The Emperor Constantine. Eboracum. AD 2010.

Always Funny.

Definitely Don't Eat Here

That's the riverside terrace of Revolution, it's just off Coney Street in York.  I took this picture while eating next door at City Screen.  I'm sure that you've spotted it already but I'll repeat it just in case.

"We were actually blown away by how good the food was" - Yorkshire Evening Post.

Actually blown away?  Had you said, "We were blown away by how good the food was" I would have understood that you were using the term figuratively.  But to state that you were "actually blown away"?  How?  Where to?  Obviously you weren't blown far enough, as you were able to post your fatuous review.

I don't know what scares me more, that someone wrote that in a review, that the Yorkshire Evening Post apparently employ no sub-editors and printed it, or that Revolution actually (note correct usage) use this to promote themselves.

I am boycotting Revolution and the Yorkshire Evening Post, obviously.

Summer In York

Today was a fairly typical summer day. Here's some footage that I shot this afternoon.

A Day In The Sun

In ancient Egypt's fifth dynasty the sun, in the form of the god Ra, was widely worshipped. Ra became a state deity and all manner of solar temples, pyramids and obelisks were built in his honour. In Aztec mythology Tonatiuh was the sun god. Up to twenty thousand people per year were sacrificed in his name. The Greeks, Romans, Saxons, Norsemen and Germanic tribes all had a day of the sun and it is from those languages that our own Sunday comes. In the early nineteenth century, Turner painted the astonishing Sun Rising Through Vapour. In 1930 DH Lawrence was inspired to write, "I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me".

On the 27th of July, 2009, the sun came out in York and a substantial proportion of its population, including myself, were inspired to go and stand in the Post Office. I don't know which emotion I feel more strongly, shame or despair.

Freak Cycle.

Like most cities, York has a Freecycle scheme - a great way of cutting down waste and one I heartily applaud. It's an online list of items that members want to give away, and also items that members would like. No money must change hands for the items. It's a handy way to stop things getting thrown away unnecessarily. I subscribe to the Freecycle Digest too. I get a few emails a day with an updated list. It is split into three categories: Taken, Offered and Wanted. Here are some of the items from the past week. I have not made any of these up, only the comments in italics are mine.

Offered: Christmas wreath - Have you cancelled Christmas in your house?

Offered: Broken paving

Offered: Clothes hangers

Wanted: Dishwasher - There's nothing like ambition, I shall be requesting an Aston Martin soon.

Offered: Ja Ja Binks rucksack - Alternatively, stick a sign on your child's back that says "kick me".

Wanted: Round door handle

Offered: Blackout curtains - Put that bloody light out, don't you know there's a war on!

Wanted: All things Egyptian - I'm not sure that we have the space in York.

Wanted: Non-working Nokia 6500 slide - Why specify non-working? Can't you break one?

Offered: Candia long life milk (out of date) - Hmm, tempting.

Wanted: Caravan

Offered: Fire extinguisher, Minimax model 4a (1962) - One for the collectors out there.

Offered: Mens medium beige striped pyjama bottoms

Wanted: Blacksmith's anvil - Strangely, this was not requested by a Wile E. Coyote.

Offered: Arrid XX Womens spray on deodorant (only used twice)

Offered: Rubber fancy dress Roman tie-on armour breastplate - Just what I needed.

Wanted: Sega Megadrive and Sonic The Hedgehog game - Could anyone be more specific?

Wanted: UPVC opening window, 26"wide x 30" tall - Apparently they can.

Taken: Matchboxes

Feel a bit less mad now? Good, me too.

Graffiti, part one.

Someone has written this on a wall near my house. I assume that they're trying to cock a snook at the forces of law and order. I don't think they've thought it through properly. Wouldn't the police rather enjoy that? Wouldn't that cause there to be more of them?

The word police is a little indistinct though, perhaps it says "Fuck The Polite"? Surely "Make love to the polite" would a more appropriate term.

It could say "Fuck The Pohu". My exhaustive research has revealed that Pohu are a Shanghai based hydraulics company. If it refers to them, it's in the wrong place and needs to be moved approximately 6000 miles to the right.

Come on graffitists of York. A little more thought and a little less ambiguity please.

Testing my new cycling wardrobe.

I've just finished my evening cycle ride. Just a short one, only twelve miles, it's my regular route. It's part of National Cycle Route number 65, it takes me away from York city centre along the riverside and quickly out into the countryside, through fields full of cows, woods, past poppy fields, through the pretty village of Overton and over the York to Edinburgh railway line. The top of the railway bridge is the six mile point, so when I reach it, I turn round and head for home.

It's a quiet and mostly rural cycle ride, for the most part along a narrow cycle track. The mooing of cows, birdsong, and occasionally the distant sound of a shotgun are the soundtrack to my ride. So it came as little surprise this evening when I encountered a man, out walking with his young son and his dog, with a shotgun case slung over his shoulder. The son saw my approach, alerted his father, and they moved to the right of the track to let me pass. I slowed down, overtook them, thanked them and continued on my ride, reaching the halfway point a little under three miles later.

I turned around and rode hard along the homeward leg. My speed topped out at 26 mph this evening, not bad for someone on a hybrid cycle which has a very un-aerodynamic riding position. My speed was helped in part by my clip-less pedals, a system which locks your shoes into the pedals which is bad for low speed manoeuvrability, but good for propelling the bike along quickly and efficiently.

I soon found that I was approaching the man carrying the shotgun and his son again, coming up behind them at quite a pace. I decelerated and flicked down through the gears. The son heard this, and moved over to the right. The father also started moving over to the right, leaving a bike sized space to his left. I was going slowly by this point, not more than 8 mph, and began to coast along on the left side of the track. When I was about six feet behind the man he suddenly moved to the left, blocking the cycle lane. There was no time to brake so avoidance was my only option, I aimed my bike at the long grass to the left of the cycle lane. The front wheel hit the long grass and I soon discovered that the grass was covering a hole with a diameter large enough to accommodate a bicycle wheel to a depth of about seven inches. The front wheel plunged into the hole and I, with my weight transferred over to the right to try to regain the cycle lane, was pitched over the handlebars and to the right, still locked in to the pedals.

At this point the man with the shotgun became aware of my presence. He seemed surprised to discover an upside down man on his bicycle soaring toward him. He gasped, and then we collided. Somehow the back of my right shoulder hit him hard in the middle of his left arm, sending him sprawling to the floor, which is where my bicycle and I landed on him.

There was a bit of an awkward silence, as we both tried to determine whether our limbs were intact and while I wondered exactly what the etiquette of the situation was. I didn't feel any pain and the collision had wrenched my feet free of the pedals, so I rolled off the man with the shotgun, and put my bike to one side. I stood up and at the same time nervously enquired "are you okay?"

The man sat up, feeling his left arm, "Yes, I think so. Are you alright?"

"Fine", I replied, " I had a soft landing." (I know, I can't help it).

I helped the man to his feet. At this point the small boy burst into tears. This may have saved my life. To placate him, the man with the shotgun and I both made a great display of bonhomie, I was so affable that I even befriended the dog. We chatted for a bit, established that there were no injuries, and having cheered up his son, we continued on our respective journeys.

Only I could go to the middle of nowhere and ride my bicycle into with a man with a gun. I'm now considering fitting a bell.

Howard Hughes, you were right.

It's a glorious day in York. This afternoon I strolled into the city centre to do a bit of shopping. Here are a few messages to some of the people I encountered there.

To the chubby, red skirted, woman in her mid forties who walked into me in Borders:

Why do you think it is a good idea, when browsing a bookshelf, to suddenly walk six feet backwards? Is walking backwards ever a good idea? What purpose does it serve? Can you see backwards? Did it cross your mind to apologise to me for thrusting your flabby bottom into my left leg? Does your bottom have so much padding to protect you from many backward walking accidents?

To the quite respectable looking middle aged man in Marks and Spencer, who failed to place the next customer baton onto the conveyor belt, and then stood between me and it, causing me to move him to retrieve it and put it down myself.

As you know, I also put a baton down behind my shopping for the lady following me and she thanked me. When I turned to you and said, "That's how the non-sociopathic customers interact with each other" you were not meant to laugh, you were meant to learn.

To the young lady sunbathing in the Museum gardens:

I apologise. I thought I was wearing sunglasses.

To the family of four astonishingly fat tourists who chose to walk four abreast along a narrow, crowded street:

You lumbering ninnies! Do you believe that everyone else in the world should veer out of your path so that you may trudge along unerringly? You may have the turning circle of an aircraft carrier and the agility of a sizable anvil but you could at least make an effort. Try walking in single file, you'll only take up two thirds of the width of the street then and less people will hate you. Also, why were you all wearing giant training shoes, who are you trying to kid?

To the girl in the pink t-shirt and denim skirt walking along Parliament Street with her arms folded:

Why? What's the point of walking like that? Do you have any idea how stupid it makes you look? You need your arms free to aid balance and to fend off other stupid pedestrians. How is it possible that you have reached your twenties and haven't learned to walk yet? I don't know what sort of animal has permanently folded arms but I'd like to know if you were raised by such a creature. No? Walk properly then.

I feel so much better now. I'm off to have a bath and daydream about becoming a hermit.

Beware the occasional driver.

There are many reasons my wife and I do not own a car and when I have more time I will blog about them. As you can see I have a licence to drive. It is a very recent acquisition - I didn't learn to drive until I was in my thirties. I only learned because not having learned to drive was becoming a social stigma. I use it infrequently. I think it is also fair to say that my wife and I are not natural motorists.

Where do you drive to? The shops? The cinema multiplex? The suburbs? Ikea? I drive to none of these places. When I drive, I drive to Brighton.

The fact is that it is cheaper for two people to hire and fuel a car for five days and travel from York to Brighton in it, than it is for them to get there by train. The conversation during which I exclaimed "But we don't want to buy the train, we just want to ride on it for a bit" was the last straw and now when we go on a long journey in the U.K., it is often by car.

The nice people at Enterprise have given us this

one. Please give it plenty of space. It will contain a bewildered looking couple, the driver will be arguing with the Satellite Navigation device and frantically trying to work out the windscreen wipers/headlights/heater/brakes, the passenger will be frenetically cross-stitching and chain-eating travel sweets in order to divert her attention from the horrifying speed of motorway traffic and the shouting, arm waving, button jabbing madman to her right. Also, please leave us a large space when we get there, I haven't parallel parked since I passed my driving test.

Rejoice, the barometer is safe.

I live in York.  It is a culturally rich, vibrant and interesting place.  It is the 24^th most populous city in England.  You would expect that in a busy, well populated city that there would be a lot of interesting things to write about, and you would be correct.  The panoply of York life is an abundant source of a variety of newsworthy stories.  So what have our local journalists been writing about recently?

A little over three weeks ago a barometer was stolen from Fairfax House, a York museum.  In the last three weeks, there have been six – yes SIX – stories in the York Press about the barometer theft.  We have had the barometer theft, the police appeal for witnesses to the barometer theft, a second police appeal for witnesses to the barometer theft four days after the first (!), a valuation of the barometer, a self-congratulatory return of the barometer article and today, the arrest of a woman over the theft of the barometer.  The same picture of the grinning museum director holding the barometer has appeared in the paper for the last two days.

Please, please, York Press, stop writing about the barometer theft.  I am heartily sick of hearing about the barometer.  Something else - not related to the barometer - must be happening somewhere in York.  I may, if I have to read another article about the barometer, be provoked into a rage fuelled spree of barometer vandalism, which would, ironically, cause you to write even more barometer stories than you have already.  Please, I beseech you, for the sake of my sanity, never, ever mention the barometer again.