Tuesday 22 January 2013

Welcome To The Machine: Neo-Feudalism Is Here


It seems the UK has been utterly and undeniably flanked on all sides by globalist interests, wealthy banking families and corrupt politicians. We are well and truly hemmed in, and if I'm allowed to be completely pessimistic, it seems like there is going to be no escape from the increasing rot that has gripped an entire global civilisation.

Now, you may be thinking I'm a paranoid, thinking negatively and spouting a load of old shit, but look at the continuing trends.

Increasing food prices, reduction of state pensions (whilst increasing how long we work for.) Reduction in wages, (when you take into account value loss in the currency) attack on liberties, attack on judicial process, attack on the right to protest, constant attacks against firearm and weapon ownership. The list goes on and on.


The average citizen doesn't seem much brighter than these.
Put simply, I would say that the UK and all of the other western nations are at the end of their lifespan as a free society and Governments, top banking families and international groups are going in for the kill right now. 
Put simply, we are approaching Neo-feudalism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-feudalism

That is essentially a bit like fascism, only when you are poor, you are really, really poor.

Examples? There are plenty. Sit back, read and take notice.


Health & Food Fascism

The general problem is that the Government is attempting to reduce the costs of health care with such aggressive and bizzare ideas, that they are likely to cause more problems than they solve. With all the talk of benefit reductions for obese claimants and tax rises and even legislation to get rid of unhealthy food completely, it kind of makes a mockery of us to say that we are still a free society when you cannot even decide what food you eat.

As I have written before: (http://eibsnews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/health-facism-nanny-knows-best.html)

Of course, food prices are set to go up even further than they already have soon as the Government also wants to do something about food wastage.

(Read here: http://eibsnews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/half-worlds-food-wasted.html)
 
Of course doing anything to legislate either consumers, transporters or food retail outlets to reduce food wastage will invariably lead to higher costs adding even further burden to families in a recession. Whilst I do think something ought to be done with regards to food wastage, perhaps during the middle of a recession isn't the best time to be mucking around with something as important as food.

Ironically, with all the food price increases lately one of the hereditary piers, one Countess Lady Mar made a complete cock up last week when she called for food prices to be increased in order to solve food wastage. What planet do these cretins come from?

http://money.aol.co.uk/2013/01/18/house-of-lords-food-is-too-cheap/

Of course there is the usual calls for us to eat locusts or meat grown in vats. Yummy!
(http://eibsnews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/world-overpopulation-hakuna-matata.html)

 

Pensioner Abuse

Think you can retire in the near future like our elders did once upon a time? Unless you accumulate a considerable amount of wealth, I wouldn't count on it.

Many people who are just about approaching retirement age now will know full well the level of fuckery the system is able to unleash upon you at a moments notice. Of course I'm referring to that little fact of thievery the previous Government did by raiding the pension pot to bail out bankers and cats so fat they posess their own gravitational influence.

In a previous article, (http://eibsnews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/work-pensioners-how-bout-no.html) I mentioned how some were even calling for pensioners to work on a voluntary basis for their state pension. Fuck off!

In any case, the whole pension scandal is getting worse and worse, with some now calling for retirement ages to be raised to 70. Of course by the time I'm old enough to retire, being in my mid-twenties, I doubt there will even be a recognisable retirement system. They'll more than likely turn my aging bones in 'Soylent Green' to combat the food crisis. I jest of course, but months back this article came up:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/17/japanese-scientists-create-meat-from-poop/

Anyway, moving on.

Even the MOD which has been suffering cut-backs whilst being asked to undertake all manor of illegal resource stealing and corporate murdering have also had their pensions cut back with an increase of servicemen's national insurance contributions. Funtastic.

Possibly the most concerning problem we face is that all folks now have to own a private pension. Now I'm not necessarily against private pensions if you can afford them, but contributing a minimal amount when you are on minimum wage is just taking the piss. By the time you have saved up anything worth having you may as well have not bothered because you can bet your bottom dollar that that money you saved will go against you having any help from the state when you do finally retire.
Essentially you are being fucked over twice by putting that nominal amount aside, and even then, it still gets taxed and the usual cunt suspects get to make interest off of your labour.


Wage Reductions

McDonalds is now in the top ten
companies to work for in the UK.
Desperate times!

If you are lucky enough to have a half decent job the chances are quite high that lately you have received a pay-cut. Of course if you are on minimum wage, chances are you would have realised the occasional national minimum wage increase, which of course is well below rising inflation rates. General theme: wage cuts making us poorer, inflation rates making us poorer, wage cuts makes employee's poorer whilst that influences other firms to pay a less fair wage leading ultimately to a worker class which is happy just to have found work, no matter how degrading the place is to their staff or how chronically awful their wage packets are at the end of the month.

Of course, in the UK and indeed for most of the Western Civilisation, the soft approach towards immigration control has been supported by both the hardline socialists, and centre-right conservatives and has had a knock on effect with regards to the jobs and labour markets.

Ultra-left are of course useful idiots used through proxy organisations to fuel a wider push towards globalisation which the capitalist center-right folk then use to make huge amounts of money. Easy peasy.
The whole idea that immigration was 'good for our economy' was of course complete bullshit. Its implementation had a few reasons, but one of the main reasons was to control the job markets and reduce overall labour costs. Flooding a country with thousands of workers who will do a days wage the rest of us wouldn't entertain forced us into the situation where today people will fight for a McMoron job flipping burgers.

Of course the other reason was to inundate the population with foreign cultures as to water down our cultural traditions leading us more naturally towards both the EU and world Government. 

Don't believe me? Read for yourself.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18519395

Legal Rights

Obviously, if you know anything about the EU, you will know what its European system of law is currently doing to our British Common Law based legal system. Well, it fucked it, essentially.

Our legal system in the UK was the jewel of our society, our Bill of Rights influenced the American Constitution and was the major base for all other anglo free societies. It was the basic promise that a subject would not be subjected to threats of intimidation or charged without fair trial. England even banned the use of torture in 1640 because it was common sense that a man with immense pain placed upon him would ultimately end up confessing to anything just to get the torturer to stop.

Then again, with America the so called 'home of the free' using Guantanamo Bay, and the former Libyan regime so willing to offer their services as interrogators, Britain doesn't really have a need to have its own in-house torturers.

Of course with the European system marching in over the years we now have fixed penalty notes, on-the-spot trials, trials without jury, and daily threats coming from all forms of authority both in person and in state propaganda. In fact, just today it was suggested that criminals should not be provided QC (or as it boils down to it, experienced) solicitors.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9815013/Criminals-should-not-be-allowed-to-hire-expensive-lawyers-with-legal-aid-Chris-Grayling-says.html

Of course the outrage here is that there is apparently no presumption of innocence anymore with any criminal case.
Still this story seems to remind me of a certain line out of the film 'Lethal Weapon':



Then there is the problem with the internet being the first place the police trawl through to claim victims...I mean convictions. The latest one was a bloke who posted up videos of beheadings on Facebook:
http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/briton-jailed-over-beheading-videos-posted-on-facebook-319755

Do I agree with posting up sick videos? No. Do I think someone should have to do five years because it may offend someone? Erm, no definitely not. It takes all sorts in life, and just because someone seems to have unhealthy obsession with gore I should hope a judge would not have gone postal like this and ruined someones life for it. Oh, the charge was 'Encouraging Terrorism', apparently.

Of course with other things such as protests all but banned it seems that our fundamental right to fair trial and freedom of expression is pretty much dead. Think this moot point as everyone acknowledges this fact at least.


Attacking The Vulnerable

One of the things said to give an accurate highlight of a societies morality is to look at how well a societies most vulnerable are looked after.

Shockingly, the Conservative cut backs against incapacity benefits is leaving many people in extreme poverty and in many cases terribly humiliated. I'm not usually one to mention human rights because I feel they very often get used to justify our own enslavement, but in the case of these sickening stories I believe something ought to be done right now to sort out these injustices.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/fear-of-fitness-to-work-tests-driving-disabled-patients-to-suicide-say-6-of-gps-8197432.html

One of the many stories tells of how a woman was told she could return to work despite having incontinence. Now I'm not a legal expert but I'm pretty sure that this one does breach human rights laws on the grounds of public humiliation. You could hardly expect someone to work in an office whilst fouling themselves in front of colleagues. It would destroy even the strongest of souls.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/atos-told-incontinent-woman-to-wear-nappy-firm-condemned-by-mps-for-pressuring-sick-and-disabled-into-returning-to-work-8456447.html

With the Government paying private companies on the basis that the company is given an objective to cut back on disability claimants, people are unfairly being told that they are to return to work when quite clearly they are not. The people who do the assessments are not even medically trained and the stress and hardship this is putting individuals under has led to inexcusable deaths of late. Some through people returning to work when they shouldn't, and some even through suicide as they feel their situation is so hopeless.

Of course disabled people aren't the only ones resorting to taking their own lives, a surge in depression and a spike in suicide rates has been plaguing not only the UK but the US and other Western countries too, with it mostly being young adults doing this.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/aug/14/rise-suicides-blamed-impact-recession
 
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2812%2961910-2/fulltext

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/suicide-rates-rocket-in-wake-of-economic-downturn-recession-8049446.html

In a society where young people are not able to afford their own homes, and are unable to find meaningful employment which will support them in independence - and where there is no support to turn to with a complete break up of cultural values and societal cohesion, it is no wonder suicide rates are rising. Times are tough, but when there is nowhere to turn to to find a comforting shoulder to cry on, and with debts rising with no long term prospects, its no surprise.

Education

Of course the fact that education for a long time has simply been a basic requirement to get a populace to be just intelligent and informed enough to work and pay taxes is no secret. However recent suggestions are somewhat taking the piss. 

There are considerations to let schools make a profit for shareholders.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/poll/2012/oct/17/schools-run-for-profit

Which is no surprise considering that school now has to run mandatory up to the age of 18 and that some of these schools are not places of learning at all and are operating as sweat shops.
http://www.studioschoolstrust.org/

Apprenticeships could be great for a kid to get into, but of course, they could also be uninspiring, underpaid and deadend nightmares. Lady luck therefore will dictate which kids get the most out of this set up, and which ones grow up to be resentful and left under equipped for later life. They already tried this back in the 70's, and it mostly failed the first time, though there were isolated success stories. 

Right To Defend Oneself

 

Of course in the UK it is already practically illegal to defend yourself, loved ones and your property, and even more 'wrong' to use a firearm to do for those ends. It is of course interesting to note that in anglo-saxon times, any of the free folk were allowed to carry with them a scramaseax (short-sword to you and I) at all times. It was only the people considered slaves who could not own a weapon and the punishment for a non-freeman owning or possessing a weapon was usually a public beating.

Of course these days we are slightly more 'cultured' then them days, so we no longer have to endure the public beating, but we do still suffer the abuse of a society who places the rights of criminals above the right of citizens to defend themselves and their homes.

Even our ex-MOD personnel are arrested for owning a handgun, and in the case of the article below ex-SAS members no less:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/two-sas-men-arrested-after-83525

I tend to hold the view that the Government does actually see us all as slaves these days, and therefore being common peasants we are not given the rights to defend ourselves and property because, well because quite frankly in a broad scheme of things we don't own anything, meerly borrow it from the Government for a while. (Look up who actually owns your car and who gets an estate if noone leaves a will after death, etc.)

I'm not going to argue gun crime statistics and whether they should or should not be in the hands of civilians, that is far from the remit of this article - but ask yourself, in a free society would you have to justify why you needed a pen knife in your pocket if you were stopped and searched by your local bobby?

Now with the ongoing push to disarm America too, things look pretty bleak. Of course America is a different ball game altogether, but you have to ask whether this sudden change in their political view is less down to protecting children and more down to the UN's international disarmament policy.

http://www.un.org/disarmament/


 Overview

 Of course, I haven't covered anywhere close to the amount of examples available to show of how the standard of living in the West is dropping substantially, but given that this article is scratching just the surface I think we ought to seriously look at what we as a collective are doing to stop things getting any worse. Any of you out there who are under the illusion that shit hasn't already hit the fan need to wake up. We are up to our knees in the muck already, we just need to make sure they don't rub our faces in it for good measure.


Better get used to is I guess...
 



Monday 14 January 2013

Global Warming Made The Dinosaurs!

This is an old story from way back in 2010 but I found the link through a new story on the BBC news site.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8580444.stm

In this article scientists reported that there may be a link between apparent sudden global temperature rises caused by volcanic activity and the dinosaurs rise to become the most successful group of land animals the Earth has ever seen. Apparently this was caused by 'global warming', which killed off the large primitive reptiles which dominated before hand allowing the dinosaurs a window of opportunity.

So the BBC, usually the flag carrier of state propaganda posts information which flies in the face of global warming fears. Surely if cosmological or geological influences can adjust temperatures and carbon dioxide levels in the age of the dinosaurs, it can still happen today? Right?

Temperature variations happen, continue to happen, and until this planet is either vaporized or turned into a ball of ice and thrown off into outer-space, will always happen.

There is this strange idea that has somehow got into the minds of everyone in society, including scientists on the payroll of Government agencies, that the planet must stay the same. Historical evidence flies in the face of such ridiculous assertions.

Look back at periods of British weather. The Neolithic period was warm and wet, one of the main reasons that farming techniques were able to be brought into Northern Europe.
Then there was the 'Warm Medieval Period'. This period was warm enough in England to grow vineyards for the Roman occupation. In fact it was this warm period which enabled large viking settlements on Greenland and the finding of Vinland (or Canada as we now call it) by so called uncivilized Danish brutes. Of course this doesn't mean that the weather stayed nice enough for them to stay there.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/11/101123-native-american-indian-vikings-iceland-genetic-dna-science-europe/

http://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/greenland/

Vikings travelled to America and Greenland in Longboats.
Ironically today we have the worlds media doing the rounds about 'extreme cold weather fronts' whatever that means. Of course the idea is to try and trick those of us with short memories into believing we are all going to die relatively soon of some kind of climatic disaster. In some roundabout way, 'climate change' can either be attributed to any kind of weather, be it hot or cold. This latest cold snap in the UK however is nothing compared to the arctic winter felt almost two hundred years ago in 1814 when the Thames froze over and there were entire carnivals pretty much held on the ice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Thames_frost_fairs


Of course there may be a negative side to all this. I mean, if global warming really did create dinosaurs (like global warming to reptiles is like that radioactive spider to Peter Parker) we could theoretically be creating Godzilla right now.




Friday 11 January 2013

Half The Worlds Food Wasted

So the news today is reporting on how half the worlds food produced ends up in the landfill.
What took the news so long to pick up this story? This has been an obvious situation for decades and it as per usual it surprises me how newsreaders can roll this out randomly one day and call it 'news' but there you go.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20968076


I mentioned this combined with a general overview of real environmental issues about two or three years ago on a youtube video:



The Institution of Mechanical Engineers has said that "the waste was being caused by poor storage, strict sell-by dates, bulk offers and consumer fussiness."


Ok. Well lets just consider these points for a moment. Poor storage? Yes, blatantly. Strict sell-by-dates? Yes. Once upon a time it was good enough just to use common sense to determine whether food was past its best or not. Generally speaking if meat or vegetables is gone you won't want to eat it, the strict sell-by-dates is merely a ruse to get us to chuck more away and therefore carry on buying more the next week. 


Trouble is lately through a combination of bulk buy offers and the short use by dates, half the food we do buy ends up going out of date within days of buying it which of course exacerbates the problem.


Customer fussiness? I would argue against this point, but generally if people in the modern world, or at least the west, had time to cook meals from scratch this would not be an issue. As it stands it is much cheaper to buy a prepacked meal then it is to buy all the ingredients and do something from scratch, something which is a real shame and which is partly to blame for the amount of obese kids you see these days.


The report called Global Food; Waste Not, Want Not from the UK-based institution, as much as half of the world's food, amounting to two billion tonnes worth, is wasted. Up to 30% of the vegetables in the EU   are either thrown away or the farmers themselves do not even bother to harvest them because they know they will not meet the EU's 'criteria'. (http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/fruit-and-vegetables/marketing-standards/index_en.htm)


The EU has already it seems sought to reduce the number of fruit and vegetables they are putting size and shape (as ridiculous as this sounds to begin with) restrictions on. 


At the end of the day pressures from groups such as this who created this report usually financed by the UN are going to end up forcing legislation in most countries to reduce food wastage. This is not a bad thing and as much as I usually hate the UN, I have to agree with this particular scheme, especially if we are not going to do anything pro-active about population growth. That said I do have some concerns.


In the past few weeks an idea was announced by the Tories about reducing benefits for claimants who were overweight:


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20897681


http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jan/03/obesity-benefits-cuts


And labour has suggested putting restrictions on fat, sugar and salt in certain foods:


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20914685


And as I stated in my last blog post the reduction of benefits for overweight claimants is pretty much unenforceable so my concern is that they will simply use a different method of imposing tax on unhealthy foods to subsidise losses to supermarkets who will have to improve food wastage on fresh fruit, vegetables and meat. In any case, no matter what happens, as soon as the Government gets involved you know it will just cost the people more money regardless. A negligible reduction in NHS costs whilst spending more in taxes to give back to corrupt banking families of which the Government is to blame for taking loans with in the first place.


Time will tell, but don't tell I didn't tell you so.








Monday 7 January 2013

Jessops TA800-80 Telescope Review

Oh alright, so looking up at the nights sky is not really a outdoors 'adventure', but it certainly is easy to get lost in your own imagination taking on astronomy for the first time. I've been interested in space since I was a kid and always enjoy reading about astronomy on the internet and in books but alas I never took the plunge and actually brought myself a telescope. 

The TA800-80 Reflector
I had been looking at some higher priced telescopes all last year with go-to functions like the cheaper Cassegrain models but I really didn't want to end up spending serious dough on a hobby which might only last me a few weeks at best. Fortunately my significant other was at a loss of what to buy me for Christmas so seeing that Jessops had some simple reflector telescopes on half price I asked for one of these cheaper models to see if its something I might want to spent a small fortune on at a later date.

Before I start I should probably say that I live in the middle of nowhere and except Stansted airport two miles away there are no street lights so I'm not guaranteeing that my experiences will match your own. That been said, it is light enough to pack into the car and travel somewhere out the way.

First impressions out of the box are that it is quite well made and robust. The metal construction on the telescope itself seems solid and the tripod is also well made. Included with the scope are three viewing lenses along with a Barlow which times whatever lens you are using my three. The three lenses are 20mm, 12.5mm and a 6mm. Working out the lenses is easy but essentially all you have to really realise is that the larger the number the wider the picture is going to be, and the brighter the picture (because there is more light being collected.) 

Putting the scope together is very quick and easy, the only thing that may take a little trial and error is setting up the spotting scope but with up/down and left/right adjustment wheels built into the spot-scope itself its pretty self explanatory. Easiest way I found to set up the spotting scope is to simply use the moon as a reference. 

Late on Christmas day I was lucky enough to have a completely clear sky and an almost full moon to gaze at with Jupiter a thumbs width in the sky away from the moon. In fact I found Jupiter completely by accident and was so thrilled when I saw Jupiter's moons sprawled around the distant planet. Finding objects with this telescope is not too difficult but you have to have some patience. Best bet is to use the 20mm lens to find your object and then go down to the 12.5mm. The 6mm doesn't zoom in much farther and is difficult to view through owing to the small viewing hole and subsequently you are forever re-adjusting (in the farthest zoom you are lucky to have maybe fifteen seconds of viewing before the movement of the planet means having to re-adjust.) The Barlow multiplier lens is OK, but remember you are multiplying an image being reflected off of a mirror and therefore it is not going to be any clearer than the smaller image.

Views of Jupiter through the 12.5mm lens multiplied through the Barlow show the planets stripes (just) and the moons appear as tiny stars surrounding the gas giant. Owing to the heaven's current orbits I've only been able to view Jupiter and the moon thus far but I'm looking forward to my future discoveries. 

The moon however looks beautiful especially when some of it is in darkness and you can see the ridges of the craters still bathed in sunlight. I know most people use moon filters and I'm surprised this doesn't come with one. I'm sure you could get one to fit this telescope as the 1.5" fitting seems to be pretty universal but in all honesty just using a pair of sunglasses would probably get around this. 

 As a representation of what you might expect to see through this telescope here are some images (not my own) which tally up pretty well with what I've experienced so far.


What you might expect to see through the 20mm lens.
















What you might expect to see through the 12.5mm. (Just.)



















Taken from my Canon 400D through the viewing lens.

















I now can't wait to find the other planets in the sky with this thing. For fifty quid it really is a great little device for getting to grips with astronomy and making sure it is something which you will enjoy for a longer period of time.

So in conclusion:

Cons: 

  •  Stability can be a bit of a nuisance and a lot of the time by the time you've got it in view, focused and its stopped wobbling its time to re-adjust again. 
  • Its only enough to get you interested! Its brilliant for me as I feel like a kid again using this but once I've exhausted the local planets I do feel that maybe this will have passed its usefulness. I would be tempted to say this would make a good 'toy' but I know as a child I'd have been disappointed with the detail you can pick up on anything other than the moon. As an adult you obviously have more realistic expectations about the devices abilities.
Pros: 

  • Cheap (at least when on offer) introduction to astronomy.
  • Easy to set up, simple point and focus, no hassle.
  • Light and small enough to transport if need be.

As a side note, if you are wondering whether to get one I think you'd be best looking on Ebay for a second hand one as these no doubt will only serve folk for a short time before they progress onto something a little more manly or get bored. 

If you want a program to use on your computer there are a few around but I find that Celestia is a brilliant one as it not only shows the solar system in its current state but also allows you to travel to distant stars and investigate what they are like. 
You can get a free download here:

http://download.cnet.com/Celestia/3000-2054_4-10064567.html

Or for a really helpful program to give you some bearings try Stellarium which you can download here: 

http://sourceforge.net/projects/stellarium/ 

Failing that, if you have a smartphone look up Google Sky. Its a free app which shows you what you are seeing in the night sky. Problem can be that it doesn't really understand exactly where you are pointing it but if you work off of landmarks in the sky that you know you shouldn't have any issue.

Sevylor Canyon Review

So for many months I had considered buying myself a cheap Sevylor inflatable to prat around on and I finally went balls-deep and got a Canyon from 'Go Outdoors' as it was going for the same price as the Tahiti (which at least looks like a less quality product.) The Canyon however has had many bad reviews in the past owing to poor manufacturing with many customers reporting that the seams leaked and let in quite a substantial amount of water into the craft. This is however in contrast with a lot of comments made saying that many people have had no problems whatsoever. Regardless, I can't help but feel that this was the reason for this particular model going for practically half price, but I decided I'd take a gamble and if not I'd take it back if it really wasn't any good and get the cheaper (and long-lasting) Tahiti.
(Image taken from www.tridentuk.com)

As someone who hasn't been on a kayak since a primary school trip, I would hasten to add that I'm probably not the best person to be conducting a review, but if like me you are a complete noob then you may benefit from hearing from my experiences (and better still learn from them.)


After buying the boat and getting the accessories I was rather keen to try it out on the water so off I went to test it at the lake in Hatfield Forest. 


The first thing I would say about the canyon as you take it out of the boot and carry it a fair distance for the first time is that it is actually rather heavy considering it is more or less a pool toy with a nylon cover. 

Next thing to consider is the pressure valve which you get free with the boat. I've seen other Sevylor models that feature a really clever inbuilt gauge with a simple Min-Max window, but the one supplied with the Canyon is like an old school clock gauge. Simply put, I couldn't work out how to get it to read the pressure properly so I did the best I could at guesstimating the right kind of pressure. Not the best start, oh but it gets worse and hilarity ensued! 

With it pumped up I lowered myself into the craft smiling like a loon and got those paddles into the water. The first thing you notice with the standard Sevylor paddles is that they are very short and this ends up problematic (particularily in December when the waters cold and you are wearing a pair of desert-combat trousers) because your legs and lap get soaking wet. I had read this in other reviews from different inflatables from Sevylor but I thought those people who were complaining were just a load of whinging tarts. Guess I'm now one of them. 

I did notice that it does sway with each stroke of the paddle quite a lot, whether this was because I was sitting far back against the back of the boat I'm unsure, but my journey unfortunately never afforded me much time to play about with different seating positions. I would assume that with a bit of weight in the front (perhaps a few backpacks or something) it would track and hold its heading a little better.

So, ignoring my legs getting a little wet I pressed on with the maiden voyage, pushing out into the middle of the lake where it all suddenly became a little...choppy.With a momentary lapse in concentration to fiddle with my digital camera to try and get some video footage for this review I suddenly realised that the wind was substantial enough to push me way back into some reeds from whence I could never hope to escape. I became aware that my paddles were now being used as barge poles against very shallow water and I was trying to prevent a puncture from the remnants of dead trees around me. To make matters worse I also had a National Trust person shouting at me from the other side of the lake to stop. (To be fair I didn't actually think it would have been a big deal as they allow rowing boats on the lake during the summer.)

Realising that there was no hope of returning to the spot where I started I had to face the fact that I was going to have to get wet feet and pull the boat in to land from across the reeds. This meant getting wet and freezing cold feet but I could deal with that. 

Next issue was deflating in a rush trying desperately to get all the air out so that I could pack up and leg it before these park ranger could show their faces. I obviously did something very wrong because for the life of me I could not get the last bits of air out of the chambers and certainly could not fit it back inside the now minute looking bag which it comes in. Someone really needs to invent a compression sack for these things.

Next thing I know, the park ranger turns up to tell me that having your own boats on the lake was prohibited and that it is a danger to wildlife. Well, as much as I love wildlife the simple fact is that that reason is bullshit.
 Throughout the summer they have rowing boats (which you pay an external company to use) on the lake and they allow fishing throughout the year which is a big risk to many animals if any fishermen leave their fishing line or lead shots laying around. When I asked about the rowing boats I was told they were 'licenced', which means that they only allow it if the National Trust can make a buck out of it.  Not like I have been a paying member of the National Trust for years or anything. Not that I'm bitter or anything. In any case after refusing to give my name to the guy I was left alone to carry on my grueling half-mile walk back to the car.

Its really difficult to walk in sodden skateboarding trainers on slippery mud whilst dragging a heavy inflatable boat. Yes as bad as it sounds, I dragged that boat back a long way across grass, mud and even woodland floor and miraculously there is no puncture. If nothing else I'm really impressed with the durability of these boats, I was really expecting to have to do a repair after dragging it across twigs and thorns (cringing the whole way) but having got home with it and pumped it back up it has seemed to have survived well.

So, final conclusion.


Cons

  • Shit paddles, stay away from the crappy official Sevylor ones and try and source some longer ones from somewhere.
  • Shit in any wind. There is a reason all those Sevylor product's photos are taken in pristine lagoons. Unless you are two up and have the stamina to fight the wind all day then wait for a lazy summers day. I just consider myself lucky that I didn't try this out in the sea first of all like I was going to originally! In all fairness I should have foreseen the limitations and realised the wind was too much for an inflatable.
  • Despite being an inflatable it's actually quite heavy. Not extremely heavy but I did have the intention of packing this into a Bergan to take this on the train with the rest of my gear on top but sadly this doesn't look very realistic.
  • Sadly the pressure gauge on this model lets it down from the other products which feature the simple and easy to read internal windows which are held on the bladders. If you are thinking of buying one of these then I would look at getting a pump which has a pressure gauge inbuilt into it, it will save you a lot of hassle in the long run. I would say that the deflation on these is a bastard but this is more than likely my fault for trying to rush around.

Pros

  • Despite the wind it did seem very stable, at one point I was leaning right over to pull myself into land and I was quite surprised it didn't tip.
  • Durable exterior nylon which is like kevlar armor. Surviving being pulled over twigs and thorns in a small woodland has really surprised me.
  • Even with the added price of the paddles and pump I still think its good value for money. I won't make the same mistakes I've made and I intend to get out on the water in some nice gentle rivers and canals once the weather warms up. I suspect I will get my moneys worth out of this, and besides, this is simply a stepping stone towards buying a proper canoe in the future. In short, this is good to 'wet' your appetite.