Yesterday was a beautiful day but there was no inclination to go out and experience as there were important things to do here and other things to experience via the TV Newcastle at Home to Chelsea and the second part of Flood as if to remind that we should make the most of fine weather, and protect our planet in so far as we are able to do so. It was a day about the force of nature in various forms.
However as the day progressed and I learnt that Tuesday was to be special, sunny and warm, I resolved not to let the day slip by, whatever my priorities for work not completed. I resolved to go to bed as soon as I was tired, hoping to have a good night and rise early and therefore combine whatever work I had to of with going out. But where? To Newcastle to film the City. To Durham on the bus? Across the Tyne and continue my discovering of the other bank of Rivera. To Sunderland along the bank of the Wear towards Durham. Walking as much as possible. Taking the Metro, taking the Bus, Taking the Car into the real countryside of Northumberland, but to the somewhere on the Roman Wall.? I needed to have planned and I had not!
07.00 Up and play Hearts to wake up with coffee and a few games of chess. Followed by two rounds of toast.
7.30ish Write yesterday's Blog and more games of chess and hearts while get in the working grove. Make some communications Check what happened to Durham at cricket-they lost, and what is on TV later in the day. The replay of new Lost conflicts with last part of Flood part two which is another two hours.
10.00 Washed hair again with anti dandruff shampoo, clean top of inner glass door, need specialist cleaner to finish job. Remove four reams of card from wrappers for current use in work room, Bring down two more reams from upper store to hallway. Also bring folder to replace that used for culture 2008 where lack of concentration results in number on end display area instead of culture 2008. Will try and save the old folder for new use or for the sealed filing cabinet.
10.30. Prepare stir fry with noodles lunch. Measure water for noodles. Prepare mixture of one yellow pepper, half green from yesterday, one onion, mange tout asparagus tips and baby corn from cob, chilli sauce mild. Two thirds of chicken was cut from carcass yesterday and chopped into small pieces. Half today for stir fry and half tomorrow, possibly for curry, or second stir fry.
11.00.Publish and print yesterday's Blog,7 Check forthcoming birthdays, inbox and email and attend to some but decide to defer rest until completing the work in relation to medical records of birth mother, trying to find if there are more records together with those of are mother and if those from older aunt are still available. If these have medical information 1939-1950 will confirm that information re birthmother was destroyed. I assume that the same records are kept whether patient was private, state or pre 1948 subsidised.
11.30 Complete printing of birth mother's record report and have Bank Holiday midmorning treat of smoked salmon with horseradish and commence correspondence to accompany report .
13.30 The stir fry is great success, tasty and a more balanced dish than that bought for 50% greater cost previously and now sale at 100% more. The packet noodles is also the right portion to add to the mixture and I guessed the quantity of chilli sauce well so not only enjoyed the meal but felt a sense of achievement.
14.00 I watched the first of two Monster's films during the course of the day. The first was one of the originals after the war made in 1951 by Howard Hawk's although he was not originally credited. The Thing from another world. He directed and contributed to the writing of the film through his company Winchester Pictures and then released through RKO Radio Pictures.
A group of environmental scientists at the North Pole observe a puzzling event at a distance, and which upon subsequent investigation with the help of the USA airforce plane and team transpires to be a flying saucer buried in the ice. They accidentally blow up the craft before it can be examined which saved production costs in the days before computer graphics and the era of Star Trek and Star wars. The pilot has been frozen into solid ice when he leaves the craft and is taken back to the base to await instructions from higher command. The creature is then released when one of the airforce crew stupidly puts a switched on electric blanket over the block so he does not have to look at the creature through the ice, a blanket which the airmen needed in order to survive in below zero temperature necessary to keep the ice block from melting. A case for summary execution if ever one was justified! Worse still is come when part of the scientific team imperil the whole world after working out that the creature is intelligent life but developed out of vegetable matter with no emotions or moral abilities. Amazingly the creature although vegetable with regenerative powers, survives on blood - animal or human and the proposition of the film is that is an exploration craft to confirm the planet offers unlimited food supply. The film was made at height of the anti communist feelings from McCarthyism and the Korean War so the thing represented the Community threat, machine like and soulless. Eventually the airmen and the some of the scientists work out how to defeat the creature. It is fried but not stirred. The film ends with the appeal. " Watch the Skies everywhere, Keep looking, Keep watching the skies".
16.00 Newcastle put up a good fight in their last home match of season against Champion League Finalists and League title chasing Chelsea in the first half, when the Pensioners appeared under par. After the interval they demonstrated their superiority and scored two goals and now Manchester United have to win their last game or yield the title to Chelsea. As for Newcastle the game underlined the reality that only a reconstructed team has a chance of joining those competing for a top four place. My decision fourteen months ago not to renew the season ticket has proven to have been a good one, despite the arrival of King Kevin.
18.30 Earlier I started the evening meal with a glass of wine and a portion of peanuts, then a simple salad, followed by the last piece of the apple Strudel .
19.00 Earlier I had undertaken a further 300 photographs and completed the registration of 13 additional sets which reminds the mistake I made recently when I wrote that over 7750 sets had been completed overall, In fact it should read 7250. The total now is over 7300. Later I complete anther 130 photos.
I then commenced to watch Peter Jackson's King Kong having added all his films, available from the DVD rental firm to my view list. Not on the list is Heavenly creatures although I remember the film well as I do King Kong and it is the other films I wish to see. Jackson's film is the last version in a line of creations since the black and white silent version of 1933 which I have seen but I am uncertain about the Son of King Kong also made in the same year. King Kong vs. Godzilla 1962 made in Japan and in colour, King Kong escapes 1967 another Toho, Japan, production were followed by the 1976 Jessica Lange and Jeff Bridges edition and. King Kong Lives in 1986 was made by the same company.
There has been a series of literary works which attempted to create a world of prehistorically animals Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 and The Lost World and Edgar Rice Burroughs 1918 The Land Time Forgot are the most well known which provided the back story for the film. There have also been numerous books about King Kong and Skull Island. In the Peter Jackson film I had not realised until today that Kong is played by Andy (Gollum) Serkis. He is also seen in the film as Lump the ship's cook, barber and surgeon who dies after fighting a group of worm like creatures.
Rather like Flood it is possible to question the length of the film over three hours I liked the film in theatre despite its length and the DVD provided the opportunity to take a detached view but I still found the relationship between beauty and beast moving. Mr Serkis went to great lengths to reproduce the movement of a gorilla decided that those in captivity were inadequate and went off to view creatures in the wild. The film has a simple message if you play with fire you will get burnt. While the gorilla is conquered humanity is diminished. Apparently the company was appointed after the initial public response with the film only taking over two hundred million dollars in the USA and costing over 200 million to make. However it made another $300 million from world distribution and close on $200 million for video sales and rentals. I appreciate this was only a $500 dollar profit less its publicity and marketing costs which are said to have amounted to $60 million. It is still 100% on the money invested. Jackson all sued a 3 D camera which is the "new" thing on the bloc and an HD DVD is also planned.
I was watching a film the other evening on a Sky Channel and in the corner a box appeared showing the same frame smaller size but in sharper definition which I assumed was HD. There was a significant difference but not sufficient for me to take out an HD subscription.
I wondered how the makers of Flood were going to fill the additional two hours of their second part and why it was being shown from nine rather than eight as on Sunday?. The answer was evident and some of the estimated 200000 bodies commenced to float past in the Thames, although subsequent scenes of unexpected survivors was meant to reassure all those presently living in the London flood plain and elsewhere. There was the attempt to balance those who died, Tom Courtenay would get a national hero's burial while the suicide of the chief weatherman suggested a Roman approach to professional failure was being recommended to all those at the top so blinkered that they cannot join all the dots even when someone provides them with the tools to do so. There were several fundamental flaws. There was a hint that there would be some road closures to enable rescue and evacuation vehicles to move north south and east west and vice versa across London as well as commandeering the M25, but everyone else appeared to be able use roads to travel in both direction when the state of emergency should have made all roads one way out of London filling up cars with people given the two hour warning. The other was the obvious one of using all buildings with floors above the estimated waterline, hence the appearance of so many people from windows and roofs should not have come as a surprise. Given that phone lines had to be cut to civilians in order to ensure good communications for the emergency services and that electricity would also go down, it does occur that everyone should be advised to have at least one battery powered radio to hand with a sufficient supply of batteries so to be able to receive instructions and advice. I was also amazed that attention was given to the inevitable looters, this would have been a waste of life savers and demonstrated the thinking in the box mentality which used to pervade central and local government but which I hoped had been eliminated and would continue to do so as albeit slowly the small local authorities are amalgamated in terms of units capable of being effective in the world as it is. Here in the North East the local elections were for the creation of the new unitary local authorities covering the Counties of Durham and Northumberland which means the transferring of public housing, leisure and local planning, as the counties already had responsibility for Education and Social Services. However there is still the need for building up local small scale teams to deal with local small scale emergencies and then for these teams to become part of regional and national structure if states of emergency are required.
However the big flaw in the production, which was necessary to maintain the aspect of a personal drama involving the key characters concerned the one solution to prevent the flood extending to whole of the London area. Tom Courtenay works out that if the Thames barrier is lowered at the right moment the force of water released from what had become a dam coupled with the changing tidal force would catapult the rest of the funnelling surge back into the sea. This was said which such conviction that I presume it is scientifically feasible although I immediately had questions relating to the height and width of the breach beyond the barrier gates. However because of the loss of electricity and presumably the lack of any effective secondary local generation, and which did not seem plausible, the gates had to be lowered manually and therefore this involved the heroes of professor, on and daughter in law being the only ones to do the task on their own with only one other helping military officer. Putting to one side the absurdity of this aspect it is only after they have gone off and are tackling the task that the central emergency team work out that the most effective way is to black the gates apart and this solution is only called off when the manual lowering works. This was a double incredulity. First that this solution was immediately considered and put into effect and secondly that it was called off. The programme makers could argue that the manual solution preserved the gates for future use but we were told that this was the only solution to prevent the further loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. I suspect the programme, times for maximum viewing attention over the weekend immediately after the Mayoral elections and before the Commons vote to give government power to detain people for longer than 28 days in certain circumstances without charge, was intended as softening up, It would not surprise me if within a year the government under public pressure mounted a series of trial evacuations from the centre of London and other cities. It will also have done no to persuading taxpayers to meet the costs of new coastal defences and new storm drainage systems
However as the day progressed and I learnt that Tuesday was to be special, sunny and warm, I resolved not to let the day slip by, whatever my priorities for work not completed. I resolved to go to bed as soon as I was tired, hoping to have a good night and rise early and therefore combine whatever work I had to of with going out. But where? To Newcastle to film the City. To Durham on the bus? Across the Tyne and continue my discovering of the other bank of Rivera. To Sunderland along the bank of the Wear towards Durham. Walking as much as possible. Taking the Metro, taking the Bus, Taking the Car into the real countryside of Northumberland, but to the somewhere on the Roman Wall.? I needed to have planned and I had not!
07.00 Up and play Hearts to wake up with coffee and a few games of chess. Followed by two rounds of toast.
7.30ish Write yesterday's Blog and more games of chess and hearts while get in the working grove. Make some communications Check what happened to Durham at cricket-they lost, and what is on TV later in the day. The replay of new Lost conflicts with last part of Flood part two which is another two hours.
10.00 Washed hair again with anti dandruff shampoo, clean top of inner glass door, need specialist cleaner to finish job. Remove four reams of card from wrappers for current use in work room, Bring down two more reams from upper store to hallway. Also bring folder to replace that used for culture 2008 where lack of concentration results in number on end display area instead of culture 2008. Will try and save the old folder for new use or for the sealed filing cabinet.
10.30. Prepare stir fry with noodles lunch. Measure water for noodles. Prepare mixture of one yellow pepper, half green from yesterday, one onion, mange tout asparagus tips and baby corn from cob, chilli sauce mild. Two thirds of chicken was cut from carcass yesterday and chopped into small pieces. Half today for stir fry and half tomorrow, possibly for curry, or second stir fry.
11.00.Publish and print yesterday's Blog,7 Check forthcoming birthdays, inbox and email and attend to some but decide to defer rest until completing the work in relation to medical records of birth mother, trying to find if there are more records together with those of are mother and if those from older aunt are still available. If these have medical information 1939-1950 will confirm that information re birthmother was destroyed. I assume that the same records are kept whether patient was private, state or pre 1948 subsidised.
11.30 Complete printing of birth mother's record report and have Bank Holiday midmorning treat of smoked salmon with horseradish and commence correspondence to accompany report .
13.30 The stir fry is great success, tasty and a more balanced dish than that bought for 50% greater cost previously and now sale at 100% more. The packet noodles is also the right portion to add to the mixture and I guessed the quantity of chilli sauce well so not only enjoyed the meal but felt a sense of achievement.
14.00 I watched the first of two Monster's films during the course of the day. The first was one of the originals after the war made in 1951 by Howard Hawk's although he was not originally credited. The Thing from another world. He directed and contributed to the writing of the film through his company Winchester Pictures and then released through RKO Radio Pictures.
A group of environmental scientists at the North Pole observe a puzzling event at a distance, and which upon subsequent investigation with the help of the USA airforce plane and team transpires to be a flying saucer buried in the ice. They accidentally blow up the craft before it can be examined which saved production costs in the days before computer graphics and the era of Star Trek and Star wars. The pilot has been frozen into solid ice when he leaves the craft and is taken back to the base to await instructions from higher command. The creature is then released when one of the airforce crew stupidly puts a switched on electric blanket over the block so he does not have to look at the creature through the ice, a blanket which the airmen needed in order to survive in below zero temperature necessary to keep the ice block from melting. A case for summary execution if ever one was justified! Worse still is come when part of the scientific team imperil the whole world after working out that the creature is intelligent life but developed out of vegetable matter with no emotions or moral abilities. Amazingly the creature although vegetable with regenerative powers, survives on blood - animal or human and the proposition of the film is that is an exploration craft to confirm the planet offers unlimited food supply. The film was made at height of the anti communist feelings from McCarthyism and the Korean War so the thing represented the Community threat, machine like and soulless. Eventually the airmen and the some of the scientists work out how to defeat the creature. It is fried but not stirred. The film ends with the appeal. " Watch the Skies everywhere, Keep looking, Keep watching the skies".
16.00 Newcastle put up a good fight in their last home match of season against Champion League Finalists and League title chasing Chelsea in the first half, when the Pensioners appeared under par. After the interval they demonstrated their superiority and scored two goals and now Manchester United have to win their last game or yield the title to Chelsea. As for Newcastle the game underlined the reality that only a reconstructed team has a chance of joining those competing for a top four place. My decision fourteen months ago not to renew the season ticket has proven to have been a good one, despite the arrival of King Kevin.
18.30 Earlier I started the evening meal with a glass of wine and a portion of peanuts, then a simple salad, followed by the last piece of the apple Strudel .
19.00 Earlier I had undertaken a further 300 photographs and completed the registration of 13 additional sets which reminds the mistake I made recently when I wrote that over 7750 sets had been completed overall, In fact it should read 7250. The total now is over 7300. Later I complete anther 130 photos.
I then commenced to watch Peter Jackson's King Kong having added all his films, available from the DVD rental firm to my view list. Not on the list is Heavenly creatures although I remember the film well as I do King Kong and it is the other films I wish to see. Jackson's film is the last version in a line of creations since the black and white silent version of 1933 which I have seen but I am uncertain about the Son of King Kong also made in the same year. King Kong vs. Godzilla 1962 made in Japan and in colour, King Kong escapes 1967 another Toho, Japan, production were followed by the 1976 Jessica Lange and Jeff Bridges edition and. King Kong Lives in 1986 was made by the same company.
There has been a series of literary works which attempted to create a world of prehistorically animals Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 and The Lost World and Edgar Rice Burroughs 1918 The Land Time Forgot are the most well known which provided the back story for the film. There have also been numerous books about King Kong and Skull Island. In the Peter Jackson film I had not realised until today that Kong is played by Andy (Gollum) Serkis. He is also seen in the film as Lump the ship's cook, barber and surgeon who dies after fighting a group of worm like creatures.
Rather like Flood it is possible to question the length of the film over three hours I liked the film in theatre despite its length and the DVD provided the opportunity to take a detached view but I still found the relationship between beauty and beast moving. Mr Serkis went to great lengths to reproduce the movement of a gorilla decided that those in captivity were inadequate and went off to view creatures in the wild. The film has a simple message if you play with fire you will get burnt. While the gorilla is conquered humanity is diminished. Apparently the company was appointed after the initial public response with the film only taking over two hundred million dollars in the USA and costing over 200 million to make. However it made another $300 million from world distribution and close on $200 million for video sales and rentals. I appreciate this was only a $500 dollar profit less its publicity and marketing costs which are said to have amounted to $60 million. It is still 100% on the money invested. Jackson all sued a 3 D camera which is the "new" thing on the bloc and an HD DVD is also planned.
I was watching a film the other evening on a Sky Channel and in the corner a box appeared showing the same frame smaller size but in sharper definition which I assumed was HD. There was a significant difference but not sufficient for me to take out an HD subscription.
I wondered how the makers of Flood were going to fill the additional two hours of their second part and why it was being shown from nine rather than eight as on Sunday?. The answer was evident and some of the estimated 200000 bodies commenced to float past in the Thames, although subsequent scenes of unexpected survivors was meant to reassure all those presently living in the London flood plain and elsewhere. There was the attempt to balance those who died, Tom Courtenay would get a national hero's burial while the suicide of the chief weatherman suggested a Roman approach to professional failure was being recommended to all those at the top so blinkered that they cannot join all the dots even when someone provides them with the tools to do so. There were several fundamental flaws. There was a hint that there would be some road closures to enable rescue and evacuation vehicles to move north south and east west and vice versa across London as well as commandeering the M25, but everyone else appeared to be able use roads to travel in both direction when the state of emergency should have made all roads one way out of London filling up cars with people given the two hour warning. The other was the obvious one of using all buildings with floors above the estimated waterline, hence the appearance of so many people from windows and roofs should not have come as a surprise. Given that phone lines had to be cut to civilians in order to ensure good communications for the emergency services and that electricity would also go down, it does occur that everyone should be advised to have at least one battery powered radio to hand with a sufficient supply of batteries so to be able to receive instructions and advice. I was also amazed that attention was given to the inevitable looters, this would have been a waste of life savers and demonstrated the thinking in the box mentality which used to pervade central and local government but which I hoped had been eliminated and would continue to do so as albeit slowly the small local authorities are amalgamated in terms of units capable of being effective in the world as it is. Here in the North East the local elections were for the creation of the new unitary local authorities covering the Counties of Durham and Northumberland which means the transferring of public housing, leisure and local planning, as the counties already had responsibility for Education and Social Services. However there is still the need for building up local small scale teams to deal with local small scale emergencies and then for these teams to become part of regional and national structure if states of emergency are required.
However the big flaw in the production, which was necessary to maintain the aspect of a personal drama involving the key characters concerned the one solution to prevent the flood extending to whole of the London area. Tom Courtenay works out that if the Thames barrier is lowered at the right moment the force of water released from what had become a dam coupled with the changing tidal force would catapult the rest of the funnelling surge back into the sea. This was said which such conviction that I presume it is scientifically feasible although I immediately had questions relating to the height and width of the breach beyond the barrier gates. However because of the loss of electricity and presumably the lack of any effective secondary local generation, and which did not seem plausible, the gates had to be lowered manually and therefore this involved the heroes of professor, on and daughter in law being the only ones to do the task on their own with only one other helping military officer. Putting to one side the absurdity of this aspect it is only after they have gone off and are tackling the task that the central emergency team work out that the most effective way is to black the gates apart and this solution is only called off when the manual lowering works. This was a double incredulity. First that this solution was immediately considered and put into effect and secondly that it was called off. The programme makers could argue that the manual solution preserved the gates for future use but we were told that this was the only solution to prevent the further loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. I suspect the programme, times for maximum viewing attention over the weekend immediately after the Mayoral elections and before the Commons vote to give government power to detain people for longer than 28 days in certain circumstances without charge, was intended as softening up, It would not surprise me if within a year the government under public pressure mounted a series of trial evacuations from the centre of London and other cities. It will also have done no to persuading taxpayers to meet the costs of new coastal defences and new storm drainage systems
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