who said Ray Winstone? Not a chance. Sexy Beast? Amazing in that. Scum? He’s your Daddy now.

I’m still buzzing after Amyl and the Sniffers in Camden on Wednesday night. So much fun. In the mosh pit for the whole set. Brixton tickets for June already booked.

I sold mine at the start of the pandemic. 2008 Genesis Flyer, it was my only bike for a long while and then my commuter… always fixed except for a brief foray into freewheeling. Everything was replaced at least once apart from the frame, forks and rear wheel. Then I stopped going to an office and I’ve never been back so off it went. Kind of regret it, riding fixed is a joy.

Thanks, this is helpful. I guess I’ll just hope something either turns up in the post or my inbox on Monday or Tuesday. I hate ticket agencies too!

nobody else wears old skate shoes with their flat pedals?

Chisel is on my radar too but where can you actually buy one??

guild navigator gets wasted on spice & folds space

I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t get to see DV’s interpretation of what a guild navigator would look like, I know they’re not “central” to the story but it would’ve been cool to see.

A bit confusing this, during the sequence on Caladan where they hand over power to the Atredies, there are 5 humanoids in big robes & glass helmets filled with orange gas. When I saw it first I thought these were the Navigators, but the Emperor’s herald chap says the party has 3 representatives from the Guild of Navigators with it. So maybe these 5 are trainee navigators and the 3 main ones are up in the heighliner still, having been completely mutated from the Spice and unable to walk about any more.

Feyd-Rautha won’t be in the sequel. This version has (sensibly) dispensed with him and focused on Rabban instead. On re-reading the book it really struck me how little Rabban is actually involved in the action, he’s mostly mentioned by other characters talking about him off doing this or that. In this movie he’s front and centre as an antagonist and it works a lot better movie-wise in my opinion.

Just finished this. Tamiya kit. A bit different from the box art!

EDIT: obviously I have no idea how to embed images: https://www.flickr.com/photos/70071315@N02/51659955094/in/dateposted-public/

I think they will go down the hard reboot route, James Bond will return, all cast will be different, nobody will remember anything etc etc. JB will be 15 – 20 years younger again and off we go on a new set of adventures.

Just (today) fixed for 5 years at 1.something, can’t remember exactly but it’s well below 2, well below inflation, and will give us loads of time to plan the next step if interest rates do go up in the next few years. I think this is the longest mortgage I’ve had in 20 years of home ownership!

Who else had the catalogue from the video shop lying around the living room on top of the box of tapes? With all the video nasties listed. C.H.U.D was one I always wanted to watch but never got to.

This movie genuinely gave me nightmares as a kid, I watched it once when I was about 8 (with my parents) and it really freaked me out. Especially the bit with the steak bursting open with maggots and the ghost hunter ripping his face off. I avoided it for YEARS afterwards and finally at the age of 45 saw it again.

Honestly, I am embarrassed that 8 year old me found Poltergeist scary. It’s bordering on satire at points. The bit where the dad takes the ghost hunters up to the haunted room is properly played for laughs. But I could only think about the stuffed toy under the bed…

I’ve just seen it and I agree, it is spectacular. Loved it. Visually stunning, hews very close to the plot of the book with only a few bits removed for clarity and a better cinematic story. How many years till part 2?? I really hope it gets made…!

I think they have been peak fashion for a while now!

Doesn’t hurt that much if you get a good artist. Think of a compass needle being scratched along your skin. YMMV and some bits hurt more than others. I have heard that the stomach is unbearable.

Speed also artist dependent. Kind of hard to say. You could probably get a pretty chunky bit of your arm done in a couple of hours.

Finding someone good / you like is probably the hardest thing. Have a look at instagram, they are all on there. Where are you? I can recommend a guy in Edinburgh…

We don’t know what happened, we just went out in the garden first thing and it was lying dead at the edge of one of our flower beds. A tiny bit of blood on its neck but none of the carnage – feathers all over the place etc. – you’d expect from a fox or cat attack. Maybe another adult seagull went for it.

All a bit sad and I wish I had tried to get it back on the roof. Perhaps it would have just ended up in our garden again anyway.

The seagull chick has sadly not lived through the night 🙁

I don’t know what kind, looks like a regular seagull? Your everyday seaside hooligan seagull type.

In the words of my son “my opinion on seagulls has completely changed having this chick growing up here.” Don’t get me wrong, I will never forgive the seagull who nicked a fresh mcdonalds cheeseburger right out of my hands after I had worked an 8 hour shift and was absolutely starving… but they are pretty competent buggers.

It’s now flapping its wings and jumping up onto stuff, I reckon it will be flying in a day or two. We seem to have an uneasy truce with the parents. Perhaps the know we’ve put down water for it and have kept our dog at bay…

yes I am aware the cuteness is temporary and it will soon be ripping open bin bags in the street and stabbing pigeons with its beak.

The parents have been remarkably tolerant actually, they have only dive bombed my youngest child 🙂

But the guano is an issue. My neighbours’ roof looks like Bass Rock.

I’m from London originally, moved up here to Edinburgh 15 years ago. We kind of found Portobello by chance, if we hadn’t I don’t think I’d still be here. I am pretty ambivalent about Edinburgh itself, kind of feels like living in Disneyland for the festival laden bits of the year, the traffic is a joke for a city of this size and the roads are a permanently being dug up. But Porty is great. I can walk to the sea in 2 minutes, drive to a surfable beach in half an hour and it’s 45 minutes to the Tweed valley. Great community and none of the staid Edinburgh vibe. As a result it’s quite desirable now and on the local FB page there is a fair bit of grumbling about incomers and London types with money coming in and driving up house prices.

East Lothian is really lovely, especially at this time of year. But as others have said it’s not super convenient to get into the city. Gullane and North Berwick are nice but driving in from them gets tedious – windy coast road. Dunbar has much better access but the town is a bit meh.

Lots of really exceptional beaches in East Lothian. Proper world class.

@easily

I don’t think anyone has mentioned John Wyndham. The Chrysalids is my fave.

Yes! I love this book and have done so since I read it as a kid. Reading it again now. This book I think kicked off my long interest in post apocalyptica. Which obviously reached its zenith with Riddley Walker, which should definitely be on this list.

Also everything by Cordwainer Smith should be included.

And Star Maker and Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon. Amazing.

Rewired (and replumbed) our entire house 18 months ago. It really is that messy!

I’m not too worried about the subsidence as I am expecting the house to bounce back again come the end of June.

Think I could deduce latitude from the horizontal lines if I knew the length of the day on the solstice. Need to think this through more.

the Betoota Advocate (Aussie Daily Mash) called it a couple of weeks ago: https://www.betootaadvocate.com/uncategorized/federal-government-announce-huge-stimulus-package-for-floundering-influencer-industry/

PSA: they had chainsaws in Aldi when I was there on Friday.

thanks again, I need to find some time to make sense of all this over the weekend and get something ordered. cheers.

Thanks both for the tips. He’s definitely not full grown yet but that’s coming soon so a full size would definitely be a better long term bet. It’s quite nice to investigate purchase of something and find they are quite a lot cheaper than you were expecting too.

As for bands, he seems to be into Gorillaz a lot at the moment, he’s arty too so the Jamie Hewlett angle interests him. And last weekend I played him some old Senser tracks which he seemed to like!

vintagewino jr is also an aspiring artist, he just got one of these things at Christmas. It plugs into his laptop and he uses it to draw on a freebie programme called Krita that your son probably knows about. It is a Wacom, the smallest one I think but it seems to work for him and it was within his budget of less than £40. I’d say that was the most cost effective solution, one that works on its own is probably edging towards ipad territory I’d have thought.

I’d say Edinburgh, and by Edinburgh I mean Portobello. Great here!

I paid a bit over 4k for mine, included a bone graft too. 8 or 9 years ago now. It seemed like a lot at the time but it’s the best 4 grand I ever spent. That was in Edinburgh.

yes I was going to debadge it, the seats are admittedly a problem though. Definitely investing in a steering wheel lock.

Thread bump – clearly my xmas-addled brain undervalued the Focus – insurance came through with >£10k! Having sat in a few Audis and Golfs and other things over the last few weeks, and read everything I can on Autocar etc, the Golf R is in the lead. Going to look at a promising 2016 one tomorrow…

I looked at the Skodas this afternoon, the Superb is actually a pretty big car up close. I think the Octavia or Golf estate is more my kind of size. So many diesels out there though!

Thanks for the other tips, I will walk down to the local car souk later and look at the Skodas again.

Thanks for your concern Singletrackmind, I live in a 5 bedroom house in one of the nicer parts of Edinburgh, I guess car theft can happen anywhere!

Definitely going to consider the Golf option, that wasn’t on my radar but Autotrader ads look promising. Couple of A4s also look interesting. After the event and reading these posts I’m surprised it took 6 years for my car to get taken. I think I will miss it 🙁

thanks so far, informative on the car tips and also how they get nicked! I guess I should also be thinking about how to prevent the next car from getting stolen…

Yes keyless ignition. Both key fobs are still here in the house so I have no idea. Maybe you can spoof the car somehow? Window was broken for access, there is glass on the pavement where it was parked.