Bits and pieces, news, views, reviews and stuff
Though there are many new buses in London, it still gives me a warm nostalgic fuzzy feeling when I see an old Routemaster still in service, usually as I walk down The Strand in London. These classic old buses epitomise London and though the new modern flash ones are more environmentally friendly, accessible, and “better” I still have a place in my heart for these old red double deckers.
After the teaser, we now have the trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story.
When I saw the teaser I was impressed with the shiny new Millennium Falcon, however I wasn’t sure about the story, as there wasn’t much to get from the teaser.
The new trailer though does provide a deeper insight into the story and I am now looking forward to seeing the film at the end of May.
I really enjoyed Rogue One and I think Solo has a lot to live up to, to match the quality of that film.
We were on holiday in East Dorset and it was raining and rather cold. So we decided to drive over to Southampton and with a little trepidation we decided to visit the Solent Sky Museum. The warm and friendly welcome was a welcome respite from the cold weather.
We’re not really into aircraft, but decided because of the weather it was the right time to visit an indoor museum. It was either this or learning about the Titanic at the SeaCity Museum. Solent Sky won out because it was cheaper!
The enthusiastic volunteers were really friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. They really made our visit, helping us to sit in the various cockpits and describing the history of the different planes. As well as history they also talked about the science of flight and flying. Our children were engaged and learnt stuff. Actually we also learnt stuff too, the history of the blitz on Southampton and the Spitfire factory was moving and well told.
Our favourite plane was the huge Solent Sandringham, the Beachcomber, that dominated the museum.
With it’s huge wingspan you couldn’t miss it. What was really nice was that we were allowed inside the plane and sit on the seats and feel like what it would have been to be a passenger on a flying boat in the 1950s. One of the excellent volunteers allowed us up into the cockpit to sit in the pilot seats.
The children trail was fun, yet challenging, and actually a really nice prize at the end. Before we knew it we had spent two hours exploring the various aspects of the museum including a section on the local police and fire services.
It was excellent value at £17.50 for a family of five and nice of them to recognise that sometimes families number five. We had an enjoyable time at the museum and would love to go again (as we gift aided our entry, we get free entry for a year), so we might.
We’ve had some heavy snow again, combined with cold winds from Siberia, a storm from Portugal called Emma. This snow is different to the snow we’ve had before in Weston-super-Mare, this was colder, icier and blew around a lot. So in some places we had big drifts and in others the snow had been completely blown off the pavement.
I have over the years (when we had snow) taken a particular photograph so here is the 2018 version.
This with the wind and the cold was actually some of the worst weather I have seen down here, but as you can see it doesn’t look too bad…
This was how it looked in December 2010. Back then we had very heavy snow.
This was how it looked in eleven months earlier in January 2010, again heavy snow.
And here it is in February 2009. At this time this was some of the worst weather we had seen in twenty years.
This time though we are seeing less of the slushy roads, people appear to be taking note of the advice and driving less. Also it is very cold so the snow isn’t melting as quickly. You can also see in the series of photographs how much the tree on the left had grown.
It was sunny, I had a little more time until the train, so I decided to walk from Whitehall to Paddington.
Usually I am rushing so catch the underground, so it was nice to have an extra 30 minutes, so I could walk from the conference venue in Whitehall to Paddington station.
It was cold, but the sun was out and walking in the sun was very pleasant.
Some of the buildings are incredible on Whitehall, but then again it was once a Palace.
I left 61 Whitehall and crossed the road to Horse Guards Parade. Outside Horse Guards were two horse mounted guards getting harassed by tourists who were taking selfies of themselves with the horses in the background.
To think it wasn’t that long ago the tourists would merely take photographs of the guards or would stand next to them as a relative took the photo. The selfie phenomena has changed all that as everyone holds their phone at arm’s length and attempts to get themselves and their family and the horse into the photo. It’s difficult, but much much easier than trying to do that with a 35mm film camera which had no screen to preview the image!
I have walked through Horse Guards a few times and though I am sure I noticed the Turkish Gun before, this was the first time I went up close to get a picture.
The gun was made by Murad, son of Abdullah in 1524. It was captured in Egypt by the British Army in 1801. Now it sits outside Horse Guards the home of the British Army.
Next to Horse Guards is a huge incongruous building that can only be described as a bunker. Compared to the Georgian magnificence of Whitehall this bunker is a very crude and brutal.
Looking up online on the train I found out this was the Admiralty Citadel. It is London’s most visible military citadel, and is located just behind the Admiralty building on Horse Guards Parade. It was constructed in 1940–1941 as a bomb-proof operations centre for the Admiralty. Winston Churchill called it in his memoirs as a “vast monstrosity which weighs upon the Horse Guards Parade”.
What is interesting that it was built with the plan that in the event of a successful German invasion, it was intended that the building would become a fortress, with loopholed firing positions provided to fend off attackers.
I did think about walking through St James’ Park, but in the end walked down the Mall towards Buckingham Palace.
Passing by Clarence House there were two guardsmen, who appeared to be playing a marching up and down the road game, not sure what they were trying to do, but no one was watching except me and a couple of Americans. Maybe they were stretching their legs after standing for too long in their sentry boxes.
I was then in front of Buckingham Palace. I was reminded by how effective the CGI was in the Netflix series The Crown. Their recreation of the 1950s Buckingham Palace is very accurate. It was only after watching this video that I realised how much the series was using computer graphics to recreate 1950s London and other locations.
After passing by the palace I entered Green Park and walked up to Hyde Park Corner. Now I have to admit I did think about catching the tube for the final stretch, but no decided to walk through Hyde Park.
I realised I had never seen the Serpentine before, now I have.
It was a really nice walk.
Though I have visited Glastonbury quite a few times over the years I have been living down in Somerset, I had never climbed the Tor. So during the October half term last year we decided to do just that, go to Glastonbury and climb the Tor. There is plenty of cheap parking in the town itself and there are a range of esoteric shops that also deserve exploring (after you have climbed the Tor). As you might expect there are a fair number of teashops too.
Our first attempt was on the wrong path, there were roadworks in the town which had made it challenging to find the right way up, but after avoiding the field full of cows, we found the less muddy path and walked up. Taking the time to turn around now and again to appreciate the view of the town. As we climbed it got windier and colder, so though it can be warm in the town, we were glad we had our winter coats, hats and gloves.
Glastonbury Tor is a distinct prominent hill amongst the Somerset Levels and can be seen from a quite a distance.
It is topped by the roofless St Michael’s Tower. There was originally a wooden church, however that was destroyed by an earthquake in 1275. A stone replacement, the Church of St Michael built on the site in the 14th century and over the centuries has been restored and partially rebuilt several times. Now just the roofless tower remains
The hill and the tower are now managed by the National Trust. Mythically the Tor was thought to be the Isle of Avalon, a legendary island featured in the Arthurian legend. When the surrounding land was swamp, the Tor was essentially an island.
It was back in 1190, that Avalon became associated with Glastonbury, when monks at Glastonbury Abbey claimed to have discovered the bones of Arthur and Guinevere.
It was very windy when we got to the top, but even so the tower provided little protection from the strong winds.
The views though were incredible and it was amazing to see so much of the Somerset levels. Across to the West you can see the Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Station and in the distance to the South West you can see the Quantock Hills.
Much of this would have been swamps and wetland, but over the centuries it has been drained so it can be used for farming.
The Tor itself is sandstone and was formed when the surrounding softer materials were eroded away.
Walking down from the Tor, I was pleased we had made the effort to climb the hill and to see those magnificent views.
With the release of the trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story we get to see an insight to the film which will be released in May.
One frame did strike me and that was the nice clean Millennium Falcon, all shiny and new.
Very different to the Falcon we see in The New Hope.
Looking forward to the film, how about you?
Here are four books I have read, which I have enjoyed and would recommend to others. I have obviously read more than four books and these books are very different so you may enjoy one but not another. Sometimes I think the context of both time and place can make a book for me.
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin was a book that I started about four times, but it was only when I was sitting on the beach on the island of Zante, one of the Ionian islands of which Kefalonia is another, that I actually read and finished the book. I then re-read it the following year on a holiday to Kefalonia, which was an even better read than the first time. I think that being “there” soaking up the culture and the atmosphere, made the book and the story more real. So what is the book about, well through the novel is a love story, between an Italian Captain and a Kefalonian girl. Surrounding them is war, conflict, revolution, personal disasters and natural ones too. It isn’t just about the island, which is in many ways a character in itself, the story also reaches the centre of Rome and the horrible madness of that time.
I am not really a sports story person, and especially not an American sports story person. However back in the late 1980s I was introduced by an American to Baseball movies and as well as a story like Bull Durham, I also watched Field of Dreams, which I loved. When I found it was based on a book, Shoeless Joe, I decided to buy an read it. Though I love the film, I think the book is much better, it is darker and more realistic, well how realistic can a ghost story be. The story is about a journey, a personal journey that brings in dead baseball players, failed baseball players and family. It is a sad, yet uplifting. I think for me that being introduced to this kind of book by an American made all the difference to my expectations about the book. I seriously doubt I would have bought it or read it without that introduction. If you build it he will come.
The first version of Sharpe’s Eagle I read was the condensed version in Readers’ Digest. It was only later after watching Sean Bean in the ITV adaptation that I went out and bought the actual book. I then followed this up with every other book in the series. What I do like about Cornwall’s writing is how much is based on historical evidence and fact, to which he then weaves in the character of Richard Sharpe. The stories bring to light the massive class differences that existed at that time, the soldiers were common working men, whilst the officers were (upper class) gentlemen, who saw themselves as superior to the “lads” they believed they led and controlled. Cornwell doesn’t hide the horrors and atrocities that occurred during the Peninsular War by both sides and the suffering of the local Spanish and Portuguese populations on whose land the war between the two great powers of Britain and France was being fought.
Harry Turtledove takes the concept of what would happen if the parents of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin had moved the United States before Joe was born. In Turtledove’s alternative timeline, his name is changed from Georgian Stalin to Steele, and Joe Steele becomes a US political and eventually US president. This is a tyrannical America where the president is depicted as having the soul of a tyrant, with Stalin’s real-world career mirrored by actions taken by Steele. Reading this at the same time Trump was running for President it was quite a scary book. Could the US elect a tyrant? Would they be happy to elect a tyrant? In the book not only do they elect Joe Steele, they love Joe Steele and everything he stands for. Even with executions, purges, camps and secret police, the American people see Joe Steele making American great again. The parallels with the real world were remarkable and I do see this book as a warning about what can happen when the rhetoric of elections is based on fear and scaremongering.
So those our four books I have read, what have you been reading?
So after many false starts, delays and other problems, this week will see then opening of the new Cineworld multiplex in Weston-super-Mare. Twenty two years after Cineworld opened their first multiplex, down here in North Somerset we finally get to see what other towns and cities have had for years.
It’s not as though we don’t have a cinema, as the wonderful Art Decor Odeon has served us well for many years.
The Odeon are responding in the only way they know how, by reducing prices to compete with the new multiplex. Tickets are less than five pounds, which is significantly cheaper than the new place.
For me I really like the cinematic experience, I really enjoyed going to see Star Wars: The Last Jedi at the Odeon, though when the opening date for the cinema was originally planned for the summer 2017, we had planned to see Star Wars in the new place. However as it hadn’t opened we did go to the Odeon. It was a really great cinematic experience and we really enjoyed the film. Okay not as good as Rogue One, but that’s a different blog post.
For me there are some films which deserve to be seen on the best screen possible and then thee are some that, well to be honest I would be quite happy on a smaller screen. With any multiplex you get the really big screen, which something like the Last Jedi would look great on, but then there are the smaller screens, and in these circumstances the older Odeon experience would be just fine and dandy.
The one thing that I wish all cinemas I frequent would sort out are the food and snacks. Not only are they either too sweet or too salty, they are also stupidly expensive. I know from a business perspective that cinemas make more of their money from the food and drink than they do from the tickets, but sometimes I wish I could have some value for money decent snacks. However as they probably sell all they need to, that isn’t going to change anytime soon.
So what film will I go and watch at the new multiplex? Who knows.
Now I am no expert in this area, nor do I really like random graffiti being sprayed onto buildings, however across Bristol is some really nice street art appearing on the sides of buildings or on building site hoardings.
On a recent stroll around Bristol I found these two pieces which I really like.
