Archive for October, 2004

Kicking wing mirrors…

Fyse October 29th, 2004

It’s 1 o’clock in the morning, and I have an important project due in tomorrow, so obviously I chose to trawl through all the ultra-detailed stats about my website. I find that I had nine visitors yesterday, that 10% of my recent visitors were from France (eh?!), and that one poor sod tried to view my site at a resolution of 800×600. Someone with a computer that outdated was a worth a closer look, and it turns out they’re from the Indiana University in Bloomington. How did they find my page? With a Google search for ‘caffeine stats’. Try it, without quotes or anything. I’m the top hit! Hooray! How crazy is that?

That made me look a bit closer at the other hits from search engines. There were a few from searches for my name (no suprises there), and also another person from the states looking for stats about caffeine. The only other referral from a search engine was when someone had searched for “kicking wing mirrors”, and been directed to the list of people banned from my site. Why on earth is someone from the University of East Anglia searching for that? One of life’s great mysteries…

Sunrise on the river, stuck in traffic…

Fyse October 27th, 2004

One thing I wasn’t expecting when I took up novice rowing was the proportion of time spent in what can only be described as traffie jams on the river. To the vast majority of our novice crew, rowing is an entirely new skill, and it’s obviously going to take time before we zip along in a Redgrave-Pinsent-esque manner. As a result we do spend a little time thrashing wildly with little progress being made. Today our cox (the one with rudder) was also a novice, and while he seemed to be collecting the requisite skills with commendable speed, there was a little weaving from side to side, as well as undesirable contact with stationary barges.

Compared to some other crews, however, our incompetence is neglible, and we therefore spend a lot of time twiddling our metaphorical thumbs in the middle of a half mile tail-back. This morning was more extreme than ever, and it seemed that no sooner had we found a comfortable rhythm than we were bumper to bumper (again metaphorically) with the next crew. In fact, gridlock was normally attained before any kind of coordination, resulting in much frustration. The outing on Sunday was much better, with open river ahead allowing us to row all eight at a once, and get up a fair head of steam (so to speak). It may sound odd that Sunday is the only time we’ve tried rowing all at the same time, but until people know what they’re doing, half the boat is required to concentrate on maintaining balance. Also, when the river is so crowded, all eight of us rowing would simply be too gosh darn speedy, and would give us even less time before having to halt once again.

I really struggled with the early morning today, and hit ’snooze’ enough to be slightly late. Once I get up, though, I really do enjoy that time of day. It was cold and crisp at 6.30 this morning, and the sun rose over the treeline as we carried the boat out to the river. I really wish I’d had my camera with me, as it was truly beautiful. I’m certainly going to persevere with this rowing lark until Christmas, and then I’ll decide whether I want to carry on until the big races just before Easter. The cool rowing kit, bearing the college insignia, can’t be ordered until the beginning of next term, so perhaps that’ll sway my decision on premature retirement…

Utterly unbelievable…

Fyse October 20th, 2004

Guardian Unlimited - US elections 2004 - Hollow Victory

“US blogger Markos Moulitsas is wary of Republican attempts to ’steal’ another election.”

Sorry about another political post, but you must read this story. I just can’t believe people can get away with things like this.

Mercifully short political rant… (feel free to ignore)

Fyse October 20th, 2004

I’m quite a politcally minded person, or at least I take an active interest in it, but I don’t wish this blog to reflect that too much. I’ve read other ‘politcal commentary’ blogs from people as semi-informed and opinionated as I, and they’re really quite dull. That said, I simply can’t help but rant about some of the things I read today. A newspaper article in ‘The Guardian’ explains it all better than I can, but let me give you a couple of the highlights.

“…there was the attempt to undertake a new purge of alleged ex-felons from Florida’s voter lists - the same practice that left up to 22,000 people, mainly African-Americans, wrongly denied a vote in 2000.”

22,000?! Apparently around 80% of African-Americans vote Democrat, so if they made up only two thirds of those excluded, that would mean at least 10,000 potential votes for Gore lost. Bush was eventually judged to have ‘won’ Florida by 537 votes. (And that was with inaccurate figures. I mean, they stopped a recount! I can’t see any excuse for ever stopping a recount.) Now it appears they are trying the same trick again.

“In earlier primary elections in Florida in 2002, according to a recent Vanity Fair investigation, one precinct using the machines recorded no votes, several others had their voter records wiped, 24 polling places opened late, and dozens of poll workers resigned.”

How a developed and stable democracy tolerates things like this, I can’t imagine. I realise I am reading a left-leaning newspaper, and that it is extremely anti-Bush and looking for things to criticise, but assuming everything in the article is factually accurate, the actions described are indefensible. OK, brief and uninteresting rant over. I shall return to normal, (inane and inconsequential), blogging immediately. At least until Bush steals the election again…

The Rowers are coming…

Fyse October 17th, 2004

College rowing societies share many salient features with a particularly sinister and life consuming cult. At the ‘Fresher’s Fair’, enthusiastic students extol the life affirming and transformative powers of early mornings on the river. In exchange, all they require is your signature saying you can ’swim 100m in clothes’. Hidden in the small print, so legend has it, is ownership of your very soul. The motivation for giving your life to the cause? A year of purgatory ending in ‘May Bumps’ (Judgement Day), leading to ‘Blades’ or ‘Spoons’ (Heaven or Hell).

That’s how it starts, all sweetness and light. “Hey, it’s just a social thing. I can stop any time I want. It’s not like I need it.” But before you know, your up at 6.00am, wild-eyed and confused, not knowing where or, more to the point, why you are. Someone shoves a small tree trunk into your hands, and suddenly the safety of dry land drifts away into the morning mist. Arcane and impenetrable language bombards your ears, and the power of ‘The Cox’ is all.

Run! Run while you still can. It’s too late for me, but save yourself. No, leave your clothes and possessions. There’s no time to go back for pets or loved ones. Stay in the shadows and plug your ears to ward off their siren calls. I’ll hold them back for as long as I can. Make for high ground, dig a shelter, climb a tree.

The Rowers are coming…

A missing hour & Emily’s return…

Fyse October 3rd, 2004

I’m rather confused, and slightly concerned, about what exactly happened to the three hours it took me to get home on Friday. I left college at 15:50 and arrived home at 18:50, which makes a three hour journey, yet when I add up the sections of the journey (eg. walking to the station - 25 mins, first train leg - 50 mins) I can’t for the life of me get a total of more than two hours. This is disconcerting. I have to wonder whether perhaps I actually set off at 16:50, or perhaps arrived home at 17:50. Either way, I’m cleary losing my marbles.

My brief sojourn in St Albans is in order to see my sister, who, as I mentioned previously, is back this weekend from 9 months in Tanzania. She was due to land early on Saturday morning, but when her flight out of Tanzania was delayed / cancelled / temporarily misplaced, she missed her connection at Muscat (the capital of Oman) and had to spend a night at a luxury hotel (at the airline’s expense). This wasn’t too much of a chore, and meant we could meet her at the much more civilised time of 8 o’clock Saturday evening.

I was thinking, and I reckon I’ve only twice been to meet people at an airport. The most recent time was my brother returning from a school trip to Iceland. (That’s right, I said Iceland. I know! In my day Geography field trips were to Dorset, or perhaps, if we were very lucky, the wild and exotic mountains of Wales. Kids these days, eh? Spoiled rotten…) The other time was when I was very young, and we were collecting my grandmother from the airport. It’s one of my more traumatic childhood memories, as my sister and I were seperated from our Mum by over-zealous lift doors. They ascended a full 4 floors before finally coaxing the lift back down. We were looked after by a very nice lady, into whose face we proceeded to scream loudly, and for many a year afterwards I was very nervous of lifts.

No such drama today, other than the usual stress that accompanies any family outing. It’s not that we can’t, as individuals, get ready, but that we never seem to be ready at the same time. It is suprisingly easy, after a couple of minutes waiting, to find that actually, you’re not ready at all; that you simply have to go upstairs for some vitally important thing, which strangely seems to have gone to ground in a dark and inaccesible part of the house. We seem to take shifts standing by the door, or perhaps sitting impatiently in the car, until random chance eventually dictates that we coincide, allowing us to finally be on our way. Though somewhat delayed in our departure, we were in plenty of time, even depsite the only traffic jam I’ve ever seen inside a multi-storey carpark. It was jammed pretty much solid, but fortunately a space opened up right in front of us. The people pulling out could barely move far enough to let us in, but that’s not our problem, is it?

To cut a long story short, or at least not much longer than it is already, Emily arrived safe and sound. Looking a little sunburned from her brief and unexpected sightseeing trip round Muscat, but otherwise well. The hardcore anti-malarial drugs she was given seem to have done the trick, and the journey wasn’t too arduous, despite the delay. In one way it’s very strange having her back, but in another it’s already like she never left. Whether this is because, fundamentally, she hasn’t changed in her nine months abroad, or whether she has simply slipped rapidly back into being the same Emily she was before she left, I don’t know. If she has changed, I suspect it’s that she’s even more driven, and passionately determined to help the people she got to know. I’m back to Cambridge again tomorrow, so I wont see her for long, but maybe I’ll suggest she comes to visit me some time this term.