Great video sent to me by Ray Pugh of Liverpool Mercury. Gets the atmosphere of the race so well. Leave the DVD menu bit running for a few seconds at the beginning…!
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Stop Motion Drums and Piano
Bloomin’ fantastic – if you’ve never really thought about what sampling is, allow this to do the job for you.
The darndest things
Any parent could list loads of funny things their little ones say. Here’s some of ours.
Feb 2013
Gem from Elsie this morning. Chatting about how milk gets to the bottle. “They put these things on the cow’s udders, them they ud them…”
Feb 2007:
Lily made me giggle this morning with this bit of simple dialogue. D: “Would you like some toast” L: “Yes please” D: “With some jam on?” L: “Yes please. And butter in the middle ”
A welcome run on a winter’s morning
I went for alovely run this morning with Elvis and my camera. It’s been a while since I did my back in and I gave it long enough to recouperate, but it wouldn’t play ball – so I just started to run again anyway. After a brief venture up Ingleborough last weekend, I had a 40 minute run this morning up Bull Hill – in the most spectacular anticyclonic weather. Bleeding gorgeous. The back still aches, but running’s designed to hurt anyway, so I intend to carry on, weather permitting.
Amy Winehouse – Rehab
Katie and I love this tune – something very natural but powerful about her voice. Just had to download the mp3 of Rehab
The Human Slingshot
Something very worrying about this. Something that makes you think that there’s an accident waiting to happen.
3D Pavement Drawings
Amazing perception of depth here on these. Simple ideas in a way but just so well executed.
See the lot by clicking on the Coke bottle
A text book Sunday
A lovely walk, a pint, a great roast, what more could a man ask for to mark the end of the cyclocross season than a great weekend at home?
New track: Underflow
A bit of soundtrack work I’ve done for my old school friend Hamish. I like this piece – doing things to a spec (albeit a not very tight one) sometimes makes you do things differently than you may. It’s not as indulgent as I’m used to and that in itself is good discipline.
Dodgy weather day
Loads of people will no doubt have had significantly worse days than mine in yesterday’s severe gales as they ravaged across the country. My day was a bit of an Epic, though.
I had a meeting in Peterborough and, having had some bad journeys there in the past on the trains, I’d decided to go down by car. What a day to have chosen that.
Although the journey over there (on the M62 and A1) was no more than a little congested, the journey back was utter mayhem. On the A1, heading north, I had to queue several times for uprooted trees lying strewn across the carriageway, and saw four blown-over high sided lorries (one ‘freshly’ blown over, with its driver climbing out of the cab window!).
Diverted from the closed A1 near Melton Mowbray, I had the luck of seeing someone with Sat Nav taking a country lane, so followed him. Some great ducking and diving around the lanes brought us back onto the A1 further up, but after several more long queues for debris / vehicles, I took a break in some services at Blythe. I had a look in an atlas (didn’t have one in the hire car!), and then decided to head cross country across some lanes to Rotherham and onwards to the M1. By the time I reached it, things had eased a bit (but not on the A1 according to the radio – wise move!). Journey took six hours – could have been worse. At one point, I was seriously thinking travelodge, but I think I got lucky with my move across country. Epic day!
Lightening the load
Belgian Cyclocross Championships – excerpt
Was watching this the other night, after a similarly muddy British National Championships, when I just wet myself laughing at this poor chap.
Bye Bye Bling
If there’s anything really disappointing about the achievemnt of sporting pinnacles, it’s the bling that goes with it. Cycling is not alone amongst sports in having ridiculous trophies, they seem de rigeur for many sports.
Anyway, due to limited success in my life, I managed to avoid this poison chalice, until last year, when I won the North West cyclocross league. The success in itself, like most of my cycling wins, was more a case of who wasn’t there and who could be bothered to turn up for the ten counting events, but a win is a win, and someone’s got to have the bling.
I had to wave goodbye to the trophy last week, as it passed on to Adrian Dalgliesh, who was this year’s NW champion. He’s done a good consistant series, and despite not winning a race, he’s been up there all season. Congrats to him, and I hope he does more than keep it hidden away, like I did. It’s an achievement, after all, but one that I’d rather have gone un-trophied, in this case.