I have just checked when my last post was, I can't believe it was in July.

This Covid is driving me crazy, I have hardly left my office over the past 6 months, but, I assume it will be the same for all of you?

I need to blog more, but when you have been doing nothing it's very hard, however I have been creating the odd podcast with the 'Down the Rabbit Hole Crew' so go check them out at: ​https://www.mixcloud.com/DrDen/

So, I will try to do better.

Take Care, Stay safe.

​GOM

WOW, I just checked and my last post was in July, I can't believe it's been that long, so much has happened and is still going on, Covid has played a big part, going back to work (the dreaded college) and personal things going on, too much to mention here.

This is a short one, just to let you all know I am still alive, kicking and trying to get back to some sort of normality.  I am not sure if I have said this before but you can now listen to my dulcet tones on Podbean, yes I now have a podcast that i try to do at least once a fortnight, just checkout http://drdendoes.drdendoes.co.uk/  or  http://www.drden.co.uk/podcasts.html. I am normally joined by my fellow presenters Scarlett Squire and Matt Webster, we have great fun making these and it's part of my job, LOL, I love it.

It's that time of year when most motorcyclists are putting their bikes away doing maintenance and getting them ready for spring, I have 2 bikes, both cruisers/choppers, but due to my health I have been unable to ride them for over 10 years, time just fly's.  So, because I am now a little better than I was, I felt the need to get them ready for the spring, HORROR, when I checked them they are both riddled with rust and god knows what else, so I decided to strip the Yamaha down, every nut and bolt clean it, de-rust it, replace the parts that need replacing and polish the chrome (mistake, polishing chrome is a pain in the arse, it takes so long to do it right), having stripped it down into a thousand bits, I realise that I can't remember what goes where "FUCK", so I am now going to be reliant on the Haynes manual to help me put it back together. Watch this space.

So, like I said, just a short one, thanks to all you guys that do take the time to read these posts, I really do appreciate it.

​GOM Out.

Well, once again that shit hole of a college I work at is doing a round of redundancies again, they have already been fucked but Ofsted by being dropped from a 2 to a 3, and one of the things the Ofsted hates is redundancies.
So once again they have targeted me because of my medical condition, which is not good, but I can still do my job without too much pain, I just keep taking the pain killers, but now they are having a go at my memory, for those of you that don't know I had a very large brain tumour removed some years ago and they had to cut away a portion of my frontal lobe, which is where your short term memory is stored until it finds a deeper place to stick them.  Because I look at my PowerPoints a lot while giving my lectures they see this as a problem, but I have alway lectured this way?

The college is still in serious debt, and this Covid thing has made things worse (according to the Principle) with a reduction in enrolments, but Covid is not to blame, it's the incredibly bad management of the college, I have managed colleges before and from experience I can tell you that they have no idea what they are doing.  At one point a couple of years ago when they wanted me to change my Job Role at the college I was asked if I would consider a managerial role, I just laughed and said that I did not want my name associated with a Senior or Central management team that continually fucks up.

What happens next, well i am on holiday at the moment, and return to the college (using MS Teams) Monday week, and the college hopes to open officially on the 19th of August, I don't see that myself with a possible second wave on the cards.

So, at this time there is nothing I can do but wait to hear from the HR department and see what they have to offer?

​Enough for now, Stay Safe guys. GOM

So here I am three months into the lockdown or in my case a lockin and I’m starting to re-evaluate my life, having been working from home since this all started I have been thinking about the future.
At the moment the college that I work for is now threatening redundancies AGAIN due to bad management and OFSTED, have decided that the senior management team are really not doing their jobs properly, however the SMT (Senior Management Team) persist in blaming the staff as all bad management do. So once again I find myself looking for either another job or doing something completely different.
 
As some of you may know I had a former career as a lighting cameraman which I enjoyed up to a point where I decided I needed to make a change, it was the time when computers started to move into movie making.  At that point I decided to move into IT (40 Years ago) to get a better understanding of how it all worked and how it could be used in filmmaking. 
 
Last year I purchased a drone to check the roof of my house as I had a leak, so I decided that rather than pay somebody to go up there and have a look I would use a drone to film the roof and see if I could find where the leak was coming from, this also gave me the chance to try a new hobby of flying drones, however, I never got to use the drone as the leak got really bad before I could even fly the thing so I paid a roofer to go and have a quick look and he fixed it there and then on the spot, as it was just a loose tile.
 
So what does a drone have to do with filmmaking?  The drone has a HD camera on board I have a HD GoPro for it, so combining those two I can shot aerial footage, also I have two good quality video cameras and a DSLR which is capable of shooting HD video so, I have decided that I’m going to make documentaries and short films as I believe this is my future not teaching as I do now, if I am made redundant then I need an income and I can hire out my services for shooting aerial shots for YouTubers and others that do not have drones.
 
However as I get older my hands are not as steady as they used to be I have a condition which is called essential tremor this means that my hands shake continuously and if I grip something the shaking gets even worse, a couple of years ago I purchased a SteadyCam which has really helped when shooting with the Video and DSLR, so thinking about these things yesterday I invested in a gimbal for both my phone and my GoPro, this now gives me the chance to shoot cinematic shots without hopefully no shake.
 
So, having now spent the money I need to do something with the equipment so my first job is going to be to shoot an introduction for my son who wants to start a YouTube channel about his VW beetle, having the gimbal Will give me plenty of options and some really spectacular cinematic shots if I do it correctly.  Combined with all my film knowledge and other equipment I should be able to produce a nice little intro no more than a minute long but with some really nice footage, anyway that’s where I am today, lockdown has been driving me insane, I need to get out I really hate sitting in front of a computer 24/7, so watch this space as when it is all done and edited I will place a link in my next post.
 
Stay well, stay safe, and I’ll see you all soon.
 
 GOM.

Having listened to Boris and his merry men, it is clear, to me at least, that nothing has really changed about staying in and social distancing.
We still need to be vigilant, and stay in unless it's for food shopping, but as I look out of my office window on this beautiful warm spring day, a whole family are on the green out side with friends, drinking beer and eating snacks, they are sitting no more than a couple of feet from each other and are showing no respect to Covid19 and what it is and what it can do to you, one of the party is in a wheelchair and I know is on the danger list.

So why do people think that they are invincible, untouchable and indestructible? I went shopping on Wednesday for my fortnightly shop, and not one person was wearing a mask or gloves except me.  So have we totally misunderstood what the government are saying, does Boris have to make it compulsory for us all to stay in our homes, safe, I would hope not, but I am sorry to say I think that's what he is going to have to do, I can see the new case numbers increasing over the next couple of weeks, we all know what that means, a spike and it running out of control, FOR F**KS SAKE people be smart not an idiot.

I am on the danger list, so if I get Covid19 I wont be posting any more because I will be dead, and that would really piss me off as I enjoy posting here.
So Dick Heads, stay at home, be safe, we are not that far from beating this, but if you don't adhear to the rules, and you catch it, don't come here complaining as I will just say, 'You Fucked up, so goodbye'.
As my grandfather would say these arseholes make my blood boil.

​Nuff Said,  GOM out!

Click here You can now listen to my podcasts on Podbean.

The amount of people not taking this Coronavirus seriously is simply shocking.
I see people from my window just completely ignoring the governments advice, what the hell is wrong with these fuckwits?
I was in the chemists yesterday picking up my meds when a woman just stood about 2 feet from me at the counter, I asked her to back off but she replied that I was wearing a mask so it was ok, she however was not wearing a mask, the chemist ask her to wait outside until I had finished, she moaned a lot then left.

So I fear that the chances of us in England getting this thing under control is going to be extremely difficult with all these idiots not adhering to the social distancing and hand washing, don't get me started on that. 

Stay Safe, Stay well.
GOM

I hope this post finds you all well and safe.
Covid 19, some fear it others just ignore the dangers, me, I am in the middle, I don't fear it but, I do understand the dangers, I have been working from home for 2 weeks now and I am well so hopefully I don't have C19 as I call it.
But, I do have to eat and I have been to my local Tesco twice and most of the shoppers were just ignoring all the rules 2 meter distance and don't lean into someones face to get a tin of beans.   I have started wearing a mask when I go out, it's a carbon filter mask, thick and fits well, lucky I had it on during my last Tesco trip, a guy wearing a bright yellow reflective jacket was standing right behind me and leant over me to get to some pasta, my instinct was to push him away with my blue disposable glove covered hand, he responded with 'what's your problem' I then proceeded to explain that his life was in danger not from the C19 but me, as the next time he was in striking distance I intended to send him to hospital,  he looked at me as if I was mad, he was correct I was really mad, at him for being an arsehole, I told him to 'F&&k Off' and carried on shopping, I didn't see him again, but I hope he has learnt a lesson.

I am not particularly worried about C19 it's the idiots that ignore all the advice that scares me the most, The mask thing wont stop me catching it if some breathes all over me, but it will prevent me from passing anything on, the important bit of kit is the disposable gloves, you just don't wont to touch anything anymore but you have to, so wear gloves and wash your hands correctly, I did a food hygiene course a couple of years ago and wash my hands for 20 seconds all the time as taught in the course, so it's not a problem for me, but as you all know I work in a college and I have seen several kids coming out of the traps/cubicle and just walk straight out the door without washing their hands 'Dirty little bastards', I think they may join the Darwin Awards and suffer from the C19 problem, for those of you that don't know what the ​Darwin Awards are​ Click Here.

We are all now aware of how this mess started, In China, in the Wet Markets, so what should the Chinese do to stop the spread, well, the first thing they should have done was close all the borders, cancel all fights and boats leaving the country and place a total lock down in place, we here should have closed our borders immediately, we are an island, we could have been C19 free, but we acted to late, and we are still letting people in by setting up flights to bring UK citizens home, I say that's a mistake, leave them where they  are until this is all over,  I know it sounds a bit drastic, but we need to keep C19 out and a total closing of borders is the only way.

I have spoken to friends who work in hospitals and I know a politician who is very close to Boris, and I am told we are at this time losing the battle, so to finish I have just this to say "PLEASE, stay safe, well and follow the government guide lines"

​GOM.

Everybody is talking about the Corona virus at the moment, which is fair enough, if I get it that's it lights out as I am on the vulnerable list.  But I want to talk about Online Bank Security, my account has been hacked 3 times in the last 5 years, each time my bank has sorted it very quickly and the only inconvenience to me was waiting for a new card each time.
But today I went online to pay my bills as i do every month and my bank has updated it security, fair enough but there is just one problem, IT DON'T FUCKING WORK........

I have been trying to log on for over half an hour now, so i tried phoning them, but no answer, my guess is that every online customer is in the same boat.
So, my question is this, I would imagine that most people who use online banking get paid at the end of the month then go online and pay bills?  So WTF are the bank doing upgrading their security now, why not in the middle of the month?  It makes me so angry.

Anyway, rant over, the next post I think will have to be about Corona, Covid 19 and SARS.
​