Canines, Nephews and Sticky Labels...

I'm concentrating on having a good night, which makes blogging a little difficult. Still I soldier on.
Yes, after getting back into the swing of things, fitness wise, I'm sitting in my nice arm room, with finest beer, having just eaten a lovely (well, a bit overdone) fish and chip supper, listening to tunes and wandering around the internets, which is now a singular noun rather than a plural.

I woke up several times this morning to what is probably the nicest feeling on earth - that of discovering that you've woken up early, and you're free to go back to bed. Eventually though, the time came to go to an interview at the AFCO in town, just to confirm that I was happy with my job choices and ready to proceed. Eventually, despite being subjected to a personal space invasion by some woman or other, and having to listen to the ramblings of an unemployed feckwit who left his last job because he became violent when he didn't receive something or other that he felt he was entitled to, I arrived in town still sane, and after a reasonably nice breakfast made my way to the AFCO.

I got there in good time, and was seen fairly quickly, only to be told that the interview had in fact been cancelled, as some more paperwork came to light. My recruiter was good enough to ask if we could skip it, and after being told no, we got through it all with a minimum of fuss and effort.

I was feeling cheery on the way back home so I popped into a shop I don't normally freqent.
Jessops, a national chain of camera specialists, have suffered from a somewhat poor standing with me, after I went into one of their stores (Meadowhall - this was a few years ago so the staff there are probably completely different people now) asking for advice, and was practically told to either buy the item, or not buy it, from a disinterested and apathetic member of staff.
Me being the sort of person I am, I didn't make a fuss and simply bought the item, swearing under my breath never to visit one of their shops again.
However, in a camera created daze, I wandered into the Sheffield branch of jessops to have a look about, and spent a short time staring lovingly at various lenses and bits of kit.

I had a chat behind the guy with the counter, who to my (unfairly held, in retrospect) surprise turned out to be polite and friendly. After a short chat about filters, I decided that this guy was doing his job well enough for me to end my unofficial boycott of the place, and bought two sparkly new filters for my lenses :-).

I then decided to push my luck a little, and after a while of looking at various lenses, came across a little rising star. The Tamron SP AF 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 DiII LD Aspherical (IF) - to give it its full name, is an ultrawide lens designed for cameras like mine, and it feels like a little gem. As the guy was kind enough to get it out of the basement, and put it on a camera for me to look at and play around with for myself, I've found that the optical quality is good (The review says it's poor, but then the review says that the 18-105 is poor, and I've found that a cracking little lens), and the build quality is great. Everything fits together well, the lens is compact, but not light, and feels well put together. The guy behind the counter even accompanied me out into the street so I could see what it was like in the real world, instead of inside a dark shop.

I was going to get the Tokina 11-16 lens, as it allegedly has higher optical quality, and higher build quality. However, at £429, it's also £90 more expensive, and that's £90 I don't really want to throw at it.

But I loved the tamron, and the time I spent in the shop chatting to the guy behind the counter about pretty much everything, photography related, has convinced me to put the three year old grudge I've had against Jessops to rest, which is good - I don't like animosity.
I found that Jessops will print my photos in A3 for me too, and even up to A0 if I want to step up to the price. I don't have that kinda room in my bedroom, but A3 is good!

So, what else have I been up to?
Well, in the past week or so, the dog came to stay. For six days. My family, being the mostly "busy" type of people (busy in the way that only people who don't like walking dogs can be) that they are, the care of the dog seemed to fall pretty much solely to me.

After a few days my nephew comes to stay as well. He's apparently solely under my care. Great! No one asked me if I would help, or even if I was busy or able to help, I get the impression he was dumped at my bedroom door with a "here, take care of him" shouted after him.

The three days went fairly quickly though, and through it all, the sun shone and shone.
One time, I took them both out for a big long "mystical trek" round the local housing estate, through all the "secret passages" (alleyways) and everything.
We spent a good 90 minutes out, before we took a little detour down to my mate's old house.
Nothing special about it, a house opposite a patch of grass surrounded by trees and the stream.
But it was weird, the last time I walked down that road must have been ten years ago. Almost everything was exactly as it was when I was a kid. I wasn't sure whether to feel happy that it hadn't changed with time, or sad that both he (my pal) and I had.

We forded the stream though, and walked back up to the park. After a brief session of chasing the dog around the new bike track (during which time I learned that bike tracks are best suited to bikes, and during which time the dog learned not to run down hills too fast for me to keep up (as her paws parted company with the floor and left her swinging by her neck - eek!).

Eventually, we went off to the park where we stayed for a while before disappearing off home.

The days passed interminably, as I tried to keep both the nephew and the dog in check without getting too disgruntled at the sudden and complete loss of my personal space/time.

Eventually though, and after one occasion where my nephew opened a shop (by sticking adhesive price labels over everything in sight), it was time for them to leave, and after a protracted goodbye, I had my life back to myself again - woo! I've always said, kids and animals are great, as long as you can hand them back to their owners when you've had enough.

Yesterday though, I found occasion to be at my sis's house, trimming the grass and the trees, and getting on with those other summery jobs. My time there coincided with the Wimbledon final, and as we sat out in the sun, my sister brought the TV outside for us to watch the tennis in the garden... It was surreal, but a fairly laid back day.

Though it's nice to have my personal space back, and I'd like to keep it for a while longer.

As the scorching heat of last week fades away to be replaced by leaden skies and rolling thunder, I'm sat wondering if those five or six perfect days were all the summer we are going to get this year.

Hopefully not, eh? Let's hope summer continues to be as beautiful as it has been.

EDIT: As a little surprise pressie, I have here a couple of tunes that I should have thrown in with "Back on Track" a few entries down the page. Some music to keep us company on our journey to Strensall.

Enter Shikari - Juggernaut

and

Kaiser Chiefs - Never Miss A Beat - with the best song lyrics in the world ever.

"What do you want for tea?"
"I want crisps"

The customary pictures :-) Nothing exciting this time round :-P.

Epilogue: 8th July.

That Enter Shikari tune, while originally well liked by me, has fast worn out its welcome. Over the course of a few days, the tune reinvented itself as a musical bout of talentless screaming egotistical U2 "let's-save-the-world" tree planting construction opposing yoghurt weaving hippie nonsense.
So that's that then.

Summertime!

10:25PM

I'm walking home, having just been let out of work an hour early. I'm off home with a heavier than normal shoulder bag (it was 8 cans of beer heavier), and I'm looking forward to getting stuck into them, when I hear something I don't expect to hear at this time of night.

Checking to see whether I'm just going mad (as I occasionally do), I peer over the concrete fence into the cricket field, and see the cricket club packed with people enjoying a cold beer or glass of wine. People are smoking out on the verandah and from one of the other bars/restaurants (as they all seem to be, these days) come dance versions/remixes of Michael Jackson's best known tunes.

Seems yesterday's sad news has had a predicable but heartwarmingly sentimental response, and as the chorus of "Beat It" drifts over the field, I see that my ears weren't in fact lying to me, and the cricket field is full of parents and kids, playing football, throwing balls around, frisbees etc.
At 10:25. Traffic is sparse, most of the houses have no lights on, but it's still light (ish) and warm enough for kids to play.

And this is the thing I love about living in England. Sure, the stereotypical overcast weather with rain a few times a week isn't far off the mark, but it's not as common as people think.
Even we maintain that stereotype, and everytime we get something out of the ordinary, like the snow earlier this year, the heavy summer rain a couple of years ago, or a national heatwave (due to be repeated next week apparently) that is so hot that the tarmac roads literally start melting, we treat it as if it is something special and new, a novelty to be enjoyed, or endured.

And boy are we in for it next week, or so they say. With 32 degree (89F) heat mixed with heavy thunderstorms, it looks like we're definitely gonna be having some fun. Let's hope no one falls foul of the weather - in all seriousness, heatwaves can be dangerous things. The thunder seems an ever-present threat too, as today's overcast sky turned the colour of lead, and steadily got darker before the night decided the day had had its fun, and turned the whole lot dark blue.

It seems that as far as the national consciousness is concerned, these types of weather are novel and they are special, when in fact, every year I can remember has had some type of odd weather.
It was with this traditional English mindset that I was pleasantly surprised by the sight of everyone out enjoying themselves, late at night, and it was that that has kept me in a good mood, almost an hour later.

I've been spending more than my normal share of time out and about in the lovely summer weather too. My sister has disappeared off for a package holiday, you see, and has had to leave the dog with us.

Tess as she has always been, is a lovable hyper dog that has endless amounts of energy (when it suits her) and therefore requires a lot of walking. Given that I am the most able bodied of my family (they're not old!), this task apparently falls to me.

So Tess and I have walked everywhere. Up hills, down hills, along streams, through streams, across roads, under parked cars, through peoples' kitchens, up peoples' trouser legs, through supermarkets, across rooftops, up trees, down drainpipes, and everywhere inbetween. We've been getting on quite well. The lil' girl even seems quite content to stretch out on my bed and go to sleep when she's tired/I'm not being sufficiently entertaining.

Another cornerstone of the English summertime, is Wimbledon. More formally, "The Championships, Wimbledon"

Ah yes, Wimbledon, that great English sporting tradition, where 128 (if I read wikipedia correctly) tennis players from all over the world (including 2 British players, 3 American players, 6 Australian players, 20 French players, 30 Russian players, and an assorted mess of other nationalities) expert tennis stars get together to do their thing in front of the cheering crowds, under the blazing sun/wet rain and above the grass and electricity/gas mainlines.

Now I have to admit, I'm not a tennis fan. However, I'm not a football/soccer/fussball/futebol/футбол/フットボール/whatever - fan either, but when the national side (or in this case, players representing the nation, are playing, I don't mind sitting down and watching for a few matches. Particularly if Andy Murray keeps winning, as he is doing at the minute (his next match is on monday, don't forget!)

We've even got the strawberries and cream - or my sister and I have at least.
Yes, as we did last year, my sister, nephew and I have been out to the local strawberry field, and after an initially disappointing half hour, have managed to come back with some 5 kilos of yummy shiny red strawberries. You can't have strawberries and cream without cream though, so I took care of that too.

And now, since I'm beginning to lose track of the way the easily-ordered blog post in my mind went from A to B to C, I'm going to call it a day.
Actually I think I'll call it a week. Since I now have 5 days off. Woo!

Here are some pickatures for you :).

Nikon D200 Drop Test...

[spoiler - it didn't get damaged].

So my camera's there on my desk, I'm getting my sensor swabs and cleaning solution ready to get some crap off the sensor. I can't remember exactly what I did, but I think I must have got my hand tangled in the camera strap, and I ended up pulling the camera, lens still attached, off my desk.

It falls, in slow motion, before its fall is temporarily broken by my knee (which itself feels temporarily broken). It bounces off my knee to land [relatively] gently on the floor, before rolling under the bed.

Of course, I pick the camera up and give it the once over - once again, not an ounce of damage, not a dent, not even a scratch anywhere. But I've suddenly lost the ability to bend - or unbend - my left leg.

So I spent the rest of the night wandering around like Dr House, on one and a half legs.
What fun!

As for the D200? I spend ages cleaning the sensor and then discover I've got a hot pixel on the sensor! Bloody thing. I was annoyed first time I saw it, but it is literally one pixel, and once I forgot where it was, it became impossible to find again (One pixel out of 10.2 million is difficult to track down!).

Well, that's all! Ouch.

PS, if you're feeling a little cheated, you can read a drop-test review of various camera equipment including the D200, here.
And several drop tests of the 18-200, here, yikes!
And finally, this is what your expensive gear would look like after 5 years of professional use.

That's really all, now!

Epilogue: 14th June

Well, I can walk downstairs normally now with only the very slightest twinge of pain, thankfully the knee seems to have healed okay.
As for the hot pixels, I've been playing silly buggers by shooting the camera at ridiculously high ISOs, and I've discovered I've actually got two hot pixels, one blue, one green (Further shooting turned up about a dozen pretty, sparkly, but unwanted and unexpected hot pixels).

I'm not too bothered though, to be honest. They're hard enough to see with the image at 100%, and even if I did notice them, I could use photoshop to get rid of them easily enough.

I'm not really concerned about the camera producing hot pixels. As Ken Rockwell said, every camera does it from time to time, and with me being a total ass and shooting at ISO 3200, even my camera is bound to show signs of strain from time to time.

So there you go :).

Back on Track...

Argh.

The first 5 minutes of waking up are always the worst. Blurred vision, mild (temporary) headache, mild temporary hypersensitivity to sound...

To be completely honest, I'm still knackered.

*twenty minutes later*

Right, I feel ten times better now, in fact, apart from the fact that I can feel my skin beginning to tighten up in response to the ultra-violet assault it's been under all day, and the fact that my right (again, always my right, why?!) shin is a little sore, I feel fantastic.

Today has heralded a return trip to Strensall, the army training center that I last visited in january last year. Having got my army application back on track, I was given a date for a bunch of assessments, and the assessments tiptoed closer and closer over the course of the weeks.

After a fairly sleepness night (so damn hot, doo damn nervous), I woke up at 06:45. True to form, about 25 minutes before I was due to get out of bed. Too early to get up, too late to go back to sleep. Damn.

Grabbed some weetabix, grabbed a banana, and off we went.

30 minutes later, after light traffic, we stopped wenting, and got busy arriving. There was already a crowd, one of the sergeants I recognised, and another lad who must have been along to provide moral support or some such.

My banana - of the yellow variety, had turned out to be related to the one I grabbed for the last assessment, as this one also not only opened itself, but bent in the middle the wrong way, revealing a mess of banana pate.

Turns out that in an attempt to get the day through as quickly as possible, lads were already going through their icebreakers even as they were waiting for the transport. The principle's simple - it's designed to test your ability to talk in public, to measure your confidence and communication skills.
Even as our lads were working their way through their icebreakers, I noticed once again how many 16, 17 and 18 year olds there were, and how few 22+ lads there were. Not sure why, the max age for joining is 33 so something must be going awry somewhere.

Remember gobby Simon? The cute, lovable but gobby fifteen year old kid from last year's selection?
I was certain that I saw him again in the crowd. Surely it was Simon, back for a rerun.

Except this kid, a sixteen year old called Josh, was a brand new kid. So hey, so what, someone new to make friends with.

To my pleasant surprise, one lad, from Mombasa no less, turned out to be 25. The scary looking (but ultimately very friendly and sociable) heavily tattoed lad turned out to be 24, which was cool. Not only that, but he and I were both after the same job. Tank Crewman on the Challenger 2.

Geez, I dunno, 24 and I'm developing an age complex already.
We had a young woman introduce herself, telling us she was from Uganda, which I, in my ignorance didn't even know was in the Commonwealth.

I've brushed up on it a little since then.

Soon enough, the coach turned up. Not a little pissy minibus like last time, a big coach driven by one of xyz 1234 squadron's transport division's finest. As we started moving, we continued with the icebreakers. I started mine, got into the intro, and then described the job I wanted to do and the role I wanted to go for.
"I want to join the Royal Armoured Corps, as a Main-Battle-Tank Tank Crewman. As soon as the words got out of my mouth, the big scary bald lad in front of me stared intently.

"Yes" I said to him, in a look, "We are both gonna be tankies, dude". The same hopes for the same job, knocked barriers down straight away. We kinda hit it off in a non homo totally heterosexual brothers-in-arms type way. We're both gonna be tankies. Screw rifles and 4 ton transport wagons, those poor guys carry their weapons - me and [whatsisname?] Our weapons are gonna carry us.

Better than last time. No pauses, no struggling for words, just (as was requested) two minutes of waffle to keep the assessors happy.
A short trip later, and we were in Doncaster to pick up some other kids. The bus filled up some, and off we went again.

I got chatting to the young lad behind me, just for something to do. This lad was determined he was gonna become a Para, one of the British Army's finest. Fair play to him, if he's got what it takes, he's a stronger young man than the majority of us there. He looked the type. Very short hair, your typical US Army haircut. His expression didn't give much away.
As time went on though and we headed over to Strensall, I got to know the lad a little. He was 18, nervous about the upcoming selection, but pretty sociable. At one stage I figured I was boring the lad, but just as I go quiet, he pipes up with another question - remember, I've done this before. Fair enough, it's nice to be wanted.

Again, we headed north. Past Ferrybridge Power Station, past Tadcaster Brewery, tunnelling through the tunnels, under underpasses, over overpasses, and all without resting at rest stops.

We got there eventually. The streets and little roundabouts and country lanes became more familiar, eventually the one or two houses dotted along the side of the road gave way to a long perimeter fence, which gave way to the entrance to Queen Elizabeth Barracks, Strensall.

We turned up, in time honoured fashion, with full bladders and (according to one lad who didn't put too fine a point on it) other pressing needs. Still, we were directed into the nearest prefab building.

It's at this point that we get marked up for the day's events. Coloured bibs were handed out left right and center. My bib? Red. My number? One.

Red one, RED ONE!, Red leader, you couldn't make it up!
I sat there, in my t-shirt, with a red bib, the giant "1" on it.
"This takes the piss. If they made a movie of my life no one would believe it".

Due to having recently imbibed three strong beers, my memory is a little hazy at this point.

The first order of the day was to drop our stuff off in the "classroom" and then "dress" (go) outside for the first test of the day. Which turned out to be the Jerry Can Carry. Two jerry cans full of water, weighing 25 kilos (55 pounds) a piece. Take one in each hand, and at walking pace, walk 150 meters without dropping them, or putting them down.
Joy! I only barely passed this last time.

The "course" looked fearsome enough, but when we overheard that it was only 25 meters end to end, and we'd have to do it six times each, nervous glances started shooting back and forth.

We dressed forward in a number of ranks, six I think it was. The instruction came to pick up the jerry cans and get ready to walk. As soon as I gripped them and lifted them, fifty kilograms of dead weight pulled my arms to my side.
"For fcuk's sake" I thought.

"Okay, walk with me" calls the sergeant, and keeping pace we get to the end of the first "lap".
"Turn to your right, so as not to hit the guy next to you" we're told. At the end of lap one all I'm thinking about is how much these bastards weigh. The water sloshes around inside them, and the cans seem to move of their own free will.

We get to the other end, then back, then back again, we finish a third circuit.

As I head up to the end of the fourth lap, my confidence starts wavering as the cans seem insurmountably heavy. They've gone from pulling my arms against my sides to pulling my shoulders out of their sockets.

Two of our number, two girls (not saying anything about girls, just saying it as it was!!!) dropped their cans, one after the other, at the end of the fourth lap. "you've passed" says the sergeant. As I listen on, the pain in my hands temporarily forgotten, he mentions to the two that "you only need to do 100 meters to pass", and we're carrying 150 meters.

"Right you bugger, I'm not being fcuked around with, you want 150 meters, you'll bloody well get it", thinks I.

At the start of the fifth lap, the cans slip, almost out of my grip. Steeling myself, grabbing them by my fingertips and forcing my hands tightly closed, I end up with the handles digging into the flesh between my knuckles, hurting more than they did before.

But slowly, we get towards the end, each footstep takes us twice as close to the end, and remembering last time when I all but threw my cans down, I take care to lower them to the ground, with a grin, having just passed.

As the first group, we get the most rest while another two or three groups do their thing. "Your cans hit mine on the turn" says Para Boy, grinning. I shrug. Nothing I can do about that, I was busy trying not to drop the damn things.

Eventually though, we're all back together and we're marched into the Gym.

PTI Bastard is nowhere to be seen, this time we have a guy who seems a lot less scary (while commanding the same respect! don't let anyone say otherwise!) and more sociable. We've got to do the heaves again, measuring your ability to lift your own bodyweight.
In the field, maybe in afghanistan, fighting house to house, there'll be a few times when you've got to pull yourself up through a window into a building. If not, there will be times when you need to scramble up a wall and get down the other side while Terry's letting loose at your sorry arse.

Hence this assessment - how many times can you lift your bodyweight.

This time could have gone better. I was towards the back of the queue, and watched both in admiration and in contact embarassment as the strongest of our group did 20 pullups/heaves, his muscles sticking out far enough for him to crack his head on. The little sod.

Others didn't fare so well, one lad dangling from the bar, seemed content to stay there, as his feet pedalled in circles, scooby-doo style, as if he was trying to gain purchase on the very air itself. I would have cried out of horrified pity, but I've seen worse.

Then, for all my arrogance, came my turn.
I jumped up, grabbed the bar, and my fingers almost lost grip there and then.
The varnished wooden bar, slick with sweat, was none too easy to grip, but still determined to pass, I began.

Up, down. "One"

As I began my second ascent, it was clear I'd misjudged my body position. As I lifted myself up a second time, my legs swung forward, pulling my hands and the bar away from me.

"Two".

I pulled myself up a third time, swinging violently like a pendulum, the anger on my face. I'd trained for hours to be the strongest I could be, but because of poor technique, because of the slick sweat-lubricated bar, my strength may as well have not been there!
I felt my body and head going backwards as my feet narrowly avoided hitting the PTI in the chest, and with an angry grunt I half lowered, half dropped myself onto the floor.

"Three".

I managed five last time, I wasn't tired, not even a bit, I could have done better, if it wasn't for my technique and that fcuking bar! I know, they say a bad workman always blames his tools, but I was riding a goddamn motoGP bike with one wheel!

I wandered over to the corner, dejected, embarrassed and angry.

I was one of the last to do the test, and so, quickly, we were told to go outside ready for the run.
This was it, the bit that I would have put off if I could have, the hardest, most horrible bit.

We got led around the route, same as last time. No humour, nothing nasty, just a quick route tour.

We got back to the start, the same place PTI bastard told us he hated our guts, 18 months ago.

"I'll give you a tip" says PTI-not-bastard. "Stick to the left hand side, and you'll knock about 200 meters off your circuit. 'cos the guys who measured it, didn't measure it properly".

Course I'm a veteran of MotoGp games, I use the racing line when i'm walking, much less when I'm on the scoot or whatever, Stick to the racing line and you will have a fecking easier time!

"Go" he says.
"Big deal" I think to myself as I sprint off. This isn't like last time.

This isn't where I nearly make myself throw up because I don't know how to run, this is about setting the best time I can. There's no point doing the first lap of a 2 lap race in 4 minutes if you're puking like a dog with food poisoning halfway through lap two. Pace yourself. Don't stay behind to help your mates, and don't expect them to stay behind to help you. I set a decent pace, breathing hard, I would have sworn but I was too busy breathing out of my arse. I passsed para lad, using what scragged breath I had free to grunt some kind of encouragement to the kid. "Keep up with me" or something like that.

A couple of dudes I'd never seen before passed me. I got mad, I got angry, towards the end of lap one, in the 27C (80F) heat, with no breeze, I was bloody angry.
I thought about giving up, I slowed a couple of times, in front of me, lads that I were chasing suddenly dropped behind me. Others that were far ahead and lost to my sight appeared again, leaning against trees, feeling sorry for themselves.

What could I say? It was hard, I found it very hard. But if I couldn't even run 1.5 miles in trainers and trackies as a civilian, how the hell would I run it in combats and boots?

"It's hard, and it's only going to get harder" I thought to myself, as I powered on. I got to the end of the main straight, the main road into the camp, before it turns off into the backstreets around the mess halls, the training buildings etc.

I was narrowly aware of someone, no, two people overtaking me. One talking to the other. Neither was our para lad. "He has to be somewhere behind me, he'll be close by" I said to myself.
The two lads passed me, one, our lad from donny with the bright purple hair as his mate runs alongside shouting support. "Fcuk this" I think, "I'm not lagging behind. I'm staying here" I thought and glancing around, acknowledging the lad behind me who is also breathing out of his arse at this point, "you are not passing me!"

We got past one of the outbuildings, as one lad - another unfamiliar face - passed me, before we turned the corner though, he was back behind me. The lads in front kept pace, as i closed in on them. We turned the final corner, to the home straight, which horribly, wasn't straight, and it wasn't until we got past the elbow in the corner that we could see the instructors shouting us on.

"Come on! Get a fucking move on! Come on lads, hurry it up! Close in!"

"Fuck this" I thought, I've just done a mile and a half breathing out of my arse, I'm not going to show a weak side now. Like a total dick, All the reservations, all my reserves, second thoughts and pacing disappeared as I sprinted to the end. My first priority was to finish, now it looked like that was a cert, my new priority was to finish well. I sprinted, grunting and swearing, my legs making small circles behind me as the sergeants cheered me on.

I got 11 minutes exactly. 11:00.
How about that.

I sprinted to the outbuilding next to us to calm down. Don't bend over, don't lie down. Stand straight, stand tall. Anything less, and you won't get the oxygen in your lungs.

Sweat pouring down us, our words coming in ragged gasps, we shared "victory tales" and compared times and experiences. The fastest was our little lad Josh, at 9 minutes 9 seconds. (very, very very fast by the Army's standards). the slowest (that finished under their own power) came in at about 14 and a half minutes.

As for my lad, my mate, the para kid...
DNF, all the way, or not as the case may be. The kid hadn't kept himself hydrated, he hadn't been drinking water, and even as he ran past, the sergeant could tell by his red face that he was struggling, and he said to him "I don't want you to run anymore".

We repaired to the changing rooms.
As I and a few other lads were getting ready to get a nice cold shower, the younger lads were blushing and inspecting their fingernails.

"Come on lads" I said, "You didn't think you'd join the Army and NOT have to shower together did you?"

Eventually I manhandle myself over to the shower which is pretty vacant - our lot would rather be scruffs than be clean. I climb into the shower with a warning "Look all you want, just don't fcuking touch!"

I hit the nozzle, right before I yell obscenities.
The water is cold, no heating whatsoever, even as I'm backing away, I'm swearing.
Then I notice my forehead is dripping with sweat and I smell like a moose.

"What the hell" I think, and throw myself under the shower.
"How is it?" ask the other lads.
"It's okay mate, a bit warm for me" says I, getting out of the shower and laughing to their cries of anguish as they cover themselves in ice.

After the showers, rehydrate, get water down your throat, and listen to the sergeant.
Our sergeant sat us down and talked to us about the dangers of dehydration. The dangers of isotonic sports drinks, the trouble you get with drinking lucozade before a run.

The general synopsis is that the best thing to drink before, during and after physical excersise, is water, H20, and water. And don't let Glaxosmithkline tell you otherwise.
Water, Water and water. Not lucozade, not sports drinks, Water!

Next comes dinner. Even as we enter the building, I see the "Sodexo" signs above the door.
The Number of the Beast himself may as well have been carved into the wooden doors.

Back in the day, when I was a boy of seventeen, a young man in the TA (British Army Reservists) our food was provided by chefs of the Royal Logistics Corps. Army chefs trained to serve army soldiers with good solid food.

Since then, under Gordon Brown (I spell his name with capitals, because it's the last fcuking time it will happen in his lifetime) and the various politicians have outsourced practically all functions of the army. Now we have a french company called Sodexo providing all the British Army's food.

Isn't the EU awesome, eh?
Bleh.

So the army is outsourced to contractors, Sodexo provide the food, some european company provides our ammunion, what the fcuking hell happened to an army being self sufficient?

I'll tell you what happened to it! New Fcuking Labour!!!

Back in the day, the army used to blast an an enemy out of his position with artilliery, before the soldiers move in to flush the stragglers out. Then our lads would move in, set up ammo dumps, kitchens, forward operating bases, etc.

These days, it seems that we don't do wars anymore, we only do "combat engagements".

"The historians can't seem to settle whether to call this one "The Third Space War" (or the "Fourth"), or whether "The First Interstellar War" fits it better. We just call it "The Bug War" if we call it anything, which we usually don't and in any case the historians date the beginning of "war" after the time I joined my first outfit and ship. Everything up to then and still later were "incidents," "patrols," or "police actions." However, you are just as dead if you buy the farm in an "incident" as you are if you buy it in a declared war." - Johnny Rico - Starship Troopers.

We do the combat then some wiseass civilian contractor moves in. Some guys who don't carry weapons, who don't do the fighting, but because they're not PAID to fight or to be anywhere dangerous, earn quadruple salary just by being in a warzone.
Jackasses.

Anyways, we make our way along the queue to the food, under the watchful eye of the food guardian. We keep an equally close eye on this guy to make sure he doesn't drip any sweat into the food, and we grab whatever he's touched the least.

For me, pasta and meatball bologneise, with chips.
Can't complain.

I'm enlightning the guys about the virtues (or lack thereof) of sodhexo and how much the regular army hate them (their new policy, "pay as you dine" (or known amongst the soldiers, Save as you starve) having proved deeply unpopular, I'm busy slagging Sodexo off to all and sundry when the grins and giggle in front of me go quiet.
"What?" I say...
"What were you saying about me?" says sergeant whatsisface who has magically appeared behind me.
To a completely unconvincing burst of laughter from the lads in front of me, I manage to get out "Absolutely nothing, Staff".
He took it in good humour - I hope.

Eventually, time comes to assemble for the command tasks - an assessment of your ability to function as part of a team.The first two teams go off and do their thing while we sit in the sunshin and chill, waiting for the slots to become available. The birds were singing, we were laid back throwing questions back and forth with the local sergeant, one of whom recognised me as an ex reservist. Nice one.If a little embarrassing.

Eventually time goes to do one of the command tasks.
We turn up under some big-ass tree, a beech or something. Below it is a gravel pit, bordered by wood, maybe eleven feet wide and 22 foot deep (3.5 meters x 7 meters deep)

In the middle of this pit is a wooden frame, two logs buried into the earth, standing vertical.
Between them, is lashed another log to the horizontal.
From this log hangs a tyre, like you'd find on a tractor.

The helmets go on.
"Right" says the sergeant.
"Say that this gas canister" - he points to a heavy LPG bottle at our feet "is ammunition - you need to get it to the soldiers at the front".
"You don't touch the floor, at all.".

"You can use the ammo boxes to get across".

Great. Crystal maze, let the timer begin!!!

Picture here:







So we got two minutes to plan what we were gonna do, and ten minutes to get round it.
The sergeant counted out the seconds, "you can start planning...now".

Which was followed by a profound silence while the ammo boxes laid there in the dirt.
At which point I piped up (Do I sound bigheaded? Damn right I do, I practically lead the entire team to victory!)

I noticed the planks on the floor. "What we should do is get those boxes, throw them towards the tyre, and rest the plank between the two, walking across.
So who's gonna be first across?"

Course, my idea, I get to try it out. Under the watchful eye of the sergeant, I'm edging across a wooden plank balanced on two ammo boxes, on top of a virtual minefield, as I grab hold of the tyre.

"FFS" I think as i edge through the tyre and pull myself vertical before setting myself down on one of the ammo boxes on the other side of the tyre.

"You ready for the ammo" said my mate on the other side, right before he tossed the gas bottle through the tyre at me.

I wasn't, but I figured I could handle the weight and keep my balance.
It was a close thing.

30 seconds later, witha big grin, I tossed (gently enough to not break it) the "ammo" gas bottle to the other side of the obstacle, and my buddies started following through the tyre, down to my side.

At which point the sergeant called time on the exercise.
With two minutes to go, he called a halt to the proceedings.

Seems me and my pals (my pals and I) had already crossed the obstacle, carrying the cargo, and to all intents and purposes, had succeeded.

But the rest of the "section", a section being 8 people, had done fcuk all.
I don't know this, I didn't see them doing this, I was too busy getting the job done.

Me and maybe two or three pals had concentrated on getting the ammo through, while the other four or five stood there thinking "hey look at those guys doing that thing", and the sergeant pulled us up on it, big time.

The end result? Had we been assessed as a team, we would have passed.
Since we were assessed as individuals, based on our level of participation, three out of eight passed.
And me?
I got the highest score of all, the score for best participation and the credit for leading the team to a pass. Apparently I was the only one who did any real talking, and had we been allowed to finish, our entire team would have got across with the cargo, from one side of the obstacle to the other.

When we finished, the sergeant asked me what job I did.
I told him that I rode pizza scooters for a living.
You could see the gears grinding in his mind - "that doesn't account for it"
"What job did you do before?"

I told him I worked at a call center.

Apparently that accounts for my "great communication skills".

In the words of a Sergeant of the British Army, I have a "Very Strong Personality".
You'd have to shove a helium balloon up my nose to make my head any bigger than it is now :-D
Apparently, and I made sure to listen in to make sure I wasn't getting confuzzled with someone else, as soon as the exercise started, I started banging ideas, and solutions and strategies out."Do you lot know how to do it? Well I do if you don't, listen in"...

Personally I think I was being a gobby knowall.
But hey, I aced that test.
One of our team, a poor spiky haired fifteen year old kid failed with zero score, big time kick up the ass. He stood there in the command task and for 10 minutes didn't say a thing.

His fault, his loss, I still feel sorry for the kid. He got off the coach with a face like a wet weekend.

We got on the coach without much warning, "Is that it?" and it was.

Our scores were called out on the way home. Did I pass?
I did.
I don't know what happened with the heaves or whatever, but I managed to pass pretty well.

And on the way home, we slept, we chatted, we reflected.
those that didn't pass today will pass later.
Maybe para boy will get his place in his regiment.

Let's see how things go, eh?

EPILOGUE:

It's just gone 4am, and the sky is already brightening. It's that shade of blue that promises a beautiful day. The dawn chorus is as beautiful as it's ever been, and by the looks of it, we're in for another lovely hot day.
As for me, I've been chilling out, drinking beer for the last 6 hours. I'd be lying if I said I was stone cold sober, but hey, I've got cause to celebrate.
Just about everything that can go right, has gone right. I've done the assessments that I was dreading, and I've passed every single one. I went thinking I'd have done well to scrape a pass, and as it was, I stormed through it.

So lets hope that before long, I can become a British Soldier.
I hope you enjoyed reading about my day as much as I enjoyed doing it.

Here are today's tunes.

"All Summer Long" - Chris Rea
"All Summer Long" - Kid Rock - hey, look at that! (scuse the advertisements)
"Gott ist ein popstar" Yikes! - A German band, getting angry in English!

Sums up the start of what looks like it's gonna be a beautiful summer :).

And this day didn't cost me a single penny. It cost me not a pound, nicht ein deustchmark, awesome stuff.
I've been in a better mood than I've been for ages.
At least for today, life is good, and I've got a week off :).

New gear!

Not much to report, I'm afraid.

Sorry I haven't been active of late, there has been absolutely nothing going on in my life. Work, eat sleep, get drunk, hangover, work eat sleep, etc. week on week of this, without change, let or hindrance. Or at least it feels like week on week, I haven't been able to tell recently.

I've managed to order some sparkly new photo gear to go with my Think Tank Digital Holster 50. Not content with carrying it about with its shoulder strap, which although comfortable and unobtrusive, defeats the entire bloody point of having a belt mounted system, I've finally stumped up the cash to buy the Think Tank "Pro Speed Belt". A photographer's version of the army's webbing/PLCE system.

To spread the load further, I've ordered a double-wide lens pouch, a pouch on my left side that I can just drop my lenses into when i'm done with them. Twice as wide as I expect to use, but hey, My equipment grows from month to month.

One of the priveliges of being up at this time is seeing the sunrise. and at this time of year it has to be mentioned.
there's not a cloud in the sky, the sun scythes across the rooftops, the shadows as sharp as a knife-edge, the entire world is turning into a beautiful orange, and I'm sat inside watching the contrails as dozens of passengers above fly to andalucia, florida, etc.
I don't think I'll be outside today, but hey, after weeks of rain, it's a beautiful sight.

17:32. "I don't think I'll be outside today". How wrong can a guy be.
I have spent the day outside helping my dad do 101 things with the garden, not the least of which was to repaint the roof with silver sun-reflecting paint. And the sunrise?

Well there's another success story - too much so in fact.
After the crappy weather of the past few days, the heat is absolutely insane (for this time of month and this part of the world). It wouldn't surprise me if it was nearly touching 30C (86f). I'm pretty certain I'll have got myself sunburnt, which I will probably begin to feel tomorrow. But for now, I'm doing much the same as everyone else, which is wandering around outside marvelling at the nice weather, then coming inside to try and escape the worst of it.

Nuts!

Lots of greenery, lots of walking, lots of overdraft!

Hmm, where to begin.

Work has been pretty uneventful, and after some rapid and violent fluctuations in my finances ~(during which I blasted through my newly established "safety zone" overdraft to the tune of 200%), I'm now back in credit and happy to leave it like that. Let's leave the money idle for a couple of weeks, the payments I need to make will be made automatically, and what's left is mine, all mine and only mine.

Anyway...

My mum has this habit of springing things on me. She'll wait until either I'm sobering up after a heavy night, and just about to go to bed, or completely asleep and unable to understand what's going on, before coming out with "right we're going to xyz and everyone's coming along".

She's done it twice in the past couple of weeks, and to be honest, both times have turned out to be okay. Sure I felt a mess at the time, but lots of fun was had by all :-).

First stop, Chestnut Park, or something like that.
Synopsis? A load of hills and trees in the middle of nowhere, within which is cunningly hidden an otter and owl sanctuary. It was cool. I always figured otters were little things the size of squirrels or whatever, turns out (the larger ones) are closer to the size of small dogs. Tame too, these guys would come right up to the fence dancing with excitement in the hope that we had food for them. I noted with surprise that when the largest one, a Giant Otter called "unknown name" decided he was bored, he grabbed his food dish with his teeth and threw it into the pond, before leaping after it and grappling with it in much the same way that a dog would play with a toy.

When he was tempted back to land by a bowl full of fish, the guy tucked into it. Damn, those things are noisy eaters.

It was a good day out. Granted, I managed to lose the eyepiece off my camera (it's probably in a stream somewhere now) but it was a good day nonetheless.

Today!

Today, I crawled into bed reluctantly at about 4am. Having just eaten, I didn't sleep particularly well, and it was gone 5am before I fell asleep.

At 9am, my mum sticks her head round the door, and asks me if I want to go to Fountains Abbey. Of course, I was happy to go, eager even, as I'd always wanted to go and see what it was like. The sun was out, the weather was (very!) hot, and it was a beautiful day.

On the way there, we stopped in Ripon for a bit of lunch - and this is where I go off on a tangent...

Salad!

I've never really been a fan of salad. I'm not a panda so I don't see any benefit in eating leaves and stuff like that. Don't get me wrong, I love fruit but lettuce and stuff like that? No thanks.

But, my mum took me along to a place in Ripon called "The Warehouse", despite its name, a rather quaint olde-english cafe/tearoom thing. Fair enough, nto KFC but then I'm not paying am I :-).

Following my mum's advice, I ordered a ham salad, and I was amazed by what turned up.
This thing was fantastic - I didn't wanna take a photo cos people would have looked at me weird, but it was easily the best salad I've ever had.

Loads of lettuce, onions, cucumber, coleslaw, potato salad, eggs, tomato, and nice thick tender and incredibly tasty cuts of ham, served with a hot breadroll and butter that ISN'T flash frozen before being sold.
Sure a salad is a salad is a salad, but this was good! A tad expensive at nearly £7, but very very good! The best salad I've ever had.

Check out the place, it's a bit... Well, suited to senior citizens, but the food is really good.

After stocking up on pork crunch (I love the stuff!), we eventually made our way to the Abbey, about 20 minutes out of the town.

Abbey!

I'm not going to go into the history of the place because there's already a link to the wiki article up there somewhere. But it was fascinating walking around the place, and seeing these magnificent buildings still (partially) standing after so many hundreds of years. Testament to the skill of their builders, and to the care of their er, carers, no doubt.

And yet. As I said to my mum after a fantastic day taking photos of this and that, the beautiful scenery, the gorgeous sunshine, fields coloured white or purple by thousands of flowers, I wasn't sure whether to be happy or sad to see the abbey in that condition.

At its peak, the place would have been huge. The abbey itself is a large building even by modern standards, and it was surrounded by many smaller buildings each with its own purpose and function, all built in this fantastic Cistercian architectural style.
Today, it lies in ruins, inhabited by no one except squadrons of pigeons and families of tourists.
It seems that the place is being built back up very slowly, but never far from my thoughts was the fact that this place was every bit a cemetery for an entire community, as it was a museum dedicated to their way of life. It was beautiful, stunning, and sad in equal measure.

That said, as my mum says, things change, and the communities that the abbey housed didn't die, they just moved on. Apparently Cistercianism is alive and well, elsewhere in Europe.
Not that I share their religious beliefs of course, or any at all, for that matter. But nevertheless, it is nice to know that the community avoided destruction.

But hey, I'm a tourist, not a historical curator.
A beautiful day, a really nice day out :-).

If I seemed a little distracted or noncommital, please bear in mind that I started falling asleep about 3 hours ago on the way home, and at the moment am only awake because of coffee. If I don't sound like I'm concentrating, it's because at the moment, I'm not really with it - sorry!

Still, here are some photos (In no particular order).

Have fun!

Waiting For a Star To Fall

EPISODE ONE:

Yes folks, this is perhaps the first entry where I write while drunk, without apologising for it.

I have had an absolutely fantastic day. The day turned out a little suspect as I woke early in the morning, only to go back to sleep. I'd heard rumours in my Gmail account that I was due to get a parcel, but I didn't believe it.

A while ago, I won a lens on Ebay. Nothing special, it was your basic 18-105mm VR Kit lens. But it was brand new, and modern, not like the plasticky pringles tins I'd been using previously.

Once upon a time, a guy near Whitchurch in Shropshire, decided he fancied a new camera. No one will sell the D90 without the kit lens. In this case, the 18-105. This guy presumably has his own lenses, cos he really didn't want the 18-105 to stain his pockets.
So he ordered the kit, and straightaway put the lens up for sale on ebay.

And I snapped it up.
there were a couple of hiccups, not the least of which was the email from Amazon that told him the kit he'd ordered (and sold me) was out of stock...
Emails flew back and forth, and I agreed, "Money is just numbers. Keep the money, send me my kit. Hell if you don't, I can always sue you". Am I naive? Or do I just not care? Easy come, easy go.

Eventually though, I woke up one morning to the super-loud incredibly earth-shaking new doorbell my dad has fitted went off.

No sooner had I leapt out of bed and grabbed my dressing gown, wrapping it inexpertly around myself upside-down (you know what it's like in those first few minutes after waking) had I wandered downstairs to find my dad exchanging farewell pleasantries with the local postie, who had finally brought my parcel, my lens, my 18-105, the lens thatmakes everything near to me look far away, the lens that, to paraphrase Ken Rockwell, "Gets it all in".

And it's an awesome little kit. Don't get me wrong, the 70-300 is a work of art. But it won't let you shoot anything that is less than about 50 miles away (well about 7 feet).

the 18-105 lets me take photos of things on my desk, while I'm sat at my desk. It sees wider than my eyes.

EPISODE TWO

After a while of playing with the new lens, it was eventually time to go to work. After an entire day of struggling to decide whether to be cloudy or overcast, the Sun eventually overruled all objections and came out from hiding.

In a sheer fit of money-inspired (pay day today!) motivation, I packed everything that wasn't attached to me into my shoulder bag, and ran the entire distance to work. Through the park, over the hill to the next estate, over the hill into the next town. Sounds easier when it's put in writing :P.

I got to work and the weather was absolutely beautiful. The sun shone down, the order screen was empty (everyone out having barbacues I guess) and we were all chilling out. Nothing to do, no one to serve, it was great.
Even when the odd order did come through, it was T-shirt on, jacket on, helmet on, shades on, and I'd ride to their house looking like a bug eyed american sniper with my kickass shades.

EPISODE TWO POINT FIVE

Last Night, was a bad night. I ended up down on my float - the guys give you some money out of the till so when you deliver to someone's door you have change to give them.
It seems in retrospect, I came back to the shop with the money, I handed the cash in, and the dozy ass behind the counter gave me my money MINUS a five pound note back.

So I spent the rest of the night stressing and gave in all my tips to the shop to cover my ("my"?) shortfall.

Today, I turned up, and what had turned up in the till? Well, a five pound note! Well then!
My tips last night totalled £3. My "loss" last night equalled £5.

Today I was given £5, which left me £2 on top.

My god, someone sweep me away to Dubai right now, I'm ready to buy a hotel!

Whatever, it felt good to make some money for nothing, and I figured after a night of stressing, £2 maybe would just about set it about right.

So I came home today with £8 I didn't have yesterday. In addition to my wages.

But hey. Back to the run.

EPISODE TWO AGAIN

I was in a very happy mood when I got to work, the weather was awesome and I had a few days off. So I went to buy some beer. And I pushed my luck and got some extra special beer. Polish, no less. Żywiec, accompanied by some Dutch Oranjeboom.

What followed was an absolutely awesome shift. I got paid, by the hour, to ride, visor up, shades on, the cool air blowing through my jacket, through the local streets, breathing the smoke from the barbecues, hearing the music of the garden parties as I passed, feeling the sunshine, hearing the giggles and laughs from the odd garden as England began to celebrate Spring, and I was out in the thick of it.

Who cared that I was "at work" ? Not me. I was getting paid for turning up to garden parties, I was getting paid for riding in the beautiful sun, I was getting paid to listen to the tunes from the car next to me at the junction.
Even as the sun went down, I was paid to witness the beautiful orange sunset, even as the sun disappeared below the horizon and the sky turned a crisp steel blue, I was being paid to ride, in the cool air...

No quality teams, no doubletalk, no upselling, no political correctness, no involuntary advertising, no mission statements, no press releases.
I was getting paid to do nothing more than get my cargo from A to B.

Every other part of the night was mine.

I got home, in an awesome mood, and it's here that I've been ever since. Happy, genuinely happy.
It might not last. But hey, last week I was financially fcuked.
So let's see how we go, eh?

Homecoming Parade!

Yay!

Well, the weather has been absolutely fantastic for the past few days. It's sunburn weather outside, and everyone has been taking advantage of it. People are flying kites, walking dogs, cycling round, playing with water guns and everything.

Since I spend a lot of time outdoors in my job, the good weather has meant that work has been pretty enjoyable. Out (of the jacket, not out of storage) comes the heavy winter liner, up goes the visor, and on go the shades.

So as terminally underfunded as I may be at the minute, at least I can just get on with enjoying work.

I went out today with the camera looking for some ducks again, as I have done a couple of times over the last two weeks, seeing if I can repeat my success with them, in this lovely sunny time of year.

Of course, there were maybe five (normally there are about 30) ducks there, and they weren't remotely interested in any bread I had to throw at them. So nothing whatsoever.

However, I'm sat watching TV (on a lovely day like today? Why?! Because there's nothing to do outside - there's no wind so I can't even fly my kite) and the new improved extra loud doorbell goes. Turns out it's the guy from next door but one, who has brought something for me:

Back in march, I took my ickle tiny helicopter for its first test flight. Of course, it sodded off over the roof and disappeared from my life as quickly and abruptly as it had entered it.

Today, our neighbour had decided to do his garden, sorting stuff out and suchlike.
And he found it, nestled in between two garages. For five weeks, the little helicopter has been tucked away no more than 30 meters from where I'm sitting.

So yeah, I gave it a quick charge, and it still works! Woo!

Oh well, I'm off now, have fun :).

Bank holidays are just that!

"Slide the numbers backwards and forwards, slide the dates, change the dates until everything fits".

- Me, on finances.

Yikes!

I've been able to purchase the second of the two lenses which I was after, which has cheered me up hugely.
Not only that, but after I made the payment to the guy, I checked my balance which still showed me well in credit - yay!

I've since been looking for some more sparkly camera gear, and found a few items I wanted to buy.
So there I am clicking away, thinking "I'm substantially in credit, I'll have this, this and this".

I come to order, enter loads and loads of details etc etc, and my transaction comes up as "DECLINED".

Not to worry, I was substantially in credit and I've not spent that much money, let's see if I can find out what's gone wrong. I run up to the local shop to check my balance (I don't have internet banking for some reason) and after a few seconds, the magic numbers come up. "Current balance, £-18.55"

Ooopsie, where the hell did 200 quid go then?

I run back and phone the local bank, and guess what...

The payment (for my new lens - some £170) which I made on paypal on the 13th, wasn't taken from my account until the 16th.
Of course I checked my balance on the 14th and thought "hey there's loads of money in there, let's spend spend spend".

Ho hum.

Thankfully, my (tiny) overdraft has allowed me to buy another sparkly bit of kit from ebay, and the tips I've made from my job will cover the shortfall in my finances. This week's wages will come on friday, and if all goes well, I can buy the sparkly secret bit of kit on friday, instead of today.

Ebay want to hit me with a load of charges for things that I haven't sold or whatever, but they can wait for another 30 days. So hey, I'm philosophical and easy going about it :).
And since I've already got all the choccy bikkies and crisps and stuff for my next trip to Manchester, I won't even have to go hungry :).

I'm quite philospophical about it, money is just numbers at the end of the day, and if they don't reach a certain total at the end of one week, they will at the end of the next :). I don't have to give anything back and I've got two extra gubbins (things/gadgets) on the way so I'm cheerful about it. I've had to cope with much worse, financially :).

Those tips that I've made - some £50 in total (in the past couple of weeks!) are the crucial £££ that have restored me to solvency, and turned a moderately major issue into a small ickle one that I can smile about (because it's small and ickle). So it is directly down to the generosity of people I don't know, that I'm able to proceed with my plans for acquiring gadgets and the suchlike, with only a minor hitch.

So yay, go humanity :).

Have fun!

My (second) new lens :).

Happy Easter...

It's about time I think, I forget. Haven't had any easter eggs this year so I wouldn't know.

Right, I've been putting off writing on account of my preference for being a lazy sod. As a result, the amount of stuff I've wanted to write about has gone up and up, leading to me wanting to put this off even more.

But hey.

Chapter one: The Mystical Wizard's Garden

Okay, so my nephew's been spending a lot of time up here recently. On one such occasion, we took him to a local garden center in Wentworth.
The management of this place have long ago figured that if you give people ideas about what to do with the stuff you're selling, they're more likely to want to buy it. That, and the fact that some of the center seems to have been built onto/into a local stately home's estate, has resulted in something that is far more than just a place to buy trees and stuff. Wentworth garden center has some very very attractive and well maintained gardens, featuring everything from topiary mazes, duck ponds and old statues, to fountains, a field of deer and a secret grotto type thing, the original purpose of which escapes me completely.
We took the opportunity to engage my ickle nephew's interest though, by telling him it was a secret mystical wizard's garden. So we spent a couple of hours in the fantastic sunshine walking round this place, which by its own standards was packed with people.

Was a nice way to spend a warm spring day, I think :-).

Chapter Two: Oblivion

One mistake which I've made recently was to install "The Elder Scrolls 4 - Oblivion" on my system. Though I say it was a mistake to install it, that's not because it's a bad game. In fact, it was a mistake because the opposite is true.
I have found Oblivion to be an extremely playable and addictive game, and within 48 hours of installing it, I had advanced to Grand Champion in the arena, and Archmage of the Mage's guild.
Oddly, Archmage or not, the other mages still told me that "I'm too busy to talk, apprentices don't teach themselves" whenever I went near them. A bit irreverent perhaps!

Ahem. Anyway, my nephew found me playing oblivion, and with horses, swords, castles, wolves and magic spells, he's taken to it immediately, and insists I play it whenever he's over here. Obviously because of his age, I've avoided any sojourn through the planes of Oblivion (featuring lakes of lava, burning and mutilated corpses suspended from massive gallows, hellishly twisted and deformed architecture, and an array of cruel and malevolent creatures) itself, keeping us to the relatively green forests filled with deer and the odd wolf.
He does keep coming out with strange requests, like "shoot an arrow at that person" (one of the local watchmen), "jump off this mountain", or "cast a spell at that wizard" (one of my subordinate mages). I can't decide whether this comes from his childish curiosity (and an urge to play with something hard enough to see just what it takes to break it) or whether he just wants me to get my ass kicked by the entire city watch. Who knows.

Later on he decided to build a sword out of lego, but it kept breaking. To keep him happy, I spent a while constructing the most beautifully strong and realistic sword possible. He wanted one of his own, so I ended up making two. Both of which he insists are now "his". Fine. I want these anyway.

Chapter Three: The Royal Armouries

I was woken yesterday, benefitting from a measly 4 hours sleep and a stinking hangover, to go with my mum and nephew to some secret destination. After a short trip, we arrived at the Royal Armouries in Leeds. I didn't know it was free to get into this place - it is. Anyway, there's not much to say. We wandered around for a couple of hours looking at swords and bows and suchlike, trying to engage my nephew's interest with heavily armoured horses and things.
Eventually though, we went to the tiltyard for a demonstration of falconry.

The first bird on show, Bungle IIRC, was a beautiful, huge, and very hydrophobic Eurasian Eagle Owl. I wasn't aware that birds didn't like rain, but apparently they don't. Especially this one.
He came out of his enclosure reluctantly, perched on the fence looking soggy and bored, and when requested by his keeper to fly to the glove, gave him a "you must be joking" look that I thought only a cat could give.
Eventually, after lots of cajoling, the owl noncommittally jumped onto the floor, walked over to the handler, flew to the glove for long enough to collect his treat, then jumped back down to the floor and walked back to his spot on the fence.
We saw the owl later in his enclosure, and he gave us an "I'm not hungry and you're not interesting" look. You'd think someone had transplanted the psyche of your antisocial housecat into this bird.

The next one was a Harris Hawk who's name I've forgotten. A much smaller bird, but much less afraid of the water. He gave us a good practical demonstration of how Falconers use their birds to catch prey.

The third one was a beautiful girl, a cross between a Merlin, and a Peregrine Falcon. I can't remember her name either, but god, was she fast. Apparently this individual was capable of flying up to 150mph (241kph), and seeing her scream from one end of the tiltyard to the other, I could believe it.

At one point she was chasing food on the end of a bit of cord (I'm sure there's a technical term for it) and she kept swooping, making a pass, swooping again and making another pass. At one point, the keeper swung the cord into the air, and the bird went inverted, doing a loop, going right over the top and down the other way - to the delight of the crowd, myself included. What a flier.

Later on, after buying (amongst other things) a plastic sword/shield and Knight's helmet for my nephew, we we back out in the Tiltyard watching a display of skill (skill at arms I think it was), from some very talented riders and their beautiful horses. Challenges included cutting vegetables in half with a sword while racing past on a horse, and collecting rings with a lance while racing past. I'm sure you get the idea.

All in all, a very good day out. Even if the first thing I did as soon as we got home was to leap into bed (actually i just kinda wearily crept in) and fall asleep in about 5 minutes.

Chapter Four: New Lens

Bloody hell, what a drama.

I started by putting up some stuff on ebay so I could raise money for the new lens. The auctions were pretty worryingly low at one point, but all met their reserve in the end, and everything sold for a decent amount. I shipped everything the day after, next day, and two days after the auctions closed, everyone had confirmed receipt of the items.

Shortly after, two guys write to tell me that their lenses were not working with their cameras.
Well they bloody worked with mine. Anyway, I sent out an email to each of the two guys trying to find out what the problem was.
One guy wrote back to describe the problem, and eventually after a few emails back and forth and us trying different things, we conluded that the lens really didn't work, so I fired back a refund because I'm nice like that.

The other guy hasn't emailed me back, and has since left me positive feedback. So I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that he has now got the lens working.

All that over, I've been searching the itnernet for a place that won't completely rip me off. Nikon as I've said had officially raised their 70-300 from £390 to £450ish.
Most of the places were charging £450ish, this place was charging a rather worrying £493.
Argos had been advertising the lens at a much lower price, £392 if I remember correctly, and as a result, they were completely out of stock all across the board. Not a lens anywhere in sight.

Thankfully, my brother managed to find one that had been hidden in plain sight, in the next town, at Argos's standard price. So as fast as I could, I reserved it, and today, I got a lift into town to buy it.

I'm so happy with it I even took some photos of it to show people how awesome it is :-).

But anyway, I've got work in an hour, so I'm going to chill out and drink coffee and suchlike.

Here are lots of photos in the vague order in which they were taken :-).

People used to complain about the thin end of the wedge...

..."Big brother", "Surveillance Society", people have come up with a wide variety of terms for describing what they see as the creepy hand of government, moving to observe and control their lives. Whether that aim is (as Pat Condell believes) to enforce a politically corect nightmare of enforced equality, where some are more equal than others, or as others believe, to create a completely capitalist society where corporations and private security firms rule the roost, controlling the economy and the media, people have always complained that their rights to privacy and freedom are being violated.

Through the years, we've heard of all sorts of outlandish tecniques allegedly used by the governments of the world to control people, whether it's miocrowave satellite rays, secret nerve gas, men in black, computers implanted in the brain, or all sorts of other outlandish rubbish. We've heard it all before.

Why would I say it's rubbish?

Ask yourself, how likely is it that the governments of the world would only ever show an interest in monitoring the paranoid schitzophrenics of the world, and no one else.

That said though, it is true, at least here in the UK, that the surveillance society everyone feared, is creeping forwards towards us, inexorably and imperceptibly. It is widely accepted that we now have more CCTV cameras per person than anywhere else in the world, and ministries and public figures, even within the sphere of our own government, have started to sound warnings, criticising the way we are monitored and observed. Even with ID cards thoroughly discredited, the government tries its best to bring them in, via the back door, under the front door, through the front door in an envelope marked "to whom it may concern, free privacy invasion, look inside!"

After the CCTV and ID card drama, RFID - Radio Frequency Identification - tags came to the fore. Tiny little tags capable of storing and transmitting information about the product they're attached to, used for stock-keeping purposes, location of stock, and other sundry functions. Fantastic, these things make warehousing more efficient right? Well, yes, but it's alleged they don't stop transmitting once the product has been purchased and taken home. Pro freedom campaigners cried foul, "People can read what products we have in our homes" and other arguments. I have to admit I never followed the RFID issue closely, because I haven't really been that paranoid.
If someone wants to know that I thought Crysis was good enough to spend money on, they don't need to scan my house for an RFID tag, they can just come on here and read a detailed synopsis.

But, suffice it to say that with the events of the past 8 years, with terrorism on the rise thanks to our most welcome and equal (or else) bunch of mouth breathing religious zealots, there has been something of a tug of war going on between:

People who want to be protected at all costs, who want their cowardly and miserable existences protected regardless of whether the method of such protection forces a change in the fabric of our society...

and

People who want freedom from monitoring, from tracking and from government interference, who want freedom so much that they are willing to trade security and safety for it.

Angry shouts come from both camps, as freedom lovers express disbelief and disgust that some people actually want to live in a state where everyone is watched all the time, like some freakish analogue of the truman show or Ed TV, and people who well, want personal safety at any and all costs, who seem to scratch their heads, thinking "why wouldn't you want to be safe? You're not a criminal are you?"

Where am I going with this?

Even as pro freedom campaigners, politicians and public figures around the globe have been loudly opposing steps taken by various states to curtail the freedom of their citizens, safety lovers, the weak hearts, and childish minds of society, have actually been encouraging more and more intrusive methods for monitoring and controlling everyone - whether they feel they would benefit from the added "safety" or not - for their own personal benefit, whether they like it, or not.

This week's shot across the bows of freedom comes from a Facebook group entitled "Campaign to have satelite tracking chip inserted in all Paedophiles".

"A great idea" you might think, "It would keep our kids safe, and if they've nothing to hide, they've nothing to fear".

And broadly speaking, I agree, at least in principle. Except for one or two minor points.
I'm fully in favour - within reason - of new methods and tecniques that can keep children safe from the attentions of these sexual predators. It's common knowledge what can happen and indeed what does happen, if they're allowed to commit these crimes, and it stands to reason that any way we can stop paedophiles from attacking children, would probably, quite literally, be a lifesaver.

And yet.

Companies are already finishing up studies and tests on already complete and functioning "satellite tracking chips", it is true. The terrifying implications of this technology notwithstanding, these people, the facebook group that is, 8,207 (at this time) people that have chosen to say "my safety is more important than your freedom" are actually in favour of enforced and mandatory satellite tracking of other people.

"Let's get the technology in now"
"Let's get monitoring now!"
"Let's ensure our safety, now!"

Let's track paedophiles, the dirty twisted evil bastards that they are, let's keep our children safe.
2009's campaign, you heard it here first.
And in the first half of 2010?
Let's track rapists, the dirty twisted evil bastards that they are, let's keep people safe!
The second half?
Let's track shoplifters, the dirty evil non-paying bastards that they are! Let's protect our property!
Then what? Will all drivers have to have compulsory microchips "Let's monitor every single driver and road user so we can see who was near the scene of an accident".

This sort of thinking will precipitate a terrible new way of solving crimes, that is, everyone is presumed guilty (until they are eliminated from the enquiry) simply by virtue of their proximity to an offence.

And that's assuming that this technology is restricted solely to police use. Now let me draw a distinction between "active tracking chips" that exist to highlight a person's location, and "passive" non-powered chips that provide more security in bank transactions, access control, etc.

I have no problem with the latter, a technology that is not self powered, that needs to come into contact with the appropriate device to work, and which doesn't actively transmit information about the "host".

But the second technology fills me with revulsion and horror. Let me spell it out to you pro-safety campaigners out there, in black (off black) and white (grey).

Our - yours and mine - freedom is more important than our safety - yours and mine. People have died to defend and protect your freedom, many people in many wars. And you, you absolutely sickening cowards, are willing to throw everything they fought for away, in the face of their heroism and their memory, for the sake of your personal safety. You are willing to change the fabric of this society to suit yourselves, you are willing to advance the interests of governments and corporations at the expense of "the person in the street", to suit yourselves. No goal - even one this laudable - is worth the hastening destruction of the society that I have grown up in, that you have helped create, and that you are now helping to destroy.

Monitoring and tracking are not substitutes for common sense, and with regard to this facebook group, they are not substitutes for adequate parental supervision, either.
Thankfully, these people, with their noble, yet very blinkered world views, represent only some 0.004% of facebook's total user base, and with our government merrily ignoring petitions with many tens of thousands of signiatures, I'm confident that this one won't even reach the front door of number 10.

But never let it be said that the enemies of freedom march in the streets of other countries, or work in darkened offices high above our streets.

The enemies of freedom, of our society, are in this case nothing more sinister than those who should simply be careful what they wish for.

Let's hope that this group, and other groups that favour safety over freedom, fade into obscurity.
And let's also hope that we manage to keep our children, people, goods and property safe, without these very very dangerous technologies which they cry out for.

Stay safe.
But not at any cost.