Fifth week on the bike

Monday - chickened out, on the basis that I'd cycled yesterday and I was a bit sleepy.

Tuesday - cycled in, and the journey was entirely uneventful. I kept being passed by a lady with two baskets on her bike, then passing her at each set of lights. And I got in late, having set off late, so I could enjoy the lovely breakfast my wife made me.

And then it all sort of slowed down... It's cold now, so I've chickened out completely (with the exception of the forthcoming tube strikes perhaps). Hmmm. I will have to try harder. 

Fourth week on the bike

Monday - Tube strike? What tube strike? There are advantages to this cycling thing. Bumped into Ben and Emma coming through Covent Garden, and attempted to look composed. Haven't asked them since, but I probably failed. It's not pretty when I exercise. Ride home this evening was definitely the fastest yet.

Tuesday - Riding in, I nearly ran up the back of another cyclist, when my front brakes demonstrated themselves to be more worn than I thought. Might need to tighten them a little. Made it home in plenty of time to eat with my in-laws.

Wednesday - no cylcing today.

Thursday - into Kings Cross, on to Lynchwood from Peterborough Station. I've now got this route perfected. Home and filled with curry by 8.30pm.

Friday - no cycling, I was meeting Rob for pie.

Sunday - we disappeared to Richmond Park to see deer beating the crap out of each other. In the end we spent two hours in a nice pub near Barnes, then took the train to Wandsworth High Street and cycled back through the park. Lovely.

All in all, about 75 miles. After taking a week off, I don't think I'm quicker overall, and my legs are aching more than they were last time I rode. But they'll get better again. It just means I can't take any more holidays...

Not cycling, in Portugal

I like going to Portugal. It's always warm and sunny, the locals are never surprised or annoyed when you don't speak any Portuguese (I try, but I always end up just speaking bits of Spanish by mistake, which is probably more insulting than speaking English), and they have an abundance of waterparks. I also like waterparks.


This week in Portugal consisted of:

Saturday: Went to hotel, after much confusion finding the hire car. Cooked a nice spaghetti thing.
Sunday: Went to supermarket and picked up food. Went to bar for happy hour, staggered down to pub down the road and had terrible burgers.
Monday: Went to Parque Naturel de Rio Formosa (I think that's how it's spelt). Failed to encounter a striking member of the coot family. Did see fish jumping out of the water though. Cooked the rest of the pasta.
Tuesday: Went to Zoomarine. Ate an entire piri-piri chicken.
Wednesday: Reacquainted myself with Phantasy Star for the Master System.Visited nice restaurant in the mountains and ate wild boar and goat.
Thursday: Went to Slide and Splash. Ate pizzas for dinner.
Friday: Visited local beaches. Ate a big steak and half a pingu icecream.
Saturday: Went home.

I will look back on this epic blog post fondly. Or, more truthfully, it'll be a useful memory jogger, but little interest to anyone else. However, when currently-pregnant friends are parents of children of about 3 or 4, we may suggest a week in a villa in the Algarve for all of us, so Elissa and I can throw the small children down water slides (and so the parents at the theme parks don't look at us suspiciously).

Third week on the bike

Monday - kept up with someone on a mountain bike between Tooting Bec and Kennington. I feel like a proper cyclist now. On the way home, same thing, only this one was wearing lycra (which means he must be fast!). 16 miles as usual, plus 3-4 extra miles popping to Kings Cross to sort out cycle reservations for Tue and Thu.

Tuesday - early start, I needed to make Kings Cross for the 8.40. All went smoothly, to Kings Cross in an hour. Out from Peterborough Station to the Business Park in about 25 mins, and back in 20 (was worried I'd miss the train). Last leg was actually almost the magic 15 mph I've been aiming for! Took it nice and easy back to the office in London for the afternoon, as I didn't want my jeans to stink, and wasn't particularly fast on the way home later. But I'm keeping up with other people, still!

Wednesday - legs hurt, and was tired, and had drunk a little more champagne than is strictly necessary the night before, in celebration of my wife's employment situation. Didn't cycle. I'm up silly early in the morning to get to Peterborough again though.

Thursday - set off in the dark, at 6am. Up to Euston just in time to hear the clock strike 7. On the train in plenty of time for 7.30am departure. Found a way out to Lynch Wood without using a single road, from the Ramada onwards, and got into the office for the 9am meeting. On the way back through London I suffered a pucture at Stockwell, so grabbed a new inner tube and sat outside a cycle shop changing it over, so I could use their pump afterwards. Took 2 hours to get home from Kings Cross, as I walked for about 45 mins before I realised the back wheel was quick-release.

Friday - not after yesterday...

80 miles in total. And getting just a little quicker all the time.

Second week on the bike

Monday - both ways. It seems to be settling on an hour at a time now, but I'm not having to pause for water and rest halfway, or slow down as much up the hills.

Tuesday - cycled in, then went to Nandos with Elissa and friends

Wednesday - cycled home.

Thursday - slacked off, on the premise that I was up in Peterborough in the day, and in Surbiton for evening drinks. Poor excuse.

Friday - slacked off again. Putting it down to the previous night's drinks and food, none of which was good for me.

Saturday - come on! It's the weekend!

Sunday - went to meet Paul and Michelle in Kingston for lunch. 45 mins for 6 miles, without pushing too hard.

Week's total - 44 miles. Could do better. Still only averaging 8-9mph.

First week on the bicycle

Monday - to work and back - about 16 miles.

I was sat between the lanes on a roundabout, ready to feed into the cycle lane on the inside lane of my turning, when a motorcyclist came screaming round the roundabout, and shouted "Get out the lane, man!". No swearing! What a nice chap. Still needing a short break for water at Clapham Common.

Tuesday - home to Kings Cross, Peterborough Station to Lynch Wood office, office to Corby Glen - about 41 miles.

This was a silly thing to do this early. My legs are still feeling it 3 days later. But very satisfying to get into Corby Glen after 26 miles and about 3 hours. I'm beginning to understand why Miguel Indurain had a resting heartbeat slower than an elephant. The paths round to the A47 were beautiful though, and up until Stamford, it was a beautiful day and lovely countryside for a bike ride.

Wednesday - Lynchwood to Peterborough Station - Kings Cross to home - about 15 miles.

Slow. I discovered some really nice cycle paths across Ferry Meadows and along the rowing lake by the Ramada. Not perfect for a road bike, but tarmac, so not too bad either. Lots of flies on some of the paths though, it was like being hit with a garden sprinkler at one point. On the way home through London, I managed to pace myself ok, so I didn't have to stop. It's doing me a little good already!

Thursday - home to London office. About 8 miles.

Finally found the route to the IMax at Waterloo, after three goes. A little bit damp. I don't mind the rain, but the spray up off the road is pretty disgusting.

Friday - office to Streatham, Streatham to home. About 10 miles.

Making it about 90 miles this week. Still only averaging about 8-9 mph, but it's getting less painful, so I hope to start pushing that up a little bit. And I'm still being passed by middle-aged Brompton riders, which is fair enough, as they've been riding longer than me.

Cycling to work again

I have just resumed cycling into work (at the top end of Shaftesbury Avenue) from home (somewhere near Colliers Wood). It's about 8 miles and there are no really serious hills, so it's a nice gentle start, especially for someone as unaccustomed to exercise as me. And the new cycle superhighway makes for a nice smooth surface.

On the way home on Thursday, I got from Parliament Square to Colliers Wood in exactly 45 minutes (call it 50 mins in total, as it's all downhill to Parliament Square from work). On the way into work this morning, I got from Colliers Wood to Evans Cycles (just round the corner from work) in an hour. So, those are the target times to improve on. Watch this space if you want to see me turn into a cycling bore, talking about cadence, inside leg measurements and, because old sailing habits die hard, wind speeds.

Camp Bestival - 30th July to 1st August

We got there at about 3pm on the Friday (sadly missing Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, who played before we managed to get the programme with the set times) and set up camp, and quickly realised nearly everyone there had brought children (and pushchairs, and cots, and wheelie thingys to keep the kids in). There was a kids wristband tent near the entrance, so parents could leave their mobile numbers permanently attached to their children. A glance at the programme also emphasised the kid-friendly vibe. Mr Tumble played three sets over the weekend, and The Gruffalo was performed twice. There was some child friendly stand-up one morning, and DJ Yoda played a set of Disney and Sesame Street songs (the morning after a storming AV extravaganza on the second stage). Everywhere you looked, an army of pushchairs and prams, and remarkably clean toilets.

We saw some good tunes and had a great weekend, and rounded off the whole thing with a very impresive spoken word turn from Scroobius Pip on his own to atent of maybe 200 people, which made up for missing the mainstage gig. But I think if we go to Camp Bestival again, we'll have to take a child with us. Does anyone have one we can borrow?

Fancy new music page

I recently moved the site to free hosting (as I'm not doing much with it) and I've been trying to figure out how to get all the music on there as well. I have done this, and present a lovely new music page!

I hope this will encourage me to add some lovely new music as well, but time and free weekends will tell.

We are about to see Billy Ocean!

And Elissa is very excited. I'm reserving judgement. I like the one from Romancing the Stone, but i don't think i know anything else... Still, 5 mins and i will.

Possible entry for b3ta comp?

We went to see the fancy new 3D thing

No point in writing too much about the plot of Avatar - either you'll go and see it and I'll ruin it, or you don't want to know about it at all. Being a former Physics student, though, I could go on for hours about the 3D effects.

Ok, so here's how you make a flat screen appear 3D. Project two images onto it, each taken by a separate camera. When filming, ensure the cameras are separated by a certain distance - logically about 10cm, like my (and most likely, your) eyes, but practically a bit more. Then ensure that the audience is wearing a pair of glasses that shields one projection from one eye, and the other projection from the other. Lo and behold, bullets and arrows appear to be flying out of the screen straight at you.

They used to do this with red and blue glasses, but that means the colour perception all goes to crap. So they've done it with polarised light instead. The simplest way to demonstrate how the light is being blocked is to go to the cinema with a friend, wear 3D glasses and then look at each other and wink. One of their eyes will be partly shaded, and the other will be completely blocked out. Now wink the other eye, and the blocked out eye switches over on your companion.

Polarised light, to my mind, was light that vibrated in a certain plane - for example, one eye got images with photons that wobbled up and down, and the other got images with photons that wobble side to side. What this means is that a sheet of tiny slots, either horizontal or vertical, would only let one set of light through. But apparently that means if you tilt your head so the glasses are on a diagonal, you miss both sets. So most 3D images in cinemas use clockwise and anticlockwise polarisation, at which point I have no idea how it works. But it does, very effectively. It took a few minutes to get used to, for me, and then everything had an added dimension.

One thing that needs improving. Real cameras don't focus on everything in the shot, so although you might want to explore an image that's 3D, there's still only a limited area that you can focus on. Things that are very close to the camera are blurry, and because the effect of the 3D makes you think it's closer, you'll want to try to look at it and make it focus (which of course you wouldn't do on a 2D image). It won't. I haven't seen any of the Pixar 3D films yet, but I'm imagining they won't have this problem, as they don't use real cameras. And the broader landscape-type shots don't suffer too much from this. Try and get a spot near the middle of the cinema too. I don't know, but I'd guess this helps a bit with the overall effect.

The film's plot is generic, slightly hippy in places, full of cliches and stereotypes and really, Unobtainium? But I was drawn right in, rooting for the giant smurfs throughout.

But Toy Story 2 in 3D will be better.