Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Budapest

Not only is it the name of a fine song by The Reindeer Section, but it is also the capital of Hungary and the venue for the conference that I'm attending this week. Hurrah.

This means that next week I'll doubtlessly post something on here to gloat about how nice it is there. And it wil also undoubteldy come across more as Bill Bailey than Bill Bryson.

Sunday, August 22, 2004

A Good Weekend

The weekend actually started quite badly, with a disobedient bike spitting me off at high speed resulting in an involuntary skin sacrifice to the Gods of Mayfield Road.

Still, things improved dramatically what with there being some rather scorchio weather round these parts, giving that excellent carefree summer weekend vibe that makes you feel like eating salad and generally larking about. Cue a barbeque on the meadows with lots of friends, followed by a game of rounders and a few rides in the funfair. We even managed to get an outdoor table in one of Edinburgh's few beer gardens to finish the night off.

Today was a trip to Aberdour for some sea-cliff climbing. A big smiley sun making the view across the Forth even more spectacular and general good cheer all round. Plus I helped a friend get over her fear of lead climbing, which I think gave us both a nice warm sense of achievement.

Nothing ground-breakingly exciting there, but just stress-free and totally enjoyable. The kind of weekend that makes it easier to put up with crap midweeks, ad what more could you ask for?

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Things to do in Edinburgh When You're Dizzy.

There are things that many of us take for granted which become highly treasured when they are temporarily taken away.

For me one of these things, as I discovered last week, is my sense of balance. A rather unfriendly virus decided to set up camp in my inner ear, thus depriving me of my already somewhat ropey balance. Needless to say, there isn't much you can do when you have this affliction, mainly because most things involve moving your head too much.

Here are some handy suggestions based on my experience of the past week:

  • Watch DVDs - Obvious, really. Try to go for sets that comprise a whole TV series as this tends to kill much more time and you can also break it into chunks nicely. I recommend Family Guy (almost as good as the Simpsons) and The Day Today (as long as you never want to be able to watch the news with a straight face again).
  • Avoid daytime TV - I have come to the conclusion that there are only about five TV executives in the UK at the moment. And they are all very very drunk.
  • Learn about sport - thanks to the BBC's marvellous olympic coverage I now understand the points scoring of judo and badminton, and have more knowlege of olympic swimming than I could ever desire.
  • Have Friends Round - I think I would have gone insane if it weren't for ther steady stream of mates coming to make me cups of tea and give me sympathy (and run around after me in general). They are spendid people one and all.
  • Sleep - I have seized the opportunity to do some training for the 2008 olympics, where sleeping will be introduced as an olympic sport. I think I stand a good medal chance.
  • Listen to lots of music, obviously - No different to any other time, really, but here's a few of the albums I've re-discovered in the past week:
    • Ben Folds Five - Ben Folds Five I realised whilst listening to this that I'm the only Ben Folds fan I know that hasn't at some point in their life had piano lessons. Nevertheless, this is a fantastic collection of clever indie pop, and it makes me want to play 'air piano'.
    • Snow Patrol - When It's All Over We Still Have To Clear Up Now that they've sold a squillion copies of their new album Final Straw I can only hope that more people discover this, their second and best album. Although slightly less polished than its sucessor, When It's... has a warmth and sincerity that hasnt been matched by their newer stuff.
    • The Cinematic Orchestra - Man With The Movie Camera Unlike many other artists of their ilk, the cinematics weren't content with making soundtracks to imaginary movies so they found some Russian cinema 'Classic' to make tunes for. Mostly consisting of stripped down versions of the stuff on 'Every Day' it has an excellent live feel to it. And not too 'Jazz Club - Nice' either.
    • Buck 65 - Talkin' Honky Blues Possibly the worlds least conventional hip-hop artist, Buck eschews the usual violence, mysogeny and general language of rap to produce something far more refreshing. There are stories ranging from madcap road journeys to the life of a shoe shine, all underpinned with some superb beats crafted from both samples and proper instruments. Everyone should be forced to listen to this, ESPECIALLY if they think hip-hop is rubbish.
    • Explosions In The Sky - The Earth Is Not A Cold, Dead Place There's no point in going on about this album. It's quite simply beautiful, and if you don't agree with me then you have no soul.
  • Fall Over - The effect of using a lift when you have vertigo can be quite interesting. My thanks go the the Edinburgh Uni Health Service for scraping my shivering sweaty body off the floor of the lift and treating me nicely until my taxi came.
  • Get Better - Possibly the most fun thing I've done is recover. The ability to walk about and do stuff after a week of inactivity makes me feel invincible. Hooray for that.
Ah well. At least I didn't miss any good weather. Heheh.

Monday, August 09, 2004

Title

I've just noticed that all my recent posts have one word titles. Maybe I should make it a theme.

Naah.

Fear

Earlier this year I decided that I would take part in the KIMM - a 2 day mountain running event. I've enetered with an almost total stranger (you do it in pairs) on the grounds that he seems a rather nice chap and we should get on fine.

Being quite new to this mountain marathon thing we decided on the 'C' class, which is the lowest class, and even if you're really quite crap you should get the whole course completed in plent yof time. Hurrah, I thought. Minimal training required, and even if I have a crap day I should still get to the end and retain my dignity (no laughing, please).

Today the entry lists were relaesed.

I'm not in 'C' class, but on the reserve list for 'B' class. So not only am I going to have to train my knackers off to stand a chance of completing the race sucessfully, but there's also a remote chance that I might not even get to run if not enough people drop out.

I'm very, very frightened now.

Friday, August 06, 2004

Dammit

There's a big gap before the table in my last post, and try as I might I can't get rid of it.

It is a big, blue damnation on my substandard geek skills.

I hang my bespectacled head in shame.

Monday, August 02, 2004

Up

I've just had one of those weekends of climbing that just brings it all home and makes me super-psyched for more climbing (as long as it doesn't interfere with my sleeping).

The thing with climbing is that the reasons for doing it are so nebulous that trying to explain them to anyone is almost always futile. If you weigh up the pros and cons of climbing the table looks something like this:







Cons Pros
It's often cold and wet.It's errr, kind of fun sometimes
It's expensive.
It's dangerous
You have to go to silly places to do it.
It worries your mum.
NOBODY looks good in a climbing harness
It hurts

But still I (and many others) keep going back to it. The unrelenting desire to scale rockfaces, often in a somewhat unbecoming and strenuous manner, is a desire that rarely leaves once its taken hold. I have no idea why, so I'm going to write about my weekend in an attempt to express some of the allure of climbing.

Saturday saw me at Falcon Crag in the Lake District, partnered with one of the EUMC's more talented and enthusiastic climbers. I was a bit aprehensive about this because


  1. I'm lazy
  2. I'm rubbish at climbing

The first route was far harder than I'd climbed before (graded E1 for those interested), but I was seconding the route, which removes most (but not all) of the fear factor from the climb. I totally sailed up the climb, leaving me feeling pretty good about myself having pushed my own personal boundaries. Not a massive leap by any means, but enough to put a spring in my step and add a bit of cockyness.

Of course, that meant I agreed to climb an even harder route. "The Niche", graded E2, came with hearty recommendations from some quite senior (60+?) geordie blokes who's rather vocal enthusiasm and general good nature had been creating a good vibe at the crag all morning. It was, however, hard as nails and I fell off the route several times, getting increasingly more frustrated and tired with each failed move. Still, as we were walking down off trhe crag, when asked how the route was my reply was:

"Fucking Awesome"

It's actually realy cool getting comprehensively spanked off a route like that, because you know you've totally surpassed your limits. Gives you a sense of perspective and all that. And it's nice and satisfying when you're totally knackered and you feel like you've earned it.

The next day I was still pooped, so the plan was to do a nice long easy climb with nice views. Loads of us ended up at the same crag creating a really wicked 'mates climbing together' atmosphere. You know, lots of banter, piss taking that sort of thing. The sun was blasting away at us in a way we rarely experience in this country, and for those few hours, my world consisted entirely of beautiful, sun-kissed rock and the company of some great people. The world really is a better place when you're hauling yourself, a few kilos of metalware, a couple of ropes and some good mates up a pinacle in Cumbria.

Believe me, even if you get what I'm on about in my little anecdote there you're still only a fraction of the way to understanding what it is to climb. There's the 'What on Earth am I Doing Here?' feeling that marks many an epic. The taste of Pasta Splodge cooked whilst sheltering from howling gales in your tent. The knowledge that as you top out on a summit there's no other human beings for miles around. The icy blast on a winter summit.

And to think, if I'd have been any good at any other sports I'd probably spend my weekends watching telly or something. What a horrible thought.