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.