The Reykjavik Express – Part 1

On By AlexIn Other stuff9 Comments

I shouldn’t be writing this. I should be entombed in the graceless catacoombs of the tube system, pushing and shoving to gain access to an office that seems to need me more than I need it. But I’m marooned just outside Reading after the train failed to stop at a platform.

Let’s examine that statement shall we. How the fuck can you miss a platform? The vocational sphere of a train driver is surely little more than pressing one button marked start, and another one labelled stop. So rather than abandoning the three confused looking passengers expecting to alight at Charlebury, we backed up 8 trains on the single line and added thirty minutes to a three hour journey.

Which I could have spent reading the paper if they’re were any or working, assuming my oh-so-clever 3G connection would connect to something, anything really. I wasn’t alone in the connectivity isolation as demonstrated by the Crackberry generation grumbling around me. They switched their attention deficit to calling sleepy colleagues, so noisily confirming what a bunch of self important cock ends they really are

“Ah Good Morning Peter, sorry not too early is it? Thing is, I’m a little bored on a late train, so can you listen for a bit while I chunter on about pointless shit to show these other chaps what a thrusting executive I really am.”

I am an imposter here, a cipher in actions but not in thoughts. We all look the same, uncomfortable in suits and encumbered by technology stuff, but these are not my people. The reality of work is just because you’re good at it, is not a fantastic reason for carrying on doing it.

It’s taken me twenty years to work that out – which is a bit rubbish really since it’s quite a simple concept – and the obvious conclusion is that the trappings of a well paid job have absolutely nothing to do with any actual enjoyingment of carrying it out.

In the end I just gave up, plugged white noise into my ears and dribbled off into a broken sleep. The only upside was the volume of my mp3 player must surely be leaking into the general population. And so while they tapped vigorously, clipped brusque conversations and tried extremely hard to out-important each other, what they were really thinking was “I KNOW that riff, is is Tom Petty or the Beatles?”

Answer, neither – but since you only had a tinny base line to work with, on the return journey I’m going to augment it with some air drumming. Musical Charades to puncture the pomposity of the business carriages. We’re going to take the train back. C’mon whose with me?

I’ve never met a nice South African..

On By AlexIn Other stuff1 Comment

… as the old song goes. Actually that’s not true, a very high percentage of South African’s who have crossed my path are not even as annoying as fellow Yorkshiremen. So let me be more precise, I’m not going to meet a nice South African this week.

Starting Saturday, when I broke my own Rule#1 (Life is too short to drink with arseholes) and spent the goodly part of a day being Corporate Hospitalitied – an experience that should cause you to happily chop your own leg off, rather than spend even five minutes in this dreadful ‘Jeans’n’blazer’ experience.

And sitting high up with a commanding view of the pride of English Rugby being comprehensively stuffed by the Southern Hemisphere bullies, was in no way improved by a happy Saffer chuntering “Another try, oh this is SO GOOD, I LOVE beating the ENGLISH, It’s BETTER than SEX” [Receive Beery Prod] “Can you HEAR Me, How SHIT are your team? Totally SHIT that’s WHAT”

Eighty minutes of that got a little wearing. It’s the kind of cold strutting arrogance, iced with cruelty, but thinly veiled by Jingoistic flag waving which reminds me very much of another nation. Who would that be? Ah yes, the English.

Luckily I am able to escape the unbridled mirth of anyone who practices extreme schadenfreude whenever English sport has been humiliated- (so that’s every other nation based on today’s experience) – by leaving the country for a week. One could powerfully argue that the country that is to receive me may well continue to heap ridicule on the nation of my birth.

Yes that’s right, with perfect timing, next week I shall be travelling to Johannesburg, before which I shall be desperately practising my Australian accent. This and the terrifying schedule that has just slithered into my inbox is likely to preclude much in the way of hedgehog stuffing for a bit.

Until them, throw another shrimp on the barbie for me!

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.

Updated the bike page..

On By AlexIn Bikes2 Comments

… again

Looking for a picture of the Jake, I typed in “Kona” to my Flickr Photostream. What was returned reminded me of lots of dead relatives turning up unexpectedly for tea. I think I’m up to about 30 frames now in seven years. I don’t know for sure as a) I dare not look and b) the spreadsheet of shame has been mothballed onto a memory stick labelled “Pandora’s Electrons”

Can’t afford any more bikes. Have walls to knock down.

Kona hits the dirt!

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography5 Comments

Kona Kilauea by you.

Although hit the mud would be a more accurate description of the first meeting of old bike and recently squelched trail. It’s a build completed through the scavenger process of beg, borrow and reverse-steal*. The wheels are borrowed, the outer ring offers no toothy service other than stopping the chain falling off and the tyres are a cheeky combination of old and useless.

A lovely warm morning greeted my childish pre-ride enthusiasm. And while I was ready, the Leigh brood were not. And in accordance with the law that any actiivty with Children – up to and including a week long holiday – takes twice as long to prepare than actually participate in, it was rain not sun which greeted our cautious slither onto the trails.

It’s been nearly eighteen months since the kids rode out on proper dirt. A gap only just long enough to ease the trauma of Verbal’s repeated facial braking experiments last time out. And although they both had little falls and the biting back of hurty tears, they also made their old man properly proud with no whinge mud sloppage, some fine turns in leafy singletrack and brave attempts at muddy roll-ins.

At the end of which, demands were coming thick and fast for grippy pedals, mud tyres, cooler riding togs and bigger wheels. All of which were apparently “holding them back”. I cannot imagine where they learned such things.

As 3/4 of the family retired to the inside of the love bus to munch snacks, I took the Kona for a fast run through some sweet rider built singeltrack. The handling is on the lively side of involving mainly due to a stem a full two inches shorter than stock. But the whole experience was about as I remembered it – instant pickup from a pedal stroke, look-corner(tm) steering negating the need for any obvious muscle movement and a wrist battering experience vaguely remembered from 1995.

I’ll leave you to decide exactly how such an experience came about 😉

If I close my eyes, I can see long summer evenings offering up dust and hardpacked singletrack in equal amounts. Riding something like this through the trees toward a dropping sun and a well earned pint could very well be a path to cycling nirvana. Although not until I can find a tyre that is a) less than 2 inches wide and b) points in the same direction as the front one.

* This is where you enter a shop, request a small but vital component only to stagger out some five minutes later having been legally mugged.

I used to think..

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography7 Comments

… I could just about ride a mountain bike. This fantastically filmed bonkers headcam follow shows me I’m only slightly above ‘recently removed stabilisers’ in the cycling food chain.

Great camera as well. Most of the headcam stuff is horribly pixelated and further ruined by changes in light blowing away the contrast. And that’s before the generally shit riding destroys what quality is left.

I had a fantastic night ride yesterday. All two wheel grassy drifts and opposite lock tractionaless descents. By the end of it, I really felt quite good about my standard of basic bike control.

Having watched that, I’m off to get a shopping basket and a Sam Browne belt to properly position my cycling prowess. You watch these guys basically taking the piss, and sometimes you feel inspired, sometimes humbled but always assuming something alien is going on.

This time I just felt scared 😉

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.