As I've mentioned before, I do volunteer work for St John Ambulance, including the Cycle Response Unit. We have a Twitter account; unlike this blog (where I'm only speaking for myself), that account gives official announcements, so you might like to follow it if you're curious about what we get up to. Here are a few highlights from the past month ( Read more... )

I didn't get round to doing a review post last year, so here's a bumper double-edition. (Hey, if it's good enough for TV guides then it's good enough for me.)

Starting with a few stats (and using 2012 as a baseline for comparison):

201220132014
SJA hours655342235
Distance swum (m)66294611025
Distance cycled (km)367835603209
Eddington number2932 ( Read more... )

Another month, another LARP event at CP. This time it was The Court of Crimson and Gold, and it was certainly a busy weekend. The good news is that Cedric (my character) finally got promoted from Cadet to Private. The bad news is that it was posthumous.

(Apologies in advance: this is another long post.)

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Back in 2008, I had a go at online dating; I mainly used Guardian Soulmates, but I briefly tried out Penguin Dating. I've been having another go recently, with mixed success, so this seems like a good time to review the different sites I've looked at ( Read more... )

Yesterday was a long day, but it was also quite a successful one. I cycled 51km (32 miles) around London, including an SJA duty, and I've made progress towards a couple of my New Year Resolutions.

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Looking back at 2011, a few highlights:

• Cycled 4897 km, on a variety of bikes. That's slightly more than last year (4806 km in 2010), but it's still about 3000 miles. This includes:
  
  • Cycling from Land's End to Manchester.
  • 3 WNBRs (Southampton, London, and Brighton).
  • The Brompton World Championship.
  • 9 BCQ checkpoints.

As I've mentioned before, I've had some trouble with my sleep patterns: going to bed late and getting up late. I think that's partly because I've been drinking a lot of Coca-Cola, and I've become dependent on caffeine. (Based on this CNN article, I think it's a dependency rather than an addiction.) So, I've decided to give it up. I've been off work ( Read more... )

Last week it was my birthday, so I turned 37. I usually take the day off work on my birthday, but this year I wasn't going to bother; I only did it in the end because I was helping a friend to move house. Basically, birthdays have become less of a big deal as I've got older: they don't bother me, but there's no significant difference between being ( Read more... )

When I first moved to London (in 1996), I lived in the Isle of Dogs. This was quite close to the London Marathon route (about 16 miles along), so we could just about see/hear everyone going past from our lounge window ( Read more... )

Cycling to the station tonight, I went past a parked car. Unfortunately, the driver chose this time to open his door. I shouted out, and slammed on my brakes, but he kept opening the door and I didn't have enough time/space to stop, so the door hit me and knocked me off my bike ( Read more... )