What I did in the holidays by Mark Rimmer, aged 62

General Discussion
1

I did some travelling.

I visited my old house in the UK & looked at the local pub. The new owners of my house have knocked out the wood shed & made the driveway bigger.

Then I went to the Grand Canyon & afterwards to the Pyramids. After lunch I went into space & flew round the Solar System - the Sun looks really big until I saw Pollux, then Rigel before getting to Vy Canis Majoris which has a volume equivalent to 12 billion suns! That is a BIG star…

Anyway, I had a cup of tea waiting so I popped home for a bit.

The next day I joined the crew of Apollo 11 & took off to land on the Moon. That capsule is small & Buzz lost his pen in zero gravity!

After coming back (you can’t see much out of the tiny windows but it is good to see the parachutes open) I needed to loosen up a bit so sliced a few flying boxes with a couple of light sabres - easier to music - before a wierd game of tennis in a big stadium.

After a rest I took a roller coaster ride which went for MILES around mountains & stuff but made me feel a bit queasy so decided to explore a haunted house instead.

On the last day I had another trip, this time to the Taj Mahal (great gardens) then fought some space drones.

Before bed I catapulted some birds at some pigs who were on an island where they had arrived by balloon & were building strange structures. The birds were volunteers & gave me the “thumbs-up” before being launched. Seems they were annoyed at the pigs for stealing eggs.

Then I was very tired & had school, sorry, work the next day so went to bed.

In case you think I have gone mad I was playing with my Christmas present, an Oculus Quest Virtual Reality system. It is a stand alone wireless setup & does not need a computer to run it. The VR effects are stunning & you get a 360 degree view in 3D of your chosen environment & the Solar System tour is mind-blowing! Space is certainly infinite & you really believe you are seeing planets from their orbit.

The kit is not massively expensive & the apps & games are sensibly priced - 29.99 euros is an expensive one. You download them directly to the headset via wi fi.

I love it & the “experiences” will get better as more apps become available.

Excuse me while I explore the oceans, or shall I take on Darth Vader? Decisions, decisions…

10 Likes
2

Sounds like a Gr8 Christmas present.
But sounds more less holidays… More like tripp’in Man! :rainbow: :parasol_on_ground: :jack_o_lantern: :six_pointed_star: :aries: :radioactive: :dark_sunglasses: :fireworks: :rocket: :earth_africa: :palm_tree: :boom: :dizzy:

3

Wow… Mark… sounds absolutely marvellous. :upside_down_face: :grin:

4

Crap holiday, he didn’t even go to a game on Boxing Day. :grinning:

I spent a week in the UK just before Christmas - fish and chips followed by a pint of real ale in a 18th century pub (old coaching inn), lunch in Wetherspoons (beer £2 a pint), takeaway curry, loads of shopping, ten pin bowling, two days with spoilt brats (sorry niece and nephew), funeral followed by wake where I met relatives I’d never seen before and finally two visits to aged mother who now repeats herself every few minutes. That’s what you call a proper break!

2 Likes
5

Nothing involving nearly out of date beer at Spoons whatever it cost is worthy of consideration.

1 Like
6

You’re a snob David, Spoons is great and I wish they had something similar here. :smile:

7

They do Tim, they are called cuillères. (oh, and that should be spoons are great).

On a more serious note I’ll never drink in a Weatherspoon’s nor allow my wife to hoover (joke) with a Dyson again after the lies they told about Brexit.

3 Likes
8

:+1:

Plus several million, in fact.

Not that it’s much of a sacrifice, as rarely visited the chain anyway and consider Dyson’s products overpriced crap (owned one once, no better than conventional vacuum).

9

Yes, I bought two handheld ones for the garages. Very expensive and useless. Advertising spin over substance.

10

It’s Wetherspoons, some people! :grinning:

11

Only patrons I guess.

12

You had me there for while … Sounds awesome.

13

It is owned by a Brexiteer and one of their financial supporters.

14

Not true Jane, Wetherspoons is a PLC and Tim Martin is a minority shareholder.

15

33 million out of 104 million issued is a pretty big minority though, massively more than all the other directors put together (in fact he is the company’s largest single shareholder by a factor of nearly 2) and as chairman, controlling more than 30% of the share capital he will have considerable influence over the direction the company takes.

Which has been avowedly pro-Brexit.

1 Like
16

So he is a minority shareholder then Paul. :wink:

17

Yes, strictly he is a minority shareholder.

The main holdings are

Tim Martin 33,466,934
Columbia Threadneedle Investments 17,276,010
Immersion Capital 5,630,272
Phoenix Asset Management Partners 4,107,378
Norges Bank Investment Mgt 3,518,738
J D Wetherspoon plc Company Share Plan* 3,465,054
Setanta Asset Mgt 2,485,199
Aberdeen Standard Investments (SWIP) 2,098,084

So his holding is a big as the next 5 corporate shareholdings put together.

“Minority” holding or not, the company is going to do as he says, especially as he will effectively control any voting from the tranche held for the company share scheme.

He is markedly pro-Brexit

The company’s behaviour is markedly pro-Brexit

I’m still not eating there.

2 Likes
18

If you dig deep enough you’ll find many companies that a huge number of people buy from/use that either support Brexit or donated to the Tories election funding. It’s also likely that the investment companies mentioned above are linked in some way to SFN members pension pots, ergo many of us could be supporting Brexit without realising it. :grinning:

19

Have I still got my VR goggles on??

2 Likes
20

Do you mean VAR Mark? :grinning: