Mark's old news

Back to work (proper) tomorrow.

Spent quite a bit of today building a pond.

Went to see the film Angela's Ashes last night. It was OK I suppose. A bit depressing and seemed to end rather abruptly.

Nice to see the return of The league of gentlemen. Not entirely sure whether it is working yet, but there are some good bits.

Found a few good links in the Guardian Editor, mostly reference. Added some of them to the links page.

We've spent a lot of today putting up fence posts and panels to screen the cats from the neighbours' dogs. Carol did most of it.

The 2nd episode of The league of gentlemen did not disappoint. It's so dark.

The roof is still not sorted, but we've found a source for the proper tiles (as original).

The 3rd episode of The league of gentlemen was OK, but not as good as the 2nd. Getting a bit silly (if that's possible) with the people running away from the stand in DJ's music.

We've now bought the correct tiles for the roof ourselves. Should get done next week. Carol has set a beech hedge in the front garden.

The 4th episode of The league of gentlemen was OK. Dark as ever.

Still plodding on through Tomb Raider 4.

Roof still not done, but it was windy and frosty. Cleaned the car today! (fairly rare).

The 5th episode of The league of gentlemen was good. Dark as ever. Last 1 next week.

Still plodding on through Tomb Raider 4. About 4 levels to go (I think).

The Zagi EPP is complete. Had to add about 100g/3oz lead in the nose to get the balance right, all up weight ended at about 750g/1lb 11oz. Didn't go to the Long Mynd on account of my cold, but apparently it was called off anyway, due to lack of wind. Threw it down a local slope though - flies quite nicely. Looks neat in the air - just this flat thing with pointy fins sticking up. You can have a look at it at eppmodels.com.

Roof still not done (again), but it was frosty (again). Carol's put 2 big trees in. I helped a bit.

The 6th and last episode of The league of gentlemen 2nd series was good. Darker than ever. I guess there will be a 3rd.

Finished Tomb Raider 4 a few minutes ago. Will there be a 5th?

Roof is now properly fixed (last Friday). At last.

Now I've finished Tomb Raider and the Zagi, I've been having a go at getting my music setup sorted out. Having a lot of trouble getting MIDI data from the Roland XP30 to the PC. Other direction is fine. Symptoms are a few lost note events when they are sent fairly rapidly. Tried the old Yamaha DX27 which works OK. Tried using the Yamaha as a midi through box which didn't help. However, the Yamaha received and played all the note events perfectly even when the data passed on to the PC was rejected. Confused.

Many hours of fun and games trying to sort out the MIDI problem ie. getting data from the Roland XP30 to the PC. Bought a serial cable which eventually worked OK for about 5 mins before something happened. never worked since. Accidentally broke the cable and had to rewire a new mini din connector onto it. Even tried COM2. Maybe I've blown the serial out from the keyboard? Going back to the MIDI port, the symptoms suggest that the cable/sound card could be at fault. I got the atari out, fetched the disks, only to find that the disk drive seems to have died. Really need to get a scope on these signals, but I haven't got 1. Annoyed.

Dropped the snow effect. It is March now. Replaced it with a "lake" effect. Not as clever, but still quite nice.

Got the bike out today. It's just about warm enough now.

Managed to clear a bit off my desk at home this weekend, and dumped some old boxes from the garage.

Went to Stratford yesterday.

Went to the Long Mynd today. Not really enough wind but it was a nice sunny day out in the country anyway. Flew the zagi 3 or 4 times, struggling to keep it in the air. The wind got up now and then, but I was sharing channel 78 with 2 other people.

Didn't get much done at home. Cut the grass is about all.

Bought a couple of 8.4V 500mAh Sanyo AR battery packs from Overlander for my electric glider thing. It pulls even better than the 7.2V 1700mAh pack and much lighter too. Only runs for about 90 secs though. Yet to try it in the air.

Paid up the £99.99 to BT Cellnet to keep my phone going for another year (18 months?).

Finished reading Moving Pictures. Not bad. I'm getting a bit fed up with Terry Pratchett. Having said that, I bought Eric yesterday. I'm about half way through the Archaeopteryx thing.

I've started getting into Visual Basic. Even bought 1 of those ridiculously expensive, heavy books.

I flew the electric glider thing at Wolston this weekend. Goes quite nicely with the new lighter higher voltage battery packs.

Got a new sound card for the PC to try to resolve the MIDI problem. Having terrible trouble getting it installed.

A day late updating the site. I've fitted a new 30G hard drive, and updated to win98 at the same time. Mostly went really smoothly, but had a problem finding a driver for the modem. Easy - I'll just download the relevant driver. Er... I need a modem for that! Still, the old drive still works - so I used that. Hopefully the new sound card will work OK now. Win98 seems to have a few annoying habits, but generally OK. Things seem to go a bit quicker now, although that may be just the new drive. 30G is 10x my last hard drive and 100x the 245M drive I had in my 1st win3.1 PC.

Got a couple of videos out last weekend. The less said about John Carpenter's Vampires the better. But, Run Lola Run was excellent. See it if you can. Lola has 20mins to find 100k DM (yes, it's Deutsch) to save her boyfriend. Needless to say, things don't go smoothly. A theme is the way the smallest of decisions can have big effects.

I've spent some of the weekend getting the remote link PA working/improved for the forthcoming Coventry open glider competition scheduled for 2w Sunday on Warwick racecoure. Tidied up the leads and put an external supply connector on the Rx/headphones. Also used a power tool case to keep all the bits together.

Finally got around to trying the keyboard with the new soundblaster 16 PCI card and the new hard drive. And the answer is... It works ! I'll just have to some music now.

Went swimming (Coventry) in the week. We tried to go this morning, but there's some gala going on for the next 3 weeks.

Painted the garage door yesterday. It was an awful dark purple before. Now a very nice red. Needs another coat though. Got the bike out.

1 week to go till the Coventry open Glider competition. Scheduled for Sunday 14th May on Warwick racecoure.

Haven't done any MIDI stuff yet.

Coventry open Glider competition today. A glorious sunny day on Warwick racecoure. I'm rather sunburnt now. Only about 26 competitors due to clashes with other events. There will be no September event this year, again due to clashes. Still, it went very smoothly. Only 1 mid air collision, but both carried on flying. There were a couple of buzzards circling in the thermals some of the time, which made it easier for the fliers. Didn't get to use the remote PA system as the flight line was quite close to the tent. The laptop and the F3Score software are a lot more efficient than the old spectrum, meaning I could even find time to read a book. Downloaded a new version, but it still has bugs that can crash it if you're not careful.

Finished reading Eric and Taking Wing.

Started to enter some drum patterns in MIDI. Still getting used to PC software.

Must go and see this Gladiator film this week.

Went to see the Gladiator film. Ultimately disappointing. Like so many big budget films now, the special effects are great, the cinematography excellent, acting OK etc., but what happened to the plot? When dealing with real people from history I think it's OK to go making up stuff that might have happened, but they shouldn't contradict the known facts (as best as we can). Check out the facts at britannica.com. Marcus Aurelius was apparently the last of the emperors at the high point of the Roman empire, although not the nice guy made out in the film. His son Commodus was a bit of a disaster, but he was obsessed with things gladiatorial, even taking to the arena himself. At 1 point Maximus appears to ride from Germania to Spain (or was it Italy - I couldn't tell?) in about a day. Americans seem to have this idea that Europe is tiny. Some of the things that happen to Max defy belief, and as for the ending!

Started reading Brave new world.

Added a few bits of equipment to the sounds page.

Went swimming (Coventry) again in the week, but not Sunday.

We got the bikes MOTed yesterday. Only did 420 miles since last year. Still, more than last year's 291. When it was new, I used to do about 7000 a year, including 2000 round Europe.

Missed out on the Exeter College garden party yesterday. Left it too late to book. Still, the weather didn't look good.

Pond has cleared nicely now. We've got at least 2 frogs, including a black and gray stripy thing. I've half painted the garage walls white now. The main problem being getting at them rather than the painting.

Tomorrow, the flying club is having a visit from Midland Helicopter. I've always fancied a model helicopter, but they have been rather expensive. There are some electric things about now.

Went swimming (Coventry) again in the week. Maybe not next, as I need to get the car MOTed.

More appalling rewrites of history by Hollywood going on again. According to the film U571, the Americans (not the British) captured an Enigma encrytion device from the Germans.

On Monday the flying club had a visit/demo from Midland Helicopter. They did some nice flying with big laser (a make of engine - not an optical device) powered things, and let people have a go on a Moskito trainer (noisy 2 stroke thing). However, I thought they did a poor job of selling, as I saw no leaflets, web site address etc. Also, no sign of electrics. I visited the shop on Thursday, after an accidental trip to Leicester due to their web site not showing the lack of a Northbound exit at J2 M69. I'm now looking at the Ikarus Eco 8. The basic kit seems quite reasonably priced, but when you add up the motor, controller, radio rx and servos, piezo gyro etc. it starts to look seriously expensive. And that's before you crash it! (apparently inevitable). I'll think about it again next month.

No swimming because of the MOT, but I got some exercise riding the bike. Next week's probably out too as I should be going on the flying club trip to the Long Mynd on Tuesday.

Went to the Coventry festival at the Memorial park yesterday. It was really good, and completely free. Didn't even have to pay for parking. Loads of bands. At last I have seen Coventry's own DreamGrinder. They have been compared to Hawkwind (and played with them). I couldn't quite see the resemblance myself. Still, they did produce some distinctive sounds. A bit shouty. Looking round the web, they seem to be more electronic, with a couple of CDs available. I could only find 1 sample. Maybe the CDs are in the local shops ? Later on was Queen Adreena, formed from the ashes of Daisy Chainsaw. A bit wierd, but interesting.

Went on the flying club trip to the Long Mynd on Tuesday. Took my own car rather than the minibus, so I could have music on and go home when I got fed up. Also, my aircraft were nice and safe - at least 1 got broken in the crush at the back of the bus. Pretty good weather, with winds a bit on the strong side and a fair bit of sun. The west wind dictates the slope beyond the pond which is easy to get to, but you do get the sun in your eyes a bit. Despite having a hat and sunglasses on, my face suffered from exposure and ny nose is now peeling. Flew the Zagi 2x, probably about 30 mins total. The fins are still rather unsatisfactory - when I taped them up, it flew a bit more positively. Also flew the Stiletto, which looks really pretty in the air. Dad flew his repaired Vampire, which is a large gull winged flying wing thing. Went very nicely. There was a mid air collision which took the tail off 1 model, and another light model got broken due to the strong wind. I took a few photos, but it'll be a few weeks before they appear here. There were very few people walking up there, as it was mid week. A successful day.

Went to work and did 4 hours overtime yesterday. I've plenty to do at home, but there's rather a lot going on at work too. Took the bike as it was so hot. It reminded me of riding through Europe, with the warm air flowing round my ankles.

Still researching the model helicopter. The Ikarus Eco 8 looks favourite at the moment. There is a nice review. The Piccolo is just a bit too small. I'm looking at a "heading lock" piezo gyro (and servo) from CSM. Fabulously expensive, but should make it easier to fly.

No sign of DreamGrinder. CDs in the local shops. I must get a credit card and buy some stuff over the web.

Glastonbury, and I'm not there. Actually, we've only ever been 1x. This year's crop of bands seems a bit poor. Also, the weather is less than ideal. Still, good coverage on TV.

Gave up trying to find new books to read and raided Carol's collection instead. Started reading Herodotus - Histories (at home) and Moab is my washpot (at work). There's rather a lot of this Herodotus, but it's quite entertaining so far.

Bought a couple of CDs. Queen Adreena Taxidermy and Sarah McLachlan Surfacing649. The Queen Adreena is refreshingly different. It also has a QuickTime video (70Mb) on the CD. Sarah McLachlan is a bit soft. I really bought it for the track Angel which was done for the film City of Angels, which I haven't seen, but I think it is 1 of these remakes for the Americans (who apparently can't cope with the original) of Wings of Desire.

Did another 4 hours overtime yesterday, and a bit in the week.

Yesterday was the village fete. 30p to get in! The usual stuff. Carol bought yet more plants.

Put 2 more pictures up - the garden pond and squirrel.

Still researching the model helicopter. The Ikarus Modellbau web site has come back now (wasn't working last week?). Should I go for a brushless motor? decisions, decisions.

Did another 4 hours overtime yesterday, and a bit in the week. Getting a bit fed up with it now. Could do with a holiday.

Carol bought yet more plants from another village fete today.

Another pay day has gone by and I've dived in and bought the helicopter (me and my flexible friend that is). At least, the basic kit and a few extras. It's the ECO 8 from Ikarus Modellbau. Still need a gyro and some radio gear. Put the main chassis together today, and a few rotor bits.

Went to see MI2 in the week and Chicken Run yesterday.

Despite not getting any more bits, the helicopter has progressed. The main chassis, main rotor, tail boom and rotor are all assembled now. Really need the gyro and radio gear, so I can make some decisions about siting components.

Surfing the web yesterday, found some stuff about autonomous robotic vehicles here, including helicopters. Never mind Robot Wars, this is the real thing. There's even a 10min ra video about the competition.

Work is getting a bit busy at the moment. Did overtime in the week and Saturday morning. Nothing compared to the hours some people are doing. Even so, I'm getting fed up with it. The sunny weather has finally come back, and it feels like holiday time.

Ordered some bits for the helicopter, but most of them haven't turned up yet. Bought the CSM ICG540 piezo gyro. This actually cost more than the basic kit, but is supposed to be the best. I thought the main rotor free wheel mechanism had packed up, as the rotor and main gear wouldn't lock. Turned out I had put the rotor head fixing screw past the end, rather than through, the shaft. The tight fit held it OK at 1st. Rather alarming. Fitted the motor and speed controller.

Watched the director's cut Blade Runner and documentary last night. Amazing to think that it actually lost money when 1st released. It is virtually perfect. There is so much nonsense about that people happily pay to see.

Finally got around to putting the bat box up in the garden today.

Updated the how to... page with a screen shot of aceftp and how to get a hit counter.

Work is still far too busy. Did overtime in the week and the late shift Saturday (14:00 - 22:00). The weekend seems very short when it's only 1 day long. The sunny weather has gone again.

Monday was the flying club powered glider themed evening at Wolston. Ideal weather and lots of models. The "all up, last down" competition was won by someone doing 17mins, and most of them stayed up for longer than you might expect. These electric powered things quite often looked as though they were on final approach, when no, there's still some power in those cells. 2 problems of the evening. 1 set of folded wings, followed by an uncontrolled screaming vertical descent (no throttle) into the ground. 1 launch with radio off (flew very nicely on its own). At least with electrics you can usually turn the motor off, and with no radio signal the motor just switches off anyway.

At last, the Hitec HS81MG servos for the helicopter arrived, but no receiver yet. In order to progress, I bought 1 from the local model shop (rather more expensive). A nice afternoon today, fitting the servos, Rx cell pack, switch harness, Rx. Decided to cut some of the chassis away to make a neat job of it. There is now a worrying amount of wiring spaghetti which will have to be tidied. Should be able to fire up the motor soon, using my old Tx, but I'll be needing a new computer Tx to actually fly it.

Starting to seriously plan a trip to see my sister in Portugal, taking the car by ferry to northern Spain.

Work is still busy. Did overtime in the week and 5 hours Saturday morning. The good weather has returned, and I'm missing most of it.

Went to seeTitan AE. Not very good really. Why didn't it go straight to video? Accidentally saw a trailer for the Disney Dinosaur film. decent animation, but talking dinosaurs? Looking forward to the X-men film coming soon.

The helicopter is progressing nicely. Servos all hooked up to the main and tail rotors. I've taken the main rotor blades off and spun it up. Both rotors could do with a bit of balancing. Planning on buying a Futaba Field Force 8s computer Tx tomorrow. Should be in the air soon.

Work is still busy, but I escaped for the weekend. Went up to see Richard and visit the Woodvale model aircraft (and other stuff) rally. Good weather on Saturday. Lots of rather worryingly large models (half scale!). Bought an Rx battery pack voltage monitor for the helicopter.

Went to Inwood models on Monday and bought the Futaba Field Force 8s computer Tx. After a few false starts, I've now got it programmed to move all the servos in the right direction. Otherwise little progress.

The ferry is now booked for the trip to Portugal.

Slope soaring trip to the Long Mynd this week.

Added a new coming soon section, to give more notice of things to look out for.

Work has calmed down a bit now, at least for me. A whole 2 day weekend off.

Tuesday's trip to the Long Mynd was a bit of a waste of time, with drizzly rain and hardly any wind. Lots of sitting in the car looking at rather wet sheep. Some of the lighter gliders got a few flights in, but I got fed up after a couple of trips down the precipitous slope to fetch the zagi. Lovely sunshine while sitting in the M6 queue on the way home. Seems to have been a very wet summer this year - no sign of the usual hosepipe ban. Got some good photographs back from the previous Long Mynd trip, but it's getting a bit too late tonight to process them onto the web site.

The helicopter is finished, and flown (sort of). Tidied up the wiring, fitted the piezo gyro properly, set up all the servo travels etc. Before fitting the main rotor blades, I tried the gyro out by hand holding the chassis with the tail rotor spinning. Quite impressive the way it wants to point in the 1 direction. Of course it turns stronger to the right than left, with no torque reaction from the main rotor.

Despite the rain today, I fitted the training undercarriage and ran 3 battery packs worth of power through it, tethered to within about 4 inches from the ground (to prevent tipping over and breaking the blades). Seems a bit vibratory at low revs - not sure why, but it smoothes out with more power. Needed quite a bit of cyclic trim to get it about right. The power is a bit marginal with 7 cell 8.4V. I might be tempted to get a couple of 8 cell 9.6V packs soon. The gyro performance is OK in heading lock mode, with a slight tendency to drift left after a minute or so. The step change is not very good with lots of oscillation before it settles down. The manual says this is too much gyro gain, but I have turned it down as far as it will go. I think the problem is the lack of rigidity through the chassis to the tail rotor. I wanted the upgrade stiffener acessory when I bought the kit, but it was out of stock. The "standard" gyro mode seems to drift worse. It makes some very nice helicoptery noises. There is still a lot to think about with controlling a helicopter, and my fixed wing emergency reactions could be disastrously inappropriate. Need some more time before full flight.

Got my photocard driving license this week. There's a "counterpart" paper bit as well! What is the point?

X-men film starts this week. I might go to the Thursday preview.

Went to see the X-men film preview on Thursday. Very good overall. Quite faithful to the original comic in feel, if not in detail. I missed Angel. I guess it's a bit tricky to do a convincing man with wings. The special effects are nothing to write home about, but you can't see the join, so that's something I suppose. Considering the series started in 1963 (I think), the film is a bit late. I started reading it while I was at school. This goes some way to explaining the lack of electronic technology. The characters seem a bit uncomplicated/childish, but that is in line with the comic. Like a lots of films, the scene setting at the beginning is very promising, but it eventually degenerates into the climax good guys fighting bad guys bit. Of course no one really gets hurt. Wouldn't want to write anyone out of the sequel(s). Patrick Stewart is perfect as Xavier. Never knew much about Wolverine before. Hugh Jackman brings a very watchable "Clint Eastwood" feel to the role. Halle Berry as Storm has been criticised, but she does a reasonable job, and does look good in white hair and black leather (see pic above). Most of the others are not very interesting, the bad guys in particular having almost no lines. More please.

Thursday, also went and bought a tail boom stiffening kit for the helicopter, This seem to have done the trick in killing off the oscillation in yaw. The steel cored snake supplied with the kit is a bit stiff. Replacing it would involve quite a bit of untaping. I might go for a composite tail boom yet, and fit a new snake then. Still haven't had an opportunity/confidence to attempt full flight. I'll take it along to the CADMAC electric flight evening at Wolston tomorrow. I still haven't done the canopy, but that won't stop it flying.

Saturday evening, went and flew the Aerojet at Wolston. Thought I ought to fly it tomorrow at the electric do, and it needed testing 1st. To my surprise, there were a couple of other people there. Excellent weather except for the wind coming out of the sun. Anyway, with a helping hand launch, it whizzed off into the sky very nicely. A bit of trim and a few circuits. Had to turn to the right to avoid the sun, which I don't like, but nevermind. Motor off it makes some good wooshing noises in fast passes. After a couple of minutes the motor on sound changed. Something had come loose, but it was still pulling and flying OK.An overshoot later, I managed a very smooth landing in the circle. The prop adapter grub screw had loosened a bit. Tightened it up and had another go. Unfortunately, the fuse blew during the launch, and I had to quickly level it up for the ground. The spare fuse got fitted to the helicopter, so it wasn't in the tool box. Still, a nice flight and still in 1 piece. By this time the wind had dropped and I could have flown the helicopter, had I brought it with me.

Sunday, went to Blenheim Palace at Woodstock, just north of Oxford. Considering I used to live near there, it's about time I had a look. Very nice place by "capability" Brown. Didn't have time to go in the house itself, but did quite a bit of the grounds. With all the foreigners buzzing about, it was like being on holiday.

Added a couple of recent pictures from Long Mynd and Wolston.

Monday was the CADMAC electric flight evening at Wolston. After work I did a bit of shopping and went round lots of garages looking for a multi pack of 30A fuses for Aerojet after it blew a 25A last Saturday. I eventually setled for 1 in a mixed set. By the time I had fitted it and charged all batteries and loaded the car, I arrived quite late at the field. There was a very good turn out, but the weather was rather dark and overcast. The wind was blowing from the crowd across the landing circle, making launches and landings difficult. There were a couple of horses rather close too. The wind was too light for a lot of the overweight/underpowered scale models, hence a few bumps from hand launches. However, there were lotsof viable aricraft. The winner demonstrated a wheeled takeoff, followed by a spot of prop hanging, then pattern aerobatics. He also had an Aerojet and an Eco 8 helicopter. It had apparently flown earlier, but I missed it. I didn't bother getting my stuff out of the car. Also of note was the aircraft that was in the sky all the time I was there. It didn't land until after the presentation. About 90min flight. Probably had Lithium ion batteries.

Tuesday, weather was much better and I lost patience, took the tether off the helicopter and placed it on the grass in the garden. Successfully skittered it around the garden and trimmed it a bit. Maximum height about 6in. Still, it had been in the air in free flight and was undamaged. Had another go today, and achieved about 3ft. The garden isn't really big enough, and there were lots of discretionary inelegant flops to the ground when it got a bit hairy. The tail still oscillates occasionally. Got some more photos back. You can now see my version of the Eco8.

Found out there is to be a Tomb Raider 5 for xmas. Oh no, that's all my winter evenings gone again.

Bank holiday Monday, we went to Broadway. Despite the sunshine and showers weather, a pleasant lunch next to the village green and a wander round the shops. There was a documentary report making a fuss about the access road from the hill being closed, so we went to have a look. You an still come down the hill most of the way in the widened road, but then have to go down a new bit and approach from the west. Seems OK to me. Went to have a look at the tower too but were put off by the £4.00 admision. Lots of new bikes wobbling about on the roads.

Started to watch the Marconi share price regularly now. I haven't any shares. I've never thought I had any spare money for that. However the company is threatening to give most of the current employees 1000 shares each for free provided certain conditions are met. Basically the share price has to double from the starting point (from about £8 up to £16). Have a look at the graph. Latest high was£12.47. Looks like it might actually happen.

Rescanned the helicopter pictures, as they were suffering from too much contrast. Hopefully they are a bit clearer now.

Work has gone a bit busy again, so I probably won't be going to the Long Mynd this week.

Work was busy as expected, so no Long Mynd, but weather was rubbish anyway.

Brittany Ferries phoned me on Saturday to say that their boat was broken. Argh! However, I have managed to change to P&O for the trip to Portugal with slightly different dates, at great expense.

Marconi share price has gone down a bit.

Updated the helicopter bit of the projectspage.

Just back from my trip to Portugal. No update last week.

After Brittany Ferries let me down, I managed to change to P&O. With the petrol blockades hotting up I filled up the car on Saturday and switched to the bike.

Dad and I set off for Portsmouth early Tuesday morning, ending up with many hours to kill before the 20:00 sailing, so we had a look at the historic ships Victory, Mary Rose and Warrior. We tried to fill up in Portsmouth, but there was no unleaded to be had.

The Pride of Bilbao is an enormous boat with capacity for 2400 passengers, 2 cinemas, a swimming pool etc. We had a 4 berth inside cabin on the way out. I thought there was some mistake at 1st as I could only see 2 beds, but the others were folded/hinged up to the walls. A bit cramped for space but with its own loo and shower. We wondered what a 3 berth would look like. The boat is almost like a little bit of England, resembling a motorway services more than anything else, right down to the watery brown stuff they call coffee. To kill some time on Wednesday we saw Gladiator (2nd time for me). The sea was about as calm as it ever gets, giving a slightly unreal feel to the crossing, especially at night, when other boats seemed to be just sliding across the surface rather than through the water. The stars were a bit disappointing, due to the near full moon and the lights from the boat.

A full English breakfast was a bit hard to get down at 05:30 Thursday morning (English boat time), but probably wise as it was going to be a long day. As promised, we docked at 08:00 (Spanish time) at Bilbao and soon got off the boat into a fresh misty morning. We just followed the main drag of traffic (a couple of 2 up bikes and loads of caravans) through the docks and industrial and residential areas of Bilbao, eventually rising into the misty green hills/mountains of northern Spain. There was a long toll section of the motorway (about 2000 ptas). Most of Spain was just 2 lane motorway surrounded by agricultural flat plain to the horizon for hour after hour. I think the plain must be quite high as the temperature was just nice. At Salamanca we went into town out of boredom, but drove straight through, as it looked just like another high rise European town. Coming out the other side there was a nice view of the old hill town though. After that the motorway gave way to a simple 2 lane road where we followed lines of trucks doing 60mph with little chance of overtaking. We stopped in a lorry park and had cheese and crackers for lunch. The countryside gradually got greener up to the border with Portugal which was apparently unmanned. The north of Portugal is quite geen and pleasant. There was evidence of several fires by the side of the road, and we saw a couple in progress. At Guarda we turned south and descended into the heat of the centre in the hottest part of the day. We arrived at Castelo Branco at about 16:00 Thursday (Portugal uses the same time as UK). About 430 miles and 8 hours.

We spent a relaxing week at my sister's new house, mostly reading and keeping up with the petrol news on satellite TV. Also saw the opening ceremony of the 2000 Olympics. It was too hot to go out until about 18:00. Castelo Branco has more building/development happening every time we go. Dad had made a 2 channel hand lauch glider for the kids. We struggled for somewhere suitable to fly it, but eventually settled for the local football pitch, despite its lack of grass and sandy/rocky surface. The inevitable knocks into the hard ground eventually stripped the gears in the rudder micro servo, along with the main structure getting a bit tatty. Needless to say, we didn't have a spare servo. Some reserch in the yellow pages yielded a standard size servo from a small model shop in Fundao, a few miles up the IP2. A bit of major surgery to the fuselage allowed this to be fitted and it lived to fly again. A new school had been built recently, and the complications of this meant that the kids didn't go back to school until after we left (apart from a couple of timetable sorting out visits). On our last day there (Tuesday), we all went on a trip south and took in a visit to the Alter Real stud farm and had a look at the river Tejo just above the dam. By this time the weather had changed and short showers were about.

We set out 09:00 Wednesday. Lovely weather with the sun behind us in the cool part of the day. Got a bit lost (again) in Guarda. We again stopped just after Salamanca for lunch. The video game nature of the Spansh motorway combined with the afternoon sun meant that we had to take a siesta and and some caffeine. Dad did some of the driving. Didn't see anything of them but bypassed Valladolid, Palencia, Burgos on the way. We had hoped to get a hotel after the toll section, but before Bilbao, but we didn't see any. Decided to head west up the coast towards Santander. After trying Castro Urdiales, we eventually found a room at Laredo, probably 30 miles away. A bit of fun and games finding the actual P&O terminal at the port, despite the fact that we were there just a week before. Very relieved when we saw the boat in dock, even better when we were aboard and underway at 12:30 Thursday (Spanish time). However this was short lived. There were several whale/dolphin spotters on deck when we left, but we didn't see any. The 3 berth cabin was exactly the same as a 4 berth, except that 1 of the fold down beds was missing. As soon as we got out to sea we hit the swell and the boat started heaving about. By 14:00 we were lying down, eyes closed, waiting for it to stop. Only another 24 hours to go! Very much like being on a roller coaster in the dark for hours. I managed to not be sick and got some sleep. Woke up early morning and it had stopped. We guessed that it was because of the new heading after going round the tip of France, but apparently the bad weather had ovetaken us. Anyway the rest of the trip was nearly as smooth as the outward. After fasting for over 12 hours, another full English breakfast was very welcome, even with watery coffee. We saw the X-men film. The final run in round the Isle of Wight and past all the ships in Portsmouth harbour was good in the sunshine at about 16:30 Frday. An accident on the A34 at Oxford held us up in a queue for best part of an hour.

Despite the boat problems, it was a good trip. Maybe do it again in a couple of years.

Now, catch up with all that TV that Carol taped for me.

Back to work tomorrow.

Marconi share price has plummeted. Probably nothing to do with me being away.

October. Almost a year since we moved house. Plenty of work waiting for me back at work.

Got the Portugal photos back. Pretty good. Not much of Spain as I was driving, and we didn't stop much. Started putting them into the album.

Bought and fitted a 13 tooth gear to replace the original 10 tooth on the helicopter motor. Given the same motor revs, the rotor should spin 30% faster. In practice the extra drag slows things down a bit, and the motor just draws more current. Anyway, it seems to have done the trick. It's considerably more spritely in the air, meanng climbing is just a matter of pushing the stick up, rather than trying to keep it level and efficient. It suffered its 1st crashette in the (not really big enough) garden. It got a bit close to the fence, and I tilted it over to fly away, but got worried and dropped the power with it still angled over. The rotor blades hit the grass and folded themselves parallel. With their weightl all on 1 side, the pitch servos were being strained out of position. Probably the metal gears saved them. Apparently no damage. Just straightened everything out and carried on flying. The tail oscillation seems a bit better (still present) with the higher revs. I plan to add a vertical fin to try damping things down a bit.

Finally got rid of the old carpet from the garage. Perhaps now I can get on with sorting it out.

Finished the Portugal photo album.

After all this rain, we actually had a sunny day today. Cleared some more rubbish from the garage and did some more wall painting. Even cut the grass.

Carol has built a bat detector so that she can better count the bat each evening. We've only got the 1.

Finally got round to putting the canopy together for the helicopter. Still held together by tape at the moment. It makes more difference than I expected. It now looks more like a helicopter, and less like a bag of electronic/mechanical bits.

Marconi have announced plans for partnerships involving transfer of personnel to other companies. Looks like I won't be 1 of them.

Thursday, I finally got round to flying the helicopter properly. Got home reasonably early and the wind was quite light, so I took it to Wolston. Only me there. Despite being at the top of a hill, it was muddy, with lots of standing water. Topped up the cells and had a go. Quite similar to in the garden, but with more space. The wind that there was was blowing it away slowly. It was not really completely under my control. I just kept landing and fetching it back again. Suffering from the usual learning problems of too much control, too late. The tail was still oscillating. I taped a vertical paper fin in front of the tail rotor. This sorted it straight away. I think I'll make a transparent plastic 1 later. 1 or 2 heavy landings, but the soft ground and training undercarriage protected it. I ran about 4 or 5 charges through the motor. With the light fading I had made up my mind on the last flight. Still getting away from me. It got quite close to the electric fence so I landed. Decided to fly it back. Bad move. Once up to about 15ft, it was not making any headway into what little wind there was, so I tilted it forward. I guess that the batteries were fading as it started to lose height. Anway, it was coming for me, so I gave up the fight, throttled back and ran away. Of course the rotors don't actually slow down, but all the lift goes. Crash.

A crashed heli is a horrible sight. The rotor blades twisted back where they shouldn't be. The total damage was... 1 broken undercarriage leg, 1 bent flybar, 1 bent tail boom, 2 fractured rotor blades. I didn't see the damage to the rotor blades until home. There are tension fractures on the front and compression fractures on the back about 40% out from the root. A visit to the heli shop relieved me of £66. Had to buy 2 flybars and 2 undercarriage bits, so it was a bit less really. The blades are the worst at £40/pr. I think I'll take the opportunity to resite the tail rotor servo to the tail boom, to improve the straightness of the control run. It will fly again. When you crash a fixed wing aircraft there are usually crunched foam and/or splintered wood which is never as good again, a heli is just a load of bits screwed together.

Marconi share price has been down almost to £8.00 which is where it was when this doubling share promise was made. The unions are not happy about the outsourcing/transfer of manufacturing.

Saturday. We went to Stratford for a change.

Sunday. I finally got the 1st reinforcing beam hung across the garage, ready for putting a floor up there.

Updated the books section.

Friday. We saw Harry Hill at Warwick Univesity Arts Centre. Nice to see some new material.

Bought Stars and Topsoil . A new collection of Cocteau Twins music.

Added a food page.

The clocks have gone back. While we're on the subject, why do we have to mess with the clocks? Why not just do things an hour later? Why not get in sync with the rest of (central) Europe? 70-90mph winds promised for tonight. It was about a year ago that we had a tree blown down onto the house. It's been extremely wet this year. No hosepipe bans.

I've been off sick since Friday. Usual flu stuff, but not apparently as bad as last winter. Felt it building up all week. Still went into town briefly yesterday. Spotted some chocolate in Thorntons that I will have to add to the food page.

Carol has had her material used in the local village(s) newsletter Round the Revel. They wanted someone to take over the environmental bit. 3 people applied, including Carol. They're sharing it now.

Realised that the Friday night comedy Black Books effectively gets a mention at the top of all my web pages ie. black books.

Finally got the manual out for my Roland XP30 and figured out how to configure a performance setup, so that I can use it with the computer sequencer. I should be able to get it do everything, including drums, bass, keyboards, effects/reverb, apart from guitar and vocals. Actually it can do a fairly good job of guitar too.

Bonfire night. Mostly washed out in the wind and rain. Rather a lot of Britain is underwater at the moment. Despite the high winds, we didn't lose any more trees, although 1 went in the centre of the village. Deadline for action on fuel prices is coming up next weekend.

Went back to work on Wednesday, still a bit rough with flu. While sitting about feeling miserable, I managed to read a couple of chapters of A History of Britain, including the Norman Conquest. The Thorntons chocolate was pleasant enough, but not worth a mention on the foodpage.

Discovered the band Venus In Fursfrom an article in MP3 magazine. Brilliant. I haven't heard anything this fresh for years. 6 mp3 tracks for free download. 10mins to download a 3min track, use winamp to output wav files, make a CD, tape it and play it in the car. This is how music should be. Favourite track at the moment Carnival. Badup-bah.

Black Books has finished, but I expect it will be back.

Tuesday was supposed to be a Long Mynd trip day, but the weather and floods put people off the travelling. We went to Edgehill instead. Quite a good site. Unfortunately, the wind was not really in the right direction and too weak anyway. My aircraft wouldn't stay up. This has happened so many times that I've now bought a Siesta thermal soarer kit from Phoenix Model Products. Good old fashioned built up wings. How long will it take to complete this 1?

Saw the film Pitch Black. Not bad for a low budget "alien" type of thing. While waiting for it to start, I went into the Big W shop (Woolworths). Found some more organic chocolate. 36%. A good effort.

The LH mirror on my car got bashed a long time ago, and finally fell off altogether this week, hanging by the cable. £90 for a new 1.

Saturday we went to Newcastle under Lyme in search of a bike for Carol's latest project. Stopped at Stone for lunch in an Italian ristorante.

After all the rain, there was a bit of sun today. We went for a walk up the hill by the village.

The Siesta from Phoenix Model Products is progressing well. Wing centre panels are off the building board, wing tips in progress. I should be able to slim the fuselage down quite a bit using modern servos. Probably use the V tail option. Doesn't work as well as the traditional tail, but looks prettier, and should be less likely to get damaged on the slope. Next Long Mynd trip is 1st week of December. Maybe I can get it finished for then?

Friday was the annual flying club games night. After several years of poor attendance there were so many people that the food ran out. Had Friday off, to use up some of the holiday still remaining.

The Siesta is progressing well. Wing panels are complete apart from the ply facing ribs, joining tube and centre wing to fuselage fixing arrangement. Fuselage sides are sticking to longerons as I write. Most formers and the servo tray have been fabricated. I seem to have lost the other electronic mixer kit in the house move. If I can't find it, I can still fly the V tail using the computer radio. Only 1 weekend left before the next slope soaring trip. The weather will probably be rubbish anyway.

The flying club has found a free school site for indoor flying 2x/month over xmas. This has prompted me to tidy up the helicopter a bit.

1 month to go to xmas, so I've switched the logo back to the falling snow thing. Endless rain would be more appropriate.

Bought MP3 magazine and discovered Nicola Quilter. Not bad if you can get past the Australian accent. Several free mp3s on the site.

December. Started Galaxy chocolate advent calendars at work and home. Can't seem to find 1 with proper chocolate in.

Friday was this year's 1st indoor flying session at a local school. I finished off the helicopter, and hovered it in the the dark in the garden, just to make sure it was OK. The hall wasn't really big enough for fixed wing, but the litle rubber powered things managed alright. There was an Ikarus Piccolo helicopter there. I flew the Eco8 for a few seconds on what was left of the battery. An IC helicopter flyer was there. He helped me to loosen up the rotor fixings to allow them to find their own balance. We increased the pitch. He flew it 2x for me, doing very nice figure of 8 circuits. I took some photos. I was still waiting for the cells to recharge, so that I could have a go, when we ran out of time. Anyway, it was great to see it flying smoothly. The resited tail rotor servo seems to have sorted out the oscillation (with no fin). I guess the restoring action just gets in that much faster now, without the stiff cable run. It's still desperately underpowered. I think just 1 more cell to 9.6V should do it. The school hall was only free on a trial basis. The next indoor session will probably be at the Coventry city sports centre.

The Siesta has progressed, but it won't be ready for Tuesday's slope soaring trip. I was planning on taking some holiday, but there was too much going on at work. Wing tip panels are complete. Centre panels have just been joined. Still the wing bolt fixing to sort out, and centre sheeting. Fuselage sides almost ready to be stuck to formers.

Dived in to internet shopping, to buy the 3rd installment of the Witchblade/Tomb Raider crossover thing - Cauldron from Amazon. I haven't seen in anywhere else. See how long that takes to arrive.

Listening to the Nicola Quilter free mp3s. I will have to buy the CD. Only seems to be available from mp3.com.

Had a look to see if anyone had taken the domain name www.markspace.co.uk, and of course they have. Nothing of interest there though; just a single page with no contact info. Freeserve seem to have sorted themselves out. Getting on 1st time tonight.

Whether to go and see the film Red Planet, universally panned in reviews. Decisions, decisions...

Extremely busy day, Monday. Went to work in the morning, not actually getting much done, other than book my remaining holidays for the year. I'm now on a 3 day week up to xmas. At the weekend the Stiletto wing fell off the drawer unit, and got stopped by catching the control horn, stripping the servo gears completely. The spare servo, that I thought I had, turned out to be a different model. With the next soaring trip the following day, I needed a (Hitec HS-60) servo urgently. Having the afternoon off, I got the only 1 they had in the Coventry model shop (display model). Also, went into town and got some xmas cards. Found a new, live Heather Nova CD - Wonderlust. Tried Toys-r-us for a cheap copy of Tomb Raider, but no sign of it. Went to see the film Red Planet at the Showcase. A lot better than it is made out to be. It tries to stick a lot closer to what is technically possible than some films I could mention. The lander bouncing down the Mars cliffs is believably done. Carrie Ann Moss as Bowman (is that a nod to 2001 ?) is very pleasant on the eyes, and has effectively the lead role, running and fixing the mother ship. Of course it has its flaws, but worth a look. Then went to the flying club AGM, mainly to pay the fees for the following year to ensure continuity of insurance. Got home in time to swap the gears on the servo, ready for Tuesday.

Tuesday's Long Mynd trip was... cancelled due to extremely stormy weather. Had a very relaxing day with the cats, listening to Heather Nova, reading Witchblade, and building the Siesta. Also went to Midland Helicopter and bought a Robbe universal charger and a 9.6V 2400mAh pack for the helicopter. I still haven't flown it like this, but the extra oomph is obvious from the throttle setting required to get it to almost lift off indoors. Also ran it through the Aerojet - felt like it was getting close to 1:1 power to weight ratio, although the extra weight puts it even further into the flying brick area.

Most impressed with Amazon. The Witchblade/Tomb Raider - Cauldron was ordered Saturday evening and arrived in perfect condition Tuesday morning.

The pressure has gone off finishing the Siesta, but I'm stil working on it.

I've ordered the Nicola Quilter CD from peoplesound.com. See how long that takes.

Monday. At last, Toys-r-us have Tomb Raider Chronicles, but at exactly the same £30 as everywhere else. Managed the 1st level without any help. Currently stuck on the 2nd level, despite help from stella, largely due to my inability to shoot straight.

Tuesday and Wednesday off.

Thursday, the Nicola Quilter CD from peoplesound.com turned up. Not as fast as Amazon, but not bad. The music is good, but the internet music experience is a little disappointing. The CD looks like a standard CD-R, with monochrome printing, and the box is a standard peoplesound creation with just 2 small stickers for the artwork and track listing. Gone is the pleasure (or not) of reading the traditional little booklet. I've also signed up with mp3.com and ordered a Satellite Heroes CD.

Saturday, the weather has changed replacing the wet and wind with cold and sun. Flew the helicopter in the garden quite successfully. The new 9.6V 2400mAh pack provides plenty of power for getting out of (and into) trouble and the duration is better. Now to get another, to get around the 30min charge time. Went to Stratford for a change.

Sunday, Carol has persuaded me to get a colour inkjet printer. After much wandering round the shelves in PC World we eventually went for a Lexmark Z22. To keep the Laserjet 4L in operation, I decided to use the USB port. Bit of a game getting it going (bios had USB disabled), but it's fine now.

The Siesta is ongoing.

It's a bit strange to have 2 days off before xmas, although rather useful. My sister and family are over from Portugal, so there's a lot to do. Apart from that, Carol's planning on tiling the kitchen.

Tomb Raider 5 is progressing, with lots of help from stella. Currently in the sinking sub.

The Satellite Heroes CD finally arrived from mp3.com. The music is good, but the promised extras that you might get with a DAM (digital audio music) CD don't amount to much. 1x 16K jpg. It plays OK on a standard CD player, but I can't see the usual cda files? When I insert it into the PC drive it starts up some interface that I didn't really want.

The Siesta is ongoing.

I haven't really got much done over the holiday, but it's been a good 1. The xmas lectures on robotics (on C4 for the 1st time) were disappointing, partly due to the presenter's droning voice, but also because so much interesting stuff was left out, in favour of the usual hands on pops and bangs. Where were the annual competitions for autonomous robots (including flying) ? I missed the 2nd and 5th. Maybe catch the repeats next week. The 3 last fast shows were good of course. Are they really to be the last ever?

Xmas day, went over for dinner at my dad's with my brother's and sister's families. I had boxing day off (from socialising). Wednesday, and the shops are open again, but not Morrisons apparently. Went looking for an ELT book that my sister was after, without success. Got a genuine Nokia iceberg grey cover for my 3310. Coincidentally met up with Carol, my dad and sister in B&Q.

Thursday awoke to a lovely coating of snow (maybe 6"). Not like the usual slushy rubbish we get in late January. Despite the traffic warnings, I took my sister to Oxford to get that book at Blackwells. The shop seems to have expanded since I was last there. It even has a coffee/sandwich bar. Bought a Chambers Etymological dictionary for Carol. It was nice walking around the centre in the winter sunshine. Managed to persuade the man at the lodge to let us have a quick look round Exeter college. We used the park and ride, which was actually very smooth. A bit tricky coming back, when the screen washer jets froze. Apparently it was below zero all day. Carol spent the day getting some tiles up in the kitchen.

Friday had the extended family over for lunch. Had to borrow some chairs and cutlery, although we had bought enough plates. Went for a walk up the hill through the snow. We wanted to have a look in the church, but it was locked up. Flew the helicopter in the garden just before it got dark. A bit shaky at 1st in the twilight, partly due to lack of practice, but also difficult to see the rotor disk.

Tomb Raider 5 is progressing, with lots of help from stella. Currently in the old mill (level 10).

That DAM CD is DAMned annoying, as it keeps starting its "browser" every time it's inserted into the drive. I think I'll have to make an ordinary audio CD copy of it.

The Siesta hasn't progressed much. Still the V tail to do. Then controls, top sheeting, hatch, wing fixing, covering.

I've split up the old news page into separate yearly pages, as it was getting a bit unmanageable.