Film Review: Jurassic World
Immediately after the Don't Panic megagame I took my nine year old son Alexander to see Jurassic World at the cinema. We saw the 3D version (although I don't think that the 3D added anything to the experience). I wasn't expecting it to be a fantastic movie from a story/plot/realism perspective. Jurassic World is the fourth in the Jurassic Park franchise, and some of the earlier ones were a bit ropey. I couldn't quite see how any government would license a dinosaur park given the mistakes of the previous attempts, especially the last one that set a T Rex loose in a major American city. The movie worked though. It paid homage to the previous movies and acknowledged the need for absolute safety. It also showed a lot of safety measures as background too. It also showed the science having…
Author Interview – Ron Levi
After a bit of a hiatus to study for my exam I'm back with blogging. Here's an author interview with Ron Levi, who has written a non-fiction guide to youth ice hockey in North America English: Image taken during a youth hockey tournament in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden. The teams playing are MODO Hockey (Örnsköldsvik, Sweden) and Tingsryd AIF (Tingsryd, Sweden). (Photo credit: Wikipedia) How long have you been writing for and what made you start writing? I’ve been writing since high school – over 30 years ago. In college I wrote poetry which I never published, and I’ve done technical and business writing, but my first published work is Navigating Youth Hockey: The Definitive Guide for Parents and Players which was released 4/25/2015 on Amazon. Do you write for a living, or do you also do other work? I am a Project…
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…
New Books 2015 pt.4
In a fit of enthusiasm after the Watch the Skies 2 megagame I wrote up some ideas that have been floating around in my head for a megagame of the Glorious Revolution in 1688 (or rather of the military campaigns that followed it in 1689). This lead to a little more book buying (as well as a trip to the Works with a few other bits too. The result was six more books in my to read pile, bringing the running total for 2015 to 29. So I need to read 34 to meet my target from my New Year Resolution. All of these books are ones I have bought myself, no ARCs among them. Primarily they have been acquired for the purpose of research into a potential game that I will run in 2017 or 2018 when I've had…
Britain’s Worst Rail Disaster – Quintinshill
Quintinshill Conspiracy The Quintinshill Conspiracy: The Shocking True Story Behind Britain's Worst Rail Disaster by Adrian Searle and Jack Richards My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a forensic examination of Britain's worst train crash, which happened 100 years ago today. The authors got some material released early from the National Archives and also went through all the contemporary newspaper reports to painstakingly re-evaluate what happened. Their conclusion was that justice wasnt really done, and the normal inquiry process was cut short, probably because of the war. This meant that those truly responsible didn't face the consequences, nor were improvements in safety implemented as a result. The situation at Quintinshill was complex, the additional burden of wartime traffic, while still being expected to prioritise civilian express trains made life difficult for the railway signallers. The crash happened because of a…