Gareth Ale

I'm off out tonight.  No great surprise there, I hear you shriek; it is Friday after all.  Ah, yes, but tonight I'm not going to one, several or all of the four (count 'em) pubs that lie within 400 yards of my front door.  The missus and I are off to meet friends at a microbrewery under a railway arch in the east end.  Had I told you that ten years ago, you'd have been quite within your rights to have me sectioned under the mental health act.

Not now though.  Microbrewerage, former shitholes in east London postcodes and even railway arches, I dare say, are now uber-cool.  Craft beer is all the rage in London.  Craft beer is simply real ale for the most part plus marketing.  Luckily the railway this gaff is under gets Mrs O and I home in a matter of minutes.  So it's a win:win pour nous.

Toot toot, dude!

Gathering winter fyoo-oo-ell

Summer in the city (London) is turning out to be a shit quibb this year (I think that's the expression I'm after).  This lamentable assessment extends to both the sporting British summer and the prevailing meterological conditions.  The weather in London yesterday was okay(ish) for a Wednesday in March.  And to top it all, Chris Froome abandoned the Tour after crashing about seventy times in the space of two-hundred yards.  Even his legendary phlegm ran dry at the atrocious conditions, and he looked heartily pissed-on-and-off as he leapt headfirst into the back of the womb-like Sky Jag.

The low cloud base last evening led to the inevitable gloomy speculation about the approach of winter in the nothern hemisphere.  It's coming, isn't it, the absolute bastard?  The evenings are definitely drawing in.  The actualité of winter is nothing compared with the anticipation of its arrival, as with most experiences in life.  We know this, but the brow can't help but furrow when the summer has been as underwhelming as this one.  Even bog-trotters like myself need sunlight.  I'm a surface-dwelling mammal after all.

Mrs O and I had decided initially to head to Israel later in the year as it stays hot and sunny there until at least Boxing Day, but the internecine brouhaha there means that that is not now going to happen.  I could go, but would have to do so sporting a beak and features.  I'm not scared, you understand, just concerned about being shot to ribbons in my prime.

Perhaps I should pop to Oz on me holidays, and get some courage.

Play up and play the game!

Well, well, what a twenty-four hours of sporting drama that was.  Verily.  Just in case you don't follow o jogo bonito, or own a television and some ears, Brazil got knocked-out of the World Cup by the Germans last night.  I say knocked-out; I mean beaten into a persistant vegetative state by the Germans.  To lose 7:1 is embarrassment enough for most nations, but for the Brazilians in their own back yard it can properly be likened to a national disaster.

Brazil has no perspective when it comes to footy.  Politics, the economy, sex, music, social cohesion - all these criteria are mere reflections of the state of the national game.  This loss, then, cannot be overstated.  The fear of the body politic is that the disaffected masses will take out their frustrations on the elected representatives.  One could hardly blame them if they did.  Brazilians pay income tax at a level comparable to the Scandinavians but in return receive public services that would shame a sub-Saharan tinpot dictator.

Back of the net!

Nose, meet Grindstone

I'm back from a long weekend in Ireland, celebrating my father's 70th birthday.  And very life-affirming and jolly it was too.  Family gatherings are minefields of course, but everything on this trip worked a treat, from the choice of hotel to the dining and day trips.  Even the weather wasn't too bad, which for Ireland in July is little short of a facking miracle.

The irony of the trip for me was the fact that The Tour de France passed about twenty feet from my front door during the my absence.  Me, who's been following professional cycling for a quarter of century, when it was about as popular in England as kabbadi or bull-fighting.  I suppose it's probably just as well I wasn't there; I don't suppose I could have resisted the temptation to headbutt some Johnny-come-lately at the roadside as he held forth to his missus on why Chris Froome would probably win the bunch sprint on The Mall.

Mrs O and I arrived home literally as the stage was finishing on The Mall.  We watched the highlights last night, and I have to say it was amazing watching the streets that I know like the bee of my aitch full of world-famous cyclists.  Former Tour winner Andy Schleck had the misfortune to crash at a bus-stop at Waterworks Roundabout, which is about a mile from my house.  That bus-stop has already taken on cult status among local road men.  I myself will be visiting it this evening on the way home.  Wish I brought me camera.

About turn

Forget what I said yesterday; I was talking out of my fez.  The Olympic velodrome was every cycling schoolboy's dream.  I was able to hire some shoes, so I was on the pace throughout.  It was extremely exciting.  The staff were all courteous and knowledgeable, and the kit we got to use was splendid.  

I went along with a colleague, and we both agreed at the end that here was a new mania to add to the pile.  We actually stopped on the way out and had a look around the velodrome's bike shop for track bikes.  This on the basis of one hour's track cycling.  Had I done this taster session at 14, I'd have been lost to track cycling for the rest of my days - no question about that.  But as a middle-aged man, I don't have the time to commit to excellence in this new sporting passion.  I do, however, have money.  And track cycling can part a fool from his hard-earned quicker than a waxed Russian prostitute in a hot tub on the roof of Caesar's Palace.  There were a pair of track mitts in the velodrome shop for example that cost £49.99, ferrchrissakes.  That's what I pay for frames.  What could they be made of to justify that price tag?  Italian marble?  Heroin?

In other news - Mrs O and I had been planning to visit Tel Aviv in October, but that now looks about as likely as Rolf Harris winning a BAFTA.  It's going off there le big style.  So we're probably going to bottle out and go to Spain instead.  The last thing the warring factions in the occupied territories need is a pale horrified cock-er-knee like me looking on.  No - discretion is deffo the better part of this chicken's valour.  Thanking you.

Velo darkness, my old friend...

I'm off to London's Olympic Velodrome this evening.  It's not called that any more; it's the Toilet Duck Velo-Excellium Experience or something.

One can't just pitch-up and "ride the boards" as we cyclists term it.  You have to be accredited.  This is a sensible precaution.  Most every office Johnny of a certain age these days has access to a road bike courtesy of the bike-2-work scheme.  Worse still - most think they can ride them.  It is (just) possible to get away without causing a crash when you don't know what you're doing on the road, but the track is less forgiving.  You're riding in a lot of traffic in a confined space.  You're also riding a fixed-wheel bike with no (count 'em) brakes.  It makes sense, then, to teach everyone some race craft before letting them off the leash.

Sadly, I've just learned that I cannot ride using my preferred pedals.  There are several pedal systems for cyclists these days.  They require matching shoes to work.  I assumed that I'd be able to select the pedals of my choice for the hire bike I'll be riding.  But, no.  So the Lord alone knows what I'll be riding.

I'll report back tomorrow, but they're going to have to charm the shorts off me to get a decent write-up after this.

Absolute rotters.

Pity Poor Tom

I have a cold.  Bah.  It's a bad one too - bunged heed, runny nose and sore throat.  I thought I had hay fever, but this is a cold.  I didn't get a wink of sleep last night, and was so shattered of body and spirit this morning that I had to pull sickie.  It was merited though.  No really, I have enough residual catholic guilt not to go sick from work unless I absolutely cannot drag my skinny white ass into the office.

But I've filled the chassis up with paracetamol and tea and have rallied a bit.  It's nice being at home during the day, isn't it?  I haven't turned the telly on though.  That way madness and indolence lays.

What to do for tea though?