When Christopher Nolan decided to shoot a new Batman film in 2005, one of the most iconic components of the design was the Batmobile.  Over the years it’s been seen in all sorts of guises, and by today’s standards most have been cheesy and unbelievable.  The ‘Tumbler’ was different, having a back-story of its own, and was quite simply awesome.  Of course, it came with its own technical difficulties to overcome, most notably at the front wheels.  With no conventional axle to hold the wheels in place and provide steering, everything had to be reversed and miniaturised, whilst keeping it rugged enough to stand up to the rough treatment of jumping over things.  By all accounts the Tumbler was a fantastic machine, both in looks and performance.

One might think, then, that such technical achievements would not be possible on a smaller scale.  Think again.  Having reclaimed my Lego a couple of weekends ago, I set about creating my own Tumbler.  I had seen on another web site that other people had had the same idea, creating some stunning reconstructions of the iconic vehicle.  But almost all had static front wheels, providing no steering, and only a few sported suspension.  True, it’s no easy task, and it took a lot of thinking and experimenting to get it right.  But I did it, and I am pleased to reveal images of my very own working model of the Tumbler, completely constructed of Lego.

(more…)

Having recently reclaimed my collection of Lego a couple of weekends ago, and with Ellie out at work all day this week (12 hour days, ouch), I have been taking the opportunity to sort all the Lego out.  This is a job that hasn’t been done properly in many many years, not since I was back at school.  Since I left for university the Lego has been in Peter’s possession, but by the looks of things he’s hardly used it.  I can still recognise bits that were parts of models I made when it was mine, and haven’t been taken apart since!  Peter never was as enthusiastic about Lego as I was, at least not in the same way – I would built anything that came to mind in intricate detail, whereas I think Peter just built what the instructions told him.

The shear amount of Lego is quite impressive, I had forgotten just how much of it there was.  Admittedly not all of it had been mine back then, there are a few models that were Christopher’s briefly before I inherited them, and some that were Peter’s after I bequeathed my collection to him.  Having reclaimed everything now, there’s quite a substantial pile of pieces, and when I started on Monday evening none of it was in any sort of order.  Nightmare.

(more…)

Christmas came early this year. Though not in the way you might expect. Since Ellie will be working all through the Christmas period we won’t be able to go visiting people then, so we drove down to Torquay to see my parents this weekend, to catch up and see people before things get manic here. They’re all hoping to come up and visit us at some point, but it was good to see them nonetheless.

Peter, my brother, has a ukelale. Not just any ukelale, a “flying-V” electric ukelale. It’s a strange mix of radical and cheesy, and suits him down to the ground. He’s just recently invested in an amp too, tiny little orange thing that makes a really piercing noise, but he likes it. Actually, all my family is quite mad. Makes me feel right at home.

(more…)

Some have said that I have a way with words.  In fact, in my first year at university my blind flatmate managed to guess that I had been to a grammar school just by my choice of language and extensive vocabulary.  I have often denied that connection, as the grammar school itself taught me little of language at all, and I have met many people who have just as competent a grasp of English as me, if not better, with a non-selective school background.  Nevertheless, I am becoming increasingly aware that my writing skills are above what might be considered the national average, if such a thing were ever measured, and that has prompted me to consider making use of those skills in some productive way.

I did look into the possibility of blogging as a career not long ago.  The idea seems too good to be true, that you can earn money by blogging, but many people manage to do it.  However, after some research into this field I have discovered that in fact it is only a very small percentage of bloggers who earn anything, and to make a living from it requires a lot of effort, a lot of blogging, a lot of patience, and a reputation that will make you noticed.  I can manage the first three fine, but my reputation in the online world is somewhat neutral – I’m just not well-known enough.

Then I came across the idea of Copywriting.

(more…)

The time has finally come.  There is no alternative.  This morning, my Mac refused to turn on at all.  It has been temperamental for a while now, taking a good hour or so to ‘warm up’ before booting into the operating system, but so far this morning the computer has been on for two hours and still no life.  I have checked and reseated the RAM, and that’s not made any difference, which narrows it down to the processor – apparently it only needs the processor and the RAM to produce the startup chime.  Admittedly the processor is a third-party upgrade, put on before I bought the computer, enhancing it from a pokey 450MHz to a more respectable 1GHz.  Still, without the original processor to put back in my options are limited, so I’m now looking on eBay for a new Mac.

(more…)

I am not a novelist.  There are times when I think it would be nice, but there are several problems that hold me back.  Firstly, plot has never been my strong point; I can do description and emotion and action, but making it interesting in the plot department has always been something I’ve struggled with.  That leads on to my next problem – I rarely manage to finish anything.  I have any number of potential novels in the early stages of development, all with plenty of promise and even some clever and funny lines, but so far nothing that has come anywhere near a conclusion.  Until now.

(more…)

On Saturday evening Ellie and I (and several others) went to Alison’s birthday party, which was fancy dress – the theme this time round was favourite kids’ TV characters.  As usual, Ellie and I put in hours of preparation in creating our costumes (we realised that the last excuse we’d had to do fancy dress was my birthday party back in March), and we both looked fantastic!  The party was lots of fun, and there were a lot of characters present, and no duplicates either, which was impressive.

(more…)