ABCD Winner - my guess

The ABCD challenge has been great fun, and it has been a pleasure visiting blogs from all over the world, from New Zealand to Colorado, and seeing what people have made of the idea of a Centerline [sic]. But I'm pretty sure I have spotted the winner already.

Step forward Lizzie, the Bedford Biker - a young lady rider who blogs about her own riding experiences. The photo is fun, it fulfils the competition requirements, and has a certain - how shall I put it? - man appeal. It can't lose.



***UPDATE***

I was not wrong.

New Look

I had been getting a bit fed up of the 'look' of the blog, to be honest. And today I have been visiting lots of different blogs, following up people's posts on the ABCD idea. I decided this blog needed freshening up a bit, so I have changed the template. I quite like this new one; it looks fresh and clean and relatively uncluttered. I'm not married to it - I may well change to something else, or go back to the old one. Who knows? Let me know what you think.

And a hearty welcome to raftnn and Chris Luhman, who have come via the ABCD links and decided to stay for a while. Good to see you.

Another Wind Energy Fail

According to this story in the Torygraph:

Wind farms operators were paid £900,000 by the National Grid to disconnect their turbines for one night because the electricity was not needed.

The payments, worth up to 20 times the value of the power they would have produced, raises serious concerns about such subsidies, which are paid for by the customer.

Last month, on a particularly windy night, six Scotttish wind farms were told to stop producing electricity as the National Grid was overloaded. Fair enough, you might think: if these things are producing an excess of power, then it's good to be able to regulate it.

Except that the wind farm owners need to be compensated for not producing power. Nearly a million pounds' worth of compensation. And who pays the compensation? Why, the people who didn't get the electricity that was so expensively not produced. The electricity customers.

OK, it's beyond a joke now. Can we stop?

ABCD

This post in response to Gary France's A Bloggers Centerline Day.

Task: a photo, taken on 1 May 2011, to incude yourself (the owner of the blog) and the centreline of a road.

I chose this location because it is probably my favourite bend in this part of the world. It is smooth, the road is a reasonably fast one, and the curve is a constant and predictable radius. The banks on either side mean that you can't take it flat out - too much farm traffic in these parts for that - but it's always a pleasure to ride in a 'brisk' manner. Best of all, it's just been resurfaced with lovely, grippy black tarmac and the lines are freshly painted. It's almost as if the local authority knew about this in advance.

Standing by the roadside taking the photo, I discovered that I am not the only one to enjoy the bend. Several cars passed through, pretty much at the limit with tyres squeaking, and one guy on a sportsbike (nods were exchanged, no more) gave it the full beans. I had to duck into the hedge more than once. Just after this shot, he shifted his butt, got his knee out, and went round in fine style.



I'm now looking forward to seeing what the other bloggers managed to do. More artistic, better composed, nicer bikes, better-looking subjects, undoubtedly. But this is my bend. You can find it here.

Anarchy In Action

Last post about Royal Wedding Day, promise.

Yesterday, after watching all the celebratory guff on the TV, we went off to a street party. It was 'organised' (if that is the word) in a village near here. It was a simple thing: no-one actually was in charge, but there was a general agreement to bring some food and drink, a couple of chairs and whatever took your fancy. There is a village green next to the church, but it is a bit too uneven to put tables and chairs on; but the road there is wide and the traffic slight, so the street party was really a bus-stop-and-half-the-road party.



It was great. We sat in the sun, ate other people's food (while they ate ours), had a drink and chatted to people we had never met before. There were babes-in-arms, children, teenagers, young mums and dads, grannies and grandads. No-one was in charge, no-one was taking money (unless you count one villager who generously put an urn and some tea, coffee and milk on a table with a box marked 'donations for charity'), no-one had filled in any forms, no-one had to be inspected, no risks were assessed, and I doubt very much if the County Council even knew about it, never mind give 'permission'.



After a while, the kids got bored and moved a few yards away to the village green, where an impromptu game of rounders was started. A child climbed a tree unsupervised! ...



... and then fell out if it.



Her friend picked her up and they carried on playing.

It was great fun, and very life-affirming. I am normally a fairly solitary creature, but yesterday I was glad to be a social animal and meet lots of different people. It brings out my good side.

No organisers, no rules, no Big Society, no commissars from the local people's soviet coming down with instructions and targets and inclusivity quotas and helpful 'suggestions'.

Anarchy in Action. And it was great.