I was joined on the Evans Hatfield Sportive by Steve and Martin (thanks, chaps, you made it a far more enjoyable experience – I’m very grateful to you). It was Steve who summed it up the best – 75 miles of enjoyable cycling followed up by 15 miles of brutality (the biggest hills were saved til last). Continue reading “Evans’ Hatfield Sportive”

I’m proud of what Great Britain has accomplished, which is why I was pleased that Scotland voted to remain part of the United Kingdom. I can understand why some might not have wanted to, and I think that Scotland needs greater autonomy (as do England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and their regions), but we are greater than the sum of our parts. Continue reading “Thoughts on Brexit”

The Reading Sportive was hugely entertaining, well staffed, and attended by some thoroughly nice cyclists. I had plenty of company for the first stage of about 19 miles, rather less company for the second stage of 19 miles – and rode the whole of the last stage (25 miles) alone bar the final 2 miles. I had a very nice conversation with a chap called David (from Kingston), reassurance on the route from two nice ladies who had rather more confidence in the pink Evans signs than I did (there was some serious divergence from the published sat-nav route) and a tissue on which to blow my nose from a pretty girl at the first rest stop. See? Thoroughly nice all round. Continue reading “Evans’ Reading Sportive”

The training for my 24 hour ride from Newcastle to London (20-21 August)… continues. I can’t say whether it’s going well, or going badly – but I’m going to err on the side of caution and suggest that perhaps I’m not quite as far advanced as I should be.

Continue reading “A brief update on training…”

At last New Year’s Party I was chatting with a friend, Simon (the mud-covered chap below), and he told me that he intended to cycle from Newcastle to London in 24 hours to celebrate his birthday. If anyone could do it he could, but no – I wasn’t interested in his kind invitation to join him. I mean, I’d be delighted to do something like a 10K run with him or, perhaps, cycle the Devon coast to coast – but Newcastle to London? Seriously? Do I look like a bloody idiot? I know my limitations!

Continue reading “Newcastle to London in 24 hours? Madness.”

As you may know, I don’t usually send out anti-virus / scam warnings – my feeling is that a few common sense precautions and a healthy dose of suspicion should be sufficient to keep you safe. However, an attempt was made to scam me today which was convincing enough that I feel that I should warn you all – just in case you’re tempted to believe it. Continue reading “Gone Phishin’ (Be Warned)”

In order to test a game that I’m developing at the moment I built myself a budget Steam Box (because what’s the point of building a high-end box when I want my game to be accessible for everyone?) The all-in cost came to less than £200, using a 1.6GHz quad core Athlon processor, and I’m far more impressed with it than I thought I would be.
Having built my box, I took it for a test-drive. Some things work amazingly well (power frugal games like Braid, for example, but big hitters like Brütal Legend are very playable too), but let’s back up a moment… Continue reading “Steam What?”

“Be more dog”, O2 say.  What they mean, I suspect, is roll over and let us kick you for a while. As you might have guessed, I’m not entirely happy with O2 customer service – and so I’m moving back to a supplier that I’ve learned to trust.

It’s not one problem, it’s many – and I’m fed up. I’m kicking back. So, in no particular order… Continue reading “Ill Communication”

Here we go again.  It’s time for another woefully inaccurate assessment of a new Apple product.  Bear in mind that I’m not very good at this – some of my past gems included:

• PowerPC (Not as good as 68000)
• iPod (Not as good as my MiniDisc player)
• Mac Mini (Just a poor clone of the Cappuccino PC)
• Mac Intel (It’ll be a disaster – the end of the Mac is nigh)
• iPad (Just a scaled up iPod Touch)

Continue reading “Not the end of the Swiss economy”

The Managers Guide to Employee Feedback by Glenn Devey is essential reading for all managers, no matter how experienced you believe you are. Even as a manager of seven years I found the tips in this book to be useful, backed up as they are by real-life examples. In fact, I’ve been on management training courses that weren’t as well considered or developed as this little book. Continue reading “The Managers Guide to Employee Feedback”