All posts by roger

Kittens playing – hilarious adventures with Sid and Lotty

Cats, , , , , ,

I love videos on YouTube of kittens playing. There are some great ones of them getting to grips with treadmills and photocopiers with hilarious results. Sid and Lotty are providing me with great material as they explore their world.

This video shows them playing with bouncy balls, watching the washer, riding on a brush, trying to understand the bubbles in a glass of coke, and finally venturing outside for the first time.

Over to you: If you like kitten videos, please post a link to your favourite by leaving a comment below.

Protect and Survive in Scotland’s Secret Bunker

Travel, , ,

scotland's secret bunker

I started seeing road signs for Scotland’s Secret Bunker a few years ago now. They start appearing just after the Forth road bridge crossing as you head north. At first this did draw a wry smile to my face. After all a sign revealing the location of something supposed to be secret is wrong by definition.

But then one day for whatever reason I Googled it. An intriguing story then started to emerge. The bunker was built in the 1950s, at a time when the Cold War was beginning to frighten politicians and the major powers were beginning to stock pile an arsenal of nuclear weapons. If there had ever been a nuclear war, a select group of individuals, including I assume, some of the politicians responsible for starting the conflict would rush to the bunker.

There they would survive whilst millions could have died in fires of nuclear
holocaust.
The bunker is now a tourist attraction and so it crept onto my “must visit list”.

After a surprisingly long drive (which the signs at the Forth Bridge give no indication of) you arrive at an innocuous looking farmhouse sitting in the middle of a wind swept field near Anstruther. Under the farmhouse a little staircase takes you to a 150 yard long tunnel that slopes down into the bowels of the earth ending with a couple of huge metal blast doors.

This is real science fiction stuff. Beyond the blast doors are two storeys of living accommodation, telecommunications equipment, radar monitoring devices and air and water purification plants. All this is protected by ten feet of solid concrete strengthened by tungsten bars.

My first thought was how did they build it without anyone knowing? It’s like the villains in James Bond films that build impossibly large high tech bases hidden in volcanoes or under coral reefs. My second was that the technology, whilst obviously cutting edge in the 1970s and 1980s did look a little like a cheap 1970s Doctor Who set.

But as you explore this underground hideaway you slowly begin to realise what it was really all about. And when you sit in the cinema and watch the“Protect and Survive” public information films a feeling of dread takes hold. Those films, which fortunately were never broadcast, showed people like you and I how to turn their houses into nuclear fall out shelters. But as if a few doors propped up against a wall and covered with sand bags would have helped protect you from a force that would have flattened the house in an instant.

Scotland’s Secret Bunker is not, therefore, a fun day out. But it is a thought provoking reminder of a different time when the world was closer than it as ever been to mutually assured destruction. There is no roller coaster rush of excitement here, but it does leave similar sinking feeling in the stomach.

scotland's secret bunker

Five Star Luxury Hotel in Cologne with Kolsh Beer Nearby

Travel, , , , ,

hotel in cologne

The Excelsior Hotel Ernst in Cologne is a luxurious hotel, if a little old fashioned, with its wood panelling and mirrors, but the service and the attention to detail is spot on. Very smart and polite receptionists sign you in and escort you to your room. I loved the fact that the rooms have old fashioned keys with heavy metal fobs.

Spacious bedrooms with fluffy pillows and quilts welcome you with their comfort – and I had the added attraction of a room looking right out onto the stunning Cathedral across the street. And it wasn’t a problem being so close to the bells as the thick double glazing keeps all the noise out.

There is a mini bar in the room and it is free. Okay so all it has is a couple each of beer, coke, fruit juice and water but it is nice not to be faced with additional charges for this.

Breakfast is a combination of continental buffet and cooked to order hot items. I particularly enjoyed their eggs and bacon. And the grapefruit juice was so fresh and cold I had three glasses both mornings.

Only slight niggle was that the room was very warm. There was a portable air conditioning unit in the room but switching it on was like having a jet engine spooling up in your room. Impossible to use at night.

The hotel is close to the main station, the aforementioned Cathedral and many restaurants and Bauhauses. Check out Gaffel Am Dom next door where you order Kolsch beer in small glasses of only 0.2l. The bar staff will simply bring you a refill whenever your glass is empty.

This led quite quickly to the end of the session with a bill amounting to “Two Sausages and 12 Beers.”

Updating a Cheating Memory – Day of the Daleks review

Entertainment, , , , ,

day of the daleks review

Okay so I’ve always been a Doctor Who fan. I love the modern reboot and especially the “timey whimey” stories that show runner Steven Moffat is so well known for. You know – he’s always getting things that happen in the future mixing with things that happen in the present. Or do I mean the past? The grandfather principle and all that brain aching stuff. Some people say it is too complicated. I disagree.

One of the earliest stories I ever saw – when I was just a little boy – was the Jon Pertwee story, Day of the Daleks. This had a very time travel paradox orientated story which at the time went over my head. I was more interested in the Daleks and the amazing battle they had with UNIT troops at the end of the story.

For me as a child I was captivated. My memories of that battle, with hundred of Daleks sweeping across the lawn of an Edwardian country house, exterminating the soldiers with their cool “negative” laser blasts, whilst the troops desperately fired mortar grenades at them, super-charged my imagination for many years to come……until I bought the VHS video when it was released 15 years later.

I watched in disbelief. What happened to the battle I remembered? The actual reality was just three battered old Dalek props struggling to glide across the grass whilst a couple of soldiers fired cap guns at them.

Of course when it comes to TV and films that you watch as a child, the memory cheats. My young mind had embellished what it saw with the more descriptive prose of the later novelisation and created a false memory of a spectacle that was way beyond the production and budget capabilities of the 1970s BBC.

However it’s not just me. It seems that the memory cheated for many more people who remember the story with fondness. So hats off to the producers at 2:Entertain for the recently released DVD of the tale. The team have gone back to the original filming locations (such as Dropmore Park in Buckinghamshire) and re-shot some scenes using a 1970s film camera, retro Dalek props and new people dressed as soldiers. On top of this they have added better explosions, more lasers and had the modern Dalek voice artist, Nick Briggs, redub the sound track to make them sound super scary.

The remarkable result cures the cheating memory. They have produced a special edition that is true to the exaggerated memories I formed as a child. Pertwee is still a fabulous Doctor. Here he is authoritative, charming and resourceful and shows a particular fondness for red wine whilst fighting his enemies. And he has the best line in the script with his put down of a pompous Government Minister, “Look try and use your intelligence man, even if you are a politician.”

Day of the Daleks was always a great story and script let down by poor production. Now that the old flakiness has been polished we can enjoy this top rate tale as the memory intended. And what a story. Guerrillas from the future traveling back in time to the present to kill the person they think created their Dalek subjugated future (sounds a bit like The Terminator doesn’t it? Except DOTD came first!). It’s a time travel paradox that I never understood as a child.

Now I can understand it, and can watch the show as the tour-de-force my memory always told me it was.