Home Thoughts: huskyteer

Home Thoughts

Having the early May bank holiday on a Friday would have been confusing enough at the best of times; as it was, it just added to the sense that time and date have no meaning.

My big adventure last week was replacing the battery in my bike, which is very fiddly to get in and out but I triumphed in the end. The old one wouldn't hold a charge so I had to walk down to my local mechanic, drop the old battery off for disposal and pick up the new one. It was so nice to have a face to face chat with someone different that I hung out for a bit over a socially distant coffee.

I'd decided I wasn't in the mood for VE Day, but when I was out and about on Thursday the houses with bunting looked so jolly that I relented and hung a flag from the balcony.

I had a busy weekend, by current standards: I baked muffins (in red, white and blue cases, because I happened to have them) with the tail end of a bag of frozen summer fruits, and pretzel rolls, and finished my latest aeromodelling project. This was a Huey helicopter kit I modified to represent a helicopter from The Living Daylights, and my first serious attempt at a custom build. It's a mess but I'm pleased with it.

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TV and movies: I agreed to review my friend's Black Archive on The Robots of Death, a Tom Baker Dr Who story, then realised I hadn't actually seen it. Luckily my flatmate could provide, and we watched it over our now-traditional Friday night pizza. I'm a sucker for a good robot story, and I loved this one, with its Art Deco robots and nods to Isaac Asimov.

My mum alerted me to The Battle of the River Plate on Saturday, which appealed not only because it's Powell and Pressburger-directed but has a cast full of people who would later be famous for very specific roles: Bernard Lee is the captain of a captured ship, and as far as I'm concerned this is now M's backstory, while Patrick Macnee looks surprisingly gorgeous a decade before The Avengers and right at the end we get a rare beardless Roger Delgado. I was especially pleased about surprise bonus John Le Mesurier, who isn't even credited.

Talking Pictures kindly screened a Humphrey Bogart movie I hadn't seen, The Enforcer, on Monday night. It was a strange film, but fun, culminating in one of the hammiest death scenes I have ever witnessed.

I spent Monday 'at' ConCon, the cross-government content conference, originally to be held in Manchester but moved online very competently. I attended talks on whether we can get rid of all the PDFs on government websites, on how Transport for London convey information to their customers and NHS Digital designed their app, and a panel where we collaboratively edited the Wikipedia entry on content design. I finished the day all enthused about my job and my community.

Bonus: I attended the whole thing in bed in my pyjamas.

Now the regulations have been relaxed so you can travel as far as you like for exercise, which means that technically I could ride to the coast and splash about in the sea. It's tempting.

ggreig

May 15 2020, 07:29:58 UTC 8 months ago

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"Please do not throw hands at me." A stand-out story, glad you're caught up with it.

Helicopter looks good to me too. If it's a mess it's one you did a good job of hiding. Other people won't notice.

huskyteer

May 16 2020, 08:21:40 UTC 8 months ago Edited: May 16 2020, 08:22:11 UTC

We may have accidentally embarked on all of The Key to Time now.

And thanks! You're right, of course, and other people won't notice the botched bits as much as I do, or at all. I have also convinced one Twitter friend to give model kits a go, which I'm very pleased about.

May 16 2020, 08:31:46 UTC 8 months ago

All sorts of things bother me about my models that other people just don't see, or care about if they do see them. It's something I have to remind myself about sometimes!

The Key to Time's a variable season, but everyone likes The Ribos Operation and I think The Stones of Blood is a bit under-rated. Enjoy!

May 17 2020, 07:59:55 UTC 8 months ago

I always think your models look fantastic, so that's a comfort!

Sarah started watching Stones of Blood last weekend and I realised why everyone loves Professor Rumford so much.

schnee

May 15 2020, 07:50:58 UTC 8 months ago

MMMmm, those muffins look tasty. And good work on the helicopter!

I attended talks on whether we can get rid of all the PDFs on government websites [...]

I'm curious, why would anyone want to do this? I'm quite happy that in many (though not all) cases you actually get PDFs these days, rather than Word/Excel files or other such things.

Now the regulations have been relaxed so you can travel as far as you like for exercise, which means that technically I could ride to the coast and splash about in the sea. It's tempting.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it … :D

May 16 2020, 08:20:02 UTC 8 months ago

PDFs aren't as accessible, or easy to find and search through, as HTML, so we're trying to use HTML where possible. (It's possible to create an accessible PDF but it's more work and people aren't doing it, grr.)