Scargill

Happy New Year from Maureen and I to everyone.  I wonder how your NYE went?

By teatime on 31st Dec in our part of the Northeast, the roads were freezing over and as usual the council were failing to keep with the programme.  The plan was to set off to our friend’s place and park the car there. They would then take us to our destination “Derwent Manor” – to celebrate the end of, for many, one of the worst years in living memory.

With roads reduced to blankets we set off, rarely getting over 10mph for fear of heading straight on into the nearest hedge. With the help of a little grit, we parked the car up for the night and headed off in Bob and Margaret’s Lexus which, I have to say handles icy roads superbly. As you’ll see in the pictures below, everyone had a marvellous time, dinner at 8pm (we sneaked in our own champagne) and after a superb show by a “Take That” tribune band, the party went on until the early hours of the morning.

On the assumption that a picture is worth a thousand words….

So, we had a great night and now it’s 2010, the start of a new decade – and hopefully a much nicer one. I’m busy reading a book by the founders of Ecademy, a leading social network..who quoted a speech by David Cameron, leader of the conservatives and for better or worse the guy who will head up the next government… and I quote:

“Today, in a speech to the Open University, I set out our plans for a radical redistribution of power back to the people: from the state to the citizens; from Whitehall to communities; from bureaucracy to democracy. This is a massive, radical change. But I believe that through decentralization, accountability and transparency we can take power away from the political elite and hand it to the man and woman in the street”.

Let’s hope that 2010 is the start of a new and exciting decade! Happy New Year everyone!

We were talking about Global warming….

Christmas 2009 – United Kingdom

• Scotland sees temperatures of –16C
• Heavy snow warning Eastern Wales to see 10” OR MORE of snow
• Incoming flights cancelled
• Northern Ireland – water off due to freezing
• Northeast of England – freezing, bitter cold rock-solid ICE

Warming, my BACKSIDE!!  Can we have some please!!!

If you liked the MATRIX – you’ll LOVE this…

As we sit in the UK enjoying our traditional Christmas festivities, over in the USA once again someone is trying to blow planes up. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab fastened explosive powder to his leg and tried to set of an explosion using a syringe aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253. Fortunately he failed thanks to incompetence and the bravery of quick-thinking passengers.

Sadly, once again freedom suffers as airlines tighten up security, which means ONCE again because of a particular subsector of religious fruit and nut cases, all of us are to have delays increased and any shred of the “thrill” of flying removed, not to mention the renewed fear of something happening on OUR flight. Not THAT big a deal until you multiply it by the untold millions to whom this applies – and yet we have no say in his punishment!!

I cannot for the LIFE of me understand why they are treating this man in hospital!! Why on earth didn’t they leave him to the press and perhaps the passengers instead of saying to terrorists the world over “don’t worry, if you happen to strap explosives to yourself and have an accident, we’ll look after you in hospital”.

If someone has no regard for their life or the lives of others why on EARTH should we care if they suffer? Apparently he was TOLD to do this. Well here’s a simple solution – provide all the passengers waiting to board planes with a nail each and get a religious leader to come up and tell them to stick the pin in themselves-  and those who do – shoot them on the spot!

Well, not quite yet. I’m waiting for the inevitable price war in January wherein hopefully Orange will drop the price of their phone – as Voda and Tescos start to bite into sales….

I’ve already started a wish list and first on the list is a power extender.. http://www.powerskin.co.uk/

Do you have a list of must-haves for the iPhone – please do let me know!

Given the current festivities, those less likely to be drawn into the “God made the lot” view may well get there share of wonder by taking a look at this video, which starts off with a close-up view of the earth and as scientifically accurate as possible, zooms out to the very edge of the known universe. What’s REALLY impressive is that we’re actually capable of making something like this in the FIRST place. If you have the bandwidth, view this in HD and full screen. Very impressive.

Despite atrocious weather and the worst flu I can recall which has been pestering me for days and has now caught Maureen, we headed off to the new MetroCentre Imax cinema last night to see the long-awaited AVATAR movie.

So there are two aspects to this – the new Imax cinema and the movie itself. Despite a completely misleading picture in the local Journal newspaper recently, showing a normal cinema screen, the new digital Imax screen did not disappoint. For those living on an island for a generation, Imax cinemas traditionally feature MASSIVE screens using an ultra-wide film format to provide the best cinema that money can buy – this is NOTHING like your parent’s cinema – we’re talking huge screens with virtually perfect imagery. While the MetroCentre is not the largest Imax I’ve seen by ANY stretch of the imagination and it’s digital, not film, the results can still be described as totally realistic and “awesome”. So if you’re an old hand at Imax theatres you might want to try to get to London or similar monster varieties of Imax but if you’ve never been to an Imax before – the new MetroCentre complex will blow you away. Seats were comfortable, price was no more extortionate than usual and the only let-down was the exceeding TIGHTNESS of the person providing my Nachos with Jalapenos. None of the cinema staff at the MetroCentre seem to have been taught how to pronounce Jalapenos (“Jaleepeenoz” as they call them or “hah-lah-PEHN-yo” as the rest of us call them) and you’d think they were in short supply. As were were a tad late I let them get away with it – I’m normally prepared to start world war III over being cheated.

Then there is the movie. Again for those who don’t get out much, Avatar is James Cameron’s new outrageously expensive movie set on a distant planet in the very near future where we’re off pillaging as we’ve used up our own resources – and that’s the one thing about the movie that got me – I felt a TAD as if I was being lectured – the people who need lecturing are some of our third world friends who think that global warming is a Yankee plot – not us!

And that’s it, that is the ONLY complaint I can make about a movie that is totally mercerising, totally believable, has utterly believable aliens the likes of which you’ve never even remotely seen before, which features total 3D throughout and which had me choked up on several occasions as the story line was also (unlike many sci-fi movies) an absolute classic. Thanks to the 3D you’re in the jungle right next to these creatures so close you can see the hairs – and they STILL look “real”. Amazing and somehow exhilarating.

Put it this way, if Avatar does not win every award it is possible to win, I’ll consider there’s been a stitch-up. If you do nothing else this winter break, get down to the cinema, preferably a 3D Imax cinema and watch this feast of imagery. Make sure they don’t cheat you on the food though!

When Star-Trek first came out (not that I’m making any other comparison) nearly every aspect of it was science fiction – flip-phones did not exist, plug-in memory modules did not exist, touch tablets did not exist – all of which featured on the original shows as pure fiction… and so on. Ignoring the more exotic items like warp drive and the transporter, the majority of innovations that viewers saw on the original Star-trek either now exist or have been considerably bettered…. and so it will be with Avatar. As you watch the movie, only the brain-dead will fail to be moved by the totally believable 3D displays, manned robots, the Avatar system and more – and I confidently predict that by the time my grandkids grow up, virtually everything we saw in Avatar will be either common-place or old-hat. Maybe we’ll find a habitable planet, maybe not, but the rest – definitely.  You just HAVE to see this.

No comment….

There are those who feel that social networking is a fad… this video then is well worth watching and might prove something of an eye-opener.  I only wish that companies who make these things would remember we don’t all live in America… Non-the-less – this is interesting stuff.

So, is social media a fad… or the biggest shift since the industrial revolution? You decide!