Category: Video

In View of Y Mynydd Du

A couple of weeks a go a piece of serendipity occurred. I was in South Wales for the first time in 15 months. I guess for some people that wouldn’t be unusual, but we have family in the valley and in years when we were not all locked to our homes we would visit every couple of months. So this was the first time we had managed to get to see family since New Year 2019.

This wasn’t the sernedipity.

I have a good friend from university, Malcolm. He has a Caterham Lotus 7 which if you don’t know what that is, it is a car, A cute little two seater sports style car. It doesn’t have any fancy things like windows, or a roof, or space. In fact you are sitting two people in a space not much bigger than a bath tub. On a frame that weighs about 400 kilos with a 1.8 litre engine. That sounds like a small engine, the brake horse power is only in the low one hundreds, but the power to weight ratio, that’s the fun part. You are also sat about fifteen centimetres from the ground, with the rear axle behind you.

Malcolm has always promised me a little jaunt, a jolly, a buzz, in the Lotus 7. I have always wanted to because it is like a roller coaster without rails. i.e. bloody good fun, and more than a little terrifying on the first trip.

So the serendipity. I was in wales, with my family and I tweeted such. Malcolm contacted me and said that he was fifteen miles away doing his first road trip since the lockdown ended. He then asked if he could whisk me away from family. I have 3 kids, I was with relatives. So we determined a 5a.m. start and a quick jaunt up to the Black Mountain (Y Mynydd Du) could be done. The jolly was on.

What entailed was a thrilling morning. It was cold. It was windy. It was exhilarating. And it was even funny when the road chippings bounced off your forehead. Thankfully I was pre-warned so I was wrapped up warm. Malcolm, bless, had the foresight to bring spare goggles and ear muffs for me, which was a god send sparing most of my face from debris and my ears from being pummelled into my skull (did I mention that it was loud and that the exhaust was 110 centimetres from my head?)

I took some, very shaky, footage with a mobile phone. I took enough to edit into a small film (I added some car sounds taken on a different trip with a microphone that wasn’t in the slipstream. I also added some tunes to help with the experience. It’s short, I recommend you watch it to see the scenery and the smile on my face masking the partial terror I also felt.

I have been promised another jaunt in the not too distant future. I cannot bloody wait. Thanks once again to Malcolm, you casn check out his website and YouTube channel: Malcolm Anderson, Seven Drives, https://se7endrives.wixsite.com/seven… – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLyMVPqGXnNasgXYVeZYhkQ. Additional music on my video is by https://soundcloud.com/beardmont.

Black Mountain Buzz (press play to start)

IRC train

  • Video
  • Thursday, 18 April 2013
  • 0

During the Hackathon last weekend I suggested that people inject a little more whimsy into their lives. So Tom decided to run this across the twitter and IRC feed we had on the Raspberry Pi and on the projector.

Jelly Fish

I am fascinated by Jelly Fish when you see them in aquariums. It is something about the movement that tantalises my attention, I find it rhythmically enticing, it lures me towards it. Thankfully I don’t do scuba as I would likely end up in a swarm of them being stung into oblivion.

There is also something repugnant about them, they look like they have mucus strung from them, as if a shark sneezed and it swam away. I find this intriguing as well.

So they are hitting something on a boundary between fascination or enticement and revulsion or fear when I see them, perhaps that contradictory state, ambivalent in some ways, it what draws me in closer.

The angler and the lure…

I was just successfully fished by a creature with no brain, awesome. A bit of video from Blackpool Sea Life Centre follows:

He Bangs the Drum

“Ye Gods No!” I cried when first i heard.

“How could they be so cruel?” I followed with as the realisation sank in.

Then…

“Well it isn’t all that bad, really, at least it is electronic,” as more information was forthcoming.

The reason for all this, well Linda and Steph have bought Ben a drum. I know, I wanted him to be a musician and they buy him a drum to thwart my dreams of a son who is a Rock-Star-Movie-Scientist-Author-Poet-Model-Samaritan-Hero, if he turns out a drummer it’ll totally Ringo him is my big worry “Peace and Love,” Ringo, “Peace and Love.”

Anyway, he seems to really like it, well it makes a noise and it lights up when he hits it, what’s not to like. And at least it isn’t a tin drum, I believe my brother once got one of those for Christmas and it had disappeared by Boxing Day, something about “loud noise” and “attic” is what my mum said.

Anyway, here is an obligatory video to amuse you.


(if the video doesn’t run in your browser then please use this link: He-Bangs-The-Drum download link)

Mark Keating
The Quick View Mark Keating is an odd male with roughly five decades of chronological competence in his girth. He is married to Leigh a girl of great patience and unsurpassed kawaii-ness. They both live in Lancaster, UK, conveniently since they are wed, with their sons, Benjamin, Elliott and Asher. They are terrorised by a cat called Darwin and various tropical fresh-water fish.