Very Cross.

It was the first cyclocross of the season yesterday at Sleaford.  Nothing too technical, so I did reasonably well by my standards.  By 'reasonably well' I mean I stayed upright and wasn't lapped by too many - about 6 I think.  Better start than last year anyway, when I struggled with almost every aspect of riding a bike over a cross country course.

The IOC have decided to add 5 new sports for the Tokyo Olympics.  As well as karate, skateboarding, baseball and climbing, they have included surfing.  I assume this will be the water based activity.

Live Deaths.

'Live: Deaths in stampede' so read the headlines in The Guardian bringing the notion of a 'Live' broadcast about death into disrepute.  If that makes sense, which it probably doesn't, but I hope you get the gist.
It appears to me that there is nearly always some incident during the pilgrimage to Mecca that results in deaths.  You would have thought that everyone would have learnt this by now, and given it's religious significance, surely they would want to avoid portraying it as an uncaring occasion. 

The VW boss has fallen on his sword in relation to the emissions scandal.  I'm not sure how dodgy the deed was, but it looks to be up there with other big ones with plenty of expensive lawyers set to cash in.  Pity I sold my Passat.

Writing can be bad for you.

A Bangladeshi militant group have put 9 bloggers on their 'wanted' list.  I assume that by 'wanted' they mean 'bumped off' and I was a bit worried that they had found my anti-Balgadesh rantings on this blog.  Luckily it's not me, so I can carry on as normal.

The other frightening bit of news is that police were called to a brawl at the Big Brother Bit on The Side studio.  Don't know what that was all about, but I'm sure it was very serious indeed.

Economic Virtues.

I notice there has been a few bits of 'bad news', politically-wise since the election.  Neither the Tories or Labour have made much of it, the latest being an increase in some deficit somewhere (see, even I can't be bothered to read up on something I'm 'commentating' on).  I guess the Labour view is why bother with these smaller tit-bits which won't have any effect on the election result.
So this leads me to think that the chancellor's economic plan s revolve around the election cycle, but buy how much?  If, for instance he planned for every thing to 'peak' just as the election was gathering pace, then how well would he do if he didn't have to take that into account?   I'm sure that every economic decision has a political evaluation before being enacted, or maybe I'm just being too cynical.

Back of the net.

The Scottish Nationalist Party are back on the independence case.
I don't suppose it should be a surprise.  Independence could be construed as their sole object in life, although they seem to have policies for most other things. Bit of a Trojan horse type of party really.
Now all we need is for Labour to have some good policies to make them electable and they can do all the other things as well.

Another FIFA mess hits the headlines with the secretary general Jerome Someone-or-other being suspended whilst travelling in the private jet (is it a FIFA jet?) midway between Vienna and Moscow.  Evidently he also tried to secure a multi-million Euro payoff a few weeks ago, so he obviously knew the game was up.  This scandal just keeps giving and giving, and how long before the top man himself get implicated.  He was obviously very, very careful.

In the dark.

A survey concluded that if you drink strong coffee or tea before you go to bed it interferes with your sleeping.  Amazing.

Researchers also found that bears $hit in the woods and that the Pope is not a Muslim.

The papers have been overflowing with Corbyn-isms/Corbynmania or whatever you like to call the 'event' that is Jeremy Corbyn as Labour party leader.  I wonder how long it will last (the flow of news, not the leadership), but surely the Sun etc. will tire of poking fun at trivialities such as the 'outrage as Corbyn refuses to sing national anthem'.  Who gives a fig?
Surely 'outrage as national newspapers hack Royal's phone' deserves more airtime?

I was up and about at 5 this morning going for a 7 mile run.  It felt surprisingly warm when the temperature must have been around 6 or 7 degrees.  The only issue was not falling down the drive amongst the overhanging trees where is was particularly dark.  I must look out my head torch.

Left Turn.

A few days late, but I need to comment on Jeremy Corbyn's win as Labour party leader.  There's so much comment in the press, there surely cannot be any more to say, but they manage to regurgitate the same stories with a slightly different slant.  I notice a few variations on the shadow cabinet selection meetings, but it was essentially the same thing - a space filler trying to invent theories on why a particular candidate turned it down/accepted.
The press are essentially right wing, so most of the stories have a contemptuous feel to them, pouring scorn on decisions, actions and statements.
Personally, I think having a left wing opposition is good for politics in the UK, although there's no way I agree with a lot of what they stand for.  Mind you, it's the same with the Tories.  I'm a bit of a democrat at heart with a liberal dose of conservatism thrown in when the wind blows that way.

Hare today.

I had a race with a hare this morning.
Not an actual race you understand, that would be silly, but I had him/her ('hare',geddit?) in front of my bike for about 50m at 5:30 just after I left my house.  It eventually realised the best course of action would be to veer off into the filed, so it did.  I like to think it gave up because I was going beat it, but maybe not.

A couple of miles further on, a dopey pigeon took off late in front of me resulting in flapping wings whistling across my face.  It must be a Monday morning thing.

Watched a few polo matches on Saturday for the first time and was quite surprised how much I enjoyed it.  There's quite a skill in controlling a horse, watching out for others around you yet focus on hitting a 4 inch ball 4 feet below you with a fairly thin stick.  It's probably called something else.
It appears that you need the hand/eye co-ordination skills of a golfer, the tactical nous of a rugby player and the horse riding prowess of the best flat racer.  Impressive.

Long to reign over us.

I note that the Guardian's headline is about a BA aircraft catching fire as it was just about to take off.  All 172 passengers (only 172, on a Las Vegas to London??) escaped unharmed, and the captain seems to get a glowing report on how he handled the situation.
The same story is well down the BBC's list, and it seems that the Guardian had a reporter actually on the plane and therefore was able to give the story a personal slant.  Lucky for them (and him!), but it begs the question about editorial decisions on lead stories.  I often ponder on why or how a particular story makes it to the top.  Some are obvious, of course, but some are decidedly 2rd rate items masquerading as top billing.  The worst situation must be when there is no obvious choice and someone (or more likely a team) have to sit down and do some head scratching on what their paper should promote or relegate.  The BBC headlined today with the Queen's long reign - pretty obvious that they would really, and even Guardian gave her second billing ...alongside a terrorist story.

Gotcha!

The Sun headlines with a typical unsympathetic 'Wham, Bam, thank you Cam' in response to the governments decision to kill 2 Brits in Syria with a drone who were allegedly plotting nasty stuff.  I don't think The Guardian's lead was quite the same as that.  Let's hope the parents are not Sun readers.

I've always thought that finishing people off by drone is quite a clinical, albeit crude, way of doing the job.  I don't suppose it's much different in principle from the old fashioned James Bond style of assassination, and is at least quite safe for the executioners.  There's a scene in the film Syriana where the generals in the US target a bad boy and zap him from afar.  Quite a good film by the way and well worth watching.

Foxy people

2 foxes this morning.  No, not what I had for breakfast, but what I saw on the way in to work on my bike today.  They didn't seem alarmed to see me bearing down on them although I suppose I look quite innocuous to a fox.  Maybe they only panic when they hear a dog barking, but I thought they might have been a little perturbed by my presence.

I feel slightly guilty when listening to news stories (usually the headline news item) about immigrants/asylum seekers.  Don't know if it's because it's been going on for a while, or that I'm not directly affected by it, but I'm now switching channels to escape hearing about it.  There, that's got it off my chest I can sleep easy now.

Don't Bank on a Dry Day.

There's a bit of debate about the Queen today.  Should she retain her 'powers' or not.
The prospective Labour leader Jeremy Corbin thinks they should be curtailed, although I have not studied his proposals, and in the Guardian Polly Toynbee goes off on a bit of a rant about how expensive, pointless etc. etc. the monarchy is and (almost) advocates scrapping it.
They have a point, I'm sure, but the arguments for having no royalty apply to almost any institution that uses public money.  In this particular case, historical context is quite important as opposed to, say, the National Parks.  Not that I'm comparing the queen to a barren landscape.

Anyway, a bank holiday came and went yesterday living up to the stereotypical British holiday by raining all day.  I received a bit of a soaking whilst assisting my wife at an equine event, but she got a 3rd place so it wasn't all bad.