neil.baldwin – Page 43 – Neil Baldwin's blog : Warning contains walking, technology, photography, holidays.

Sledging MK

Last night I went sledging in Milton Keynes at the snow dome. It was a work outing, which the sales depart arranged as a team building exercise and they decided to invite the rest of the office.

We were told to be there by 18:30 but in reality we did not need to be there till 19:00 when the sledging was arranged to start. I guess that is OK for those people who always turn up late but penalises the punctual people.

We were all split into 4 teams of around 10-11 people, and we then did sledging races on plastic discs with handles each side. The races were all variations on the theme of a relay race, starting with simple one by one just sliding to the bottom then the next one, to the go down and run back up, and then onto everyone in a train.

Running up the hill reminded me why I gave up sledging to take up skiing, with skiing you get dragged to the top of the hill with no effort. I felt for the smokers amongst us they must have really been suffering.

After the “Pink Panthers” were controversially awarded the winners title, we all went to Frankie and Bennies for some fast food. All in all an enjoyable night out with work colleagues, I look forward to what we might do next time sales have a team building exercise, I guess we will have to wait a couple of years to find out.

Juno (****)

Quirky film where you are never sure if it is a comedy or a serious film. It is about a girl called Juno who gets pregnant. The father is a high achieving student who is also in the school running team. Juno lives with her father and step mother.

The film basically shows the way the kids and the family deal with the pregnancy, and Juno’s decision to give the baby away to a couple who live in an affluent suburb.

The acting is great, and there are some great moments both funny and touching.

The Social Network (***)

Everyone knows the story and everyone has been talking about for weeks, well they have in my world of technology podcasts. This is the film about Facebook. It has three threads to it the early days, he time when it became mainstream and their court cases with the Winklevoss’s and his friend and co-founder. Because I knew the story I was less impressed than Helen who said the acting deserved 4 stars.

Circular walk Dancersend

Managed to fit in a short walk on Saturday between weekend chores and socialising. Parked up at the parking/passing point up in Dancersend where the cottages are on your right as you drive toward to the manor house.

From there I walked toward the manor house then took a left at the road junction to find a few yards on a foot path that leads to a couple of cottages then a farm complex which seems to be the meeting place of all the people who attend the regular shoots that happen. At the bend in the road just past the farm you can take a right which takes you on a footpath up the hill to join the ridge way. As you get toward the beech tree areas toward the top there are lots of fungi to photo.

Once you are almost at the at the point where the Ridgeway crosses a road near a phone mast it is time to take a right and head down the hill to the water works buildings, then along the road to the entrance to Dancersend Nature reserve run by BBOWT , enter the reserve and head back in the direction you came down the road and follow the path up the steep hill. There are many ways round the nature reserve but make sure you exit via the patch that leads to Pond Cottage other wise you will end up trespassing on shooting land!

Head up the hill back to the manor house, then take a left back to the parking place. Walk was about 3 miles and took 1:20, with a few stops to take pictures of fungi.

View Dancersend circuit in a larger map

The great fibre swindle

Listening to the guardian technology podcast yesterday I learnt that BT has a competitve advantage in the fibre broadband market, it comes about because BT only have to £20 per km of fibre where as their competitors have to pay £2,000 per km then £20 per home connected.
This means that BT is going to be in no rush to roll out fibre, because no one else can compete with them. How can this be the case? Well it is complicated in that it is somehow tied up in business rates, and although it seems unfair no politician wants to touch the law because business rates are complex and no one wants to open the can of worms.
You can read more about the issue on the Guardian website here http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/04/bt-broadband I for one will be writing to my MP urging him to do something about it.

Prezzo Tring

Finally got to go to Prezzo in Tring, for a meal with Helen’s family. We all had £10 offer vouchers!
I decided I would have to have a desert after Carla at work said it was so good, but also fancied the calamari starter so I went off the voucher for the starter.
The food was good, I liked my main which was the fusilli pasta with asparagus, mushrooms, and pesto. I have to say that the cheese cake was nice but a bit too sweet for my taste buds.

Puff balls the size of sheep

Helen and I have been looking forward to getting out for a walk all week. We decided to head over to Wendover then walk up the hill and cut round and come down via the road with the large houses on Bacombe Lane. The conditions and time of year are good for seeing mushrooms, and after last weeks fungi exhibition we felt we knew a bit more about them.

Conditions were possibly a bit dry, but as we went through the damper parts of the woods and as we got our eyes in we started to spot more and more. I was certainly on the look out for porcelain fungus as tit grows on beech trees and has a limy glazed look to it. We were in the Chilterns famed for it’s beeches after all. I took some pictures whilst Helen was busy bird watching, we managed to spot a Goldcrest a bird we have not see for some time and is one of our favourites.

Once we had the up hill part out of the way we walked on the level past along the old fence I have blogged about in the past, until we took a left which took us down hill to the middle of Bacombe lane then over the field to the bridge over the railway. On the way down Helen had to do a double take when she thought she had seen Giant Puffballs the size of sheep! It turned out they were sheep!

Once in Wendover I was despatched with twenty quid to get ingredients for lunch and then pizza’s for tea which Helen disappeared off to see if she could find a new coat. I was successful in my mission but Helen was not.

Wall Street – Money never sleeps (**)

I saw the original and expected this follow up to be as good, sadly I was very disappointed. Gordon Gekko is released from prison and writes a book about the mistakes of his era. His daughter is a journalist for an NGO breaking controversial news stories, is living with a high flying banker. Somehow the banker and Gekko link up and a twisting plot emerges.

I found the film very confusing although the plot was easy to follow it was not very obvious where the film was going, it just seemed to tick along with scenes in banks, and in their loft apartment, interspersed with artistic interludes of numbers. Helen was so bored she walked out and read her book in the foyer, I can’t give this film more that 2 stars, I guess it would get 1 star if I had walked out too. Beau Travail would get 1 star.

The girl with the dragon tattoo (***)

Swedish murder mystery film, a reporter for a controversial magazine comes to the public attention when he loses a court case, after being accused of libel. The case turns out to be a distraction. In any case a rich head of a family business employs him to investigate the murder of one of his relatives some 30-40 years previous. The reporters computer has been hacked into by a professional hacker, who gets drawn into the investigation. The hacker is a troubled person with an abused past and is under the control of a probation officer who is also abusing her.

You get the idea things are complicated and the film is 2 and a half hours long but we watched it to the end. We watched the english version which was dubbed and a bit distracting.

Signal Crayfish

You may remember that earlier this year I posted a blog entry about finding a claw of a Signal Crayfish on the canal tow path on the walk to work. Well this morning I found a whole live one, I have posted a video of the blighter on you tube for you all to see. They are quite vicious so I handled him with care, whilst getting the footage. If I waved a hand above him he raised his claws, and I suspect that he would have nipped me given the opportunity.

On the way home I came across a man in an inflatable boat with an electric engine, he seemed to be putting out fisherman’s keep nets. When I asked what he was up to he told me he was catching signal crayfish to turn into bait for fishing with. Apparently the harvest was variable sometime many sometimes only one or two per net. I wished him luck and went on my way.

Oh and for the record I had a couple of birding moments today, first a sparrow hawk was chasing a swallow/martin outside my office window, then on the way home two grey heron were chasing each other round and about.