Red Nose Day: A day of enforced jollity ahead. Still, it’s for chirity!

Motorcyling: Another great ride in today. Starting to see more (very clean) bikes every day, spring must be springing. The pheasants seem to have plucked off somewhere else this morning.

Sleep is for wimps: No wimps at our house then. Spent the night cleaning up after projectile sick boy. Not a nice night. Too tired to think.

Another one from those nice people at channel 4. Now we’ve found out how gay we all are (courtesy of Eric's link to the Gayometer), now let’s see how picky we are?

Cake stall comments:

(sharp intake of breath), oh no! (roll eyes, pause for effect), well it is for a good cause!

Comic relief: The company I’m working for do a load of charity fundraising. It’s part of their corporate culture. It cost you a quid to dress down for a day, they have a charities committee, that sort of thing. Our department always run a cake stall for major events such as Children in Need, Red Nose day etc. Members of the department bake cakes and they’re put on a desk near mine and sold for 30p a pop. This doesn’t bother me much, I’m skinny, I have the moral fibre of a KitKat and a metabolism so fast that Ferrari want to put it into their next F1 car.

Imagine a table loaded with home made choccie cakes, muffins and cookies, here are some of the comments I’ve heard so far ...

They’re not ALL for me.
It’s not fattening if it’s for charity.
Just one more.
Is this the cake stall?

Motorcycling: Had one of those seamless rides to work today, everything flowed, right speed, right gear, right place all the way. All the lights were green, roundabouts were clear, overtakes were plentiful and all is right with the world.

The pheasants have been added to my internal list of threats now, much the same as scooter riders, cyclists and anyone wearing a hat. I’m spotting them sooner and I now know exactly what they’re going to do. They’re going to be unpredictable, much the same as scooter riders, cyclists and anyone wearing a hat. I hope I never meet a pheasant wearing a hat on a bike.

Sleep is for wimps: I must be a wimp then, I had eight hours of it last night and feel refreshed, in a wimpish kind of a way.

Twitching: No pheasants this morning, there were a couple of jaywalking geese (could there be goosestepping jays somewhere?) in our village but we’re quite used to that.

Yawn: Forgot to reset the alarm clock last night, so it went off at 5:30am just in time for me to hear that bloody awful Radio 4 Today show theme tune medly thing where they play “What shall we do with a drunken sailor” and “Greensleeves” at the same time. Barking! This, and little boy teething, too many beers with Simon last night and a round Britain rail trip (all on time, what IS going on?), made for a very crappy few hours of sleep. But, it’s a beautiful morning, I’ve got a Honda Fireblade and I know how to use it, yeehah! Unfortunately I’m doing some programming this morning so anything could happen.

Rant: Two lunchtimes on the trot I’ve tried to get my hair cut, nothing special, just a trim. They’re all at lunch fer chrissake! They’re open from 9:00am to 5:00pm and take an hour for lunch. Now that’s a bit of a coincidence, most of their customers do similar. Dickheads!

Parenting: My little boy and I regularly read small Thomas the Tank Engine books which he was given for Christmas. We also watch it on TV occasionally. I’m a little bothered by the negative side of the stories where engines are nasty to each other or bad tempered. There are regular crashes and derailments and there’s even one story where Gordon (I think) is walled up in a tunnel for being naughty. I don’t believe that it will send my boy off the rails but I sincerely hope that he will be less inclined towards train spotting in later life, it’ll save me having to beat it out of him.

Quote: “It is no use you thinking life revolves around motorcycling. Motorcycles are never going to make you a living”. Barry Sheene’s geography teacher (from his obituary in the Daily Telegraph).

Motorcyling: I’m starting to believe that they’re all out to get me. On the way home yesterday evening, two pheasants shagging in the road (not the most romantic of places), on seeing the nice shiny motorcycle, he legs it straight at my front wheel, leaving her unfulfilled. I think it might have been the same one from yesterday morning. Where do I join a pheasant shooting club? Or even better a pheasant clubbing club. Then I got a blatant fag end thrown at me by a dickhead with a “piss off” sticker in the back of his car. Finally, a massive four wheel drive pulled out on me, fifty yards from home. I travelled by train today, which was bang on time again.

A sad end for Barry Sheene, a great motorcyclist.

“Help help, I’m being oppressed” Bloody pheasants are all over the place. One of the suicidal little gits almost got me on my bike ride to work this morning. Leaning beautifully into a left hander up a slight hill, lo and behold there he was in the other lane walking away from me to safety. Until he saw me that is! A quick dither, an about turn and run at the nice motorbike’s front wheel. No, turn around again, no another shot at the wheel, no take off towards the big round shiny black thing with a window in it. Why do people who shoot these idiot birds call it sport? They’ve all got a bloody death wish. Surely it would be more of a sport to try not to shoot them!