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The Goodwood Revival

Andrew Vance — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:56:42 +0000

Once again it was a lovely day when we went to the Goodwood Revival. This meeting is more enjoyable than the Festival of Speed there is so much more to see. Not only is there the cars but also the planes and music including swing and rock and roll. This year it was Sir Stirling Moss’s 80th birthday and he was visible in variour places signing books. Mr Bean also made an appearance.

Sir Stirling Moss

Goodwood Festival of Speed

Andrew Vance — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:58:44 +0000

It was a glorious weekend at Goodwood. I attended with my son on both the Saturday and Sunday. On the Saturday we spent the time going round the F1 cars and other various supercars. On the Sunday we were in the stand opposite the house watching the cars on the hill track. Highlights were Peter Fonda on a replica of the bike he had in Easy Rider. Born to be free was blasting out from Goodwood House as he rode up the track. Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Sterling Moss, Derek Bell and many others were there. The event celebrated 100 years of AUDI. The sculpture in front of Goodwood House was amazing, as you can see from the photograph.

We also were able to hear and see Jenson Button

It was a great weekend. Unfortunately I was not able to take home a Buggatti Veyron!

Randy Pausch

Andrew Vance — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:55:00 +0000

A very inspiring person who died on nearly a year ago.

A Bunch of Amateurs

Andrew Vance — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 15:56:23 +0000

What a lovely film. All about a dried up old action hero played by Burt Reynolds! who thinks he is going to Stratford upon Avon to act in King Lear for the RSC. It turns out that he is acting with an amateur group in Stratford St John. The theatre is in the middle of a farm. Derek Jacobi Samantha Bond and Imelda Staunton play the Amateurs. The film follows a tried and tested formula, Ian Hislop was one of the scriptwriters. It is a quaint British film and I haven’t laughed so much in ages.

The Last Cigarette

Andrew Vance — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 14:15:19 +0000

This is a new play by Simon Gray and Hugh Whitmore, based on Simon Gray’s The Smoking Diaries and his final book Coda. He is played by three actors, including Felicity Kendal, not at different time periods but all at the same time. It is as though he is having an inner conversation with himself. He talks about life from his early years to being diagnosed with cancer. It could be melancholy, but due to Grays sharp wit it is ofter hilarious. You did feel what a waste of a life. But he knew what he was doing. He was warned by friends to give up smoking many times. He also drank heavily, consuming several bottles of champagne a night. He also had the habit of working through the night and sleeping in to midday. This did cause problems with his co author Hugh Whitmore, who had more sociable hours. But they have managed to construct a very enjoyable play about a man who lived life the way he wanted. At the end of the play he is told that instead of one year to live it was more likely going to be two. He then died, last August, not from the cancer caused by the smoking but from an aneurysm only a couple of months into his two years. He did not live long enough to complete the play.

There are some lovely passages in the play – “I regret the hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands of cigarettes… pause, as if to denounce the weed, but ends … I’ve never experienced.”

My favourite is when he was talking to Harold Pinter, who also died last year, ”We can’t die yet, we haven’t grown up!” They were in their 70’s.

In the end it left me wishing to know more about this extraordinary man.

I also saw “The curious case of Benjamin Button”. I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It is nearly 3 hours long, but it kept my attention throughout. It was a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald which I had never read and never heard of before. It seems to say that your course in life is the same, whether you grow old naturally or are born old and become young. This is what happen to Benjamin. In growing up this way he had only a short time with the one woman he really loved before he grew too young for her. It was a sad and thoughtful film worthy of its Oscar nomination.

Observer Business Awards

Andrew Vance — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 10:04:43 +0000

We have just heard that we have been shortlisted for the Observer Business Awards at the end of this month.

It is thanks to Maureen who has done a lot of the hard work in getting us there.

We just need to keep are fingers crossed.

A fun dance video

Andrew Vance — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:51:30 +0000

Enjoy

Winner of the TXT Competition

Andrew Vance — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:22:20 +0000

On top of the tank

The winner is Russell Fellows who sent us this email and this photograph:

Dear All,

Having just received a reminder for my appointment on Monday, I enclose my entry for the “unusual place “competition.

I send it promptly as my camera has no date stamp facility for the pictures, or it may have but I couldn’t find it before I lost patience!

When the reminder came I found myself on top of a “cryogenic test facility”, not that exciting I know, but still an usual place to be.

This test bunker is part of a project with which I have been commercially and technically involved for around two years. It is for testing the performance of superconducting magnet coils, these are very high field magnet coils similar to those used in MRI machines. These operate at liquid helium temperature of -270 degrees C! The bunker is made of more than 60 tons of steel, positioned to contain the huge magnetic fields which would otherwise stop heart pacemakers or attract large metal objects from several meters away.

The project is part of a development program for new generation Cancer treatments. The technology is licensed and is proven as a far more effective and targetable treatment than conventional radiotherapy techniques. The goal of this project is to make this treatment more accessible to the world as a whole. It is personally important to me as I have lost close family to cancer and hope that the future will be brighter as a result of these new technologies.

Last Weekend

Andrew Vance — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:51:31 +0000

Last weekend I was in Manchester at a conference about patient how to give them a conceiage service. My wife and I stayed at this amazing hotel, The Palace. The rooms were hugh. The height of our room must have been nearly 20ft.

This is my flip video of the outside of the Hotel. It also happens to be right next door to the Palace theatre showing Mary Poppins. On the Saturday night we had a lovely meal at the Italian Pizzeria across the road from the Hotel. On Sunday we went for a walk along the canal and then the river. We came across a very derelict entrance to Granada Studios!

Validation

Andrew Vance — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 17:53:05 +0000

This is great. It is well worth watching.