The Joy of Wool

Yesterday I acquired a "Merino cycling jersey" from Aldi, as worn by someone far more attractive than me (taken from Spazzetta's website. Props where it's due). I was hoping for an Autumn jersey, somewhere between a short sleeved jersey with arm-warmers and a short sleeved jersey with undershirt.

The Unboxing
The jersey's made by Crane. Not sure who they are but the name crops up at Aldi. I've had their shorts, gloves and shoes in the past (and currently) and they are serviceable, if not special. But then it's Aldi. Functional and yet inexpensive.
The first thing I noticed was the styling. Being the fashion icon that I am, I quite like the white panel. Quite retro looking against the black. the collar is classically cycling, with a plastic fastener but no back pockets. That's not a good start. It does have the Cane logoed grippers on the back at the bottom, which is a nice touch. The jersey is only 25% merino/polyester. I'd have expected 50% on a decent Shutt Velo Rapide jersey.

As I put it on it felt a little itchier than I'd hoped. I'm not a fan of manmade fibres off the bike. The fit is also a little loose. I'm a 42" and the large, market 42" to 44" is a little generous.

The next thing I noticed was that the weave is quite open. Much more so than aforementioned Shutt Velo Rapide's "Sport Wool". I could see this was going to be an issue.
The Test Drive
This morning I teamed up the jersey with Decathlon bib shorts, Crane gloves and shoes. Nothing but Tier One labels for me and headed out into the teeth of a 20knot Westerly headwind for my 10 mile commute.

Normally, I only keep a tissue in my back pocket. You can keep your tissueless exhausting, than you. Without pockets on this jersey I resorted to the 15 year old girl "tissue up the sleeve", which wasn't too bad. I cycle a bumbag (get over it, I just don't care!)

For the warmup 15 minutes I wasn't that warm. The wind cut in through my arms and torso. Without the bib shorts my tummy would have have got quite chilly. As I warmed up, my arms weren't as warm as I had been in armwarmers previously and my torso was just slightly uncomfortably cold. Without the wind I'm sure it wouldn't have been so bad. Getting into work I'm not sweating as much as in my Shutt Velo Velocast jersey, probably a little more than my Giant Velocity jersey with armwarmers, and with a little tummy chill

Giant Velocity

Pros

• Inexpensive (at £15 it's a win)
• It's Merino wool
• It's not Rapha

Cons

• No pockets
• Open weave
• Not enough Merino wool
• A little loose fitting

This jersey falls between two stools. I can imagine wearing it out more than I'd wear it as a strictly cycling top. The joy of soft merino wool is to wear it next to the skin (does that make me a pervert?) but it's a little itchy (may go with washing) so I'd probably wear some undervest.

Rapha have marketed themselves in the same way as Stella Artois' "reassuringly expensive" used to (before being the cheapest beer in Tesco and universally known as "wifebeater"). Rapha now says "worn by cocks". This is a decent jersey and your friends won't think you're a ringpiece as you wear it for gentle pottering down a towpath to a pub in the late spring or early winter. And for that it's a win.

On the basis of this, if you want to send me free shit to review, let me know.

Look who I saw on the way to work!?

I was riding to work this morning, about here:




View Larger Map

When I saw

and this (driven by a VERY dour man)







And now, the money shot

An Unoriginal Blog, or my Granddad Smith

This blog was inspired by Viv's moving tribute to her Granddad.

My Dad's parents lived in Wales. It was a 6 hour trip by car or train and that deserves its own story. But that was a holiday. Grandma and Granddad Smith was every day life. This is my story of them, but mostly him

Grandparents aren't supposed to have favourites. But my Grandma Smith (my Mum's Mum) chose me from her five Grandchildren from her three children. I was number 3, the only child of her only daughter. When number 5 came along, he was my Granddad's favourite.

If you looked at Grandma and Granddad, they're a bit like the saucy postcards, he was small and wiry, she was very matronly, and utterly devoted. Grandma kept a perfect house and Granddad did the man jobs, like the coal, the garden, the food and the fire. He was your archetypal dour Yorkshireman. Never raised his voice. Never had to. He had PRESENCE.

My Granddad started in the pits aged 14, but I don't remember him working. I'm told my Granddad used to take me out in the pram. This was quite unusual in those days, not a manly thing to do. My mum's eldest brother got wind of it and suddenly cousin number four (his first two hadn't been that involved with Grandma and Granddad) got deposited and he and Mr Bland, who lived opposite, took me and number four out in the prams and literally walked the wheels off it. That must have been a sight. I'm sure no one said a thing. Because they were both brilliant.

After I was born, Mum went back to work after three months and I spent my time at Grandma and Granddads, where Grandma and I made cakes: pastry bases, jam splodge, sponge top; a kind of Bakewell. And we got to lick the whisks. They had a big Grundig stereogram, a bit like this  which I used to listen to all the odd SW stations from all over the world.

After I went to school, they were still my wrap around child service right up to when I was 16.

She made clothes for my Panda and teddies and she was wonderful. I don't know if I remember her face or I've put her face on her from photos. If anything she's more of a Mammy figure, like the housekeeper from Tom and Jerry.

Mammy from Tom and Jerry

Then, after 18 months of stomach cancer she died on Jubilee Day. I was 6.5. My Granddad was devastated.

Every morning, every night, every meal he would kiss three pictures of her around the lounge and thank her for his food. His food? He'd never had to cook in his life. So when Grandma knew she was dying, she wrote down instructions for his food so he could follow them. Even down to the Bakewell cakes, which, as you will now understand, I didn't name. Poor Grandma, in my family they're now known as Granddad Buns. I wish I could get my hands on that book.

So I spent many days still with Granddad Smith. We used to go across the road to see Mr Bland, who'd put on a record of Val Doonican singing Paddy McGinty's Goat


and Rafferty's Motor Car.



Even now these songs mean a lot to me.

Most of the time he was to be found in his deckchair outside the garage, or shovelling coal in. Or we had a pair of walking sticks he'd cut down and we turned them upstairs and played golf, trying to get a golfball into the airbrick outside the house. Sometimes we'd go to the rec and play pitch and put. But none of this happened until he'd made the morning trip to the cemetary and back.

Quite often we went to where Granddad worked an acre of land, belonging to Grandma Bland. From this he fed his children with potatoes, carrots, broad and runner beans, before my time he had pigs on it, and my personal favourite, peas, which in season I'd "help" him pick by eating as many as I could fresh from the pod. When the weather turned we'd sit on old car seats in the pig shed and he'd take his old penknife and peel an apple in one and hand me slices. In his garden, he grew dahlias not for show, but just because he liked them.


I think I can count the number of times I went upstairs in that house on the fingers of my hands. Upstairs was for best and for bed. There was a downstairs toilet, in which, instead of toilet paper, was the opened paper bags that the meat had come in from the butcher's. Proper John Wayne. Made Izal look positively absorbent.

Dinner time was ALWAYS 12. When I was asked what I wanted, I always wanted scallops: thin sliced deep fried potato, cooked in a small blackened milk pan. Often served with cold mutton from the shops at The Pond. No telly except for at 12 til 12.30, children's tv. Then off.

Irrespective of the weather, the fire wasn't lit until 6pm. He had a proper old coal fire I wasn't allowed to play with.

Christmas Day he used to come to our house. He'd have to be picked up from six miles away and sat in front of his food by noon. He never said anything. It's just how it was.

Speaking of Christmas, for birthday and Christmas you got £5 each until you got a proper job. I was only the second to go to college. His favourite just never applied himself. He was going to be a sportsman, but wasn't good enough. By the time he realised... well, another story.

So, when it came to my birthday and Christmas and I was back from college he'd take one look at my long hair and say "when are you going to get a haircut and a proper job?". His hair was one of those wartime short back and sides where the sides are skinned. A proper MAN's haircut.

So after college I decided I didn't want a real job JUST yet and left for Australia in the November. One day, sitting in Sydney in the April sunshine I went to the Post Restante and got a letter from Mum and Dad. My Granddad had had a stroke at the age of 85 and died. They deliberately didn't tell me until it was too late to come home so I didn't have to make that decision.

So, this dour man, what did I find out when I got home? Every week he'd given my mum £5 "for when he gets back".

When the will was read out, the only thing that was specifically left to anyone was that stereogram. I have it still of course.

Unfortunately I never got to say goodbye or thank you, and he never did find out I'd got myself a proper job and haircut. I hope you're proud of me now.

Today's WOTD

The other week I got a "spy camera", one of these:

and for a bit of fun I fastened it to my helmet with the universal fixers: Postie's red laggy bands.

So I thought I'd have a punt at seeing my ride in. A bicycle homage to this and The Night Train.

Ignore the date, it was taken today. Apparently you CAN set the date on this thing, but as yet I've been unsuccessful.

Why does he get the coveted WOTD? Look how much space he gives me, even though the road is clear for a good half mile visibility.


View Larger Map

Because he's a wanker. That's why.

Chinese Roundabout fun

This video was shot by a cow orker from a hotel window in Shenzen. Can you spot ALL the differences?

What? My name is...

This is as a result of the quite eloquent Viv's blog  which she insists on having me comment on. It's the LAW.

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away (ok Rotherham), a baby was born. Because his father was evil or welsh, the baby was registered as Gareth Mark.

Gareth is a welsh name meaning "wise man".  Mark, apparently means warlike. Possibly for these reason or one which has never been explained to me I was known as Mark. Neither seem appropriate.

Then one fateful day when I was about 11, I was interviewed for a new school. The headmaster asked me my name and I gave it. "So Gareth," he said. I was too shy to say anything to him. So anyone who knows me from that  watershed moment calls me Mark, anyone after calls me Gareth. Except my Mum who appears to have switched allegiances.

Of course it all gets confusing when post and pre watershed people meet.

One of the biggest issues is Gareth appears to be hard to spell  garath, Garrath, Garreth, Garrett  ive had them all

How do I feel? I don't like Gareth. It's been too long now that I don't think I could handle new people calling me Mark. It's more of a family name now.

Why Don't You....

Or a Child's holidays in Wales.

Back in the day before Jeremy Kyle and breakfast tv there were three tv channels, Sky was where the clouds lived and morning tv came in two flavours; during term time a series of "for schools and colleges" which was like the OU for Children;  and holiday tv, which was less worthy but better.

Duriring my childhood I spent a lot of my holidays at my Grandparents' house in Goodwick. It's a bit quiet there.

Being always an early waker I'd be in the lounge reading, waiting for the telly to start. BBC2 would have been OU films with men in brown suits, wide ties and big hair.

ITV started at a whoppingly early 8.30am with  Sesame St. Never a big fan other than The Count and the cartoon pinball machine

At 8.50 BBC 1 would start, typically with The Wombles. I was a bit fan, especially of Orinoco. After the "Rugby Incident" alluded to earlier I was nicknamed Orinoco, because he's a Womble (one ball, geddit? Technically inaccurate but at 16 who let accuracy get in the way of a good ribbing?)


What came between that and Why Don't You I don't recall. After Why Don't You was a dubbed weekly eastern European dubbed children's series. But the subject of today's tale is Why Don't You?


Here is the  Title Sequence


Why Don't You was a 20 minute programme presented by regional theatre brats, some of whom have gone on to be part of Ant and Dec or Pauline Quirke.





The rest of the programme was short films of people with "interesting hobbies" such as Scottish Country Dancing, BMX, the typical stuff the BBC thought would be good. The BBC continues this tradition with Take A Bow.

In between these were activities and things to do on wet summer holidays. Things to do with paper and card, making kites, often suggested by readers (aka The Researchers)

One thing that caught my eye was a robot with flashing eyes. It was electronics, and it looked quite funky.

Robot turned out to be a bistable multivribrator. Calm down. It's just one of these

Every week there was a fact sheet, which you could get by sending an SAE and a nominal postal order. My Dad helped me get the PO and I waited for the leaflet.

Within 28 days a leaflet arrived, full of crap (along with the rules of Tower of Hanoi) but with the name of a book on Electronics. Again I dragged my Dad out to get me the book, which then meant I needed some stuff.

There was a white board full of holes which you could plug stuff in and a bunch of resistors, diodes and LEDs. So we went down the local hobby shop and got a bag of bits.

Having built the robot, and a crystal radio and all sorts of entertaining stuff, it kept me busy when I wasn't swimming, cycling or playing music.

And then I realised I could make money doing silly shit with wires and stuff. And that is why I write software.

A little bit of rap and some boyband

Hip HopBoyband

From the best TV programme, Horrible Histories

The week I stopped drinking for five days

No, not another "On the Waggon tale". This tale took place some years ago, but it's worth telling again.Well I think so. I hope you do. If only for the added yuck value such illnesses have. Having already survived Testicular torsion at the age of 15 due to some too tight shorts and a very unpleasant scrum collapse (ask me for the gruesome details, I may divulge later) this yuck factor may be high.. Strap on your belts, here we go.

If you've never heard of Quinzies, click here

Thursday nights are typically going out nights.in Britain. It all stems from the working class being paid weekly on a Thursday, blowing what they can before handing the remainder over to the wife who might allow you some cash for Friday night with the boys. Saturday was always Ladies' Night. But I digress.

Day 1: Friday
So it comes to Friday morning and I feel rough. I haven't had a drink the night before, but I got into work on Friday morning and the comments were about my heavy night. Got to lunchtime and I'd had enough. It was getting past "you look hungover" to "have you got man-flu" and my boss, Andy, sent me home. That was Friday lunch time.That was the last time liquid passsed my lips.

Man-flu, the worst thing you can get. Sore throat, sweats, shivers, can't get warm at all, headache, and suddenly I can't swallow. I don't mean "I can't have a drink" I mean "I can't swallow". At all.

As with all man-flu attacks I spent the rest of the day in bed. Salivating. It's a bit of a hassle. So I return to the settee, duvet in hand, with two pint pots. The first full of water with which I swill out my mouth, the second empty for the residue.Next time you're bored, count how often you're swallowing just saliva. It's not an inconsiderable amount.

Well, that was a sleepless night. Night 1

Day 2: Saturday
Day 2 dawned, Springlike. ie early, I'm still up, I'm still watching tv. I'm almost incapable of speech.24 hour man-flu gets like this. Normally, after a day or so I cough up a plug of phlegm, bit of blood and we're good to go. Not today. I'm still on the swill and spit routine, I'm absolutely thirsty. Get through the day but just can't move. Still with the high fever. Can't get comfortable, can't lie down, can't sit up. Every minute I'm having to spit into that damn cup. The spit is getting whiter and thicker and generally more unpleasant. It gets to "bed time" and I'm going nowhere. I've stopped weeing by now. There's nothing to come out, so there's no need to go upstairs.

As night fell, the problems began. I'd had the tv on most of this time. Banal background stuff. Mostly Discovery, probably Home and Leisure. I do like a bit of the old "This Old House" and Bob Vila. But by the middle of the night I wasn't coping. Couldn't focus, couldn't watch, couldn't anything. So my go to programme when ill is Radio 4. At this time of night it's World Service. It's like having a very nice man whisper gently in your ear.As you spit into a pint pot half full of saliva.

Day 3: Sunday
I'm going nowhere. This isn't shifting. If anything else, it's getting worse.I'm not walking, I'm crawling to the kitchen to rinse out my drinks. The day is a blur. I've no idea what happened, but that night, well, I've never taken hallucinogens and I now never want to. Voices, lights, colours, shadows. By now I have a craving for yellow melon. Galia, honeydew, I don't care. I JUST WANT MELON and I WANT IT NOW. I had no idea what was real and what wasn't. SOMEHOW I had a phone call with my mum and managed to convince her it was man-flu. I don't think she bought it but I got away with it. Promising I'd go to the doctors the next morning.

Day 4: Monday
Woke early, sent an SMS to my boss saying I wasn't going to be in. Couldn't talk at all. Got on my bike to ride the mile to my doctor. Emergency appointment. I couldn't talk so I didn't try to ring. Just turned up. Half way there I stopped. Sweating profusely yet freezing cold. I barely had the strength to make it.

The Doc agreed to see me. I must have looked like a drug fuelled crazy. Sweating, shivering, 3 nights without sleep, not washed. She took a look at me and prescribed me antibiotics for what she told me was Quinzies. No google in those days.



So a vague ride home and we're back under the duvet with two pint pots and some drugs.All very well, the only problem was, the swallowing. Put them in my mouth. No go. Nothing. Utterly futile. It's like the joke about the tablets that make you stronger. I'd take them if only I could get the lid off.

Another crazy night of no sleep and hallucinations. I pinched the skin. on the back of my hand. It just stayed in a little pinch. Dehydrated beyond question now. The melon craving is really kicking in

Day 5: Tuesday
This time, walked to the doctor. A VERY long mile. With sign language and a bit of writing on paper (I'm not making this up, I really could not speak) and she rang the ENT of Addenbrookes'. Managed to get an SMS to my then girlfriend to pick me up and drive me the 2 miles to the appointment.

It's heading into mid afternoon now. I don't know where the time went. Time was flexible. Jam Karet as the Indonesians say. Rubber time.

So, the cure, or relief for Quinzies for me was a large 2cm diameter syringe. The doctor pierced the abcess and began draining into the syringe. A good syringe full came out. I then sat there as my mouth filled up with warm acrid pus. Several times I had to rush to the toilet to spit out the vile mess. But instantly I felt better. Not well, but better. The sweats calmed, the fever abated. I was then told I had 24 hours to drink or they wanted me into hospital on a drip. The clock was ticking. But I could talk. How hard could that be.


VERY.

No. Really. Swallow now. Easy isn't it? Really very easy. Second nature almost. But after 5 days I'd completely forgotten how. I put water in my mouth, I tried to work my tongue to swallow, and the water just squirted out of my mouth.

Mum rang again in the evening. I hadn't drunk still. At least I could talk. So she said she was arriving the following morning at 8am. My then girlfriend also turned up. It sounds bad. I don't know where she'd been. I just don't know. I do know I'd been alone and it was for the best. Maybe we weren't really very girlfriend / boyfriend yet. It's not her fault, it's mine.

Day 6: Wednesday
D Day. Mum's there. The girlfriend's there. I walk across to my corner shop. I buy a melon (yay) and a tin of pears. I figure if I can't drink water because I can't get my tongue round it, something more SOLID might help.And when I've got something warm and juicy in me I can lay into the melon.

Mum warmed the pears, I cut up the melon into 1cm square chunks. She breaks my tablets into quarters and finally I get some pear down my throat. It's an epiphany. I feel like a champion. Within 30 minutes I'm back in the saddle. I've licked this swallowing business. Pear, melon, the tablets, and finally liquids. The rest is just drinking and eating. Cold, wet juicy things. All the things you crave when you've not had a drink in 5 days.