Anglesey butterflies (and other beasties)

One of our days out on our North Wales Holiday was to Pilipalas Nature World on Anglesey. The centrepiece for the attraction is a butterfly house (pilipala means butterfly in Cymraeg) and it was probably the best tropical house we've experienced. Butterflies everywhere! 

The butterflies fly straight at you when you come in, and are very comfortable sitting on your shoulder to take a rest.

It's not just pilipalas at Pilipalas Nature World, though. There are small mammals, birds, reptiles, bugs and some fun farmyard animals in a small petting zoo - including a very needy goat called Dahlia who did not like me showing attention to any of the other animals when I could be stroking her!

Lots of fun lizards and snakes and things.

Just kidding - this was a model

I'd not seen zebra mice before.

The meerkat cafe overlooked the meerkats, which made for some fun viewing while partaking of refreshments. 

There was a very tame kookaburra who was happy to pose for photos. 

The kune-kune pigs were called Bert and Ernie and liked having their backs scratched.

And the rooster with a very fluffy bum was hilarious as well, strutting around in his feathery britches. 

We had a thoroughly enjoyable day out at Pilipalas and it's now on our list of places we would happily visit again. 

Ar wyliau yn yr Gogledd - Mehefin 2025

We have just had a lovely week on holiday in North Wales. We stayed in a holiday cottage near our favourite beach, Dinas Dinlle (which my Cymraeg twtor, Lynne. described as "Gothic") and had some fun revisiting some favourite places and discovering new things. 

One of those new things was climbing the hill fort at the southern end of Dinas Dinlle. 

But the main thing was just walking the length of the beach, and occasionally having a sit and being lulled by the waves. 

We weren't far from Caernarfon Airport (originally an RAF base in World War 2 and the place where the Mountain Rescue Service was founded) but it was too windy all week for us to take a sightseeing flight. Next time!

There are a couple more blog posts to follow, but in the meantime, here are some of the places we visited:

Bangor Pier is no longer Pier of the Year, but we had great views down the Menai Strait all the way over to the Great Orme.

The FAW were promoting the Women's European Championships with a giant inflatable shirt outside Caernarfon Castle, so we went along and had a photo with it. 

I was quite pleased to have a few opportunities to practice my Cymraeg. I feel hesitant sometimes, but everyone I spoke to was very supportive and encouraging. 

We went to Y Galeri in Caernarfon to watch Elio, the latest Pixar film. I went in knowing very little about the film, but enjoyed it. The central message about a little boy wanting to be anywhere but on Earth was poignant, and then when he gets his wish and meets aliens, he has to decide where he wants to be. 

We also had a couple of trips to Anglesey, including to Oriel Mon, outside Llangefni. 

I wasn't too fussed on the main exhibition, which featured work by Leonard McComb even though it included a big shiny bronze statue. 

However, the themed exhibition of Anglesey Windmills was very good, with the two paintings by Kyffin Williams really anchoring the displays. 

And I thought this political artwork made a good point.

After Oriel Mon we had a short stop in Beaumaris for ice creams. We bought them just in time for a rain squall to break over us so ended up eating them in the car as the rain battered down. That made it feel like a proper North Wales holiday!

And so, after a very lovely week, we bade farewell to Dinas Dinlle.

Barcode pebble

This pebble looks like it will scan with a barcode reader!

No price, though. We picked it up for free!

Unexpected appearance by Joe Hart

Flicking through some old games that had been donated in a charity shop, I saw several copies of FIFA football from different years. 

I didn't know - or had forgotten - that 12 years ago Joe Hart had been a FIFA cover star. 

Alongside Lionel Messi, no less.

It wasn't enough to get me to buy the game, especially as it was for a console I don't have in the crate of obsolete consoles. (Although if it had been super-cheap I might have got it just for the cover.)

You know your life has been over-medicalised when...

I saw this in a branch of The Works and my first thought was "Sharps bin!"

And if you don't know what that means, then I'm happy for you! 

In praise of the physical format

This blog post is a response to an innocent question from Connor a while back that got me thinking. Here's the Q:

Now, a bit of an odd question: Why do you still buy CDs? Do you not have any music streaming services?

And here are some reasons.

Tangible items are nice to have. I've mentioned this before when comparing cardboard baseball cards with non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and I was reminded of it recently when I bought a new box-set CD retrospective released by 90s shoegazer band Thousand Yard Stare.

The set contains four CDs and a book, all housed in a sturdy slipcase. It's a thing of beauty.

(I was one of the first people to buy it and got a free bonus 7" single as well!)

(Some) physical format items retain their value as well. We recently cashed in some old console games, which have become a bit collectible. If you just download a game, then it's not as easy to sell on. 

(I also find it frustrating when I can't just turn on a console and play a game any more. I found the PlayStation particularly bad for this. There were so many administrative steps before I could start playing, I actually gave up.  The same dynamic happens with music. I don't want to have to log in to anything to play music.)

Generally, I don't like the idea of streaming services deciding what I can access. If you rely on Disney Plus for watching Star Wars you can't see the original versions of Star Wars before they got monkeyed around with (and, in the case of Return of the Jedi, ruined!). But while you can't watch them, I can, because I still have the DVD box set released 20 years ago.

Similarly, Disney insisted on several cuts to Bluey episodes and for a long time didn't have the episode 'Dad Baby' available. This reflects the strong small-c conservative, easily offended, quick to complain American market. Which is why you can't see a male cartoon dog pretending to be pregnant or ponies at a fete do a poo like ponies do. (Seriously.)

Why should I surrender control over what I can watch to a corporation? I'm aware that my online activity is feeding the algorithm because the machines are listening. But I want to retain control over my playlist as much as possible. 

And that's before we get to the one line modern horror story: What happens if the wi-fi goes down? 

(Well, I'd have something still to watch.)

Even if the wi-fi stays on, streaming services don't hold content forever and they can drop stuff without warning. In effect, while you aren't limited to the content you own, you are limited by the content they own. We end up paying for another person's library and they decide what's in it.

As an example, this year Cathy and I have started watching the show Manifest. The problem was Netflix only had the first, second and fourth seasons available. The third season was on another streaming service. What to do? We opted to buy the series on DVD. (And then, after we bought the physical format that Netflix reached a deal with the other streamer. However, at this rate, we will have finished the fourth and final series before season 3 arrives on Netflix.)

I realise this sounds like a regressive rant by an irritable Gen X old man who is reluctant to surrender control and autonomy. But I don't care. I'm going to keep buying CDs and other physical format items and, in the long run, I think I'll be proven wise to do so. There's safety in being a late adopter. 

Lastly, I'm Generation X. I remember the 20th century. I lived a pre-Internet life. Nostalgia is the weapon pointed at me most often. Having the physical artefact is a reminder of back when I was more innocent and less cynical. And is that a bad thing?

New pitch, old foes (Blood Bowl match report)

This month's Blood Bowl game was played on a new pitch (it was bought second hand, but it was new for me and Bryan) and as it was a dwarf pitch design, Bryan dusted off his dwarf team. Because Bryan was going old school, I decided to use my skaven team, which has been boosted recently with some currently still unpainted additional models. 

The aesthetic of the pitch is nice and clean making it very easy to see the squares and play the game. 

I only included one of my skaven star players in my roster - Hakflem Skuttlespike. He  scored the first down of the game.

Bryan almost scored an equaliser but his dwarf runner tripped while trying to sprint an extra square meaning he dropped the ball as he crossed the line!

However, a little later, a daring pass was fumbled by the dwarf in the end zone, bounced into the crowd, was thrown back and then caught by the dwarf who fumbled it meaning he made the touchdown anyway!

The skaven still had two turns to try and grab a winner. Despite punching a hole in the dwarf defence allowing Hakflem and some gutter-runners to pour forward, a failed block attempt brought the game to a sudden close. 

Final score: 1-1. (Our second draw in a row.)

I needed the new reserve players, as a lot of rats ended up getting carried off injured. 

My extra skaven came from a team box set for the "Underworld Creepers" that was another second hand purchase.

The team is usually half skaven and half goblin, but I've split it up to provide reserves for my skaven team and the Big Pink Nightmares black orc team. Maybe they'll get an outing next month!