Makes me wonder if I'm in the real world sometimes...

 There was a report recently that some eminent scientists claim there's a 50% chance we're living in a Matrix like fake world.
 I'm not an eminent scientist but I do wonder what world I am living in....
 Take my local town for example. It's like the night of the living dead there, people shuffling around looking baffled, half the shops shut by two in the afternoon.  Motorists unable to drive the right way around a roundabout, it can't be real... can it?
 Then yesterday, I got up had a scrub and a cuppa, and a few hours later I'm in a place that makes Rattlesnake antivenom, I mean WTF!  Why would a place like that even be here, Rattlesnakes aren't really much of problem where I live on account of there not being any, indeed I haven't even seen an Adder in years never mind a bloody Rattlesnake.
 Well I suppose that proves we live in a Matrix world, or maybe it's just I have a strange life....

Grand Tour first episode (spoiler alert)

 Well the grand Tour started today with a huge and expensive intro (2.5 million I'm told) then the show got into gear properly.  Was it good?  Well I found it good fun, and like the Top Gear of old, a car show but entertainment as well.
 Theres lots of screaming Tyre's, people getting killed, silly bets, and a sort of "stig" called the American (probably for legal reasons) 
If you liked the old Clarkson Hammond and May version of Top Gear you'll probably like this version of the Grand Tour.

THE BOYS ARE BACK!

 

Grand tour starts tonight..!

Well the long awaited Grand Tour starts tonight, the Top Gear guys (the real ones not the shit ones) are back!   Yahhhhhh!!!
 Come on firestick, come on firestick, come on you bastard where are you.... the bloody programs on in a few hours...

The Apprentice... Fixed? shock horror... bollocks more like...

 Apparently anti social media is awash with the shock suspicions that the Apprentice is fixed...   This claim is backed by the "evidence" that the contestants are seen wearing coats and scarves when they get the taxi home after being sacked....
 Fact, the show isn't fixed in that sense.  Yes Lord Sugar probably has a bloody good idea which one of two or three of the candidates will make a possible business partner, lets face it half of them are non-starters even by my standards, and Lord Sugars seen their business plans which gives him an even better idea.
 The "evidence" doesn't stand up though.  You see the segment with the candidates getting a taxi home is filmed all in one day at the very beginning of the series, the coats and scarves are to hide what the candidate is wearing, thats to avoid any continuity problems later on, such as the candidate wearing a red shirt and blue tie the day they get sacked, but having a green shirt and pink tie the day the taxi sequence is filmed.
 Not only is this well known, even Lord Sugar himself mentions it in his book of the series. He's also said the show is never scripted, they did try it at the beginning of the very first series, but he told them, he's a business man, not an actor.

New motor part 2

 Well I've seen my possible new motor, looks good.  nice seats, parking sensor, traction control (WTF do I need that for, I make captain slow look like Lewis Hamilton compared to me) Tons of room, turbo diesel engine so it'll hopefully be cheaper to run, and it's my favorite car colour.... silver (well unless its a Ferrari, then it's red) Next thing is to see what happens when I check the insurance price...

Going to see a new motor today

 The car I have works fine but it's getting on now and starting to look a bit tatty around the edges, so today I'm going to see a newer car, different make and diesel so it should be a bit cheaper to run.
 I really wanted something a bit smaller but this ones even bigger than the car I have now, at this rate in ten years my car will reach from one end of the street to the other. Trouble is I have to be able to get a wheelchair and a load of shopping in plus 3 or 4 people, thats a bit tricky now, doo-able but a fiddle.
 Still lets see if this ones any good first.

Robert Vaughn died this week

 Actor Robert Vaughn died this week.  Vaughn probably best remembered for his role as Napoleon Solo in the man from UNCLE tv series.
 His first acting job was in a tv series called Medic in November 1955, from there he had a huge acting career, which included the man from uncle, the magnificent seven 1960),  Bullet (1968) The bridge at remagen (1969)  The towering inferno (1974) Demon seed (1977) Brass target (1978) Hanger 18 (1980) and too many more to mention.
 As well as the man from uncle he stared as Harry Rule in the protectors,and more recently as Albert Stroller in the Hustle, along with hundred of other tv appearances..
 I was a big fan of the man from Uncle series in my younger days, you will be missed Robert.

Robert Vaughn in the man from UNCLE

The apprentice

 Well Lord Sugars got his work cut out with this lot, to be honest none of them look much good, theres, I think five weeks to go, then he has to choose his "apprentice" (really a business partner)  good luck with that choice Lord Sugar, rather you than me mate.

Well done builders... didn't think ahead as usual!

 My drain blocked again today, it gets blocked about this time of year due to the leaves, I've got grill things but they don't work due to the sheer volume of leaves where I live.
 This means every year I have to go out the back, pull up the top grill and poke my arm down the drain about two foot to clear the leaves from the bottom....  That was until this year...
 You see last year the builders made my house bigger by adding about 6 inches of insulation over all the walls, this mean moving the downpipes and the sink outlet pipes.  No problem you'd think, peace of piss for a plumber.  Sadly he must have been off the day they did mine.
 What they actually did was put all three pipes (sink, overflow and down pipe) all right down the 6 inch square drain hole in the floor, this means I could hardly get my fingers in the hole to start with, never mind get the grill out.  Fuckwits! 
 Did it not occur to you that with the wall sticking out over the drain it was hard enough to get access to it in the first place, what was supposed to happen if the drain blocked, and lets face it to do block.  How the bloody hell are you supposed to get a hose down it to flush it through or get an arm down to clean it.  Twats!
 So is my drain still blocked... No, we just cut off the bottom of the fucking pipes, but they could have made life easier with a bit of common sense.  After all why does the pipe need to go right down the drain?  Water flows downhill anyway by a thing called GRAVITY, which I discovered one day when an apple fell on my head in a pub beer garden. 

(ok a bloke called Isaac Newton found it before me, and before him another bloke called Galileo Galilee had looked at the theory, and before him another chap called Aristotle had thought of it) BUT  I FUCKING DISCOVERED IT HURTS WHEN THE APPLE HITS YOU AND YOUR MATE FALLS ABOUT LAUGHING. OK!

Council wasting money again!

 In their insulated world my local council have decided that the car park near me, which has only just finished being revamped at a cost of thousands, needs disabled parking bays. 
 Why they didn't do this when the lined the car park a few weeks ago is anybodies guess, but now the white lining company are burning off the new lines to paint in the disabled bays.
 A good thing I hear you say!  Well yes, it would be if anybody actually took any notice of the disabled parking bays in the first place.  Sadly every lazy arsehole in the area (about 90%) will simply park in them anyway, thats except the ones too lazy to drive into the car park so they park on the yellow lines, or even the roundabout (another 5%)
This means the bigger bays mean less space for the disabled drivers who now have less space in the car park to park at all.
 Money wasted you idiots, maybe if you had a warden checking that people parked in them were disabled it might just make it worth the money.

Jason Bourne 2016 (film review)

"Jason Bourne is again being hunted by the CIA. It begins when Nicky Parson a former CIA operative who helped Bourne who then went under and now works with a man who's a whistle blower and is out to expose the CIA's black ops. So Nicky hacks into the CIA and downloads everything on all their Black Ops including Treadstone which Bourne was a part of. And Heather Lee, a CIA agent discovers the hack and brings it to the attention of CIA Director Dewey, the man behind the Black Ops. He then orders Parsons be found and hopefully Bourne too."  IMDb

 Jason Bourne is back, staring Matt Damon as Jason Bourne, Tommy Lee Jones as Robert Dewey (CIA director)  Vincent Cassel as Asset, Alicia Vikanda as Heather Lee (who has CIA in her real name) and Julia Stiles as Nicky Parsons.

 The plot is fairly simple (as all Bourne films)  The CIA want Bourne, Bourne wants information, some girl gets involved, theres a third party bloke in the middle, lots of hacking cctv cameras and monitoring phones.  The CIA driving around lots of different countries at high speed and just missing Bourne who beats them all up when they do get close, throw in the CIA's hired assassin who is after Bourne and it's there.  (see I could write a Bourne film in 5 minutes)

 So whats it like, well I found it a bit slow at the start, then it swings into full riot/motorbike chase action, and after that theres lot of chases and people being shot, Bourne is looking older (as he is) but theres also a lot of people talking, lots of shots of computers and CCTV pics.  For me it's not even close to the original film, this was far too predictable, you've seen one Bourne film you've seen them all really.

Waynes rating 6/10   a good romp but nothing special

Lots of foxes about.

 This year I've seen more foxes than I've seen in my whole life I think. Honestly I've never seen so many about the place, and they are getting more confident.
 Years ago if you saw a fox you'd think, "oh that was nice, I was lucky to see that" Now I'm seeing them every day, even in broad daylight (why is there no narrow daylight?)  I'm even seeing packs of them (4 together)
 Yesterday in the middle of the afternoon I played chicken with one.  Ok it's not the sort of chicken foxes eat, that would be a silly game to play with a fox.  This was the chicken where you both drive head on to each other, the difference being neither I or the fox were driving.
 I was walking one way and the fox the other (head on) we got to about five foot apart before the fox broke and turned off to my left into the bushes.  This in bright sunlight in a fairly busy place.

Zombies

 No I haven't completely gone bonkers, I've still got a little way to go yet.
 I was looking for a movie the other day and realized just how many films and tv programs actually have zombies as a theme, honestly theres a ton of them.  That got me wondering why are there so many?
 The term zombie comes from Haitian folklore, it means the dead reanimated through magic.
 The modern zombie is mostly based more on the film the night of the living dead (1968) which it self is roughly based on the  book I am legend (1954) although the word zombie isn't actually used in the film.
 Now I've nothing against zombie films, not really a fan but it would be nice if we could have some films WITHOUT bloody zombies.  Or are they trying to tell us something????
 The CDC (centre for disease control) as US official body has issued a data page dedicated to zombie prevention and protection... I kid you not, heres the link to it.
cdc zombie page

 So if your walking along the road and see a shuffling, strange confused scruffy creature coming towards you slowly, chances are it's either a zombie... or one of Port Talbots living dead who shop in Tescos...  Not much difference really...