MCU and Doctor Who...

Somewhat straying from my regular pattern but not to worry there's an epic tune at the end. I just love this dude, Mr Sunday Movies. He does film reviews and talks about comics. And Marvel did an enormous unload this week! Seemed a little knee jerky in response to DC's unleashing their line up up until 2020. Another fantastic fellow, JeremyJahns, has made a vid all about it. Being a little lazy by not explaining but these dudes do a much better job and they've got visuals! I mean I have visuals too but you the old chestnut about pictures and 1000 words. A video is at least 20 fps so per second that's like 20,000 words...which is ridiculous. These videos may have minor and or major spoilers in for the upcoming films as they are likely to be based on comics.

So it is most definitely a good time to be me or anyone else who like movies based on comic books. Man I can not wait for Darkseid, Apocalypse and Thanos. I'll be honest I am only familiar with Darkseid and Apocalypse. Thanos I have no  clue about but he was inspired by Darkseid and he's a badass so can't be bad. I've also had quite the education in all things cosmic in the Marvel cinematic universe from a vid by an insanely knowledgable young man who goes by the youtube handle of Mitchell Letcher. He speaks mad fast so be sure to pay attention.

 For those who don't want to learn all about ratios scroll down until you see the big pink yolo.

In an attempt to actually learn something today, I'm preparing for an exam, I shall be weaving all of the applicable ratios into this post.  Ratio analysis is something that I was introduce to in 2007, yep it's been 7 years and I'm still being tested on it. It was an off shoot of financial accounting that was being examined and ration analysis was in one of the questions. Now I'm sat furiously beavering away and the fire alarm sounds.

There are four categories of ratio that can be tested in this exam. They are profitability, liquidity, gearing and investor.

Off the top of my head I can remember:

1. Gross profit
2. Net profit
3. Return on Capital employed
4. Receivable days
5. Payable days
6. Inventory days
7. Acid test
8. Quick
9. Gearing
10. Earnings per share
11. Price earnings or P/E
12. Dividend cover
13. Dividend yield
14. Interest cover

And I'm out of ideas! There is going to be a big, juicy 25 mark question involving ratios, at least 8 out of those five marks are given for correctly calculating some ratios. So worth learning.

Here's an exhaustive list broken down by category:

1. Profitability - Gross Profit, Operating profit, Asset turnover, Return on capital employed - 4
2. Liquidity - Current, Quick, Inventory days, Receivable days, Payable days - 5
3. Gearing - Gearing, Interest cover - 2
4. Investor - Earnings per share, P/E, Dividend cover, Dividend yield - 4

Now for me remembering the categories and the number of ratios in each category helps to memorise the lot. Alternatively I would write these down over and over again until it became ingrained. If you add up the numbers in red you get...15! I was missing - Asset turnover and Current. Also I'm pretty sure that acid and quick are the same ratio but with different names. So now I've got the categories and numbers down the names should be straight forward.

You should be able to pick up quite a few marks without the ratios by just rifling through the financial statements of whichever entity you are supposed to be analysing.

And the end of the fire alarm story is that we ended up congregating in the car park outside the exam/sports hall. Instructed to remain in total silence, an instruction that was promptly ignored by everyone. Amongst the obvious exam chatter there were numerous rumour circulating about what the outcome would be. Everyone passes was one, everyone fails was another and lastly there was the we may have to resit the exam! I don't know about everyone but I passed, so it would appear my knowledge/understanding of ratios is certainly adequate.

YOLO 

Your loss if you understand the ratios you may be better placed to make savvy business/investment decisions :-P

I saw this stunning image appear as a cover photo for a girl who was in the year below me at my first secondary school. I also met her and a fellow named Liam in a club in Nottingham! I had never spoken to either of them but they recognised me and I them. And that's the unsatisfying end of that anecdote.

Ooh back to the image I did a reverse image search! Now I'd heard of these when people debunk folks who use photos of models for their profiles to rip people off etc. But I had no idea what one entailed. Google has this function if you go to: https://images.google.com/imghp, then you drag and drop the image you want to look up. That led me to this blog: http://tamta-rot.livejournal.com. And from there I managed to find the name of the photographer, Shelby Robinson. Third one across, redhead with autumn in her hair!

Avid readers will know about my fondness for those of the auburn persuasion and strangely I do count myself amongst their numbers. You can read all about it here, there's an image explaining why I claim to be a redhead.

Oh my god has everyone seen the last instalment of Doctor Who? At the time of writing this it was the last instalment but now it's the second to last, Dark Water. Spoilers to follow so sod off and watch it on Iplayer if you don't want it to be spoilt! Now I did have it spoilt because I was on facebook the morning after and saw two posts indicating the fate of Danny Pink. But I got over it because I don't really like Danny he's ok but he I don't care about the character. Then it was spoilt all over again by the thumbnail that the BBC had chosen to display above the link to the episode. A legion of cybermen! Damn it BBC Why would you do that to me?!?

Any hoo getting past the rage I was feeling I quite enjoyed the episode. There was Clara being against the natural order of things. The Doctor being ever so loyal despite her betrayal and the dead. Now here's something I did not think was true about cybermen, they are a result of banging armour on the human body. I thought they were brains taken from the a human and bunged into a robotic body. The hidden in plain site bit was cool, dark water = DW = Doctor Who?

So I thought Missy was the master the first time we all saw her way back when! I think I wrote about it here. There is a subtle drumming that is the new masters trademark. I've just rewatched it and the drumming is not so conclusive. Anyone seen Green Wing? Michelle Gomez, Missy, plays a real ballbuster. Pretty much the female Malcolm Tucker, probably been pointed out already. I hope they get into a shouting match. The double door cyberman eye reveal was a nice touch too! I did not see it coming at all.

#selfie

 I have some problems with this episode. Mainly centring around the end. I liked that there wasn't too much detail about the cyberfying process, wholly unnecessary. There was Missy's super speed, you know the bit when she was cuffed to that thing like Hannibal Lecter and Osgood is beckoned closer? Yeah that bit. She was across the room before the guards had a chance to react! She can teleport but this looked to me like good old fashioned super speed.

Pretty much my reaction when Missy zapped Osgood. There was a foreshadowing whisper that she was to accompany the Doctor! That would have been my reaction but owing to certain physical mishaps I glared silently whilst eating peanut butter on toast.

Danny Pink, comes good. The sentiment is laudable, especially given the time of year. The sacrifice that soldiers make is often undervalued or completely forgotten. I spent the first few years of my life in a war zone, don't really remember any of it. But by all accounts I've heard, it's a pretty grizzly place to be.

Where does this leave Danny's Grandson? They didn't explain why Danny was immune to Missy's mind control. Clara had just shut off his emotions so? The Brigadier's shooting Missy was rather confusing. So are there lot's of cybermen who weren't under her control? Or is it just soldiers? If so there are lots of soldiers who have passed away and would have been uncontrollable! So now Earth has a guardian cyberman.

The heaven portal was a bit confusing and wholly unnecessary, Danny died a hero. I suppose it shows that he is willing to sacrifice everything to right his wrongs. And the subsequent lying from the Doctor and Clara! The Doctor's lie, fair enough but Clara's? And I was expecting a baby bump when she got up at the end. Guessing she's pregnant but not showing just yet.

I hadn't grown to dislike Missy as the Master. There were hints and bits and bobs throughout but the character didn't get enough time on screen for me to grow to totally fear/despise/love them. It all felt a little rushed. The could have cut the whole Robin Hood episode and extended the finale but that's just me, maybe.

Hot sauce.

Read it in the voice of Harley Morenstein AKA Sauce-boss! Back to the matter in hand, mediocre hot sauce. I'm not a connoisseur, apparently I have no idea how to spell the word connoisseur! Anyway I am not one, I am but a fan of spicy liquids. Where does this perverse tendency burst forth from? I hear you whisper. Perhaps from my lineage...as previously mentioned I am descended from a race of volcano dwelling tree folks. Ah we would feast upon the magma or lava, there is a difference despite the words being  used interchangeably, regularly, in day to day speech. And I know what you're thinking how do tree folk survive in the extreme heat of their chosen volcano habitat? Well we would clad ourselves in confidence thus allowing us to do pretty much anything. I'm obviously being ridiculous as confidence does not give you the ability to do anything, competence does.

It's liquid rock!

Yeah so back to the spicy not so great sauce. I was having a casual shop in Sainsburys for my weekly supplies. My diet consists of mainly fruit and veg with a little bread/pasta/rice for good measure. There was a time when I viewed carbohydrates as the bane of my existence. I don't remember the last time I had sugar, urgh I've become one of those guys! I spot a hot sauce for sale in the reduced produce bit, £1.50 or thereabouts. I am a fan and owing to my phaseleresque tendency to try things I've never tried before, I convince myself to pop it in my trolley. I say convince I basically saw it and immediately put it in my trolley. This tendency was mentioned before, here. Shop done and I'm home time to workout and onwards to lunch! Now I decide to douse my salad in the new hot sauce. It's terrible, it's like ketchup without a kick. I despair before remembering I have an ingredient that adds heat without adding flavour...1,000,000 scoville concentrated pepper extract!

See the neck of the bottle?

Now that blackness is pretty much the colour that the extract is. Well I suppose it's more of a deep, dark red. I add a drop or two and shake the bottle with vigour. I am clad in confidence, based on the previous underwhelming experience of the sauce. It was misplaced I end up having to wash it off several pieces as my mouth, lips, eyes etc. can take nay more!

That's the little label that came with the bottle you can purchase it here if you'd really like. Looks like it was a originally a restaurant that sells a signature sauce.

I should explain the choice of video at the beginning. I love this song! It's upbeat but has an underlying melancholic quality.

I had heard this on MTV many, many years ago and forgotten the name of the song. During a chance MSN conversation with a lovely young lady named Georgia, sweet Georgia, I asked for a song suggestion. She insisted I listen to Hi Tack - Say Say Say. I ignored her suggestion and wandered off into the aether of the internet. Days, perhaps weeks, passed and I asked for another song suggestion. She suggested the same song. This time I found it and was pleasantly surprised! Managed to backtrack and find the original from Georgia's suggestion. Some background on Georgia: Crazy mad swimming skills...that's all I know about Georgia! Just looked her up and she's an ecologist at some kind of environmental concern. Environmental it's the worst kind of mental. Not really the worst kind of mental just a joke I repeat every time I hear, see or smell any word ending in mental. For example fundamental, experimental, instrumental. Oh and I've just remembered that Linda McCartney is in it as well! I had no idea who she was and now I know much more.

I was summoned to a meeting this past weekend. Now I've been involved in any number of projects that never really got off the ground. But this one actually looks like it might. There was a lot of talk of what we'd need. I was extremely out of my depth. I rarely write something with a focus. I let my mind loose and this blog with it's soul destroying word count is the result. But having a crack at fiction has been fun thus far. I get carried away very easily. So I've written a few thousand words already but it was fun! And I suppose that's the point. I write because it's fun :-D Oh and I may have to cease my unceasing effusion of cool stuff I saw online. The meeting descended into a round of subtledildo. Search #subtledildo to see what all the fuss is about.

Incidentally I was reminded of a tale from my final year at university. I may return one day, actually I've been back every year since for one reason or other. Anyway a lovely red haired lady, we first met in the Somerset countryside. I had just skinned my knee prior to a four day process that involved a lot of kneeling. I have the best luck...in the world! She had posted a picture of her alarm clock in her work handbag.  Reminds me of the time I popped off to purchase a pillow in between lectures. My brother had specifically requested a memory foam pillow for his 16th, peculiarity clearly runs in the family. I arrive at the last lecture of the day with a big bag full of pillow. Oddly enough I was notorious for dozing off in the odd lecture and now I'd arrived prepared with my new fancy pillow! Click here to reminisce about my redheadedness

Here's a vid of a blacksmith making Thor's hammer!

Pirates, hair colour, superpowers etc.

Ever wondered what your pirate name'd be? Well neither have I. UNTIL TODAY! If you know me, you know I am partial to growing a beard of some description, from time to time. This first started when I was about 12/13, don't believe me? Well I have no proof so you can be all non believing all you want :-P I grew up really fast, physically that is, Think I was about 5 ft 8" in my second year at secondary school.

So facial hair! This first kicked off with some massive sideburns that I grew in year 9 at KEVIS. Once at an athletics event, I was a bit of a shot putter, Andy commented that my facial hair was like bumfluff but bum fluff is white...yeah. I had big sideburns then stopped shaving altogether. This led to the the head of our year, Mr. Hayday, having a little chat with me. His usual ridicule spiel was not present but he told me about how he understands the temptation to be lazy but rules is rules! I had a similar conversation several years later at Spalding High School. This was from the deputy head of sixth form at the time, Mr. Garbett. The next day I turn up thoroughly debearded, thus annoying Raj! He was my only beard brother at the school and I had abandoned him when we should have been standing shoulder to shoulder to fight the power!

So that was the story of my beard before I got to Uni. This was the first time round, yes I am greedy and went to uni twice. I didn't even wait that long before going for the second time, was literally a matter of months! Whilst in my first year at Notts I grew a goatee that morphed into something more than a goatee. I'll not take you on the journey from goatee to...beard but instead I'll give you my start and end points.

Mapleston and Rich Bolton in Rich's room?

I then shaved it all off and went about my business as a second year chem enger. Didn't go so well hence my leaving Notts for the fair shores of Lincoln Uni where I regrew my beard several times. I then stayed, more or less, clean shaven in my years of wandering the jobless wilderness. I say jobless but I worked a few unpaid gigs and quite a few hard labour gigs. Nothing that stretched my "mind grapes" though. If you get that reference I'll give you a hug or tell you a story that has a convoluted link to your current life situation, your choice.

My most recent beard was grown after I landed my current job. Twas a goatee that was quite fond of, let it grow into a beard and then inevitable shaved the whole thing off. Made me look disgustingly young...disgusted by youth I can definitely relate.

That's what it looked like, can you name the rather powerful presence that can be peeked from over my shoulder? That's right it's Tin tin Taylor. I also saw my dad for the first time in ages today! He's overseas learning how to be a teacher of something ancient and awesome. Funnily enough he's grown a beard too! He had a head start on me, mines only five weeks old his is approaching 2 months, I think. As you can see from the pics my beard is black. My dad's 60+ so guess what colour his is? If you guessed anything other than grey or white then you are a tool. It links neatly back to my first paragraph, pirate names! Now the old man's beard is white and the beard I currently possess is black. See where this is going?

So if we were to switch from lovely law abiding citizens to salty scourges of the sea then it'd only be natural to call ourselves Whitebeard and Blackbeard!!! Just like in One Piece :D But alas here comes the weird bit early this morning I was in the bathroom about to brush my teeth. Not so strange I hear you exclaim, hold your horses chaps an chapesses, I'll get to the point one of these days. This is when I spy something that I've never seen before. When was the last time you saw something you'd never seen before? For me it was Saturday morning! On my cheek I spy a hair with a hue that is not my usual.

Care to hazard a shot in the dark as to what it was? Come now don't be boring take a guess, even if you don't post a comment have a guess in your head or write it down if you really feel like committing to this farce :-P. So white and grey is what I think most of yall have in your noggins or scrawled on the back of an envelope. But alas that is not what I found!!! What I actually found is a hair with a hue I would never have expected to appear on my face. It was gingery...auburn, reddish brown. Yep made me all giddy for a few mins! Or it could've been the push ups I'd just cranked out on my zimmer, on second thought let's not get into that just now.

Pretty much what my beard looks like from range

Now you can see that red hair right? I decided to highlight it by teasing it out of the glut of dark beard hairs. Made me read up on red hair as I've never seen a brown man, such as myself, with red hair! So I did a little reading and it's to do with mutations in the MC1 receptor on chromosome 16. After a chat with my mum, who also has my freaky remember everything that ever happened memory, she confirm none of our family has ever had red hair! So I am a mutant! Next stop super powers me thinks. If I had a choice I'd pick super speed and the reason is because Flash can beat Brainiac/Luthor!

Let me set it up a bit. Brainiac merges with Luthor and kicks the crap out of the Justice League. The last man standing is Flash, would you pick the wise cracking funtime guy to save the world from someone that could put the smack down on Batman, Superman, Hawkgirl, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and the Martian Man Hunter? Yeah me either!

Awesome right?

Also I was reminded of a pic I saw an absolute age ago about how redheads are the best!

I think this is memecenter meme but I've seen it all over the place!