I have a great sense of rapidly vanishing time and find myself in a rushed mood which I will find difficult to break out of.
Up around 8.30 I write this around 2pm waiting for the lack of sleep overnight to hit me. I missed the Olympic event of the day from the British perspective. Rebecca Adlington is just 19 years of age and was not expected to win a medal in her second performing race the 400 medley with the 800 a medal possibility. The U.S.A swimmer Katie Hoff was expected to take the gold and led the whole race until the final seconds. Rebecca with team mate Jo Jackson were in fourth and fifth position as they started the last free style lap and giving no hint of the final burst which led her to touch the finishing line first and Jo pushing on with her third. At the last Games in Athens the British swimming team managed two medals in total and neither were gold. It is 48 years since the last women's gold medal and 20 years since a male won which gives perspective to the achievement. Needless to add, the two girls, their families and friends and the rest of the nation went bonkers.
However the News programme put the games into perspective with the news that Russia were not responding to Georgian calls for a cease fire, Russia claiming that Georgia were pretending and continuing aggressive acts. The situation appeared to deteriorate during the day which a message of concern expressed by the USA government to Russia who appears now set on taking over the country and establishing a pro Russia friendly regime. This has wider implications that for Georgia. I wonder what Americas role, behind the scenes has been in all this and how far the attention of the world on the Games has been used as a cover for the development. As an outsider there is now way of know what is really happening and why and who is involved and who is not.
This was the brilliance of Spooks a series on a special home land security task force in he UK after 9/11 and 7/7. What made the series a must see was the writing of the core stories and the quality of acting as well as the written interactions between the actors.
The new Spooks Code 9 is a poor relation. This is the story concept. There is a minor nuclear explosion set off in central London which kills about 100000 and with an unspecified number anticipated to die or become extremely sick as a consequence of tradition. It is signalled early on in the first episode which I saw together with the second on BBCi player yesterday evening that the event is being used to introduced an authoritarian government into the UK and that it is by no means certain that the event was externally inspired. The second core concept is that with amazing the bomb wiping out key homeland security people but apparently not the government and others amazing deciding to leave the service and go into private work the government decides on a new approach of recruiting very young and inexperienced new field operatives. The problem is that the actors appear as inexperienced and immature as this nonsense concept. The third concept idea is that after the team leader behaves in a naive and stupid fashion and get herself killed the new leader is a concept boy. He is not action man but a probability mathematician. Such ingredients take good writing and good acting to have any chance of working and impressing an intelligent audience which the programme is aimed at. I suspect the series is a government inspired recruiting vehicle or double bluff to convince that by creating such an awful programme the government would never do in practice what the programmes portrays. I enjoyed it nevertheless but will rely on the BBC player to watch at times convenient to me when I am in the mood and have nothing better to do.
Although I tried to go back to bed after putting the bin out I got up and attended to washing up as well as washing me after breakfast of French Toasts. There was an early lunch of stir fry chicken and more washing up. Later a real ham sandwich with cumber was sufficient for the rest of the day after a few peanuts and sup of wine all that was left. I had some grapes after lunch and two fresh peaches late into the evening. The level of exercise was poor with only a limited amount of being up and about the house although I did walk the short distance to the post box and back up the hill.
The main activity during the day was research and plan more about my London. I looked to see how long it would for me to get into central London from Croydon by bus and the standard journey involving a couple of bus changes takes one hour and a half. The train journey from East Croydon to Victoria takes 15-20 minutes involving one stop. I looked at the present Travel Card costs and although there is a cheaper three day card, it is cheaper for me to buy single journeys going through the cross link from Kings Cross on Thursday and then a train to Victoria for the coach station on Monday. I am going to the south coast by train on the Sunday direct from east Croydon so that only leaves the value for a travel card on Friday and Saturday depending on the extent to which I will be using buses on the underground. I have now established that there is one showing of the 3D version of Journey to the centre of earth at the O2 Vue Millennium Dome at 11 am on Friday and Saturday. It might be a tight time task on Friday going from East Croydon to Victoria and then changing at Westminster for the Jubilee Line to North Greenwich and safer to try on Saturday when I can use the travel card before 9.30 I am interested to see the difference in techno nearly half a decade since using hand held read and Green 3D glasses and it would be good to go back tot eh Dome now the O2 auditorium and also being used for the second visit in my lifetime of the Tutankhamen exhibition. However I have now discovered that it is showing at the Vue West End a more reasonable time 1.30 although the cost is £9.95 a ticket compared to £6 at Greenwich.
The plan is then to go a free concert by a female singer at the Royal Festival Hall at 6pm. There is also a free Burlesque show at 10 at the same venue but the getting back might be a problem as well as reality overwhelming! Much better to return and write up the experiences of the day until then as well as getting up early for the Olympic specials. On Saturday there is a choral concert at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the proms and I fancy going tot eh proms and before then possibly a visit to the Victoria and Albert fine arts museum which is also in the South Kensington area, perhaps finding a pub for lunch and including tour around the Hall.
An alternative option is to spend the afternoon in Portsmouth taking a cheap day return.
The rest of the evening was used by attending to technology issues and the challenges posed by problems with a lap top. I am determined not to be beaten by the problems in this instance although have to ensure I use the time available in a balanced way. I need to remove some information from the machine and then go into recovery mode which takes the machine back to factory standards but loses the data. A similar option is a solution recommended for the desk top as means of working out why the card reader is not reading although appear to be working. Additional technology devices are involved. A USB card reader which is Vista and XP friendly. A cable/wireless and software to transfer data between computers and a secondary data storage device. But I need to ensure I understand how these will work and any problems before purchasing. It all points to reducing cricket watching over the next two days and getting on with other things.
Up around 8.30 I write this around 2pm waiting for the lack of sleep overnight to hit me. I missed the Olympic event of the day from the British perspective. Rebecca Adlington is just 19 years of age and was not expected to win a medal in her second performing race the 400 medley with the 800 a medal possibility. The U.S.A swimmer Katie Hoff was expected to take the gold and led the whole race until the final seconds. Rebecca with team mate Jo Jackson were in fourth and fifth position as they started the last free style lap and giving no hint of the final burst which led her to touch the finishing line first and Jo pushing on with her third. At the last Games in Athens the British swimming team managed two medals in total and neither were gold. It is 48 years since the last women's gold medal and 20 years since a male won which gives perspective to the achievement. Needless to add, the two girls, their families and friends and the rest of the nation went bonkers.
However the News programme put the games into perspective with the news that Russia were not responding to Georgian calls for a cease fire, Russia claiming that Georgia were pretending and continuing aggressive acts. The situation appeared to deteriorate during the day which a message of concern expressed by the USA government to Russia who appears now set on taking over the country and establishing a pro Russia friendly regime. This has wider implications that for Georgia. I wonder what Americas role, behind the scenes has been in all this and how far the attention of the world on the Games has been used as a cover for the development. As an outsider there is now way of know what is really happening and why and who is involved and who is not.
This was the brilliance of Spooks a series on a special home land security task force in he UK after 9/11 and 7/7. What made the series a must see was the writing of the core stories and the quality of acting as well as the written interactions between the actors.
The new Spooks Code 9 is a poor relation. This is the story concept. There is a minor nuclear explosion set off in central London which kills about 100000 and with an unspecified number anticipated to die or become extremely sick as a consequence of tradition. It is signalled early on in the first episode which I saw together with the second on BBCi player yesterday evening that the event is being used to introduced an authoritarian government into the UK and that it is by no means certain that the event was externally inspired. The second core concept is that with amazing the bomb wiping out key homeland security people but apparently not the government and others amazing deciding to leave the service and go into private work the government decides on a new approach of recruiting very young and inexperienced new field operatives. The problem is that the actors appear as inexperienced and immature as this nonsense concept. The third concept idea is that after the team leader behaves in a naive and stupid fashion and get herself killed the new leader is a concept boy. He is not action man but a probability mathematician. Such ingredients take good writing and good acting to have any chance of working and impressing an intelligent audience which the programme is aimed at. I suspect the series is a government inspired recruiting vehicle or double bluff to convince that by creating such an awful programme the government would never do in practice what the programmes portrays. I enjoyed it nevertheless but will rely on the BBC player to watch at times convenient to me when I am in the mood and have nothing better to do.
Although I tried to go back to bed after putting the bin out I got up and attended to washing up as well as washing me after breakfast of French Toasts. There was an early lunch of stir fry chicken and more washing up. Later a real ham sandwich with cumber was sufficient for the rest of the day after a few peanuts and sup of wine all that was left. I had some grapes after lunch and two fresh peaches late into the evening. The level of exercise was poor with only a limited amount of being up and about the house although I did walk the short distance to the post box and back up the hill.
The main activity during the day was research and plan more about my London. I looked to see how long it would for me to get into central London from Croydon by bus and the standard journey involving a couple of bus changes takes one hour and a half. The train journey from East Croydon to Victoria takes 15-20 minutes involving one stop. I looked at the present Travel Card costs and although there is a cheaper three day card, it is cheaper for me to buy single journeys going through the cross link from Kings Cross on Thursday and then a train to Victoria for the coach station on Monday. I am going to the south coast by train on the Sunday direct from east Croydon so that only leaves the value for a travel card on Friday and Saturday depending on the extent to which I will be using buses on the underground. I have now established that there is one showing of the 3D version of Journey to the centre of earth at the O2 Vue Millennium Dome at 11 am on Friday and Saturday. It might be a tight time task on Friday going from East Croydon to Victoria and then changing at Westminster for the Jubilee Line to North Greenwich and safer to try on Saturday when I can use the travel card before 9.30 I am interested to see the difference in techno nearly half a decade since using hand held read and Green 3D glasses and it would be good to go back tot eh Dome now the O2 auditorium and also being used for the second visit in my lifetime of the Tutankhamen exhibition. However I have now discovered that it is showing at the Vue West End a more reasonable time 1.30 although the cost is £9.95 a ticket compared to £6 at Greenwich.
The plan is then to go a free concert by a female singer at the Royal Festival Hall at 6pm. There is also a free Burlesque show at 10 at the same venue but the getting back might be a problem as well as reality overwhelming! Much better to return and write up the experiences of the day until then as well as getting up early for the Olympic specials. On Saturday there is a choral concert at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the proms and I fancy going tot eh proms and before then possibly a visit to the Victoria and Albert fine arts museum which is also in the South Kensington area, perhaps finding a pub for lunch and including tour around the Hall.
An alternative option is to spend the afternoon in Portsmouth taking a cheap day return.
The rest of the evening was used by attending to technology issues and the challenges posed by problems with a lap top. I am determined not to be beaten by the problems in this instance although have to ensure I use the time available in a balanced way. I need to remove some information from the machine and then go into recovery mode which takes the machine back to factory standards but loses the data. A similar option is a solution recommended for the desk top as means of working out why the card reader is not reading although appear to be working. Additional technology devices are involved. A USB card reader which is Vista and XP friendly. A cable/wireless and software to transfer data between computers and a secondary data storage device. But I need to ensure I understand how these will work and any problems before purchasing. It all points to reducing cricket watching over the next two days and getting on with other things.
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