Author: Alex

Shelf Life.

On By AlexIn Site StuffLeave a comment

This has to be my best excuse for failing to prod the ‘hog lately. I need to share with you my experiences of extreme tentage in Wales surrounded by beautiful views and many varied flavours of rain and cold. Because soon either the memory will fade, or the counselling will kick in.

There’s a new sport I’d like your views on as well. It’s like a triathlon for pussies – not the feline kind either although maybe that could be something we’d like to consider.

But I’ve been putting up a non ironic shelf which seems to have taken me around three days on and off. It is a thing of beauty, and you’ll be unsurprised to hear some of the delay may have been caused by my not listening to good advice. In my defence, my deafness was due – in part – to the roar of revving powertools. The Jigsaw has taken the number one spot in my favourite tools of destruction.

Shelf wasn’t in the house of course. No, it was another one for the workshop and involved much crouching under benches and smacking lightly thatched bonces on the vice handle. So awed was I with something that ended up level-ish and still there the next morning, I’ve moved on to something even more complex.

I am beginning to think of it as sculptural art. Sort of industrial wood-chic if you will. And if you won’t, well fair enough but once it’s done, I’ll be back although with less machine guns and wooden acting that Arnie. Someone told me he’s Governor of California? Pah what a jest, next thing you’ll be trying me on that we’re releasing terrorists so BP can ruin some more of the planet.

I’m not as green as tha’ cabbage is painted I’ll have you know.

Commuting rules..

On By AlexIn Bikes, Road RidingLeave a comment

.. not when it’s raining it doesn’t. Nor am I postulating on the stuff that used to keep me exercised both mentally and physically. What I’m talking about here are the hard, inflexible rules hammered into any cyclist whose spent time on the road and in the rain. The kind of thing you get wrong just once, before it’s hard-wired into your cycling psyche.

Except when your daily commute becomes a weekly or bi monthly event. Then you forget and bad stuff happens.

It gets dark. Check your lights. Long day, shorter daylight demands some form of get-me-home illumination. Of the four lights generally festering in my bag, two didn’t work at all, one flashed briefly before a spectacular – if brief – fizzling death while the fourth offered a dim flashing facsimile of something that may prevent a tractor squashing you flat.

Carry spares of everything. Including batteries. It’s worth thinking of them as fitness ballast to cushion the disappointment of these also being flat. The day I removed one of my two spare tubes, guess how many punctures I ended up with? My MP3 player was then added to the ever increasing pile of non working electronic stuff. It felt like I was riding directly under my own personal Electro-Magnetic Pulse.

Ensure you always carry a waterproof. Oh how smug was I with my trusty Gortex pal nestling amongst all the other crap I cannot bring myself to jettison. That smugness lasted exactly the time it took to remember I’d failed to re-proof though laziness and meteorological delusion* The result was a small lake pooling at the elbows and wrists that gradually – but persistently – drained through to create a feeling of clammy damp.

Mudguards look a bit gay, but… they are a marked improvement on – say – flappy wet shorts rythmically slapping your thighs with each pedal stroke. It put me in mind of sharing a small, cold bath with a Bavarian Laderhosen fetishist who’d just done a line of speed. My shoes have the same porous qualities as string creating a small watersports park for Lemmings in my socks.

Don’t go offroad because it’ll be drier under the trees. It isn’t. Rather than a wet arse, I ended up with a sandy, wet arse and crazy pebble dashing from ankle to eyebrow. And a shouty bruise delivered by that tractionless combination of thin tyre and thick mud. I’m writing to the Forestry commission to demand satisfaction on the issue of who put that tree there as well.

Keep your tyres inflated. Because while there is a certain manly pleasure in rotating squashy rubber**, the downside is a tarmac faceplant caused by rapid deflation or geographical differences between tyre and rim.

All obvious stuff you would think. No more than common sense for the serious cyclist. And I too was thinking just that as spiteful rain lashed my unprotected form, my arse became increasingly exfoliated by a localised sandstorm, and my feet exhibited the first symptoms of trenchfoot.

Right at the point when I was considering lobbing the bike under a passing lorry and hitching home, the descending sun backlit hill hugging clouds and transformed the world into something Turner-Esque and rather splendid.

Deciding I could get no wetter, I headed upwards into the lightening gloom to find myself high above the house, close to twilight with no power in my lights, not much pressure in my tyres, and every inch of skin on the aquatic side of extremely soaked. The plunge home took in grass covered roads, slick, shale corners, blind bends and an immense amount of blinking.

Arrived alive, declared to disbelieving family how much I love bikes. Swapped cold water for warm and wetness outside for wine inside. Slackness on the riding front has happened again this August, and I had begun to worry that my long affair with all things two wheeled was coming to an end.

It seems not.

* It’s never rain that hard. It’s summer for Christ’s sake.

** It’s that mental image of the Bavarian. It’s got me thinking…

Keep Calm and Carry On.

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

Nearly seventy years old, but still as punchy and concise as the day it was first displayed. I’m feeling rather punchy after the concise message from the garage that all is not well with the Love Bus. Apparently they’ve never before found a fault with the steering caused by someone not driving it. You may be shaking your heads in the time-honoured warranty fashion on hearing “I was just riding along and my frame snapped in four places“. But I tell you, Friday fine, undriven till yesterday, last night: broken.

This is distracting me from two other rather pressing issues. The first being a tent being handed over by a friend of mine with the mischievous narrative “Oh it’s really easy to put together, just follow the instructions“. NOTHING is easy to put together if it has instructions. I can quote at length from flat pack furniture through children’s toys to mountain bike components accompanied by a manual translated from Chinese to English, via Urdu by a man who only knew enough of both languages to sell a camel.

But erect* it we must, because the second Elephant In The Room is holding an umbrella and scouting about for a very large dingy. Yes I know camping at the Autumn end of August isn’t very bright, but neither is attempting such lunacy with four members of the family who’ve never done it before. One of them which smells and snores even worse than I do. Hard to believe, but sadly the ear perforating, nasal hair shrivelling truth when one considers the aural stinky disaster that is Murphy the Labrador.

Our camping experience is a light one. Well not really as we have nothing more than ten quids worth of dim electric candle and some head torches of similar, dubious quality. And a very small – yet potentially lethal – stove. And a kettle. And that’s it. So if it** rains, that’ll be four people and a mad dog confined in a small canvas dome wondering if “I Spy” can be classified as mental torture under UN rules.

Still assuming the car gets fixed before we’re meant to leave, then at least I can sleep in it. The last two occasions I’ve created a tentage experience, someone else has had the pleasure of sleeping in it, while I shoe-horned myself into the back of the truck. Unlikely to get five of us in it – primarily because the doors will be locked and I shall have ear plugs in. So deaf to the entreaties of my family who may well be shouting “WHOSE BLOODY STUPID IDEA WAS THIS?”

Ah. Well. H’mm. And on that salutatory note, I shall bid you farewell, only to return in a few days with tales of trenchfoot and emergency B&B’s no doubt.

* I’m too fraught to offer up my normal stable of giant erection “nobody thinks they are funny but you” missives. Be thankful.

** When

Dog flies, I bleed, welcome to the weekend.

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

I am only writing this because nine nails are bitten to the quick, and the other one is encased in a very large plaster. Cricket you see; a logical part of the mind chastises “it’s only a game, there is nothing you can do to alter the outcome, you should care this much” whereas the other part – that bit that goes aarrgggthh ever time a gloating Aussie scores 400 with the bat stuck to his head or something – just wants England to win back the Ashes.

Other way round, we have to make 550, they have to bowl us out, it’s over in 50 overs with a batting average reading capitulation and humiliation. They bat and the buggers just think “550? Pah, we’ll be done by tomorrow lunch and have the rest of the day off“.

And who says recycling saves the planet? It may well do but it didn’t save my finger which was surgically sliced by an unseen broken glass. Probably lost in all the wine bottles. 10 minutes of bleeding and no sympathy later, it was off to the community hospital in Ross to lie about my last tetanus and be bandaged up yet again.

It’s almost as if I’m clumsy or something. Whatever, blood loss must have been the trigger for an all expenses raid on the local camping shop, from where we left staggering under the weight of “essential” equipment. Yes, next week we’re going to try camping for the first time with the kids. Not to save money as the cost of all this kit could easily have paid for a nice hotel, with a snug little bar.

Instead we’re borrowing a tent, and heading out to the wilds of Cardigan Bay. To spend three or four days marooned under stormy skies with only a moist, smelly dog for company.

Sounds ace doesn’t it? But if the inevitable cricketing tragedy plays out, at least there’ll be radio silence. In the meantime, here are some more levitating dog pictures.

Murphy - August 09 Murphy - August 09

Murphy - August 09 Murphy - August 09

Anybody wants me, I’ll be whimpering under a blanket with only radio 4 and a hip flask for company.

Dog-Gawn

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

Strange phone call the other day, starting: “Have you got a black Labrador?”. A swift review of my personal inventory showed a worrying absence of stinky mutt. “Not right now I answered” wondering what this dog obsessed stranger wanted, and how he’d got my number.

The answer came quickly; the number was on Murphy’s collar which was co-located with the mutt on the main road between Ledbury and Ross. An arterial trunk that carries much in the way of heavy lorries and dopey tourists – both of which are piloting vehicles that would deliver much squashage to fur and flesh. Especially if it’s wandering about in the middle of the road attempting to lick bumpers.

We retrieved the dog – much chastised – and even though he knew he was being pointlessly bollocked, his little brain would not have picked up that those very bollocks were in line for an expensive operation with a couple of house bricks. Dog Lore says that wandering mutts are generally chasing *ahem* ready ladies, and the best way to nip that in the bud is to nip the poor bugger in the nuts.

If that wasn’t bad enough – which let’s face it if you’re any sort of bloke, it’s way more than enough – the Hound of Smell is on starvation rations. A review of his bi-daily snout experience suggests that now he’s stopped growing*, his bowl should be filled to a mere 3/4 of the previous amount. Still Murph’s having the last laugh with supper augmentation of smelly cow shit.

And while recent visitors have accused us of replacing the lovely puppy with a crudely reshaped horse, this is not the animal that is giving us the most gyp. After nearly three months of bulking up, fighting and failing to lay any eggs. At least one of the useless fluffies spent that time creating some kind of rifling system up it’s bottom as the much-awaited first egg appeared to have been fired from a cannon. Very odd shape.

That was the only egg. We haven’t seen so much as a yoke since. One key reason behind this is the bloke selling to us was clearly a Grade-A liar. Because two of the chickens have started crowing and performing technical rape of the other three. I have a feeling they may be boy chickens.

I might send Murphy in there to go check them out. Still if he can’t shag it, he’ll probably eat it.

While I have been writing this the England cricket team are attempting to lose the ashes by chucking wickets away with the kind of gay abandon that has any avid fan chewing the keyboard in frustration. Never has the phrase “Snatching defeat from the jaws of Victory” been so apposite.

* Thankfully. He treads on your foot, you go to hospital for a new one.

Ask a silly question…

On By AlexIn Other stuff6 Comments

Remember the first time you tried something new? The mental vertigo experienced while teetering over the scary chasm of much unknowing. The gap between what you know now and what you need to know is both exciting, frustrating and occasionally terrifying. This holds for many activities explored in our younger years – learning to drive, going to work and the sweaty, fumbling of sexual experiences*

At almost pensionable age of 42, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to think those days – like so much other stuff – are far behind me. But that’s just not the case, the pie chart of all-knowing still has at big old cake slice marked “How the fuck do I do that?“. A second, and larger, section coloured in a deep angry red reads “Why the fuck am I doing that?“. Another reason for this yawing gap between what I need to know and what I don’t can be simply summarised by this conversation with the small random child.

“Daddy, what was it like when you were 30? Was it much different” to which my considered answer was “I can’t even remember what was occurring when I was 40, only ghostly mists of largely concealed hinterland are visible before then“. Probably a bit much for an eight year old, and last time I looked she was googling for exactly where in the world “Hinterland may be located”

But the point – and yes there is one in case you were concerned I’d descended into incomprehensible dribbilisaion** – is a combination of fading memory, inability to learn new skills and an enlarged impatience gland do not offer the succour of a sanguine middle age. Yesterday extensive experience of crashing brought forth some structural changes to a much loved model glider. Some would celebrate its’ new easy-to-carry design with a detachable tailplane, and a few hundred balsa shards that can be simply transported in a spare pocket.

Others – myself included – may shake an impotent fist at the unseen meterological forces that makes landing four pounds of wood go something like “missed the ground, missed the ground, missed the ground, shit where’s it gone, HIT the ground, crraasshhhh“. My inability to close the knowledge gap takes many forms, one of them being a God given ability to ignore the advice of those who clear do know what they are talking about: “Don’t go that far behind the slope, you’ll crash” they said. “No I won’t” I said “Need a bag to carry the remains?” they then said.

Anyway it wasn’t my new glider and I can probably repair it with such skill it might even fly again. Assuming it’s carried off by a passing bird of prey with poor eyesight. But one facet of this repair splash landed in the custard of doubt***, and I inadvisedly “leveraged the power of the virtual expert” by posting a very simple question on an Internet forum. What I didn’t get was a simple answer.

The first ten replies told me not to start from here. I gently pointed out that decision had been somewhat taken away from me about the time that soft wood hit hard dirt. The next slew of responses marked out the tribal boundaries of the Flat Earthers and the New World Men. From there, an increasingly embittered argument descended into name calling and cyber-cage-fighting. When I last looked, the moderator had stepped in and a tense calm had broken out.

I don’t expect this state of affairs to last. They may need to call in ACAS or possibly the UN.

At no point, did anyone answer my question. This proves to me the Internet is rubbish, and my original approach to wield fast revving power tools in a whirling circle of woody death was clearly the right one. I may still be misinformed, cerebrally undercooked and darkenly unenlightened. And I’m sure to bugger up the repair with my normal klutzy incompetence. But – and this is huge ladies and gents – I am not sat eating my keyboard and offering to slice someone open with a balsa saw because they had the temerity to question my all-knowing craft skills.

I’m thinking we should go back to chisels, slates and shouting.

* Certainly was for me. Those sheep were FAST.

** Long term Hedgies will understand the nuance, newer readers may struggle to notice the difference

*** In the Pie Chart. Try and keep up.

The meaning of life…

On By AlexIn Other stuff3 Comments

… should now be an open book to a man who has reached a certain age. So far, a few hours into my forty third year, all I can tell you with confidence is an attempt to summit the upper slopes of the Malvern Alps, before breakfast, made me feel quite old.

That may have been a consequence of spending most of yesterday driving the wheelbarrow. I am the man who put the “Hard” into hard landscaping. In a traditional division of labour, one skilled individual sawed, drilled and generally laid out great swathes of stuff to be filled. Another drove the digger, while the Rude Mechanical was essentially giving it the full-on sweaty barrow boy.

I did get to drive the digger later and, as I suspected, it is the best boys’ toy ever. Fact. Predictably as it required a co-ordinated two handed driving technique, I was properly rubbish.

I shall be spending the next chunk of my birthday with a large new glider and the same old small talent. Normally the meeting of these two results in a depressing search for wreckage and the intense use of a bin bag. Should be fun.

And as my kids sang this morning:

“Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, You look like a monkey, and you smell like one too”.

Bless.

MOT

On By AlexIn Other stuff1 Comment

Stands for what: Moment Of Truth? Mode Of Transport? Money Over Time? All of those. Most Of Today I seemed to have spent the entire day trying to tax the mini truck. That’s proactive administration for me as it’s over two weeks before the normal breathless panic descends on the post office two minutes before closing time. Still on Sunday I’ll be (not) celebrating an age mostly linked with the meaning of life, so it seemed apposite to begin to get my shit together.

Now many of you non paroled hedgies have had to suffer my many entried whine list, right at the top of which is the bloody nanny state. And you’ll not be surprised as I put the critical into hypocritical with a vocal moan that nobody told me the MOT on my car had expired. About a month ago. A month in which I’ve driven over a thousand miles – essentially without insurance.

The noise you can hear is my Matrix Neo body swerve as I dodge expensive bullets. It does seem odd though that the Government wants their car tax, the insurance company their premiums, but no one seems to give a monkey’s that your car may plough into an bus queue because it’s unchecked for mechanical failures.

A cynic may argue that’s because those particular institutions care much about revenue and little about consequences. And he’d be right, which is exactly what I wasn’t as I harangued an innocent Welshman about their rubbish on line excise systems. I was feeling quite mentally excised as the computer said “No” with ever increasing determination.

“Your MOT isn’t valid Sir” said the nice man receiving my tirade (to whit: “What’s the point in putting this stuff on line if your bloody system offers nothing other than wasting my time for thirty minutes before apologetically spitting out a phone number which offers about 47 options, none of which help at all“)

“Yes Sir, but you can’t renew as your MOT isn’t valid”; / “Don’t be rediculous Man* of course, it is, it says right here valid until July 13th 2009” PAUSE. “It’s August 11th Sir”. LONGER PAUSE “And that’s your best excuse is it? I’m not going to spend any more of my time talking to you, you clearly can’t help”

Neither could four garages. The fifth promised much but has yet delivered little. Specifically a new MOT. Tomorrow I’ll be back hoping for my car, a hire car, some form of divine intervention, whatever to get me back on the road so I can bloody well get on with my job/life/ranting.

I feel I need someone to blame. However, I don’t feel it deeply enough to work out who that should be. As I have a feeling, the answer is probably close to 42.

* I’m nearly 42, I believe I’ve earned the right to be pompus at least once a day

Trigostupidry.

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

My continuing fascination to splodge together two entirely inappropriate words has brought forth Trigastupidry. This is the practical – if entirely bonkers – fusion of trigonometry and stupidity.

From the sound of cow bells, it’s clearly crazy Austrians or Germans who have come up with a cunning plan to launch a man off the side of a mountain.

It’s hard to pinpoint the epicentre of stupidity here. Is it the building of a giant sod-off ramp that’ll launch a rubber suited man at close to terminal velocity into space. You’d think so wouldn’t you. But that’s not it.

Watch where he lands. The phrase “margin of error” springs to mind as does “you have to be joking”. I mean what can of mind can precisely calculate the flight, trajectory and speed of an object, and then bazooka fleshy parts into a landing zone the size of a small paddling pool.

Are Austria a Nuclear power? I think I’d better go and check. This is not the kind of people you want with their finger on the trigger of something dangerous.

Thanks to Julian for the link.

Mud in your eye…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

… and in every other orifice as well. Think about that for a moment, while I confirm it was EVERY orifice be it covered with clothing or not. A festival of mud laid out the sloppy stuff front, centre, up, down, in and out of every bodily crevice I had inadvertently placed in the line of fire. This was not – as some of my more pervy* readers may hope – an introduction to the Malvern Hills Dogging Experience**

No the reason for my homage to a swamp monster was a ride in Haugh woods that left me 75{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} man, 25{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} slurry. Reasons abound for such muckiness ranging from a month of rain where summer should have been, and some careful harvesting of trees using nothing more than multi tracked twenty ton earth movers.

Tim – a recent innocent comet gravitationally pulled into the slightly bizarre, often drunk orbit of Planet Hedgehog – was regaling us with stories of how, under this foot of oozing nastiness, fantastic singletrack was desperate to get out. After two hours, so were we having destroyed my legs, a very expensive wheel and most of a previously pristine drivetrain.

On the upside, it wasn’t my wheel and the “Chiltern Experience” was rapidly put behind us as an old friend turned up with an even older bottle of Brandy. That ended as well as expected, and put paid to a navigationally challenged attack on the Long Mynd planned for the following day.

My riding pals have known me long enough to interpret “fellas, one thing, I’ve no idea where the fuck the start point is, never mind the route, my GPS is merely LCD candy ,and the only available map marks this region as ‘here be dragons‘” as a cry for help. In that vein they helped themselves to more alcohol and a drunken plan hatched a slightly less epic Malvern Hill Romp.

Which was – and I’m going to appeal to the common man here – fucking fantastic. It didn’t start well with hangovers, faffing and car parks full of red socks. But once 10 minutes away from the sour faced, ski-pole*** mountain bike haters, we bagged a large number of peaks stopping only to inhale vast quantities of cake and the occasional funny turn.

Some of these were my rubbish route finding, some my friends’ need to have a little lie down until Fantasia stopped playing behind his eyes. He’s not been riding much, but I was in awe of his riding approach which was to start slow and maintain that same pace for four hours plus. Not for him some ego straining push for the front – well not until I outed the cake from my Camelbak anyway.

It was ace though, still winter muddy but warm and not the Flanders experience suffered the day before. So impressed was I with the utter bloody joy of bicycles, I rocketed out of bed at 6am this morning to ride another one to work. The rain didn’t stop me, although an absence of four weeks’ commuting nearly did. So disappointed with my energy levels on the way back, I decided the best thing would be to extend the ride up the huge sodding hill summiting at the radio mast.

Nearly needed that to signal for help and possibly an ambulance. Eight minutes out of the saddle with a few hundred feet of sweaty grind, before switching gradients to a bonkers flat out descent into the valley bottom on a bike with shit brakes, thin tyres skidding over damp mud and a pilot wondering what the hell he might do for kicks when he can’t do this.

Got home. Got dog. Got kids who wanted to ride their bikes. Got another bike out and rode that with them. Well you would wouldn’t you? First day back at work was rubbish but sandwiched between wheels, I think I’ll do it again tomorrow.

* Based on what I know, that’s all of you. Except for my mum who is currently disconnected from the Internet due to youngest son’s complete failure to remotely troubleshoot a broken wireless connection. I shall be sending her up my special hammer in short course to remedy the problem once and for all.

** Which is the second highest search vector to this site. The first being “sex with hedgehogs“. I wish I were making that up.

*** “Are these the lower slopes of the Alps?” / “No” / “Then WTF?“