Illness

I have a cold - a heavy one - aching joints, weakness, the tremors, you name it.  So I'm going to bugger off home, clamber into something comfortable, like a coma, and forget today ever happened.  The only obstacle to overcome before I can realise this dream is the ride home.  It's a foul day in London Town - really miserable.

Dubbin - must buy dubbin.

Hold that thought

I'll have to be brief today; I've been snowed under and I've got ton(nes) to do when I get home too so I can't hang about.

What have I learned today?  Apart from some vba code that came in useful earlier, not much if I'm honest.  Still, at least the sun shone on my ignorance.  That sounds like a euphemism, doesn't it?  It isn't.

Adiós.

I'm in love

Well, well...the missus and I popped to the Olympic Velodrome in London last evening for the first day of a new six-day cycling event.  I booked this out of curiosity more than anything, and because it was my birthday on Saturday, so I thought it made a nice bookend for the festivities.

I'm not much of a lad for track cycling really, despite having ridden the boards myself occasionally.  I do watch it, but I'm primarily a road cyclist have always looked upon the track as the road's boss-eyed, simpleton sister.  That all changed last night.

I hadn't had any great hope for the evening, but the tickets weren't that expensive, so even if it were shite, I reasoned, we could bail out after an hour or so and go to the pub.  However, it was riveting - absolutely compelling.  From start to finish, I could not drag my eyes from the spectacle.  I had to force myself to answer the call of nature at one point, but other than that, I stayed glued to my seat.

It's usually the case that televised sport is better than the same event in the flesh.  Football, rugby, cricket, road cycling - all of them are better served by television than by the empirical evidence of one's eyes.  Not so track cycling - it's so much better when you're there.  It's easier to follow; you also get the impression of the very real speed and danger inherent in the disciplines.  I was hooked by the end of the show, no question.  I'm now furiously trying to organise a trip to the continent to see one of the older, more-established six-days.  The two on the shortlist thus far are Berlin and Copenhagen.  We'll have to see how the flights work out etc.  Over there, six-days are basically a wafer-thin excuse for a piss-up - a nightclub with a bike race in the middle of it.  And it's as much fun as that sounds.

Boeuf Dei

It my birthday tomorrow!  I hate being the age I am (currently 46).  It doesn't sit at all well with yours truly.  And it's not because I'm vain or nuttin'.  Nor did I particularly like being young.  I like the material creature comforts that early middle age brings.  I own my own home; I have plenty of disposable income; I travel a lot.  But it's the way that one's generation slowly starts to become marginalised that I can't stand.  The cultural spotlight simply ebbs away.  The process is imperceptible until its dour work is done.  And I'm a late-starter; I was happy to bide my time as a young'un.  As a result, I'm fizzing with enthusiasm and ideas, just at the moment when my voice is starting to fall on deaf ears.  That's what I object to.

However, all that notwithstanding, I can't help but be a little excited by the event.  Firstly or course there will be presents.  The missus and I are popping out to our favourite restaurant tomorrow night to celebrate.  And, unusually for me, money will start burning a hole in my pocket and I'll feel compelled to splash out on some material frippery or other.  I'm minded to buy some musical equipment - a home studio for recording perhaps?  Yes, that would be nice.

Once more unto the top, once more

I'm dipping my multi-faceted hobby toe back into musical waters this evening.  Last weekend, my best friend and I reprised our musical venture of recording interesting covers of rock and pop classics.  To make them interesting, we transpose them to other musical genres - The Model by Kraftwerk in a ragamuffin stylee for example.  That one works remarkably well, by-the-way.

I was around at his last Saturday, ostensibly for a haircut - not off him, off his missus, who's a fully-qualified stylist and coiffeuse.  I wouldn't let him cut my hair.  Do I look stupid?  What's that?  No, apart from the hair?  Oh, yes, very good.  Anyway, we took the opportunity to record a version of Ace Of Spades that we've been working on for...oh about five years.  It was fun recording it, and as it had been percolating for so long, we both had strong opinions about how it should sound, which always helps.  The whole endeavour really rekindled my enthusiasm.

As luck would have it, the wife's out tonight, carousing with former colleagues, so I've planned a night in front of the computer with my guitar, bass and mandolin.  To maximise studio time, I'm not even going to cook.  It's straight home via the local Spar, whip up a cold supper and hunker down.  I can't wait.

It's rare that one is able to cause one's younger self some green-eyed envy, but this is one of those situations.  I have a good computer, several good guitars, a good bass, a wonderful mandolin, a comfortable and rangy home in which to work and plenty of expensive Belgian beer to help the creative juices flow.

Ahh, be still my beating heart.

Bike Riced

Phuque-ing Nora - that was a hard session at the velodrome last night.  It was partly my fault for not being correctly prepared for its severity, but in fairness to me, there was absolutely no information on the 'drome's website to correct my erroneous a priori assumption that it would be a piece of piss.  Firstly, I thought the session would last an hour; the others I'd been on do.  No - this one lasted ninety minutes.  That wouldn't normally be a problem, but an hour and a half requires proper fuelling.  

Also, it was a session of very short, very intense sessions - not what I was expecting.  By the end I was running on empty.  I got through it okay, but on the ride home I couldn't get the bike over 12mph even on the flat.  That's an indication of hunger knock, which is no good for one fitness or morale.  Also, the lack of electrolytes meant I cramped up quite badly too.  Not great - and totally avoidable.

The positives are that I got some intensity back into my bike work.  And as I'm still reasonably fit, the pain dissipated quickly and I was right with that pleasing combination of hunger, righteous fatigue and endorphins that endurance training gifts one.  I forgotten how vivid and pleasurable planet Earth is when viewed through this prism.

Ryan's Torture

I'm back on a stationary bike this evening for the first time in yonks.  Tonight's is a slightly different session from any I've experienced before; it's on a machine called a Wattbike.  The difference in technology from other static bike is quite marked apparently, but the upshot is the same: you're there to suffer.  Cycling, competitive cycling, hurts.  And cycling indoors magnifies this agony.  You've nothing to distract you from the essence of what it is you're doing.

Normally I love challenging myself on a bike; that makes me sound like one of those arsehole haircuts that applies to go on The Appentice, doesn't it?  The type who are convinced that the ability to remain upright in a suit after only four hours' sleep more than compensates for a double-digit IQ.  I'm not like that, really I'm not.  It's just that I've always loved competitive cycling, and am reasonably adept at it.  Also, there is something joyous about being really fit.  Your body feels like it's separate from you, like it has an objective existence outside of and independent of your awareness and/or influence.  You're just given preferred user status, and that's enough, believe me.  Life is effortless when the corporeal system is well-tuned.  And the mind falls in love with this new hunk, like a giggling schoolgirl.  It's great.

But maintaining one's fitness is harder, particularly when the weather gets cold, as it has in London recently.  I've let my fitness slide a bit and now it's time to suffer.  I need to court it again, win it back; I've treated it with blithe indifference and its ardour has cooled.  Hmm...I never learn, do I?

Men, huh?  We're all the same.

Look At The Gills On That

This spell of half-decent weather we've been enjoying of late reached new heights yesterday.  It was sunny and absolutely glorious all day long.  Days like this are like hen's teeth in England in October, so the missus and I seize the opportunity and jumped on a train to the coast.

We travelled down to Shoeburyness in Essex and walked the few miles along the Thames Estuary coast through Southend to Leigh-On-Sea.  This stretch of coast, as I'm sure I've mentioned before, gets short shrift off the self-appointed cognoscenti, but for why, I can't imagine.  It's beautiful.  The light yesterday was magical.  It was as good as anything I saw in California's Pacific coast.  I am being serious.

By the time we'd marched to Leigh, we were knackered and stopped for some cockles there, in true cliched cock-er-knee style.  Shellfish is my only concession to the otherwise appalling world of cockney cuisine.  I do like a cockle.  There's something truly lovely about the coast when the light's right.  Why is it I wonder we as species seem drawn to the water, like this?  It's as if we atavistically yearn to return to our pre-mammal state.  I certainly do.

A bloody-minded refusal to give in

For my sins, I am a member of the Olympic Velopark in Stratford.  I say 'for my sins' because the facilities there are peerless - world-class track, road circuit, bikes, trainers blah, blah - you name it, it's there.  But getting to them presents a problem.  The booking website is an unutterable disaster.  It's clearly been designed by committee, a colourblind one.  It's a fucking mess frankly.  Don't believe me?  Then have a look - look, everyone, an html pig in knickers.

I've been trying most of the afternoon to book a simple event at the Velopark next week, and I'm a member.  Fuck knows how a nearby would fare.

Useless.

Johnny Winter

Seasons are a funny thing.  I've been stomping around this planet for forty-six years now, most of that time in the same country.  And yet the changing of the seasons still catches me on the hop now and again.  This week is a case in point.  The first half was wet and humid.  The low, dense cloud base meant it was quite warm, which confused my brain stem into thinking it might still be summer.  The rain cleared overnight and this morning was appreciably colder as a result.  And as I type, at 5pm, the light already looks weak and wan to me although objectively it must actually be brighter than it was at this time yesterday evening.  This mental dissonance can only be due to Mr Brain finally accepting that summer is over.  I crave root vegetables and sleep.  It's time to hunker down, baby.

Unfortunately I can't curl up and slumber for a while.  I've got lots on - all jolly stuff though.  I'm off to Ireland for a work meeting in a couple of weeks; I've used the opportunity to take a couple of days off and drive down to my parents' place, which is in the west of Ireland.  I get back to London from there late on a Thursday evening.  Then it's back to work on Friday and off to Iceland on the Saturday morning.  I've gone from doing virtually nothing in my spare time to resembling a low-rent Liz Taylor, jetting hither and yon.

That reminds me - I must get some Mogadon for the flight.  And some gin.

Never mind the quality - feel the width

The trouble with buying things off the Internet is that you don't get a chance to offset howlers before actually paying for the items.  I took delivery of some bike parts via the information super web yesterday.  Sadly, the wheel I bought doesn't fit the forks I'd earlier purchased to accommodate them.  They're only a few mils to cock, but in the these matters, a miss is as good as a mile.  So, now I have a bmx front wheel blighting the front room, and nowhere to shove it.  Had I bought it from a shop of course, I could simply have wandered down there to part-ex it for a fitting replacement.  But, no - I'll have to post it back.  And I'll be honest with you, it's a cheap wheel and game's already unworthy of the candle.  So I suppose I'll end up buying another one.  Gerrr...ate.

I've tried to stave buying shite on line for just this reason, but shops that actually stock things are like hen's teeth these days.  Even in a city the size and greed of London, no-one is prepared to chance his arm at hawking stuff in the traditional manner.  Shopkeepers, rightly, complain that they simply become try-before-you-buy emporia.  People assure themselves that this is the item they can't live without, and then speed home and buy it from sweat-shop in China for a third of the shop price.  Soon we'll end up with nothing but coffee shops and petrol stations in our high streets.  And the phuque wants to live in a place like that?  Exactly.

 

L'enfer, c'est les autres

What a day.  I foolishly reported a small IT problem with my computer yesterday.  Consequently the IT support team wiped it clean and reinstalled all my software.  Unfortunately, they obliterated my personal desktop and preferences at the same time.  All the the macros I've been accruing over the last...ooh, let's see, six and half years.  No matter!  You know what they say, you can't take it with you.  I can't now, certainly.

This stress of not being able to work for several hours while I tried to rebuild my virtual memory from actual memory was intense.  I was consequently a bit short with a couple of the IT guys, for which I am genuinely sorry.  It's the system that's at fault, not the individuals.  Well, some of them are at fault too, but not this pair.  I'm such a bleeding-heart liberal, 'eh?

I've got tons on in ma vie privée too, which doesn't help.  I've got a to-do list like a donkey's cock.  I'm terrible at dealing with stress, really poor.  The reason, the deep-down reason, is I think because I have a visceral fear of disappointing people.  So I don't like taking too much on.  But life's not always compliant.  Fate sometimes shovels on a bit you weren't anticipating.  That's where I am at the moment.

Sin Gas

I'm having a concerted crack at Spanish en ce moment - that's French, by-the-way.  I have a problem though; the course I'm following in still in the development stage.  The first resource - the pronunciation guide - is overdue by a couple of months and I'm keen to begin.  I think I might need to crack on and improvise.  I'm not bad at improvising, but I'm no Charlie Parker.

Still, Spanish is a rigorous tongue when it comes to phonemes.  I shudder to think how foreigners learn to pronounce English, what with its hideous spelling system.  I delight in telling non-native English speakers that we cradle Anglophones have as much bother as they do.  It's extraordinary that if I happened across a village called Roughton for example, I would have no idea how to pronounce the place's name - none.  I'd have to wait for a local to give me an audible steer first.  Ludicrous.

So I just need to count my Spanish blessings and get on with it.  Apart from the bilabial fricative bee and the soft dee, Spanish contains sounds that an English speaker should already have at his disposal.  My only other worry is the fact that I can't roll my ars.  Never have been able to.  But I'm told Spanish speakers have come to expect this of English speakers, so it's understood.  It's like us and the Japanese struggles with el and ar.  We basically know what they're trying to say, so it's not an issue.

Oil of olé

Today is my first back in the office since last Friday (today's Thursday, by-the-way).  I've spent the interim in Andalusia, my favourite part of Spain.  And we spent most of that time in Cádiz, probably my favourite city on Earth after London.

We've been there before of course, but this time I got to go and see Cádiz FC play a home game finally.  They say you should never meet your heroes, but this lot did not disappoint.  Cádiz play in about the lowest stratum of professional football available in Spain, and they don't do that with any great aplomb most of the time.  That said, however, their fans refuse to be downhearted about it.  They make a point of turning up to matches drunk and then singing the praises of beer, their own team's ineptitude, the merits of the refereeing decisions and the goals scored by the opposition.  It's as much fun as it sounds.

The plazas around the ground were rammed full of young men on the afternoon of the game, all skinning-up and drinking furiously.  This to mine jaundiced English eye it looked a recipe for disaster.  But once you sidled-up to the throng it was clear there would be no bother here.  Cádiz is a club that wears its inclusive, anti-discriminatory heart on its sleeve.  If you've made the effort to turn up, you're welcome as far as the Cádistas are concerned.  Also, as is common in Spanish football, all generations were represented in the stands.  Young parents brought their infant children along, and the couple in directly in front of us were in their dotage.  The senora sported a bright yellow diaphanous scarf in place of the otherwise obligatory replica jersey to show her allegiance.

The football, too, was glorious.  Cádiz won at a canter and the quality of the football was extremely high.  Even the missus enjoyed it, and she hates football.  The only downside of going to football in Spain is that it ruins the English version for me.  Paying thirty quid to stand on a draughty terrace and listen to embittered old racists vent their spleens for two hours is not my idea of fun, but that's the reality of the professional game in this country.

Alas...

Vacate

Off on hols tomorrow!  We fly to Jerez in sunny Andalusia at lunchtime tomorrow.  It's a short but sweet visit - Saturday to Wednesday - but this is by choice rather than necessity.  The missus and have discovered over the years that four days is the optimal holiday duration.  It's long enough to find your feet and unwind, but not so long that you start running out of seemly things to do during the long ante-yardarm hours.  And you return home feeling like you've been away forever.  Finally, you can squeeze many more trips into the year than is otherwise possible.  It breaks my heart when a colleague dolefully admits to me he's shot bolt annual leave bolt by mid-February.  That to me smacks of poor time-management.

It isn't cheap, this constant gadding, but that's what money's for as far as I'm concerned.  I don't drag my skinny white ass into the office everyday to attract women, believe me.  It's for the cash.  We live a frugal life for the most part, chez-nous, but we refuse to scrimp when it comes to travel.  That's not to say we live it up when abroad; we don't.  It's mostly picnics and long days on the beach etc., but we do make sure the airline ticket slush fund if always well-upholstered.

Right, I'm away to pack the budgie-smugglers and flippers.

Adiós.

Back again, friends...

I didn't get a chance to post anything yesterday; I was simply too busy again.  All was going according to scripture for the first part of the day.  I'd thundered through my in-box like a flaming mallet through a vegelate anvil.  But my editor-in-chief hoyed a curve ball at me out of nowhere.

It was one of those seemingly harmless, nebulous requests for a some vague analysis for a presentation he's giving next week.  Unfortunately, I couldn't divine what answer he wanted from me.  That's how analysis works in the modern office environment, by-the-way.  It isn't a detached, logical safari for the truth.  It's quasi-scientific self-justification dressed up as fact.  And as all professional analysts know, fact is a movable feast.

So I hacked away at some non-committal charts and tables for a few hours and hoped for the best.  That took me most of the evening, so there wasn't time to post.  So I didn't.  Sorry.

Ahoy there

Goodness me - I'm back.  I missed a few post of late.  No justifiable reason for this really - just the usual old indolence.  And there's been plenty to set down in during the interregnum.  I had one of those busy weekends the normal people claim to enjoy.  And do you know what?  It was great.

Firstly, I went to Ireland's Rugby World Cup curtain-raiser versus Canada in Cardiff on Saturday.  The Millennium Stadium, the game, the crowd, even the weather, Wales in September ferchrissakes, was perfect.  The trains, on the other hand, were a fucking shambles.  Like a fool, I shelled-out for a first class ticket, thinking that at least might guarantee me a seat on what was certain to be a busy train.  And in fairness to South West Trains, I can't be sure it didn't, because I didn't get near my designated train of departure.  I was too busy queueing up outside the station with thirty-thousand other disgruntled souls.

I joined the throng at ten past six.  And we all stood there (man, woman, young, old, fat, thin) in stony-faced silence until 8.15 in the pm.  At that point I was among the chosen few who was given the opportuntiy to fight his way onto a train and home to his loved ones.  And I did actually get into a first-class carriage - the luggage rack of one to be specific.  Two hours and forty minutes later, we trundled into the capital.  The relief was palpable, especially to my back, which didn't much care for the cramped conditions.

I received a spam email South West Trains the following morning, trumpeting its new corporate rebrand, which they, with scant regard for the laws of irony, dubbed "a return to the golden age of rail".  Piss is golden, isn't it?  Perhaps that's what they're alluding to.

Wankers.

Wife runts...

Thanks to the good offices of an old mate of mine, I've managed to bag a ticket for Ireland's first Rugby World Cup game this weekend, in Cardiff.  The old country are taking on Canada, who while adept at chopping down trees, shouldn't present much of an obstacle to the Irish when it come to 80 minutes of grievous bodily egg-chucking.

So, it promises to be a jolly boys' weekend then.  A gang of first-generation English-born bog-trotters, an almost guaranteed Irish victory and a well-stocked bar.  The only problem is that I mustn't get too catastrophically pissed-up.  I don't manage hangovers well - and never have done.  I get extremely maudlin when I'm feeling crapulent.  I can't tolerate it.  Added to this is fact that I'm attending a Richard Thompson gig in London on Sunday evening, so I can't be too under the legless weather.  If I keep telling myself this, I'm sure it'll be fine.

Left to myself of course, there would be no problem.  I like being moderately drunk - tipsy, jolly - call it what you will.  But I hate being full-on drunk.  It's scary.  And I have a very well attenuated monitor in these matters.  The bit of my brain that organising waking me up before I soil the bed at night knows when we've had enough, and brings the shutters down before irreparable damage is sustained to the chassis.  Unfortunately, the chaps I'm going with appear to observe no such distinction.  To them, tipsy is a picturesque and fleeting stop en route to paralytic, much like the Cardiff train thundering through Didcot Parkway.

"Please step back from the platform edge.  This lot aren't stopping."

Abblah Eenglaze

I'm learning Spanish!  Yes, again.  I've happened across a very interesting method recently.  It was developed by an engineer-turned-opera-singer (no, really).  He had to learn to pronounce several European languages to sing the full repertoire expected of your jobbing classical tenor.  To do this, opera singers don't bother learning the language, just the pronunciation.  He realised this was the inverse of the way he was taught languages at school.  He also discovered that if he thoroughly mastered the sounds of the language and its spelling conventions before starting to learn vocab, his ability to recall learned vocab was greatly enhanced.  It also meant he was much better at hearing and understanding the spoken language.

He also carefully chose the vocab to learn.  He looked at the 625 most frequently occurring words in the language, using a frequency dictionary, and learned only those words first.  This allowed him to communicate pretty well when combined with some grammar rules.  The innovation didn't stop there.  He used a spaced-repetition-system to maximise his recall of words learned.  This is basically an index card system.  You check your understanding against a flash card.  If you remember a word, it goes further back in the box.  If you don't, it stays near the front, and therefore appears again at short intervals until it is remembered.

The final difference is that he used no translation.  He wanted the target word not to trigger a translation into English, but to have meaning in and of itself for him.  This, he realised, was the key to fluency.  So, his flash cards used images and words written in the target language.  He might also use English words other than the target word to reinforce meaning.  For example, the name of his actual niece was used to help him learn the word 'niece' in his target language.  Finally, he also used mnemonics to remember abstract grammar, such as noun genders.  I'm a great fan of mnemonics; I used them at college to help me in exams, and have relied on them ever since.

As anyone who uses mnemonics regularly will know, the key to recall is to make the mnemonic bizarre and personal in some way.  And this he does by analysing the four levels of memory processing.  They are:

1. Structure

2. Sound

3. Concept

4. Personal connection

Usually in language learning, one is taught vocab using only the first level - that's to say, word lists.  And that's why the method doesn't work.

An example.  The French noun papillon.  A quick Google images search would render results like this:

It's pretty clear what that is.  A dictionary confirms the noun's gender as male - le papillon.  We use a mnemonic to remember this.  Male nouns explode, so we picture an exploding papillon as vividly as we can - the bits flying into our faces, the noise, the smell of cordite, you name it.  Then we set down the sound of the word in French using the International Phonetic Alphabet, which we've learned.

We now have the first 3 levels at work.  The 4th is accessed by personalising the image.  One might recall a visit to London Zoo's butterfly house as a child, or a picnic in the countyside with a girlfriend for example.
All that info goes on the flash card, and it's used until the word is successfully committed to memory.

It's technical, and it requires a lot of set up time, but it's a fascinating new take on language acquisition that seems to me to be based on very sound principles and empirical evidence.

Chapeaux!

Izzy Whizzy Let's Get Busy

Good grief, I've got a lot on at the moment.  All of it self-instigated, I should say.  That's right, I've not had pressure shovelled onto me from above; I've shovelled it over my own head.  Only a fool would do this of course were the work tiresome.  But in my case it's not.

Firstly I've decided to (re)start transcribing my diaries.  I began this Herculean task last year, but I was doing it on a laptop at home, and in MS Word.  This made it a torturous and slow process.  It also meant I could only work on it when indoors.  Predictably, then, the work ceased pretty quickly.  So I've decided to change tack.  This time I've created a Google docs spreadsheet.  I've use formulae to render all the dates and the days of the week.  I simply transcribe the words associated with each, pre-existing, date.  I even do it all lowercase, so as to minimise the effort required from yours truly.  Also, as it's web-based, I can work from home, the office, anywhere.  I'm flying.

In addition to this, I've signed up for a spinning class at the Olympic Velopark.  The first one is this evening.  I've also started going to non-league football - specifically Clapton FC.  Oh, and I'm learning to become a bike mechanic.  And learn Spanish.  All in all then, a busy schedule is pretty much guaranteed until they hand me the gold-plated carriage clock and retire my squad number.  I'm enjoying every minute.

Sick, but not in a hip-hop way

I had a day off yesterday.  Unfortunately, I'm feeling extremely aimless and glum at the moment, so it's probably not the best time for me to spent protracted periods of time at home alone.  I decided I wouldn't go to the office and then was lost in a miasma of indecision.  Should I do good works around the hoose?  Or should I go out.  The weather looked nice, so after an hour's procrastinating, I jumped on my bike and headed out.

I didn't initially know where I was going.  I thought the road might lead me, zen-like, to the promised land.  I'm not sure it did that.  I ended-up in Primrose Hill.  We lived here some years ago, and it's an area I have very fond memories of.  That should have set the alarm bells ringing for me.  When I get nostalgic, particularly for places I associate with the halcyon past, it's a sure sign I'm depressed.  And so it proved to be.  I mooched around the place, feeling dislocated from it and my own past.  That time has gone forever.  I couldn't help but notice the difference the place has undergone since I lived there.  This compounded the misery.  I felt alone.

Onwards downwards then.

Back on track

Right, I've rather let this whole "know thyself" project slide since getting back from The Netherlands.  So, here we go again:

Last night I rode home (cycling again, you see), made some supper, had a Belgian beer, noodled on the guitar, watched the Tour Of Spain stage, did my yoga, a few press-ups.  Hmm, it's not a career, is it?

The cycling is a major thing in my life and always has been really.  I didn't have a bike when I was a boy.  Actually, I did have one.  I inherited it from the boy next door when he'd outgrown it.  It was rust-coloured.  Well, it would be, being constituted primarily of iron oxide.  It also had two completely flat tyres.  I rode it anyway; I didn't care.  It only last one summer.  I would meet up with a gang of local urchins and ride along behind them, battling manfully, and failing, to keep up.

Why did I love bikes so much?  Plenty of children don't have bikes, and don't seem to mind the deprivation.  All I wanted was a bike though.  I never wanted a particular bike.  I did know I didn't want a road bike (a racer to you).  They always looked too susceptible to punctures to me.  And there's the point.  A bike was all about its utility.  The bike spelt f-r-e-e-d-o-m.  Born to a class that had none, that was important to me.  You didn't need a licence, fuel, tax, insurance.  As long as you had breath in your lungs, you could slip the limited boundaries of your mundane world, albeit briefly.  This simple machine gives wings to people who have nothing else.  That's why I loved it - love it still.

It's all become clear to me finally.

Thanks...you're a good listener, do you know that?

Words don't come easy to me

I've reached a bit of a jotting impasse.  Normally I've got plenty to say - moaning primarily - but it's something, eh?  I suppose I could recount my day thus far, diary-style, but the very thought of that fills me with dread.  I lead a dull professional existence if I'm honest.  

Current affairs is a closed book too; how can people stomach that stuff day-in day-out, I don't know.  It destroys one's belief in humanity.  Also, I know enough journalists to realise that their words are product.  They're selling stories, not trying to enlighten us.  And speak it soft, but bad news sells, so journalists are compelled to churn it out.  The darker the better.  

Good news makes people smile, yes, but not to the degree that they're prepared to spend £1.20 in pursuit of it.  They want it for free, courtesy of the BBC news web site usually.  It's like the difference between stroking a friend's cat from time to time and owning the mogster yourself.  Most people aren't prepared to put up with the economic and time demands owning an animal places on them, but they also don't want to entirely close the door on the simple soothing pleasure of stroking the furry ratbag occasionally.

I'm slightly different in that I do buy a newspaper most days, but I only get it so I can stare at the crossword blankly during my lunchhour.  I never read the hard news; it's simply too bleak.

The answer to six down is 'armageddon', by-the-way.

Short and bitter

Another short post today I'm afraid.  I don't know where the day's gone, but gone it has.  Actually I could afford to stay behind after school and pen a longer disputation, but my weather forecasters tell me it's going to piss down this evening, so I'm keen to get me gone ere long.  I have just cause to be fearful; I got caught in the most wretched tempest last night on the way home.  I was pedalling away furiously, minding my own beeswax when the heavens darkened and it began to piss down.  And when I say piss, be in no doubt I'm talking Biblical retribution rain, not a shower.  It absolutely shat down for about ten minutes.  I was soaked to the epidermis of course, but even I had to stop, such was the violence of the deluge.  I hid in the lobby of a shabby-looking low-rise council block in Poplar, not something I'd wish on my worst enemy.  It was like Escape From New York with pie and mash.

Yesterday was the first of September.  It supposed to be reasonably summery still.  Wankers.

Neder Neder Land

The wife and I have just returned from The Netherlands.  We took the opportunity of the long bank-holiday weekend to scoot over and have a few days cycling.  This is possible thanks to the excellent overnight ferry that runs between Harwich and Hoek Van Holland.  You get your travelling done as you sleep, meaning you don't waste a moment of precious free time.  We shot up to Harwich on Friday evening directly after work, clambered on board and were sipping refreshing halves before the ship had departed the dock.

We disembarked at 6.30 on Saturday morning, rested and ready for the day's travails.  They (the travails) weren't too onerous on day one; we cycled about 20 miles at about 10mph, with plenty of coffee breaks en route.  There's a charming coffee shop in the the picturesque town of Maassluis that we make a point of frequenting when we're there.  The weather was super too - sunny and warm/hot - which was doubly pleasing as apparently it was absolutely shithouse in the UK.  From there cycled into Rotterdam for our first night.

We've been to Rotters a couple of times before, but it's a big old place, so there's always scope to find a new neighbourhood.  I've got quite a thing for craft ale, so we shot down to a microbrewery in the former dockyard.  The area's quite rundown, but is being regenerated.  The old wharves have been turned into a food and entertainment complex, the Fenix Food Factory.  We shot down there on Saturday evening and sat on the dockside, enjoying a couple of sharpeners; it was super.  We also called into this place, a massive beer garden, which we'd been to before.

On Sunday we cycled to the university city of Leiden.  Again the weather was mighty.  The students are back at college, and the town was buzzing as a consequence.  We sought out another craft ale place, Lemmy's.  I was able to compare and contrast any number of Belgian dubbels there.  The missus reported the white wine to be passable too.  Bingo!

Yesterday, we cycled back to the ferry port at the Hook, and it was overnight to England last night.  Another brilliant crossing - I find it very easy to sleep on ferries.  The engine noise and the rolling and pitching of the ship have me under in no time.  So it was no bother to spring out of bed at 6am this morning and straight into work in London on the train.  Super.

Well done, the Dutch.  And thanks for having us.

Pity poor Tom

I wrote my first begging letter yesterday.  Well, actually it was an email, and although plaintive in tone, it was actually a request for instruction and advice, not food and/or money.

I wrote to an instrument maker who lives and works not too far from my home.  I bought one of his mandolins about ten years ago, from a shop in central London.  I then had occasion to visit him a while later to have some work done on it.  I was struck by what a wonderful way to earn a living it must be, to produce these lovely objects professionally.  He told me that he and his wife drive to southern Spain every year for several weeks to source quality woods.  They then transport it home, and he spends the rest of the year making stringed instruments of various kinds.

I want to break free of the pointless process of modern office work.  One gets so little done that's of tangible benefit that it wears you down.  I have an urge to be useful, and not being so is denuding my humanity.  It's also making me hate myself, which leads to all sorts of unpleasant possibilities.  In short I need to have a reason to get up in the mornings.

I suppose having children does this for people, but I always rather looked upon that as the quid pro quo for having basically given up on oneself.  And I'm not quite at that point yet.

Son of whither goest thou

Right, it's day 2 of my quest to find myself by picking through the smouldering wreckage of my actions for clues.  So, what did I do last night, and what does it tell me about myself?  Let's see...

I rode home, washed-up, packed a bag for our cycling trip to The Netherlands tomorrow, helped the missus prepare the tea, popped out for a couple of drinks, watched some cycling, played the guitar a bit.  Hmm...much like the evening before.  I can only conclude from this that I should retire.  Still, this is a mid-term project.  Frome wasn't built in a day.

Quo Vadis?

As part of my ongoing quest for self-knowledge and professional satisfaction, I've decided to monitor all my extra-curricular activity for a week or so.  The rationale behind this move is that an analysis of those activities should then be my guide as to what I do with the rest of my life.  A sort of your-actions-speak-louder-than-your-words thang.  A stunt like this was pulled by psychologists at Harvard to help baffled undergraduates decide on their majors.  It's very common apparently for there to be quite a degree of what's known as cognitive dissonance between what one says one wants and what one's actions say one wants.

That's what I'm hoping anyway.  I hope my diary will make it clear to me in stark terms what it is I should be doing.  The Reverend Sydney Smith summarised the situation neatly: 

"Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent.  Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed."

So, let's begin.  Last night (Tuesday 25th August 2015) I rode home, cooked supper (chillied fish), did the washing up, went out for a couple of drinks, watched the tour of Spain coverage, washed-up again, posted some comments on Facebook, did some exercise (press-ups).

Not sure what this suggests...personal trainer/chef?  Early days I suppose.

I'll get back to you.

The great outside

We went camping this weekend.  We do this this every year, and generally try to seek out a different campsite each time if possible.  Only mentalists keep going back to the same place year after year, let's face it.  And we found a belter this time.  It's pulled off the neat trick of being sufficiently animated and not too uptight, whilst at the same time not resembling the last days of the Roman Empire in man-made fabrics.  They also allowed fire pits, which is a joy.  Ray Mears, the survival expert, says the secret to getting through alfresco hardships is to build a fire as soon as one is able, before finding shelter or anything.  The fire gives one a source of heat, of light, somewhere to cook food and some protection of course, but it's the spiritual and psychological benefits it affords that make it so important.  Nothing steels the sinew and resolve of the world-weary camper like watching a fire take hold.  You feel hope surging through you veins as the flames leap higher.

We needed this primaeval fillip because the weather was decidedly schizophrenic over the weekend.  We arrived at the site on Saturday in ninety degree heat, literally.  The temperatures in the south east of England were breaking all sorts of records at the weekend.  But as quickly as it arrived, the tropical weather revised its plans and pissed off.  Just twenty-four hours later it was very chilly as soon as the sun went down.  So after dinner on Sunday, we all sat around the burning hearth and exchanged ribald stories about our collective youth.

Disaster averted.  Thanks, Ray.

Off with his heading

I haven't posted for a few days, which is something I dislike.  I try to avoid leaving gaps in my shit pensées.  Well, there's history to think of, isn't there?  The reason for the vide is that I've had a book review to write.  I do this for work from time-to-time.  It's usually a pleasure.  I get sent a book about a sport I may or may not be particularly interested in.  I read it; pen 350 words about it and post it off.  It's quite good fun.  It's also a useful discipline.  Sport is inherently dramatic, so unless the book's premise is so thin, it's transparent or it's been written by a primate, there's usually some literally succour to be had.

Occasionally though I have to plough through a stinker of a book.  It's only really happened once in my journalistic career.  When it does though, it's torture.  To have to read a book you dislike is a mediaeval cruelty.  It's especially so for someone like me, who's not in the first flush of youth.  I only have so many books left to me in my life.  I don't want to be wasting one on a bot-boiler.  Unfortunately, the book I've just finished is an absolutely stinker - boring, overlong...crap basically.

The worst aspect of this prose failure is that the subject matter should be fascinating.  But the author mistakenly thought that research would make up for any shortcomings in his writing ability.  It won't of course, not unless he's trying to have a PhD dissertation accepted.

Despite this, the book could have been redeemed.  A descent editor would have set the writer straight in a heartbeat.  Unfortunately, most publishing houses have decided that editors are superfluous to requirements.  The spurious reasoning behind this move is that editors are expensive, it being a skilled trade, and they slow the process of the book to the marketplace.  Also, all the shit on the web that people clamour to read hasn't been proofed and/or tweaked, has it?  People don't care about that stuff these days.  We've moved on.  It's Hammertime - get with the programme.

Yes, but I don't pay £12.99 for access to a single web site, do I?  And, believe me, if I did, I'd expect it to be expertly written and proof.  

Just like the guff I set down.

Summer dubbin

The evenings have started drawing here in England.  It's undeniable.  And so one is forced to review the summer as it enters the home straight.  It's been a fairly shit one - no real heat, plenty of rain and wind.  This is troubling as the winters in this neck of the global wood are long and dull, like episodes of Gardeners' World, and the idea of entering one without a tan is troubling.  Even we northern hobbits are human and need to feel the sun on our backs from time to time.

I'm luckier than most in that I get away on holiday quite frequently, but even I've only got one more trip south in the diary this year, and that one's quite late in the season.  We're off to Andalusia right at the end of September.  It should still be hot, but we're only going for a long weekend, so it's a bit hit and miss.  And I need some sun and some snorkeling.  Really need it.  I haven't snorkeled once this year.  How the fack did that happen?

Whither soccer?

I was toying with the idea of popping to my first football match of the season tomorrow.  Orient (peace be upon them) are playing at Dagenham & Redbridge.  That's a local derby, and so merits a visit.  Unfortunately I have it on good authority from a colleague, who's also an Os supporter, that it's already sold out.  Orient will turn up mob-handed tomorrow as it's only a couple of miles down the road, and traditionally away games are always much more fun than home ones.  Also, the Daggers' ground is the size of a unfurled tarpaulin.  It was always going to sell out therefore.  Oh, well.

I'm feeling rather disaffected with football at the moment anyway.  I used to enjoy playing the game, but watching it as it's played in this country bores me rigid.  I much prefer the continental game.  English football is unculture, artless and as ugly as sin.  It is played at breakneck speed, but then it has to be or no bugger would pay good money to watch it.

I've also noticed a worrying change of atmosphere at Orient games over the last couple of years.  Things are getting more right wing and menacing.  It feels like it did in the 80s.  I could live without a reprise of that, thank-you very much.  I've decided instead to start following another gang of east London underachievers this year - Clapton FC.  There are other non-league outfits closer to home I could follow instead, but Clapton's supporters are famously (somewhat) anti-racist, anti-fascist and generally good eggs.  The emphasis at home games is on inclusion and fun.  You're not going to get much succour from events on the pitch, let's face it, not in The Essex Senior League, so you might as well have a beer, a sing-song and a convivial chat with your fellow supporters.

I actually played at the club as a boy.  My under-12 Sunday league team played there in 1980.  It wasn't very anti-fascist then, believe me.  It was a shaven-headed, violent bear pit of a place.  I hated it.  How things change.

Polly Ticking

A friend on Facebook (don't grimace - he is an actual friend too) alerted me to the following piece on The Guardian web site today (http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/12/could-you-build-new-part-of-the-left-labour-jeremy-corbyn?CMP=share_btn_fb).  It's about the journalist's attempts to build a new party of the left.

He takes soundings from many sources: former and current politicians, strategists, media advisers etc., and after a few false dawns alights on the idea of forming a coalition of the left, based on shared core beliefs: the NHS and old-skool choons like that.

I think this is a winner.  My belief has always been that the left in this country (England) has never got over the New Right administration of Mrs Thatcher doing away with the post-War consensus.  The PWC, for those of you under 40) was a set of sacred policy cows that all the parliamentary parties tacitly agreed to maintain to enforce when in power.  These policies were specifically to maintain and defend social justice and equality.  So for example, education and health care would be free for all those who wished to avail of it.

It seems strange now that The Conservative Party would sign-up to this, but it's not if you consider the seismic changes that The Right has undergone in 35 years.  Conservatives used to believe the state as vehemently as did those on the left.  They believed also in free health care and education for all.  Yes, they wanted to keep their inherited wealth and property for themselves, but they also felt a duty of care to those who were born without these privileges.  The Left of course wanted to wrest a larger slice of the opportunities available by abolishing private education and health care.  Only then they argued would these services by of the optimal quality and guaranteed to survive and flourish.

This Conservative notion of paternalistic benevolence was swept away by Thatcher.  Since then, the Tory Party has developed a phobia about The State.  The State is a necessary evil at the moment, but with careful fiscal management, it can be atrophied to almost nothing, which is (oddly) quite an anarchic idea.  The Left reacted by breaking apart into those that went along with this (the-people-have-spoken-we-must-listen) and those that wish to see a return to the pre-Thatcherite days of cross-party belief in the social benefits of the PWC.  Jeremy Corbyn is I'm guessing a firm believer in the PWC, whilst Liz Kendall is not.  And like all siblings who fall out over something instinsic and important, they're really fcuking hate each other.

A fork in the road

Decisions, decisions...I've got to make a major one, and I'm wretched at being decisive.  I always have been.  I think I've mentioned before my maniacal fear of faits acomplis.  Whenever I happen across a decision tree in life and am forced at gunpoint to favour one path over another, I spend the next five years fruitlessly musing on what I might be missing.  I'm no Bertrand Russell, am I?

My problem at pres is that I need to change jobs.  I'm not being 'let go' or anything, but I am on the cusp of self-harming due to boredom.  So it's time to jolly off.  This is complicated by the fact that I don't want simply to swap one desk-bound, Kafkaesque McJob for another.  I need to do something with what remains of my life and sanity; I need to be able to behold the tangible fruits of my labours at the end of hard day.  Is that too much to ask, Britain?

When I was 15, I had a careers interview at school.  I didn't know what I wanted to do other than avoid drudgery.  This was more difficult than it sounded.  My people don't have careers; careers are for the middle-classes.  We had jobs, and the one thing that unified these jobs was our hatred of them.  Jobs were boring, exhausting and poorly-rewarded.

What muddied the waters further was the fact that I was good at academic subjects and was slated to sit a lot of exams at the end of my compulsory schooling.  The careers adviser, not unreasonably, suggested I might like to take up a profession.  I hummed and hawed at this.  I said I would consider it if one could be found that involved a practical element.  I even then wanted to do something on a physical plane.

But, no, I was dragooned into becoming a be-suited functionary.  I was able to ignore the existential angst this caused me for years, but the pressure's built up and is now becoming intolerable.  I need to change tack.

Prepare to jibe.

I'll not drink to that

I need to rein in my drinking.  It's getting tiresome.  The reason for this is twofold: Firstly, I'm bored at work, which engenders frustration and the desire to drink.  Secondly, I'm a slave to routine in matters like this.  I can't imagine the day-to-day without the well-worn path of routine to guide me through it.  This includes a nightly sharpener.

It's odd this because I hate routine.  That's why I'm bad a sticking to things; I quickly grow jaded of the routine and yearn for change.  So why do I slavishly cling to harmful habits and repeated behaviours?  Because I'm lazy.  One doesn't have to think when the routine is ingrained.  You just go with it.

But drink is a narcotic, of course, and as such has a self-preservation instinct, so one needs to demonstrate discipline.  So a new habit needs to be introduced.  This won't be easy.  As I say, I'm bad at routine.

Don't worry. Be happy

God, I'm in a fug at present - a slough of despond if you prefer.  I've been furiously reassessing my direction in life.  I've reached that alarming age when one finally realises that planning for life is life is like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.  The future is now, which sounds like the strap line for a mobile phone advert.  It's true though.

I need some direction and change.  Problem is I'm middle-aged and designation comes with some conservative baggage.  One starts to mistrust and dislike change.  That places one in a quandary: dissatisfaction with the status quo and dread fear of its ending.  That's the crux of The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin.  Reggie realised his life was pointless, but then so was his desire to change it.  The only option available to him then was absurdism.  I suppose I shall descend into the absurd too.  

I suppose it keeps one off the streets.

Funk to funky

It looks at time of going to press that England are in imminent danger of winning The Ashes.  This is doubly amazing as...

(a) Australia are supposed to be effortlessly superior to England in all departments

...and...

(b) It's only day two of the 4th test.  There's another one to play after this.

Before the series kicked-off the best England fans were told to hope for was not losing five:nil.  When they won the first test, everyone was fearful that all we'd done was anger the Aussies.  They duly won the next one at a canter.  Okay, we're in for a hiding.  But, no, we then beat them for fun.  Ditto in this match - well, all but damn it.

It's Friday; the sun is shining and England are about to win The Ashes.

Good day in the morning.

Fatigue is a feminist issue

Gawd 'elp us, I'm tired at the moment.  Since returning from the Cambridge Folk Festival, I've been unable to lasso any decent shut-eye.  I drop off okay, but then seem to slip into some kind of sleep limbo or purgatory.  In this wretched hinterland, one can see restful sleep but not quite reach it.  I spend the nights then like a bag-eyed Tantalus.  Not conducive to productive days, let me tell you.

But at least it's Thursday, which means the torment is nearly at an end.  And this weekend is one of those low pressure affairs that involves plenty of to-ing and fro-ing, but which cannot be said to be stressful.  On Saturday I'm spiriting the missus away for a night in a hotel somewhere in London.  I know where it is, obviously, but I'm keeping her on tenterhooks.  And from there on Sunday morning we're off to The Globe for a matinee of Richard II.

That'll be done by 4pm, which leaves us the evening for gadding and larks.  Thank the lord for that.  I need larks.

Not the bird.

The all-seeing Iris

The missus and I popped to the cinema last night, which is rare during the week, but we're decompressing after this year's Cambridge Folk Festival.  The few days immediately post-festival are always hard.  One is unused to the ebb and flow of workaday bourgeois life, so a few jollies are in order.

I went to see 'Iris', a documentary about 93-year-old New York designer, fashion-icon and all-round-good-egg Iris Apfel.  Iris and her 100-year-old husband, Carl, spend their dotage gadding about the place and generally being splendid.

Iris is famous for dressing flamboyantly, and Carl is no slouch either.  That's not to say though that they don whatever shite comes off the catwalk, irrespective of how well or poorly designed it might be (are you listening, Donatella Versace?).  Instead Iris trawls thrift shops, haberdashers and draperies all over the world looking for inspiration.  And she a very exacting eye for what works.  Consequently she and Carl look superb, always stylish and stylish on their own terms.  No-one dresses quite like them, as indeed no-one should.  That would be to miss the point of their endeavours.

Along with their redoubted professional achievements, both are charm personified.  They're both possessed of youthful joy, wit and sparkle that would shame most people a third of their age.  A combination of interest in the world around you and pure hard work is clearly the way to live long prosper.  Forget gluten-free and all that faddy garbage.  Get interested in something and apply yourself to it.

It was an inspiration being allowed to glimpse their quotidian lives for 90 minutes.  Sadly, I believe Carl passed away shortly after the film was made.  But what a life.  One could not possibly mourn the end of a tenure as rich as his - but simply salute it.  Cheers!

Back to life. Back to the here and now yeah.

Well, darling reader, where to begin?  I've been away at the Cambridge Folk Festival, that annual celebration of all that is good and civilised in life.  And it's been a belter this year, even by the rarefied standards of that esteemed shindig.  The weather was spectacular, which helped no end.  It was hot and sunny during the days and yet cool enough for restful sleep at night.  Add to this a liberal helping of good friends, good beer, a waterproof tent and some musical instruments, and you've got yourself a recipe for the perfect long weekend.

The professional music on offer was impeccable too - as it generally is.  You don't get to strap on a gee-tar at Cambridge unless you know your stuff.  The high-water mark this year, and indeed of all the years I've been attending, was hit by Pennsylvanian bluegrass trio "The Stray Birds" (http://www.thestraybirds.com/)

Bluegrass is a music that is hard for all but the most cynical heart to resist.  It's life-affirming, unpretentious and accessible.  That's a good start, but The Stray Birds took it somewhere different, elevated the genre to new heights.  I saw them the Brian McNeill session on Saturday morning.  This Cambridge tradition showcases a dozen or so of the acts at the festival along with a troupe of talented young Scottish musicians.  It's a laid back affair.  You sit, reading the paper and nursing a coffee while the music swirls around you.  The Stray Birds were simply one of the acts.  They played two tracks, and on the strength of this alone, I rushed over to the music concession and bought all the albums of theirs I could find.  That's how good they were.

I saw them twice more after that, and each time they were brilliant.  They use the old bluegrass technique of singing into the same microphone.  This is dangerous territory for a live act.  Each musician has to rely on his or her ear to judge the mix of the sound going to the house.  The sound engineer would usually take care of this mix these days.  They did the same with the instruments.  The band plugged only the double bass into the desk and PA.  The other instruments were mixed ambiantly during the show by the band.  You move away from the mic to lower the mix and wander up to it to bring that instrument up in the mix.  It takes huge talent to be able to do this.  They were brilliant at it.  I watched the terrified road crew set them up for one of their performances.  They had to explain to the sound engineer twice what they were doing as he didn't believe it the first time.

Just superb.

Lumbar Jack

I'm off to the Cambridge Folk Festival tomorrow.  This annual trip is well ensconced in the familial diary now.  We've been going since, ooh, let me see...2008 or 9 I think.  Since we ditched our car a couple of years ago, the ritual begins with my picking-up a hire car on the eve of festivities.  That is what I'm up to this evening, en route home from the office.  Unfortunately, I've got a bad back at the moment, which isn't ideal.  Still, it's only a short drive to Cambridge from home and I've got nothing to do for five days but mooch about, listen to music and drink real ale.  No sitting at a desk for nine hours a day, no cycling, no stress.  If that doesn't sort the spine out, then I don't know what will.

The wisdom of crowds

Not for the first time, I've been inspired by a Scott Adams blog.  This one was about the importance of strategic thinking.  I do recommend it: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/125175145561/thinking-strategically

It's not a hard-sell for Scott, this notion.  I hold with strategic thinking generally, and indeed I am a very able conciliare to family and friends, even if I say so myself.  I'm pretty good at seeing the bigger picture and navigating the path of least resistance through it.  I've always had this ability, and as with most things I do well, I thought everyone else was similarly equipped.  Not so it seems.  My work colleagues down the years have consistently commented on my clear-thinking.

However, there is a frailty in my superpower.  I cannot direct the analysis inwards.  I find it extremely difficult to apply the same good sense and detached logic to my own situation.  I lose my objectivity.  This is a result I think of my natural pessimism.  Scott Adams maintains that a pessimist cannot transform him or herself into an optimist.  Pessimists can though learn to think strategically, he holds.  And there's precedence for this view.  There are for example plenty of naturally disorganised individuals who by dint of rigorous training in the military become excellent logisticians.  It shouldn't be beyond a pessimist to train himself to think in different way then.

This is what I shall endeavour to do.  As it happens, I saw a example of this at the weekend.  I got chatting to a friend I hadn't seen for several years.  We're fairly casual acquaintances, so I've not kept up to speed with what he's been doing with himself.  Last time I heard, he was doing social work.  I expected some variation on this when I asked him what he'd been up to.  It turns out he's been running his own business for the last three years.  He makes memorial wooden plaques.

One of his relatives died a few years ago, and wished to have her ashes buried in an urn at a memorial garden somewhere picturesque.  This was done.  When the family asked the firm organising the whole thing if they might commission a small wooden plaque with her name, dates and a choice quote to mark the spot, they said "yes"...for three-hundred pounds.  My friend's father was far from gruntled by this, and asked his son to knock something up.  He did.  But not only that, he saw a massive gap in the market and moved to fill it.  He now does this for a living.

I was filled with admiration for the way he assessed the situation and used the opportunity to change his life for the better into the bargain.  I need to think more like this.

Friends, Romans...

I attended a close friend's birthday party on Saturday.  We've been mates for years.  He now lives miles away with his wife and children, so we see each other very infrequently.  In our salad days, we'd see each other virtually every day.  Another example of the attentional work that time does to undermine friendships.  The renting asunder of once close friendships like this happens so gradually that it's pain-free.  You're not even aware of it at the time.  It's only when you look back over your years together with the clairvoyant aid of middle-age and strong drink that the poignancy of the loss becomes apparent.

Birthday parties are, therefore, charged with some sadness these days.  Which is a shame because I used to love a party.  Don't get me wrong - we still had a ball on Saturday.  It's just that from time-to-time, I found myself sneaking a look at the people I grew up with and mourning the loss of youthful intimacies.  I don't think I'm overly given to these thoughts.  I spoke of another lifelong friend at the same shindig and he betrayed similar feelings.

In fact there were several lifelong friends of mine at this do.  We're unusual in this, I discovered in adulthood.  We all grew up together, attended the same schools and lived in the same areas.  We were mates as children and saw no reason to let the arrangement slide as we grew in adulthood.  It's only when we widened out circle to include work friends and partners that we all realised that most people didn't operate like this.  Their loss.

Having got this far, we'll all see the race out together now I suppose.  I hope so anyway.

Lady Macbeth tendencies

My cack-handed employers have instigated a scheme at work for thrusting young go-getters.  The anointed cohort will be given an 18-month grand tour of the business, whilst presumably the rest of us see to their quotidian duties, during which they will become acquainted with all aspects of what it is we do.  Thereafter, they'll be nurtured into leaders of men.  

So far, so good.  However, one of my young colleagues has been selected for this programme.  And he is, take it from me, a time-server.  Nothing more.  I attach no scorn to that term, by-the-way.  I would characterise myself as a time-server.  That's to say, I do my job and do it well.  But I am not going to sell my soul to the company.  They pay for my brains, education and time.  It's a commercial transaction.  To pretend it's anything more than that is disingenuous.

Their selection of this colleague has annoyed me in a way I never thought possible.  I don't want to go on the sodding scheme; I can scarcely think of anything worse, to be honest.  And yet, I would usurp his place on it in a heartbeat.  I have become ambitious for something I don't want, simply to deny it to another.  What is happening to me?

What's fuelling this malice is anger at my being ignored by my bosses.  I work in a small department, and without wishing to overplay my hand, I am the organised clear-thinking one.  My boss is a winning combination is disorganised and incompetent.  He's been sacked from more jobs than you can shake a stick at.  But apparently the senior management in this company cannot see past his winning smile to divine this.  And the other colleague is a nervous and physical wreck.  He only stops yawning so he can chew his fingernails down to the marrow.  I do all the intellectual heavy-lifting, but because I don't bleat about it, I get continually taken for granted.  Well, no more.

If discharging one's duties in an unfussy, methodical and intelligent manner is not enough to receive some professional attention, I'll change tack.  I'll wrench the spotlight from the also-rans instead of waiting my turn for it.  It appears to be the only way.  Very well.  I refuse to be ignored any longer.

Infirm of purpose!
Give me the daggers.

Beloved

The missus and I went to see 'Amy' last night, the biopic of Amy Winehouse's short, glorious and ultimately tragic life.  It was superb - extremely moving.  I had to steel myself before committing to see it; I find it easy to get upset when I think back to her death.  I can't really listen to her music any more, such is the emotion it stirs up in me.

There was such a grievous inevitability about her fate.  But when it came, it was still a shock.  I remember it well.  I was walking through Gospel Oak estate on the Saturday afternoon she died.  I overheard two young teenage boys on bikes, typical London latchkey kids, discussing her.  I didn't get the detail then, but the incongruity of these two urchins talking about Amy worried me.  I was travelling the a friend's house for dinner.  When I arrived, I got him to check the news.  She was gone.

The nicest part of the film was that it was made up almost entirely of camcorder footage taken by Amy or one of her close coterie of friends.  For the first time, we saw the real young woman, not the shambling tabloid construct that the mainstream media presented at the time.  I am becoming increasingly disillusioned with the media and its idiot "news" agenda.  Fuck them and fuck the dunces that lap up their bile like it's the word of god.

Did Not Finish

I bottled last night's final time-trial of the series.  I did, as promised, show my face at the velodrome, but I felt shite.  Also, it was packed and as a solo rider, I would have had to race after the two-ups had done their thang, which would have been late.  So I decided discretion (the thinking man's cowardice) was the bee part of vee, and legged it.  I did feel sufficiently ashamed to go out on a training ride instead, so I did get some miles in.  There's was absolutely no point in this endeavour; I was nailed to the road and certainly didn't improve my fitness or cycling any.  Honour must be served at times, however.

Tonight we're off to the flicks.  Recently we had a cinema open close to home.  When it did, I confidently predicted we'd be in there at least four times a week.  We've been once so far.  I don't know why this is, but I suspect that it's to do with the lack of spectacle involved in walking ten minutes from one's front door.  It takes the drama out of cinema-going.  This implies of course that there's some romance attached to going four stops on the Victoria Line.  There isn't.  Perhaps a retraction is in order?

We're just lazy.

Le Grand Faiblesse

I woke up this morning feeling a bit "off".  I didn't feel ill; I just felt weak.  I'm used to feeling tired, but can usually force the energy to surface with a combination of willfulness and equine doses of caffeine.  This morning, there was no such mental and chemical fix available to me.  As soon as I flung my leg of the bike for the ride to work, I knew I had nothing in the tank.

This presents a potential problem as I'm supposed to be racing this evening.  I must be ill because normally on the day of a time trial, I feel increasingly excited as the hours tick by.  Not so today.  I feel quite sanguine about whole escapade.  In many ways, I wouldn't be too upset if I couldn't secure a berth tonight.  I will try however.  It's the last evening of this summer series, so I should show my face.  I might be saved from my fate by the fact that it's a "two-up" tonight (teams of two riders working together), and I don't have a partner.  Single riders can ride, but precedence will be given to pairs.  Let's hope there's surfeit of cycling twins at a loose end.

Pity poor Tom.

Harriet Potter

A friend of mine did a 10-hour sponsored pot yesterday, by which I mean she threw pots on a potter's wheel non-stop for 10 hours.  She's a professional ceramicist I should point out.  It was in the garden of our parish church.  She did it to raise money to send a sick child on a pilgrimage to Lourdes.  These jaunts don't come cheap as the children in question require specialist around-the-clock medical support.

The missus and I popped down there shortly after she'd kicked-off yesterday morning.  We then left her to it.  We went for a long walk, did some shopping, had a picnic, rode the train home again, drank tea, rang our parents etc.  We then popped back to see her finish the stunt at about 6.30pm last evening.  It was truly remarkable to think of her sitting there all that time, churning out the pottery.  There was a massive trestle table to one side of the garden that was heaving with the fruits of her labours.  Dozens and dozens of beautifully and expertly rendered wet clay pots.

There's something remarkably compelling and calming about watching a skilled potter work.  It's the same for origami; it's just irresistible to watch.  To mark the final ten minutes of the event, she threw a huge bowl.  I was amazed it stood up under its own weight to be honest, but it did, and was promptly sold.

We did the needful and bought one too of course; we also sponsored her for the whole thing.  The target was easily met in the end, so a good-job well-done.

I wonder if I should do something next year.  I could poach eggs for 10 hours I suppose?  Perhaps I'll just make a donation.

Hugh Middity

It's been very humid in Londres for a the last week, and the strain is starting to show.  I woke up this morning more tired than when I turned in last night.  And the missus was complaining of a headache when she slid out of the nuptial bed too.  All of this I think can be ascribed to humidity.

It's a funny thing, the aitch-word.  Yes, it's vaguely uncomfortable, but nothing insurmountable - at least that's what one thinks.  Actually, the water vapour is waging a subliminal war of attrition against your mental resolve the whole time.  

I was in Valencia on holiday a couple of years ago.  Valencia is famed for its high humidity.  We'd arrived straight from Madrid, which was plenty hot, and assumed we'd be acclimatised.  No chance.  Although the nominal temperature in Valencia was lower, and it's on the coast, the humidity made the simplest task take on a Herculean dimension.  You literally couldn't walk 150 yards without wanting to stop for a coffee.  It was draining.  It's just as well I was wearing flip-flops because had I bent over to tie up a shoe lace, I'd have finished the holiday inside an iron lung.  We spent our entire stay there either in the air-conditioned apartment or nostrils-deep in the Med.

The situation isn't quite so pronounced here in England, but the combined effects of a calendar week of humid restless nights and full-time employment has laid everyone low.  One of my young colleagues was bemoaning his fatigued state earlier.  I set him straight.  I dare say it'll snow or something next week, and normal service will be resumed.

All this damage from tiny drops of water - whoddahfunkitt eh?

Ride On Time

Another Tuesday, another '10'.  Last night was the first I'd ridden in a fortnight, what with holidays an' sheet.  I didn't know what to expect.  Also the weather was bobbins for the first time this racing season.  I hate riding in the wet.  I don't mind the discomfort or the cold; it's the fear of crashing that I could live without.

 As it happens, I needn't have worried on either score.  I don't know what they surface road race tracks with these days, but it's amazing stuff - fast and yet grippy.  In days of yore, we raced on concrete, and cattle-class concrete at that.  It was as smooth and attractive as cellulite.  In the rain, it was like trying to ride on a bouncy castle made of engine oil.  I still used to race though.  I was young then and as thick as shite.  I have more respect for my neck these days.  If it looks dodgy out, I'll give it a miss.

And, rather delightfully, in spite of my non-conformist preparations, I rode pretty well and posted a season's best.  Hurrah!   It may be my last ride for a while though.  Next week is a "two-up"; that's a 10 mile time-trial but for pairs of riders.  The trouble is I don't have any mates.  I'm too cool and aloof.

I'll be off then.

And that is of course is how they get you

I'm fairly disciplined about what I hurl into my mouth in the name of nutrition.  I've always been like this, but am even more so when I'm racing bikes.  A pound of fat on the chassis really hurts at the end of a hilly time-trial.  The secret I've discovered over the years is to eschew sweet things.  This is easy for me as I don't have a naturally sweet tooth anyhoo.  But occasionally I find sugar trying to storm the citadel in a secretive and highly mediated form.  It tries to weasel aboard basically.  I think I may discovered another one of late: the flat white.

The flat white was devised (well, reborn really) in Australia.  Aussies are notoriously suspicious of ornamentation and bullshit, and it didn't take long before their collective jaundiced eye spied it in abundance in coffee shop bills of fare.  Froth, squirty cream, flakes, smarties - you name it, it's available in high street coffee chains, dressed up as sophisticated adult mid-morning libation 'solutions'.  Stick a cock-headed and meaningless Italian-sounding name on what is essentially a cup of trifle and that's the job done.  The great unwashed down under got fed up with this, and demanded an alternative, a cup of straightforward 'Joe' with no froth on it.  That's why it's called 'flat'.  It's coffee with a dash of milk.

It took off.  Sadly by the time it reached these shores, it had be marketed to death and therefore transformed utterly.  I've started drinking flat whites in London recently as they're the only thing on the menu that runs to less than 29 fluid ounces.  They do still have the virtue of being small.  However, they are short on flat and big on froth.  I initially thought the froth was just that: excited milk.  But now I'm not so sure.  I think there might be sugar in there too.  This of course is why they're so moreish.  I must investigate further.

Beware my froth.

Pathetic fallacies etc

The weather's gone to cock in London.  The rot set in yesterday.  Yesterday was Sunday, so it wasn't too bad.  The gardens of the capital were parched and needed a drop anyway, and there's something mildly romantic and pleasing about watching a lawn slake its thirst from behind double-glazed patio doors.  Today, though, is Monday, which means work.  And work under slate-grey skies and drizzle is miserable.  I woke up in great spirits too, which is doubly annoying.  The elements have put me on the mood back foot.

There's no inspiration abroad when it's like this.  Objectively, I've got a lot to be positive about: we've got some exciting stuff in the diary chez-nous, loads of travel and excitement, right there, on the horizon.  And yet, I cannot get myself motivated.

Perhaps a fizzy drink would help?

Spin spin spin the wheel of injustice

It's budget time here in the Kingdom of United, although we might need to revise that title if the chancellor carries on in his current vane.  The apparent driving philosophy behind the budget seems to be to punish those who dare to rely on benefits.  At least George Osborne hasn't fallen into the normal politician's trap of corralling the poor into two opposing camps, deserving and undeserving.  And for this he rightly merits praise.  No, he hates all poor people.  And why not?  They're a drain on resources.  Their homes are ugly and they tend not to vote Conservative.

Still, that's what you get for voting in a majority new-right government.  The market is left to its own egregious devices.

Starsky and Dutch

Well, what a trip that was!  I'm back from a joyous week-long sojourn in The Netherlands.  The weather was spectacular for once - 35 degrees plus for a couple of days.  The last time we cycled in the low countries, it's was unspeakably cold.  Almost literally so.  I remember one low point especially well.  We were huddled in a bus shelter in Arctic conditions, eating freezing cold cheese.  I tried to speak (planning to question the wisdom of the whole endeavour, no doubt) but could not form a coherent word.  I was too fatigued and too cold.  Still, onwards and upwards.  That's all forgotten now.  I suppose on a subliminal level, I'll expect it always to be subtropical in Utrecht now.  That could lead to disappointment.

Brian Ferry

I didn't get a chance to post yesterday, for which I unreservedly apologise.  I was under some pressure at work, a combination of short-staffedness and the serial shortcomings of several other colleagues.  Also, a horse died, which caused some consternation.  I should qualify this: It didn't keel over in the office.  I work for a periodical thats primary interest is equestrianism.  And the horse in question was a famous steeplechaser, not any old nag.

If it's any compensation, I didn't get to race last night.  The heat in London yesterday was phenomenal.  It was so hot that I genuinely feared I might do myself a mischief if I overdid it at the track.  I've managed to get myself quite fit of late, which is great.  But with great power and all that.  When one is fit, it's possible to go into the red in a medically contraindicated and damaging way.  A combination of this and my Celtic inability of deal with proper heat persuaded me it would be wise to back away this week.

And just as well - for in a couple of hours I head off on a cycling holiday.  I wouldn't fancy that with heatstroke.