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...