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.