Category: Uncategorized

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Into May

As we head out of April

Stage one (of three) for the garden is now complete and as of May 8 we move onto Stage two which is the shed build.

Various bits are being donated which I love as it makes it all the more personal but, a hell of a lot of it needs to be bought.

Thanks to amazing friends and family the labour is free albeit for the cost of some lovely grub and gallons of fluids. It’s at times like this I realise how lucky I am.

As many will know, it is important for me to get this done because, my first attempt left me financially very short and the job was worthless. I lost over £3000 to crooks on it and despite a court win it’s really unlikely I’ll see that money again. Travellers (what I discovered they were) seem to be able to get away with just about anything it seems.

My deadline for Stage two is the end of June with stage three finished early in July unless we move a lot quicker on two. Stage three is a more relaxing small thought area for bonding and relaxing.

Passport Issues

Fair to say that the Philippines Embassy in London isn’t very good.

Dennis’s passport expired in February and the earliest renewal date we could get was April … 2022!

Our concern there was that his final UK visa application is due in June 2022 and he needs a passport for this process. It was a huge risk renewing it so close to the visa.

Thankfully, at around 2am the other night I was able to book a cancellation for July this year so, happy days.!

As we won’t really be able to have a holiday this year I have turned this into a little mini break for us in London.

Seat Ateca

Whilst it is a lovely car it’s also got issues.

Geography seems to be the biggest issue.

It will randomly switch the adaptive cruise control from miles to kilometres and vice versa. The effect of this will be, for example, deciding that the road is now 60kph and applying the breaks heavily to get down to 37mph! or deciding that the road is 70mph so, it converts it to kph and speeds up to 120mph rapidly! I know, it makes no sense.

The crap dealership in Northampton, Motorvogue (avoid them as they’re crap) told me effectively that I was imagining it and to go home. I took it to Milton Keynes Vindis and they were able to replicate the issue.

As yet, still awaiting a fix though.

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Stargate Atlantis

I am watching this again and am noticing things which somehow I didn’t before notice which may have been explained away in Stargate previously and I have just forgotten.

The Ancients: As the name suggest, an ancient race of people who were at least several thousand years ago on earth, possibly much older. The series encounters their relics and they have a language, not a shock but it is called ‘ancient’ and here is a picture:

As you can see, doesn’t look very English in any way and yet, shockingly, whenever we get a flashback, they speak English, a language which for absolute certain didn’t exist anything like that long ago and they had no reason to develop it either.

This being the case, every planet that the team encounters in the Pegasus galaxy seems to be speaking English very well, all of them being descendants from the Ancients much like we are.

Certainly in the early parts of Season One, they never think to pick up the stun guns the wraith use which with two shots knock out a wraith rather than the almost total clip of bullets which barely do the job. At the very least, it would stop the wraith giving enough time to blow up their arses!

In Atlantis itself we see amazing preservation considering they describe it as 100’s of 1,000’s of years old. Not only that, it’s been on the seafloor.

Questions: Why when the shield started to fail did areas get flooded? Think about this, why build doors strong enough to prevent the flooding spreading everywhere yet not to stop the place flooding in the first place? (we might presume the shield itself held back the water, not the doors). Why did the city not resurface as soon as it started to flood when the shields failed?

Time: When visiting another planet the locals are asked how old they are. Unless their planet revolved around the sun in exactly the same way as ours does, days, months and years would not be the same so it is a meaningless question.

Anyway, just a few things I have noticed since I started watching again.

Maybe you have the answers?

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We don’t want to hear, we’re not interested

I don’t know how to start this really and, to be be honest, by the nature of what I am about to say, many have already lost interest!

Is it a modern thing I wonder?

More and more recently I see some in society less and less interested in anything outside of their small interest zone. Attention spans seem very short too.

I am aware of ‘cancel culture’ and I know what it is and, how I generally feel now is like that. Others feel an entitlement to shut up anyone who says anything at all that they personally have no interest in or, which makes them think even if they agree with the conclusion. Now, that said, anything more than two lines and the self same people have stopped reading and, that’s fine, leave it there, not interested, turn away, subject closed but no!

Not only do they not read the piece but without completing it they then feel compelled to make it public they’ve not read it. it’s the same ‘boring rubbish’ and they don’t feel it has any place showing up in their lives.

Now, we are talking ‘online’ here, most of these same people wouldn’t dream of being so rude face to face or so brazen but, online, anything apparently goes and is acceptable.

Back in the early web we had these people, back then they were called ‘trolls’ and their only aim online was to pretend to play devils advocate or to put an opposing opinion whether they had any interested in the subject or not, no comment about anything no matter how mundane would be left unchallenged by them. The objective, in truth, was to shut down online discussion for or by certain people they had decided shouldn’t have an online persona.

One of the scary parts now is this … if we are told to ‘shut up (because we’re boring)’ we are not permitted to complain about that in any shape or form else it’ll only get worse. Those people take it as a personal affront should someone dare challenge their right to say ‘we’ are boring.

Example at the moment would be the virus. Discussion on it has become a big no go area it seems. So controversial is any opinion on the subject. I’ve been told I best shut up commenting that anyone is breaking the lockdown because ‘no one wants to hear you go on and on about it. let other people live their lives how they want’ (the irony).

Politics, they’re not interested because ‘it makes no difference who is in power so, why bother?’ and as such, any political conversation is slammed as boring or a waste of their time.

My view all along is, the more they say we should shut up because they’re not interested, the more we shouldn’t. I have some historical precedent there in that so many in the Jewish community in the 1930’s didn’t want to complain, didn’t want to rock the boat they turned a blind eye and it came back and slapped them in the face.

In the USA just now, so many sat by not wanting to get involved that they very nearly got themselves a dictatorship out of it, one of the most democratic countries in the world almost lost their way because of their culture of not getting involved.

You see, and this is just my opinion, those telling others to shut up are the very ones who create the conditions for disaster either to cover their own wrong doing (in the case of the far right) or, to a smaller extent, to not wear a mask. I’ve even been slammed down for being critical of cannabis and I’d be forgiven for believing that anyone and everyone reading believes that we should all be wanting to spend our entire lives with cannabis use being everywhere and legal whereas the truth, most likely, is they just don’t want to get involved so, when it comes down to it, what is likely to happen with cannabis use? Of course, those with the loudest voice, the users, will win through because the others who don’t want it legal just didn’t want to upset anyone, didn’t want to get involved.

Anyway, the decision I have made, reluctantly, is to shut up, not get involved, leave them to it. My age is rapidly making me irrelevant anyway so, few will notice. My one personal decision won’t change anything for anyone, it’ll just give me an easier life as I take less and less interest in the world around me other than those things which directly affect me because ‘me’ is what society is now, all about ‘me’ and ‘they & them’ are the ones to blame for everything but no one knows who ‘they or them’ are so they just stick with ‘me’.

Well, good luck with that, let me know how that works for you long term!

Actually don’t. I’m not interested!

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My retirement heaven

I am going to have to rely on a lot going right and some answered prayers to make this real and without compromise but, this is where I see my latter days being:

In a cute house like this, no, it wouldn’t have this much land, many just have the plot they are built on but that’s OK. The one below is probably more likely though just what is available for 6,500 a month is open to question! I’d probably say double it for a complete home (£185 a month). They seem to offer houses on an unfinished basis which has the bonus of giving a choice but, at the same time, by definition, isn’t finished and can’t be lived in until it is.

Spending my days doing crazy things like this

Or this

Seeing cuties like this

Chilling on a beach like this

Or splashing in waters like this

and the local architecture looks like this when I want it to

For a beautiful floating restaurant, this cannot be beaten.

When I want to do some retail therapy, this will do

If I want the UK familiar or, just flippin’ good take out, I’ve a great selection and this is just a tiny selection!

Getting about is easy (though pre-booking is sometimes a good idea)

Not sure what that is in £’s? Divide by 65 Which makes a Big Mac meal £2.95 for a medium.

The weather I hear you ask (he lies because this is the internet)

But, to keep this real because, nowhere is perfect …

There can also be flooring and the occasional Typhoon causing mass destruction oh, and earthquakes but, nothing to you know, worry about!

If we have the right property in the right place we’re safe, the wrong one and we need a boat and a storm shelter nearby!

In context, an earthquake in the Philippines of around 5 can cause total devastation because of the poor construction of many of the properties in poverty hit areas. In the UK, our largest recorded earthquake was a 6.1 with 3.5-5.7 a lot more common somewhere in the country than many of us realise. The last two Bohol quakes were in 1990 & 1996 and were similar to those we get here.

What we do not have here are the strongest cyclones of anywhere on the planet so best not to take those too lightly.

In context again …. I have been in a 6+ quake in Los Angeles, Florida has regular hurricanes and we just missed Sandy hit New York by days which decimated wide areas all around the state.

On the plus side, there are no active volcanoes on Bohol or Panglao!