a ramble on vitamins September 30, 2004  

I'm currently looking after my friend Alison's chinchillas while she's on holiday. This means that once a day, I pop over and feed them, make sure they've got their vitamins, and give them a wee treat and a wee fuss. They're cute wee furry things. Yesterday, as I was leaving I automatically turned around, waved at the cage and said, "Goodbye chinnies... goodbye goodbye... goodbye chinnies!" in a high-pitched voice. As I was locking up, I realised that I'd automatically slipped into my "Putting Rebecca to bed" routine, which ends up with me waving goodnight and saying "Goodnight Rebecca, goodnight goodnight..." as I walk out of the bedroom and turn the lights down. So some part of my brain is conflating them both into the "Small cute things that need to be taken care of" category. I'll only worry if I start absentmindedly trying to feed the chinchillas pureed apple - or, conversely, if I start trying to convince Rebecca to dust-bath. "Come on, bugs, it's good for your coat..."

A slight aside on the fact that we've nicknamed Rebecca 'the bug' (or appropriate variant); for those who think it's a bit odd, twee, or sickening, I should point out that one coworker of mine nicknamed his first child "The Beast". As in, "The Beast is awake and needs feeding." I believe he's stopped doing it now she's old enough to understand what he's saying.

That The Prisoner, eh? "I am not a number - I am a free man!" and all that. Why didn't they just sidestep the issue and make him an alphanumeric rather than a number? He'd have been happy as A6, I reckon. Or how about something nice in hexidecimal? Prisoners 1 through B6 or something. Mind you, I've heard that E's are good, and I'm sure that B3 would be good for you - though you wouldn't want to spend too much time around C, too much C can cause digestive problems (although a wee bit does promote iron absorbtion).

can't move thumb in mouth send help September 29, 2004  

And so, as we stumble blindly towards October (season of mists, mellow fruitfulness, and my 29th birthday), it's all going along very nicely. A good and mellow weekend was had, a number of people were celebrated or caught up on, and Rebecca made substantial progress and vomited on several people.

The first, and probably biggest, event of the weekend was of course Lisa and Paul's wedding. A lovely wee event. It was held at the Old Bridge Hotel in Huntingdon. This was handy, because finding the old bridge is dead easy, and the Old Bridge Hotel is right next to it. Result! We arrived nicely in time, to find Paul hoeing merrily into the traditional last-minute G&T. The actual wedding itself kicked off shortly thereafter, with Lisa looking fairly radiant in a long white number. A good day was had by all, and matrimony was the winner on the day. The wedding ceremony was nicely to the point. The reception was particularly nice, and included a large amount of excellent food and some good booze. Notable difference between myself and the highly polite English people at the gig: they assumed that the oysters and small lobster on the side of the seafood section of the buffet were just there for decoration. I didn't, asked the bloke serving, and ended up with a good sized plate of lobster as a result. Nice. The speeches were good, too, especially mine (which caused strong men to weep and women to silently mourn that I was already taken). Alas, certain members of our table had partook of the Demon Drink, and I learned once more the truth of that old rule of thumb, Drunken Coworkers Heckle.

Rebecca was an absolute wee angel on the day, spending much time being passed around and looking adorable. She got bonus points for only vomiting on myself and Heather (although she did do a very memorable sneeze on Micky). A number of our friends lined up for cuddles with the wee darling, and several photos of people who we had not hitherto suspected of being clucky fussing Rebecca now exist. Later in the afternoon (in the lull between the reception and the evening gig), we took her for a walk/nap in her pram, and during the evening gig she kipped out in Lisa's room (very kindly offered and very quickly accepted). So the wee gorgeous got to have a nice sleep, and we got to have a few drinks and a bit of a boogie (even if Blue Monday did clear the dance floor of everyone except myself and Heather - plebs, all of you!).

Sunday was largely taken up with a visit to Cambridge by Carla. Last time we saw Carla was Michael and Hayley's wedding, which puts it about three and a half years ago. Blimey! It was great to catch up, and we had a good wee womble around the town showing her the interesting bits (most of it). She also got on very well with Rebecca (and vice versa), which was gratifying. Nice to catch up on old friends.

And on a similar tip, on Monday morning I hopped in the car (having taken the day off work) and drove off to Stansted. Can I just say here that if you're driving an articulated lorry, do me a favour and quietly gas yourself now? Thanks. Having escaped the hell of the M11, and the Stansted roundabouts-a-go-go confusatorium, I managed to collect my sister Charlotte. Charlotte was making her annual visit to Vienna for some form of governmental thingie (being as how she is a diplomat), and has once more swung past the UK on the way home to see us. Style. This visit was also so she could meet Rebecca, who seemed quite happy with contact with an Actual Aunt rather than an Auntie Who Is Really Just An Unrelated Adult Female. In what may be a good sign, Rebecca hasn't yet vomited on Charlotte. We live in hope.

Rebecca is, however, undergoing a bit of a seismic change. Yup, she's teething. Her little cheeks glow red, her mood has noticeably deteriorated, and you can feel a little sharp tooth coming through in her lower jaw. All very impressive stuff. She's bearing up pretty well (thank you, Calpol), but is having the standard rough time of it. She's even - and this is astonishing us - still more or less sleeping through. Who'd have thought it, eh? Of course, since she's also got a cold (!), she's really snotty and her nose is all bunged up, so she makes alarming snorting snoring noises in the middle of the night and occasionally has difficulty breathing while sucking her thumb. This leads to sleepy loudness in the wee hours.

So the situation here at the moment is that we've got a loving aunt floating around, merrily hugging a red-faced screaming infant who is making short work of chunks of cucumber. It adds a frisson to the evenings, I'll say that.

And I'd like to beg here again: this weekend is the inaugural Oxford to Cambridge bike ride, in aid of the British Heart Foundation. Many thanks to those who've already sponsored me (very generously in all cases); and if anyone else would like to have a crack, please click here to sponsor me. Ta. And I promise the next time I mention this will be to say how it went.

half a dozen please September 24, 2004  

A coworker of mine has a flatmate with an American girlfriend. She's from New York. She's over here at the moment, and is staying with them. The other day, my coworker got home to find a rather bemused cop. About 6pm, there'd been a couple of kids (8 or so years old) playing in the street, throwing fallen apples at a tree. The girlfriend had called the police because she'd thought they had guns.

Now that's what I call a completely different mindset.

Bit of embarassment for Kryptonite, the foremost American bike lock manufacturer, recently. Turns out that you can defeat some of their strongest locks with, um, a ball point pen. This applies to locks with a circular key: by cutting the end of the pen off, pushing it into the round lock hole and basically wiggling a bit, you can spring the lock. This is apparently because the plastic of the pen barrel is strong enough to actually move the tumblers, but malleable enough to mold into place in the indentations inside the lock barrel. Regardless, it means that your lovely £100 lock can be picked with a 10p biro - which is undesirable. A number of videos of this exploit have been posted around the web in the last week or so, and it's quite definitely a big problem. For their credit, Kryptonite have scrambled and are now offering replacement lock barrels without round keys. Speaking as a member of an Abus-using family (both Heather and I use Abus Granit locks and rate 'em), I'm watching with disinterested attention.

Friend of mine has come up with the ultimate money-making Cambridge site: nakedrowing.com. "Wow, look at the cox on that!"

Today's listening: Keep It Solid Steel, mixed by Mr Scruff, latest in the very very fine series of Solid Steel compilations from the Ninja Tune label.

Fascinating article on prey capture mechanisms in the genus Nepenthes. Turns out that one of the primary prey capture mechanisms is a wetting agent, which relies on the pitchers being wet, and drastically increases the capture rate. The theory is that this is because most Nepenthes predate heavily on ants, and having a trap mechanism that works really well some of the time enables them to avoid capturing the scout ants, but to wait until there's a good train of ants going back and forth to capture. Fascinating stuff.

I've spent the afternoon being trained on working in virtual teams. The course was self-paced CBT. You can get the flavour of it if I tell you that it spent 20 slides talking about open, closed and chaotic models of collaboration - including several assessments where you had to pick which model was being used - before getting around to telling you what each model actually was.

occasionally, i sing the national anthem September 18, 2004  

Had a slightly worrying moment at the gym the other day when I thought the bloke next to me in the showers was copping an eyeful. Then I realised that he was just noticing the huge bruise on my left hip (now very impressive black/purple). Well, it's one way of starting a conversation.

One of the reasons I like cycling is that you can get into long reveries while pedalling along. You get a chance for a good think. I'll be pedalling along, quietly making time along a fairly straight length of road, and be thinking to myself:

Legs seem to be warming up nicely... bit of a hill coming up, get up on the pedals, that'll do it... nice little climb... left-hand curve coming up... I reckon that all moral codes are basically reflections of arbitrary codifications of personal preference, driven by certain phsychological tendencies that are common within particular communities... sharp right and then we're on the downhill... one of those psychological tendencies being the desire to imbue what is really nothing more than common preference or etiquette with some higher authority... still, surely the point of this sort of arbitrary preference is that it has all the meaning that we assign to it as a society, so moral imperatives can be considered to be "real" or meaningful insofar as the social community accepts them... of course, this runs into the dissenter problem, where some members of the community don't share those moral maxims and cause problems... no worse problem than any social contract theory has... I reckon social contract theory isn't given enough credit as a solid meta-ethical stance... ooh look, a farm shop selling duck eggs. Score!

You can think a lot, sweating it out on two wheels. And sometimes you can come home with odd farm produce from roadside stalls.

You know you're living in Cambridge when: someone has neatly spray-painted the molecular diagram of guanine onto the pavement outside one of the Science Dept buildings.

day 183 September 16, 2004  

I am, today, a mass of aches and pains. We went paintballing on Saturday for Paul's stag weekend (this being deemed a safer option than a weekend in Amsterdam, plus giving us the chance to inflict violence on the groom), so I've got a couple of minor bruises from being shot and quite major bruising on my knees from diving for cover, commando-crawling through undergrowth, etc. I've moved to a new program at the gym, so I'm quite sore from the sudden emphasis on working the muscles in different ways. And I had a practical demonstration of basic physics last night, when I tried to do a sudden turn on wet grass just beside a concrete path, had my front wheel squeak out from under me, and hit the tarmac rather hard with my left thigh. As a result, I've got a 5 inch square bruise on that thigh (a fascinating purple-black colour), my neck's quite sore from the landing, and I'm walking stiffly.

So overall there's definitely a "sore and knackered" theme going on at the moment.

On the other hand, the new workout is actually going very well. I am getting to pick up big things and go "grr" a lot, which always cheers me up. I'm also cheered up by the recent presence of the local Regional College's football team in the gym when we're there at lunchtimes. Not for any dodgy reasons, mind - it's a load of 17-18 year old blokes wandering around in small groups, emanating testosterone and lifting poorly. No, it's a simple ego thing: these are young, fit blokes in their prime, and I'm caning them. I lift noticeably more than they do. Of course, this is mainly because I've been doing weights for some years now, and they've only just started. But, y'know, I take my ego boosts where I can get them.

The gym is also good for reinforcing first impressions: there's a bloke who's your archetypical annoying idiot at the gym. Works out with another geezer, neither of them particularly know what they're doing, but are clearly convinced that they are on a mission of great import. I've seen this guy sit on a machine, chatting with his mate, not doing any actual lifting, for half an hour at a time. He is, in short, the sort of annoying wanker that you want to accidentally drop a dumbell on. Yesterday, biking home, I was passed by a grey Merc with a large dragon decal squirming up the side, being badly driven, and guess who was behind the wheel? Tch - Mercedes drivers, eh?

Anyway. The weather here at the moment is remarkably like Wellington (i.e. stupidly windy and occasional rain). It's a bit demoralising riding into the headwinds, and the sidewinds can be a frightening (being blown out into traffic being a Bad Thing). On the other hand, I'm doing that odd "cheerful in foul weather" thing, simply because it reminds me of home. Odd thing, nostalgia.

Big news today is of course that Rebecca is now six months old! Yup, six months ago she was forcibly brought into the world, and after some initial reticence she's taken to it like a duck to water. She's now eating a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, she's rolling over, she's wiggling like mad, it won't be long before she's crawling, and we can't imagine life without her. Now I just have to carefully hacksaw a miniature candle in half lengthways for her half-birthday cake (well, bowl of mashed sweet potato and zucchini). Happy semi-birthday, wee bug!

whoops cleaning foam September 11, 2004  

Kent is a very nice part of the UK, and we had a very successful visit there. I volunteered to do all the driving, which turned out to be a slight tactical error: the quickest route involved the M11 (not too bad, actually), and then the M25 (hell on earth). The M25 at 4:30pm on a Friday is not kind. I was only nearly driven off the road three times (one white transit with a courier van logo, and then the same articulated lorry twice), but the experience was certainly memorable. It was one of those particularly British road trips where you spend 90% of the driving on huge, multi-lane motorways, and then the last 10% struggling down ever-smaller B-roads, finally culminating in entering a tiny town through streets about three metres wide. It certainly made for an interesting drive.

The wedding (Sarah (a.k.a Tsar, but no-one had heard that nickname) and Pete) was in Sandwich. Nice little town; one of those places that was really, really important in the fifteenth century, and is a somewhat less so now. But it's a nice wee place, and is dead posh to boot, so it's survived pretty well. The wedding itself was in the old county court - this looks to have been there since the 1500s or so, and certainly ranks as one of the most impressive places I've ever attended a civil ceremony. Lots of wood, some people seated in the jury seats, spikes around the bit where the defendant was sat, poleaxes on the ceiling, that sort of thing. Good wee wedding, photos by the river, and then off to the local golf club for the reception. Well, one of the local golf clubs - the Princes Golf Club (very, very posh indeed), down a private road (!) and past the most American-looking gated community I've seen in this country. Later, as we were leaving the wedding, we were stopped by the police right on the entrance back from the private road. They were merrily breathalysing the motorists coming out of the private area - the landlord of the pub we had B&B at reckoned that this was because there's a pub down the private road, so it's not unusual for people to get loaded and then try and drive home (as the police can't come onto the private property without permission). As I'd not drank owt at the reception, this wasn't an issue for me.

Post the wedding, we spent the next day driving in a circular pattern around the countryside, trying to find the groom's parents house through the festive network of road closures that East Kent seems strung with. Having found the house, we spent a happy afternoon at the At Home reception - very mellow, nice day sitting outside in the sunshine. And then it was off to Broadstairs to see other friends. Broadstairs is a nice wee seaside resort, bit down at heels but not too scruffy. Bit like an old leather jacket that you need to get around to seeing to the stitching on. But with cliffs. Supposedly founded on the profits of smuggling, which is as good a way as any to kick a town off.

The stay in Broadstairs was with our mates Jo and Ieuan, and their lovely wee girl Dora. Dora and Rebecca had not met previously, but got on like a house on fire. Dora loves other babies and is loudly enthusiastic, and Rebecca doesn't startle easily and thought Dora was fascinating. Result there. Rebecca had an excellent time the whole weekend, actually, spending a very large amount of it being cuddled/fussed by a procession of friends, acquaintances, professional childminders, and random people at social gatherings. She loved it, and spent most of the time with a huge grin on her face.

Rather unfortunately, my perspective on the trip is skewed by the severe case of food poisoning I suffered. Not sure what it was caused by, but an annoying proportion of our stay in Broadstairs was marked by my copious vomiting and occasional rather worrying collapse - at one point halfway through the night I went to the toilet to vomit again, collapsed on the landing, and spent ten minutes lying there unable to gather the strength to move. Recovered again within 36 hours, just in time to drive home. Ah well.

A good trip was had by all, and we're looking forward to having another crack and maybe seeing Canterbury next time.

Finally saw Shaun of the Dead last night. It came out about three weeks after Rebecca, so we didn't end up seeing it in theatres. Highly recommended; quite a few in-jokes for the fans, but it stood on its own merits. Both as a comedy and as a zombie movie per se. Some genuinely creepy moments, and a good few belly laughs. Particular fun is cameo-spotting - there's a lot of people popping up there.

contour map September 03, 2004  

Had a crack at organising a ride the other day. Bank holiday monday, I set up a wee loop for Heather and Alison. The idea was that since I'd had a good ride on saturday, Heather should have a good ride on the monday. A quick route of 20-odd miles was duly put together (basically down to Barton, then across through Comberton and Toft, left at Kingston, down through the Eversdens, and across to Harslingfield, back up to Barton, then across the fields to Grantchester). On the day, it was a bit windy, but they navigated the route pretty nicely. A slight hiccup where they had to find a concealed entrance to a bridlepath, but otherwise dandy. I met them at the pub in my role as soigneur/driver of support car, with Rebecca acting as team mascot. A good time was had by all, which was cheering - I was slightly worried that I'd railroaded them into it. But both Heather and Alison enjoyed themselves (they should've, that's a nice loop), so I think we can mark it down as a success. I'm already planning the next one. Couple of photos of the victorious Amazons on the cycling photos page.

Go go Julian Dean in the Tour of Britain! Fourth on the first day, which is not at all shabby. Not sure if he's riding as a domestique or in his own right in this race; either way, it's good to see the Kiwi lad doing a'richt. Now, as long as the marshalls get their shit together and stop letting cars onto the course during the race, we could have a good wee event here.

Two DJs are having a chat:

First DJ: So, do you fancy going to the cinema tonight?
Second DJ: I don't know - who's the projectionist?

Thank you, I'm here all week.

Rebecca has now rolled over several times. I can tell that pretty soon, we're going to have to relocate our extensive collection of sharp, pointy objects from ground level in the living room. Well, maybe not, but the garden definitely needs a once-over from a crawling POV for, e.g., pots full of broken shards of other pots (to use at the bottom of pots to aid drainage). I'm also having a lot of fun putting her in her backpack and carting her around. She loves being up nice and high, and having her hands free to grab things. Me, mainly. Nearly six months old - how time flies, eh?

What I'm listening to at the moment: Electronomicon by Pitch Black. Nice. What I'm reading: Dead Air by Ian Banks. Style.

make your chafing throw September 01, 2004  

Had a good day out on Saturday at the 108km audax event. I'd never done an audax before, so was a bit nervous, but it turned out to be pretty straightforward. 150-odd official riders, plus a couple of people who didn't get official entry (these having run out) who tagged along for the ride. The crowd was very friendly, the weather was good, and I'd say it was a success. I've taken the plunge and joined Audax UK, with the intent of riding a few more events.

The day was characterised by a number of questions:

• Are you all right?
  The event started promptly at 9. I'd got there about half an hour earlier, had got my brevet card, and had got myself ready. They were letting us off in groups of about 30, with two minute gaps. This prevented the police from getting narked, as a solid group of 150+ riders would have clogged the Saturday morning traffic up something impressive. I got in with the melee and headed off with good form. About four miles in, we hit the first control. Controls are points where you have to do something to prove that you've been past them (i.e. that you've actually ridden the route). This was an information control (where you have to write down a piece of info from the location) rather than a standard control (where someone will stamp your brevet card). I actually went past it, but someone behind called out "Control!", so I threw a few anchors on. I stopped, turned around to have a look, and was promptly rear-ended at full speed by a bloke who'd been looking down at the map attached to his handlebars. Whoops! He as very apologetic, as was his (rather embarrassed) girlfriend. Amazingly, my bike was completely unaffected by the collision. Last time I was rear-ended, my rear wheel was completely taco'd and had to be replaced. This time, my mudguard bolts were loosened. Everything else absolutely fine. Same couldn't be said of the bloke who'd run into me, who'd snapped his left ergo lever - meaning he couldn't change gear on his front ring, and didn't have rear brakes. Poor sod.
  Well, I say my bike was completely unaffected - I had to stop a few miles down the course and completely retighten my mudguard bolts, as they were rattling like mad and doing my head in. But apart from that, nada.
• Are you Jack?
  After that, I fell in with a large bunch of riders keeping up a steady 13mph or so. I found the pace rather slow, but figured it was a better idea to save my legs for the first half of the ride. This continued for quite a while, with the bunch fragmenting slightly at various point, until we were left with about a dozen of the faster element. The pace slowly climbed up to a steady 18-20mph, with me hanging on in the group. Riding at speed in a group is quite intimidating at first - you're very reliant on other people to inform you of upcoming hazards, such as potholes, and the simple fact that if someone else around you has a fall, it's all going to go pear-shaped for everyone is quite a worry. That said, I managed OK (I think) - I don't think I caused anyone any problems,
  At the second information control, I ran into PH (aka Paul) from the Cycling Plus web forums. He'd recognised me by my bike, which was a bit of a boost. Paul turned out to be a very nice bloke, and we rode on to the next control together.
• What the hell's wrong with my front tyre?
  Shortly after running into PH, I experienced a moment of great hilarity on a very steep downhill, when I tried to corner and realised that my front tyre had a slow puncture and had partially deflated. The ideal time to realise that sort of thing is when you're doing 10mph on the flat, not 30mph on a curving downhill. Not great. I cut the speed right down, managed not to roll it into the bushes, and limped into the first proper control (at a local cafe).
  I then spent ten minutes changing the tube in my front tyre and looking faintly sheepish. And then I got outside of an early lunch: a sausage baguette, swiss roll and tin of coke. The advantage to long bike rides is that it's actually a really good idea to load up on grub, otherwise you'll flag.
• Do you work for Cycling Plus?
  A couple of old blokes asked me this at the cafe. It would seem that I look like someone who's in the magazine a lot. Since I actually own a Cycling Plus cycling jersey (freebie for subscribers), I thought that might be why they thought it - then I remembered that I was wearing a different jersey. Odd one.
• Can you recommend a good introductory philosophy textbook?
  After the cafe stop, I took it easy for a while. I ran into Paul again on the route and rode together again for a bit. It was all pretty mellow. At the final information control (an old church) I got chatting to a couple of blokes in their 60s from the Ashwell Cycling Club. Nice blokes, and we ended up leaving the control at the same time and riding as a group. Blimey 'eck, they nearly ripped the legs off me. The last 16 miles of the ride were covered at an average speed of 20mph, with one of the old blokes in front making pace, me in the middle, and the other bloke on the end encouraging me any time I fell back a bit. I managed to draft the first bloke for a lot of the time, which helped a lot with maintaining the pace, but it was still hard going. During some of the more mellow bits (i.e. before we really started caning it) the bloke at the front drifted back and had a chat. He was quite interested in the fact that I had a philosphy degree, and wanted to know a good introductory book - I recommend him Thomas Nagel's What Does It All Mean?. We had a good chat at the end, after they'd given me a serious tow back in. I could easily have finished on my own, but my average speed would have been about 5mph slower.

So the ride was a success, covering as it did tragedy, terror, redemption, joy, and a 3" piece of swiss roll. Result. I wasn't too tired at the end (although I was fairly knackered), not much hurt (my lower back was giving me gyp from not being able to stretch out during the hard ride at the end), and nothing too important fell off. And my cunning blood sugar maintenance strategy worked - eat nothing for the first 34 miles, largish meal high in sugar/fat, then nothing for the rest of the ride. It's not quite "eat early, eat often", but I didn't bonk so it seemed to work. I was also making heavy use of a camelbak full of rehydration drink (which is fairly sugary), so there was a constant slight calorific intake. Mind you, I did end up eating half a malt loaf immediately after the ride, and I was pretty hungry for the rest of the day. Next time I'll be a little more careful.

Cambridge Botanic Gardens have possibly the coolest plant in the world about to flower: the Titan Arum. It's expected to flower in the next couple of days, probably in early evening. I'm definitely going to pop around when it does. Check the web page for updates and details of when it's flowering.

And in other interesting news... the BBC are producing a radio dramatisation of the final three Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy books. It's not (entirely) some dodgy cash-in: Douglas Adams was working on this prior to his death, and recorded some of the voice parts. Broadcasts start at the end of September, and will be available via webcast (and, heck, probably also via dodgy mp3 on your local P2P client). Cautious optimism is the order of the day.

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