Grumpy Old Men On Bikes

On Monday I had a meeting in Edinburgh so flew up.  At the time I briefly reflected on how splendid it was it be able to go so far so quickly.  Of course this was a pure illusion, induced by the minute size of Britain relative to the sodding great ball of on which it sits.  Presumably people marvelled at the horse and cart in its day, and it was probably a jolly fine way of getting about if the limit of your travel plans was the next village. When you need to go to Auckland the jet engine becomes about as much use as a chocolate teapot.  We need, at the absolute minimum, ballistic flights via space but preferably matter transporters.  Why the engineers aren't busy sorting this out rather than concentrating on plasma TV's bigger than the average house is a complete mystery. I am in Kuala Lumpur and a tad grumpy. At least the engines, pathetically inefficient as they are , have kept working and we are neither late nor dead.   I had forgotten about...

My delight at turning my back on the dregs of a British winter is tempered somewhat by the prospect of the looooong haul down to Auckland.  I shall, again, be flying Emirates, sadly not on one of their snazzy techno-planes but a good old-fashioned Boeing.  Apart from being steam-powered and lacking many of the gizmos that Airbus cram into their A380, the plane will also be worryingly deficient in another area......engines.  As far as I'm concerned you really cannot have too many engines.  Having once had the delight of landing with my head between my knees and smoke pouring from 50% of the engines (okay....one but it was still 50%) I am a big fan of engines (and, hilariously, engines have a BIG FAN).  Boeing, who clearly care nothing about my personal safety, have decided that a miserly TWO engines is sufficient to get me half way around the world. I fly at 13:30 today and, provided at least half the engines keep working, I arrive safely in New Zealand in the ...

Have you noticed how pants the weather is?  I certainly have, so I have decided to run away from it for a month.  As you may know, I am a bit of an expert at 'not cycling the length of New Zealand' so I thought I would induct some fellow cyclists into the club.  On Jan 29th I head back to New Pieland to run a Bike Adventures trip from Auckland to Te Anau ( i.e. missing out the monstrous hills of Northland that nearly killed me last year and the rather dull bit at the very bottom of Southland).   There will be 6 riders for the whole trip, joined by 2 more in Fox for the final week.   I have travelled elsewhere with all but 2 so we mostly know what we are in for.   I will have a love machine.....though obviously not THE Love Machine :-(.  This one is made by Toyota so will probably return excellent fuel economy but, despite this, I hope we can become good friends.  The relationship will obviously be platonic because I could never be...