m4rcus

Last weekend was one of camping in a £10 Tescos tent with 1000’s upon 1000’s of other people, drinking, eating bacon, cheering and watching some great bands/groups at the Isle of Wight Festival 2008. Upon arriving at the campsite at around 4pm after the ferry journey from Portsmouth to Fishbourne, it was unclear how so many people had set up tents in the four hours that the gates had been open… so off we went to the second furthest field away.

No sooner than we had set up our tents and we’d started drinking again it started raining. I had visions of when I went to Glastonbury ‘97 where it was a little muddy… The £10 Tescos tent had a small leak… but for that price I wasn’t suprised! A little over an hour later it stopped and didn’t really rain for the rest of the weekend, result!

A trip into town the following day allowed me to buy an inflatable matress as, due to getting on a little, sleeping on my foam camping mat that I’ve had for the past 18 years left me with aches and pains all over my body! Who said camping was fun (when you’re 30+)?

The music was spread over three afternoons and nights and offered something for everyone. Some people questioned the ‘weak’ lineup, but I had a great time. Listening to music with 50,000 other people, in such a small space, is something to experience. Queing for the loos, bars, food, entry from the camp site to the main arena was all part of the long weekend. As was the 1.2 miles of walking from the tent to main stage… enough time to walk along and drink a can, as past border control they were £3.30 each(!)

ITV2… they were the channel who were covering the weekend, but if you ask me, their coverage was very weak! 3x 1 hour and a bit shows across the weekend and a special a few days later and that was it. The special was worth it though as we (those that could get back to where we were standing earlier on in the day) were on TV during the Kooks! The Kooks should have been good, but on the camera shot, us and others around looked a little bored/pissed.

So that was that. Now onto something that is a little out of season. Skiing.

Whilst skiing this year I purchased a Sportube Series 1 ski carrier to transport my skis around as I decided that a bag just wouldn’t protect them enough form the bag handlers at airports… Also the skis cost several hundred pounds, so spending $98 was a small price. I brought the item from REI in Reno and it wasn’t until I got back to Lake Tahoe that I noticed one or two items were missing. When I returned to the UK REI were initially less than helpful with sorting me out with the missing parts. I contacted Sportube directly and they were more than happy to send out the missing items. They turned up the other day and I’m happy to say I’d recommend the company to anyone. So if you ski, snowboard, fish or waterski, these guys will have a case to protect your goods.

That was a comment from an unknown person at The Kills gig at The Wedgewood Rooms in Portsmouth that Friday about the lead singer. She had a tendency for pacing up and down the stage like a caged tiger at Marwell whilst wearing a very frowny face that really didn’t suit her cute face… ah well at least the music was good. I did however spot that some of the intros of their songs reminded me of a couple of other songs, eg The Star Spangled Banner… and some others I cannot remember anymore, but there were some. Drinking has that effect from time to time…

The other band on that night were These New Puritains. They, I’m glad to say did not suck. I thought (with my vast knowledge of music and genre) that they sounded like a cross between house music and The Streets. And for me, on the whole, it worked very well. They had a single played on Radio 1 the other night, and much to my amusement I recognised it as being theirs! Check out both bands, you might like them.

So here is the ‘random crap that gets updated once in a while’…
What have I been doing since noticing that Google Calendar was incorrect? Here’s a quick run down…

• I got fatter,
• I’ve recently got thinner, (I lost ½ stone at xmas being ill)
• I’ve very recently got fatter,
• I’ve been going to the gym, (sometimes, must start going again)
• I brought some skis, (skis costs far more than a snowboard)
• I didn’t run in the Great South Run, like I said I would a year ago… see first line in the list,
• I’ve carried out many things on my car to keep it running,
• I’ve got annoyed that motor factors cannot supply with the correct parts first time to do the above,
• I plan on selling the damn thing,
• I created some cool lighting for my bed, details later… (much later, needed the parts)
• I gave blood again and this time I got a key ring,
• I was planning on giving blood again, but the reminder came through the day after I was meant to go,
• I’ve gone payg, and I’ve saved a small fortune already,
• I had my bank card used to get some travel money, but not by me, which left me in France with a bank card that no longer worked.

Now onto the present. I’m off on holiday this week, four days in work and then off to the airport. I going, even though I currently have a very dodgy back situation. Ie, someone might be carrying my bags for me. How did it happen I hear you ask, if you didn’t ask then skip this bit about the Victory. My old friend from Uni, Jo, came down this weekend and we went and did some tourist stuff. Living in Portsmouth, we headed over to the Historic Dockyard. It’s a snip to get in at £17.50 each(!). The ticket is valid for a year and there’s so much to do… well sort of. It was a cloud free, bloody chilly day and due to getting up late we only went around the Victory and had a look at the Mary Rose, and it’s museum. The last time I saw the Mary Rose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Rose (click link to Wikipedia for more info on it) was apparently before 1985. I and so many other local school kids had a day trip to see a collection of wood that was once a ship, lying on its side cradled by a yellow frame. In 1985 it was moved into an upright position… now it’s something to look at. It’s undergoing a complex process to help protect it, the jets you can see are not just spraying water… I think I’ll go back in 3-4 years time, once the protection spraying process has been completed and they redisplay it. Don’t forget the museum for the Mary Rose, you can handle things like an original stone cannon ball, and try on armour.I did my back in on HMS Victory. It’s got some very low beams, living and working onboard must have been a nightmare, even if people were not six foot back when it was designed and built. The route around the ship is mainly spent (for me) with a bent over back, until you go up on deck and see where Nelson was fatally shot, then it’s back down to back breaking low ceilings… This was the second time I’ve been around the ship, but as I was so young, and it was such a long time ago, I remembered nothing of it. It’s quite amazing what they were able to cram into every available space. So if your back is good and you like history type stuff then go and spend a small fortune on a day down at the Historic Dockyard in Portsmouth. www.historicdockyard.co.uk/

Anyway, once you wake up from the deep sleep I’ve inflicted on you, I’m off on holiday this week, so expect more updates as the two weeks away progress. I must keep this more up to date… and yes I forgot to post this up to, so it’s out of date… oh well…

For those of you that use the country holiday function in Google Calendar… it’s probably not worth it as it seems to be a little wrong! It told me that mothers day this year is today… it’s not, it’s actually next weekend. I had to find the answer on wikipedia which was.

France (except if it coincides with Pentecost day, in which case Mother’s Day will be shifted to the first Sunday of June)

How crap is that? At least it means that the card that I sent over to my Mum who lives in France will now get there on time as it’s not turned up yet.

It’s now Monday night and my arms and hands still hurt from the karting on Saturday… The Stag Do sort of started on Friday night for the people who had to travel down, as the weather was good the good old burning of food over a pit of coals was the order of the evening (along with far too many drinks) I passed out about 12 midnight.
Saturday, the Stag Do proper… we all met at the Karting track. 12 eager men getting excited about racing each other around a track in a small kart. With Matt, the groom, as my team mate I was the first to set off in the rolling start, 7th in a field of 11. By the time 3 laps had passed I was out in the lead which I apart from one lap I held til the change over half way through. Matt took over and then had to race his dad for first place… It wasn’t until the last few laps that Matt over took him and drove on to victory. I got the fastest lap by the way!
From there it was on the road, the road not the race track, must remember the road. The hotel was in Bournemouth and at £25 a person, we were not expecting too much… but The Kingswood Hotel was okay it had a bed and a shower which was just enough. It was then off into town for a quick drink or two and for Matt to get his boxers taken from him due to a hen party… After a bit of food, we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the night out.

Last night it was a trip to Bournemouth for Navids 31st birthday party. I took my new camera along to see what I could come up with without doing anymore reading of the manual… They were mostly blurred and grainy photos, great… it will mean that I need to read it all, probably several times

After the events that happened here, I tired to claim on the holiday insurance. Something that has so far proved to be impossible, so much so I’m going to go to the FSA and see what they come up with. My advice is to not use Drakefield Insurance Services Limited, who run gotravelinsurance. I’ve tired to explain to them that the French Police (who have guns!) do not issue a report for a lost item, but they don’t care, they want a report…

This week I finally got round to getting some contents insurance for the flat and specifically asked Virgin Insurance, as they do up to 60 days abroard insurance, if they would have paid out. If they didn’t I’d get some holiday insurance that would pay out, no, wait, already tried that. As it turns out after a chat to the claims department, they would have been ‘happy’ to pay out as I’d done everything I could. Also if you don’t pay your years insurance in one go they split the cost with a 0%APR, which is nice.

Once I’d got the flat insurance I decided to go and buy myself a new camera and hope the FSA would get Drakefiled to pay up. If not then it would hurt my pocket a little. I had one brand in mind, Canon, and for a long time I was just going to go for the Canon 850 IS. The 900 didn’t really interest me as the 850 has IS - Image Stability. It uses motors and things to adjust one of the lenses to remove camera shake.

After a lot or research I stumbled across the Canon G7. It’s a sort of a mini SLR without the SLRness, but with the ability to attach a huge flash and extra lenses. After reading the review on this website I was sold on the idea. It only cost an extra £50 over the 850 from Amazon and an extra £140 from Jessops, so I went to Amazon. How do Jessops keep going?(!)

After spending what seemed like several hours of reading through the manual I was brain dead. There are so many settings it’ll take a while to work out how to use them all.

So now I have a camera, insurance that will cover it and a steep learning curve ahead of me, unless I use the Auto setting, but then there is not a lot of point in buying it in the first place.

I’ll post some pictures up in time, along with a review of the Canon G7.