Cocking Loop

No, that is not a euphemism.  Cocking is a place...yes really...and it's part of the South Downs Way National Park.  I had a restful day in the garden yesterday and thought today would be perfect to venture once again into the countryside for a 5 mile loop up and over two bloody great hills...in the heat of the day....blah blah mad...blah blah beach....blah blah cool...whatever.

Reclining in the garden catching up with my latest Clive Cussler.

 

Well my father and I weren't the only mad people who had decided to give the beach a miss (fyi the queue down the one road to get to the Witterings would have been atrocious today) we passed several walkers (no, not the dead Zombie kind Kim & Carri-Ann), cyclists and even joggers...so my madness pales in comparison.

 The view looking back down the hill, the path in the distance is the South Downs Way also, it stretches 100 miles approx along the coast

The grazing cattle at the top of the hill

It's a moderate gradient to get from the car park to the top of the South Downs Way which seems to continue on forever.  Still it's a fabulous view at the top.  Then it levels off to a leisurely flat chalk stone path along fields of grazing, today mostly sleeping, cattle and woodland.

Tracks descend off the main route in every direction every few hundred yards & a multitude of exploratory walks can be had, leading to the various villages in the surrounding area ( & their local pubs).  Today we strolled for a while along the main path before breaking left across the field and into the woodland, the dappled shade greatly appreciated at this point.

On route we found a most agreeable spot to tuck into our picnic and admire the landscape, even having an impromptu sciencey type discussion about the clouds forming over the north side of the Downs.

Lunch with a view

Upon reaching a crossroad at the bottom of the track we wandered away from the village of Heyshott and walked adjacent to the Downs. 

Dad mulls over which track to take next

 

Looking back up the hill we just walked down

Fields near Heyshott

 

This little fledgling was sitting in the middle of the track, possibly a Blue Tit...not too sure on that...it does look rather disgruntled though

 

We diverted briefly to the 1000 year old church at Cocking which is aptly atmospheric and historic, then walked back over the hill to the car park, where I dumped the last of my water over my head to cool off.

Notice anything slightly Whovian about this piccie?

 How about now....next to a graveyard...seriously!

Lastly here's the 5 mile route

Bonkers Babe on Bike in Bosham

So, Mother Nature finally decided to kick that awful Spring weather up the arse and hopefully to a galaxy far, far away.  Yesterday I dusted of my bicycle, filled a back pack with various edible goodies, a good book and plenty of re-hydrating liquid and set off for adventures in the English countryside.

As the mercury soared I followed a well traveled route to the canal at Hunston & the towpath which leads into Chichester, it's a popular shortcut and in recent years has seen much conservation work done to improve its picturesque appeal and accessibility.

Looking towards Chichester Cathedral

Whizzing past commuters and through the bustle of Chi I was destined for a much quieter place so took the bike path south to Bosham.  There is a more direct route to the little hamlet of Bosham, but I prefer the couple of extra miles around the leafy and secluded country lanes.

A couple of weeks ago this field would've looked not unlike a quagmire.

Smugglers you were warned!

I was rewarded by the brilliant Smugglers Lane, which in decades gone by would've seen plenty nefarious deeds & skullduggery take place no doubt, now it is lined with cottages and houses of a typical English Country manor persuasion all individually named in the maritime ilk...Mermaid Cottage, The BenBow, Dolphin Cottage, Harbour Lights etc , incidentally the latter property is up for sale if you happen to have a spare £2mil stuffed down the cushions of your sofa.

At the end of my detour I was greeted with the impressive view of Old Bosham & its ancient church across the harbour.  It is a lovely rustic view, more impressive when the tide is high, & I cycled around the harbour to the village green placed in the most perfect picnic spot.

The road opposite Old Bosham village, filled with rustic cottages with a less than rustic price tag

Old Bosham village from across the harbour at low tide

I met a wonderfully informative gent on a bench in front of the church, whom I spent the next half an hour chatting with.  Getting a history of the Church (which dates back to the Saxons), village & various famous home owners, who included Joan Collins.  The aging chap was like something out of a Enid Blyton adventure with epic sideburns, verging on Mutton Chops, and delighted in telling me about the legends of buried civil war treasure under the manor house, the various ghosts who walk the village streets at night and the areas which have been used for filming such quality dramas as Poirot & Midsomer Murders.

Bosham Church & old mill house

The Church where King Harold once hung out before heading off to France.

Bosham is made up of a few small lanes with character filled cottages and English country gardens.

I enjoyed a delicious lunch of chicken salad sarnies and fruit in a sun drenched spot with a sea breeze, watching the various yachts and sail boats go past.  Then I realised the tide had turned.

The village green, my pew of choice & my trusted steed.

ICE CREAM!!

The old mill

One of the quirks of Bosham, and something which many unfortunate soul has fallen foul too after leaving their parked car, is that much of the surrounding road disappears under the incoming tide.  Bosham isn't cut off, but my scenic route back home would be a much wetter affair if I dawdled much longer.  So I bade fairly well to the hamlet of Bosham & its quirky folk.

Um, your road seems to have sprung a leak

Making my way round the harbour trying to not get too wet.

 Old Bosham from across the harbour at high tide

Everyone makes the most of the water on a hot day

After a 26 mile round trip in 29 degree C heat, it's fair to say I was on the exhausted side of knackered & in the final few miles the bicycle seat I rested my rump upon was not my friend....I became acutely aware of just how many pot holes & rough surfaces the roads from Chichester to Bognor have...Council be a dear and sort out a smooth & slightly cushioned road surface would you. But in all it was a most agreeable day.

Should you care to cycle the route yourself, here be a map I coloured in via Google Earth.

Post Haste

It has been a while since I updated cyberspace with my thoughts & observations, mainly since I've had very few of either.  That and the fact that yet again the powers that be decided to quite literally rain on my parade...continuously...for the past 2 months. 

It's been dreadful, the skies depressingly grey whilst we had every kind of rain imaginable...sideways, misty, huge giant drops, cascading torrents... even that type Forrest Gump mentioned which appeared to come up from the ground...It's been hideous, and in some kind of Bizarro World way, even though we've had a years worth of the wet stuff in the last couple of months, we are in drought complete with hosepipe bans and various restrictions...this while water has been happily flash flooding down the streets and into the drains?!?

So, no fun times have been had really as I grasped on to the meager hope that eventually summer would kick in.  Which it finally has. 27 degrees yesterday, hotter even today and hopefully continuing into the weekend when I and my trusty photographic device will be able to venture into the great British countryside for rambling type adventures.

We must after all make the  most of such  sunny occasions, as Wimbledon & the Olympics will kick in soon and it's fair to say that outdoor sporting activities and British weather have a damp squib relationship at best!

Battleship Fail

Now I realise these competition thingys the newspapers occasionally roll out have a very low actually winning threshold, but I like to have a punt filling out the cards anyway, just in case.  This weeks Battleship inspired comp seems to be actively laughing at my meager scrap of hope:

Exhibit A - May I draw your attention to the How To Play section:

Exhibit B - My card :

Um, Houston, we have a problem.

Dog Vs. Cat

Found this recently, the internet truly is a fabulous way to waste copious amounts of time and have an occasional chuckle

Don't Panic! Okay, Panic!

In no way is this a political Blog, that being said.....

Magnificent March

I turned my back for a second and all of a sudden it's skipped Spring and moved straight onto Summer.  Not that I'm complaining, I heart Summer completely...who cares if we have to get our water from a standpipe for the rest of the year because all reservoirs have dried up, as long as I can keep my Vitamin D at an excessively high level.

Apparently it's topping 21 degrees C over the next few days, go ahead and mock those who live in warmer climates, but here...in March....it should be dull, wet and barely breaking double figures.  Today I spent many hours in the garden putting a severe dent in my latest Clive Cussler adventure whilst eating a ham/egg salad in shorts and t-shirt and in danger of breaking an actual sweat.

Yesterday the weather was equally as lush and I took myself off to Arundel.  A stupendous place to waste several hours with its meandering river, lake and rustic village, all in the shadow of an 11th Century castle.  Blissfully peaceful and contented I was...until the army of grandmothers with screaming sprogs in tow arrived with several kilos of bread in an attempt to severely damage the health of the league of ducks who called Swanbourne lake home.

My view yesterday lunch time

 A slightly hazy affair by the lake (the ducks making a beeline for the grannies gluten filled products)

So I vacated to seek out ice cream and wandered a spell along the river.  I observed some kind of  macho ritual between a group of students which appeared to involved chucking pebbles into the river to scare of any wildlife which had the misfortune to be lurking.  They needn't have worried however, Freddie Flintoff none of them were, launching rocks less than 5 feet into the water, at a 90 degree angle into a tree and quite magnificently into a bush placed 10 metres to the rear.

Ahh, those row boats, many a happy day spent on the lake

Starting to turn a little Stephen King down by the lake...time for ice cream

 

The sun was beginning to lose its heat as the day wore on, reminding everyone that it is indeed but March, and so I retreated to the train station, homeward bound.  Imagine my delight when I discovered all trains had been cancelled due to an earlier breakdown on the tracks and the replacement bus service was caught in traffic indefinitely (this I would like to point out is not an irregular occurrence for Southern Trains who test the patience of travelers on a regular basis).  My normal reaction would be to call on the services of taxi dad, but for the fact that the area surrounding Arundel is experiencing serious roadworks causing traffic chaos, hence why I took to the train in the first place.  So plan B was actioned, with trusty map in hand I decided to walk to the nearest place I could cadge a lift from, the village of Ford...3 miles away.

I eventually made it home and it wasn't all bad since the view from the river as I walked to Ford was pretty impressive and I pretty much burnt off the earlier consumed ice cream...so win/win.

Two Colonels Walk into a Bar...

So, to continue the Chevron 7.8 write up introducing Garry Chalk and Tom McBeath, quite the double act on stage starting with banter between the two Stargate Colonels about Garry being the hard done by Russian and his voice work. Tom took on the stance that he doesn't get much work in this business as the people selling things don't like his voice to which Garry quipped "not true Tom, I've heard your voice...selling things"

The pair were asked about their favourite moment on SG1without hesitation Garry said " being hacked on by RDA" he went on to talk about a time when he had spent 3 weeks learning a monologue in Russian only for the scene to be cut before filming.  He apparently had some words about this and was able to do the scene, which was later left on the cutting room floor anyway, insert pantomime "ah" from audience.  He also mentioned that he visited the SGA set on a break from filming and sat in a conference room scene in his Col Chekov uniform, everyone was busy setting up and rehearsing the scene and he just snuck in and sat at the table.  As the cameras were about to roll he heard "Hey, you, Mr. Chalk get the fuck off my stage" from the director.

Tom talked about his final scenes as Col Maybourne phoning O'Neill from the Caribbean, actually English Bay Vancouver made to look like the Caribbean.  He was messing around and grabbed an extra, dancing off into the distance with her, which he never thought that they would used but subsequently made the cut. He added that it was at that moment he "found out who Maybourne was."

Tom talked about one of the crew members, Greenberg, who had previously worked on MacGyver who one day asked him why he had never worked on the show to which Tom replied " You son of a bitch, I auditioned 25 times and you never hired me" ah, the fickle world of show business.

Both men agreed that working with RDA was a pleasure although he had habit of ad-libbing which would throw the actors during a scene, Garry mimed checking his script, looking confuzzled  with a "wait, what?" expression. The pair agreed it seemed to be RDA's favourite thing to do and how he got his jollies on set.  Tom stated that whenever he was appearing the director got excited as RDA would "cheer up for a good couple of months" due to the terror in the eyes of the poor actor whenever he changed the lines.

Tom apparently got a little revenge as an episode saw him and RDA trapped on a planet where the characters had a very different approach to fishing.  O'Neill taking the traditional rod and line approach and Maybourne lobbing explosives into the water.  Tom apparently taking much glee in throwing the fish back to RDA, with little care in the precision in aim. Outtakes people, outtakes!

Tom's sister wanted something from the SG1 set, preferably something used by RDA, as a memento and apparently Tom swiped some chewing gum RDA has previously been masticating on and sent it to her, which is both genius and gross.

As previously mentioned Garry's voice work is pretty extensive, he has voice many of my favorite characters from my childhood, and he talked about a series he did in the early 90's Captain Zed & the Zee Zone.  He played the character Captain Flannel and immediately broke into song doing the characters signature tune...and I became 11 again, genius.

And for those who have never seen, or just wiped from the inner moppet memories:

Someone, *coughs*Wendy*coughs*, asked about a now infamous story from Garry about a particularly popular fizzy beverage and his ability to belch on queue.  To gales of laughter and many, many grossed out folk Garry recounted the time he was asked to belch, all in the name of voice acting.  He took a large swig of coke for mass effect, but instead of a perfectly pitched burp Mr. Chalk delivered what he described as a "giant flob of coke foam" complete with an "amniotic sack" which descended from his mouth, hit his script and "yo-yoed back into his mouth" The incident so amazing, the rest of the taping had to be cancelling for the day as the rest of the cast and crew couldn't pick themselves up off the floor for laughing.  As with many of us in the audience.  Coke-gate is apparently on tape somewhere and I'm thinking should be made available immediately on YouTube!

A Bunch of Geeks Walk into a Bar....

Right then, it's that time of year again.  On the guest list, apart from your truly of course, were Tom McBeath, Garry Chalk, Peter Kelamis, Robin Dunne and Amanda Tapping.  A group of civilized, straight laced, serious, non-hammy actors who would never resort to gutter humour to entertain the equally reserved and serious audience...bah, who am I kidding... it's a group of rabid geeks, put into a room with a bunch of slightly unhinged actors where hilarity, quirkiness and just a smidgen of inappropriate innuendo (and by smidgen I mean bucket full) occurs. And so I bring you Chevron 7.8:

First up, the amazing and beautiful Amanda Tapping.  I have much admiration for this lady who was always great to watch as Sam Carter in the Stargate verse and has gone on to do some fantastic work with Sanctuary in a fast dwindling fantasy/Sci-Fi verse on TV.

Strike a pose

Asked about Sanctuary season 5 Amanda admitted she had asked creator and fellow producer Damian Kindler how to answer.  It seems that someone somewhere is kicking their heels about financing the next series and that the studio in which it has been filmed has been sold (this however is not a huge issue as if you are up to date with Sanctuary some major changes at the end of the last series mean a bit of a reset anyway) there was an audible gasp in the audience when Amanda mentioned this and she took the very Magnus calming approach of  "it's ok, it's ok" .  She did go on to say that the series was "not dead yet" even if it is delayed or turned into a movie or mini series.  She hinted that if anyone should want to start a campaign the "address could be found on the internet" and the "logos (of the financiers) could be seen during the end credits"....but we didn't hear that from Amanda so shh.  I for one have really enjoyed the mythology which has been developing over the last few series and love the historical and literary tie-ins with a twist, it's just great escapism.

And of course the cameos are a lot of fun.  Amanda commented that this wasn't the original plan when Sanctuary first started and in fact they had tried to distance themselves from bringing in other Stargate actors.  But of course Canada is a "small community of actors" and they would often think of certain people who would be great to play certain roles.  "Of course we blew up Michael (Shanks)" who now apparently tries to convince Amanda that his character somehow miraculously escaped the explosion so that he can come back.

On her onscreen relationship with Nicola Tesla (Jonathon Young) Amanda mentioned that Jonathon had developed a whole back story for their characters, but she couldn't possible tell us what happened to which some bright spark yelled "it's on the internet".  She also commented about an ad-lib Jonathon made during a scene "Just like Venice" adding "...remember" which threw poor Amanda giving her a slightly puzzled and quizzical expression used in the final take.

Which I would presume looked not unlike this:

On her favourite Stargate moments she talked about having a "wow" moment the first time she walked onto the Stargate set, seeing the Gate itself was an "orchestral and exciting moment" and of course at the end of the series when the cast played out their final scenes, her and Chris Judge apparently shedding a few tears and turning to each other "wow, well that happened"

On Don S. Davis a "Beautiful human being, gracious, a complete goof, a total pro with a wicked sense of humour who is greatly missed"

Amanda has recently filmed a movie called Random Acts of Romance where she played a character who "drinks, swears is sleazy and has sex....with people" adding "not like me at all to be a boozy, swearing slut"

Her favourite Sam moments include: anything with Sam and her father, David DeLuise scenes, noting that it wasn't a relationship that a lot of fans liked (fyi anything which involves a DeLuise is okay with me) but they were a lot of fun, the alternate reality moments where she got to kiss Jack O'Neill because she got to kiss Richard Dean Anderson (at which point most of the female and probably many of the male members of the audience agreed whole heartedly), hanging out with Teryl and the episode Grace.

Someone asked Amanda about the famous 'Macgyver' outtake in which, early in the SG1 series, Amanda and RDA had been filming a scene on a freezing set, it had been a long shoot and and RDA had been sliding on the ice whilst trying to complete the shot.  Amanda delivered the now infamous line "You're Macgyver, McGadget, McGimmick" looked at RDA and thought " I shouldn't have said that" continuing with " now you're McUseless". "Well if you're going to be a pop cultural icon you gotta take it right?" she reasoned perfectly.  She added the she had bumped into RDA later at lunch nervously chiding " we're still friends, right?"

If you haven't seen the clip, and to be honest if you haven't you must've been under a rock for the last few years:

Asked who would win a fight between Freya and Sam over O'Neill, the person asking the question suggesting that the actress who played Freya has commented that it would be her "What are you kidding, what a load of poo, I'd snap her like a twig" at which point Amanda talks about watching scenes filmed between Freya and O'Neill noting that she was "growling like a feral dog" a crew member saying "Amanda, they're acting" Amanda snapping" yeah, but he's my acting partner" switching back to polite Amanda " next time you see her, tell her I said hello" said in the key of Fatal Attraction.

And, by gosh, that was the end of Amanda's talk and where I shall leave things for now, more pictures and fun to come.