Monthly Archives: Aug 2011

Cycling

Saddles (and soreness)

Leave a comment

A story to start with, probably apocryphal;

Two people had decided to set of on a long cycle tour, round the world, or possibly round Europe. They met at Tower Bridge in London, as that seemed like a symbolic place to start the tour, and set off for Dover, to catch the ferry to the rest of the world. By the time they arrived in Canterbury they were both thinking of giving up. The pain inflicted on their backsides by their saddles was getting too much to bear.
They had a think about the situation over lunch. Abandoning the tour would lead to humiliation. Wandering in to the pub next Saturday night and greeted by their friends with comments such as ‘I’m not sure I could make it round the world that quickly in a 747 let alone a bike’ would have been too much to take. Besides, they had paid for their ferry tickets and wouldn’t get the money back.
They decided to try swapping saddles, and completed the rest of the tour completely free from pain in the posterior.

[more…]

Cycling, Food, Restaurants

My Personal (South) London-Surrey Cycle Classic.

Leave a comment

My Touring Bike.

I spent last Sunday morning watching the professionals taking part in the pre-Olympic test event the London – Surrey Cycle Classic. This week I thought I would give it a try myself. I was in a mood for comfort and not for speed so I took my Touring Bike instead of my “racing” bike. I don’t race, I have never raced, but I call it my racing bike because it is lighter and faster than my touring bike. Bike choice made I headed out into the Surrey Hills.
Read on

Art, My Art

Some Examples of my own art

2 Comments

I have talked about other people’s art reasonably regularly since I started this blog. I thought it was about time that I showed some of my work for every one else to criticise.

Pictures follow

Cycling

London – Surrey Cycle Classic

Leave a comment

The official test event for the Olympic games cycle road race took place last Sunday (Sunday 14th August). I decided that as the Box Hill circuit part of the course is only about an hours ¹ ride from home I would cycle out and watch the race.

A map of the route (pdf) can be found here

The entry wasn’t as strong as it will be for the real event. As well as the national teams, several British Pro teams, such as Rapha-Condor-Sharp, Endura Racing and Motorpoint, boosted the numbers. They are all reasonable enough riders but I do not expect any of them to make the Olympic team next year. There were plenty of Pro-Tour riders present, Mark Cavendish, Tom Boonen, Heinrich Haussler, Rodger Hammond and Tyler Farrar to name a few.

But wait, there’s more

Uncategorized

Young’s no longer brew beer

Leave a comment

Youngs Brewery LOgo

After 180 years of brewing and selling beer Young’s now have no connection with brewing and have become exclusively a pub owning company. They have sold the 40% stake that they had in Wells & Young’s Brewing Company to their partner the Bedford based Charles Wells.
There’s more

Domestic (UK), Politics

Rioting & Looting in London

Leave a comment

I did try to put together some sort of post about the past few days events. But I found that after expressing my feelings of loss and dismay about Reeves Furniture Shop (a kind of iconic building in Croydon), and a fair bit of London Road being burnt down, all I was coming up with were worse platitudes than Boris Johnson. So I decided not to bother.

I did however come across this post by a blogger who goes by the name of Motown. He lives in Camberwell and gives his eye-witness account of the (comparatively) minor rioting/looting that took place in Camberwell on Monday evening.

But wait, there’s more

Art, Opinions

Watercolour @ Tate Britian

Leave a comment

Watercolour Tate Britian

I am a bit late to the party with this review. The exhibition opened in February and closes on 21st of August. Various circumstances prevented me from visiting until recently, but I think it is worth recording my opinions, even if it is only for my benefit.

Before I start the review I should explain that watercolour is my least favourite method of making artistic marks on paper(or any other support for that matter). I find it difficult to handle if I am working anything bigger than A5 size and I find that my results are generally disappointing. There are some artists who can handle the technicalities of medium, but I generally find that their work is, how shall I put it gently, boring. I associate watercolours with meticulously rendered reproductions of country churches and pastoral landscapes. Paintings that make me think, why didn’t you just take a photograph and save yourself the time and trouble.

I also tend to think of watercolour as a very English method of painting. I don’t know if this is a good thing, a bad thing or something that does not really matter.

I did, however, go to the Tate ready to have my opinions of the medium and the artists who use it radically revised.
But wait, there’s more

Food

Breakfast

6 Comments

Because last week and Friday in particular were quite hectic, I couldn’t be bothered to go shopping on Friday evening. Mrs johnm55 suggested that we go out early on Saturday morning and have breakfast in the café at Tesco before we did the shopping.

One of the great things about a traditional British breakfast is that it is almost impossible, even for Tesco, to mess it up. So before shopping I had a full, heart-attack threatening, plate of bacon, fried egg, sausages, black pudding, hash browns, and to add a bit of healthy eating, some baked beans. The breakfast was fine, and set me up for the grocery shopping, but beyond that was nothing memorable. However it started a train of thought, because a lot of the meals that I truly remember have been breakfasts.

Breakfast below the fold