The Man with No Time

The Olympics are here! Hurrah!   Every four years (ok, every two years if you include the winter Olympics), I get very excited about a whole bunch of sports to which I normally pay very little attention. The Olympics are, to me, a wonderful celebration of sporting achievement, and the chance for many sports to showcase themselves before a much larger audience than they would normally receive. The competition is of the utmost quality, and there are always moments of high drama. Because the real logo looks too stupid......(Credi: economicshelp.org)

Time for another film review! This time around I’m going to be looking at second of the three films that I’ve been looking forward to all year, and another check mark on my ‘films to see in 2012’ list. This film is possibly one of the cinema events of the year in fact, particularly for those of us with a tendency towards geek hood. It’s time to look at “The Dark Knight Rises”   One of the official posters for "The Dark Knight Rises" (Credit: screenrant.com)

I've just got back from my latest holiday of the summer. This time I was visiting the Sherwood Forest Center Parcs  for 4 days with my family, my girlfriend Ellen, and my brother's girlfriend Rebecca, who was visiting Center Parcs for the first time and seemed to have a great time. We were staying, for the first time, in an executive lodge, which came with a dishwasher (hallelujah!), wi-fi, and a sauna! Sadly we never got to use the latter feature, but we did make good use of the blackboard that was on the wall. The blackboard after the girls had finished drawing caricatures of all of us. (Credit: David Brown) It was a really fun weekend, and as usual we crammed it full of activities. Fortunately for us the weather was also glorious; it turns out that England is currently enjoying temperatures in the mid-to-high 20s, with beautiful sunshine and a nice, cooling breeze. So much better than what Scotland has been putting up with for the last month or so! Travelling home ...

Last weekend was a busy one for me. As well as trekking along part of the Fife coastal path on Saturday, and playing in the Warmachine: Colossals launch event on the Sunday, I also decided to go and see "The Amazing Spiderman". After my day of gaming finished I had just enough time to get lost and find somewhere for dinner before the 20:00, 3D showing at the Livingston Vue cinema. At the time I would have preferred 2D, but in hindsight I think that 3D was a decent choice. The previous Spiderman trilogy , starring Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, is generally well respected among comic-book aficionados as being faithful to the character and history of one of Marvel's most recognisable super-heroes. At the same time the three films are considered pretty good by the more general public, and certainly the first and second films are regarded highly by most viewers (the third however is generally panned). As such there was significant apprehension about a reboot of th...

This month has seen the release of the latest expansion for Warmachine: Colossals. This new expansion has only two releases per faction (three for Mercenaries), but they're well worth the wait. Each faction has a new warcaster, which is a third incarnation of one of the Prime warcasters for the four original factions, and a colossal warjack. Unlike with the battle engines though, this time the Mercenaries aren't left out. Mounted on the same 120mm base as the battle engines, these new colossals primse to be game changing, and I can't wait for the Cryxian Kraken to be released. The new Cygnar Stormwall colossal. That thing is scary to deal with. (Credit: David Brown)

Last weekend it was miraculously relatively sunny up here in St Andrews, so I decided to tackle an item on my bucket list that I've been planning for a long time. My housemate, John, his academic son, Alex, and I walked the Fife Coastal Path from St Andrews to Anstruther. Naturally, we stopped for fish and chips at the end. Trekking across one of the small but beautiful beaches along the path. (Credit: David Brown)

Time for my first book review. I've actually read quite a lot of books since my  Time-sinks post  on books and other media, but this is one of only two that I've read that have grabbed me strongly enough to warrant a blog post. Well, that's not strictly true, but in most cases I've not managed to get around to it! The book up for review today is Brandon Sanderson's "The Alloy of Law", part of his Mistborn setting. This was the first book of Sanderson's that I've read, although I've heard of him and been meaning to read some of his output for some time. He was the other chosen to finish off the Wheel of Time upon the death of Robert Jordan, and my friend James is a big fan of his work and has been pestering me to try it out. Actually, this book was originally bought for James, but he already had a signed copy so gave it back to me! UK paperback cover for The Alloy of Law. (Credit: thebooksmugglers.com)

The week after I got back from Le Mans I was straight back into an incredibly busy week. Not working on my PhD, but doing outreach with the Planetarium team. We were invited, for the first time, to take part in the Royal Highland Show at Ingliston. I, of course, jumped at the chance to reach a much wider audience, but didn't realise just what I was letting myself in for! The poster that was drawn for us by the marquee's resident artist. (Credit: David Brown)

WARNING: This is going to be a long post, even by my standards! I've got a lot to say about my trip to Le Mans 2012, so be prepared. But spoiler alert: it was awesome. This post has been delayed by quite some time, partly owing to its mammoth length. But I wanted to fully document my trip, and there's a lot to talk about! The famous podium and clock on the pit straight. (Credit: David Brown)