I love them and have always been amused by good palindromes. This whole paragraph is a palindrome (well, it’s not, but it got you looking didn’t it).
This site has a pretty exhaustive collection of them, including:
A Toyota’s a Toyota
Lid off a daffodil
No, it is opposition
Was it a car or a cat I saw?
… and other gems
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Our (currently antipodean) friends James and Katy have just had a massive 9lb baby boy. Congratulations to them both on the birth of the upside-down little Finlay James Metcalfe-Gibson, pictured left, aged five minutes. Finlay is an Irish name, anglicized form of “Fionnlagh”, which means “white warrior” from Gaelic fionn “white, fair” and laogh “warrior”. “James” means just James.
Someone shot me with an air gun when I was riding home from work last week. I pondered going to the police but then quickly (and I think rightfully) assumed that nothing would be done and i’d end up getting involved in all sorts of manic bureacratic hassle. It didn’t pierce the skin – in fact I had the tiniest of bruises, but it just made me annoyed.
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A dry night and lots of excitement for Lily who was lucky enough to have all her grandparents on hand.� Most of the piccies were not much good but the sparkler ones came out okay. |
Some photos taken by mum when Lily spent a bit of time with her on 5th November. Cheeky face!
I’ve rung a few changes recently and slimmed down the audio effects and gear that I own. I hardly ever play any gigs any more so it was a bit of a luxury owning expensive guitar effects. Having sold some stuff on ebay, I treated myself to the only real studio essential in this day of computer recording, a compressor.
Without going into any more technical stuff, compression helps get a much warmer and more natural sound on acoustic guitars and on vocals that can often sound hollow and false on ‘dry’ digital recordings. I had a quick mess about with it at the weekend and pretty quickly recorded an acoustic version of Plasticine, a fairly recent song.
Have a listen…. Plasticine (acoustic)
Comments always appreciated.
Oh, and the ‘original’ version’s here if you missed it.
The second round of the highest level of cyclo-cross competition in this country and I travelled down to Ipswich a bit nervous, but also a bit resigned to my form not being where it was last year.
Had an overdue bit of bonding with my Wheelbase team mates Rob, Stuart and Lewis (thanks for the lift!) and managed to keep it down to four polite pints of Guinness on the evening before. Rob and Lewis didn’t snore: my luck was in !
The race day itself was very, very enjoyable. I’d never turned up so early to a national trophy event so preparation was very relaxed and subdued. The course itself was an absolute cracker – some testing technical bits but all pretty fast if you kept your concentration up.
The ‘other’ races (Juniors, Veterans, Women, etc) were good for the North West riders, which helped to make the day rewarding.
My performance in itself was still pretty lacklustre. I had one of the slowest opening laps I’ve ever had at this level, which didn’t help, despite having a good warm up. By the time I got myself motoring I’d ‘missed the train’ and could only make up a few places. On the whole, my performance was better than Cheltenham and I was right on the nail with skills and technique, I just wasn’t fast enough. More structure to the training will follow! 33rd in the end and a lap down on German winner Malte Urban.
Links:
British Cycling website race report and photos
Lots more photos
North West cyclo cross association website report.Â
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We had a cracking stay in a caravan for two nights at Reighton Sands near to Filey, N Yorkshire. Managed to do just about everything you could wish to do by the seaside in three packed days and still came home feeling relaxed and refreshed. Three places featured in the photos are Filey, Scarboroiugh and Bridlington – all classic northern seaside towns in their own way.Thanks to the Bartletts for the kind offer of the caravan and to Fiona for sorting it out for us – shame about your fan belt (she never quite made it to see us)! |
A simple, but a very very funny prank on youtube.
I organised a bike race on Saturday for the first time in a good few years. It was a really very satisfying experience. The ones I used to organise at Cheltenham – mainly road races and time trials – seemed to be such thankless experiences, where riders expected so much of you and were’nt willing to put themselves in your shoes. Not all the time, but most of the time, this was what it was like.
Organising any event like this isn’t particularly easy. You can be lucky with some things (the weather was near perfect, no-one crashed enough to warrant first aid), and other things you can plan (the venue itself was really good – self-contained non-prescious parkland with a course to challenge all abilities).
What you can’t stress enough though is how you rely on other people so much. My name was down as the organiser, but for Katie, it was just as long a day, and probably more tiring in many ways, because she doesn’t have the ‘things will be okay’ kind of attitude that I have at times like that.
The best bits of the day was the realisation that the North West Cyclocross community is a very strong one – and people were genuinely willing to help out wherever they could without being asked. It really lifted me up.
So BIG ‘thank you’s go to: Katie, Jean and Bill, Matthew Pixton, Louise Gore, Stuart and Billy Reid, Josh Varty and his marshalling friend whose name I can’t recall, Wheelbase (for the generous prizes), Mick Spiers, Ray Pugh and everyone at Bury Borough Council Parks, especially David Wells. Finally, thanks, of course, to mum, for babysitting Lily. The day with Lily at my side not moaning and getting on with things would have been blissful, but utterly unattainable.
Would I do it all again? You betcha.
The race report and photos can be found here.
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Our good friends Dips and Jane came up with their two girls to stay in a holiday cottage at Ireby, near Kirkby Lonsdale for a week, and we popped over to see them.� Had a lovely but brief visit, and a little walk along a line of some sheepfolds created by artist Andy Goldsworthy.
Click on the image to see 29 photos – these include some great ones of Lily on the swing at our local park too. |
