Wimmin on bicycles N329

Try doing this in February 2012:

Una Isla en un Yate

Brought by our latest Spanish correspondent, Hope Towers:

Howzat?

Courtesy of Rossa, Chuckles titled this “Jonty” but of course he means “Ponty”. Simple error for a South African to make. And who can forget the delightful banter between G “underarm” Chappell and T “players’ comfort zone” Greig?

Thoughts on cycling safety

We were tweeting away about bike safety and how in our country, we begin with helmets, whereas on the continent, they begin with infrastructure [Very British Dude]. Yes, that’s so. @VeryBritishDude  @Outlier  @citycyclists City cyclists was of the opinion that this sort of thing:

Wimmin on bicycles N328

History of aviation

Theo:

This is your captain speaking

You saw that survey about most people feeling more secure with a southern English accent in the pilot’s seat and a Scottish accent came second? Scots came second?  Never mind, let’s move on.  How would you feel if you had just taken off and the pilot was greeting you through the tannoy with: #  Losh [...]

The church-pub nexus

It’s often been said that the church and the local pub are as one, seeing how the Sunday congregation would seamlessly move from the church to the bar after Sunday prayers. This might not happen so often these days but here’s an example of each seemingly made for each other, certainly in terms of size, [...]

Early F1

Wimmin on bicycles N327

Time for a brief return of the series.  Click for the big pic:

Shyness on a train

Though the age of steam has passed, the great railway stations in their arching, metallic barndom still evoke an atmosphere of happier, more romantic and more exciting times and old-style stone stations with actual stationmasters who greet you cheerily still exist in this country. On a Saturday, with the numbers of commuters far lower, you [...]

The art of Chessalee

Chessalee is one of my favourite sites but like Jesse, the main subject matter is esoteric, both from a chess point of view and also because I can’t read Dutch/Afrikaans, much as I’d like to. Plus there seems to be a focus on men much of the time, whereas I focus on women – nothing [...]

Museums of the world

From Wiggia: 1 Hermitage St Petersburg As a child, museums did little for me apart from the Natural History Museum and the mummies in the British Museum. 

Ballad of a Big Woman

Katarina Witt in hot water again.  Stop: 1. apologizing; and 2. for reasons of PCism. She stunned viewers and fans alike when she called the professional skier a ‘big woman’ live on TV. But today, Dancing On Ice judge Katarina Witt apologised to Chemmy Alcott and said she meant her comment to be complimentary. Look, [...]

Superstitions at sea

In the light of the history of the Costa Concordia, two of my favourite stories are:

Alcohol for health and longevity

Oh yeah! In case you missed it at El Reg: Moderate levels of alcohol delivered an increase in longevity among test subjects in a recent study that Steven Clarke, UCLA professor of chemistry and biochemistry and senior author on a study published yesterday in the journal PLoS One, described as “shocking”. “This finding floored us” [...]

Laura Dekker makes it round

The first place I went when Laura Dekker completed her voyage was to Abby Sunderland’s blog and sure enough, Abby had congratulated her.  You’ll recall Abby was the girl who had to be picked up from the ocean near Australia after a less than well thought out voyage on a speed machine in the wrong [...]

Cottage and Shepherd’s Pie

Got home quite cream-crackered and only wanted three things – wine, to make the cottage pie, to sleep.  One and two have now been achieved. Apologies in advance for the bragging but that had to have been one of the best cottage pies I’ve ever shoved in the oven.  At our work, I spied a [...]

The Polytechnic made London’s first Olympics happen

Delighted to present today’s major post [with just Dearieme and a quickie to follow this evening], this is the opening salvo of John Wigglesworth [Wiggia - see categories].  Hope you enjoy it, readers – JH: 1 Polytechnic building foyer LONDONS FIRST OLYMPICS AND THE REGENTS STREET POLYTECHNIC Back in the 1950s as a young racing [...]

Cheat’s guide to Sunday lunch

1. Red wine at the ready [white is more gastronomically correct perhaps]. 2. Tin of ASDA’s Mexican chicken [or Thai green or whatever takes your fancy] opened, at the ready. 3. Pull out two spuds from your in-the-dark, teatowel covered box [I keep mine next to the electricity cupboard near the front door], wash, cut [...]

Cook in your coffee pot

These are just two of the foods you can cook without the use of pots and pans: 1. Oatmeal Put two packets of instant oatmeal into the carafe. Add an individual packet of honey, an individual packet of fruit jam, and a pinch of salt. Put an herbal tea bag (e.g. orange flavored) into the [...]

Quick car quiz

Name it: Answer [and attribution] later.

The dipping lug

I’m still not sure how he does it: He seems to have solved one of the primary reasons sailors don’t use the dipping lug on modern boats. The dipping lug is a beautiful sail and those with it aboard report it is powerful too. So it should be, as it uses the principle of the [...]

Modern ugliness is no accident

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. [Wilde - one of the endlessly quoted lines no one seems to know the source details of] Nowhere is modern uglification more sharply defined than in the laughingly described “high” fashion world. Leaving aside the fashions themselves, look [...]

Wiggia’s Friday Quiz

The French Connection:  name the three makes of French cars and the year of manufacture, it’s the same for all:

Tribute to a grand team in 2011

This is close to my heart, particularly the last clip and final words. ……….. While sport might leave you cold, Aussie sport particularly so, something happened between 2009 and 2011 which has all the elements of high drama – if it had happened over here, it would have been the stuff of legend. There were [...]

Decisions, decisions …

While I quite liked the underwater scooter and this one: … Rowan Hutchinson went for this little model:

Sydney-Hobart protest after shock win

End of the race For those who haven’t caught up, in a few hours there’ll be a protest against the underdog Investec Loyal which pipped Wild Oats XI by 3 minutes in the marathon race.  The multi-million dollar WOXI was meant to win but its rival supermaxi took line honours. Just found out that it [...]

Wavepiercing, tumblehome and reverse sheer

Some time back, someone discovered that if you reversed the bow [turned it upside down] : … as well as running tumblehome along the length [narrows above the waterline]:

Sicily

[Click to expand pic] Reminiscing with Wiggia about Sicily and our respective stays there and as it’s the winter solstice today, I thought I’d put up a few shots I took using Welshcakes‘ camera.  Here is the cafe we frequented: