Heavy Mileage
Posted: Sun 3 April, 2016 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Health, London, Stupidity, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »This weekend’s been a busy one, what with one thing and another.
Saturday was supposed to be quiet – because Sunday was already planned with a day-trip to Reading and had other stuff going on – but I wanted to do something. So, being an idiot, I opted for a day-trip to London, primarily to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year photos at the Natural History Museum, which I hadn’t been to in at least twenty years.
The idiot part is primarily that I decided to walk there – from Euston to Natural History Museum. And back. That’s 7km each way, plus whatever else I wanted to do. I just thought “well, I can do 5km easily, so the other 2km will be easy” – forgetting that 2km is another mile-and-a-bit.
Of course, I managed it, and I enjoyed the exhibition – but I’d miscalculated a few other things along the way. I’d not realised that it was in the school holidays, and I didn’t think there’d be so many people and children going to a museum on the first really decent warm/sunny day of the year.
So, having walked there, it was then a case of moving slowly through a 40-minute queue to get in to the place, which did an excellent job of reminding me why I’ve never wanted children. The exhibition itself was good – but by then I didn’t want to spend too much more time in the area, there were just too many people and spawn around.
That decision made – and having acknowledged that I was rather more knackered than I’d expected – I opted for walking back to Euston (see, I said I was an idiot) rather than the extra bit of walking I’d planned, to go back to the South Bank as well. That’ll wait ’til I’m next in London, which is only a couple of weeks away anyway.
Another 7km did pretty much stuff me, though – I can’t deny it.
All told, Saturday involved walking no less than 21km (slightly over 13 miles) – and I knew I was planning to walk a fair bit more on Sunday (of which more in another post) which made it all even sillier.
It was a good day, and I’m glad I did it, but yeah, Saturday night was pretty painful. I just won’t learn…
2016 Q1
Posted: Fri 1 April, 2016 Filed under: 2015/16, Business, Car Repairs, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, London, Stupidity, Thoughts, Travel, Weigh Less, Weight Loss, Write More Leave a comment »So here we are, in April already. A quarter of the year gone.
The first three months have been fairly awkward and problematic in some ways, but all told it’s still been a success – although in some ways it’s been a case of looking at grey clouds and finding a silver lining. Work and so on have stayed stable, it’s just other non-work stuff that hasn’t gone as well.
The worst (or at least most frustrating) part has been the car – thankfully that now appears to be sorted, but it’s been an expensive quarter, with repeated re-visits to the garage, along with replacement parts and so on.
I did have plans for writing more and so on, but they haven’t materialised. I’ve done a couple of things and started with some ideas and the like, but the intended plan hasn’t happened. Hopefully the next three months will let me write more, if I’ve got the time and inspiration.
Health-wise, I’ve slacked off a lot on going to the gym and so on. I’ve had a bundle of colds and coughs throughout the last few months, and every time I’ve thought “Ok, that’s finally gone”, I’ve picked up another one. That’s not been fun, but there we go. Admittedly, a lack of gymmage hasn’t resulted in any weight gains – everything has stayed in exactly the same place it was while I was going to the gym regularly. That’s been another thing that’s not helped on the motivational front – if it’s not making any difference one way or t’other, it becomes less important to go.
I do need to get back to it, and doing other stuff as well – because I’m a loon, and have just signed up to the NSPCC’s challenge to walk/run (OK, walk) up the 38 floors of the Gherkin on Sunday 19th June. I must be fucking barmy. This is the kind of thing that happens when Marie Curie aren’t doing their 10km walks. I blame them. 🙂 That’s in ten weeks time, so I need to do some stuff pretty quickly…
Anyway, it’s been an interesting first three months of the year. There’s some interesting challenges coming up – not least that bloody Gherkin challenge – in the next three months, and I just hope it’s a bit more positively motivated than the first three have been.
Time will tell…
Badly Worded
Posted: Wed 30 March, 2016 Filed under: Advertising, Bad Ads, Central Bedfordshire Council, Customer Services, Education, Literacy, Thoughts Leave a comment »Just now, my local authority (Central Bedfordshire council) tweeted this, which is hilariously badly-worded…
I replied, asking them if they meant that it was an event for underage drinking/drinkers, or if they meant it to be an event informing about (and/or preventing/reducing) underage drinking – as it certainly looked like the former.
In fairness, they then responded, and removed the original tweet.
But still, it made me laugh, picky and pedantic bastard that I am.
[UPDATED]
They then replaced that tweet with this one…
It really isn’t a good day for Central Beds’ social-media team. But it’s a very funny one for me…
Crawling
Posted: Sat 26 March, 2016 Filed under: BurgerCrawl, Day Trips, Domestic, Food, Single Life, Travel Leave a comment »Today I’m off down to London with a couple of friends, doing another Burger Crawl.
It’s been organised by one of the others, so I’ve no idea what the full plan/route is yet, but it should be fun.
Security Stupidity
Posted: Thu 24 March, 2016 Filed under: 1BEM, Design, Laziness, Milton Keynes, People, Security, Stupidity, Thoughts Leave a comment »Every so often, I’ll see a scenario that just leaves me utterly gobsmacked. Sadly, they’re usually based around security of some sort – for whatever reason, it’s something I’m generally pretty tuned in to, and aware of.
Yesterday’s one was an absolute blinder – and caused by a complete lack of thought/awareness.
While I was walking at lunchtime, the person in front of me was paying a bill over the phone. Using hands-free, so it was all done out loud. (I don’t quite get why some people use hands-free for conversations on mobiles while walking – particularly when they’re still holding the mouthpiece to their mouths anyway. People be weird)
That wasn’t so bad – he was entering the card details using the keypad, so in that aspect it was fairly secure. Not how I’d have chosen to do it, but hey, I’m not one to judge.
The bit where it all went tits up, though, was that the payment line then reads the numbers back to the user, as a confirmation. “If this is correct, press 1“.
It’s a scenario where the developers etc. have thought about how to confirm the card data, and it makes sense to read it back. They’ve just not seen the real-world situations where people then do these things in public, on hands-free speakers. But it meant that – were I a bad person – I’d have all of that guy’s card information (it even read back the CV2 validation number) which I could have made use of.
And in case anyone’s wondering, I did tap him on the shoulder when he’d finished the call, and explained that he really should get that card changed ASAP. If I could hear it, or if he does that on a regular basis, then the card is compromised, and it’s only fair to make him aware of it.
It’s up to him, of course – but the fact I told him his card number, expiry date, and CV2 (correctly – I really do need to get out more) certainly seemed to focus his mind somewhat…
No 10k
Posted: Wed 23 March, 2016 Filed under: Charitable, Day Trips, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Health, Thoughts, Travel, Weigh Less, Weight Loss Leave a comment »Over the last couple of years, I’ve been getting involved in doing some small fundraising for Marie Curie Cancer Trust, mainly through doing their 10km walks, the “Walk to Remember”, and raising some cash through that. (At the same time, being a fat bloke who can walk 10k in less than 100 mins is something that makes me happy)
It’s a fun event, involving walking round a planned route at a stately home on a Summer evening – it’s been thoroughly enjoyable as a way to spend a couple of hours, plus travelling etc. and meant I raised an amount of money that’s not epic by their standards, but was pretty good by mine – and better than nothing, or doing sod all.
They’re emphatically non-competitive, you don’t get issued with numbers etc., you don’t get timed (you can, of course, time yourself) and it’s aimed at being a walk rather than a run/job – which also suits me just fine. I’m built for comfort, not speed (although again, I can do fast-moving fat bloke pretty damn well!) but I do cover the route at speed, while enjoying it.
Having looked this weekend, it turns out that they’re not doing these walks this year at all. That is, to say the least, a bit disappointing. I’m not sure yet whether to look at doing something else – well, I will definitely be doing longer walks and so on anyway, but it was nice to be fundraising at the same time – or what this year.
Time will tell. But it’s a bit of a bugger that this one won’t be being done.
27
Posted: Tue 22 March, 2016 Filed under: Charitable, Health, Sport, Thoughts Leave a comment »I’m not a massive fan of Sport Relief – although I do prefer it to shite like Comic Relief and Children-in-Need – but regardless of any of that, I have to say that Eddie Izzard’s achievement of running 27 marathons in 27 days (including two on the final day, as he’d missed one early on) is nothing short of amazing.
That he’s also raised more than £1.35million is also seriously noteworthy.
That’s not to belittle the fundraising efforts of anyone else, as I’d rather see anyone raise £50 than nothing. Regardless though, the sheer madness of saying “I’m going to run 27 marathons in four weeks” – and then manage to do it – is a gobsmacking and noteworthy effort.