Archives for themself - Page 10
Forgotten War – Fighting Japan in the Far East WW2
Tomorrow is the 70th anniversary of Victory over Japan (VJ) Day. On 15th August 1945 the Japanese Emperor Hirohito formally surrendered unconditionally. My maternal grandfather and his brother both served in the Far East. I only met my Great Uncle once when he came back from Australia for a visit when I was about 7. My Grandfather died when I was almost nine, but he spoke to me a few times about what he did in the war. Their stories are all but forgotten. Private David Coats, 2 Argylls Private David Coats, 2nd Bn Argylls I have a picture of my Great Uncle in uniform, I'm not sure where or exactly when it was taken but my suspicion is that it is a post-war photo (he's wearing a 2 year good conduct stripe). The details have been forgotten. On the back…
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Doctor Who Trailer – Sept 19th!
Watch the Doctor Who trailer for the new series starting on 10 Sept 2015. This Doctor Who trailer is the first teaser for the new series. Awesome stuff, lots of interesting things in there, including a Dalek, Missy, zombies coming out of the ground and loads of other stuff. Roll on September! I cannot wait for this to start on 19th September. The only thing that could make this better would be the news that there is a crossover with the Sherlock team. Peter Capaldi and Benedict Cumberbatch written by Stephen Moffat would be awesome cubed! Related articles BBC teases new 'Sherlock' image, but all fans can see is hair A New Image Of The Next "Sherlock" Episode Has Been Released And It Looks Very Victorian Direct from The Beeb Throwback Photo from SHERLOCK Christmas Special The 'Doctor Who' and…
B203 Exam tomorrow
The exam for B203 is tomorrow afternoon, I can't honestly say that I've done enough prep for it but all I need is a pass. I've already done enough to secure a 2:1 for my degree and this is the last of the mandatory modules I need to do. It's also the least favourite of the modules I've done. Tomorrow night it will be done, barring the need for a resit if I fail the exam. Instead of blogging I've been cramming theory on Operations Management, Information Management, Accounting & Finance, Marketing and HR Management into my head. I've also been putting my notes into a personal wiki that you can find at if you too are one of the people studying B203 with the open university. Let me know if you find it useful. Next up will be T317…
Cinnabar Moth
As mentioned earlier, there's rather too much going on right now to read books and review them, so here's a picture I took in my garden yesterday of a Cinnabar Moth (I initially mis-identified it as some sort of butterfly). One thing that is worth mentioning is that there are two sets of wings, and the lower set is completely red. You can just see them in the middle of the picture. When the moth flies it looks way more red than black, in fact I was surprised when it landed that the wings weren't completely red. Cinnabar Moth in North East Surrey May 2015 (photo: James Kemp) English: Caterpillar of Cinnabar Moth Cinnabar Moth on a Ragwort. 480921 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) This is the first time that I've seen one of these, although I've seen the caterpillars a number of…
Could You Write Five Million Words?
Five million words. That's about a hundred NaNoWriMo winners worth of words. More than most authors will publish in a lifetime. Yet it's not far off what you need to write to become a good writer. Ten Thousand Hours There's a theory, most famously expounded by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers, that you need to spend about ten thousand hours practicing a skill before you get to the world class level. He cites The Beatles and Bill Gates amongst others as examples of this. There's more to success than just putting in the hours, but it certainly counts for a big chunk of it. So what counts as practice as a writer? You'd think this was obvious, writing stuff, and maybe a bit of reading. However I'd disagree with that, or rather modify it a bit. What I think makes you increase…