Toasty Melty

Bit warm over here in GB at the moment.

Could be the perfect opportunity to do that at the moment, although I suspect the opportunity to run away would be particularly short.

How hot ? Not so hot compared to other parts of the world but we get hit hard by it over here because we just don't expect it. Our bodies aren't built for it and our homes are designed more to keep winter warm in instead of remove excess heat in the summer.

Anyway, the car was reporting 30 degrees C in the shaded car park over at the Mall on Monday and high 20s yesterday (can't remember how much !). I do remember that the steering wheel was scorching because I'd made a partial misjudgment of parking with the windscreen facing where the sun would be when I got back to the car. Shade was a bit lacking.

One thing I don't understand is that people see car steering wheel warmers as being highly desirable. I'm the opposite ... I've been enjoying the seat coolers and their ability to rapidly take the scorchy bum feeling away. I'd kinda like something similar for the steering wheel.

I think I'll be bringing out my white jacket next week as the heatwave is expected to continue. I've only worn that jacket a couple of times, it'll be curious to see what it's like in the summer.

Yep. Look out for yourselves and other people/pets in this kind of weather.

Me ? I'm coping with it my managing how much energy I'm putting out because energy needs heat. I like to think a disciplined mind can control what it thinks about the conditions it finds itself in and that means I just try not to think about the heat. Because if you think about it, you start noticing it and your mind starts to play its tricks on you.

That said though, I'm also trying to do the right things to allow my body to cope with the heat. Sleeves rolled up at work (and the arms have improved to the point where they don't scare my coworkers as much), drinking lots of water, drinking less of the hot coffee and :

Potions Of Brain Freezing. In that case, it was a strawberry milkshake to go with a steak for dinner after doing the initial washing machine scout. But yesterday it was a Mint Choc Cooler Frostino before getting a weekly shop in.

They're good stuff.

I thought the heat was disrupting the computer as well the other evening. I have slipped into another Stellaris playthrough ... this time as the Rootlin Devouring Swarm who aim to avoid many of the more annoying mechanics brought into the game by ... eating everyone they come across. Literally. The Rootlin Swarm has a strong appetite for runs. Runs ? Erm, that would be who they're named after. I may have been watching cricket while creating the race. I hope they don't eat anyone who gives them the runs.

Oh and check out that randomly generated starting system ... one of the updates has allowed for more variation in the star systems, in this case it's a triple star system. Disrupting the computer ? The game was running like treacle in the Thursday session ... but it recovered well in the last session I did yesterday. The Rootlins have reached the point where an Equivalent race barely even gave them a speed bump as they were overtaken and eaten so the interest has somewhat gone out of that game now. There is more challenge though, the game hasn't reached the Midgame or Endgame crisis points yet where stronger enemies appear.

I reopened Elite again as well today and did some bimbling around the star system cluster I left the ship in. I was surprised by how much Empire rank I'd reached, there are only about 3 to go before the big ship is unlocked. I didn't stay in game too long though, the heat is making me not really want to go to that tunnel vision state I go into when I'm well into a game.

I've been buying more things ... It's the Steam sale at the moment and I've picked up the first person game Prey and top down fast tactics game Heat Signature. Both show themselves to be cracking games when on stream/videos.

That reminds me ! Gotta update the links on the right to include a FuzzyFreak person who has been great fun to watch on streams. She's a crazy one, definitely enjoys the games and is why I've bought Prey ... Possibly the spaceship building Empyrion too.

Musicwise, I've picked up the Deadmau5 collection. It's a different type of music to my usual but I've always admired how well made their music is. As far as the ones picked up last week go :

Snow Patrol - good ... but I think some of their inspiration has gone. I haven't heard any of the amazing tracks like Set the Fire to the Third Bar, Chasing Cars or Lifening.
Chvrches - very good (I have to admit my mind has tunneled into the games while their stuff has been on !). They make fun, energetic music to listen to.
Banks - very good again, great voice there.
Jack White - not bad. Again, nothing special like Seven Nation Army.

And I'm currently listening to the end of Jean-Michel Jarre's The Rendezvous. There's also a Heychrissa stream on and a KatherineOfSky video while Idle Champions does its grinding thing.

To the book now though ! X Wing Mercy Kill is proving to be very good so far. I'd recommend you start with the first Aaron Allston Wraith Squadron books though, they were mad.

Too darn hot

Very hot in GB today. Well. Not as hot as it is in Phoenix today (some aircraft are grounded !) but we're not really equipped to deal with extremes of temperature here.

Actually, we don't do that well in cold weather either but that's mainly down to people being idiots on the roads and politicians being idiots with winter fuel allowances.

Anyway. This post is meant totally in jest, to poke a bit of humour at the hot situation here at the moment. Take none of it seriously ! This could go absolutely anywhere (there are no plans here!) And I hope there are more than a few chuckles in there.

I saw something horrid today.

Someone melted. In the street. It's true !!! They had the misfortune to be standing near a storm drain too. Poof ! Down the drain. I don't think we'll see them again. All that is left is a pile of clothes and a forlorn pair of boots. I think someone was attempting to phone the family but the mobile left behind in one of the pockets was scorching and .... welded itself to their hand.

Samaritan and phone are now waiting for an ambulance.

Good luck to them ! A white van man over there is looking very puzzled at his melted tyres. I hope the ambulance fares better.

I narrowly avoided a stampede earlier. It started with the sound of an ice cream van .... I think the ice cream man is now in a PTSD ward.

We have been warned away from going near Currys up at the Mall. A group from a council house estate have set up a primitive dome (with lots of fans) with a sign : "Aircondome". I hear the conditions are : "Two men enter !!! One man leaves with an air conditioner."

The trains are not moving. The rails have melted. Trains are stuck to the rails. One train even disappeared into the earth when the rails and the concrete underneath melted under the weight. There are sad tones of mobile phone ring tones coming from the deep. Yep. Crazy Frog has been buried.

Ice cubes are now more valuable than gold. More than platinum even !

A fight broke out at the local coffee shop when they announced that they were down to the last 5 cooler coffees.

Car parks with tarmac are now more hazardous than quicksand. I have actually seen with my own eyes (actually true, albeit 19 years ago) a computer sinking into the hot, melted tarmac. When they prised it out of the ground, there were four mysterious squares. Like the crop circle of the car park.

Aircraft are being grounded. They've been able to solve the tyre on tarmac problem but it is too hot for the engines plus the metal boarding ramps are scorching.

People have been evacuated from work due to the fire alarms activating. The sensors believed it was "OMG IT'S BURNING !" temperature.

Swimming pools are suffering extreme overcrowding.

Sardines are now laughing at the thought of these people crammed into the pools.

A UFO was spotted in orbit briefly. It scanned the country with a heat beam and the UFO is not to be seen any more. Psychically sensitive people went into a trance and chanted "Axlt Bbooolm". No one knew what they meant but the extreme heat rash that erupted on them suggested they were picking up extreme temperature.

On that .... a grocery store selling mercury thermometers was evacuated after the tops of the thermometers started flying loose. They were bursting on the pressure from the mercury filling up the tubes. A Hazmat team has been called to clean up the mercury but ... those melted tyres again. I think they're also asking for help from extreme conditions rescue personnel.

Mount Snowdon has become an active volcano and erupted again.

This fella looks cheerful but he may be the last of his kind. The erupting Snowdon incinerated the gift shop at the summit (Yep ! A mountain with a gift shop - and a railway) where he came from.

A swimmer was rescued from attempting to cross the channel. The lobsters had been taking turns to pinch them to test how well the swimmer was cooked in the boiling waters of the channel.

Splinter groups of our more extreme political parties are blaming the Venusians while others are campaigning for an orbital parasol to give us some shade.

Christian Priests are giving up their heavy robes for the lighter, airier garb of Muslim Imams in a show of religious solidarity.

Reservoirs have emptied overnight. The Lake District is to be renamed Death Hills. The people who attempt Land Speed records are looking at the dried out Lincolnshire Fens as their new flat racing ground.

Yep.

It's getting bad here and I am sure there are worse stories to come.

Hang in there and I hope you're close to air conditioning or fans !

Thematic Photographic - Straight Lines

Ok, I'm a little late with this one (oops).

Not done these for a little too long actually ! It's a meme from Carmi Levy's excellent blog (linky) and the post for (erm) last week's Thematic Photographic is here at this link.

I rarely get good ideas for joining in with the Thematic Photographic but I was feeling wobbly in the sun at the bus stop this morning and a rare idea popped into a head that's usually still waking up at this point.

Straight lines ?

All the straight lines !

It was hot enough this morning that it was genuinely uncomfortable standing on the sunny side of the stop, I was having to lean up against the wall in the shade. But it was fairly ok on the bus and when I was walking from stop to work, that was ok too. Bit nasty on the bus on the way home though. Hopefully they'll allow me into the car park again soon because ... air con.

Air con is cool. Erm. Lovely. Sorry about the really bad pun.

Anyway ... Straight lines ! Lots in the wall, many in the bus shelter structure and the road is kinda straight too. Plus there's those shadows. There are straight lines everywhere we look. And ... a bonus ! Early Suzanne Vega song and didn't she start well ?

Yeah. It's gotten hot here and it's going to get warmer too. Nowhere near as dangerously hot as in places like Pakistan are suffering at the moment but still warmer than we're accustomed to here. I'm feeling it in slightly ill feelings when I eat and in gathering lightheadedness. I can deal with the light headed bit by drinking more cold things. And I'm highly likely at some point to raid the Costa that's sprung up just outside our work for an iced mocha.

But tonight it was ... let's just grab a little quote from what was appearing on Facebook tonight.

The Harvester waitresses are starting to recognise me ...
What could this mean ?

Uhoh. In my defence, one of them used to work where I do and was one of the canteen mob. They're a good mob down there and they know me fairly well from me legging it down there just before they close.

The sundae is coming ... THE SUNDAE IS COMING ...
Yes. The heat may be affecting me.

Yep. It's not about the shopping. It's about that sundae. I just happened to have a load of empty cupboards that needed stuff putting in them.

And 8 Mini Cornettos came away from the supermarket with me too. Oops.

Oh well.

One last pic before I put my head into an ice helmet. This one's from a conversation that was happening at work and I've been looking for an excuse to spring it on you :

I shall remember that the next time a Hot Lady comes up to me and asks for help. (And that "hot" is in no way a comment on her appearance, although she possessed that beauty that all women have. She was just looking for where the cold water is after being in a baking meeting room - honest).

Hope you're not too hot where you are. Warmth is good but we do like it to be a comfortable level of warm.

PS Shoutout to a little lady who I've thought of as a little-big sis for 15 years ... Feel better soon little lady !

Could it be ?

Let's see :

Wimbledon's on the telly.
I've been leaving the rain hat at home in favour of :

The Mexican* sunhat
Dumping the ever present jumper all day after getting to my desk
Feeling it was too hot for a coffee on Friday, instead having an Iced Mocha (there will be more)
Dresses getting shorter
Temperatures getting hotter (and hotter to come too)

It must be ... (don't say it too loud) ... summer ? Don't worry, this is Britain. There will be a thundercloud around the corner to return us to reality.

* Mexican sunhat ? This is a present from the sister and her bloke after they had a holiday over in Mexico. It even has a "Made In Mexico" label on it. I like this hat, although it's strangely about the same weight as my rainhat. It has the advantage of more ventilation and I will definitely enjoy wearing it over the summer.

Cheers sis ! It fulfils (someone else's) dreams :

That's a solid lifelong dream. Hats are awesome.

Yep. Half watching Wimbledon at the moment, as most Brits do with the sport of tennis for perhaps 2 weeks in every year. We tend to ignore it at all other times of the year. It's a good sport, the winner is almost always the better, stronger, fitter player. As in, the one who has worked hardest to deserve the win. And that should be applauded always.

Me ? My various frailties meant I could rarely train, because physical training tended to take the edge off my advantages. I did a series of circuit training last century (yep - I can say stuff like that with real meaning !) and all it did was take the edge off my extreme speed. I gained no actual fitness from it. Where training did benefit me was where I got the repetitions right. So with the cricket :

Being the first one to bowl in the nets and the last one to finish
Getting out in that back garden and hitting the balls I bounced off the wall
And walking wherever possible to get the miles into my legs.

That's something actually. Last week, I was struggling with a bad back that was increasing in pain levels and stiffness. My walking speed was down due to the back being too stiff to really stride out.

Then there was Thursday and huge amounts of positive energy coming from a darling little lady.

Friday morning ? Pain almost gone. Saturday ? Pain gone. Today ? Almost back to the full stride on the first testing of the skeleton since Friday.

Good times. I have to say too though, there's another lady who's been helping me out with making me feel a million dollars (pounds ?) by keeping up with the daft messages and pictures that I'll send her way. My biggest fear is the fear of being isolated and all sorts of people sending me messages help dispel that fear of isolation that leads to my personality shrivelling up into its own dark place.

But I have a few very good friends who remind me that I can be a Good Human Being. At least some of the time.

Just ask the door to door salesmen who DARE to knock on the door trying to shame me into buying their shoddy wares.

Just kidding. But I did get chuckles from two people today for the Coffee and a Donut pic. You know the one I mean.

Right - back to the tennis and wishing on our Brit girl who is locked in a massive struggle in the second set of her match.

And I think when I resupply at the supermarket tomorrow, I shall have to indulge in a cooling sundae. Yep. Arm will be twisted.

Last thought on the summer heat :

Or tea. That goes for tea too. Cya !

Who stole the sun ?

I think I got home just about in time today !

I had another away trip today. Just 100 miles there, 100 miles back this time which is a bit more distance than it needs (can do it in 80 miles but it's quicker to go around the houses on the motorway).

I got home just before Noah signalled All Aboard on the ark. It's gone even grimmer since.

That's from ages and 1 car ago but it pretty much sums up how things are today. Also add in wind that was strong enough to blow the hat off between me exiting the car and getting in the house. And that's maybe just 12 feet !

Someone said on Twitter that it might be her fault seeing as she's just come back from holidays. No I don't think you've chased the sun away Kim ! Maybe it's the cricket. Besides, those Kim-videos are just what we need on a grim rainy day to banish the darkness. It has no chance against that innate sense of fun that you bring to the gaming videos.

(I do hope she has a peek and reads that !)

That's it for me and work travel until after I get back from a week off. 4 more days in office, 3.5 really because I have a heap of flexi credit now and fully intend to spend some of it watching Mad Max on Friday. Anyone care to join me ?

Hmm. Gone chilly. Which means an excuse to pull out one of my favourite pics :

Wow - that's 2 cars ago now and I haven't looked back at that horrid Focus at all. It was a 52 plate ST170 which had a failing 3rd gear (compromised design made the 3rd gear very weak), amongst other problems. It guzzled the petrol and didn't have the chassis to back up the limited power it had. It was a little faster than the Puma but was slower from A to B because you just couldn't throw it through corners with any confidence. Whereas the Puma would get airborne at 70mph on my favourite roundabout exit bump, I'd rarely go past 50 in the Focus because it was still wobbling around from the last corner.

I do like a car that handles well. It's what drew me to the Lexus CT, although that didn't have enough power to keep me happy. The IS has more power but hasn't truly convinced me about it's handling. Perhaps it's too big and heavy ? It does do well on that B road I love (look up Colsterworth by the A1 around Stamford, south of Grantham - lovely bit of rally track road)

I digress.

It may be nasty and horrible out there (and I got in just as the spray on the motorway was approaching white-out conditions) but ... Keep a smile on there.

Shut those curtains, batten down the hatches, ignore that howling wind (hopefully you secured all potentially flying objects !) and enjoy your evening, however you intend to spend it.

Me ? I have the music on, I'm listening to a Hannah video in the background, there's another Hannah video queued up (she's a funny lady) and I'll queue up a few more videos after too. Not really in the mood to watch dvd's (I need to watch Jurassic Park 3 again before watching Jurassic World!) and my brain is still a bit too fried to do gaming tonight. (Out the door at 7am, back home at 5pm, 220 miles travelled and having to act sensible most of the day)

If a little chill out still fails to keep out the apocalypse that seems to be happening outside, there's always :

(thx Thumper!)

Goodnight and if you're a small person* who chooses to venture out in this, may you either have an anchor in your bag** or a friendly person to offer their hand to hold to stop you blowing away.

*(just saying cos I know a few very special small people !)
**(the rumours that ladies have everything in their handbags is ... yet to be disproved ... and is quite possibly the original idea behind the D and D Bag of Holding)

Crazy weather

I shocked a few people today.

I wore my coat.

Yep. I'm one of those stubborn people, well, really more set to doing things in certain patterns and it can be rare to break out of them. Except when there's a good reason.

I've been going into work in scarf, rainhat, jacket and gloves since coming back in. That means it can get a bit chilly at the bus stop but I'm usually moving around so ... It's a balance of being cold when not moving and boiling when I am walking around. I tend to generate a lot of heat when I'm walking, especially now that I'm getting close to having my full walking speed available again.

How is the physical condition doing ?

The neck's improved. I'm liking that. What did I do ? I lowered the monitor at work by maybe an inch. So instead of looking up at it and cricking the neck, it's at about the right height for me now. Little things can make a big difference.

My hip still hates me. The damage is in a ligament connecting the front of my right hip to the thigh bone/muscles. Could be the tendons. It's an old injury that I kept reinjuring with the cricket as I never really sorted out a way of adequately warming it up. I have like 95% movement, enough for walking fast and warp speed running but if I cross my legs, I may scream. I may need a hip replacement by the time I'm fifty. Uncomfortable but it doesn't slow me down much.

My calf muscles aren't liking the walking - it's a combination of blasting through the walk quickly and the cold outside. They're not liking that but I'm taking the pain as a sign that they're reconfiguring themselves for the power that they've forgotten they had.

And my outsides are ... pretty much as they were. They are very slowly improving but it's so easy to set that healing back with an unguarded fidget.

Wait - crazy weather ?

Here's today's outfit :

See ! I can smile on a selfie. Ok, it was forced but at least it's not the grimace that was on the last scarf selfie.

The outfit is the Rotherham scarf, white jumper over work shirt. My work suit jacket is hiding under my coat (I deliberately got a big coat because I intended it as an overcoat) and it's topped off by the Atomic Hat.

Atomic Hat doesn't do much to keep the rain off but it does have a much appreciated thermal lining. Love it. And the International Space Station tweeted that they could see some muppet walking around down here. Ok they didn't but you know what I mean - that hat can be seen from Bath and I live in Bristol.

We are having some silly weather at the moment. Today was the first day I've worn the Atomic Hat since coming back after Xmas. It's literally so windy, if I put the rain hat on, the wind would have fetched it off by the time I'd walked 5 paces.

Literally 5 minutes after taking that picture, the clouds had moved in and it was Pitch Black (I may watch those as my next series !), howling wind and very heavy rain. Thankfully without the monsters of Pitch Black although it was an hour after the school run had finished.

We haven't had the promised snow here in Bristol, we tend to be shadowed by Wales and Ireland, the North of the country and Devon and Cornwall. So the snow dumps on other areas before it reaches us. And then there's work, which generates enough hot air to melt away any snow that gets to our local area. Come on work people, you'll know what I mean there. (PS This is why there's rarely snow in London).

I am lucky though, I have that roof over my head and a heater that works. That makes me better off than so many other people. It's sobering to think about that sometimes.

Wonder when it'll warm up enough to make the Midnight Cruise a realistic possibility. Must investigate local picnic sites as places away from light pollution where we can see the stars.

And you remember what I said about getting messages from a certain Little Lady ? Had lots of those today.

Happy Sleepy is Happy.

Gonna Buy A Hat

... Cos I think it's gonna rain.

I don't listen to much Chris Rea but that's one of his good ones. (Obligatory link here!). Actually, I'm not going to buy a hat, got plenty of those. Gonna buy a coat instead. I know which one I'll get but the typical procrastination means it's still on the shelf. Hmm, well, not actually procrastination cos I've not seen the right size yet.

That's not the coat I actually want to buy though. Nope. I want this one :

That pic is a render done by a fairly random person but the character and the look comes from Deus Ex Human Revolution, which I'd thoroughly recommend if you're into games like it. It ticks all the boxes. I've finished it maybe 4 times so far. And I've not been that much into games in recent years. (But ... don't buy it yet, wait for the sales and you'll get it for pennies).

Cool coat huh ? Could do with a hood to be honest.

You can buy it too. Here's the link. The "Me Want" is definitely firing on that one. The "Me Need", however, is not. A cool coat it may be but it won't keep my head dry. I'll go to Tesco instead.

(This one however ... does have a hood. Interesting. HIDE MY WALLET ! TAKE IT AWAY !)

All this rain hitting us at the moment. I like watching disaster movies. The setup of the scenario they play through piques my interest, as does how they deal with the aftermath. But those are on the small screen. They couldn't possibly happen in real life.

Could they ?

It feels like we're getting close to living in a disaster movie at the moment. Climate is getting more extreme. Wide areas of southern England are flooding. The extreme south west is cut off from rail travel. Tonight, events are being called off and trains cancelled due to the high winds.

It's feeling properly epic. And not in an enjoyable way.

Natural disasters seem to be getting more common and there doesn't seem that much we can do to mitigate them. There's flooding even in areas that would have been predicted totally safe. (I'm ok here, at the moment). The weather here's been like a meteor dropped in the ocean, has thrown all the water in the air and it's now coming down on us.

The world is steadily getting to be a more hostile place. It's probably upset that we're abusing it the way we have been. The answer would be to make an island somewhere else. A community disconnected from potential catastrophe on Earth. The Moon is one option, it's close enough that supplies can be sent up there. Mars is better, although the travel there is probably lethal for people at our current technology.

I'd be very interested in signing up for a Moon or Mars colony endeavour. It's new territory and therefore highly interesting. It's frontier and therefore not as safe or cushioned as life usually is in England. You make it up as you go, because you can't nip down to Novatech if something breaks. You rely on your initiative, which is something that is me with my tendency to improvise and come up with mad solutions.

But at the moment, no one is looking at setting up a Moon colony and the proposed privately organised Mars colony looks suicidal. We need practical shielding to stave off the solar wind radiation before sending people to Mars becomes feasible.

That's way off in the future though. In the meantime I'm :

Keeping an eye on the news for the latest about the flooding;
Hoping there's a respite from natural disasters occurring in other parts of the globe;
And being glad I have a heavier car (even if it was catching the wind a bit)

I'll get me coat. (Literally!)

RIP Brolly No 2

I did something I shouldn't have this morning ... I attempted to use the brolly.

It isn't too broken ... It may even be retrievable with enough superglue (just one spar is broken). The wind was very fierce today and coupled with rain. Yep. More rain. I wonder if this is what Kim Stanley Robinson had in mind with "40 Signs Of Rain". I haven't read that, although I have read some of his others.

Random tangent time - his Red Mars was excellent, Green Mars was a decent sequel but the vision, the arc, the purpose that holds a trilogy together had gone by the time Blue Mars came along. The Years of Rice And Salt was similar, great beginning but kinda lost its way. A shame, as KSR writes decent books.

Back to reality - I'm giving up on brollys. I'm going to get a coat. Or rather I would, if my "I'm getting ripped off" detector wasn't going berzerk.

Had to head off to the Post Office today, I've had two parcels in which needed signatures and tonight is the only night they stay open late. What were they ?

One was a tax disc. UK cars have to display these to show we have valid insurance and that the vehicle is road worthy. It's actually a tax on drivers called Road Fund Licence which should really go towards road upkeep but really just gets lumped in with the rest of the Treasury taxes to fund benefit scroungers (and everything else). Nowadays, the amount we pay depends on how nasty the car is to the environment. Because my last two have been hybrids, they have low carbon dioxide emissions and I pay little or no tax. I found something for my Focus, it would have been about £250 for a year's tax and there's some crippling extras that go on the prices of new high CO2 cars.

The other was new anti-theft dust caps for the tyres to let me keep the shiny metal ones somewhere that tea-lieves won't find them. The alarm went off on the CT twice, the first time the sensors didn't like going through the car wash while I think the second was due to Mr Thief Person nicking the metal valve caps.

Ok. Job done, parcels picked up. Time to come home. Right ?

Nah. Mall run to see about picking up a coat.

I traditionally avoid these as I make a lot of heat when I'm moving around. Part of my treatment discipline has included trying to avoid getting too hot. So wearing coats was Not A Good Thing. But after breaking a second brolly, I think I'll need to bite the bullet and get a coat.

I saw one that would have fit the bill in one of the big Tescos. It was light, had a hood and was made out of breathable fabric that should let the heat out. Also cheap at about £16. But. Large didn't fit over a jacket and XXXXL was too big. Nothing in between in the shop. (I'll peek in Asda/Matalan on Friday - I don't really care about labels)

I had a peek around the main Mall as well. Something appeared on Facebook : "I should be banned from certain shops. I ignore the fashion, look for utility and find very little of it". I saw a lot of fashion, a lot of high prices, a lot of things that I'd have cooked in and nothing that I saw that was worth buying. Fashion tends to come with a high price tag, which sets off that "I'm being ripped off" detector.

Haha - perhaps I need someone towing me around who will point me at things and say : "Buy that. You need that and you will like it (or else)."

I've discovered I have a higher opinion of humanity than humanity apparently deserved. Part of the mission tonight was to acquire a new tax disc holder for the car. Halfords have loads. Some are only a couple of £, others set that Rip Off Alarm going again. One had a massive No Smoking sign on the back, so I said on Facebook that I found that offensive.

To be honest, I don't see how the sign is necessary. The very idea of lighting up in a car seems barking to me (see later). The thing to always remember with cars is keeping them in good condition for when you pass them on. It takes hundreds of pounds off the price if there's anything wrong with them. Smoking in a car ? That stench is never going to come out. It won't just drop the price, it will send buyers running away screaming.

So to me, the sign is just telling people what they already know. Or should know. If someone lit up in one of my cars, I would wind down their window and tell them to get rid of it. I would be that shocked. If they want to do it in their own environment, that's fine. But in mine ? That's a serious breach of anything approaching civility.

I'd better say - I'm anti-smoking. I've never smoked, because I've believed the things I've seen about the confirmed health damage that it causes. I've never had great lungs, so inflicting smoke on them seemed very silly when I was at the vulnerable age.

However ... I can also recognise and sympathise with the addictive power that it has. I've had my own addictions over the years (mostly games, which is psychological). Smoking is worse than any addiction I've had, it's a chemical dependence as well as a psychological habit.

A few years ago I was at a dinner with colleagues and one of our people heads off to have a ciggy outside. And most of the table starts doing the clucking thing when she's out of sight "She shouldn't be smoking, it does so much damage." Until I (as a confirmed anti-smoker) pipe up with "She's going through a really hard situation at the moment, if the smoking helps her through it, we shouldn't argue". That shut the table up, they couldn't argue with that. Sometimes we need a crutch to help us through, even if the crutch does different damage.

Note - they didn't say the "You shouldn't be smoking" to her face, although I've never told her that I backed her up in front of them and took the opposite view.

Yes it's nasty. But you should never argue with how someone else chooses to run their life. That's inflicting your world view on someone who probably doesn't want to know. Besides, I know the person I mentioned above has quit smoking once and is more than strong enough to do so again when things improve enough in her life to support quitting. And I'll be around to hand her the anti-craving mints if she wants them again (I better buy some more !)

Haha - I'd better start running before I dig myself into even more trouble.

Done stuff :
Picked up the parcels
Had another excuse to play with the new toy
Got myself in trouble for that smoking sign pic
Totally failed to find a coat
Broke yet another brolly (it's only 2 so far)
Almost got blown away by the wind (Brolly 2 = sail)
Did a drowned rat impression this morning

PS DAB radio. Have it in the car now as something that came as standard. Can't see the point. Yep, sound quality is better but if you can't tune in to stations that are supposed to be national, what's the point ? And they want to turn off the old AM/FM system in favour of this rubbish system ...

Water, water everywhere

I think I've used that title before somewhere ... Mind you, in almost 900 posts I'm bound to have repeated a few !

There's a massive storm coming through the UK at the moment and we've been in the firing line. Ok, it's not the hurricane force or tropical cyclone type that does so much damage in other countries but it's been a big deal for us. It's a little more than the average UK rainstorm that we get.

This morning ? Fine while waiting for the bus but as soon as I got off, the heavens opened and I was being the drowned rat by the time I got to my desk. Coming home, I got caught in a brief shower on my way to the bus stop but it wasn't as bad as in the morning.

Except ... Massive flashes, a couple of forky lightnings and three huge rumblings. No - I wasn't hungry, the canteen had cookies today. A good thing too cos I visited Sainsburys. No cookies means shopping while hungry (never advisable) means more shopping than will fit in the bag.

Yeah - bit damp. But I can live with damp, although I'd prefer to have my steel umbrella (da car) on my way into work. Add "increased potential of colds and flu" to the results of the discrimination by postcode policy.

How am I doing ? I'm not suffering from any colds (yet - and I wouldn't notice if I did anyway cos I sneeze so much !). My condition is actually improving daily. My skin is repairing nicely and this is a few days after the drugs ran out. It's not fixed properly yet but it's definitely encouraging. I've not used any of the moisturiser I got given, I've not actually needed it because the only dryness has been around the bits that are still damaged. And this is comparing to fingers that felt like sandpaper last year.

Back to the weather - it's going to be an interesting few days ... (of the Interesting Times curse type interesting). Trains have been suspended, the local bridges got closed. By the way I can hear it raining, I suspect there may be flooding problems.

And there's the dinner bell ringing ... Picture time ! Spotted these today :

Add floods to zombie with that apocalypse thing.

Oh hell - I'm doomed.

We made some truly beautiful machines back in the day before science took over and made them look weird. Mind you, some of them were also awesomely powerful machines of destruction too (the Vulcan was designed to obliterate cities).

And finally :

I know the answer ... to the riddle ;-)

Still warrrrrm

Still very warm over here.

Started my summer break today :-) It's only a week, much more than that tends to leave me bored and eager to get back in to things.

I'm hoping to get some healing in this week. It's been delayed but the new shoes have conspired with the skin condition to have my ankles get damage ... And not wearing socks for a few days will give those patches a chance to recover without the disruption that socks cause.

And to be honest, these are days for staying indoors in the shade and not wearing much ... (apologies for any mental images you may have been inflicted with there !) :

(click for readability)

That's Metcheck's prediction for the next few days. Hot today, hot tomorrow, oppressive with chance of rain on Monday and potential light storm on Tuesday. When the weather does break, it's going to be spectacular ...

Heat does two things to air - it gives it energy plus it allows it to carry more moisture. What can happen is that hot air moves over the sea and draws up water vapour. Because it's hot, it can carry lots of water vapour. When that air moves over land, hills make it cool down and as it cools, it can hold less water vapour. If "Water vapour held" is more than "Potential held", it falls as rain. That's why you get hill fog.

But what causes the most spectacular stuff is where you have a body of hot, wet air hitting a cold front (the edge of a body of cold air). The hot air bounces up and over the cold air and cools as it rises.

The result ? Tall, dark nasty looking clouds with a high potential of thunder and lightning. All that energy has to go somewhere.

The real world result - time to hide for a couple of days while it's hot. It just so happens that :

Cricket is on the telly,
Open championship golf is playing on iPlayer on the desktop

Two big events. I'll not be too interested in the golf today (the important stuff happens tomorrow) but I'll listen because of that "story" thing you get in sport. In the cricket, Joe Root's in at the moment and I'm hoping he can answer the critics with a big score.

But ... Cricket + Golf = Recipe for sleep or eyeballs being torn out.

I have plenty of book in reserve.

PS None of those books are in meteorology, although I hope I remembered something from Geography lessons of 20 years ago !

Meeeeelltinnnggg ...

Remember I had a mini whinge the other day about the heat ?

We're in the middle of a heat wave at the moment in Blighty. The temperatures aren't as say, Mediterranean or Middle East but we tend to suffer more here when the temperatures go outside the bounds of what we're used to.

Because we're not hot all the time, or freezing all the time, we have to design everything to both. Our bodies get used to both conditions too. One bit of craziness from the news was that homes upgraded with green grants to help insulate them in the winter are near uninhabitable now in the summer. They've gone so far towards being good for the winter that they're deadly in the summer.

This house doesn't really do well at either, it's cold in the winter and traps heat in the summer.

I could do something about the winter chill by getting double glazing but to be honest, it's not great for either summer or winter but both ends balance out. I have an issue where if I left my ground floor window open, I'd definitely get visitors of the feline variety. If I got double glazing, it would trap even more heat.

With regards the skin condition, it's both a good and a bad.

The worst patches don't appreciate anything touching them. So the hot weather is giving me a chance to indulge those bad patches without me getting too cold. (Don't try to picture it ! I wouldn't wish that image on anybody !). And the bad patches are, on the whole, gradually retreating.

The bad is when I have to go out in the heat. The sweat is damaging the half healed bits. That's why I'm really appreciating being allowed back in the car park, air con is good, 40 degrees C on the bus = nasty.

I do however, have an answer for that too. Be lazy ! Ok, lazy is probably not the right word, it's more like doing everything more slowly. Not charging around everywhere. Drinking plenty of fluids.

That's working a bit, although I have been limping around today because lack of fluids lead to cramp. Meh.

I'm not playing any cricket at the moment. There's been opportunities to play but the outside of my right knee is still too torn up to permit me using knee pads. The outside damage level is too high right now to risk it.

I'm looking forward to next week's skiving week :-) It's been a couple of months since I had a break so I've started flagging again. There's still a few fairly critical things I need to knock out though before I can clear off on Friday :

Updating and issuing an early draft of a comprehensive test plan (it's grown 20 pages to 110 since I started messing with it)
Updating one "how much we doing now" acceptance summary
And making another "how much is left" acceptance summary

We're getting to the end of the old project's first phase (end of an era!) and I'll be getting more involved in it again soon. We need to see just how much work is needed to be done though before it can be all signed off as Job Done.

And looking back on it, it can only be considered as (cue up da Wurzel accent) : Proper Job.

We've made some awesome bits of kit, with me trying to harvest all the good ideas from how we did it for the new project so it doesn't get forgotten. It's so far in the future that I'll either be running the whole programme or someone else will do the meaty bits I'm preparing them for now.

See ? I think my heat management is working :-) I've stayed a bit cooler and it's allowed my brain to go racing off and Do Useful Stuff.

I'm not expecting to do much next week, I'll make a start on cleaning the house up for one. To be honest, I don't Need to go anywhere next week (trip to Lexus garage is needed) but I'd come running if the right person/people asked. Always willing to lend a friendly ear for people who need to talk through stuff. Not going to buy a laptop just yet, it seems more and more like they're waiting for the new generation to come through.

Meeellltinggggg ... But managing :-).

Snowyventure

Snow's hit today.

It's actually worse than I can remember for a while, there's more come down than there has been for years and I think it's actually worse than the period a few years ago when barely anyone got into work.

Here's the BBC take on it ... (link)

Lots of cancellations - schools, buses, trains and the airports. For me, Plan A was to come in on the bus today because I didn't know how the car would handle the uncertain grip. I'd have been ok with walking the 3.6 miles home but not to do that both ways (We're expected to walk up to 3 miles). One problem - buses are cancelled. I can understand that too because the roads were somewhat treacherous this morning.

(It's not that bad, I've experienced worse)

After a little bit of um and arr, I headed in anyway in the car. I'd not driven the hybrid on ice before ... It behaves a bit differently to a conventional car :

It is driven by motor and/or engine, so it doesn't need a clutch
Therefore there's no matching of engine speed to road speed which is one source of wheelspin on ice
But, the motor is very powerful when it's at low speeds.

In my car, the motor and engine are all brought together in the one axle, without the driver needing to worry about matching them up. But, there's a very active traction control system looking after it all. The traction control is where the concern comes, as reports say that it can totally stop the car from moving if you attempt to start on ice.

Ok, what did that actually mean for the drive in today ?

Car actually handled it quite well. The traction control was only obvious with flashing its light twice and one of those saw the car slipping sideways. I'll allow traction control interference there :-). The automatic gearbox helps out a lot as you can start off more gently and more controlled than trying to match engine speed to low road speed with a clutch.

The traction control behaves differently with the motor. When it fired a second time, I could hear lots of ticking from the front. With an engine, traction control works through either applying the brakes on the slipping wheel or by making the engine give less power. I think I was getting that power limiting happening as well today, although the car wasn't letting. Could have been my boots :-)

Roads actually weren't too bad and they'd cleared up by lunchtime too. What happens is that the grit that's laid down will clear little pockets which then refreeze but the road won't clear until cars drive over it. This morning, the roads were a mix of ice and slush, with them clearing to wet tarmac in the afternoon.

What was surprising was the amount of respect the drivers were showing the conditions. At 35 on a 40mph limit, I was one of the faster cars on the road. I suspect the idiots had stayed at home.

I wasn't really surprised that I was one of the few who made it in. And I made the trip partly cos I wanted to experience the conditions. Yep, I'm one of those people who when given a "do not travel, it isn't safe", I'll think about heading out anyway just to see what it's like. And seeing as I didn't know how that car would handle the ice ? ;-)

Oh - I've also picked up a laptop and a few documents as well in case I get stuck at home on Monday. If the snow does continue and the buses don't run on Monday, I will not be taken the car. I'm banned from the car park except for on Fridays ...

So yeah - conditions = quite poor. We've only had about 3 inches of snow but it's enough to shut down a lot of the infrastructure and to keep many people at home.

PS Next time I take the car out when covered in snow, I'll clear the parking sensors ;-)

Hot

Someone's hit that light bulb switch again and it's made the sun come out :-)

It's about time too cos this "summer", a lot of records have been broken on rainfall. It says something for climate change being far more subtle than just "it's getting hotter" because what we've seen this summer is more a change in pattern. Britain is at similar latitudes to Canada, which is considerably colder than Britain. What makes Britain warmer is the Gulfstream, a band of warm air that circles the Atlantic. It's part of a pattern called the Trade Winds, which is a naturally occurring phenomenon which happens as a result of the Earth spinning.

But when that natural current of air shifts ... that's when strange things start happening with the weather.

Right now, it's shifted back to how late July should be - 28 degrees C heat and scorchy bum in the car.

About the car - climate control is awesome :-) I'll step into a hot car after finishing up at work. I'll turn the car on and a few seconds later the climate control will do its best to get the internal temperature down to something manageable. It's sooooo good having a fully working air conditioning system again, it's one of the things I needed to spend money on with my Focus. In fact, it worked so well that when I got home and opened the car door, the first thought was "bloody hell it's warm out here".

However, one comment about the air con is that I need to find out how to redirect airflow when I have pizza. Let's just say - hot air going to the footwell is far better than icey cold air going to the footwell. (That's where I put the pizza box on the way home - pizza on white seats = bad idea).

Another comment - the perforated leather seats work really well. I've had one previous car with full leather seats and they really didn't work well in hot conditions. Definite scorchy bum syndrome. Dotty perforated leather helps the seat breathe, making it much cooler.

Last car comment - one thing the Lexus afficionados think should be in every Lexus is a heated steering wheel. (We're used to lots of toys). I respectfully disagree. In cold conditions, I'll put my leather driving gloves on to keep my fingers working. Sorted. However, in hot conditions, I don't want to be wearing Volcano Gauntlets to be able to touch the steering wheel. I'd much prefer a steering wheel with a chiller to one with a heater.

What am I doing now ?

Oh - right now it's watching Sussex gives a huge bashing to Gloucestershire bowlers in the Twenty20 quarter finals. The average score this season has been 140 off 20 overs, Sussex have 204 already with 9 balls to go. Erm - make that 210. SIX RUNS !

Gloucestershire are my most local team but you could call me an Anti-Supporter because of how they treated our work side. We did net practice there one season but when we tried to go back, all calls were unanswered, all messages were ignored. So I support the other guy.

Music wise - I'm getting near to having listened to all the stuff in the library again. Of the soundtracks, Beyond Good & Evil has some awesome stuff in there alongside incidental music. Trine 2 is "interesting" while the Deus Ex and Machinarium soundtracks can only be described as awesome.

Off work next week, which I'm heavily looking forward to. Been feeling very stretched lately, which is understandable because I've effectively been doing 2 separate jobs for the past few weeks. That takes its toll eventually but I'm happier now than I was then. I've scoped out the major task for next few months in my head and have a mental plan. Now I just need to put that plan on paper to keep my bosses happy.

I will miss a few people in that week off for sure. I'm enjoying working in the new team. The old team didn't have a great atmosphere, with some elements of it actively working against other elements of it. That's not a recipe for getting things done. It's pretty silly. I'm not catching that in the new team, in fact I've had a hell of a lot of help from the finance, commercial and business management people.

But who will I really miss :
Finance Angels E, K and L (yep - new finance angel)
Miss Meerkat
The Apprentice who actually works downstairs (trying to pass on as much as possible in as short a time as possible!)
The Boss (who's just moved teams - must grab a coffee opportunity)
And the new Business Management people who seem highly amused (bemused?) by my antics

And there's a bunch more in the new team who I need to get inspiration for codenames. Despite not knowing what we were being parachuted into, I think our team reshuffle has worked pretty well. We're cracking on with work as a together group of people.

And that's always worth smiling about. Especially when you get smiles from people walking by your desk spotting you do the Meerkat "who dat?" thing :-)

Right - half time in the cricket, Sussex reached a massive 230 and it's time to put the popcorn on before the second half. Enjoy your evenings !

Yellow Face ! It burnzzzz

We actually haven't had rain for some of this week !

Don't be alarmed. Torrential rain was back today. For a while. We got lulled into thinking Summer was happening over the last couple of days but reality beckoned again today. Guess what - cricket was due tonight.

I don't really like to believe in coincidence (if you do, then it can be an unhealthy belief that the world revolves around you - the world doesn't care that much) but ...

No cricket on Monday & Tuesday - rain relatively clear.
Cricket on Wednesday - oars needed to get to work. (Not quite)
Cricket called off - 30 minutes later the sun comes out.

Sun's still out too but there was so much rain this morning, the ground would have been mud. There's another game on tomorrow night, to be played on an artificial pitch. Bit more chance of that game happening but I have my doubts.

Loving my car still - can't quite believe I've almost had it a year now. But ... I think one of these would have been more appropriate for our English summer :

That's from the Wiki page and it's for a World War 2 vehicle - the DUKW. It's a six wheeled amphibious truck. The letters stand for :
D - designed in 1942
U - Utility
K - driven front wheels
W - two powered rear axles
What that doesn't say is that it had a watertight hull and propeller and could go 5.5 knots in water as well as 50mph on land.

What say to a modern version of one of them ? Might need it if this Global Warming thing continues ! Let's see :

Make it smaller. Say use a Juke chassis or other small SUV.
Keep the hull watertight, lighten it for buoyancy.
Use a powertrain with a "Power Take Off"*
And hook up a steerable propeller or propulsor.

Yeah. Mad Scientist Hat is calling ... I reckon that without needing to take guns and a buncha squaddies, you could get 80mph+ and 10knts+.

*(Power Take Off - is something that lets you hook up the engine to something other than the wheels. Seen on tractors mostly, used to be on 4x4 vehicles. Not seen so much these days)

Gonna buy a hat ...

I was being amused today ...

The people at our main office know I'm a bit strange but because I don't get out enough, the contractor people miss out on the strangeness.

Can't have that !

So the people at our main contractor office were giving me lots of weird looks when I was putting the hat back on in prep for making the dash from canteen to office with a big thing of coffee. (What's the best word for those cardboard coffee holders ? They're not cups or mugs ...)

Question - is it a strange looks because they think it's unusual or because they're actually going "why didn't I think of using a hat ?"

Normal people use umbrellas or raincoats. I don't hold with that. It's another example where people follow what everyone else does without thinking : Does this actually work ?

Lol :-)

Umbrella - wind like this, small people with umbrellas are going for flying lessons. And it better be a strong brolly too or it'll be an inside out brolly.
Raincoats ? People with raincoats always seem to end up wetter than those without them. It was certainly true for the Snowdon trip, with the people with (admittedly cheap looking) raincoats looking extremely bedraggled by the summit with one needing to borrow my gloves due to circulation trouble in her fingers. I was fine in t-shirt plus hat but then again, I do generate too much heat when I'm active.

I go for a hat to keep off the rain. I learn from wise people who are also : Gonna Buy A Hat (youtube link for Chris Rea song)

I learned early with cricket that baseball caps do nothing to keep your glasses dry when it rains. The rain just comes in from the side. Similar with the sun - if you're looking into the sun, a cap is fine. If the sun is to the side, you need a hat to shade it. Same with rain. Hats are awesome. Need a Fez. Fezzes are cool. (Yes, I am channelling 11th Doctor there)

I actually have more hats and caps in the house than I have shoes :

Rain hat - this one's green and properly waterproof :-)
Main cricket hat - white and floppy and airy
Lords cricket hat - sadly just the wrong size and tweaks my depth perception
Old purple hat - reminding me to respect the ball
Rotherham playoff cap - from the Wembley playoff final in 2010.
Pink Cricket Cap :-)
Work project cap - this must be >10 years old now :-) Still got it
Grumpy cap - may have to wear this in a game some time for the larfs

Wonder if I have more that I've forgotten about. In contrast, I only have 4 active pairs of shoes that I wear until they break or wear out :
Work shoes
Running trainers - need some new ones as they're giving up on me
Old running trainers - retired from active service but still good for slipping on to head to local shop/pizza/chinese
Cricket spikes

Anyway yeah - been a busy week this one all told, I've been putting so many hours in lately that I have a whole 2 days worth of flexi working hours credit. Just can't get rid of it. It was topped off today by a visit to the local contractor office :-).

People move on but I still have lots of friends over there who always grin and say hello when they spot me coming over. I try to keep a sense of humour in all my dealings with other people. It can get a little strained but hopefully the contractor people see me as someone who works hard to figure out the best way around a problem while still keeping a sense of humour about it.

A lot of people totally lose their sense of perspective about problems, either focusing on the wrong problem or winding people up the wrong way and losing their cooperation.

Where was I ?

Yeah - reinforcing that idea that I'm just that little bit different from everyone else :-)

Although I am going to be conventional this weekend and boringly sensible. Plan A was to head off to the parents for the weekend for a delayed Father's Day meet up. However, my sister will be marshalling a swimming event (actually equestrian but with this weather ? pack the waterwings) so we're holding off a bit. Instead I'll be catching up on stuff while there's not much sport on this weekend.

Unless someone has a better idea that is :-) Says the coffee fiend who'd love the excuse to escape the house for a bit.

Here Comes The Rain Again

Had been hoping to get some good cricket watching in today and yesterday, with Thursday supposed to have been the start of the third Test match between England and West Indies.

It's 2-0 at the moment to England and looks like it'll still be that scoreline on Monday when the game is supposed to end ... Bit damp out there at the moment. Not damp here (it's been dry since about lunchtime) but persistent rain 60 miles up the road in Birmingham has seen the first two days of a Test match washed out for the first time in almost 50 years.

Yep - despite our infamous weather, this is officially the worst spell of rain since 1964. In cricketing terms at least. Which are the most important, depending on your point of view.

Looking outside at the moment - it reinforces what I've been thinking for years : Global warming and climate change isn't necessarily about Heat, it seems more about Energy.

Heat - it doesn't actually seem that much warmer these days. It's been getting hot, sure ... but are the maximum temperatures going up ?
Energy - the storm systems seem more frequent and far more energetic. Heavier rain, higher wind and more of it.

But it's more complicated than just that - our climate is a vast interlocking network of air currents circulating round the globe. Disrupting part of that means the butterfly wing flaps in one place have massive effects on somewhere a long way away.

It explodes the mind thinking about it doesn't it ?

What has been on instead of live cricket is recorded cricket. It's curious watching the old games again. Today they're not going back as far as showing players I wanted to be when I was starting out as a cricketer but you can see again that climate isn't the only thing that's changed over the years.

Players now are somewhat different to those many years ago. Endless coaching is making them approach the supposed "ideal". That coaching is refining or destroying technique. The 2003 coverage showed the legendary Curtley Ambrose, Destroyer Of Willow. He's a 6 foot 8 giant but when you see him running in to bowl, it's sheer perfection. It's an easy sprint, legs eating up the ground getting him into the perfect place to deliver something filled with impending pain or shattering of stumps.

West Indies haven't had anything like him in years. He was the last of a dying breed, before entitlement spoilt the attitude of the apprentices they had coming through. The new bowlers expected to follow in the footsteps of legends like Ambrose, Walsh, Marshall, Holding and others from before my time : Hall & Garner. These guys were made even more dangerous by being part of a unit, there was nowhere to hide. Get off strike to Ambrose and you have Walsh about to put one near your nose.

The new ones, like Jerome Taylor, don't have the application or the attitude to show their quality on the pitch via honing their talent through hard work and practice.

To be honest - my own performances on the pitch could have done with more hard work and practice :
Hard work - I used to be first in nets and last to leave. Now I have to ration my training in order to not break stuff.
Practice - more fielding practice would mean avoiding "wake up time" where I miss chances to get run outs due to fumbling the ball. Need to work out the mistakes before taking to the field.

With me though, that's lack of training opportunity. The international players have no excuse, although their coaches haven't done players like the very dangerous Steve Harmison any favours - he was no1 bowler in the world at one point, until the coaches confused him. Good to see that James Anderson has gone back to his roots, after the coaches attempted to ruin him too.

I'm rambling about cricket aren't I when I should be giving up on the garage (if they want me to use them for servicing, they gotta ring me back!) and having a shower ...

It's been curious to see some old idols in the highlights :

Devon Malcolm - not seen him but he was GOD to me as a 15 year old seam bowler. I wanted to bowl as fast as this bespectacled demon. He was awesome, as comic relief as well as bowling.
Dominic Cork - wasn't as fast as most international bowlers but definitely made the most of what he had. Which was having the ball on a string, with control of movement as well as accuracy. He struggled desperately with bad knees but was still playing county cricket into his 40s.

Can't think of any batting heroes to be honest. But then again, we didn't have many to choose from. I think I'd pick out :

Robin Smith - noone hit the ball harder. A shame his career was blighted with Death By Spinner.
Michael Vaughan - another with bad knees that forced his career to a premature end. He combined Fun on the field with a blazing intensity of play. Noone wanted to win more but he never forgot to have fun along the way. And that fun continues into his Test Match Special commentary. Hell of a player too, the sheer class shows through today. The only person we have close to his class right now is KP.

Right - I think I need to give up on the garage for today. Shower then -> Prometheus tonight.

Hot, too hot

It's still hot over here.

It's not Greece or tropical type heat, the car tells me it was 28 degrees C yesterday. But combined with the conditions in our offices, it's uncomfortable. We don't have air con, more like air recirculation. And it doesn't work particularly well. If all it's achieving is moving warm air from one place to another place, it doesn't make for good conditions to work in.

Our contractor's place is better. I take a jumper with me when I go over there. I get funny looks :-)

But I get funny looks anyway. Latest today was a Cunning Plan I was especially proud of (it worked). We move our documents around in plastic packing crates and you really don't want to be lugging those without something with wheels to push them around on. Anyway. Things With Wheels are in short supply. So I went scrounging. And found the most contrary computer desk on our site.

Seriously. It was more interested in going in circles than straight lines. But it did the job. Both of getting my crate upstairs without killing my back and in starting off the idea with the new team : "Pete's Mad".

I like to encourage that idea as much as possible. The mad spontaneous unorthodox side of me offsets the slow boring orthodox.

Hey - moving day wasn't supposed to be the theme of this post.

Yeah - it's gone warm out at the moment. Warm inside too, although it's actually quite comfortable in the house at the moment. I've turned off the main PC so it's not contributing its own heat to the house. There's decent airflow through the house, the absence of which is why work is uncomfortable.

This is a plea really - look after yourselves ! And that's coming partly from watching the latest Dodger Coffeh Time vid.

Plenty of fluids. Eat properly. Keep aware of when you need to take it easy. Sunstroke is nasty ...

I have a game tomorrow and need to take care through the day to avoid how bad I got during/after the first game. I never mentioned that did I ? While we were fielding, I was suffering from a lot of acid tummy. I put that down to first game nerves at the time but it was quite possibly : hunger. Anyway. Not pleasant controlling that when you're trying to run full pelt around the field.

After the game - I was having trouble getting my muscles moving. I nearly blacked out a few times before bed (the fading vision like what Dodger had). But. I may be frail but I'm tough when I need to be. I wouldn't let a team down. I shut down into a kind of survival mode where I will just ... keep ... going. I will pay attention to the lessons though so tomorrow :

Eat properly !!!!
One side effect of the diet is that having lost weight, I don't have as much reserves to call upon (a small price to pay for having SPEED!). What caught me in that first game is that, having been training all day, I'd been unable to control what I ate. I didn't get enough food and ran out of energy later.

Drink lots
Key when it's hot. Especially when you sweat too much like I do. I really haven't been drinking enough over the past few days, so I've been suffering more than I ought.

Loosen the tie ...
Ok. This is something I need to do. My tie at work is my flag of professionalism. A home time ritual is to undo top button and loosen it. Rituals are important to me - do the ritual, start to relax. (Spot OCD). But because it's so hot and uncomfortable, I should really be going tie-less at work too.

But yeah - look after yourselves. Be sensible with what you try and do. Being active gets you warm. Try to relax. Wear a Big Floppy Hat to shade the sun. If your body tells you to get shade, have food or drink something - listen !

Chill out dude !

PS I have a few posts stacked up for things I'll natter about - Skyrim review, Lexus CT +6months review, brainzzzzz (not Zombies, that's just my brain melting), BuildtheEnterprise project. But not now. Saving my Deep Thought for work hours at the moment.

Eve of the season ... again

I have a feeling that saying will rapidly gain legendary Deja Vu status :

It's the eve of the cricket season (for me at least). Oh, it was also the eve of the season on Wednesday last week too but that game was rained off. I suspect the three games this week haven't got much chance of happening too, due to all the rain that drought hit Britain is seeing at the moment.

(I had half an intention to head into Bristol centre to not buy anything again which I cancelled due to : huge threat of rain & not knowing if Globe Sports would be open - I'll go in on Friday pm if things work out)

But hey, if all things went well, I'd have three games of cricket this week to follow the cancelled game last week. I suspect the only one which has a chance of happening is the one tomorrow where we'd play on an artificial pitch. ("interesting" pitch, in a "wear a helmet or die" kind of way)

How am I set up for it ?

Well - A few weeks ago, a depression "inspired" post led to me abandoning the Pink Hat Project that I'd been talking about. And for good reasons too. I have a lot of my old speed and agility back but I don't know how long that's going to last. I have worsening RSI in my wrists that will affect fielding. I can't bowl any more. My leg, while 90% healed is not perfect yet. So I didn't want to lump so much pressure on me that I'd play no matter what (I would) and turn light damage into heavy damage by playing through injuries.

How am I doing really ?
Legs - duff hamstring but full power available. I don't talk about the infected leg thing from last year any more because while it hasn't completely healed yet, there's good tough skin there now and I think it could withstand me diving around.
Back - yeah, this will be what slows me down. However ! It also likes me to be moving around, such that running around a cricket field will actually keep it limber.
Shoulder - is knackered. Can't bowl any more. But that's not likely to be a huge problem if I keep to the infield, stay behind the stumps and Not Get Angry (If I make a mistake, I get very angry with myself and forget to keep throws to safe limits)
Hip - yeah, this still feels slightly torn but is another one I'll happily live with.

That's the thing about cricket - players will very often play with minor injuries. Sometimes they play on through fairly major injuries. Like players who are due for a hernia op on a Friday but play through the game Tuesday to Thursday. We'll play with broken fingers. I think I played through half a season with a cracked tibia.

Feeling quite good about this season actually. Because my old team didn't do pre season practice, I'd usually go into games with no clue as to how I'd get on in games. The new team had two limited sessions (not many people took advantage of them) where I learned :

To wear a helmet when standing up to the stumps as a wicket keeper (duh!)*
That my batting seems to have gone aggressive this year :-)
That I can keep standing up to the stumps to medium pacers :-)
Can't bowl (confirmation)

*(the cut has nearly completely healed now and the 'tache's days are numbered)

Hopefully we'll get a game on this week but I suspect the rain has already beaten them. I'll be shopping later in the week as I still want a couple of things :

Perhaps some wicket keeping gloves (the New Team gloves are maybe too big)
To feel out some inner gloves (never worn them, need to know + or -)
Seeing what facemask/grills are like
Grabbing some pink rubbers
(whoever raised an eyebrow there is a deviant - lol, perfectly innocent explanation)
And perhaps, perhaps ... a new bat.

Pink Hat Project is still a go by the way. But not in a Pay Per Game. That's just rewarding mediocrity, which I abhor. I'm also not too comfortable with collecting money off people, which is another Big Thing about why I've not gone ahead with setting up a Justgiving.com page. What I will do is set a bounty on the exceptional stuff :

25 runs = £2 donation
50 runs = £10 donation
Stumpings and run outs = £5 donation
Catches = £1 donation
(those may go up)

That might collect a decent amount from me. Anyone want to join me ? Send an email or leave a comment and I may well set up that Justgiving page anyway. The chosen charity will be the same one that the girls at work choose for a cake sale that's due this month.

Better part of Valour ?

Or just good sense :-)


Think it's the streetlights making it look jaundiced - and British number plates really are as white and clear as the ones above, it helps to avoid getting caught by speed cameras ! honest ... Heh heh heh - kidding, those aren't my cars so I've blanked their plates.

That's the scene from outside my upstairs front window about 15 minutes ago. Usually on a Monday night, I'll head down the motorway to get a gaming session in. The rest are going but they have a much shorter trip than me. I'll be looking to hibernate tonight cos while I would drive short distances in the conditions in the picture, heading down the motorway for what really is a not absolutely essential trip is a wee bit loonie. Especially when the way back will be twice as treacherous !

I'll get the mickey taken in next week's session but at least I'll have an intact car next week, not one that's in the shop getting ice induced dents taken out of it ...

Tonight's trip home was possibly one of the quietest I've had for a while - everyone must have either not turned up for work or gone home early to avoid attempting icey roads in rush hour conditions. People seemed to be giving the roads some respect, although there were the usual tailgaters this morning. I'll be going in again tomorrow, once I'm past the road I live on conditions are usually ok. However turning up for work counts as a lot more Essential than heading out to a gaming session !

Who knows ? Maybe I'm starting to show some good sense in my old age ? Nah :-) Time to put the coffee on while I fetch my pipe and slippers.

(that's actually the other reason - my "pipe and slippers" are as fictional as the cold weather gear I have stowed here ... if I did get stranded, I really don't have the gear to keep me warm)