Repairing my Car

The car before work began. Will she ever be whole like this again?

Today I started the long job of stripping the engine of my car to allow me to remove the head and replace the head gasket. I removed the radiator and its surround but only after spending over an hour cutting off a small nut and bolt at the bottom of the radiator holding a large bracket that supports the air-con pipes.

The coolant as it drained out, yukkk!

The coolant that came out of the rad was a horrible greasy brown mess and certainly points to a failure of the head gasket. I don’t think I have a cracked head as there is no smoke in the exhaust and there is also no coolant in the oil.

The radiator and its shroud are out

It may be a slow start but it nice to make a start. More posts as the strip down continues.

Red Dwarf X

I  have just finished watching the 3rd episode of this new series of the Dwarf and I have enjoyed them all.

The first episode took us straight into the story like we had never been away with no lengthy explanation of who the characters were and the situation they were in, I liked that.

The fact that these episodes have been recorded in front of a live audience has shone through giving us a much more natural delivery from the cast.

The stories have been interesting and true to the original series and I hope that they do not succumb to the mistaken belief that a female character is needed, every series they have done so has been ruined. The chemistry between the characters is perfect without this although female characters in some episodes have helped to further the story.

The latest episode has highlighted something that the original series did quite well and that is to put the characters into a historic setting and build a new history around them but in a way that means history remains unchanged. In the latest series it was Jesus turn to be a throw away character, but is it the real Jesus?

I do hope that they keep up the quality that permeates this new series and give us something that the short series Back to Earth did not. 

Car Troubles

I havn't posted anything just lately as I have had a spot of car trouble and I have been looking for another vehicle to replace my Kia Sportage which has a blown head gasket. I will be posting about the Olympics and also about a few railway events very soon

Olympics - week 3

I am actually writing this after the Olympics have finished. I couldn't write anything before-hand as I was assigned to an important client, an American called David Koch. His personal fortune is around $25 billion so for the sake of security I had to keep this quiet. He spent the week at various Olympic venues as well as around some of the sights of London and the surrounding area. Accompanied by three of his friends and shadowed everywhere by his security man they enjoyed a very expensive holiday.

Driving around London was surprisingly easy with the famous Olympic Lanes being agreat way to move around in a hurry. I used the one down the Embankment many times on my way to the Olympic Park.

A visit to Windsor for them to see the Castle gave me a chance to get out of the traffic and onto a motorway, helped to blow out the cobwebs.

Mr Koch flew back to the USA the day after the closing ceremony in his private jet that was parked at Luton Airport. Did I get a tip? No. But then again I didn't expect one.

Did I enjoy my 3 weeks of Olympic work? Yes. Would I ever do anything like it again? No! I did not enjoy being away from my family for so long.

Now to enjoy the money I earned :-)

Short Film of the Week

Each week I will feature a short film that I have enjoyed on the web. They may be live action. horroe, sci-fi, drama, animated etc but all will have caught my eye due to the standard of storytelling and effectiveness of the medium chosen.

The first one is a little comedy-horror called The Passenger. In it out little animated hero meets something strange on the bus home.

Enjoy..

The olympics week 2

I have not added postings about the work I am doing for the Olympics mainly because I havn't done any! I have been on standby ever since the opening night and it really doesn't look like I will be doing much for a few days.

I have been able to watch some of the Olympics including the Opening Ceremony recorded by my wife as that was the only day I have worked so far. I was sent out to take a family from their hotel to the Olympic Village and then wait for them to take back. When I got to their Hotel they had already taken public transport to the Village so I drove down to the bus park at Stratford to wait for them. 6 hours and 49 minutes of waiting later, during which I saw the Red Arrows and some of the fireworks, the family appeared and we set out through some very busy East end streets. It took me the best part of an hour to do a 18min journey but I got them home at about 3am.

I hooked up with another driver at Hyde Park and we drove back to the depot finally getting back to the lodgings at half five in the morning. Needless to say I was a tad tired the next day!

A couple of days off saw me traveling back home to see the Wife (don't tell her that I missed her!) which gave me a chance to catch up on what had happened.

Now I am back at work and still on standby!

Oh well, maybe will get a duty tomorrow, still getting paid for sitting around which is nice.

The Olympics Day 4

So here we are 4 days into our training and we have finally got our security badges, phones and have almost completed our training with on 1.5 hours left to do tomorrow.

I cannot see us getting assigned anything tomorrow and expect they will give us thursday or saturday off as it will be all hands to the wheel on friday for the opening ceremony.

Todays training involved us visiting various hotels in London to find out where to pick up and drop off guests. Our bus driver almost got us on the news by taking his tri-axle continental sized coach round the narrow streets of Covent Garden! Somehow we got out but not before scaring a lot of people!

The Olympics

The London Olympics start on Friday and I am already part of it. I have already helped Harlow Steel Band at the Sparks Will Fly event at Chelmsford and the torch relay through Harlow, both times seeing and photographing the torch and its bearer. Now I am working as a driver of the VIP coaches from Heathrow to the events.

I am not allowed to post details of my actual jobs but I will be putting pictures and updates on my blog and Facebook page about my personal experiences.

So far we have had a very high speed bit of route learning and have stood around in the main temporary depot at Heathrow waiting to be processed. We were told to go to our accomodation and come back tomorrow to finish it all off so I still don't know what we are actually doing yet!

We are in student accomodation in High Wycombe and the rooms are functional to say the least.

Oh well, off to bed as up early tomorrow to get back to depot to get our security pass, phone and uniform.

Summer Holiday

The first week of my 2 week holiday will be over tomorrow and I have been mostly DIYing as the car decided to blow its head gasket last week!

So far I have started taking the car apart and I have tidied up the bushes at the front of the house, moved my compost bins further up the garden and leveled them out plus I have started creating a new flower bed at the bottom end of the railway.

The weather has been good and hot at times which made the DIY a bit warm!

We also visited the Science Museum in London for the first time in many years for me and the first time ever for the Wife. It has lost a lot of its exhibits in favour of interactive displays on compute monitors which I think is a shame. Supplement exhibits with such screens by all means but don't replace them.

The Launchpad area is fun even for a big kid like me and is well worth a visit.

My favorite exhibits are still the trains closely followed by the space vehicles including the Lunar Lander, great stuff. 

Tomorrow we are going for a ride on the newly re-opened Epping & Ongar railway for a trip behind a steam engine.

Le-Mans 24hr Race

As I type the race has less than 5 minutes to go and the Audis are getting into formation for the perfect publicity picture.
It was an interesting race with the 2nd place car having been rebuilt after it spun off punching a hole in the barriers!
The cars are really strong, as this incident showed.

The biggest accident happened to Anthony Davidson when he touched a Ferrari whilst lapping it and in the resulting accident his car flipped.

This resulted in Anthony breaking his back although he is said to be unhurt otherwise and should be out of hospital tomorrow.

Well done Audi (the race just finished) and a nice orchestrated finish with the 4 cars coming home together.

I will put the results up later when I have them as well as a full description of the race.

Spanish Grand Prix

I have not posted about GP's for a while so here is my take on the weekends Spanish round of the World Championship.

Held at the Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona it turned out to be a very incident packed race.

I qualifying the McLaren of Hamilton looked unbeatable and so it proved to be as he set a pole time over half a second faster than the second place man who was a very happy Pastor Maldonado in the Williams. Behind them came Alonso in the Ferrari, Grosjean in the Lotus, Raikkonen in the Lotus and Perez in the Sauber.
So where were the Red Bulls? Well Vettel was in 8th after not setting a time in Q3 and Mark Webber was in 12th one place behind a strangely slow Button both of who failed to get into Q3.

So that was it then, Hamilton was going to run away with it? Well, no. He stopped on his in lap after the team told him to turn off the engine as they would not have enough fuel for a mandatory fuel sample due to a technician not filling up the fuel tank enough. This was deemed in contravention of the rules and he was thrown out of the qualifying session meaning he had to start from the back of the grid in last place.

So Williams and Maldonado had a pole but they also had the fast starting Alonso next to them. Interesting times.

At the start Alonso snatched the lead with Maldonado following close behind. The Ferrari slowly opened a gap and although the Williams did cut it back they did not look as if they were going to get past. They took an earlier pit stop to try to get the undercut and Ferrari followed suit 2 laps later but it was not enough as the Williams roared into the lead.
Despite a slow pit stop later on the Williams retained the lead to the end although the Ferrari pushed him until a few laps from the end he slowed due to a problem with his car and looked like he might fall victim to a late charge from Raikkonen but he managed to just about hang onto second. Grosjean made it a Lotus 3-4 with Kobyashi, Vettel, Rosberg, Hamilton, Button and Hulkenberg rounding out the top 10.

After this race Vettel and Alonso are tied on 61 points with Hamilton just behind on 53 so the title race is still very close and nobody will stick their neck out to predict who will win, what a brilliant season it is turning out to be.

So that was it, Williams end their win drought and we add a new driver and country to the list of winners (Venezuela), we now all pack up and move onto Monaco. Well, no, Williams hit the news yet again as a fire broke out in their garage and was tackled by members of the team helped by those from Caterham and Force India. Luckly it was put out fairly quickly and injuries were few with one person burnt and several others suffering from smoke inhalation.

I am now really looking forward to Monaco in two weekends time

Lord of the Rings

I recently found out my box set of the extended versions of this brilliant trilogy of films. I had thought that I lost it and was very pleased to rediscover it again.

A viewing session was required and so I set about watching them again and rediscovering the magic of the world created by J.R.R.Tolkien and bought to the screen by Peter Jackson.

The story is one of battling overwhelming odds where the strength of an army is useless to win the day, what is needed is stealth and bravery by the least heroic looking beings in the story.

The story revolves around a ring of power created by the Evil Lord Sauron which contains his evil spirit and which cannot be destroyed except by taking it back to where it was forged in the volcano Mount Doom.

The story unfolds of Frodo Baggins, a Hobbit, and his journey to the volcano to destroy the ring. Around him there is a tight circle of companions who, despite being separated early on, fight for him and help him on his way.

During the film there are 2 major battles, the first at the fortress of Helms Deep and the second on the plains surrounding Minas Tirith and, despite the overwhelming odds, the men with their allies the Elves win through.

What happens at the end I will leave for you to find out but the real pleasure in these films is not the ending but the wonderful journey that you participate in that makes this worthwhile. From the claustrophobia of the Mines of Moria to probably the best battle ever put on film, the Battle of Helms Deep, you are never allowed to get bored.

I would recommend anyone to watch the film in whatever form you can find it but the extended version is the best as it has far more information about the people and places that you encounter along the way.

A rainy Easter Monday

I had planned to go to the Mangapps Farm Railway Museum but the weather, rain and cold, stopped that one short. So instead we went shopping and got some screening for the garden plus a video digitiser so that I can get my old VHS tapes onto the computer and then onto DVD.

In the end I spent nothing on traveling but plenty on DIY! Oh well, thats life.

The British Superbikes meeting at Brands Hatch was hard hit by the weather with plenty of accidents and red flags. In the end the racing for the solo bikes was abandoned as it was far too dangerous to continue. A pity but certainly the right decision.

It looks like we are well into April Showers now and this week looks like it may be very wet although I do hope to get some work done in the garden if the rain gives me enough of a gap.

Sherlock - Series 1 - The Blind Banker

The second episode of Sherlock sees us entering the shadowy world of Far Eastern criminal gangs and smugglers. Several acts of vandalism see Holmes and Watson called to a major bank where they are hired to find out how the vandal got into a building with lots of high-tech security.

The opening scenes however are of a beautiful Asian girl making tea with an ancient teapot, an act that actually preserves the pot from drying out and cracking. Her connection to the vandalism and the murders that follow is explained over the next 45minutes or so and we are led, via a Chinese circus to which Watson takes his new girlfriend, to a dingy alley under a viaduct where the same girlfriend is fighting for her life.

Needless to say Holmes arrives in the nick of time allowing Watson to save the girl.

I like this one as I have always liked ciphers and this had a really neat one, and also we find out that Holmes is certainly infallible as he fails to spot something that Watson's girlfriend points out, a nice touch.

Only one more episode to go and it is a good un, then I have the extras to watch as well, can't wait :-)

Sherlock Series 1 - A study in Pink

I recently purchased the BBC DVD of the first series of Sherlock and I have just watched the first episode A Study in Pink.

The story is very well structured as we are introduced to the recently returned from Afghanistan Dr John Watson who has a walking stick and a limp and a pistol in his bedroom drawer. He needs a place to live and is introduced to the brilliant but annoying Sherlock Holmes, a Consulting Detective who has a habit of annoying the Police by generally insulting them and making them look stupid. A good example is in the opening scene where he hijacks a press conference about a series of suicides by sending texts to all the people there contradicting anything that the Police state as fact.

The murders are dealt with in the usual Sherlock way leaving us to figure out what has happened by giving us a few clues but nothing more than the other characters in the story.

Needless to say the final scenes are with the murderer where Holmes puts himself in danger to prove a point only to be saved at the last second by Watson.

The maniac side of Holmes comes out at this stage as he tortures the dying villain to find out the name of his 'sponsor' and is rewarded with a cry of 'Moriarty'.

Que our heroes walking off into the night briefly interrupted by Sherlocks brother Mycroft who watches them walk away and introduces Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson.

The other two spisodes await me and I cannot wait to reacquaint myself with them.

Australian GP 2012

The first race of the 2012 season has now come and gone and it was a really interesting one.

We came into the season not really knowing who would be on top. Red Bull had looked the best in pre-season testing but only just, with McLaren and Mercedes very close behind and then the Lotus and Ferrari teams with everyone apart from Marussia and HRT looking like they will make the midfield race a big one.

In the end it was McLaren that looked fast, especially in the hands of Jenson Button, with the Red Bulls looking a bit slow in qualifying trim but developing some speed in race trim. Ferrari looked well out of it in Qualifying but proved usefully fast and consistent in race trim.

The suprise of the race had to be the pace of the Williams cars which, although they didn't finish, did show real potential.

The Saubers were also very racy mixing it up with Ferrari and Lotus in the mid field.

Disappointment was found in the Caterham camp who did well in the practice sessions but could not match that in the race.

So it was a good result with Button winning, Vettel in second and Hamilton rounding out the podium. After them came Webber, Alonso, Kobayashi, Raikkonen, Perez, Ricciardo and Di Resta rounding out the top 10.

The Malaysian GP is next weekend and I hope it will be as entertaining as this one was.

Dirk Gently - Episode 1

What a wonderful way to start my holiday, a mug of coffee, a slice of toast and Dirk Gently on the TV.

I loved the books of the late lamented Douglas Adams and the initial pilot episode of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency was brilliant. So I was really looking forward to the new series starting but was it any good?

The answer to that has to be yes. Lots of apparently random things coming together in a nice holistic manner at the end of the story. And of course Mr Gently still doesnt get paid!

The episode had some really nice moments especially Dirk pulling a sledgehammer from his trousers and smashing a computer server with it although the one that made me laugh out loud was when the agencies client jumped from a window straight onto the accountant standing on the pavement below, a real laugh out loud moment as it would have been in Adam's books.

If you havn't seen a Dirk Gently story then try to catch this one on the BBC catch-up service before it goes.

Holiday Time again

Tomorrow see's me doing my last shift for 10 days as I am on my Spring break.
The time will be spent DIYing and visiting London and a few local attractions that I have never got around to visiting.

The garden needs a good tidy and I really want to get a bit more of my garden railway built (see my Blog on the railway at sittonwatchet.blogspot.com) and perhaps get some work on some model kits that I have had for some time.

Two places I will be visiting are the Mill Green Museum and the Roman Baths both at Welwyn Garden City, pictures and my views on these places will appear here next week. I pass the Mill Green Museum, which is a working water mill, every working day on my bus and the Roman Baths I found out about whilst researching the museum on-line.

The Wife wants to visit London to do a few touristy things and also wants to visit the M&M shop at Piccadilly! Don't know exactly where we will be going but will have a good look at a few websites to decide, again pics and visit report will follow.

Need to go to sleep now as I an on a 3:30am start which does mean a 10:30 am finish but it is a shock to the system!

F1 2012 - Pre-season testing

The last day of pre-season testing has just finished and for the first time in many years there has not been a clear winner of the 'off season championship'.
Almost all the teams have managed to head the times on at least one session and they all have looked good when compared to the top teams. However it would seem that McLaren have a car that is much easier to set-up than their rivals but it is not as quick as the rest once they have got a handle on the set-up. The Red Bull looks to be the best all rounder with the Lotus and Mercedes cars looking like they may well spring a suprise or two as the season gets going.
Behined them, I believe, comes Ferrari who despite setting some good times appear to be struggling to get their rather radical car to work consistently.
The rest of the field, apart from HRT, do seem to have closed the gap with the new Caterham team setting some good and consistent times.

My current predictions for the year are that McLaren and Red Bull will still dominate the season with Lotus, Mercedes and Ferrari snapping at their heels. Force India will be slugging it out with Sauber and Williams with Caterham, Torro Rosso and Virgin once again joining battle for the best tail end charlies. HRT will be in a race of their own far off the back of the field.

Champion? I want Button to do it but I do believe that, given a dominant car as he did last year Vettel will probably make it 3 in a row.

Roll on Australia, March 18th.

Getting Old

When I was a kid I had a racer bike. 10 Speeds, leather saddle and really, for it's time' light weight. I loved it and in the sort of icy weather we have had over the past week I loved going out and skidding and sliding everywhere. Now that I am rather grown up I have a lightweight mountain bike with sophisticated front suspension, disk brakes, large knobbly tires and built for these conditions and yet I rode it like a granny over the icy cycle tracks. I must be getting old!

Shopping!

Today I braved the delights of ASDA with the Wife and Daughter to do the weeks shopping. My role in this trip? Muscle and money, I had to carry the heavy bags and pay for it all. It's nice to be wanted.

Managed to pick up a DVD of the film 300 and the first series of Mrs Browns Boys both will be watched next weekend on my 4 day weekend off.

The nice thing about going food shopping is that I can get a few things that I want and that included some Garlic Salt and some Mixed Herbs for use in my cooking. Also got some other goodies that will be enjoyed in the next few days.

Computers - Love them or hate them?

I have a real love/hate relationship with computers and especially with Windows.
When it works it is fine, not brilliant but usable but when it decides to throw a tantrum then I find myself throwing one as well. Windows has a real knack of winding me up big time.
Today I ran an update of my security software on my lap top which I recently was given by my daughter. Unknown to me she had two virus checkers on it and the update to the one I throught was live turned it on and then there was a battle between the two that locked up my computer after about 5 mins of use!
Try as I might I could not stop it and so after much frustration I loaded Ubuntu onto it.

It's an older version of Ubuntu but it recognized this and is currently updating to the latest version. No tantrums or jumping through hoops as with Windows, it simply worked.

I am now looking forward to getting reacquainted with Ubuntu.

Yet more Platypus join in the fun

Toro Rosso

 The new cars keep coming and that nose design gets uglier.

Williams

Red Bull

Sauber

It looks like Platypus is the new standard

The new Lotus shows the latest horrible nose design is becoming a normal. It's not as bad as the Ferrari but still makes the car look pre-crashed in my eye's.

Lets hope that this massive mistake gives us good racing but as the FIA have something to do with it I very much doubt it.

Oh look, cold rain!

Why do we all panic when snow is forecast? We have had it all this week with the Harbingers of Doom (the Weathermen) telling us about the End of the World or a snow flurry as most normal people would call it. And what do we get? Total bloody chaos!


The gritters have been out for days, the roads are already white with salt, and they have huge snow ploughs on them and yet the roads jam up, cars are skidding off all over the place and the public transport grinds to a halt.

Please, please, please remember that despite all this there is only one rule in the snow that you must never break. Never eat yellow snow!

Yet another ugly one

Just as I submitted the previous post then I saw this:

The worst yet, they are going to have to censor the feed from races if all the cars are going to be like this!

First 2012 F1 Cars Launched

In the past week 3 teams have launched their F1 cars for the 2012 season and it looks like we are in for a year of really ugly cars apart from 1 team.

First launch was by the new Caterham Team and it revealed a horrible 'Platypus' nose that we have been informed is due to the new regulations

Although I love the livery it would seem that the cars are getting wings that are more and more mismatched.

Next up were McLaren and their take on the new nose is much nicer with a sweeping upper surface that does not feature the pronounced step above the suspension mounts. Actually quite a good looking machine as long as you ignore the wing mismatch. 

And finally the Ferrari, sorry about the picture it was a screen grab from the launch video.

We were hoping that the Caterham was a one off but it would seem that Ferrari have gone the same way. It looks like somebody sat on the nose molding before it was set. 'Whoops, oh well, nobody will notice!'.

Ugly, just plain ugly!

John Carter of Mars

I read the Edgar  Rice Buroughs Barsoom books as a kid and recently through the magic of e-books on my mobile I re-discovered them. Imagine my delight when, just after reading Princess of Mars I discovered the trailer for the up coming film. (The trailer on YouTube)

The Barsoom books are pure pulp Sci-Fi and I love them. Total fantasy, we have visited Mars and it appears to be a dead world, but nonetheless a wonderfully colorful and heroic set of stories that tend to be boy meets girl, falls in love and then loses girl to then find her and lose her, find her, lose her until finally there is a huge fight and it all turns out well in the end.

The world Buroughs created is full of culture, heroism and slaughter. The characters are rich and believable and the wild animals that inhabit the planet are as ferocious as the dying planet itself.

If you are a geek then this is probably a more anticipated film that Star Wars ever could be. It is like the Lord of the Rings films as it brings to life a wondorous world that has only existed in our minds eye up to know. I reall cannot wait till March 9th

The best laid plans...

I had hoped over the weekend to clear my shed out and turn it into a small modellers workshop so that I can get on with the many model kits I have to build.
Unfortunately the Domestic Authority had other ideas and I found myself painting walls, rearranging the loft and building table and chairs.
Hopefully I will get the shed done in the next few weeks although it looks like my Daughter is getting in on the act and will want me to build her new bedroom furniture as well as taking out the existing fitted wardrobe and decorating the exposed walls. Oh well, no rest for the wicked.

Sherlock!

I have just watched the final episode of Sherlock on the BBC. What a brilliant if short series this has been. The final episode saw our hero risen up then destroyed by his arch enemy Moriarty. The word play between the characters made up for a lack of physical action showing that you don't need hollywood stunts to make something interesting.

I will not spoil the episode by telling you what happens but I will say that the ending was great especially Watson's lines to Sherlock.

I do hope the BBC don't kill off this show as they have Torchwood and probably Dr Who as well. They seem to create something that people like then kill it off whilst keeping the dross on our screens.
One thing that will delay another series is that the two main charactes are off doing Star Trek and the Hobbit so will not be available for some time. This is good as it gives the script writers time to create something really special.

New Year Treat

After a quiet Christmas I have had a quite busy and interesting New Year. We celebrated the birth of 2012 at Kelling Heath  on the North Norfolk coast, which is a large caravan and camping site in its own forested area of Norfolk. A live band and excellent food made it well worth the £90 it cost us for the weekend and the 2.5 hour journey.
The second treat has been the new series of Sherlock. Brilliant just does not come close. It is pure genius, the stories although modernized and changed for dramatic purpose are still recognizable as Conan Doyles originals and the acting and settings have been breathtaking. It is only a pity that we have just the 3 episodes to look forward to.