Random Thoughts

As a seasonal Lovefilm customer (I tend to be out and about in the summer so I don’t watch any TV) it’s mighty frustrating that I can’t rent all the movies out there I want to watch. I wanted to add Kick-Ass to my rental list but I can only buy it, and I fancied Tarantino’s latest one too, but that was in a similar situation. Thankfully I can watch that one on Sky Movies.

I remember having this problem over winter last year with it being part of the reason why I cancelled the sub and re-started my Sky Movies sub again. In fact, in rejoining for the winter again this year, I nearly moved to Blockbusters until I heard that they’re about to file for Chapter 11 (here) which means they will probably close up shop if they’re that much in debt.
(EDIT – Since posting this, one of my work colleagues informed me that one of the Blockbuster bricks and mortar stores near us in York has closed up shop (and being close to the university, it was probably the more popular of the two we had in York), and I’ve also read this on the WSJ. Doesn’t look good for Blockbuster.)

A little digging (here, here, here and here) and it seems as though the problem is mainly any movies distributed by Universal Pictures, and it’s down to a little bit of a spat between them and Lovefilm (Lovefilm just cite ‘supply chain difficulties’ if you ask them) although as usual it’s down to one thing – money – and how much they (Universal) get per disc rented.

Well, that little spat might end up turning sour if Blockbuster do go under, because Lovefilm will end up being one of the only (if not *the* only) large Disc rental businesses. Maybe it’s time for Universal Pictures to grow up a little, and allow everyone to watch their films (why wouldn’t you?). And they wonder why torrenting is so popular when they’re putting up the barriers to people wanting to watch their movies legally.

It seems like forever since I’ve written anything, so I thought I should at least put in a post to show I’ve not keeled over or done anything stupid.

Since my last post, I’ve done lots of things;

• Ridden 188 miles on a bicycle in 3 days for the charity ‘Sustrans’ from Edinburgh to Newcastle along the  Sustrans coast and castles route. A post about all that will be appearing sometime when I write it!
• Driven 2500 miles in two weeks to, from and around Western France with the family and did lots of things there including some freediving, cycling and reading, but mainly doing family orientated things like visiting the zoo or aquariums or having picnics on the beaches (both coastal and inland!!)
• Had lots of changes going on at work (I know I said I’d never post about work again on here!)
• Collected all my dive gear back from testing so I can get wet again.
• Fitted new bands to my speargun so I can go spearfishing again. (not with SCUBA I hasten to add – only freediving).
• Worried about my Mum who wasn’t very well.
• Worrying about my youngest daughter who also isn’t very well.
• Been classified as a MAMIL. Although strictly I’m not middle aged as the OED says middle age is ‘between 45 and 60 years old’. And at 36 I’m still in the phase of Youth. Cool.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, so you can see why there’s not been much updates on here.

Ego is a social fiction for which one person at a time gets all the blame.
Robert Anton Wilson

I’ve always found twitter a curious thing – interesting to read about other people, but to be honest, no-one wants to read about me. It’s like the modern day equivalent of showing off. Look what shiny new things I’ve got or look what I’m doing now.  This doesn’t gel with my outlook on things, so I’m going to undergo a removal from Twitter (apart from if I update this blog/diary) and I’m not going to update my Facebook status as to be honest who the hell is the slightest bit interested in what I have, do or want. I’ll keep this blog updated as not many people read it anyway and it’s like a diary online.

On the BBC News website here – ‘Depression Leads to Dementia‘.

The second study, meanwhile, followed 1,239 US people and looked at the number of times a person experienced depression related to their risk of dementia.

It showed that the more times someone experienced depression, the higher their dementia risk was.

Having two or more episodes of depression nearly doubled the risk of dementia.

Oh, great. So as a bipolar person what happens then! Makes you feel great.

On my way home this evening, I noticed that (the highways agency/north yorkshire council/york council – delete as appropriate) had been working hard on the A64 northbound cycle path between Tadcaster and York – they’ve been resurfacing the cycle path, cleaning, relining and generally tidying it up. So thank you – we did notice – my commute has been made just that little bit easier

Pondering a conversation I recently had around bikes got me thinking about things from my childhood.

My formative years were during the late 1970′s and 1980′s. I grew up in a period of massive change, but I find it interesting to see how things have changed for my children growing up now vs my own childhood.

The thing that got me thinking about this was around the bikes we used to have as kids, and how important we used to rate them.

For example, my first bike was a Raleigh Budgie, which was essentially a baby chopper without the gears. Once I outgrew that I wanted a Grifter, but I got a Raleigh Commando Star, which was essentially the same bike without the bright orange paint job and big slotted rear hub cover but had the same sturmey archer gears and the same tyres (with the red sidewall lines). Does anyone remember how bloody tricky and fragile those little links were on the Sturmey Archer gear selectors?  They definitely weren’t kid proof as I must have got through stacks of the S/A links. I think I broke a few brake cables too but I hardly ever remember getting a puncture strangely.

In those days we used to lust after each other’s bikes. I remember one of my friends had a Raleigh Chopper which was bright red and looked the dogs (re-reading this, you can’t help but think Fnarr Fnarr but it’s not intended like that!). It rode really differently to my Raleigh Commando star. My mate’s Raleigh Grifter was also a great bike.  At that time,  Raleigh really had the kids bike industry sewn up. The bikes were built like tanks and many of them are still around today. Just search on Ebay for Grifter or Chopper and they’re selling for upwards of £100-200 each. Restored ones can sell for much more! The retro appeal is still there.

Image Courtesy of the Science Museum.

Well, dur. Tell me something I didn’t already know – that Blackpool is full of con artists!

Blackpool Hoopla Tourist Game Impossible to Win – Telegraph

I was unfortunate enough to have my stag weekend in Blackpool. I’ve always found the place a bit of a chav’s paradise, but the thing that strikes me is the blatant fraud that goes on in the place. I saw loads of ‘dubious’ street traders – those ‘amazing dancing mice’ that are powered by a motor and a fishing line in the briefcase that is strategically placed behind them. Plus loads of those brown box auction shops that you bid on what you think is an LCD TV in a box only to find it’s a house brick.

Although it is nice to see the council is cracking down on these things – maybe they should do the same to the ones at funfairs? The ones with the rings and the bottles (or the tin cans that are impossible to knock over with the light balls).

I came home this evening from work and picked up the post as usual. For some reason even though I’m on the MPS lists, I recieved a piece of direct mail from American Express flogging me their new Premium Plus credit card. (Click the image for bigger)

Very nice. And then your eyes go down to the bottom of the page where there’s an APR.

46.0% APR – Blimey. Even Brighthouse’s APR is lower than that at 29.9%!!!

Saturday – Brilliant bike ride (reverse CTC) in the morning which took up a fair chunk of the day. Didn’t really get back until about 2pm. Helped Michelle do the housework on my return as she’d been to the supermarket. Bit of a boring evening really watching TV.

Sunday – Did a bit of a cleanup. It’s amazing how much stuff you store that you don’t need. Weather’s been really variable today – it can’t make it’s mind up between bright sunshine and rain.

Managed to get the jerry can filled up with unleaded for the mower, and did all the lawns. It’s amazing how a 5 minute job of sharpening the blades on the mower with the dremel can make all the difference to the cut quality and the ease of which the mower does it’s job. Cut all the lawns in around half an hour!

Brother-in-law came round for lunch and we were chatting about cycling – he’s doing a tour from the south to the north of France over a period of two weeks which sounds interesting.

Caught the Boy George docu-drama this evening which was fascinating. I never knew he was in Bow Wow Wow – if only for just 5 minutes.

The clouds looked ominous as I set out. I couldn’t work out whether there was rain on the horizon or not, but I figured what the heck.

I had no hard and fast plan as to how far I’d ride this evening. I left my house and just sort of made up the route on the fly. Feeling good and fairly energetic, I thought I’d do a bit of a hybrid route backwards.

My first challenge was negotiating the junction on the A64 and the ring road. With it being race day it was busier than normal – this junction is fairly nasty to get out of in a car, although I can get a good burst of speed up on the bike. Once that was negotiated, it was down through Askham Richard and up to Healaugh. The angry sky started to spit, and I’m sure I felt at least two or three drops of rain. I was willing the sun (which was hiding behind the clouds, although peeking through in beautiful catheral shafts) to poke through a bit more.  Thankfully, that’s all the rain had to offer, and it stayed dry.

When you ride a route one way, you work out all the turns and ways to go. However, riding it the other way it sometimes throws up surprises. Like the wall of No-Entry signs riding into Tadcaster. Oh. Er. Which way now. Then I see a little slip road and I’m through. Phew.

Left turn at the top of Tadcaster takes me back towards Oxton and Bolton Percy. Coming through Bolton Percy I stop for a while and watch the cricket match in progress, and consider stopping at D’Oyly’s tea rooms for a cuppa. But they’re probably not open at 8pm so I carry on up the hill.

Riding past the old windmill I stop to take a picture and have a sip off the bottle. 13 miles covered so far. About 18 months ago by now I would have been knackered. Now I’m just getting warmed up, and I’m actually feeling boiled, so I strip off my top thermal outer layer to get down to just a long sleeve cycle jersey and 3/4 tights.

Rolling down the hill I resist the temptation to turn left and take the easy way home and turn right instead, going past the pub and caught the unmistakeable whiff of the deep fat fryer – not the nice smell of a chip shop but the smell of a de-longhi going full tilt full of vegetable oil, pinging away to itself.

I was disappointed not to see the bike propped up against the railings of the shoulder of mutton pub on the village green like it was last night, but I did see quite alot of cyclists out this evening.

The route then turned normal and I followed the same route I did last night home. However, some roadworks and traffic lights have sprung up in 24 hours. At least they’ve fixing the potholes.

A smidgen short of 20 miles this evening. And I didn’t even need my headlights on