Archive for May, 2005
I got back from the Lake District yesterday (more about that soon!) so thought I’d do a spur-of-the-moment-ish trip to Thorpe Park this afternoon to try out their latest ride, Rush, which opened on Friday.
Unfortunately, it was not to be. Although it was testing throughout the afternoon, the TP website only said Rush “may be temporarily unavailable throughout the day” and signs around the ride area said “there will be limited opportunities to ride”, it never actually opened.
According to some very friendly staff (how you can be friendly after the 500th person has come up to you that day asking whether the ride is open when they can clearly see it is loaded witha full set of water dummies testing is beyond me), they were getting it working with both gondolas at the same time rather than the single one they were running with on Friday.
By the end of the day, Heath & Safety had signed it off completely, so it should be ready for tomorrow at least. Guess who’s expected on park tomorrow? Yep, Sky News, reporting on the new ride. Coincidence they should want to get it running 100% for then? I don’t think so…
A disappointing wait, but made easier by chatting with the staff. I also bumped into another ECC member and we rode a few other things together, so not an entirely wasted journey. At least I renewed my Annual Pass ready for the ECC trip the week after next too!
Just five and a half years ago, the London skyline was changed dramatically with the erection of the London Eye. Since then, it has offered a bird’s eye view of the Capital to millions of locals and tourists alike.
Tonight, the Eye is in danger of being pulled down. The South Bank Centre has served an eviction notice, effective from July 1st.
The action comes after the SBC tried to increase the rent from £65,000 a year to £2.5million - even though the original agreement was that it would only eventually rise to £210,000.
To me, loosing the London Eye would be extremely sad. It has already become an icon of the Capital, is a great tourist attraction, and provides fantastic unique views over London. Hell, it probably even brings people to the South Bank who wouldn’t otherwise venture there, so its probably doing good for the SBC itself.
It seems the whole City is already up in arms about the news. Well known supporters of the Eye include Tom Conti, John Humphrys, Nick Ferrari, Alastair Stuart, Lowri Turner and Will Self. Nick Ferrari’s radio show should make for interesting listening in the morning…
Jo sent me the following questions a couple of days ago and its taken a while to figure out some of the answers. This is an update to the pass-around-the-email surveys which have been doing the rounds over the last few years. This is more a pass-it-around-the-blogs type thing, meaning its actually much more useful and interesting because you can see what everybody else has answered.
Total volume of music files on my computer is…
Strickly speaking, none on this computer, but with the power of a LAN I have access to 2113 files on another of my PCs (135hrs, 29mins and 10secs of music according to Windows Media Player).
The last CD I bought was…
Woolworths had buy one get one free in Kingston last weekend, so I filled out my collection a bit with some slightly older things I probably wouldn’t buy at full price: Stereophonics - You Gotta Go There To Come Back, Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP, Queen - Greatest Hits and Queen - Greatest Hits II.
Song playing right now…
Can’t Keep a Good Man Down by John Miles
Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me…
In no particular order, songs that mean a lot to me include:
- Elton John - Circle of Life “From the day we arrive on the planet … there’s more to be seen than can ever be seen, more to do than can ever be done.” Life is supposed to exciting, and discovering new things and having new experiences is the ultimate excitement. The best news is there’s too much to do so I’ll never run out. Inspiring!
- The Hollies - He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother “And the load doesn’t weigh me down at all. He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.” This song always reminds me of the last scene in All Quiet On The Western Front. OK, so I don’t have any blood-relation type brothers, but I’ve got plenty of friends who fit into that gap. I know I’m not always perfect at carrying you guys, but I promise you its usually my underlying intention even if I cock it up.
- Delirious? - There Is An Angel “There is an angel, and she’s watching over me.” I certainly need watching over
This song has got me through a lot over the last three or so years.
- The Calling - Things Will Go My Way “Nothing seems to work out right, I’m broken down again. So hold me now and say it’s not forever. Maybe someday in time things will go my way.” The anthem for PhD students worldwide.
- John Miles - Music “To live without my music, would be impossible to do: in this world of troubles, my music pulls me through.” Sums up my feelings nicely, and as a bonus this piece of music is awesome as well.
Five people to whom I’m passing the baton…
That’s for them to know and you to find out. Actually, I’m too lazy to send it to anybody. Instead, if you take this and fill it in yourself either use a trackback or post comment below linking to your blog entry.
I bet they didn’t forecast this. There’s a huge storm brewing against the BBC’s new weather graphics. At least its not just me! It even made the front page of The Times this morning.
The BBC’s own Have Your Say debate on the subject is rather sparse on the praise front, with some real gems including “We may be the land that only got electricity last week, but I can assure you that, in spite what the weather forecast implies, we are not a desert” and “God is allowed to mess around with the weather. The BBC shouldn’t even try!”
It never rains but it pours: 
A Scottish MP has tabled a Motion in the House of Commons, urging the BBC to rethink the 3D effect which means Scotland is barely visible at times.
Clouding the issue, a BBC spokesman responded to the various complaints about this by saying that Scotland is actually in proportion to the rest of the UK, its just that its further away so it seems smaller. Well yes, that would be what everybody’s complaining about.
There’s a sunnier side to it all though, giving plenty of material for the satirists: Deadbrain claims there has been widespread panic across England after a forecast made it look like much of England was under water. The article goes on to suggest “Other viewers are also reported to have suffered sickness after one 3D-flyover went haywire, zooming repeatedly from Cardiff to Southampton before doing a pirouette and heading for the moon.”
While whoever decided the new graphics were a good idea must be hoping all the fuss will soon blow over, they need to get some of their staff onside first. On this evening’s 7 O’Clock News on BBC Three, the presenter seemed less than enthused by the new system. To paraphrase: “Let’s have a look at the new-look weather, and as you can see there’s a lot of it. Tomorrow half of the country will be covered in a blue splodge, while yellow rectangles will hover over some major cities and Cardiff will be 14.”
I’d love to see the duty log - presumably the staff are struggling to deal with the blizzard of complaints.
I think we can expect some major tweaks over the next few days. While its doubtful they’ll go back to the previous graphics, I would expect a few of the old forecast features to reappear in slightly modernised form soon. In the meantime, I highly recommend Metcheck for anybody who wants to know more than temperature and whether its going to rain or not.
Yuck!
Today the Beeb unveiled their new weather graphics. Out of the window are the old two-dimensional maps and famous weather symbols, to be replaced by fully animated 3D fly-throughs and, well, very little information it seems.
Our country may be widely known as a “green and pleasant land”, but according to the new weather maps it is more of a desert - and a muddy brown splodge of a desert at that. 
Maybe they know something we don’t know about the impending heatwave and global warming?
The friendly rain cloud symbol is out with the rest too. Now there’s a dodgy animation of bright blue puddles instead. Cloudy weather is signified by a slight change of colour on the basic map from light brown to dark brown.
Apparently the idea is that’s more accurate than the old symbols which covered areas of up to 200 miles. It just makes it harder to see what the hell’s going on if you ask me.
The 3D effect has the UK at such a strange projection you can barely see Scotland at all on the full UK picture. Oh well, it always rains there anyway. Aside from that, if you live anywhere apart from London and Manchester, you’ll need to revise your Geography to work out where you are on the map. Let’s just say they could do with a few more placenames. On the forecast just now even London wasn’t labelled!?!?!?!
If you’re interested in wind direction and strength or isobars then it seems you’ll have to look elsewhere for your weather from now on (surely most people understand high and low pressure?). First of all they dumb-down the 6 O’Clock News to a level even an inebreated chimpanzee could understand, now the weather has been chav-ified too. Unfortunately, its dumbed down so much it took me ages to work out there wasn’t a fault with the graphics and they really were trying to show me something.
I expect there’ll be a bit of fine tuning over the next few days, but overall its a very disappointing makeover at the moment. Its obvious style is now placed over content. Mind you, the style isn’t that great either. The UK has been turned into a puddle-ridden muddy splodge.
I spent the day today with Tom and Hywel at Chessington World of Adventures. Thankfully the weather forecast had improved substantially since Monday when they predicted a couple of inches of rain for today. Instead it stayed dry, if a little on the cool side.
By the time Tom arrived at the park, Hywel and I had already done Vampire, Dragon Falls and Peeking Heights. 
Yes, Hywel had managed to get me up 79ft in the air on that bloody observation wheel almost before the day had even started. Why do they have to make the thing so tall? Surely it would be just as good at ground level.
The park wasn’t particularly busy so we managed to do all the normal stuff: Dragon’s Fury, Tomb Blaster, Rattlesnake, Bubbleworks, Dodgems (sorry Tom - let me know if you need a new limb), Runaway Train, etc, etc.
For some reason though, we spent a lot of time on Dragon Falls and Peeking Heights. Somehow, Tom and Hywel always manage to arrange for me to be at the front of flume boats, so I always get first dibs at the splash. Today I think I was attracting water, more so than usual.
I don’t mind getting wet, but I don’t particularly like heights. As many of you will know, I’m weird so I’ll often go anyway even if I do utter huge complaints. I ended up/was forced on Peeking Heights three times today. It seems a lot higher than it did at Thorpe, which didn’t really help. Mind you, its fun to be scared!?!! Apparently its part of my “de-sensitisation programme” ahead of Oakwood and Apocalypse in the summer.
Anyway, it offers some great views over the local area. Unfortunately you can’t see my house, but you can see all over Tolworth and towards London. In the afternoon we were able to make out a hazy London skyline - I’m sure on a clearer day this will be fantastic. I guess I’ll be going up there a few more times!
All in all, another great day out. I wasn’t allowed to watch the Noddy show, but that was probably for the best. Peeking Heights offers great views, even if it is scary! Photos are online here.
