Gone

VNU Business Media Europe has just been sold to 3i. We'd only just been bought by Valcon as well. No idea what will happen, but I'm sure it will stay interesting.

Reason #539 not to leave the camera behind

I walked past the long-closed Marshall Street Baths just 'round the corner from my office this morning. The door was open, so I looked in, saw a couple of people and asked if I could take a peek. The Baths have been closed as long as I've worked at VNU, but I've never had a chance to look inside. The interior is clean and dry, and quite stunning. I was lugging a test laptop in, so didn't have room for both lunch and a camera. Curses.

looking at the bottom of the pool, there were a couple of gaffer-taped tripos marks in the shallow end, so someone has been filming in there.

The good (nay great) news is that, thanks to a bunch of people who care about it, the Baths are scheduled to re-open in 2009. I probably won't be working around the corner then, but I will definitely try to visit.

Second horseman of the apocalypse arrives

Latest from Romeike: June Sarpong is to present WAG's Boutique. I believe the next sign of the impending apocalypse will go something along the lines of Vernon Kay presenting Family Fortunes in a cod-ironic, seventies-suited style. The two competing families will be made up of D list celebrities and their wall-eyed relatives. Oh.

Reality jumps the shark

From today's Romeike bulletin. I'm really not sure where to start, and that has nothing to do with the hangover under which I am currently labouring following our client party last night.
Let's just say that we're a bit screwed if we start putting people who have no discernable talent other than the ability to spend money up on a pedestal. Yes, I know, there is also a knowing, ironic meeja take on all of this, but that only applies to knowing, ironic meeja retards, and they make up around .00001% of the population. There are people out there that thought Nathan Barley was a blueprint for trendy urban living, and not a vicious parody of trustafarians who got into the gene pool while the lifeguard wasn't looking.

National Broadcast
Stops and Starts

• WAG's Boutique is a new show presented by June Sarpong that will follow two teams of wives and girlfriends of UK's top footballers as they set up and run two rival fashion boutiques in Central London. The show, which is produced by Talkback Thames, will first broadcast on ITV2 from 30th January 2007, between 21:00 and 22:00.

Waggle Dance

Waggle Dance doesn't get much love, but it's one of my favourite pieces of Redlands-built singletrack. Most of that is to do with this set of corners. ironically, they were put in by accident after we found a colony of ground nesting bees on the original line. Seb and I dug in a serious set of foundations for this dropping berm, expecting it to be ripped to pieces in weeks. but it's still going strong after three years.

 

The full view

A week back from Dartmouth and I'm still trying to catch up on work. Plenty of eating, drinking, sleeping, reading, jigsaw puzzling, walking and kite flying. And a birthday. Yummy.

Training route

The last descent is turning my forearms and hands all carpal at the moment, but at least it's on a bike. Two more night rides this week - hopefully on the DeKerf.

New ipod shuffle

New ipod shuffle, originally uploaded by bent udder.

ON test until the 16th. First impressions? it's small. And it's forcing a restart, as it needs an update to iTunes.

Can't stay away

I couldn't say no to a last minute invite from R &L to sail as bowman on their Humphreys 30. Didn't exactly cover myself in glory, unfortunately, but we survived a pretty blustery day. I'm glad I'm not doing bow on the new Swallow next year, is all I can say - 707s are a doddle after a big boat.

The origin of Tiffin

Just reading about this makes me drool. But the delivery system itself is amazing, too.



A bunch of us have been assembling meals in the office of late - it's more relaxing all round than rushing to make a sandwich in the morning. it also seems to work well.

One heart bypass coming right up

Bodean's, originally uploaded by bent udder.

Bodean's in Poland Street will kill us all some day...

Back from the Ionian

, originally uploaded by bent udder.

Not much wind, but loads of sun, food and lounging around with friends. Living on a cruising boat is surprisingly easy, and certainly dead relaxing.

3rd flight for 18 foot skiff lake Geneva very light wind

This video is prettygobsmacking. We've seen International 14s and Moths do this before, but an 18 foor skiff is another proposition.

...and if we napalm that bit...

...and if we napalm that bit..., originally uploaded by ben.tudor.

plenty of cunning plans, plots and schemes hatched on sunday to redo the ending to BKB. keep your eyes peeled for more stuff in the coming months on that front.

Air resistance

Air resistance, originally uploaded by ben.tudor.

James is due for a haircut today. It'll be a bit surreal without his enormous barnet around to use as a handy windbreak. And all those little birds that have been nesting in there over the summer will have to find new roosts...

Squeezemonkey is back from France...

french snail 1, originally uploaded by squeezemonkey.

...with many lovely photographs. I especially like this snail. Some of the climbing pics are pretty daunting.

An end

At the pontoon, originally uploaded by ben.tudor.

Well, that's it for Swallow. She's up for sale now, and it looks like the crew has the winter off until the new X 35 arrives at the end of March next year.

A frustrating end to it all, as well. We placed well in the first two days of the 707 National Championships, and on Thursday you couldn't have seen us all happier. We grabbed a fourth on the first race, worked the Lee-on-Solent wind bend on the second, sailing up the right hand side of the course into the Northerly and gaining tons of ground on every beat.

The final race of the day saw us hit by another boat on the start line. We did our penatly turns and started a minute behind everyone else. It looked pretty bad. But we clawed up the fleet over the two laps, pipping the last two boats on the final beat to get a first. It doesn't get better than that.

So, what a shame that we spent the next six races down at the back of the fleet! we'd got 3rd overall by the halfway point, and dropped to ninth by the end of it, finishing with a snapped stanchion after an altercation at the last ever leeward mark.

The last sail on Swallow, and no more 707s for now. I'm not complaining - sailing bow on the 7-oh is a pain - literally. I've got a bunch of bruises and dinged a variety of limbs over the last four days in the process of foredecking through twelve races, and I'm tired. Roll on next March.

SSWC06 - pics up

Lots of pics of the Singlespeed Worlds in Stockholm up on Flickr now. Looks liek a good time was had by all. Apart from James, whose bike and luggage was stolen, misplaced or otherwise pinched by BA, the bastards.

New phrase

...courtesy of S.

Chino People - dotcom throwbacks who inhabit the executive suite. Hardworking, chipper, businesslike and utterly ephemeral.

All Blue Bat, all the time

Allan's sent over some very nice images of the Blue Bat in action. Not sure whose they are, so let me know if they're yours and you'd prefer they weren't shown.

Allan's on the far right. Talk about laid back...

Typical bowman shot. Usually it's because we get our stuff done early and then wait for the rest of the crew to catch up...

Dorking West update

Oli's been busy - despite yesterday's scheduled work on the pump track being rained off, he's been chatting with The Man about other improvements for Dorking West.

Been a bit busy

Apologies for the hiatus. It's because I've been working away on something else - the Redlands Trails blog. The blog sits beside the Redlands Trails web site - don't forget there's also a Forum, too. With the closure of bits of BKB, it's now looking like we're going to have a very, very busy autumn.
Next year will also be a bit hectic, as it appears that Swallow will be replaced with a shiny new race boat. More on those plans later.

Art commissioning

Commissioning meetings occur here every fortnight and involve the art desk, the writers and the back bench, also known as production or the sub's desk. As features ed, I'm obliged to give a potted summary of each feature we will be running, and answer questions from the audience about the direction and scope of the piece. Serious brainstorming and other creative things follow as we attempt to come up with illustrations for each feature and fix on a couple of ideas for cover images, headlines and slogans.

As hard as we try, it is impossible for any of us to take this seriously.

After all, it's a magazine, and we are eminently unemployable in any other industry. We might look and sound like a bunch of frickin' Soho creatives, darling, but pretension - or rather - any form of cod-serious thought - is not tolerated in our office.

Consequently, we end up with a lot of rejected ideas that are possibly a little less than... alright. This fortnight's favourites:

Suggested headlines:
Gratis gogglebox mongfest
Log on, tune in, trip out

Suggested illustrations:

'A field full of moneypigs!'
'We could nail pigeon's wings to the back of a squirrel...'

The last one keeps coming back to haunt us. As does a dog being punched in the face by a midget. You get the idea.

"Don't get me wrong--my years of crack cocaine and endless whores were endless fun."

Nice piece here from theBookseller.com - Felix Dennis: Money talks.

Sample quote:
"Don't get me wrong--my years of crack cocaine and endless whores were endless fun," he laughs. "You've no idea what it's like out of your box with 18-year-old girls all over you, spending £50,000 every night. But it literally kills you."

I worked briefly for Dennis in 1998, just before they sold the titles I worked on to another firm. My first experience of Felix was during a quarterly meeting a few months before my formal start date. As we sat inside the board room, with its glass wall onto the corridor, listening to ad sales explain why they'd sold even less adverts than the previous quarter, Felix came past, prancing like a madman when he saw he had an audience. This was during his crack-smoking days, you understand.

The room fell silent. Into the silence, our scouse rowing instructor editorial assistant uttered the words on everyone's minds:

'Who's that old wanker?'

'It's the guy that owns the company,' replied someone after a shocked pause.

at that point, I realised that Dennis was going to be a great place to work.

Pump track progress Pt 4

This should give an idea of the scale of this thing. Dorking in the background. Train for illustrative purposes only.

 

Pump Track Progress, Pt 3

Dialled Bikes Prince Albert. Shiny. 

Pump track progress pt2

Looks like a shot from the Mars Rover, but it's the back side of the KOD pile.



This berm - to - tabletop is sweet. Even I was able to ride it slowly. to the right is another line - a small jump. This is the third corner on the pump track.




Fourth corner. That berm is about 15ft high. This is all in the process of being shaped at the moment, so the surface is loose. 

Dorking West - pump track progress pt 1

Oli from Head for the Hills has been making solid progress on Dorking West, the jump spot just behind the railway staiton of the same name. Work on the track stalled last year, as most of the kids who had secured the funding with the help of MVCF stalwart Dave Maudell went off to university or, in one case, Hendon Police College. Valiant attempts by Crankslave to get things going faced abrick wall of apathy from jump kids themselves, which was pretty frustrating. Nothing like bitching instead of actually getting off one's bum, is there?

Anyway, Oli has sterling dirt experience, and he got things going again, including sorting out to get Paul back in with his JCB to reshape a freshly - designed pump track / 4x track.



The bund has now gone, replaced by a railtrack-funded fence. the bund didn't have planning permission, and Railtrack are obliged to stop small jump kids falling onto the railway line, apparently. The approach road is now graded and very smoof. As you can see, plenty of scope for parking here, should there be any proper events in future.



Enormous pile of dirt for a king of dirt compo - the shovel is standard size.



The view from the top of the start ramp for the KOD. Oli is above standard size. Absolutely massive...



The jumps are looking more bedded-in now - set like concrete, in fact. 

I don't know much about cricket...

..but the whole family enjoyed the Pro 40 match betwen Hampshire and Somerset last Sunday. We took picnics and beer and other booze along to celebrate Ali and Carolyn's wedding anniversary.



Ali lost control of the champagne bottle and blew the cork, so Katie got a backfull of cold suds, and a Somerset fielder was almost taken out by the flying cork. We all had hysterics, and luckily the rest of the crowd seemed to like it too. 

Last Thursday's power cut

A power cut in central London last Thursday pretty much wrote off our production for that day.
Luckily we were able to carry on with the art meeting for issue 222 outside. Martin's last art meeting. Aw.



The pubs stayed open, and did a roaring trade.


We sacked off early and started Martin's leaving do at 2pm. I think it ended at about 10.30pm with a bunch of us back in Golden Square, having smuggled pints from The Midas touch over the railings. Good times.

Good trimming

Monster primary winches on the muthaship after using the Harken 8Bs on Swallow for years. 

Runnel Stones

We got this close to Runnel Stones on the way out and on the way back. Very quiet, apart from the mooing noise the buoy itself makes, which is damn eerie.

Runnel Stones is, apparently, a great dive.

It's worth remembering that this area is not always so peaceful. There was a documentary about the Penlee disaster on the BBC last night - Wolf Rock is not so far from Runnel Stones at all, and the Solomon Brown went out in 80 - 95mph winds that night. The Richards family - my dad's family - come from Lynmouth, and my great great grandfather was coxswain of the Louisa during the rescue of the of the Forrest Hall, and the Richards have always had something or other to do with the Lynmouth boat.

Jackass judge rules against fixies

Ignorance is one thing. But this ruling reported by BikePortland, suggests that the ability to follow rhetoric is also lacking in one Portland judge's case.

In short, a judge ruled that riding a fixed gear bike without a caliper brake was unlawful - despite the law requiring only a brake - not a caliper brake.

A fixie, or fixed gear bike, is a pretty simple thing. The rear cog is fixed in relation to the rear wheel - if the wheel rotates, so does the cog, and in turn, so do the pedals. This means that, to slow down, a rider can simply pedal slower, against the rotational force of the wheel. It's an incredibly simple and effective way of controlling a bike's speed. You stop pedalling, and the bike stops moving.

The Portland, Or. cop who ticketed a courier for riding without a caliper brake did not understand that the fixed gear she was riding had and incredibly effective brake already.

A brake caliper is OK, but think about how strong your legs are compared to your fingers. A fixie has the most powerful brake available - the rider. The nature of a fixie also means that it's impossible to ride wiothout a great deal of skill and experience - it's a self-selecting mode of transport, basically. You can't ride one unless you're really, really good. That's in contrast to the number of bikes I see in the bike shed every morning that have two brakes - two defective, unmaintained brakes.

Most fixie riders in London have a vestigal front brake on their bikes, and most people learning to ride fixie use a front brake only. This is fair enough - I tend to only use the front brake on my singlespeed road bike after all - but what is at stake with this case is the right to use the brakes you want to use, so long as they fall within the requirements of the law.

Picdump

Obligatory sunset shot #2 - this time on the way out.




When we got to Cork, we had to get past Maximus, who was tooling around rather quickly outside the harbour. She's a gobsmackingly large boat.


Looks like an AC, but biggerer. 

Wolf Rock

We passed the closest I've ever been to it - 100 yards, tops. Depth down to around 50 feet under the keel - plenty. I was on the helm at the time. Slight puckering moment as it lost 30 feet in two seconds.



 

Throwing more shapes

Too much chop and too little apparent to keep the main going properly, hence the soft leech and far-too-flat head. Meh. When we could get it set up right, however, it was a pretty decent shape.


All going a bit Duran Duran.