Archive for August, 2004:
I'm not sure how this expedition disappeared under my radar, but I've only just found out about it.
Last winter, self-styled 'Swedish Wiking' (at least that's how he pronounces it!) and polar maestro (he has skied unsupported to both North & South Geographic Poles) Ola Skinnarmo commissioned the chunky looking Swedish research vessel Searcher to retrace a big chunk of Shackleton's 1914 Endurance expedition.
They set out from Ushuaia (at the southern tip of S. America) and sailed via the Drake Passage to Elephant Island, back to South Georgia (where Ola and two fellow team members crossed the island on foot to Stromness) before sailing on to Buenos Aries. Cool.
Anyhow, Ola has written a book about the trip and true to form, it looks gorgeous. It's just a shame I can't read Swedish…
— Filed under Other expeditions
Oh boy oh boy oh boy. It's like Christmas morning here at Saunders Towers. Tony Haile (the project manager of my last expedition & skiing partner for the next one) spent last week in New York and brought back a pair of gleaming Cervelo P2K road bikes from Brooklyn-based R&A Cycles - one for me, one for him. The next expedition is in roughly 14 months' time and we'll be pounding out a few thousand training miles between now and then – anything we can do to make training more enjoyable and effective is A Good Thing, and what better (for a pair of narcissists like us) than tasty new triathlon bikes to pose train on?
I built them both up this afternoon (on the living room floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering girlfriend) and took mine out for a brief shakedown spin around Richmond Park. First impressions?
Read the rest of this entry »
— Filed under Cycling
I've finally got around to uploading a few desktops for your delectation.
I may be shooting myself in the foot here, as I've found several people using my images without my permission over the past few months. Generally speaking, if people ask to use my photos in their website/school project/whatever, and if they credit me with my work, I'm happy to help out.
Image theft, on the other hand, really winds me up. Especially as I've come close to losing fingers trying to take photos at -40°…
— Filed under Rumination
This is cool. I used to check up on the NOAA's two Arctic Ocean webcams quite regularly, but assumed they had come to a tragic and watery end when I saw pictures like this and this….
Not so! The cameras seem to have sprung miraculously back to life and the weather is starting to cool down after a whopping June peak of 10.5°c. (N.B. it's barely two degrees warmer than that in London right now.)
— Filed under Miscellany
The morning after I arrived home from my last expedition, I was interviewed by Libby Purves on BBC Radio 4's Midweek programme. It was unlike any other radio interview I've done, with three fellow guests (an art critic, an actor and a comedian), Libby and me sat round a table chatting away over cups of tea and a plate of biscuits. The conversation carried on for a good five minutes after they'd stopped recording.
I've finally got around to recording part of the interview as a streaming mp3 file – you can listen to it here.
— Filed under Speaking
…was the strapline for my last expedition. In Zurich's Oepfelchammer bar, at 10:42pm on Thursday night, I found to my horror that it's simply not true. Not unless I'm willing to dislocate both shoulders, that is.
Just off the cobbled Rindermarkt, this bizarre 200-year-old inn, apparently once a favourite watering hole of Zurich's literary son, Gottfried Keller, has a tiny wood-panelled dining room upstairs. Legend has it that if you can swing up on the ancient beams, wriggle your way through a gap between beam and ceiling and finally (hanging upside down by your feet) down a glass of beer, your drinks are on the house.
I once held the chin-up record at Sandhurst and I'm famed for my ape-like grip, so I assumed this would be a piece of cake. But no matter how hard I tried (see blurry photo), I just couldn't squeeze my shoulders through the gap.
'It's impossible' I muttered, as I sat down to polish off my dessert, but just before we left, a local student (admittedly a pretty skinny local student) showed us how it was done. Double-jointed, I reckon.
— Filed under Miscellany
Switzerland is an interesting place and I think its denizens could teach good old Blighty a thing or two. For starters, over 20% of the population are immigrants, yet in general people seem to get on pretty well – the Swiss press certainly don't keep ranting about it. Every adult man has an Army rifle at home (they still have national service here) yet gun crime is low. And everything is so bloomin' efficient.
Goethe described Switzerland as 'the colossal and the well ordered' and yes, the mountains are huge. Pretty much everything else is neat, tidy, prim, proper and runs like, er, clockwork. The trains are exactly on time, the streets are immaculately clean and the public transport in Zurich puts London to shame – electric trams and buses glide past in smoke-free silence every few seconds and try as I might, I can't find a single bit of chewing gum under a seat or graffiti 'tag' etched in a window.
There are a few things that I didn't expect – the weather has been great (it was well over 30 degrees C. yesterday). Also, Zurich seems to have a remarkably large gay population – I reckon my girlfriend and I get roughly equal numbers of admiring glances from the local hombres (did I mention what good taste the Swiss have?) ;)
Anyway, to kep a vaguely polar thread going, I've been pounding the pavement around Lake Zurich and (much to my girlfriend's dismay) I'm eating like a crazed lentil addict. All part of the build up to the next expedition. Full-on training starts in a matter of weeks…
Last up, well done Tyler Hamilton!
(edit – ah – I see I'm wriing about it before Tyler's own website! He won Gold in the Olympic men's time trial yesterday.)
— Filed under Rumination
Right, now the site's (sort of) up and running, I'm off for a brief holiday to Switzerland with the girlfriend. My plan is to a) relax, b) catch up on some sleep and c) do a bit of training. A and B should be fine, and I've packed my running shoes, but as for how much mileage they get, only time will tell…
Back on the 23rd. I'll try to post something from an internet cafe in Zurich (if I'm not too busy stuffing my face with ice cream) :)
— Filed under Rumination
Hmm. It works in Firefox, at least. If you still insist on using IE, it probably still looks a bit wonky (and you might be getting some odd error messages as well). Curses. I'll try and fix it in the morning.
— Filed under Miscellany
Yowser. Two-thirty am. I've redesigned the entire site, installed the fabulous WordPress, butchered the original WordPress template, taught myself php in the space of a few hours and somehow it all seems to work.
There are still a few bugs to iron out and a few tweaks to er, tweak, but most of the site is up, and it's way, way past my bedtime. I'm off to Zurich tomorrow night for six days, so I'd quite like to get the site sorted before then…
Why oh why didn't I just stick to dragging heavy things around cold places? I'm getting far to old for this design/coding malarkey. Well, either that, or I'm lacking the requisite brain power. More tomorrow…
— Filed under Miscellany
