Balearic biking
How joyful to be back in the sunny UK after a week in Mallorca, a concentrated blend of intense physical exertion balanced with excessive consumption of fine food and wine, leavened with a very light sprinkling of passivity and contemplation, so, much like a normal week in the UK but sunnier and more expensive.
Photos/video will follow but noteworthy thoughts include how deceptive the phrase "we'll go for a bike ride" can be
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Woken at 04:30 by an insomniac chum preparing isotonic vital fluid replacements, energy bars, painkillers and a cpr machine, and then, since he'd run out of things to do, seemed, to my sleepy ears to be hoovering the apartment, re-plastering the patio and servicing the hire car until 06:30 when he tippy-toed, light as thistledown to my door to whisper at 320 decibels "are you awake?" Ah the delicious irony.
Slipping my shot-putter's physique into a lycra outfit which would be snug on a 12 year old gymnast and setting off into the dawn, much to the amazement of the occasional bleary eyed goat and the amusement of the lithe young Mallorcan cyclists who think that shaving your legs is a sensible thing to do and that an old man in a lycra straitjacket having a seizure is funny.
What a twisted world this is...
mind you they might have been amused that through a packing error I was wearing ChaCha's cycle helmet rather than my own, I had managed to get the straps to fit but in the event of an accident I had to make sure I landed almost vertically and headfirst to gain any protection.
Panting, in the very lowest gear, for an hour, slower than an arthritic sloth, through stunning scenery, from sea level up a series of hairpin bends to around an awe inspiring 500 metres then hammering down t'other side, more (and tighter) hairpins, knuckles white on the brakes, imagination and vertigo running full tilt, visualising myself spread widely across some admittedly beautiful scenery. The benefit of wearing a heart rate monitor came home to me on discovering that although I'd put some serious strain on the old ticker through lung and leg exertion going up the hill I was recording similar levels of cardiac stress going down, despite an almost total absence of pedaling.
However I have to admit to an enormous sense of achievement on reaching the summit and I do do need to thank James ("the cafe, is just around the next corner , honestly") for, despite my profanities it was well worth the effort.
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Coming soon, the Mallorcan approach to dive safety - "remember where the boat is, see you later"
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Going for Gold
Back in July, ChaCha ran in the Race for Life, a national event which takes place in many locations, 1000s of women running in aid of cancer research. Many of you sponsored her, thank you muchly, her sponsorship site is still open (click here) for late donations.
At the same time Rhett was running in his first sports day, what a confusing thing that is for the small people... I cobbled the footage from both together, to see the little youtube snippet (click here).
Extreme sports, dicing with death
As many of you know I've had a crack at many dangerous sports over the past 40 years but I was introduced to a new one by the woman weaving a black Chevrolet Lacetti through some roadworks on the M4 yesterday evening.
I'm aware that women are alleged to be better at multi-tasking than those of us blesse
d with spatial awareness but it takes real confidence in your driving skills to try to transfer a telephone number from an email on your blackberry (in your right hand) to the mobile (in your left hand) whilst staying roughly in the middle (narrowed) lane of the roadwork contra flow...
It's nice to see my unreasoning prejudices being challenged by our competent and sensible sisters of the highway.
Movie review ... Head to head - Simpsons -v- Hairspray
Synopsis
Simpsons - Dysfunctional dad (I'm already identifying with this film) brings small minded US town to the brink of destruction but plucks emotional victory from the jaws of disaster at the last moment.
Hairspray - Idle, shiftless, clumsy, superficial, fat (not a word used in the film by the way) girl solves all the problems of racial segregation and the cruel persecution of fat folk in a small minded US town through her enthusiasm for dancing.
Villain
Simpsons - Faceless government agencies.
Hairspray - Michelle Pfeiffer vamping it up, splendidly.
Downside
Simpsons - Missed opportunity to use the big screen, this was essentially an extended tv episode (as Homer points out about 2 minutes in). Would have been nice to involve more of the bit players like Moe + Burns, who make the show work so well on tv.
Hairspray - Travolta was over-hyped in the fat-suited role as the Mum (Divine, imho, made the original a much edgier film) and there was way too much saccharine and schmaltz for this old cynic.
Upside
Simpsons - Homer on the wrecking ball, some great gags, it's rare that I laugh out loud at a movie.
Hairspray - Christopher Walken, perfect as he is in most everything, Alison Janney great actress, The dancing (if that's your thing, as many of you know I am still involved in the great debate over who has the best sense of rhythm with Stephen Hawking)
Objective criticism
Simpsons - ChaCha - "enjoyed it immensely"
Hairspray - Mrs Stuffy - "enjoyed it immensely"
The last word
Simpsons - Amusing but would have been better with doughnuts in the foyer
Hairspray - If racial integration in the US just needed some porky white lass to boogie on down why did Martin Luther King have so much trouble?
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