"Don't break"
To celebrate the forthcoming nuptials of a friend of mine, I found myself mountain biking around North Yorkshire on Saturday.

Now, with having a car and an office job, I've not been on a bike for several years now, and have done no exercise of note since I did this a couple of years ago, so it's hardly surprising that I wasn't really looking forward to the day.

Having slogged my way along several miles of trail, and fallen into one fairly large bed of nettles into the process, I was not really finding that much of the day would be categorised as "fun" in the lexicon of my brain.

Anyway, tired and a bit saddle sore we arrive at a location in which the chance to engage in more "fun" is before us - the chance to take a jump.

Now, I can see that already you're thinking - what's he doing? The man's mad.

With hindsight, perhaps that's what I should have thought, but I had seen others negotiate the obstacle successfully, and I thought it looked fairly straight forward.

With some final words of advice "whatever you do, don't break" ringing in my ears, I was off.

Down the hill I raced, with a great deal of momentum being generated. I shot up the ramp and into the air.

At which point gravity intervened.

I came down with a bump, albeit still astride the bike.

Unfortunately, not in the way I had imagined.

I landed on my side, with the bike between my legs, and together we slid to a halt on the loose gravel path.

With people running to my aid, I pulled the piece of stone from my knee and slowly stood up, blood seeping from the mess that had previously been my left leg.


- posted by Paul @ 4:47 pm |

 
Thailand vignettes
Having recently returned from Thailand I've a whole bunch of stories to mention, so will try and get them all up and running as I have a moment.
- posted by Paul @ 4:40 pm |

 
Willy
Bangkok is famous for it's traffic. The concept of driving in Thailand is one that filled me with dread, as anyone who has been must surely testify. Whilst the roads are all marked in to nice lanes, nobody takes any notice of them - and five lanes of traffic on a three lane road is not uncommon.

Getting around in such traffic can be a nightmare, particularly during the busier parts of the day. Anyway, leaving my tailors we got in to a Tuk Tuk and asked him to take us to the hotel which we booked as part of our flights deal. Rucksack's in hand, and looking exactly how you'd imagine someone who had just spent seven hours travelling by ferry and bus in 40 degree heat might look we set off across the city.

For those of you who don't know, a Tuk Tuk is a sort of vespa based rickshaw, with space for two people plus bags behind a driver in on a sort of motorised tricycle with a roof. Having haggled our price we set off into the manic congestion.

Despite repeated pleading by our driver that it was a long way, and we were some how screwing him over with the low price he agreed to, we stuck firmly to the negotiated figure. So when he asked if we wanted to see "willy" we were slightly taken aback. He promptly bounced the clutch and launched the Tuk Tuk onto it's rear wheels, thereby performing a wheelie, and scaring the crap out of both of us, before continuing to zig-zag his way through the streets, and bitch about how far it was. (We later worked out he'd gone up and down the side roads to lengthen the journey rather than take the direct route!)

After what seemed like an age he suddenly he turned off the road, into the drive of a very plush hotel, with taxis and limousines lining the drive, he picked his way between them before we scrambled out and hauled our sweaty bodies and bags into the plush air-conditioned reception. You could almost feel the building turning its nose up at our arrival.
- posted by Paul @ 4:39 pm |

 
Light relief
In the absence of me putting the finishing touches to my recent holiday post that seems to be forever in draft, or ranting about plagiarism (something which seems to be on the rise in the blogging world from what I can gather), I give you this joke (first heard on Radio 5 Live on Saturday).

How are John Prescott's recent shenanigans like a piece of flat pack furniture?

Two dodgy screws and the whole cabinet falls apart.
- posted by Paul @ 4:16 pm |