More Cycling

Brian's comment about his classic Bianchi bike reminded me that I had some more to write about the racing bike. I have an older racing bike, similar to Brian's, but a slightly earlier vintage. I saw a frame in my local bike shop in 1985, a Coventry Eagle in Reynolds 531 tubing (as most lightweight bikes were in those days).

It was a nice lightweight training frame, with braze-ons for the downtube levers, but no mudguard eyes. I was looking for an Audax bike so I really wanted to be able to fit mudguards. I spoke to the bike shop owner who said "I'll give Barry a call to see if he can do a special for you". Barry Hoban was a former pro cyclist who was manager of the Coventry Eagle factory in mid-Wales. A couple of days later he said "Barry can do you a frame with mudguard eyes, do you want it in red or blue?" I ordered the blue one as I already had a red bike.

When the frame came and I built the bike up it was great, the first time I had a really fast responsive bike, as opposed to a lightweight tourer. I took that bike on a few special trips over the years, riding out to watch the World Championships in Belgium, riding in the French Alps, but more recently it has just hung on the garage wall as a trophy.

This year as I got a bit fitter I decided that I should ride this bike on fine days, so I gave it a bit of an overhaul. One afternoon early in March Sue and I went for a ride so I wanted to ride the blue bike. We got about 400 yards before I had to stop to tighten the handlebars. Sue was a bit dismissive about the old bike, I think she was a bit concerned that it might not be safe. I assured her that it was perfectly safe, and promptly scared myself to death at the next junction.

I had forgotten that the side-pull brakes of the 1980s are a world apart from modern caliper brakes. I went out on the bike a couple more times, and Sue worried about me each time. I reassured her, but was always a bit nervous of having to stop in an emergency.

And so, dear reader, that is why when I saw the modern racing bike on sale at work, Sue had nothing but encouragement for me. I just wish I was devious enough to have planned it that way!

Open Top Cars

I was reading Brian Herman's blog earlier today and noticed that the banner photo is a MINI convertible. Brian has had his MINI for almost three years now, and he is really pleased with it.

I have one quibble, though. The car in the picture has the roof up. Surely the first rule of open-top cars is - "If it isn't raining (or snowing) the roof should be down!"

Although I have never owned an open-top car I have driven them on several occasions, and I have always followed this rule. I once spent a day in an MGB Roadster driving through Berkshire trying to avoid the rain showers. Unfortunately I couldn't dodge them all and was hit by a very heavy shower. By the time we had the roof up we were both completely soaked and everything inside was misted up. It was about 15 minutes before I could see out properly.

In a dry place like Colorado, and with a modern electric roof and air-conditioning this shouldn't be a problem so I do hope that Brian doesn't spend all his time driving with the roof up.

Cycling Update

At the beginning of this year I decided to get back my fitness on the bike again. I have been quite successful so far, with a steady buildup over the months. There has been only one week when I haven't ridden at all.

I mentioned our four-day trip to Herefordshire at Easter. We didn't ride out there, but we managed to ride on the day we drove out there and the day we came home, so we did as much as our fitness allowed.

I saw a second-hand racing bike on the electronic notice board at work, so I checked it out and bought it. It is a Principia frame in aluminium with carbon forks, with Shimano 105 equipment. The bike is very lively and responsive, and I enjoy riding it. I have one niggle - I bought a new cassette to give me a lower bottom gear and it is difficult to adjust the rear mechanism so that it shifts cleanly into bottom without hitting the spokes.

Riding on weekdays is difficult at the moment. I live over forty miles from work so I can't commute by bike, and I am teaching on two evenings a week, but I have worked out a partial solution. I can take the bike to work in the back of the car and then ride home, leaving the car at work. I can then go to work by train the next day and then drive home that night.

I did this a couple of weeks ago before our Croatia holiday and it was quite successful. The ride home was 41 miles and I did it in just under 3 1/2 hours. I intend to do this once a week (weather permitting) until the end of term, and then step up to twice a week from the end of June. I should then be noticeably fitter and hopefully a bit lighter.

Doesn't Time Fly?

I've just realised that I haven't updated this blog since mid-March. My only excuse is that I have been too busy having a life to write about it. This would lead you to ask what I have been doing.

At the Easter weekend we went away for a cycling trip to Herefordshire, staying in Eardisland which is one of the Black and White Villages. The weather could have been better, we had strong winds, rain and hail on most days, but we had a good time and managed to have some decent rides on three days with a half-day walk and a trip to Hay-on-Wye on the Sunday. I managed not to buy any books while visiting Hay, which is a remarkable achievement for a bookworm like me.

The following weekend we were visiting relatives in North Wales, and I attended the retirement party for Dr Clive Williams who was head of the Chemical Pathology department at the hospital where I worked in my first job. It was a very interesting evening, meeting many people who I used to work with until I left in 1986. A surprising number of people are still there from my day.

We went to Dubrovnik for a week's holiday and returned home last Sunday. It was a lovely time, although after a promising start the weather turned cold and wet for most of the week. I will put up some pictures on Flickr when I have gone through them.

I have had a minor reorganisation of this blog page. I have kept the minimalist layout, but I have separated out other peoples blogs from other links and have set up a separate humour section.

In the blogs I have added a link to Brian Herman's blog. Brian only set this up a few weeks ago but he has been busy posting.

Project Management Is Leadership

Those of you who use or teach Project Management and Presentation Skills as business skills might be interested in this presentation by Brian Herman.

Brian was my manager for a while in my past life. I have a very high regard for him, and when I read about his presentation in Alec Muffett's blog I took a look. Brian has an excellent lighthearted presentation style and a wonderful way with minimalist presentation slides. He gets the point across in a way which I find inspiring, it certainly holds the attention in a way that many presenters do not.

I recommend that you take a look. The whole presentation takes about 20 minutes so make yourself a cup of tea before you start.

Any Noun Can Be Verbed...

... and it would appear that adjectives can be adverbed, too!

There is a furore in the UK this week following an initiative by a marketing company to provide information to advertisers by, in effect, snooping on the content downloaded by web users.
See here for information.

The Foundation for Information policy Research (FIPR) is a think-tank which defends the rights of users against intrusive activities by companies and government. It has responded to this proposal, in my view quite properly, by pointing out the areas of UK and EU law which forbid such snooping.

Sadly the English language is a minor casualty in this skirmish. The following text made me cringe:

[Regarding consent] Moreover, in many cases it is clear that any such consent is expressly or impliedly negatived.

It is bad enough to make a verb from negative, to make an adjective from implied is just too much! Aside from that it is an example of clear English used by lawyers to make a legal point.

Back to Prague - Part 1

We went back to Prague for a four day trip around last weekend. We had a great time walking around, revisiting old haunts and spending time eating, drinking and chatting with our friends.
We also managed to go to a surprising number of places which were new to us.

We stayed at the Ibis which claims to be in Mala Strana but is actually at Anděl. This was no problem for us as Anděl is a great local centre for restaurants and bars as well as being within easy reach of the tourist parts.

On Friday night Jay and Vladka managed to get most of the old crowd together for a pub night near our hotel - though they hadn't realised we were staying so close when they booked it!

On Saturday we walked up through the park from Štefánikova náměstí and followed the hill to near the Strahov Monastery. It was mid-morning so we stopped at the Strahov Monastery Brewery as we had never tried their dark St Norbert beer. I enjoyed it but Sue ws lamenting the fact that she didn't have a hot drink as the weather was cold and the beer had chilled her.
We remedied that later with hot soup and fruit dumplings on our way from the castle to Mala Strana.

In the afternoon we met up with Jay and went out to Spořilov to the Prvni Pivni Tramway.
This unlikely-looking place was rated in The Guardian's top ten bars in Prague but Sue regarded it with deep suspicion as she has this unjustified belief that I always seek out the dodgiest bars in town.

Jay knew of a small lake near the tram station so we had the bonus of a pleasant little walk in the sunshine before going for a beer.

The exterior of the bar is an ugly concrete block, but one of the rooms inside is fitted out like an old tram. The beer was good, particularly the Primator wheat beer. We couldn't stay long because the tables were all booked from 5pm. So we and Jay headed back on the tram to town and went our separate ways.

More from the weekend in the next entry.

And the winner is ...

I wrote recently about McQuarie Dictionary's contest to find the word of the year for 2007.

The winner is -
pod slurping
noun the downloading of large quantities of data to an MP3 player or memory stick from a computer.

I still prefer arse-antlers myself.

I also wrote a while ago about textonyms, words which are different, but use the same keys in predictive text mode on a mobile phone, eg 'home' and 'good'.

These have now gained some academic credibility. David Crystal has been studying them and the UK press picked up the story last week. The Telegraph's report is here.

Some examples of textonyms here.

Farewell Sheldon Brown

Sheldon Brown was an American cyclist who ran what I regard as the best technical website for cyclists. Whatever the topic, his site would have excellent advice and how-to guides. He did a nice line in April Fool jokes, and introduced me to the Sheldon Shake, an effective way of cleaning a cycle chain by putting it into a bottle half-full of solvent, closing the cap and shaking vigorously.

Sadly I read that Sheldon died of a heart attact a few days ago. He will be sadly missed.

Overestimating the British Public

A famous newspaper owner once said something to the effect that he would never go bankrupt by underestimating the intelligence of the British public.

A piece in the Guardian the other week took the opposite view. The author is a Polish journalist who is obviously intelligent, well-educated and has a good command of English. Unfortunately she has chosen to live in the UK where this combination of attributes makes her one of the minority.

The author is a bit snobby about the average British person whose vocabulary isn't as rich as hers and whose grammar isn't as accurate. I can sympathise with her to some extent; as she didn't go through the British school system she didn't learn the hard lessons about not showing off your knowledge to an unsympathetic audience.

It seems to me that her English teachers didn't advise on tuning her language to her target audience. I suspect that her teachers felt that accuracy was more important. I try to take a less lofty view with my classes and would point out elements of language which were grammatically correct but not used by, say, 99% of native speakers.

If she does persist in complaining about poor English among the native speakers, given Lynn Truss's success with "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" I wonder if there is an opening for a pedantic book on English usage written by a non-native speaker...

Newsbiscuit

One of my work colleagues sent me a link to Newsbiscuit the other day. This is a satirical news site, I guess it is the UK's answer to The Onion.

Here's a taster - Doctor's receptionist awarded honorary medical degree.

Tart Fuel and Arse Antlers

Every English teacher knows how important it is to have a good dictionary. Students whose first language is not English can have difficulty with slang, jargon and new usage of existing words.

They can try looking up words in a dictionary, but an older dictionary may not be any help.

I was pleased to read that the McQuarie Dictionary, Australia's National Dictionary, is running an on-line poll allowing readers to select their new word of the year for 2007 from the words which the dictionary has just included fpr the first time.

My favourites are:

arse antlers - a tattoo just above the buttocks, having a central section and curving extensions on each side.

floordrobe - a floor littered with discarded clothes, viewed ironically as a clothing storage system.

tart fuel - wine coolers and alcopops, viewed by men as deceptively alcoholic drinks that will lower a woman's resistance to sexual advances.

Another one which I need to watch out for is boomeritis - the range of sports-related injuries incurred by baby boomers as they pursue health and physical fitness programs into their old age, such as bursitis, tendonitis, sprains, strains and stress fractures.

The full list is here.

I hope that Angela is reading, I would like her perspective on this as an Australian.

Fame at last!

Happy New Year to everyone, particularly Arno, my faithful reader.

I was surprised and delighted to receive e-mail from an editor at Schmap.com, an online tourist guide. They were looking for pictures for the latest edition of their guide to Prague, and asked if they could use one of the pictures on my Flickr site.

I said that they could, and the picture is now linked in their guide.

OK, it's hardly a commission from National Geographic, but it's better than no recognition at all.

I almost forgot

One of the reasons that some people procrastinate is that they are easily distracted by things which are more interesting than the task in hand.

I really loved this cartoon - see the original site here.

Procrastination

I intended to write this piece last weekend...

There was an article in last week's New Scientist about procrastination, and about a scientist called Piers Steel at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada who has spent the last ten years studying why people procrastinate. I was delighted when I read that he intends to publish his work, but hasn't got around to it yet.

He does give some tips to help people who procrastinate. I reproduce them here in the hope that they will be of help to someone, possibly me.

• Make a firm commitment to your boss or partner to finish a task by a certain time. This will make delays more embarrassing and difficult to cover up.
  
• Strip your workspace of all distractions, from your iPhone to your Xbox. Then turn off the "ding" on your email. "We have all these temptations," says Steel. "We’ve made our world motivationally toxic."
  
• Many people say that they put things off because they are too tired to deal with them, so get a good night's sleep and try tackling the most unpleasant and difficult tasks early in the day.
  
• Set a series of realistic goals. Some counsellors and therapists recommend drawing up weekly, daily or even hourly goals. The more readily sidetracked you are, the more you need to divide your main task into smaller chunks.
  
• Promise yourself a reward for each goal that you meet.
  
• Believe in yourself. "The old saying is true," says Steel. "Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you are probably right."
  
• Outsource your motivation. Get someone else to regularly goad you into action.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to my readers, if I have any readers. I will write more in the New Year when I get around to it.

For the linguists

I had to chuckle when I saw this cartoon.

So what else has been happening? We had the inspection at the college, and got through OK. I was one of just two part-timers who were observed by the inspector. I think I must attract them like a magnet.

We're looking forward to Christmas now, but I did most of my shopping the easy way over the Internet.

There are two more lessons next week before the Christmas break. I will try to provide something fun and Christmas-based.

I was saddened today to read that Terry Pratchett has early-onset Alzheimers. Not sure what else to say about it, but it doesn't sound good.

Higher or lower?

I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or just shake my head when I read the linked story.
Camelot, the UK National Lottery operator recently launched a new scratchcard lottery called Cool Cash.

To qualify for a prize, users had to scratch away a window to reveal a temperature lower than the figure displayed on each card. As the game had a winter theme, the temperature was usually below freezing.

But the concept of comparing negative numbers proved too difficult for some Camelot received dozens of complaints on the first day from players who could not understand how, for example, -5 is higher than -6.Tina Farrell, from Levenshulme, called Camelot after failing to win with several cards.

The 23-year-old, who said she had left school without a maths GCSE, said: "On one of my cards it said I had to find temperatures lower than -8. The numbers I uncovered were -6 and -7 so I thought I had won, and so did the woman in the shop. But when she scanned the card the machine said I hadn't."

I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher - not lower - than -8 but I'm not having it. "I think Camelot are giving people the wrong impression - the card doesn't say to look for a colder or warmer temperature, it says to look for a higher or lower number. Six is a lower number than 8. Imagine how many people have been misled."

I'm amazed at the lady's tone of indignation, and the fact that she feels that she is being fobbed off.

Camelot have withdrawn the competition as they have other customers who are similarly confused.

Most of the comments posted regarding this story on the newspaper site were very scathing towards the woman. I just feel sad that someone could go right through the British school system and not come out with at least enough numeracy to cope with negative numbers. Given the high levels of personal debt in the country it is worrying.

On the other hand a company which runs lotteries is really dependent on a market which isn't too strong in its ability to calculate. If everyone properly appraised their chances of winning before buying a ticket their sales would probably be much lower.

Higher or lower?

Observation

The college where I teach my evening class is due to be inspected by Ofsted (The Office of Standards in Education) sometime this term, so they hired a consultant to perform mock inspections this week.

We were all given a briefing before half-term on making sure that we have detailed lesson plans and have all our paperwork up to date for this week. My Monday class started at 6:45pm and I had just got the students settled down when the consultant knocked on the door. She apologised and said that she thought the class started at 7:00. I said it was no problem, ushered her to a seat and talked her quickly through my paperwork.

She read through my plan, looked at her notes and looked puzzled. She had been directed to the wrong class. I was a bit concerned. Once I was geared up to be observed I would rather get it over with than put it off until Wednesday. Luckily she decided to change her plan and observe my class instead.

The observation went well enough, with some areas for me to focus on, but she was generally pleased with the way the students participated.

I can now look forward to my official observation from the head of department in two weeks, and then the Ofsted inspectors some time after that.

Note to my teaching friends in Prague, your administrative burden is light!

Healthy Eating

Most people in our team at work do their own thing at lunchtime, so the "team breakfast" at about 9am is the main social event of the day. This morning one of the team bought a carton of milk from the cafeteria to put in the fridge in our break area.

The lady at the servery offered him skimmed or semi-skimmed. "Have you got whole milk?" he said. "No, we don't sell it, it's bad for you" she replied. That may be so, but the breakfast selection contained such healthy low-fat delights as bacon, sausages, fried bread, fried eggs and black pudding. Let's hope they don't take those off the menu any time soon.

Yes, I did read the reports this week that bacon, sausages, red meat and alcohol are sure-fire lethal agents. I'm sure I'll survive them in moderation.