New Year

So the year that was 2016 is almost complete with 2017 snapping at its heels.

This year has been rather full of celebrity deaths with several notable people leaving this mortal coil during the 12 months just gone by.

As for the Thomas Clan we have had a rather good year with my youngest daughter becoming a race mechanic in the BTCC, my eldest moving home and in with her new boyfriend plus a wonderful family holiday, probably the last we will have.

We have enjoyed many trips out to motorsport and railway events and I have had several visits to Brambleton to play trains :-)

I hope that 2017 will bring us many more good memories but a few less famous people dying would be nice!

Happy New Year.

Almost Christmas

Yes that time of year is almost upon us again. The shops are full of shoppers, the roads are full of nutters and the pubs are full of drunks. Dont you love Christmas?!

This year our Christmas Day will be a quiet one as it will be The Wife, my youngest Daughter and myself as the oldest Daughter is spending the day with her new boyfriend although they will be joining us for Boxing Day. The Mother-in-Law is spending the day with her son in Norfolk so a lie in and a nice easy lunch is in order, oh and the Christmas Dr Who episode :-)

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Australian Grand Prix

Over the weekend the Australian Grand Prix took place in Melbourne and it looked to be the same old story with Mercedes finishing first and second however that does not tell the whole story.

Qualifying used a new format with cars setting times as normal until half way through the session when every 90 seconds the slowest car would be eliminated no matter where they were on the track. This changed at the end of the session when all cars still running could finish their timed lap.

This led to the sight of drivers out of their cars at the end of Q3 with 3 minutes still to go whith nothing on the track. Not the exciting spectacle that the FIA wanted!

At the end of this rather farcical event the Mercedes of Hamilton was on pole, his 50th career pole putting him on the same level as Senna and Schumacher. Rosberg, Vettel, Raikkonen, Verstappen, Massa, Sainz and Ricciardo made up the rest of the top 9 with the Ferrari's looking fast and much closer to the Mercedes than recently.

Changes to the rules have made getting of the line at the start harder as only 1 lever is allowed to operate the clutch so no second lever to lock the clutch just at the biting point for a quick start.
This saw its first victim in Hamilon who made a really bad start and dropped back, losing further momentum when Rosberg mucked up the first corner.

So at the end of the first lap it was The Ferrari's in the lead with Vettel leading Raikkonen then the Merceds of Rosberg then Verstappen and Massa followed by the recovering Hamilton.

Over the race Hamilton made a rather good recovery drive to unltimately follow his team mate home just in front of Vettel and Ricciardo with Massa, Grosjean, Hulkenburg, Bottas, Sainz and Verstappen making up the points finishers.

So it was Mercedes 1 and 2, Ferrari 3rd, Red Bull 4th, Williams 5th, Haas 6th (on their debut), Force India 7th, Williams 8th and Toro Rosso 9th and 10th.

Despite McLaren looking much faster Button only managed to finish 14th with Alonso out after a huge crash when he hit the back of the Haas of Guitierrez.

In all it was an interesting race with plenty of racing and Ferrari resurgent and only let down by an overly aggressive tyre stratergy that saw Vettel losing the lead when he needed to pit for tyres late in the race.

As long as they sort out qualifying this season is shaping up to be quite good.

British Touring Car Championship

With the season due to start in a couple of weeks we made a trip to Brands Hatch to see one of the final test days for the British Touring Cars.

A few pictures below:

The old Honda in the returning Halfords livery

Daughter gets handy with the cleaning brush

Wife posing in the Paddock tunnel

The new Honda in its base orange

Simpson in his Honda

Jordan in the Ford

Neals Honda had a black bonnet for some reason

Depper in the Honda

Martin in the Ford

Austin in the Toyota.

Tomorrow (22nd of March) is Media day and my Wife and Daughter will be going so some pictures will be up later in the week.

Not all teams have revealed their cars so it will be interesting to see them all at last.

Classic Car Show, London

Last weekend saw my Wife and I going to the Classic Car Show at the Excel in London Docklands. There were many lovely cars a few of which are pictured below.

There was also a Comic-con going on and I got a few pictures of the Cosplayers.

Daughters birthday

This weekend we have celebrated our daughters 27th birthday. She got lots of presents including a framed photo of an Owl that I took last year at Foxton Locks

We also went out for a meal where we embarrassed her with a cake.

Five planets lined up in the sky.

At 5:45am my alarm went off and I took my camera into the garden in the hope of taking a photograph of the moon and the 5 planets in line. Unfortunately it was impossible to take a picture of them all as the house and a street light were in the way. I saw Jupiter, Mars, Saturn and Venus but not Mercury.
I did take a few pictures of the Moon and Jupiter as well as attempting to get a few pictures of the sky in general but was thwarted by the light pollution from Harlow's street lights.

The Moon was an easy photography subject, my zoom lens is not the most powerful.

Here you can see the Moon and Jupiter in the same shot

A long exposure of the sky (the Plough) gets a strange tint from the street lights. The stars are blurred due to the Earths rotation. 

The cause of my problems, the town of Harlow brightly lit up.

Film Review - Interstellar

I will start my renewed blog off with a short review of the film Interstellar starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain and Michael Caine.

It is set in the future where blight and disease is decimating the worlds food supplies and, after wars over food, technology and engineering is no longer an approved pursuit, rather farming and the production of food is now uppermost in the populations mind.

McConaughey plays Cooper, the owner of a farm and a former NASA pilot. His daughter, Murphy, claims she has a ghost in her room but Cooper realizes that it is actually a gravitational anomaly that is actually a form of communication from an alien intelligence.  The message leads him to a secret scientific establishment and then into a journey to another galaxy on a one way mission to find a new home for the human race.

I will not spoil the story as it is well worth a watch, the film examines love and loss plus the problems an interstellar traveler would have with relativity at light speed travel and close to black holes.

Its a very thought provoking film that will leave you crying at the end but then feeling happy with the very end.

The cast are wonderful with no weak performances from any of them including the kids at the start. There is a lot of scientific geekery plus a lot of emotional human interest. The special effects are good but dont expect ray guns and Star Wars type space ship flights, this film is far more scientifically rooted in reality.

I give if 4.5 out of 5, a must see.

27th January - Starting again

Ok, this is the re-start of my personal blog. I will try to keep it almost up to date with my thoughts and deeds from now on.

Today was a normal working day for me that consisted of driving a big green bus to Heathrow and back and then a blue bus to Stanstead and back. A nice half twelve finish saw me home by one oclock and relaxing in front of the goggle box.

Although tomorrow is my rest day my alarm will be set for half five to allow me to photograph the moon and the five planets that are currently in line with it at around 6am in the morning. Pictures will appear here tomorrow.

I know this is not the most interesting of blog entries but I hope to improve them from now on.