Category: Other stuff

Pretty concise and snappy title eh? Yes I do have a life outside Mountain Biking. No, it’s no better written or researched.

Plumbing Hell

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

By now, you should all be familiar with my approach to any problem. First up is an all points bulletin explaining exactly why it isn’t my problem after all. It is, in fact, someone else’s problem, anyones, yours, hers, that badger over there. With that sorted, now sketch out some perfect solution that is long on fast talking and much waving of hands, but short on real world practicability.

At this point, I am essentially done, so hand it over to those with the skills and method to solve it, while staying peripherally involved to share in the glory, or prepare my exit strategy if it all goes to rat-shit.

And while this methodology has served me well in the world of work, it seems incompatible with the indescribably* complex plumbing system that has mutated from “these bloody storage heaters are rubbish” to “No that’s too easy, let’s install the new organic heating voles and back-pressure aware, quasi autonomous cosmic interface module”

I think you can probably guess which half of the project team is childishly excited by a plethora of technology which includes wireless control systems, high pressure pumps and great big bloody holes in the ground. The more practical half is left to worry about the kind of boring stuff which joins the many disparate parts into a working whole.

And while that keeps Carol awake, I’m naively convinced that integration of heat pumps from one supplier, flooring from another and the octopus mainline of pipes to somehow bring them together is easily solved with some money and more shouting. Sure there is some dim awareness that unleashing a seven ton digger may trigger a chain reaction of destruction that takes in flooring, hot water and heating which may be slightly difficult to reconcile into living conditions.

But like I say I’m not worrying about it because my skills lie elsewhere. Not sure entirely where, but it’ll probably involve a cork and an airy dismissal of some issue involving washing with a cold hosepipe. Carol has the plan firmly ensconced in her head, somewhat invalidating my multi faceted task spreadsheets, cleverly embedded with mighty pivot tables.

It has already started. Today four strong men propped up two floors with surplus circus stilts in preparation of the terrifying removal of a structural pillar, which long since paid architects assure us is probably not necessary. Having seen some mid demolition pictures, I’m advocating we sleep on the ground floor for safety. Or possibly outside in the car.

I’ve been busy designing my perfect workshop resplendent with custom designed shelves to create an aircraft hanger, and a bike storage facility with sufficient expansion space to deal with any future eBay/Wine interfaces. All that is left is to divine the x marking spot of intersecting lay lines. Because that’s where the beer fridge shall reverently placed.

You see while there are many, many problems to solve, I’ve reverted to type and admitted my main interest is if I can have a go driving the digger.

* Don’t worry I’m going to try.

BMT

On By AlexIn Other stuff9 Comments

Tap. Tap. Tap – go the raindrops on the windscreen. My fingers chase the rhythm on the wheel – tap tap tap – as a sea of blurred red brake lights stretch from here to some far unseen clear shore. It’s before 7am on a dark, wet winters’ morning and I’m going nowhere slowly, stopped by the triple roadwork bypass which cones me off from my office.

This first set is allegedly close to completion according to the cheerful signs, if not the actual evidence dimly illuminated by a hundred headlights. But providing my commute starts at stupid o’clock, their constrained one lane twitchery costs me only a few minutes. This is more than compensated by the longest roadworks in history blocking the main arterial road into Birmingham. And what has backing up the traffic for miles, in either direction, achieved during the last eight months?

You want descriptive precision? No problem: nothing, nada, fuck all – the entire premise behind this pointless digging expedition is so a single bloke can perform daily digger burnouts in a vaguely up and down fashion. That’s not quite true, I did one see a second fella with a spade, but he was utilizing this traditional bastion of the manual worker for leaning on while puffing a cancer stick. Let’s hope it’s not the gas main then? Actually on reflection…

Tap…Tap….Tap now we’re moving but so are the windscreen wipers clearing the rain, but with an end of arc tap. But not all the time, no the mnemonic is broken by blissful silence luring the twitchy one inside into a state of near calm, but then TAP TAP TAP. I’ve tried all he speeds, I’ve tried shouting, I’ve turned on the radio but that brought forth Nicky Campbell – compared to which the entire fucking windscreeen could explode, and you’d still be up on the day.

How can that man be so far up his own arse* and still spout such uninformed pretentious bollocks, while simultaneously adding smug, patronising and condescending to his overflowing bucket of wrongness? Radio off, Tap…S I L E N C E… Swish…… TAP – God it’s the bastard love child of Chinese Water Torture and the ‘Get the Parent’ game babies play. Cry, Quiet, Quiet “YES YES YES SHE’S GONE” WAIL…OH FUCK YOUR TURN” – tell you what pass me the dentist drill for a bit of displacement therapy.

The final set of roadworks started today carelessly chopping out a couple of motorway lanes, inevitably on the busiest stretch. The next six months are laid out in front of me with cold, stationary cars and heated drivers. It’s some bloody cosmic hurry up to get me back to commuting, and it’d be a bloody privilege to listen to knees creaking, breath rasping and the imminent crumbling of some key, yet poorly maintained, bicycle component. But I’m holding out for light at one end, and a level of breeziness not troubling the Beaufort scale.

Tap..Tap..Tap, the sound of one mans’ desultory roadside drilling distorted by tightly sealed windows. There are those who’d question why anyone would live sixty miles from the office, but it’d be a dumb question because this is Birmingham we’re talking about. A 100 kilometers is about the minimum blast radius any sane person would choose to run away from England’s second city**

Now a creak has started from the dash, and is perfectly juxtaposed with the percussion brain damage of the wipers. I’m surmising it’s coming from the airbag, and seriously contemplate crashing into the lane weaving cock*** so firing the bloody trim into the boot. You never know, if my righteous quotient is significant, it might take the wiper with it.

Tap..Tap..Tap, calmer now heading home, on the forgotten Ross spur ‘where no cars will go‘. CD is jammed to rock 80s anthems and I’ve got a cruise control, 4 limb, all body drumming experience going on. Mercifully, the creaks and cracks have gone, except for the last of the daylight being inexorably crushed between dark land and a darker sky. But it’s 5pm and that’s getting pretty close to BMT.

Bike Mean Time is coming 🙂

* SO FAR, we’re talking a detailed examination of his small intestine here.

** 2nd to London. So not very good at all really.

*** He’s driving a BMW. So essentially a phallus in a suit.

H’mm that suddenly looks a bit serious

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Photography7 Comments

Today I’ve been breaking things. Planes, wings and promises mainly. Avid readers of hedgehog (and I’m setting a pretty low bar here – being able to manage your own cutlery passes for Mensa for inbound hedgies) will remember in this post I crowed over near future ownership of something similar but different.

There is complexity here, but essentially boredom, beer, eBay, the attention span of a special needs moth and an inability to say no has led to an MTB like dive into relative stupidity. So while this pre-loved trainer is replete with engine, flight box, starter, gas and something scary involving fuel pumps, I’ve made a creative leap into buying another one that’s almost exactly the same.

Madness is merely method lacking explanation and my justification was a) I don’t like backing out of deals even if I seem to have done lots of them b) this fiendish looking craft is missing a radio system and c) realistically they are nothing more than expensive consumerables with me at the controls.

c) is important as this morning I launched the little electric* into a gusty sky, having courageously re-trimmed** it the night before, and the next five minutes were nothing more than a growing conviction the bugger was overrun with alien mind control. 8/8ths cloud didn’t help much and the only time I really worked out where it was, was when I was digging it out of a frozen field.

And while replacement parts are cheap for this little soil basher, the same cannot be said for the big mutha now in my ownership. The previous owner terrified me with tales of extreme balsa action, and the 200 step instruction for starting the engine. In true hedgehog fashion, I nodded sagely and went in search of a stiff drink.

During which Carol decided to relocate the wings from their clearly unsafe position behind a cabinet, bedded down on two inches of foam and wrapped in a blanket*** while failing to understand that there isn’t much difference between six foot of wing and six foot and a bit of door aperture. There is no way I’m skilled enough to effect any kind of repair, so I gaffer taped it up and hoped for the best.

This has served me well with MTB’s and it’s important to play to your strengths I feel. Which is why I’m considering a radical approach of installing no radio at all, and just launching the plane at full chat into a big sky. I’ll feel none of that terrible responsibility to bring it back in one piece and it’ll probably be less damaged than if I were at the controls.

And best of all, I can crack open a beer as it disappears over a far horizon. I tell you, that and the knob gags are going to ingratiate me to the new club in no time at all.

* I believe RC has even more euphemistic potential than MTB. Except everyone except me appears to be 900 years old and universally sponsored by the denture industry. Knob gags have so far failed to amuse. I’ll keep trying.

** I’m not explaining this. It’s dull, hence my approach being to wait until I was partially pissed before hitting the spanners.

*** Let’s just not go there eh? Although I will say that House Harmony is not at an all time high this evening.

I’m taking that lying down.

On By AlexIn Other stuff7 Comments

I must apologise for any reduction in the already poor standard of grammar and spelling. This is entirely due to the content of this post being composed from a position supine on the floor.

I speak to you from this position after an involuntary collapse, following a nasty run in with the quote for the groundworks. It is not as if the work is unbudgeted. However the if you subtract the estimate in the – increasingly financially abstract – spreadsheet from the ginormous number that mugged me earlier, the amount that remains could essentially create the kind of liquidity conditions where Monkeys would be approved loans to buy houses*

At times like this, innovative out of the box thinking is clearly required. I’m considering either faking a gas leak and insisting the gas board dig up the entire plot to a depth of 10 feet to find it**, or using Verbal’s “Science Experiments for Enquiring Minds” set to create some kind of barely controlled explosion.

I’d be looking for a homage to that huge crater in Mexico which triggered the start of the end for the dinosaurs. I asked little Random what it was about the meteor that long term led to their deaths. “Well it would have hurt if it hit their heads” she offered.

Fair point, well made. Anyway, it’s either the teach-yourself-high-explosives or some kind of quick get rich scheme. And although neither look particularly promising right now, I’m pretty sure solutions will magically appear when viewed from the bottom end of a decent red.

It’s Friday, It’s 5pm, It’s crack-a-bottle.

* as opposed to the monkeys who are still trying to sell them.

** A ruse that is unlikely to succeed with no gas pipes being laid within a 2 mile radius of the house.

I’ve killed the dog.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Other stuff, Photography1 Comment

Okay I haven’t but how the hell can that be comfortable? I tried lying like that – cementing the owner imitating pet myth – but quickly ran out of flexibility, dignity and limbs. We’ve been leaving the cage open over night and, aside from the daily loss of at least one wicker bin, he has so far failed to eat the furniture, cat or anything structural.

I feel he may be merely luring us into a false sense of security. One day we’ll sleepily fall downstairs* only to gasp aghast “Where is the ground floor? All I can see if one fat, sickly looking dog!”

Talking of fat, I’m merely filling until time and wine converge to bring forth the much awaited** missive on plumbing. It has a poem and everything. No, I know you can hardly wait either. But tonight, I abandoned this much stared at tube to go and ride my bike. Yes that’s right, riding it, not fixing it, hanging pointless bling off it, or staring at it with frankly worrying thoughts.

It’s thawed. Hard trails have disappeared under muck. Tyre trails snaked more sideways than straight on. Trees viscously reached out of the dark to deliver a barky headbutt. Nothing much was frozen, except for feet and noses. We lured in a newcomer with talk of an easy ride and almost no hills; and now he’s bruised and broken, but vowing to come back for more.

Top night all round really 🙂

* now Carol has removed the carpet which makes a “Headlong Plunge Fakie Bloodied Skull Finish” the descending move of choice.

** This might be classed as a phrase quite close to marketing. Which is the Dictionary Of The Hedgehog is the entry next to Painful Death.

Fly like a ….

On By AlexIn Other stuff6 Comments

… turd. That’s more than an adequate description of the manikin like gyrations of the little SuperCub I’ve been abusing over the holidays. I’m yet to be convinced my twiddling of the sticks* is in any way controlling the random perambulations of the flying rabbit** as it terrorises innocent patches of sky.

It’s more that a few thousand bits of foam happen to be flying in the same direction. Only when it magically appears back overhead does the full horror of my total lack of spacial awareness become terryfyingly apparent. I must be the only man ever to be dive bombed by his own air force. Well apart from the British when the Americans forgot to update the arial SatNav.

On another long trudge to fetch the bloody unsteerable thing from a far away field, I under-breathed admitted that maybe I needed some help. Nothing new there, but specifically in the art of bringing the plane to heel. I’d tried shouting at it – a technique daily demonstrated with the dog and even less successful; the dog just stands there with a “who me?” look about his fizog, while the plane buggers off over the horizon – and when that didn’t work sort of ran out of ideas.

But my grumpy DNA mixes badly with kind people explaining gently how to do things. It’s not that I think they’re wrong, it’s just that I can’t bear not being right. And my brief immersion into the Radio Control fraternity suggests Mountain Bikers + 20 years and even more bloody pedantic.

You know how it’ll go; I’ll turn up somewhere, do my best to be quiet and still then somebody’ll quote a rule at me, and the next thing it’ll be smashed balsa everywhere, and the police will become involved. Instead I decided the best way to learn was to up the ante in terms of danger and cost. That picture goes by the precedent name of “boomerang” which suggests it’ll be arriving back on earth in a smash of glazing and expensive parts.

We’re talking over ONE HORSEPOWER of raw power there people. And a radio system that has the word “computer” emblazoned all over the manual. And I’m buying it secondhand because – as everyone in the know knows – trainers are flown by calm, rational people who hardly ever scream “Oh Fuck I’ve dropped the controller and now IT’S COMING RIGHT TOWARDS US – EVERYBODY DOWN!” before a noise like the world exploding, and the traditional burying of the remains in a carrier bag.

Now with my unblemished history of second hand motors and computers, nothing – snigger if you must, but I tell you – nothing can go wrong. Especially since some poor unsuspecting bugger has offered to help. I feel money may have to change hands after the first flight.

I have neither the time or money for another hobby. Apparently we’re in training for the HONC***, the house spreadsheet has entered scary new worlds of advanced calculus, and there’s all sorts of stuff going on at work that really demands my full attention.

Still, always time to polish a turd eh?

* Not that stick. This is bloody well hard enough already.

** As named by one of my children. Yes, it was the random one.

*** New year, new rule. No beers with more than 4.5{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} alcohol content. Oh yeah, I’m serious about this race

Musings from 40,000 feet

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Pretentious nonsenseLeave a comment

A little out of sequence but I thought it’d gone when I found a bit of the treasured memory stick hanging from the mouth of our dog. Luckily he only ate the lid. Seemed to quite enjoy it to. Anyway.. flying to South Africa (“Welcome to the Basket Case of the Word“), I wrote this:

I am sat here, alone, cynically observing advanced states of catatonia in airline supplied romper suits. They are all pissed of course, downed by measures that would stun a hearty donkey. And shrouded under duvets of the purest white that put me in mind of a legion of dead, fat, middle aged corporate warriors

I’m sober through a combination of a waiting hire car, and the enduring memory of an incident many years ago involving multiple bottles of wine, and nearly being turned back at American customs. So my ears are full of engine roar displacement music, and I’m left with eight hours of nothing to do but sneer at a plethora of business class worthies – each thinking they are more important than each other.

They are clearly more important than me. The whole experience from collection in a posh car driven by an old man with values slightly right of Genghis Kahn, to being whisked through security by a pretty women who knew my name feels like it should be happening to someone else. I’m mentally back on the train to a factor of about five – this is not my world, these are not my people, I don’t belong here.

The Virgin “upper class wing” – their words, never mine – describes this feeling in spades. It’s clearly been designed to a brief of “funky” and so split between zones of fun, work, chill out, and emergency haircuts. I’m about as close to Amish in spaces like this as you can get. Wandering about, waiting to be thrown out until I find something that looks visibly close to a bar.

Grabbing a beer served by two happy barmen who talk about their customers – between serving cocktails to the type of people who cannot demean themselves by looking their lessers in the eye – so we swap stories of arseholes, and watch the death throes of English Rugby on the big screen. They love their jobs to be fair, it’s good money and better to be away from the general bottle throwing population out in the public areas.

Having found some kindred spirits, I extend my shoulder chip to the sit down bar found on the plane. When everyone else has passed out, the cabin crew tell me that – even at a third full – all the profit in at this end of the plane, and everyone downstream in the cheap seas are nothing more than organic baggage.

I risk a non committal smile as a defence mechanism in the same way I’ve failed to kick off about my drivers’ “they come over here taking our jobs” rant a few hours earlier. For which there are many reasons, the sort of reserve the English feel allows dictators to invade sovereign countries, a weary acceptance that I’m not clever enough to make people see another side to an argument, and the guilt that comes with me pushing the firm to pay for me to fly this way.

People lampoon Billy Connolly with the dichotomy of his castles and working class welding stories. I feel a bit like that. I’m desperately proud of being brought up in a small house with a proper coal cellar, but still secretly love the trappings of the business traveller.

Bloody hell, that’s such a craven admission I think I’ll risk a beer. It’s that or I’m going to start poking sleepy passengers with an accusing finger and a demand to know where they get off being such dickheads.

Everything for a pound.

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

This seems to be the mutli-layered marketing message* being blasted indiscriminately from every form of media outlet, although the input it triggers seems to be mixed. For example, Selfridges reported 2,000 delusional basket cases queuing outside since half way through Christmas day, whereas Ross-on-Wye was essentially closed.

Not entirely, but aside from some desperate window posters offering 70{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} off, a free holiday and first go on the owner’s budgie, it was all shuttered up and hibernating until the new year. Except for a good number of retail outlets that appeared to be closed forever, their little deaths confirmed by half iced windows not really hiding empty rooms filled only with uncollected post.

The BBC cheerfully quoted some Grim Reaper’s accounting committee who predicted the UK economy will shrink by nearly 3{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} in 2009 – a number so historic, our public service broadcaster was able to fire off a salvo of statistics likening such a downturn to the first year after the second world war ended.

Since my mum is staying with us, I asked her how bad that was. Apparently the problem was the country was entirely broke, and even if you had any cash – which nobody did – you couldn’t buy anything. Bread rationing actually started after the war, and those little books granting right to such luxuries as an ounce of butter were around until 1950.

But – sounding an optimistic note – she also told me this was fine, since nobody was getting bombed and a little Welsh fella called Bevan was promising the state would look after you. Completely different to 2009 then, where the UK has promised to try and stop bombing people, the state is going to hock itself up to the eyeballs with a level of debt so huge you need wide angle eyes to read it, but hey – GREAT NEWS – it’s unlikely we’ll return to rationing.

Every cloud and all that. The local outlet store (think of Bicester village and take it down a few notches, more poundstretcher with end of line duvet covers) promised massive discounts and indoor warmth, which led me to ignore the fiscal rules introduced since “Black Thursday – the day the Heating Quote Arrived” and go mad in the trouser department.

Four pairs of jeans for£50. Satorial elegance has never been my thing, but even at that price this stops me wandering the streets in my pants, while not constricting blood to my thighs, and er, other parts. We also bought a bin which cost twice that. It is quite a special bin tho and goes my the name of Derek (the Dalek Dustbin) – we didn’t really need a new rubbish receptacle, but Colin was looking for a bit of companionship.

I so need to go and ride my bike. Many reasons, but the one I’m citing here is that there are four pairs of jeans that’ll be nothing more than shelfware unless I either suck it and stop breathing, or get serious about reducing the girth of these “Buggery Grips“.**

* Coming Soon: “The Hedgehog Private Members Bill: Banning Marketing and shooting all the Marketeers. A vote for common sense”

** A delightful phrase served up from Dave ‘the Man of Shoreditch’ Hoyland. Took me a while to work out what he actually meant, and then “urrgghhhh“

Christmas Presents – Part 2 and 3

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Other stuff, PhotographyLeave a comment

Part 2 you can see right there ^^. That photograph was supposed to depict the speed, excitement and frisson of danger that only a competitive game of Air Hockey can create. Sadly, it fails to do so which is a shame because – even our bargain basement example – is way more fun that a big fan, a swathe of MDF and two Mexican hats for a small dog should ever be.

The designer must have been provided with a strict brief “Think Cheap and remember we’ve got a warehouse full of black ash MDF that needs shifting“. I was transported back to 1983 on opening the box, and the whole thing has “least cost bidder” written all over it. However, this in no way affects the way it makes you giggle when playing it. I intend to get all protractor angly good at killer shots, and then start playing my friends for money.

Part 3 you cannot see as it’s under the desk and seeping a bit. My right leg has some crazy paving scarring from an accident I spent about twenty seconds trying to have last night. It was not even a big drop – less than two feet – but both the entry and exit are a bit nasty. My standard approach is to hit it as fast as I dare, so lessoning my inability to pop the front wheel at low speeds.

Last night I was following Jezz – wheel popper extraordinare – at a speed that was clearly going to require some input from me other than closing my eyes and hoping for the best. Sadly, my pre-lip gurn/lift and shift did nothing other than unclip my right foot from the pedal.

Things went downhill rather rapidly from there. The pedal whipped round and struck me a mighty blow on the calf, I pitched forward over the bars, and my left wrist rotated round those bars to almost point back at me, while waving a desperate warning. This was some way away from “stable and calm body position” experts purport is the least life threatening approach when you and the ground are no longer connected.

The landing* started with only two of my limbs attached to the bike and nearly finished there as well. Convinced the end was indeed nigh, I withdrew my head – turtle like – from beyond the stem and braced for impact. Crashing through some gorse bushes in a one legged, one armed buckaroo fashion distracted me from the unbelievable situation of still being wheels up and attached.

Eventually the cacophony of sound (bike, undergrowth, rider screaming) ended without anything damaged other than the bloody leg where we came in. Lying in the hospital after the big accident I had in 2006, I kept replaying the crash in my mind, specifically how I could have been so damn unlucky to smash myself up on such a benign trail.

Well last night Karma may well have been restored. And that seems the right note to sign off and wish all you sufferers of the hedgehog a very Merry** Christmas 🙂

* See previous post regarding the SuperCub. Landing is really underplaying exactly how fraught and bouncy things were at this time

** Oh yes. Starting about now. What d’ya mean it’s 9am? And your point is?

Plane Stupid

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Photography3 Comments

Not those environmental worthies – most of whom happen to live under the Heathrow flightpath – crusading against a third runway, and generally being far too nice to prevent a million tons of concrete being poured. I struggle to see how making the Heathrow Terminal experience any busier can in any way be a good thing, but I care little for matters of the South nowadays 😉

The SuperCub celebrates its’ first birthday on Thursday. Last years’ Christmas present had been packed away and hidden behind the still many, many unpacked boxes*. Its’ abandonment was not merely physical, the first flights had not gone well, and even tho I’d put in some significant Sim Time, the prospect of drilling for mud with an extensive and expensive parts list held not much interest.

Especially after the local flying club – two miles away, beards mandatory, Cap and Tie at all times mandatory, humour and grace strictly forbidden – poo poohed my membership application on the grounds that it breached Rule 27, Paragraph 4, Subsection b), Item iii) towhit lowering the average age below 100. Anyway that route lay training and log books and theory, and frankly that’s far too bloody dull when you’re meant to be enjoying yourself.

So teaching yourself is both invigorating, occasionally frightening and always expensive. Yesterday with holiday and energy to burn, I launched the airdrill(tm) across the field and spent ten minutes wondering where I might be able to land it. In the same field actually, full of nascent winter crop and muddy enough to provide the kind of soft landings my vertical approaches require.

My flying has definitely improved, and I can say that with confidence because – even after eight impacts**, the stout little Supercub is absolutely intact with every component still attached. Sure I’ve had to empty the engine compartment of clay, and my lack of battery awareness did create a hike across someone elses field to retrieve the powerless plane, but otherwise all is tally-ho and top hole!

I can now fly right and left circuits, twirl figure eight turns, and mostly work out which way to twiddle the sticks when the plane turns turtle and heads back towards me like a homing missile. So having mastered that, I should bed down these manoeuvres, work on my turns, try and land the plane within a square mile of the house and generally hone my skills.

What I’m actually going to do is try some aerobatics. I know, I know you’re thinking the same as me “Top Idea what could possibly go wrong?”

* Does anyone else think if you have no idea what the contents are, and haven’t been casting around for the “forty eighth stuffed toy, you know the one that looks like the other 47“, donating the whole damn lot of unopened boxes to charity is the right thing to do? In our family, it goes 3 to 2 against, and that’s with me claiming Murphy’s vote.

** Landing would be too charitable. The field is rough, so even a perfect approach and flare would stil result in the plane’s arse pointing accusingly to the sky. That’s my theory not ever having made that perfect approach 😉