Lollipop men/women (school crossing patrols)

In the news today 65 year old Bob Slade a lollipop man in Manadon Vale Plymouth has resigned after being threatened with suspension for 'high fiveing' the children using his crossing, his friendly gesture was distracting him from watching the traffic it's claimed.
I suppose it's true he's there to look after the children and not to get possible distracted, but I can only assume someones complained.  So someone believes he's not taking the safety of the children in his care seriously enough.
I've never met or seen Mr Slade, but personally I've seen lollipop ladies and men who frankly are down right dangerous, there was one who used to be talking to the local road sweeper while the children crossed on their own, and another who didn't look before walking out in front of traffic.
To be honest I've always wondered why we allow old and often infirm people to be school crossing patrols, it's well known that as we age our faculties go, our eyesight, hearing, the ability to judge speed and distance etc, all pretty essential things for a person taking our children out in front of traffic.  Yet instead of putting younger fitter more alert people to look after them we use old people, many considered too old or infirm to do their normal jobs.  It's madness!   At least my children are now grown up, but maybe it's time we really looked at using the right people for the right jobs.

White House Down (film review)

The plot is simple, a group of terrorists take over the white house and only an off duty Washington cop stands in their way.  Think Die Hard in the white house and your close.
The films a little slow starting but then gets into an all action pace with, bombings, shootings car chases and plane crashes.  Special effects are good and it's interesting seeing what the inside of the white house is supposed to look like.
For me the film was a bit over the top, with the baddies unable to miss every other target but our hero, there were also a number of fairly big plot holes and inaccurate details (an RPG will not penetrate the frontal armour of an A1 tank for example) but if you like your action/adventure and don't take it too seriously it's ok, although I really hate the cheesy ending (you can see it coming miles away).

Waynes rating   6/10

Paciffic rim (film review)

The plot is giant Godzilla like creatures are coming through the earths crust under the sea, to fight them giant robots manned by ninja style crews are sent out to save the earth.

Think Godzilla meet Transformers and your close, many of the scenes reminded me of the fight scenes in things like power rangers with the giant monster/robot bashing hell out of each other.  Ok the special effects are miles better but you get the idea.

Sadly the film didn't work for me, it was all too silly for my taste, but would probably appeal to most 14 year old boys.

Waynes rating 3/10  give it a miss if your grown up.

After Earth (film review)

Tough hero space ranger Cypher Raige (Will Smith) and his young inexperienced son Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) are stranded on the abandoned earth of the future where everything is hostile.  With his father badly injured Kitai has to travel 100km to reach a rescue beacon, their only hope for rescue and saving both their lives.
Basically the story of the boy growing up to save his father.

The special effects are well up to scratch, and much of the scenery stunning, Jaden Smith shows his acting talents.  Sadly I didn't connect with either of the Smiths, Will's character a crusty patronising wooden father, seemed very much at odds with his sons terrified over the top nervousness.  By about half way through I didn't really care if they escaped or not, and personally I'd like to have seen the film made with the son injured and the father doing the tough stuff.

I can see why the film had mixed reviews in the press.

Waynes rating 5/10

Note to film producers/directors

Please note, a grubby field in Los Angeles with an orange filter over the lens does not look like Africa, Africa is not freaking orange, nor for that matter is Miami (CSI Miami please note) putting an orange filter on just makes it look like you couldn't get the colour balance right.
Ireland, also please note;  Ireland is not all small rural villages where people smoke briarr pipes,and wear waistcoats. And using houses in California  doesn't work either, the houses are totally wrong..
Wales no longer consists of small terraced vilages with gangs of coal covered men in mining helmets walking about singing, that died out back in the 1920's.
For heavens sake look on bloody google at the places your supposed to filming, just for a change try and get it right, I'm fed up of seeing places that are obviously not the place it's supposed to be  The same with history, for gods sake it's all written down, just bloody look it up instead of getting it wrong, just look at Braveheart, it's all bloody wrong, the Scots weraing kilts and covered in blue wode, fine except kilts came in after the battle and wode was used by the picts 800 years earlier, all you had to do was look it up!

Bear Grylls escape from hell

Well what a disappointment!  I'd waited for the new series after Bears falling out with Discovery channel but this was nothing like the Bear Grylls we're used to. it was a boring hammed up reenactment of other peoples survival stories with clips of bear dropped in, it reminded me more of Ray Mears series than what we've come to expect from Bear.
Sorry Bear you've lost it, I for one won't be watching any more of this crap.

Gower again

I visited the Gower coast again recently and took some pics, here they are.