How do you tell a happy cyclist?

PA100002
Originally uploaded by Radders.

Their teeth are covered with flys...

Photo (by James Martin) is from the birmingham circumnavigation earlier this month. Pity about the flare and shoulder, but I managed to be in the centre of the frame!

West Wing characterisation

Unfortunately the little bit of text to describe Josh was missing. I put it down to my fondness of backpacks... (not quite one for every day of the week). And also for my attempts to fix things behind the scenes (not always successful).

Long weekend in London

Been down in London since early Friday morning, so away from the net for 3 days.
Friday was spent in a soulless office in a warehouse facility in the east end of London. This is where the DCA has in its wisdom outsourced the storage of marked registers to (Pickfords Record Management). The marked registers have to be available for "inspection", which for the political parties means "data entry". The Tories had a team of three antipodean lads working for them. Bizarrely one of them was currently working on Bethnal Green!
Friday night was a meal at Baltic, a eastern european based restaurant in Southwark. Introduced to a couple of LibDems who I've seen around at conference before, and campaigners in Lambeth. Baltic's food was really great, but being Friday it was a bit on the slow side, which meant the alcohol bill was quite large...
Saturday was spent training Pagemaker and desktop publishing to some young Lib Dems in Cowley St, in Westminster. It is a bizarre place on a Saturday as it is completely desserted, and we had the keys to the party HQ! Which was a bit embarrasing when we were trying to get in as there was a policeman on patrol along the road who could see us acting suspiously as we tried various keys...fortunately got the right one just as he passed.
In the evening Alex, Colin's other half, had procurred tickets for Richard II at the Old Vic. This was the Nunn directed version with Spacey in the lead role, and Ben Miles supporting. We had front row seats which were a bit difficult on the neck, but made for a great place to be with Spacey and the rest of the cast just inches away at times.

The long ride

Clue's in the title...
I racked up 156km in the day, with over 7 hours in the saddle, on a very enjoyable and pleasant October day. It was so nice that at lunch while sat outside the pub at Belboughton that I thought I was going to get sunburnt!
The weather was insanely nice, the only downside was a slightly stiff southerly wind, which was awkward on the highest parts of the ride, but a blessing on the final leg as it quite literally blew us home.

circumnavigation

Am doing a "west midlands ciurcumnavigation" tomorrow on the bike, with a bunch of cycling officers from various authorities in the area.
I should be about 95 miles (maybe 100 if we do a small loop somewhere...). So by my calculations I'll need about 4500 Cals during the day (based on body weight and an estimate of our average speed). Finding high Cal, low fat food is actually quite difficult in a supermarket. But settled on dried fruit and nutri-grain bars, with lucozade active and water for fluids.
The ride should be interesting as I've never done more than 70kms in a day, so 152kms will be a challenge. It will also be good to do go so far without travelling through any large built up areas, and keeping to country roads. Very different to the day-to-day riding in Birmingham.
Hopefully I'll be able to post a map tomorrow.

Romeo and Juliet

Can't say I'm a big theatre goer, but have now been to the Rep twice in 5 weeks.
Yesterday we went along to see Romeo & Juliet. Again, I'm not a big Shakespeare fan, but R&J would be one of my favourites, and this staging was very good. It was slightly modern (at points in the first half, the actors not involved on stage sat in directors chairs alongside the stage), and the production was exceptionally simple (with a background in stage lighting for bands I spend half the time looking at the setup).

Gourmet International Food Market

Popped along to the Gourmet International Food Market down by the bullring markets at lunchtime. Bit of a cross between a farmers market & the bavarian xmas market with ostrich burgers on tap.
I thought that much of the freshly cooked food was a little over priced (£4 for a small bowl of paella).
But jumped at the chance to buy some baclava (mediterranean honey/filo pastry and nut sweet).
Adam had a chance to bulk up on his carbs prior to Ramadam starting on Monday.

Cadbury's evac alarm

Cadbury's are just in the process of testing their evacuation alarm. Aparently it can be heard 5 miles away. I can say with certainty it can be heard 200m away...
Quite why it has to be quite that loud is another matter. I didn't think making creme eggs was that dangerous!