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Mini or MINI

I've spent too much time this weekend pouring over a Rover (Austin etc.) history web site. Really in-depth stories about the development and prototypes of the cars like the Allegro, Montego, Marina and other ugly/dull cars from the past. Some of them weren't designed ugly (I'm looking at you, Allegro), but became ugly in the development process. Maybe it is all hindsight, but it seems so clear what should have happened in the 70s...market research, rationalisation, more (any!) quality control.

The history goes right to the end of Rover and then turns into a news site on goings on with SAIC. Anyway, on the site I found this, and I felt sad.

Looks familiar? It was Rover's replacement for this:

But BMW had a different idea, which we all know about:

The difference between them is simple. Rover wanted an economic city car, and BMW wanted a sports car. Rover wanted something radical and BMW wanted something pastiche. The last point is what makes me sad, the question was, should the mini look like an updated MINI, or should it be a re-interpretation the ideas and ideals of the Mini? Well pastiche sells, clearly.

But that Mini prototype was really radical. It had hydragas suspension, a sub-floor rear mounted 3 cylinder k-series engine, rear-wheel drive and 4 seats in the same space as the old Mini (the new MINI is not really a mini car). The MINI on the other hand is conventional and has a brazillian engine. Does the MINI progress car travel in the way the Mini did back in the late 50's? Does it address the issues of today: emmisions, fuel prices, space constraints?

Ah, the witterings of a lefty greeny. But I think it's a real shame, although at least it's certainly keeping those Cowley workers in jobs. Ironically, it is other German cars that do seem to address the modern agenda, but the Smart is too small and the A-Class too big. Oh well.

In other news, check out this '86 version of the Police's 'dont stand so close to me'. I really like it:

Herring Roe and Chips

Just another tinned fish in the shop, it seemed to me. But I got a shock when I tipped this tinned fish over my chips this evening. Something looked like little baby's arms came out. Oh god, no, can't be right, but it was:

http://www.frostsfish.com/roes.htm

Tasted fishy, but I gather it's not meant to be eaten neat. Yuk.

Going to Newcastle (and Simon Reeve)

I was up quite late last night doing research for my up coming day trip to Newcastle (tacked onto a conference I'm attending up there). So I travel up Tuesday for the start of the conference, then stay overnight at the Hilton, then stay the following night (on my own budget) at the YHA.

So, I've a day, Thursday to look at the city. Well, not one to slack about town, I've planned a day of activities (in OmniOutliner, of course!):

▼

Tuesday Evening

•

Millennium

and Tyne Bridges

▼

Wednesday Night

•

Performance at the

The Sage Gatehead

▼

Thursday Morning

•

Segedenum + Hadrian's Wall

•

Laing Gallery

▼

Thursday Afternoon

•

Grainger Town and Arcades

•

Grey Street

•

Castle Keep Museum via St. Nicholas Cathedral

•

Baltic

and Bridges

•

Quayside Art, Bridges and Cafes

I'm quite pleased to have found Segedenum, it should add something different to the trip.

I just finished watching the excellent Equator on BBC 2. It's presented by Simon Reeve, who is great on screen, one of those people who has a permanent smile, even when grimacing. I just found his web site and he's more than just a pretty face, he was the first to write a book about Al Quaeda and he wrote One day in September, which was made into a film - a prequel of sorts to the stunning Munich. Check him out (and his Rapid Weaver designed site - sad that I can tell, I know).

BoA - other pics

Lots of pics of the weekend on Flickr, including my tent (in the middle)!
And me, striking a rather 18th century pose!

Bradford-on-Avon weekend

Came back from BoA 2006 last night. Knackered after the journey and the bike ride from Fulham home, but I didn't go to bed till 2 since I was putting up a gallery of pictures. Anyway I had a great time. Lots of us camped on the lawn.
You can't actually see my tent in the photo above, but it's to the left of the red tent, which is a Vango TBS Spirit 200+, mine being the Lite version of the same tent. The tent was great, although I only just fit inside. The flysheet is attached to the outershell so it all goes up as one and the tent poles are colour coded. It was really easy both to get up and to get down. The only down side was that the little porch had no floor so my shoes were left on the grass, and of course it's billed as a two man tent. Two lovers maybe. It's also only just long enough for me, my feet reached the end of the flysheet area while my head was at the other end.

Flysheets are great things, you're inside, away from the bugs, but you're outside in the fresh air. The side of the outer didn't actually touch the ground to there was excellent airflow, it was a warm weekend with cold nights, but the tent stayed comfortable the whole time. Once thing I'll need next time I go camping is a better pillow. I have a Vango pillow but it's far too thin for me. I had to use an inflatable neck pillow as a support - not very comfortable. I'll have to save up for a Tempur Travel Pillow. The inflatable ground mat through, very cheap from Decathlon, was very comfy, but then so was the spongy lawn underneath it.

The first evening we went down the the Swan pub in town, these are the first pics in the photo gallery. I met some riders who I discovered later were in tents next to mine. Lots of good Moultoneering talk - it's good to talk to others who 'get it'. I forget all names but one guy had come down from Scotland with his RAC Moulton - that bike had been built as a marketing wheeze, and we heard tales of heroic rides up mountains on two-speeders and the subsequent burning out of the coaster brakes on the way down again. That rider was Josh who rides one of these for his work as a gardener.

Anyway onto the bikes, and so many of them, we counted around 50 F-frames and around 70 X-frames on the Saturday. I saw my first TSR at the sale in the village hall, I don't think there were any TSR campers. They are very nice machines, confirmed when I got to ride a few in the Afternoon.

The Sturmey-Archer model (see above example), I rode a few times. Smoother than I expected, completely silent when riding and very quiet when coasting, I also rode a Rohloff equipped TSR, lighter than I expected and it gave more range, but it also gave less information at the changer, and on the TSR it requires a chain tensioner, ruining the clean look. The best feeling though was changing gear, and the gear just changing, no fussy cog-changing - this was particularly apparent when going up the hill, where I had to gingerly change down on the deraillieur equipped bikes before ascending.

So, I'm sold on the Sturmey gear, but I can't just buy a TSR, I'd need to get a V-braked version to be able to fit my Marathon Plus tyres, and looking at the official mudguards, it's going to be very tight to get it all to fit. The mudguards are designed to cover a 1.5 tyre completely, they look like they are the same 1.75 size as the Marathon Plus. Anyway that's for next year. I also had the pleasure of riding a New Series again, this year the gears were perfect, but I was shocked at how much give there was in the suspension. I had to lock out the front suspension when going up the hill - well, I think you're meant to do that anyway. The bike though was so pretty and so light, only about 7.5 kilos.

Talking about kilos, a funny thing happened in the talk. They did a weigh off between an old Moulton racer and a traditional track racer, the Moulton had beaten the racer in a time trial but the racer was 5lbs lighter. What was odd was they weighed the bikes and gave the weight in pounds. I've no idea really what a pound is, I only know kilos, so I can say the track racer weighed 8.15 kilos and the Moulton, 10.4kg. I wonder if all the Moulton bikes are created in imperial measurements then?

We were told about the time trial which the Moulton had won but also about the weight testing. The original F-frame Moulton was rated to carry 32kg of luggage. We were told how a barrel of cider was carried around on the prototype and how it was also ridden around the rough tracks of Iceland - not something I can imagine someone trying with a New Series.

In the evening we had a barbecue, I cooked some sausages and I was given half a tasty sweet potato. I heard whilst eating that 85% of Moultons are bought by the Japanese - that's quite remarkable, but I suppose as well as the Britishness cult, they also more likely have the saving to pay for one.

And that was it really, there was a ride on Sunday, during which I dried out the flysheet and I packed up, hoping to see the same faces next year.

New Computer + More Power!

What a ride home tonight! Dreadful dreadful rain, soaked through, but my bike's performance! I just can't believe it. Riding up Peckham Rye in the heavy rain I actually overtook a fit young guy on his Ridgeback. I mean, I was tailgateing him up the hill and I thought, hmm, how much can I push this, so I upped my pedaling and tried to overtake, and just about made it. I thought, I'd best keep pedaling and I did...ALL THE WAY UP THE HILL!

Clearly my new handle bar stem has made quite a difference to my riding. And it feels better for my back too. Anyway I got home and saw a little package waiting for me. New for 2006 - Cateye Strada. It's like a iPod Nano-esque cycle computer. A fair few more functions than my Sigma 500 (which was broken) and no buttons (just like a Mighty Mouse!), you just rock it to change mode (just like a Mighty Mouse!). Perfect cycle computer for a Mac user, clearly.

Oh and did I say how thin it is? It's THIN!

Thin is so...2006. Really.

Gardening II

Before:

After (clearance mostly done)

The pond has been broken and skipped. Pond? You can't see a pond? Exactly, that's why it had to go. Not for long though! The frogs (now counting between 12 and 14 (and mostly adolecents I think) have been re-located to a trug. Most seemed to ignore it and just hopped off, but I could see a few under the water-lilly.

Gardening

Cripes, have been clearing the garden for 3 days and it looks like its been bombed. Amazing, I can walk the FULL LENGHT of the garden. All the fish are dead though. But I have 8-9 Frogs and a Toad. And 100 million spiders (urgh!) and dozens of....Crickets! Because I don't have an alley, I had to drag the plants through the house so I have spiders and Crickets inside now :-/ The Dyson is on standby.

Oh and I got the bike back - FINALLY. But the cost was astronomical - £214!

Mega Round-up

So, I went to Bristol, and since them, I've been to Nottingham, Manchester and Coventry.

Let's start with King's Cross again. I thought there was something familiar last time, about the new entrance hall to the tube. And lo, yes, it reminds me, slightly of Gare Du Nord, and what's this?

It's a Relay, a magazine and tabac shop, dropped in, as if straight from Paris. Anyway, took the train up to Nottingham for a meeting and on arrival at St. Pancras, I saw that Midland Mainline have been moved to their new platforms, ready for Eurostar in 2007.

Turning around I saw that the renovation of the original train shed roof of the station was complete. To explain, the Eurostar trains are so long, that they had to build a roof extension, so the curved roof (with light blue girders - hope that's not the final colour) is the original and the flat slatted roof is the new bit. You can get a better idea with this model and a shot through the new roof, to see the original one:

Here's my pic from the train window:

Ah, rolling fields; and here is downtown Nottingham:

Nottingham is actually very modern and re-developed, lots of outdoor bars, mutiplex cinemas, but still lots of independent shops, and a tram, which I rode on:

And zut! Up to Manchester a few days later. Ah... the English countryside:

Its not easy you know to take these pics when traveling over 100 mph and often at tilt! If you've not been to Manchester for a few years, when you visit you might be in for a shock. The centre is totally rebuilt and the shopping district looks like this:

On the way back I noticed the train had a promo vinyl on it. The film was fantastic (saw it last Thursday). Is it a bird, is it a plane, no, it's a 125 mph, tilting train! .

I finish this round-up with the widest behind I have ever seen (proportionately). I am sure she makes some man, somewhere, very happy.

King's Cross

I went to St. Pancras today to get tickets for my trip to Nottingham tomorrow (another meeting). On the way there, I passed by the new Western Entrance to Kings Cross Underground, and on the way back, I passed through it. It is quite nice and airy, lots of space, certainly compared to the cramped roundel there was before. Spotless and clean too...until you get past the ticket barriers and into the actual tube.

I also dropped into the LCR exhibition on the channel tunnel rail link. This is located in a building called the Gymnasium, next to the entrance to St. Pancras. Quite a nice free exhibition with lots of scale models including one of Stratford circa 2012, and a coffee shop.

Nokia 770?

I have on my desk an Apple Newton Original MessagePad. "A what!" you say? Have a look at 'state of the art' circa 1993.



Seeing that video makes me want to go get some batteries and try it again, but I only found it because I was doing a comparison to get a sense of the size of the Nokia 770. Here it is:

Newton OMP: 18.4 x 11.4 x 1.9cm
Nokia 770: 13 x 7.8 x 1.8cm

So its basically the same size as the original Newton minus lots of bezel. In most ways though they aren't really comparable: the Netwon was primarily a PDA, and the Nokia is primarily an Internet Tablet. However the Newton wasn't always meant to be a PDA. It was originally meant to be a Knowledge Navigator. Again see here:



LOL, futurology at it's bonkers best. It looks like it is set around now. But replace the butler guy with Google's ever widening services (calendar, scholar search, google search, writely, gDrive, gmail, maps) and is it so far off?

Isn't the 770 essentially the realisation of the Knowledge Navigator? When it came out the main criticism was that it had too low memory for doing anything. Apparently the 2006 software update has gone some way to address this.

My main use of my PowerBook is for surfing and email, and I like to surf everywhere: bed, couch, toliet! I'm also happy surfing over the mobile phone...but the screen is too small. The 770 looks ideal for surfing, because unlike other wi-fi enabled PDAs, it has full-width 800x480 screen. On the other hand, when I'm watching video or writing my web pages or documents, I plug into my 17-inch LCD. Does this mirror anyone else's experience?



So today I put in a speculative bid for one on eBay, it sold for £196; in the end more than I was expecting, but still affordable...in this context: I am thinking that when the time comes to replace my PowerBook, I'll get a Mac Mini instead. That plus a 770 and I'll be set to go!

Or am I missing something here? Do you have a 770, what do you think?

Bright and breezy Bristol

Travelled to Bristol today for a work meeting. Lovely train journey on a lovely summers day and a very positive meeting.

I decided to ride from work to Paddington and normally this would take about 25-30 minutes. Certainly when I used to commute this way it would take about 30 minutes. Imagine my surprise though...I was in conversation and didn't notice the time. It was only 30 minutes before my train was going to leave! So I rushed to get the bike and set off at top flight, watching the clock. I got to Paddington 20 minutes later. Not bad at all eh?!

Empire Museum

Anyway, Bristol was looking marvelous in the summer sunshine and on the way back I popped into the British Empire Museum to ask a question. Last time I had visited I was disappointed not to find an Empire Map, did they have one? Yes, but in the book section (where I hadn't looked). I got an Empire map tea towel as well. Smashing.

Velorution

Rode past Velorution on the way to the gym today (finally found it after hunting and hunting for it on Sunday).

What a sexy bike shop! Pashley TSRs, Dahons, Bromptons, Birdys, and lots of funky european bikes like Helkama. Apparently they do servicing, so maybe I've found my new bike shop.

The Moulton Story

Read and learn the history of

The Moulton

I called the Bike shop last week. Somehow they don't have the parts for my service (i.e. they didn't order them). This is worrying now because my brakes are almost completely worn, near misses each day now... The service will be a major one, aside from brakes etc:

New 7-speed Megarange cassette
1-inch extension to the handlebar
Specialized BG2 Grips
Crane Creek (rather expensive) bar ends

...and I'll have the front forks re-sprayed from factory black to blue.

Postscript, regardez:

One is a Moulton and one a Raleigh Shopper type device. Note the difference, in size at least.

Sights from Lewisham People's Day

I got there about 16:00 and just a perfect time to arrive too. Nice cool weather and the entertainment was gearing up for adults.

This Music stand had Klezmer!

The Insect Circus Museum - the detailing was exqusitie (for adults) and the exhibits a marvel (for kids)

The Young Mayor's stage - all very hip, street music 'no violence please' - not my thing

It was the most popular stage

Fantastic - 'Spanish Bullfighters' They could hardly contain their glee at their antics. Great fun!

Brilliant soul music in the Pride tent.

Critical Mass

First ride since it was ruled legal in the high court. Six Moultons counted.

Waterloo Bridge

Grosvenor Square (by the US Embassy)

The Mall.

I swear I have not idea how this silly camera phone decides what size of picture to take!

World Cup

Riding back from work before the Trinidad and Tobago vs England match, I saw that the Sun and News of the World had hired a little plane to fly a

HUGE

banner around. Such a shame the Moto takes tiny silly pictures, still, you get the idea. 'Come on England', it said, except they didn't, the performance was atrocious.

Round-up

It's been a while.

I went on a bike ride earlier this month. Around the Green Chain. Here's the route.

Green Chain

From Catford, Russ led us down to Grove Park, where I found the first Green Chain sign. The route is mostly signed, but because there are at least two routes, we got lost at Mottingham. Still, there were some great views. Here on King John walk, you could view all of London from Canary Wharf to the City to St. Pauls. Of course the rubbish camera on the Moto barely captured it.

And from Elmstead Woods (a proper ancient wood) a nice view down a hill.

We ended up at the Thames Barrier, see me, fatty and Russ:

From there, we rode back to Catford, along the river, back to Greenwich then down Route 21. About 30 miles in total.

Blast around Kent

Perhaps blast is the wrong word. I went on a lovely bike ride today around the country lanes of Kent, from Wye to Chilern and really pretty village:

I was cycling with my mate Gethin who lives a few streets away from me. His bike is the one in front. A couple came up to me as we were enjoying a cream tea in a teashop in Chilern, to ask me about the bike. The man said he was interested in the spindly design and the woman said she was interested in the short wheel base.

Look, it's a space frame, not spindles, and if you look carefully at the picture above you can see that the 'wheelbase' (the distance between the centre of the wheel), is almost identical between the bikes. So there.

Anyway I got 32 miles before getting a puncture. WHAT?

Still, couldn't have happened in nicer place, eh? I wasn't expecting a puncture, on my puncture proof tyres, so I didn't have a kit. We were only a few miles from Geth's car (at the end of the ride) so he just rode to the end, drove back and rescued me. Cheers Geth!

I got home and checked the tube. Phew, not a puncture after all! The road was bumpy in that section and it must have damaged the repair patch from the last puncture on the tube from the knobbly tyres. So the Marathon Pluses are not at fault. Mental calmness restored.

I now need to talk to my bike dealer about my next service. It's going to involve this and this, something like this and probably this.

Windy..

...but a great day for cycling (southwards). I was really racing this evening on the Marathon Pluses, keeping up with the big wheelers on Waterloo bridge and storming up Peckham Rye Hill. I think I feel strong enough on these tyres to go back to the gym now.

Where did the weekend go?

Did some hoovering (or should that be Dysoning), and tried and failed to fit the mudguards to my bike on Saturday. No instructions came with them, and only some of the screws made sense. What flummoxed me was/is how to secure the rear mudguard to the rear triangle. The little bag of screws included these rubber blocks, which look like they should be used back there to absorb some of the road shock, but nothing came with which to attach them. This is a bit worrying, as I had to thus attach the guard direct to the frame. Hopefully it won't break to bits before I can take it to my bike shop.

That happened on Sunday evening. Sun-day was spent largely sleeping, after getting up early to accompany Russ and his twin brother to Gatwick. Saturday night was Eurovision. Well done Finland, although I quite liked the German entry this year.

Enough boringness though. Film Four is coming to Freeview in July! Yay! No more DVD rentals needed. This isn't news, of course, but the first stage has started today. More 4+1 (a filler channel if there ever was one) is now off the air. Apparently a Big Brother Channel is going to take it's place in the meantime. Speaking of Digital TV, I was in Comet today. I am amazed, there are hardly any CRT TVs left. It was row after row of LCDs and Plasma displays. At the front was something that I guess was a HD demo. It didn't blow me away. Maybe it wasn't really HD. Also noticed the new Miele washing machines. Hmm, plastic doors, well it looks sleeker, but I'm not sure.

Marathon Plus - first ride

First ride in on the Marathons today. Quite heavy tyres, slower acceleration, unless one applies more power. If you do apply more power, it can go quite acceptably. Riding round route 25 from Clapham to Dulwich Village, they seemed very good. Riding up various hills, they seemed slow and heavy. Riding down Forest Hill, they seemed rather stable. Riding along double yellows, they had a tendency to tramline. Riding across the gravel and rock truck stop in Catford, the ride was very smooth indeed.

The main news though is...no puncture!

I was at a meeting in Berkeley Square today. On the way out, the plasma TVs in reception were showing BBC and Sky News. Here's what I saw. Auntie Beeb had a look inside too!

And in other news, mudguards and replacement block sunglasses have arrived (not a moment too soon, the tree pollen today was terrible). I'm ready for summer now!

New Tyres...at last

Made another trip over to Notting Hill this evening to get the Marathon Plus tyres I had ordered at the weekend. The tube to Notting Hill was quick and the walk (TFL journey planner assisted again) was something of a revelation. Such opulent housing and so many foo foo shops. I had to take some pics:

It was a bit hard to fit these tyres to the wheel, plastic levers would not have cut it this time. Hopefully they won't have to come off anytime soon....

After I had a slice of pizza from a very foo foo pizza shop (Fiat 500 in the front Window?, with foccacia stuck out of its windows? Foo foo, I think so); I thought, hang on, maybe my small wheeled bike shop is a foo foo shop too. The other one I use is in Battersea, and Bike Fix was in a terribly trendy pedestrianised street in WC2, and there's another one Velorution, that is more or less in Soho. Hmm.