A Month in My Life – May 10

The random happenings in my life during May 2010.  The names of the guilty have been changed. But they should know who they are. I might even be subject to some retribution…….

The General Election duly happened and no less than two parties won. How long will the ConDem Pact last. Well, my 10p is way less than the 5 years they are hoping for! Whilst I was bombarded with leaflets through the door, no one formally popped round to canvass me. What a shame: I was really up for a full blown row!

I used my time wisely on General Election Day. I emailed South Glos Council with a complaint over the state of the roads near me. Then I told my Parish Counsellor who only lives 100 yards away from me. I think this is conclusive proof that I have officially become a Grumpy Old Man. Yes, I’m proud of it as well.

So, what happened following my complaint? Well, not a lot. South Glos have never got back to me and my local Counsellor is a little slow at replying as well. To follow the story and see the emails, click on this link: https://smarty09.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/patchway-potholes/

If your car has been damaged by potholes, visit this site: www.potholes.co.uk

As for the ConDem pact I have a thought provoking point. Whatever your politics, you have to admit that David Cameron is a very bright chap. So if the pact works, he takes the credit. But what if it fails? Well, surely that will suddenly become Nick Clegg’s fault? So he can neatly sidestep any failure. After all, that’s what great politicians do. Don’t they? So in other words, whatever happens, David Cameron gets re-elected next time round. Mmmmmm, we will find out later if I’m talking out of my…….

For a reason that baffles me, Burger Boy decided to go up in a small plane and jump out. I paid him to do it mind. A week before he was totally bricking it….. And afterwards? Well he wants to do it all over again that’s what he wants to do for his 18th! He obviously enjoyed that particular moment “wooooooaaa, what a rush”.   He raised £515 for Wings of Hope. If you click on this link, a PDF file should open with more info Burger Boys Skydive

I do not watch Question Time too often, but there are still debates over the Iraq war. For goodness sake, we will find out the true answers in 100 years time. We will all be dead. So let’s move on. What has happened cannot be changed. And for what it’s worth, my best bet is that there were genuine reasons why the Government believed so strongly on them having WMD. We soddin well sold them to Iraq in the first place! The issue was we did not know how many they had left over after using them on the Kurds and the Iranian Marshland people.

Have you ever played the supermarket game? What you do is pack your bags, get to the car and drive off, before the person at the check-out queue in front of you does. I’ve done it loads of times. It’s great fun and the expression on some people’s faces is priceless! Go on, give it a whirl……..and email me with your own supermarket stories!

Finally we had a few days of solid blue skies. Very nice to. And at long last I got the full benefit of my Power Monkey Solar Charger. Ooodles of free power for my gadgets.

I went to a local fundraiser and stumbled on jars of local honey. Needless to say, I indulged and is well, worth the price. At least I now have contact details for the future. Local honey should help reduce any hayfever systems, so we will see. But in the meantime it is delightful stuff to put on freshly baked bread. YUM.

The month ended with my one and only niece turning 17. Bloomin ‘eck, where did that time go? I vividly remember seeing her when she was just a few hours old. As it was a very difficult birth, her head was egg shaped with massive bruising. Thankfully no long term damage was done.

Whilst thinking of family stuff, I know what my Old Man was doing 70 years ago. He was at Dunkirk digging graves on the beach. That, my friends, is the reality of war. Because of his duties he was on the 2nd to last boat out. And to prove it’s a small world, I know the son of the Dunkirk Beachmaster – so he was last man off the beach. Remember. War is just mans inhumanity to man. Nothing else. 24 million people lost their lives on WWII. Remember that with a tear in your eye. 

I have cable TV and I am thoroughly indebted to Virgin Media for consistently re-booting at 11pm. Right at the important points in movies etc. It’s a good job I’m a relaxed laid back cool dude (!) otherwise I would be going purple with rage and having a right ‘ol rant……..and it only happened 6 times on the trot!

On the camera front, I treated myself to a new Macro Lens. That’s a specialist lens that takes close up pictures. Had a good play with it and experimenting like crazy. He’s a sample (pornographic) shot:

Mating time

Mr Ranter finally found his way back to Bristol on a Thursday night and we went out for a Friday bike ride. I had not been out for almost 2 months, so a bit of trepidation on my part. But I survived and managed 21 miles. I could not feel my legs after about the 16^th mile. So on that basis, it did me good. Mr Ranter took it all in his stride as he’s out as often as he can as he is planning to ride up Mt Ventoux this year. It’s a famous mountain climb that the Tour de France use most years.

On the last weekend of the month, I finally “ticked another box” and went to New Road, Worcester to watch Glos v Worcs. If you don’t know, New Road always makes the Top 10 prettiest cricket grounds in the world. Well, it’s certainly the prettiest I have ever been to. It was a nice weather day, great food and fabulous company throughout. And it was great to hear so many people talking with a brummie accent. Lovely. But I have a rather unexpected highlight for you. I was taken aback with the sign “chip butty £2.85”. In fact I was mesmerised. Don’t think I have ever seen a sign for a chip butty! That brought back memories. Chip Butty = food of the gods. Is your mouth watering right now?

New Road is also famous for its home made cakes, and I was not disappointed. Lydney Bob only had 5. Nowhere near his all time record of 7.

Would you believe the month ends with me taking charge of two hamsters whilst PALS go on holiday? Hope the little rascals behave themselves in front of the camera.

General Randomness

No new articles written this month. and only a few jokes as well. Must have been working lots then!

Sports News

The month started with the crowning of a new snooker World Champion. Well done to Neil Robertson. He’s an Australian by the way. And rather good looking as well. Am I allowed to say that?????

On the football front, the Premier League champions were Chelski. They also won The FA  Cup. The teams to get relegated were Portsmouth, Burnley and Hull. Yea, gads, I predicted these three last September. Wish I had the courage of my convictions and popped down to the bookies! Oh well, never mind.

And then, in the middle of the month something quite remarkable happened. England were crowned Twenty20 cricket World Champions. That’s the first time the cricketers have ever been World Champs. And they beat the Aussies in the final as well. Nice. Very nice. To paraphrase a rather famous piece of commentary “Kylie, Jason, Dame Edna, Rolf Harris, Don Bradman. Your boys took a hell of a beating!”

In the world of Rugby, Exeter Chiefs won promotion to the Premiership. They beat Bristol in both of the 2-game finals. Exeter were definitely the best team, Bristol making lots of errors.

I will leave you with a picture of a spin bowler in a rather awkward position. I took at at my trip to New Road. Till next month 😉

The awkward shape of a spin bowler

Simple Photography Tips

The purpose of these articles is to give basic helpful tips so that your pictures can improve. Nowadays everyone has a camera within arm’s reach. It’s also known as a mobile phone! So there is no excuse. Get out and shoot away.

One thing you need to decide is what you want the picture for. If it’s a small image to put on your web site, then your phone’s camera will be more than adequate. If you want to print something, then, as a minimum, you will need a compact camera as this will give a better quality picture. If you want a stunning, bitingly sharp image, then you need an SLR with a quality lens.

Most lenses that come supplied with the camera are rubbish. They are cheap, lightweight plastic affairs. You really need a lens with glass elements. You will then instantly see a massive improvement in the picture quality. But this set up may well cost £1,000 plus. So yet another example of the more you pay, the better the quality result.

Composition rules

There is a basic “rule of thirds” to think about. When looking though the viewfinder, imagine there are two horizontal and two vertical lines “noughts and crosses style”. Where the lines intersect are key points. If taking a picture of a loved one, the eyes should be on an intersect point. If taking a landscape, a boulder or tree, or “fold” in the land contours should be on an intersect point.

On landscape shots there are two approaches. Either have a lot of sky showing pretty cloud patters, or just have a tiny sliver of sky.

Got that? Go ahead and practice. And like everything else, this “rule of thirds” is just that – a rule. Rules are meant to be broken!

When taking a picture of someone, zoom in as close as you can go. What is the point in taking a picture of someone when they are a blurry or tiny dot on the landscape. Pointless in my book. Why not take a photo where the whole face fills the frame? Just go out and practice. With a digital camera, you can immediately see the result. So why not take a test shot. Then recompose and click again. Then take third which should be the “keeper”. With practice you should start getting it right first time.

And the best tip I have ever had is think of the camera as a steering wheel. You can turn or twist it. Not necessarily too much either. Professionals NEVER shoot square on. There is always an angle albeit with a very slight twist of the camera when you shooting. Go on experiment!

Apertures

The aperture is the hole that lets light through. They are also known as “F stops”. F2.8 means it’s a big hole, so loads of light gets through. This is needed in low light. F22 is a tiny hole that lets very little light through. This is needed on very sunny days. Then it gets complicated. F2.8 means only the precise area you have focused on will be sharp. F22 means virtually everything will be sharply focused.

By and large I use anything between F5.6 and F11. But I will use F22 when taking a landscape.

The F stop determines the shutter speed as they work in tandem. F2.8 will give a much higher shutter speed than F22. So there is always a trade off.

Shutter speeds

To stop camera shake with a standard lens, go no lower than 1/60th of a second. On a large telephoto lens, the lowest might be 1/350th, or even higher.

You can have all sorts of fun with shutter speeds. To freeze fast action sporting moments, you should use at least 1/500th. On the other hand, if you go slower, an element of blur might occur. When done the right way, this can give the picture an appearance of speed. So don’t discount this approach. It’s like everything else, a spot of practice can work wonders.

Just think ahead: what type of picture are you after? Absolutely pin sharp that can be blown up to A4 size? Or perhaps a smaller picture with some blurring. With the digital camera, just do a few test results to see what suits you.

And as mentioned above, F stops and shutter speeds work in tandem. My rule is that I use aperture priority for portraits and landscapes. Shutter speed priority for sport and when using a large telephoto lens.

ASA

ASA is the standard that was used in film cameras. But the same rules apply to digital cameras. The lower the ASA, the greater the sharpness or crispness of the print. High ASA’s e.g. 3200, gives a much grainier effect. Higher ASA’s also permit you to use higher shutter speeds. So like everything else there are “trade off’s”. This really should be the last thing you should tinker with.

Just leaving on ASA 100 will not cause too many problems.

Types of lens

There are two types of lens: wide angle and telephoto. A wide angle is just that. The field of vision is very wide. So with this type of lens, you need to get in very close for a real frame filling shot. Also, when using wide angle lenses, everything is in focus. So if you are in a crowd, you can hold the camera in one hand down by your hips and shoot away with impunity. It’s amazing what shots you can get like this – and of course no one even suspects you are taking a picture.

A telephoto lens works the other way round. It gives a close up picture of something far away. So ideal for sports then. Also, you can get better portraits as well – because you can now stand back and give your subject “space”. This should help them relax. And you can take a picture at outdoor parties without people knowing – so you should get relaxed and natural poses.

Flash

The vast majority of people do not understand flash. It’s known as a “dark art form”. And yet it’s extraordinarily simple! So let’s get the rubbish out of the way first:

Flash on mobile phones is utterly useless. The light will travel no more than two foot. So unless the object is literally right in front of you, forget it.

Built in flash on camera’s – be it a compact or SLR – is rubbish. The light will travel no more than 6 foot ish. So again, the subject will need to be pretty close to you.

The only way that is properly effective is to buy an external flashgun. These have their own batteries. This means more power. More power means the light travels further. Yea! Cheaper flash guns may produce light that travels 15 foot or so. Top end mega expensive ones with a whopping great battery pack, will push light out over 70 foot.

As usual, the more you spend the better the product. So you now have an SLR with a separate flashgun.

What setting do you use on the camera? Set it to manual, ASA 100, shutter speed set to no slower than 1/60th and use F8. That should work 95% of the time. Yes, you did read that correctly: put the all singing and dancing digital camera in manual mode. Trust me! And once you have got the hang of that, you can start experimenting.

The possibilities are truly endless. Enjoy.

A selection of my pics is on the link. You should be able to easily spot which ones are taken on an SLR and which are taken on my mobile phone (Nokia E90) http://twitpic.com/photos/MartinPreedy