Monthly round up - October 2024

It feels like winter has suddenly arrived. The clocks have gone back. It's getting dark as I finish work. And all of a sudden it's November! Time for a review of the month just gone. 

The week before the clocks went back I was working on a filming project in various locations around Barry. It included some shooting on the Knap at sunset, so I got some lovely photos. 

The film will tell the story of Jacob, one of the young people involved in the programme I work in. We were a great little team, with our freelance videographer, Sarah, and my colleague Rhys joining us for the second day of filming. We finished on Barry Island, where else. 

In other work-related news, I had a great time meeting up with Heather who I worked with for seven years in the diabetes network. Heather has now retired and when we met up for lunch in Cardiff Bay, we had such good weather it was sunny enough for us to sit outside!

Our good friend Clare had a big number birthday (40) and we made her pose for a photo with us at her birthday party.

Another former work colleague, Ruth, was at the party too. We worked together a long time ago in the comms team at Care for the Family. 

A fairly random highlight from the month was going to an evening presentation by the Grangetown History Society. It was about the massive gasworks that used to exist not very far from our house. If you go to Ikea, you can still see the steel skeleton of one of the massive gasometers. I was a bit late getting to the talk, so have borrowed this picture of the presenter from my friend, Fiona.

In addition to lots of archive pictures of the area, there was a useful explanation about how a gasworks functioned, and how they produced gas by burning coal at a very high temperature without much oxygen. There were hundreds of miles of pipes transporting the gas all across Cardiff and as far as Pontypridd. It was used for street-lighting and domestic and industrial use. 

I made it to my second monthly Keep Grangetown Tidy litter pick in a row. I'm not sure why we all stood around the post-box for the group photo. 

The litter-pick had been postponed by a week because of a storm. As someone said, if we had gone out on the original date it would have been more of a litter-chase than a litter pick!

I collected some big items, including a large abandoned suitcase. I'm pretty sure it didn't have a body in although to be honest, I didn't dare check. 

But my biggest prize was the entire front of a car. Clearly someone had had a shunt and they decided not to take their bumper home. Instead they dumped it on a piece of waste ground next to the road. 

Anyway, that sets a new high bar for ridiculous finds on a litter-pick, overtaking the abandoned aquarium I picked up once. 

Our house has been an ongoing project since February. We now have the replastered hallway and landing painted! We have also had some carpentry work done. There is one last big bit to do - sorting a new understairs cupboard and putting down new flooring in the hallway. It feels like we are on the home straight. I'm really hoping we can get it sorted in time for Cathy's birthday.

And finally, my football round up. I went to five games in October - three at Barry Town, one at Cardiff Draconians, and the Women's European Championship Qualifying play-off between Wales and Slovakia. At one of the Barry Town games I met the new club mascot, Derek the Dragon. 

I went to the Wales game with Sara. It was our first game together since watching Penrhiwceiber Rangers win their league title back in May. 

I also earned a Futbology badge for my 75th game at Jenner Park. Happily, it was a game that Barry won. 

And here is my running total for the season so far!

She hangs her head in shame

My friend Clare is a major film fanatic (97 films in the cinema last year). So I was a bit surprised when she emailed me for help in identifying film posters, especially as one of the film posters she was stuck on was this:

I replied "Seriously?" One of the most iconic film posters of all time? Didn't the fact that that's Darth Vader's head in the background give it away? She was suitably embarrassed when I pointed it out.

"If we only had a droid" are champions

We (i.e. me, Cathy, Clare and Tom) went to the first Monday night quiz at The Gate last night and walked away the winners. Our success meant our ironic team name was wrong - we didn't need a droid after all to win our free round of drinks.

It would be great though if you could get real R2-D2 droids to help out in pub quizzes. "R2, quick - use your wireless interface and surf the net - what's the captial of Luxembourg?" (We got that one wrong, because I got it confused with Liechtenstein and said it was Vaduz)

Of course, every answer he gave would be "bee boop be boop". And I'm not sure the quizmaster general would accept that.

Films beginning with I

I borrowed I Am Legend on DVD the other day, as it was one of those films I wanted to see but never quite got to the cinema while it was out. Having read the book previously, I kind of knew they would have changed the ending, and the reviews I’d read had confirmed that suspicion.

So it was refreshing to find the ending is a bit downbeat. The biggest change isn’t vampires into ‘dark-seekers’, or locating an actual source of the plague in a manufactured viral cancer cure. The biggest change is turning the ‘legendary status’ of the main protagonist into that of a hero. In the book he becomes a legend in that by the end of the book, he is now the monster.

One thing which was weird is that I watched it with Irony Boy who had no clue that there were monsters in it, until the first ones showed up. Obviously he’d missed that aspect of the plot amid all the hype.

Anyway, and on to a second film seen with Irony Boy which begins with I - and that is Iron Man. Clare had previously stuck her neck out to claim this was better than Transformers, and it’s a worthy claim. Certainly, it’s the first film since Transformers which I’d pay money to watch again in the cinema.

Although there isn’t too much new in the plot - friend and mentor betrays hero, life-changing event, superhero has to fight former friend at the end - the scripting is good, with enough humour to keep the movie going. I always find Robert Downey Jr incredibly watchable, and he can easily carry a film like this, so there are no worries on the acting part. Gwyneth Paltrow does a good job as his assistant and Jeff Bridges manages to play the part of chief antagonist without hamming it up too much.

There’s a teasing clip after the credits introducing the rest of the Marvel SHIELD franchise too. And as long as they can keep Downey Jr in the suit, there’s no reason why the Iron Man franchise can’t run and run. It’s certainly the best superhero film since Batman Begins, and raises the bar for The Dark Knight due out later this year.

Meanwhile we got a trailer for another film beginning with I - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which looks like it’s going to be plenty of fun, and also Prince Caspian, which kicks on the Narnia franchise this summer as well (and looks very good from the trailer).

But one movie I’m really looking forward to is Kung Fu Panda. We had a teaser spot last night in amongst the trailers and it looks hilarious! And it’s not a sequel or a comic book adaptation! Originality in Hollywood - what’s going on?

Jongudmund’s ratings
I Am Legend - worth a watch, 7/10
Iron Man - a definite must-see, 9/10

My new nickname

"Hello, I'm Three Bingos. Nice to meet you."

(It's because I'm kicking butt at Scrabulous)

"You can no longer post about me or my husband without prior permission!"

Apparently the Tom who posted in response to Clare and then deleted it wasn't the Tom who is married to Clare, because he can't 'work out how to do comments'... or so he claims. However, I find that a bit hard to believe, given that he has a degree in something complicated and is able to hold down a full-time job. But still, Clare insists it wasn't him, and, on pain of pain, I've agreed not to stir up any more trouble.

The clinching argument from Clare was that in the past when Tom has worked out how to leave a comment , he's signed it with a lower case 't'. So, there you go. Clearly not the same person.

Perhaps the mystery Tom would like to leave a comment this time, or at least make his blogger profile public in future so we can find out who he is.

VILE

Following on my recent post about becoming vegetarian I had an interesting back and forth in the comments with Clare. So I sent her this link to a recipe for Squirrel Melts, which kind of proves my point about the animals you eat being a rather arbitrary choice.

Her response: "That is VILE!" (Hence the title of this post)

And if you do go get the recipe for Squirrel Melts, note the part where she adds the pecans, because "you know how squirrels love nuts".

Yes, when they're ALIVE.