Beware - random thoughts

I've been turning over a few ideas for how to make the best use of my 'temporary visa'. I'll be mulling things over in the next few days before making a decision about where to go, what to do, and what to do it on. Prepare for a lot of unco-ordinated nonsense on this blog, therefore.

It seems crazy, having just ridden to work through some heavy drizzle (interspersed with periods of rain, with occasional showers) on a day which is more like late October than the beginning of August, but I am quite inclined to the UK coast option. Principal reasons are:

• I've never done it, and it would take me to parts of the UK that I have never seen
• I would be closer to home in case of emergency (not necessarily true in the case of the North of Scotland, but it would feel that way)
• If anything went belly-up (major breakdown, illness, just got fed up with it), it would be easier to abort
• No pesky forrin currency issues
• No need for travel insurance - I am already covered by RAC for what I need.

Reasons against are:

• Weather - no comment
• The tent I will be using is untested, but was the cheapest we could find when the grandchildren wanted to camp out (never happened, so it's never been out of its bag) and so is a kind of 'emergency use only' device, and while you can get away with minimal tentage in France, the UK in September may be risking it a bit
• I think the tent was under £20 - it may be in the category of 'festival', i.e. use once and throw in a hedge
• That's it, really.

I've done a fair bit of camping and have a lot of the gear, although the lightweight stuff is quite elderly by now as recent camping trips have been by car, where comfort has a premium over lightweightness.

I'll have a similar think about the France option, and post about that in due course.

Cabin Fever

Regular readers will know that I had planned a trip by bike to Europe this year. Last year, returning from a damp stay in Périgord, Anna finally agreed that a French holiday by bike would be a good idea. Having been dangling suggestions for the same for many years, I was plainly delighted at the prospect, and even sold the Ducati to fund a serious 2-up tourer, viz. the Honda Pan-European.

Then all the crappy stuff happened earlier this year, and these plans were put on hold. We have had a talk about it all, and realistically it ain't going to happen in 2009. I have promised her a long weekend away in the caravan, somewhere fairly easy to get to, perhaps in September or October. Then today, wonderful person that she is, she suggested that I should go away on the bike myself for a while. We're at the point where she can be left unattended for a day or two, so this is feasible.

I am very lucky to be married to this person. How many wives would suggest that?

To be honest, I have had cabin fever for months now. The last holiday was a year ago, and it was a bit of a washout, although pleasant in many ways. We've had all these health issues, and I have been put down to three days a week at work, which has let to a lot of stresses and strains there as I try to keep all my plates in the air on 40% less time and 40% less money. Work has stopped being fun, and much of my free time has been spent on sites like Horizons Unlimited or reading travellers' tales in the bike comics, just daydreaming. I have also spent a lot of time fettling the XT - it has needed some work, to be sure, but at the back of my mind I have been making it fit for a journey, possibly a long one, not just my daily 25 miles to work and back.

So you might say I jumped at the suggestion. I felt a bit bad even discussing it, as the most exciting times that Anna has at the moment are hospital visits (she's on first name terms with about a hundred people there) and the occasional car trip to see the sea, and for me to swan off to Le Continong would seem to be rubbing salt into the wound. But the clincher was Anna's observation that next year at this time, it might be me sitting at home and waiting for the District Nurse to call and give me my meds. She thinks I should do it while I am able to.

Now, I am 55 and not yet a complete wreck, but the signs of ageing are there, and I am a firm believer that you should live for today, as tomorrow may never come. So I am turning over in my mind a couple of ideas; things which have been "one day ... " plans for when the time was right.

1. Ride the British coastline, all the way round, staying as close to the sea as possible. Total distance, about 3k miles, but within reasonable distance of home if I were to be needed in a hurry. I would be mainly on minor roads for this one, so the XT would be the bike of choice, and realistically I would need to allow about 10 days. Hmm... I see from this month's Bike magazine that Nick Sanders is doing exactly the same thing on a crossplane crank R1. Damn - I'll look like a copycat. Oh well, at least he admits that the R1 isn't the ideal kit for the minor roads he is on, so the XT would be perfect, and I can surely get some good tips for places to visit.

2. Ride across, and photograph, the Millau Viaduct in France. This would be a quick there-and-back-again trip of about 2k miles. At warp speeds, this would be a day there and a day back, plus two overnight ferry crossings. The Honda is the obvious tool for this option. I could spread the trip out over about a week, which would give me some quality French chilling time, which I badly need. Last summer, we spent some time with British expats in the Dordogne, and for the first time ever I seriously considered moving there for good. I love the French lifestyle, I know enough of the language not to starve, and they have all the sunshine that we don't get here in Wales.

Plus, I always lose weight when I go to France, despite all the wine and cheese and wonderful bread. The food there just suits me.

This would be the object of the trip:



Sleeping will be in a tent, whichever option I choose. My reduced income means that B&B would be unaffordable in either France or the UK, but I like camping, and if I don't leave it too long the temperatures should be bearable.

If I could find some internet access along the way, I could even blog the trip! I've never travelled alone before, at least not for a significant journey like this one, so that will be a novelty too. I'm pretty good with my own company, so I don't foresee a problem there.

Ho hum, lots of thinking to do.

If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free.

Squid

Squids are mainly an American phenomenon, and mainly from the warm, dry bits of the US and A, as Borat said. There aren't many squids in the UK.

A squid is a young male, who owns a powerful sports motorcycle and rides it as follows:

• Far too fast on public roads [1]
• Likes to perform stunts like wheelies and stoppies in traffic
• Wears as little as possible, like t-shirt, shorts and sandals with no helmet.

The last one is the reason there aren't many in the UK - a British squid would have to wear thermal underwear, wellies and those handlebar mitt things, and that is so not the image that squids want to project.

Squid is supposed to stand for Stupidly Quick, Underdressed, Imminently Dead.

This is what happens when you are a squid and don't perform basic maintenance on your bike:



Just thought you'd like to know.

This dude, on the other hand, is just some normal guy enjoying a bit of off-road fun and saving wear on the front tyre:



And NOT a squid.

[1] I ought to clarify that. When I say far too fast on a public road, I mean 60 through town traffic, or 105 between lines of cars on the freeway. In my slightly anarchic opinion, there is no such thing as 'too fast' - there is only 'too fast for the conditions'. 20 past a primary school at 3.30 pm may be too fast. 150 on an empty motorway may be just 'making progress'.

All on the taxpayer - again

Well, well, well. Gap Year trips for undergraduates paid for by you and me.

I can't tell you how angry this makes me. The proposal is to send University leavers who can't get jobs after graduation on a summer holiday, sorry a significant gap year experience, courtesy of the sodding taxpayer. I expect this will sound like full Old Git mode, but here goes anyway.

What is a gap year? Well, it started, in my experience, when kids wanted to spend some time 'broadening their horizons' between school and University. I thought it was a good idea then, and certainly when I was at Uni the first-year students who had done this were noticeably more mature than the rest of us. Although the idea was to work your way around, it helped if your parents were rich and you didn't have to work too hard. A mate went hitching round Europe and ended up getting arrested by the Guardia Civil in Spain for public drunkenness. He got a few odd jobs to say he was 'working his way' round Europe, but really he was supported by two wealthy and indulgent parents. I envied him then, but not so much now. I would have gone with him, but my parents put their foot down and said I should stay in the UK and work here, so I spent that vacation, and every other while I was at College, working as a hospital porter at St James's in Leeds. (Funnily enough, of all the jobs I have had, that is the one I look back on with the most affection, tough though it was.)

Gap years nowadays seem to be a lot more exotic - Spain is just sooooo last-century, dear, and today's Chloes and Sebastians go to Guadaloupe or Puerto Rico or Bali. Not for the parties and drugs and the masses of sexual opportunities, you understand, but to help those less fortunate, and especially little brown children. It makes them feel like world citizens, I suppose, in a way that my generation never had chance to do. Flights half-way round the world cost 6 months' wages in those days. It is significant that a myriad of companies have sprung up to offer these little trustafarians a 'unique and valuable' experience for their gap years, although not so long ago some of the more serious outfits (linked with Oxfam and some other major players) reported that the untrained and frequently uncommitted little darlings liked partying more than helping, and even when they tried to help were more of a hindrance. You see, building schools and getting water to remote villages and teaching little brown children English needs training and experience, which are two things the trustafarians are guaranteed to have none of. They have only just finished their education, for God's sake. Try getting a position with VSO and see how picky they are for jobs that really help. You need professional qualifications and have to demonstrate your commitment before they will even interview you.

So please excuse me if I am a little bit cynical about the very idea of gap years these days. It sounds more like an excuse to party. Nothing wrong with that, but it's hypocritical to dress it up as charitable works. Spend a year serving out soup to the homeless in Manchester at midnight, or wiping snot and other bodily fluids off the floor in a British geriatric ward, then I will respect your commitment to the less fortunate, and believe that you have done something useful with your time.

There's no price tag on this as yet, but it won't be cheap. I always objected to the 'holidays in the sun for youth offenders' idea, as it rewarded bad behaviour with things that most non-offending young people couldn't dream of. This measure is likely to give the generation with the strongest sense of entitlement since the court of Louis XVI even more reasons to believe that they are somehow special, and that the taxpayer (that's the rest of us, slaving away in insecure and mind-numbing jobs) will always support them in their slightest whim and fancy.

After all, they are graduates, aren't they? They deserve to be treated well. Never mind that they are unemployable at the level they think is appropriate to their qualifications. Never mind that they will be unemployed because they are not prepared to take something beneath them, like secretarial, manual or clerical work, and work their way up.

If you are going to send kids volunteering, as they are calling it, what's wrong with some volunteering in the UK? It's not as if there's nothing to do. We have homeless, drug-addicted, under-educated people, and public buildings that need repairing, and worthwhile projects that need manpower here, too. But they lack a certain cachet, I admit. Blustery Birmingham, or balmy Borneo? No contest.

But that would be 'slave labour', in the eyes of the parents. Sending the little darlings off to somewhere sunny, where they can get off their faces in peace and build up their CVs, is much more like it.

Do you remember the Bizarro world in the Superman comics, where everything was the opposite of here? People who made drinks in the TV programmes and sat down to watch the adverts, that kind of thing? I feel like I am living there.

Unsuitable for Minors

YouTube seem to regard this as something which 'parents may prefer their children not to see', or something. I can't for the life of me see why.

To save you looking, it's a fairly gentle animation about a girl called Suzie who believes in Jesus, and prays for various things. The outcomes are shown to be the result of human work and ingenuity, and the whole thing is a gentle satire on those who believe in everyday divine intervention. It's not harsh, or offensive (unless you happen to be one of those who are offended by the opinions of people who don't agree with you, and hey, that seems to be most of us these days) and is polite, non-sweary and generally low-key.

And yet some muppet has used the 'flag' button to alert YouTube to potentially unsuitable content, and YouTube for their part have agreed to post the warning that the clip may be unsuitable for minors.

In what sense might it be unsuitable? The delivery is very non-threatening, so it must be the message contained therein. And the message (if there is one; it's more like a gentle suggestion to think things through) is hardly controversial or aggressive in the way that Richard Dawkins sometimes manages to be. I can only think that some people prefer that their children are not exposed to alternative world views, or encouraged to think about things. People who prefer indoctrination to enquiry, and dogma to debate.

And aren't these often the same people who condemn Islam for bringing children up with such a firm view of Paradise and martyrdom that they will cheerfully blow themselves up in the cause of Jihad?

Two sides of the same coin, really.

I am reminded of 1970s student politics, and the 'no platform for racists' policy, which assumed that students were so thick and malleable that mere exposure to racism would convert them by the thousand and lead to white hoods and lynchings across the campuses of Britain. The basic premise of this approach runs as follows:

• There are people that we disagree with (let's leave the question of who 'we' are for the moment)
• These people will influence people in ways that we do not like
• Therefore, it is our duty not to allow these people to speak at all.

You've got two alternatives here - speech control, where certain viewpoints are suppressed and vilified, and free speech, where everyone can say what they please and be judged in the court of public opinon. I'd go with free speech, on the grounds that most people are pretty reasonable, and if exposed to a variety of viewpoints will generally sort the wheat from the chaff and dismiss the unacceptable as being, well, unacceptable.

Certainly, the recent successes of the BNP in the local and European elections gave them a lot of publicity and air time, but in the end I think that will do them no good at all. Many of the things they are advocating (placing British interests before those of other countries, for example) strike a chord with many people, and these are the viewpoints that have been suppressed by the media for a long time, which has made the BNP seem like a breath of fresh air. But you only have to listen to them for a few minutes to realise that the people articulating the views are not all that impressive, and probably fairly unpleasant characters. Do they say some of the things that ordinary people think? Yes. Do they say things that make people feel uneasy? Yes. On the basis of what we have seen, would we want them running the country? No.

Christian parents who truly believe in their faith should not be alarmed if their children meet other, and different, viewpoints. Children are generally resilient and bullshit-proof, and can spot flummery a mile off. If you truly believe, expose your children to every viewpoint possible (including your own) and let them make their own minds up.

The clip suggests that it is mankind who creates all the everyday miracles that 'save' people. I am reminded of an old but pertinent joke on the topic. Apologies if you have heard it.

A Rabbi is on a world cruise when the liner goes down in mid-Pacific. He is cast adrift in a small lifeboat, with sharks circling around him. He prays fervently for deliverance, and soon another lifeboat pulls alongside. "Come on, Rabbi, there's room, climb in the boat!"

"No, I'm staying here. God will save me!" The lifeboat drifts away.

Soon a fishing boat passes nearby, and the captian calls on a loudhailer: "Do you want me to send you a rescue boat?"

"No," shouts the Rabbi. "I am staying in this boat. God will save me!" The fishing boat sails away.

Soon, he hears a helicopter overhead, and a man is lowered down to him on a winch. "Come on, Rabbi, let me strap you onto this cable, and we will rescue you!"

"No, I am staying on this boat. God will rescue me; He has never let me down!" And the helicopter flies off.

Soon, the boat sinks and the Rabbi is eaten by sharks. He ascends to Heaven and is met by St Peter. He asks to speak to God in person, and is shown to God's office.

"Why did you desert me, Lord, when I prayed so fervently to you that you might rescue me?"

"Rabbi, I sent you two boats and a bloody helicopter. What more did you want?"