Old fart cycling

As a kid in the 50s, my first bike had blocks of wood on the pedals so my feet could reach them. It wasn't a cool look, but at least I wasn't alone. Most of my friends had wooden blocks on their pedals too, as most of us had second-hand bike passed down by much bigger kids.

The cycling bug didn't get me then. But when I was a month away from my 25th birthday, my car insurance was due. If I renewed after reaching 25, the cost plummeted. So I borrowed a shopping bike, cycled the 7 miles to work for a month, and was hooked.

Some time later I got the crazy idea of trying to cycle to the moon. Not literally, of course. It was crazy enough without being as delusional as that. And I am happy to say that I touched down a couple of years ago, and am now on the way back, having clocked up nearly 300 000 miles in 46 years.

Yes, I know. I will be lost in space and never get back. Let's not take the image too far.

When I started riding, in Sheffield, cyclists were a bit of a community. I suppose that cyclists had grown up in an era when military style AA staff, riding motorcycle side cars, would salute every car they saw with an AA badge on the front. So the roads were rather more friendly then than now. But cyclists would greet each other, giving big hellos to fellow cyclists whether mates or complete strangers.

If you broke down at the road side, someone would stop to offer tools, help, sympathy.

Cycling was an all-age hobby. An ancient guy who lived near me rode his single-gear bike everywhere, and on weekends would head for the coast. New kids on the block and oldies like him got on well. Friends through common interest.

Today, less than half the cyclists I meet respond to a hello, and maybe a tenth of cyclists initiate one. If you break down on the road, cyclists will go past, with only a tiny number being willing to stop and help.

It doesn't need to be this way. On a recent trip, I was passed by a posh bike - you could lift it with a finger, literally - and a young guy clad in all the right gear. He went past silently, and I felt invisible and annoyed. I gave chase, and with exploding lungs caught him up. He was very surprised. He was in the zone, not sweating or even breathing heavily, and making the thing look infuriatingly easy.

We chatted for a while, riding side-by-side, and I said that he need not hang around for me as I did not want delay him. He grinned. 'Nice to chat', he said. Then he patted me on the back. ' Well done', he said. 'Keep on going'. And with no apparently effort he pulled away as if I was standing still.

It was fleeting camaraderie, and I felt good for a week.

It's so easy to make ordinary things that bit more pleasant with a little effort.

Paul Gascoigne's Tree

Now that the pandemic is over and Brexit is all sorted, it was a slow day for news at Metro yesterday, when they reported that:

When I was about twelve, I heard a joke about a guy who had a similar tattoo that read LUDO. Except that it could also advertise a well-known Welsh seaside resort when it appeared in (ahem) fuller form.

Paul Gascoigne (who he ?) was the footballer who could always rise to the occasion and score, but always seemed to get himself into emotional scrapes of one sort or another.

His latest news is rather worrisome. It made me realise in an instant how small and beige my life has been. And how private. And it raised lots of questions that I had never had to consider before. Yesterday morning.

First of all, the obvious question is: Why would anybody do that ? Some questions are better parked than answered, and this is one of those. The only possible answers I can come up with are more troubling than the question itself. Definitely best parked, and then you can get to the really interesting stuff.

Portrait or landscape ? And what on earth happens to the aspect ratio ? My telly makes people look tubbier than they really are, but you get used to it until suddenly proper proportions are restored and people look like beanpoles. But in Paul’s case, that squat oak is going to look oddly etiolated if it’s in portrait mode. And the detail will be lost if he chose landscape.

And what sort of tree ? Hopefully something like a poplar with a columnar habit. Clearly nothing pendant, like a weeping willow or cherry. A nut-tree ? Well, perhaps a good choice. Avoid all hollies: way too prickly. Did he opt for some sapling or go full sequoia ? And if so, where do the branches go ? Something pollarded might be the answer.

And as for the process, well, where to start ? How did this Michelangelo of tattoos get PG to hold still ? And how did he get the canvas full size for the complete session ? Viagra and an anaesthetic ? Having your subject generally yelping with pain is not going to make the process smooth. Some kind of stunning might be necessary. Is there a specialist tattooing clamp known only to the cognoscenti ? Ouch.

What season is it down there ? A wintry tree might be easier to realise than some May extravaganza with a zillion leaves. Or how about all the golden glows of autumn ? Deciduous or evergreen ? It is all about mood, I guess.

Has it any wild-life in it ? A tiny owl, perhaps, or a tree-creeper ascending gingerly. Or maybe a chimp or something exotic ? Who’s to say if the tree is indigenous ? Is there a tree-house or a rope swing ?

Once your mind starts to apply some brain cells to this headline, it’s hard to get away from it. Like being asked not to think of a pink elephant for 10 seconds, during which all you manage to think about is a succession of pink elephants traipsing across your brain-waves.

Come back Brexit. All is forgiven…

 

Baa humbug, Gavin

This week there are lambs everywhere. Well, maybe not everywhere, but in lots of fields. As usual they are impossibly full of energy. Bouncing around, suddenly springing into the air for no apparent reason other than sheer exuberance and the need to jump.

They are having impromptu races alongside the walls, climbing on tree stumps for a different view, and generally having a whale of a time, before they get the urge to call mum for dinner and then run across the field towards the familiar voice.

It struck me that they are so markedly different from sheep. Sheep do a lot of standing, eating, and generally have a look of endurance rather than enthusiasm. If they can remember the pleasure of jumping, they don’t much of that anymore, and the closest they get to speed is when they spot food arriving on the back of a tractor in the winter.

Standing around stoically in shaggy fleeces they could not be more different from the lambs they once were.

And suddenly Gavin Williamson was in my head, uninvited and rent-free. Not that I am suggesting he has any of the sheer seductive charisma of sheep.

But I wondered what sort of curriculum Gavin Williamson might arrange for sheep, given the experience of his approach to children.

He would want to make sure that lambs had a curriculum which prepared them for life. Since sheep do little voluntary bouncing about, that would definitely be out, except maybe at playtimes for 15 minutes.

What is the life a of a sheep like ? Well, lots of standing about with horizons limited by walls and fences. So lambs really need to get used to that. Gavin would have them shoulder to shoulder in small pens learning how to eat grass. Grass isn’t what lambs eat ? Well, the sooner they start, the better. Important that no lambs get behind.

Sheep tend to walk in lines, wearing sheep-tracks in fields everywhere. Instead of racing, lambs would be taught to walk in single file. No running !

And sheep need to be able to recognise lambs’ voices, so the lamb curriculum would have lots of recognition practice with recorded baa-ing to identify sheep voices in various simulated weather conditions.

Naturally there would be a sheep-dog course, getting lambs used to the demands of sheep-dogs, the importance of obedience to avoid being nipped, and the general perils of tangling with dogs generally.

Male and female lambs would be separated for sex education, as the curriculum would be entirely different for rams and ewes. There wouldn’t be much on relationships, and if there was any passing reference to pleasure, it would be distinctly ram-focused.

There would be a brief module on grief and how to deal with it when your latest offspring disappear to become lamb chops, leaving you sad, puzzled, and resentful.

There would of course have to be rigorous assessment to ensure that no lamb was left behind. Only lambs firmly in the middle of the bell-shaped curve would pass. Nobody likes a smart lamb: being cute is quite enough of a handicap to a prospective sheep already. And lambs who did not meet basic standards in long-standing and baa-recognition would find themselves heading to the chop factory earlier than expected.

Forget lambhood. It is important to get every new generation aligned with the demands of sheepism as soon as possible.

Sound familiar ? After fixing the curriculum for children, this should be a doddle. Good for you, Gavin. Give it a go.

Naming names

High blood pressure finally got me this year, and I started taking amlodipine to calm it down a bit.

It took me a while to decide to take the drug as it felt like a huge step: a lifetime drug regime and someone who hates medication don’t go well together.

After dithering for 10 days or so, I took the plunge.

The plunge was in September, and by January two things were clear. My blood pressure had not come down significantly and was stubbornly stuck on the 32^nd floor like a broken elevator. And secondly, I had gained the ruddy complexion of a farmer in a children’s story book circa 1955.

This bacon face is a known side-effect. It showed the drug had done something at least.

I consulted the doc by phone, this being Covid City. No problem, he said. We’ll double the dose. That will work. But will it, I asked, make the side-effects worse ? If it does, he replied, rather discouragingly, we will top it up with something else.

A month later, and by now something like a cross between a red-legged partridge and a hugely embarrassed lobster, my throat was swollen, and swallowing was a bit of a problem. Another side-effect. I consulted the doc again, and got a different one on the end of the line.

This doc was not a listener, and he was a little too quick in prescribing another tablet to deal with things. Another tablet ? Yes. He must have thought I was one of those old people who talk about ‘a tablet for my water’, or ‘my blue tablet’, happy to have no clue about what the drug might be, or what it might do.

The drug was ramipril. I will not be taking it. The side-effects are horrendous, no doubt to be ameliorated by some other drug and on and on. Remember the Hawtch-Hawtcher Bee Watcher from Dr Suess ? Well like that.

But it got me thinking. Amlodipine and ramipril sound so different. Amlodipine (the o is short as in ‘plod’) sounds if not avuncular, at least friendly. It could be the name of some vegetarian dinosaur. You can be sure it would have a smile as it munched. It’s the vowel sounds I think, and the open ‘am’ at the start. The word exudes some kind of medical warmth.

Ramipril, on the other hand. Well, what does the sound make you feel ? To me, it sounds like something for unblocking drains, poking a hole in something hard, or maybe something you sit on and wash you hadn’t. If it was an animal, it would be hiding in the shrubbery to take a chuck out of your unsuspecting calf as you walked by.

Again, it’s the aggressive onset – ram – followed by two prim ‘i’ sounds. It the sort of sound you might make when chewing a wasp. It has all the warmth of a block of frozen urine falling from a plane on some unfortunate pedestrian.

No wonder I have such difficulty with medication. But really. Names matter, right ?

 

 

 

The Zone

The dream bike

An absolutely joyous ride today.

It wasn’t just the sunshine and the feeling of spring a month early. It wasn’t even the greenest fields. It was the zone.

The zone ? Yes. More of the zone in a minute.

I cycled up to the High Peak Trail. I don’t usually manage to do this ride until late March, or at least the middle of the month. The weather is usually too unpleasant. But today, with a wide sky and the sun bravely elbowing February aside for a few hours, I set off on the steep climb up Sheldon Dale.  I always wonder if I will still be able to do Sheldon Dale. It’s a kind of test. Steep and unrelenting it rises from the river Wye and takes you up to the undulating switchback which winds up in Monyash.

The climb up Sheldon Dale is tough, and you have to get out of the saddle and dance for a quarter of it. There is a bottle cap pressed into the road surface on the lower part of the hill, and I let myself start to get out of the saddle once I pass the cap. If I start before then, I am not likely to make it to the top.

The climb is in deep shade, and this morning there were the remains of the frost that had melted elsewhere in the sun. At the top I rode in the sun and found the road to Monyash closed for 51 days. 51 days ? Yes. Who thought of that, I wonder ? Sounds very precise to give the impression that someone had thought hard about it.

But the closure meant a detour through the fields to Flagg, climbing well above Monyash to plunge down again before climbing to Parley Hay and the trail.

The trail is always a joy. It’s fairly quiet as a rule, and this morning was almost deserted, except for a few beaming hikers also gloating at the lack of people.

Sun, birdsong, green field, hills, blue skies. Joy. 9 miles of sheer joy dropping down to Longcliffe.

And the zone. Yes, the zone found me. As a young guy I used to go out looking for the zone. Now I don’t worry to much, and just occasionally it sidles up to me to say hello. The zone is when you build a steady rhythm on the pedals, when you are doing a fair speed that feels utterly effortless and you have the sensation that you could just go on forever. You aren’t breathing heavily, your legs don’t feel dead, even after Sheldon Dale, and you just go. You feel as if you are part of the bike or vice versa. The zone is a happy place to be.

Off the trail at Longcliffe and carefully through the squeezer trying not the scratch the bike. And then off to Grange Mill and home on the road through Bakewell.

It was just a glorious ride, and a bringer of happiness.

The only downside was that the hoggin on the trail was damp, so it came up and stuck on the bike which needed a bath more than I did when we got back.

I think it knew we had been in the zone, though.

Openreach cracks time travel

My internet has been playing up. Or rather playing down. Since last June.

Plusnet has been trying to fix it, and that involves Openreach. Openreach don't really seem too committed to sorting out the problem. They have heard of superfast internet speeds and want nothing to do with them. I have had six engineers since June. The internet is still behving like treacle at very low temperatures.

Finally. last week, Plusnet recommended a 'senior engineer'. An engineer so senior that he could check the line from end to end, and deal with any problems he might find there. An engineer so specially senior that he could only be booked four days in advance.

I was agog with expectation. All of a sudden, my mundane problem had been brought to the attention of this Openreach demi-god. What could possibly go wrong ?

The demi-god did not show up, that's what. I waited in, agogness drooping, until it became clear he had stood me up. He never rang. He sent no text. He just ghosted me and did a no-show.

The this morning, calloo callay, a text from Openreach.

 

This little message plays tricks with your mind, not to mention your tenses. It was a bit of a facer, and hard to make head or tail of. It's hard to figure out what tense to reply in.

But it does seem charmingly optimistic that after 9 months of an intermittent connection with the speed of a casserole, there seemed to be the chance that it would have spontaneously fixed itself.

I will wonder all last week  who they would might not have sent next yesterday.

Gotta love Openreach !

If not now, when ?

Brexit and the pandemic are a very unhappy combination and have brought much uncertainty about the future, not just the present.

But there are still huge and positive opportunities, which are in danger of being overlooked.

There is an urgent need for greater unity in our country, and a vision which looks forward to a future we can all aspire to: a vision which shares common goals and celebrates differences.

Now 70, I confess that I have no idea what our national values are, and those that are promoted tend to hark back to a past which I recognise, but do not feel is relevant now. Though my personal future is short, articulating national values which look forward feels exciting and inspiring.

At President Biden’s recent inauguration, Amanda Gorman read a poem which looked forward to a brighter future that the recent mean-spirited and self-serving past. And I found myself crying at Stefani Germanotta’s stunning rendition of the national anthem, in a performance which made clear reference to the storming of the Capitol two weeks before.

I found myself this week thinking about our national values, and our national anthem, and wondering whether the latter could ever stir or inspire, as perhaps it did when written in long-gone past.

When it was written, it must have strongly reflected our national values. Does it still do that now ?

The pompously turgid tune and lumbering words feel as hideously inappropriate as the statues of racists, and look entirely backwards. I tried to imagine it being sung with passion and a relevance that could move people to tears. Impossible to do, and impossible to imagine more than a tiny section of the populace feeling passionate about it.

Our national anthem, once relevant, is a musical fossil. Both values and anthem are mired in history, and fail to look forward.

Our national values are hazy and difficult to articulate. They are as wispy as our famously unwritten constitution. Conveniently unwritten, the constitution does not actually exist except in the minds of those who benefit from pretending its certainties.

Surely this is the moment to try to renew, unite, and set out a vision of the UK well beyond that of any current bunch of transient politicians. In the past we have been bold in articulating what made us pleased, or even proud, to live here. We need that again. And we have an unmissable opportunity.

One group of workers badly affected by lockdown is musicians. Unable to travel easily of perform, musicians are looking for new ways to promote music. Music can change our mood, inspire, comfort, cheer.

We have brilliant artists in every medium: writers, painters, sculptors, architects, printers.

It might be captivating to have a year-long project to re-boot as a national community. We could engage in an open competition to create a new national anthem which looks to a brighter future for all our citizens. Schools could join in, and could even start now. Politicians would not be the arbiters. Democratic voting could determine the outcome.

This might be an uncomfortable idea for those who venerate tradition. But tradition is always radically new at its birth, and a rebirth is what we need now if we are not to become entrenched in tribal divisions. The national anthem has served us well, but perhaps we could see it as a draft in need of revision.

Similarly, we could look to writers to articulate national values in an accessible way, and to artists to create works to reflect the riches of the nation, our diversity, our shared humanity, the things we stand for.

And finally, we could establish a written constitution for the first time, and one in which the people are involved in determining what should be there.

This project would not end up with a millennium dome and a theme-park transience. It could result in exhibitions and displays, in a celebration of who we are, and who we want to be, as a nation.

A clear statement of national values, a written constitution, and a national anthem relevant to all of us today, and to our grandchildren in the future. All three a stirring and powerful statement of hope and aspiration.

It is hardly subversive. Can we afford not to do it ?