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.

I wrote something…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuffLeave a comment

.. it’s over there at BikeMagic where Mike was again chronically short of content. I was due to go back and have another go at mincing downhill with truckage the other way, but work got in the way. Which was, too put it very mildly, quite disappointing.

Not quite as disappointing as the train falling to pieces AGAIN this evening, resulting in about 200 people crammed into the two remaining working carriages. And while it resembled the black hole of Calcutta in there, at least the doors didn’t randomly open and spit you head first into some Cotswold stone.

The rest of the train offered that and many other faults including broken heating and a whistling sound which could only have been a precursor to something exploding. I was so grateful to finally get home, only four and one half hours after I’d left London, I fell to my knees on the platform and snogged it – Pope like – to announce my arrival.

I’m starting to get all ‘Chiltern Railways’ about that train journey.

You can dance..

On By PhotoIn Other stuff, Photography4 Comments

Murphy 6 months, originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

You can jive, having the time of your life*

I am mired in a pile of shit here. Not literally, although our weekly night ride later in the lamping rain will probably turn metaphorical into the physical. What it certainly means is I have no time to share with you my latest ranting at the world in general, and the railways in particular.

So In the meantime, here’s Murphy at six months demonstrating his:

a) Dancing skills
b) Willy.

I have a picture of me doing the same. I’ll not be posting that just yet 😉

* Yeah yeah you may be pointing and laughing at my homage to the Swedish Gods and Godesses of Pop. But I bet you are humming along.

The Reykjavik Express – Part 3.

On By AlexIn Other stuff7 Comments

Somewhat out of sequence. Parts 1 and 2 shall follow shortly. But I REALLY needed to get this off my chest this morning.

Picture the scene. Quiet carriage blissfully free from shouty mobile phone conversations , and tedious exec wanabees feebly sparring with their junior staff. Opposite two old school, old blokes greet each other warmly probably surprised the other is still alive.

One is executive director of this, the other retired chairman of that. I know all this because their privileged upbringing is not governed by the same rules as the rest of us. They talk loudly and confidently, either unaware or uncaring that twenty other people are firing up their stares of death.

No one says anything of course because we’re British. Except when a grumpy Northerner, with a bastard head cold, is stripped of even the faintest veneer of social politeness.

Worthy 1: “So have you seen old Bryan Potter at all?”

Worthy 2: “No not since the last ‘Crush the Poor’ black tie do at the Grosvenor“

Worthy 1: “Yes, he didn’t look well did he?”

Grumpy Northerner: “He’s dead. Obviously“

Worthy 1: “I beg your pardon“

GN: “Dead. Brown Bread. Gone to a better place. Oh sorry, wasn’t I included in your conversation? You were just talking so loudly I assumed it was a public meeting“

Worthy 2 Splutters: “How Rude“

GN: “Yeah you are, why don’t you f*ck off to next door where all the other noisy self-important wastrels* are?“

Silence in the carriage again. Embarrassed silence I’ll grant you but silence all the same. Broken only by two old blokes huffing out of their seats, and lamenting the lack of respect from their lessers.I cannot tell you ladies and gentlemen how much I LOVED that. 41 and going soft on the outside, 21 and still railing against the bloody world on the inside.

* I was particularly proud of “Wastrel”. Because normally when I’m that angry the my vocabulary is reduced to “F*ck off you F*cking F*ckers“

Revolving doors

On By AlexIn Other stuff3 Comments

Last week, a vicious and unprovoked attack was visited upon my innocent person. What was surprising – since I was in London so fully anticipated being killed and eaten – was that the assault wasn’t some scally with an eye for quick mugging, no it was powerfully executed by a door.

Well a set of doors to be accurate. They guard the portal of our client building, and sport an interesting differentiator in being programmed to commit corporate manslaughter.

These doors and I have previous. They perambulate gently until an innocent attempts the fiendishly complex procedure of entering or exiting the building. As the victim triggers the doors orbital sensors, rotation increases to gently smooth their way into the building.

And right there is a failure to translate design intent into implementable reality. The now terrified occupant of the whirling glass box of death spins at every increasing speeds until reaching escape velocity. There are only two possible outcomes; either he or she is fired out onto the main road – generally into the path of a passing taxi – or launched at the phalanx of security guards who form a protective huddle to the front of the expensive reception furniture.

Now I don’t know much about “valuing our clients” but such door based behavior seems to test the rule “you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression”

To date, I’ve applied Yorkshire Logic to the problem, eying up my doory nemesis with a manly stare before exiting via a firm shove – ignoring the whooshy nonsense of acceleration. And that has worked just fine until the day the building droids re-calibrated the sensors.

Striding confidently towards a decent cup of coffee, I matched my speed with the accelerating door, and made a beeline for a closing gap betwixt door and frame. At which point, the rotational motor was hotwired with a 10,000 foot electrical jolt up the japs eye. That can be the only explanation for the “smoking axle of spin” which turned a simple door into a human blender.

i wouldn’t have been ejected into the road, more likely I would have been transported to a far galaxy had I been bulleted out of that rifling barrel. Fortunately my desperate lunge failed to gain access, and instead I was skewered between door panel and frame. Rucksack to the back, snozzle to the front and arms waving pointlessly in between.

The only thing saving me from major veterbre trauma was the works laptop acting as a rucksack based buffer to the increasing strains of the killer electic motors. But I really didn’t want to break that after what happened last time. However, right now my concern was more the queue of increasing bystanders quietly pissing themselves.

Security came to my aid by pointing out my predicament to anyone within earshot. Eventually after frantic flapping and undignified waving of trapped limbs, the pressure eased and I was ejected outside in the manner of a hand slapping “and don’t bother coming back, we don’t want your sort in here”

The door leered at me. I’m sure it did. Still I’m pretty sure I pulled off my painful exit without the loss of any dignity. Hardly anyone pointed to their friends and said “it’s him, no honestly he was stuck in the door, got it on my phone, I’ll stick it on YouTube later”

Somedays I feel I am pushing at a door marked pull.This experience merely confirms it.

Signs of madness

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

Regular victims of eruptions from my venting spleen will know I am much troubled by the idiocy of life as presented in daily packages of stupid. Lately the eye of vexation has strayed to signage – not useful stuff pointing out certain death if you touch that* but the entirely pointless or just plain bonkers.

Let me quote a few representative examples

“Please leave these toilets as you would expect to find them“. So I installed a small bookshelf, line of optics and reading light.

“Turn Left for Guide Dogs for the Blind“. Now that’s just silly, the dog can’t read that. Especially if he’s driving as well.

“Baby on Board“. So what? Want me to make amusing deformed rabbit impressions as I pass?

“Give way to pedestrians“. As opposed to what, just running the poor buggers over?

“You are entering South Yorkshire, a Nuclear Free Zone”. Okay it’s a bit old, but even at the age of 11, I could see that no Russian Bomber pilot was likely to respect the fact that Barnsley had a bloke selling socialist worker.

I could go on, no really I could. Just try to stop me. However, it’s Friday night, Wine O’clock and I’m in the slot for preparing the house for my Dad’s 70th Birthday party. I am not working from a high water mark here either – Having got the kids to sing Happy Birthday down the phone, I excused the lack of card with an airy “No card yet Dad, kids have made you a lovely one”

Tap-Tap on Shoulder. Whisper. “Not now Random, we’re talking to Granddad, anyway Dad as I was saying..” Tap-Tap-Tap”No DAD We haven’t” ‘RANDOM SHUT UP‘ “No Dad, You never asked us, we’ve not done it” ‘RANDOM!’ LEAVE IT “Dad, she’s got a memory problem, probably dropped on her head as a baby“.

So here’s a top weekend tip. Don’t ever work with animals, children or speakerphones 😉

EDIT: And just this morning – although since it is actually before 7am, a chronological value of “still the middle of the bloody night” would be more appropriate – two more missives has reached my analogue inbox:

1) Fresh Fruit ready to eat. Packaged in South Africa and Poland. What is wrong with that sentence 😉

2) A scribbled note on the carriage door “The quiet carriage has a vibration this morning. For customers wanting quiet, please use the non quiet carriage located in the next carriage”

This kind of repetition whiffs of the kind of thing Chiltern Railways’ used to get up to.� It sort of makes sense if you remove any trace of irony, and disassociate it from how Human Beings normally communicate. They can’t help themselves tho, and on my return journey I expect to find a sign “carriage, carriage, carriage, broken, carriage, carriage, late, carriage.”

* but don’t you want too anyway. Just in case it’s a big hoax. And if it isn’t you’ll be far to dead to worry about the embaressment.

Old Kona, new paint job

On By PhotoIn Other stuff3 Comments

Old Kona, new paint job, originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

Arrived today in the midst of a work crisis so deep they’re calling it the “UK Trade Deficit”. I just had time to insert non boingy fork into lovingly repainted frame before spending most of my evening driving to Swindon.

Not for work, to offload the roadrat to a very nice man who has absolved some of my new bike buying guilt, by taking an old one off my hands.

Already the Kona is showing it’s age with a noticeable lack of cable stops that shall require my best shed-bodgery, or a load of white gaffer tape. I’m not in a huge rush to build it as the tyre clearance does not suggest awesome mud performance.

In fact, after last weeks slopfest in the Forest of Dean, I’m considering a switch to tracked vehicles until light again becomes a feature of the hours post 5pm.

Right I’m off to search eBay for a turn of the century mallet. It’s important to respect the age of a thing. As I keep trying to explain to my kids….

Earthquake!

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

Not the sound of Random attempting to combine “quiet” and “stairs“. I discounted that having established we were all in the same room, yet there was a trembly rumble that can be best described as a train passing through Platform 1, Our bedroom at speed.

Only later did I find out we’d been somewhere close to the epicentre of a proper earthquake, although I’m still suspicious of the cause. We’re smack bang in the middle of a rather large tectonic plate here, but not too far away from lots of drunk people falling over in Birmingham.

Co-incidence? I’m not sure. Anyway, just thought you’d like to know we’re all still alive and, from what I can see, the house has the same number of walls as it did pre-shudder. That’s the good news, the bad news is I’m back at work and shall be spending the entire day really adding value to the firm, by reading and deleting 180 emails.

I shall be nominating myself as leader of a World Dictator Priority Committee establishing new rules on “talking to people when you want to find something out“. A sub group shall be recommending penalties for anyone sending out pointless emails to 20 people and asking for comments. I will be pushing back on anything less stringent than “instant and painful death“.

Cwm on Down

On By PhotoIn Other stuff5 Comments

Pace 405 DH, originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

Tomorrow is D-Day. D is for Downhill, or possibly Death. I’ve rubbered up the Pace with some 2.5in wide knobblies, shortened the cockpit with an ickle stem, ditched the SPD’s and bunged in some fat inner tubes.

All of this is displacement activity for thoughts of being a) really slow and shit and b) as previously mentioned, Dead.

I was further concerned by the state of my leg armour – I don’t remember being savagely attacked by a pride of lions, but from the scars and gouges, this can be the only possible explanation. Well there may be others, but I’m trying not to think about those either.

Essentially I’ll be placing myself front and centre in an experiment to test a human crumple zone. So, I’m taking the big camera to record the heroics of my friends, and to give me a good excuse to nesh out, if it all gets a big scary.

Honestly, I’m really looking forward to it. Can you tell?

See that..?

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Murphy 6 months (4), originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

… It is a labraphant. A new breed of animal created by fusing the body of a dog with the size of an elephant. I could not help but notice he is now the second largest hound in the morning dog walking pack.

A pack which includes a number of different size animals, but none of which you’d really need to bend down to pat. He is going to be an absolute monster at a year old. If you can stretch the definition of a monster to something that wishes only to please, sleep and eat.

Murphy 6 months

Murf is revelling in his growing fitness. We’re trying hard not to overexercise him, but the bugger just wants to run and run. And then sleep for the rest of the day. Unless there is any food on offer.

Murphy 6 months (2)

He’s a good dog though. We saw one of his brothers over the weekend and what a fat old bruiser he has turned out to be! Our hound is a bit of an young softy really; not very brave and still not a swimmer even after a) we threw in the Airdale terrier* he was chasing around the pond and b) after I accidentally booted him at the deep end.

Got his own back tho. The smell of damp dog is probably illegal in Surrey.

* with the owners permission. Not sure we checked with the dog tho. Can’t say it looked that happy 😉

Time Machines: Part II

On By AlexIn Other stuff7 Comments

Let’s assume for the purposes of possible comedic merit, that I have decided not to mess with the causal narrative of history. Although if that girl is out there (sadly I can no longer remember her name), I maintain it was a bloody nice jumper. So I’m sat here with my time machine, a copy of an illustrated history of the world and the DVD remaster of “Bill’n’Ted’s Great adventure“. Where would I go?

16th century London I think. Right slap bang in the middle of the Elizabethan age. Not, as you may think, because of Shakespeare turning up, the vast population explosion of our capital city or seeing off the ruddy Spaniards for the first time. No, it’s because London was the epicentre of that quaint European custom of chopping peoples heads off.

This was a surprisingly common judgement on crimes ranging from ursary*, treason and being a poor person in the presence of a rich person. And because the whole caboodle was run by a ruling class who believed strongly in the idea of positive deterrent and justice for all**, a site was established at the southern end of Southwalk bridge for the display of grisly faces recently deceased.

And what was the best part of such a positive piece of social inclusion? Well, it was such a growth industry – well unless you were a victim, in which case rather the opposite – an official position was ordinated for smoothing the process of head to spike. The title “Keeper of the Heads” is just brilliant, but even this could be improved upon by modern day management speak.

Hand me the job of “Head of Heads” and I’ll deliver consistent spikey performance. Heading (sorry) up my crack team of “plopper onners” , we’d meet each day to freshen up the display. “Right Jim, third head on the right has been pecked to buggery, get a new one up there pronto, ginger hair if you can find one as it’ll set off the autumn colours a treat. Bill, get down the scaffold and see who is up today – I’m going with a ‘big nose” pastiche next week, so get scouting for some outsize snouts”

I’ll accept there are some downsides. Squalid living conditions, virulent diseases such as plague, typhoid and cholera. Average lifespan of 32 years and a better than average chance of being accidentally murdered. But not only could I revel in the glory of being the much respected “head of heads“, I could do while quaffing strong beer at the average daily rate of the time. That’ll be a gallon then.

Wonder what commuting would have been like? 🙂

* Lending money on credit. I think we should consider bringing that back onto the statute boo

** Except for them of course. Take privilege back to it’s linguistic roots and you get “above the law”