Whisky comparrison, Bells, v Penderyn, v Macallan

 

 I hope this makes sense, I am half cut writing this so fingers crossed. Bells is a good stock cheapish whisky, around £20 a bottle at time of writing (litre bottle) Bells is a decent whisky, and to be fair it's not really a good comparrison to the others but I have to start somewhere.

 Bells, a little rough compared to the other two but really good for the price.

 Penderyn, this has a slight bite but much smoother than Bells, that said it's close to twice the price at around £36 a bottle. This is also a lot lighter in color than the other two.

 Macallans.  This is easily the best, smooth as silk, but at getting on for £75 a bottle not a cheap option. That said if you drink it neat you will easily tell the difference.

 Conclusion. If you mix your drinks with water or lemonaid or whatever theres not a massive difference, if you drink it neat, Macallans is best but for the price Penderyn is probably the best deal with both quality and price.

 

What a fun day_not!

 

 Well this morning I went to get some new tyres.  I get through a lot of tyres being a formular one racing driver....  No wait, I'm not a racing driver?... indeed I don't do much driving at all.  And I don't drive like a lunatic with screaming tyres either.  So why the fuck do I need new tyres every few months?

 One reason is the tracking on my car was out, thats not helped by three million speed bumps within five miles of my house. Indeed a ploughed field is smoother that the main roads near me.

 The other reason is I seem to have been buying crap tyres.  I had a mechanic out to look at my car the other day and he informed me I had snow tyres on, soft compound snow tyres!   Now I had no idea thay were snow tyres, and as I hardly ever even see snow never mind drive in it they were pointless, and they wear quickly so more money for the tyre shop.

 So I bought new proper tyres, my God they are expensive, it's not that I can't afford them, I'm just bloody tight. But the price!  It would have been cheaper to have the roads coated in rubber and driven on the rims...  (Sounds like a good idea now I mention it.)  

 Anyway not only are good tyres expensive, they should last longer and they have a high speed rating, that means it's safe to drive up to a 170 MPH.  Well it is in theory, you see in the UK where I live the maxium speed limit is 70 MPH, and most of the roads around me have a 50 MPH limit, so a slight over kill in speed rating, that and my car would have to be dropped from a plane to reach a 130 MPH in the first place. To add insult to injury I'm not a fast driver normally anyway, it's not that I can't drive fast, I just don't.

 Then this afternoon the day kicked into high gear, a call out on the lifeline, my mothers fallen again, so dash over to her house (maybe high speed tyres are worth the money?) and get her up off the floor.  Thats when my back went.  Followers of the blog will know I have a dicky back, it's an old injury, I have trouble a lot, anyway I've made it worse, a lot worse, but with no hoist theres bugger all other way to get her up off the floor. I checked her out first obviously and she seems more or less unharmed by the fall so all good there.

 Oh well time for some strong painkillers and a five mile walk, have to keep fit after all!

Last night felt really strange

 

 I went out last night, I go out a lot, but last night was different.   Instead of my usual haunts I went to whats best described as a reunion.  I also went out dressed "tidy" as we say in Wales, that means smart casual.  Last night that meant a good leather jacket and a £100 shirt... £100 for a bloody shirt, no I didn't pay that, I'm tight, but it is a nice shirt.

 It also meant seeing blokes I haven't seen for years, really good mates I'd lost touch with, been through thick and thin with, and a bloody good laugh.

 They had changed, as I have, one now has very short hair, another other has lost his droopy mustache and curly hair, and gained weight (as I have) and sadly yet another hung himeself and I never heard about it (your ledgend lives on Andrew).

 It was strange to be talking to someone you last saw 25 or more years ago, his young son I used to push on a swing is 31 years old now and married.

 It really brought back some old memories, mostly good, they were fun times, hard but fun.  Do I miss the long days, the hard work, eating dinner at 3 in the morning...  No not really, but by heck I enjoyed them at the time.  I'm going to see them again, sooner rather than later this time.  I doubt any of us have another 25 years left.

Too many not-rights where I live!

 

 Sadly my part of south Wales has too many not-rights.  Not-rights are as you've probably guessed barking bloody mad!  The make mad Jack  McMad the maddest man in the world look positively sane to be honest.

 I don't know why this area has such a high concentration of nut cases, maybe something in the water, maybe pollution, more likely marrying your sister has something to do with it.  Anyway it makes life hard work.

 Take last night, walking home I had a cyclist ride past me on the 40MPH dual carriageway.  Nothing odd about that I hear someone say... Well it would be if he wasn't riding the wrong way against traffic at night with no lights and dark clothing, down the middle of the road between oncomming cars in both lanes.  Honestly he was either a total card carrying not-right or trying to get himself killed.

 Today I had another not-right watch me walking quickly trough a busy narrow street and let his dog run across in front of me on 30 foot or lead blocking the pavement. "it's ok he said, he wont bite"   "I fucking bite though" I said, adding "Move the bloody trip hazzard you moron" He dicided moving the dog was a good idea when I turned to move him.

 Then just a few minutes later I meet another dog walker sauntering down the middle of a busy narrow road, I wouldn't mind but theres a pavement both side, he didn't even move out of the way until he realised I wasn't stopping.   

In all impact tests carried out by ROSPA a two ton car v a moron with two small dogs.  The car always came off best.  Keep that in mind if you walk your dogs on the road, my cars freaking huge and heavy, and with my weight well over two tons!

The girl in the waterfall

 

 The girl in the waterfall.  This not only looks good but she's a heck of a girl, that water was bloody freezing!

 

 

Waterfall walk

 Went up the waterfalls at the weekend, haven't been up for a while, got a few pics, here are some, a few more to follow.

Carrots... but not as your used to seeing them!

 

 Yes believe it or not this is a box of carrots... Well it is if you take a one pixel strip from it and stretch it out, then add it again over the top but rotated, then add a gradient layer mask.  I know it sounds complicated but it takes a just a few seconds to do.

 Is it the best picture ever.... No, but I was bored.

 

Poltergeist activity up again.

 

 I've mentioned my Poltergeist before on the blog, it seems very active again at the moment.

 Now I know some of you think I'm making this up or taking the piss but I promise you I'm not, it's true. Weird stuff has happened in my house since I moved in, now I know theres been at least one sudden death there and probably others I don't know about. I don't know if these are connected to the weird stuff or not, butmy house is very odd.

 Now I've also mentioned before it's not strictly normal poltergeist activity I'm getting, I'm not getting the chairs stacked on the table or stuff thrown around.  I'm getting stuff going missing to turn up later either in places I've already looked or worse right in the middle of the room, where it couldn't have got by accident.

 The last thing to do that was a case of Gopro bits, brackets, clamps, straps that sort of stuff in a nice hard case.  Could I find it?  Could I fuck!  I searched the bloody house for it, no sign of the git.  Then a few days later I went into my bedroom to get changed and bloody nearly fell over the hard case, it was in the middle of the floor.  Now theres no way it was there when I got up, I'd have hit it for sure coming out of the room.  So buggered if I know whats going on.

 Today my sons had things opening in his room, while he's watching, he didn't really believe in the poltergeist until the hall light turned itself on and clicked the switch while he was standing by it, and he was the only person in the house.

 Now it's not him playing silly buggers, he's not given to practical jokes, and it's not me.  My other sons away right now so it's not him. Nobody else has a key.  So whatever it is... Well your guess is as good as mine.

 Am I bothered?  No to be honest I'm not, I'm courious yes, but it's not nasty, ok it's a bloody pain in the arse on times but it doesn't seem to mean any real harm, so I can live with this.....

 This really isn't a joke or wind up. This stuff really happens.

Church oil painting style

 The oil painting version of yesterdays church picture.

Church yard wander last few pics

 

 These are the last of the pics from that day.   I had hoped to get out again this week but I had shopping and fixing my mothers glasses yesterday, today it's a few jobs around the house.  Note to self find soldering iron! 

 So with one thing and another camera time is limited, pity, I enjoy taking pics too.

 

 

Church yard wander (part two)

 

 Heres some more from yesterday.

 

 

Church yard wander

 

 As I had a few hours to kill today while my mothers dentures were repaired, and being nearly in the Gower I went a few miles further to a nice 14th centure church St Nicolas Nicholaston.

 Here are a few of the pics, I'll post the rest as I get time to edit them.

 

 

Black and white stempunk pics.

 

 I'll be honest upfront and tell you these are not new pics, what with covid restriction closing events and me having bugger all time to get out I'm struggling for fresh pics.  These are a few years old but I haven't done these in black in and white before so as I tend to say a lot.  It is what it is.

 

 

 

Movie terrorist bombs.

 

 I was watching something a few days back with a terrorist bomb in it and it got me thinking how daft TV and movies are with bombs.

 They seem to roughly fall into a few different patterns.  Theres the smaller "stick" on bomb usually with a red flashing light.... Why?  The idea is to hide the bomb, it's like the old fashioned round cartoon bombs with a sparking fuse on the top and the word bomb written on it... Errr most people know what it is, the word on the side is pointless.... especially if the plan is to kill the people who see it. 

 You can imagine the "die hard" real conversation cant you.  "Is that John McClane the ex New York cop hiding in the ventilation system?  this is Hans Gruber".   "Yeah what do you want Hans?".  "My men will find you McClane, and the building is rigged with bombs, you'll never find them in a million years".    "Are those bombs the ones with the big red flashing light you can see from 50 yards away?".    "Errrrr, well sort of.... Bollocks, who put bloody lights on them!".   You get the idea.

 The next type are the type of bomb, with countdown timers and usually red or blue wires to cut, get the wrong one and t's half a day out with the undertaker (think lethal weapon)  Trouble with that plot is bomb makers wont make it easy for you, they'll just use all black wires, or whatever colour they have handy.  They dont need to colour code it, they are not planning on taking it apart.

 The last of the more common types in movies is the insanly complicated bomb, yes the one with a thousand wires, computers, and most seem to favor multicolour liquids mixing in a chamber... Why. just way?  A terrorists aim is to create terror, having a simple yet effective device, yes some bombs are complex, the IRA for example went from bloody awful early bombs to quite sophisticated, that was after blowing up quite a few of their own chaps mind. They ended up pretty much the go-to bomb teachers for other terror groups.

 The mixing liquids is just trying to make it look better on the screen and add drama.  Don't get me wrong, there are bombs made with different liquids, most though are basic and simple, either standard stolen/scroungedcommercial explosive, or the simpler home made and slightly dodgy versions.  These home made types tend to suffer a few minor drawbacks, they either wont go off when they are supposed to (some need a proper explosive to actually start the reaction) or worse from the bombers point of view is they go off whan they feel like it (a plus for us) this was the IRA's biggest problem in the early day, home goals the army called them.

 Thats not to say real life cant make a complen bomb though.  back in 1980 a man called  John Birges Sr made a bomb so complex the FBI failed to defuse it.  The bomb had I think 8 different fusing systems, it had motion sensors, an anti drill casing, heck it even had a float incase they tried to fill it with liquid, and lots of other tricky stuff.  

 The FBI came up with their best answer an explosive disrupter, this would cut the metal bomb box in half.... well it sort of worked, it did cut the bomb in half-ish... to be more precise it set it off. The bomb went bang, and a fair bit of Harveys casino hotel went with it (the bomb was in the casino hotel) in total the damage ran to around 18 million dollars.  Birges got life in prison, and died there in 1996.

 What puzzles me is why movies cant get it right.  Fine ok we don't want to show the bad guys and nutters how to make a real bomb, that would be a bad idea.  But at least cut down on the sillyness.... Pretty please!

Logs.

  Got this a few daysback, same day as the cyclist in fact. 

Another busy day

 

 Yet again I have a busy day.  This morning it's a few jobs around the house, then go over and cook my disabled mother a dinner (beef dinner today) and clean the house.   Then it's home to pay some bills online (which always takes ages) , then back out again for the evening.

 I seriously need to go shoe shopping, well boot shopping to be exact, I've worn out two pairs of heavy duty boots in about six months, OK to be fair I do a LOT of walking, and somes over rough ground but I still think they should last longer.  Trouble is it takes time to try and find the right boots.

 You see I'm fussy, I like black boots, old habits die hard.  We wore black boots back in the day in the army (brown now for some reason) and besides I like black boots (actually I like black everything if I'm honest).  But finding a good pair is harder these days, the hightech stuff they now make them with lends itself to brighter colours.  No way am I going walkabout with red boots or whatever.

 The other issues I have is I have broad feet, I have a bit of a hassle getting shoes/boots wide enough to fit me and be comfortable.  And if your walking a few hundred miles a month you need comfy footwear trust me.

 Oh well better crack-on.  The day wont do itself.

Who makes these films... And why?

 

 I was looking through a list of recent movie releases to see whats worth having a look at and I never cease to be amazed by some of the films out there.

 There was a film about four prostitutes who go to the party.   Why would anybody think thats going to be a blockbuster movie?

 Then theres the latest Amityville offer.  In this toxic acid rain from an explosion at the Amityville military base causes problems... WTF!   Amityville was a possesed house originally.  Time to let it go guys.

 Theres several offering with the same tired old h/shee was a CIA hit man/woman turned good but has to come out of retirement to save his/her family from drug dealers/terrorists etc etc.. Think of something new people, thats been done to death.

 Theres a few variations on the he/she is posessed by evil spirits and has to be saved..  Again done to death.

 Come on script writers, think of some new plots for heavens sake, recycling is good for the planet but boring for viewers...  If your stuck for ideas give me a bell, I've got a cracking plot for a movie about a serial killer thats an alien space bear with green fur from the planet Janguard four.  It's a belter!  Got laughs, love and it'll make you cry bit, like all the best movies.  I'm not even asking a lot for it, just this small island I've spotted........

Creepy face...

 While I was waiting for some washing to finish (and bored) I took this shot, well I made it in photoshop really, it's just a mask and a pair of eyes, put together...  creepy or what!

The Solitary Cyclist. (black and white pic)

 

 The solitary cyclist.  Not the The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist as in the Sherlock Holmes short stories by Arthur Conan Doyle (the return of sherlock holmes 1905).  

This is just a bloke on his bike which I took yesterday.

 

 

The tunnel

 

 Ok, this is the tunnel.   I did consider calling it the tunnel of death!.  Or maybe the murder tunnel to hell, after all thats what the tv lot do with program titles.  Trouble is as far as I know theres not been a murder there.  And it's not exactly hell at the other end... well it is the railway station so close-ish but not technically hell as defined by the bible.  Yes I am a pedantic git, live with it, I do.

 Anyway enough waffle the tunnel pic, it's shot on my phone and had a mild HDR process applied (HDR=high dynamic range) I did think about black and white, but I seem to remember doing one similar a while back like that.

Hectic

 

 I't been hectic again, what with me getting over the tummy bug (now cleared up thankfully) and the usual family dramas I get very little ME time to do what I want.  Coupled to that the weathers been crap and I've got more or less bugger all pictures recently (I do have one or two) so frankly I'm fed up!

 I also seriously need a new pair of boots, it's just time to go and choose a pair, the last two pairs only lasted about 3 months each, mind I do walk a lot, but they really should last longer than that.

 A new series of the Apprentice started last night, it's too early yet to see who is a possible winner... so far none are looking good to me, but thats Lord Sugars job and good luck to him with that.  Time will see.

 I'll be posting a pic later if I get time I need to resize it in photoshop first then it's a few minutes to bung it up here on the blog.

Misty trees oil painting style.

 The misty trees in oil painting style.

Ripples and Gastroenteritis

 

 Heres another Union Jack flag, this time with not very convincing ripples...

 It seems I've picked up a dose of  Gastroenteritis somewhere over Christmas, not funny at all, although thank goodness it seems to be easing off now.  Nobody else around me have it so it's not something from Christmas dinner (we all had the same stuff), so where I've got it is anybodies guess, my tummys still not a 100% but it's way better than a few days ago!