Dog-Gawn

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

Strange phone call the other day, starting: “Have you got a black Labrador?”. A swift review of my personal inventory showed a worrying absence of stinky mutt. “Not right now I answered” wondering what this dog obsessed stranger wanted, and how he’d got my number.

The answer came quickly; the number was on Murphy’s collar which was co-located with the mutt on the main road between Ledbury and Ross. An arterial trunk that carries much in the way of heavy lorries and dopey tourists – both of which are piloting vehicles that would deliver much squashage to fur and flesh. Especially if it’s wandering about in the middle of the road attempting to lick bumpers.

We retrieved the dog – much chastised – and even though he knew he was being pointlessly bollocked, his little brain would not have picked up that those very bollocks were in line for an expensive operation with a couple of house bricks. Dog Lore says that wandering mutts are generally chasing *ahem* ready ladies, and the best way to nip that in the bud is to nip the poor bugger in the nuts.

If that wasn’t bad enough – which let’s face it if you’re any sort of bloke, it’s way more than enough – the Hound of Smell is on starvation rations. A review of his bi-daily snout experience suggests that now he’s stopped growing*, his bowl should be filled to a mere 3/4 of the previous amount. Still Murph’s having the last laugh with supper augmentation of smelly cow shit.

And while recent visitors have accused us of replacing the lovely puppy with a crudely reshaped horse, this is not the animal that is giving us the most gyp. After nearly three months of bulking up, fighting and failing to lay any eggs. At least one of the useless fluffies spent that time creating some kind of rifling system up it’s bottom as the much-awaited first egg appeared to have been fired from a cannon. Very odd shape.

That was the only egg. We haven’t seen so much as a yoke since. One key reason behind this is the bloke selling to us was clearly a Grade-A liar. Because two of the chickens have started crowing and performing technical rape of the other three. I have a feeling they may be boy chickens.

I might send Murphy in there to go check them out. Still if he can’t shag it, he’ll probably eat it.

While I have been writing this the England cricket team are attempting to lose the ashes by chucking wickets away with the kind of gay abandon that has any avid fan chewing the keyboard in frustration. Never has the phrase “Snatching defeat from the jaws of Victory” been so apposite.

* Thankfully. He treads on your foot, you go to hospital for a new one.

Ask a silly question…

On By AlexIn Other stuff6 Comments

Remember the first time you tried something new? The mental vertigo experienced while teetering over the scary chasm of much unknowing. The gap between what you know now and what you need to know is both exciting, frustrating and occasionally terrifying. This holds for many activities explored in our younger years – learning to drive, going to work and the sweaty, fumbling of sexual experiences*

At almost pensionable age of 42, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to think those days – like so much other stuff – are far behind me. But that’s just not the case, the pie chart of all-knowing still has at big old cake slice marked “How the fuck do I do that?“. A second, and larger, section coloured in a deep angry red reads “Why the fuck am I doing that?“. Another reason for this yawing gap between what I need to know and what I don’t can be simply summarised by this conversation with the small random child.

“Daddy, what was it like when you were 30? Was it much different” to which my considered answer was “I can’t even remember what was occurring when I was 40, only ghostly mists of largely concealed hinterland are visible before then“. Probably a bit much for an eight year old, and last time I looked she was googling for exactly where in the world “Hinterland may be located”

But the point – and yes there is one in case you were concerned I’d descended into incomprehensible dribbilisaion** – is a combination of fading memory, inability to learn new skills and an enlarged impatience gland do not offer the succour of a sanguine middle age. Yesterday extensive experience of crashing brought forth some structural changes to a much loved model glider. Some would celebrate its’ new easy-to-carry design with a detachable tailplane, and a few hundred balsa shards that can be simply transported in a spare pocket.

Others – myself included – may shake an impotent fist at the unseen meterological forces that makes landing four pounds of wood go something like “missed the ground, missed the ground, missed the ground, shit where’s it gone, HIT the ground, crraasshhhh“. My inability to close the knowledge gap takes many forms, one of them being a God given ability to ignore the advice of those who clear do know what they are talking about: “Don’t go that far behind the slope, you’ll crash” they said. “No I won’t” I said “Need a bag to carry the remains?” they then said.

Anyway it wasn’t my new glider and I can probably repair it with such skill it might even fly again. Assuming it’s carried off by a passing bird of prey with poor eyesight. But one facet of this repair splash landed in the custard of doubt***, and I inadvisedly “leveraged the power of the virtual expert” by posting a very simple question on an Internet forum. What I didn’t get was a simple answer.

The first ten replies told me not to start from here. I gently pointed out that decision had been somewhat taken away from me about the time that soft wood hit hard dirt. The next slew of responses marked out the tribal boundaries of the Flat Earthers and the New World Men. From there, an increasingly embittered argument descended into name calling and cyber-cage-fighting. When I last looked, the moderator had stepped in and a tense calm had broken out.

I don’t expect this state of affairs to last. They may need to call in ACAS or possibly the UN.

At no point, did anyone answer my question. This proves to me the Internet is rubbish, and my original approach to wield fast revving power tools in a whirling circle of woody death was clearly the right one. I may still be misinformed, cerebrally undercooked and darkenly unenlightened. And I’m sure to bugger up the repair with my normal klutzy incompetence. But – and this is huge ladies and gents – I am not sat eating my keyboard and offering to slice someone open with a balsa saw because they had the temerity to question my all-knowing craft skills.

I’m thinking we should go back to chisels, slates and shouting.

* Certainly was for me. Those sheep were FAST.

** Long term Hedgies will understand the nuance, newer readers may struggle to notice the difference

*** In the Pie Chart. Try and keep up.

The meaning of life…

On By AlexIn Other stuff3 Comments

… should now be an open book to a man who has reached a certain age. So far, a few hours into my forty third year, all I can tell you with confidence is an attempt to summit the upper slopes of the Malvern Alps, before breakfast, made me feel quite old.

That may have been a consequence of spending most of yesterday driving the wheelbarrow. I am the man who put the “Hard” into hard landscaping. In a traditional division of labour, one skilled individual sawed, drilled and generally laid out great swathes of stuff to be filled. Another drove the digger, while the Rude Mechanical was essentially giving it the full-on sweaty barrow boy.

I did get to drive the digger later and, as I suspected, it is the best boys’ toy ever. Fact. Predictably as it required a co-ordinated two handed driving technique, I was properly rubbish.

I shall be spending the next chunk of my birthday with a large new glider and the same old small talent. Normally the meeting of these two results in a depressing search for wreckage and the intense use of a bin bag. Should be fun.

And as my kids sang this morning:

“Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, You look like a monkey, and you smell like one too”.

Bless.

MOT

On By AlexIn Other stuff1 Comment

Stands for what: Moment Of Truth? Mode Of Transport? Money Over Time? All of those. Most Of Today I seemed to have spent the entire day trying to tax the mini truck. That’s proactive administration for me as it’s over two weeks before the normal breathless panic descends on the post office two minutes before closing time. Still on Sunday I’ll be (not) celebrating an age mostly linked with the meaning of life, so it seemed apposite to begin to get my shit together.

Now many of you non paroled hedgies have had to suffer my many entried whine list, right at the top of which is the bloody nanny state. And you’ll not be surprised as I put the critical into hypocritical with a vocal moan that nobody told me the MOT on my car had expired. About a month ago. A month in which I’ve driven over a thousand miles – essentially without insurance.

The noise you can hear is my Matrix Neo body swerve as I dodge expensive bullets. It does seem odd though that the Government wants their car tax, the insurance company their premiums, but no one seems to give a monkey’s that your car may plough into an bus queue because it’s unchecked for mechanical failures.

A cynic may argue that’s because those particular institutions care much about revenue and little about consequences. And he’d be right, which is exactly what I wasn’t as I harangued an innocent Welshman about their rubbish on line excise systems. I was feeling quite mentally excised as the computer said “No” with ever increasing determination.

“Your MOT isn’t valid Sir” said the nice man receiving my tirade (to whit: “What’s the point in putting this stuff on line if your bloody system offers nothing other than wasting my time for thirty minutes before apologetically spitting out a phone number which offers about 47 options, none of which help at all“)

“Yes Sir, but you can’t renew as your MOT isn’t valid”; / “Don’t be rediculous Man* of course, it is, it says right here valid until July 13th 2009” PAUSE. “It’s August 11th Sir”. LONGER PAUSE “And that’s your best excuse is it? I’m not going to spend any more of my time talking to you, you clearly can’t help”

Neither could four garages. The fifth promised much but has yet delivered little. Specifically a new MOT. Tomorrow I’ll be back hoping for my car, a hire car, some form of divine intervention, whatever to get me back on the road so I can bloody well get on with my job/life/ranting.

I feel I need someone to blame. However, I don’t feel it deeply enough to work out who that should be. As I have a feeling, the answer is probably close to 42.

* I’m nearly 42, I believe I’ve earned the right to be pompus at least once a day

Trigostupidry.

On By AlexIn Other stuff2 Comments

My continuing fascination to splodge together two entirely inappropriate words has brought forth Trigastupidry. This is the practical – if entirely bonkers – fusion of trigonometry and stupidity.

From the sound of cow bells, it’s clearly crazy Austrians or Germans who have come up with a cunning plan to launch a man off the side of a mountain.

It’s hard to pinpoint the epicentre of stupidity here. Is it the building of a giant sod-off ramp that’ll launch a rubber suited man at close to terminal velocity into space. You’d think so wouldn’t you. But that’s not it.

Watch where he lands. The phrase “margin of error” springs to mind as does “you have to be joking”. I mean what can of mind can precisely calculate the flight, trajectory and speed of an object, and then bazooka fleshy parts into a landing zone the size of a small paddling pool.

Are Austria a Nuclear power? I think I’d better go and check. This is not the kind of people you want with their finger on the trigger of something dangerous.

Thanks to Julian for the link.

Mud in your eye…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike RidingLeave a comment

… and in every other orifice as well. Think about that for a moment, while I confirm it was EVERY orifice be it covered with clothing or not. A festival of mud laid out the sloppy stuff front, centre, up, down, in and out of every bodily crevice I had inadvertently placed in the line of fire. This was not – as some of my more pervy* readers may hope – an introduction to the Malvern Hills Dogging Experience**

No the reason for my homage to a swamp monster was a ride in Haugh woods that left me 75{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} man, 25{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} slurry. Reasons abound for such muckiness ranging from a month of rain where summer should have been, and some careful harvesting of trees using nothing more than multi tracked twenty ton earth movers.

Tim – a recent innocent comet gravitationally pulled into the slightly bizarre, often drunk orbit of Planet Hedgehog – was regaling us with stories of how, under this foot of oozing nastiness, fantastic singletrack was desperate to get out. After two hours, so were we having destroyed my legs, a very expensive wheel and most of a previously pristine drivetrain.

On the upside, it wasn’t my wheel and the “Chiltern Experience” was rapidly put behind us as an old friend turned up with an even older bottle of Brandy. That ended as well as expected, and put paid to a navigationally challenged attack on the Long Mynd planned for the following day.

My riding pals have known me long enough to interpret “fellas, one thing, I’ve no idea where the fuck the start point is, never mind the route, my GPS is merely LCD candy ,and the only available map marks this region as ‘here be dragons‘” as a cry for help. In that vein they helped themselves to more alcohol and a drunken plan hatched a slightly less epic Malvern Hill Romp.

Which was – and I’m going to appeal to the common man here – fucking fantastic. It didn’t start well with hangovers, faffing and car parks full of red socks. But once 10 minutes away from the sour faced, ski-pole*** mountain bike haters, we bagged a large number of peaks stopping only to inhale vast quantities of cake and the occasional funny turn.

Some of these were my rubbish route finding, some my friends’ need to have a little lie down until Fantasia stopped playing behind his eyes. He’s not been riding much, but I was in awe of his riding approach which was to start slow and maintain that same pace for four hours plus. Not for him some ego straining push for the front – well not until I outed the cake from my Camelbak anyway.

It was ace though, still winter muddy but warm and not the Flanders experience suffered the day before. So impressed was I with the utter bloody joy of bicycles, I rocketed out of bed at 6am this morning to ride another one to work. The rain didn’t stop me, although an absence of four weeks’ commuting nearly did. So disappointed with my energy levels on the way back, I decided the best thing would be to extend the ride up the huge sodding hill summiting at the radio mast.

Nearly needed that to signal for help and possibly an ambulance. Eight minutes out of the saddle with a few hundred feet of sweaty grind, before switching gradients to a bonkers flat out descent into the valley bottom on a bike with shit brakes, thin tyres skidding over damp mud and a pilot wondering what the hell he might do for kicks when he can’t do this.

Got home. Got dog. Got kids who wanted to ride their bikes. Got another bike out and rode that with them. Well you would wouldn’t you? First day back at work was rubbish but sandwiched between wheels, I think I’ll do it again tomorrow.

* Based on what I know, that’s all of you. Except for my mum who is currently disconnected from the Internet due to youngest son’s complete failure to remotely troubleshoot a broken wireless connection. I shall be sending her up my special hammer in short course to remedy the problem once and for all.

** Which is the second highest search vector to this site. The first being “sex with hedgehogs“. I wish I were making that up.

*** “Are these the lower slopes of the Alps?” / “No” / “Then WTF?“

Staycation…

On By AlexIn Bikes, Other stuff5 Comments

… is usurping “stiction” as my favourite bridged bit of alliteration. This mix of “Stay” and “Vacation” is a timely reminder of what it means to be a Yorkshireman. “Ah well, tha knows, could’ve got to foreign parts, but they’ll speak funny and there’s nowt to be found of basic staples such as burnt-whippet-surprise*. Anyroad up, God’s country is right tha, so why would you want to risk bloody frenchies y’soft lad?”

So this week, surrounded as we are by sparkies, plumbers and the like – serious men sporting eared pencils under beetling brows – we’re holidaying right here at ground zero of the previously cherished budget. So far this has involved much the same activity as one would undertake somewhere rather more expensive, although I’ll concede with more floors, foreign parts

Swimming, cakes, exploring muddy forests, cake, swapping depressing rain for amusing films**, eating out, eating more cake, wine, sofa and TV following tired kids heading bedwards, and much more of the same tomorrow.

Which in a further cost cutting move, I’ve decided that£50+ for four of us to drown in the fast running Wye is money for nothing. I’ll merely re-cast one of the old baths into a makeshift kayak, and head off downstream onto what used to be the road outside. Stunning idea I thought, typically British man with own shed thinking outside the tub, and providing decent, low cost family entertainment.

Three pairs of rolling eyes tells me I am alone in my love of the idea – even the dog looked sceptical and he’ll try anything once. Honestly it’s not until you’ve seen a Labrador eat a spider – with apparent relish – that you realise quite how hungry they must be ALL THE TIME. He’s even had a nibble of one of my biking socks of doom which are essentially lethal to any land going mammal from ten feet or less.

Talking of bikes, of course there has to be some of that later in the week. Parental care morphs to parental abandonment as I attempt to impress a man I’ve never met with my riding skills. That’ll not take long then – probably all the time a crash-bang-wallop plunge down the vertical trails recently discovered on the scary side of the forest.

Assuming any sort of multi limbed survival, the next day is all mine to lead a glorious day long ride over the Long Mynd bathed in summer sunshine. Let’s examine that last sentence shall we for possible inaccuracies; basically it’s all of it – more likely I’ll be getting a few old friends lost in the rain for hours on end before a random trail source shall lead us to a pub. Where we shall stay.

Sounds good to me. The way things are going, we might rent out the garden to tourists 🙂

* in times of hardship, rat or ferret was substituted. The surprise wasn’t that it tasted like chicken, more it tasted like shit.

** Ice Age 3. Fully expected it to be a tired re-run of an exhausted franchise, but found myself giggling along with the kids. But the nut gag has really been done to death now.

Rush Hour

On By AlexIn Bikes, Mountain Bike Riding, Photography4 Comments

I have one hour. Exactly sixty minutes to switch life modes, exchange drudgery and bug eyed stress for stolen pleasure. It doesn’t matter why or when – only that the clock is ticking, and I need to feel fast air in my lungs, dirt under my tyres, joy in my heart. I have to go and ride my bike.

First of too many problems is the dearth of any proper good muddy stuff from our door. Sure with the Malverns on one side, and the Forest of Dean on the other, I am only a short drive from stonking trails, and not much further to the wilds of Wales. But there isn’t time for trailers, parking and faffing when you’re a mere hour from needing to be back here.

The very local woods offer nothing other than an excuse to lose the dog in the overgrown footpaths. Head a little further out and a huge expanse of forestry should roll out a million trails, but it doesn’t because of too many horses, to few bikes, too little traffic and my apathy based exploring routine. I’ve driven out there a few times, and come back disappointed vowing to carry on next time to stuff I know is good.

Much of this is because I’m a rubbish explorer, no sense of direction, and yet blessed with a gift to divine rubbish tracks. If you’re in the market for a six foot wide ruined trail full of horses hooves, red Herefordshire mud, viscous shrubbery and a dark heart from which there is no obvious escape, I’m your womble.*

So it’s a bit crap for mountain bikes, and I’m completely unable to find any of this mythical singletrack I’ve heard talked about. But it’s close, 3.3 miles and that’s less than 15 minutes to a man who has 3 week unridden legs, and the need to unwind a million wrongs visited upon him.

Big Ring. Stand up. Ignore wheezing lungs and unexercised muscles. Forget that road riding is dull, blot out the threatening clouds and incessant headwind – there are many things worse that this and most of them are inside.

I’m still attacking everything when I first hit the dirt, diving under the trees on a trail I’ve jealously eyed up on numerous dog walks. Which already goes against the plan of riding just 4 known tracks to the valley bottom and then sprinting home on the fireroad.

But every mountain biker has a Pavlovian attraction for snaky singletrack, and it’s not long before I’m clearing deadwood from a little used trail and thinking happy thoughts on improvements if only I’d remembered my spade. But time doesn’t stop, and neither can I – sweating a bit now – switching to a favourite rooty trail that’s way drier than expected and twice as much fun.

God I’d forgotten how great this is. And it has nothing to do with the bike. Oh sure, the Cove is perfectly balanced, razor sharp without being twitchy, taut without being painfully stiff, fast without being fragile but that’s not what matters right now. Because right now I’m not inside with a pile of work, or outside trying to make sense of ongoing house devastation.

No time to gloat, time to ride, pick another trail and spend minutes I don’t have trying to jump a rooty set. Twice I cock it up, so go for a dumb brakes off approach that ends as well as you can probably imagine. Still, since I was lying down, this seemed a perfect time to break out a lunchtime energy bar and surreptitiously check e-mail. No Signal? That’s fate. Time to go.

Not enough of that to ride a cheeky trail around the lake. Walked loads of time with dog and family, it’s root strewn, off camber, damp today and sure to be rubbish. But I ride it anyway, and it’s bloody brilliant of course – not as it offers some kind of singletrack nirvana, or great speed but because I shouldn’t be here, and nobody else is.

Flick of the wrist shows bad numbers so I quit while I’m just a little behind my rush hour schedule. But not so fast that I cannot mentally mark a myriad of possible trails which peep enticingly from behind summer growth.

My hour is nearly up and some cad has laid an extra mile of tarmac between my fading legs and the demands of being a grown up. The headwind has even strengthened** but a main road short cut deemed to be less risky than the hilly back roads*** bought me enough time to make a sub sixty possible.

Being two minutes late didn’t matter unless you’re the type of person who stokes his competitive gland every time bikes are involved. So that’s me on a final charge which brought the house into view, and a moto style entry over the frictionless pea shingle impressed exactly one person. And that person read 59:48 on their stopwatch.

Don’t get me wrong – the trails aren’t fantastic, at no point did I carve successive corners or jump some monstrous double. The bike and I are splattered with smelly mud, every exposed limb has been brutally slashed by vegetation with attitude, nothing has changed here other than an Inbox close to explosion, and it’s just started to piss it down again.

But I don’t care. Because for a while there I forgot just how bloody great mountain bikes are. That’ll not happen again.

* Remember Womble’s picked their names by blinding pinning a map. If I were really a womble my name would be “For Fuck’s sake, the map is over there, that’s my HAND”

** Out and Back on the same road. Both into a headwind. Ask any cyclist, they’ll tell you this is always the case. We don’t know why but when we find out someone is in for a bloody hard time.

*** Risk assessment went something like “may get run over by a mad trucker heading to Ross, but almost certain heart attack if I have to go up there“

Help me out here.

On By AlexIn Other stuff8 Comments

I am starting a petition for the season of “Summer” to start on May 20th and finish June 13th. The remainder of the crap months between then and September 21st shall be re-categorised as “Wet and bloody miserable“. I assume I can count on your support?

In previous years where Summer is really October with more time for the rain to fall in the daylight, I’ve whinged on incessently about how cold, moist and essentially horrid riding in the rain in. In a departue that owes much to apathy and age, this time around I’ve just given up riding completely. Only once in the last two weeks have I managed to force myself out, with work getting in the way of two night rides and basic bloody laziness gluing me to the sofa the last time out.

I was keen to go last weekend but when it was sunny, I was indisposed with a shovel and a pained expression, and when it was time to ride, it was also time to rain.

I know I have all the kit to ride in the shit weather. I appreciate once you are out there, it’s nowhere near as bad. I fully understand thatn an under-ridden Al becomes an extremely grumpy one, but i look outside and all I see are umbrellas, coats and general misery.

So rahter than man up and get on with it, I’ve gone with a complaint. I think that’s a pretty accurate window on my world right now 🙁 The hedgehog is bloody annoyed, and needs someone to shout at. Luckily I have children for that kind of thing.

Radio Ga Ga.

On By AlexIn Other stuffLeave a comment

I’ve said before whoever smugly proclaimed that “”Honesty is the best policy” had clearly never tried it. However I am now forced to grudgingly acknowledge that the righteous tidy-mind may not be entirely wrong. Let me qualify that, he (and it wil be a he, with clipped hair, nails and accent, polished shoes, knitted jumper, humour bypass – you know the type) is wrong most of the time, because telling fibs greases those difficult parts when the truth will trigger a set of emotional explosions and a hard stare.

Sure you may have to fabricate exactly which band you were in at Live Aid, and play up a little your part in designing the Space Shuttle, but this is merely lexical liquid smoothing otherwise bumpy conversations. But occasionally telling the truth can save you from the kind of embarrassment that leaves you pleading for the world to catch fire, or some other significant event to stop everyone pointing and laughing.*

I nearly managed to lie my way out of an unfolding grubby spectacle when a large, earnest lady dressed in a sack, and carrying a microphone politely enquired if “these” were my children. Since “These” were essentially de-constructing some very expensive looking exhibits at the time during our visit to Techniquest, my first instinct was to go with the big whopper.

True to form, the kids dobbed me in it. Random declared she was indeed a much loved offspring, while verbal insisted it was her sister that had done it** before legging it. Sack-Woman was in fact reporter from Radio Wales on a mission to understand the difference between my generation (i.e. old and hard bitten) and our kids (i.e. young and pampered) when it came to entertainment.

Centre of attention? People clinging onto my every word? Chance to be on the radio? Would I do an interview? What d’you think? Anyway hardly was the question out, before I was describing – with great arcs of hand motion which must really work for radio – how my childhood was essentially hardship, graft and the odd lighter moment when we got to set fire to the Conservative Candidate for Sheffield South.

She gamely tried to get another question in, but I was not to be deterred “Played outside all the time in street, essentially feral coming in only for meals and birthdays. Our kids? Just the same, moved to the countryside, lots to do, riding bikes, long dog walks, playing in the tree house. Computers? No, hardly go near them, strictly rationed like the TV and the Internet”

She looked impressed at my vision of model parenting. But as I was readying myself for a Churchillian finale, she switched Leigh’s and bent to talk to little Random “So, what’s your favourite toy then?” Bit of a pause into which I inserted a desperate burst of telepathic suggestion offering generic outdoor activities and, specifically, not dropping your dad in the poo.

Larger Pause. I’m bricking it now because Random doesn’t really answer questions. She merely mainlines whatever oblique stream of consciousness is currently zapping across her wired-up-wrong brain. Don’t forget this is the child who wants to be a big house we can all live in when she grows up. Experience has taught me her interactions with strangers leaves them – at best – bewildered or just mentally unbalanced.

Sack Person leans forward and asks again “so what’s your favourite toy then?” Random leans my way and gives me THAT look. The one that I’ve come to dread because what follows is going to be no better than “A dead giraffe”, “the road” or “my alien friends“.

She finally proudly pipes up into the Microphone “My DS Lite”. I then receive what I can only describe as “an old fashioned look” from purple portly person, but I’m not really interested as I try to shunt Random into a mental siding labelled “mostly human”, but she’s off explaining – with great enthusiasm – all the different games she has been bought. By those parents that proudly dismiss the need for electronic stimuli to entertain their children.

I’m telling you this now, because the broadcast has already gone out, and – with it being Radio Wales – only 11 people will have been listening, four of which think it’s just another voice in their head. I dunno – maybe she’s getting her own back for the Sports Day thing.

Better go practice my dance moves then.

* Although having ridden with some quite “honest” people during my cycling career, I’ve become accustomed to such verbal cruelty.

** Doesn’t matter what. Toy left out. Sister. Dog abandoned somewhere. Sister. Suspicious crumbs in bottom of cake tin previously the site of large cake. Sister. Word Financial Crisis. Sister, with help from dog.