tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-306898462024-03-14T07:45:01.646+00:00According to BexMay contain opinionsBecky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-35716651081783875572020-03-15T16:12:00.000+00:002020-03-21T23:13:19.422+00:00Fin.I am very nearly out of spoons.Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-41776884180176845852020-01-13T18:39:00.000+00:002020-01-18T23:28:07.721+00:00Put on your bravest face<P>
A notepad and a baking tin. This sounds like nothing out of the ordinary; indeed, it sounds quite good. That recipe for flour-free banana loaf, scribbled down by pencil on a random scrap of paper in frantic dictation with a friend talking ten to the dozen, and which nearly disappeared thanks to my precarious habit of carrying around, in my vaguely showerproof but definitely not milk proof bag, for far too long bits of paper with useful stuff written on them, duly rescued and stored in my impressive, if haphazard, home "vertical filing system" prior to transcription into a better paper-based filing system, actually turned out jolly nicely. That this better paper-based filing system neatly combines recipes in beautiful bullet point arrangement, beam deflection calculations, sketches of mechanisms, and dimensioned technical drawings in beautiful third angle projection, perhaps suggests my system requires a degree of fine tuning.
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Instead of bananas, eggs, cocoa, baking powder and chocolate spread—though I would perhaps substitute peanut butter—assume our recipe instead comprises the aforementioned notepad and baking tin, and a large steel ball bearing. It should be large enough to hold in your hand, small enough and thus light enough not to be so tiring as to hold for as long as the recipe calls for, which, unlike most recipes, is an indeterminate amount of time; it too should be small enough and thus light enough not to damage irreparably your best baking tin in the event of success, not unlike the propensity of an electric hob to accidentally detect your best baking tin that you plonked on it having nowhere else handy, and accidentally induction it to within an inch of its life. The ball bearing should also, and this the most important criterion, be heavy enough to make an excitingly loud bang when dropped onto the baking tin from a gentle height. For most purposes, the height should be a foot or two. And the notepad? This should be placed no further from the baking tin than arm's reach.
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If the prerequisites are at least clear, the methodology may not be. When one goes to bed of a night, lie down as normal but with one's arm relaxed, holding the ball bearing aloft and above the baking tin. At the critical time, just before the electric shock of almost falling asleep, when one's thoughts begin to leap around one's head like so many cats having a mad half hour, one is often disposed to mad and peculiar logic, invention, inspiration. Riddles abound and are curiously solved by the absence of directed thought. In this welter of creativity how can one put to good use this untapped brainpower? Thomas Edison was reputed to have invented it in order to think his way through a problem, offline as it were. With that electric shock the ball is dropped, the bang is made, and one is rudely awakened mid-daydream. Like the monk who writes his words unconsciously, quick as a flash, put down everything. Sometimes it makes remarkable sense; in the case of an incredible invention that would solve many of mankind's greatest problems, to wit, "The banana is mightier than the sword.", it turns out to be remarkable nonsense.
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Thus, in a similar, yet inevitably forgotten by the morning, manner were borne so many potential new entries here. It's only been ten months. I lost count of the different ways I would usher in the next instalment, confused them over time with new and intriguing introductions I imagined for my next video—another activity that has become delayed beyond measure—and wrote down literally none of them. I could start at the beginning, but just to be contrary I shall ignore temporal mechanics and instead start at the end. I wouldn't want to forget anything now, would I?
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The irony is not lost on me that I should be quite the enthusiast of music that was created before I had learned to hold a spoon, let alone a bass guitar: music, on which I have elaborated many times before, whose raison d'être is to look forward: to embrace new technologies, new scales and chord forms, new mash-ups of prevailing genres. They say nostalgia isn't what it used to be. When you've written a diary for a long time, and you started out with such amazing foresight as to use one of those newfangled computing machines in order to make your writings more easily refer back toable, and you're faced with the harsh reality of stonking great paragraphs that, twenty years later, read like so many teenage angst words, nostalgia may be conveniently thrown out of the window and into the bin. Of course, we write at the time to the best of our ability, with all the information that may be to hand. Geddy Lee, for Rush's first album at least, was also the band's lyricist, before someone far more capable joined.
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It's self-evident, too, given a longer listen through the catalogue of something of the order of 130 songs, that Geddy's finest Robert Plant impression quickly made way for full-on shrieking (while simultaneously being a better musician than you), which itself in the New Wave and post-New wave days of PPG Wave 2.3s and Simmons drums gave way to more nuanced high notes as experience (and age) demanded. Geddy once said himself, of revisiting the songs making up their famously ill-received Difficult Third Album, <EM>Caress of Steel</EM>, 'I don't like to go there.' Youthful exuberance was matched only by the naïvety of their expansive songwriting ideas. After all, when you've spent forty years honing your craft, you're bound to look upon your early work with suspicion. But to his—and the band's collective—credit, they soon stopped taking themselves too seriously, increasingly poking fun at themselves and going to town on retrospectiveness. Indeed, where once the compilation album was entitled <EM>Chronicles</EM>, a mishmash of would-be hits and generically popular songs, later compilations actually <EM>were</EM> called Retrospective such-and-such. I lost count of how many they did in that vein.
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It was on Saturday, two days ago, that I was brought to thinking back in time, to June 29, 2015. It seems so long ago already that bass supremo Chris Squire died. How can a musician like him, a pillar amongst bandmates, be taken from us so soon in the medical world of today? Chris was only 67.
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Neil Peart, famed drummer with Rush, outstanding lyricist, commanding author, and perhaps even a role model for introverted people, was also 67. Some things are just not possible. How? I was never a drummer, unless you count air drumming, typified by mastering the pattern that introduces Subdivisions, but my brother is, and I daresay the bottom fell out of his world just as mine did with Squire. I saw Rush perform four times, twice with my brother. We had a ball. For the last year and a half the band was already officially retired, but the sudden finality is jarring. Think too of Family Peart. In 1997–98, within ten months Neil lost both his wife and his daughter, and yet had the strength to pull himself back eventually from enforced solitude to drum again with his best buds, subsequently knocking out two of their best albums since the mid-80s. He regrouped, met Carrie, they made Olivia, and once more everything was right with the world. The Big C then had the temerity to arrive, and burdened Geddy and Alex with faces to show the world that, to respect not just the family but Neil's own desire to avoid the limelight, could not be the face they show themselves. And so the titans of the tricky time signature are laid to rest and fully cemented in rock history.
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<blockquote>Our better natures seek elevation<BR>
A refuge for the coming night<BR>
No one gets to their heaven without a fight</blockquote>
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Another fight was probably what I needed, too. I hadn't really had one for quite some time. An occasion, perhaps, for a DIY exorcism. It's too easy to go all retrospective and introspective and lose sight of a new objective. I wouldn't care to visit the road where there be dragons, or octopodes the size of houses, or worse, demons: at least not under the same conditions. That much I learned the very hard way. But this time I had otherwise good reason for some DIY. In a very real sense, it was a chance to catch up with myself, to try to pick up where I left off ten years before. I started with some more typical DIY: brakes, brake pads, discs, steering bearings…a little wiring. The last was essential. Before, I was using for navigation a device I called Dumbass: an outdated iPAQ with a dodgy OS, inside a homemade waterproof box, alongside TomTom's own outboard GPS receiver whose enormous size, to be fair, was probably mostly battery. The iPAQ's battery was unreliable at best, and rather smaller at worst, lasting fractions of an hour unless plugged into a power source. My Africa Twin didn't have an appropriate power source, so I'd made one from good old cigar sockets and a plastic box. But that was then, and this was now, and now meant my Garmin, and/or my phone, and USB. A few quid on eBay, and a couple of afternoons' tinkering time later, I had the power. I'd also saved myself about £45 compared with buying very much the same thing you find pre-made in the motorbike accessory shop.
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When I was a car owner, I spent many happy hours turbocharging my way up and down the M6 in Clara the Rover, visiting exotic-sounding, faraway places like Manchester, and Conwy. The reason for those journeys hasn't gone, entirely, although the desire to run a car has, when taking the train often feels like as good an option, assuming I can bring my bike onboard. Of late—the last couple of times in fact—I had to borrow a car to make that kind of journey, the red torpedo on the roof, and behind me no doubt a trail of motorists with their necks snapped in two from sheer incredulousness.
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I hadn't had an adventure for ages, and now was the time. S, R and A were visiting from the USA. S had given me plenty of advance notice, which of course I had done nothing about other than block out the time in my work calendar, until train ticket prices were considered to be less fun than burning petrol, and, as we shall see, rubber. I couldn't not make the trip to Wales. Before riding 500 miles along the Erie Canal in 2009, spending my birthday in the city I love more than almost anywhere else—Toronto—I had been further south in good ol' North Carolina to spend a few days with one of my best friends. It was only ill-fortune that my loose itinerary and S and R's movements couldn't coincide, for they were just up the road, in a USAnian kinda way. And of course I couldn't not make the trip, because our personalities are so very similar. A chance to hang out with people who wouldn't bat an eyelid if (or rather, when) I said the wrong thing at the wrong time.
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Apart from having to stop in Moffat to wrap my gloved hands around the exhaust pipe, for it was a six-baselayer day and my heated grips (a) stopped working the week before, and (b) were the only thing I didn't know how to fix, and having to stop at Killington Lake later again to find a hot radiator to sit on and to drink even hotter coffee, I had a pretty decent ride to Jodrell Bank. Had my itinerary allowed, I might have pottered for a few hours at the great telescope, but it was cheaper to spend more time riding and less time sleeping in B&Bs so agreeably appointed that they came with enough milk next to the kettle.
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The next day, I nearly upended my motorbike after travelling, oh, twenty metres at least, with the rude reminder that gravel is indeed less grippy than tarmac. Then my automatic chain lubricator stopped working. I found a motorbike shop in Crewe, with good stuff and ambivalent staff, and bought an aerosol of racing lube or some such nonsense. The M6 became the M5, and the M5 became the M50 as I blasted south. I changed my itinerary on the hoof because I had a bit more time than I thought. When I was in north Wales, I learned that it's either raining, or about to rain. I reckoned on south Wales being more like Devon, Dohrset, Zummerzet, where people go 'ooh-arrh' and sound like they're a little bit drunk. On my way to the Big Pit at Blaenavon, the road over the top got higher and steeper and even before the summit it was sleeting into my visor. So, not wanting to die horribly, I turned around and rode straight to where S was staying. The weather in south Wales was overjoyed to see the Mistress of Moisture again, so it hailed like mad as I navigated narrow country lanes with even narrower tyre tracks.
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I liked S, R and A immediately. S of course I knew from long ago—hi, if you're reading!—and we all talked over our long breakfasts and our even longer expeditions to castles and bird hides, along roads wiggling over hills and down through valleys. Of course, to A I was nobody, so I wasn't overly worried about moody teenagedom amongst so many strangers, although events since then provided some background. I talked shop with S and R and did what I could, but I don't know how much it helped.
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The valleys of south Wales mostly run north-south, so that's what I followed to get myself to Chester. Somewhere on the A49 a tree had come down. 'I wish I'd bought one of those when I had the chance!' said a friendly policeman to me, nodding approval at my rather massive motorbike and equally massive luggage boxes hanging off each side, before he explained the diversion route. I got to ride through a flood, too.
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It would have been stupid not to carry on following Mark Williams' Industrial Revelations, or 'sites of special scientific interest' you might say. I'd done Dinorwic, the huge slate quarry by Llanberis; I'd been to see my carved stone lions of the Britannia Bridge; I travelled through the Conwy tubular bridge and up the mountain railway; this time my trail led to the great Pontcysyllte (say "pont-keuh-sidll-tie") aqueduct that strides magnificently across the River Dee between Trevor and Froncysyllte, and atop the eighteen stone arches, the merest ribbon of an iron trough that carries the Llangollen Canal. It was brass monkeys weather and blowin' a hoolie, so naturally I clumped out to the middle to take photographs and, of course, to look down.
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In the safe and familiar—<EM>remarkably</EM> familiar, I have to say: even on my first visit so many years ago it felt peculiarly like I'd been there before—streets of Chester, all top-heavy, half-timbered history interspersed with the worst that the 1960s could create, I met my friend J. Such are the complexities of modern life, we manage perhaps to see each other once every two or three years. And such are the burdens of modern life, it's always in Chester. For a change though we ate tapas as we caught up, and I walked the long way back to my last hurrah of luxury: a B&B with woodwork, high ceilings, and paintings of vintage British fighter aircraft on the walls.
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At Tebay the next day, for where else does one stop when motoring up the M6?, I happily cooked myself on a huge boulder and ate Dairylea for lunch. By the time I turned off the motorway I was back to warming my hands on the exhaust, while chatting to a guy who had thirteen motorbikes. And by the time I was on the home run it was so foggy I missed the final turn. I had to ride all the way into Big Town before I could turn round.
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I'd had nearly 800 miles of wind, rain, frost, sleet, floods, and sunshine, and I bloody well did it.
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I can't unimagine the events of eleven years ago; I can't unsee them in my mind, but now I can perhaps try to put them to bed. Like a child who gets shouty and stampy when they're over-tired, a child who cries and cries when the light goes out, a child who can't sleep all the way through the night because mummy isn't there, to say nothing of a full grown adult who ought to know better than to drink two glasses of water before getting into bed, the memories will resurface sooner or later at a time and circumstance of their own choosing. With any good fortune I can temper them, blunt them and leave them in a damp shed to go rusty.
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May brought me up to date with what was partly a tribute to my Grandad, who I'm sure would have had kittens, or possibly sabre toothed tiger cubs, had he known about it. I comprehensively failed to live up to his—and my own—engineering expectations, but I share his deep and endless love of nature, particularly insects, and especially moths and butterflies. Despite already having modest artwork on my back and my foot and ankle, I wanted something else, something bigger, something stylin'. I'd initially convinced myself that I wanted it on the inside of my arm, very 21st century and relatively easy to hide, but it was an awkward shape with which to work. While I was fiddling around last year, looking in the mirror and drawing lines on my arm with my lip pencil, someone had asked me, 'Well, where would you <EM>want</EM> to have it, if no-one else cared?' Where indeed? That was why Morag at Tribe was finishing off my half sleeve tattoo that we'd been working on since the summer before.
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'I thought you said this was going to be just a touch up!'<BR>
'Oh, well I'm just indulging myself. I'm a bit of a perfectionist.'
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More than one person has quietly voiced an expectation that it will extend, inexorably, beautifully, down and around. It may.
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What goes up must come down, sooner or later. I kicked off June by talking to my doctor about something I'd never dared discuss before. I touched upon it last time. I'm supposed to be clever, capable, caring, strong, self-assured, self-aware. People like me get into a funk, we get moody, bummed out, depressed, sure, but people like me aren't supposed to have depression. I was scared—I am scared—that it might be true.
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I then outdid myself by breaking my beloved touring bike. The alternative was to ram right straight into the little girl who appeared around a corner on her way to school. I would often say that my Lightning was the bike that had never, ever hurt me. Now with its neat little fork folded underneath itself and jammed sideways into my front wheel, my plans for camping at the York Rally two weeks hence were in immediate disarray. It's hard to articulate just how much I love that bike, and how much the damage upset me.
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My York backup was my RANS Sequoia, recently converted from smooth commuter to gnarly bikepacking monsterbike. My Lightning goes onto trains without a problem, it's one of the reasons I bought it. My Sequoia is just slightly long wheelbase, and consequently does not easily go onto trains, especially those with bike cubicles and godawful hooks that make me glad I have height and at least a degree of upper body strength. CrossCountry, Virgin/Avanti, and LNER, I'm looking at you. Why do you hate cyclists so very much? I spent the first half an hour of my journey to York arguing with the train guard because my bike didn't fit, and I fumed for ages before eventually calming down with two albums' worth of the most soothing music I could find.
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York was sunny and warm. I wandered over to the Abbey, over the river, for lunch, and it was really lovely. I had a great chat with the lady in the chemist, when she asked about my tattoo, as I was buying suntan cream. The morning sun the next day helped the inside of my tent reach 40ºC and was just too hot to lie in. After breakfast I propped myself up in my chair and read my book for what felt like hours, before ambling around the Rally. It was much the same as last year. Small trade tent. ICE Trikes. Brew York. Junk stalls that make The Bike Station look posh. By the mid-afternoon I'd had too much sun and half-slept in my tent. By teatime I was reaching for the co-codamol, which at least did the trick in time for our annual ride down t'path t'pub.
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I upped sticks on Sunday afternoon, even though I was booked to stay another night. The weather forecast for the night was thunder and lightning, which was fine except I didn't want to have to pack my tent and sleeping bag and everything the next day in pouring rain. But overwhelmingly, I was amongst sort-of-friends and mostly-bikey-acquaintances, at an event for which I'd been there and got the t-shirt, and I was lonely as hell. So I decided to please myself and found a bed at a rather nice hostel in town. Over dinner I struck up a conversation with tech journalist Deb Shadovitz, and spent Monday morning visiting an old friend. But the windmill was shut. The nuclear bunker I didn't know about before was also shut. I took myself to the railway museum and spent a lot of time pottering amongst the warehouse while the weather, once again so happy that I was in town again, emptied a cloud's worth onto my bike and sleeping bag that was still attached to my handlebar. I caught my train home, went to Mum and Dad's, and had a long cuddle on my own with my cat and cried a little bit.
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July came and went.
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August was my summer holiday that wasn't. Three weeks with nothing planned wasn't so bad because I had a mountain of DIY to catch up on. I like a spot of DIY. Except I couldn't even enjoy that because, at the last minute, I found I had a job interview to prepare for. That meant I couldn't, and didn't, dare go away anywhere. I stole enough time through the month to make substantial progress rebuilding door jambs and rehanging doors and painting and everything, all the while with half a mind on questions and examples. Later I was back at my doctor to discuss mood and some treatment options, and didn't want to go home afterwards. I walked up the road, around the park the long way, I watched the birds and photographed toadstools, and came back along the main road on the other side of the village. D-Day came, I did my interview, and I sped out of the building as soon as I could and rode home the long, long way.
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I so very nearly got the job.
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After Chris Squire died, his old sparring partner, frequent collaborator and one-man record industry Billy Sherwood took over the low end in Yes. For his earlier tenure with the band for their <EM>The Ladder</EM> album, I once described Sherwood as "dull as ditchwater". I actually haven't listened to very much of anything Yes-wise since their <EM>Heaven and Earth</EM> album, Squire's last, for two reasons.
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Firstly, some bands, like Rush, were formed as though forged out of friendship, and stayed together forever and ever. Britain's cerebral, classical, counterpoint to the Canuck trio however was always something of a revolving door. After Jon Anderson left the band, not for the first time but quite possibly for the last time, and Rick Wakeman had left the band, not for the first time either, and indeed a while after Trevor Rabin had left the band, Yes was a hotchpotch of new and old: Steve Howe came back, grew his hair again and looked about a hundred years old; Wakeman, son of Wakeman, tinkled the ivories here and there but the role more properly belonged to Geoff Downes, once of The Buggles, always of Asia, sometimes of Yes. Jon Davison is Jon Anderson, with a velvet voice that could shatter glass; and Sherwood is a Spector guy and not Rickenbacker. Ho hum. They've made so many 'best of' albums that anything new is as likely as not to go under my radar completely.
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Back in the day when Yes was effectively Yes West, ABWH came along, Bruford bringing with him the ageless King Crimsonite Tony Levin on bass and stick, and it was otherwise entirely the old Yes. ABWH excited the old guard, made a hi-tech sounding but otherwise rather mediocre album or two and then disbanded, back to KC, Asia, Vangelis, or if you're Wakeman, back to simply cranking out the solo albums. ABWH was a product of its time, the white heat of digitality. Wakeman's cheesy widdling on black plastic Korgs and Rolands was perfectly met by Bruford's hexagonal drums and bonkers sequencing of bleepy sounds that probably belonged in a Doctor Who episode.
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ABWH didn't interest me then, and doesn't interest me now. Ah, but what was this? ARW! Anderson, Rabin, Wakeman. Even better, they were playing at the Usher Hall! And then I discovered that tickets were £75. Jaw? Floor. Floor? Jaw. Not so much Yes as Aye, Right.
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While Yes were distracting themselves with lineup changes and Cruise to the Edge for all y'all jet setting high hiedyins, I forged a new best band ever. Strangely, it wasn't Gentle Giant, whose multi-instrumentalism and baroque-and-roll stylings supplied me with plenty of enjoyment until I tired of Derek Shulman's precious frontmannery. I don't care that he went on to sign Bon Jovi and, rather more impressively, Dream Theater and Pantera. Hell yeah. I was more drawn to the softy spoken and even more softly sung Kerry Minnear, on Minimoog, clavinet, recorder, cello and a dozen other things. In fact, I was drawn more to the renaissance elements, the more gentle side of Gentle Giant. Put them in a barn with bales of hay, lose the fraught delivery, lose the stomping drums, add someone absolutely <EM>shredding</EM> on recorder, and replace Precision Bass with bassoon, and you might end up with Gryphon. Who?
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The second reason, and this is quite important, is that Gryphon is one of the few bands to give Yes's musicianship a shock. One of the few bands whom you wish had played a longer support set. The last band I saw do that was Skin, who very nearly blew Thunder off the stage. No stranger to the revolving door, the Griffs made five albums in the good old days then went away for thirty years to do professorships in being terribly clever, and perhaps create Kerrang! magazine. And then they came back as though nothing had changed, except possibly Brian Gulland's youthful excess of hair. A new album appeared, no less, and Gulland busily re-establishing himself in the role of class clown could only mean one thing: concerts. And better still, make the tickets less than £20! GG? ARW? Dinosaurs.
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The only good thing that came out of my speed bike training with the ARION boys two years ago was a remarkably quick and pleasant working knowledge of Liverpool, a city that I liked a lot. With moderate travel costs and accommodation as cheap as I could find, I was jolly well going to see Gryphon performing. In a way, I wouldn't have wanted them to play anywhere else.
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I sightsaw for the afternoon, pottering around the docks and looking at railways and bridges and tunnels. My hostel was scraping the barrel though: the window in my dorm was squint and didn't shut properly, my mattress was full of lumps, the oven in the kitchen didn't work, and the only bread knife I could find was less sharp than school scissors. Still, I was sharing a room with a guy who did a drag act so it wasn't all bad.
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The concert, in a grand church a short bike ride from the city centre, was excellent. Gryphon played lots of stuff from the new album, various pieces from the first and second albums, plus a medley of bits from the third. The irreverent onstage manner and modest audience—I reckoned on a hundred or so people there—made the show feel much more like a cosy gig than a concert, and the time they afforded everyone during and after the show, to sign a bit of vinyl or a poster, was lovely. As I was chatting with the two guys from my row, they realised how far I'd come. They said I ought to get a poster or a photo with them. I wasn't much for doing that, and dithered a bit, but went with some encouragement. Before I knew it, the main man from the Liverpool Prog Society rounded up all the band members and got me into the photograph.
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October I seemed to spend mostly babysitting. My neighbours came over for tea one day. The little ones were full of beans. We played at being helicopter pilots with my motorbike helmets, and they climbed on me for a while and we did some jumping before having food. But by the end L and I were at the ends of our tethers, the little ones were now bored, because my house is not full of plastic toys, and I was running out of enthusiasm and ideas, so they went home and I flopped.
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Another time, my neighbours were away to an evening do, so I took over to lay down the law amidst semi-organised chaos. We did some more jumping, and we played with a balloon, but we eventually resorted to computer games. Bedtime took an hour or thereabouts; afterwards I realised I didn't know how to work the cable TV. Fortunately paperbacks require neither instructions nor electricity, and I got through entire chapters. I stayed a while longer once my neighbours returned, to make sure they were OK, because they were slightly the worse for wear and even more friendly than usual. Possibly thinking out loud, L said it was hard to get any emotions out of me. I was tired, certainly, I was tolerant, I was watchful, but I was also emotionally wary, and embarrassed for them. I've never been in that state, ever, and I daren't, and it's impossible to match the freely flowing love that comes from chemically losing your inhibitions.
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I started to wonder if I'm actually habitually anti-relationship. It would explain a lot. There are aggravating factors that I spoke to my doctor about and which, rather unexpectedly, nearly had me in tears. But I go to work on my own, I come home on my own. I read by myself. I listen to music by myself. I play music by myself. I write by myself. I travel by myself. There is a convenience to having the wherewithal and the bloodymindedness to please oneself, temporally if not financially, but gosh darn it when it comes to enjoyment it feels like I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't. I spent Boxing Day morning tinkering in the garage. I wrapped a couple of late Christmas presents, and then…I sat staring at my Christmas tree, as though I was all dressed up and nowhere to go. I could go anywhere and do anything. I could've been out having a microadventure, but I wasn't, and I don't: I think endlessly about the possibilities. I sit, my brain finding its own imagination far more interesting than real life, and without any concrete objectives that might otherwise come to the fore while the weather is agreeable or the day is young, I write about how I can't bring myself to do any of them.
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After Christmas, in lieu of objectives I had a last minute, last ditch random ride on my motorbike to the other side of Big Town to watch a train, which turned out to be a different train. I rode around the coast in the hope of photographing some ships but failed to actually do so. There was nothing else for it, so I rode home and dyed my hair purple.
</P>Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-70429766547264792332019-03-04T21:42:00.000+00:002019-07-05T22:14:12.751+00:00Shreds of black cloud loom in overcast skies<P>Ten years is a long time. It's a long time to still be mindful of events a decade ago and, if by coincidence, which it may well not be entirely, a long time certainly in which to hold a grudge. And it's a long time to labour under the misapprehension that one can hold a grudge against oneself. Is that even possible?
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It is two years—two years!—since I wrote about a journey to buy a bicycle for a small boy who has since grown out of his balance bike so completely that his little legs—legs that soon had the measure of the bike's seatpost at full extent—are now quite capable of running, jumping, and propelling the rest of him up the very juniorest of climbing walls. What of the balance bike but mere memories, of the face that at once lit up at Christmastime and lit up again as his gaze quickly moved onto something else again minutes later. A bike that, in fact, he opined to me that he kept falling off. Best laid plans, it seemed, were at the mercy of the bumpy track and unfriendly road that lay beyond the safe confines of his house and driveway. That lovely little Islabikes Rothan has since been replaced: a birthday present from yours truly being a proper pedally bike, with bright red paint. Not, of course, before I had taken it to bits to regrease and rebuild. The small boy meanwhile shows every sign of growing as tall as his daddy.
</P><P>
It is a year and a half, already, since I moved house: out of the city and into the almost-but-not-quite-country, the village being very nearly connected to the city by slivers of contiguous housing developments whose growth, like the small boy, knows no bounds. But for all my faults I'm still working where I'm working, and therein lies part of the problem, for my commute length more or less doubled, and I spend ever more time riding in order to get anywhere. It only took a year or thereabouts for me to become bored with the same old routes: the same high speed traffic that may or may not be trying to kill me, the same unending hills up which I sweat and grimace, powering 35 kilogrammes of carbon fibre; supposing good weather and/or unusual amounts of energy at the end of the day I might ride the long way home and add five or ten miles to the distance. "BigTown", as the prolific <a href="https://cityexile.wordpress.com/">Sally Hinchcliffe</a> puts it, begins but three miles away as the bus drives, and four miles as the car drives, but random journeys to the railway station are now an expedition that requires planning of clothes, timetabling of movements with recovery time for traffic lights and traffic jams; and the vagaries of everyone and their dog trying to do the same commute at the same time requires unearthing myself from bed at a time of the morning that before would have marked a further hour and a half's sleep. It's not all bad, though. I have a nice view, a quiet street with nice neighbours, shops I can walk to in a few minutes, and supermarkets that are a few minutes by bike.
</P><P>
But moving house also meant moving away, not just from people but from the big scaredy tabby cat that I've known and loved for 12 years. I have no facility for a cat flap chez Bex, just acres of double glazing and certainly not the wherewithal to shovel money at Rockdoor. Not having the big boy here nearly breaks my heart.
</P><P>
We bookmark our lives by significant events: starting uni, graduation, starting work, changing job, having children, moving house, having your boobs cut open,…or crashing your motorbike.
</P><P>
It really is that long ago: ten years, and for half of them I've put a ton of miles on the big machine that once upon a time I was putting my heart and soul into repairing. Together we've worn out chains and sprockets and tyres, and we've adventured all the way to, er, Loch Lomond. A long lost tailor in Nottingham doesn't count. My grand plans of Croatia are still an idea, but ebbing away as quickly as the tomfool deadline to leaving Europe advances. It took me a long time to face sitting on a motorbike again, yet the desire hadn't gone away, and indeed, the theory and practice hadn't either. Velma the VFR came, and I spent too much time and money fixing all the stuff the previous owner didn't. I sold my car, tooled around for a year or so on two wheels and later sold up, for Velma was never more than a stopgap.
</P><P>
Yet, I am still burdened by the memories of that terrible afternoon. I'm no longer haunted, but I am burdened, that I should have so easily exceeded my limits, and in doing so set in motion a chain of emotional damage that might never go away. Where once I was organised to a fault, I now find myself slipping. Where once I felt powerful and empowered, I feel suppressed in my abilities. There are possibly compounding factors on which I may not elaborate, lest I open up too much and remove all doubt. I don't have a black dog sitting next to me; if I did it would at least be company. The energy and enthusiasm I had back then, when I decided I would do someting and by golly go right through with it, isn't there anymore, sucked out of me by dented career prospects that themselves were stillborn from so much awkward history when my brain and my outlook was utterly fucked up.
</P><P>
I got through that mindfuck—with flying colours I'm sometimes told, though I rarely believe it—and then I got over my crash, and then somehow I had no more fight in me. That's a long time to be damaged. A year and a half ago, aside from home improvement, the newfound demands of proper lung-bursting training on my bike, watching my heart rate monitor climb and my weight plummet, came to a desperately frustrating end, sliding to a halt on the fourth day on a windswept disused runway in Stockport. When I was meant to be breaking 75mph in a high-tech carbon fibre speedbike in Nevada, I found myself pulling up carpet and painting walls, all the while treading water while watching other people go about their perfect lives in their perfect jobs with their perfect skills.
</P><P>
What, then, of this relentless grudgery? I used to write so much in here, when words flowed out of my fingertips in torrents of angular prose, and I wish I still could. But that particular fight was won long ago and even I have moved on. Not for me is the essay-writing left hidden on some social network that pretends your privacy is worth a damn. I was on the bandwagon way before that: in fact it is 20 years ago this year that I started writing publicly in any quantity. I might have torn up that historical evidence, but here I can still be nobody, with no-one listening, and no-one to tell me that two years is much too long to leave between posts. But what do I write about?
</P><P>
Phil Gould, long the drummer with Level 42, described those halcyon days in the 1980s as like living in a holiday camp, playing the same grinding stuff day after day, the subjects of the songs akin to the bland leading the bland. With nothing to fight for, nothing to spit at and no walls to kick down, what does one do? Shiny pop sensibilities wrote of little other than beautiful girls, guys in sharp suits, and the exciting world of foreign travel, but they came hot on the heels of the bleak years of three-day weeks, high rises with damp problems, drugs, and concrete playgrounds. Those punk years had something to rally against. And they had been preceded by several years of increasingly complex, overblown and hyper-musical songs about swords and sorcery, spiritualism and science, years that were themselves descended from the exuberant positivity of the sixties and technological tours de force. Just as some bands failed to evolve their music while others did to great acclaim, albeit with some turkeys along the way, perhaps I need to find my angle again. What do I have to be angry about? Or passionate about?
</P><P>
It had been so long, so very long, that I had to challenge myself today just to see if I could even still tear it up on my Rickenbacker. My fingernails on my fretting hand are too long, and my strings sound like rubber bands. I hardly play anymore, not just being time-poor Monday to Friday, but soundproofing-poor, with a dividing wall that has turned out to be less capable than I had hoped, and internal walls that make papier mâché look highly engineered. But I've mostly still got my chops.
</P><P>
So what then, of this relentless grudgery? There was never anger: I'm either too laid back or too tired to ever be angry for very long, but depression is perhaps merely anger without enthusiasm. There was shock, and there is sorrow, overlaid by the sense that for all this time I've berated myself for making a stupid decision so long ago, and being desperately mindful of its effects ever since: effects from which I cannot seem to escape.
</P>Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-46315184186265818822017-01-09T23:14:00.000+00:002017-01-10T10:21:44.983+00:0014 More Words<blockquote>schuum-en-hauff</blockquote>
<P>
Volkswagen Golfs are not, to my knowledge, fitted with studio quality audio systems, and while acoustics engineers can no doubt work miracles in their fine tuning of the frequency response of car interiors, battling the incessant drone of rubber on tarmac—and have you realised just how loud it is, these days, as a BMW X5 roars past?—and the interrelated breathing of door panels and dashboards, I wasn't hearing the whole thing. I didn't realise it at the time, or rather that I simply forgot, as I sat back and let the new music surround me and wash over me. And "wash" is not so far from the truth. I was driving down The Great North Road and having a really rather lovely time of it.
</P>
<blockquote>iceglide</blockquote>
<P>
Spinning in the dashboard was an album by an artist whose works to me are largely unknown listening, an artist long of British applause, at once steeped in mystery yet revered as she flounced around in front of a camera with Vaseline smeared on the lens. A <EM>pop</EM> artist. Good heavens, have I taken leave of my senses? I wouldn't have taken this route at all if it weren't for a remarkable diversion of tradition on the part of the German online music magazine, laut.de, and its myriad internet radio stations; specifically one specialising in progressive rock, that one finds more likely to bring to the listener Gong, or Can, or King Crimson, Barclay James Harvest, Gryphon, Brand X, Caravan, Curved Air and so on. There's a lot of Canterbury sound in there, too, which is no bad thing, but it's perhaps a reflection of when I have time to tune in.
</P>
<blockquote>whisperspikes</blockquote>
<P>
Why was my radio station playing pop? It's not mutually exclusive; it depends on one's definition of popular, and indeed, progressive. Forward looking. Inventive. Experimental. Constantly developing and changing. ELP, now so sadly reduced to P, weren't known for filling a concert with just their latest numbers, rather, the dozen classic pieces audiences wanted to hear. Rush, still very much a trio but sadly winding down, and who had a mission to change as much as possible from album to album, found itself forever cast in the prog mould of swords and sorcery, even in the later years of soaring synthesiser leads and Top Man jackets with the sleeves rolled up. Prog doesn't overly concern itself with "She loves you yeah yeah yeah", even if those particular writers went on to thoroughly sow the seeds of progressivism . . . and here I was with a pop artist in my hands.
</P>
<blockquote>astramillealba</blockquote>
<P>
I had 130 miles to drive down the east coast, and it had been many years since I'd undertaken a similar journey. I had happy memories of that occasion too, when I reeled off the 200 miles to York in the company of Pat Metheny on Radio 2. My Windcheetah trike was stowed alongside me, and I was on my way to the York Cycle Show for the very first time. Today I was making another bicycle related trip, with an altogether smaller objective.
</P>
<blockquote>flimpleflample</blockquote>
<P>
It wasn't really a pop album at all. There was no standard approach here, no verse-verse-chorus-verse, no solo, not even a chiming DX7; no frenetic repetitive drum beat, no-one behind the microphone, all hair, gyrating with half her clothes missing…and certainly no studenty guys all short-back-and-sides and a leather tie, coaxing swooping sounds from an old Oberheim, and definitely no glitter-caped raconteurs encouraging the wheezing and swelling bellow of a church organ. Nothing like that at all: just piano—simple but choice piano—some string bass, some gentle guitar and drums here and there…and that huge vocal range: bluesy at one end; a mellowing shrill whistle at the other. If the music had been any more relaxing I might have stopped in a lay-by and gone to sleep.
</P>
<blockquote>crystallissimo</blockquote>
<P>
The radio station, on the day, had played only the title track from the album, before moving on to something more traditional, and yet I was captivated. The interplay between a deeply sonorous, professorial voice and the singing. The drumming was a shoulder and hip–wriggling shuffle to end all shuffles. And of all the subjects, it seemed to be a song about wintertime! I knew that the artist had come out of hiding, as it were, of late and I presumed that this was the New Work, the triumphant return to form. And so it happened that the next day I ordered an album by none other than Kate Bush, and not knowing quite what to expect. I'd bought many albums before on the strength of just one song, Thunder's <EM>Behind Closed Doors</EM> and Van Halen's <EM>Balance</EM> being two of the earliest instances I can remember; more recently, Le Orme's <EM>La Via Della Seta</EM> took its name from its last song, and I bought <EM>Ze Słowem Beignę Do Ceibe</EM>, by SBB, purely on hearing "Przed Premierą": one advantage of the internet-based radio being, listeners' patience notwithstanding, unlimited scope to play anything longer than three-oh-five. In the test of time, neither Thunder nor Van Halen really stuck with me in the way that others did; less of the rock and more of the prog, perhaps.
</P>
<blockquote>hexamagica</blockquote>
<P>
I shuffled around on the car seat and tapped along on the steering wheel, making the best of an otherwise miserable day; the rain couldn't decide whether to be drizzle or proper, and eventually I tired of turning the windscreen wipers on and off, and left them on. I didn't care much for the automatic setting that seemed to kick in only once the screen was speckled so much that it became hard to see through.
</P>
<blockquote>skutchenploshen</blockquote>
<P>
An hour or so later I was still listening to the gentle tides of piano, having surfaced occasionally for lyrics about city streets and melting snowmen, and hearing a guest singer who was none other than Elton John! I'm not the world's foremost fan of dear Mr John, though I quite enjoyed his cover with RuPaul of Don't Go Breaking My Heart, yet here he sounded deep and serious and thoughtful. Who knew? Before very long, and probably when I was well on my way towards Alnwick, I started to recognise certain phrases: a piano chord here, a vocal phrase there. Not only had I listened to the whole album, I was now on lap two. I was still en route, and not wanting to spoil the experience, for I'm no stranger to overlistening to new music – as was someone at university who was so mad for Kula Shaker's Hey Dude that he played it over and over and over, <EM>ad dementia</EM>!! – so I opted for some equally mellow Classic FM.
</P>
<blockquote>microrain</blockquote>
<P>
With rain and more rain, and a mild diversion to the monotony thanks to a broken down van on possibly the narrowest section of the A1, I arrived in Morpeth. The sun actually came out. The objective was Christmas present-picking-up, for a little boy who has yet to learn to ride a bicycle. In. Chat for a few minutes. Out. No sooner said than done I was on the road, retracing my steps northwards. I put some music on again.
</P>
<blockquote>perfectocrunch</blockquote>
<P>
I well remember the tinniness of music played in a car. It sounded like Tony Colton's mixing desk in 1970. You might hear a pin drop but any frequency below that seemed to disappear. When Max Power magazine came to prominence twenty-five years later, suddenly every Vauxhall Nova seemed to sport a bootful of shiny aluminium heatsinks and at least two honking great speakers. If you were older, or richer, or both, you took the back seats out and turned your car into a laboratory experiment with the sole objective measured in decibels by people wearing white coats, or possibly white tracksuits, with additional visual evidence from banks of equalisers with dancing LEDs. What a lot of nonsense. If you were classy, though, you pulled apart your dashboard and doors and installed components with labels like "Celestion" and "Fostex", and the thickest speaker cable this side of a BBC Outside Broadcast van. But twenty years of aerodynamic research has pared down the wind noise to an amazing degree, while the tyre makers have decided wider is better and wider is louder so louder is better, but the boffins in the anechoic chambers have been left to their own devices. Now the cockpit of your Golf is so luxuriously appointed and rattle-free that all you can hear are rampant bass frequencies.
</P>
<blockquote>featherjam</blockquote>
<P>
None of this even crossed my mind as I stopped for a sandwich at a car park, home to myriad up-and-down-the-country lunch stops from years gone by. Coldstream wasn't part of my itinerary, actually. After a diversion before Berwick that, on paper as I learned afterwards, was far shorter than I imagined, I decided to be clever and short cut cross-country, but my GPS was for recording where I went, not where I was going, and even less for button-pressing while on the move; my big road atlas was spreadeagled on the passenger seat but there was nowhere to stop to read it. The not entirely unexpected result was that I found myself going south and west from Berwick instead of north and west. It's called an adventure. The day was still young, at any rate, and I wasn't in a hurry. I chewed slowly on peanut butter and strolled absently around the tarmac. Come on now, just 50 miles to go.
</P>
<blockquote>naturecrete</blockquote>
<P>
Back home, finally, away from the miasma of motorways and surburbia, was the chance to invoke some hi-fi.
</P><P>
I closed my eyes and listened for a time, and Kate's voice soared in the quiet. "I am sky, and here…"
</P>
<blockquote>tinderfris'n</blockquote>
<P></P>
<blockquote>cryoclastic flow . . .</blockquote>
</P>
<blockquote>snow.</blockquote>Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-55976248917876636852016-01-19T22:38:00.001+00:002016-01-19T22:38:38.482+00:00Eyes are focussed on some far off galaxy<P>
The BBC weather forecast had reckoned it was going to chuck down overnight, cloudy and wet on Sunday and, as if that wasn't weather enough, thunder and lightning on the Monday, when I was planning to resume the cycling bit of my tour. The wind was certainly up that night, and as a result, so was I, watching my inner tent flapping around and listening to the unending patter of rain on the outer tent.
</P><P>
Morning came at long last, though my heart sank a little when I realised that it was still blowing a gale out there. I opened the door a fraction to survey the situation. Other tents were still standing, as was the motorbike, so it hadn't been that bad a night really. Not exactly Hilleberg-in-the-Alps, here in the Fisher Price hills of north Wales. I ate my breakfast while still wrapped up in my sleeping bag. The good thing about it being the height of summer and cold enough to make you wear all your extra clothes is that milk doesn't go off for at least 48 hours.
</P><P>
I'd had the idea to bring my new sandals with me, to save me walking everywhere in my cycling shoes with their steel cleats crunching over every little bump on the pavement. There'd been room to stow them at the bottom of a pannier, although that meant not bringing my folding seat. The grass was sodden and quelched as I left my tent for the road down to the village. I decided that my socks would dry out quicker than bike shoes. With my skiing baselayer on and my fleece and my Goretex jacket, and my lycra legwarmers keeping my calf muscles warm after a fashion, I realised that my body heat was being sucked out through my feet. There was nothing for it but to get cold. I couldn't buy extra clothes because I didn't have any more room on the bike to carry anything. I waved goodbye to my motorbiker friend and padded my way down the hill. The clouds were overjoyed to see their Mistress of Moisture again, and began drizzling.
</P><P>
I arrived at the Snowdon Mountain Railway ticket office. 'I'm afraid,' started the lady behind the counter—and I already knew what was coming because I'd spent some time the day before studying the printed out weather forecast in the window of the outdoors shop—'that we're not going to the summit today. The wind is gusting to 60 miles an hour up there, so we're going to take you as far as Rocky Valley. It's too dangerous to go any further.'
<BR>
'Mmm, I thought that might be the case. And after yesterday afternoon, as well! Where's Rocky Valley?'
<BR>
'That's the platform five-eighths of the way up. There's a good view over the side if the clouds don't come down too far.'
<BR>
'Well let's do what we can. Thank you,' and I wandered off to waste half an hour.
</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><P>
"I'm beginning to want to go home. Supposedly the weather will be better by Wednesday/Thursday. This is me having better weather by taking my annual leave earlier in the year."
</P></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
I parked myself in the station cafe and bought some overpriced coffee to warm myself up a bit. Eventually I took myself over to the platform where a small green steam engine was hissing happily to itself, behind a neat wooden coach with brass handles and no double glazing.
</P><P>
'Tickets please,' said the assistant, '…thank you. You can board now if you like, and you can sit anywhere.'
<BR>
'Thanks.'
</P><P>
<a href="https://flic.kr/p/xyp5g4" title="Little Padarn by beqi, on Flickr">
<img src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5667/20713689585_26feea3379_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="Little Padarn" style="" align=right></a>
I went down the platform to say hello to the little locomotive, No. 6 <EM>Padarn</EM>, with her tall chimney, sloping boiler adorned with pipes and valves and even a gauge glass, and square water tanks in front of the cab. The boiler slopes down towards the front so that on the mountain it is more or less level, otherwise it wouldn't generate steam properly. Ahead of the platforms are the water column, the coaling stage and workshops, and a network of points made complex by the central rack. No ordinary engine no matter how powerful would be able to climb a railway that averages 1 in 5, even with sanders on full. Wheels would simply slip uselessly. On a mountain railway, the rails are purely for trundling on, and all the driving is done using gear wheels mounted on the axles of the locomotive. The gear wheels engage with a staggered rack between the rails, and a gripper, a little like the system used by cable-hauled trams, runs either side of the rack. This way it becomes almost impossible for the locomotive to run out of brakes or to derail itself. With all that knowledge safe in my head I took a seat in the carriage.
</P><P>
I'd opted for the "Heritage" experience. Why would you go to Snowdon and be taken up the mountain by a diesel? Smelly, droning things those, full of bluff and bluster and conceit. Not like a steam engine, who works hard for a living and becomes immortalised in small books for children. The Heritage experience also buys you wooden slatted seats that don't even come with cushions. The carriage filled up gradually, and our departure time came and went. It seemed we were still waiting on some more people. The more people who took seats, the more the windows steamed up. So now we were having a trip up an improbable railway that wasn't going to the top, but that wouldn't matter because we wouldn't be able to see anything anyway. I switched on my GPS so that I'd at least have the evidence.
</P><P>
A peep from the whistle signalled 10.50 precisely, and with a hefty jolt as the brakes came off we powered out of the station at all of five miles an hour. The track rose up at a crazy angle in front of us, and driver opened the regulator. We crept up to seven miles an hour, eight, almost. <EM>Padarn</EM> began breathing heavily as she took the weight of the carriage in front of her and pushed it up the hill, her gear wheels digging deeply into the rack and her exhaust darkening. The drizzle had turned to torrential mist that in the wind battered the windows of the carriage. But the weight of the passengers held us firm on the track, and as we left behind the gorges, spanned by small viaducts that looked not a million miles away from the lift hill on a roller coaster, the mountain started to open out beside us.
</P><P>
<EM>Padarn</EM> made slow but surprisingly steady progress up the mountain. I looked back as we passed Waterfall Halt and wasn't entirely sure that I couldn't see Llwyn Celyn Bach in the distance and perhaps even my tent, a tiny green blotch on a hillside. After ten minutes we slowed to walking pace, at the passing loop of Hebron Station to let a train descend. Another ten minutes and we came to Halfway Station. <EM>Padarn</EM> came to a stop because she was almost out of water. Her builder was the Swiss Locomotive Company, highly experienced in rack railway engines, but they didn't give her very big tanks. Even her small cylinders and superheated boiler weren't enough to compete with the full length of the Snowdon railway.
</P><P>
<a href="https://flic.kr/p/wBwyKc" title="Wending our merry way by beqi, on Flickr">
<img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/572/20092743913_9bb469253e_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="Wending our merry way" style="" align=right></a>
Down the hill to the right was the Llanberis Path, also known as The Pig Track, and it was busy with hundreds of fell runners with numbers on their backs. Some in tracksuits, some in shorts, all of them stick thin and designed for running up hills. The weather was horrible and I didn't envy them.
</P><P>
It only took six minutes to fill up <EM>Padarn</EM>'s water. Another jolt and her throaty exhaust note filled the air. I hadn't realised until now that the windows of our carriage were see-through again, and I pulled my fleece as high up my neck as it would go. The cloud was still above us, while the wind seemed to have died down along with the rain. At 11.23 we stopped again.
</P><P>
'Ladies and gentleman, this is as far as we can go today,' our conductoress announced. 'This is Rocky Valley. You can see why if you look to your left.'
</P><P>
We were at 680 metres (2230 feet). If you stepped out five feet from the railway at this point you would plummet 500 metres into a rocky green nothingness, and end up on the Pass of Llanberis. The Victorians certainly had guts. As I looked around I noticed that the grass and the shrubs were all bent over at an angle, waving around as the wind tugged at them. In fact if you tried to step out five feet from the railway at this point, you'd've been blown off the edge before you'd covered three feet.
</P><P>
The celebrated railway photographer, Henry Casserley, recalled the story of the very first passenger trips up Snowdon in April 1896. His account was slightly fanciful, if no less alarming than the truth. The inaugural train up Snowdon was propelled by No. 2 <EM>Enid</EM>. Her journey to the summit was made successfully, with a carriage full of passengers. Two more carriages were put on the next train, controlled by No. 1, an engine called <EM>LADAS</EM>, short for Laura Alice Duff Assheton-Smith, who was the local landowner; Enid was her daughter. <EM>LADAS</EM> the steam engine was to have a very short life.
</P><P>
<EM>LADAS</EM> took the first return journey and set off down the hill. As she neared Clogwyn Station she lost her grip on the rack. Her handbrake failed against the rapid acceleration, and her driver and fireman managed to jump to safety. As <EM>LADAS</EM> hurtled down the line she derailed on the next turn and plunged over the mountainside. Her carriages, having their own automatic brakes and a brakeman, brought themselves to a stop and all aboard were uninjured. But not before a passenger, Ellis Roberts, expecting the worst when he saw the enginemen jump clear, did the same. As he landed he cut his head badly, and he later died from his injury.
</P><P>
Worse, as <EM>LADAS</EM> left the track near the station she tore through the signal wires. After waiting 45 minutes in thick fog at the mountain's summit, <EM>Enid</EM>'s driver believed the line was surely clear and started down the hill. As <EM>Enid</EM> reached the point above Clogwyn Station she too lost her grip on the rack, and ran into the carriages that <EM>LADAS</EM> had left behind. The impact jolted <EM>Enid</EM> back onto the rack and her driver was able to bring her to a stop, but the brakes on the carriages were overcome and they were derailed at the station.
</P><P>
An inquiry discovered that both engines lost their footing, not because of any problem with the rails, but because the rack had settled since the track was constructed. This, they believed, was <A HREF=http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1896/jun/01/snowdon-mountain-railway-accident">caused by subsidence resulting from melting snow</A> and possibly poor transitions in the gradient, for each piece of rack was several feet long and as straight as a ruler. Following the incident they installed the gripper arrangement on the steepest parts of the railway. While no harm came to <EM>Enid</EM>, <EM>LADAS</EM> had landed upside down 2000 feet below and she was completely destroyed. No engine at Snowdon has carried her number since.
</P><P>
We stayed at Rocky Valley for about ten more minutes before setting off back down to terra firma. I changed seats to be closer to <EM>Padarn</EM> and to get a better view over Llanberis and beyond. Perhaps understandably, our brakewoman declined to tell us the story of the little engine that went over the side.
</P><P>
After the station I still had almost a whole day in hand and it wasn't even lunchtime. It was raining as I rounded the shores of Llyn Padarn and Llyn Peris, dodging around the fell runners who were seemingly going in both directions, some towards Snowdon while others, the faster ones perhaps, were heading around to the marquees and the finishing line, and possibly a space blanket or two. With my memories of Mark Williams (the Brummy one on The Fast Show, and more recently, <EM>Father Brown</EM>) enthusing about ye olde tyme slate industry, I headed towards the grand arched entrance of Dinorwic Slate Museum.
</P><P>
<a href="https://flic.kr/p/xz16M6" title="A date with some slate by beqi, on Flickr">
<img src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5630/20720523611_4c659f279d_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="A date with some slate" style="" align=right></a>
Of course slate is grey, but nothing quite prepares you for the incredible greyness when every building is made from it. They call Aberdeen 'the granite city', in its coarse grained, ever so slightly sparkly but otherwise unyielding monotonality. But slate is a darker grey, perhaps polished and shiny, perhaps matt and roughly squared, and even darker in the persistent rain of Snowdonia. It was a grey day alright.
</P><P>
The tour of the museum, such as it is laid out in a rather nicely produced little map, took me from the centre of the enclosure to each of the rooms and workshops in turn. At first I wandered around haphazardly, trying not to look at everything too quickly, then deciding to follow the route. Just to be contrary I ended up doing the first bit back to front. The museum wasn't always a museum, mind you, not with that gigantic water wheel and casting shop and legions of massive machine tools. It was the epicentre of Dinorwic quarry operations, where men were men and Things Were Made. Now though you can buy souvenirs so heavy they'll strain your shoulder and cut a hole in your bag. That wasn't a problem because my bag was already full to bursting.
</P><P>
After seeing most of what there was to see I was freezing cold and aimed myself at the cafe. Some encouragingly thick leek soup and a pot of tea warmed me up, and some of the moistest banana loaf I've ever had gave me some energy. I finished off my visit watching a short film about the history of the quarry, and how one can bring to bear the power of black powder and coal and steam upon the land and by golly carve away the whole side of a mountain.
</P><P>
It was still raining, on and off, as I returned to Llanberis high street—as if there were many other streets to wander along—by which time I was cold again. 'Outdoors shop, now!' I said to myself, with waterproofing being my newfound interest. Not just out of becoming fed up, either, for it would put a real crimp on my holiday if my down sleeping bag became wet while it was stowed in my pannier. I did wonder whether it might be afforded some protection from my sleeping mat and everything else that was stuffed alongside, the way tightly packed paper files in an archive are surprisingly fireproof, but my panniers were only water resistant. I didn't particularly fancy repeating my earlier experience of riding through two thunderstorms and finding my plane tickets home were becoming soggy. I did learn <EM>something</EM> from that holiday, because at least all my maps (and train tickets home) this time were carefully sealed in plastic bags. However I only had with me my woolly hat and my cycling cap, and a waterproof hat was suddenly terribly attractive. Alongside browsing titanium cooking pots and USB powered lamps and a hundred other cool things I didn't need, it only took me an hour to decide which hat to buy.
</P><P>
It was then that I realised I'd forgotten all about the ticket office at the mountain railway. After all, I'd paid (in advance) to go to the summit, and we had all been promised a partial refund. My grey day continued when I discovered the ticket office was now shut, and I stomped back along the road again.
</P><P>
The supermarket cheered me up slightly on account of having chocolate milk on the shelf, along with the most expensive punnet of raspberries I'd ever dared buy. Back at Camp Bex I made more tea, and then really pushed the boat by having cold sandwiches for dinner, having saved them from lunchtime. And with no cream or yoghurt to make dessert more exciting, I ate all my raspberries au naturel.
</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><P>
"I can understand why people go to hot places and drive cars. It just keeps RAINING!"
</P></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
I sat inside my tent with a tummy full of my ultra-low frills dinner, and started worrying. It was a strange mix of fear, of trying to be too ambitious and coming a cropper somewhere (the rain, plus or minus my planned daily distance), and hope, that I would able to tough it out all the way to Pendine. The notable lack of a) a hairdryer, and b) a tent door that didn't drip every time I opened it, really did start to get to me. It's not like I didn't have any shampoo with me, but were I more into the whole rufty-tufty camping thing, I probably would be wearing my hair much shorter, instead of my untidy plait down one side to try to keep it all out of the way.
</P><P>
Pulling out my map, for I was still on my well-thumbed OS Explorer—we were nowhere near getting onto Landranger no. 124—the railway lines started to intrude into my oh-so-carefully programmed itinerary.
</P><P>
'What if I go a different way tomorrow?' I asked myself.
<BR>
'Now you've done it,' my brain said to my heart. 'You've only gone and started thinking of excuses.'
<BR>
'Well I'm fed up, you know. I'm sick of feeling cold and wet. This is my summer holiday and I just want a little bit of sunshine.'
<BR>
'Well you'll have to make a decision. Tabitha and I are going to ride to Caernarfon Castle tomorrow, and then the road goes to the left and Porthmadog, or to the right and back to the Britannia Bridge and Bangor, and you'll have to tell us which way to turn the handlebars.'
<BR>
'I've made all these plans, booked all these places to stay, I've got myself to the middle of bloody nowhere in fog and wind and rain, and now I don't know what I want to do.'
<BR>
'Porthmadog isn't really that far, you know.'
<BR>
'But I'm not staying there, I'm in the campsite on the far side of the valley. It was hard enough riding over the top to Llanberis yesterday.'
<BR>
'What kind of rubbish cyclist are you? You've got a pannierful of Jelly Babies and chocolate milk, and those big velomobile muscles. I dare you.'
<BR>
'I know, I know. It's not that bit I'm worried about, it's afterwards: that big diversion I might have to do if I miss my train. It's an extra 24 miles. And after Aberystwyth the railway runs out. I have to make that bit work too.'
<BR>
'What's 60 miles? You're supposed to be an expert at this stuff.'
<BR>
'It might be 70 miles. I think I miscalculated, and it might be hilly again.'
<BR>
'Pedal for Scotland was only 65 miles.'
<BR>
'I wasn't hauling a metric tonne of stuff with me that day.'
<BR>
'Well if you turn right you won't be doing any more little train rides or museums. Where are you going to stay? And you'll have to buy another train ticket to get home.'
<BR>
'I know. Shut up, I'm thinking.'
<BR>
'I'm just saying.'
<BR>
'Shut up!'
</P><P>
The weather was delighted that I was still in Snowdonia, so it was drizzling the next morning. My bike was still propped against the stone wall which was still affording no protection from the elements whatsoever. At least the wind overnight hadn't managed to dislodge the plastic bag I'd put over the seat cushion. In a rare few minutes when the weather calmed I managed to tear down my tent and pack all my bags. I was already hugely enjoying my new hat. At first my gears didn't work; thirty-six hours of wet probably wasn't good for them, and my front brake blocks sounded like they were made from sandpaper. My first port of call was that outdoors shop, where I added to this season's waterproof collection with a pair of rucksack covers. A mile or two down the road I decided to use them.
</P><P>
<a href="https://flic.kr/p/xgTWZ8" title="Whistlestop castle by beqi, on Flickr">
<img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/594/20526942929_c0b75defcc_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="Whistlestop castle" style="" align=right></a>
Caernarfon was actually only a few more miles from Llanberis and I covered the distance in fairly short order. I managed a faint and rather ironic smile because now that I was near the coast again, I'd left that no-good mountain weather behind and it wasn't raining. In fact, it was almost sunny. I did a circuit of the castle, immediately got lost and rode the wrong way down a one-way street. I could see the coast and the Menai Strait, and Anglesey beyond. I sighed heavily at the loss of my itinerary and started out for Bangor.
</P><P>
The first few miles were along the trackbed of an old railway line, in fact the very one I'd been told about two days before. Once upon a time this was the London & North Western Railway's Bangor and Caernarfon Branch; to the south one could travel to Pen-y-groes and the quarries by Tal-y-sarn, and on the south coast, Pwleheli and Criccieth. Later it all became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway; in 1972 the tracks east from Caernarfon were torn up. Now though it was pretty efficient by bicycle and quietly scenic. It was better than belting along the A487 amongst the car drivers. On the outskirts of Bangor I passed the road that led to the long grind towards Llanberis, and then I took the wrong exit on a roundabout. Had I known where I was going I wouldn't have worried, but with some dead reckoning and a conveniently appearing short lane with hairpin bends I was able to rejoin the road past the Britannia Bridge. Everything was becoming very familiar as I hauled myself to the top of the town. It's so built on now that for the passing traveller there's no view over the Menai Straits anyway. Next stop: Bangor railway station.
</P><P>
The train was late, and I was now cold again, sitting on the platform for about 45 minutes. Presently my ride home arrived and I shoehorned my bike onboard. After emerging from the long tunnel under Minffordd the scenery jarred. It was fun, but galling too, to see the paths I'd ridden along only two and three days earlier. So much for adventure. Conwy tubular bridge was welcome, and if nothing else I could tick off another item on my 'places to go' list. All too soon I was back in Chester station, so I enquired about a ticket home, and then shuffled off to think about the rest of my day, riding around the block the long way and checking out possible places to spend the night. I returned to the railway station, my mind made up, and bought an 0630 reservation for the direct train.
</P><P>
I was only a week early in dropping by at my friend's house, but it was good to see her and catch up for an hour or two. With the last few electrons in my phone, whose ancient battery was so completely awful that two phone calls would flatten it completely, I called a couple of hostels, booked myself in, and then cycled over there to dump my bags and my bike. I looked like hell, quite honestly. I made the best I could in the meantime, unpacked and then flopped for a while. I met my friends at the station, and we ambled around the old town for a while to find somewhere to eat, deciding in the end on cheap fish and chips in an even cheaper cafe. It was OK, all things considered.
</P><P>
After fond goodbyes it was back to the hostel for me, an early night, rubbish sleep, and an early morning in which my evening of careful packing and re-packing enabled me to creep out of the dorm without waking anyone. I wasn't there long enough to get to know anyone, of course, but good manners cost nothing and I suppose it all counts.
</P><P>
By lunchtime I was home. I unpacked in a half-hearted manner, laid out my tent, and wondered where on earth it all went wrong.
</P>Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-73926277937091079582015-10-19T21:00:00.000+00:002015-10-19T21:00:17.542+00:00The road leads cursed and charmed<P>
The A55 from Chester to Bangor is a lovely road, a great big smooth dual carriageway. It flows through green countryside following the contours and skirts the flatlands by the coast. It plays catch with the railway that threads its own way along the coast and past cliff faces. After Conwy it takes on an alpine air as it hugs the hills, twists and turns on enormous elevated concrete viaducts, and plunges gleefully into excitingly dark tunnels guarded by big signs with red and green lights.
</P><P>
If you're a cyclist, the A55 is a total pain in the arse.
</P><P>
It used to be worse. At one time, and not so very long ago, it was practically impossible to cycle west out of Conwy and stay within sight of the coast. You could do it, but it involved a narrow footway right next to traffic coming towards you at 60mph. Then someone had a huge injection of cash, and infrastructure was built. Great steel bridges were erected. Cliff faces were tamed with Gabion baskets and dovetailed concrete slabs and huge bolts. Parapet walls were rebuilt, footways were resurfaced and widened. It was this newfangled cycling facility that lured me—dared me—to Wales to try it out. Mainly for research purposes, you understand, and partly out of bloodymindedness. My itinerary for the day was fewer miles than Chester to Rhôs on Sea, but more industrial. And not just in the sights.
</P><P>
I always have a bit of a blind spot taking down my tent: I stand and stare at it, hands on hips, trying to work out whether to unpeg it first and then pull the poles out, or the other way around, or a bit of both. Do I fold it neatly, or stuff it? As it was, I was ready to leave Dinarth Hall before ten o'clock. I fared better than some others on the campsite, though. Several people had left their four-poster gazebos standing when they went to bed, and the wind overnight took down every one of them. But while they luxuriated in their duvets under rigid fibreglass, and I in my cosy little down bag, I had a pretty poor night as my tent's fly flapped this way and that. Broken sleep does strange things to you.
</P><P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><P>
"Dreamed that I watched a Deltic rounding a tight left-hand turn at Prestonpans (!) and it overturned almost where I was standing watching! Class 91s in Electra livery came to the rescue.
</P></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
I looked at the sky and it was overcast. The wind was still up, too, but at least the air pressure had crept up a fraction to 1013mb. But it's only weather, and I had a waterproof with me just in case. The campsite had a back lane with a gate at the end. I'd seen it when I arrived and was choosing my pitch, but I'd presumed that it would be locked. After all, you can't have every Tom, Dick and Harry rocking up with their seventeen-person canvas headquarters and flushing your toilets like they own the place. I therefore had to go right the way around the farm, past my supermarket and along and down, saying hello to the back gate on my way. As I made my merry way through the country lanes I realised that I hadn't refilled my water bottles again. I remembered the cold water tap and decided I'd stop by. Well if the back gate wasn't only bloody well wide open! I rode past my former tent pitch, filled up, and hauled my heavy bike back on the way to tubular bridge country. At least it was a pleasant two-mile warm up.
</P><P>
Getting to Conwy was surprisingly difficult. I wafted around the edge of Llandudno Junction and saw the bridges over the river, first Stephenson's baby tubular railway bridge, behind it Telford's chain suspension road bridge, and behind that the modern concrete arch road bridge that carries the traffic nowadays. I would have happily followed the signs and stayed on the A547 but the Sustrans route took me on a wild goose chase away from the roundabout I was nearly at, under the big scary road, through an industrial estate and dumped me on the road north heading towards Platt and Conwy Bay. This wasn't where was I meant to be going.
</P><P>
'For crying out loud!' I shouted, stabbing the zoom buttons on my GPS, turning right and putting back on my Experienced Cyclist hat. I powered up to the roundabout, hauled my bike hard right and headed down the promontory. I jinked left at the last minute to take the Telford bridge over the river and hit the brakes.
'What? A Pound?' I exclaimed as I saw that the bridge was gated and a fare was chargeable. It might be a National Trust site and quite rightly, but it was ridiculous. I'd walked the bridge before, from the castle side with a friend, and I've no idea if we were supposed to have paid or not for the privilege. Where on earth was the cycle route?
</P><P>
'Oh for heaven's sake!' I shouted, and I launched myself into the mêlée of cars being driven ten to the dozen into the historic town.
</P><P>
It should be noted that the cycle route does in fact exist. Just after going under Big Scary Road you turn right and go up a ramp with a hairpin corner halfway up, and it brings you out onto the footway on the north side of the road. Simple. Of course this means you're still on the wrong side of the road when you get to the other end.
</P><P>
<a href="https://flic.kr/p/wWua63" title="The way out of Conwy, by beqi, on Flickr">
<img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/273/20307287528_433841d8a7_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="The way out of Conwy" style="" align=right></img></a>
I did think about pottering around Conwy castle. After a brief circuit of the car park, an inspection of the entry fee, and my own darkening mood, I did a brief circuit of the town instead. It took several minutes to locate a way out, eventually finding a ludicrously steep descending lane that in turn fed me onto the coastal path. My mood brightened, I spun my way around the bay for half a mile or so and stopped to take some photographs. Out past the golf course and I was back in the countryside and as the motorists disappeared into the Penmaenbach Tunnels, I took on the infrastructure.
</P><P>
For the most part, it was very hard work. While motorists with unlimited horsepower glided past without a care in the world for gradient, and diesel trains rumbled along happily right by the sea wall, the cycle route lurched up and down, threaded its way through sheer cliffs and did right-angled turns past sharp-edged walls that caught my panniers more than once. To give Wales credit, there was barely any cycle route before, and they couldn't just magic a fantastical Dutch expressway out of thin air. "Shoehorned" might describe it. At Penmaenmawr the path opened out to a wide, paved promenade with a cafe and a playground and some shelters for weary travellers. It was a Saturday morning, and the place was almost deserted. The cafe and its occasional patron had a tired, motorway service station look, which is not that great loss considering the nondescript Edwardian promenade of much the same format that was swept away in the A55's construction. I sat out of the wind in one of the shelters and ate a banana and some flapjack. I looked up at the hillside and could make out a series of inclines and galleries and a few stone buildings. Quarries! Now I was getting somewhere, because quarries meant slate, probably, and slate meant I was on my way to Snowdon central.
</P><P>
The unlucky westbound cyclist from Penmaenmawr has to cope with an amazing construction. From sea level one is required to ride up an unsurfaced access road with a gradient of about 1 in 5. Add a camping load and it might as well be 1 in 1. Then, as the A55 hammers overhead on its massive columns, one navigates a series of hairpin bends bookmarking steeply graded ramps that would give a wheelchair user friction burns, all the while climbing madly to reach the top: the old road to Bangor, which here is of course Penmaenmawr high street. This convenient gash in the landscape so ably filled by enterprising civil engineers, clearly imagining all cyclists to possess thighs like Robert Förstemann, was in fact once the inclined tramway leading to (and from) the great Penmaen-mawr Quarries whose output once upon a time departed from the nearby jetty, now but a series of stumps. And in the process the top of Penmaenmawr mountain—literally "Head of the Great Stone"—was completely quarried away.
</P><P>
Having made it up onto the old road you can't stay on it, because it was subsumed by the dual carriageway. Instead, the cycle path diverts to sweep grandly over the road on a new bridge. One is afforded a splendid view of the Pen-y-clip Tunnel, and then the route cuts away and hides itself inland next to the eastbound carriageway. The land rises and falls again and, around the other side of the mountain, another new bridge takes you across the westbound lanes again. After so much buggering about, stop-start riding and winkling around corners, I arrived in Llanfairfechan. I'd been working on the bike hard enough that I'd quite forgotten about whether it was trying to rain or trying to be sunny and summery.
</P><P>
Sustrans gets a bad rap from a fair number of cyclists. Most of the complaints come from the highly experienced, or the fast and vehicular, or those riding trikes, towing trailers, or riding anything that isn't a cookie cutter "bicycle". Tandemistas, recumbent riders, and occasionally a lone velomobile pilot, know it all too well. I've strayed too close already to the epithet, "Sustrans barrier", but a greater percentage of the big S's route mileage is on good old blacktop, carefully surveyed, cycled, signposted and stickered. But after Llanfairfechan they really outdid themselves.
</P><P>
<a href="https://flic.kr/p/xbMvJ7" title="Sustrans' best, by beqi, on Flickr">
<img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/367/20469104806_6f3af8ed04_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="Sustrans' best" style="" align=right></img></a>
To be fair, there weren't many alternatives. I followed the old road to Abergwygregyn where at the big junction most people pointed their cars at one of the snaking little slip roads, to play with the other cars on the A55. My route turned south past a farm and immediately started climbing towards the trees. It was only the bitiest of country lanes, with tall hedgerows and overgrown gates to fields. I was concerned that a tractor, Chelsea or actual, might come thundering down the hill and not see until it was too late this laden cyclist winching along her lowest ratios. It was slow going and summer had arrived, so I crested a rise and parked under some trees and ate more flapjack. I could see the main road low down in the distance, on the flats before the sea.
</P><P>
After Crymlyn Farm the road started descending—at last—all the way to the next junction with the A55. It's a fine line between following a route that has been designed to accommodate the least experienced cyclist and being able to deviate from it in the name of efficiency. My maps were mostly buried in my pannier, and map reading involved stopping and faffing. So I mostly followed the blue signs and glanced at the cyan coloured line on my GPS. Had I known all of this I wouldn't have cycled three sides of a rectangle just to get to the next town! Come to think of it, I had the same issue in Ontario, following the cycle route through Oakville on the way to Burlington, on my way to Niagara-on-the-Lake.
</P><P>
On the main road into Tal-y-bont I caught up a group of mountain bikers. As the road descended in a great right-hand sweep to the bridge over Afon Ogwen I put the pedal to the metal and the thing to the floor, and overtook the lot of them. I impressed myself by managing to keep them out of sight as the road climbed out of the valley towards Llandygai. With a left and a right I took a country lane even smaller than the one before, with hedges even taller. I cycled over the route of the railway to Bangor—it's in a tunnel at this point but I wouldn't have known, unless I'd been on a ventilation shaft hunting expedition, which I wasn't—and came to a ford. Living in a city you tend not to encounter them. But there is one, is in the old village of Dean where the Water of Leith is about as accessible as it gets. At one time, and possibly not all that many years ago, there were great stone slabs, and you could drive your car down a precarious cobbled ramp, splosh your way through, and power up the cobbled road on the other side and hope your crossplies did their job. Now though the river is two or three feet deep and you have to use the pedestrian bridge. But here, perhaps half a mile from Bangor, the ford was flowing well and looked distinctly slidey. I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and took the footbrige.
</P><P>
Then Sustrans' planning really showed its worth. From the ford my lovely little country lane climbed upwards. I changed down the gears, and eventually reached '1'. The route ascended 75 metres, averaging 1 in 10-and-a-bit. That's quite steep and I've climbed worse in my velomobile. But the stinger was the section of 1 in 5 up to a junction, and with a full camping load I had to get off and push. Quite how a family would deal with a road like that is a good question. But I got to the very top at Minffordd eventually and plummeted down the other side to Glen-Adda on the southwestern side of Bangor.
</P><P>
I didn't know that Bangor was built in a valley, and promptly found myself another lung bursting and leg wrenchingly slow climb to the top of the ridge that runs southwest to northeast. My speed was little more than walking pace, about 4mph, I was sweating like a pig and I may have been gritting my teeth, but I wasn't going to get off and walk this time! Along the ridge I found a cheap little supermarket, staffed by a disinterested man who seemed to spend all his time talking with his regulars. Even when I was giving him money for Jelly Babies and crisps he barely managed a thank-you and a smile in my direction.
</P><P>
Shortly before yet another big junction with the A55, where it swings north to cross the Menai Straits, I turned north as well. Passing through the collection of houses of Ty'n-y-lôn my road reverted to country lane, which reverted to a roughly slabbed track as it plunged downhill. I wasn't looking forward to cycling back up, put it that way. And plunging downhill in these here parts meant only one thing. Above the trees strode the mighty Britannia Bridge. I passed underneath the southern end of the road deck, where the railway curves tightly to the right and hides underneath, and watched a train rumble its way towards Anglesey. A short way down the hill I found an access road. It seemed to be in the right sort of place, so I climbed up for a look.
</P><P>
<a href="https://flic.kr/p/xeEhgB" title="Stephenson's lions, by beqi, on Flickr">
<img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/513/20501643241_98d28dd054_m.jpg" width="240" height="214" alt="Stephenson's lions" style="" align=right></img></a>
Silently and impassively keeping guard over the bridge, as it has done for 165 years, was my stone lion. Like his three brothers, he is simply magnificent. It's a tribute to an age when we built things and were so proud of them that we'd spend money on decorations to make them look even better. Looking all of their twelve feet tall, and sitting on their twelve feet tall plinths, the lions were in keeping with the hefty Egyptian themes of the bridge's masonry. They were carved by John Thomas, who produced many other splendid works, mostly of people, including statues for the then Euston Station. And while railway passengers were no doubt awed by the audacity of the Britannia Bridge, they had time to groan, too.
</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><P>
Pedwar llew tew<BR> Heb ddim blew.<BR> Dau 'ochr yma<BR> A dau 'ochr drew.
</P><P><EM>
Four fat lions<BR> Without any fur.<BR> There's two over 'ere<BR> And two over there.</EM>
</P></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
John Evans no doubt thought himself a fine poet, but he was very much a contemporary of William McGonagall, who wrote so memorably about the Silv'ry Tay.
</P><P>
<a href="https://flic.kr/p/xdjWjN" title="Bent box, by beqi, on Flickr">
<img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/512/20486552522_840e0a594a_m.jpg" width="160" height="240" alt="Bent box" style="" align=right></img></a>
In the clearing further down the hill stands the other edifice that I'd wanted to see. In 1970 some teenagers were exploring one of the iron tubes of the bridge, their passage lit by a flaming torch. In the heat of the moment the torch was dropped. Imagine the debris left behind by a century of steam locomotives: ash, coal dust, lumps of coal, oil, oily rags. Imagine, also, the construction of the tube and its treatment: iron panels on all four sides, lined at the bottom with the railway's wooden sleepers, and at the top a wooden roof coated in tar. What could possibly go wrong? The burning torch caught the debris on the ground, and the flames seared up to the roof. Stephenson and company might have been brilliant engineers but firefighting and access/egress was possibly not high up their agenda. The teenagers might have survived—and are probably living lives of extraordinary shame—but the fire could not be put out. The flames and the heat travelled the whole length of the bridge and the great iron tubes were ruined: still in place but distorted and brittle, with rivet heads popped out of place and panelling buckled and stressed.
</P><P>
It's perhaps just as well that a new road bridge to Anglesey was needed at the same time, because British Rail was in a frenzy of closures, and would doubtless have been happy to close the railway entirely and demolish the bridge. Happily, perhaps, the bridge was saved by rebuilding it with two main steel arches supporting a new railbed, and the huge stone pillars were cut through to build the road deck above. Although the majority of the iron was now scrap, one section was preserved, in the clearing where I was now standing. I thought it was rather an ignominious end. Of course it should be displayed next to its home, and of course the monument should have its own bronze plaque, but it's practically forgotten in the middle of nowhere with no tourist signs to guide the visitor.
</P><P>
As I walked my bike back up the steep bank of Afon Menai, I did wonder whether the lack of signs was for the best. It would be a terrible thing for a new generation of teenagers, bored with their electronic toys, to discover the lions. But already the sheltered area under the road deck is the site of bonfires and drinking, and palisade fencing is only so good. In Stephenson's day they'd be given the cane for such insolence.
</P><P>
The sun was out in force, and I was surprisingly tired and close to the dreaded bonk, as in, 'I think I need to sit down right now, please.' I cycled back to the main road, found a bench, and ate the entire bag of crisps, half a banana and drank great quantities of chocolate milk. While I gathered my strength I chatted with a man who was mowing his lawn nearby.
<BR>
'That's a comfortable looking bike! You look like you're going a long way. Where you off to?'
<BR>
'I'm on my way to Llanberis. Not too far to go I think!'
<BR>
'Which way are you going to go?'
<BR>
'I was planning to cut across in that direction,' I said, pointing south, 'about 12 miles or so.'
<BR>
'There's a bloody big hill that way you know, and the drivers are crazy these days. You can go around; go down the hill and take the old railway line to Caernarfon and then come in on the main road. It's more level.'
<BR>
I had no idea what he was talking about. 'I don't mind hills too much. I've had quite a lot of experience.'
<BR>
'Have you got a map?'
<BR>
'Aye, I've got my OS map and my GPS. Is it much further going that way?'
<BR>
'Few miles more I'd say.'
<BR>
'Ok, I'll check it out. Thanks!'
</P><P>
Frankly I wanted to get to Llanberis as quickly as I could, and I had no intention of trying to navigate off-route. I headed west out of town on the A487 which didn't seem too crazy to me, and then took the B4547. Quieter and quite enjoyable. The road turned left and started climbing, into the trees and into the shade. This was becoming a recurring theme, I noticed. Before long I was rounding a long curve in almost bottom gear while trying to take the lane. The drivers were in fact crazy, I decided, as time and again they sped past as close as possible to me, as though the white line was covered in spikes. Once it levelled out I accelerated and shot across a roundabout, held my speed for a while but then road started to climb again. The A4244 might be a wide S2 type road but the drivers were completely insane. I may have turned the air very blue on more than one occasion. It was a long hill and the traffic was spurring me to ride faster than I needed. What difference to them, hurtling up the hill at 60mph or more, would it have made were I riding at 4mph or 8mph? Or 15mph? I should have saved my energy. After what felt like about an hour's worth of climbing, but amazingly was only ten minutes, I reached a petrol station. I was nearly dying. I sat on some big boulders, tore open a bright yellow plastic bag and chomped as fast as I could on several Jelly Babies. The other half of my banana disappeared even quicker.
</P><P>
I ought to have stayed longer but impatience got the better of me. I relaxed as I dropped quickly down the far slopes of Moel Rhiwen. Terminal velocity seemed to be about 35mph, and that was fast enough for me in those conditions. Once into the valley floor by the Afon Rhythallt which empties itself at Caernarfon, I was riding upstream so I was climbing again. Fortunately the worst of it, and the road was pretty narrow at the best of times anyway, is where they've built a reasonably wide footway that is also the cycle path. I was glad to take it, and as soon as I left the tarmac I also stopped rushing, and settled into a friendly stress-free rhythm. Lake Padarn to my left stretched out into the mist. Mist? Yes, it was actually attempting to rain by this point. I think the actual word is "mizzle". The lake was my friend all the way to Llanberis. I waved to a couple riding equally heavily loaded touring bikes, all bright red Ortliebs and stout tyres.
</P><P>
Llanberis looked like your typical one-road village. It reminded me of South Queensferry; there were strings of shops selling everything from antiques and buckets and spades to paninis and waterproofs; cosy B&Bs with flowerboxes in the garden competed with converted grand houses with cars in the garden; the derelict petrol station was thrown in for contrast, I assumed. I found the road to my campsite—Llwyn Celyn Bach—and started up the hill. It seemed fairly steep but nothing I hadn't encountered already today. Then it got steeper. A turn here, a turn there, and it got even steeper again. By the time I was almost out of the trees my heart had nearly burst through my chest and my legs were more lactic acid than muscle. It was all I could do to push my bike to the top. After all that effort I surveyed my surroundings.
</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><P>
"I seem to have found the world's slopiest campsite at the top of the world's steepest hill."
</P></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
I quickly realised there wasn't a level bit of ground anywhere. How the hell was I going to manage to sleep here? I was so utterly worn out after 35 miles that I couldn't face climbing that road again. I phoned various establishments and only one had a vacancy. I decided it was worth trying, and after much thinking I took off back down the hill, my brakes grinding themselves into oblivion. I soon discovered why the hotel had a vacancy. With its brown reception desk, pictures all faded to buggery, a hall with brown and red threadbare carpeting, and a "Break Glass" fire alarm all taped over, the hotel probably had lots of vacancies. I went with my gut feeling and I shot out of the place before anyone tried to help me.
</P><P>
'Bollocks!' I think I said.
</P><P>
Since I was at ground level I cycled all the way to the other end of the village to have a look at the Snowdon Mountain Railway station, and to scope out the area for bike parking. Research purposes, you see. There wasn't any bike parking. I'd heard rumours that the weather for the next day wasn't meant to be very good, and I asked at the station ticket office. A lady who'd found herself with a spare ticket for the railway asked me if I wanted to buy it and enjoy the views while the sun was out. It was only mid-afternoon. I thanked her and carried on with my day, deciding that getting my tent up was more important. There was a hullabaloo in the park opposite the station with catering tents and gazebos going up. Some sort of charity event I thought, maybe a mountain bike race. I needed some food for dinner anyway, so I popped into the supermarket. After a bit more aimless riding up and down there was nothing for it but to go back to the campsite, and I wasn't feeling any stronger.
</P><P>
<a href="https://flic.kr/p/wh5Fu1" title="It's a slipery slope, this camping thing, by beqi, on Flickr">
<img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/345/19872680244_4dabd6395d_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="It's a slippery slope, this camping thing" style="" align=right></a>
<a href="https://flic.kr/p/wWu1Zf" title="How to steal a mountain, by beqi, on Flickr">
<img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/427/20307260280_f40df401f3_m.jpg" width="240" height="105" alt="How to steal a mountain" style="" align=right></a>
Back at the top I picked what looked like the least sloping bit of ground that was left, next to a wall, and set to work in the sunshine. From the campsite you can look right across to Dinorwic Quarry. It is absolutely enormous. Inclines, huge layers of grey spoil, more inclines, a few scattered buildings high up… In another direction you can just see the mountain railway. I could actually hear the little engine as it chuffed its way up towards the summit, and I wondered whether I should have taken up that offer.
</P><P>
A motorbiker arrived while I was making my dinner. Big old Yamaha FJ with Krauser boxes. He poked around for a few minutes, puttered off up the hill, and then came back down and disappeared into town. Llanberis was defintely bike-with-an-engine sort of terrain, but I decided that the ground of the campsite was just too steep for parking a motorbike safely. In one direction your bike wouldn't lean over far enough to sit on its propstand, and in the other direction it would lean so far it would fall over immediately and be impossible to lift. I was coming back from washing up when the motorbiker returned. Obviously he'd not found any vacancies either. He was investigating the least sloping bit of ground after mine, and I realised the rocky bit next to the gate might actually do, so I pointed. He nodded and came over, and I helped him find a better option to keep his bike upright. As he threw up his tent and fiddled with a can of lube we got chatting. Whereabouts have you come from? Have you done much touring? Of all the people to meet in this particular campsite on this particular day it turned out that, back home, he rode an Africa Twin. Well! Instant friendship. Tall, long hair, muscular, adventurous…damn.
</P><P>
Neither of us had anyone else to talk to, so we wandered down the hill and found a bar that was doing evening food. I'd already eaten dinner, of course, but I did find room for mushroom soup and a drink. It was refreshing to have some conversation, and it was dark when we walked back up to the campsite.
</P><P>
And like two passing ships, I returned to my tent, quite the warmest place to be by this point, snuggled into my sleeping bag and read about midwifery.
</P>Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-76088617467806632872015-10-14T21:31:00.002+00:002015-10-15T19:04:37.547+00:00Travel we say, wander we choose<P>
'It'll be alright once I'm on the move,' I told myself over bran flakes at breakfast time. A mile down the road I realised I hadn't filled my water bottles. Having already checked out of the hostel I snuck back in, using the door code I'd handily photographed earlier, and sped through to the kitchen and back out again. The guy at the desk wasn't even there.
</P><P>
Being a battle-hardened outdoorsy sort of gal, I was wearing my weather station watch that does all sorts of scientific, weathery things, it bleeps in seven different ways and tells you the time in Caracas. Just because I could, I pressed the middle button and it said 24.4ºC. It certainly wasn't 24.4ºC in the air rushing past my face as I tried and failed to ride out of town at a relaxed touring sort of pace.
</P><P>
During my evening of GPS programming I'd decided that for much of the route I could follow my nose, and follow the Sustrans National Cycle Network signs the rest of the time, so I approximated great swathes of here-to-there. The fiddly bits, like the road junctions in Conwy and the road out of Porthmadog, needed tighter planning with more data points. 'How hard can it be?' I thought as I was reaching the access point onto the old railway line. 'I just have to turn left…here, and, oh, no that's wrong. Bugger it, I'm way past the turn off.' I turned around. I could see the old railway, because it was 20 feet above me on a bridge. A GPS with a five-year old street map does tend to get caught out from time to time. I retraced my route, rode too far, doubled back again and as an experiment took a trip into a quiet-looking cul-de-sac with posh new houses that probably cost half a million each. I discovered a gap in the wooden fence, and next to it a shiny blue sign with a bicycle symbol. See, stuff has a habit of working out like that.
</P><P>
Temporarily disorientated I studied the nearby signpost for clues. A minute or two later a man riding a Moulton AM arrived. 'Nice bike!' I said approvingly.
<BR>
'I used to have a recumbent, you know, made by Trek. But I couldn't really get the hang of it.'
<BR>
'I remember that one, the R200 with the red frame shaped like a stick?'
<BR>
'Aye that's it. Is that one comfortable? Have you come far?'
<BR>
'It's lovely,' I said, 'it's like an armchair.' I bounced up and down on the seat to prove it. 'And no, just from town today.'
<BR>
'Are you lost? Do you need any directions?'
<BR>
I laughed. 'Actually I know exactly where I am. I'm just wondering which way to go. Is Hawarden Bridge that way?' I said, pointing in the direction of Hawarden Bridge.
</P><P>
<a href="https://flic.kr/p/wU7aVX" title="The big swing bridge by beqi, on Flickr">
<img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/354/20280364909_1709992600_m.jpg" width="240" height="210" alt="The big swing bridge" style="" align=right></a>
After a few minutes I managed to escape and powered along the disused railway. It was once part of the Great Central Railway route joining the North Wales and Liverpool Railway and the Wrexham, Mold and Connah's Quay Railway. After Nationalisation it was all controlled by the LNER. Now it was NCN Route 5 and belonged to dog walkers and cyclists. In the other direction it was once the Cheshire Lines Railway to Northwich, and part of it too is now Route 5. You can only follow it as far as Mickle Trafford because they're still using the rest of the railway line. You can deal with the roads after that. I took some photographs of the great swing bridge at Hawarden, its asymmetric 'hogback' main truss and second and third trusses all in a rather pleasing cream colour. Then it tried to rain.
</P><P>
I'd already cycled further out of Chester than I'd been before. The last time, which was nine years earlier, a friend and I had followed the path on the north side of the River Dee, as far as Queensferry. We must've gone out late because it was summer and it got dark as we turned back. My friend switched on the lights on her bike. I say 'lights' but they were the feeblest things I'd ever seen. She would've been better holding a glow worm. She might've been riding a bike, but she wasn't a cyclist as such; she didn't arrange her life around using her bike in the way that I did. I pressed a rubbery blue switch on my handlebars and blazed out fifteen Watts of pure halogen power. LEDs weren't up to much back then, and we were all riding around with honking great battery packs that could quite easily double as blunt weapons. Vistalite actually called them their 'Nightstick' series. Now of course you can buy a powerful bike light that's so small it could fit into the useless little side pocket they keep sewing into jeans.
</P><P>
It wasn't long before I left the cosy cycle path and rejoined the roads. The A548 was mostly easy riding with occasional dashes of well graded dual carriageway. In a town somewhere along the way I stopped at a petrol station to buy a couple of bananas. I find riding with a group quite difficult because my eating routine gets sidelined in the name of progress. When they want to stop, I'm just getting on top of my digestion. On my own, I had the perfect opportunity to eat what I damn well liked and when I liked. I learned from riding the Erie Canal that I seemed to work best on bananas, crisps, chocolate milk and water. I learned from friends that jelly babies make quite a good energy gel substitute, and are certainly more palatable. I understand. I've never eaten an energy gel, but I've heard they're like eating bogies. The petrol station could only sell me an entire bunch of bananas, which was a problem because I had little enough spare space already. I did the sensible thing, then, and bought a huge bag of cheesy crisps as well.
</P><P>
On the way to Rhyl were a couple of outbreaks of Art Deco in neat orange brick rather than pastel plasterwork, and then a huge rusting ship sitting beyond a ramshackle open air market. I harboured thoughts of deviating for a wee explore, but I was in a hurry and didn't really fancy taking my chances. The market looked like it might be guarded by dogs and men with salivating chops. What on earth was a ship doing here? Originally it was the TSS Duke of Lancaster, a passenger-only steam ferry built for British Railways in the 1950s. It plied the Scottish islands and, as a cruise ship, travelled all over Europe. Later it was converted to carry cars as well as people, but in 1978 it all ended and the Lancaster was laid up in Cumbria. Then in 1979 it was brought to the north Wales coast as "the Fun Ship", a sort of arcade gaming and bars and entertainment venue. It closed in 2004 and has sat rusting ever since.
</P><P>
I was making good speed along the roads and the drivers were mostly behaving themselves, but I was quite happy to get back onto the cycle path. I turned off at Talacre and rode along a path that felt like it was made of railway ballast. After shoehorning my bike—CAUTION: WIDE LOAD—through yet another Sustrans barrier, the kind that tapers towards the top so that it jams your panniers, your handlebars and your shoulders, I emerged next to the mudflats of the Point of Ayr. The path surface improved and I sped up nicely, heeling into fast turns as the tarmac wandered around vaguely. The landscape was part nature reserve and part post-industrial, concrete paved wasteland, with complicated looking gas pipelines in the background. Until the mid-1990s it was the Point of Ayr Colliery, but now its edges are gradually being reclaimed by nature.
</P><P>
Then I got lost. The path had gone along the embankment, across a car park, along a nice little boardwalk with butterflies and flowers, and fed me into the dunes. On foot or perhaps on a mountain bike it would be a lovely excursion; on a touring bike almost too heavy to lift it was ridiculous. I turned back to the embankment and thought about riding on the beach. The tide was out, after all, and there were cars parked out there. The big coloured map on a signpost was no help whatsoever. It didn't even have north pointing up the way.
</P><P>
'But the GPS <EM>said</EM> it was this way!' I muttered to anyone who might've been listening. Clearly the GPS was programmed by an idiot. I finally spotted the tiny little blue arrow sign, stuck to one of those tapered barriers that jams your handlebars. It was so obvious, while hiding itself quietly in some bramble bushes. And we were on the move again, and heading west. Presthaven holiday park was an endless series of static caravans, some not even with wheels anymore, others with white picket fences. For some reason I was fascinated by the waste pipes hanging down underneath them all. Children with bicycles padded around in bare feet, and their parents wandered around walking their dogs or chatted to each other with their arms folded. I found my way out of the park and missed the turning for the path through the golf course because the road into the park was full of queueing cars. The seafront promenade that stretches for a mile or more was smooth jointed concrete and no jagged bits of seashells. It was very quiet.
</P><P>
<a href="https://flic.kr/p/wU7cTe" title="Pausing in Prestatyn by beqi, on Flickr">
<img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/459/20280371479_e21b45908d_n.jpg" width="240" alt="Pausing in Prestatyn" style="" align=right></a>
I stopped to eat a banana and watched the offshore wind farm. It was lunchtime but I didn't have lunch with me, only millions of snacks. When I did a loop through the Moorfoots to Innerleithen and Peebles, at lunchtime I attempted to eat an entire baked potato full of Coronation Chicken. I brought a third of it home again in clingfilm, while the other two-thirds took the rest of the day to digest, instead of giving me energy for the homeward bash. This time I was thinking simplicity. I set off again, and straight into enormous quantities of flies. They were everywhere, going up the arms of my t-shirt, under my cap, behind my glasses, up my nose and into my ears. I brushed furiously at my chest and carried on.
</P><P>
There are precious few remnants of the Glasgow Garden Festival now. Other than its own name, Festival Park on the south side of the Clyde contains only a few tantalising clues to the long gone exhibits, such as parts of a rockery, a water feature and a wiggly path. In 1988 no-one outside NASA was using digital cameras. You either made prints or shot slide film, and my Dad shot a lot of slides, including a set of eight photographs from the festival. One of these was of a view looking up the big tower to the observation deck with its Clydesdale Bank 150th Anniversary sponsorship logo for all to see. Rhyl was going to be well-to-do and seasidey: all generous public lawns, plant pots, Punch and Judy on the sandy beach, and immaculate brick and ashlar houses with palm trees and newly painted window frames.
</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><P>
"Got to Rhyl – a sort of New Brighton that was all desperately shabby, like a 1960s housing estate version of Blackpool. The sky tower thing from the Glasgow Garden Festival is still there! It's shut and verging on dereliction."
</P></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
Needless to say, I didn't hang around.
</P><P>
But just after Rhyl was a brand new footbridge over the River Clywd, next to Foryd Harbour, and that seemed to be the cycle path route. On the far side, the tourist information building was shiny and new, and had lots of bikes parked outside. There was a shiny new cafe, and a bicycle workshop. When I saw that most of the bikes outside were adapted for disabled people and special needs, I decided this was as good a place as any to park a recumbent and have lunch. I ordered a cup of tea and leafed through a copy of MTBR to read about disc brakes, and a lady came over to me from a table by the window.
</P><P>
'Is that…your bike outside?'
</P><P>
Oh, here we go again. The Lightning always seems to be a hit with people, especially now that it's painted sparkly pinkish-purple instead of black.
</P><P>
'The sit-down bike out there? Yes, that's mine.'
<BR>
'I was saying to my husband, there's that bike again! When we saw it just now we thought it must be yours. We passed you on the road way back there. How long have you been here? You must've been going at some speed.'
<BR>
'Oh, well, I do a bit of cycling, and the road's pretty smooth. It was good, I was trying not to ride too hard, but…I can't always help myself. Mind you my load's pretty heavy today and I got lost in the dunes earlier on.'
<BR>
'Are you going far?'
<BR>
'I started in Chester earlier on, I'm just on my way to Conwy.' I knew my campsite was before Conwy but it was the only town in the vicinity that I could remember. The campsite was just another waypoint punched into my GPS.
<BR>
'Ohh, Conwy's lovely. That's a long way though, you must be very fit! Are you going to go round the castle?'
<BR>
'Oh I'd like to but I don't really have time. I've been before, sort of, but I'm just passing through this time. I have to get myself to Llanberis tomorrow.'
<BR>
'That's a lovely place, too, Llanberis, very hilly. Well, good luck!'
</P><P>
My sausage roll and tea arrived, my guest said goodbye and went out to her car, and I resumed reading about bicycle components that I didn't want and carbon fibre full sussers that secretly I did.
</P><P>
Having refuelled I extricated my bike from the A-frame bike stand and headed out along the coastal path for a while. After the enormous caravan park that's hemmed in by the railway my nice easy cycle path ran out. They'd closed it for maintenance, probably, but hadn't bothered to sign a diversion or anything. Fortunately an old man pointed me up a narrow overgrown path behind a wall, leading to an old footbridge over the railway and out onto the road again. Oh well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. He said I'd probably have to walk the path but I managed to cycle it anyway. The road was a lot faster, smoother, and steeper.
</P><P>
I slipped back onto the coastal path shortly after, to leave the cars and trucks thundering past on the A55 above me. Onto Colwyn Bay, which unlike Rhyl was very nice and very posh by the sea. Along the promenade I sped past the big houses with their big porches and big driveways, and soon came to Rhôs on Sea (and do remember the circumflex). The campsite I'd chosen for the night was Dinarth Hall, sandwiched between Rhôs on Sea and Penrhyn Bay. I discovered it was a large working farm. While another customer took ages, I sat on a wall near the booking office. It was actually a static caravan, complete with windowboxes and a pair of small dogs that were chasing each other non-stop. The big sheepdog lazing on the ground just outside was so lazy he didn't even move his ears when I said hello. But I was feeling pretty good. I'd covered a decent distance, I hadn't eaten too much or too little and I hadn't bonked. My bike was running well, too. I could have ridden to Conwy quite happily even if it was beginning to drizzle.
</P><P>
The campsite seemed to be very busy with cars, motorhomes and even a Dodge Ram 2500 with a 5th wheel hitch for its caravan trailer with expanding sides. Here was me with my bicycle and my little tent, and I was the only cycle camper in the entire place. The facilities were fairly good at Dinarth Hall, save for no paper towels in the washing up area or the toilet block, and only one of the cubicles having any toilet paper. The tap in the field did cold water pretty well though. At the very back of the back field, where it was quieter, next to the hedge with a watery ditch on the other side, were the lightweight pitches. So people who carry the least and have the fewest luxuries, like wellies and hats and gas stoves, had to walk the furthest to use the loo and do their washing up. It was really trying to rain by this point, and I managed to put my tent up in record time. The rain went off in a huff, to make somewhere else wet instead.
</P><P>
<a href="https://flic.kr/p/xbAWY6" title="Setting up shop by beqi, on Flickr">
<img src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3827/20467043485_528c7cfa31_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="Setting up shop" style="" align=right></a>
I dumped my luggage and had a quick jaunt out to the supermarket and back for supplies. I just managed to make dinner before it the rain came back. Then it stopped, then it started again. And then it stopped again. In amongst all this I made several highly disorganised trips to civilization, and every time I came home the front door of the Zephyros dripped on me. The Hilleberg Akto is possibly the benchmark for good design and small size, with a single hoop pole construction, and the Zephyros—and its big brother, the Terra Nova Laser Competition—is notionally similar. But the Zeph has taller ends that come to a point, like the bow of a ship, so the main door and the back door are effectively attached to the ground closer to the pole. In practice this means that the door makes a sort of triangular opening, and the door flaps around and drips onto the inner tent and onto your back as you climb inside. This gets quite annoying.
</P><P>
In most other ways I was really quite enjoying the tent. Its full name is the Wild Country Zephyros 2XL Lite, a short-lived version of the short-lived extra long version of the Zeph 2-person tent, using slightly higher performance fabrics, reflective Dyneema cord guylines that cut into your fingers, and pathetic aluminium pegs that I immediately replaced. I was never really sure how much weight it all saved. I came across it quite by chance in my local branch of Tiso. After testing it for length I bought it on the spot. It's lovely and long and lets me stretch out when I sleep or read; I'm not one for sitting cross-legged for hours and I think my knees would explode. Tipping the scales at a hair under 2kg it's comparable with my first tent, one of Decathlon's none-more-grey and generally decent, but slightly short, Quechua offerings. One time, I closed the Quechua's door and yelped as I caught all my hair in the zip. The Zeph also has a nice white, almost see-through inner with big panels of mesh. I still managed to find earwigs in my tent during the evening, causing a minor panic <EM>chez</EM> Becky and frantic rearranging of luggage to find the wee beasties and put them outside. The last thing I wanted was insects inside my sleeping bag!
</P><P>
The next afternoon it rained properly, so I invented a new way of getting in and out of my tent.
</P>Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-38268829862499434312015-10-11T22:03:00.000+00:002015-10-11T22:03:58.129+00:00Take a walk outside myself<P>
It's hard trying to remember tiny details from your childhood. One wants to zoom in on those fleeting impressions and fragments of memories, but the fog doesn't clear. Occasional flashes of clarity remain throughout, like the distant fog lights on a car; one can recall their intensity and their form. Who can remember , though, whether those lights were part of the lamp clusters or hung underneath the rear bumper?
</P><P>
When I was young I had a book. It might not have been a very thick book, square in format perhaps, paperback or hardback? – no-one will ever know, now. What was its title? Again, details forgotten in time. Pictures inside? Ah, yes. The sparking, fiery white heat of a steam hammer, dwarfing the inevitably flat-capped man standing alongside. Tales of steam ships lost to the seas. Steam engines, and railway bridges. I must presume that my book was about the age of steam. Most clearly in my memories are two illustrations. One was of the stern of the Titanic rearing out of the water, its black hull at a horrible angle, and its rows of portholes still illuminated by the valiant stokers. I was spellbound by the Titanic. Its steam engines were bigger than anything I could imagine, equally its boiler rooms, full of riveted iron mouths with insatiable appetites for coal. Even its propellors were etched into my impressionable young mind, for these were so huge I found them scary. Propellers were meant to live under the water and never be seen.
</P><P>
The other illustration was of a bridge. Not just any bridge but an iron bridge, made of parts that were wrought in those great hot warehouses, the kind that have steam hammers. And not just any iron bridge, and certainly not Iron Bridge, but another, far more spectacular and one that met an untimely end. The book was probably introducing the young reader to the great engineers, if only in passing. The man was Robert Stephenson, and the bridge was the Britannia Bridge. How exciting must it be, I thought, to travel on a train and go through a tunnel, but the tunnel is above the water! A huge, square tunnel, made of hundreds of sections all the same, and the whole structure rumbling and rattling as we pass through. I remember marvelling at the length of the great tubes strung between their stone piers, that they could carry a train and not bend! And at either end of the bridge, too, the train traveller would see two huge stone lions guarding the entrances to the tubes. My mind was also aware, even then, of the loss of those dark, scary and exciting tubes to fire. What an awful awful thing, to have it catch fire and be ruined forever . I don't remember if the book showed me what the bridge looked like after its rebuilding, and my mind is too full—too cluttered, perhaps—of the more technical knowledge gained over the years since.
</P><P>
I would love to know what my mysterious book was called. The images of the steam hammer and the Titanic sinking will be instantly recognisable if I were ever to see them again. Curious, then, that I've never thought until now to invoke the power of the internet. If the mystery were solved, I might find my memories to be wrong; but they are so firmly rooted that I would find it hard to disentangle them from visual evidence to the contrary. Some things are perhaps left buried, and happy memories to remain untouched.
</P><P>
The remarkable thing is that the Britannia Bridge became something of a legend to me. Why so prominent in my imagination for thirty years and more? In the modern era when everything can be found on the internet in a few minutes and nothing is amazing anymore, I did discover that while the bridge might have been destroyed by the fire one piece remained, erected nearby as a reminder. And the lions! The rebuilding of the bridge as a girder arch form was bad enough, but to include a road deck above the railway has always seemed sacrilegious. Cutting great holes through Stephenson's masonry, and hiding the railway below as though it was an embarassment, did no favours to the elegant squared-off piers and treated the bridge as just another resource to be exploited. But worst of all, the lions are no longer the brooding gatekeepers to the journey over the churning Menai Straits, a venture into a booming iron nothingness. The poor lions are vestigial, for the road deck is so low and so wide that the rail passenger can no longer see them from the window.
</P><P>
My book may or may not have also shown me the Victorian wonder that is the Snowdon Mountain Railway. How lovely, and how remarkable, I wondered once, to have little steam engines puffing and lurching their way up a hillside, their boilers tilted down, their gear wheels deeply set into the rack attached to the sleepers. I really ought to visit it some time.
</P><P>
A plan was forming. Places to visit were identified, maps were studied at length, maps were bought, campsites were investigated and bookings were made. So easy to summarise!
</P><P>
After weeks of working nine 'til five, and to be honest getting into a bit of a weary groove with it all, the day the long-awaited summer holiday arrived was a bit of an anticlimax. Did I have any grand plans? Yes, a couple, but they were the kind of complicated expeditions that take weeks of logistical planning: currency exchanges, phrase books, road books, bookings for ferries and motels, toll roads, tyre levers, and replacing the capacitors in my tripmeter. Did I have any smaller, easier plans? Well, no. Did I have any plans at all? I thought about taking off on my motorbike, somewhere less ambitious, but I wasn't sure where. And anyway, motorbike touring isn't so much about the arriving as the getting there. You ride to Italy for the Strada statale dello Stelvio, not because it's just a snaking, switchbacking pain in the bum on the SS38 on your way to Milan. If I had in my mind some destinations in Wales, I could be there in a day, and see them all in the next couple of days. Wales isn't that big, really. What would be the point of rushing from A to B to C and back to A in four days? The point would be in having company along the way, but I didn't have any, and in having the enthusiasm and confidence to be a bit random in my destinations—and I didn't have those either.
</P><P>
Ah, but cycling between those destinations would take time, and would be an adventure. I could throw my bike on the train and be in another world in a few hours. I could spend my day riding, thinking meditative thoughts to myself, pausing at one place to photograph or just look, before moving on to the next. I could give my tent another airing.
</P><P>
During my numerous visits to Yorkshire I decided that for day riding and general poking about, the 1 to 25,000 OS Explorer maps were preferable to Landrangers. That bit more detail on paths and buildings is welcome, not least because of the chronic lack of sensibly designed infrastructure in this country, which for "sensibly designed" read "predictable and accessible". An Explorer map only covers an area of about 20 x 23 kilometres, a bit more or a bit less depending on which one you have, which means it's easy to bike from one side to the other in a day—or about an hour if the roads are straight and you're in a velomobile.
</P><P>
In making my list of Things to See, the bridge at Menai was first. On the way to Menai is Rhyl, which has a tower with a lookout-cum-restaurant deck. That tower was originally erected next to the River Clyde for the Glasgow Garden Festival in 1988. I was at that festival, although I have less memory of it than my steam book. There's the castle at Caernarfon. The Snowdon railway. What else?
</P><P>
Michael Portillo, in one of his railway journeys, emerged in another world when he travelled to the slate quarries of Wales. Now that seemed like something worth seeing, even if I couldn't remember where he'd actually visited. Mark Williams, once of The Fast Show and latterly of Industrial Revelations, looked at slate quarries, sand casting and water power. From my Explorer map of Snowdon and its environs I was struck by the immensity of the slate industry around Snowdon. West Lothian is littered with the waste product of shale mining—blaes—left in great heaps known as bings, and I recognised the characteristic shapes of the Welsh inclines and the piles of spoil. There was even a slate museum, I noticed, not far from the mountain railway.
</P><P>
But that was still only a couple of days' activity, and I wanted—in fact I needed—more time away. Time away from work deadlines, away from vacuuming and cat hair and clutter, away from so many people and cars and mobile phones and noise. Time to live more simply. I also know that I can't ride aimlessly, pick a place to stop overnight, then ride aimlessly the next day, and the next. I need a purpose each time. And, it being summer season, there was no guarantee, especially in the countryside, of finding a room in the next town or village.
</P><P>
What I really ought to do, I reasoned, was plot a course around the coast, each day being about 40 to 60 miles (my usual happy touring mileage) and camp each night. Remarkably, this coincided with such sights as the Porthmadog and Ffestiniog Railway, the Vale of Rheidol Railway, Pembroke Dock, Pendine Museum of Speed and Carmarthen Castle. And what better base to use than Chester, a city that to me has always seemed far more familiar than it has any right.
</P><P>
More maps would be needed. I love maps: I read them in the loo and in the bath and everything. My friend Andy very successfully navigated around Scotland using the OS Tour series (1 to 175,000), a mile away from my zoomed-in Explorers and Landrangers. But carrying lots of maps isn't just heavy: it's bulky, and pannier space on my bike has always been limited. In the end, any notions of packing light went completely out of the window. I would bring two Tour maps that covered the greater part of Wales, plus my Snowdonia detailed map, plus three or four Landrangers. I decided that they could take up the space that, back in June, was used by my camping stool. Why not, though? I like paper maps because they don't require electricity or an internet connection to use them.
</P><P>
In a single heroic evening I planned and programmed into my GPS the entire 300 mile route from Chester to Carmarthen. A GPS? Why on earth did I need to carry half a metric tonne of paper as well? Because paper maps are themselves reading material, and if my previous camping trips were any indication there would be plenty of time in the evenings for reading. But I'll take a book with me, too. The next day I booked my trains. And by the evening I had also booked my hostels and a bunch of campsites, even though most of the owners said I could simply turn up on spec. Having bookings is both a blessing and a curse. It gives my tour structure and daily targets, and removes the element of worrying whether or not I'll find anywhere to stay that night. But that structure can also be a burden, for a day when I'm feeling strong and could knock out half as many miles again, and not find myself arriving at my destination in the middle of the afternoon.
</P><P>
Panniers packed, bag packed, tent packed, bike tuned up and off we go!
</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><P>
"The train ride down was lovely. First class on a Pendolino on the WCML, not busy at all either. 158 to CTR was a rattling piece of crap though! I wandered around town to find a meal, ended up in Pizza Express for chicken pasta. OK, not fab. Then a wander home via the River Dee and Grosvenor Park. A nice enough walk, not too cold.
</P><P>
The Bunkroom in Chester seems nice enough. Common room has glass tables and an outside area that is all astroturf, fishing nets and cushions in a sort of soft den arrangement. The hostel is dead quiet, maybe 3-4 people in total that I've seen—and no-one saying 'Hi, I'm so-and-so.' But the bedroom is clean and nice."</P></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
My friend K from the USA was in the area, visiting half an hour to the north, and so I had engineered my itinerary to let us meet up in the evening. I was working around future dates, of bookings for heritage railways and museum opening times, and all I had was one evening. But while I was happily jumping off trains and pedalling the familiar roads of Chester, car problems prevented my friend from meeting up. Bloody cars! This was why I was sitting in a cod-Italian restaurant by myself, making small talk with a cod-Italian waiter. It wasn't quite the plan I had in mind.
</P>Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-78762352458554441332015-10-06T21:39:00.002+00:002015-10-06T21:48:24.055+00:00In the hi-fidelity first-class travelling set<P>
I'm beginning to understand why people have cars.
</P><P>
I say this even as a former car owner, and as a motorbiker who's never entirely sure that a motorbike is really the solution. But first we have to do some sums. Most people I know didn't buy their car through paying by instalments, they bought it outright, so sometime down the line, several years at least, the cost is sunk and depreciation is largely academic. Fuel, VED, insurance, MOTs and servicing are the ongoing costs, and only fuel is the daily cost, the cost we think about when contemplating a long journey. After all, the car is already there so we may as well use it. Whether we make just one long journey in the year or many, the other costs are about the same. Of course, high mileagers will want to shorten the service intervals a touch, perhaps two or three in a year rather than one (or none, if you rely on the MOT to tell you what's wrong with your car).
</P><P>
When I started this analysis, diesel was £1.11 per litre—now it's £1.09 per litre. It hasn't been this cheap for months and months. A nice small car, say something with a VAG 1.6 litre engine, will return about 60mpg on a run. Maybe 55, maybe 65, depending on the wind direction. And we're going to drive to Wales. This is easy enough to do in a day: take the A701 from Edinburgh to Moffat, jump onto the A74(M) and thence the M6, take a right at junction 20A and follow the M56 for a while, then take a left onto the M53 and later bear right to follow the A56 into Chester. Distance: 232 miles, and doable in four and three-quarter hours including a stop for lunch at Tebay. And you probably don't even need to stop to fill up because you only used about 17.5 litres of fuel. We'll need that much again to drive home from Chester, so that's 35 litres, but we're actually planning to finish at Carmarthen and go home from there. Carmarthen to Chester is also easy enough by taking the A40 to Llandovery, then the A483 to Crossgates and the A488 to Craven Arms where we join the A49 to Shrewsbury, then the A5 for a bit and then back onto the A483 to Chester. About 165 miles, and a bit fiddly in places, so we'll be pessimistic and say 14 litres at the most. £55 doesn't seem very much for 630 miles.
</P><P>
Our sightseeing itinerary runs from Chester to Pendine, in a coastal extravaganza of about 300 miles. Since much of that is made up of A roads and B roads taken at slower speeds, our fuel economy will be worsened by fiddly town and village driving, but improved by B road meandering in which we need only tickle the accelerator in 3rd gear. So to be pessimistic again at 50mpg, which is entirely doable if you remember all of the things the Energy Saving Trust taught you in your FuelGood driver training, we might expect to burn another 27 litres of diesel. Including all the outings to buy food from the supermarket a couple of miles up the road, and going the wrong way from time to time, and occasionally going for a look at something else nearby that looked interesting on the map, it might be 30 litres, or another £33.
</P><P>
Perhaps the car does 7000 miles a year, in which insurance is £250, VED is £110 and not £30 because the car is a few years old and only just scrapes below the 130gCO2/km emissions bracket; the MOT people want £70 a year, and so far not too much is wrong with the car, so servicing is £200 a time. That's an annual cost of £630, or 9 pence per mile. Of course if we only drive 3000 miles a year, the cost shoots up to 21 pence per mile. At 55mpg (combined cycle) we'd also be spending £640 or so a year on fuel, sometimes more, sometimes less, but about 9 pence per mile. At 3000 miles a year, the fuel cost drops accordingly, while the cost rate stays the same. But we already looked at fuel costs for the trip.
</P><P>
Our little holiday to Wales and back by car is therefore expected to cost £88 in fuel plus, at a generously low 9 pence per mile for static costs, £83 for the pleasure of having a car available for 930 miles. Total cost is £171, and of course we have a car to use as we like for the rest of the year anyway.
</P><P>
Suppose that we decided not to use the car that time but took the train instead, and cycled from Chester to Pendine to the station at Carmarthen. The return ticket for Edinburgh to Chester is about £100 and Carmarthen to Chester is £27. Easy enough. A train is a train is a train.
</P><P>
For the touring part, I'll use my Lightning P-38 with my panniers stuffed to the gunwales and a tent strapped to the back. The bike cost in the region of $2900 or £1700, and so far has covered just shy of 9000 miles in eight years. The cost per mile is therefore about 19 pence per mile. But in that time it's also had a new chain (£35), a new bottom bracket (£45), front and rear rims (£80), two gear shifters (£50), a new front hub (free, because I bought it years ago for almost nothing), four pairs of brake pads (£40), and four new cables (£16). It also had a complete respray earlier this year to deal with some rust, and disc mounts added at the same time, but I will discount those because they weren't essential to the functionality of the bike. So consumables add £270 or thereabouts—not all that much compared with the original cost of the bike, and in fact somewhat less than I had thought, when one winces at the cost of even a good rim—and so the cost per mile to date increases to 22 pence.
</P><P>
The touring therefore adds a rather shocking £66 in running costs. Shocking, because bikes don't cost anything to run, do they? They do when you don't ride them enough, or insist on buying quality components.
</P><P>
Our little holiday to Wales and back by bike and train is therefore expected to cost £127 in trains and £66 for the pleasure of having a bike available for 300 miles. Total cost is £193, and of course I have my bike to use as I like for the rest of the year anyway. Ah, the car was cheaper, it seemed. But not by all that much, I'm relieved to find.
</P><P>
The cost isn't the only issue. Driving 930 miles means eating at motorway cafes (actually, I'm being terribly unkind to Tebay and Killington Lake, both of which are lovely places to stop by while taking a turn on the M6), and that kind of distance does come with an element of risk. Worse though, sitting still means getting no exercise. With 644 miles accrued by train, drinking overpriced watery hot chocolate and scoffing baguettes and treacle waffles, I would at least also have 300 miles of riding my bike and sweating and swearing my way up hills, getting cold on hillsides and burning off all my body fat as a consequence. If we're honest though, using the car does save you money because you don't find yourself emergency-buying waterproof pannier covers or that Rab eVent waterproof hat that you spent an hour choosing in the shop.
</P><P>
In a textbook example of saving money by spending more, in August I put my bike on the train to Chester, and the day after that I pedalled out of town, bound for the top left-hand corner of Wales – and beyond – and two weeks of solitude and glorious uninterrupted sunshine.
</P><P>
Sunshine. In Snowdonia?
</P>Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-14770910020859063592015-07-08T22:12:00.001+00:002015-07-08T22:12:55.098+00:00Move among the crowd<P>
Much as I like to take photographs, document the heck out of the subjects and share them with the wider world on Flickr, for the last couple of years I've had the feeling that too many of my adventures were being lived out there, not here, with my blog going oh-so-quiet. Flickr, of course, was a social network almost before the phrase was in common usage, and the well-documented changes to the user interface—the user 'experience'—that led to protests such as Flickr Black Day have been mostly ironed out. The protests were never going to be massively successful. While a comment thread garnering several thousand similar complaints, about squished-up information panels or infinite scrolling or loss of white space, sounds impressive, and indeed felt impressive if you were among those making the comments, it was small fry compared with the total userbase of many millions of individuals. Most of those are hyper-connected people for whom Flickr is more of a repository, to be uploaded to and linked to. This is really a reflection of the fundamental increase in hyper-connectivity that makes it convenient to do so. Flickr is much less the home now for what you might describe as the photographically erudite community, many of whom departed for other image hosting sites like smugmug, ipernity and 500px.
</P><P>
I stayed with Flickr, indeed I still use it, but my mood has certainly changed. It's been a gradual shift, brought about in part by reduced interaction from other users. Perhaps they're feeling much the same way. The trouble is that spending hours researching on old maps, for example, and probably twenty different other sources, doesn't guarantee any feedback. It's commonly said that 90 percent of the content is produced by 10 percent of the people, which means that 90 percent of the people are just hoovering up information—consumers, not manufacturers.
</P><P>
And in fact, the move to reflect hyperconsumerism is evident even in Flickr's own identity. On the way out is the quirky blue logo with pink accents, replaced with a streamlined version in pure white. It's as though we don't have time anymore to pause and reflect and reciprocate in kind: we just consume and move on. Hyper-connected humans are just locusts on an information feeding frenzy.
</P><P>
The groundswell ban on selfie sticks is not unrelated. Some cultures nowadays are not interested particularly in taking the time to experience something. One might go to see a new film, view the Grand Canyon, see Buckingham Palace, but it becomes a quick-fire visit–photograph–leave process. I was there! We were there! Then we went here! And then we went here! Alternatively, go to any concert now and try—just try!—counting how many mobile devices are held aloft to record the whole event. All of those people are watching a small screen to keep their shot steady and aimed just right. You know, there's a great big thing called a "stage", with great big loud things on it, and actual moving people, whom you helped pay to be on that stage in the first place. And all you can do is hold up your fucking phone because you're caught up in a perpetual cycle of digitising and sharing everything in your life, instead of taking in the experience and committing it to your memory using your eyeballs and your ears.
</P><P>
Flickr has been consuming too much of my time for too little feedback. In a way, I kind of liked my old website that was all hand coded with thumbnailed images that I inserted myself, sparingly and relevantly. Image sharing should be an adventure, not a chore, and certainly not a throwaway convenience that, for anything other than documentation of something, devalues the content.
</P><P>
So to turn to writing again. I had intended to collect my thoughts sooner, but for a musician whose untimely death affected me really quite deeply. And as usual, this post has taken three days to put together.
</P><P>
The Edinburgh Festival of Cycling has been and gone, last month's news. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Bike Week, too, is last month's news. I thought long and hard about what to wear to this year's Women's Cycle Forum. Last time, I wore padded shorts because I was riding my Brompton, but wore baggy shorts over the top because I didn't want to look too "cyclist". And I remember steaming down to the venue because I was going to be late, and thus arriving in a hell of a state. This year I wanted a nice relaxing pootle over to Teviot House: no pre-event shopping, no last-minute mending of flat tyres or adjusting of gears. And as it turned out, I ambled my way out of the house thinking I had loads of time, and en route convinced myself I was going to be late. So I steamed down the road and through the Meadows, and arrived in a hell of a state, my just-washed hair turning frizzy at the ends and my pink merino betraying my super high efficiency cooling mechanism. I can't even remember why I ended up rushing. Perhaps it was the indecision of clothing.
</P><P>
The irony was that I wasn't late at all. In fact, I was perfectly comfortably on time. I had thought offhandedly about bring the velomobile, because last year there was an Urban Arrow parked magnificently outside the Ukrainian Club and everyone had asked me, 'Where's your velomobile? I was looking forward to seeing it!' A Saturday evening outside one of the buildings in the University of Edinburgh wasn't the kind of environment I looked for in velomobile parking facilities. It was far easier to ride my Brompton and take it in with me.
</P><P>
Caroline greeted me at the door, complimenting me on my encouragingly rosy complexion. I might have objected a wee bit but she was having none of it. Sally Hinchcliffe and Suzanne Forup, the mainstays behind the WCF, said hello as I went through, and I placed Henrietta Brompton neatly alongside two others, then wandered around looking at the tables. Each was set up with a different theme about target audiences, for this WCF was more biased towards action. One table was about one campaigning generally, one was about engagement with women specifically, one was about people with impaired vision, and a few others I can't remember. But I still didn't feel I knew anyone, and so sat down at a rather empty table.
</P><P>
I changed my mind quite quickly, because the theme didn't excite me too much, and found the engagement table. Serendipitously, also at my table was Lizzie, previously chair of Leeds Cycling Campaign, now I think Belles on Bikes in Glasgow. Even more serendipitously, Irish-accented Louise arrived and sat next to me. I realised before long that this was Urban Arrow Louise! – the same lady who starred in many photographs from Pedal on Parliament because of her impossibly stylish Victorian outfit complete with straw hat loaded with flowers, tweed coat, long flowing skirt and leather boots, sitting on her shiny black, and impossibly English, Pashley Princess bicycle. In fact, her children, in the Urban Arrow piloted by her equally well-attired hubby, had been wearing leather helmets and flying goggles. And not just because she was a customer of Laid Back Bikes but because she wasn't afraid to be a bit different—or possibly completely different—and pull it off with aplomb, I liked her immediately.
</P><P>
We had an engaging and relevant presentation from Ceris Aston, who'd been behind the No More Page Three campaign. She spoke far better than she thought she did. Carol Botton, standing in for Alice Ferguson, talked candidly about the Playing Out campaign, the movement to return our streets to a community-owned shared place for children to play in, rather than our streets being purely somewhere for driving through and for parking vehicles in. Also at my table were a few other interesting people whose names I've completely forgotten. At other tables we had Jan Brereton (Bikes Breaking Barriers—disability stuff including vision impairments), Claire Connachan (also Belles on Bikes), Brenda Mitchell (disarmingly uncyclist-looking normally but the powerhouse behind strict liability and cyclist lawyering), and I didn't get much of a chance to meet Katja Leyendecker from Northumbria University, or Briana Pegado from the University of Edinburgh, or Abi Wingate, a tough looking mileage monster of a touring cyclist and officer from Heriot-Watt University (yay!). Sara Dorman popped by our table for a bit, talking at a hundred miles an hour, and Sally came along for a bit too.
</P><P>
The output was a carefully arranged matrix of actions, our "<a href="https://womenscycleforum.wordpress.com/womens-cycle-forum-2015/build-a-better-world-bingo-challenge-babwbingo/">Build a Better World Bingo Challenge</a>" (or as the ridiculously specific hashtag #BaBWBingo).
</P><P>
And no, you don't get points for actions that you've already completed.
</P><P>
Eschewing beer for bed, I rode home a bit of the way with Suzanne and Louise, then enjoyed the comfort from having opted to wear my mountain biking lycra shorts (to hell with trying not to look "cyclist", even if the perception of the necessity of looking "cyclist" is part of the turn-off of someone wanting to ride a bike in the first place).
</P><P>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/beqi/18786009406" title="Have bike, will festival by beqi, on Flickr">
<img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/455/18786009406_04168917f6_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="Have bike, will festival" style="" align=right></a>
At any rate, I was able to deploy maximum cyclist technology the next day for the third annual Ligfiets Zondag. I brought my velomobile down to Laid Back Bikes and mingled with a dozen or so other deviant bikes and their riders. David and Irene were of course on their mighty Nazca Quetzal tandem; Angelo was on his Nazca Fuego; Audaxer and TV star Dave Crampton brought along his ICE B2; Peter was on his Nazca Gaucho; 'firedfromthecircus' on his Catrike; Chris was on his fat-tyred ICE trike; a John Byrne lookalike who hails from Rotterdam and whose name I don't know was riding his vintage Roulandt; 'scoosh' mainly of the Cyclechat forum but occasionally of our CCE forum, and whose name I don't know, was riding his Nazca Fuego; Kim (of the EdFoC) was onboard the EdFoC Urban Arrow, and Louise (and children) was riding her own Urban Arrow; 'tarmacjockey' whose name I always forget was riding upright and mostly wielding his camera; and Liz was riding her Ridgeback tourer. We also had a man called Bjorn come on the ride; he was doing a camping tour of Scotland, having ridden his M5 CHR (carbon high racer) from his home in Hamburg!
</P><P>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/beqi/18814896721" title="Promenadorama by beqi, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/312/18814896721_ffacda36da_m.jpg" width="240" height="64" alt="Promenadorama" style="" align=right></a>
As in previous years our destination was Cramond promenade, there being plenty of space for mucking about on bikes. Alas the modernist cafe at Silverknowes was under new ownership and still being outfitted, so there were no bacon rolls or veggie sausage sandwiches to be had; instead we frequented a cafe at Cramond, pigged on scones and jam, and basked in some rare sunshine. The return trip took us through some surprisingly good segregated infrastructure in Granton—the kind Edinburgh builds when it has lots of space to play with—and back to Laid Back Bikes and the Argyle Arms for drinks and conversation.
</P><P>
The following evening was the quarterly meeting organised by Spokes, the Edinburgh and Lothians cycling campaign, about bikes on trains. Des Bradley from Abellio Scotrail had drawn the short straw and was rather in the firing line from much of the audience.
</P><P>
The evening after that was an event I was simultaneously dreading and looking forward to, like when you have a job interview the next day. Last year I took the top spot in the Biketrax Brompton folding competition, my own technique flowing far more smoothly with a brand new bike than it does with my mine (3000 miles nearly in its hinges). It's all just a load of fun, what's not to love? Ah, but STV Edinburgh was going to be filming the event this time! The alternative was to go to the hillclimb competition on Kaimes Road, a gruelling ascent half a mile long and (according to OSM) 124 feet of elevation gain. But, really, I couldn't not go to the Brompton thing, could I? Not with a record to try to uphold. The time to beat: 10.82 seconds.
</P><P>
I showed the presenter how one folds the bike, and I did a piece to the camera explaining how one achieves a fast folding technique. Looking back, I almost felt content with my voice. My years of practice in public speaking paid off nicely, compared with poor Robin Williamson who wasn't nearly as fluid or fluent. Some friends came along, too—Ewan and Eric from Bromptonites—and someone called Richard who seemed very very serious about folding times. In practice, getting used to the official Brompton timing clock where you hit the green plunger for "Go!", fold-fold-fold, and hit the red plunger for "Stop!", I invented a newer technique that seemed worth trying. My first few attempts at speedfolding were laughably uncoordinated, not least because I had to remember to fold the pedal as well, but I just had to find my rhythm. Another piece to camera saw the presenter go head to head with Ewan and Richard, and I had to wade in at the last minute to help out when he became all tangled up.
</P><P>
Then came the main event where we all did solo qualifiers against the clock to get the top three. Eric preferred to spectate; Robin and a couple of the other guys from Biketrax turned in times easily below ten seconds, but as employees they were forbidden from winning anything! Going forward after the shoot-outs were Ewan, Richard and me. I somehow speeded myself up just enough and edged out Ewan in the race to fold the bike and lift it up (to show that it was properly folded). And that's someone who's owned more Bromptons than I've owned recumbents. Richard was fast, very fast, though as Eric and I noted earlier it was all in the marginal gains of preparation: clamps not too tight, cranks casually aligned just-so, crouch and hands at the ready, Le Mans-style. I played to the spirit of the competition and set my bike just as if I were about to ride it away. Three…two…one…go! as Robin pinged the starter's bell. Loosen those clamps, smoothly, don't rush…lift and fold and drop, get that saddle down, tighten the lever, remember the pedal!…and lift!
</P><P>
I looked across and Richard's bike was in the air at the same time. What? Of all the results to have, we scored a dead heat, and we had to go again!
</P><P>
OK, bike unfolded and prepped, a little more this time. Mentally rehearse the process: clamps, fold around, saddle, pedal. Check the crank position…and: Ping! Fold-fold-fold-done! Lift! Look across…damn! My super speedy method went like clockwork and I checked in a time of the order of 7.6 seconds, and I was still beaten. In fact, chatting with the others a little later on I realised, thinking through the white heat of pivots and levers and clamps, that I couldn't actually remember performing all those moves. Muscle memory and all that, as you'll recall if you saw me on the telly. Richard took home a rather spiffing sprocket trophy, like the one from Scrapheap Challenge but scaled right down. Your valiant runner-up took home a Brompton slapwrap, which I can use every day. All part of the plan, you might think!
</P><P>
Wednesday morning was the Bike Breakfast at the City Chambers, and even though I'd had my Weetabix I still joined the queue for a veggie sausage roll and a cup of coffee. I wasn't meant to be drinking coffee, really, but I was sick of drinking tea. Lots of familiar faces, too, including many from CCE, and various councillors and Spokes members and hangers-on. The velomobile even had company, from a Sinclair C5 no less. Now that was an interesting comparison, of finely tuned aerodynamics and high-efficiency transport idealism. The C5 might have cost much, much less, even by today's standards, but the Quest wins on comfort, weather protection, speed, and perhaps in its flowing lines (and nine foot-long presence) hasn't suffered the stigma of being treated like a jumped up vacuum cleaner.
</P><P>
I escaped to the south for the weekend, in pursuit of warmer weather and yet more bicycles. On one hand it was to attend the reinvigorated York Rally, beloved tradition of the bearded, Carradice saddlebagged tourers, albeit organised in a new grassroots volunteer manner, and on the other hand it was simply to get away from everything for a few days.
</P><P>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/beqi/18939815160" title="Back to Swallow Hall by beqi, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/370/18939815160_812a7bd15f_m.jpg" width="240" height="81" alt="Back to Swallow Hall" style="" align=right></a>
My destination of choice is Swallow Hall, a neat little campsite a few miles south of the city and indeed home to thriving colonies of the little birds, darting around close to the ground of an evening. By using a couple of small lanes, rather than belting up and down the A19 which is a horrible road, really, and National Cycle Network route 65, once the East Coast Main Line between York and Selby but now an extremely pleasant and convenient cycling facility, I could reel off the eight or ten miles to the railway station or the Knavesmire racecourse quite easily. Of course, I haven't been in York when it snows, so I have no idea whether NCN65 nor the lanes are viable.
</P><P>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/beqi/19129549376" title="British human power by beqi, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/294/19129549376_761d9751d9_m.jpg" width="240" height="94" alt="British human power" style="" align=right></a>
I was a bit concerned that I might find myself wandering the Rally alone, browsing through the shows and trade tents with ruthless efficiency, and ending up with far too much time in hand. Once, and it was partly a consequence of awful weather, I dispatched the whole show in a morning and left early to do more interesting things. But no sooner than I'd completed my perfunctory circuit of the lightweight camping area to see what tents people were using, I bumped into TJ and Joan, long of yACF (that is, yet another cycling forum), ACF before that and CyclingPlus even before that. They of course now have their little one, who was much more interested in twigs and sticks than shiny bicycles. That put the day on a nice high for starters. The show wasn't huge, certainly not by the standards of previous years, but the vibe was much better. It felt cosy, with a friendly DIYish ambience. Mainstays among the displays were the British Human Power Club, Bikefix, ICE trikes, Circe Cycles, JD Tandems and Spa Cycles, all of whom are left-field to a greater or much greater degree. I fitted right in. In fact, I parked my Lightning at the BHPC tent, and when I returned an hour or two later it had gained the company of several more recumbent bikes and was practically part of the display, alongside Windcheetah trikes, velomobiles, Kingcycles, and several of Mike Burrows' creations, including his latest race bike and the monster tandem he built with Miles Kingsbury for Guy Martin and Jason Miles' 24-hour distance record.
</P><P>
Even better, Mike was there in person. Between him and Karl Sparenberg (now at the helm of AVD, builders of the Windcheetah, as originally designed and built by Burrows) I spent an inordinate amount of time talking engineering.
</P><P>
Peter Eland, until recently at the helm of Velovision magazine, and now one of the team behind the York Rally, was there with Debz; I said hello to Howard Yeomans, formerly of the Bikes Made Good repair service and now at the helm of Velovision, with his stand set up in the trade tent; I met Ian Perry, a very strong velomobile pilot; I renewed my acquaintance with Lee Wakefield, another very strong velomobile pilot currently sidelined by injury and making a name for himself with his superb carbon fibre repair work; and I also bumped into recumbenteers Kim and Barakta from yACF.
</P><P>
<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/beqi/18991511538" title="Here we go: a hundred mile an hour traffic jam! by beqi, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3851/18991511538_0f68a991b9_m.jpg" width="240" height="160" alt="Here we go: a hundred mile an hour traffic jam!" style="" align=right></a>
Sunday was mostly spent playing at the new velodrome at the York Sport Village, part of the University of York. The BHPC had the track for an hour, with people like Mike Burrows and Ian Perry going at it hammer and tongs, and then the rest of us had the track to ourselves! For a nominal fee I had my first taste of following the red line, the blue line and heeling over on the 45 degree banking. Kim and I had cycled there together, along with Dave Holladay on his poor creaking Brompton, and we stripped our bikes down as much as possible, bar our GPS receivers. Kim's ponytail is longer than mine, and it streaked out behind her as she spun her way around the circuit while I piled on the coals for a top speed of 23.5mph, fierce headwind notwithstanding. For an hour or so we all played on the track, and then, our lungs bursting, took to the infield to watch others having their own fun. Bromptons, tadpole upright tricycles, a bike with a Trailgator, even a Nihola cargo trike had a go!
</P><P>
I spent the rest of the afternoon at the railway museum, a bit of a tradition really, in the hope of a late hot lunch and a wander. They'd sold out of soup and I was too late for hot food. Dave, who'd come with me, went to catch his train home and I cycled back to my tent for hot tea and coffee, self-heating pasta and cold pancakes, and to listen to the animals in the forest. But by then it was dark and only 15ºC outside, so I stayed in my tent and imagined what the birds looked like.
</P>
<blockquote><STRONG>21 June 2015</STRONG><BR>
Bird noises at 22.24: a low-flying 'parrrp-prrrp-prrrp-wheek' – surely not an owl? It calls out about three times as it flies overhead. Not many other birds at this time.</blockquote>
<P>
And for comparison, last year I noted:
</P>
<blockquote><STRONG>19 August 2014</STRONG><BR>
21.08. Sounds: 'tweek' and 'woohoohoo-a-hoo'. The owls are making so much noise! And this one is 'peepeepeepeepee'.</blockquote>
<P>
My tent, of which I should write more sometime, also collected most of the pollen in Yorkshire, on account of me setting up camp underneath a huge oak tree. It was all I could do to brush the worst of it off before packing up on Monday morning. My train home was another Cross Country Voyager, which meant hanging my bike up, which meant having to remove all the luggage and wrestle within the confines of train vestibules. I managed, but someone shorter or less strong would have real difficulties, with no train staff particularly interested in helping. Back at Waverley it was raining, and I rushed to get my bike and bags off the train, and banged my shin in the process.
</P><P>
Back at home I put some butter in the frying pan and finally had hot pancakes and maple syrup for dinner, and they were <EM>lovely</EM>.
</P><P>Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-26297101527024658512015-07-01T22:27:00.000+00:002015-07-01T22:27:16.390+00:00Create a new dimension<blockquote>Master of Time<BR>
Setting sail<BR>
Over all of our lands<BR>
And as we look<BR>
Forever closer<BR>
Shall we now bid<BR>
Farewell farewell</blockquote>
<P>
Chris Squire was cremated at 15.00 MST today, in Phoenix, Arizona.
</P><P>
Scotty Squire asked all fans to celebrate his life by playing their favourite Yes or Chris Squire song. My choice was <EM>Awaken</EM>.
</P>Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-41879884045176040592015-06-29T21:28:00.000+00:002015-07-06T21:19:10.079+00:00I hear the echoes<blockquote>Suddenly—<BR>
You were gone<BR>
From all those lives<BR>
You left your mark upon</blockquote>
<P>
From the pen of a mid-30s Neil Peart came these sorrowful words, albeit, perhaps he might even admit—now, a little simplistic sounding for someone of his literary standards,—but in their simplicity, as with many otherwise 'simple' songs and song structures, lies a universal applicability.
</P><P>
The bell finally tolled for a man who more or less invented the upfront counterpoint lead-bass style and, probably more than any other, was known for his huge guitar tone: thick and woody, growling, yet toppy and zingy at the same time, a sound so fully embraced and earnestly copied by aspiring bass players with John Hall's finest maple and walnut slung over their shoulder. I'm no different, digging in with my fingers or a pick and wringing as much essence of string-meets-pickup as I can, partly because unlike him I don't have racks of valve glowingly expensive Ampeg and Marshall at my disposal. And I do have neighbours.
</P><P>
I heard the awful news at lunchtime today, the news that quite frankly none of us actually expected. Chris Squire, the big man—indeed the main man—of Yes, had died. Everyone…well I say everyone but in reality it was only a few who committed their thoughts, goodwill messages and snippets of performance to video tape – was behind the #playforsquire movement. Squire had been battling a variant of leukaemia since about May this year, and it seemed only natural to assume in this day and age of technological healthcare that nothing couldn't be beaten. Alas not.
</P><P>
And the bottom fell out of my world.
</P>
<a href="http://s1038.photobucket.com/user/BeckyT_bike/media/AtoB/CS%20tribute_zpsac72ue3r.jpg.html" target="_blank">
<img src="http://i1038.photobucket.com/albums/a470/BeckyT_bike/AtoB/th_CS%20tribute_zpsac72ue3r.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo CS%20tribute_zpsac72ue3r.jpg" style="" align=right></a>
<P>
I suppose I was a late developer. I didn't really know Yes as a unit until the mid-1990s; their big hit, <EM>Owner of a Lonely Heart</em>, came out in 1983 and I was much too young then to know what music could sound like: the only singing I did was in church on a Sunday, and the only music I knew was choirs and organ. In the 1990s I built myself a bass guitar, and I listened to Rush: at the time, I only had a couple of their 1980s albums, with Geddy on Wal bass, but I was quite into MIDI files and exploring the rest of the catalogue. Strange songs like <em>Xanadu</em> and <em>Natural Science</em>… and then I remember reading a website called "The Rickenbacker Project", I think. It had some sound clips of various players. There was Geddy on <em>Cygnus X-1</em>, aggressive as hell, and there was Chris Squire from Yes. I probably still have the sound files on my old computer. <em>Roundabout</em>, that ascending riff in E-minor played super fast and super cleanly. <em>Siberian Khatru</em>, with its hyper-melodic growling bass line. And <em>Hold Out Your Hand</em>, which sounded like a Yes song to me, with a very loud, chunky and slightly distorted bass sound. I knew that it wasn't Jon Anderson singing; I decided at the time that it must have been that guy who replaced Jon Anderson on one album in the 1980s. What was his name, Trevor Rabin?
</P><P>
Finally in picking up a copy of <em>Close to the Edge</em> from my local friendly second-hand record shop I quickly discovered where those sound clips had come from. And although the internet in the mid-1990s was a pretty small and not-at-all parochial place, I found out enough that <em>Hold Out Your Hand</em> came from Chris Squire's mysterious solo album, <em>Fish Out Of Water</em>. It wasn't until a good while later, certainly some time after I bought my Rickenbacker, that I found a copy of that album in the same second-hand shop. I bought it immediately. Like it was to every other bass player the album to me was a heck of a statement. And there, too, was that voice: a slightly husky tenor of considerable range. So <em>that's</em> who was doing the singing!
</P><P>
And really the rest is history. I went to see Yes at the Playhouse in 2003, when Rick was back in the band, and it was one of the best concerts I've ever been to. I went to see Yes again when they played at the Usher Hall in 2009. I bought almost all the albums, some of the live shows on VHS and DVD, and on my bookshelf I have the splendid <em>Perpetual Change</em>.
</P><P>
But what for the band, now? Chris Squire was such an integral part that he cannot be replaced. Jon Davison looks and sounds a bit like Jon Anderson, and he has the big role, but he has his own take on it. Then take Tony Levin: he played bass on <em>Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe</em> which was four-fifths Yes – ! – and yet the album sounded rubbish. Admittedly some of that might have been Wakeman's godawful synth sounds of the time: thin and whooshy and penetrating, played frighteningly fast and ultimately incredibly dull. But <em>Yes</em> music is a product of a collective who aspired to be more than the sum of their parts, an ideal if you will, whose revolving door of musicians kept—and keeps—that spirit alive.
</P><P>
Rest in peace, Chris. Thoughts to his family, too: Scotty and Xilan—and of course Nikki, Carmen, Chandrika, Camille and Cameron.
</P>Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-33540158420965145482015-05-22T23:23:00.001+00:002015-05-22T23:40:59.640+00:00I know you're different—you know I'm the same<P>For the past few weeks little A6-size booklets have been quietly spreading themselves around Edinburgh. You can recognise them by their front covers, four dark cyan and yellow ochre squares, each featuring an abstract smiley face. It's gone the middle of May already, which must mean that there's less than a month to go until the <A HREF="http://www.edfoc.org.uk/">Edinburgh Festival of Cycling</A>.
</P><P>
There are something like 46 different events in <A HREF="http://www.edfoc.org.uk/calendar-of-events/">the EdFoc calendar</A>, and nine of them appeal to me. Some, like the Brompton Fold-Fest, the King of Kaimes hillclimb and Ligfiets Zondag are frivolous but fun; among the more serious are Spokes' ever-present Bike Breakfast and roughly quarterly Public Meeting, and <A HREF="https://womenscycleforum.wordpress.com/">the Women's Cycle Forum</A>. It can hardly be a year since the first WCF, can it?—but it is. And while the debate goes on as to why not more women are riding bikes these days, there is an undercurrent of hardier women cyclists who barely think about whether or not to ride a bike, because they've always done it and it's all they've ever known. Why is this?
</P><P>
A while ago I read an article that deconstructed "riding a bike" and its counterpart, "not riding a bike", reducing it to component parts that collectively could be termed an 'invisible bag' that one always carried, but I couldn't find the article this week when I looked for it. Having a bike in the first place might sound like a fundamental weapon in one's arsenal, but you can break that down further. In fact it was mentioned in a different (I think) article that looked more at privilege: one's wherewithal to buy or to deploy in some manner. But I didn't read it too closely, partly because riding a bike is all I've ever known, too, and partly because I was tired from riding my bike.
</P><P>
Murray Walker once described Martin Brundle as Formula One's "most experienced driver". In terms of number of races started or accidents avoided he might well have been at the time, but it wasn't Brundle who was always on top of the podium. Brundle wasn't a Senna or Hill or Schumacher, and quite honestly I think he preferred Le Mans and other endurance events. Cycling is equally perverse. If you have that much experience on two wheels, calmly anticipating incidents or knowing what food makes your best fuel, why should you ever have a bad day? I suspect it's because we're only flesh and blood and some skinny metal tubes, forever having to compete against hundreds or thousands of kilogrammes of steel possessed of unlimited amounts of power. When it became too much one day, I wrote several paragraphs that trod a very fine line, between angst and anger. If I had managed to get to that stage, what hope might there be for someone who hadn't even ridden a bike in traffic before?
</P><P>
With the Festival of Cycling looming next month, then, I recently realised I had a more pressing issue. Why do I feel awkward—nervous, even—about going to the Women's Cycle Forum? I supposed that the root of it might lie in the fundamental of not knowing any different, not having that experience of abject fear on the road, perhaps. I have been properly scared before, on a motorbike certainly, but only occasionally on a bicycle, and always because of an externality. How can I bring to the fore those paragraphs of angst, and what can I learn from them: what can I teach other people? If I'm brutally honest, it's not that much about riding a bike stuff at all, but by being in the company of many people my age, all ferociously intelligent and busy doing; creating; people in fact who can speak in public with a fluidity and allergy-free poise far stronger than mine. It might also have something to do with having always disliked how I sound, a weariness brought about by a lifetime of correcting people on the phone and perpetually avoiding recordings. Strange, then, that a stage will feel like an entirely natural environment as soon as I grab my beloved Rickenbacker and a microphone. But, from a fluid dynamics and vibration point of view, one's speaking voice and one's singing voice aren't the same thing at all.
</P><P>
At the last WCF I mentioned an approach I'd read about for improving "things", normally a project or an endeavour with an aim, and at its heart is a driver diagram. No, not Celestion and Electro-Voice and audio crossover circuits, but prerequisites. Every aim, and there might be more than one, is deconstructed to an objective, which is supported by tasks and by sub-tasks and micro-activities, and they can all interrelate as necessary: you draw arrows between them. Think of it as Keith Emerson's Moog Modular: input, process, output, with all those patch cords. In this manner, every morsel of an activity or a piece of information or a situation feeds into one or more more significant activities. In order to improve, you must know what elements are at its root, and the magnitude of each's contribution. In terms of being confident at riding on the road and able to avoid incidents, there are some very fundamental aspects.
</P><P>
<STRONG>I have a bike.</STRONG> In fact, I have more than one bike, but for the sake of argument it's a generic do-everything tool.
<EM>Prerequisite #1:</EM> I can afford a bike, because I choose not to own a car, and I choose not to use my motorbike for every journey.
<EM>Prerequisite #2:</EM> I can cycle to work, as much by luck and bloodymindedness as by design.
<EM>Prerequisite #3:</EM> I can afford a bike not because I'm rich, because I'm not, but because I avoid consumerist acquisition for the sake of acquisition and one-upmanship. I buy stuff to use and wear out and repair. Other people might afford a bike because they have money to burn, or find they can't afford a bike because they have to have Apple's latest.
</P><P>
<STRONG>I have a bike that works.</STRONG>
<EM>Prerequisite #4:</EM> I do my own maintenance so that it costs less money, and because I can.
<EM>Prerequisite #5:</EM> I learned how to maintain my bike's systems by reading books I borrowed from my local library. One book was so good I actually photocopied entire chapters from it, because I didn't know where I could buy a copy for myself. Later on, I also had a job in a bike shop, building bikes. I read about maintaining bikes in case I have to buy newer components because the ones I'm used to aren't available anymore.
</P><P>
<STRONG>I have a body that works well enough to power my bike.</STRONG> The human body is a machine that gets stronger the more you use it. It evolved for mobility, originally on sand and fields, and its biochemistry rewards activity and exercise, and I contrive situations to allow for that.
<EM>Prerequisite #6:</EM> I do eat crap from time to time, but food is fuel, and so if I pig out one day I try not to the next.
<EM>Prerequisite #7:</EM> My body isn't broken (yet). My ankle sometimes gets complainy, and my knees have good days and bad days. I bought a wrap bandage to support my ankle when it needs it. I read about different knee problems and went to a physiotherapist.
<EM>Prerequisite #8:</EM> Physio taught me about posture and alignment, so I found out about classes for yoga, Pilates and Tai Chi, and went to some free taster sessions and paid for some longer blocks of classes. See also Prerequisite #10.
</P><P>
<STRONG>My bike is comfortable to ride.</STRONG> It wasn't always that way.
<EM>Prerequisite #9:</EM> My saddle fits me. I've had to buy and borrow various saddles to find one that actually suits my shape.
<EM>Prerequisite #10:</EM> My saddle doesn't actually injure me. There is a reason that, outside the generic model I'm otherwise applying, I ride a recumbent bike most of the time. It's more comfortable than sitting on a hard little saddle and it completely eliminates the risk of re-injuring myself, something that has happened far too many times over the years. See also Prerequisite #3, and, much as I love my big enduro motorbike, #1 too.
<EM>Prerequisite #11:</EM> My posture on the bike is comfortable enough. It's about handlebar height, handlebar grip shape, the distance from the saddle to the stem, the height of my saddle and the fore-aft position relative to the pedals, the length of my cranks, and the Q-factor of my cranks and pedals. See also Prerequisite #5.
</P><P>
And it goes on. Some are more practical:
</P><P>
<STRONG>I have somewhere to store my bike at home.</STRONG> I've made the space for it by not filling the place with hyperconsumerism. Or children. Perhaps not surprisingly, no little amount amount of space is given over to tools and the neat ordering of them. There is however a delicious irony in multiple bicycle ownership and me pleading against consumerism.
</P><P>
<STRONG>I have somewhere to store my bike at work, or when I go to the shops.</STRONG>. I've lobbied for it and I've advised on design and specifications.
</P><P>
<STRONG>I have a lock</STRONG> (actually, various locks)<STRONG> that is strong enough to protect my bike.</STRONG> I know how locks get broken, and I've learned how to lock my bike effectively and where the safer locations are.
</P><P>
<STRONG>I can ride in rain and snow and wind.</STRONG> I have clothes that allow me to do this in reasonable comfort. I didn't arrive with those get-ups: I had to learn by trial and error what was comfortable and what worked and what didn't work, like fleece gloves that didn't keep my fingers warm, or wore out the fingertips too quickly. I had a woolly hat that was too loose in the wind. I bought some shoes that I discovered put my feet at the wrong angle on the pedal, which then hurt my knees. I had some shorts whose pad was the wrong shape, and an earlier pair with lycra that wore out too quickly. I still remember the day, twenty years ago, when I wore my jeans and it rained, and I didn't dry out until going-home time.
<STRONG>I can ride in snow.</STRONG> I have special tyres that allow me to do this safely, and I can fit those tyres myself because of Prerequisites #5 and #7.
</P><P>
Others are more strongly rooted in emotion and the socio-economic.
</P><P>
<STRONG>I ride my bike because I've arranged much of my life to accommodate it.</STRONG> I would love to throw my big heavy camera tripod into a car and drive into the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night to do astrophotography, but I don't have a car, and the motorbike isn't well suited to that. I could hire a car I suppose, but that costs more money.
</P><P>
<STRONG>I ride my bike because I don't care particularly what other people think.</STRONG>
</P><P>
<STRONG>I happen to be white and middle class.</STRONG> I'm thus possessed of a God-given right to be unremarkable or not.
</P><P>
There are of course a hundred more nuances, setting out why I ride a bike. So far so good. So why am I not driven to post videos of innumerable instances of bad driving, or bad cycling? I see them every day: car and bus drivers intentionally stopping their vehicles in Advance Stop Lane areas, cars with defective headlights and tail lights, people cycling on the footway (if, admittedly, usually at only jogging pace), people ignoring red traffic lights (yes, drivers and cyclists), cyclists not performing shoulder checks when they change position on the road, car occupants opening their doors without checking for oncoming vehicles or oncoming pedestrians, road users ignoring zebra crossing protocol—the list could go on. But I want to think about the more dangerous instances, particularly cyclists undertaking buses and HGVs, cyclists positioning themselves in a vehicle's blind spot, getting cut up by bus drivers, and close shaves with vehicles emerging from side roads. What am I doing that other people aren't, and are those methods useful to other women who do have a bike and do want to ride more safely?
</P><P>
John Franklin wrote a book called Cyclecraft. In it he set out his case for cycling on the road effectively and safely, and reading it has become almost a rite of passage for British cyclists. Much of the way that cyclists in Britain ride is a learned response to British motoring habits and the media; a game of cat and mouse where the only way to win is to not be the mouse. This generally means riding as though you were a car: fast, wide, obvious, attentive, and as necessary, courteously obstructive. Frustration at the difference of speeds compounds itself, and alternatively can lead to injury. Fast isn't always possible, because hills exist. Wide requires confidence, because you place yourself in direct line of others. But counterintuitively, as every vehicular cyclist knows, a wider position gives you three dimensions on the road, which encourages others to actively overtake instead of passing as though you have no width or length, only height. Courteously obstructive means getting in the way on purpose for specific occasions, when your own safety must take precedence over someone else's precious seconds. Being obvious is not just being wide but making your intentions clear to others. When you signal, for goodness sake signal with your whole arm and not a flick of the wrist and hand, and use expected gestures. What does waving your outstretched arm around mean to another road user? Help me? Overtake now, please? Perhaps you look as though you're waving to a friend, and the following motorist will divert their attention for half a second to try to see who you're waving to. That's half a second when they're not concentrating on you, or anyone else on the road.
</P><P>
Attentive in my experience is where far too many people are missing a trick. Motorbike training school teaches you an awful lot about observations: where to look and when to look. Shoulder checks, lifesaver checks, roundabout exits, right turns, tarmac banding, the colour and smell of an oil slick, road camber, drain covers, the facial expressions of others, escape routes, braking distances (do you practice "tar and tyres" when you stop behind another vehicle? Do you maintain a two-second gap when moving?). Imagine yourself to be The Terminator in enhanced vision mode. 'I see everything.' If you don't find it tiring, you're probably not concentrating enough. What was the last road sign you passed?
</P><P>
My journey on a bike must never be so important that the time I lose sitting stationary at a red traffic light is worth more than my safety. I've regularly been at a red light for two whole minutes; that's a long time to be waiting and sitting still—and feels even longer when it's raining or snowing. But five seconds might be the time between nipping through that gap and waiting for the last car to pass. Am I really in that much of a hurry? When my speed is up, of course the last thing I want to do is grab the brakes and convert all my hard won momentum into heat. Riding a bike is all about not having to slow down unnecessarily. But that speed might not be appropriate if you can't avoid a cracked piece of tarmac in time when a car driver is approaching from the other direction. Perhaps a pedestrian is about to step out from behind a parked car, too. And there's a child and some parents crossing the next side road: is that side road also your escape route?
</P><P>
I've spent ten years riding bikes that have two mirrors, left and right. Mirrors are fantastically useful: you can watch traffic behind you without having to turn your head! You need not wait until you're ten metres from a parked car before looking over your shoulder (if you even do that) and pulling out to overtake, only to find on your tail another cyclist on your tail who has already assumed the overtaking line and who is now adding to your own safety by acting as a deflector shield; you can plan that manoeuvre much earlier, judging the best time to signal (you did signal, didn't you?) and move out. The Highway Code might be stuffy, full of shoulds and musts and fiddly advice, and you might be bored to tears with the memory of The Ladybird Book of Road Sense, with children wearing reflective arm bands and ankle bands, the Green Cross Code, and bicycles with sticky-out flags, but the advice is if anything more relevant now than ever, our drivers too busy with their phones and imbued with a Top Gear sense of superiority and selfishness. There should be very little that comes as a surprise if you have mirrors and you use them. Don't use them too much, because you also need to be watching in front for drivers who haven't spotted you before they embark on a trajectory that Cyclo-math predicts will intersect precisely with your own.
</P><P>
Cut up by a driver? Ideally you should have seen it coming with a flick of your eyes to your mirrors. But could you have prevented it by riding in the middle of the lane instead? It's happened to me before. I watched a car driver tailgating me up a short hill, and stayed in a wide position on the road because I was less than 30 metres from a red traffic light and I didn't want the driver to attempt to overtake, cut in and hit the brakes. In the event, the driver overtook anyway at speed, then cut in on purpose. I hadn't expected that part, but I was already fingering the brakes in anticipation, my spidey senses perking up. And so I jammed my brakes on, steering only slightly to my left, which meant the driver overshot my position and while I was shaken for half a second I was untouched and intact. Cycling shouldn't have to be this way, but it is. Sometimes the best approach is to get to love your brakes, and teach your brain to stop pedalling in those instances. And if you're going to hit the brakes, you need to know in a split-second what is behind you. Turning your head is much, much slower than swivelling your eyeballs.
</P><P>
Observations. Anticipation. Decision making. Reaction times. And an improvement approach. I have a feeling that British cyclists are probably some of the most experienced in this regard. American motorists take prisoners: if the internet is to be believed, will kill you soon as look at you should you be cycling in the lane and not on the shoulder, thus preventing through sheer firepower the fast, alert style of cycling that involved give and take. Dutch people (and other countries with similarly high cycling modal share) probably have greater fitness on account of more everyday riding, but have infrastructure that greatly reduces the bicycle-vehicle interactions at significant speeds. In a town centre, if you reduce motor vehicle speeds to that of a moderately fit cyclist, the entire environment becomes more relaxed because you eliminate the element of competition and one-upmanship.
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Your author is of course writing this from a very particular viewpoint: someone currently fit and fairly fast on the road, and who doesn't have to cycle with children. I'm a motorbiker, and I try to be aware of my abilities and the limits of those abilities. I still practice what I was taught when I learned to drive a car. And different bikes require different mindsets. When I tow a trailer full of shopping, I am not a fast cyclist. At all. My brakes have to work much harder, which means I go downhill more carefully, which means I am extra-observant about other vehicles and their intentions. When I pilot my velomobile, my speed on the downhill and level can be very high, but I have a lack of height. The safest thing then is to ride very wide, and I am extra-observant about vehicle blind spots and whether I can be seen in someone else's mirrors—not just wing mirrors but rear-view as well. High speed requires more planning for stopping distances; when riding up hills my slow speed means I watch my mirrors very closely so that I can tuck in as necessary (out of politeness as much as anything) or stay wide as necessary if there is a lot of parking on the road or if I will be making a right turn ahead. And in a velomobile I don't attempt to filter past vehicles unless there is an extremely good reason for doing so. It's too much of a risk to try it and find the ASL area blocked by a car, or to become stuck halfway because a manoeuvre requires turning more tightly than the steering will allow.
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Your author is also writing from a viewpoint in which lycra is the preferred clothing, and who never seems to have found a good skirt for cycling in. This may be connected to my preference for riding a recumbent bike, which is more or less incompatible with skirts and baggy shorts. On an upright bike if I was cycling to a restaurant, then I would really rather look less "cyclist", mainly because everyone else would be doing likewise. Until the clothing companies start making trousers long enough for me I'll probably endure the dubious fashions of bepocketted plus-fours over lycra leg warmers that at least look a bit like stockings. And until the clothing companies start making cycling-cut coats with long enough arms, I'll carry on wearing my stretchy windproof fleeces.
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I could adopt the non-cyclist attire of the Cycle Chic movement, but on my recumbent I'd get chain marks all over my jeans, and on an upright my jeans would give me saddle sores. I had them in the past and I don't want them again. The alternative might be courier-chic, but for me padded shorts are mandatory on an upright bike, and tights would have to go over the shorts, which would look ridiculous so I'd need to wear a skirt over the top, and then I'd get much too warm again. It would be fine in the autumn, except that it's then too cold on the legs for just tights. Perhaps I should turn Roubaix lycra inside out to have the fluffier side exposed. That would look less like lycra. Of course, the seams would then also be on the outside, so some custom tailoring might be in order.
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I don't want to make a big deal out of clothing being the barrier to women not cycling more, because I think there is a lot to choose from nowadays for most averagely sized women. I won a prize recently for a 1000 metre turbo trainer time trial, and all the clothes I received were too small for me, but I'm not average. Cycling clothes do look less dorky if you buy them in greys and blacks, and also less dorky if you buy walking clothes rather than cycling clothes; I've stopped wearing traditional cycling jerseys since I realised that wicking t-shirts are far nicer. What is still a big deal to me is bike shops, and also bike shop mentality. Too much cycling clothing is marketed as fluorescent armour, when in fact how you ride on the road will stand you in better stead than assuming that hi-viz will mean everyone will play nice around you. Not in Britain right now, anyway. And far too many bike shops still have a blokey, hi-tech vibe to them, not helped when there isn't a single woman on the shop floor. If you feel smaller when you leave the shop than when you went in, take your custom elsewhere. You'll find that outdoor shops are much, much better in this regard.
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My invisible bag, therefore, carries quite a lot. Cycling works for me because each journey is low in cost and surprisingly predictable in terms of how long it takes from A to B. I've worked hard to be able to maintain a bike, without paying someone else to do it. I want to carry on being able to do it, too, so I try not to take unnecessary risks, but measured risk-taking keeps up my level of alertness. So far, so good. Telling someone else to 'man up and take the lane' seems easy enough to do, after all, if I can do it anyone can, right? Wrong. I'm not them, and I don't know what's in their own invisible bag. More importantly, until they tell me, I don't know what isn't. And they can't find those things to put in their bag until they work out what they are and how to overcome each one in turn. That's a big part of what the Women's Cycle Forum is for.
</P>Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-72890932013237432232015-05-18T21:06:00.003+00:002015-05-18T21:29:15.287+00:00I want to believe in that love yet again<P>I made a decision the other day. I bought a new Yes album.
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When Yes put out their part-orchestral <EM>Magnification</EM> album, all Myst-style computer graphics artwork and a sound that was an English stately home personified, I was thrilled. The subsequent DVD, Symphonic Live, with the European Festival Orchestra performing alongside Yes—a Yes still featuring Jon Anderson, of course, with Tom Brislin doing sterling work in Wakeman's stead—was also superb. And then poor Jon had all manner of vocal problems that with a tour looming eventually saw him bow out of the band, to be replaced with a diminutive Canuck called Benoit David. Brislin departed and Oliver Wakeman came in for the tour. I remember going to their concert at the Usher Hall, in which David put in a solid performance (if also rather tambourine-happy). Man-mountain Chris Squire, a bit of a hero of mine, scowled and plunked at his Rickenbacker with his usual gusto but unimaginatively. Steve Howe alone saved the day by being absolutely on fire.
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The tour came and went, and a new album was in the works. Wakeman and son of Wakeman were long gone, replaced by one-time Yes alumnus and, with Steve Howe, co-founder of Asia, Geoff Downes. At the controls was Downes' earlier partner in crime and one-time Yes vocalist, Trevor Horn, and everything looked it would be absolutely peachy. Except that the new work, <EM>Fly From Here</EM>, turned out to be total rubbish.
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It shouldn't have been. With all the right ingredients there was plenty of sparkle in the production, as one would expect from Horn, but there was no spark in the playing. In fact, there is only one little section that sticks in my memory, a sort of hi-tech, herky-jerky version of the repetitive ascending organ section of Awaken. I can also gauge how much I like an album by its position in the pile of CDs that don't have an allotted place in the rack that's full. <EM>Fly From Here</EM> is languishing two-thirds of the way down; higher up than some The Alan Parsons Project stuff and 90s Iron Maiden, but lower down than Pink Floyd's <EM>Division Bell</EM>, various Gentle Giant albums, and much, much lower down than Soft Machine, Magna Carta and SBB. Heck, <EM>Fly From Here</EM> is lower down in the pile even than Starcastle! Unfortunately that's how much it excited me.
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What then, for Yes? Follow Chris Squire's method of course. Hear about another musician who could fill your bandmate's shoes better, and nick them. And so it was that Benoit David parted ways, and Glass Hammer vocalist Jon Davison came in. Another Jon! In fact, another Jon dressed in white who was equally interested in Paramahansa Yogananda and for two pins sounded remarkably like Jon Anderson, a timbre slightly thinner perhaps but a perfect fit in the mystery and mystique of Yes music.
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Even the fans readily accepted Davison. Not for him I suspect was the reaction of the crowd when Horn sang his heart out at Madison Square Gardens in 1980, and someone shouted "Fuck off!" Anderson might be short in stature but has very large shoes to fill, and Davison was up to the job. I was burned buying <EM>Fly From Here</EM>, so I decided to wait a while; give it a few months for the reviews to appear. Of course, the only Yes studio albums I don't own are <EM>Union</EM> and <EM>Open Your Eyes</EM>, both of which I'm in no hurry to acquire, thus it was only a matter of when—not if—would I buy the new one. And so it was, twelve months later or so, that I did.
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It's called <EM>Heaven & Earth</EM>. Squire, Howe and White are the three elders now. Squire got divorced, got married again, lost some weight and regained his cheekbones. Howe grew out his hair again into a wispy grey cape, probably to get away from looking like someone's grandma. White has hardly changed for thirty years, but ought to grow his moustache again. Perhaps that would give him some imagination in his performances. Downes is looking quite middle aged these days, still bouncy but quietly spoken on the keys. Davison looks much younger than I think he is; he ought to grow a beard to place him more in the shaggy disciple role that singing lead in Yes demands. That's why Horn's big round bank manager glasses didn't quite fit, even in the rolled-up sleeves days of the early 1980s. Remember Anderson's shoes, and so much of Yes is Anderson, groovy, hippy, cosmic and slightly barking.
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The first thing that struck me about <EM>Heaven & Earth</EM>, in reading the liner notes first in my best homage to vinyl's gatefold sleeves, was that Billy Sherwood was part of the production. Sherwood was all over Yes' The Ladder album, prog-AOR par excellence, and he seemed dull as ditchwater. But so too do we have Jon Davison! The sound of the album is bang up to date in its clarity—you can practically hear individual windings as a pick scrapes along a guitar string. You can hear sub-bass frequencies spilling out like those in the control room would hear, as synth bass and possibly real bass plumb the depths. You can hear Davison's voice soaring, a little penetrating at times yes, and Squire's ever-present harmony is there too. But it's also too clear, too sharp. Too accurate.
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Albums from the 1960s have a wobbly, sometimes muffled, always close-up sound to them. In the 1970s as microphones and tape recording came of age you could saturate the tape signal, as you might overdrive your Marshall or Ampeg, but you still operated through oscillators, valves, transistors, knobs and switches and pieces of wire. There was always a feeling that an organ or an electronic instrument or a mixing desk or some recording apparatus was alive, because it was affected much more by heat or radio frequency. You never quite got the same thing twice. It was said (by Ralph Denyer, I think) that if valve amplifiers had been invented 30 years after transistor amps, they would be called harmonic processors. This audible interfering with what should be something immutable and programmed, coupled with tape's accommodating response to overloaded signals, is what brings that pleasant vibe to recorded sounds. It's called 'warmth'. If you didn't know what you were doing in the 1980s, digital meddling would clip harshly, ending up sounding gritty and jarring. If you did know what you were doing, like Alan Parsons, you could create incredible depth and realism to a production.
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What <EM>Heaven & Earth</EM>—and <EM>Fly From Here</EM> before it, and sundry other works like Rush's <EM>Test For Echo</EM> and <EM>Vapor Trails</EM>, and Primus's <EM>Tales from the Punchbowl</EM>—is missing is that warmth. Fans mourn the passing of Chris Squire's crunching Rickenbacker tones, Rick Wakeman's Moog that sounded like a laser beam going through butter, and the way a real Hammond B3 has a creakiness that Downes' artificial Hammond doesn't. So why not pull out those ancient instruments? Use a real Mellotron, and a chrome plated microphone, and dig those vintage vibes, because they sound good. That's what Wobbler does. They have a rule about no post-1972 instruments. You can hear it all over <EM>Afterglow</EM> or <EM>Hinterland</EM>. Or play your guitar and drums like you always do, but record and mix it with analogue equipment, and analogue only. Brain from Primus knew this, which is why <EM>The Brown Album</EM> has that fat, dirty, close-up sound quality to it. A bit too dirty, many say, but it gives it a proximity to the listener that's miles away from the scientific, razor edge of its predecessor. But I'm talking about prog, or at least the halcyon days of prog.
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Wobbler's output is also chock full of clever riffs and themes, but they don't have what Yes did when Yes was their age: a hard-battling but ultimately democratic consciousness that bound those riffs and themes together in a cohesive way with the maximum musical value. Wobbler simply lurches from one to the next.
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The first track from <EM>Heaven & Earth</EM> actually excited me. In fact, I even picked up my bass and jammed along—to a song I hadn't even heard before. Squire's bass was too low in the mix, but my own Rickenbacker made up for it. The album loses its footing towards the middle, becoming a bit too pedestrian and safe in its lyrics. Towards the end it picks up again, chucking in some pleasant and rousing orchestral stuff that would've sounded better coming from real French horns. Gravitas, you see. Some more odd-meter playing is a tip of the hat to days of yore, and the climax is Right There, and suddenly that's it. There's no gentle fade out, letting the listener gradually swim back to reality. Yes's later works will always be compared with the stalwarts of the early 1970s, and it's very hard to be objective and to measure performance by the standards—and preferences—of it's now 65 year-old musicians.
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<EM>Heaven & Earth</EM> is really nearly there, but it's definitely more Earth than Heaven. What I wish for, more than anything else in the latter-day Yes canon, is for Squire, Howe and White to ditch Pro Tools, go back to tape, and bloody well start showing off again.
</P>Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-71037177586683703322014-06-18T21:36:00.001+00:002014-06-19T20:20:02.818+00:00Use the passions that flow<P>Even I'm old enough to remember the beginning of the World Wide Web, old enough in fact to still have my free-with-Mac-Format magazine "road map of The Internet", when it was all pages hosted by academic institutions, Gopher was still a pretty neat idea, and Kurt Cobain was still alive. I'm therefore invoking a meme from a few years ago because it provides a neat preface; the meme called for one sentence but a few more will help.
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<blockquote>"There was still a gaping hole in our plans, however, for with the departure of "Gawain", we had left ourselves nothing with which to replace him! So…, at this juncture we parted ways, Alex, Geddy, Terry and Paul to begin work on some of their overdubs, while I would be imprisoned in my room until I could emerge glowing triumphantly, clutching some wonder of spontaneous genius to my knotted and sweating brow!! — mere fantasy, I fear. Did I perhaps have a title? Ah, no. Did I have a few strong ideas lying around? Well, no. Did I have any ideas at all? Well, maybe, but not exactly. And for two days I stared in frustration and growing unease at blank sheets of paper, and questioning eyes."</blockquote>
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I could go on, for the original paragraph is as long again and Neil Peart is a much better writer than I, but on the third day in a newfound welter of creativity he began to piece together a host of ideas and thoughts, at once unconnected and yet circuitously themed. The product was of course a song called "Natural Science". Two days? Eighteen months more like, in my case. I'm far beyond sounding like a broken record: my record has long been recycled into a dainty bowl with crinkled edges, designed for holding pot-pourri or marbles or one of those curious collections of small metal objects typically comprising safety pins, half-broken zip sliders, paperclips and a selection of prizes from crackers—the same hoarded collection of items whose owner would without a hint of doubt claim that they might be useful, perhaps in say ten years; or more likely, never. My record of late hasn't been all that great.
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My "Natural Science" ought to bridge that last year and a half, if it could. While the keys rattle under my fingertips I think of my notepads and their pages of handwriting, describing strange, fantastical journeys into the unknown: Mordor turning out to be one of the shabbiest camp sites known to Man; Sendar the growing familiarity of Kensington and Chelsea—if only experienced as a commuter; afternoons spent with toy trains and cable cars…and none of it readily transcribed for your perusal and delectation.
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I think of the year in which I tried to declutter, my lovely big car with its faux-walnut dashboard and four flat tyres eventually meeting its maker, and my stop-gap motorbike that I sent packing with not a little 'good riddance!', and the year spent instead relying purely on human power. The car I miss, if only for the comfort of its half-leather seats and the way it ate motorways for breakfast—but it was an ailing dinosaur in its owner's modern life that no longer enjoyed motorways nor had cause to take them. The motorbike, my black Honda VFR with the cracked plastic bodywork that I repaired myself, and a cracked exhaust manifold that I didn't, was a hole in the tarmac into which I poured money. It made all the right noises, as every VFR does, noises that today still make the corner of my mouth turn up, but it was too small. The seat was too low, so the footpegs bent my legs so much I couldn't ride 30 miles without it hurting my knees; the seat was the wrong shape, and the wrong angle, which gave me a numb bum, only lessened whenever I slid forwards on the brakes. The windscreen was too low, even in jacked-up position with a spoiler on top, so my helmet was buffeted all the time. Crouching behind the fairing, MotoGP style, is for short people. And so it was that having spent the better part of five years collecting parts, taking a trip up north to a special garage and back, and latterly going wild with socket wrenches, wire brushes in an electric drill, paint, plastic weld and a sledgehammer,—yes, even a sledgehammer, for how else do you panel beat a bent and bashed bash plate back into shape?—the great beast that was my Honda Africa Twin once more took to the road. So long it had sat forlorn in a corner of the garage, reduced to a 200 kilogramme shelf. And how easily it accepted its owner again with a cackle and a joyous roar that scared small animals and no doubt delighted small boys.
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Yet I'm getting ahead of myself, for that was mere months ago. The motorbike project in fact nearly never happened at all, because I was enjoying my economy and coming close to decluttering properly, but I couldn't bring myself to cut loose entirely. An Africa Twin is just a machine after all, just a collection of welded metal tubes and outdated, petrol swilling technologies, but it isn't clinical and efficient like a BMW, or brutish and unhinged like a big KTM, nor a bloated facsimile like its successor; it has a genuine heritage and a friendliness coupled with an old-school vibe that makes it very difficult not to like. I decided I should give it a chance, the chance it never had the first time around.
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And yet there was a void. In honesty, none really existed. It was a void that <em>should</em> have existed, and one that I successfully argued did exist despite the rather glaringly obvious evidence. At the root of this was our climate: the culmination of too many years' winter cycling in which my fingers quite predictably turned white. As we all know, cold extremities can be ameliorated by a warmer torso, but I can recall only one occasion when this actually happened. I was wearing the fleece mid-layer that I used in winter motorbike trips (no more such trips, either) and I was riding my mountain bike—dear old Annie the Blue Bike, now mothballed for various reasons—and indeed riding up hills in snow, so my torso had extra-extra-special cause to be warm that day. To really stop the cold hands I needed to get out of the wind, say with a fairing, and if I had a fairing I might go faster: a lot faster if it was a full fairing, and if I was going faster I would need suspension. And if I was going faster with suspension I could go further too. Naturally the thing to do was invest in a velomobile.
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Am I insane? Probably, but it was an educated insane, after all I'd been cycling recumbent bikes for ten years and was therefore well acclimatised, and I had spent a splendid afternoon in Toronto racing Bluevelo's yellow speed machine along the Waterfront Trail. It was also not without precedent, because another customer of Laid Back Bikes had already acquired his own for use on the other side of the country, and there were twenty other things that made it all seem quite sensible, like having space inside for four or five bags of shopping, and a warm close-fitting foam cover for when it rained. It arrived at the end of 2012, hit the roads in early 2013, acquired its first scratches within a month ("speed scratches"), and its first crack just a couple of weeks ago. And it keeps my hands warm! Lee Wakefield, known these days for being a dab hand with carbon fibre, as well as a seasoned velomobile pilot, reckoned that I was the first woman in the UK to join the ranks. Little old me! And practically a legend in my own time judging by events the past few days.
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There comes a time, though, when novelty wears off. One noticeable manifestation of this is probably the theory of Bicycle Acquisition Syndrome, which I explored at length before, and of which the foregoing is perfect evidence. Even so, a new bike is like a new pair of shoes. Grippy soles contrast with the worn in and worn out predecessor's, laces with neatly bound ends, stitching neat and precise. Then before you know it a year has gone by and your shoes—like your bike—are once again literally an extension of your body, where every crease and wear patch is in the perfect place, and nothing is a surprise anymore. Shoes wear out, at least the modern ones made of petroleum and glue, not classic leather shoes that can be resoled or unstitched and mended; Brooks saddles conform to the rider, and a Rohloff hub wears in, not out. We crave originality and variety, because there's always something faster or more comfortable or that carries more…and we buy more bikes. Travelling the same pattern of roads day after day, month in, month out, just to commute to work and back again, isn't novel. It's our own very real Groundhog Day. Naturally, we notice a new pothole here, a filled one there, the repainted stop line at a junction, and we know the exact line to take across a roundabout to avoid a slippery manhole cover. The route becomes rehearsed <em>ad nauseum</em>, much the same traffic, much the same static hazards. Boredom is actually the overriding reason I change my commuting route so often.
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You might say then that I mix up my commuting route to <em>reduce</em> my familiarity with it all, to increase the range of sights and sounds and smells along the way, and perversely to increase the number of hazards to which I expose myself. Danger makes for exciting times, which is why people climb skyscrapers using only their thumbs, drive bulldozers backwards on one track while blindfolded, or put their heads in crocodile mouths without a safety crowbar. And danger is of course countered by experience and practice, which informs skill, and skill informs decision making and reaction times. The problem with all of this is that constant wariness of hazards becomes hard work. Someone proficient at racing cars can't race constantly, even taking out the effect of the inability to simply stay awake. Pierre Levegh did remarkably well to race at Le Mans in 1952, single-handedly for over 23 hours; the speed of the cars by the 1990s—and thus the effort required to drive them at pace—saw the rules mandate a maximum of four hours at a time. But I'm only cycling in traffic, aren't I? I'm only going at 10mph, 20mph, maybe 30mph. How is that hard work?
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It's hard work because <em>other people</em> make it hard work. Until the UK, or, in the possible interests of posterity, Scotland and 'the rest of the UK' makes it convenient to bicycle everywhere without the constant danger posed by drivers who think they own the road, or who think they can drive better and with greater precision than they actually can, it's going to stay hard work. There are so many angles one can take on this subject that one day I shall construct a massive family tree of everything that makes cycling hard work and why. Government hand-wringing, silo working, red top newspapers, sloppy journalism, sloppy science, biased court judgements, poorly upheld legislation, Police disinterest, influence of television 'stars', individual superiority complexes, social classes, social networking, and a general economic apathy are all in there to one degree or another.
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It's hard work staying on top of things.
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And frankly, one day not so very long ago I reached a point where nearly every moment I was seemingly subject to all manner of hazards—I would challenge any everyday cyclist of any ability to name a week in which nothing of note happened to them while they were on the road—and it became too much to bear.
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After today's commute I'm beginning to wonder why I keep cycling.
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The short answer is it keeps me going. The longer answer is that infernal combustion every day would cost too much and smells horrible, and would erode the first reason further. I was given my first bike when I was very young and the longest I've ever gone without riding a bike was 6 months. Today, and you might be surprised by this—I was too—I realised that I've finally stopped enjoying cycling in Edinburgh. I'm an engineer to my core: I love my bikes; and I try to help people feel that love for their own bikes. Yet each of mine is dangerously close to becoming little more than a means to an end. Far too quickly I'm coming to understand why people don't want to cycle, and I don't want to become one of those people. I shouldn't have to; I shouldn't be made to.
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Because I'm fed up; of drivers overtaking me too closely, or undertaking me just to gain five seconds, or pulling U-turns in front of me without consideration of my speed, or shouting abuse at me just for existing. I'm fed up of poor driving standards that ignore conditions, like traction, or visibility, or gradient, or an ability to accelerate, and standards that are seemingly based on the driver's comparison with their performance during the previous five minutes. I'm fed up of the narcissistic me-me-me, me-first! attitude that pervades driving nowadays, in which traffic lights and roundabouts are to be beaten, rather than respected.
I'm fed up of being polite on the road, and in return getting none of the human respect I would like. I can get no respect far more easily simply by not caring how I ride my bike.
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I'm fed up of our city's roads that are being repeatedly destroyed by buses and lorries and not repaired properly, or even engineered properly. I'm fed up of road repairs that aren't remotely fit for purpose and that shake my bike to pieces.
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I'm fed up with our city's pretensions to being supportive of cycling. That it treats me, and everyone else using human power, as though we were whizzing about on micro-scooters, weaving madly amongst pedestrians without a care, and able and happy to jump off on a whim. That it repairs only the roads that carry the most and the largest vehicles, and leaves the quieter, preferable routes to rack and ruin. I'm fed up of useful cut-throughs being 'repaired' to prevent their use by cyclists, forcing us to reconfigure our routes to include more dangerous areas requiring manoeuvres that we were only too happy to avoid before.
I can't help wondering how many people, pounding the treadmill or spinning nowhere fast in a gym of an evening, were once busy cycling on the road but had that enthusiasm burned out of them.
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I will probably cycle to work tomorrow. The fresh air will do me good, as will a bit of exercise, but my mood is damaged.
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People do sometimes give up, opting for a safer, perhaps quieter, indeed less exciting life. But like a broken record, I did cycle to work tomorrow. I think tomorrow was Wednesday, but I might be wrong. I remember commuting on my motorbike the day after that, because it has presence: it's big and tall, and has huge round headlights and a loud horn (not Stebel Nautilus loud, but pretty good nonetheless). That day I enjoyed presiding o'er all the land, and I was surely satisfied as the plebs moved aside courteously as I approached with a rumble. In fact, such behaviour may have had rather more to do with feeling remarkably unwell that evening, necessitating my filtering past traffic like a mad woman while trying valiantly to hold down my lunch amidst a soaring body temperature. And unless I'm Laia Sanz, which I'm not, riding my motorbike is how to get less fit rather than more, and so I cycled the next day. Having been unwell, then, and thoroughly tired, I decided to take the quietest possible route home. Distance becomes a little less relevant when you plod instead of sprint, and I pottered along beside the trams, and around the houses, and sneaked in and out of cycle-type infrastructure,—nothing so grandiose as <em>real</em> custom-designed, all-singing-all-dancing European-level infrastructure I would add, for This is Edinburgh™—making my way home one of the many ways I knew how.
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Issues? Yeah, we've got issues, and Edinburgh knows it. The <A HREF="http://www.edfoc.org.uk">Edinburgh Festival of Cycling</A> was borne in 2013 out of Kim Harding's frustration that our leaders weren't doing enough about meeting the target they'd set themselves (a signatory to The Charter of Brussels, committing to achieve so-many-percent of trips being made by bicycle by 2020). EdFoC featured a varied selection of events, from films to talks to rides, all day things, evening things, overnight things. Strictly speaking, it wasn't the first bikey festival. We'd already had two or more years of the Bicycle Film Festival, largely the product of the energetic Maggie Wynn, and way before that there had been what we dubbed the First Edinburgh International Human Power Festival—ostensibly for recumbent riders, which lasted just for one day. There was never a Second EIHPF, more's the pity. Happily, thanks to the passage of time in which the city gained Laid Back Bikes, that's almost a regular event these days. With the EdFoC now in its second year and happening this very week, interesting stuff is organised: interesting stuff is <em>going on</em>.
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One of the first events was the prosaically named <A HREF="https://womenscycleforum.wordpress.com/">Women's Cycle Forum</A>. Apparently the first of its kind in the UK, possibly even the first of its kind. Lots of women ride bikes, lots more men do. Men—in the most general, biological sense—are imbued with a magical substance that helps them shrug off danger more easily than Women, in the most general, biological sense. The more of the magical substance Men have, the more they like to fight each other, and then it makes them go bald. It's often lots of men who attend rafts of workshops and meetings whose discussion points include Why More Women Should Ride Bikes and How To Make It Happen. Well, Men, sorry, but your gender agenda kinda sucks. I went along on a drizzly Saturday evening, badly underestimating how long it would take to ride to the venue in town, not helped by the main cycle route through the Meadows unexpectedly swarming with people wearing serious faces and hi-viz vests that said "Security": sufficiently serious that I cheerily ignored the first half before diverting back onto the roads, thus taking a great Commonwealth Games Baton Relay-avoiding dogleg that wasted valuable minutes; I arrived late and the meeting had already started, Sally Hinchcliffe mid-paragraph in introducing the panel. I'm not entirely sure that I didn't miss the first speaker. I poured myself into a seat near the back, next to a little girl busy making bracelets from tiny elastic bands, and tried to look demure despite generating my own weather by this time, hardly grateful for my decision to wear my crumpled baggy shorts (complete with cat hairs) over my lycra shorts, as if that would look more presentable than simply opting to have velomobile-strength thighs on display. Perhaps fewer people cycled to the event than drove or bussed or walked, although there was quite a range of bikes locked to the railings outside; perhaps fewer people had quite the dislike of bicycle saddles that do I, and were consequently more than happy to cycle in a dress; certainly there was a great absence of black lycra.
</P><P>
We had long, and not so long, introductions from eight highly relevant women. Sue Abbot, who looks like Miriam Margoyles, spoke about having a criminal record for refusing to wear a bike helmet in Australia; Rachel Aldred covered cycle campaigning; Sara Dorman covered 'not cycle campaigning' but getting involved in it anyway; Sally Guyer talked about making nice clothes for cycling in and looking good in; a fresh-faced Claire Connachan was 'fecking knackered' from just finishing a 40-miler with her girl group, Belles on Bikes. Polly Jarman spoke of her work helping young children to learn to cycle; Jo Holtan introduced the Cycle Hack movement for crowdsourcing ideas to improve bike routes; and Jayne Rodgers spoke with feeling about working with disabled people and getting the right bike, trike or quad for them to carry on cycling. Then it was onto group discussions, quick-fire to thrash out burning issues, ways to deal with them and ways to solve them: brainstorm meets cycle hack, if you like. My group was led by Sara, talking a mile a minute and simultaneously writing on the made-for-writing-on red paper tablecloth. Sally joined us, our discussion ranging from too-close overtaking to making street corners sharper to normalisation and destigmatisation to management system methodologies, each of us taking turns to draw diagrams and scribble thoughts, but all pointing towards a general desire for cycling to be safer, dammit.
</P><P>
<a href="http://s1038.photobucket.com/user/BeckyT_bike/media/AtoB/IMAG0563_zpsc319ddbb.jpg.html" target="_blank">
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And in fact from the feedback from each of the groups—probably fifty people altogether, covering all kinds of people and all kinds of ages and abilities—the overwhelming desire was exactly that: safer cycling. Not faster cycling, not cheaper cycling, or even more stylish cycling. Safer. Just get the bloody motorists off our backs, but don't you dare corral us into some piece of shit segregation that leaves no room to move and no room for three dimensions. With the thought that cycle chic didn't <em>necessarily</em> mean floaty skirts and Dutch-style bikes with wicker baskets and flowers and little dogs, I took my baggy shorts off for the ride home. No bunching of material, no seams to sit on this time, just a second skin. And on my hips technically a third, because they're Endura mountain bike shorts.
</P><P>
<a href="http://s1038.photobucket.com/user/BeckyT_bike/media/AtoB/DSC_9333_2sm_zpsdf728f66.jpg.html" target="_blank">
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Back to my preferred office the next morning for Ligfiets Zondag. Last year my velomobile was, not entirely unexpectedly, a hit, so I rode my usual bike instead this time. To be honest, one can only take so many questions ('How fast does it go?', 'Does it have an engine in there?' 'Where did you get it?' 'How much did that cost?' 'Can I have a go?' 'Can you go up hills?' 'Can I have a go <em>please</em>?' 'Can I have a sit in it?' and so on and so on) and I wasn't particularly minded to field them all again. Besides, a relaxing bike ride to the coast, Cramond and Silverknowes Promenade in this case, is the type of event that starts out specialist and over time becomes diluted, for all the best reasons really, by people riding whatever bike they want to bring.
<a href="http://s1038.photobucket.com/user/BeckyT_bike/media/AtoB/DSC_9334_2sm_zps57eec44e.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1038.photobucket.com/albums/a470/BeckyT_bike/AtoB/th_DSC_9334_2sm_zps57eec44e.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo DSC_9334_2sm_zps57eec44e.jpg" style="" align=right></a>
It becomes 'an outing'. And so we had people on recumbent bikes, like Angelo and Ally still buzzing from their expedition across Canada last year, people like Hannah and John riding trikes or towing trailers, people like Kim using cargo bikes, and people I didn't know at all on their remarkably undeviant bikes. And…, I should have expected it really, losing count after about the third time I was asked where the big red streamlined speed machine was.
</P><P>
<a href="http://s1038.photobucket.com/user/BeckyT_bike/media/AtoB/DSC_9336_2sm_zps03a1443b.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1038.photobucket.com/albums/a470/BeckyT_bike/AtoB/th_DSC_9336_2sm_zps03a1443b.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo DSC_9336_2sm_zps03a1443b.jpg" style="" align=right></a>
After an early lunch of egg and cheese and bacon, and then an hour or two spent riding up and down the Prom trying different bikes, or playing fetch with John's dog and its slightly soggy tennis ball, or sitting in the sunshine and chatting, I was late leaving! I was later leaving than I even originally planned, too, forgetting that France is one hour ahead of us, and therefore four o'clock in the afternoon there is three o'clock here. And the 2014 <em>24 Heures du Mans</em> was 45 minutes away from finishing. I missed it.
</P><P>
But the ride home along the Roseburn path, bursting with green, was quiet and warm and pleasant. With Angelo and Ally alongside it was a ride full of happy conversation, and my earlier rant faded. It could almost have been written by someone else.
</P>Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-32562489106848839672012-12-30T17:29:00.000+00:002012-12-30T17:29:21.259+00:00The measure of a life<P>
The returning reader is probably an increasingly rare breed in this particular little corner of the blogosphere. In fact, in years past I railed against my adoption of the term blog because mine bore no such relevance. 'It's a diary!', she opined, before suddenly closing the door on it forever. And now with the hoary old tale of not having enough time, or enough inspiration, or enough worldly nous, or more likely, enough enthusiasm to sit and write something, goodness knows I'm trying to do exactly that again.
</P><P>
Where did the hell did my enthusiasm go? What happened to the collective who actually tuned in once a month to stay the challenge of a thousand, perhaps ten thousand, words? I guess most of them had better things to do, and besides, no-one sits around a bonfire that's reduced itself to smouldering embers in order to get warm. I suspect this place needs the proverbial slosh of paraffin. I recently came across the notion of ego depletion, in the context of Why You're Not Getting On At Work, How You Can Boost Your Productivity, and How Not To Get Fired, or some such headline worthy of Yahoo! news. I haven't wrapped my head around the whole psyche of the depleted individual, except that important decision making takes energy, and the more you do it the more you'll need to recharge at some point. That some individuals will succumb to the easiest route—the least difficult option, which is probably to avoid making any sort of decision at all—is inevitable. There is a school of thought which says that a certain amount of giving in is in fact helpful towards not giving in the rest of the time. However, for those the individuals who have found themselves thoroughly depleted, how do they recharge? And what made them susceptible in the first place?
</P><P>
I'm reminded of the analysis that separates people into extroverts and introverts, and by extension illustrates how those people tick when amongst company and when alone. Are the opportunities to recharge themselves more difficult to come by these days for the introverts? Once it was a magical electrical snake of a thing called the telegraph, then the telephone, then the television, and now you can choose from a hundred social networks that push stuff relentlessly into your computer, your phone, into your eyeballs. We live in hyper-connected times with no off switch. Well, there is, but press it and the rest of the world won't wait for you. One case might be the office-based introverts (with lots of people) who need the quiet of being alone (without lots of people) but get lonely doing so and so seek out social circles, as long as they're not too social. But because they prefer to be alone they don't feel driven—indeed, capable—to contribute as much as the more extrovert, and as a result they feel awkward about not fitting in, so they practice not fitting in. I suspect the truth is closer to the introverted individuals and extroverted individuals each wishing they could be more like the other.
</P><P>
Decision making paralysis? Possibly. I may have had a lot on my mind. Try finding a lump next to your breast.
</P><P>
It comes when you least expect it, quite honestly. Suffice to say, I now have some quite big and rather red scars that weren't there two months ago, and spending several nights massively propped up in bed on cushions and pillows is ridiculously uncomfortable, and not terribly conducive to one's beauty sleep. In the last four months I've had so many blood tests that I've lost count, and I think I must have been tested for every medical condition ever discovered, including anaemia (which as an athletic sort of girl I was pleased to find I don't have, though that means my inability to climb on Friday afternoons must be dietary instead). The CT radiographer of course wouldn't even rule out my being pregnant. I really don't think I am, and I said as much to her. Actually the conversation may have involved a few more specifics than that. Mind you, the chance would be a fine thing. <a href="http://theshooglypeg.com/">The Shoogly Peg</a> definitely is, though, which is just fab.
</P>Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-23985789642405949912011-08-28T21:53:00.000+00:002011-08-28T21:53:05.415+00:00One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel<blockquote><b>Wednesday, August 24, 2011</b><br />
<br />
14.28. Back to idle writing on the train. This time it's the Lightning that's tucked away, but right at the other end of the train. Turns out that the quiet coach is next to the power car - presumably First Class doesn't have to put up with the whoosing, but is also first to crash into anything when southbound. I still think the Mk4 carriages are overly stiffly sprung.<br />
<br />
It's kind of nice not having that tight an itinerary, aside from the Shildon bit. But I'm beginning to think that I'm finding it increasingly hard to improvise in situations, or rather that I can cope perfectly well but prefer to be as well-informed as possible. Perhaps trains are a bit of an exception because timing is critical and any delays from time spent thinking, like trying to get a bike onboard, are not acceptable.<br />
<br />
I've sort of gone to town with supplies, as I've packed a towel, my hairdryer, shampoo, about four top layers but on bottom only the Endura bike shorts I'm wearing and my lightweight 'desert' trousers. I ought to have included my lycra tights ... perhaps some leg warmers might be available in Cycle Heaven.<br />
<br />
I need to find out why the train lurches every so often, as though the driver dabs the brakes and then floors it again. It rather mucks up my handwriting. Timing, it's about three or four minutes between lurches but not totally predictable. Just coming into Morpeth and there's almost no wind whatsoever, and the wind farm isn't doing any business today. My stolen half-window seat is only good until Newcastle so I'm sort of watching the world slip by like a hawk; a hawk who's half-asleep perhaps; a hawk with a GPS unit. The orange brick barn in the middle of fields has collapsed a bit more some last time too - now both walls of the nearer half have gone. The roof's rafters are still there though. Gosh, this bit of track is really bumpy and lurching, and we're only doing 105mph. Through Dudley and Brunswick Village ... they really do like their bricks here. Ok, time to pack up a bit.<br />
<br />
21.16. Predictably, no-one arrived for the seat, so I was able to stretch out diagonally at least. It's hard to concentrate to write when someone's mobile phone is playing a slightly honky-tonk rendition of The Entertainer, with a small mistake in it, round and round and round. And round again for good measure. Surely no-one can be that desperate to call someone.<br />
<br />
We arrived at York and I spent some time looking at all the bikes parked, and taking the odd photo. I then went to Cycle Heaven and looked at Birdys and Bromptons, thought about buying the third edition of Bicycle Design by Mike Burrows, but didn't: it's not all that different from my first edition, except he wrote about recumbents more. I did get Mike Carden's new book about his Scotland tour. A bit better written, more narrative. Then I got checked in and stowed the bike in the usual place, then went out for food. Since I was on foot I thought I'd stop by Jessops and the other camera shops but every one of them was shut! In the end I wandered back to get a pizza, noticing an enormous motor trike passing by, and chatted to the Turkish guy serving me in the kebab/burger/pizza place. On reflection, a smaller pizza would've been enough—this 13 incher has done me tea and supper and I've drunk about two litres of water: BBQ chicken is good but more sweet than sour, and not enough peppers. Bacon is nicely crunchy. I've spent the evening watching Film4; I came in halfway through a film about secret agent children (weird, especially at half volume so the dialogue didn't really work), then Fool's Gold, which was fun but very silly. And Donald Pleasance is a good actor but here he really looked a bit lost.<br />
<br />
21.33 and that phone is still ringing, and that pizza was just too big.<br />
<br />
22.02 and almost to the hour, The Entertainer has realised his audience—Mr iPod and Mrs Earplugs—isn't interested and has stopped playing. Hurrah! Now I can read my book properly.<br />
<br />
<b>Thursday, August 25, 2011</b><br />
<br />
13.03. Sitting on the steps outside Shildon railway museum, near the children's sandpit, and seven mums with about eight children. The sun is shining but was raining in York when I left. I thought York to Darlington would be a Class 185 but turned out to be a XC Voyager, so at least I knew what to do with the bike. Plenty of seats at 10.00 too! Then onto a Class 142 rail-bus thing of concertina doors and two carriages with tip-up seats. I had a quick ride around Shildon—not a big place—looking for a shop that sold OS maps, but nothing doing. Not even a supermarket here. I don't think Shildon gets too many recumbent bikes either. There didn't seem to be any bike parking at all here, but I managed to get things stowed in a Staff Only cleaners' cupboard. I took my camera and bag, but didn't need any GPS—but wish I'd taken my sunglasses, which it seems I've already scratched today. So, the sandpit is doing a roaring trade, the sun is lovely, and I have a little under two and a half hours before my train back to York. I'm in absolutely no hurry.<br />
<br />
20.04. I enjoyed the museum, almost immensely. I actually spent a lot of time looking at the books and DVDs before the exhibits, but decided not to buy any—but <i>The Waverley Route</i> and <i>The A4s' Final Years</i> were tempting, though not at £20 each. I sort of saved the best 'til last and photographed the APT-E and DP1 together, in a sort of 'the future' pose. And Henrietta Brompton is very close in colour to the latter. In the end, I bought a little Rail Art picture and a mug.<br />
<br />
By the time I was waiting for my train I'd decided that while architecturally 'nice', Shildon is also full of neds. On the platform, a group of five who delighted in taking a shortcut across the tracks several times. The bike was an extreme curiosity. I got to Darlington easily enough and then found no-one to unlock the luggage door of the Class 91 DVT. A platform person eventually came to help but I had to make a fuss. I spent the 30 minutes standing in the vestibule of First Class rather than wander the entire length of the train for my seat. I was off and running quickly once at York with an East Coast person waiting to unlock the door. I pottered over to Jessops but after all that they didn't have the lens case I needed. The good news is that the new air-padded strap from Calumet works great.<br />
<br />
Looking at the OS map I thought I could see the sewage works north of the station, that was Art Deco styled, so I went round the block onto the A19 and then onto the Ouse cycle and footpath (NCN65 I think). I followed it—cattle grids and everything—beyond the ring road and although I smelled it, I didn't see it. It turned out that it was a filter bed and not a sewage works at all. So I went a bit further before joining the A19 again to bomb into town. I paused to photograph a 'Deco cinema, but there are lots of them and the like. Back at the hostel I had a long chat with Aussie guy Duncan, who was about to steal my bed, and then met another Brompton rider who I saw yesterday evening. I ended up getting a load of pasta and salad from the supermarket, rather than more pizza or other junk food, but kept the side up with more chocolate milk. Feeling a bit headachey so I'm calling it a day.<br />
<br />
<b>Friday, August 26, 2011</b><br />
<br />
16.37. Today ought to have been 'my' day, for ambling and enjoying and I'm somehow feeling bummed out. It took me ages to get ready to go, then on and off with layers and waterproofs. A quick ride down the road to photograph another Art Deco cinema and then out for the A64 cycle path to Tadcaster. It might be fairly flat and direct but it's bloody scary with 70mph traffic a few metres away with only a metre-wide strip of grass separating road and path. I had to work hard not to sprint along at 21mph or more as I planned to do more than just to Tadcaster and back. The rain came on and basically got steadier.<br />
<br />
I spent some time in Cyclesense. I decided to buy some legwarmers (in a thrilling 'extra-large' size) and then looked at Moultons and Bike Fridays. The Pashley Moultons seemed entirely too small for me, while the Bike Friday Pocket Sport with drop bars and telescopic seat tube actually fitted me well. Not that I really want a Bike Friday sort of machine. Would I end up using one in preference to the Brompton? I already know from experience that it stows in places where the Dahon-sized Birdy doesn't, and that was why I bought the Brompton in the first place. Besides, I can't see any unsuspended small-wheeled bike being that much better in Edinburgh than the Brompton. After finishing there, I asked if there was anywhere I could eat my sandwiches out of the rain, and they let me use their kitchen, and made me a cup of tea. I chatted at some length with one of their mechanics who was having lunch. I didn't want to outstay my welcome and left in a bit of a hurry. Again it seemed to take ages packing my panniers and then I realised my back light was missing. I'd ridden a few yards and turned back but there was no sign of it. Nothing for it but to leave, so I started retracing my steps along the crappy bike path. I didn't see my light anywhere. I think my extra bungee must've tripped the release catch on the bracket.<br />
<br />
I tried to divert to the quieter path marked on the map, and I did find it, but it was a path across a field and not biking territory. I eventually took the Copmanthorpe turning, to Acaster Malbis and Naburn. I 'photted' the bike on the swing bridge, and noted that they'd painted the bridge all grey; it was rust coloured last time. Then it was a simple matter of following the Velovision route to the race course and back into town, for about 25 miles. Not that far and yet I felt quite tired, and my knee was twinging at about 20 miles. At least I wasn't cold, as I'd put on the leg warmers about five minutes down the road from the shop.<br />
<br />
Back in the hostel I was all set to wash my hair but the shower only did cold water, and as I fiddled with the handle it turned in a way it wasn't meant to and then wouldn't turn off. It did once I'd turned it a bit more, but I'd had enough by then. I'm thinking about teatime and what to have. More pizza? It never occurred to me to buy anything while I was out.<br />
<br />
Quite frankly, if my train home had been at 16.00, I would've gladly taken it. I've sort of enjoyed myself and sort of not. I've met several 'nice' people, all fleetingly like ships in the night. No-one else seems to have shared a need to chat or for company. And so I carry on my merry, singular way.<br />
<br />
Here's a thought. A Bike Friday uses ISO406 wheels, so generally the same sort of machine as my Dahon was. And I got rid of the Dahon because I didn't like its riding position anymore (although BFs are made to measure). It folded to largely the same size as the BF, but didn't pack into a suitcase. A Birdy has the full suspension, and folds to about the same as the Dahon. A non-folding Birdy is kind of what a Moulton ought to be like. And what niche is one of them meant to fill? Not folding, because I have a Brompton. Not longer distance comfort, like today, because I have the recumbent bikes. The Bike Friday did feel impressively rigid. If I was without Annie, what would I use in winter when it snows? If I was doing passenger trains—busy stuff in cities—then the Brompton would win hands down. Do I need a (B+1)? That is perhaps the real question.<br />
<br />
21.15. Having read a good chunk of A Bit Scott-ish, it's nice, in a schadenfreudey kind of way, to know that I wasn't the only B&Ber ever to have a bad experience. I had pizza for tea: ham and pineapple as a trust failsafe option, from Chico's a bit further down the road. Almost half the price, half the service, two-thirds as good food as the kebab place. A bit thin, but nice enough though.<br />
<br />
Tomorrow's plan is to be up by 8.00 and out before 9.00 with enough time to photograph the other Art Deco buildings I saw in town, and the windmill on the far side of the station. I meant to do that today but ended up on the wrong side of town, but I've marked it as a waypoint in the GPS. Dumbass gave up the ghost in 2009, so maybe I should call this one Dumbass 2, or Divvy, or maybe Dropkick... No, too daggy. The dorm seems quiet this evening: me, the guy with the cratered face who I think is Scandinavian and who never did tell me his name, and maybe one other judging by the luggage, perhaps the Egyptian guy from yesterday whose name I did learn and immediately forgot.<br />
<br />
I jumped on a computer for half an hour yesterday to check stuff; I think it was long enough and I wasn't going to pay more for the privilege given my luddite status of non-interconnectedness. Time does fly when you're writing e-mails. I'll head over to Cramond once I'm home tomorrow and see if anyone is around, and if it's not raining. Nearly ten pages of notepad since Wednesday: I must have too much spare time.<br />
<br />
<b>Saturday, August 27, 2011</b><br />
<br />
13.16 and Berwick-upon-Tweed is a little way behind and back to bumpy, twisty track. Had a generally lovely morning. I was up early and out to photograph those buildings, and then wandered to York Minster. I took some photo of the outside, then locked the bike and went inside to listen to the organ. Some odd pieces being played: discordant and textured. I looked at the stained glass for a while, and might've mouthed the word 'wow' once or twice. Then out to see the windmill, marooned on its little hill amongst houses. Back at the station, I took the opportunity to make sure the platform staff know I needed the train's luggage compartment open, and then the train was delayed because of engineering restrictions a block or two south. So I chatted with a couple of Australian people and a guy from East Coast, so there were no problems in the end. After all that!<br />
<br />
I'm now relaxing at a vacant table so there's plenty of legroom compared with being wedged in before. What are tall people meant to do? Sit and suffer? Or drive cars perhaps? Huh, and motion sickness beckons now, less than ten minutes of writing, but I did read a lot earlier on. Yuck. Cramond later? Time to find out.</blockquote><b><br />
Postscript.</b> I made it to Cramond in a fairly efficient half an hour or thereabouts, but as I rather suspected all along, the group had been and gone. I sat at a bench to eat the remaining half of my cereal bar before taking to the promenade again and wending my way home. Although the bike ride calmed my stomach a bit, it only suppressed the nausea, and a day and a half later I'm still not feeling right unless I'm either eating or working out. All in perfect time for my return to work, too!<br />
<br />
A few minutes on the internet revealed that the film with the secret agent children on karts was apparently Catch That Kid, from 2004. I'd never heard of it either. And according to ChrisCooper on <a href="http://www.railforums.co.uk/showpost.php?p=50798&postcount=11">RailUK</a>, the lurching or jolting that I've noticed on the Class 91 trains is probably related to the automatic speed controller and the application of the rheostatic braking system. I shall need to have my GPS recording a journey and then later annotating the speed profile with the occurrences of the jolts, but that's for another day.Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-21557759243653081862011-08-11T20:54:00.000+00:002011-08-11T20:54:46.623+00:00All along our daysFor far too long, it seems, I've been staring at a blank piece of paper with no particular inspiration to write. That's not to say that I've not written anything at all, but as someone who takes an active stance against both the endless commentary of microblogging and the rather relentless accumulation of what Mr Zuckerberg rather zealously describes as "friends", and yet who subsequently poked her nose into the whizbang new replacement that xkcd so accurately termed "Not FB!", the more short paragraphs, or even shorter one-liners, that I dash off there through such convenience the more it rankles that I'm serving a network in precisely the manner I never intended, and even worse, not spending time <i>here</i>. Here is where I'm supposed to write about stuff: the music I listen to, the trips I make, the thoughts I have. And yet it's that convenience of not writing a lot that is half the attraction. Of course, both this site and New Social Network are of the same parent so my allegience is already misplaced; but my time and my energies are drawn in other directions too much.<br />
<br />
Progressive rock, as a genre, was tied strongly to the new technology of the day, and sought to combine musical styles in new, unthought of ways, through the raw talent of hairy young men. But to carry on performing 30 or 40 years later the product of those early years is not properly progressive, as much as it may pay the bills. It's regressive rock, Mister Emerson. Music evolves even within bands, but other artists of the time made a conscious effort then and now to change as much as possible and to always look forwards, experimenting constantly with influences both personal and prevailing, which is why Wendy Carlos tried out reinterpretations of classical pieces and moved onto microtonal composition and ambient records and scores, and why Rush has taken itself from bluesy hard rock to full blown sword-and-sorcery prog to intertwined sythesiser rhythm heaven to grunge and back to hard rock. More than ever, and perhaps not entirely unconnected with one too many setbacks, I'm becoming aware that I'm not the progressive, forward thinking, forward living creature I want to be, ought to be. It's as though I'm stuck in the past, somewhere, whence my life ... stopped. Sometimes it feels like I've been a passenger, slightly disconnected from the world around me and forever mindful of what once was, as though I haven't achieved all the grand plans in my head while the rest of me makes a good enough go of everything. One might be forgiven for thinking that has all the signs of a mind and body always busy doing and being, never taking enough time to reflect; a whirlwind of ideas never fully realised and filed away in the corners of the memory, or yet another notepad and sketchbook.<br />
<br />
My day to day thoughts are no longer full to overflowing with a singular goal, and perhaps that's the problem. I can write, if I put my mind to it, and if I have something to write about. And therein lies the paradoxical beauty of constructing entire paragraphs about it.<br />
<br />
I ought to be writing about the ongoing task that is the repair of the rusting piece of junk in my garage that serves as a reminder of both a more foolish and cheap me and the event that still haunts me two and a half years later. At the same time the more recent stablemate, old enough practically to be its Mother, has never properly settled in, forever sounding just a little too notchy on the downshift; unappealingly loud to the idle, with a muffled raucousness in neutral; it's the whisper of a clonk when taking a handful of front brake. The increasing eagerness to ride after taking so very long for that confidence to return is being tested sorely when one is always afraid that something else will go wrong. Gentle and infrequent commutes in the dry and the wet cannot build confidence in a rider, nor of her steed. The project to return the big machine to the road has become a black hole of time, money, enthusiasm, and misplaced ratchet straps. I fear that only when the lazy twin finally coughs into life after sleeping so soundly will that spark return. Meanwhile I carry on raiding the parts counters, electronic and bricks-and-mortar, and chip away at the work that remains. By the vice a new pair of those massive forks sits shiny and reassembled, gaiters scrubbed clean, stanchions polished, while the patient sits ever longer propped on its hydraulic jack and, canted over slightly because its fairing frame is twisted, its huge innocent eyes look forlornly towards the workbench.<br />
<br />
I ought to be writing -- indeed I made a plan, subsequently ignored -- about trips across to Glasgow to explore the canal and the railways and the River Kelvin, and to meet friends for lunches and a 30 mile cycle here and there. To take the train through lands unknown, to stations rarely tried; the girl with wheels awaits alone the company her counterparts provide. A social gathering certainly, with a participant at once athletic and effusive, yet tired and shrinking. "Friends" is perhaps the wrong word in this particular case, or at the very least perhaps, not the <i>best</i> word; while "acquaintance" fits the situation, to me it still carries a more impersonal overtone than I feel is desirable. At any rate, a guiding hand to what is still a relatively new community will inevitably mean more exposure to newcomers who, with the occasional exception, by definition one doesn't know. Forever welcoming and meeting becomes taxing to those whose energies are recharged in quiet. But simultaneously the sheer need for small doses of that company is a driver that I find difficult to ignore and also difficult to act upon.<br />
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Inasmuch as today I'm lacking inspiration, we'll finish with a joke. Actually we won't, not because I have no joke to tell, which is in fact true, but because these were the toe-curlingly cringeworthy words of a lecturer whose name I would have to look up, and, sounding not a million miles away from Seven of Nine's flat instruction, "Fun will now commence", which I intend never, ever to use. The need to put <i>something</i> down on paper however began several days ago but was prompted today by the desire to put into words some thoughts on one of the loveliest pieces of music I've ever heard. It's not another damn prog thing, is it, I hear you ask? Yes, it is, although strictly it isn't Yes. After the first Relayer tour in 1975 the band faffed around for a time, each member working on a solo project. Alan White made Ramshackled, Patrick Moraz made I, Steve Howe made Beginnings, Chris Squire released his tour de force, Fish Out Of Water, but unsurprisingly it was Jon Anderson who stole the show with the beautiful Olias of Sunhillow. Although radioio and laut.fm tend to play one or another individual song from Olias, to me the album only works as the whole. Anderson may or may not have had help from Vangelis, and may have been completely out of his mind with the concept and the harmonies, but his outlook on life -- then as now -- of the sharing of love and happiness was so carefully wrought that the narrative often becomes another musical instrument in the production. It's the <i>textures</i> of the music I find so appealing: unlike Wakeman, Anderson didn't simply wheel in the old Mellotron for the flutes and violins we all know and love; his toned sounds were mostly the gentlest synthetic kind with a flute-meets-string-meets-oboe, along with his trusty acoustic guitar and beloved harp, and only occasionally did he bring in the rasp of a Moog on sawtooth with the filter cranked up. Anderson layered percussion upon multitracked chants of himself in the vein of We Have Heaven, with accents of glockenspiel and bell trees, all wrapped up in lots of echo. But it's the melodies themselves that are so absolutely gorgeous. Late in the album, Moon Ra segues into Chords, into Song of Search, and the exposed flutey string plays a simple, slow, slightly ethereal line, accompanied by a just-audible stethoscope heartbeat. Bum ... ba bum ... bum ... ba bum. The quiet of the piece is in such contrast to, and so well timed after, the rousing climactic Solid Space and the majesty of Moon Ra and Chords that one is caught in sudden reflection while the music washes over and around. The last minute and a half of the album is a reprise of sorts, with just the sparsest of arrangements that finally bade the listener goodbye as though the music was floating to the sky itself.Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-8707257872926629172011-06-29T22:29:00.001+00:002011-06-29T23:11:42.458+00:00In bright unbroken beams<blockquote><b>Saturday, June 25, 2011</b><br />
<br />
12.06. I've been on the ECML lots of times, on Class 91 electrics, HSTs and Voyagers, and today takes the biscuit. It's cramped here in coach B for anyone with long legs and the ride is stiffly sprung and harshly damped, which means my handwriting is all over the place. Mind you, this is the Edinburgh to Newcastle section, which is always slow and bumpy and twisting. I even had to change seat because my booked seat was so tight as to wedge my kneecaps hard up against the one in front. It's also very stuffy in here, in the quiet coach, and not all that quiet. Just passing Morpeth now. My GPS has recorded an average speed of 95.1mph over 107 miles, and 123mph top speed.<br />
<br />
I still feel sure I've forgotten to bring something, but I never did make a 'going away' list. I checked with next door for feeding the wee ones, so that's ok at least. The Brompton is wedged into a luggage bay, not as much space as on a Voyager, but it's ok. I slung the lock around it to be safer, but I'm at the power car end so it's less populous on the station platform. I did scout around the back-to-back seats but they're full of bulkheads or too narrow or have boxes marked "Danger" and "Risk of Electrocution" taking up the space. Man, it's really stuffy in here.<br />
<br />
Dave says he'll come to this evening ride if he's there in time, so I might at least have some company, though I think everyone probably knows him. It should be fun, though, as I haven't seen Peter since the last time I was at the show. I'm not really sure why I keep going -- I'm not unaware of new bikes, but I also don't need another one (yet), and I don't need more clothes or more tools.<br />
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12.25 and Newcastle. At least this time there seems to be a fairly strong forum presence planned, if they hang around for Sunday; I've booked Monday off for travelling home, so I'll be doing that fairly early. It's interesting how you hear the 'whoosh' of the power car as it energises itself before the train moves off. Ok, another 80 miles to go and maybe time for some proper speed! I'm obviously in too deep already, noticing where goods yards used to be, sidings, old embankments ... it's all ever so slightly ridiculous. But it also reminds me of how much our railways have gone to the dogs, and the roads. We'll be into York about 13.30 so there should be plenty of time to get to my hostel and dump some stuff before visiting the museum. I might -- ooh, this train really jerks as it changes gear -- spend a bit of time seeing York more, and maybe see if I can buy a decent case for my telephoto lens.<br />
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Heh. There's a Dad in the seat near me who's just been told off by his seven year-old daughter for letting his iPhone start playing music far too loudly. Twice. Lots of disapproving looks, not just from me! 12.38 and Durham, and we still haven't gone more than 123mph. Driver must be conservative today.<br />
<br />
Just gone 13.00 and speeding out of Darlington to Northallerton. I've just noticed that the old train shed at Darlington South Junction still has its little turntable.<br />
<br />
<b>Sunday, June 26, 2011</b><br />
<br />
14.16. Well then, I had a nice wander around the National Railway Museum yesterday afternoon, once I was installed in the hostel, which took a while. It was really quite busy. I took lots of probably not very good photos, and then walked back to the hostel to get my bike and collect my bikey stuff. I pottered over to the show, and rode up and down, before eventually finding Peter and a bunch of Velovisioners, and then the yACF contingent arrived as well -- all doing the pub ride! I saw Tony and Joan and TJ, and it was good to see them again. Once at the pub I bumped into Charlotte and Julian who somehow hadn't spotted me earlier (I must've been on the wrong bike), plus Kim and Adam and others. Dinner, which was a big veggie burger with chips and coleslaw, took ages as they had so many orders but it was excellent food. I chatted with Peter, Sue, Mr Sue, Dylan, and Dave who'd just arrived. It was beginning to get dark about 21.45 but we didn't set off until gone 22.00, though no problem as I'd brought lights anyway, and rode back into town along the cycle path through Bishopthorpe and over to the racecourse.<br />
<br />
It was good catching up with people. I chatted longer with Dylan before creeping back into the hostel without turning on the light. It was a very hot night and I eventually slept only on and off, plus I needed my earplugs which I'd also thoughtfully brought with me. The man in the top bunk was snoring like a trooper, poor guy.<br />
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I was up again at 8.15 and had a lovely breakfast of cornflakes, a croissant with peanut butter and some orange juice. I ambled into town for the show and then over to Charlotte and Julian's tent to say hello and have a cup of tea. I never had tea with milk that came out of a squeezy tube before. So it was about 9.30 and already t-shirt and shorts weather, but I'd brought layers with me just in case, because it always rains at York during the show (except the very first time when I went with Liz, and when it tried to thunder and ended up being roasting hot). And so far, it's roasting hot here! I wandered around the trade tents afterwards with Tony who was camped nearby, and we had a long and interesting conversation about everything under the sun. I did buy a second headlight in the end, although the shoes and socks were all in 'common' sizes so there was very little to fit me. After that I was kind of done by about 11.00, but I wandered around some more anyway.<br />
<br />
I chatted to Tony, Joan, TJ and Kim in the food tent and then bought a big hotdog for lunch. It came out of a caravan but actually it was very good. Gosh, it's so warm today! They left and I finished my hotdog, then I went back to Tony's tent and met Adam again. While we were chatting there a guy from Edinburgh came over to us -- he wasn't from yACF or any other forum I knew of, but he was interested in my bike because he was tall too. So then I had a longish chat with him! I didn't bring any sunglasses or a hat and the sun is intense. But so far I'm not burned so that's ok. Dave just called so maybe I'll catch up later on. I can see a huge queue for the ice cream van that's parked up a little way from here. I cannot believe the weather -- it was trying to rain when I cycled down to Waverley. Actually I'm feeling a bit heady right now, and I'm not sure what's best to do, but some riding might be better than sitting like a sea lion on the the rocks.<br />
<br />
There are lots of Bromptons around, I saw an Easy Racers Ti-Rush, Lee's brought his Fujin, and there's a Greenspeed tandem; then there are Dawes Galaxies, the odd Litespeed and all kinds of tourers. I also met Nick Lobnitz from Carry Freedom, so I spoke to him for a while about the Paper Bicycle. Decent guy, and a good simple bike.<br />
<br />
Hmm, it's interesting how it's now mid-afternoon and I've defaulted to writing and sitting by myself. It's not unpleasant, mind you, except for the heat. It's only a shame that the silence is broken by so many little petrol generators for the burger vans.<br />
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16.23. Well I wanted good weather and I got it. This afternoon I think the sun's got to me -- the sweat is pouring off me (mmm, nice!) and I'm feeling headachey and wobbly. I took myself to the supermarket down the road to buy bananas and chocolate milk because I remember what A told me two years ago when I was in the same condition ("eat this, and drink a ton of water"). So I've had one and a half bananas -- they're a good size too -- and I've drunk everything in my water bottle, so fingers crossed. The shop was closing at 16.00, which I couldn't believe, so there was no time or presence of mind to buy paracetamol or a towel or a hat. If I'd only brought my Buff I could have soaked it in cold water. And I'm too cheap to buy another Buff, because goodness knows there's enough choice of them here today. I really need a lie down, to be honest. Dave is off somewhere, Tony's in his tent for a siesta and a plunk, and I wish I didn't get so affected by things like this. The chocolate milk is very good, even though it's Tesco and therefore I don't like it.<br />
<br />
It's been a mixed day, really, it started nice and people gradually dispersed. I could have wandered around York but I didn't.<br />
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17.03 and I'm feeling a bit better, as long as the sun doesn't get too much. I seem to have acquired rather red legs and arms, in a rather typical cyclist manner. It's still so warm! The show is mostly tidying up now. There are rumours abound that this show is going to be the last one, even more so than the one before, and the one before that.<br />
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22.00. I spent the early evening with Tony, Kim, Marj and her family at their caravan and was fed cake. Dave came along later on. I talked to them for a while before the family left for town to get a meal; the rest of us talked a bit longer and footered around in the sun ... but I had to get into the shade because I was cooking and I felt pretty rubbish. Tony came over to chat and I suddenly felt ready to cry from the heat and exhaustion. Fortunately I got over it. We finally left about 18.30; Tony and Kim left for their tents and Dave and I went to find something for dinner. I had a quick change into more normal clothes, and thought I was looking a bit red. Just down the road was a take away, so we ordered pizzas (nice and safe, ham and pineapple for me and about the right size). We eventually ate them at the river side, sitting on the wall with my feet dangling. I would've liked to have my feet in the water but it was a bit manky, plus there were lots of ducks and geese to peck at me. We had a long conversation about cycling and trains and stuff.<br />
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I'm sitting here on my bed with my Buff finally soaked in cold water and draped over my forehead. Ahhh! So, an interesting day, not the best for heat and health, but ok. At least I can do more night riding now. When I got back to the hostel the others weren't around yet so I put the light on. I am BRIGHT RED. It was never meant to be so sunny or warm -- I had my cotton 3/4s, my long sleeved HH top and my Goretex jacket with me in my bag because I was sure it was going to rain or be cold. Nothing of the sort, just heatstroke. Mmm, I'm trying to finish my chocolate milk before going to bed; feeling hot and full, and my Buff is dripping cold water on me! So to tomorrow, and an easy start.<br />
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<b>Monday, June 27, 2011</b><br />
<br />
11.23. I've just caught my train home. The coach is lovely, the weather is lovely, the temperature in here is lovely, everything's lovely. I was expecting a Class 91 electric at 10.32, and I'm actually onboard a Voyager at 11.18 -- running just a touch late. I'm in the quiet coach on this formation, right at the back, with loads and loads of leg room and little Henrietta Brompton is living on the not-busy-at-all rearmost luggage rack.<br />
<br />
I went for a wander over to York Minster to get some photographs and to generally enjoy the place. I set off from there for the station about 10.00, and fairly whizzed along the road. I bumped into Tony on the station concourse so we had another long chat! At that point an Australian cyclist turned up, all sunburned nose and scalp, with a Revolution touring bike and a bike bag for his flight. We talked to him for a bit, he left for his airport train, and then we resumed our own, to talk about wildlife photography. It was a nice, final, chance meeting.<br />
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I also had a long chat at breakfast time with a couple from Dunoon who'd been at the show as well. He, a teacher, immediately recognised my engineering interests, and they went so far as to offer me a cup of tea and a bed if I was ever over that way and drookit! Otherwise, the hostel itself was quite businessy, in a way, not as homely or bohemian as Oban was, or indeed mad Carole's place. I took some pics of the grand insides before I left and some of the outside. Apart from dying from the heat, it's been not too bad a trip -- but then adventures always suck when you're having them. What I am looking forward to is seeing the wee ones again.<br />
<br />
12.33. The train is still running about 45 minutes late. They said it was to do with problems with lineside equipment near Tamworth, and they hinted at further problems. Great! The quiet coach filled up at Newcastle with the Ibiza bunch, all suntans and overly-blonde hair and mobile phones not set to silent. Mind you, there is precious little reception here and the coach (or DVT I suppose) is completely GPS-proof, so I have no idea how fast we're going. The train guard did acknowledge this fact, with a knowing yet weary smile, when I asked him earlier.</blockquote><br />
<b>Postscript.</b> The journey back to Edinburgh was as quick as it was uneventful, and true to expectations it was raining when I pedalled out of Waverley Station. But after a mile of Princes St and a stop to buy a birthday card the drizzle was no match for my sunburned arms and legs, as I peeled off Goretex for Helly Hansen and then just my t-shirt for the hilly ride homewards. Through the door and after a quick change of clothes I was out again to buy a present for my next door neighbour, then I was lifting kitchen floor tiles to clear up a little reminder that I wasn't the only one who'd felt unwell during the weekend. With the tiles disinfected and hosed down I then set to repairing the bag of cat food which had been sliced open and cut to ribbons by claws unknown, and then retired to the garage to drill holes in Velma the VFR's windscreen to fit a spoiler.<br />
<br />
And then with a dinner of huge slabs of lasagne inside me, I had very long, very enjoyable, hot shower. Maps were put away, batteries were recharged and photographs were pored over. And so, happily, to bed.Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-50759204454133898872011-05-24T22:57:00.002+00:002011-05-27T12:13:33.164+00:00Let the fray begin'Yes are winding up the big machinery', he said. Back in late 1995, Steve Howe from Yes had been talking about his meeting with Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Rick Wakeman and Alan White, and their new "all for one and one for all" rehearsals in San Luis Obispo. That culminated in the now-legendary SLO reformation gigs and the Keys to Ascension albums, and the rest is history. Around the same time, the boys in Primus had recorded only their fourth studio album, <i>Tales from the Punchbowl</i>, and were busy powering their way through MTV's Most Wanted (with VJ Ray "Peace...25g!" Cokes at the helm) and innumerable outdoor festivals. And the Rush machine had toured the slightly grungy sounding <i>Counterparts</i> album and, a year out of step, was getting set to record the long-awaited, modernistic <i>Test For Echo</i> for 1996.<br />
<br />
Fast forwarding 15 years -- fifteen! -- Yes has been in the doldrums but perking up of late; Primus has disbanded and rebanded, mucked around, and is carrying on as usual; meanwhile the boys in Rush, ever the innovators, have built themselves a time machine and are taking it on tour.<br />
<br />
It's been a long time coming, actually: four years, but it's a steam powered time machine so I suppose one must give them some leeway. In 2004 and 2007 I was down in Manchester with my friend Liz for their <i>R30</i> and <i>Snakes and Arrows</i> concerts, and I wrote an account of the latter ("Workin' them angels"); at the start of this year my brother had managed to get tickets for the latest tour, of which I had somehow managed to hear absolutely nothing. Considering that Rush first came into my consciousness in about 1992, just after they had left the UK and finished up on the <i>Roll the Bones</i> tour, and with me wondering whether I would ever get to see them live, the third time in eight years was going to be pretty good going. There were rumours that the band had even recorded some new music but not a complete album, and was taking some of those songs on the road. The last time I thought that had happened was with a prototype of <i>Subdivisions</i>, back in 1981 or 1982, and the epic of <i>Xanadu</i> long before that. Keen not to spoil the surprise of new music or the new stageshow, I stayed well away from anything Rush-related. So it was with a happy, optimistic ignorance that I went with my brother and a friend to Newcastle Metro Radio Arena to catch Rush in full flow.<br />
<br />
Most recently I'd been to the city virtually, via aerial photographs, to carry out some research on behalf of Newcastle Libraries about the former Forth Goods Station, which curiously enough I'd read about shortly before in <i>From The Footplate: Elizabethan</i>; before then it was only a flying visit, onboard The Cathedrals Express to Carlisle. I'd seen the green-roofed venue and its insalubrious surroundings from the train to London or York many times, but the last time I was in the city on my own two feet was when I visited my friend Charlotte. I think it was so long ago that The Mighty Boosh were still hot property. We had an easy, slightly GPS-assisted drive down and installed ourselves in the car park. Somewhat mysteriously there had been no barrier or ticket machines, and after asking the disinterested girl at the booking office and returning to the car to ask someone else more useful, the rotund security man who looked as though he had more important things to be secure about, like his folding chair, seemed to say 'Yawready part, duhwurry.' although through his thick regional accent it might equally have been his opinion on the latest cricket scores. I slung my bag around on my shoulder, and with the shrugging of shoulders we headed out of the venue and into town, in search of food.<br />
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Our wander underneath the dark girders of the railway and up the hill towards civilisation was made all the more creepy when we realised someone was following us, occasionally shouting things in our direction in a loud, penetrating voice. I chanced a look behind me: he was thin and walking with a stiff but purposeful stride, marching almost; we turned the corner and carried on in our supposedly nonchalant manner, but quickly crossed over the road. He followed. I turned around for a second time, slowed and stopped, and he strode past, his eyes fixed ahead like laser targeting beams. His bright pink gloves were a curious match for his anonymous grey trousers and hooded top. We followed him up to the station and watched as he made his determined way along. 'I will have order!' he cried out, arms stretched out wide, as he passed a surprised couple walking in the opposite direction. Perhaps he was an actor, publically rehearsing his lines and character with overt confidence.<br />
<br />
We ate at a Pizza Express that had a strange look to it like a reinterpreted 1950s diner, with an angular windowed upstairs landing that looked out on the mall beyond and everyone eating below, as though it had dropped in from a Hollywood space invaders film. In fact, the place had all the hallmarks of Googie architecture. My pizza was large and thin with lashings of red onions and spinach, and at length I followed it up with a huge slice of tiramisu for energy. After all, there was a three-hour concert and a straight two-hour drive home still to come.<br />
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Back at the Arena with plenty of time in hand we scanned our way in through the entrance and took in the cavernous concrete underbelly of the seating tiers. I bought myself the latest tourbook, respendent in rivetted copper with delicate gearwheels inscribed with mysterious symbols; Rush, and Hugh Syme, are no strangers to implanting clues and puns on album covers or in the gatefold sleeves: a string of binary digits here, a fire hydrant there, a clock set to twelve minutes past nine, a collection of old television sets, a microphone stand made of Tinkertoy spools...; and to cement the Time Machine theme, an odometer-style counter reading 02011. Rush produces very nice merchandise, it must be said, and I would add it to my little collection dating back to the <i>Permanent Waves</i> tour of early 1979. After attending two previous concerts without the requisite tour t-shirt, I was tempted to buy one this time around, but the ticket had already cost me 65 Pounds, plus the tourbook. I'm a big fan of the band, but even I have my limits!<br />
<br />
And with that we took ourselves inside, into the gloom. It was big, not the really big of Manchester, nor the pretty big and decidedly plush of the Edinburgh Playhouse or the fairly big and moderately plush of Newcastle City Hall, and the floor I noticed was concrete as smooth as glass. The curve of the wall hit the point home: this was actually an ice hockey arena, though the clacking of wood and fibreglass and the splashing of blood was about to be replaced by the metronomic pounding of drumsticks, and the splashing of beer. After inspecting the sound desk for a moment, all laptops and rows upon rows of buttons and sliders, we found our seats, at most a dozen rows from the stage on Geddy's side. This suited me fine, of course, with a clear view to his Roland Fantom X7, Moog Little Phatty and bass pedals, over to Neil's elaborate drumkit gleaming in copper and gold and red, and across to Alex's Art Deco guitar amplifers, in beautifully carved wood inlaid with Hughes & Kettner logos. Wood? Copper? And what were those great glass lenses behind Geddy's spot, looking like oversized traffic lights with trumpets coming out of the top?<br />
<br />
Time Machine. And as Neil explained in his liner notes, it was the era of Steampunk, that romantic vision of the future as it ought to have been, when men wore hats and carried canes, a world at once eclectic and anachronistic. One might as well be describing the very music of Rush.<br />
<br />
The show began with a new film showcasing the irreverent humour of the boys, and in process introduced them to the stage where they dived right into <i>The Spirit of Radio</i>, and the crowd joined in immediately, everyone on their feet. I fiddled around with my earplugs, trying to make sure I could hear the twiddly bass line without being swamped by the guitar chords as happened last time, satisfied myself with the result, and started singing along with everyone else. Standing next to me were two men, from Dublin, I learned later, who had seemingly come prepared with at least three pints inside them and whose enthusiasm was firing on all cylinders.<br />
<br />
'Ruuuush!! F*** yeah!! Woooo!!' the one next to me yelled, more than once as the song ended. He turned to face me, his fist shaking. 'Ruuush!!'<br />
'Oh come now, my good man, there's no need to shout so. You're making a spectacle. I love the boys just as much as you.'<br />
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Actually I didn't say that. 'Yeahh!!' was the best I could manage while still acclimatising to the Rules of Block A. The band went straight into, of all things, <i>Time Stand Still</i>, from their Hold Your Fire album of 1987. My voice wasn't as warmed up as Geddy's and I struggled a bit with the 'Freeze this moment a little bit longer' line, though I don't think anyone else noticed. Dublinman was too busy jumping around. There was a brief moment that shouldn't have been frozen any longer when a bass pedal note stuck on for too many beats, but they had their hands and feet full with that song. Another unexpected song was up next, <i>Presto</i>, from their 1989 album of the same name. It's not one of my favourite albums by a long shot, especially compared with the synth-happy <i>Hold Your Fire</i>, for its darker mix and generally dark subject matter, although I do like <i>Show Don't Tell</i> and <i>Hand Over Fist</i>.<br />
<br />
A quick change of bass for a dropped-D tuning and Geddy introduced the next song: <i>Stick. It. Out.</i>, lingering for a moment on the 'Ouuuut'. For this one the big screen played the swirling blue of the music video, which I remembered from the early days of The American Top Ten on ITV. That was a wonderful programme, in the days before the Internet, before YouTube and instant gratification of information searches; younger innocent days when all you had was the ITV Chart Show, Top of the Pops, and the Top 40 on Teletext. Goodness me, the younger generation have never had it so easy. TATT was a window into cool, unusual new music, made by people I'd never heard of, like De La Soul, Gary Hoey, Toni Braxton, Aerosmith, Donald Fagen, Soundgarden, Anthrax, a revitalised hip new Duran Duran... Of course, back then I'd been listening to a bit of Iron Maiden and pirated Guns N' Roses tapes, or Hans Wurman, or a whole lot of classical pieces, and I hadn't broadened my horizons much through NME or Kerrang. And then as 1994 came along, bringing with it the World Wide Web, suddenly everything started to become accessible and nothing was amazing anymore, and The American Top Ten dropped off the airwaves. Now, along with Richard Blade, it seems to have dropped off the face of the earth entirely. I fiddled again with my earplugs, pulled them out to see how loud it was and quickly pushed them back in, and fiddled again for good measure.<br />
<br />
The show took a leap forwards to 2007 and <i>Workin' Them Angels</i>, from their brilliant <i>Snakes and Arrows</i> album, and the subsequent equally brilliant tour. Never was a song so well in tune with the rhythm of cycling and touring ('Carried away on a wave of music down a desert road...'), and the crowd was in full voice again. Melody was something that was mysteriously absent on the <i>Vapor Trails</i> album, although I think it was more out of experiment than a paucity of ideas, but they absolutely hit the jackpot on Snakes and Arrows<i></i>. Damn that's a good album. And straight off the back of that came the steamy, flutey, off-kilter synth pad rhythm that signified the start of <i>Leave That Thing Alone</i>, the instrumental off <i>Counterparts</i>, from 1993. I made sure I had full view of Geddy's left hand, just to see how he played it: plucking every note or pulling-off for minimal effort as I tend to do. <i>Counterparts</i> also signified Neil's move to DW Drums which for a first go sounded robust but lacking in resonance, especially on record, but that was 18 years ago and now, several iterations later we had that tuned pow! sound of the <i>Roll The Bones</i> era that I enjoyed so much. The boys were on a roll and obviously having fun on stage, with Geddy going for broke for an extra couple of minutes at the end of the tune, just for the hell of it.<br />
<br />
Then we were back to 2007 and <i>Faithless</i>, a slower-paced song with a lovely string part that's evocative of soaring, swooping Scottish melodies. 'And that's faith enough for me...' chorused the entire audience.<br />
<br />
Bringing the show right up to date was a brand new song, <i>[I Was] Brought Up To Believe</i>, although Neil -- so critical of society in the early days of the Internet and instant communication -- had gone so far as to textualise it as BU2B! Dublinman, sporting a spoof Rush t-shirt, had already learned the song off by heart and belted out the words while the tall girl beside him tried her best to catch a riff and a phrase. Who knew that Rush could sound so heavy? We all thought that Counterparts was a departure from the complicated melodic sensibilities, but ... wow! Some songs instantly connect in my brain, like Motorhead's <i>I Don't Believe A Word</i> and Merri-May Gill's <i>Hello</i>, although I think this one needs a few more listens first. Even most of <i>Test For Echo</i> took time to grow on me.<br />
<br />
<i>Freewill</i> was up next, one of the crowd-pleasers for its ludicrously high vocal line (c/o vintage Geddy Lee) and the no holds barred middle section where the guitar, bass and drums each goes off at a tangent in very fast three-four time. I used to wonder if the band was trying to copyright its music by making it as difficult as possible to play, though that hasn't stopped legions of tribute acts, and me, from taking it by the scruff of the neck and working through the runs. From the long hair of 1979's <i>Permanent Waves</i> album we slid forwards just six years to the time of sports jackets with the sleeves rolled up, white t-shirts with bold angular prints, and stacks of synthesisers with floppy disk drives and keypads. 'Ping, ping, ping' tinkled the Fantom for the introduction to <i>Marathon</i>. Now that's a song that's fun to perform, with its urgent staccato bass line through the verses and the monstrous pedal sounds and lush pads of the chorus. It all rushed by in about four minutes flat. I'm fairly sure Dublinman and I were singing at the tops of our voices again.<br />
<br />
And three years back in time we went for the closing piece of Part One: the awesome <i>Subdivisions</i>. All heads turned towards the centre of the stage to watch Neil -- the master -- letting his arms and legs adopt entirely different rhythms on bass drum, hi-hat, ride cymbal and snare, all combining seamlessly every other bar for two beats before going off again. The video screen replayed segments from the original video, all vacant-looking anonymous housing developments and anonymous lives, while Alex and Geddy alternated with the shrill melodies on guitar and Moog. 'Be cool, or be cast out!' At that precise moment there were about 3003 amazingly cool people in one place and at least three of them singing.<br />
<br />
For the next half an hour the house lights were on and people disappeared to buy beer, t-shirts and probably more beer. I watched as one man came back to his seat wearing two t-shirts, removed the topmost one, casually removed the second and pulled on the other again. Several pairs of eyes swivelled in their sockets to observe that fine male specimen. It at least took my attention away for a moment from Dublinman and his partner in crime who were having a loud animated conversation with the two men sitting in front of me, while I attempted to read my tourbook in peace. My brother came back soon after, with a pint of beer, which I tried. Kinda nice, kinda bitter for my tastes, I thought, and with that I had another glass of ye olde Edinbvrgh waterre. The video screen had changed to a big odometer clock, slowly counting up from about 01975. I quickly realised what would happen when it reached 01981.<br />
<br />
The lights quickly dimmed right down and a roar came up from the crowd. The clock had only reached 01980, and I suddenly second-guessed myself. Me, a Rush fan who knows the release dates of every album; who knows which is the longest: <i>The Fountain of Lamneth</i>, <i>2112</i>, or <i>Hemispheres</i>; who knows the running time to the second of <i>Power Windows</i>? I was sure about it! But then, maybe not, for the show was about to begin. And this was the <i>raison d'être</i> for everyone in the Arena: a chance to hear the legendary <i>Moving Pictures</i> album played in its entirety, from start to finish. So no surprises then that the first song was <i>Tom Sawyer</i>. I took a moment to look around the crowd to spot all the air drummers for the play-every-single-drum fill. Having gone for broke during <i>Freewill</i> you couldn't blame Geddy for taking it a little easier on the vocal duties, and they quickly segued into <i>Red Barchetta</i>, introduced with an amusing little film with toy cars. I don't remember very much about the performance of the song, as my brain was too busy thinking about the next one, the titanically tricky instrumental, <i>YYZ</i>. With the guitar and bass doubling each other, the crowd doubled both of them with seemingly every single fan joining in. The little bass and drum solos were flawless as ever. Without pausing for breath they went straight into <i>Limelight</i>, with Alex taking the reins this time with a superbly chunky guitar sound. 'All the world's indeed a stage, and we are merely players...'<br />
<br />
The the big one, the one that rarely gets an airing at any concert: <i>The Camera Eye</i>, and at last a rhythm as offbeat as it sounds to sing 'An an-gu-lar mass-of-New Yorkers' -- five-four, or ten-eight, depending on how you define it. Ten minutes went by with lyrics about America and London, and I couldn't help myself with one of the more famously mis-heard lines, 'but the city is calm and there's fire in the sea.' By now the crowd was nearly climbing the walls with excitement. 'Ruuush!! Woooo! Yeaahhh!!', and my left ear was attacked again.<br />
<br />
The slow, unnerving, Part III of "Fear" of <i>Witch Hunt</i> came next, with Neil alternating between normal and electronic drums and Geddy teasing out spine tingling chords on the Moog. Many times I prefer the polished studio versions of songs, whether by Rush or anyone else, except possibly Level 42 whose studio cuts always sounded desperately sterile, but <i>Witch Hunt</i>, having made it onto both the Grace Under Pressure<i></i> tour video (VHS and DVD!) and, in full-on Simmons drumpads mode, the live album <i>A Show of Hands</i> -- both time machines in their own way now --, is a song that comes across beautifully in either environment.<br />
<br />
And so to Vital Signs<i></i>, the intelligent comparison of humans and electronics, with that memorable synth sequence introducing the verses, and then played repeatedly on the bass while Alex played slashing guitar chords all around it. A few more minutes and the long "outro" took us all the way through the album, and the crowd went completely mad.<br />
<br />
The second new song from the future album, <i>Clockwork Angels</i> -- a concept album, no less! -- was called <i>Caravan</i>. I especially enjoyed hearing that familiar stop-time feel peculiar to so many other Rush songs: some 'intentionally herky-jerky', as a youthful Geddy once described it, others a calculated but effortless vacillation between four and five and seven. My counterpart knew the song off by heart already, and the new album is looking like it'll be a monster. <i>Vapor Trails</i> was easy to top; <i>Snakes and Arrows</i> less so. Alex and Geddy disappeared off stage, leaving Neil to perform his latest edition of his solo piece, <i>Love 4 Sale</i>, for drums and percussion. It was technically brilliant, mixing African influences with Big Band, but sounded less composed than his previous works such as <i>The Rhythm Method</i> and <i>O Baterista</i>. After about ten minutes of non-stop action, Neil ran off stage for a breather and Alex came on to perform a lovely short tune on his twelve-string acoustic. The audience was appreciative and absolutely silent.<br />
<br />
Back as a trio, they fired into their long-time concert stalwart, <i>Closer to the Heart</i>, 'a little Spanish song'. No sooner had they finished it than the ethereal swooshing of an ARP 2600 (sampled and MIDI triggered now, of course) started up, for the beginning of their seminal album, <i>2112</i>. Suddenly I wondered whether, after treating the audience to an entire album already, whether they might roll out the whole twenty minutes of Side One, but they cut it, probably sensibly, to the stageshow version of <i>Part I: Overture</i> and <i>Part II: Temples of Syrinx</i>. Legions of fans punched holes in the air at the appropriate moments. At once point a wise man with a long beard, dressed in a white silk robe and carrying a staff, wandered onto the stage and fiddled with the Time Machine, its spinning horn speeding up and its lights pulsing faster. Just after, someone in a chicken suit appeared stage right, alongside someone dressed as a gorilla, while Geddy wailed over the top about taking control of everything.<br />
<br />
Rush wrapped up the concert with the first song from <i>Snakes and Arrows</i>, introduced with the oh-so-typical offbeat pounding of toms and chords, and a tune you can hum to your heart's content. <i>Far Cry</i> is one of Rush's best moments of the last twenty years. I remember the sneak preview they made available online before the album was launched. It was only the very first part of the introduction -- the offbeat bit -- but it caught every diehard fan's attention with that final magic chord: the <i>Hemispheres</i> chord!<br />
<br />
Of course, every concert has to have an encore nowadays, and within a minute the boys were back on stage for a final workout, a chance to goof around and generally impress the hell out of everyone. What we heard was something sounding like a fairground ride, with tuba and tinkly Glockenspiel and Hammond organ in a playful polka, and after a few bars Neil gradually morphed his drum beat into the more familiar frenzy that was <i>La Villa Strangiato</i>: ten minutes of solid instrumental. And finally, they continued the confusion with a slow reggae tune that was reminiscent of <i>Walking on the Moon</i> by The Police, with that bum-babah bum-babah rhythm, Alex playing choppy chords on the last beat, Geddy a slightly funky, slightly sinuous, wiry sounding bass line. What the heck? Only the words eventually gave it away: it was a completely screwed up arrangement of one of their earliest songs, <i>Working Man</i>. They fooled around with it for at least a verse before switching back into their proper manner of playing, Geddy's voice hitting the high notes with aplomb and Alex absolutely on fire for his extended solo spot a bit later. They topped it all off with a few bars of <i>Cygnus X-1</i>, just for fun.<br />
<br />
'Thank you very much ... Goodnight!' Well, thank you, chaps. As they scampered off the stage to the tourbuses, the video screen played a lengthy scene of two rabid fans with All Access passes having the worst -- and the best -- encounter of their lives with their heroes. Some of the audience had also scampered to catch trains and beat the 11pm traffic perhaps, but most of us stayed resolutely in our seats, the entirety of the stalls still standing, three hours in. That's the sort of attention Rush generates, 37 years on from the hairy chested, moustachioed bravado of their early twenties.<br />
<br />
If they visit the UK again, say in another four or five years, I'll be there.Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-51409746576068461932011-05-22T15:54:00.000+00:002011-05-22T15:54:04.568+00:00In the oldest eyes there's a soul so youngAccording to the more helpful Wikipedia, rather than the less helpful MSN whose article reminded me at the time, World Book Day was on April 23rd. In the UK, just to be contrary and to avoid Easter it seems, we hold it on March 3rd. Of course, World Book Day is about encouraging children to read and to realise the enjoyment and journeys of imagination that we all know and love from the printed word.<br />
<br />
Plying the airwaves was a short BBC series called <i>My Life in Books</i>, and each edition brought together two notable people from (predominantly) television to talk about their favourite books and what each meant to them and perhaps what those books says about themselves. The series was mercifully free of celebrities in the traditional, quote-unquote sense, a television production more akin to the cosy confines of Telly Addicts with comfortable sofas, coffee tables and carpets. MSN had asked its own staff the question at the time, and it sparked the thought for me.<br />
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What book changed my life? Is there in fact a predictable answer?<br />
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I was quite young, no more than ten years old, when I discovered the <i>Shorter Oxford English Dictionary</i>, a single nine-and-a-quarter pound tome of 2537 pages. It unlocked a whole world of incredible and impossibly unlikely sounding words, accompanied by squiffy pronunciation symbols and a raft of archaic references that made very nearly no sense whatsoever. To an essay writer of moderate enthusiasm at school but of less enthusiasm for the contorted, impenetrable lexicon of Shakespeare, but simultaneously the indisputed top speller in her class, this was in fact exciting stuff. What the dictionary impressed upon me most was the notion of there being a word for every instance, a word contrived to represent a precise situation or condition. Plain English I applaud, against the sheer arrogance of some individuals whose writing I detest for the poor sentence construction that seems geared to both obfuscation and self-aggrandisement, but I don't applaud Plain English At All Costs. There is a time and place for addendum, adjunct and appendix, but not the wholesale replacement with addition or also.<br />
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There exists a word for every occasion, save for insufficiency of acquaintance, I might say. This is probably not so different from Peter Roget's outlook when he devised his <i>Thesaurus</i>. But like Roget, the OED to James Murray and his immediate predecessors Richard Chenevix Trench, Herbert Coleridge and Frederick Furnivall, and much as were the individual works of other lexicographers such as Noah Webster, Samuel Johnson, John Phillips, Thomas Blount, Robert Cawdrey, and John Withals, was indeed a desideratum of the necessary qualification hitherto unsupplied in any language. To this day I keep a dictionary within easy reach of my desk, though to spare my back I prefer my Chambers Concise version, of a mere but satisfyingly and improvingly grubby well-thumbed 1298 pages.<br />
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Rather than one book singled out from its friends for such lifechangery, when I thought about this entry originally I had in mind four others that contributed, especially in my younger years.<br />
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<i>Sci-fi!</i> was a collection of children's short stories by one or more authors lost in both the mists of time and my memory. In fact, I don't even know if these were excerpts from complete novels. Star Trek wasn't a big feature in my life; Star Wars existsed only as a colouring book with a red cover and Lando on the front cover, and some three-inch tall plastic figures with chewing marks on the legs. So books were my real introduction to space, foreign planets, and aliens, and <I>Sci-fi!</I> made sufficient impact on me that I still remember bits of it: the rubbery Hypnoplastoids from Gerneid; Bork and Hamer who broke out of Pris-Sat 9; there was a young boy and the hospitalised old man, and a somewhat symbiotic relationship that foreshadowed nuclear disarmament (very Cold War that one, looking back). Despite my best efforts I can't find a copy anywhere on the web. I do know, now, that it's pronounced sye-fye, and not sky-fye... That lightweight introduction brought me gently to Nicholas Fisk (that is, David Higginbottom) whose works I devoured at school, which led to the choose-your-own-adventure Fighting Fantasy books that in the invariable absence of both friends and dice, I played myself using the "cover the options, and think of a number" method. My Dark Ages ended much later with the timeworn <I>Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy</I>, quickly followed by most of Douglas Adams' other works in that vein, accompanied by an occasional Asimov title. But the fantasy genre perhaps lay deeper.<br />
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While still at school and having experimented with science fiction, Asterix and dictionaries, I discovered David Eddings. Holy cow. <I>Pawn of Prophecy</I>, the first book in his series The Belgariad hit me like a ton of bricks. I'd never known fiction like it, with characters and a depth of backstory I hadn't imagined was possible in writing. Who could not tingle with excitement at Garion's first faltering use of magic, or the power belied by Aunt Pol's school teachery demeanor, and wish for a shock of silver hair; who could not love Hettar's unique and unbridled love of horses; who could not enjoy a little laugh at Silk's secret sign language so cleverly presented to the reader as an entirely new idea? While Eddings was perhaps treading the overly familiar territory of Tolkein before him, in my happy ignorance I had not read The Hobbit, nor Lord of the Rings. And so before very long I would get through each day almost jumping with excitement to go to bed early and completely immerse myself in my newfound world for hours and hours and hours. The Belgariad led without hesitation to its successor The Mallorean, and the world of Torak, Belgarion and Ce'Nedra continued apace. There was a quite considerable hole in my life when I turned the last page of Seeress of Kell. I'm of a mind to re-read the entire series starting tomorrow, but, incredibly, I am yet to acquaint myself with the land of Middle Earth and perhaps I should.<br />
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If there was a Roald Dahl book that had any effect on me, it was part two of his autobiography, the same autobiography which he claimed he never would write. Boy was a window into the young Dahl life of boarding schools, canings by the Headmaster and holidays in Norway, but Going Solo was much more interesting because it was of a time slightly more familiar through the regularity of The Six o'Clock News, poppies and Panorama; a time of the great war, of lions and snakes and rickety aeroplanes, and adults. But why stop with Dahl? Lots of other people have written about their lives, or written about other people's lives. And so it began, stepping for a time into the shoes of actors, television presenters, sportsmen and women, even lexicographers. I was fascinated to find out about famed commentator Murray Walker's military days, Billy Connelly's shipyard upbringing, Farrockh Bulsara's enthusiasm to join some little pop band, and the daring tales of Anne Mustoe and Lois Price, who biked all over the world just because it felt like a good idea.<br />
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But still there are others, too, without wanting to create a list of every book I have ever read. <I>Cyclecraft</I> made me re-evaluate the way I ride my bicycle, for better and possibly for worse. <I>The Well of Loneliness</I> educated me in its stilted manner about self-confidence and the internal wrangling of a couple of friends of mine. <I>A Brief History of Time</I> made me want to be a scientist, before confusing me so comprehensively that it was 15 years before I understood <I>The Universe in a Nutshell</I>. My brane still hurts a little bit.<br />
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I recently worked my way through <I>The Measure of All Things (the Seven Year Odyssey and Hidden Error That Transformed the World)</I>, <I>Lambert's Railway Miscellancy</I>, and I'm plugging through <I>Rush: Rock Music and The Middle Class</I>. I shall need to get some fiction back in there!<br />
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Every book that 'changed my life!' could be considered a favourite in its heyday, and perhaps a stepping stone to my outlook of today. The main characters of a little story book called <I>The Lorax</I> are a narrating, short stubby creature with a huge whiskery moustache, a small boy, and a seemingly wise but reclusive thing known as the Once-ler that as I recall lives inside a ramshackle treehouse. Printed in a magnificent palette of about five colours, and full of mechanised flights of fancy in an increasingly barren world, Dr Seuss impressed hugely upon my young mind the values of environmental responsibility. In fact, despite not having read the book for years and years, I can still picture nearly every page and if I try really hard, even some of the words.<br />
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The landscape of magnificent Truffula Trees, so bountiful in their days and chopped down with ever more enthusiasm by ever more efficient axe-swinging caterpiller-tracked machines, as though the very lovechild of Heath Robinson and Rube Goldberg, became reduced to a land of stumps. Only one seed remained, held by the Once-ler who finally mourned its actions and at last given to the small boy in the hope that he might learn of their destruction and begin their long journey to repopulation. I learned about the fantastic yet blinded attraction to invent a better and better machine -- a better weapon -- and I also learned about the immense sadness of the Lorax at the state of his world, of unfettered greed at the expense of the very land in which we live and on which our lives depend.<br />
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All this from a children's book read nearly 30 years ago? In fact it's as affecting to me now as it was then.Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-47014004079706490092011-05-18T20:25:00.000+00:002011-05-22T15:55:54.436+00:00Fate and skill and chances<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Well then.<br />
<br />
Over the past few years I wrote at great length with great enthusiasm, but inevitably the naïvety of a beginner turned out to be much of its undoing. Perhaps the story will live on in the minds of those who did read it, before I culled it from these very pages to leave a jarring silence, and perhaps one day I might treat it to a subtle -- or not so subtle -- reworking, even an extension. That its successor behind the scenes is being brought forth oh-so-slowly from my fingers leaves me with the rather bold notion of producing it as a single work rather than by instalment as I did with an earlier work; perhaps it will even see print should someone be mad enough to support it. Not for me is NaNoWriMo, as I seem to have neither the time nor the on-demand ability to crank out material, but I will be plying the lexicon in my own incremental way.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I actually feel bad for shutting everything down for so long and wiping the board clean. I shouldn't have expected too many to be exploring my Are You Sitting Comfortably? page for updates, though that has been my natural receptacle for rekindling my enthusiasm for the written word. I can't keep blaming my accident two years and more ago, and about which I wrote very little, but it destroyed my confidence in many aspects. Those who were here at the time will remember it, and my shoulder mended fine, while my hand mended mostly fine. For several months my guitar playing was badly affected; indeed, my <em>handwriting</em> was affected, with a knuckle joint that even now pops and creaks in a way that it never did before. While I am tearing up the roads, albeit still tentatively, on my motorbike, and tearing up the roads with gusto on the same black bicycle as ever, my writing has come and gone and come again. This time I'm going to write stuff when I feel like it, and when I don't, I shan't; if a piece ends up long, it's because it wanted to be long.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So I guess over the last, hurmmm, two dozen months, I've probably come full circle. Over a summery two weeks in August in 2009 I rode 500 miles across New York and southern Ontario. I saw snakes and hedgehogs and deer. I comprehensively broke, and then mended, parts of my bike. I carried out my own little archeological history investigation. I got lost several times. I climbed over a train while carrying my bike. I discovered I knew more about the CN Tower than the local tour guide. I used a staff bathroom without permission. And worst of all, I caused a statewide shortage of Oreo cookies.</span><br />
<br />
<blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Prologue</b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large;">A</span></b> FAMOUS cycle tourist once wrote, "Solitary long-distance travel is addictive". Intrepid touring cyclist might be a more accurate description, sufficient to have written, oh, several books at least and fitting in a ride or two around the world, probably because it was there. My degree of intrepidation had seen me leave Scotland for the far away lands of the seafront on the south coast, once or twice, and even then I'd had a train journey to help me out. I did discover that there not be dragons, just occasional partygoers wearing fluorescent yellow plastic sunglasses, a lot of peeling pale green ironwork, and a shop that sold really excellent chocolate milkshakes. Encountering, at speed, the bicycle lane that kinked alarmingly left and right between the end of a cul-de-sac and a raised flowerbed was possibly the most noteworthy event. Spending the day tootling back and forth from one end of the town to the other, eating paninis and salads, taking an occasional photograph and being very investigative of everything and nothing was my foil to the fact that I was somewhere where I didn't know anyone at all. The problem was, I quickly realised, I wasn't actually enjoying it. So much so in fact that I parked myself somewhere along on the shingle beach, wriggled myself a nice depression in the stones to relax in the sunshine, and wrote about how much I wasn't enjoying it.</span></blockquote><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Give me thirty years or thereabouts, and hopefully I'll have the rest of it written. In the meantime I'm making plans for the next adventures and quickly realising that I tend to have them faster than I can record them. Last year I took the summer off to go wrenching in my garage, but instead I found myself doing photography and picking brambles along the canal, and not writing very much.</span>Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-3725023412782678382008-05-17T16:13:00.005+00:002019-06-03T20:34:39.768+00:00I set the wheels in motion<p>
Doing the rounds of late is yet another meme, with the following rules: Pick up your nearest book and go to page 123. Find the fifth sentence (not the fourth?), and post on your blog the next three (not five?…) sentences. Acknowledge who tagged you, and then tag five more people. Thus:</p><blockquote><p>And where were the new maps I had been promised? Here were the same crude line-drawn maps I had made myself, on my computer, back in 1996. And why was the section title, "White Man, Where You Going?" (a quote from an African in the story) changed to "White Man, Where Are You Going?" </p><div id="MyComment"><p>from <em>Roadshow: Landscape with Drums, A Concert Tour by Motorcycle</em> by Neil Peart.</p></div></blockquote><div id="MyComment"><p></p></div><p>Considering the last and spectacularly unsuccessful time I tried following on an Internet meme—with only one person, Emma, actually responding in kind—I'm not going to point my finger at anyone this time.
</p><p>
It's not entirely coincidental that Peart's book was the nearest to hand, especially since it's my current read, and well worth it. But this past week I've been ultra-focussed, to the point where I've not read my book, I've not listened to the radio, I've watched barely any television, written next to no e-mails, and done no cycling. I was across town all week doing my Direct Access motorbike training.
</p><p>
A couple of weeks before, I had taken the morning off work and bussed it into town to take my motorbike theory test, for which I had been revising at full-tilt. Back when I was learning to drive a car, the theory test was quite a new thing and it was done like any regular exam with a paper booklet and 35 multiple choice questions. I disposed of that one in ten minutes. This time around it's all gone modern and hi-tech with 50 questions followed by 14 video clips of developing hazards, all done via a computer touchscreen or clicking the mouse. I disposed of the questions efficiently once more, and comprehensively passed the hazard perception. I scored lower than I expected though, possibly because I'm so switched on to road behaviour that sometimes I spotted hazards too early for the computer software's "identification period". Early is good; late might mean an expensive crash, or worse. With certificate in hand I bussed it over to the motorbike training school for an hour's basic riding assessment, a session where would-be students can get a feel for sitting on a bike, working the controls and performing some very basic manoeuvres. The learner bikes were very small and I was perched on the seat without much difficulty, save for my knees which were somewhere around the top of the petrol tank! Of course, I'd been thinking about learning for some time and with my brother and Dad already bike riders, and armed with half a dozen magazines, I was familiar with how it worked. I'd even sat myself in my bedroom, helmet and gloves on, making 'yin yin' noises and imagining how to work the throttle and change gear. On the day, it came together reasonably quickly. I was ok balancing the bike although the tarmac training area was a bit bumpy with some small stones which threw the front wheel a little bit, and I was grabbing the clutch lever and front brake lever sometimes instead of using my right foot and right hand. But the hour was enough to convince me that I felt I had what it would take to do the proper training, and with that I bussed it back to work.
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So on Monday, with a week's leave in hand, I drove down to the <a href="http://www.yourbiketest.com" target="_blank">training school</a> to start the process; I wasn't going to take the bus again after the disastrous journey across town to my work which had left me about to be sick, and unwell for the next three days. There were four of us on the first day, all ready to sit our Compulsory Basic Training, which is the legal minimum to riding on the road. It was a succession of lectures, covering everything from How It Works, to why alcohol might be a bad thing, to what helmet to wear, and bike riding in the yard. Starting and stopping, doing U-turns, riding a figure of eight around traffic cones, learning how to indicate and look on the approach to junctions, where the blindspots were and how to check them. In the afternoon it was our first venture onto the roads and into the local housing area where the roads were quiet. It turned out that only one other student, Al, was doing the whole five days in one go and I struck up a good rapport with him. Riding in convoy with the instructor sometimes at the lead, sometimes in the middle, sometimes tailing us, and all the while in radio contact with us, it was both fun and incredibly tiring. Three of us already had driving licences and were fairly road-savvy but all of us were beginners. At the end, I was informed that I had passed my CBT and was ready to move forwards. I left the school in the evening feeling very tired and I still had to go shopping before having tea.
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Coming back the next day I was a feeling more relaxed, safe in the knowledge that I wasn't starting from scratch now and knowing I could work the bike without falling off or crashing into cars. There were two ladies joining Al and me that day, both of whom had obviously done some riding before, and it was a nice change from being in amongst big muckle guys with stubbly faces. The instructors suggested I ride one of the newer, slightly taller learner bikes, still 125cc and only about 13hp, but as I quickly discovered when doing some circuits and manoeuvres in the yard, better balanced and smoother to ride, and generally a bit nicer all round. So with Fred, our cheerful, chain-smoking instructor in the pack, we headed out onto the roads again to try mixing it in traffic. You have to jump in, if not at the deep end then somewhere around the middle, each day in order to progress to test standard within a week, and the middle of town was definitely a deep end! We encountered potholes, roundabouts, cobbles, bad drivers, buses, roadworks and traffic lights, probably all before lunchtime. One problem I was having time and again was forgetting to switch off my indicators after a turn; on a motorbike they aren't self-cancelling. We also visited a petrol station to refuel, went back into town a second time and explored some of the eastern side of Edinburgh and out towards Musselburgh to see the new Driving Standards Agency building and training ground - our potential destination. Both Al and I noted at the end of the day how less tired we felt, and we had done a lot of riding. If I'd had the presence of mind, I might have noted the odometer reading to see just how far.
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Day three was another deep end: the big bikes. Direct Access is an intensive route to obtaining one's unlimited licence and involves riding a machine over 500cc with more than about 35hp, and on which one sits the test. Along with the scary powerful bikes, we had a new instructor, Matt, whose attitude I liked a lot. Still jovial, but slightly harder-edged and very committed to getting the best out of us. It was a day of exploring the various routes that we might find ourselves riding on the test and taking the bikes on faster roads. We'd already been up to 50mph on the learner bikes and that had been a shock - the windblast, the sheer exposure - and now we had to practice 60-70mph on bikes which <em>accelerated</em>. Again we practiced U-turns, both on foot and riding, emergency stops (now 'controlled stops') and hill starts, and took the bikes through mid-afternoon clag ups. To my frustration I was still leaving my indicators on, while Al wasn't, but in my favour I seemed to be a little happier turning in the road than he was.
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I had another shock on Thursday when I was told that I was going to be riding a bigger again bike, a Yamaha FZ6: 600cc and 98hp...! Apparently one of the fleet had become damaged and wasn't available, and when I asked if it was simply luck of the draw, both Tricia and Matt told me that in their opinion I had the greater potential for a bike like that. They were also considering using them as the big bikes for the training and I was the guinea pig. So as well as having a big black bike to ride, they wanted my feedback afterwards on whether the machine would be suitable. Having gone from two cylinders to four, from carburettors to fuel injection, and small disc brakes to big ones, the bike felt huge underneath me. But it was a spine-tingling and satisfying huge, with my knees hugging the fat petrol tank. I practiced again in the yard before we went out for the day, feeling the clutch bite and trying out the brakes and seeing how the bike felt in tight turns. And then it was onto the roads and more of the same exploration of back roads and changing speed limits, and a few blasts up and down and into the city. When I wound on throttle, the bike built up speed almost recklessly and I had no trouble keeping up with the other traffic. Our route for the morning was as much experience of all kinds of roads as an excuse to stop by all the motorcycle shops in Edinburgh, most of which I'd visited before as a prospective biker. It was during our ride back to the training school, heading through the middle of the city just after lunchtime, that "all the dominoes have just fallen into place." As I led Matt and Al, picking our way along Royal Park Terrace between all the parked cars, I caught up a car waiting for an oncoming car. I'd simply slowed right down, ready to stop, but the car moved off and I carried on to the next roundabout and onwards. I'd thought little of it at the time but Matt thought differently. "That was some of the <em>best</em> slow speed riding I've ever seen from a student! You were going about an inch a second, no foot down, no brake light!" And Al was similarly pleased for me, saying that he could see why they'd put me on the bigger bike rather than him. I had the biggest grin on my face that evening.
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We had both been making solid progress through the week and Matt was honest in his appraisal of our riding, saying we were both well skilled already and thinking much more about where we placed our bikes on the road and much less about operating them. I had developed a slight tendency to grab too much throttle while using the clutch, but at least I wasn't leaving my indicators on anymore. During a motorbike test one is allowed up to three of any specific type of minor fault: hesitating, missing an observation or whatever, to a maximum of 16 faults; leaving indicators on too long, especially if one has later passed a side road, means an instant failure. There were some tricks we could use to remember that sort of thing; saying to oneself, such as "indicator, indicator, indicator, indicator", or more forcefully, "I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot"; Al's preferred mantra was "Bastard, bastard, bastard". I invented no such phrase, preferring to periodically glance at the handy green flashing lamp on the handlebars. On the black bike it was easy to spot. And on day five, all the nerves appeared. I'd had a look on my map to find out where the Test Centre was located, because I know some parts of Edinburgh and its environs rather less well than others. I had also looked at the published test route itineraries from the DSA to get an appreciation of what roads might be involved, out of any of the ten possible routes. We spent the morning doing more manoeuvres, more roundabouts, studying the speed limits on certain roads and the timings of bus lanes, then headed back to the training school for lunch. Al wasn't hungry at all, and I could only manage one sandwich and half a biscuit. It had been a monotone, dull sort of morning but the weather was brightening and warming up so I drank some water and fiddled with the vents on my helmet for more airflow. Before long, it was time for us to ride to the Test Centre; Matt and I left our bikes in the little parking bay while Al, whose test was first, parked next to the gargantuan white Honda Pan European of the examiner. I hovered around to refresh my mind on how to check tyre tread depths and oil levels while Matt took my counterpart into the breach, reappearing after a little while. Since the test takes about 40 minutes altogether, we rode back to the school to collect another student who was sitting the test for his A2 Restricted licence, and then rode back once more. I parked my bike next to the big Honda which had obviously only just arrived back, and we waited for Al to come out. I was feeling terribly jumpy, and doing my best to stand stock still and concentrate on taking deep slow breaths. When the door of the Test Centre opened, I saw Al emerge and just from his body language immediately suspected the worst, his head hanging ever so slightly and his walk measured and unhurried. "Sorry guys", was all he said for a while.
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Matt took the driving report sheet from Al and cast an eye over the ticks; "You only had five faults, and then it was the indicators." Al replied, "When I heard the guy say, 'Pull up at the side of the road whenever it's safe to do so, and switch off the ignition.', I knew I'd messed up." He was bitterly disappointed, that he had let down Matt and me, and himself. "Oh, Al..." I said and I put my arm around him.
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But he brightened up after a few minutes, saying that he hadn't <em>lost</em> anything, and would take another test as soon as he could. Time was getting on, I was getting quite warm in my heavy jacket, and it was my turn to face the music. Al gave me a big 'riding buddy' handshake and said simply, "Go for it." I quickly discovered that the Test Centre was completely custom designed to accommodate the different needs of car drivers and motorcyclists; while the waiting room for the former was full of upholstered seats and nice carpets, the room for us was air-conditioned (because of our need for warm, armoured clothes), and it had plastic chairs and a linoleum floor (because we might be sopping wet). Steve the Pan European came in, all six foot four of him, he smiled and shook my hand, and we spent a couple of minutes going through the paperwork of my driving licence and CBT certificate. I put on my intercom and helmet, and we headed out into the sunshine.
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He asked me a couple of questions about maintenance, which I answered easily enough, and then he reviewed how he would tell me which direction to go. If he said nothing, I was to simply ride straight on; otherwise, do what he asked. So I kicked the bike into first gear and into my test. The traffic was fairly heavy, being mid-afternoon and the route taking me into Musselburgh's back roads, most of which I knew well by now. I did my U-turn on foot, rueing the weight of my bike and my lack of arm strength, and then rode the bike around again. I did my controlled stop, remembering what Matt had suggested about using the powerful back brake only a fraction and letting the front brake do the work. We rode out of town through some more housing streets, with which I wasn't familar at all (arguably a good thing for staying alert), doing my hill start on the A6124, and into the 60mph section where I happily grabbed some throttle to show I wasn't afraid of 'making progress'. I became confused at one point after a roundabout because for some reason I didn't know what the speed limit was; I thought back to the previous road and decided that since I hadn't remembered seeing a sign, it must still be 60mph. I hedged my bets at just over 40mph for a few seconds and then opened up. Then it was a left turn onto the A1 and a brief blast at 70mph in fairly light traffic. And before long I was back on Newhailes Road and heading for the Test Centre. "Don't worry, it's just a bike ride and it'll be over before you know it", Tricia and Matt told me earlier, and it was true. I'd been concentrating hard and most of the riding we had done during the week had been fairly extended sessions. Just as I turned into the Test Centre's side road, and switching off my indicator, I was confronted by a large white van, parked in my lane. I did my left mirror, right mirror, right shoulder check and moved out to avoid it, and realised my indicator was still flashing. I hastily hit the centre button to cancel it and hoped I hadn't blown my chances right at the very end.
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In fact, while I was fairly confident of my riding during the past half an hour, I was sure I'd made the fatal mistake just as Al had done, and I quietly stomped back into the building. I was also very warm and was grateful for the cool air inside. Steve the Pan European came in a moment later and took my intercom while I pulled off my helmet and caught my breath. We sat down, and he asked me to wait a moment while he finished off the driving report. As he glanced up, I tensed my stomach muscles and waited for the result. He smiled, saying "I'm pleased to tell you you've passed." I signed the paperwork for him to exchange my licence for one with the extra qualification, he passed me a magazine and a DVD for new riders, shook my hand and wished me well.
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Then the moment started to sink in, and I left the building to rejoin Matt, who was waiting with the younger student, alongside the bikes. "I see a magazine there!" he exclaimed, and I held it up and smiled. He took a look at my results, and noted that I'd only been marked on four minor faults, one of which was hesitation, on which I remember being marked down when I sat my car driving test, and which I'd been really trying to improve over the past few days. I waited with the bikes while he went back inside with the student, and I looked over the results for myself. Fortunately my armoured jacket has a large back pocket which was just large enough for the magazine and DVD and envelopes and things I'd been given. Matt returned, and said Al was waiting back at the school. So we had a quick blast back along the roads and I trundled through the gate, giving Al a big thumbs up; he smiled and returned the gesture. Once off the bike I stood for a moment, just standing and gathering my wits, and he came over and gave me a great big hug. There had never been any doubt in his mind really.
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Matt was dead pleased, too. He'd been wearing his lucky boots, and we talked about some of the riding we'd done over the week, how impressed he'd been with our progress, mine in particular. Somehow I think that'll be one story he'll be using with future students.
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And there's another thing. This past week I've had a lot to take in and a lot to demonstrate, and I've had an absolutely fantastic time. I was very wary of the male banter at first, but I let my guard down and joined in, and before I knew it I was poking fun at them in return and having a load of fun. Quite honestly, it's been one of the best weeks of my life, and my friend Jo has been a great support; she certainly knows a thing or two about bikes.
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And what now? Now I get to fire up my very own motorbike and take it across town to the training school to say thank you.
</p>Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30689846.post-36269240506555864132007-10-17T23:47:00.002+00:002019-06-03T20:12:29.110+00:00Workin' them angelsI don't know how to start this entry. My mind right now is such a jumble of big things and little things, half-baked ideas for a thread of discussion, half-forgotten ideas of introductory paragraphs because I didn't note them down when I thought of them...and I'm also suffering a little bit from tiredness and having spent too much time inside a car with a still-dodgy heater hose that's doing its best to poison me. And when it's dark and the M6 traffic is trying to average 90mph it's a bit much. In the past few weeks I've also been finding I have next to no time to myself. I've been religiously doing what the doctors told me to do each day, and I've been trying to gradually re-establish my original working pattern, although I'm still not quite there. I'm just so damn tired a lot of the time. Last night I slept - notwithstanding brief interruptions of caterwauling and errant 6am alarm clocks - for almost eleven hours.
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I suppose it all started last Friday. Last week at work in fact was pretty busy with some once-a-year stuff needing my undivided attention. I think I might've made myself indispensible by being both detailed and complicated, and not quite transparent enough, so I had to be on hand. So on Friday after a morning of brainstorming ideas with the others and an afternoon drafting documents and waiting for contributions to land in my inbox, I then had to navigate myself across the water and through hitherto unknown lands to my friend's house for tea. In the event I'd practically memorised the entire route so it was only the on-the-fly reading of signposts and grappling with brand new motorway junctions that nearly threw me. Oh, and the frustrating half an hour I spent trickling along at walking pace might not've helped. But I still arrived in good time and only felt slightly worse for wear, and had a nice evening with her and some other friends who were coming. I've never known anyone who had quite so many pets; I thought the lady who had six cats and lived along the road from me was going some. We all had a bit of a trek home so we called it a night a little earlier than last time and I headed home. I can usually reverse-navigate without any maps at all. The air inside my car was beginning to affect me though and I went to bed with a headache and feeling a bit rubbish. For Saturday I had no particular agenda and had thought about going into town to look for leather trousers and things but a combination of sunshine which was too good not to just sit in and absorb, followed by a load of drizzle for the rest of the day which didn't inspire me to go outside, meant I didn't really do anything except pore over maps.
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I like my maps actually. So the evening was when I realised I had stuff to do and my energy levels jumped up a level, and I was busy with the UK atlas and zooming in on Google Earth to examine motorway lane procedures. I had to be down by Manchester for Sunday afternoon and although I'd done a similar journey once or twice before, I was going to use a different route. I really don't like driving anyway and I tend to get a little nervous when it comes to motorway junctions at motorway speeds. At least on the bike, you're going much slower and you can always stop if you want. But I was ready and armed with two Post-It notes the next day, knowing <em>precisely</em> which lane I'd need and when, and when to manoeuvre into the right lane in time. And it worked like a charm. I pulled into the Travelodge car park just ten minutes ahead of schedule and I was relieved to get out of the car and breathe huge lungfuls of (fairly) fresh air. I found my room, dumped my bags, closed the curtains and conked out on the bed for an hour.</p><p>I hadn't slept but at least my mind had slowed down a bit, and just a short time later, Liz and Nick stopped by the service road to pick me up. I hadn't seen Liz since the Rush concert in 2004, but we'd spent that many hours talking to each other since then that we more or less dispensed entirely with the pleasantries and the catching-up. I think "Hello!" was all it needed. Then I discovered there was a slight change of plan due to rather unforseen circumstances, so we stopped by her brother's house to pick up his wife, whom I hadn't seen since Rush either. So, after a bit of time chatting to her brother about his new bike project the four of us left for the middle of Manchester. It was a nice change, staying at a Travelodge en route into town, rather than <em>in</em> the middle of town like last time, because it meant everything was a bit more relaxed all round and more convenient for later.</p><p>The first thing to do was find somewhere to have tea. Of course, we'd already tossed ideas around and decided that burgers might be a good safe plan, so we headed over to a building that looked to me to be half studio set and half computer game environment. Apparently it was the old newspaper publishing building, now "The Printworks" and it was <em>huge</em>. Before long we were installed in a cosy corner table in a restaurant and tucking into some exceptionally good cheeseburgers. No pickle either! But almost before we knew it, time was pressing so we headed outside and over to the MEN Arena and joined the queues.
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Rush. 2007. They've been at it for 33 years now, who knows how much longer they'll go touring around the world? We headed over to the main hall to find our seats; I bought myself the Snakes and Arrows tourbook, to go with my R30 tourbook and my precious Permanent Waves book. I was only five when they toured that one, but it's interesting the way my musical tastes behaved. There is one tune I remember very clearly hearing a few times in my early childhood: a slightly spacey sounding, uptempo piece with heavy synth punctuation and slashy guitar chords. For a long time I had no idea who performed it or what it was called, until much later I saw the history of The Nice on TV. The band of my memory was Emerson, Lake and Palmer, with, of course, Fanfare for the Common Man. Well, perhaps my prog-leanings were instilled right from the very start.
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I'd vaguely planned to note down each song as they played, but I think I can pretty much remind myself just by looking through the CD track listings. They opened with 'Limelight', which was nice to hear. Alex had a really clear electric guitar sound this time, due in no small part I think to sticking with his Les Paul rather than one of his thinner sounding PRS instruments; Neil's drums were sharp and nicely tuned, and though I wasn't much of a fan of his early forays into DW, these ones sounded good. I thought the bass was almost totally lost in the mix though; I could make out the lowest notes and some of the high frequencies in Geddy's now-traditional overdriven twang, but mostly I watched his fingers on the video screens and imagined the notes, since I know them off by heart. The set order escapes me right now, but anyone can look it up elsewhere, and someone else will have remembered it better than me anyway. They delved into some of their early works and pulled out a few songs I hadn't heard on any of their live albums to date; I was especially pleased to hear 'Between The Wheels' and 'Circumstances', and 'Witch Hunt' which made it onto A Show Of Hands back in 1988. From the new album they ran through 'Far Cry' and the groovy but short 'Malignant Narcissm' - the only two songs that have gelled with me so far - but they played 'Workin' Them Angels', 'The Larger Bowl', 'Spindrift' (which I didn't recognise at all!), 'Hope' and 'The Main Monkey Business'. Naturally, they wheeled out some of the big guns, like 'Tom Sawyer', 'The Spirit Of Radio', and 'Freewill' which really was spoiled for me by not being able to hear the bass. I was surprised when the lapping waters began, signifying the start of 'Natural Science', and ten minutes went by very quickly; it's one of my favourite songs to sing and play. Alex sneaked in a few bars of the Exit...Stage Left introduction to 'Jacob's Ladder' at one point which no-one else seemed to notice. They also played the melodic 'Entre Nous', so most of that album got a look in, which was fine by me. What else? "Booom Booom Booooom, Booom Booom Booooom..." sang the synth at the start of 'Subdivisions', always one of my favourite songs to listen to, simply because of the chunky synth sound and the boggling drum pattern. They rattled through 'The Analog Kid', 'Digital Man' and 'Distant Early Warning', and even played 'Mission' from the Hold Your Fire album. I was wondering how Geddy's voice would handle the high intro but I needn't have worried. They touched on 'Dreamline', but amazingly, they didn't play anything from the Presto, Counterparts or Test For Echo albums. Perhaps they'd played enough of them in the last couple of tours, though I'd've liked to hear 'Dog Years'.
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From the last album we heard at least 'Secret Touch', and if there were others, I can't remember. Vapor Trails was a very badly produced album and although the guys in the band acknowledged that fact later, the songs on it are still to settle with me. It wouldn't have been a Rush concert without five or ten minutes of drum and percussion solo courtesy of Neil and it was almost entirely new, with new sounds from the electronic drums too. I would swear that he'd sampled the sounds of all the pots and pans in his kitchen and arranged something with them. We didn't get the customary gong at the end, which was a nice change actually, and the crowd sounded impressed. The encore featured the earliest song they would play that night: 'A Passage To Bangkok'. Geddy brought out his Rickenbacker just for the occasion and I was heartbroken; a bass he hadn't touched in probably 20 years, and I just couldn't hear it in the mix. But for the last piece, and back to his black Jazz for 'YYZ', I was guaranteed some bass listening, because the tune has three sections of bass vs. drums alternate duelling without any accompanying instruments. Hah! I heard those bits! And with the last four notes, that was it. "Thank you and goodnight!"
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Thank <em>you</em> chaps. I totally enjoyed the concert, even more so than last time. And a terribly well-behaved audience too; I didn't hear any shouting or anything. Even Yes didn't manage that. I should say a big thank you to Liz and Nick too, for being just as crazy about the music as me, for being generally cool, and for feeding me lunch the next day.
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Last time I stayed right in the middle of Manchester and hot-tyred it straight home early in the morning, which was probably the thing to do in those days; this time around I wanted to see my friends for longer. So after a reasonable night's sleep, in which I had a peculiar dream about demolition and a crane transporter whose engine sound was actually the sound of the air conditioner unit outside the Travelodge, and a reasonable breakfast, I ambled over to Liz's house for a bit. True to form, we spent all our time chatting. So much so that we hadn't had lunch and I was supposed to be leaving mid-afternoon to avoid the traffic! Duly fed and watered, we had a big goodbye hug and I aimed Clara at the M62 again.
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My road map made no sense other than telling me where the road makers couldn't decide what number to use at this or that junction, but with my Audax-alike notes stuck to the dashboard I no problems. I hadn't (bothered to) bring my Landranger map of Chestershire and once off the motorway, although I had made notes for all the way, I'd spent enough time looking at the maps that I knew where I was going, and once past the shopping centre it was familiar territory. I spent the rest of the day talking with Jodi, we went out for the odd bit of shopping, and had a lateish tea after Sarah arrived. We watched Pirates of the Caribbean which I hadn't seen before, and I liked it a lot. Johnny Depp's nod to Keith Richards was brilliant. The day after, Jodi and I had a nice lazy breakfast and resumed chatting about everything and nothing. I had the same sort of plan for avoiding the worst of the traffic, so after lunch and a second goodbye hug I was on my way home. Mostly it went fine: there are only three major roads to get home and the M6 northbound is one of my favourite roads if I have to be driving. Three accidents (not mine!) put a crimp on my pace, but I was concerned as much about fresh air as time. I rattled up past Lancaster's control tower and pulled in at Tebay for hot chocolate and a toastie, then hurried northwards. When I got home I was worn out.
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I'd arranged the following day off work to recover/chill/do washing and I needed it. Fed up entirely with driving by then, I was back on my bike yesterday and desperately trying to get the smell of exhaust out of my nose.
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Today I'm in no less discomfort than I was before. It shouldn't have been this way but my appointment for inspection and possible mending didn't happen. I don't know why. I'd been trying to get through to someone—anyone—at the clinic to find out what time I was supposed to arrive as I'd heard nothing, but no-one returned my call. Then Hospital HQ phoned me yesterday with the news. So I have a slight reprieve on that front and a bit more time to heal and become fit with more miles on my bike too (yay!), but it also means I'll have to bump back my vague plans for motorbike lessons. I don't <em>really</em> want to have to learn in the snow and ice, much as it might be useful.</p>Becky Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00820092382647340525noreply@blogger.com0