It has been… what? 4 months since I left Devon? So far the only things I’m really missing are my own bed and the Munky Band Name Generator.

Did I not ever tell you about that?

Well. As long-term readers will know, the conversations that Frood and I have tend towards the silly. Hence, for instance, Frood’s comment when we were watching some documentary about lightning with my Mum the night before last. The scientist on the screen, in a prelude to introducing the ignorant to the concepts of sprites and jets, is telling us all about how the storms of Texas are so vast and potent — the so-called ‘supercells’ — that they produce every kind of lightning imaginable.

Frood immediately interjects with “Cheese lightning?”

“Oh for god’s sake!” Mum snorts. She still hasn’t forgiven him for the ‘Boots of Death’.

“Well I imagined it!” says Frood.

This is fairly typical.

The Munky Band Name Generator was a bit like “And Finally…” in that random snippets of conversations would provoke a cry of “That’s a great band name!” and down it would go on the piece of paper that eventually gained the official title of the Munky Band Name Generator.

Examples included:

• The Withered Hand of Jeremy Beadle
• The Absent Magical Owl
• Colossal Arctic Ant
• The Thoughtform that is the Concept of Bleach

I wonder what Frood did with the list. We really ought to make them available to the world at large, and then perhaps we’ll get some interesting bands rather than the soft-pap vanilla mush that is the likes of Keane and Coldplay.

I finally bought my long-coveted Hilleberg Nallo 2 GT with the proceeds of the house sale. Frood and I decided it would be worth it because our Vaude Hogan, while fine for one person, is just too small for bike camping for 2. I love the look of the Vaude — it’s still one of the most unusual designs you’ll see — but the porch space is tiny.

So we went palatial. My gods the Nallo GT is huge. Not quite big enough to get bikes in the porch, but easily big enough for changing gear, cooking, sitting sheltered from the rain having a fag (or whatever), snogging by starlight or any of the other myriad things one might wish to do when camping with one’s nearest and dearest. There’s even a line strung across the top — I think it’s for hanging knickers from so they can dry, but I suppose we could hang bike shorts from it. It’s the sort of thing you could use for all sorts of kinky perversions, if that was your gig. I expect you’ll have to double-pole the tent for anything strenuous, however. You can do that, the pole sleeves are designed to take double-poling for ‘extreme conditions’.

Now we just need to decide where to go. I could use a holiday.

Speaking of which, there’s a rather inspiring article about the Caledonian Forest in the Scotsman. Sounds like the sort of place I should take Maura.

From Fully Ramblomatic (If Bruce Campbell were a website he’d be this one), poetry based on the combat moves from Prince of Persia, for instance:

‘Harassing Cyclone’
(triangle, square, square, triangle, triangle)

His hands are upon me
Teasing
He rapes me with words
How I loathe him
His sickly triumphant smile
As his fingers once again
Reach for my breasts

‘You shouldn’t dress like that
if you don’t want it,’
He says with oily hateful words
The others turn a blind eye
Even Captain Magnificent
What was I thinking
When I joined this superhero team

I think you’ll find that was part of the plot from Alan Moore’s Watchmen.

‘Angel Drop’
(square during vertical wallrun)

The cake
is vanilla

I asked
for chocolate

The tears
They will not
stop

There’s a thread up at the Clubhouse, although it’s rather League-oriented. I will write a more generic, cycling-specific report when I get a chance.

Although, to be fair, I think that hedgehog spoffling and lesbian strawberry-bootlace bondage are the stuff of legend, and that’s why I’ve been along to this thing for the last 5 years. Never mind the 120 miles on a 70″ fixed gear: jelly-babies restrained by cable ties and the sexual uses of Oidz are the real points of interest.

Black Phoenix Alchemy looks as interesting as Chris Brosius’ stuff.

Thanks, Munky. I really needed that this morning. See for yourself. The Armageddon Flowchart. I especially like the part that says:

Bruces Campbell and Willis ascend to Heaven, leaving us all in the lurch, the bastards.

It does indeed look like text from Jonathan Livingstone Seagull. How dull. It’s not nearly so interesting now.

It was a month after the Return that the first gull of the Flock so much more, but without a big glug at a moment like this –well, enough of are special and gifted and divine, above other birds.” grandmother to save his skin. But even Buzzard didn’t know anything about me eyed them critically. “Let’s begin with Level Flight.” And saying that, he night was three months ago, and I had gotten rid of most of the stuff and

But Jonathan Livingston Seagull, unashamed, stretching his wings crashed and left a hole in the clay. He grunted with pleasure.

another world. A burst of fear and shock and black as he hit, and then he

“Well, shall we get on with it?”
without a single flap of wing from sand to cloud and down again.

“You dog, you,” he said and smiled. “Well, let’s go for it. First thing
water.

“God, Red! Everybody calls you that.

Jonathan’s voice raised. “Irresponsibility? My brothers!” he cried. “Who
out to him. But I was used to working alone. I saw what I had to see, and I

The spam gibberish I get. Some of it is fab!

“Are you saying I can fly?”
spot. To be honest, I could have gotten by with seven, but I threw one just
other gulls have only hurt themselves, and one day they will know this,
thanks.
“Well sure, O.K. they’re Outcast,” said some of the younger gulls,
hadn’t worked out better. Some cure I came up with for his melancholy. And

and growing meteor-fast, directly in his path.
bullets miss you–it’s a stroke of luck. And as for anything else –that’s

Haven’t really got much to say for myself at the moment. I’m experiencing a touch of menstrual ennui that I hope will be gone by the weekend. Unless, of course, MVC happens to know some fetish clubs where that sort of thing is de rigeur.

Still fantasising about giving it all up and becoming a cycle messenger in Prague or Vancouver. Or St Andrews, to bring it back home with a bump. I’m appalled at the cycle shops in Fife. Either they are pretty poor or we were positively spoilt by the Bike Shed and Richard’s in Exeter.

I miss Richard. I’m in the market for a road bike for Frood. Maybe I should email him a picture of my boobs and see what discount I could get. Only I don’t know whether Mrs Richard reads his email and I don’t think she’d be too impressed if she saw such a thing.

Maybe there is a niche for a QC-style shop-cum-messenger business-cum bistro and bar with a comic shop tacked onto the back (that last is a relatively new addition, prompted by the TOTAL FUCKING LACK OF COMIC SHOPS IN FIFE. Thank gods for Toby, Jimbo and Dominic).

What is it round here? Fife is hardly a rural backwater, yet we had to drive all the way to Inverkeithing just to get a set of Time ATAC cleats.

Oh, and while I was feeling rather pleased with myself over my swimming the other day, watching the ITC Triathlon put it into perspective. Those girlies were doing 1500m in 19 minutes.

19 FUCKING MINUTES!

What, do they come with outboards? That’s 20 seconds a length, only they were outdoors in a lake!