Riding the IJsselmeer

Having decided that this year I would ride the Dunwich Dynamo, an overnight cycle from Hackney to Dunwich in Suffolk, it was time to start training in earnest. However, flights to Earnest were too expensive, so instead I flew to the most bicycle-friendly country in the world to hit the road with my brother-in-law Marc, who had worked out a route around some small lake in the Netherlands called the IJsselmeer. Did I say small? It's the fifth largest frigging lake in Western frigging Europe and if I had known quite how big it was, I would probably never have got on the plane. Somehow or other though, we managed to do the whole 400km loop in three days.



Day 1. The sun is shining, the cheese is toothsome and the going is good.


Day 2. After camping for the night in Hoorn, where I also had to get a new front wheel, we cross the Afsluitdijk: a 32 km dyke which the Dutch built by cutting the IJsselmeer off from the sea, thereby turning a saltwater inlet into a freshwater lake. Amazing! The dyke itself, the second longest in the world, is basically little more than a road, mercilessly exposed to the elements. Fortunately the sun kept shining and we had a tail wind. The legs were sore, not to mention the arses, but we got across in good time, with a bit of encouragement from our i-pods. Note to cycIing goths: I highly recommend 'No Pussy Blues' by Grinderman as a pedalling aid.




Day 3. After spending the night in a rather luxurious hotel with my sister Sharon and their daughter Eleanor, Marc and I reluctantly get back in the saddle for the 150 km home stretch to Utrecht in somewhat less forgiving weather - a head wind and rain most of the way. On the way we see scenes of random Dutch weirdness such as a seemingly deserted new town which had been celebrating its 50th anniversary the night before and whose sole occupants were these rather sinister straw sentinels left guarding the entrance to the town.




It was a long hard slog, but somehow or other we managed to get back to Utrecht in 11 hours. The whole trip appeared to temporarily cure me of diabetes and I had perfect blood sugar readings every day, so have postponed the transition to Metformin a little further. Marc was a great cycling companion, and showed a lot of patience when I was lagging behind. I don't think I'd have been able to do it without that windmill powered crash helmet though.

It's National Beard Week!

...so I'm using the excuse to continue looking like a tramp for another seven days, but it is itching like buggery so I will probably succumb to the razor on my return from next weekend cycling in the Netherlands - if I survive, that is. More on that later.

Went up to the Festival Hall again last night to see Circulus playing outside to a crowd of bemused tourists and Falklands veterans. Then indoors for the Hal Willner Forest of no Return event re-interpreting songs from Disney films, which was very good indeed. Nick Cave sang 'Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee', Shane MacGowan laid siege to 'Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah', a septegenarian Fenella Fielding gave a spirited rendition of 'Feed the Birds', Grace Jones did a suitably menacing 'Trust in Me' and Richard Strange hammed up 'The Headless Horseman' complete with a diamond encusted skull a la Damien Hirst. These were all matches made in heaven and each worth the admission price alone but even the likes of Beth Orton and Pete Doherty, who I normally wouldn't give you tuppence a bag for, turned in highly respectable performances. Highlight of the night though, had to be Nick Cave and David Thomas's truly sinister interpretation of the 'Hi-ho' song from Snow White.

Latest news on the diabetic front is that I'm starting on the metformin tablets. My last Hb1AC was 8.3, up 0.3 from the previous one, so it seems control purely by diet and exercise is no longer an option. Actually, it probably would be if I gave up drinking, but that's a sacrifice too far at the moment so I'll be popping another couple of pills a day from now on. Stay tuned for news of strange and exciting side effects!

She bangs the drums

There was a time when women on the drums were something of a rarity - Mo Tucker, Karen Carpenter, Honey Lantree, but yesterday I saw no fewer than four. Breakneck Static played a rip-roaring session of intense mini-songs on the show though sadly my camera battery was dead so alas no pictures. Then, after a bracing cycle ride up to Shooter's Hill and back, it was off to the Macbeth to see the excellent Monday Club (top), Le Tetsuo, Shrag and Screaming Tea Party (below), all of whom had fantastic girl drummers, apart from Le Tetsuo, who make up for their lack of a stickswoman by having an equally marvellous female bassist, which went some way to mitigating the fact that they hail from Naaaarwich.

South Bank

Sauntered up to the South Bank last Saturday night for the re-opening of the Royal Festival Hall, er, festivities. Think the bloke on his mobile was saying 'I'm in a fountain'.

Stumpy Torso

Spent a most civilised evening catching up with old chums last night at the Clements Yard open studio, where they do clever things with sheets.

More old chums on the show today too, as Wet Dog came in for their third session, and right champion it were and all. Sarah battled bravely with the resonance drum kit, which seems determined to add an extra experimental element to performances by redistributing itself around the studio while being played. Fortunately a couple of extra band members were on hand to keep it in place and a quite glorious racket prevailed. It's hard to choose a favourite band from everyone who's appeared on the show over the years, but I strongly suspect Wet Dog would be on all our shortlists.

Finally, I notice from google analytics that someone recently arrived at this blog by googling the phrase "goggle-eyed twat", thereby prompting me to google it myself and discovering that I'm the top entry for the phrase. Hurrah!

Mental Mental Chicken Oriental

Saturday's show was a Mentalist special with sessions from Maidstoners Hexicon, Gasp! Cracking Eggs and Les Enfants. A hectic 90 minutes, but fun, especially as it involved one of our favourite instruments, the french horn.