Morning run

It was a cold northerly wind when he ventured out.  The base layer provided essential bodily warmth, but the cold hit his face like iced water.  This was not going to be easy.

Alistair MacLean, eat your heart out.

Up in smoke

There's some discussion about using plastic for banknotes from 2016.  Evidently they give off environmentally unfriendly smoke when being burnt. 

I don't think that will happen very often will it?

Your round!

'A round of applause before every premier football matches in tribute to Nelson Mandela'.  Who the flip thought of that?  what are we thinking?  Its not as if we don't respect the guy, but surely we don't have to drag it down to that level.  I'm sure his family will really appreciate it.

Revealing Story.

"ITV have discovered that...." or "Sky News can reveal ...." or "The BBC has uncovered...".
What a load of balaoney.  It's always 'revealing', 'uncovering', or some other adjective to describe something we should be shocked about.  It's always bad news, never good, and if they simply reported the facts would probably be a non-story, so this technique is just get our attention or to drive it up the queue to make the headlines.  You never have a "ITV can reveal..." story further down the schedule in the news, only the top story or two.
I reckon ITV are the worst because they have to keep the viewers switched on to maintain advertising revenue, but BBC are also guilty if they think they have an exclusive, or at least a different slant on an existing story.

There, rant over.  Back to work.

Family Ties

I just scanned the news items on Yahoo news and the only one I clicked on was the article about Family Guy where Brian gets killed off.  Big news.
It's not as if I'm not interested in the other items. it's just that the Family Guy news wasn't featured  on the BBC or Guardian website.  I wonder how long before it does - I can't believe the Guardian would miss such an opportunity to f ill some space with that one.

Lights out

Astronomers have recorded a star exploding - the biggest yet they say - but it's over 3 billion light years away!!  That means it happened 3 billion years ago which is, according to my detailed calculations, a very long time ago.  I find that quite amazing.

Training Plan

I remember some time ago hearing Boris Johnson being quizzed about closing ticket offices on the underground.  He was cagey then and now we know why - the plan is to shut them all by 2015, but I don't really know what the fuss is about except the potential loss of jobs. 
Surely in this day and age cash buyers are rare, and as long as there is someone to assist the tourists with which platform to get on then it should be OK.  I can see the unions getting shirty, but don't they always?  If the tube network was being built now, I can't see there being many staff involved at all - automated drivers, tickets etc. would be the norm.

Cold Comforts

There's been an awful lot of calls for the 'Greenpeace 30' to be released from prison in Russia.  The thing is, there's a fine line between 'protest' and illegal activity regardless of what you think of the local laws.  Russia is only doing what it would do with anyone who breaks the law, so if you take that as a matter of fact, then although many of us might be sympathetic to their plight, it is self inflicted and surely no surprise that they have to go through the legal process.
It's a bit like the 'no snogging in public' (or whatever it is ) in some Middle Eastern countries.  I guess if you genuinely didn't know the law existed I could have some sympathy, but more likely, as the Greenpeace folk were doing, were chancing their arm. 
Could be that this has earned them more good publicity for what looks like a 'good cause', but my guess is they will tone down their protests in future as the natural human instinct to remain free i.e. not locked up.

Flat Pack Olympics

Some report or other has stated that the Olympic stadium is not being used to it's 'true worth'.  That's not much of a surprise though is it?  I mean, it was built for the Olympics, an international event attended by hundreds of countries for 3 weeks of top athletics.  To assume it was going to sustain that when the Olympics were over is a bit ambitious. 
The idea or removing the top tier of seating was a good idea, making it a more practical size for footy matches etc.  Maybe they should be the model for all new Olympic venues, and in fact that would eventually lead to a flat-pack based games that could be assembled anywhere.

Life cycles.

There's been 5 cyclists killed in London in the last 9 days.  That's terrible news, and as more rural cyclist, I can't even imagine how it happens.  I bike to and from work at least once a day, 40 miles each way and almost never have anything like a 'close shave'.  I've cycled over 4400 miles this year so far, and none of that has seemed to be unsafe.  In fact, I don't think I've had a close shave for years, so the only causal factor I can think of is the sheer volume of traffic.  Pity the politicians who have to do something about it, but I can't see any other way except separation of car and cycle as much as possible, and given the amount of available land, that could only be achieved by divvying up the existing tarmac space - not something that will go down well with Londoners.

Power to the people

We're told to expect £2000 electricity bills in the next 6 years.  That would be a 33% reduction for me, so I look forward to that.  Yes, I should investigate where it is being used, but would I be able to do anything about it?  I have a (middle class) hot tub - that will surely be the main culprit, and if I switch it off, what's the point in having it?  I have got rid of all my old tungsten lights, have minimal 'standby' devices and yet I have a huge electric bill.
To make a dent in mine I would have find quite a few video recorders left on at night.

Viral marketing

Some IT people in Russia claim to have found an incurable computer virus, so virulent that it spreads by sound - i.e. without connections over the internet.  They have been battling this for over 3 years and more details will be released next week.  What a load of tosh.  More likely they have a new product to sell next week and this is to get all the media interested.
Surely Yahoo employ some sort of technology reporter to filter these sort of things out?

Smile please.

Tesco is planning to install face scanners at petrol stations that can them present you with personalised adverts.  The technology is interesting, and I guess will have amusing results.  It it's anything like the ads that I happen to have been investigating that appear within webpages, they will be wasting their time.  ..and do they really think advertising works?  I like to think it doesn't wash with me, but they probably do and I don't even realise it.  I tend to dig my heels in if something is over-advertised or hyped up.  The 'must have' item is a 'must reject' to me.  Facebook used to appeal to me, but now everyone is on it I don't use it.  Not that a supermarket sells Facebook of course.
Evidently the scanners guess sex and age, then show something relevant - so it's not really personalised down to a personal level at all, now that would be interesting.

Actually, I'd like to see some ads based on the person's mood and appearance - like aspirin if they have a pained, frowning look, or knee support if they're limping.

Heated debate.

Well, the energy companies have been try to explain to a parliamentary committee why they charge as much as they do.  Shouldn't take long - 'cos we want to make money' I expect, if they are telling the whole truth.  I don't know why it's such a big mystery.
That's what business exist for - making money.  If we don't want them to make money, just privatise them or make them a charity or similar.  Oh, hang on, they were privatised once weren't they?  Well, wait a few more years before we forget.
The thing is, the power companies get special attention because we see heat and power as essentials of everyday life, (which I can't argue against) so any deviation from 'the norm' with power is headlines and therefore essential that the politicians get involved.  But that is where is gets messy - the politics of it. 
We should let them get on with it (selling us power) or privatise, everything else is just politics.

Anyway, because I'm an oil boiler user that has to live with the vagaries of the oil price without any political interference, I feel all these discussion on the price of gas is disproportionately high.
I need to get a decent woodburner linked into my central heating somehow - then I'll need to worry about deforestation more.

Power to the people

Electricity and gas prices - quite a difficult time for users of these products at the moment.  The latest rise is just over 10% for NPower (I think it was them), so makes British Gas's 8.8% seem quite a good deal.  We're told that only 16% of the price we pay is related to the power company, the rest being taxes, distribution etc., and the government advise us to seek out the best deal.  As far as I can see, all we can do is seek out the best of a decidedly bad bunch - and when I put my figures into one of the many comparison sites, it advised me to switch, but when I checked the precise details (£ per unit + daily charge), it would have cost me more, so there's a flaw somewhere in the process - I think it's the way it calculates it over the year and because I pay fixed price per month throughout the year I'm never quite sure where I am with usage.
Anyway, I'm sure it's going to be on the political agenda for a while yet.  I note that the SNP are even jumping on the 'we'll freeze prices for 20 months' bandwagon - I think they'll struggle to sell that one, although on the face of it it's quite an attractive proposition opposed to the 'we'll let market forces decide how much you pay'.

Annual Leave

Anniversary blog today - how time flies, and in keeping with my haphazard ramblings I haven't the time or inclination to write anything remotely interesting.  I'll look back on this in a years time and probably think how boring I was, or is it 'am'? Whatever.

Watch it..

I've been reading a couple of articles about new 'smartwatches'.  These devices are supposed to allow us to wear a bit of technology rather than carry it around in our pocket/handbag etc.  I guess they are even supposed to tell the time.  The articles bemoan the lack of a 'killer app', i.e. an application that is so good, we would put one on the Christmas shopping list immediately, and I tend to agree with them.  I'm all for technology, especially useful technology, like when I got my first iPhone and was able to search for a business, tap on the location, which showed me how to get there, displayed a phone number, which allowed me to ring it immediately.  As we have found, the 'ringing' bit is really not that important any more, although I am not suggesting they remove that particular functionality!

I want a smartwatch to be something like that - able to offer me so much more than telling the time, but also make sure it does that pretty well at the same time.  I'm thinking that the models available now are nowhere near what we will get in a couple of years time, and I wonder what the manufacturers (Sony + Samsung) are trying to do with releasing them - surely they will not be able to recoup their development costs?  Mind you, maybe it's just a cut-down phone without the phone bit included, in which case development costs will be confined to the construction.  I'm sure they have done their calculations.  I have done mine - don't buy.

Here we go, here we go.

It was the last of the footy world cup qualifying games last night, and England needed a win to avoid the ignominy of a playoff place with the subsequent gnashing of teeth when we didn't qualify.  As it was, England managed a respectable 2-0 over Poland, and I was lucky(?) enough to listen to it as I was tiling daughter number 1's bathroom.  The funny thing was, the commentators kept referring to the players being 'nervous', 'edgy' etc. etc., when it was obvious to me that it was the commentary team that who had the most nerves, and why they got Chris Waddle to give 'expert' analysis now and again is beyond me.  I know he has some England experience, but I'm not sure his vintage is quite right to be defined as 'expert'.  His immediate post-match review was interspersed with boring clichés, repeated a number times because either a) he didn't have anything to say, or b) he never listens to what he is saying and therefore thinks it's the first time he said it.
Still, the Polish fans enjoyed themselves, letting off fireworks in abandon.  I'm surprised they came all that way to see them play, but actually, they probably didn't have to travel far at all.

Dumber and dumber.

'Dummy cycles on hard shoulder' is one of the headlines on the BBC website, and I mistakenly assumed this was some sort of safety warning whereby the highways agency were demonstrating how unsafe cycling was on a motorway by siting 'dummy' cyclists on the hard shoulder.  But no, it was a chap cycling on the hard shoulder, in the rain (I guess it was the shortest way home) being called a 'dummy' by the police.  How disappointing.
The thing is, it's probably just as safe if not safer on the motorway than some busy A roads where it is legal to cycle.  However, I have to credit my local highways for filling in a bad pothole 2 days after I reported it, so they're not always bad.

Memory? More fool you.

Danny Someoneorother (an ex-player from yesteryear - was it Danny Mills maybe?) was on the radio this morning bemoaning the state of English football - not enough young talent coming through, too many foreign players in the Premier League etc. etc., but the one thing that amused me was the comment he made that standards were so much higher 10 or 15 years ago when he and luminaries such as Glenn Hoddle was playing.  Yeah right.  Now, I'm not an expert in the 'beautiful game' but I have followed the progress of the national team quite closely over the last 45 years and to say the English game was better in those days is obviously being viewed with the proverbial rose tinted glasses.  The English game has been so mediocre for so long he should remember the old adage 'the easiest person to fool is yourself', because he's not fooling anyone else.
.

Cool millions..

51 billion dollars to stage the Winter Olympics seems like a lot of money to me.  I read that there's 5000 competitors, and although its not a very scientific calculation, that's about 10.2 million dollars per person.  That can't be right can it?!  Even if I've cocked up the number of zeros by 1, that's still over 1 million per person.  I hope they have a good time.
Luckily for the UK, London 2012 only spent 13 billion which is looking like a bargain.

Must do.

There seems to be more and more blog style articles in my favourite online reads - the BBC and Guardian.  This is probably down to cost and the need to fill space - although because a webpage has got almost unlimited space the fill space argument could well be wrong unless there is pressure to provide more diverse opinions and therefore attract a bigger audience.  In fact, now that I've written it down and thought about it, I've convinced myself that's why it is like it is.
It's not as if I'm a media expert, far from it (and in fact not an expert at anything) but because the media informs and drives opinions, one cannot escape being influenced be merely glancing at the headlines.
One thing that has become 'normal' nowadays are the 'related links' section at the bottom/side of the articles.  Amusingly, they are not often related at all, so must be selected in some cases by an algorithm using keyword searches.  Some online pages also add other 'must read' articles that are nothing to do with it, but might attract your attention.  These are most prominent with Yahoo news articles and I'm fed up of seeing the '10 things every gmail user MUST do' ..or similar when it's just trying to sell a bit of add-on software.  I wonder how many people really do believe they 'must do' those things.

Nice to see you...

One of the headlines on the BBC and Guardian websites was that Bruce Forsyth would miss this week's episode of 'Strictly' due to illness.  They must be short of news, as is this blog, because I'm struggling to get any enthusiasm to pen anything, and feeling quite tired on this Friday afternoon.  I have my first duathlon tomorrow in Clumber Park, so looking forward to that.  Apart from that, I'll be back on Monday.

Travel Flash

The highways agency have devised a pilot project for the A14 where sensors in the road will communicate with base stations along the side of the road which will then relay relevant information (e.g. traffic updates) to emergency services, driver mobile phones, speed restriction control people etc. all in the interests of 'traffic management'.  Ultimately this will give them the ability to control equipment within the car itself.
My car is about 11 years old and shows no sign of giving up yet (fortunately), so how they are going to get cars fitted with the right gear able to be controlled is a bit of a mystery, unless this is a very, very long term project.  Even if they started fitting vehicles with the correct technology from now (realistically agreeing just that part will take years) they will not success in getting rid of 'legacy' cars and trucks for about 20 years at least, so they will have to have some sort of restriction in place to only allow 'controllable' vehicles on specific stretches of road.
I wonder if they just need something to spend their money on.  Oh, hang on, couldn't they improve the existing controlled transport (railways) instead?

Driven Over.

One of the Saudi clerics has stated that women are not allowed to drive cars because it damages their ovaries.  Hmm.  I can't see him being nominated as spokesperson again.  It's akin to how we explain some things to our children - as also expounded in a Guardian piece today.  I wonder if he really does think that - maybe his boss told him that when asked why women are not allowed to drive.  I remember being a bit worried about my bus journeys to school having the ability to damage my testicles (I guess it was fertility thing, but 'testicles' is easier for a 12 year old to understand).  It was to do with regular journeys on bone-shaker of a bus, but it didn't stop me fathering 3 children.  That's not why I am ridiculing the ovaries story though.
Lets hope they think up some other innovative original reasons for e.g. wearing a burka - so they can breastfeed, for instance.  That was my made-up reason by the way.

You say tomato, I say potato

A potato/tomato plant - how good is that?  It's a tomato plant grafted onto a potato plant (unless today is 1st April).  Not the other way round, that would be pretty pointless.  It does, of course, bring us to the old 'is the tomato a vegetable or fruit?' question, and this would seem to indicate it's a vegetable if I make the bold assumption that grafting a fruit to a vegetable would be more difficult.  However, it has made me think of other good combinations which can take advantage of a root crop and a non-root crop (don't know what a non-root crop is called - 'air crop'?).  What about carrots and peas?  We often cook and serve these together, so that would seem ideal.  Or swede and peppers?  Save on peppering the swede.

The world marathon record was broken at the weekend - down to 2hrs 3mins 23secs.  I hope I live to see it go down to 2hrs, now that would be something special, akin to the 4 minutes mile etc.

A warm front approaching

Climate change is a reality according to the UN, so should we all be afraid?  Probably, but we'll also probably leave for the next generation to worry about, I mean, we're near the end of the road aren't we?  I suppose the difficult thing here is that seeing into the future is beyond most of us, well, all of us actually, although you could be forgiven for thinking that some of us believe we can.  We're very good at foreseeing something that has happened as in the proverbial 'told you so' manner, when in actual fact, they didn't tell us anything.

Horror of horrors!

The 'Psycho Ward' and 'Mental Health Patient' costumes for sale at Asda and Tesco have caused a rumpus - angering mental health charities etc.  I'm not surprised - over 18 quid for essentially an orange boiler suit?  Outrageous.  I guess the boiler suit version could be recycled as 'Guantamano Bay warden' or similar.
These items are (I suppose) marketed as being essential garb for Halloween which to my mind has slowly become too commercial for it's own good, and therefore hyped up by marketing men which leads to more commercial activity encouraged by a younger public who do not yet have the cynical gene developed enough.

Power to the people.

Politics - don't ya just love it?  At last we have something controversial to discuss instead of the sat on the fence policies that are designed to just go under your 'controversial limit' from all the main parties.  It's the 'we'll freeze electricity prices until 2017' policy just announced my Mr Milliband that has lit up the comments pages in the newspapers, prompting 'furious' responses from the electricity companies.  Personally, I can't see this working to the customers advantage - are we expected to believe that a private company will lose money?  If they do manage to get some agreement to keep prices the same, we'll just end up paying for it somewhere else, like via the fixed charges, or inflated prices for the year before it.  It's a purely political statement, no more, no less, but what I expect is that some anti-privatisation people will jump on it as the best thing since the nationalisation of the East Coast trainline.  I expect government/elec company discussions will be interesting!

Time, it's getting on.

The earth is probably going to end in about 3 billion years, or sooner, if you think a rather large piece of rock will land on us.  Evidently we'll get quite close to the sun and all water will evaporate, but I think there will be probably be other signs first.  I don't think we'll wake up and think 'Hmm, not much water here is there?'.  I'd actually like to be here as the 3 billion years gets closer - should liven up the day's discussions.
The thing is, we never know the future, and we can't predict the weather more than 3 days at a time (and then it's often wrong), so why do we bother with this 3 billion years stuff?  They probably only report it to scare us into buying a solar blanket or something the following day.  Still, I suppose we need to have one eye on the future.

Talking of the future, I see Ed Balls is doubting the wisdom of investing in HS2 - the high speed rail line that's going to cost us a small fortune.  About time someone spoke up about it - what a waste of money.  I've probably ranted on about this before, so here goes again.. Why not spend it on upgrading the existing, elderly, network?  Raise a few bridges and put double decker trains on the tracks like on the continent thereby raising capacity and bringing more people onto the trains.  Time does not allow me to do a proper rant, but I really hope they see sense by dropping the HS2 project.

Write on!

What a great idea - a beauty contest where the participants are judged on their knowledge of religion as has happened in Nigeria.  I wonder how that would go down in the UK? 
I'm not going to say much about religion, some views are known to upset some people, suffice to say that as a one time Christian, I'm convinced that religion plays an important part in peoples lives, just please keep it out of mine.  I think the same way about fishing - something else I have tried and not found to my taste.

Anyway, how exciting to read that we have a new judge on The Voice, and there's an absolutely terrific tip on how to bake cup-cakes on Yahoo News.  Oh, did you see the 'start-up tips' for that super game Grant Theft Auto? (although I should really abbreviate it to GTA - how remiss of me).

Bring back journalists - I never thought I would be saying that!

Sliding down memory lane.

Ah, the joys of returning to work after 14 days in the sun, doing nothing much apart from leisure activities.  That's leisure activities on holiday of course - not at work.
I've been back at the desk for about 7 hours now and the holiday is a dim and distant memory.  Luckily I have some photos taken on my phone that will remind me what it was like - or will it?  In fact I hardly (if ever) look at old photographs nowadays, and if I do, it's probably so I can send them on to someone or use them as an avatar on some forum or other.  It's not like the 'old days' when  we used to show the slides to family and friends whether they liked it or not!  I have about 1200 slides in the loft that I converted to JPGs a couple of years ago.  Not that I needed to see them again, but because they were deteriorating and (maybe) the family will want to see what they looked like in their tender years, how dark dad's hair was and how slim mum was.

Aint no rest for the wicked. But there is for me.

Holiday: A day of festivity or recreation when no work is done.
I have 14 of these from tomorrow.

Get on your bike and ride! (Queen, 1979)

There's loads of articles in my daily read The Guardian about the attempts to make Britain a 'cycling nation' and they usually take the depressingly familiar route of 'no chance' despite quite a few government initiatives aimed at just that.  It seems to me that some of us want this 'cycling nation' thing to be presented to us on a plate, with gold plated roads, segregated lanes and those pesky pedestrians kept well away.  The reality is that most people don't cycle because they simply don't want to, based on hundreds of different reasons, one of them being the safety angle I'm sure, but my guess is for most, that is just a convenient excuse they can hang their raincoat on as they reach for the car keys or switch the TV on.
I would hazard a guess that if there was a guaranteed safety zone for all cyclists wherever they went take up would go up only a few percentage points, and probably drop down again after a while when the novelty has worn off (or it rains).  I'm not saying that safety isn't important, far from it, but we are used to quite a lazy lifestyle nowadays compared with, well... I'm not sure when to compare it with.  Let's say before the industrial revolution. i.e. before cars were ubiquitous, before regular work patterns were established, long travel to work was unknown and owning a bike (and using it) was the norm.  The basket on the front was quite useful to collect the day's groceries from the local shop (the bread shop with the Hovis was always up a hill), supermarkets were years away and work was always local, even if you had to move to find it.
Mind you, as one of the Lycra clad versions of cycling, I'm not really best placed to talk about this cycling nation lark.  I'm not one to bike to the shop (no basket), and I only bike to work twice a week at best (well, it is 40 miles away).  Maybe I should try harder.  I wonder if Wiggle do a basket for my Trek Madone?

Friend or foe?

A robot with the brain of a security guard has been developed at the University of Lincoln.  It is with a great deal of restraint that I have stopped myself writing the obvious about security guards' brains.
But this leads me onto apostrophes - the lack of them, mis-placing of them and general wrong use of.  I'm sure I don't need to list examples, that's what the great unwashed internet is for, but some of us really like so see them in the wrong place, it gives us a warm, smug sense of satisfactory superiority that we (the master class) know our plurals from our possessives.

Speak up!

What makes a good speech?  I reckon it's a combination of lots of things, but is there one specific thing in a speech that makes it truly memorable/rousing?  'I have a dream..'  is the one being remembered from 50 years ago today and its difficult to put yourself back then, when race relations were very different to now, when mass media meant turning up at a football stadium, and was reported in the following days news (maybe) rather than being transmitted to all and sundry by so many different mediums, all of them near instantaneous. So I think despite Martin Luther King's booming voice, his delivery, the words, his charisma etc etc, the most important thing about his speech was the moment in time - when the 'race question' was getting to the top of the political and chattering classes agenda.  Of course, if I had delivered the speech at that time, no-one would have taken any notice, so it definitely needed many ingredients to create the big effect, but timing is surely the biggest.
If I try and remember specific speeches, I struggle a bit.  There's Brian Hanrahan on the deck of the aircraft carrier in the Atlantic as we sent the Harriers out in the Falklands war - "I counted them all out...then counted them all back again"  I still remember the feeling that evoked in me, hoping he would be counting them all out and back again every time.  And that's it.  I thought I would be able to recall a Margaret Thatcher speech from the 80s, but not at the moment, and even though Tony Blair made quit a few good ones, I can't recall any.  I can see both sincere faces, but no words.
I suppose it's a bit like the Hitler speeches, sounds good, looks good, but in one ear and out the other in no time.

Did my weekly swim last night, missing 2 weeks out in the process. Managed to get 76 lengths in which is about 1.2 miles - half what I'll be doing next July.  The good thing is that I felt like the pull part of my stroke was improving, making me feel like I was faster, even though the clock didn't support the feeling.  Oh well, I need to get the technique sorted first.

X marks the spot.

I thought I would read a short article about Louis Walsh - the erstwhile X factor judge - on Yahoo where he appeared (according to the headline) to diss Mr Cowell and others.  In actual fact it was his usual babbling on that he does without any malicious intent at all, and (again, as usual) comes across as quite a genuine bloke.  However, what amused me was the ridiculous comments by readers below the article telling us all what a plonker he was (and worse) I really struggle to understand what these people are about.  Are they just trolling?  I don't think so, and they read like they mean what they say - such vitriolic language (often miss-spelt of course), I'm obviously missing something.

Well, entered the Outlaw triathlon this morning, so that's a milestone in my quest to finish an Ironman (or 'iron distance' as they have to call it).  It's late July 2014, and feels a bit like announcing a far off wedding date - it's exciting, but so far away I can put it to the back of my mind.
I managed a good bike ride yesterday (Bank holiday) as well as Sunday so August's total is racking up nicely.

Told you so!

And as if someone at ITV was reading my thoughts, there was a program last night comparing old style GCEs against today's GCSEs and how the standards compare.  Those that had taken recent GCSEs fared quite badly when they took old GCEs e.g. an A in GCSE scraped a C in GCE and a C in GCSE was a fail at GCSE.  Read yesterday blog if you're really bored.

Managed a 9 mile run last night without too much difficulty.  It's Outlaw entry time on Monday, so I'm going to go for it - 2.4m swim, 112 bike, 26.2 run.  Easy.

Schools Out.

So, Sharapova has pulled out of the US Open.  Hopefully she will have more time to sell a few sweeties now.

Its the annual GCSE results day today, and the stats show that the grades have fallen by the biggest drop in years which is, to me, a good thing given the ridiculous situation during the Blair/Brown years of an ever upward trend which purported to show how good their style of education was.  Its not that I'm anti-Labour government, they did a lot of decent things in their time, but its the politicisation of education that annoys me and how they (and others) use the results stats to 'demonstrate' how good their policies were. e.g. In the Brown years, they would trumpet another increase in the number of A* grades, 5 A-C grades etc. etc.  What they didn't manage to convey was that the school leavers were just as think as the previous generations and that these 'improvements' were just because of the education examination process and system, not the real education levels of school children.  For instance, in my day (my goodness, do I sound like an old fuddy duddy?) top grades were quite unusual, even at my grammar school, and A*s hadn't even been invented (I don't think).  A graders were the obvious top pupils and, if I remember correctly numbered about 10 in my year out of around 100, and if you got an A, you were considered to be very bright indeed.  That's 10% if my (grade C) maths is correct.  Now, assuming grammar schools were taking the top 25% (or was it 10%) that would mean that this 10% was actually about 2.5% of the total number of exam takes for that year.  I know that's not the full story, because non-grammar school pupils could have done (and did) as well as grammar school versions, but lets assume that that is balanced by grammar schoolers who did not do as well (like me!) and then it balances out.  So, we have a very small number (2.5%) who got, say, a few grade A's as opposed to today when 21% got an A or A* , and this has gone down from it's peak in 2011.  The conclusion is that kids nowadays are much brighter on average than in the 70s.  Hmmm, I'm sure that's right.

Sugar me..

It appears that Maria Sharapova was going to change her name to Sugarpova for the duration of the US Open tennis tournament to promote her brand of sweets (candy to you Americans), then change it back again.  This news appeared in all news outlets and went into some debate over how she can do this, what it entails etc etc, only to find out (not very surprisingly) that she has now decided not to do it, therefore rendering all the speculation pointless, but did raise the hoped for profile so much more than any advertising, and all for free!  I also notice that the articles are still up there to read along with some quite fetching photographs of Ms Sharapova to assist with identification if it was needed.

Quite an event for me this morning, I conducted an experiment by getting up early (5:10) and going out for a 5 mile run to test the effects.  The first half mile were a bit of a blur and really got me puffing and panting, but I settled down into my normal speed and surprisingly enough managed it quite well.  The theory was that I can get out on my bike for 2 hours at that time, I should be able to do a much shorter run without suffering.  Not sure how much running you have to do to equate to a 2 hour bike ride, but I was probably not too far off at 5 miles.

Just joking..

The Chinese Wispa joke was voted the funniest joke at the Edinburgh fringe, and I must admit it made me smile along with the other top one liners.  It's a funny thing, humour, but there again I would say that wouldn't I?  I wonder if there is something universally funny i.e. funny to everyone, or do we each have our own personal humour 'switches' that only respond to certain types of humour.  I can't, for instance imagine my mother finding the Chinese Wispa joke that funny, which makes me think there is no such thing as universal humour.  ..or maybe it's that some people don't have a 'sense of humour' what ever that means.  I know that my sense of humour is well removed from my wife's, and some of my pals wonder why on earth I laugh at some things, whereupon I find some 'humour' totally crass, offensive, cruel etc.  Maybe some people will think that I don't have this sense of humour, but I fool myself into thinking I see the funny side in everything - well, almost everything.  I can't abide jokes that make fun of people, or try too hard to be offensive to someone or other.  I'm a sensitive sole you know.

Biked to work and back yesterday, that's 80 miles or thereabouts and together with Sunday's 45 into the wind there's no wonder I was tired out last night. 

Creatively speaking

More absolute cobblers that purports to be journalism.  This time an article about how 'isolated Wayne Rooney looks as his teammates celebrate a goal.  The picture 'taken by a fan' shows Rooney well away from about 6 of his team mates cuddling each other as some teams do when they score a goal.  What it fails to convey (as the comments below prove) that he was one of 5 players not taking part in the group hug, and he had also just been tackled and was limping back.
The article writers (it would be unkind to journalists to call him a journalist) must have a quota to fill on 1. footballers 2. Celebrities of any description 3. Meaningless surveys.  Either that, or they are good at creative writing.

As for training, I managed 3 runs last week - that's the first time in about 6 months, clocking 22 miles in total for the week without much in the way of niggles, aches and pains.  It must be down to my increased cadence/mid-sole striking which is gradually beginning to feel like 'normal' although I guess it will take a while yet.  It took me about 2 years to make bi-lateral breathing for swimming feel normal.
I also got a good ride in although it was windy.

Thinly disguised.

I read that Lady Gaga has been criticised for being too thin, and this is especially newsworthy (they say) because she has recently been given grief for being too porky.  Well, that's interesting isn't it? 
The thing is, I was drawn to the article (in an online publication), not because I give a monkeys about her being fat/thin/etc, but because I wanted to learn about the criticism and how it had been handled.  The link took me to their 'celebrity news' page (with colourful backgrounds and left the reader in no doubt it was not serious news), but I couldn't really make out if they were merely repeating what had been stated i.e."she's too thin" in other news outlets, or actually offering the same criticism.
Whatever it was, I annoyed myself that I clicked on it and bothered to read/skim it.

Anyway, I steeled myself to do a run last night and managed 8 miles with my new improved higher cadence technique, trying to land on my mid-foot rather than the heel.  Seems to be working to some extent, it definitely helps with the knee issue.

Ticking away, the moments that make up a dull day.

Time, its a funny thing.  Take this morning for instance, I managed to set my alarm incorrectly and didn't wake up until about 20 minutes after my prescribed time thereby having to rush to get all my important jobs (e.g. eating breakfast) done in time before I had to leave for work.  What is a bit odd (or not, actually) is our obsession with timing and what it would mean if we freed ourselves up from this.  For example, if we could go to work for 7 and a half hours at our 'leisure' without being tied to a specific time would we still do it?  I'm not sure we would and maybe its not a good example anyway.  Some things of course have to be timed, like trains, buses etc. and maybe, I could argue that everything should be timed, otherwise we would just float around at our own selfishly led pace not bothering about anything/anybody else.  Perhaps this is why timing was invented in the first place, to get us organised, drilled or call it what you will.  I can't think of many 'organised' things that would exist without some element of timing - shop opening hours, pubs etc.  You can't really say to your mates 'see you in the pub!' without indicating some sort of timing however loose.
Anyway, I'm over my lunch break so I had better get out of here in time!

The truth, honest!

Truth and Reconciliation.  That's the process advocated by many in the cycling world as a means of putting the doping days behind and 'moving on'.  I'm not 100% convinced about this, I mean, I fail to see how it would actually work without having direct affect on those 'confessing'.  We have just seen a high profile Australian 'coming out' on doping 3 days after he retired, which was conveniently timed.  Tyler Hamilton, the US ex-doper only confessed when he had to so its going to take a very special person to be the one to stand up if he's already in a current contract.  Its a job and livelihood to most people, so unless there are cast iron guarantees that they will not lose existing income, contracts etc. then we can only expect those retiring and nothing to lose that will be confessing all.  When we have teams like Sky with a zero tolerance policy (otherwise they get sacked) then we can assume that no-one in their team would confess to anything remotely associated with doping.  Also, I can't help but note that the most vocal people pressing for this truth and reconciliation stuff are those that have already confessed and/or been found out.  I am not expecting much in the way of action any time soon.

On my own (drug free) cycling, I got out with son-on-law number 2 yesterday for a few miles, taking in a visit to the grandchildren taking part in a ridden fancy dress followed by calling into my mother's to finish off an extension cable job I should have done about 6 months ago.

You're not welcome any more..

The Home Office are trying to encourage illegal immigrants to leave by putting information on how to leave on a truck and driving it around some streets of London.  It also features a few politically arousing phrases to help the right wingers feel like the government are doing something.  So far, so good, but now it appears that the advertising standards agency have stepped in and are 'investigating'  to see if it breaks any advertising rules.  How very odd.  I can't for one minute see why this should be classified as advertising, although I must admit I am not an expert in the matter (or any other matter come to that), but common sense tells me that advising people to stick to the law i.e. don't be in this country unless you are allowed to be, cannot be advertising can it?  In the same way that a 'No Left Turn' sign is not advertising.
How very odd.

Floater

There's been a bit of a hoo-ha at a fete sort of event in Sotland where one of the participants in the parade of floats thought it would be a jolly wheeze to decorate a trailer in the style of Jim'll Fix It with someone appropriately clad in Jimmy Saville 'outfit' surrounded by children.  Looks like it embarrassed the organiser somewhat who thought it was wholly inappropriate etc etc.  I expect they were in a right quandary when it showed up and took it's place in the float queue, wondering whether to have a word with the owners or not.  Or maybe they didn't see it until it paraded proudly past their executive box whereupon they would have choked on their cucumber sandwiches or similar.  Personally, it gave me a chuckle for a number of reasons.  The main one being that it is such an extreme thing to do - dress up as one of the UKs most notorious paedophiles in a most public way, in the same way that some comedians try to get a reaction with 'extreme' jokes.  It's not as if the joke is funny -it's the context, and this float parade is just that - a harmless genteel event being hi-jacked by some extreme costuming. 
This is not to say I condone anything Mr Saville did!  (just in case anyone has doubts).

Biked to and from work yesterday, finding a slightly different route home through a village (Glentworth) I had never been to before.  Maybe I should aim for a new village/road every ride.

Great twit.

All this twitter talk about twitter, it's quite messy.  Essentially, twitter is the medium used to convey messages (albeit short, and usually pointless), so why they should be in the dock for 'allowing' nasty things to be said is a bit odd to me.  A perfect analogy for me is the sewage system - it exists for people to put their $hit through it, which is just what most of twitter is.  If you decide to put some horrible chemical down the loo, you can't blame Anglian Water for letting you do it can you?
Anyway, I guess they'll arrive at some way of reporting it and everyone will be happy-ish, although I'm surprised that they don't know who is sending which messages I didn't realise it was so anonymous.

I managed 80 lengths in the pool last night, that's about 1.2 miles.  It was only the fact that my goggles were pressing too tightly on my face that I stopped so I need to get them sorted.  An Ironman at 2.4 miles needs some comfy equipment.

Olympic Breakfast.

Bad news for the catering industry at the weekend with the news that the Little Chef chain has been bought and 'saved' to fight another day.  I can't see why anyone would want to eat in a Little Chef, or am I missing something that has happened to them in the last 15 years? (15 years is about the gap since I last ate in one, and left thinking 'never again'.  Can't remember if it was the interminable wait, the rubbish food or the price that put me off the most.,  Price I think- it can't have been on expenses, but actually now I recall I think it was when I was on expenses driving to/from Levington so it must have been the time it took to get served.  I note that it's a Kuwait company that has bought them out, so maybe they have different standards.  It can't be for the brand - that would be a waste of money.

I managed a windy 35 miles on Saturday (busy all day yesterday).  Went out into the wind and got a couple of PBs on the way back.  Felt really knackered when I got going, probably due to the extra running I had done so a good job I didn't do anything yesterday.

TV Critics..

So, Mr Berlusconi is not a happy chappie after his appeal against a jail sentence was turned down.  Luckily he has his own TV channel where is able to rant about it and get it off his chest.  Its a good job he has that to use, or he would be boring his friends to death with it.  One of them probably told him to get on air and 'you tell 'em!'  The thing with Berlusconi is that he probably really believes he is innocent, thinking that those particular laws don't really count, well, not for him anyway.  If he wasn't such a potentially powerful politician it would be funny, but as it is, he's just a bit dangerous.  I would be a bit worried if I was an Italian.

As for biking last night - I think I picked the hottest evening of the year.  It was 31 when I got home from work so my guess I set off in 30 degrees but it was cooling down.  I managed 50+ miles on one water bottle - should have taken 2 really, so there's a lesson there.

Don't look back in anger.

I am always interested when the government release papers in line with the '30 year rule'.  They provide an insight into what was happening in the inner workings of parliament, what politicians were contemplating and plans that were on the table but were never actioned.  Today, we see a batch of papers from Margaret Thatcher's era, just before the miners strike and what the planning was and all the possible contingency plans.  We also see that the Queen had a speech prepared in the event of nuclear war which would have advised us to 'keep calm and carry on'.  Just a joke.  It actually would have told us to pray - that would have been really useful wouldn't it?  Keep calm and carry on would have been just as good I guess. 

Biked to work yesterday, chancing the traffic through Lincoln, but at the time of the morning it was reasonably quiet.  I plan to ride out with one of my ex-colleagues tonight, taking in some of the Wolds so I'm hoping the rain stays away for the evening at least.

Just the one lump..

The question is, are we born with a sweet tooth, or are we driven into that by our upbringing?  This debate I am having with myself is related to yesterday's dental story (I had a filling) and my love of all things sweet.  My colleague here thinks that it is a result of nurture, that our parents who were brought up in the war and had to endure rationing of sugar etc. when they were growing up, actually overdosed us on sugary things in the 60s to sort of compensate for their lack of it.  It was also the time of new innovations in the food business, with loads of processed foods suddenly appearing on supermarket shelves.  Supermarkets themselves were very rare in the 60s, so our parents were given a relatively unprecedented range of new, fancy foodstuffs to try out on their families.
However, I am reasonable convinced that the love of sweet stuff is a genetic i.e. nature rather than nurture trait.  Even though I am well known in our family as a cake fiend and I can point to some obvious parental pressure to consume sugary foodstuffs, I know that my dear wife was exposed to a similar if not greater amount of sweet things and prefers savoury over sweet any day.  I don't suppose this sample of people is any where near the required amount to make a decision, but it does show how there are exceptions if there is a rule, or it could be a totally meaningless debate and I've wasted part of my life thinking about it.  Not for the first time I guess.

As for the sporty stuff (or anti-cake as it should called for me), I managed to do a few miles running last night after the downpour without any after effects and I'm trying (reasonably successfully) to up my cadence and land on my mid-sole to minimise impact and knee issues.  The problem is to concentrate and keep remembering to do it.

Open wide..

A village in Lincolnshire not too far from me has managed to raise over £9000 for a new toilet.  That's a relief was one of the comments.  It's interesting to note that this has taken 800 years to install, I wonder what they did all those years ago when people actually went to church.  I guess they did have some sort of toilet, just that it wasn't a nice clean, flushable self cleaning as used by households throughout the country, so to say it took 800 years is actually missing some facts given that flushing toilets and sewerage systems are relatively new compared with the age of the church. It's a bit like what I expect to see in 50 years, that there will be a headline '800 year old church gets WiFi hotspot at last', and we can comment 'Fancy waiting 800 years for WiFi'.

Had a filling this morning, the first in goodness knows how many years and the feeling has just about returned to the right side of my face.  The dentist, who looked like I was his first patient after leaving college seemed to me to be quite good at his job, administering minimal pain which (to me) is a measure of success.  If the filling drops out then that's another issue.

I've reach the top and had to stop..

Just had a weekend in our caravan along with our 2 small dogs.  I'm undecided if taking the dogs was a good or bad thing - on the one hand I felt like they were having a 'treat',  on the other they were a pain in the neck.  I'm not sure a dog appreciates a 'treat' unless it's food, and then do they really appreciate it?  Surely a dog is just dragged along to wherever you decide to take it and it just accepts it.  Mind you, our jack russell does have it's tail between it's legs when it sees the cage going into the car - she's not a good traveller, but then wags it's tail when we get the caravan out because it likes going in there - or at least it gives an impression it does.
Ah - if we could talk to the animals.  Maybe it's a good job we can't, we might learn something we don't like!

I managed a bit of running when I was away, and am slowly talking myself into entering an ironman.

Phil Space

I'm still astounded that some 'professional' writers create so much dross about football and pass it off as newsworthy.  Take the on-going debate about Suarez for instance - this is where (if I understand it correctly) a footballer currently playing for team A might be offered a job at another football team, team B.  This negotiations are apparently being paraded in most news outlets and commented on like it was top news.  What a waste of space, or, if it's in keeping with ,my previous comments on 'phil space' type of news.  I would love to know how many people read it, and even more interested if people read it and find it interesting.  Maybe it's because I'm generally anti-populist that I think this.  It's a bit like my thought son Facebook - I thought it was a good site until everybody started using it.

Anyway, enough of that, here's yesterday's bike home stats in the heat...

Schools out!

Well, that's over and done with at last.  I'm talking about my morning session as lecturer in turbine control systems that I have carried out for my employer to save them buying in a proper, qualified person.  I think I carried it without too much bull, but you never know what everyone else made of it.  Don't think my co-lecturer (who is taking the other 2 x days) was very impressed, but he is a bit of a perfectionist, is paid highly for it, and doesn't want me taking over his part! ha ha! No chance of that!

Biked into work this morning managing to avoid the rain showers and the sun is shining now so should be OK riding home.  Seriously thinking about an Ironman race next year, so I need to get some miles in and keep it up through the winter.  That's the theory anyway.

Party line

I'm just about recovered now (its 12 o'clock).  The issue was the alcohol combined with the singing that made me feel, well, it's fair to say I was not at my best this morning and in fact it was the worst I had felt since my 50th birthday party.  Too much alcohol you see.  I can't blame the singing for feeling rough, although I was a bit croaky for an hour or so.  I suppose if I had just been singing, all I would have had to show for it was a slightly croaky voice instead of a really croaky voice.  Still, I had a reasonably good time and just have to do the clearing up when I get home.  Deep joy, can't wait.
It does mean that my better half should be satisfied for a few months/years now we put on a bit of a 'do' - she likes to entertain, whilst I feel it's just a pain in the backside even if I do usually enjoy them.  As usual we had far too much food left over for my liking, we'll probably keep it for a few days, realise it's going off and bin it.  What a waste.  I blame the moth-in-law who could never be accused of being conservative with her food and it's rubbed off on her daughter.

Ground rules

More problems for Boeing's Dreamliner as a flight has to turn back due to some malfunction or other.  There was a small fire a couple of weeks whilst parked at Heathrow, then there was the big event a few months ago that grounded them for a while.  I don't know how often flight have to turn back due to potential issues, but surely it's not that often is it?  Not that I don't want them to turn back if there's a problem, but I just expect aeroplanes to be more than 'quite reliable'.  I don't think that's unreasonable -  do you?

As for biking, due to an expected quiet weekend on the exercise front, I kicked myself into biking to work twice this week, that's 80 miles each time, and to make it more difficult for myself, got slightly lost yesterday after going across the river Witham at a new (for me) place, a footbridge just past Washingborough.  This brought me out somewhere I have never been before and it took a while to get back on track, although now that I've studied the map, it was probably the best route anyway.

Naming game.

It seems that a proposal to rename one of the bank holidays to be Margaret Thatcher Day has not got the required approval to proceed.  Pity really, it would have been a really stupid thing to do and would have incited loads of heated debate, bringing out the worst in the British public which always amuses me.  I can't even see why someone thought about it in the first place, surely there are more famous people in our history who has deserved it more.  I suppose it's (maybe) one of the last controversies we shall see associated with Mrs Thatcher, goodness knows she's created a few in her day.

As for cycling home last night, managed an average of just under 20mph but I did have small back wind for most of the time.  Should have brought an extra Power Bar with me, cos I was out of fuel well before I got home.  Also lost about 1 and half kg (80.5) but it was back on again by bedtime due to drinking pints of orange squash.

Higher and higher.

More doping news with the revelation that 4 Jamaicans have tested positive for a banned substance as well as Tyson Gay the US sprinter.  If Usain Bolt's name is dragged into the noise it will get very messy indeed.
Along those lines, Chris Froome is subject to the expected 'are you doping?' questions as he powered to a great win up the Ventoux.  It was the 22nd fastest time up the Ventoux, so surely they can't compare him with the dopers can they?  Absolutely brilliant riding to get rid of all his rivals and his acceleration when he was alongside Contador was really good to watch.  Taking of great riding, I rode to work this morning in brilliant sunshine,  but it felt quite cool so I had to keep up the speed.  I'll be also riding home when I expect it will be a little warmer.

I managed to get a reasonable time in the Caistor 10K yesterday - 47 minutes which given the hills in the last 2 miles was better than I thought for an old bloke like me.

Winning Ways

I wonder what it is that keeps us enthralled by a sporting contest, and is it just a human characteristic?
For instance, I (and millions of others) can get absolutely absorbed by a tennis match, cricket, cycling, football (sometimes) etc.  As an example, I am currently listening to the test match whilst writing this and feel unable to switch it off even if it is distracting me somewhat.  It's probably a 'home country' thing, because most things I get absorbed in feature one or more teams/players from the UK, so if that's the case it purely a nationalistic thing.  The only way to test this theory would be to force myself to watch a non-UK match of something.  I seem to remember I have done this before with a Wimbledon match or 2, and as long as the skills are high, is quite addictive, so this appears to blow the nationalistic theory out the water.  Whatever the reason, I think it's quite a healthy addiction and applies to everyone I know - I can't think of anyone who does not take some sort of interest in sporting occasions.
Biked to work yesterday and felt lousy all day - tired out. I had a lift home, so avoided doing 80 in a day (and probably sleeping all evening) and just to test out my staying power did the same this morning after dropping my car off at the garage to fix my brakes that have suddenly lost their power assisted feature.  Hopefully it's only a split pipe or similar.

Sufficiently innocent until sufficiently guilty.

'Not sufficiently innocent'.  That must mean 'guilty'?  ...or maybe not.  It seems that someone can exist in between innocent and guilty, a mid-point in the conviction scale without being totally exonerated and at the same time not be convicted.   Not being a legally trained person (well, not being trained in anything actually) this does sound like a convenient state to place someone, so (as in this case) the home secretary doesn't have to pay compensation whilst letting someone go free because the prosecution case was flawed.  This is where Barry George finds himself at the moment after service 8 years for a crime that he didn't commit.  I remember reading about the errors in the prosecution case a long time ago in Private Eye, and they were eventually recognised by the quashing of the conviction, but if he is 100% innocent, then he will feel totally distraught at not getting compensation.  Locked up for 8 years is a terrible price to pay for some duff evidence.

Hot stuff

So, the Tour continues on apace with a rest day today.  Which means it doesn't continue at any pace actually, but you know what I mean.  It's turning out to be quite interesting, especially how Sky managed to get all of their team dropped except Froome yesterday.  I'm sure there's an explanation, but it's a bit odd given Porte's excellent pace the previous day.  Maybe they're human after all and can't managed 2 consecutive 'busy' days.  I struggle with one.
I did, however, manage an 86 miler on Saturday riding home from Buckminster after seeing daughter number 2 compete on her horse.  It was really hot (for the UK) as my red arms testified.
Travelled through some parts of Lincolnshire I had never seen before so quite a pleasant ride despite the sun.  I had to keep going to cool myself down.

What is white and red all over.

The Tour de France is well into the 1st week, and it's proving to be quite an interesting race so far.  Yesterday was the team time trial, and has thrown up the first real time gaps.  Our man at Sky Chris Froome is well placed towards the top with a few seconds advantage over his main rivals.  This update will be out of date almost before I've finished writing it, but I'm practising my journalistic skills.  I say practising, but I don't have any of the said skills, so actually I'm just trying them out.
This reminds me of the trend for some of the numerous on-line newspapers (which are not actually 'newspapers', more like this blog really), where they ask journalists to contribute articles for free and therefore have minimal overheads.  Now, this might be alright for paid journalists doing a bit of free work on the side, but if this trend continues, there will be no paid journalists (i.e. professionals) and we will be left with plebs like me and you with no training, just an interest in making ourselves heard, and we have all seen/heard of those types.  Does this mean that 'real' newspapers who have an existing online version will gradually move completely to volunteer journalism?  I can't see how they would maintain their standards without a host of editors re-writing everything, and then you get editor/journalists who might as well be journalists.  Maybe it will just be the journalists out in the sticks who will be replaced by volunteers (essentially bloggers or Twitter writers) with a central controlling team.  Whatever the future, we are already some way towards it.

All my troubles seemed so far away..

Well, that's my holiday finished, and as usual it already feels like it was ages ago - the passing of time is an odd feeling, we often speak about 'as if it was yesterday', when things that happened yesterday '..feels like months ago'.  Some people are never satisfied.
Anyway, suffice to say the hol was really good fun, cycling up and down the Alps around Annecy for 8 days and getting really knackered in the process.  Weather was not as hot as it should have been, but didn't stop the biking, and I'm now looking forward to the Tour days when they will be going up quite a few of the Cols we did in the last 2 days of their 3 week race.
Plenty to do back at planet work, so off we go.

What goes up...

Wow! Everton and Chelsea 'clash in second game of the season' according to Yahoo, making out we all care about this fateful coincidence that 2 Premier division teams will play each other, but not only that, its the second game of the season!!  It's just, well, amazing.
Or maybe it's just that the sports editor needed to make something out of nothing.
Take yesterday's 'big' cycling news that 'Froome is relieved Wiggins is out of the Tour'. When the actual comment was '..well, I wouldn't say that relieved is the correct word' (or similar), it's just that the reporter wanted it to be the right word, so applied some bent journo rule that they are able to twist even the most inaccurate facts into a meaty headline that attracts the eye.  ..and I expected more from the BBC.

Anyway, I'm winding down today ready for my hol.  We leave at midnight tonight for 9 days near Lake Annecy cycling up (and down) as many mountains as my legs will stand.  I'm assuming my knees will give up first, but we'll see.  Don't know if I'll be updating this journal, but I'll be giving it a go.
I managed a few miles jogging last night in the heat - it was a good 19 degrees which is relatively very hot compared to what has gone on in the last few days, my theory being that I need to acclimatise.

Obviously right.

There's so many space filling 'reports' on the new websites nowadays.  They have top pad out most areas with non-stories which although they might include a headline grabbing snippet, is just that - a snippet that taken out of context can be mean anything.  In particular, the sports sections which are usually filled by footy stories (no shortage of materiel there) struggle to add any meaningful non-footy stories.  F1 reports always include inane comments from drivers/team bosses/commentators with at least one utterance of 'for sure', usually more.  Cricket cuts and pastes from famous-ish bloggers - ex-players etc. who although can write some interesting stuff, always seem to major on the extremes of form for whichever team they are commenting on e.g. 'end of an era'; 'need some decent bowlers' etc when all that has happened is that s few people have made a few mistakes i.e. been quite normal.  Today, I notice that golf has joined the space filling trend with a headline of a comment from Tony Jacklin who '..tips Justin Rose to win more majors'. Thanks for that, I needed an ex-player to idly state the obvious at no risk to his personal stature.  I'm sure I heard that in thy pub as well, isn't it remarkable that two people with no connection stated the same thing.

Managed a good 51 miles early Sunday morning setting off at 7:30.  I pulled my back as I was lifting my bike off it's stand, and didn't really feel right for the whole time.  When I was showering later, I had to kneel to dry my back because I couldn't stand up straight.  Apart from that I'm fine.
I have the big cycling holiday on Thursday (9 days in the Alps) so the bad back had better stay away.

Dead sure.

I've been listening to Last Word for some time now - it's a Radio 4 program which I listen to in the car as a podcast, and I really enjoy what are actually audio obituaries on the recently departed.  Very often they get a selection of people to recount someones achievements and character, not always just the good ones, and even remember the notorious as well as the famous.  If I get chance, I would like to be on this program.  What intrigues me is that I can listen to someone recalling nostalgic anecdotes about e.g. slightly famous person 'x' and feeling quite 'warm' about them.  One such incident this morning was with Bill Pertwee, the ARP warden from Dads Army who came across as a really nice, considerate chap who I would have liked to know, but until this morning I couldn't have given a monkeys about him.  How many more are there like him? ..and if I had not have listened to the program I would never have thought that.

As for my training, did a 4 mile run last night in the rain, I had to really push myself to go out in it but the slightly warmer weather decided me to just do it.

Hanging on in quiet desperation..

I'm hoping that April 19th is a good day to be born on.  The worlds oldest man in history died today, and he was born on that day - the same as me. He lived to the (very) ripe old age of 116 which means I'm not even half way there!! How good is that? Actually probably not that good given that most of my body will have shutdown by then, but who knows?  I wonder which part gives up first?  Will it be the legs? They do the most work don't they (out of the limbs I mean), but having said that, I've had quite a sedentary job for the last 20 years so maybe it will be my fingers from all this typing.
I can live without those for a few years I suppose.  There's obviously gradual changes in all parts of our bodies, but as the 116 year old proved, you can hang on for quite some time.

Sign here kid..

The PPI 'scandal' continues to rumble on.  Even the way the complaints/repayments have been handled has come in for criticism, and LLoyds have admitted they have not acted very well in this respect.  But, the way this has been handled by everyone is, to my mind, poor.  From the first person who signed up for an insurance package that would never have delivered, to the last person to get his/her compensation, the whole issue has been a joke. ..and it's these people who blindly signed up for it in the first place who should take most responsibility for the shambles.  I know, I hear you say, they were pressured into it; the small print was not clear; the details were never spelt out; the tickbox was already ticked etc etc.  Excuses - all of them.
Now, I'm not one to blow my own trumpet (OK, maybe I am), but when I saw this PPI option the first time I simply declined it - even when my bank manager advised for it and asked me to initial the 'non-signature' so he didn't get a roasting from his boss, and this was years before anyone started to question it.  Mind you, its probably the Methodist coming out in me that makes me think that way and I'm always the eternal optimist, so would never think I would lose a job, go off work on long term sick etc.
There's a bigger thing at stake here though, and one that doesn't seem to be being addressed, and that is mis-selling in general.  Its easy to pick up on 'soft' deals such as PPI, but what about things that we pay for but add no value whatsoever? e.g. packaging and marketing in general.  Can we reclaim the cost of the bit of cardboard in a multi-pack of Twix that is only there to keep them looking neat and tidy? ..and what about early CD players that were made to look bigger than needed so we thought it was worth paying an extortionate amount?  I'd better stop before it gets silly.

Summer? I think we've missed it.

I see penny-farthings are making a bit of a comeback, you can even buy one new.  I'm, not sure I would want one it always looks like getting on one is a challenge in itself, and like tree climbing once you're up there the difficult bit is getting down.  Still, it would be a good view looking over the hedges and into peoples bedrooms.  Just kidding about the hedges.

It's already well into June and the temperatures are refusing to show any signs of summer.  Out on my bike Friday evening and I really felt cold even with some blood-pumping climbing and came back looking very red.  It was a bit better on Saturday (but not much), and I put my overshoes on this morning for one of my early rides into work.

Fish food.

PC games - I've never been enamoured by them but they always seem to be in the news for some reason or other.  Today's news is a new device that detects feet movements and transfers this info to the game and offers a 'totally immersive experience etc etc'. How interesting.

We decided to get some traditional fish and chips last night for tea.  This is (approximately) an annual event where we go to Cleethorpes, park on the front facing the sea, get some fish and chips and sit there people watching.  Luckily there were quite few people about of all sorts and sizes to give us some conversation topics.  I was taken by the high number of tattoos on show, but I think I always say that.  Previous years have usually been in early Spring - April or thereabouts, so to see some sun was quite a change.  We then went on to Mr McDonalds café for a coffee and fattening ice cream to top off a really unhealthy evening - but it only happens once a year.
When we got home at around 9:30, it was still quite light so with a heavy stomach I decided to go for a run.  This would be the 1st one since Sunday so I was only interested in the village and back.  Well, 3 miles and 3 pit-stops later I arrived home lighter than when I left.

Hot stuff.

Yesterday I read an interesting angle on skin cancer and the prevention of.  It was penned by a triathlete because one of the top pro triathletes had got skin cancer which had provoked some concerns about it and how to prevent it.  This often occurs to me when out in the sun - either running, cycling or just basking.
He made some interesting points about how sun cream was only invented in the 40s, incidence of skin cancer has increased drastically since the 70s, but is not consistent across Europe e.g. those in sunnier climes have not seen the increase of Denmark and the UK, and there's the fact that (in general) people spend less time outdoors as part of their jobs than they did in 'the old days'.  So, where does this leave us?  Suncream manufacturers would love us to use their products, no surprise there, but I don't see many balanced reviews on the subject.  Is it just a seemingly random thing that affects only some people?  Think I'll do a bit of research with Mr Google.

I'm just about over the physical exertions of Sunday - that lactic acid has been hanging around for a while so I'll be trying out my bike tonight as the weather is looking good.  I wonder if recovery time is directly proportional to the effort e.g. does an ironman take twice as long to get over than a half ironman?  Probably not a straight line, but I feel like this half ironman has taken an awful lot longer than a sprint.  There's plenty written about lactate thresholds/recovery etc so I'm not going to pretend I can add anything meaningful to it except the obvious statement that the further you go, the longer it takes to get over it.

Out the box..

'Re-purposing'.  That's an interesting word - or is it a word?  The hyphen is mine, well, not mine exactly, but I used it in the word because I thought it needed it.  If it was missed out it might get a different emphasis on the 'rep' part and be just, well, silly.
It was used by the boss of Tesco to describe what they are doing with store space that needed to be used for something else and to be frank, sounded downright strange when he said it.  I guess it's used at all the planning meetings. They might even have Re-purpose Meetings - that would be a good idea and be greeted by all concerned as good use of English.  I can imagine that the re-language people would also like the concept as would the re-concept marketing department.  It's just another of those stupid business words/phrases that although you know sounds and is absolutely terrible, you end up using it because it actually fits what you are trying to say.
Now, about that blue sky thinking seminar...

Keep abreast of the news.

The news agencies were buzzing a couple of weeks ago when Angela Jolie announced she had had a double mastectomy to reduce her chances of getting breast cancer.  To add a rather sad aspect to it, her auntie died a week later for breast cancer, so surely her reasons were justified for what is seen as rather a drastic measure to take, but when you're life is at risk does it take much working out?
But, what amused/disgusted me was the headline at the weekend on Sky News (one of the few apps I have on my iPhone) 'Angela makes her first public appearance since the op'.  Not only did they think it newsworthy, they made it 'Breaking News' as if it was 'news'.  What a bunch of dunces - I wonder how they can sleep at night.

On a more mundane, personal matter, I'm really feeling my legs today after the weekend's exertions! Ouch! 

A good day for the race - the human race.

Well, I'm pleased to say that the triathlon went better than expected.  5 hrs 35 mins in total which I think is around the mid-finishing time so given my grey hair and receding hairline, that's not bad.  I jogged the run, starting slowly and finishing even slower at just under 2 hrs.  I managed to resist walking apart from the water stops and fortunately no severe aches and pains during or after the race.  My expected dodgy knee behaved itself as did my abductor strain although I didn't really put them under any pressure apart from the sheer length of the exercise.  Don't think I've ever done 5 and a half hours exercise in anything, not even in my marathon days, so all in all a good day.
All I need to do now is build up my running training for the next one.

Blockage.

It's not a very pleasant subject to ponder on, but the recent sad case of April Jones who was abducted and murdered by Bridger has sent the press into a small frenzy about what they say is the ease of access to on-line porn.  The background is that Bridger was found to have pictures of child porn on his PC which (they say) drove him to commit the crime and therefore is (one of) the reasons he did it.
Now, although I have not read about this case extensively (it's too upsetting, to be honest)  I did read about his stash of pictures of young girls, how he had cartoons showing sadistic acts with girls as well as pictures taken from facebook of local girls including April.  So, apart from the cartoons, there didn't seem to be a great deal of 'child porn' involved unless, of course, the press knew more than they were publishing when I read it. 
The biggest headline I saw in the newsagent was on the Daily Mail that seemed to blame Google for allowing him to access such things and they should act '...to block child porn now!'.  The thing is, The Daily Mail online is full of scantily clad images of young women and girls that would have been on the shopping list of this Bridger fellow, so it's a bit rich of them to try and deflect attention onto Google.  I would be so ironic if Google blocked Daily Mail online.

As for training, I have the 70.3 on Sunday which I am looking forward to.  I managed a decent 1500m swim on Wednesday evening and 28 miles on the bike last night so I feel I have tapered sufficiently without stopping completely.
The swim brought my attention to a sore arm which worries me a little - it restricted my stretching out with my left arm - but I'm hoping that was just down to hacking away at a tree stump on the same day.  The bike ride reminded me of my dodgy right knee (it started to ache) and when I had finished, the inside of my left leg started aching due to my abductor strain, so apart form that I'm as fit as a fiddle!  The thing is, I won't know how I'm feeling until the run, and with 13 miles to go it's a long way.
I investigated older 70.3 finishing times for my age group, and if I pick a mid-point as a benchmark, 6hrs 30mins seems to be a reasonable target.  I suppose I expect swim + bike to take just over 4 hrs (unless transitions are longer than I'm expecting) so 6hrs should be within my grasp, but ever the pessimist I'm going for 6hr 30mins.  Race report on Monday.

Sold out.

The high street is not having a good time at the moment, or so we are led to believe.  The government even brought in some famous person who I am not too familiar with (Mary Portas) to 'revive' them, but this does not seem to be having much success,  but I'm not surprised given the trend towards internet shopping and the generally depressed economic state.  My take on it is that the high street was probably overblown anyway, that is it was too big for the market in the same way that the housing prices were too high etc., and the current high street shrinkage is just an adjustment down to  something it should have been anyway, so a) she's wasting her time (but probably got paid handsomely for it) and b) get used to it.
It's not very good seeing boarded up shops or them being replaced by charity shops, but there's always a time lag.  I'm sure someone will put them to good use later rather than sooner.

Easiest Person to Fool..

I'm sure I've written on this subject before, but can't remember when so it's at least 24 hrs ago.  Data - and the collection, storing and use of, and in particular data relating to ones achievements.
I have a special interest in this topic because I love data.  Yes, really. Statistics to me are the lifeblood of history, what makes something stand out is it's data, it put it's into context (sometimes) and quantifies what it is - I think that's the important bit, quantifying it.
We're surrounded by this every day in nearly every news worthy article.  We are told how big something is, its speed, value, mass, height, cost, need I go on?  I'm not talking surveys here - the inane questionnaire sent to the same people who are paid if they fill it in, no, I'm talking things with data wrapped around them to make them stand out from the crowd, that make me think 'Hmm, must be good, it's the biggest/lowest/smallest/fastest/fattest (delete as applicable)'. 
If we use this with our own modest achievements it can give immense satisfaction at a very personal level without impressing anyone (except ourselves). Let me give you an example: supposing I'm doing a 30 mile bike ride - nothing impressive in that for anyone - but what if I'm collecting data whilst doing that ride measuring gradient, speed, effort, cadence, temperature, heart rate, and not only that the data is then summarised, calculated, categorised and fed into a giant database of like-minded statistics for you to compare, analyse and graph to your hearts content producing some meaningless statistic to anyone else, but to you is the Bosun-Higgs of your bike ride.
So, don't be afraid of data, especially your own and if you can't fool yourself, who can you fool?

Quite Responsive

QR codes (as I'm sure we all know) a special type of bar code that directs the 'reader' to a webpage. I have seen it used all over the place - in advertising for example you can save the scan on your smartphone and then log onto the website at a convenient time. I'm sure we have all done that, or more likely thought 'what the flip do we need that for'.  I think I have also seen it on social media websites as a quick way to get to somewhere.  Anyway, you get the picture.  The thing is, Mercedes now have it on every number plate where emergency services can scan it and find out the location of all those nasty things they might like to know about before they start cutting out the bodies/injured passengers, so that sounds like a good thing at last for this technology.  It also got me thinking about other similar applications where if you needed something fast you could get it, then the only applications I could think of were commercially biased, so I gave up.

I went out for a mammoth (well, elephant-like at least) ride on Saturday taking in the three bridges of Humber, Boothferry and Keadby. 107 miles I all and apart from sun burnt legs came out of it relatively unscathed.  I also managed 40 on my new Holdsworth the following day without any after effects.  The other sporting achievement was a 4 mile run - the first for 2 weeks to test my legs before Sunday's 70.3.  I had a few abductor twinges but hopefully they will be manageable.

Cycle round.

The organisers have cancelled stage 19 of the Giro - one of the 3 big cycling events of the year - due to inclement weather in the mountains.  I'm surprised they didn't have a Plan B to fall back on to e.g. a flat stage in the area, but cancelling must have been the only option.  I guess the team sponsors are the main beneficiaries of televised races, so they will not be too impressed I'm sure, but with wind chill at -20 and air temperature -12 I'm sure they made the right decision.  The problem for me is that I don't have anything to entertain me this afternoon whilst I plough through a pre4sentation I supposed to be creating.  Still, I might get it finished I suppose.

The BBC have cancelled a big IT project, something to do with a common digital processing system so that everyone can access everything at any stage.  Not so unusual seeing a large IT project bite the dust (think NHS IT for example) but I notice a footnote states that the head of IT has been suspended which seems to me to be a bit unfair, although of course I don't know the ins and outs of it all.  More likely a political suspension to save someone else's skin.

Built up my new bike last night with major help from son-in-law's pal Ed - thanks Ed.  It's looking smart, but I had bought the wrong type of front brake so can't ride it yet.  Ordered the correct version this morning so I'll be out on it early next week all being well.  The old Trek needs a new chain which will go on tonight, then a longish ride tomorrow if the sun decides to get out - it's a terrible day today all leading up to next Sunday's 70.3 attempt.  I'm still worried about the run and my dodgy knee/thigh but I've paid my money so I'll give it my best shot.

There's lies, damn lies, and....

I notice that a solar powered aeroplane managed a 20 hr flight across the states setting some sort of record on the way.  I suppose solar records are a bit thin on the ground and therefore set whenever they fly.  The wingspan is the same as an Airbus 340 (i.e. big) but only weight 1.9 tonnes.  There's no mention of the speed, but must be very slow.  Interestingly, the picture within the news article shows it with it's lights on (plenty of them) - so this must because they are showing off it's battery capacity or warning other aircraft.

The average UK income tax payer pays about £4,300 and some bored people at the ONS (Office for National Statistics) has helpfully listed averages per town.  Very interesting, but essentially a waste of time surely.  I cannot think of any reason this data would be useful unless people draw wrong conclusions about e.g. low levels of tax = tax avoiders = send in the taxman.  Maybe we should have a statistic about how relevant ONS statistics are - statistically speaking.

A sea-change

Wave power - is it the way to go for the UK?  On the face of it, the UK would seem the ideal country to deploy wave power technology, all that coastline to work from.  But what do we have?  An aborted project in Scotland with the company going bust, and now one of the power companies will not install the necessary infrastructure (cables etc) to connect up the one remaining installation planned for the Isle of Lewis in Scotland until 2017.  What is missing from the news reports though is why pick Lewis? surely there are more accessible locations? I would have though that putting these wave generator machine devices near existing (or new) wind turbines would solve the issues - just hook them up to the existing cabling or install dual capacity if that's what' s needed.  I don't know the technical considerations with wave machines - maybe they run at a different voltage to wind turbines. Whatever, I just think that the physical location should be a factor in the business case.

I paid the remaining money for my cycling holiday at Annecy yesterday - one month to go. How exciting is that? Very.  For info: 9 days in a mobile home near Lake Annecy with son-in-law number 2 with the intention of riding all the hillocks, cols and mountains around the area. Should be good, if not a little tiring.
I'm well into the training - long rides etc and a reasonably fast session last night round my usual time trial course.  It's not really a TT course of course, but it is to me.

And the winner is...

The awards ceremony for the best web related 'stuff' (not sure exactly what constitutes 'stuff') is tonight and interestingly the winners can only use 5 words in their acceptance speech.  R4 ran a few clips this morning and the best for me was 'five words is not enough'.  I couldn't think of any better alternative, but it did get me thinking.  I wonder if speech writers have ever tried to sell anything for this?  Doubtful.

Another radio related story was on Women's Hour which I happened to chance upon whilst travelling between offices.  They had a good debate about whose side you take when friends divorce, and if you have to ultimately take sides anyway.  The consensus seemed to be that you do, in the end, end up taking sides whether you like it or not although I'm not too sure if that's always the case. Being a good listener is probably the best thing to do, and despite what you advise, people usually end up doing what the think is best for them, not what you think is best, unless by some miraculous chance you think the same.  If it was me, I would agree with everything they said, put a slightly opposing view, then tell them 'it's up to you'.  I guess (note that I have no real experience of this) that you have to make some tough decisions at some point, and a 3rd party is unlikely to  be able to put themselves in your shoes.  A more interesting angle on the debate was that for older people who have had lifelong friends, going out, holiday together etc, they will not only end up divorcing their spouses, but split the group up as well, and therefore take this into consideration before taking the drastic divorce decision.

Keep your head down.

Police talks should keep Northern Ireland safer - so says a senior PSNI spokesman.  I wonder if that was more because they were off the streets and therefore not being shot at/bombed etc.

Spanish police has arrested a Dutch guy who 'almost broke the internet' in March due to his cyber-hacking activities.  It's not clear what he was doing, spamming or DoS attacks I guess, but why does he want to do it?  Is it the cyber equivalent of graffiti on a newly painted wall?  Both activities bemuse me, serving only (largely) to amuse the offender it seems to me.  Sometimes, they seem to resemble a 'good cause', painting 'USA get out of Iraq/Vietnam/etc.' on walls, or using DoS attacks on some website or other.  The trouble is, is that one person's good cause is another's cause celebre and therefore in direct opposition to each other.  Luckily I sit on the fence on most topics, never get my paintbrush out, and couldn't mount a denial of service attack if I tried.

After cycling to work and back on Friday (80 miles in total), I managed to nice long ride yesterday taking in Horncastle and a few villages I had never heard of, never mind about cycling through them.  These rides mean that my bike leg in 2 weeks will more than likely be pretty sound, but I'm still not sure if I'll be able to do the run.  I need to test it out, but worried it will fail and set me back.  What a quandary.

Weather you like it or not.

Apocalyptic times for out wildlife according to an article on Yahoo news.  I guess the same item will find its way into most other news outlets.  Its all to do with the severe weather we've been experiencing and how its affected smaller birds and mammals, and therefore we are advised to build bird boxes, insect homes and similar habitats to help these species.  The thing is, they were doing fine until this year, and we fail to understand that these creatures are naturally susceptible to changes in weather patterns that occur quite naturally.  We will read about the plague of 'insert small annoying animal here' next year due to the unseasonal weather, when what we mean is 'here's a news item about a small furry animal that we need to fill some space with'.
Talking of weather, it is quite cold for this time of year.  I'm reminded of the old gardeners motto (actually its not really a motto, but couldn't think what it was) 'Ne'er cast a clout 'til May is out' which translates to 'keep your coat on until June', and I expect this saying is quite old and therefore to blame the fashionable global warming on a cold May would not seem to be a sensible thing to do and rather to just understand that May can, believe it or not, be cold.

I had a reply from, the highways regarding my annoying potholes indicating that it will be done, its just a matter of when.  Let's hope its soon, my shock absorbers are getting some hammer.