Some news from today

It seems sexual harassment is now called an "inadvertent intrusion of someone else personal space", at least it is if your Lord Rennard.
The Lib dems are wondering why they did so badly in the recent election. Maybe because theres no point in voting for a party that gives YOUR vote to whatever other party (the one you didn't vote for) offers them the best deal.  Then when in second place in the government pretty much goes against the party they joined in the first place. Why join if you don't agree morons.
The USA claim that China is destabilising the south china sea (hard to destabilise a sea?) besides it's not Americas  problem really, maybe if they spent less time shooting each other they might realise the US doen't rule the world.

America and gun laws.

After yet another shooting I think it's time for America to sit back and take a serious look at it's gun laws.
I fully understand it wants to protect it's peoples right to carry arms, but even the most hardened gun owner must wonder if it's right for mentally unstable people to be walking around with assault rifles, after all the clue is in the word assault, why do normal people want to assault something? surely that's the job of the police or army not joe public.
Lets face it there has to be some common sense applied, otherwise more mentally ill people will carry out massacres and eventually it'll have to end up with all guns being banned, better to stop the nutters having guns in the first place.

Ultrafire Cree Q5 self defence torch (review)

To be honest this wasn't what I was expecting, it was a fair bit bigger.  I (wrongly)assumed the torch was a longer version of one of the ones I tested recently,  It isn't it's a totally different beast.
The torch is about 12 inch's long collapsed  and a little over 16 inch's  extended, by a bit over an inch thick.
I did wonder how a longer version of the torch I was expecting would be sturdy enough to take the rough and tumble, I mean they are fine for all normal jobs, but fighting a ninja?    I needn't have worried, this one feels plenty solid enough for fending off the odd wild dog (or ninja) or giving some protection against a knife attack.
The torch has 3 modes, full,  half, and strobe, sadly it defaults back to full power after being turned off rather than staying in the mode you last used.  It has a solid ring and swivel for attaching to a belt or sling, and mine came with the 18650 battery and charger, plus the triple A battery holder, handy if your away from base and can't recharge the main battery.
The extending part is activated by turning the head end and sliding it forward, you then turn it back to lock it out, it also locks anyware along the extended part so you can set it any length between 12-16 inch's
The only real fault (apart for the mode issue) is that when extended you only get a spotlihght, not the flood setting you get in the closed position.
I haven't tested it in the dark yet but it gives a good light, I suspect plenty for finding your way around at night.
For under £7 from Ebay it's good value, might be handy kept in the car or taken out if you walk the dog and night.
For the photo it's compared to a 2 D cell maglite for size comparrison

Godzilla 2014 (review)

Action right from the start, this isn't a movie to snooze to. The special effects are stunning, no more cardboard building being knocked over by a man in a lizard suit this looks like it's the real thing.
The story is ok, theres a few minor mistakes/plot holes but nothing thats going to worry you too much.
I liked the main characters, (watch out for Bryan Cranstone, a sort of cut price Harrison Ford)  The movie was the best Godzilla film I've seen.
The plot
IMDb  The world's most famous monster is pitted against malevolent creatures who, bolstered by humanity's scientific arrogance, threaten our very existence.

Waynes rating   8/10  well worth a watch on the big screen

Some people just don't want to make money!

A mate of mine is starting a new business up, part of his business needed a venue in certain areas, a small room will do for about a dozen people with tea and coffee, thats for about three hours once or twice a month.
You wouldn'y believe how hard it is to find someone willing to do it. He tried a fair size pub in the ideal location, the staff were happy to do it, no problem, he was offering good money. £100 for three hours in a quiet pub (which has a spare room unused) then the manager decided it was too much trouble, oh they'd have to put the heating on for three hours (it wasn't on when he went there) everything was too much trouble. Madness, pubs are dying out due to lack of customers, heres someone offering money for bugger all really. Lets face it the staff are on minimum wage, tea and coffee costs a couple of quid, even the heating doesn't cost that much, the pub would have been on about £60-£70 quid profit for opening the doors and boiling the kettle. Bloody barking mad to turn it down if you ask me.

Funny week really

It's been a funny week all in all.
Take yesterday, it started with decontaminating the fridge and ended with trying to find the tardis on an aerial photograph.
I say decontaminate the fridge advisedly, you see it's been some time since I did it.... well to be honest it probably hasn't been cleaned properly since the Romans were in Briton. Anyway the cheese has been going off in record time, so I figured maybe cleaning the fridge might help (seemed a good idea to me anyway)
So out came the bleach, the has mat suit in I went in!   It wasn't easy, you see my fridge is in a corner between the cooker and the wall, this means the door only opens so far, this in turn means getting the shelves out is a royal pain in the ass.  Eventually I got it clean and harder got the shelves back in.  Now to buy more cheese!
Also this week the new chuck key for the electric drill arrived from ebay, sadly it doesn't fit the bloody drill so I'll have to order another.  Why the keys can't be easier to find baffles me, lets face it they are all too easy to loose.  Even worse the drills all have different size chuck keys, although it's almost impossible to find out which one fits which drill, as nobody wants to tell you any sizes.
Back to the tardis, it's been on a local beach yesterday, a mate told me in the morning but I had stuff to do so couldn't goo and look, come the evening I went down to see but my mate rang before I got to the beach to tell me they'd gone.  My other friend who fancied going with me then looked online to see where it had been, it took me a while to realise they were searching bloody Google earth maps for it.  I mean what are the chances of it showing up on there the same day it was there, heaven knows how old the photos on the maps are.

Bottles of pop (soda)

What is it with bottles of pop (soda) these days, I often buy the large size 2 or 3 liter bottles, but they are getting harder to open, at first I thought it was just me getting older, but it dawned on me it s not me, it's the bloody bottles.
I'm a big burly bloke if I'm seriously considering getting the pliers out to open the bloody bottles how the hell are little old ladies with arthritis supposed to do it.  I mean do the bottles really need to be sealed so tightly? They are only going on the supermarket shelves and a shooping bag, it's not as if they have to survive a trip the the bottom of the Marianas trench for heavens sake.
Strange all those years ago we managed without oxy-acetylene cutting torches to open them and we still drank our pop, and in those day children could open the bottles too.  Now a mountain gorrilla would struggle.

The post office and 20 questions

Have you been in the post office recently? it's like bloody mastermind in there, just buying a stamp I was asked questions about my telephone and broadband (as part of the post offices sales pitch) trouble is with only two of the ten windows open and a huge queue, they haven't really got time to mess about if people are actually going to get served some time hat day
Even worse try posting something, they ask whats in the parcel, what it's worth etc et.  Now while they are supposed to ask for airmail parcels they are not supposed to ask for domestic mail.  thing is then then know exactly what to steal, and which parcels are worth nicking!

Some beach photos from last night.

Well done prison service, another blunder!

This time Arnold Pickering 44 a convicted murderer has gone on the run from yet another prison, this time from day release.  I don't quite get the day release bit, I thought the idea of being in prison in the first place is to take them off the street and stop them re offending?   So the point of letting them out defeats that.
Pickering (who killed a blind man) is on the run, even worse!  it's the fourth time he's done it.  Yes it's the fourth time he's done a runner from day release.  So what madman let him go out the second, third and fourh time?  This person is putting the public at risk, time to jail these idiots for letting prisoners out I think.... then again theres not a lot of point jailing them if your only going to let them back out 2 weeks later to run away.  How bloody stupid is this system!

You need a floating house.

The chairman of the environment agency Lord Smith (I've got no common sense smith!) suggested houses in flood prone areas be built on floats (that would be a boat then) to make them safe from flooding.   It obviously hasn't occurred to him that houses have things like plumbing, electric, toilets etc, not impossible on floats but much more complicated and expensive.  It's also a hell of a lot more expensive to build a proper house capable of floating properly, and more importantly safely. Far far cheaper to dredge the rivers that caused a lot of the recent flooding problems.
Frankly after the recent flooding I think Lord Smiths comments show just how out of touch with reality he is, it makes me wonder if he's really the sort of person we want as chairman of the environment agency. 
Lets face it instead of apologising for the problems he's pretty much saying it's the house holders fault for not buying floating houses, sadly a lot of those flooded didn't realise they needed a floating house till the rivers silted up because the rivers were not maintained.

Health and safety.

I spent an hour or so yesterday on a health and safety course (to do with a project I'm working on)  
Now while we do genuinely need health and safety (it does save lives) there is a problem in that the health and safety stuff has gone over the top, partly by the bureaucrats with nothing proper to do.
I'm all for proper stuff that saves live, harness's if your working high etc.  But some of the stuff in properly bonkers. 

For example;  take a wedding photographer (something close to home for me) now if he takes the wedding group into the registry office car park for photos, something very common,  they really should all be wearing hi-vis jackets for safety.  Not going to go well with the bride for a start!  

On top of that it seems the photographer needs safety boots and a hard hat (as well as the hi-vis)  Now a hard hat is really difficult to wear while using a camera (the peak gets in the way)    And secondly I wonder whats going to fall on the photographer?  I mean fair enough if your working under scaffolding or something, but in a car park where people walk all day long without all this stuff?  Madness!

Then we come to the camera bag, it has to be picked up with both hands, remember bend your knees not your back.... but then you have a camera with a great big lens in one hand.. so how that going to work, Ahhh put the camera down and pick up the bag... Bugger now I have to put the bag down to pick up the camera... ohhh sod it! The bride and groom have just walked off!    Get the point.

Yet couriously it's seems it's fine for a church to lit like a 13th century cobblers cottage, and have narrow twisty downright bloody dangerious stairs, and as for dunking a baby in the FONT!!!  what no life jacket?, no safety diver?.Not even arm bands for the poor little devil.  How in the hell do they get away with it???

Stephen Sutton

Stephen aged just 19 died yesterday.  To loose any youngster is a terrible tragedy, but I hope his family take some small comfort from the courage and inspiration Stephen showed during his illness. 
 His fundraising has raised over £3.5 million for cancer charities. 
God bless Stephen.

Cree XML T6 zoom torch (review)

This is the second of the two reviews.
The Cree XML T6 zoom 2000lumens.
  The torch looks very similar to the Q5 I reviewed the other day, in fact I thought for a minute they'd sent the wrong one, it was only when I got it out of the box I could see the difference. it's about 4.5 inches long by about an inch width.  Again it feels solid and well made with a claimed 2000 lumens, this torch comes with a wrist strap, sadly it's too small to go over my hand, so it's a finger loop really.  It has the same sliding zoom head, but this torch has the five modes, low, medium, high, strobe and SOS, you click the button quickly to change modes from one to another,sadly it doesn't stay in strobe mode it defaults back to high power, which seems odd.  It has the same jagged front zoom ring as the Q5, known as a DNA catcher, by people who want it for self defence use.
The torch like the Q5 has the same square beam when zoomed in (due to led shape) this torch though has a lot more light output than the Q5, it also has a lovely even beam whan on wide angle zoom, the light output is pretty amazing for whats still a smallish compact torch, it easily lights up a building about 40 meters away.
The torch has enough light for all normal things, and you'll find your way around no problem with this at night.
One point to be aware of this torch uses the 18650 battey not an AA, although theres supposed to be a triple A holder available mine came with no battery or holder, luckily I had a spare 18650 battery, so remember to buy a battery or holder as well.
I paid about £6 off ebay, for that it's a great buy.

Billy Connolly's big send off

The second part of this fascinating and thought provoking program  was shown tonight. Billy brought a difficult subject to national tv, yet is was done in such a way as to help remove the fear some people will have about dying.
For me the program was interesting and touching, I really felt for the dying man at the end of the program. It was humbling to watch the guy cope with his own impending death.

Cree Q5 300 lm flashlight (review)

The torch only arrived today so I haven't had a lot of time to test it out but here's a brief review.
The cree Q5 300 lm is about 3.5 inches long and weighs a few ounces.  It feels quite sturdy and has a positive tail cap button for on and off, theres no other modes with this model.  The torch has a sliding 'focus' bulb end which gives from a good spread to a fairly narrow spot, although curiously it's a square spot.
The supplier claims it's 300 lumen's, I've no way of testing that but for a small pocket size torch it does give a good light, plenty bright enough to find your way around at night, or look for something you dropped behind the fridge.
It also has a strong looking pocket clip.
The torch uses the somewhat unusual rechargeable battery 14500, or fortunately for me any standard AA battery
I plan on carrying the torch as a back-p to my much brighter multi mode Refarkta (reviewed in January), although I suspect it'll get used as a always carry torch due to it's smaller size.
For under a £5 from Ebay it's damm good value in my opinion

Eurovision

A report today shows that the public vote was almost totally opposed to the vote of the judges panel, this raises the question if a huge number of the public like song A why is the small judges panel voting for song B?  Now I know a lot is down to personal taste, but I can't help but think theres more going on here.  Maybe it would be fairer to have ONLY the public voting in all the countries, insted of a  judging panel selected by who exactly???

A few macro photographs

For the photographers these were taken with a Tamron sp 90mm lens (a cracking lens) with the larger ring of extension rings, hand held, which hasn't helped the sharpness as I was struggling in the akward position I was in to shoot.

Eurovision song contest

I didn't get to watch all of this yesterday as I was enjoying myself instead, I did however get to see the winner....I don't know whether he...she...is a man or woman (looked like the bearded lady) but anyway it wasn't the best song by a long way. 
I can't help but wonder whether the bearded lady bit was for effect for the show or if the contestant always looks like that, either way it's probably time this farce was scrapped, the voting is beyond a joke now with the usual suspects always voting for the same countries whatever the song.

Port Talbot

Paul Durden (movie twin town) once said Swansea was a 'pretty shitty city'  He obviously hasn't seen port talbot.  The town is dingy and uncared for looking.  The people are worse, about 20% are genuinely 'not right'  Seriously, they not only look odd but act it as well, about another 20% are borderline, it's really scary that that many odd people are in one place. 
I can't work out whether it's pollution from the industry all around it, or inbreeding.  I don't mean sleeping with your sister, but in fairly small communities it's not uncommon to end up marrying a cousin or similar, this dilutes the gene pool.
Take Tesco in Port Talbot for example, about half the people in the shop aren't actually shopping, they are standing around staring at the ceiling, or worse standing in big groups blocking the aisle and having a gossip, or my favorite they come to a door and just stop dead. 
It actually has a name, it's called the boundary effect, it's what happens when primitive people come to a change of environment, in modern people it's all but gone as we know what the environment will be when we go outside (or inside), but that wasn't taking into consideration the people of port talbot.

Knob throwing contest

Over 5000 people attended a knob throwing contest in Dorset yesterday.... David Camerone is said to have come out of hiding today.....

How bloody stupid is that!

Convicited violent armed robber Michael 'skull cracker' Wheatley who was jailed for 13 life sentences escaped yesterday from an open prison, AN OPEN PRISON!!!
 WTF is a man with 13 life sentenced for violence (and called skull cracker) doing in an open prison in the first place.  He should have been in a maximum security unit.
Some moron in what passes for the prison service has now put other peoples lives at risk

MH 370 update

The search for missing flight MH 370 still goes on, but theres something very odd with the search.  The experts claim to have picked up the black box 'pinger' but now seem unable to locate the aircraft even though the pinger only has a short range (so they'd have to be close just to hear it) 
Now several people claim to have discovered possible wreckage thousands of mile from the search area, which itself is a long way off course of the flight original course.  The odd part is the searchers don't want to know, and dismiss out of hand whats been found (in one case by experts with analytical equipment)
To me it feels like they don't really want to find the plane, it's hard to imagine a reason why they wouldn't, but I could see a situation where it might be better for certain governments if the plane and it's passengers vanished for ever.  The worrying bit is if it was a fault on the aircraft then theres hundreds more of the same model flying every day.... how long before it happens again?  We'll never know if the wreckage isn't found and the cause identified

Girl in a red dress

Did a shoot last night, sadly the weather was grim but it was the only chance to do the shoot.

Remote control land rover

Land rover have developed a version that can be driven by remote control...  Great another gas guzzling 4x4 that doesn't even have a passenger in it.  Good thinking guys!
Thats going to sell like.... well shit really, WTF are normal people who use Land rovers to pose in going to do with remote control, half the owners can't drive the bloody things properly from inside never mind by remote control.

Jeremy Clarkson and freedom

I see Jeremy Clarkson is in trouble again. Unaired footage of top gear apparently shows him saying 'eney meany miny mo' a hideous racist crime it now appears.  Trouble is pretty much everything is now classed as racist.
 I'm old enough to remember Great Briton as it used to be, a friendly Christian country where wars had been fought for freedom.  Now sadly none of those things are true, the country's been swamped by immigrants, freedom of speech is long gone, and I'm pretty sure Christianity is now now been overtaken by other religions.
Yes I know poor old Jeremy isn't the most PC person in the world, but the trouble is people are watching everything he just just looking for the flimsiest excuse to kick up a fuss. Even his dog has caused a stir because he named it after a black footballer, for Gods sake this country's gone bloody silly!
Yet the thing that bothers me is racism only seems to work one way, check out how many rap songs contain the N word, yet strangely I don't see any black rap stars in court for being racist, why is that?, surely the word is either racist or it's not.