I while back I conjectured that Bob Dylan in a dub stylee would be a damn fine record for someone to make.  And now they have.  Whoo hooo.  Big up the people of Ras Records for making Is it Rolling, Bob?:  A Reggae Tribute to Bob Dylan and roll on the 10th August release date. 

Sorry.  I know I been a bad blogger lately.  Some stuff has happened (incl my burfday woo) but somehow I never got round to blogging,  prob cos also I never got round to stopping sstuffing my face with crap.  We're off on holiday on Friday, for 10 days.  When we get back mebe I will work on the stuffing my face with crap stuff. 

oh dear. Greece 1 Portugal 0. It wasn't a lucky cake, then.

Today we have been mostly supporting Portugal (in Euro Cup final v Greece tonight). Our neighbours are Portuguese, and have flags and bunting flying from their balcony. This afternoon me, O and their daughter B made a chocolate cake and decorated the top with a Portuguese flag. The kids did the icing so it wasn't completely to scale. We've given it to them for luck, so I got it out of the house before eating it hah.

Multi-Meedja Archive

I've decided to keep an archive of music, radio progs and books that I list in the side bar. And this post shall be it.

MUSIC

• my music for belly dancing round the living room to list at amazon
  
• Hossan Ramzy
  
• Bab El Oued Kingston (Gnawa Diffusion)
  
• Is It Rolling Bob? A Reggae Tribute to Bob Dylan
  
• Best Dressed Chicken In Town (Dr Alimantado)
  
• the Bragg-meister
  
• The Storm (Moving Hearts) - in keeping with prevailing climatic conditions, oh the joys of an English summer
  
• O's Summer Anthems
  
• Made in Medina (Rachid Taha)
  
• several albums by Dick Gaughan
  
• Tekitoi (Rachid Taha)
  
• O's Pop Party
  
• wishing you an irie Christmas and a dancehall New Year with the Trojan Xmas Box Set ~ 50 tracks of seasonal reggae joy. Santa Claus is skaing to town!
  
• Deb (Souad Massi)
  
• Half Man Half Biscuit
  
  

RADIO

• Terry Pratchett's Mort - R4 Tuesdays 11 pm
  
• The Archers - can't get enuff of that Ambridge gossip
  
• The Square Meal
  
• BBC R5Live Olympic Coverage
  
• Coming soon to a planet near you
  Hitchhiker's Guide: The New Episodes
  
• Dermot's Saturday Club (one for Jude)
  
• Mark Lamarr presents The Upsetter - The Life & Works of Lee 'Scratch' Perry Radio 2, Wednesday, 10pm
  
• The News Quiz
  
• John Peel remembered - Front Row Special (R4) and Steve Lamacq's tribute (R1)
  
• BBC R3 World Music Awards
  
• No Fixed Abode, Cricklewood (a history of the goodies)
  

BOOKS

• The Shadow of the Sun: My African Life (Ryszard Kapuscinski)
  
• Brick Lane (Monica Ali)
  
• Toast (Nigel Slater)
  
• Reading "Lolita" in Tehran: A Memoir in Books (Azar Nafisi)
  
• Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (Simon Sebag-Montefiore) - deferred (finding it too hard going right now)
  
• Sanctum (Denise Mina )
  
• Fat Land (Greg Critser)
  
• Daughter of Fortune (Isabel Allende)
  
• The Wee Free Men (Terry Pratchett)
  
• Pompeii (Robert Harris)
  
• Oryx and Crake (Margaret Atwood)
  
• Monstrous Regiment (Terry Pratchett)
  
• The Distant Echo (Val McDermid)
  
• How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World (Francis Wheen)
  
• From the Holy Mountain (William Dalrymple)
  
• The Calorie, Carb and Fat Bible is my constant companion since I went back to calorie counting. Yawn.
  
• The Black Dahlia(James Ellroy)
  
• 1421: The Year China Discovered the World (Gavin Menzies)
  
• White Mughals(William Dalrymple)
  
• Blacklist (Sara Paretsky)
  
• A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson)
  
  
  

updated: 15/02/05

O slept over at his friend's last night. Very weird. I went into his room to check on him several times last night, before remembering he wasn't there. This morning, it was so nice to have a decent lie-in, but strange not to be woken by a bundle of energy shouting mum mum mum time to get up mum.

Things I have to do today include loadsa work, sorting out my bike, shopping, washing, cleaning the house blah blah blah. So I am sitting on the balcony drinking coffee instead.

Why you shouldn't eat peanuts at Work-related Drinks Receptions:

1. Each peanut contains approximately 475, 000 calories.

2. You may drop a peanut down your cleavage and then have to try to decide, thro the haze of cheap red wine on an empty stomach on top of tiredness from being on your feet talking all day, whether to try and fish it out discreetly or leave it there.

Took wheel to bike shop. Bike Maint Teacher very kindly took time out, in spite of being extremely busy, put in nice fresh ball bearings (with plenty of grease), adjusted the bearings/cones properly, and only charged me for the cost of the ball bearings. Back home, put wheel back on bike, test ride - strange noise continues. Waaaaah. My bike related diagnostic skills obv 0, and I strongly suspect something expensive is Seriously Fecked (to use a technical term). Most likely I won't be at bike maint class on Wednesday (have to go Down Souf that day) so won't be able to beg for more help then. Even rang Dad but he was no help (what is the point of having an engineer for a father if he can't diagnose and fix all mechanical problems by phone bah). So Boo Boo Boo also I have too much work on this week and not enough time to do it bah bah bah.

Hooray for the Internet! thanks to the lovely helpful people in the cycling newsgroups, I have found out that I can prob get my wheel going again without having to do scarey sprocket removal stuff, because app. you don't have to have the cage thingy and can just put bearings 'n' grease in. I am going to take wheel to bike shop this afternoon, and hopefully my bike maint teacher will be there too, and will get it sorted and bike back on road again by this evening.

Well me bike's in bits, but am still feeling proud of self.

In an attempt sort out the Mysterious Knocking Noise that started a few days ago, I decided to investigate my rear hub. We haven't done hubs in bike maintenance class yet so I had very little idea what I was doing. Armed with my Haynes Bike Book and a borrowed cone spanner, I got the thing off and found that a bearing cage (I think that's what they're called) had disintegrated. It's the one on the sprocket side, and I don't see any way to replace it without taking the sprockets off. Sprocket set removal is graded '5 spanners' by Haynes and involves more tools I haven't got. So CrapBike is off the road and backwheel will be visiting Local Bike Shop (LBS) tomorrow.

Nevertheless I feel quietly smug because
1 - at least I tried to fix things myself (until a couple of months ago I wouldn't've tried to take back wheel off meself and didn't know that hubs are called hubs)
2 - the thought of the bike being out of action for a couple of days feels so much of an inconvenience, shows how much going by bike has become my default option.

While I am at LBS I must remember to get a new chain guard too. Cropped trousers are good because you can just take them home and wear them straight away (instead of having to wait till your mum/best friend takes the hems up for you). But they are bad because they are too short for bicycle clips so your nice new light-coloured trousers get caught in the chain booo.

Food wise things have been so so, some bingey days and some not. Haven't lost or gained any weight. Am thinking about dieting properly again. Only thinking bout it at this stage tho.

On Saturday I went shopping, to try and get something for C's graduation. I had some vouchers for my fave shop left from Xmas, which was good. Bad was that I haven't gone down even one size there boo not surprising really I spose, and also their clothes are cut depressingly small, meaning I have to buy size 'Baby Elephant' whereas in other shops I can get into clothes marked as 2 or 3 sizes smaller. Oh well. Never mind, still it is the best place to get decent big girl clothes that don't look like something your mum bought for you.

Working from home is so civilised. Sitting on balcony on a sunny day, sipping ice-cold diet Irn-bru while reading paper work. Happy days.

Cleaning. I hate it. Who cares how many cals it allegedly burns. Cleaning is b*ll*x.

Weigh-in day today - down 2lb - woo. Went belly dancing last night, and also managed to borrow crank tool and fix bike by myself (although job would've gone better with one of these, must add to my birthday list).

So all round feeling pretty pleased with self.

Feeling pleased with self for going to aquarobics tonight. Haven't been for a while cos it clashes with bike maitenance, but theres a 3 week break in the course at the mo. So I got an hour of jumping about in the water instead hurrah.

bah my crank fell off and the book says I need a special tool to get it back on again. I'm hoping my neighbour's got one I can borrow, otherwise bike will have to go to bike shop and it might as well have wheel re-dished while there and I won't be able to get it back till next week boo.

also boo i am bad i eat bag of prawn crackers. this is bad for vegetarian on alleged d**t.

We got up early this morning to see the Transit of Venus. R built a pinhole camera last night. But it was mainly too hazy/cloudy and we didn't see anything. Boo. Will have to get up at dawn on 6th June 2012 to catch the next one.

Had to go Down South yesterday. Forgot all about the Peter Akroyd walks but did do a different long walk. Suicidal madness it may be, but I am thinking of taking the bike on the train with me next time I go to London. So this time I picked up the relevant cycle map and walked the route I'd be taking. Some of it was pretty scarey (terrifying junctions) but there are lots of roads marked in yellow as 'quiet' and they were, even at 5 pm. So mebe I won't be squished by white van man after all.

Eating not too bad yesterday. I talked myself out of stuffing my face with crisps all the way there and all the way back on the train. Tho I did end up having a choccie muffin in the end, to console me for being hours late home after Euston station was closed.

Nice to see it not just me who was concerned about the three-year-old-dies-from-obesity story - there was an article about it in the science section of Thursday's grauniad

We had a good camping trip, in spite of the rain and the midges and the annoying-campers-next-door. Me and O went with friends and their 3 kids (R stayed at home to Write His PhD).

We camped on a large site at the foot of Coniston Old Man. The views were great tho would've been better without the accompaniment of 'Eye of the Tiger' from next-door's car stereo. The weather was nice on Wednesday when we arrived, so the kids stripped down to their pants and paddled in the lake. We had plans for all 3 days but these were scuppered cos it peed down on Thursday. We took the kids to the aquarium to keep them dry - O particularly liked touching the starfish and anemones and crabs. Friday we went to Grizedale Forest and looked at sculptures. We wanted to hire bikes with trailer bikes but they were all out. So we reserved some for Saturday morning. Me and O did have fun on ours on Saturday, but there was way too much up for us, and we had to get off and push some of the time. Am going to have to grit teeth and start doing 'up' if I want to be a cyclist rather than just a POB.

We ran out of time and so didn't make the attempt at Coniston we'd been planning. Maybe the kids' legs wouldn't've made it anyway. We can always go back and try again another time, and hopefully find a quieter campsite for a base.

Foodwise things weren't too bad. Some biscuits, some crisps, some wine. I weighed myself this morning and have gained 0 lb hurrah. I'm beginning to try to get back some control over my eating, eg not always buying crisps the minute I think I want some, but remembering that I do in fact want to lose weight (and why).