Spam, spam, spam, spam.

 "The No 1 rule of the internet is that it has to work".  So says a security expert in relation to the recent DDOS attack on Spamhaus.  That, of course, is completely different to everything else, where the number 1 rule is, errr, exactly the same.  I hope this expert is embarrassed with his words of wisdom.

Weather we like it or not.

More cold, snowy weather today and it's nearly April.  There's been some talk of climate change etc. bringing about these extremes of weather we have had over the last few years, but do we really know what we are talking about?  You can put me in the 'climate sceptic' (skeptic?) bracket because although we hear about 'worst weather since 19xx', do we ever stop to think hang on, if it's the worst weather since 19xx, the it's been worse that this before we even thought about the phrase global warming.  Our so called experts seem to trot out announcements just as we get a bad day or two like this week for instance: the governments adviser on something or other said we have to prepare for more extremes of weather such as we are experiencing now.  I know predictions are always dangerous as we have seen with the financial markets, but this weather thing smacks of someone justifying their job and stating something that we do anyway.  To day we have to prepare for more bad weather is ridiculous.  What should we do? buy more snow ploughs?  The ones we have stand idle most of the time.  I think he was trying to make us think that way, then whatever happens we wouldn't blame anyone - a sort of apologist before the event.  I'm not sure I'm making much sense with this, but I know what I'm trying to say even if my hands have not transcribed it very well.

Low flying cake..

Savings being taxed in Cyprus or triangular flapjack being banned at a school.  Hmmm, I think I'll go for the tax issue.  It seems that when you put money into a bank you are 'investing' in that institution whilst the ordinary European in the Strasse/Rue etc. will think that he has 'savings' not 'investments'.  A quick look at my own bank's website reveals much talk about savings, although they do touch on investments, so I don't suppose there will be another mis-selling scandal yet.  I understand that the Cypriot banks were giving much higher interest rates than the market could stand and hence the problems with the banking that they have now.  What I can't understand is how such a simple mechanism (interests on savings/investments) could carry on at too high a rate without someone spotting quite early on that it was not sustainable. I suppose someone did spot it, was on a good bonus/backhander or similar and turned a blind eye. Allegedly.  That last word added in case the Leveson press regulation includes my blog.

OK, here's something about flapjack - a school in Essex has discovered that a child threw a triangular piece of flapjack that injured another child and therefore have banned triangular flapjack, making sure that it is cut into squares from now on.  There's not enough space to comment on all the elements of this story, but it just shows how dangerous flapjack can be.
..and why did they cut it into triangles in the first place?  Asking for trouble.

I've got, many rivers to cross..

The Rubicon is a river in Italy.  I didn't know that, and in fact I didn't really care about rubicons at all until this morning.  I was listening to a podcast of The Media Show and they were debating the latest in the Leveson press regulations where the phrase 'crossing the rubicon' came up a number of times.  So many, it started to bug me, so even though I knew what the meaning was, I didn't know the reason for the meaning if you see what I mean.  Anyway, all was revealed thinks to Wikipaedia.  I won't cut and paste the full text, you will have to look that up yourself, but it seemed to be a satisfactory answer.  So, what do we learn from this learning?  That the Rubicon (or Rubico I think it said) was a river in Italy and was something that Julius Ceaser had to cross to do something or other.  More importantly, we learn that phrases we know and love (well, know anyway) have an interesting historical basis for them.

As for training, did 1900m of swimming last night.  First time for a months or so, so quite satisfied with that.  It took 40 mins, which is also satisfactory for me.  I'm sure I will never be a fast swimmer - that probably needs embedding in at an early age like playing the piano for something, but I don't get too knackered doing it.  The snow keeps on falling and the weekend weather is poor, so no biking unless I'm lucky.  It will have to be a bit of time on the rollers.

Baby, Baby, baby!

1973, Slade, Cum on Feel The Noise.  I heard this morning that today was the day that this single reached the dizzy heights of number 1 in the hit parade, and I remember like it was only a few days ago.  It had the distinction of going straight to number 1, something that (I think) had only happened once before by the Beatles, but I'm going to have to Google that to check.
YES !!! Result! Get Back was the only other single to do it until that point. ..and how did I remember it so well? - that's the really interesting point.  I was 14, so that must mean it is an impressionable age and I was obviously 'into' the charts.  Could be that I was influenced by my big sister, but I'll never admit that, so let's assume it was just a normal child development thing where pop music takes on a more meaningful part of your life at that age.  What I also remember was that I was very keen to buy this single, so keen in fact that even though I couldn't afford it, I was able to go 50% with big sister and buy it from the local record store.  I guess this was Gaits on the Civic Centre, but I have a vague recollection of another record store a couple of doors down. Interestingly (for me, anyway) I distinctly remember walking back from the record shop with the record in a bag.  How odd that I recall the minutiae about that, but everything else from 1973 is a blur.  I can even tell you that the 'S' in Noise was a mirror image on the record which is very difficult to replicate with this font.

Training news - my knee is not so good after 5 miles of hills at Caistor.  I thought it wold be a good idea to get some 'natural' reps in by running up the hills, which I did, but my knee did not feel good. I had to consciously keep it pointing inwards slightly to prevent it failing, and since finishing it's feeling decidedly ropey.  I'll give a week or so before I go out on it again - I'm reasonably hopeful it will correct itself and I will have to watch my gait.

Mass Hysteria.

If I'd have wanted to, I could have watch the Pope's first mass, live.  For a while, it was the BBCs top story on the web page. I've always wanted to watch a mass, it must be really interesting.  Being brought up by Christians (Methodists) sacrament was the monthly ritual that, if you attended, you had 'made it' to the very top of the faithful tree.  Methodists seem to exclude youngsters from this ceremony until they are old enough to understand the significance of it, but by doing that it introduces a sort of undeserved reverence.  When I was growing up, I was always a little apprehensive about what it was like eating someones flesh and drinking blood, but I needn't have worried, even the wine was non-alcoholic (other faiths may vary).  I won't put down in print what I really think about religion and Methodists in particular, I don;t want to upset my Mother if she ever chances upon this blog.  Not that that's likely, but she is now the proud owner of a laptop which replaced her ageing desktop I bought for her a number of years ago.  She even managed to send me an email, although it stopped working a couple of days later for some unknown reason - probably because she didn't know how to turn it on.  She toyed with the idea of buying an iPad, but luckily her best friend got one first and she realised a laptop was a better bit of kit for her circumstances.  I don't think there can be many people who just have an iPad without some sort of traditional PC - desktop or laptop.

I managed a few miles running last night.  It was good to get out without raining, and hopefully get the same done tonight.

Watch out!

If the new Samsung S4 lives up to the hype, we will be viewing documents by just moving our eyes.  Oh, hang on...that's what we do now, it's just that the compact screen etc means they have to invent something to get round the limitations.  There's talk of Apple using flexible screens in a watch like device.  I say 'watch like' because it will be a watch, but with a few extra functions. Daresay they will be trying to do to the watch what they have done to the mobile phone i.e. make it do as much as possible.  Since I have had my iPhone, I have dispensed with my watch, camera etc.  How ironic if I end up using my watch instead of the mobile phone.
If these flexible screens are any good, it should decrease the number of breakages and increase the life if they put them in mobile phones.  I have not seen any breakage stats, but based on my focussed, local survey (i.e. me) a flexible screen would have reduced my 2 breakages to 0.  Put it on my wrist and that's even safer.

As for training, did a good 15 miles on Saturday  and a few miles on the rollers yesterday due to rain, rain and more rain.  The run was slow (of course) and I tried out taking a powerbar to see if that helped with fuelling.  I have never had anything out on a run before except water, so in theory at least it should be better.  Managed to keep it down even though it was 12 months out of date (what can possibly be wrong with it?) and I did feel a bit more energetic after eating it, but could be just imagining it.
 

Birdsong

I don't want to get too boring, but I have to mention again the use of Twitter comments masquerading as news.  This time it was the launch of the new Samsung Galaxy S4, which has provoked a number of articles telling us all about this wonderful bit of kit.  only, it didn't actually report on the phone, it reported on the reporting of the phone supplemented by some Twitter comments.  This was on the BBC and Guardian websites, I can't be bothered to look at any more, but it made me wonder what the boss said when he said 'get me a news story about the Samsung thingy phone'.  Something like - fill as much space as you can as cheaply as you can.  Certainly it seems that both reporters were not actually present, instead relying totally on other publication's reports - or soundbites - to tell us all about it.  These publications appeared to be specific industry type reads such as CNET and others, and plenty that I have never heard of at all.  I suppose Geek Weekly had a reporter there along with Get A Life Gazette.  Anyway, the thing that really annoyed me was those few twitter quotes at the end from nobodies but dressed up as if Mr Twitter him/herself had uttered them on behalf of all twitter user.
Right, that's twitter news dealt with for this week.

As for training, I managed half an hour or so on the rollers last night, but my speed sensor keeps using batteries at a rate of about 1 per month which is not good.  Hence no mileage and speed logged. Very frustrating, so I'm looking on eBay to see how much I can get one for.

Phil Space..

Well, we have a new Pope (note the capital letter) and how did Sky News report this news?  By noting that the Pope's Twitter account had changed it's status.  Is that what news reporting is nowadays?  Good job he didn't have a Facebook account or we would have been treated to a few early embarrassing snapshots of him on a night out with suitable captions dressed up as news.
Anyway, that's all for today - I have a few errands to run.

Liver and opinions please.

I really don't buy the fact that cheap alcohol = alcoholism, although (as usual) I can see the other side of the argument that it does, it's just that there seems to be no hard evidence.  'Speak with data' as we always say in the service management world.  I just listened to a 'liver specialist' on the radio news who I guess specialises in livers - like my mother in fact who thinks that a meal of liver and onions is the height of sophistication.  Ironically she's a teetotaller.  Anyway, back to the liver man - he is of the strong opinion that liver disease brought about by excessive drinking is a top cause of death in the UK and in fact more than most European countries although I didn't hear any stats about that. Given that he is a 'Specialist' we have to assume he has some reason for citing that statistic.  But, the interesting thing to note about his bemoaning our poor health stats due to drinking was that he did not once mention that it was anything to do with low prices, he was just wheeled into the newsroom to state that drinking related health issues with the liver were bad in the UK.  So what was the point of that?  To the untrained ear, he was agreeing with the low price = high intake = liver disease debate, but in actual fact his statement was nothing at to do with it.  So BBC news brings in supporting evidence that doesn't add to the real issue at all, but sounds like it does.

Back to the training.  Did a 7 mile run last night at reasonable pace for me, even threw in a few faster sections to get my heart rate up a bit.  In theory I should be doing 400/800m reps and the like, but I never feel like doing that when out on the road/path. Maybe I should set my stall out do them as a matter of course.  The theory is that you raise your lactate threshold by doing reps (as well as aerobic capacity and other benefits) so I guess I have to do them if I want to improve.  ..and by 'improve' I mean feel better whilst doing it.

The truth will out..

The exploits of Jimmy Saville allegedly started 50 years ago according to our venerable news agencies.  Goodness knows how they missed that, but I suppose no-one really wanted to believe it.  If he had been a chav from a rough council estate that would have been different.  Hang on..he was a chav from a rough council estate before he became famous!  ..or a 'working class household' at least.
Ah well, it will never happen again, or will it?  I'm sure something similar will crawl out the woodwork again, it's just a case of finding out these things.  I wonder how many similar events have been missed over the years that we will never, ever know about?  A bit like the various rumours about assorted kings, crown princes, normal princes etc.  Will we ever find out about those?  Very doubtful.

Anyway, no training last night, hopefully a bit of a run tonight if the snow stays away.

It's a dogs life.

It never ceases to amaze me why we admire pedigree dogs so much.  The pinnacle is of course Crufts dog show, that has helped vets around the world make huge profits due to the care that that have to give to these over-bred animals as various parts of their anatomy start failing.  The 'important' bits are things like sloping backs at an exact angle (alsations), faces that look lke they have walked into a wall (pugs etc), legs the length of mushrooms (pekinese) etc.  I could go on, but these characteristics are the only ones I know without consulting Mr Google.  I suppose the pedigree people (that is, the people who decide on the characteristics rather than people of a certain pedigree) sit down and look at their own pet, and decide that's how a perfect specimen should be.  ..or do they take an average?  Goodness knows, but however they decide, it creates work for veterinary practises as the breeding process reduces the animal's ability to have a 'normal' functioning body.  Having said all that, most (all) domesticised animals have a focused breeding to s certain extent to suit their captors needs, so I don't know why I find it so shocking.  I'll stop now.

As for human capabilities, I managed a whopping 14 mile run (whopping for me). I tagged along with Beck and Ed for a slow 4 miles, and when they left me at South Kelsey I felt suitably fresh to go that extra few miles (through Nettleton Woods) to get the 14 in.  My legs thought I had done a marathon, but not enough to stop me going out for a 30 mile bike yesterday in the wind so I can probably manage another one next weekend.

Money talks...

I've just a had a phone call from someone purporting to be from M&S and was checking on 'some fraudulent transactions' on my credit card account.  She then told me the last 4 digits of the card, and asked for my DOB.  Being the vigilent persom I am, I declined, she was quite relaxed about that, understood and told me I could call them direct via the number of the back of the card.  I'll be doing that later, cos I never use this card - I just made one of those balance transfers at an attractive rate a couple of years back.
But, this reminded me of the interest rate discussion of last week - namely should interest rates go negative? Now, that would be interesting, and what would it mean?  Would it mean that debt would start to earn interest, and credit would start paying interest??  Sounds bizarre.  Is it April 1st?  I reckon if they brought this in I would be quids in - my debts would start being paid off, and I might even get credit. Oh, hang on, then I would pay interest and go into the red again. Ah, maybe it's not that good, maybe it only suits the non-saver/non-spender type of person who is in a constant state of financial equilibrium.  I should be able to think of a name, like equicash or similar, but that would be silly, and sound like it's money used to buy a horse.

12 miles on the rollers last night.  I dragged myself out to the shed at about 9 o'clock for 40 mins having decided not to go swimming.  This was due to son-in-law number 3 not being available and later on my conscience got the better of me so I went out into the dark cold night to get sweaty.

It's all in the mind

The Bishop has come clean.  Well, when I say 'come clean' it's the best we're going to get I reckon, admitting he didn't come up to what was expected of him.  My expectation was quite low, so he's OK to me.  Always set a low expectation then you're never disappointed.

I survived my survival training - and it was actually not as bad as I was expecting.  The dunkings in the water were not what you might call fun, but it's a bit like a bad day at work.  No fun, glad when it's over but it can be filed away in the 'experiences' section of your memory.  I wonder if it's a bit like fixed memory in a computer rather than dynamic memory - although if it has a finite size it will have to push older items out.  ..and if we explore that a bit more (stay with me on this one), comparing the human mind with a computer is really interesting, especially in the area of memory.  Computer memory works by setting bits into a certain state with a location code (address) where it can be accessed later on.  Systems nowadays have tiers of memory where the important stuff is accessed quickly, down to unimportant stuff that's hardly used or archived into a 'distant' memory location which could be even on a device that's only connected when asked.  If any of these devices gets full, then we just add more.
The human mind, on the other hand appears to work in a very similar way but without the expansion bit.  This seems to suggest that it creates it's own additional memory as we absorb more.  The theory behind that is that although I have trouble remembering some data (names, places etc), when given a clue it is often recalled along with more specific related information.  ..and that is quite remarkable given the amount of information I have stored up in 53 busy years.  So, we must have some sort of addressing scheme to recall but is often buried deep in the memory banks with very slow response times.

Did another 11 mile run on Tuesday night up to Fleetwood and back, so I'm on track for my 70.3 in June.

Beside the Seaside, beside the sea.

So, here I am waiting to start day 2 of my 3 day Offshore survival course - BOSIET is the catchy acronym, don;t know what the other letters stand for.  It was a last minute decision on Friday at 3 o'clock which is not the best preparation, but the theory is that of you don't have the certificate, you can't do anything anyway.  The company is paying, so no probs for me - except I have never greeted the thought of being dunked into a cold tank of water strapped into a metal cage as the the most thrilling exercise.  They tell me nothing can go wrong, but until I'm through with it, there's doubts.  Evidently there's 7 dunks, each progressively more difficult with a grand finale of full immersion, rolling over 180 degrees and getting out of a window.  Wow, can't wait.
Luckily, I have had time to put a decent run in - 11 miles last night along Blackpool prom and back taking in the sights.  I think I came to Blackpool in 1963 when I was4 so it's all new to me and apart from the obligatory crappy hotels along the front and multiple amusement arcades, it's not too bad a place - a bit like Skegness, only bigger.

Come fly with me

There's an airport on the old RAF base at Finningley known in the flying world as Robin Hood Airport, or Doncaster Sheffield - DSA if you want the official code.  I think Robin Hood Airport is used for the tourists... and therefore not used very much.  We have flown out of here a couple of times when it was fairly new, still building the food outlets in the departures area as I remember.  Nowadays they are replacing the outlets with vending machines, such is the volume of traffic it gets.  When it was being planned, much was made of the super long runway able to handle trans-continental flights with ease which other existing airports couldn't do, such as Humbleside, Sheffield, Leeds Bradford.  I'm not sure about East Midlands, but I'll be surprised if it's not long enough.  Anyway, most of the 'pro' argument was about this long runway and the potential for such but it all sounded a bit too good to be true, and a recent Sheffield airport built a few years previously had turned into a white elephant, well, an unused airport.  At the time I was a frequent flyer our of Humbleside and I must admit there seemed a possibility that HUY could be swallowed up by this much grander, newer neighbour.  Not that I was that bothered, but it would have meant getting up a bit earlier on Mondays. So, when it opened and Thompson moved all of their East Midlands regional flights there (hence us flying out) it didn't look good for HUY and others.  However, within a couple of years or so, tales began to emerge of huge monthly losses, airlines pulling out and passenger traffic not reaching predictions and falling.  I have just driven around the surrounding area (scenic route on the way to Bawtry) and there is a huge amount of land just standing empty with roads disappearing into some scrubland.  They obviously had big plans, but it has come to (almost) nothing.  I occasionally see an Easyjet flight landing, and there are a handful of ThompsonFly flights, but the main airline based there is a low cost Polish carrier flying to various destinations in Poland. Coming over here, taking our airports.

Did a few miles on the rollers again last night, thats 3 times this week.  The Garmin upload didn't seem to work correctly, showing 0.9 miles, and that will never do!   I think it was 15 miles in 45 mins, so I'll have to correct that - can't have anyone thinking I'm not doing much.