Tuesday, 12 June 2018

Love Island



So, I was challenged to watch an episode of "Love Island", a show on itv2, and blog about it, and never one to turn down a challenge (not quite true, I turn down stuff all that time), I went for it. Now, I know virtually nothing about Love Island, except that it involves a group of males and females who are presumably on an island, and looking for love. I have to say right now that I apologise intensely to anyone reading this that is a fan of Love Island for anything derogatory in the post.

Here we go.

So, apparently there's a villa? And a bunch of boys and girls, referred to as "the islanders".  From the single episode I saw I have limited information on what goes on, but I'm led to believe that they get to go on dates, couple up, and share beds.

The show reminds me a bit of Big Brother, although I've not watched that for years either, but the secluded location with limited people, dormitories, interview room, brings back the memories of Big Brother.

Anyway, on with a summary of the events from tonights show.

The show started by telling us that these two had a lot of fun last night.

That fun was discussed in great detail by the girls, who talked about the bed and the furnishings, and what exactly the pair got up to in the bed, whilst the boys had a slightly briefer conversation which consisted of:

"Shag?"
"No shag."

And with the question answered, they went about their day.

Anyway, a lot of this post is about Adam. Adam is the alpha male of the group, and he's been spending time with a girl called Rosie, who is very nice but according to Adam likes shoes and bags instead of holidays. This rang alarm bells with Adam.

Adam the alpha male. You can tell, he's pointing.

Most of this post is about Adam, but just to give a flavour of the other stuff talked about, this is Charlie. 
Charlie and unknown girl had a conversation which including the following snippet:
"Do you tint your eyebrows?" the girl asked.
"No they're just blonde."
"Just tint them" she urged. This confused Charlie.
"What does that mean?"
"Just tint them" she clarified in a non-clarifying way.

Afterwards the girl commented to another girl that "I really like Charlie but he should really tint his eyebrows."

Anyway, back to Adam.  Apparently Adam was on the lookout for getting to know other people beyond Rosie, who seemed to be more into him than he was into her.

Enter straight brows.

Straight brows and Adam had a very nice chat where he talked about how Rosie was materialistic and went on to ask straight brows why they hadn't been on a date.

After the chat straight brows (aka Megan) told Rosie that Adam had been complaining about her. For a 'player', as Adam seems to be, he seems to be blissfully unaware that sometimes girls talk to each other.
"He's got some big balls going on" commented one of the girls on hearing the news. No idea if that's an expression or an observation. Another girl reassured Rosie by saying "It's ok babe, it's made his cake ain't he, he ain't eating it." which I assume is some sort of reference to the Great British Bake Off, because otherwise, unless you're a professional baker who sells cakes, that's exactly what you do with cake.

Rosie tells another girl about Adam

Fuelled by drink, Rosie went to confront Adam, telling the girls "I'm doing this for not me, but for every girl that's been played by a play boy"

Rosie confronts the alpha male.

To be honest I can't really remember much about the confrontation, but it went much as you'd expect - Rosie told Adam off, and then Rosie and the girls went off in victory while Adam, confused that his secretive talk about straight brows had somehow gotten out, had a drink with the other boys.

"I don't even know how I got myself in this situation" says Adam, after slagging off Rosie to various people

But, I should note, this wasn't enough to stop Adam and Rosie sleeping in the same bed that evening.

For the next evening, however, a re-coupling was announced - which sounds like something you'd do to your car, but is where the couples change - and the girls would get to choose who they would couple up with. This was an excellent to see as it made all of the guys extremely nervous and awkward.

Despite the events of the night before, Rosie was still wondering if she should give Adam a second chance. Her girlfriends reassured her "he mugged you off, but you mugged him off harder" - not sure if 'mugged off' is a euphemism for something, I'm not familiar with it if it is.
  
Rosie decided to wind up Adam by chatting to Charlie, who commented that he liked the bit of theatre the night before, he was going to get the popcorn out. Not sure what theatre you get popcorn at, but it sounds like a good one.

Rosie and Charlie talking popcorn
  
Meanwhile, Megan the brows was trying to decide who to re-couple with, either Alex the doctor - who no one fancies - or "Eyal", a curly haired rapscallion that everyone is convinced will certainly aim to get with Megan but isn't expected to be a good long-term choice. I didn't immediately imagine that people would go onto Love Island looking for a marriage-partner but perhaps I'm wrong.

No idea why none of the girls like Dr Alex and his amazing shirt.

On the evening of the grand re-coupling, Adam got nervous about Rosie talking to Charlie, going as far as to wear a bandana.

There ain't no alpha male like an alpha male with a bandana.

Meanwhile, after Dr Alex had spent 2 days trailing after Megan the eyebrow girl, generally being really nice, attentive, thoughtful, AND HE'S A DOCTOR, Eyal the curly sat down next to her for 2 minutes, and kissed her in front of Dr Alex.

"This villa can throw anything at you" says Eyal. Like watching your crush be kissed by a curly haired man, I guess.

Dr Alex wasn't best pleased about this.

Sadly, the show ended at this point so I have no idea which of the boys the girls choose, but I'm sure all will be revealed in tomorrow's show.

I have to say, it's certainly not something that I would normally choose to watch, but it was reasonably enjoyable (certainly compared to Made in Chelsea, which is possibly the most bizarrely addictive bad TV I've ever seen), and at least now I've got a vague idea of the people that keep trending on Twitter around 9pm-10pm in the UK.

Sunday, 10 June 2018

The Earthquake

Last night the local area suffered an earthquake registering a worryingly high 3.9 on the Richter scale.

This morning I walked the local area to survey the devastation.

An example of the effects of the 2018 quake. We will rebuild.

Highways infrastructure damaged.

A resident of Hull post-quake foraging for supplies.

The public services have seen fit to close off this part of the city.

Stay safe everyone.

:)

Saturday, 9 June 2018

More Walking


So, I'm continuing to take regular walks, aiming to do every day, but am averaging out at roughly one every other day as excuses reasons crop up why I can't manage certain days. I'm trying to vary my routes to bring some variety into it.

I've been very pleased to find the Adam Buxton Podcast - Adam Buxton is an English comedian, writer, and actor, and his podcast involves him having chats with various guests.  So far I've listened to his interviews with Romesh Ranganathan and Bob Mortimer, both comedians that I'm a fan of. Next one up is Charlie Brooker, I've just started it but was nearly at the end of my last walk when it started so not really got into it yet, apparently he has a MAME set up in his house (big arcade machine that emulates tons of different games) which sounds awesome so I'm looking forward to it.

I've been using the Huawei Health app to track my walks, which is a very good app, but I discovered yesterday in the settings that you need to set the height and weight for yourself so that the app correctly tracks calorie usage and the like. Apparently the default height is 1.7m (which isn't too far from me at about 1.8m) but the weight was set at 60kg (whilst I'm somewhere near double that!) so suddenly my calorie burn figure has increased massively as the app has recalculated based on just how much weight I'm lugging around.

As before, I'd love to hear from you about any podcasts you listen to and enjoy!

Saturday, 2 June 2018

Roseberry Topping

It doesn't feel it was so recent, yet this time just a week ago I was just packing a backpack ready to go up a hill.

Roseberry Topping, a hill in the Tees Valley, formed by a combination of geological fault and a mining collapse in 1912, is locally popular with walkers as well as climbers, and had been chosen as a practice ahead of a bunch of us tackling the Yorkshire 3 peaks in July (I state now for the record that I only plan to take on one of the peaks!)

Roseberry Topping. Doesn't look that tough...

Something that's quite good about Roseberry Topping is that it's actually very quick to get to the top of it, half an hour and you're at the summit feeling as though you've accomplished something.

Obligatory summit photo

The walk we went on took in a good mixture of flats and slopes, with some bits that I was starting to struggle a little to climb, but with every top of a slope came a fantastic view which seemed totally different to other views already seen despite obviously being in the same area.

Taking a break from walking to do some push ups

As opposed to the entirely sensible clothing worn by everyone else, I had a challenge in that I needed something soft that covered my left arm, having had a tattoo the day before. So a pyjama top (complete with large chocolate stain) came into use for the day.

There was a photo frame, so we stood in it.

Taking a little breather.


Captain Cook's monument.

What is that white speck....

Of course, it's a nest for the lesser spotted Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The KFC box we found (picture above) was particularly confusing. We found it a good mile or two away from the nearest road, and we puzzled over who it was that wanted both to go for at least a small hike, and to eat a box of fast food after a reasonable distance.


Ice cream van that also replaces windscreens, an impressive multi-tasking ability
A well-deserved pint of cider!

The downside I discovered of a pyjama top is that it doesn't give the same protection to the neck as a collared shirt, and as I didn't put sun cream on... I suffered.

The day after - should have used sun cream, kids!

Anyway - I'm now looking forward to taking on 1 of the Yorkshire 3 peaks next month :)

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