Entertainment

Is it worth going to the Cinema these days?

I know this should probably fall under the 'Weekly Question' category, but as I haven't posted for a few days, I thought I would put it here as a kind of bonus question.
Now I watched a pretty good film last night (V for Vendetta), which I thought was ideal for DVD, but not so much for the cinema.

So is it worth going to the cinema these days? I mean the new films are released to DVD within a few months of them being in the cinema's, it used to be over 12 months, now it's more like 3.
The TV's we have now are pretty reasonably priced for the big 36" - 42" screens, even the plasma hang on the wall TV's have come down in price, from the ridiculous £10, 000 of 5 years ago, to £1500 today.
Finally, add the dolby pro-logic systems to the package, and you have just about got your own cinema in your own front room. Assuming of course your front room has the space to hold it all!

Sit back in a nice relaxing chair, turn down the lights, get the popcorn from the micro-wave, and you can be forgiven to believing you are in the cinema, ask someone to start talking half way through the film, or have one of your kids get up and walk in front of you at a crucial moment in the film, and you are definitely there.


Yet the cinema's are still going, and we still go and watch the films, but it is becoming less and less of a night out. We are also as a nation watching less TV, probably because there is so much crap on. Which begs the question, if we aren't watching TV, or going to the cinema, what are we doing.........better not answer that.

But, how are you going to get people back in the cinema's? Well you have to have the right films for a start, as I said earlier "V for Vendetta" is a good film, but it is hardly cinema worthy. Blockbusters such as "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" were made for the big screen, so were oldies like "Indianna Jones", and King Kong. So should we just screen blockbusters on the big screen, and leave the more run of the mill films to be released on DVD? Probably yes, but in reality it wont happen.

Another consideration is cost, the last time I went to the cinema was to see "x-men2", a great film, but it cost for two of us 12 quid to get in, and then nearly as much on Popcorn, and drinks. If we hadn't smuggled in the chocolate it would have been that bit more.

Nowadays though you have the franchises taking over all the traditional movie theatres, and converting them into 10 screen multiplexes, more choice yes, but far less character. Which a lot of the older cinema goers went for.

So we come full circle and back to the DVD releases for the home and the short time they are released. I am not complaining, I think it's great and would rather wait to pay £15 (or much less these days) for a DVD of a blockbuster, that I can watch whenever and wherever I like as many times as I like, than go and see it once for the same price at the cinema. I can also pause the film should I need a pee! Or turn it off, have my tea and then pick up where I left off.

The first song on MTV was "Video killed the radio star" by the Buggles. I fully expect 10 years down the line for DVD or HDVD or whatever format is going, will have killed the cinema.

Travel

My Serbian Trip

As promised on my sneaky little posting, done at the customers PC, I am now ready to reveal to full details of my trip to Serbia, well all the bits that are personal, as I am sure you don't want to be bored stupid by the technical and work side of the trip. So here we go, lets start with the journey out.....

Left for Birmingham International at 7:15, on 2nd August, and was parked up by 8:30, for those who haven't been, Birmingham has just been refurbished and is a nice airport to go to. Unfortunately I was having to fly Lufthansa.
In the words of the Carlsberg ads "Carlsberg don't do...", Lufthansa don't do beers, and if they did they'd probably be the crappiest lagers in the world! I have yet to get onto a Lufthansa flight that has been on time leaving. Luckily as the connection was overbooked, it didn't leave on time so I managed to catch the flight OK. In flight meal on the Birmingham/Munich leg was a cheese butty, and a twix,that's single twix snack size. On the Munich/Belgrade flight it was a ham butty and a snack size twix. Do Lufthansa have shares in twix bars????
Got to Belgrade OK, and was met by the driver, and taken through beautiful scenery to a little town called Paracin (pronounced Para chin), and my hotel for the next 3 nights the Petrus.

Hotel Petrus - Paracin Serbia

Rather resembling a volcano in shape, the Petrus is a hotel, that offers.....that offers ...Err nice cheap food and accommodation. But I think they gave me the worst room in the hotel. I knew there was something wrong when they gave me the remote for the TV with my room key. Then I went to the room via the creaking lift (scary!), and opened the door, not too bad I thought. Until I sat on the bed in the wrong place and my arse nearly touched the floor, luckily I then used the other bed which wasn't so bad. I then checked out the en-suite, quite clean, but the tools were bogging and ripped. The shower was lying on the shower cubicle floor as there was nowhere it could be hung up, and the bog roll was sitting on top of the toilet, as there was no holder. Looks like Bathroom fittings are scarce in this area.

After a lukewarm shower, difficult to do with one hand holding the shower head, and trying to soap yourself with the other! I went to bed, only I didn't sleep all that well as there was no Air-con, I couldn't open the window, and it was around 32 degrees in the room. Cue a sweaty naked body in the bed. Normally I don't mind that if I am performing a certain activity ;) but when you are trying to sleep.......

Next morning after breakfast of orange squash, yes orange squash, and a ham sandwich, I went to work. Nice people the Serbians, very helpful, and for the most part very friendly. The guy I was working with was the spit of Dustin Hoffman. When I mentioned this he cringed, at the prospect of all his chums (also present) now calling him Rainman....Ooooops!

After finishing work was taken out to a nice little restaurant, for a meal and a couple of jars, will 3 or 4, of the lovely Jelen beer. Try it if you can, 5% and NO headache the next day...Lovely Jubbly.

Sorry for the Quality I was 1/2 cut after all

Then it was back to the hotel, where I waved goodbye to the lads, before having a trek around the town, 11pm at night and the place is rocking, I can recommend Paracin to anyone who want to view some eye-candy, there are plenty of beautiful women on show. But don't go if you suffer badly with neck problems, as you can quite easily put your neck out with all the oggling!

Next Day, after a surprisingly peaceful sleep (Jelen does help you sleep too!), I had a nice little breakfast, and then went to work. Rainman, was happy as he didn't have the expected piss taking, and the job I had done yesterday was still OK. So finishing early, I went back to the hotel, and managed to get a change of rooms for the last night. Much better room, cleaner, Air conditioning, Internet connection, ohhhh this was better, now for that shower. NO still no fixings, guess it was a one hander again.

Saturday 5th I left Serbia, for the UK via Munich, surprise, suprise Lufthansa delayed again. But the weird thing was, although the flight was delayed from Munich to Birmingham by 15 minutes, we arrived 20 minutes ahead of schedule! Go Figure!

The Weekly Question

Are more Airline Taxes and Pay as You Go roads Going to work?

Well I have just returned from Serbia and have heard that this wonderful government of ours have plans to raise taxes on Airline fuel duty, and to introduce in the future "Pay as you Go" roads, so the question for the week is will it work? Will it reduce the amount of cars on the road? No Chance!

The very fact that people travel in their cars is because they have to. No debate, no excuses, there are so many people now who would find it virtually impossible to get to work without their motors, I am one of them, and here is why.
In most parts (notice I said most) of the country the public transport system is inefficient, crowded, and too expensive, it can also be very unreliable. So people resort to using their cars.
There is also the fact that you feel a damn sight safer in your car than you would if you were on a tube, and a bunch of drunken louts got on spoiling for trouble.

Lets take each of the points in turn;

1) Inefficient/Unreliable Public transport system - How many times have you been waiting for a train that has been delayed? Or for one bus, and then two turn up because the 2nd bus has caught up with the 1st that was late?
How many times have you missed or been late for an appointment because the train was late?
These are all problems that still have not been addressed, and they will continue to be a problem until the funding for public transport is improved.

2) Crowded - Yep that's right, although it is pretty poor, the public transport system is pretty crowded, go on the London Underground, and it's not very often you will get a seat all the way to your destination. More than likely you end up with the armpit of the worlds worst washer stuffed under your nose.

3) Too expensive - 5 years ago I was traveling from Grantham to Stevenage in my car everyday, a journey of around 800 miles a week, so I decided to check the price of a monthly season ticket on the train. I was quoted £343 per month. Now you then add the daily carpark cost, as I was too far from the station to walk and it would for the month have taken the cost to over £400. Now when you consider that my petrol for the month was costing about £280, Add to that wear & tear, and the cost to travel by car would be about £320. So which one am I going to choose?? Not only that when I take my own car, I can go when I want and come back when I want, I am not tied to anything.

Now if the government do introduce this pay as you go cost, it will be a complete nightmare. The cost will be astronomical, fitting every car with a special device to monitor the cars position, and to how far traveled, is really a non-starter. policing it is going to be ludicrous, how are they going to do it?? For me it is a total no brainer by the government trying to appease the environmentalists.
If they want to get the people of the roads, there is only one way they are gong to do it, and that is to improve public transport;

1) Make the public transport network better available to all, and serving more places more often.
2) Make Public Transport cheaper
3) Don't just concentrate on London, there are other cities you know Blair!
4) Make public transport safer, for travelerller.
5) Encourage the use of public transport, by offering incentives to use it, such as tax breaks.
6) Improve the quality of the buses, trains etc, there are an awful lot of dingy trains, that are filthy dirty, and not in the least bit welcoming.
7) Reward good PT operators, for cleanliness, efficiency and time keeping.

In answer then to the question. No it will not work as far to many oftrulyuely cannot do without our cars, we are living in a society where we live further and further away from our work, and therefore until the government change their policy of hitting the motorist as much as it can, to updating and improving Public Transport, to get as many people using it as they can. Then they will always have a battle on their hands.

Travel - update

On the Road

I am publishing this post from a computer in a cement plant in Serbia, and as my hotel (HA HA HA HA! if you call it that!) does not have internet access, I am grabbing the chance to post, whilst the customer is in breakfast....naughty me.
I will update this blog when I get back so expect a few more posts on Monday.

Catch you later!

Impy

Travel

And so it begins again...

...After more than 5 weeks at home, I have finally got another trip coming up! Then another a week after that. Typical this, rather like London buses you wait ages for one, and then 3 come at the same time. But that is the way it is as life as a Commissioning Engineer.
So what part of the world am I going to next???


Serbia!! I have never been there so am pretty much looking forward to it, although it looks like it is pretty short notice, 3 days this time!
Where in Serbia am I going?? Well it's a place called Popovac, and the only thing I have come up so far is this http://www.popovac.hr/ but as it is in serbian I cant say how much there will be to do there. Not that I get time to see the sights!

Background Information

As this is going to be a regular post, I had best give a little bit of background information on what I do.
Basically I go into cement plants worldwide and commission our product, which is a Thermal Imaging Line Scanner. Quick explanation - scanner measures the radiated heat from a kiln shell, against known references and then produces a picture on a computer screen that corresponds with the temperatures.
I also commission a system called a Thermascope, which is a camera system that looks directly into the kiln and produces a picture on the screen. I could go on a lot more about it but I am digressing from the post, so if you want to gen up look here - http://www.thermoteknix.com/

Past and Present

Now all those who think to themselves "You jammy git doing all that travelling", let me just say this, it aint all that it's cracked up to be.
For a start, I am normally only away in the country for at most 1 week, and most of the time I am on site. The sites are generally located out in the sticks, so you have got bugger all to do while your there (it's amazing what you read when you are bored), unless they have the Internet in the hotel you are staying at. Then there is the hotels themselves, my colleague Elmer and I often have to stay in the 2-3 star places, and rarely get into the 5 star luxury we deserve.
In the past I have been to places like Miami (twice!) , Ecuador, China (4 times!) and Thailand.
Those weren't too bad, but then you get the not so nice places such as Saudi Arabia, Mexico and India.
Remember I go to out of the sticks places, not the nice touristy areas, and yet again in a couple of weeks I have to go to one of the less than pleasant places once again, that is Chaibasa in India.
My apologees to anyone who knows Chaibasa or who lives there, but to get to it is a chore in itself and is another reason why I am not as lucky as people think.
First there is the flight to India roughly 8 hours, then you have a train journey of 14 hours, after that there is a drive of 4 hours to get there.
Now, this is the most heart rendering journey I have made anywhere in the world. If you saw the documentry on the train kids of India, you will know what I mean. Kids as young as 8 jumping on the moving train with a filthy rag as clothes, and a brush made of sticks to sweep up the dust from the floor. Crawling among the feet of the passengers often getting kicked by some of the callous bastards, then begging for a few coins, made the tears well up in my eyes. All my interpretor could say was give them nothing, with a look of sheer contempt on his face. I felt like decking him there and then.
Before that we had a guy carry 40kgs of luggage on his head 500 yards to the train for what amounted to 60p, or a little over $1.
That is why I hate going there, not because I don't like the country, it is very beautiful, it's because of witnessing first hand the sheer poverty that some of the people live in, especially the kids. I defy anyone to be affected by it.
So once more I have to go, luckily I am on holiday after my trip, so I can not dwell on it too much.
Just a message for those of you who are lapping up the hospitality of Goa, and wondering why, or even thinking that India isn't that poor, you are not in the real India. If you were you would be on the first flight home, tears streaming down your face.

More after my next trip!