Terrorism and a Critical Threat Level

Pretty much everyone will remember the events on Monday 22nd May 2017 at the Manchester Arena at the end of an Ariana Grande concert. A suicide bomber setting off an Improvised Explosive Device (IED), killing himself and at least 22 innocent victims, many of whom were children, and that's not including the many injured.

These kind of attacks seem to be a theme over the last few years, mainly thanks to radicalised extremists from groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS. It's hard to get away from the fact that these groups claim to be Muslim and follow the teachings of the Quran. I'll openly admit, I don't know too much about Islam or the Quran, as an Atheist, I've never been interested in becoming a Muslim or joining any other religion. But from what I've been told by Muslims who I have worked with in the past, these people can never be considered true Muslim's despite their claims, explaining about how killing others and themselves is against what the Quran text says. I think I'm correct in saying that the same could be said about any other religion.

I spent the whole of yesterday pretty numb to what happened. These terrorist attacks are so regular, they are almost becoming a way of life, something that should be expected and not shocked or surprised about. This morning I genuinely felt angry with myself for feeling like that. But I'm not the only person I'm angry at, I'm angry at the attackers for committing these atrocities, I'm angry that they are using religion to justify what they are doing, and I'm angry at people who are getting drawn into those justifications and having a go at all Muslims because a small minority people are using their religion to justify attacking and killing innocent people.

Another admission that I want to make is that I hate organised religion, whether it be Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism or any other religion, something which has led me to being an Atheist. But despite my hatred of religion I choose not to hate individuals who are religious, because many of them are genuinely nice people, or at least most of the ones I've met are. I'll also respect other people's beliefs as everyone has the right to choose to believe whatever they want to believe.

What I won't respect though, is people who believe an entire religion or group of people are to blame for the actions of a small group of people claiming to be members of that religion or group of people, because whatever these people claim, they do NOT belong to that religion or group of people! I've seen loads of people on Facebook yesterday having a go about Muslims as a whole, when true Muslims openly condemn the terrorist attacks done in their religion's name. On Monday night there were Muslims (among people with other religious beliefs) who helped the victims out, from by-standers to paramedics, and from taxi drivers offering free rides away from the scene to doctors and nurses at local hospitals. With this in mind I am angry at people who condemn everyone from one religion because of the acts of terrorists, who don't truly belong to any religion could come from any walk of life.

This has happened, but it's how we react that defines us as a people. The UK government has decided to upgrade the terror threat to it's highest level - CRITICAL. Critical basically means that a terror threat is imminent, and it's hard to argue with the government's reasoning behind putting the terror threat to this level, with all the terrorist attacks that have happened over the last few years, not only in the UK, but across the globe. It means that the Army will be helping the UK's police forces and more armed police will be visible on the streets until the terror threat level is downgraded again.

Even as an ordinary civilian be more vigilant, be aware when you're in public, don't panic if you seen the Army or armed police on the streets. If you see anything suspicious, that you think might be to do with a terrorist threat, then don't hesitate, please contact the police straight away on 0800 789 321. 

RIP to all those who have lost their lives on Monday and every other terrorist attack, my sincere condolences to your families. Hope for a speedy recovery to all injured people.

Open Letter to Mobile Phone Operators and Shopping Centre Owners

I want to write a blog or an open letter directed at mobile phone operators and shopping centre owners with regards to mobile phone reception in shopping centres. This blog or open letter isn't directed at any one particular company or mobile phone operator, but relates to a common problem in regards to lack of mobile phone reception within the buildings and what could be done to remedy the situation.

These days, I live near Coventry, so quite often go into Coventry City Centre and go into their West Orchards Shopping Centre. While inside the shopping centre my mobile phone reception isn't very good and quite often non-existent, having to rely on WiFi within the centre to gain Internet access is the least of my worries sometimes. I've never needed to make or receive a phone call or important text message while in there, it's a concern of mine if in an emergency, I needed to.

My latest annoyance with the lack of reception in West Orchards was on Saturday afternoon when my girlfriend and I were attempting to pay for some food we were buying from the Jacket Potato & Pie outlet in the Food Court. This annoyance wasn't with my lack of reception, but with the lack of reception encountered by the vendor, who was using a Chip n Pin terminal which connected to the bank via a mobile phone connection. You could argue, "why weren't they using a wired Chip n Pin terminal?" I would assume it was because of their IT set up wasn't advanced enough to do so, I would guess the vendor of the unit isn't part of a chain or big company, so rely on getting equipment as financially efficient as they can.

Ordinarily, having a wireless Chip n Pin terminal wouldn't be a problem, as the outlet would be located somewhere that had a reliable mobile phone signal, so could connect every time someone pays by card. I don't know what mobile phone network the terminals use, maybe it's a different operator depending on who the shop/restaurant/food outlet goes to.

On Saturday, I Tweeted all of the main mobile phone operators in the UK, Vodafone, O2, EE and Three, to see if I could get some sort of explanation as to why, in this day and age, we still have problems with mobile phone reception in shopping centres. I didn't tweet any of the others, as they piggyback on the aforementioned networks, so should get as good (or bad) reception as the network they piggyback on. West Orchards isn't the only shopping centre to have issues, Lakeside in Thurrock is also bad for the issue too.

From my understanding on how mobile phones work, they use forms of radio signal between masts and the mobile devices. Masts are generally outdoors, either on top of buildings or at the top of pylon style stands. Using this method, steel used in structures can interfere with radio signals getting into the structure. I would imagine that most shopping centres being multi-storey (West Orchards, being 4 or 5 storeys to allow access to its shops and multi-story car park and Lakeside being 3 storey) would use a lot of steel to support the building. That would probably pretty much explain why the issue exists in most shopping centres.

However, I am also aware of technology that exists that could provide better signal within shopping centres. Internal antennas. Vodafone uses them at the building where I work and they are wall mounted and not much bigger than two full size tower PC units. So why don't mobile phone operators deploy these in shopping centres? Yes, I know it would cost them money, but they get enough money from their customers to cover this and I'm pretty sure they could get agreement from the shopping centre owners if it temps a higher footfall into the shopping centre, more people using their shops and keeping the shops in business and therefore continued rent payments and shops not closing because they don't get enough custom to warrant staying open.

So come on people, please get it sorted! Would help a lot of people, and vendors using mobile Chip n Pin terminals.

2016: A Year In Review, The Year To Forget?

So 2016? That was a year, wasn't it? A year that the powers that be decided it was a good idea to add extra time to, with an extra day at the end of February, and an extra second at the end of New Years Eve, but is it a year that anyone wanted more time on?

Many people probably experienced ups and downs in their personal lives, but sadly the Grim Reaper had a bit of a bonanza in 2016, taking away a lot of beloved celebrities and people from our personal lives too, but we'll get to that later. First we'll get onto the positives.

Positives For Me

On New Years Eve, I celebrate having officially been with my girlfriend for 5 (yes five) whole years. Quite an impressive achievement for me as my previous relationship only lasted for 4 years (well just over, but who's counting?) and that was more an achievement of not wanting to be alone than anything else. My relationship with Fliss may have had it's ups and downs as any relationship would, but way more ups and we go into 2017 stronger than ever. Great thing with my relationship with Fliss is that we actually want to be with each other and I love her more than I could ever tell her.

Our George has had a good year, generally, and has now been doing Kuk Sool Won for just over a year and got his deputy blue belt, which Fliss & I are epically proud of. He focuses on that more than a lot of other things and has become a really good martial artist, so big thanks to his teacher Dave & everyone at his classes.

Fliss & I went to ComicCon in March, which was a great experience and would definitely go again (it was our first time). We got to meet Danny John Jules, Robert Llewellyn, the cast and director of Pandorica and Paul Amos (whom Fliss went all fan girl on, lol) Got my pictures taken in the Delorean from Back to the Future, and Bumblebee & Barricade from Transformers. We'll definitely be taking George at some point, possibly even Cosplay too.

I took Fliss and George to their first music festival in June. We went to Download in Donington and while it was rather wet & muddy for the majority of the weekend, we still had a great time. George did suffer a little on the Friday night thanks to a couple of panic attacks, which may have been lack of festival experience and the fact he had a couple of mosh pits open up around him, unfortunately as I'd got separated from George & Fliss, so I wasn't on hand to help, but Fliss and a kind guy from Malta managed to calm him down and get him out of harms way. On the whole we all enjoyed the weekend, we made a few friends with the people who were camped around us and a handful of other people, and we met up with our mate Kerry and bumped into her mate Luke, which was good too.

With my dad and brothers, I went to the World War 1 memorial in Thiepval, France. My Great-Grandad was killed during the Battle of the Somme, and that's where he's been remembered. It was a great experience to go there to see the memorial and remember my great-grandad's sacrifice. It turned into a good day out with the male members of my family to mark 100 years since his death to remember the others who lost their lives along side my great-grandad.

Can't talk about 2016 without talking about Slimming World. Fliss, George and I started Slimming World back in January and doing the plan, I managed to get to my target by October, having lost a total of 7 stone 3 pounds. I did have a few gains, mainly thanks to people baking cakes, biscuits and things, but I don't feel in any way guilty as there was no time frame on when I got to target. Fliss and George have lost a good amount of weight too. We've all put on weight in December, as we've been over indulging left, right and centre, but we're all lighter than what we were this time last year, so a big win for all of us.

We all had a good Christmas, getting pressies that we wanted and some we didn't ask for but equally appreciative of. Kerry did ask me yesterday (30th December) if I had a favourite and at the time I wasn't sure when she asked, but I think it's got to be the goth coat that Fliss got for me, it was something I didn't ask for, so it was unexpected, but I really like it and when I tried it on, it really suits me (well I think it does), it makes me feel a bit like David Draiman (from Disturbed).

My brother Matt proposed to his girlfriend Lucy. She said yes, not sure if she knows what she's let herself in for, but it was a yes, nevertheless. Date & location have been booked for 2018 and I've been asked to be an Usher, which should be interesting, but kinda fun at the same time.

I'm sure Fliss will remind me of other positives, and I'll add them as she reminds me, so watch this space for updates.

Negatives

For me, personally there's not been too many negatives, the positives outweigh the negatives, which is never a bad thing. The main negatives for me are a few celebrity deaths and the death of a friend and former colleague.

I don't normally get too bothered about celebrity deaths but this year, there have been quite a few, more than I've ever really noticed before and some people who I've looked up to over the years, which include the following people:
David Bowie
Alan Rickman
Terry Wogan
George Kennedy
Frank Kelly
Paul Daniels
Ronnie Corbett
Erik Bauersfeld
Victoria Wood
Muhammad Ali
Anton Yelchin
Caroline Aherne
Kenny Baker
Gene Wilder
Robert Vaughn
Andrew Sachs
Peter Vaughan
Rick Parfitt
George Michael
Carrie Fisher
Debbie Reynolds

May you all rest in peace.

The death that affected me more than I thought it would was the death of my friend Nikki Willis, who sadly unexpectedly lost her life at the beginning of December. I worked with her while I worked at M&S in Chelmsford, we always got on really well, better than a lot of the staff who worked there. Always remember Nikki being really indecisive when it came to her choosing what food to have on her break and asking for my advice, quite often, Nikki would have a cheeky smile on face and generally in a really cheerful mood. She was also the first person to comfort me on the day my nan passed away, as I was at work when I found out, even offering to ger her mum, Michelle, to let me go home, but she kept quiet about it when I asked her not to mention anything. Nikki made sure I was alright until the end of my shift. While I might not have seen her since I left M&S, she'll be sorely missed.

Rest in peace Shorty!

Let's all hope 2017 is a good year with lots more positives and hope everyone has a good year.

The Threat of Nuclear War - The Cold War Is Far From Over

As everyone knows the world as we know it isn't quite right in the head, is it? Ever since nuclear weapons were created during World War II and used by the American's against the Japanese which ended the war, countries have stock piled nuclear weapons as a deterrent to other countries in an attempt to make sure that nuclear strikes don't happen against them. Bring on the Cold War between the former USSR and Allied Countries with both sides not striking against each other through fear of a retaliation strike, no one wants their country to be irradiated, do they? Or so you'd think.

At the end of 1991, when the USSR collapsed, the Cold War was brought to an end and seemingly the threat of nuclear strikes was over. America was left as the worlds only "Super Power" and Russia along with the countries it used to rule were no longer considered to be a Super Power as each country begun to rule itself.

Everyone has seen what nuclear radiation both at the time of the explosion and fallout after the event can do to geographical areas, human life and wildlife, just look at the only two cities nuclear weapons have been used against, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and you can also look at nuclear power station meltdowns at Chernobyl and Fukushima. The effects of nuclear radiation can be catastrophic, the area around Chernobyl and Pripyat cannot be inhabited for several thousand years, people are dying from radiation related cancer and children have been born with radiation related defects from people who were affected by the radiation.

Even though the Cold War is (apparently) long over, no one has got rid of their nuclear weapons. The following countries have got them:

USA: 6,970 in total / 1,750 active

Russia: 7,300 / 1,790

UK: 215 / 150

France: 300 / 290

China: 260 / N.A.

India: 110-120 / N.A.

Pakistan: 120-130 / N.A.

North Korea: less than 10 / N.A.

Israel: estimated 60-400 / N.A. (undeclared)

It strikes me that with all of these nuclear weapons, especially with over 3,000 active and that's just counting the active weapons that America & Russia have got, so you can understand why I personally believe the Cold War never actually ended.

Relations between Russia and most of the world have been getting more and more tense lately, most NATO countries have never fully trusted Russia and Russia have never really trusted NATO countries, which is probably why America and Russia have kept so many weapons active. Russia and China have been getting somewhat cosy, and while it's not known how many of their weapons that China have active, you can be assured that Russia will protect their new friends if none of the weapons are actually active. Then take North Korea, while it's known they have a handful of weapons, it's thought that they don't have the capability to launch any and if they can, it's thought they won't get far, but can we actually trust Kim Jong Un? He's a bit crazy, just like his dad, Kim Jong Il, and I believe he'd be willing to use any nuclear weapons he has, and I wouldn't be surprised if he has more than is claimed.

I don't know about other countries, but after the official end of the Cold War, the UK seemingly stopped using their nuclear bunkers and their ROTOR communications network, the bunkers were sold off, including the one that the government would have used at Kelvedon Hatch in Essex. I've been around the bunker at Kelvedon Hatch and a lot of the equipment is rather outdated, even for the 80s and 90s. If I was a government adviser, I wouldn't have decommissioned the bunkers unless the government had other bunkers at the ready with more modern equipment, it would make sense, especially if the enemy had found out where the other bunkers were before the official end of the Cold War, and with so many weapons still active on both sides.

Everyone has been pre-occupied with the latest terrorist incidents being lead by ISIS and previously from Al Queda, people have been shunning my suggesting of a nuclear war, but recently America have moved weapons from their base in Turkey to a base in Romania. It's said to be a move because of increased tensions between America and Turkey, but the base in Romania is 500 miles closer to Moscow and further away from ISIS. With the terrorist threats from them, nobody wants them to get their hands on nuclear weapons, they're even more crazy than Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin, and while I've said about people being pre-occupied with ISIS, I don't want to suggest that the threat from ISIS is any less real, they do present a very real threat, so it's easy to just concentrate on that.

With so many active weapons, a nuclear war is a very real threat, the total lack of trust adds to this threat, so please do not dismiss it as me being overly worried, don't tell me that I should wear a tin foil hat, the Cold War isn't over. Nuclear War will annihilate the human race and destroy the Earth as we know it.

Bunkers at the ready everyone.

Download Festival 2016 - Muddy BUT Epic!

LET ME HEAR YOU SCREAM, DONINGTON!!!!

Well, what an epic weekend that was!! Many words could be used to describe how I feel about having been to my first festival for ten years, given the fact that during the ten years up to and including Download 2006, I'd been to 8 festivals: Madstock 96, V98, V99, V2000, V2001, Reading 2003, Download 2005 & Download 2006. Not to mention numerous stand alone gigs.

Thanks to coming into some money just before Christmas, my girlfriend (Fliss) and I decided to book tickets to this year's Download Festival, buying tickets for ourselves and Fliss's son (my step-son) George and announce to him that we've got him a ticket for his main Christmas present. That's when the excitement started, you should have seen George's face when he opened and read the card telling him that he'll be going to go to his (and his mum's) first music festival, I've never seen anyone so excited.

We knew a few of the acts that had been announced at the time, including the three headliners, Rammstein, Black Sabbath & Iron Maiden. It was my first time seeing Rammstein & Iron Maiden, so as an overgrown 36 year old child, I was pretty excited too. I loved every moment of the festival and didn't let the bad weather dampen my spirits at all. I also take full blame for the soggy & muddy weather, if I'd kept my thoughts to myself, it might have stayed dry, but I had to go jinx it on my friend, Kerry's status.

So yeah, my fault, sorry guys! But it didn't stop the fun times.

The bands that I went to see included Baby Metal, Killswitch Engage, Korn and Rammstein on Friday, Megadeth, Skindred & Black Sabbath on Saturday, then Shinedown, Disturbed, Nightwish and Iron Maiden on Sunday. That might not sound like a lot, but when you consider we camped, had the whole festival experience and saw bits of other bands too, it was well worth the money paid. Fliss & George went to see Skillet when I was at Killswitch, which they enjoyed before returning to the Lemmy Stage to see the end of Killswitch's set.

Obviously Motorhead were supposed to be at Download, between Killswitch and Korn, but after the sad passing of their lead singer, bassist and total legend, Lemmy, they pulled out of all booked gigs. In their place, the organisers organised a tribute video to be played on the screens. Stood near the front of the crowd, I'll admit, I had tears in my eyes when I was watching it. Lemmy and Motorhead influenced a lot of the bands that I like and it was sad that I never got to see them. Thankfully, the organisers renamed the Main Stage, the Lemmy Stage in his honour, which I think pleased a lot of the festival goers.

I honestly cannot pick a favourite band, I was too busy having a good time with Fliss & George, we met up with my mate Kerry and her mate Luke and made friends with a lot of people in the Gold Camp, around where we'd pitched up, so big thanks to the Katie's, Dave, Jack, Gemma, Josh, Matt, Georgia, Jessica & Warrior and to Kerry & Luke (hope I've not missed anyone out), you were all part of what made our festival a great one (and to everyone else who we bumped into but didn't get their names).

Was hoping to meet up with my mates, Jason & Nick Nack, but we always seemed to miss each other, but it sounded like they had a good festival too.

I had to buy some wellies on the Saturday as my trainers just weren't hacking the muddy conditions, but I have absolutely zero regrets (other than jinxing the weather). Great music, great company, great food from the various food stalls we went to and the cakes that Fliss baked and handed out. I cannot fault anyone or anything. Feel sorry for anyone who didn't have a good time, for whatever reason that might have been for, but I never had any issues, apart from the possible theft of toiletries and George's drinking horn, which just seems weird as we can't imagine why anyone would steal those but nothing else, but we didn't have them when we came home, sadly, so can't really explain it.

I won't end this blog on a negative note though, on the whole, the festival was epic, I think Fliss & George have got the bug for festivals & gigs now, and we're looking forward to seeing Forever Never later on this year. Hope everyone enjoyed themselves as best as they could. Catch the highlights on Sky Arts at 8pm on Saturday 25th & Sunday 26th June. May go again, so if we do, we'll see you all again, stay safe, enjoy yourselves and have fun!

Film Review: Pandorica

My girlfriend and I went to see new film Pandorica last night. You may or may not have heard of Pandorica, just in case you haven't it's a relatively small budget British film, billed as a post apocalyptic "Future Reset", staring Marc Zammit, Jade-Fenix Hobday, Adam Bond, Luke D'Silva, Laura Marie Howard and Bentley Kalu. The film was directed by Tom Paton, who's experience in directing has been mostly with music videos, but he decided to extend his talent to feature films.

Filmed primarily in Billericay in Essex, with additional scenes filmed in the Lake District, British actors, British director and British crew, this film is a truly independent British film. One of the refreshing parts of the film, trying not to give too much away, was the fact there was a very strong female lead character, which is lacking in a lot of high budget Hollywood made films, a female character that doesn't rely on a strong male character or romance in one way or another is a great feature of the film. The fact that the actresses involved in the film aren't experienced in acting, this being their first acting roles, but did a fantastic job portraying their characters.

Set in the future when reliance on technology has ended, remote civilisations survived and returned to simpler ways, in one tribe, three young adults were chosen to take the trial to become the next leader of the tribe, under the supervision of the currently leader, only one will leave the forest as the leader. In a way the film has a Hunger Games meets Vikings feel to it, Tom did a great job in directing the small group of actors on a small budget and on a short time scale. The actors themselves also did a great job, bringing the less advanced future to life. The cinematography of the film was great too, brilliant close action shots, amazing aerial shots and medium distance shots brought the atmosphere of a much bigger budget movie. Interest never waned either, the script (written by director, Tom) kept the viewer interested and always wanting to know what was going to happen next, which can happen on some movies.

Seeing the credits at the end, it was clear that not too many people were involved in the production of the movie. If you bother to stay to the end of the credits, you'll notice on Hollywood produced movies, the list of crew is seemingly never ending, with large groups of people responsible for each part of the movie, whether it be filming, music, special effects, location staff, etc, but with Pandorica, there was probably less people involved in the production of the whole movie than just one aspect of a Hollywood movie, proving you don't need millions of pounds budgets and hundreds (or thousands) of people involved to produce a good quality movie, which keeps you interested from start to finish. So a very big well done to all the cast and crew of the film.

The film is definitely worth the watch and definitely worth the money paid to go to see at the cinema and buy on DVD or Blu-Ray. I will admit it was a slightly surreal experience watching a film with a proportion of the cast and crew in the cinema, watching it with you, who stayed for a Q&A at the end of the movie. If you want to pre-order the DVD or Blu-Ray, go to: https://thefilmlabel.myshopify.com/ watch the film online now at Vimeo: http://www.vimeo.pandoricamovie.com/ and go to Twitter and follow: @PandoricaMovie , @TPAKproductions and @zammit_marc. The film listing is also on IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5131914/

A 10 out of 10 rated must see movie.

Product Review: HP Pavilion x2 10-054na Hybrid Tablet

Hi there, I recently purchased a new HP tablet to replace my old Tesco Hudl. I wanted a new tablet because the Hudl was starting to get annoying, apps were crashing and it was very slow, plus I never really got on with the Android operating system.

So, my new tablet had to have an operating system other than Android, so all or most Samsung and Sony tablets were out of the question and not too expensive either, so iPads were out of the question too, although I could have got a refurbished iPad Mini for £179 from Amazon, but it still seemed a lot of money for a refurbed 7 inch tablet and the iPad version of iOS is too similar to the iPhone I have, despite the compatibility novelty. So what were my options? Windows seemed to be the only operating system to go for, but what brand of tablet should I go for. There were plenty of relatively unknown brands to go for, so I was a bit dubious about those. In the end, I looked for known brands, a lot of which offered Android tablets, which I wanted to avoid, and those which offered Windows were generally £200+, so I looked at refurbs, and decided to buy a refurbished HP Pavilion x2 10-054na.

HP have always been a good brand, I've had HP printers for ages and thought it was a good brand to go for. While refurbished, the 10 inch tablet came with a purpose built detachable keyboard which had a built in track pad, which I'm currently using to write this blog, with the keyboard attached, it effectively turns the tablet into a mini laptop. An Intel Atom quad core processor, 2Gb of RAM, 32Gb storage, Bang & Olufson stereo speakers, a full size USB 2 socket, a USB C socket, HDMI out socket, MicroSD socket for expandable storage and the obligatory audio out socket, so it's really well equipped, all for £129. Pre-installed version of Windows was 8.1, but with the currently free upgrades to Windows 10, I upgraded straight away.

Good thing about Windows is that it's the full Home version of Windows that you get on a normal laptop, so you can use and install all your usual Windows compatible programs and apps, which is great but the down side is that when using the tablet in tablet mode, it can be a bit fiddly when using the touch screen, but it's easy enough when using the track pad. There are apps which are easy to use in tablet mode, but full Windows programs are better used with the keyboard in place and the tablet in laptop mode, but are still usable in tablet mode, using the touch screen rather than the trackpad and using the touch screen keyboard.

You can have the keyboard attached backwards and use it as a stand of tuck it in behind the tablet, but it seems a bit heavy as a tablet with the keyboard attached like this, and in laptop mode, it can be a little uncomfortable on your legs if you're used to using a full sized laptop. But in fairness if that bothers you, spend a bit more money and get a full sized laptop instead. Needless to say, as it's a tablet, it doesn't come with a CD or DVD drive built in either, but again, if that's something that bothers you, get a laptop, although, you could, if you wanted to, buy an external CD/DVD drive, as it can plug into the USB socket on the side of the tablet.

The general use of Windows seems very seamless so far, the use of the solid state memory as opposed to a hard disk might have something to do with that, I currently have a 32Gb microSD card in the expansion socket, but I have a 128Gb card on order, which I have been told (by HP themselves) will work, so plenty of storage once that's in, playback of YouTube videos seems very good too and loading of videos on the onboard storage or from the microSD is good and the sound quality is good.

Overall, my opinions of this tablet is very good. I am very pleased with my new purchase and should get plenty of use out of this tablet.

Here's a few pictures of it: