Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

After waiting for weeks to go and see this, the weather finally let up and it felt cool enough to go sit in a dark cinema and enjoy it.

 

Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) and rest of the team from the previous movies are back again, with a reborn Gamora (Zoe Saldana), along with her sister Nebula (Karen Gillan), Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), Mantis (Pom Klementieff) and Groot (Vin Diesel) on a rebuilt Knowhere. With Yondu (Michael Rooker) no longer with us, Kraglin (Sean Gunn) takes over his Ravager crew and has inherited his whistle-controlled weapon and Cosmo the Spacedog (Maria Bakalova), who has psionic powers, gets a much larger role. However, this movie is all about Rocket (Bradley Cooper).

Just as the team are settling into the new Knowhere, they're attacked by a super-powered being (Will Poulter) who tries to kidnap Rocket. The team manage to fight him off but Rocket is left seriously injured and he can't be healed normally due to having a killswitch embedded in him and so the tale is all about finding the killswitch override in the place that Rocket was made - Orgocorp. Of course, that's also home to this movie's baddlie, The High Evolutionary (Chuckwudi Iwuji).

During all this, we get Rocket's origin story. How he was modified and enhanced by Orgocorp, and how The High Evolutionary was enraged that Rocket might actually be smarter than he is, so much so, that he wants his brain removed for more experimentation.

So, as before, we get a stonking sound track of mostly retro music tracks and loads of humour woven through the storyline. Peter is pining for the Gamora he lost, Gamora has no memory of Peter, Nebula is still trying to run things, Mantis still has her empathic control thing, Drax is still an idiot and Groot is still "I am Groot!" and it all works brilliantly.

Altogether one of Marvel's better movies and, even though some people are saying it's the end of Guardians of the Galaxy, the closing line does say "Star-Lord will return!"

9/10 😀

 

A Visit to the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre

The Neilston Men's Group visited the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre (GMRC) in Nitshill today. The GMRC is basically the storehouse for the city museums' collections, when they're not on display at any of the venues, and is home to an impressive collection of around 1.4 million objects, from animals to armour, fine art to fossils, and much more. With only 2% of the collections on display in museums at any one time, you begin to realize just how many objects are stored here - it's huge!

 

A Coal Merchant's Lorry

 

The Resource Centre is made up of 17 environmentally controlled storage "pods", each with a different theme and collection, and visitors can explore these pods through a wide range of tours, talks and activities.

 

We opted for a one hour taster tour, which meant we only had time to visit two of the pods.

Grant, our guide, took us through the warren of corridors to the transportation pod, which contained everything from penny farthing cycles to more modern sports cars, prams to steam engines, motor bikes to lorries and so on. All in all, a varied mix of vehicles, which reminded me a bit of the exhibits in the Riverside Museum so it's likely these were part of that place's stock to draw on.

Suits of Armour

The second pod we visited, via a huge goods elevator, was full of arms and armour and Grant proved very knowledgeable about almost everything in there. It was a vast repository of historical arms (guns, rifles, pistols, swords, daggers, maces, etc.) and many suits of armour.

 

The only downside to having so many objects is that there are no fancy wee descriptive plaques or notes on any of them. Some have handwritten tags attached, mostly there are just reference numbers. You really do need a guide to tell you about what you're looking at.

I imagine we'll try and get back to visit some more the pods but, until then, there's a good virtual tour online of you want to see what's on offer:

 

Just to finish with a bit of humour, here's a sign displayed on the wall of one of the many corridors:

Gonnae No Dae That!

Recording My Walks

Walking is good for you and helps keep you healthy and fit so I thought I’d list a few useful online and mobile resources that can be used to track what you do and how you’re doing.

A Bit Of History

Back in 2013, when my doctor told me my blood sugar was too high and I was on the way to getting type 2 diabetes, Lorna got me a little Fitbit One tracker and I started trying to hit the 10,000 daily steps target (as well as cutting down on the sugar intake). That, along with the MyFitnessPal app to track my calories and moving to Neilston for the cleaner air and the countryside, kept the diabetes at bay.

The Fitbit One's downfall was twofold.

 

Firstly, it relied on a being in a wee rubber case with a clip that was used to fix ito your pocket, belt or whatever. It was easily lost and I did that a few times. It connected using Bluetooth so I managed to find it in the garden a few times but eventually I lost it, I think on the train. That said, I messaged Fitbit about it and they kindly sent me a replacement.

Secondly, the battery was non-replaceable, well at least not easily, so it eventually died as all such  things do. Built-in obsolescence is a bitch!

As a keen photographer, I was already using my mobile phone and other things to record my GPS tracks so I could geotag any photos that I’d taken on my non-GPS-enabled dSLR camera. It was quite early days for doing that and those apps are mostly gone now, some killed by Android updates, some just let die off by developers, overtaken by what we have now…progress.

I even wrote a blog article on how I geotagged photos back then - How I Geotag My Photos.

What I Use Now

I currently use a Fossil hybrid smartwatch that takes a cheap, replaceable battery that lasts about six months, and the Fossil Smartwatches App to track my steps (and other things) but if I want to track a walking route, then I use the Runkeeper app.

I’ve used the Strava app before with good results but it produced very dodgy GPS tracks on my previous phone so now I track using Runkeeper, then download the GPX file from that and upload it to my Strava account. That way I have two online copies of the data. I can also use the GPX file to geotag photos taken with my dSLR camera.

Mobile App Suggestions

Here’s a list of what I suggest you look at, if you want to dabble in step recording/walk tracking. I’ve tried a fair few such apps over the years and all of the following have apps for both Android and iOS and are either free or offer free accounts that will do the job for most people.

Google Fit

If you have a Google account, then this free app is well worth checking out. It’ll let you record steps, track workouts, set goals, set a pace for your walks, track your respiratory rate, and check your heart rate. The last two features use your mobile phone camera, no add-ons needed. You can even manually add and track activities, hydration, meals, weight and blood pressure readings as well.

It can also be linked to other apps to share data. For example, it gets sleep data from my Fossil app.

Samsung Health

If you have a Samsung Galaxy mobile or smart watch (and a Samsung account), then this free app is another option worth looking into. It’ll let you record steps, track workouts, set goals, . You can even manually add and track activities, sleep, meals, hydration, and weight readings as well.

Runkeeper

You’ll need to sign up for a free account to use this app but it’ll do almost everything you need to track your walking, running, cycling, etc.

The web view will let you see more information, manually add or even edit activities (including the route), create a route that you can share, and it’ll let you export your activities to GPX or KML (Google Earth) files.

There’s also a social aspect to the app as it’ll let you decide who can see your activities

Strava

Again, you’ll need to sign up for a free account to use this app and it’ll do almost everything you need to track your walking, running, cycling, etc.

The web view will let you see more information, manually add activities, and it’ll let you export your activities to GPX files.

As with Runkeeper, there are social aspects to the app. You can follow other users as I do and it’ll even recognise when you’re walking together.

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Lastly…if you have an Apple iPhone, then you might want to try the Apple Fitness app but it doesn’t get great reviews and Apple is really pushing their subscription-only Apple Fitness+ app.

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Lorna was reading this on holiday and, having had to put with quite a few chortles, I thought I'd give it a read as well.

 

Set in San Francisco’s Chinatown, the tale follows Vera Wong, the owner of a forgotten tea shop, a self-proclaimed tea expert, and a Chinese mother. Vera’s normal routine is to get up at 4:30 a.m, go for a brisk walk, and have a shower before texting her son to remind him to get up and find a wife and then opening up her tea shop. The tea shop is sadly failing and she really has only one regular customer these days.

However, her routine is shattered one morning when she comes down to the shop and finds a dead body on the floor. The man, it's a man, is unknown to her but he's holding a flash drive in the hand so, after calling the police like a good citizen, she pockets the flash drive and then draws an outline around the body in permanent marker (she has no tape) as she's seen them do that on TV and she wants to be helpful. She might also have checked his pockets for clues as well.

Vera is a woman with time on her hands so, when the police fail to check for fingerprints or take DNA samples, she decides it's up to her to solve this crime. So she begins to collect a list of suspects, beginning with anyone that turns up at her shop looking for information about the murder because, as everyone knows, murderers aways return to the scene of the crime!

This one is a gem. It's a very decent, reasonably paced whodunnit that kept me guessing to the end. Vera is a very opinionated person that speaks her mind, regardless of anyone's sensitivities, and she really knows her teas so it's filled with plenty of humour, a fair bit of compassion and plenty of tea.

A thoroughly enjoyable read! 8/10 😀

A Walk from Findochty to Portknockie and Back

It was nice to be back up on the Moray coast for a week's break. We were staying in the wee village of Findochty (also sometimes called Finechty) so our first walk was from there to the neighbouring village of Portknockie.

Findochty from the clifftop path

It's a fairly straightforward plod up to the clifftop from the beach and then follow the fairly wide path to Portknockie and on to Bow Fiddle Rock, a natural quartzite sea arch, so called because it resembles the tip of a fiddle (violin if you're posh) bow. After a break for lunch sitting on one the benches near Bow Fiddle Rock, we headed back to Findochty.

It's a fairly pleasant and level walk with fields on the inland side and lots of fragrant and yellow-flowering gorse bushes on the cliff side. I spotted a wee Viviparious lizard sitting on top of a mole hill, probably because it was warmer than the grass, and it didn't seem to mind me pointing a camera at it. 

As for birds, there were quite a few Skylarks nesting in the fields and lots of Yellowhammers on the gorse.

Bow Fiddle Rock and the accompanying crags and stacks had plenty of noisy Herring gulls, Razorbills, Guillemots, and Cormorants diving and wheeling around.

Bow Fiddle Rock

The distance there and back is just over four and a half miles so allow two to three hours for an easy walk and a break for a snack.

The Walking Route

Here are a few more pictures taken on the day:

A Rocky Coast

Moray Coast

A Walk to Harelaw Dam

With the weather being so nice today, we had a walk up to Harelaw Dam, knowing full well that there's a nice wee coffee shop up there where you can sit outside and enjoy the view..

Harelaw Dam

The route is pretty straightforward - up through the housing estate to Kingston Road, take the farm track to Neilston Pad and follow it round the back of the Pad to the car park on Harelaw Road. From there it's a straight walk to the dam.

Harelaw Dam Walking Route

There were plenty of seats outside when we got there, although the owner said they had been pretty busy earlier, so we got some light refreshments and had a wee rest watching the House Martins swoop and dive over the water. There was the occasional splash of a trout jumping as well as there were plenty of insects on the water.

Neilston Pad

The route back took us back to the car park on Harelaw Road, then followed a wee track that took us round the front of Neilston Pad and past Craighall Dam. Rather than follow the main track, we then kept going along the edge of the Pad and cut through the woods to re-join the path. From there we cut off the track again then joined a small trail that took us down through Neilston Quarry and back to Kingston Road. From there we took the road down to Midge Glen and back from there.

There were a few butterflies out today as well. We spotted quite a few Orange Tips and there were a couple of Small Heaths on the edge of the Pad.

Here are a few more photos taken on the day:

Looking out over Glasgow and the Campsies

Harelaw Road

The dark path that joins the two tracks

Forget-Me-Nots on the path to Neilston Quarry

Death Comes to Marlow by Robert Thorogood

Death Comes to Marlow is the second book in Robert Thorogood's Marlow Murder Club series, and it’s just as much fun as the first. The book follows Judith, Suzie, and Becks, three local women who form a crime-solving club in the sleepy town of Marlow. Judith is a retired archaeologist and now a crossword setter, Suzie is a radio producer/dog walker, and Becks is the local vicar's wife.

In Death Comes to Marlow, the ladies find themselves invited (by one means or another) to a party at the home of Sir Peter Bailey, a wealthy and powerful man in Marlow. Sir Peter is to be married the following day but the party is cut short when the future groom is found dead in a room that was locked from the inside.

The police believe that Sir Peter's death was an accident, but our amateur detectives aren't so sure. They begin to investigate the case, and they soon discover that Sir Peter had many enemies. As the club digs deeper, they uncover a web of secrets and lies that could lead them to the killer.

The book is a classic cosy mystery, with a well-crafted plot, plenty of suspects, and a satisfying ending. The author does a great job of developing the characters, and the three women of the Marlow Murder Club are all likeable and relatable to us commoners. The story is clever and well-paced, with several twists and turns, and the reader is kept guessing until the very end.

I enjoyed reading Death Comes to Marlow - it’s well-written, entertaining, and engaging and I highly recommend it to fans of the genre. 9/10 🙂

White Noise

Lorna decided we'd watch something different the other evening so, after some prodding, I gave in and jumped onto Netflix and let her have a trawl through the offerings. She came up with White Noise!

I should have listened to my internal alarms going off as it reminded me of another well-received/highly-awarded movie called Ordinary People and that was excruciatingly boring. But hey-ho, I went with it...to my cost.

It's not that the performances were poor or the cinematography was ropey. No, all of that was fine and the three main characters gave very decent performances. It's the fact that the dialogue is incessant, following an ordinary family of two Americans, Jack and Babette, with four kids. They're both on their fourth marriage, Jack's a college professor specializing in Hitler studies (seriously, only in America), and Babette and the kids are just annoying.

It's billed as an absurdist comedy drama but, while it's certainly absurd, it's no comedy. The plot centres around Babette's unreasonable fear of death and her use of an experimental drug to try and help with that.

Then a cataclysmic train crash casts a cloud of chemical waste over the town causing an "airborne toxic event" that forces a massive evacuation of the town with all the associated panic and huge traffic jams. While this is going on, Jack is trying to find out where Babette is getting her drugs from.

My head was nipping after about 20 minutes so I wouldn't recommend it as entertainment - 4/10 🙁