The last London by Iain Sinclair

 After finishing John Roger’s “This other London”, I went to Hong Kong’s city hall library for the first time to borrow Iain Sinclair’s “The last London”. I first heard of Sinclair from John Roger’s youtube videos where he sometimes joins John on his walks. Iain Sinclair offers a deep understanding of many places in London, so I decided to give one of his books a try.  I will write a review after finishing the book.

City Hall library, in a listed building in Hong Kong’s Central district that was built in 1962 during the British administration. The whole building reminds me of the schools I attended back in the UK with its brutalist facade. 

This other London: Adventures in an overlooked City by John Rogers

After not reading any books for a while, I have just finished reading “This other London: Adventures in an overlooked city” by walks Youtuber John Rogers. 

It’s a very readable and entertaining book documenting ten of his walks around London back in 2012. Just like his videos, John shares his thoughts and anecdotes about various landmarks he comes across.  He has a particular fondness for rivers, especially obscure and lost rivers, rivers that have now been buried underground.

I have subscribed to his channel for over five years and this book is like his videos in text form.

It’s been a while

 It’s been a while since I last blogged, Covid has come and gone, Labour are now in power in the UK, here in Hong Kong many changes have taken plane and last but not least I’m now a proud owner of an Apple Ipad. I’ve resisted Apple products all this time, but bought in order to use my “smart” guitar. However I use it for a few things, programming/coding, learning to play electronic piano or keyboard and now I’m using it for blogging.  

Expect more output from me as I share my thoughts via my Ipad

Parkfield community school

1. A comment on this blog article parkfield community school anti lgbt protests
2. Hello there, I have read your very interesting article. Before I begin, let me say that I am British Chinese, a leftwinger, a Guardian reader and someone whom Britain First and EDL members call a “dhimmi”. If dhimmi is about fighting racism then I am all for it. Ok back to the article.

   First of all homosexuality is genetically defined and not a lifestyle choice. Religion, including Islam, is a lifestyle choice. I totally understand that as a muslim you abhor homosexuality and all that goes with it. The aim of this “No Outsiders” program is not to promote homosexuality like you promote a restaurant or product but to make children understand that other sexual orientations exists. And that people with these sexual orientations should be treated no differently. I full understand that the parents involved and yourself come from a cultural background that finds this uncomfortable. If you find this to be social engineering then so be it, would you find acceptable if it was the other way round where kufr parents removed their children from classes which taught about islam? Don’t think so!

   As a multiculturalist, this article and case raises again the horrible question for us leftwingers “are muslims compatible with Western liberal society”? The protests make it more difficult for us multiculturalists to fight islamophobia and more difficult for us to be antizionist. You mentioned Israel early in your piece, and I have to admit that I wish the Islamic world shared Israel’s tolerance for LGBT rights.

   
   

Napoleon Total War 2018-06-21

Still continuing the historical battles on NTW, after many attempts I have beaten Austria and Russia in the battle of Austerlitz. Just like the actual battle, the allied forces came down from the high ground to engage my Grand Armee. The trick is to contain the allied cavalry whilst the infantry does its job. 

After winning this battle, the game has unlocked the battle of Borodino for me and again, I play as the French.

Napoleon Total War 2018-06-16

I have played a few historical battles in Napoleon Total War and I am quite impressed. Like Empire Total War, there is a great attention to detail in the uniforms and in the weapons used. Where it improves on Empire Total War is that the AI is better in the battles. In NTW when there is a line break by the CPU player, the CPU forces press on and take full advantage of the line break. This did not happen on ETW. So as a player, all breaks in the line need to be dealt with swiftly by putting units in to seal the gap.  Another thing I noticed is that CPU is always trying to outflank your line in NTW. This adds to the challenge, so far I have only played the battles on normal difficulty and they represent quite a challeng.

Napoleon Total War

Hello all, sorry I have not been blogging for a while so I hope to make up for it for the near future. I have installed Napoleon Total War to my PC, it was part of the same package as Empire Total War which I bought nearly 2 years ago.

This is a stand-alone game rather than an add on to Empire and it follows Napoleon's various campaigns. I have just started playing the battles and one feature I noticed is that some of the historic battles such as the battle of the Nile needs to be unlocked by reaching certain targets. This is a new feature on the Total War series.  Another thing I noticed is the quality of the CPU tactics in the battles is better than Empire which makes for more of a challenge.