So here in the UK, and in other places, we are expected to stay home and only go outside for essentials. I have seen comments on Facebook and around the web of how hard that is. For me not so much – I am introverted – maybe I shouldn’t label myself but it certainly seems to be true. I don’t like crowds and sometimes I don’t even like small groups. Having to be at home is not that much of an issue for me.
I don’t mean for one moment to underplay the seriousness of what is going on in the world – I simply wish to express my experience. And at the moment I seem to be doing okay. I have been out only the once this week, to the supermarket, I do need to get more exercise, and maybe I am going a little weird but for the most part I am okay.
Little man from Hoofddorp
At the beginning of the month I was in The Netherlands. The above picture is from the town of Hoofddrop and was from my last day. I picked a town at random, that was one train from where I was staying, and just went. I wanted to see this stature, had no idea where it was, so I just started walking and it happened to be on the way to a restaurant that I had also picked out at random.
Kapsalon
I was relying on google translate while I was away. Language is a fascinating thing to me. For example I was translating a sign which appeared to be saying ‘artisan sausages’ but as I continued that changed to ‘traditional sausages’ – so me that connection was interesting.
The above picture is a dish called ‘Kapsalon‘ which translates to ‘Hairdresser’s’ – which was rather a confusing thing to see on a menu. The dish consist of french fries, shawarma meat, and salad. And the name? It was invented by a hair dresser.
Amsterdam
I also visited Amsterdam. In Amsterdam I just wondered about the city wanting to take it all in and see everything. In going on this trip I didn’t have a plan. I simply wanted to experience a new place. It was a test bed to prove to myself that travelling alone was something I could do – and I can.
Kibbling
Food wise I didn’t exactly eat healthily. This is what I had the first proper day: battered fish with a sauce – so that made me feel right at home. I got this from a street market that was only there the one day. There were lots of other things available but I couldn’t get close enough to use my translator.
I ate mostly burgers on this trip.
On the first proper day I went to the Muiderslot. This is a small castle which I decided to walk to it tool about 45 minutes and I only went wrong once – I nearly walked up someone’s drive!
The Muiderslot
Inside there are many paintings. This one is my favourite:
The Baker of Eeklo
You can read more about the painting by clicking here.
There had to be a windmill!
I was staying in a little town called Weesp and I saw this on the first day. It was a nice quite place to stay away from the business of Amsterdam but close enough to be easy to get to.
Bikes. Bikes everywhere!
No discussion of the Netherlands would be complete without talking about bikes. They have big parking areas like this one all over the place. I think I saw more bikes in these few days than in the rest of my life combined.
The trip was, overall, a great experience and I really look forward to when travel is possible again and I can look to my next adventure.
I just wanted to say that I have checked this post. I really have. Unfortunately my particular combination of dyslexia and dyspraxia makes it really hard for me to spot typos. Please enjoy and I’ll try not to make too many errors.
Disclaimer: This review is for an episode about a deadly disease but it has no connection to the current pandemic. It has just been in draft for – well for far too long.
In this episode we visit a science fiction staple of a post apocalyptic world – given what has been shown in the media lately (This was in reference to the WW III talk at the start of the year) we might be living in a post apocalyptic world by next Tuesday.
One
This episode has a fantastic teaser. Unfortunately it seems to be a teaser for another episode. The Enterprise discovers a duplicate of planet Earth in deep space. However after the teaser this plot point is discarded and we just have the story.
This is like doing a private eye show and having the client who hires the detective be big foot and, after the initial surprise that a Sasquatch wants to hire a detective, it’s completely forgotten the rest of the episode.
SFdebris (Miri – review)
I think that SFdebris’ summation of this really says it all. It is a mystery to me why this plot point was put into the episode. Obviously budgetary, and technological issues too, prevented TOS from having truly alien aliens. I understand that an it is simply a fact that aliens have to look completely human. However the planet can look any way they want.
Two
It’s dead.
Doctor McCoy (Star Trek: The Original Series: Miri)
Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Rand and two red shirts beam down to the planet. Surprisingly, and this is a bit of a spoiler, the red shirts survive this mission – I guess they must have had heart attacks at the shock sometime after they returned to the ship.
The landing party encounter a young man. Although adult in size he has the mind of a child and starts sobbing over his broken tricycle. The man quickly has a seizure and dies.
Interestingly, and I don’t know why, McCoy refers to the man as ‘it’. What McCoy does discover is that the metabolic rate of the man is very high as if he aged decades in just a few moments.
Three
The landing party enter one of the buildings where they meet the titular Miri (Kim Darby). Kirk shows a complete lack of awareness of himself. Miri is terrified of them. And rather than giving her some space, and backing off, he continues to walk towards her… while holding a gun!
Now we can argue that she probably didn’t know it was a gun but even so.
I wonder what happened to her – that she should be so terrified of us.
Doctor McCoy (Star Trek: The Original Series: Miri)
Miri starts to open up to the landing party. They find out that there was a plague on this world. The strange thing about it is that only the adults were effected and the children were left to fend for themselves.
Meanwhile Spock leads the guards to try and discover any other signs of life. They hear children chanting but can see no sign of them. I find this scene to be very effective. It is just children chanting but it manages to be chilling.
Children, Captain, lots of them. We couldn’t begin to get close to them. They just to scurry away. Like animals.
Mr Spock (Star Trek: The Original Series: Miri)
Four
Well Kirk is Kirk and is able to charm any woman, because it was the 1960s, and so soon it is quite clear Miri has taken a liking to Kirk.
As he takes her hand she notices that Kirk has the first signs of the disease…and cliffhanger.
We come back from the commercial break, I only note that as episodes are built around them, to a captain’s log. Each member of the landing party is showing signs of the condition – with the exception of Spock of course but what did you expect?
They find a laboratory covered in cobwebs, so this planet has spiders too, and begin to look for a cure to the condition.
Aboard the Enterprise we are told that some crewmen have volunteered to beam down to assist. Kirk says no to this despite the fact that with the transporter and has-mats it could be done completely safely. However Trek never likes to use has-mats or space suits.
Five
Intermediate experimentation report project on life prolongation.
Captain Kirk (Reading from a file) (Star Trek: The Original Series: Miri)
With the discovery of this file the landing party start to piece together what happened on this planet. I will tell you now ahead of time – they tried to make people live longer and ended up killing everyone!
This seems to happen all the time in science fiction people make an effort to do something wonderful and every body dies!
Luckily the Enterprise has 23rd century technology and therefore has a much better chance of solving the dilemma – also character shields.
As they piece it together though they discover a flaw in their assumptions. If all the adults died then how are there still people on this planet?
How do they keep the line going?
Doctor McCoy (Star Trek: The Original Series: Miri)
They find out that the life prolongation project did work. Miri is actually over three hundred years old. Unfortunately there was a slight snafu – the process may extend life but it kills with the onset of puberty. And as the landing party are all much older than children they are, to use a technical term, fucked.
Six
They talk to the other Grups with these little boxes. Now, if they didn’t have those little boxes, they’d be all alone, huh?
Jahn (Star Trek: The Original Series: Miri)
The other children, believing the landing party to be dangerous, decide to take action – they distract the landing party and steal the communicators.
One thing Star Trek didn’t predict – people’s obsessions with their phones!
It is curious to me that this is as big a problem as it is. When the Enterprise realised they couldn’t communicate with the landing party couldn’t they have beamed down more? Of course taking that option would undermine the ending. However should it be undermined?
Let me explain. Not having the communicators means they can’t be sure that the cure is a cure and it could be a ‘beaker full of death’ (Language that is far too flowery for Spock.) And so McCoy takes a chance with it. Except we know McCoy isn’t dying!
Yes. This is a bit of a ridiculous thing to point out but sometimes that is the point of a review. Obviously the cure works and the day is saved.
Seven
Kirk is able to convince the children that they can be trusted. They come back with him to the lab where the blemishes on McCoy’s skin slowly fade away.
The Enterprise leaves a team on the planet with more personal being sent to help this world recover.
Concluding Thoughts.
It is difficult to know what to say about this one. The story is interesting on construction but the misleading teaser is disappointing. Still this is an enjoyable outing.
I just wanted to say that I have checked this post. I really have. Unfortunately my particular combination of dyslexia and dyspraxia makes it really hard for me to spot typos. Please enjoy and I’ll try not to make too many errors.
In a change to what I had planned for this week I want to talk about the Coronavirus – it seemed weird to talk about travel when many people are not even able to leave their homes at the moment.
Maybe there is something wrong with my sense of humour!?
The outbreak of the coronavirus seemed to me to come on rather suddenly. This video pretty much sums it up:
Of course the most important thing to remember is:
You were expecting The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy weren’t you?
Here in the UK things look to be heading in a lock down direction but at time of writing it has not happened. I think I am going to go for a walk (It is 1203) just in case. My flat is very small and if I am going to need to stay in this small space it would be good to get out while I can.
I hope you will all stay safe and I hope this all is resolved soon – and maybe the human race may even lean something!
To all the emergency service workers I would like to say this: Thank you so much for all you do for us – especially now as you put yourselves at risk.
I just wanted to say that I have checked this post. I really have. Unfortunately my particular combination of dyslexia and dyspraxia makes it really hard for me to spot typos. Please enjoy and I’ll try not to make too many errors.
Way back in 2008 my brother and I went travelling. When I returned from that trip I knew I wanted to travel more but it is only now, in 2020, that I have started to do this. Why? Well because of the toolbox fallacy as shown above – let me explain my own personal toolbox fallacy.
I was under the impression that travelling was something I could not do alone. So I was waiting. I was waiting to be in a relationship so that the two of us could go somewhere and explore. That didn’t happen and I began to realise that if I didn’t plan something now it would stay a dream.
Originally I thought about Ireland. It seemed like a logical choice – it is not too far away and there is no language barrier. However the part of Ireland I wanted to go to, the Cliffs of Moher, seemed to be a bit of a trek so I decided on something simpler.
This was The Netherlands. My local airport has direct flights so it seemed like a good choice and overall it was a good trip. I was able to prove that I didn’t need anyone else. Oh sure another person would have made me more adventurous and less stupid but the stupid will be learned from and next time I will do better.
One place I am considering is Montenegro but it could be almost anywhere – but staying in Europe for the time being.
Next time I will tell you about my trip.
I just wanted to say that I have checked this post. I really have. Unfortunately my particular combination of dyslexia and dyspraxia makes it really hard for me to spot typos. Please enjoy and I’ll try not to make too many errors.
I recently did something very stupid – and much worse than taking out extended warranty. No. I am not going to tell you what it was. I am only going to say that it cost a lot of money and even as I was doing it I knew I would regret it. So what happened?
I am weak. There is no point in playing with my words that is the simple fact of the matter. I am weak. Sometimes getting out of a situation is not easy for me. And sometimes saying ‘No thank you.’ Is not enough if the other person is pushy enough. So yes… I am weak.
There is a bright spark in this. I told someone the important details of my idiocy, my shame and yet we are still talking and we are still friends. That is the tiny silver lining in all this and, although it will take some time, I will get back on track money wise – and it is only money.
So I ask you have you ever made a monumentally stupid decision? Have you ever done something you knew was a bad idea but preceded anyway? If misery loves company I think idiocy does too. No I still am not going to say – this will be a secret kept for a long time.
I just wanted to say that I have checked this post. I really have. Unfortunately my particular combination of dyslexia and dyspraxia makes it really hard for me to spot typos. Please enjoy and I’ll try not to make too many errors.
On the subject of timers are they good? Good for productively I mean. I use a timing app and a Google timer in conjunction. This may seem excessive but for me… I was about to say it works but it doesn’t really…allow me to explain.
When you have a regular job there comes a time when the day is over. The shutters come down, you do the necessary straightening out, and the boss lets you go. When you are doing your own tasks it is difficult to get the feeling of things being complete.
Things will never be complete. If you finish a chapter (reading and writing) there is another chapter – if you ‘finish’ the house work there is always the little niggling job that doesn’t need to be done all that often. What I am searching for is what is enough.
On my day off I never know how, or when, to say I have been productive enough. That I have read enough, or written enough, or cleaned enough, or excised enough, because there is always more to do. The beeping of the timer is intended to give me that feeling. It doesn’t tend to work but I am doing my best to find a way to get that feeling. If I was in a position that I didn’t have to go to work and my only work was my writing I wounder would I manage that? Would I manage to say to myself: ‘That is enough. You can stop. It is okay to write no more and take a walk. It is okay to go to the cinema and not worry about how to write a character out of a tricky situation. It is okay to stop. I need to know how to get that feeling of it being okay to stop.
I just wanted to say that I have checked this post. I really have. Unfortunately my particular combination of dyslexia and dyspraxia makes it really hard for me to spot typos. Please enjoy and I’ll try not to make too many errors.
Unstable Orbit 