Three Degrees of Separation

There's a budget planned for the end of November and all the talk is about how Rachel Reeves has to fill a '£20Bn black hole'.  There's endless speculation of course as well as plenty of advice which I am sure she will be reading.  Pensions, cars, income tax all crop up as potential targets, and usually potential tax cuts as well, so I guess it just a matter of waiting to see what she 'pulls out the hat' as they always say if they didn't predict one of the changes.

Biked home yesterday, and it was dark from start to finish which does not make it so enjoyable, but when I arrived home I had a great feeling of satisfaction by completing it.  Not that I had much choice or course, so I may well find it easier next time. Mornings are a bit better now regarding the light, but getting quite cold at 6:30 when I set off.  It was about 3 degs yesterday, something I only found out when I scrutinised my weather station.  If I has seen it earlier I might have been put off.

Secrets Exposed

Not a day goes by without some insight into something that Russia/Putin has said, or has done related to what we usually call 'sabre ratting'.  Today was an article about an 'unstoppable' underwater drone and in a possibly related article, how he was told to sink a UK carrier.  Whether these are true, speculation or simply made up is difficult to know (as are most things nowadays!) but it does keep the focus on the bad guys.  I expect there are reciprocal news stories in the Russian press about those nasty Brits and Yanks, although the Brits seems to get more bad press than the US at the moment.

Biked into the office today.  I picked the best day of the week by the looks with only the cold to contend with.  Evidently it was 3 degs when I set off, thought it was a bit parky with any exposed piece of flesh feeling decidedly cool.

Dark Chocolate.

Club chocolate bars are no longer chocolate, they are now chocolate flavoured (another snack bar has also met this fate, but can't remember which one).  According to the BBC it's all to do with a shortage of chocolate, but according to GB News it's all because we let asylum seekers cross the English Channel.  Right.

I've already had 2 runs this week and it's only Wednesday, so the signs are good that I'm well on the road to recovery.  I might be braving the cold and cycling into the office tomorrow -it's definitely less easy getting out at Autumn thinks about moving into Winter.  The clocks fell back an hour last weekend and my 5 o'clock finish means I'm in the dark all the way home.

Back On It!

 "Husband regained sight but kept it a secret..." what the heck is that all about??  Then I saw it was tagged as an advert, so relaxed and went back to sleep.  That must go down as one of the most weird headlines, even though it was clickbait for an company.  It did make we wonder what the company was selling, but I'd never heard of it so it has disappeared into the digital archive of nothingness.

Running - I'm finally bac on it (I think).  I had 2 nights away from hone this week so had a bit more time to myself and ventured out into the streets of Leeds to see how I felt.  Amazingly I managed over 4 miles without any real implications (as far as I can tell so far) and followed it up with another 3 miles the following evening, so I'm very very happy with that, especially when I notice my trousers getting a bit tighter! 

Looking Up

Time, his script is you and me, boy.  I've left the rude bit out of David Bowies' classic Time from Aladdin Sane, but there are some great lyrics in there.  A lot of people don't like Bowie, but as an overall package he's in my top ten favourites - although it's probably because I listened to him in my formative years i.e. 15 - 20.   The thing about time, is that there just isn't enough of it some days.  There are not many things that money can't buy and I guess time is one of them.  In the first Superman film he managed to spin the earth backwards fast enough to relive the day again and save Margot Kidder form being swallowed by an earthquake, but not sure it actually gave him any extra time, just that he could take a different action to save his bit of totty.  Given that spinning the earth backwards is not an option for me, and outsourcing numerous services is too expensive, I need to be a bit smarter.  Possibly stop doing something, that would definitely help.  Work is the obvious thing to stop and I do have some sort of outline plan to do that in a couple of years, and the more I think about it, the more I would like to bring that forward.  However, that is probably not going to happen unless my finances improve.  So that just leaves 'stop looking at your phone'.  

Yes, that's the answer.