Avengers: Infinity War and the Tactics They Didn't Try WARNING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!

WARNING THIS POST MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS ABOUT AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ SPOILERS THEN DON'T READ THIS POST, READ THIS ONE ABOUT CATS INSTEAD

Image by Cicero R.V. from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Infinity_war.png on a CC-BY SA 4.0 license

So, last night we went to see Avengers: Infinity War.

In summary - Wow.

The evening started off good with some free ice cream (thanks Ben & Jerry!) and got better.

mmm free is good :)

Despite the warnings, I'm not going to give you a huge amount of detail on the plot, if you want to find out the plot without watching the film there's plenty of websites that will tell you that. In brief, a guy called Thanos aims to recover the six Infinity Stones, which if he succeeds in doing so will result in him being able to carry out his ultimate goal - genocide.

Now, the film is absolutely brilliant, especially for someone who has watched many (although admittedly not all) of the Marvel films beforehand, and it's great to see all of the many threads of the various films coming together.

Thanos image adapted from https://www.flickr.com/photos/27745117@N00/40051431344 by Hannaford on a CC-BY SA 2.0 license

There are a couple of comments I have to make about the film, however.

Now, you'll note from the image above, Thanos holds the coloured Infinity Stones in the Infinity Gauntlet, a specially made gauntlet capable of containing the power of the stones.

There appears to be a couple of tactics that no one thought of trying. Of course, I fully expect to be shot down by fans - and do not, by any stretch of the imagination, think that my following comments mean that I didn't like the film, or I don't want to see what happens next. It's made clear in the film that Doctor Strange looked at millions of different futures, and found only one that resulted in victory, so you must assume that he took the route that would hopefully lead to that one successful future.


But I have to say.

Cut the arm off.

Sorry, that didn't come out right. What I mean was:

CUT THE ARM OFF

Or, even...

CUT THE FUCKING ARM OFF

Doctor Strange's teleporty hole ability seems ideal for chopping Thanos's arm off and sticking it on a different planet somewhere. Cut the arm off, then he can't work the gauntlet. Stick it on Thor or someone and let him pwn Thanos with his own glove.

Tactic two, which again you assume Doctor Strange must have seen and discounted was to simply use the Time Stone (which he was keeping) to go back in time, and then do whatever in order to stop Thanos - like CHOPPING HIS ARM OFF.

Of course, either of these would have made for a very short movie. If you could go back in time, in theory you could resolve any kind of issue before it starts.

Preferably by cutting arms off.

Anyway - now I've enraged the millions of Marvel fans across the globe - I have to say, once again, it's an absolutely awesome film. Go see it :)

Ice Cream Vans

Here's a picture of an ice cream van.

I've downloaded this picture from pixabay.com. It isn't a photo I've taken.

Why isn't it a photo that I've taken.

BECAUSE THE ICE CREAM VAN NEVER DRIVES DOWN OUR STREET.

I was outside this afternoon, cutting the grass, when I heard the music of an ice cream van nearby, down the next street to ours.

Now, it was a hot day, and I particularly fancied an ice cream for some reason. I hoped against hope that just for one, the van might swing by our street to see if someone wanted any ice cream.

Of course, it didn't.  Our street is relatively short compared to the adjacent street, and the van never drives down it.

No ice cream :(

Anyway, I made a video about wildlife, namely cheese toasties. Do go check it out :)

Dublin!

To take my mind off the current threat of world destruction, I decided to report on mine and my dad's recent trip to Dublin!

The flight to Dublin from Leeds Bradford went very smoothly, I have to in particular recommend the Viking car park system - you park your car a couple of minutes away from the airport, they take your key, and give you a lift in a mini bus to the airport, and then on return they monitor the flights so that as you leave the airport the mini bus pulls up again to take you back to your car, and this happened flawlessly.

Once in Dublin we headed for one of the oldest drinking establishments in Dublin, Mulligans.

It may not be obvious from the photo, but of the 25 or so beer pumps behind the bar, no less than 4 of them were devoted to Guinness, and as we walked in the barman was pouring pint after pint of the black stuff.  We wasting no time in ordering two pints for ourselves and finding a seat.

Then, I remembered one of the other excellent drinks available in Dublin (any many other places I'm sure) are hot whiskeys - whiskey, hot water, a slice of lemon with cloves placed carefully within, and an optional spoon of sugar.

Hot whiskeys are quite small though, and we found that it was more sensible to order a hot whiskey with a pint of Guinness, so that we didn't have to go to the bar quite so often.

For some reason after a few hours in Mulligan's we went to the hotel and slept for 16 hours or so.

The following morning we happened upon a cafe called Metro that did a decent breakfast, that somehow managed to make us feel halfway human again!

So the second day was spent at a more relaxed speed, visiting the Guinness Storehouse but apart from that catching up on the Commonwealth Games.

I did experience one of my pet hates that evening when, going out for some dinner, I ordered a pie.

For the avoidance of doubt - the photo above does not depict a pie.

A pie should be fully encased in pastry (ideally shortcrust).

What this meal consisted of was a bowl of stew, with a hat on.

The last day we went to several museums - the "National" museums of archaeology, natural history, The National Gallery of Ireland, and Book of Kells are all sited quite close to one another.  I have to say that the free options (aka not the Book of Kells) are definitely the better ones to experience.

Massive skeletons of gigantic deer in the natural history museum

Of course, no trip would be complete without one awkward experience, and that would be the flight back to the UK. When it was time to get to the plane, we obediently boarded two buses that would take us there, which then sat and didn't move for a while.

Then they drove us to the plane, but didn't open the doors, they just showed us the plane for a while. Eventually they told us that we couldn't board, because the crew for the plane hadn't shown up yet. If only we'd had some kind of paperwork, or card, that told us which seat we were supposed to sit in! Maybe you could call it...a boarding pass?

Eventually the crew arrived - it turned out that the normal crew wasn't available so it was a standby crew that had been brought into action - and we took off.  Very soon after lift off they advised us that conditions at Leeds Bradford Airport were extremely bad, and that there was a good chance that we'd end up at Manchester Airport instead - not ideal, when my car was at Leeds Bradford.

Despite this, they did manage to land at Leeds Bradford even though as far as I could see the fog was such that there was no sign of any lights, runway, or even where the ground was for that matter. The landing was a little rougher than the one at Dublin (which was in the middle of the day in good weather) but we were just happy to be down, in one piece, and even better, where we were supposed to be.

All in all I certainly had a great time, and I'm renewed in my desire to work out just how to make a hot whiskey!

Dublin

This time in 7 days I shall be arriving in the city of Dublin with my dad for 2 nights of fun and enjoyment with my dad.  I haven't been to Dublin for about 12 years, when I may have undergone various Chinese health treatments whilst inebriated, but I do have very happy (albeit fuzzy) of the place.

Click on the photo, but the Conference Centre Dublin has on their website a "list of upcoming events that we are permitted to publish"... I suddenly want nothing more find out what the events are between these ones, even though it's probably just a convention for dental hygiene products or something.

I've booked the Guinness Storehouse tour (last time I went there was a HUGE queue of people that hadn't booked, while I was able to go to the pre-booked stand and go straight in, so hoping this is still the case!) and also a musical pub crawl, where you go round 3 pubs and learn about the history of Irish music - whilst enjoying a pint or two, of course!

I've nearly sorted everything, although I do need to measure my backpacks to ensure that they comply with the maximum flight sizes - maximum bag size is 48cm high, 33cm wide, and 20cm deep, I'm totally unable to imagine what that equates to, but every time I think "oh yeah, I must measure the backpacks" I'm busy doing something at the computer, and the backpacks and the measuring tape are never in the same place as me thinking "must measure the backpacks"!

We're currently 3 days into the 4 day UK Easter weekend break, with today, Easter Sunday, being the big one where almost everywhere is closed - even the supermarkets don't dare open on Easter Sunday - so I'm currently demolishing an easter egg ahead of going to the cinema (which is open despite being Easter Sunday) to watch some Peter Rabbit.

So I hope you're having a good weekend wherever you are, happy Easter!