I’ve just returned home from watching “Serenity” at the Ozone Multiplex as Grim wasn’t available to see it on Thursday evening. All I can say is, “Oh, my God!” If you’ve not seen it already then do so.

It’s definitely a good film even if you generally don’t like SciFi, ‘cos this is definitely not your normal stuff. It’s hard edged, funny, harrowing and character driven with some action and space ships thrown in. What it isn’t is sugary Star Trek or hammy Star Wars or even “Sleeping in the Light” Babylon 5.

There’s not a lot I can say without giving spoilers, so I’ll wrap up by saying that it’s not only the character Mal who can be brutal and callous when he has to be, Joss Wheedon can be too. And no-one (except perhaps to a degree Kaylee) gets to live happily every after.

[Update]

I think that this review does a very good summary.

Apparently “Serenity” (the film which follows up Joss Wheedon’s short-lived series “Firefly”) opens on Thursday at the MyVue cinema in Reading (Oracle). Would anyone like to go and see it?

Happy autumnal equinox!

Well, it seems that in the last few days that Google Earth has added high resolution images of my old home town of Bedford and the villages I grew up in….

• The house I grew up in (Houghton Conquest), 52 03′ 35.01″N 0 28′ 38.34W
• Secondary School (Rushmoor School), 52 08′ 38.44″N 0 28′ 55.99″W
• And the house I lived while studying for my ‘A’ levels (Wood End Lane, Pertenhall), 52 16′ 52.51″N 0 24′ 40.71″W

It’s surprising what you can see even if the resolution isn’t as high as many places, such as Rachel and Graham’s house, Ramtops (51 20′ 00.13N 0 50′ 27.41″W) where you can see individual cars.

The docks at Portsmouth are quite detailed.. you can see HMS Victory in its dry dock along with the mothballed HMS Intrepid and HMS Fearless, the old assault ships, moored next to HMS Ark Royal.

It’s a pity that the high resolution swaths don’t include Oxford, or Alec’s house or the school I studied my ‘A’ levels at (Kimbolton School), which is based in the castle Catherine of Aragon was detained in. Maybe they’ll come later

My sympathies go out to those millions of people affected by the hurricane last week which hit Louisiana last week. However, it was a disaster waiting to happen and a lot of the reasons have to do with human society’s stuborness and short-term interests. This is why:-
opinion peice

I was amused this morning by a quote from a potentially serious article in The Register from a Microsoft spokesman about a potential threat to Windows where a virus/worm may hide itself in the registry due to a quirk in the way applications read it:-

“Our early analysis indicates that this attempt to bypass these features is not a software security vulnerability, but a function within the operating system that could be misused,” the company said in a statement. “Microsoft is reviewing the report to determine further details and whether there is any potential impact for customers and will provide appropriate customer guidance if necessary.”

OK, so, it’s not a security flaw, it’s feature which naughty people may use.. So, that’s OK then, obviously.

Last night I didn’t have time to write anything other than a very quick note on here about the yachting in the Solent last Sunday and Monday, so this posting will attempt to redress the balance.

Monster posting ahoy

Last weekend I was invited by Rachel and Graham (and Graham’s dad) to go yachting on the solent.

It was fun, except for Monday’s rain. Here are some photos. Due to the weather they were all taken on the Sunday.

In this article from the BBC news web site about building a silent aircraft there’s one statement which I, for one, would disagree with quite a lot, and that is:-

“For passengers we think it will be like flying in a cinema or theatre seat.
“People are used to that and I think they will be very comfortable with the new design.”

Now, if I couldn’t see the outside and the whole “room” was moving and jolting without any external reference I would feel very uneasy indeed. During the only flights I have taken i sat at a window seat one way and a centre seat on the way back. When I could see out of the window at an external reference point I was fine.. I could understand how the plane was moving and why. On the way back I found it very disconcerting not being able to have an external view and only disjointed motion from the seat.

How do other people feel about this?

The last few days I’ve been camping out in the Oxfordshire countryside, meeting people, listening to music and trying to avoid getting wet. Yes, it’s the Cropredy music festival.

This year they had such innovations as street lighting, a fun fair and a bar which stayed open ’til 2am.

Anyway, here’s my story… it all began on Wednesday evening when I discovered that my air bed was terminally leaky. This meant that Thursday morning I’d have to go to Touchwood Sports and pick up a new bed as there was no way that I was going to sleep straight on the ground. So in the morning, I was up early enough to finish all the packing I could without packing the car itself. I was out by 8:15, got the petrol and struggled through the rush hour traffic to get to the shop.

While in the shop being survived I got a phone call from Lindsey saying that they were half an hour away from Banbury’s Tesco (our rendez-vous point). Because it was probably at the most problematic point it could have been when shopping, I quickly said that I was shopping and that I’d get there as soon as I could. However, it seems that Steph and Lindsey mistook this to mean that I was already at Banbury Tesco.

Anyway, I got home and was in the final process of packing stuff in the car when I got another phone call from Lindsey asking where I was and that they were waiting by the Tesco entrance. When I told them that I was still packing she got a tad annoyed. Anyway, it meant that I had to rush the packing a bit and forgot one or two items. It took me about half an hour to get to Tesco and after arriving and finding the Hunts we took off to Cropredy itself.

We got a reasonable camping position, next to the Cricket pitch. I unpacked and pitched the tent as quickly as I could as I had done no shopping, had no drink and was parched and headed back out to Tescos again.

The rest of the day was merely getting back to the camp site, getting ready and moving to the music field for an evening of music. I didn’t sleep well over night.. the countryside is just too noisey.

Friday was fine. It started with the traditional breakfast at the farm, which is now an arts centre, continued with socialising, cleaning my D70 with a can of air I’d bought at Maplins in Banbury the day before and listening to music. Oh, and taking a few pictures. Strangely enough, I did manage to sleep well overnight.

Saturday dawned bright and only high cloud but I knew from searching weather web sites with my Treo that it wasn’t going to last. Because of this, I packed up my tent and made sure that everything important was stowed in the car. The rain was due at 1pm and it arrived on time. However, the original forecast of only a couple of hours of rain was way too optimistic, hence, for most of the afternoon and early evening I, along with my big umbrella, became the main tent post in a tent roofed with a tarpallin. This tent, orginally occupied by many people, slowly became less and less occupied until it was just me, Steve Howe and his friend Lynn.

At about 6pm there was a slight break in the weather. Steve Harper arrived and we changed shifts and I went off for a comfort break and some food. I was starving as the bad weather had arrived before I’d managed to get any lunch. I miscalculated the time it would take for the next load of rain to come along after looking at the Met Office’s weather radar so got a bit wet then waiting to be served with food.

The music was fine though. Reggae, rock and roll, folk and Richard Digence.

Finally, around half seven, the weather cleared up and people started coming back onto the stage field. I took a few more pictures using my IXUS (as I’d taken my D70 back to the car to protect it from the weather). Fairport Convention came on, played for a few hours and then it was over.

I finally arrived home at about 2:15am this morning and got to bed at 3am.

Today’s been a bit of a blur. I’ve been shopping but other than that not a lot happened other than putting stuff away and accidentally falling asleep randomly when sitting down on my sofa. Now I’m off to bed.. work again in the morning… no more holidays ’til Christmas.