Welcome to my blog, Whats this about then?

This is a place where I will be posting all sorts of things not just things relating to Derby and Derbyshire. On here you will find details of any videos I’ve made of things in Derby and also Time-lapse, stop motion animation, Tutorials etc. If I find some useful software for PC or iPhone then I will feature it here.I’m sure that there will be something of interest to someone on my many posts.Please leave comments on any posts if you like them.
Don’t forget if you are new to my blog and would like to read through the previous posts then see the Blog Archive section on the left side of this page.
Also there is a Search box at the top left of the page if you are looking for something but cant remember where it was. I am a trustee member of "Friends of Friar Gate bridge", aiming to get this bridge restored.

Wednesday 29 May 2013

Video of the Worlds most powerful steam engine ever built. 12000 Horse Power. The River Don Engine, Sheffield.

This is the World's most powerful steam engine ever built. 12000 Horse Power (8.9 MW).
This is the River Don Engine at Kelham Island Museum, Sheffield, UK.

This massive engine weighs 420 tons and stands 28 foot high, 40 foot long !

You need to turn up the sound or use headphones and play it fullscreen at 720p to get an idea of how powerfull this thing really is.

Here is my HD video of the Don River engine in steam :


I can highly recommend going to this museum to see this in steam, very impressive indeed.

I've seen some impressive Victorian engineering in the past but this is the most amazing thing I've ever seen. The sheer power in this beast has to be seen in person.

See it in steam Monday - Thursday 12pm and 2pm and Sunday 12pm, 2pm and 4pm.
It is not always running though due to maintenance so check with the museum first if traveling a long way to see it.

This is a stationary steam powered mill for making steel armour plate for the hulls of battleships.


It is able to reverse from full speed in just 2 seconds. The rapid reverse was an essential feature of an engine used for rolling, as delays would result in cooling of the workpiece.

Four identical mills were made but the other three have since been scrapped.

There is a short video you can watch of this mill when it was still in use. This video display is near the entrance to the engine area.

I hope you enjoyed it.
Thanks
Andy

Tuesday 28 May 2013

Beatbox Bird "Unexpected Tweet" Ring Tone for your iPhone. Download it here for free.


iPhone Ringtone of Beatbox Bird "Unexpected Tweet". Download it for free.


I'm sure by now you must have seen this odd mini teaser advert for the FirstDirect Bank, it features a bird doing some pretty amazing beatboxing to two other birds. there was no clue given at first as to what this was about. It just ran for a few seconds then said #unexpectedTweet
It was only till a few days later that the full advert was revealed of which the beatboxing bird was just a tiny segment. The full advert follows a Duck-Billed Platypuss

I thought I would have a go at making this silly beatboxing bird into a ringtone that you can use on your iPhone. I have made it available here for free.

To use it on your iPhone follow these simple instructions :

1) Using the mouse Right-Click on the link below and select from the popup menu

"Save Link As..." or "Save target as..." :
Beatbox Bird - Unexpected Tweet ringtone.m4r  

2) Save the file somewhere you know.
3) Run iTunes (current version is v11.03.42) goto File - Add File to Library and browse to the file you have just downloaded "beatbox_bird_unexpected_tweet_ringtone"and click the Open button.
4) If you now click on the library type button (top left) and change it from Music to "Tones" you should see this new ringtone now listed.
5) Plug in your iPhone and allow it to fully sync your iPhone. This will copy the new ringtone onto the phone.
6) Now on your iPhone tap Settings, Sounds, Ringtone and you should see the beatbox_bird listed at the top of the ringtones list. Simply tap it to select this as your new ring tone !

You can also select it as your sound for other things such as Text messages, voicemail, email, Reminders, Tweets etc.

If you liked this then please retweet my blog post using the tweet button at the top, pass it on.

The sounds of the beatboxing bird are actually provided by well known beatboxer Marv-ill Superlungs.

If you like TV Adverts then you may be interested in my UK TV Adverts web page.

Thanks
Andy

Friday 24 May 2013

Product review for a TeckNet iEP387 7AH USB Power Bank, I can highly recommend this product. Perfect for your iPhone, HTC, Tablets etc

Product review for a TeckNet iEP387 7000mAH USB Power Bank

The product reviewed here is from Amazon :

The product I'm reviewing here goes by many names such as USB Portable Power, Mobile Emergency Charger, Power Bank, External USB Battery, Portable Charger for Cell Phone

This is one of those things you can't do without if you have a smartphone, having used it I can highly recommend it.
In my tests it was able to fully charge my iPhone 3GS from dead to 100% 4 and a half times over a week before the power pack had discharged.
As you can see in my photograph the power bank is about the same size as my iPhone 3GS.




Do you remember the old days of mobile phones when your battery would last for a week, then the smartphone arrived and we
accepted that the battery would last for one day, maybe two if you were lucky. If your going to be away from a source of power for a while then
this can cause problems especially if you then need to use your phone in an emergency. Another problem is when you are going on a long journey and are using your smartphone
to watch movies or surf the internet for a hours as this can drain the battery quicker than normal.
Well I have the solution to your problems here.
For the past couple of years I had been using a cheap battery pack which attached to the bottom of my iPhone, this would put about 50% charge into the phone. This charger recently went faulty so
I wanted to find a better solution. After a few days of research and looking at reviews of USB battery packs I found this one, the TekNet iEP387
I decided to do my own review and tests on this to confirm that it really was as good as advertised, here are my results.

When the power pack arrived it had about 80% charge in it, I charged it up to 100% before doing my tests.
Two days later I allowed my iPhone 3GS to fully discharge to 0%
Charge 1) I connected it to the TekNet power bank and it took about 2 hours to charge my iPhone to 100%
Charge 2) Two days later I repeated this from 2% to 100% in 2 hours
Charge 3) Two days later I repeated this from 3% to 100% in 2 hours
Charge 4) Two days later I repeated this from 4%
Charge 5) Three days later I allowed the phone to get down to 5% and this time the Power Bank managed to charge it to 43% before it finally stopped charging the iPhone.

I think thats pretty good from one charge.

What do you get?
You get the iEP387 Power Bank unit
A single USB lead which is used for charging up the power pack and also for charging your device from the power pack.
8 adaptors for various phones
A velvet bag to carry it in.

As per this photograph :


Dimensions:
119mm x 73mm x 17mm
It weighs just 185g so just a bit more than an iPhone (iPhone 4s is 140g)

On the top edge of the iEP387 you will find two USB sockets
5V @ 1A and a 5V @ 2.1A socket, in between the USB sockets is a LED torch

As per my photograph :


Charging the power pack:
On the right side of the unit you will find a micro USB socket labelled "IN", this is how you charge up the power pack.
In my tests I found that it took about 6 hours to fully charge (from fully discharged) using my standard iPhone mains charger that came with my iPhone 3GS.
Note - The manual says that you should NOT charge it from your PC USB port as it required more current than a standard PC USB port can provide.

Using the power pack
To charge up your device is simple, you simply plug in your device via its normal USB lead into one of the USB sockets on the TekNet power pack
then press the power button to activate the power pack. When you press the power button you should see the power indicator lights come on showing the current capacity left
in the pack. Your device should show that it is charging.
Note - This power pack has TWO USB sockets, this allows you to charge two devices simultaneously, which is a rather clever idea!
Also worth noting that one of the sockets is a 2.1A socket, this socket is for more power hungry devices such as tablets etc
the other USB socket is a standard 1A socket. If your just using this power pack to charge phones then use either USB socket as there is no difference.

Power Pack Activation
One thing worth noting about this power pack is that the USB sockets are dead until you activate them by pressing the power button. This is done
to save power and also for safety as it means the USB contacts do not have any power on them until you want power. Which is good if your car keys have
dropped into the socket.
The power pack will automatically turn its self off after a few seconds when you disconnect your device so you don't need to worry about turning it off.

Power indicator leds
Next to the power button are a set of 5 blue leds.

Charging:
When you charge the power pack these leds indicate how charged the pack is.

Discharging (i.e. charging your devices)
The leds show the current capacity of the batteries.

Torch
This power pack has a simple (single led) built in torch which can be handy at times.
To activate the LED torch press (and keep pressed) the power button for about 3 seconds and the torch will illuminate.
Press (and keep pressed) the power button for about 3 seconds to turn it off again.
If you leave the torch on then it will stay on until the power pack runs out of power, which I imagine would take many weeks to happen.

This pack comes with a wide variety of power plug adaptors for many models of phone, tablet etc as follows:
Micro USB
HTC and Motorola
iPod, iPhone, iPad
PSP
Nokia N70
NDSL
Samsung M300
Samsung P1000

You can see these adaptors in this photograph :

If none of these adaptors are suitable then just use the one that comes with your device or but a 10 in 1 kit such as :


So would I recommend this power pack?, most definitely!
Hope you found this review of use, any questions about this product let me know in the comments box.

The product reviewed here is from Amazon :



Hopefully you found my review of use, I can highly recommend this product, it does exactly what I need.
If you have any questions about this product add a comment below.

By the way if you really need even more capacity than this model, they now do a 9000mAH version which you can use to charge your Apple: iPad mini, iPhone 5, iPad 4 (Lightning Cable not Provided) / iPhone 4S 4, iPod, iPad 3, 2, 1 / HTC One, One X, One S, Sensation G14, EVO, Desire HD S Z / Samsung Galaxy S4 S3 I9300, Galaxy Ace, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy Note, Galaxy Tab / Motorola Triumph, Atrix, Droid Razr, Defy, Defy + / Nokia N9 N8 N900 N800,Lumia 800 900,920,925 / Blackberry Bold 8520 9900 9300 9360, Z10 / Google Nexus 7, Nexus 10 / Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 X8 Arc / GoPro

Here it is :




Thanks
Andy

Is this the World's smallest "user manual" ? Surely it must be.

Is this the World's smallest "user manual" ? I think it may be.
Inside the cardboard box that contains a 12V 8A mains power pack is this tiny bit of paper.
It measures just 55mm by 48mm, is single sided.

Manuals normally contain many pages of technical data, this takes the biscuit as the first item on this list is pointing out that items 2 and 3 are the specs !


I'm surprised it doesn't say retain for future reference !

Hope this made you laugh :)

thanks
Andy

Thursday 23 May 2013

Windows XP - Forcing Windows Update when faced with Error number: 0x80244019, My solution.

This should be of interest to anyone who has recently reinstalled Windows XP and is trying to use the Windows Update service but having problems.
I have done this a few times in recent months and my method works reliably. If it works for you then please leave a comment.You will need an original XP Installation CD and a valid genuine KEY to go with it.

I had an old slow laptop (that is not compatible with windows 7 and definitely not Windows 8) and wanted to reformat the hard disk and install a fresh copy of Windows XP so it would run faster. I had an original Windows XP Home edition CD with the KEY.
During the XP Setup process I formatted the hard disk and installed XP Home, It was XP SP2 so was going to need lots of updates.
So I ran Internet Explorer and went to the "Tools" drop-down menu and clicked on "Windows Update"
I clicked yes to install the Active-X plug in and then clicked the Express button, after a few seconds
it showed the following error message :

[Error number: 0x80244019]

Windows XP failing on Windows Update with Error number: 0x80244019

This is a common problem people get when trying to install old operating systems like this.

In order to force Windows XP to update you need to do the following :

1) Click on this link to download the updater from Microsoft's website :
go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=91237

The file it downloads is "windowsupdateagent30-x86.exe"

2) Select RUN (or save it and run it yourself)

3) Once installed, reboot the PC and run Internet Explorer again and as before select "Windows Update"

Click the Express button to check for updates.
4) Click Express button again, this time it should find some updates.
One update is a newer version of "windows updater 3.1" and another of these updates is the "Genuine Windows Advantage" so make sure you have used a valid genuine key otherwise you will not be able to update it.

5) Once its installed these updates, reboot the PC

6) Run Internet Explorer again and go to the "Tools" drop-down menu and click on "Windows Update"
And then Express again, now it should find lots of updates in this example it has found 72 Windows Updates.

Windows Update now working fine.
You can now download and install these, This will continue for a while each time rebooting and then going to update again until all the updates have been installed. This process can take a while as Service Pack 3 has to be installed. I think it installed well over 200 updates by the time it had finished.



Hopefully my solution to "Windows not updating" will have been resolved by this.
Leave a comment if it has fixed it for you.

Thanks
Andy

Thursday 16 May 2013

Video of Lewis Mighty Lantern Release in Mackworth on Thursday May 16th 2013

Feel free to link/embed this video on Facebook,Twitter etc etc.
Around 300 people turned out to remember the life of Lewis Mighty, who sadly lost his fight with cancer last year at the age of seven. Family friend Chelsea Garratt organised the event which took place on Hyde Park Green in Mackworth, Derby, Derbyshire, UK.

If you were unable to attend hopefully my video will give you an idea of what it was like.


As you can see it was a bit windy so people had a few problems lighting the lanterns.

His family had set up The Lewis Mighty Fund to help fund a £300,000 course of treatment only available in America.

After his death, the fund was retained to keep raising money for children with cancer at Nottingham Children's Hospital, which Lewis attended, and across the East Midlands.

James Morrison will be performing to raise cash for the fund at Delapre Park, Northampton, on July 21.

----------------
To donate to the E38 appeal go to http://www.JustGiving.com/lewismightyE38 or text your donation to 70070 with the message TLMF50 plus your donation. For example, TLMF50 £5

If you are thinking of releasing lanterns then please consider their impact on the environment. you can get eco friendly lanterns :

Follow me on Twitter :
https://twitter.com/AndySavage1969

thanks
Andy

Sunday 12 May 2013

Washing Machine Valve stop taps, How to turn them on and off if you need to.

Last week for the first time in 19 years, Ants had decided that it was a good time to come into my kitchen in their hundreds ! Never had any Ants come into the house ever until now, must be the funny weather we have had this year.
Anyway, I tracked their entry point into the Kitchen as around the water inlet pipe into the property behind the washer so in order to solve the problem I needed to disconnect the washing machine, this meant disconnecting the water pipes to it. I've only ever had to unplumb these pipes once before.

See my photographs below for help, as you can see its a fairly basic stop tap and you assume that you need to turn that handle clockwise to turn the water off. That's where this tap does not make sense as you do in fact have to turn it anti-clockwise to turn the water off, Seriously back to front !

Who on Earth designed it needs a good kicking :)

So if YOU ever have to turn off your water supply to your washing machine or dishwasher then don't assume its like a normal tap as you will damage the tap. If you have not moved the tap in many years then I recommend spraying a bit of WD40 behind the handle and leaving it for 20 minutes to work in before you try and turn the tap handle just in case its ceased up and breaks off.



Washing Machine Valve stop taps :

Here is a photograph of my stop tap showing the supply to the washer ON.


A washing Machine stop tap when ON

Here is a photograph of my stop tap showing the supply to the washer turned OFF.
Notice how the handle is now rotated 90 degrees to the left.
A washing Machine stop tap when OFF

Once I had turned the hot and cold stop taps off I unscrewed the two pipes and drained the water out of the flexible pipes into a bowl before feeding the pips through the side panels of the kitchen sink unit.
I was then able to sort out the Ant problem for which I used a vacuum cleaner to remove all the sand and Ants from around the main water inlet pipe. I then used lots of Silicone Sealant to fill in the cracks in the concrete floor where they were getting in.
Once that was all done I plumbed the washer back in place, I did not bother turning on the Hot water stop tap as I can honestly say I have never had cause to use the hot wash cycle.

Hope my photographs helped someone out there trying to do DIY. If it did please comment on pass it onto anyone interested via Facebook, Twitter, email etc

Thanks
Andy

Friday 10 May 2013

Whats the difference between a stick, a twig, a branch and log etc?

Here's a question to ponder....

Whats the difference between the following when refering to the bits that fall of Trees ?
I guess there are some technical measurements that define the difference do you known of the top of your head?

Here we go....

Stick
Branch
Branchlet

Twig
Log
Bough
Limb
Arm
Sprig
Trunk
Stump


At what point does a twig become a branch?
I guess a log is a branch that has been cut up into pieces? but presumably there are some rules around sizes?

Tree Branch Abstract

Leave your replies in the comment box if you think you know.

Andy

Thursday 9 May 2013

Shardlow and Risley Car Boot Sale driving videos, enjoy realtime drives through Derbyshire with me.

Please comment on the videos if you enjoy the views and feel free to use my videos on Facebook, Twitter etc. Pass them onto anyone that may like to watch them.

Here are my two latest driving videos. Both filmed in real-time for a change rather than speeded up, giving you more chance to take in the views of Derby and Derbyshire. If you want to skip forward then just use the sliders, but why would you when there is plenty to look at?


I present to you 38 minutes of real driving footage, the first video starts on Cathedral road, Derby and ends at Shardlow Car Boot sale. Along the way we will pass through the centre of Derby by the River lights Hotels and bus station complex and past the new frontage to Derby Railway station, along London Road through Wilmorton, Crewton and Alvaston and onto Shardlow and the car boot sale its self on Shardlow Village Hall playing field.
In my second driving video we leave Shardlow car boot and head off to Risley car boot sale via Elvaston and ending in the car park at Treetops Hospice. I could have goto Risley via the M1 but this route is more interesting to look at.
Both videos were filmed on Bank holiday Monday 6th May 2013.

I have used no less six great Trance tracks in my two videos, tracks by Terra Nation, Trance Crafter and Kazmo.

There is plenty to see in my journeys as these are real-time, So play it fullscreen at 720/1080p Sit back and relax, crank up the speakers and enjoy a drive with me around Derbyshire.

Driving video : Derby City Centre to Shardlow Car Boot Sale


See my website for more information and photographs of the Derbyshire village of Shardlow

Andy's Driving videos around Derby, Derbyshire, UK :
Are you an ex-pat of Derby, feeling homesick? Or perhaps you just want a clear way of giving someone directions to a location in Derby or just want to show people your Derby Street. Well in this video and the many others I have made, you will be able to take a virtual drive around the city of Derby's streets as though you were in the driving seat. I use a dash-mounted camera, Traffic lights and heavy traffic have been edited out.

Best watched at 720p/1080p full Screen (if your system/net connection is up to it).

Music used in this video :
1) Empty Night Street (Full) by TerraNation
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/513119

2) Epilogue (TN Remix) by TerraNation
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/490485

3) ID Remix by TerraNation
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/523981

All music used under Creative Commons License



Driving video : Shardlow car boot sale to Risley Car Boot Sale.



Music used in this video :
1) Äther by Kazmo
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/424191

2) Break Free 2 by TranceCrafter
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/513531

3) Sinking in by Kazmo
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/234180

All music used under Creative Commons License

Follow me on Twitter :
http://twitter.com/AndySavage1969

Shardlow car boot takes place on Shardlow Village Hall playing field, The Wharf (Western side) Shardlow. This car boot sale is organised by the Alvaston Baptist Scout Group and is a nice small to medium sized car boot sale. Parking is 50p, Booters are £5
It opens at 7am and runs until noon.
The next car boot sale here is 27th May

Risley Treetops Hospice car boot sale takes place at selected weekends during the summer. See their website for details :
http://www.treetopshospice.org.uk/fundraising/events/

The next car boot sale here is also the 27th May

Hope you enjoyed these two driving videos. Please comment on them if you did and pass them on.

Thanks
Andy

Video - Low level filming technique amongst the Dandelions as though you were a mouse.

This is just a test of some low level filming footage on my lawn, and yes it does need mowing !
Its too warm for mowing :) All those Dandelions really need cutting before they go to seed.




How did I film this?
I mounted my camcorder on a mono-pod and let it hang upside down as I did a flyby over the lawn. The last section of the video I did using fixed manual focus of 10cm which produced a strange effect. (played slow).



When importing upside down footage into Sony Vegas Pro 10 you right-click on the video clip and select Properties, then the Media tab and where it says Rotation set this to "180 (inverted)". This will make your footage the right way around.

Sony seemed to have drastically reduced the prices of all of their Vegas editing video packages :


Thanks
Andy

Friday 3 May 2013

Retrofitting recessed GU10 eyeball downlights in a bathroom.

The new retrofitted GU10 recessed eyeball downlights in my bathroom :



17 years ago I spent a lot of time on decorating my bathroom ceiling with pine-cladding along with four white eyeball recessed spotlights. It even has some quality Pioneer loudspeakers (but that's another story).

I have been meaning to replace the ES Spotlights for a few years with more modern LED lights as these are cheaper to run but this would have meant getting some Edison screw to GU10 adaptors to fit inside the white fittings. Recently one of the bulbs blew and it was impossible to unscew the dead bulb, even after removing the entire light fitting and smashing the bulb so I could use pliers.

So the time came to swap out all the old light fittings for new GU10 models.
Having found a suitable set of Brass eyeball downlighters on Amazon I had the problem of the size difference between the old and new fittings.

The new lights are made by Firstlight Products. Model HS202BR "HiSpot 50 Eyeball Downlighter Brass". Looking on Amazon now, I had the last ones! A set of 6 for just £24.96 including GU10 bulbs.


The old fittings used a cut out of about 120mm where as the new ones only need 80mm so how was I going to address the problem of different hole size? I thought about using a tank cutter to make some wooden discs with an outer diameter of 140mm and a cut out of 80mm which I would varnish and stick to the existing hole.
But the final solution to this problem was quite simple really.
What I did was remove the eyeball part of the original light fitting and then retrofit the new smaller fitting into this original fitting.

This made the job look quite neat and took minimal effort to fit the new ones inside the old.
Here are some photographs showing the DIY job progress.


1) Power off of course, Here we can see I have popped out the eyeball from the ceiling mount, ready to disconnect from the original wiring block.
The original eyeball spotlight popped out of the housing ready to unwire.

 2) Here the orignial eyeball has been removed and the ceiling mount cleaned up ready for reuse.
The shell of the original spotlight fitting ready to retrofit the new one inside it.

3) I have assembled the new GU10 eyeball fitting, connected the wiring and pushed the new fitting into the original ceiling mount.  
Handy tip : I found it helped insertion if you use two strips of shiny thick cardboard for the spring clips to run along. You simply remove these once its inserted fully.

Using cardboard to help retrofit the new GU10 eyeball fitting into the old one.

4) Here is a view from above (in the attic) of the two eyeball downlighters, you can see the spring clips from the new and the old eyeball fittings.

Attic view of the two sets of eyeball downlighter mounting spring clips.

5) Here is a view of two of the four retrofitted recessed downlighters installed and working perfectly.

My new recessed GU10 eyeball downlighters up and running.

I have currently left the GU10 bulbs in place but in time I will be replacing these with GU10 LED bulbs as these use hardly any power at all compared with Halogen GU10 bulbs, GU10 LED bulbs seem to be quite common and cheap :


Hope this is of interest to someone.

Thanks
Andy

Wednesday 1 May 2013

Car Boot Sale at Treetops Hospice, Risley on Bank Holiday Monday 6th May 2013

The next Treetops Hospice, Risley Car boot sale takes place this Bank Holiday Monday, that's the 6th May 2013, same day as the Shardlow carboot sale, why not goto both !

The next car boots after this are on  Monday 27th May, Sunday 14th July, Monday 26th August, Sunday 20th October 2013.

This is a medium sized car boot sale and well worth a visit.

Photographs of the Treetops Hospice car boot sale :
The Car Boot Sale at Treetops Hospice, Risley.

The Car Boot Sale at Treetops Hospice, Risley.

Refreshments at Treetops Hospice car boot.
Location for this car boot :

Treetops Hospice, Derby Road, Risley
DE72 3SS
Gates open at 7am, buyers entry from 7.30am
Cost: 50p entrance per person for buyers (under 15's free)
Cars £8
Car and trailer £10
Vans (transit and above) £15

For more information call 0115 949 1264

Map Location for Treetops Hospice, Risley car boot :

View Treetops Hospice, Risley Car Boot Sale. in a larger map

Map Location
Click here for a Smartphone Drop Pin <-- Tap this link on your iPhone.
When you tap the link above, it will launch your mapping application and place a "push pin" onto the map with the exact location of the entrance to this car boot sale. You can then use this marker to get driving, walking or bus directions from your current location.
For example on an iPhone you tap the Directions button at the bottom and this will pre-fill in the start and end locations so just tap the Route button at the bottom and it will show you either the driving route or the walking route.




These car boots are organised by Treetops Hospice
www.treetopshospice.org.uk
Registered Charity No. 519540

I would describe this car boot sale as "medium sized" based on my experience of other local car boots here :
1) Measham car boot - The biggest!
2) Tansley car boot
3) Treetops Hospice, Risey
4) Shardlow Car Boot
5) Derby cattle market car boot
6) Willington Car Boot
7) Babington Hospital, Belper Car Boot

Thanks
Andy

Sci-fi Convention - Event Horizon Derby at the Derby Conference Centre April 2013. Ewoks !

Here is a short video showing the Sci-fi convention "Event Horizon Derby" that took place at Derby Conference Centre on Sunday 28th April 2013.

I met the Ewok from Return Of The Jedi, not many people can say that !


Some of the celebrities at this years event :

From Return Of The Jedi, Willow and Harry Potter we have Willie Coppen, Alan Bennett, Sarah Bennett and Peter Bonner. Willie, Alan and Sarah are forming our Ewok reunion. Sarah's son Josh Bennett.

Rusty Goffe from Star Wars, Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory etc

Edward Western from Star Wars, one of the Cantina Patrons.

Steven Wickham from Red Dwarf is in attendance, he also appeared in Doctor Who alongside Peter Davison and Colin Baker.

Peter Roy, an actor with a multitude of credits including the majority of the James Bond films, Star Wars and Return Of The Jedi, Doctor Who, Blakes 7 and many more.

Joining Derby's Doctor Who Fan Group The Whoovers is John R Walker, who was signing copies of his memoir Extra Time.

Steven Wickham, the actor who portrayed the GELF Bride in the Red Dwarf episode Emohawk Polymorph II and Doctor Who as a soldier in The Caves Of Androzani and as a Gastropod in The Twin Dilemma.

Virginia Hey who portrayed Zhaan in Farscape as well as appearing in Mad Max 2 and the James Bond film The Living Daylights, as well as stints in Neighbours and Home And Away.

Sarah Pinborough who wrote the Dog Faced Gods trilogy, two Torchwood novels: Into The Silence and Long Time Dead amongst others. Sarah also wrote the episode Old School Ties for the television series New Tricks.

Nina Muschallik, a Bond girl in The World Is Not Enough where she portrayed Verushka.

John Levene, Sergeant Benton from Doctor Who.

In the lecture room there were free Talks as follows :
11.30 - 12.00 Inspired Quill, Print On Demand publishers.
12.15 - 1.00pm A J Dalton talk.
1.15 - 2.15 Paul Kane, Marie O'Regan and Sarah Pinborough, horror fantasy authors.
3.15 - 4.15 A J Dalton Writing Masterclass.
4.30 - 5.30 Willie Coppen, Alan Bennett, Sarah Bennett, Peter Bonner, Return Of The Jedi, Willow, Harry Potter actors.

In all the side rooms there were stalls selling collectables.

To find out more information on this years event and the next one please see their Facebook page :
https://www.facebook.com/EventHorizonDerbyEvents

Hope you found this of interest.
follow me on Twitter : Andy Savage from Derby.

Thanks
Andy