Thursday, August 17, 2006
Green and Red
Yesterday Mrs. Dunce and I took another step towards indoctrination into the cult of Circulus, following their charismatic leader into a "rather quaint old slaughterhouse at the top of Brick Lane" (his words, not ours) yet somehow escaping with our lives (although perhaps not our free will; the combination of Moog and sackbut is dangerously hypnotic). Our first stop on our way there was the revered Wenlock Arms where Mrs. Dunce made a beeline for the Mild (makes sense, as she'd spent a long, hard day at the factory and needed a combination of low-alcohol drink and sustenance). But this entry is really about the interval between our stop at the Wenlock and our arrival at the Cult Member Processing Centre. You see, it involved a visit to yet another well-regarded Mexican restaurant in London. And lest I be accused of being obsessive about this topic, erm, well, I suppose those accusations should stand.

This time it was a visit to Green & Red (just around the corner from aforementioned slaughterhouse), a place that's been receiving quite a few good reviews, both for its focus on drink (Time Out), and its food (london-eating). The food reviews in particular gave us some encouraging signs: frequent references to authenticity and regional focus (Jaliscan in particular), and contrast to the standard "London Tex-Mex" which has been so rightly scorned by so many for so long. We arrived and managed to get one of the few remaining tables (all had "reserved" cards, but we were seated anyway, thanks to some combination of charisma, persuasion, and maybe a sense that we would go berserk and run amok if denied a table) in the dining area (there was also a very nice-looking downstairs bar area). We started off with a selection of tasty cocktails mostly along the tequila dimension (Margarita, Diablo, and a pomegranate something-or-other). My Diablo was nice, although perhaps nothing to write home about (yet here I am doing exactly that). But we were really just biding our time until the food arrived.

After not very long at all, it happened. The highlight of the meal was one of the starters: excellent guacamole with totopos. Not a very large portion at all, but then again it was a starter. We also had a relatively spicy (and also not very large) chile relleno, and some fairly ordinary (perhaps a bit citrusy/spicy) corn-on-the-cob. Those all disappeared rapidly (think heads down, spray of saliva, blur of forks, etc. Or at least that's what my side of the table was like). And then it was time for the mains. I ought to mention that the menu is quite limited (it does seem more like a bar than a restaurant; the drinks menu is far more extensive than the food menu): six choices of mains: four meat, one fish, one vegetable. So it wasn't too difficult to decide what to order. I had the fish, a very nice sea bream cooked in a banana leaf + tomato/ancho salsa; we generally thought this was the best of our main dishes. Mrs. Dunce had a pumpkin thingy ("Roast ironbark pumpkin with lentils, sweet potato and chayote"); and the mysterious third party had the birra, a slow-cooked marinated lamb shank that's featured quite frequently in reviews of the place. Along with the mains came a somewhat paltry serving of refried beans (nice, but small), shredded cabbage, small (freshly made) corn tortillas, and a couple of salsas. We all had the same general reaction to the food: we enjoyed everything, and considered it far, far beyond "traditional London Mexican fare", but (except for the guacamole) we were not truly excited by any of it. Maybe we've become jaded by the sudden boom in good Mexican food in London, but there are still a couple of restaurants I think are better than Green & Red: El Panzon and Mercado (I'll start subtracting points if Mercado's website stays as it is. "Opening May 2006" indeed). As far as Mexican *restaurants* in London are concerned, anyway. Green & Red's strength seems to be as a cocktail bar, moreso than a restaurant. We paid our bill (just under £90 including 12.5% service charge) and made our way to be indoctrinated by the Circulus cultists.

consume
Thursday, August 17, 2006 1:00:22 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [1]  | 
 Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Recall and concentration
The following email was forwarded to me (and many of my colleagues), concerning a potential partnership between academia and big business. Somehow I don't see it happening, for any number of reasons. (The name of the well-known company and its main product have been obscured in the vain hope that hired goons won't show up at my door).


"In 2002 a research paper was released which indicated that [a junk food product] may help improve recall and concentration and [LargeCompany] are interested in revisiting this research to see if it's true.
 
I work for [LargeCompany] and we're in the process of organising a project and wondered if your department might like to be involved. The concept is a consumer-friendly short campaign that is built around 'Boosting Britain's Brain Power'. To underpin the campaign we'd like a refresh of the initial research which indicated that [aforementioned junk food] might help improve recall and concentration - is this something your department might be interested in getting involved with? We'd also be looking for someone to act as a professional spokesperson for a few media interviews to discuss the research which would help further raise the profile of your department.
 
Spinning out from this research, we will then look to further prove the findings by approaching failing pub quiz teams across the UK and equipping them with [junk food product] over a period of time to explore if it improves their performance. We're hoping for some guidance on a simple test that could be performed before testing begins and then after testing is completed.
 
The key though is a refresh of the initial research. I'd be happy to discuss this further with you, and would value an indication of your interest as soon as possible. We're hoping to go live with this campaign by the end of August so we need to move relatively quickly."

science
Wednesday, August 09, 2006 4:26:14 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [5]  | 
How confusing
There's a TV ad running currently for a company offering some sort of insurance advice through their website: "confused.com". Most of the ad consists of various satisfied customers (or actors portraying same) extolling the virtues of "confused.com". But this is one of those cases where the spoken-aloud URL sounds totally ambiguous to me: it could be either "confused-dot-com" or "confuse-dot-com". This isn't uncommon at all (think of other cases where a word ending with "d" is followed by a word starting with "d", e.g. "red rum" vs "red drum"), but in this case it's potentially damaging to business -- of course the owners of "confuse.com" have created their own "insurance information portal" which looks suspiciously like a link farm, spam blog, whatever you want to call it. I'm sure this is just a coincidence....

language
Wednesday, August 09, 2006 3:21:41 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 
 Friday, August 04, 2006
Great British Beer Festival 2006
Earlier this week Mrs. Dunce and I made our annual visit to the Great British Beer Festival. This year was a particularly good one, as we had booked advance tickets to a tutored tasting event, "Champion Beers of Britain". All the beers to be tasted were rated as top of their category by a panel of judges, and the champions had only been selected the day before the tasting (so we were tasting the same batches that had been judged). Our guide through these beers was Roger Protz, one of the best-known beer experts out there (I'd say that at least in English-speaking circles, only Michael Jackson [not that one] is a contender, and ). Protz has written all sorts of beer-related books, including 300 Beers To Try Before You Die, Complete Guide to World Beer, and a mess of others. The tasting included six beers, one from each of six categories. For each one we got to hear some interesting information about the category and the style of beer, an exact description of the ingredients, and then Protz's comments on the "cyclops" features of each one (appearance, aroma, flavor). Most importantly, those aspects that (in his opinion, as one of the panelists) led to each beer's selection as champion. Here are our own opinions of each one:

Mild: a traditional sort of dark beer, lower in alcohol (usually in the 3% range), intended for industrial workers (after work!). The winner of this category was Oscar Wilde Mild, by Mighty Oak brewery. This was the first one we drank, and got Mrs. Dunce's vote for her favorite beer of the festival: "smells like chocolate milk; growing chocolate taste". I noted that it had a very light starting flavor, and was an easy drinking mild. We both rated this one as a "full smile".*

Bitter: another traditional style, lighter in color than mild, and with an alcohol content of up to about 4%. The winner was Cambridge Bitter by Elgoods, which included roasted barley in its ingredients (unusual for a bitter). I found it very very bitter indeed, but a nice mix of malty and hoppy flavors (my favorite beers are usually quite hoppy). The finish was quite long; it had a very lingering flavor. Mrs. Dunce (who isn't hop-crazy like me) said "not too hoppy, very sweet finish. Complex malt balances it". Two more "full smile" ratings.

Best Bitter: Higher in alcohol than the Bitters (cut-off point seems to be 4%), the winner here was Sussex Best by Harvey's. This one was the runner-up in the overall championship, and Roger Protz's favorite (also voted as favorite by the tasting audience, but perhaps strongly biased after hearing Protz's effusive praise). "A hymn to the hop" is how he described it. I enjoy the hops, and no surprise I liked this one: very smooth drinking, hoppy but mellow. Not so much malt flavor, particularly in contrast to the previous bitter which had a notable malty taste. Mrs. Dunce thought "Definitely hoppier, but still well balanced. Bitter finish". Yet again we gave two "full smile" ratings to this one.

Strong Bitter: Here we go: this category is even higher in alcohol content. The winner, Centurion's Ghost by York was 5.4%, and had a very strong aroma. Mrs. Dunce said "beautiful aroma; chocolate, coffee, raisin flavors with a very dry finish." I thought there were all sorts of flavors going on, very roasted, maybe coffeeish. Long, long, long finish. This one was my favorite of the festival (by quite some margin), and Mrs. Dunce also gave it yet another full smile.

Specialty Beer: This category includes beers that don't fit into the other classifications. The winner, Tradewinds by Cairngorm, included a substantial amount of wheat (30%) but is considered "specialty" because of an additional ingredient: elderflower (added at the end of the copper boil, ie when secondary hopping is being done). I didn't notice anything elderflowery about it (but might not recognize elderflower if it bit me in the bum). At first I rated it only a half smile as it seemed more aromatic than flavorful. But it grew on me, as a nice light and tasty beer. Mrs. Dunce was not quite as impressed, considering it unsubtle and giving it only a half-smile rating: "hoppy and peppery aroma. Bitter in the mouth but growing sweetness. A little bit one-note".

Golden Ale and Overall Champion: The winner of this year's Golden Ale category was also deemed the overall champion: Brewer's Gold by Crouch Vale. This beer also won last year's overall championship, something that has never happened in the history of the award. It's made from identical ingredients to lagers, but is brewed in an ale style. There was some discussion from the audience about this, especially as golden ales have won more than their fair share of awards recently (according to some), and whether this is bad for "ale in general". And whether one year's champion should be ineligible the next year. Anyway, on to the tasting. Hmmmmmm. It was definitely not a double-champion in our eyes. It had a very, very lemony aroma ("smells like floor cleaner" said Mrs. Dunce); the flavor was very hoppy, and I thought it would be much better if only I could drink it without smelling it. Mrs. Dunce found it just too lemony, and very one-note all the way through with the palate and finish almost exactly the same. "Flat mouth" ratings from both of us.

And that was the end of the tasting. It was a really fun thing to do, and in addition to the details about tasting, there were plenty of interesting comments, discussions, Q&A and asides about brewing, beer history, international styles and so on. But then, the beer festival itself was still going on, so we made our way downstairs where all sorts of choices awaited us. As usual some of our intended targets were not available (or just overlooked), but we still managed to have several additional beverages before running out of energy. Comments on them are noted below (perhaps not in the order in which they were consumed):

Maypole Mild by Oakleaf. Mrs. Dunce gave this a half-smile: sharp start but a good finish.

Malvern Magic blended perry from Herefordshire. I thought this was ok, maybe a half-smile. It was rated as 10 on the 1-12 sweet-to-dry scale, but I thought it was somewhat sweeter than a 10 would warrant. Somewhat bland and not all that complex (this judgment may be affected a lot by following all the champion beers).

Black Gold by Cairngorm (same brewer as Tradewinds, the elderflower Specialty Beer noted above). Mrs. Dunce gave it a half-smile, noting its bitter/malt balance.

Double Hop by Robinson's. I gave this one a flat mouth. Very bland and uninteresting; nothing wrong with it but nothing particularly right, either.

Dunkels Weissbier by Andechs. The only beer from outside the UK either of us tried this time around. Mrs. Dunce gave it a full-smile rating, "Dark and refreshing, like it should be". The only full smile rating from either of us outside the "champion beer" tasting. Which set a high standard indeed.

IPA by Woodlands. I gave this one a rare full frown rating. It was sharp and nasty. Very dry and unpleasant to drink. I even poured it out instead of finishing it.

Midnight Stout by Woodlands: Flat mouth rating by Mrs. Dunce who called it "undignified"; nothing special.

Dragon Smoke Stout by Beowulf. Yes, for some reason we tried an awful lot of dark beers at this festival. I found this one ok, worth a half-smile rating. It had a nice roasted flavor you'd expect from a stout, a lot of bitterness, but not quite top of the heap.


*Our rating system is quite elementary in nature, as it's designed to withstand various potential issues related to beer festivals, particularly the possibility that many different products may be consumed and thus a complex system might fail disastrously. Hence, the smily face rating system:
full smile: liked this beverage unreservedly
half smile: enjoyed it, but it could be improved upon
flat mouth: fine, but nothing special
half frown: not so great, but not terrible
full frown: bad, nasty, maybe even worth pouring out instead of finishing it.

consume
Friday, August 04, 2006 12:46:40 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [2]  | 
 Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Day in Whitstable
As a sort of escape from last week's heat wave, on Saturday Mrs. Dunce and I set off for a seaside adventure: a day trip to Whitstable (wikipedia link). Perhaps best known for its oyster festival which by a remarkable coincidence just happened to be going on at the time. We got an early start (leaving the house at 9:15, which is impressively early compared to ordinary Dunce Saturdays), and made it there by midday or so (somewhat pleased that most of the drunken, lairy individuals riding in the same carriage of our train were continuing on to Broadstairs or perhaps Ramsgate or Margate).

Most of the other people who did get off the train at Whitstable made a beeline towards the sea, while we took a more leisurely approach via Whitstable's shopping district/main drag. This gave us a chance to stop by the local history museum and perhaps build our anticipation of eating some seafood. Soon enough we had made it to the eafood market, where we couldn't stop ourselves from joining the queue for fresh oysters (cracked and cleaned on the spot, £3 for a half-dozen). Plenty of other tasty-looking seafood items were also on offer but we managed to resist... for the moment. It was nice and sunny but not too hot, so we found ourselves a bench at the top of the Tankerton Slopes and relaxed with the nice sea view:

(all photos by Mrs. Dunce). At the bottom of the photo you can see some ;traditional British beach huts, and off in the distance some sailboats massing for the start of a regatta. We hung out on the bench, relaxing, for two or three sailboat-circuits, before we finally wandered down the hill to the "beach". A close-up will reveal the truth:

The rocky beach was very uncomfortable for my poor, soft, coddled feet, but somehow I drew upon every ounce of strength to brave the crashing waves of the open sea.


Then we wandered along the path, past many more beach huts:


Three oysters apiece can hardly be considered a proper lunch, so then it was time for a real lunch at East Quay Shellfish Restaurant. We were hoping for fried oysters, or perhaps a bit of crab, but many items on the menu were no longer available (having been eaten by customers who ate their lunch at lunchtime). Instead we went with fish and chips, very tasty I should add (Mrs. Dunce's huss was especially good). And just around the corner from the restaurant... what could it be but a beer festival? We didn't go overboard, and we stuck strictly to the local offerings (Whitstable Brewery's Oyster Stout, Raspberry Wheat, East India Pale Ale; and Nelson's Powder Monkey). There weren't many shaded areas but we managed to find seats at a picnic table under a rather bedraggled tent, where we relaxed some more and watched the seaside action. As the afternoon went on, it started to get cloudy, and a pretty serious sea breeze kicked up. So of course we moved out to the edge of the (very unsheltered) pier, where we sat for a while longer until the bracing winds became a little bit too much for us:

(I do not ordinarily wear my hair slicked back, and you'll notice I am looking straight into the wind, just in case an unnaturally heavy gust of wind somehow catches my glasses from behind and whips them off my face, in which event they will no doubt be lost in the sea, and I'll have to be helped home by my longsuffering wife).

We wandered around town some more, building up a bit of an appetite for one more dose of seafood. Perhaps a bit apprehensively as we didn't have reservations anywhere. But we managed to get a table at Pearson's Crab and Oyster House (pub downstairs, restaurant upstairs), provided we finished before the customers who were actually organized about their dinner. A really nice table with a sea view, no less. The staff were a little overwhelmed (and I think I even saw one couple being delivered a second set of main courses after their table had been cleared of the first; some sort of serious miscommunication I suppose), but our food was really good (contrary to bad reviews I noticed elsewhere just now). I had a cold crab salad with heaps and heaps of crab, almost more than I could eat; Mrs. Dunce had a tuna steak with green chile pesto [sic]. We did have a dessert (summer fruits thingy) and coffee, but the service had slowed to a crawl and we (or at least I) became quite anxious about getting to the station in time for the train (only one per hour at this time of day). A brisk walk through town got us to the station at the very moment the 8:24 (or so) train arrived (see, I was justified in panicking, especially when people walking ahead of us broke into a run, or when we crossed a bridge and found ourselves on the other side of the station, with a locked gate between us and the platform).

The train was absolutely packed with seaside revellers who had been enjoying the sun at one or more of the aforementioned seaside locations. The fashion of the day seemed to be horribly painful looking sunburns of a traditional English variety. Such bad sunburns that you didn't want to get near them because they were radiating so much heat. Anyway, we stood among the many standing-room-only passengers until our loaded train joined up with an empty one and we could flop into a pleasantly empty carriage. And the trip home passed without incident (unless you consider small children playing, and playing, and replaying mobile phone ringtones to be an incident). All in all, a wonderful day out.

travel
Tuesday, August 01, 2006 3:42:25 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [2]  | 
 Friday, July 28, 2006
More London Mexican food -- closer to home!
Yesterday we visited yet another new Mexican restaurant in London, Mercado (I've linked to their website even though it's still quite inactive. You never know). It's actually relatively close to our house (31 minutes' walk according to journeyplanner.org. So how could we resist the suggestion by a certain gentleman of our acquaintance to give it a try?

Mercado is at the top of Stoke Newington Church Street, and occupies the former location of Yum Yum Thai Restaurant (now moved to a fancy new location just around the corner). There's no sign of Thai there now; it's been redecorated in a colorful Mexican manner (not just sombreros and piñatas). When we sat down we were given a (small) serving of tortilla chips and a smidgen of salsa verde. The chips were nice and did not seem to have come from a bag (always a major strike). They have quite a range of cocktails and I can definitely report that the house margarita is quite tasty. Due to some sort of miscommunication (errr, a nice way of saying that I just wasn't paying any attention) both Mrs. Dunce and I ordered guacamole with chips. I understand that some previous reviews (which I haven't seen) have complained about the stingy portions of chips, and we felt the same way when we got our guacamole: each order had a nicely hefty portion of guacamole, but only a little handful of chips. However, as we got to the end of the chips (but nowhere near the end of the guacamole), the waitress brought us more (we didn't have to ask, nor were we charged). The main courses were really good as well. The menu is fairly brief, and features a number of dishes you wouldn't exactly call "ordinary". I had, erm, I've forgotten the name but it was a poblano pepper, stuffed with cheese and black beans and stuff, covered in a lovely-spicy almond mole (and with a side of new potatoes and spinach). Mrs. Dunce had a crepe with cuitlacoche (a much nicer term than "corn fungus" or "corn smut", never mind the description "a bulbous black fungus (Ustilago maydis) that infects corn, producing silvery, swollen, pebble like kernels") and cheese, covered in a light sauce whose ingredients failed to register with me. Cilantro, perhaps). And our gentleman companion had a chicken mole dish. Portions were quite large, but we somehow managed to make short work of them anyway.

The bill came to something like £75 (+ tip) which isn't bad at all, considering that we each had two cocktails. We'll definitely be back, it's really worth a repeat visit or two.

consume
Friday, July 28, 2006 2:24:30 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [1]  | 
 Thursday, July 27, 2006
The great helmet debate
I've recently noticed a major increase in the number of London cyclists who have taken the middle ground on the helmet debate. Rather than wearing their helmets all the time, these people have apparently decided to bring their helmet along, not wearing it but keeping it accessible by hanging it from a handlebar. Presumably this is so that, in the event of a predictable accident, the helmet is accessible enough that the well-prepared rider can put it on before crashing and landing on his/her head. And even if the accident is unpredictable, there is a nonzero chance that the rider's head will land on the helmet, preventing it (the head) from cracking like an egg. Now the only question is which handlebar is the better choice for your helmet.

bike
Thursday, July 27, 2006 9:38:50 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [3]  | 
 Friday, July 21, 2006
Insert your favorite Arsenal pun here
Just about every day my cycle commute takes me past a giant construction site: the future site of Arsenal's new ground, Emirates Stadium. In the last couple of days there's been a sort of unveiling, and finally the stadium area is freely wanderable by even the lowest sort of riffraff (even the Dunce himself). Here's the new stadium in all of its glory (or at least a sizable chunk of its glory):



My juvenile, immature side took over quickly....







(arse-backwards, of course)



But I finally finished arsing around, and made my way into work. I've been riding the touring bike a lot lately so that I'm completely used to it by the time our major trip arrives. Here's what it looks like parked in my workplace's handy under-the-pavement hidey-hole (the fenders are the most recent addition):

Friday, July 21, 2006 2:21:15 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [9]  | 
 Monday, July 17, 2006
Tour de France
I've been paying quite a bit of attention to the Tour de France this year. Every evening there's one hour of TV coverage summarizing the day's events, but really I'm most enjoying the various information available online. In addition to your run-of-the-mill live text coverage and radio coverage in an assortment of languages (all available through cyclingfans.com), this year it's also possible to see real-time telemetry for some riders (LIVE LINK; some previous races). This includes live heart rate, cadence, speed and power output (more information about it available here). It's especially interesting to see a rider's heart rate and power output shoot through the roof as he goes up a climb. I've also found it interesting to check out the real-time fluctuation in betting as a given stage comes to a close. Betfair.com operates very much in real time, and on last Friday's stage there was a four-man breakaway, running far enough ahead it became quite clear that one of the four would win. Each time one of the four made an attack, you could see his odds drop rapidly as punters started throwing heaps of money on him to win. Not just the stage, but you could also see the odds to win the entire Tour fluctuating as well. It could make a lot of sense to keep an eye on the telemetry to help make these high-speed, real-time betting judgments. Except there are not so many riders for whom live data are available, and they are not exactly in the hunt for the win:

58. Voigt, no odds available to win the Tour. Currently 40min 50sec off the lead (although he did win stage 13)
59. Martinez (can back him to win the Tour on Betfair at 1000-1)
69. Ventoso
76. Lang (can back him to win on Betfair at 1000-1)
77. Padrnos
85. Vasseur
93. Scholz
96. Grabsch
117. Zberg
142. Tankink

Anyway I'll certainly enjoy having assorted real-time information at my disposal. Until I can see them riding in person when next year's Tour visits the UK.

bike
Monday, July 17, 2006 12:08:29 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 
 Friday, July 14, 2006
Taking a leak
On special offer today at the coffeeshop near my office:

LEAK AND POTATO SOUP

too bad I brought my lunch today.

consume
Friday, July 14, 2006 2:30:22 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [2]  | 
 Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Mexican food in London: still another contender
I've been writing a lot about Mexican food in London, and since our first visit to El Panzon I've been repeatedly (perhaps annoyingly) enthusiastic that London finally has a great Mexican restaurant. They've recently left the Hobgoblin and moved to a more convenient (for us) new location, the Dogstar in Brixton. And I'm pleased to report that the food is still fantastic.

But things are going crazy with new places popping up all over town. Earlier this week I finally made it to Daddy Donkey, a burrito (errr, I mean "burro") stand in Leather Lane. They're open only at lunchtimes M-F, but I have to say, mmmmmmmmmmm! I had a big-ol veggie burrito: beans, rice, guacamole and a tasty hot salsa. Although I gulped it down like a madman (I was in a bit of a state, getting ready for my British Sign Language assessment) I can report that it was excellent. I'll have to go back again (soon!) when I have a little more chance to savor my lunch.

But this is only one of many new places; I'm way behind the times ("the times" being most clearly illustrated on the long-running comments section on Phil Gyford’s prescient 2003 post "London's lack of Mexican"). There's apparently a new place called Beach Burritos just opened (4 Berwick Street). And a stall that sometimes appears at Chapel Market called Poblano. Not to mention Mercado Cantina which has recently opened just down the street from us. Heck, we haven't even visited Crazy Homies or Green and Red (not sure why the latter is listed as Argentinian) but they sound really good too.

consume
Wednesday, July 12, 2006 2:16:46 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [1]  | 
 Friday, July 07, 2006
Riding the bike more? A year on
It's one year since the London bombings, and numerous members of the media have descended upon the area where I work, right by Tavistock Square, just up the road from Russell Square (my blog entry from the day is here). Guys with very fancy camera rigs and other guys with laptops are everywhere (I say "guys" because women seem quite underrepresented), and a helicopter overhead is massively disrupting my attention span at the moment (explaining why I'm writing this entry first thing instead of my customary just-after-lunch blog-break where I take advantage of the extra "lunch time" gained by staying at my desk and wolfing my lunch in a couple of minutes).

There are loads of police officers around the area, so I was a bit more careful to stop for red lights than I normally am*. So it wasn't much of a surprise at all that I was approached by a journalist in search of a unique angle on "London Bombings: One Year On". I was asked almost exactly the same question that I was asked by some other journalist on 11 July last year. Then: "After the events of last week do you find you're cycling more?" Now: Have you been cycling more since the events of last July 7th?". No, I still haven't. He also asked whether I've noticed more cyclists on the road (or on the other hand, am I completely oblivious that the number of cyclists has doubled since 2000). My answer may have reflected my frustration with so many confused cyclists (usually of the fair-weather sort who ride dangerously and without paying attention to anyone else on the roads (or pavements)**, "Yes, I think a lot of people have and you'd think they'd bloody learn the rules of the road by now." I have no idea where the word "bloody" came from, and I fear this comment (if heard, which is unlikely) will be misconstrued as a strictly anti-red-light-jumping statement where my intent was really just "they should learn to pay attention and ride sensibly".


*Red light jumping is one of those issues that makes people crazy. Just use the word "red" in any cycling forum and you'll see what I mean. I am definitely a red light jumper, but a cautious one in that I watch closely for any crossing traffic, and always give pedestrians the right-of-way when they have an indicator (green man) or are in a zebra crossing. Yes it's definitely against the law to do this, and I'll stand up and take my fine if I get caught doing it (as in, if anyone starts enforcing it). See also things like jaywalking, speeding, parking without paying, assault and battery, murder (pro-red-light-jumpers tend to use the first three as examples of crimes that are a matter of personal decisions; the anti faction like to bring in the latter as the sort of thing unrestrained red light jumping will no doubt bring as we all throw respect for the law into the gutter). Anyway that's all to say my own personal preference is to disregard certain traffic ordinances while still remaining a good citizen of the road when it comes to my fellow road users (not just giving people the right of way, but also courtesy waves, eye contact and so on). This is probably an indication of my own personal philosophy as well, but frankly I don't have the time or inclination to expand on that.

**I've got no gripes against people who choose to ride their bikes only when it's nice out. It's just that it takes a while to get a good sense of the road, the flow of traffic and how to ride effectively in a way that minimizes your interference with other traffic.

bike
Friday, July 07, 2006 10:05:19 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [1]  | 
 Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Urgent Message!
Compliments of the day to you, or if you prefer, compliments of the season. Yes, I'm linking to urgentmessage.org which is an impressive repository of scam email (40,700 cases at present), set up as a sort of public service, in the hope that some potential victims might search for email addresses, phone numbers, etc. and thus come across proof that they are indeed being scammed and there is no MILLIONS OF US DOLLARS (US$) nor unexpected lottery wins, etc. The search functions allow you to find a whole slew of messages containing your favorite scam-phrases (258 containing "Calvary Greetings", 35 containing "ghastly plane crash", 48 using the name Wang Qin, and would you believe over a thousand which "come to you as a surprise"?). But perhaps the most interesting function (to me) is this site's ability to display links between related scams. Letters are graphically cross-referenced if they refer to the same phone number or email address, and phone numbers and email addresses are similarly linked if they are referred to in the same letter. Here are a couple of examples (Urgent Reply, We need your assistance).
Wednesday, July 05, 2006 4:12:49 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 
 Tuesday, July 04, 2006
An unexpected extended silence over in these parts
No, I didn't decide to take on bike thieves single-handed, ending up in the hospital or worse.
No, I haven't been spending every spare moment training for a mountain bike journey.*
Instead there's been quite a conspiracy of external factors that have pretty much wiped out the time I would ordinarily spend on blog entries. I had a couple of (work-related) visitors from sunny California (and the crunch-time work associated with their visits). And a couple of minor sporting events that have drawn my attention in a somewhat predictably obsessive way (World Cup, and now the Tour de France). And this year's journey to renowned music festival Tapestry Goes West (perhaps deserving its own entry, although I fear I'll end up writing more about buying loads of books in Hay, and watching England v. Portugal in a rugby-preferred pub in Port Talbot, Wales, then about the festival itself). And all sorts of work-related work that has somehow found itself all plopping onto my desk at once. Surely this will all evaporate soon.


*Although I have been doing a lot of investigation about the possibility of improving my touring bike's gear ratio for mountain climbing. It seemed like a fairly simple process to upgrade the rear cluster to an 8-speed (currently six), although I would need to obtain a new wheel with a slightly longer axle. Too bad the bike is of a retro style, most notably with 27" wheels which are not exactly easy to find in this day and age (the 700c is now standard). Switching wheels to 700c... well first of all it would probably require switching both front and back (additional cost) + tires for both. And it also seems I'd need to change the brakes as the current ones aren't very adjustable (when it comes to wheel diameter). So it seems I may be returning to my original plan: just putting on a different 6-speed cluster on the rear, one that has a serious granny gear. Plenty of wasted time getting to this conclusion, though.
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Tuesday, July 04, 2006 12:21:08 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [1]  | 
 Thursday, June 22, 2006
In broad daylight
Yesterday at lunchtime I was leaving my office with a small group of co-workers, and saw myself a curious sight. Three young gentlemen of the bike thief persuasion, wandering around the area. I had a feeling they were up to no good just by looking at them: two were on bikes, one on foot and all proceeding in a very casual, wandery sort of way. The odd thing was that the one on foot was wearing a pair of heavy looking work gloves (with shorts and a t-shirt). I sort of hung back to see what they were up to, and not much at all to my surprise they were up to no good. Two of them stopped their bikes at the side of the street, while the third went over to the railings and began to tie his shoe in the sort of manner you adopt when you're not at all actually interested in tying your shoe. Suddenly he had moved over just a couple of steps and began aggressively whacking (or something) at the lock on a mountain bike which was secured to the railing (correctly locked through wheels and frame, with double locks no less). I made a sort of approach and made some noises (perhaps a shout, it's hard to remember exactly) and just like that they wandered away (no doubt to find another bike nearby to work on). I figured they hadn't managed to steal the bike, and what more could I do (try to get into the building and ask around whose bike it was). So I felt really guilty when I returned later in the day and that bike wasn't there any longer (fortunately it was there again today; the owner or an associate must have seen the action and moved it inside to be safe).

I felt like I should have done something more, but what? Try to find a phone and call the police, when they were long gone and my description would have been very vague (three scrawny white kids in shorts and t-shirts, two of them on possibly stolen bikes)? Or university security (don't make me laugh)? Or charged in and attacked them (I felt like this is what I should have done, but wasn't carrying any sort of weapon besides the various parts of my body that are registered as deadly weapons)? Or maybe just followed them around to make them nervous? Instead I chose to continue on to lunch (and fret about whether I should have sawed off their legs or something).

Anyway, I was very surprised at their nerve, doing this in broad daylight, while loads of people were walking by (and seeming to ignore their antics completely). It's not really a surprise then that so many bikes disappear, and it makes me even more pleased that my workplace has a good quality off-street bike parking area where the bikes are not even visible to passersby.

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Thursday, June 22, 2006 2:03:52 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [4]  | 
 Monday, June 19, 2006
Hill training
Yesterday I went with a couple of other guys on a bike ride intended to provide us with some much-needed training for our September journey to the High Tatras in south Poland and north Slovakia. We're finding it a little difficult to get a really good sense of what the roads are like, other than "mountainous". The small snippets of information we are able to find do not exactly leave me brimming with confidence, as they tend to feature numerous impressive climbs several kilometers in length, and when the area is depicted in with distance on the x-axis and altitude on the y-axis it looks even more frightening. Also just about all we have been able to find focuses upon the immediate areas of Zakopane and Stary Smokovec which pretty much just covers the first two (riding) days of our trip. And mainly that we will be climbing a really impressive mountain to cross the border between Poland and Slovakia (something like going from elevation of ~600m to 1250m over the course of 40km. In feet and miles, I think that's a few miles up, over the course of a few hundred miles. At least, that's what my legs will feel like).

Of course there's no shortage of information about our next stop, Bardejov, another Bardejov site (an impressively preserved medieval guild town which like other preserved medieval towns saw its importance waning after the 16th century or so, thus leaving it preserved for the usual reasons of the expense of modernization and the relative unimportance in a warfare sort of sense. My activities there may involve some scoping out for a future journey with Mrs. Dunce who also has a great interest in that sort of place), but I've found nothing relevant to the cycle journey (e.g. just how nasty the hills are). And for our last main stop, Nowy Sacz ("The Tuscany of Poland"), there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of anything in English, much less a detailed description of the roads between Bardejov and there. Or between there and Krakow, other than the fact that it's in the middle of the Beskid Mountains which suggests that riding around there will be no picnic.

Aaaaaanyway, back to yesterday's ride. Because of the above, some of us have decided it would be a really good idea to get in some hill riding, operating under the logic that no matter what the mountain roads are like, it cannot hurt us to practice on some hills steeper than those available to us on our London commutes. So together with my psycho Texan lawyer friend Jason, I was up bright and early yesterday morning, cruising through the refreshingly empty streets of a London Sunday morning (less empty than you'd think, though), and rushing onto the train to Guildford that was departing that very moment. We met up with Gus, a local guy and friend of Jason's who promised a route that would put us through our paces. And we were not disappointed; there were some impressively steep climbs, and loads and loads of guys on road bikes, obviously in the hills for the same sort of reasons we were (you don't ordinarily see many road bikes at all around London. I guess they're all up in them thar hills)*. It was impressively/oppressively hot and muggy, I'm not sure exactly how hot but certainly in the mid 80s/high 20s. I also played around with using the GPS as a secondary navigation device (Gus being the primary navigation device). It was quite handy especially once I set one of the active displays to show the elevation, that way I could tell exactly how badly I was suffering (a handy secondary measure being the frequency of gasping). The only drawbacks were on some of the hills (cut into stone) with heavy tree canopies where I lost the signal for (a total of) more than a mile. Fortunately these conditions also protected me from the sun, but I still managed to get a nice English tan (red, red, red, ouch. I had a tube of sun cream with me, but left it in the bag where it would be safe). I ended up clocking just over 60 miles (including a dozen or so in London riding to and from the train station). One thing that became quite evident is that the gearing of my bike is not at all well suited for significantly hilly territory (my lowest gear being 37-23 at the moment). Although there was only one hill I wasn't able to finish, had to get off and walk the last 20-30 meters. But the other guys were suffering on it as well. Ah well, there are plans afoot to improve my gearing situation in the near future. By the time I got home, though, I wasn't much use for anything. Except as a salt lick for the lucky cat, and I was too tired to shoo her away.

Jason's report of the trip, with photos

*I see that the local cycle club of Godalming (near Dorking), has a really nice list of road routes in the area. In case I want something similar but in a different environment. But I'll probably do exactly the same route next time I want to taste some hills; I've marked the route in detail on my GPS so I can duplicate it exactly if I wish.

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Monday, June 19, 2006 3:54:11 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [7]  |