Lord of the Rings

I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t funding someone in the medical professions renovations/school kids fees/bmw/habit/etc... and thanks to a small pain recurring in my knee last week, it was off to the physio. Rehab began today and is quite different to what it was in Aus when I damaged my cruciate ligament two years back. Thankfully this is only an “aggravation” of a ligament, so shouldn’t take too long to fix - at least I can still run and get some training in for the marathon. Oh, and if you haven’t yet popped some dosh in the pot so I can actually DO this marathon click here: http://www.justgiving.com/aussierunner. Considering I’m looking at a couple of hundred quid in treatment to get me to the start line, I’d hate that to be a waste if I couldn’t then run for not raising the coin...

Anyway, last night was the night. We took advantage of a dinner n theatre tickets deal and after a far-better-than-expected feed, we saw the stage production of Lord of the Rings in one of London’s oldest theatres.
Quite simply it has to be seen to be believed. The stage, scenery, lighting, sound, special effects, costuming, etc... was incredible. Amazingly clever in how a lot of it was done too. The attention to detail was superb. I’ve not seen anything like it before in a stage production. Very Impressive!
Granted they left out some considerable bits so that they could fit the whole thing in, but nothing that didn’t detract from the telling of the story. And funnily enough, in some parts it stayed closer to the books than the movies.
All up a great night out - better than average feed, good seats for an amazing show, and all for only £20 each!! Gotta love London!

Australia Day

We spent Australia Day in Hammersmith with two of our Santa’s from Borough Market - Karen n Marty. They have a nice ‘little’ balcony overlooking a park, and with a nice sunset, which the pic doesn’t really capture too well.
Marty had managed to stream a delayed telecast of Triple J’s Hottest 100 from the internet, so we had the obligatory tunes going for our bbq. Charity had acquired the lamb chops, while Karen n Marty had rounded the day out with Coopers Pale Ales. Meanwhile, the nocturnal occupants in the park provided the fireworks and the unfortunate “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie...” chant.
All up, we had 3 Aussies and a Scot, lamb chops on the bbq, Coopers Pale Ale, the Triple J Hottest 100 countdown and fireworks - pretty good for being on the other side of the planet in 5-6C weather! No pav for desert, but strawberry cheesecake and vanilla ice-cream was still good enough to make it a great little arvo n evening and we didn’t need the aeroguard!!
Sunday, today was a rather quiet day, with just a casual run in the arvo to keep the legs ticking over in preparation towards a certain marathon...

Off to Wembley

It’s been a fairly quiet week, with not too much happening - work and marathon training (including commuting to work with a rather bent pair of handlebars and only a rear brake). The weekend was fairly quiet with just the usual long ride on the Saturday morning and a long run on the Sunday morning. I got drowned on the ride as it started to bucket down after the first 20mins and didn’t stop til just before getting back home nearly 2hours later. The rest of the weekend was just a casual indoor affair while the wind and weather really didn’t give us much of an invite to go outdoors.

The week since has been relatively ‘normal’, but with a couple of bus rides while the bike got it’s new handlebars fitted. Must say I’m liking the folks at Condor Cycles, as they fixed up the cleat placement on my shoes when I picked up the bike too. The bars look swish too - nice yellow bar tape to match the seat and new front tyre! Kitch... Hipster... whatever you want to call it, it probably looks less appealing to any thief wanting to get themselves a nice looking singlespeed bike!

Tuesday, was a full day session of ‘ICE’ or Intense Customer Experience training with AXA. It lived up to it’s name for the last 2 and a bit hours. An amazing training course, complete with trained professional actors as the “customers”. An 8week scenario played out in 90mins, it was full on! I’ve never experienced or heard of anything quite like it before. It threw the usual ‘role-play’ stuff out the window and literally immersed you in the experience.

That night, it was time to be immersed in a different type of experience - White Hart Lane, Spurs v Arsenal in the Semi-final for the League Cup. This was my first ‘North London Derby’ and the atmosphere was awesome. When we got to the ground, we were just in time to see the police marching the Arsenal fans to the ground, and the abuse was flowing in both directions. Inside the ground all fans were in fine voice as the songs and chants were belted out with some serious passion.
Spurs hadn’t beaten Arsenal for nearly 9years, so when we scored in the 3rd minute of play the place erupted. When Arsenal scored an own goal 23minutes later (see pic) it was mayhem in the stands once again.
2-0 up at half time and most Spurs fans were pinching themselves. It was pinch-me time again 3mins into the second half as Spurs made it 3-0, and the “we’re going to Wembley” chants and songs kicked off in fine voice. The fourth goal was scored just as the game reached the hour mark as we got to wave goodbye those Arsenal fans who could take no more and started leaving.
A few minutes before the final whistle the fifth goal went in to make the final score 5-1. Yeah, Arsenal scored at some stage towards the end, but no one really cared or noticed to be honest. The below video doesn’t really do the scene justice, but it will give you a taste of towards the final 5mins.
Needless to say, the celebrations in the pub we went to after the game continued well into the night. An eight year streak of either losing or drawing to Arsenal was not just brought to an end, but done so in magnificent style in a most entertaining game.
Next stop will be Wembley Stadium for the League Cup final, so stay tuned for that one!

Don't forget: http://justgiving.com/aussierunner to support my London Marathon effort!

A Bit of Shameless Self Promotion

Hi All,

As you know I have suffered twice with spinal injuries and have been lucky enough to come through them both, as they could have been far worse and I could be doing this as a wheelchair entrant. (One ending my skydiving and the other being a car accident.)

The Spinal Injuries Association (SIA) have been good enough to give me a Charity Place in this year’s Flora London Marathon, but I have a fundraising target of £1500 as part of the deal to be able to run.

So help me help the kids and all other spinal injury sufferers who ended up far worse than I did by sponsoring me in this year’s Flora London Marathon!

All funds raised will be going to SIA, and all I get is a day in April that will see me run 42.2kms (or 26.2miles in the old measurement) - oh, and maybe a free t-shirt.

To reach my target of £1500 I’m only asking for £10 (or $24-25 Aust), because if I can get this from at least 150 people, then I will be able to run. It’s not much, and I’ll certainly accept anything from you as it all helps, although if you’re willing and able to give more then that’s even better!!

Check out http://www.justgiving.com/aussierunner and you can donate from there.

It's using a credit card, but if you prefer to do an internet banking transfer, just email me and we can do this using my (Australian) bank account - I'll then just transfer the dosh to the UK.

For more information on SIA and what they do, check out http://www.spinal.co.uk/a-00.aspx

Thanks for your help if you can!!

Simon.

That'll Teach Me to Make Predictions!

Famous last words? Well, I should have kept my mouth shut in my last post, because it was a pedestrian that I clocked. Completely in black, about 3-4 car lengths past a pedestrian crossing, he shot across through the traffic to his van (yes, I’m aware that he’s a van driver). He didn’t even look - not even when I started calling out. Admittedly I didn’t start yelling til I saw the car headlights light up the side of his face a nanosecond before he stepped into my path... He wore the bike and me (at 24kmh, mind) and for his trouble scored a small egg on the rear side of his head and my front tyre gave him a racing stripe on his left shin. Other than that he was fine, and very apologetic.
As for me, well, some sore ribs, a few scrapes bruises and a headache from where my glasses impacted between my face and the back of his head (not to mention an increasing black eye from the swollen bridge of my nose and lower forehead. My hip pocket will be smarting a bit too as I’ll need to replace my handlebars (as you can see), which I’d been needing to do anyway, but now I can possibly get this done by my bike insurance...

As for the last few days, it was mostly work until the weekend.
Friday night saw us sitting in watching Jamie’s’ Fowl Dinners, in which Jamie Oliver showed exactly how and where supermarket eggs come from, what happens to the battery hens, and also where the supermarket chickens come from and how they are ‘farmed’. It wasn’t pretty, and while I’ve done free range eggs for years, I’ll be a little more picky on which chicken meat I’ll buy from now on. On a side note, this little show gave us good reason for a giggle on Sunday afternoon when we went to Sainsburys for the weekly shopping. To see the shelves of free range chickens empty with the “bog standard chickens” (as Jamie called them) - some complete with telltale marks on their legs* - nearly all still on the shelves brought a smile to the dial. Seems Jamie’s little show may have had a rather instant effect.

Saturday saw another long-ish ride, this time taking a different route with the idea of avoiding the very steep Stagg Hill before the M25 junction near Potters Bar. Unfortunately, whilst the Ridgeway road was nowhere near as steep in it’s travels to the same M25 junction, I didn’t realise that the other road leading there was in fact steeper and longer than Stagg Hill. My plan for the day’s ride was to just have a casual ride - and I even threw on one of my xmas presents from Charity that you can see pictured.
Getting back to my adventures along Ridgeway rd, I thought I’d avoid the earlier hill and make my way back to the A111 (which is the road that I normally take to Stagg Hill). Here I discovered that there was a rather deep gully between Ridgeway rd and the A111, which had (as you may have guessed) another steep ride to get back up it so that I could finally ride along the A111 and downhill all the way home. If I wasn’t out for a casual ride, then I’d be happy to do this one again just for the training and the hill climbing challenges!

* For the less squeamish of you, who are wondering what the ‘telltale marks’ are on the mass produced chickens legs, it’s rather simple. The chickens themselves are grown in 35-39days from chick to full grown chicken. They are mass fed for up to 20+hrs a day, so as you can imagine, while they’re gaining an incredibly fast amount of weight, the rest of their bodies can’t keep up - especially with nowhere near the amount of rest they need - therefore, many struggle to support their weight after a while. Now being housed with 17 other chickens in a square metre, and with the amount of incredible overfeeding going on, they produce... well, you can guess. Anyway, long story short, the marks on the legs are simply from the continuous sitting in their own waste - urine burns basically... not nice.

Water Rat

Ha! There you go! Got drowned on the ride in this morning in the rain that came...
But no matter, a warm shower awaited me at work along with dry clothes - All Good.

Even better was a certain email last night. Was great to hear from you!
And just as good was another certain someone phoning me from Melbourne!
Good on both of you! Nice to hear what's going on back in Australia (other than just checking out the Age newspaper online each morning at work during breakfast!)

Avagoodweekend people!!

Moving right along

The honeymoon is well and truly over now as it’s back to work 5 days a week. Starting to get a bit busier now as their confidence grows in what I can do. Commuting to work is still an adventure and it’s now appearing that most London motorists are pretty good towards cyclists - whether that’s because there seems to be so many of us about... anyway, it’s the van drivers and pedestrians who are proving to be the biggest issue - van drivers, simply because they appear to be a law unto themselves, and pedestrians because they pay absolutely no attention to green or red walk signals, and that’s if they actually use the crossing in the first place. I honestly think it’ll be a pedestrian that I’ll clock first. The vans are easier to see as well as being slightly easier to anticipate. Unfortunately, most pedestrians are running about in dark clothing and at peak hour in the dark after 5.30pm (or before 8am) can be ensconced in their ipods or mobile phones. Thankfully I only have a relatively short time involved with any of the roads in pedestrian packed areas.
The London Marathon Plan is in place and I’ve been sticking to it fairly well, although I’ve replaced the Saturday runs with early morning rides up to Potters Bar and beyond. I still haven’t received my entry pack from SIA (Spinal Injuries Association) who I will be running for, which is why I’ve not yet begun any fundraising for them yet. £1500 is the necessary target, and the sooner I can get started the better as I really don’t know how I’ll go with such a limited network of people that I know. A tenner from 150 people would do the trick, but even that will be a task! I haven’t seen any of those chocolate fundraising boxes at work, so that could be a start!Wednesday night saw Paul and myself sharing a few pints over the Spurs v Arsenal Cup semi-final game in our local pub – thanks to our 4th housemate who paid us too much rent this month, so a couple of free pints went down very well and so did the result!

Friday tomorrow...

Life Goes On

With New Year’s over, it’s been back to work and not too much other than that for the week really. Scored a flat tyre on the way to work on the day after New Year’s thanks to broken glass on the road - no doubt from some drunk’s broken beer bottle from the night before. Managed to score the new tyre and some other bike gear in the sales, as well as some clothing, so it has been an okay week. Saturday had a very pleasant early morning ride up to Hatfield (just under 50km round trip) with a nice sunrise to ride into on the way back. While this morning (Sunday) was a 2hr run in preparation for the London marathon...

New Year's Eve

Firstly, let’s just back up a little to last week and moments just after I posted the last entry on my blog. I heard scuffle and what sounded like a small altercation over by the counter. Turning to see into the other small room, I saw the owner/operator arguing with some guy in a hooded jacket. I then noticed another guy doing something with the money box behind the counter. When he stood up from behind the counter i then saw his facemask and the penny dropped as to what was going on - the place was being held up! The guy with the box then rushed past us while stuffing it down his pants and once out the door, his partner soon followed. It all happened so fast it was amazing.
The cops took a while to find the place, and were about as interested as if they had gum on their shoes until they discovered the whole thing was on the CCTV. Nothing like a bit of action for the evening...

Fast forward past some uninteresting days at work to New Year’s Eve. Yet another uninteresting day at work (it’s a pretty quiet time of year) that thankfully finished at midday, so at least the ride home was in daylight for a change. On the way, I stopped in at a bike shop, which had the news going on its TV showing the fireworks from Sydney’s New Year’s celebrations - nice.
After some dinner and the Life of Brian, we headed out to central London and discovering what New Year’s celebrations were in store in London. Trafalgar Square was our target, as this was reputed to be one of the best vantage spots as down by the Thames and Big Ben would be “absolutely mental”.
The tube ride was packed and this was at 11pm. We also had a 15min delay between some of the stations along the way, but eventually emerged at Leicester square. The streets were packed, and thankfully closed to traffic (pictured). Unfortunately, Trafalgar square was already full and the police were not allowing any more people into it, so we made our way to the nearby Duke of York column just off The Mall by St James Park as another vantage point to view the fireworks. Again, there were hordes of people and the place was packed, but at least we could see half of the London Eye and the fireworks that it centred (see the pics and video below).
With the London Eye doing a pretty good impression of Pink Floyd’s large lighting wheel, the chimes of Big Ben set the fireworks off. Unfortunately, we didn’t hear the chimes through all the cheering and screaming of the crowds, but it didn’t matter. Quite an impressive show, which ran for at least 15mins, although you’d think that some of the folk in the crowd hadn’t seen fireworks before! Maybe it had something to do with the fact that they’d consumed FAR more alcohol than we had. Then again, there weren’t too many speaking English either so maybe they hadn’t seen fireworks like that before, as well as explaining why we didn’t hear any verses of Old Lang Syme...
The crowds were phenomenal as they just continued and continued. To get home we had to avoid Piccadilly Circus as the queues to get into the tube station extended for blocks. We headed for Green Park, but couldn’t get in there either, so on to Hyde Park Corner which finally got us into the underground and on our way home.
The other fun part was attempting to text New Year’s wishes back to people - over 2hours before I could get just one text message sent! And I thought things were difficult on New Year’s in Melbourne!!
All up, an interesting trip into central London for the experience.

Happy New Year!

ps. the full show was far more spectacular than what my little camera can show...