why i loathe computers

and all their incarnations.

so i need to do another site. maybe not a blog type thing but another site. off i go to google sites.

so far so good. there's a wee video man that tells me all the things i can do. even better. so i get my site - and then the trouble starts. where's the wee video man? he's vanished to be replaced with the ever helpful google help pages.

so i go to make a page. but surely there's a make page button. nope.

except according to google help there is. right there at the top right hand corner. where it isn't!

i go back to google help. i find the same query for some guy who lists the various languages he can program in but, like me, can't add a page on a google site. yeah, says google help, you need to go to the make page button at the top of the page.

eventually the help pages acknowledge that this button may not exist. uhm, change your browser they suggest. that might work but maybe best not use google chrome!

by this time i'm ready to throw my laptop out the window. obviously i delete the site. that right there is an hour of my life i won't be getting back. there is no limit to the resentment i feel about this!

i'm quite certain that there's a logic in the way these computer boys think, that really in their heads it is all quite simple. except that it's not supposed to be simple for them. loads of my work is spent getting people to understand systems and concepts they have no real idea of. it's not that tricky but there is a knack, a knack that seems entirely absent in the realm of 'helpful' software (rage, your name is indeed adobe)

so, off outside and breathe..... lovely

bloater

in lieu of the cycling i have been spending much time in the garden. first it strawberries, then unfeasible raspberries, both wild and homegrown. the other night we got into our red currants, a massive bowlful stripped form our overly prolific plant. red currant coulis with vanilla ice cream. that's all kind of goodness.

still to come, assuming i can get up the hill, are the blueberries, possibly a smattering of cranberries (some of which are happily growing in a bucket on the back step) and yesterday i even managing to scavenge a couple of early brambles as i cycled down the back roads.

nature is always better than tescos!

the knee story

no cycling posts for a while you might well observe. and this a race weekend. what have i been up to? up and down the glens, trying out unrelenting hill circuits around the house and generally readying myself for long days in the saddle?

all of these. it may be that i'll never be much of an endurance cylist and it's very likely i'll never show off the most skills but this year especially i've got my legs into a state of brutalising strength so muhc so that i can;t cycle with anyone as they can't cycle long enough, far enough or fast enough. all good then for the racing you might say.

which is true. except for one small detail - i'm having difficulty walking. i'd noticed niggling pains in my left knee and an increasing tendency for it to give way until last month i stopped being able to walk uphill and was struggling to walk home. i could still cycle but walking? no way?

i tried getting a quick mri/arthroscopy but it turns out in the world of orthopaedics i'm no young enough, female enough or pretty enough to be done any favours. with no strings left to pull i'm left flailing in the world of gp. i'll keep you posted.

so where does this leave me? getting fatter and unfitter and it's not pretty esp as this is the best summer i've had for years. am i bothered? to an extent yes but at the same time i have to accept my best days are behind me and i'll be, even in a best case scenario, cycling less years in future than i already have done. as such i've been enjoying the bike more and more with the certain knowledge that i'm enjoying a finite activity and this has communicated itself to the rest of my life. doing something is always better than moaning about something you can't!

stewart lee

one of the maddest things i've seen someone else do in this country came a few years back when myself and my partner of the time decided we'd go to stirling castle to see braveheart on site, a curious decision as neither of us liked it, indeed i'd go so far as to say i loathed it but it was free and it was at the castle so off we went.

all our fears were immediately confirmed by the swarms of drunk tartan army types hoaching around the place. but, just to get them psyched up that wee bit more, the organisers had decided to do a bit of re-enactment. cue some dressed up english mentalist giving the wallace character a proper kicking in front of the assembled masses. quite how he wasn't attacked i've never figured out but the film started just in time and it didn't happen. (we stayed until the tartan army boys started standing up to recite their favourite lines in conjunction with the rather unlovely mel gibson. pretty it was not.)

anyway, that was about as full on as baiting scottish people got. or so i thought. stewart lee is a comedian i can't be all that bothered with, too many pauses, too many repetitions and just a bit too laboured. until i saw this. and then this. from the repeated 'scotch' to the look on the face of the large gentleman. and gaelic - priceless. stewart lee, i thank you.

Jag är en farbror!

it took a while but we have a new addition to celebrate as t's brother and his partner had their new daughter. they're still in hospital at the moment but should be home soon. we're off to stockholm in a few weeks where we can begin our new role as eccentric relatives!

new map

so i was browsing along thru the guardian the other day and i cam across this.

i'm now willing to accept that there are two types of people in the world - those who find it dull as dishwater and those others (like the occupants of my house) who are completely absorbed by it.

if you're one of the latter any further explanation is superfluous. if you're one of the former i can't explain it to you.

today it seems as if most of europe has bought a book before going to work. i get israel and malta for the first time. latin america remains quiet. i must go and do some work. in five minutes....

back on the bike

after a bit of a hazy time what with work and mystery illness i lag far too long off the bike. i do get the rohloff winter/touring machine together but the bodging means a downhill tyre on the back which is just stupid and that's before the dodginess of the rohloff. the theory is good but the practicality cycles like a tractor.

but aside from all of that, whisper it, i've kind of gone off the mountain bike. maybe it's because i haven't bothered with the likes of the three tens or such like so far this year (who needs to cycle round the same old forest again and again) or maybe it's just because i'm enjoying my new bikes - the trek was instantly splendid, the bmc is becoming so. whatever this year the road is king.

so today i decide i'll go out in the afternoon for a cheeky wee fifty around all the steepest hills i know. and while i don't have to take the van to necessarily mountain bike the road bike provides a myriad of top routes straight from the door. i could wangle a bit of a sixty i think without having to compromise too much on main roads but beyond that for an afternoon trundle i'm not prepared to go.

i think i saw two cars off the main drag! and while there was little in the way of wildlife - a sea eagle and that was about it - the plantlife more than made up for it. it's wild raspberry season where i live so as soon as t came back from work we were straight back out again to harvest the fruits of my scouting mission. no-one here appears to eat them, preferring to spend a fortune on the frankly inferior product down the supermarket (i do have raspberries growing in the garden but the wild ones are better). we've had a bit of a gorge on these lately so t now has us putting them all away in the freezer so that come the long nights we can crack out some of the summer sun!

now we're just waiting for the blue berries, the brambles and the hips!

the tour

and again the tour is over. so how was it?

first things first. contador/schleck. i warmed more to contador this year than i had last year not least because of this advert. but at the same time it turns out that contador and schleck are so chummy off the bike they're not long off holiday together. problematic in a stage race i'd say (fignon - what a guy!). so chaingate? i was surprised when it happened but in retrospect it's a race. what're they going to do next? hang back because someone - evans/basso - isn't feeling well? schleck should've had his bike maintained/changed gear properly.

plus i don't think contador was in the best form. sure schleck attacked a bit but not as much as he could have. the time trial was great for him but just showed how off contador was even allowing for those wags in his team car lying to him about his 'deficit'. i think contador's emotion at the end gave an insight into the true story.

it was interesting too to see his relationship with vinokourov. vino's always going to be a tainted pleasure now but great to see him doing his vino thing again and better than in the giro. tho at the same time still riding for the team.

the mountains. anthony charteau. who? great result and one fo many for the french who got their best haul of stage wins since the eighties. laziness coupled with waaaay too much time in front of eurosport had me not reading the french papers but i'm guessing it was a mix of francocentric glee coupled with the usual handwringing about the state of french cycling, the demise of the tour and how it was better in the old days.

the points. poor old thor hushovd just doesn't have the legs for it these days which is a shame as tactically he seemed the most able. a shame too for robbie mcewan who you have to feel could've snatched more had he not had to cope with photographers flinging themselves at him. as it was a fine victory for pettachi, who's now got the points jersey in all the grand tours, a record that was overshadowed by the contador/schleck shenanigans but will be rearing its head in a drug investigation soonish. as for cavendish. what a great finish in the last stage. he may be many things but not quick at the end isn't one of them.

the race. i thought it was great. i loved both the avoriaz and tourmalet stages and the arrangement of the stages generally. there wasn't that dip in the third week for breakaways/sprinters and i didn't miss (surprisingly) either the team time trial or a second individual time trial. and it was great to see more and more young riders coming through in a grand tour.

which of course means armstrong. basso was poorly but had been poor anyway. poor old evans was broken but you have to feel that maybe, just maybe the efforts of the pair of them in the giro were coming back to haunt them. someone whose efforts in the giro extended only to the prologue was bradley wiggins. sky must be thinking about all that garmin transfer money as he failed to much of anything beyond moaning about his form and wearing progressively more comedy sunglasses. given the general arrogance of sky it's hard to feel much sympathy tho well done to thomas lofkvist who finshed in a cheeky seventeenth and surely must be a better all round prospect than wiggins who should maybe concentrate on his speed rather than climbing.

but armstrong, poor old puncturing, crashing armstrong who loves the tour so much he kissed the ground more than the pope. this was cheery armstrong rather than the stone faced patron of yesteryear which would've been good had it not also been past your sell by date armstrong. worse still, esp in light of the contador/vino pairing at astana, it was an armstrong who may not have been at his best but still didn't discernably ride for leipheimer or anyone else, somewhat ironic given chris horner's performance. at thirty nine. thirty nine lance! armstrong it appears may be be many things but a team player rather than a leader isn't one of them. and all this before the comedy of the jerseys on the last stage. one could almost hear the collective grinding of teeth of the world's accumulated lance haters.

of whom i'm not one but i'm still glad to see him gone. i got a real sense this year of that old era of cycling passing and new names emerging to take their place. true, cycling will never be drug free but i'd like to think drug use will never be as endemic as it used to be. of course it's not quite gone as the fda investigation in the wake of the landis accusations will doubtless roll on and on but it's on its way.

which begs the question. what will the lanceophiles/phobics do now? better yet, what next for greg lemond? i've been bemused by the frequency with which lemond's 'pure' tour has been referenced this year. as opposed to what - the other two, or the two that he didn't win? i feel sorry for lemond, he hasn't had the best luck either professionally or in business, even before a vast lance centred conspiracy theory and i find it difficult to watch his old performances now in the light of that.

but surely there should be some sort of special legal categorisation known as the lemond defence. i think the cycling armchair warriors have missed out on this. aside from a couple of odd blood results, the 'i only took multivitamins' excuse, lemond's commitment to pushing performance in every other area except drugs which he would never, ever do, aside form all of that lemond should be commended for the 'everyone else is doing this but not me, i rose above it all' line that should now be called 'the lemond defense'.

witness in recent times. richard virenque. richard, your entire team are doping, we got the drugs, your team mates are telling us you doped. virenque employs the lemond defense. it wasn't me, i am the only pure cyclist - and then employs a spin on the lemond, the virenque blub.

tyler hamilton. tyler, tyler after all those broken collar bone heroics how could you? but he did. and he too tried a variation. the 'it was my dead unborn twin what did for me' get out. but it didn't.

floyd landis. the signs were there early on that landis wasn't going to master the lemond defence as he touted a skinful of alcohol as a performance enhancing drug rather than a godawful attempt at masking the shedload of testosterone he'd got down him. this before some shameful blackmailing attempts and then of course he makes the cardinal error of admitting it was true all along.

but of course lance armstrong. possibly the most convincing practitioner of the lemond defence since...lemond. a denial so cast iron that the denial itself begins to look doubtful. why is lemond so pissed off? because lance has stolen his fire. armstrong has taken the lemond defense and made it his own. in the future maybe it'll be known as the armstrong defense and lemond will fester and sue. but then only the most commited of online presences will surely care.

in the end all that bothers me is how it affects those on the hard end of the livestrong campaign. seeing that level of belief at first hand is really quite affecting, if not disturbing. whatever the truth of the allegations the effect on those people is something all of those in the lance debate should be squaring with their own consciences. because that really isn't about a bike race.

john agard

Alternative Anthem

Put the kettle on
Put the kettle on
It is the British answer
To Armageddon.

Never mind taxes rise
Never mind trains are late
One thing you can be sure of
and that’s the kettle, mate.

It’s not whether you lose
It’s not whether you win
It’s whether or not
you’ve plugged the kettle in.

May the kettle ever his
May the kettle ever steam
It is the engine
that drives our nation’s dream.

Long live the kettle
that rules over us
May it be limescale free
and may it never rust.

Sing it on the beaches
Sing it from the housetops
The sun may set on empire
but the kettle never stops

juan ramon jimenez

To the bridge of love

To the bridge of love,
old stone between tall cliffs

- eternal meeting place, red evening ,
I come with my heart.

- My beloved is only water,
that always passes away, and does not deceive,
that always passes away, and does not change,
that always passes away, and does not end.


trns james wright

roberto juarroz

From Sixth Vertical Poetry

The bell is full of wind
though it does not ring.
The bird is full of flight
though it is still.
The sky is full of clouds
though it is alone.
The word is full of voice
though no one speaks it.
Everything is full of fleeing
though there are no roads.

Everything is fleeing
toward its presence.


trans by W. S. Merwin

yannis papaionnou

Nights Without Hope (Rebetiko Song)

Late nights without hope
I walk the streets alone.
Before your shuttered window
I spend sad hours.

How I long to meet you
to find old joys again,
again to give you kisses
so black despair will leave.

But who knows where you wander
There in some foreign land.
I wonder if you think of me
or suffer for someone else.

trans Gail Holst-Warhaft

dennis brutus

Mario Benedetti

They Hanged Him, I Said Dismissively

They hanged him, I said dismissively
having no other way to say he died
or that he was a dear friend
or that work wove us most intimately
in common tasks, ambitions, desires.
Now he is dead: I dare not think
of the anguish that drove him to where he was
or the apin at their hands he must have faced
or how much he was racked by my distress:
now, it is still easiest to say, they hanged him
dismissively

wole soyinka

The Hunchback of Dugbe

I wondered always where
He walked at night, or lay
Where earth might seem
Suddenly in labour when he sighed.

By day stooped at public drains
Intense at bath or washing cotton holes,
An ant’s blown load upon
A child’s entangled scrawl
The calmest nudist
Of the roadside lunatics.

The devil cam one sane night
On parole from hell, lace curtains
Sieved light dancing pebbles
On his vast creation egg

His cement mixer borne
On crossed cassava sticks.

Not in disdain, but in truth immune
From song or terror, taxi turns
And sale fuss of the mad, beyond
Ugliness or beauty, whom thought-sealing
Solemnly transfigures – the world
Spins on his spine, in still illusion.

But the bell-tower of his thin
Buttocks rings pure tones on the Dugbe
A horse penis loin to crooked knees
Side-slapping on his thighs

At night he prowls, a cask
Of silence; on his lone matrix
Pigeon eggs of light dance in and out
Of dark, and he walks in motley.

rain!

days of work looking forward to the bike and now stuck in the house with the rain. i did actually do some work on my wet bike yesterday but it's not done what with it not being winter and all and i don't want to wreck the others with water (i.e. i'm too lazy to do a proper cleaning job!)

of course i should be writing or painting or somesuch but i have an overwhelming urge to doze. eat and watch dumbass movies....