem all their life, up until the last election where they showed their true colours by shattering all the promises they made in the run up to the election ... and then reminding everyone what they're like with some incredibly negative campaigning over the last week. They still looked surprised when they went from 50+ seats to just 8.

Nah. Our problem is with the politicians. No one with any credibility wants to be a politician any more and by the time they reach real power, their credibility has been knocked out of them. They are not rooted in the real world.

Someone once said "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for those already tried.". But - the important thing is, we have our freedom, our streets are mostly safe at night, our police enforce most of the laws that are in there to keep us safe and we still have the last vestiges of a National Health Service.

Enough about politics.

About that vote ?

There are far more important concerns than who we choose to inhabit that lunatic asylum that sits on the banks of the Thames. Yep.

That's from my current trading expeditions in Elite.

What could be more important than life or death ? Tea or coffee. Definitely. Although I will admit to being very partial to hot chocolate as well.

Ending thoughts :
Vote the way you choose.
Try to banish prejudices when you vote.
Make sure you vote - it's the only way the lunatics will pay attention.
Norah Jones had it spot on with My Dear Country.
Cricket's second main break of the day is called "Tea".

Which way do you go ? Are you a coffee or a tea person ?