Tag: Stupidity

Spring rocks

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

Asking whether the Malvern Hills can be a bit congested on a sunny Spring day, is a little like wondering if Tesco can get a little crowded the day before Christmas. It’s a small set of hills with a big catchment area – all policed by a bunch of people who seem to enjoy getting up on a Sunday and putting a tie on.

The hills are shared not only by walkers and mountain bikers, but paragliders, model gliders, sheep, protected woodland and more SSSI’s that you can shake a rural White Paper at. The result is 90{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} tolerance and 10{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} confusion.

Take this mad example; the Malverns are split in half by the county boundary between Worcestershire and Herefordshire. Apparently the Worcestershire council designated all their paths as Bridleways, but Herefordshire chose footpaths. This is even more bonkers when a scan of the OS map shows virtually none of either. The paths are just that, and I’m much more interested in good trail manners than I am with someone telling me where I can ride my bike.

Despite a bit of car park centric congestion, Tim and I had a fantastic morning in the further reaches of the hills. Tim finally cleaned this nasty rocky outcrop near the Wyche, and I managed the same on a decent down from the Worcester Beacon. We knocked off two thousands plus feet of vertical, and finished up in the pub, catching those early spring rays.

The trails are bone dry, the bikes are dusty and the speeds are starting to come up a bit. Obviously this is all too good to be true, which seems a good time to point you to next weeks’ weather forecast.

Ah well, I’m “tapering” for HONC anyway and if that isn’t a good enough excuse, my poorly knee certainly is.

What kind of lunatic designs a building like that?

On By AlexIn Other stuff4 Comments

Daytime TV has a lot to bloody well answer for, but before the throw stuff at the tv freak shows masquerading as public service broadcasting, we had Lloyd Grossman stretching every vowel for a few minutes while we voyeurisly nosed around long forgotten celebrity’s houses. And with his sign off line, some unemployable z list wanabees would ask vacuous questions to the vain owner, while audiences clapped and cheered for no obvious reason.

It almost makes me greatful for Jeremy Kyle. Note the careful use of the word ‘almost‘. There are so many channels chasing so little content, I’m petitioning to bring back the test card. It offers far more intellectual stimulation than some twenty stone chubb-a-lubb decrying a loveless marriage as an excuse to why she has stapled cats to her ears.

Right, wrong rant but that’s understandable since my cerebral compost has been vigorously stirred by an experience that continues to shape a strong belief there are people of other worlds amongst us. And because you shall need help to identify them before their insidious industry causes more confusion, terror and even death, I shall come to your aid right now.

They can be found in expensive jackets over blue jeans, shirts will be colourful or for the uber cool alien at large, possibly a niche designer t-shirt. Their facial expression can best be described as “I will try and explain this to you insignificant person, but my brain is so large and you are so stupid“. If you – as I do – feel the urge to hunt them down with spears and axes, you can find them hiding in their shadowy cabals under the name of “architects”

Beware these outer-worlders, because they think nothing of designing buildings in the most expensive real estate in the world with great big sodding holes in the middle. This chasm “instructs brightness and light, delivers the outside inside, juxtaposes the ethics of work and play and” – let me use some earth words here “creates a great big bloody suicide pit right in the centre of the restaurant”

Now having created this gladiatorial Colosseum, are they done? Of course not, each floor has a vertigous walkway spanning the terrifying void, with only a tiny handrail between you and a splattery death some fifty feet below. To spice up life a litle more, who do you think they dispatch to the third floor with no way of entry except over the Death Bridge?

IT people that’s who – yes that notoriously stable group of well balanced individuals who spend most of their day shouting “twatty little bastard, start working RIGHT NOW or, by God ,I am coming in there to EAT YOU” at complex – but blameless – electronic equipment. Honestly a week of that and you’ll have them queuing up for a quick exit over the suicide rail.

Exposure and me don’t go well together, and I am not talking about baring my arse in Sainsbury’s here. But edges* close to or over bone breaking drops get me reaching for a set of blinkers and a strong drink. And my faith in even the handrail was shaken when a work colleague did exactly that while I watched in horror as it flexed and vibrated like a good-time latex girl. Now he’d shown what a shonky structure it was on the way in, I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to get back out again.

Eventually I came up with an approach that, while it worked for me, worried all the other staff on the floor who have a panoramic view of each suicide attempt. I took on the mantle of a American police detective, and slapped the door hard, then rushing in back against the wall, fingers pointing gunwards at the criminal rail. If it tried anything like taking the floor with it, I was ready. I crouched low and shuffled towards safety whispering “Cover me Dan, if that rail so much as twtiches, blast the perp and ask questions later”.

Half way across I did a full 180 degree double take, and beckoned a frightened work mate across. At which point my knees gave way and – to my horror – I fell face forward towards the evil rail and it’s henchman the dodgy perspex. Deciding I preferred the view from floor level, I made a fast crawl for the exit door and, on reaching it, punched the air with a “yeah, yeah, OH YEAH, never in doubt NEVER IN SODDING DOUBT”.

At no point do I feel this damaged my professional credibility. As I attempted to smarten myself up a man with a proper sounding job looked me up and down before asking “Work in IT do you?”

No idea what could have given him that impression.

* this honestly is a true story. My first proper** girlfriend firmly believed I was scared of hedges. My strange Northern accent made her extremely solicitous whenever we passed some aggressive topiary “you’ll be alright, just don’t look”. I assumed she was mental for going out with me in the first place, so didn’t really worry about it.

** one you’ve slept with. Holding hands or wanking doesn’t count. Your dad should have explained this to you.

You shouldn’t be allowed…

On By AlexIn Other stuff6 Comments

Taken by phone while removing pedal from my ear.

Somewhere in my DNA is a corrupted genetic strand, triggered when some self-important cock ends announces how their view of the world is somehow much more important than yours. This chemical imbalance invariably leads to a spittle-flecked sweary invective, and a fight or fight a bit more response desperate to put the fat* oaf on his lardy arse.

I am thinking of this as my “Yorkshire Gene”

The situation manifested itself again on Monday from a starting position of already quite irritated. I had been herded into the furthest nook of a train carriage significantly encumbered by bicycle, and was now sat hard on the floor with a pedal in my ear. Exhibit A – pompous arse – declares “Bicycles aren’t allowed on this train” aiming a pudgy digit in my direction.

I tried – I really did – to be reasonable pointing out that the physical evidence was clearly not in favour of his argument. He attempted to wriggle mentally sideways** suggesting my bike took space that would be better made available for humans. I parried that it was hardly my bloody fault London Midland had gone all Chilten-esque and lost half of their rolling stock.

A side bar here. How the fuck can you lose two entire train carriages? What kind of conversation preceeds that? “Bob, have you seen 120 feet of metal, kind of square, wheels on the bottom, windows in the side?” / “Nah, Bill had it last, he’s probably left it at home“. I am finding things like this increasingly disturbing as if someone “up there” is stroking a cat and laughing at me.

Anyway fat boy stupid refuses to let it lie and tediously rambles on at a volume pitched to annoy just about everybody. Eventually – and predictably – I snap. “Look fucknugget, I am sat in possibly the most uncomfortable space ever***, it is pissing down with rain outside, my decent waterproof is at home and I have ten miles of wind, cold and dark to look forward to. So how fucking much do you think I care about whether there is sufficient room for your fat arse? And on that point, my bike and I would barely cast a shadow on your huge behind, so if you want more space I suggest you lay off the fucking pies”

That’s not verbatim. I’ve taken out some of the swearing. The silence which followed was quite shocked. I am sure there would have been some uncomfortable wriggling and shuffling of feet had their been any room. Which of course there wasn’t.

I spent the rest of the journey ex-communicated, and moodily staring out into a darkening sky. At each station, I’d wearily wheel the bike off into the gloom – and while waiting for the stream of grumpy humanity to disembark – measure the weight of the rain and the depth of the cold before shivering on back inside.

By the time Ledbury railed into view, I was properly miserable. But the now almost empty train still hadn’t finished with me. A gentlemen of some antiquity accused me of deliberately oiling his trousers with my grubby chainset. No sniggering at the back, there isn’t a hidden meaning in there, however much you want there to be.

Within thirty seconds of his complaint, he must have been feeling that a slightly raffish stain on his pensioner slacks was not at the top of his list of problems. Which now included an angry middle aged man explaining shoutily that he would find the form to claim back his dry cleaning bill UP HIS ARSE. Which shouldn’t be hard to find AS HIS HEAD WAS ALREADY UP THERE.

This isn’t the first time it has happened. Or the second. And probably unlikely to be the last either. One day someone is just going to lamp me, and it will make me think twice. Right now I’d settle for thinking just once.

* Not always, but mostly. There is something about very fat people that makes them either extremely jolly or bloody annoying. Sometimes both.

** Absolutely no room to actually move any limb whatsoever. They tried to add more people at the next station leading to an impromotu entire all-carriage rendition of Scotty and “She’ll na take any more Capt’n”

*** Not quite true. I had forgotten the brutal torture that is Ryan Air’s 5mm inter-seat policy.

Oh Shit.

On By AlexIn Other stuff, Photography4 Comments

That is all.

Well not quite. Don’t pretend you’re not all laughing. Because I can hear you. One year on from the last time I deposited it into a tree, and after all that extra time flying, the hours on the simulator, the apparent occasional element of control and it only bloody well ends up there again.

50 feet up there to be precise. I have found I am not much good at throwing sticks. And, when I became very bored of not being very good at that, I tried climbing a tree. I was even worse at this.

It was all going so well. Circuits, landings even a loop. And then a combination of fading battery and a panic turn the wrong way saw the plane land undamaged. Fifty foot in a tree.

I have no idea how I am going to get it down. I am considering setting fire to the tree.

I am now off to ride my bike hoping that my tree hugging tendencies stop at crashing RC aircraft.

Breaking technology news…

On By AlexIn Other stuff5 Comments

… Microsoft have a secret agreement with Logitech. It’s beyond cunning this one as those spotty little coders in Seattle have made the latest version of Excel so insanely non intuitive, there is only a single cause of action left open to the vein throbbing user.

And that’s to smash a fist into the keyboard while screaming “ALL I WANT TO DO IS CHANGE THAT TITLE” “THAT ONE THERE” “ON THE GRAPH” “IF I’D WANTED TO ROTATE THE WHOLE FUCKING CABOODLE 90 DEGREES AND INSERT A PIVOT TABLE, I’M SURE I WOULD HAVE MENTIONED IT”

Smug little buggers as they are, marketing droids at Microsoft proclaim Office 2007 is a simple, and almost flat, learning curve from the entirely useful 2003. No it bloody isn’t, it’s like pushing peas up a cliff face with your nose while some kind of bipolar lunatic offers helpful little snippets such as “Would you like to embolden that title?” and “If you’re still stuck*, you can contact our help forums”

No, I’d rather smash up my keyboard if it’s all the same to you. I liked the old version of Excel. It just worked. It didn’t suddenly offer up a whole range of hieroglyphics every time you moved the cursor. You put numbers in and it added them up. Why did they try and improve it? We’ve all been bloody hoodwinked haven’t we?

I’m going back to an abacus, some rocks and the barter system

* You loser

Where’s the F in snow?

On By PhotoIn Other stuff, PhotographyLeave a comment

Big Log, originally uploaded by Alex Leigh.

There is no F’in snow. Thank you, thank you I’m here all week. Here, as in unable to leave the county – not because the roads are covered with our rubbish covering of snow, more the hard coded English DNA that somehow prevents everyone else working while white stuff falls out of the sky.

I could bore you with either a) tales of my Northern childhood where we’d be under ten feet of drifting snow for six months of the year, and every child had to dig themselves out of the house each morning or b) my exasperation of really how shit the UK is at dealing with anything other than a slight drizzle.

But I won’t. Mainly because I’m sulking because London actually did something better than anywhere else this week, by standing still while being dumped on*. And then stuttering to a complete and embarrassing halt.

It makes the bankers look half competent. Okay it doesn’t, but you can see where I’m going. Or not, because the pathetic smattering of flakes here could be best described as the midpoint between “light dusting” and “complete traffic carnage” has prevented my entrance to our premier motorway network.

The 4×4 has been superb tho at creating a silence that is to be savoured, as whinging children are dropped off at School. “It’s not fair, why do we have to go?” – because I’ve paid my taxes, and back in the day my generation would sledge 9 miles on t’family dog.

2 seconds into that much repeated anecdote, there protestations cease as they run away in the direction of the local educational establishment. Works every time and I never tire of the story.

Tomorrow I’m heading off to London to see what all the fuss is about. I fully expect it to be a massively hyped up non event marketed by a crisis by metrosexuals who’ve merely been denied their skinny latte.

Stick with a big nail it at the ready then!

* a qualification that would ensure rapid promotion in some places I’ve worked.

Going Spare.

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff1 Comment

I am. They didn’t. Next time I will. Even looking ever backwards to my fortieth birthday, I have yet to achieve a level of calm when multiple failures pile up on my personal highway. It all started with good intentions, as such disasters invariably do.

Firstly a slow puncture highlighted a problem with my spare tubes, of which there were many and the number that held air, which were none. Slackness personified, my standard approach of decadently replacing old with new was stymied by a lack of fresh rubber.*

An hour later, the kitchen floor was awash with a tidal wave of water, my entire patch collection had been deployed, and four tubes now leaked a little less air than before. Flushed with success**, I spent some time worshipping at the voodoo of the front mech, before retiring satisfied a pro-active maintenance regime would be rewarded by trouble free riding.

Which made the horror of an abandoned ride at 8am this morning all the worse. Firstly my cranks basically fell off, when the drive side bearing stripped itself of a thread and made a break for freedom**. My riding buddy responded with patience, a quick return to base plan and – almost immediately – a aurally impressive exploding tyre. Luckily he’d not flatspotted the tyre, unluckily he’d flatspotted the rim.

No time to fix any of that as I was under orders to be initiated into the local flying club at 11am sharp. I arrived ready to go with flight box, fuel, trainer, a whole shit load of funny shaped stuff for which I still cannot divine a purpose and a cheerful expression.

Which lasted as long as the first engine start took, which in turn took the prop and flung it across the field. The only modification I’d made to this pre-loved trainer was changing the propeller. Ahem. Things didn’t improve much as fixing that merely broke something else. I can’t say I quite understood the exact cause, but symptomatically opening the throttle sent all the control services into a St. Vitus Dance.

Apparently this isn’t good unless you’ve the plastic bag ready. I do have a spare plane but decided to leave it at home. My reasons are now as cloudy as this beer I’ve been forced to drink. Yes, forced you heard me right, because after having no ride to speak of, no sleep beforehand and no chance to marmalise balsa in the presence of experts, it seemed the right approach to the rest of the day would be to back away from anything expensive, and get drunk on the sofa.

To get my own back on fate, tomorrow I’m commuting by bike for the first time in three months. Unridden bike, uncharged lights, unused climbing muscles. But I’m confident that nothing can go wrong, because HAVEN’T I SUFFERED ENOUGH ALREADY?

I’d be pulling my hair out, if I had any.

* I did consider the obvious alternative, but even fixing tubes was better than sewing condoms. You experience may differ 😉

** But not for long. They were all flat again this morning. So I ate them to teach them a lesson

*** I’m going with awesome power of my thighs. Although it does explain why the fromt mech was a bit out.

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.

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“