My right knee, which I creamed so thoroughly bunny hopping Shackleton down at Elie a couple of weeks ago, is now too painful to go for my Monday swim. It hurts when I put weight on it with the leg twisted, or when I do breastroke kick, and I don’t think I’m up to doing 40 lengths at crawl pace so today I am resting it.

I can still run, though, and cycling isn’t painful as long as I go easy on the leg braking, so that’s not so bad.

Scotrail have done the singularly crap thing of failing to provide any trains capable of getting a cyclist into Edinburgh for 0830 on a Saturday morning. How Frood and I are supposed to get to the start of the Edinburgh – St Andrews is beyond me. We’re not bloody riding there — we’re already looking at 20 miles more than everyone else just to get home, and the Ottery one has never done a century. It would be a bit much to expect him to ride the 50-odd miles into Edinburgh beforehand.

Access 2000 is so much more of a pain that the previous version. I’m on my third solution for adding new data using a combo box, and I’m still getting errors (type mismatch in this one, no matter what I do). It was so much easier before.

The Sustrans route up the side of the A91 between At Andrews and Guardbridge sucks chunks. Not wanting to go the off road way we started on the road but after a rather close shave with an angry Jaguar X-type, we moved onto the (at the time) decent looking track alongisde. It wasn’t 2m wide but the surface was good.

Within quarter of a mile it had become a 1.5m wide pavement partially obstructed by bushes, When we were on the approach to Guardbridge we were confronted by 6 inch dropped kerbs at every junction. Back onto the road we went.

And to think folk wonder why I am so impolite about the so-called ‘National Cycle Network’.

Finally: people. Just… people. Grrrr!

I’ve never been all that bothered about bras. But recently, with all the running I’ve been doing, support has become more of an issue than it once was. It’s possible to get away with a bra bodge when road cycling because there’s not much in the way of high impact.

Running, however, is a completely different matter.

Some of the regular readers to this site may remember the great ‘Dad’s 60th Birthday Fiasco’ in which yours truly, possessed of as much dress sense as a nudibranch on a military goth kick, had to find something to wear.

For this event I bought a bra. I went to a Proper Shop and was Measured By Ladies.

Now just remember that for years I’ve been shoving my boobs into any old thing: as long as there weren’t too many wrinkles and it stopped my nipples poking out through thin t-shirts it was fine by me.

I was therefore somewhat shocked when the very professional ladies, equipped with measuring tape and everything, proclaimed my bust size as 32DD.

DD?! That’s Page 3 material, that is.

I questioned their results. Demanded a retrial. A second opinion. I was duly measured again. What I had thought were 36C or possibly 38B breasts turned out to be 32DD. So bizarre was this turn of events that even certain certain friends thought I was joking when I related the fact. Mind you, Munky was the one who described me as a bloke with boobs, so I suppose the thought of those boobs being a DD cup was a bit difficult to reconcile with the ‘bloke’ part of the equation.

I mention this because all my sports bras have been 36C. Well, they didn’t have too many wrinkles and they weren’t too tight around the back. However, equally they did not give adequate support for high impact activities. I had thought this was the style — No. this is what you get for buying bras the wrong size. They are, apaprently supposed to be tight across the back.

It is difficult to get high impact sports bras when one has a ‘fuller bust’. However, I have found the solution.

Gels, I would like to recommend the Shock Absorber B109. Impact level 4. It doesn’t make you look like you’ve got a giant suasage strapped to your chest; and, while it does have the ample coverage of a horse’s chest armour, it does the job very, very well. Not one inch of movement did I detect while hurtling along the rocky, twisty track down by the beach.

There’s a certain statuesque, Valkyrie-like solidity about it that is very reassuring. I don’t feel one jot of worry about getting saggy boobs when wearing that to go running.

I think I shall have to get another one.

So I’m finding myself somehow sidling into planning my diet (no, this is NOT a get into your bikini diet) based not only on whether foods are protein or carb and alkali or acid forming; now I’m somehow considering the GI as well.

I’m fairly sure I didn’t agree to this. I haven’t got the spare brain capacity to worry about whether I’m about to eat a pork chop in the middle of an insulin spike, for fuck’s sake.

Plus it seems that no one can agree where to draw the line between moderate and high GI. I’m happy to stay, mostly, off the high GI foods — they make me feel bloated anyway. That’s why I only eat green bananas. Maybe that’s what I should do. Ignore the stupid lists and go on what my body tells me.

My body tells me that the maple syrup on toasted plastic bread I had yesterday was pretty high GI.

Oh, incidentally. Ythy? Got some stupid advert advice for you. According to the Warburton’s ad campaign, their bread is “scientifically proven to control kids’ hunger.”

So there you go. Bet you didn’t know you needed to eat special bread tested by scientists to make sure it stops you feeling hungry, or that there are breads that don’t stop kids feeling hungry.

I’m currently reading Waste Management – The Duty of Care – A Code of Practice. It’s actually more interesting than it sounds, at least if you have any investment in when waste stops being waste.

There’s this bit on page 12 that transported me straight to the opening sequence of Hardware:

Holders should take particular care to secure waste material attractive to scavengers, for example, building and demolition materials and scrap metal… Waste holders should undertake regular reviews of the waste in their possession to ensure that it has not been disturbed or tampered with.

Because otherwise the Mark 13 will get you!

They won’t let me join the TA. I emailed them and asked.

Apparently, apart from being a tad too old, missing an eye is a real issue. The personal weapon issued is the SA80, which ports to the right, so lacking a right eye means I would not be able to use my issued weapon.

I would not have been able to get into any of the armed services ever.

This makes me miffed. There’s nothing I hate more than being told I can’t do something. It makes me want to stomp into an army recruiting office and accuse them of discrimination. I may be 33 but I’m a damn sight fitter than many 18 year olds. I may be a girl but that’s never stopped me doing anything. And I may be missing an eye but what’s wrong with a Kalashnikov? Other employers have to make efforts to accomodate people with particular needs (I am NOT disabled) so why shouldn’t they?

What do left handed people do, for fuck’s sake?

Come on. It’s not like the TA is an elite fighting unit. I’ve seen Spaced. It’s full of accountants and fat men with Robot Wars obsessions playing at being Arnie on weekends. I can do that.

I know, I know, I said I wasn’t going to do it this year, but…

This morning I bought train tickets for London at the beginning of July. That’s right folks, Ravenbait’s doing the Dunwich Dynamo again. This year on fixed.

Well, I had to come up with something to make it challenging again, so I figured why not do it on fixed? Besides, riding fixed seems paradoxically easier on my knees.

It’s two weeks after the LEPRA Edinburgh – St Andrews, which is a nice little 67 miler taking in Cleish Hill and the (supposedly 1:6) climb out between Freuchie and Kennoway. Two weeks should be long enough to get my legs back.

So if you fancy an overnight trip from London to Suffolk, fuelled by the sort of banter familiar to all those who frequent the hallowed halls of Clubhouse and masses of jelly babies and chocolate covered raisins, please do sally forth into the Events Office and stick your name on the list.

Welcome to the Ravenfamily FAQ. The aim of this document is to anticipate
any inclination of visitors to this site towards emailing the individual
residents.

It’s not that we don’t like getting mail — we do like getting mail — we
just don’t like getting the same mail over and over again.

If you are considering emailing us, please review the topics below. If
your query is covered but you email us anyway, please be aware that you
are likely to get a hostile response. This is especially true if you email
us anyway in the belief that the answer supplied does not apply to you,
unless you are willing and able to demonstrate that you’re not just the
same dumb fuck in a slightly different wrapper. Once you’ve seen one
episode of the A-Team you’ve seen ’em all, so you’d better be the
equivalent of Murdoch being particularly fucking funny or we’re going to
switch off the TV. By putting a boot through it.

Part 1 v1. Ravenfamily in general.

• Q. Are you all called Raven?
  A. No.
• Q. Are you all sad Goths?
  A. No.
• Q. Are you all members of the Edgar Allen Poe Fan Club?
  A. No.
• Q. Anything to do with the wrestler?
  A. No.
• Q. Do you rehabilitate injured crows and ravens?
  A. No.
• Q. Keep corvidae as pets?
  A. No.
• Q. So why the fuck did you call the website Ravenfamily then?
  A. Because the creation of the website was instigated by Raven: a
  non-consensus, usually incorporeal, shapeshifting trickster entity who,
  round here anyway, gets about as either a large black bird or a Charles Dance
  lookalike in Ray Bans. Okay?
• Q. A non-consensus what?
  A. Entity.
• Q. Ah. This is one of those totem things, right?
  A. No. The word totem comes from the Athabascan word “ototeman” and is a cultural practise dependent on social context. We’re not Athabascan.
• Q. Power animal?
  A. No.
• Q. Spirit guide?
  A. You’re being irritating now.
• Q. So what the fuck?
  A. We call it Family because that’s what it is to us. It may be the same
  feeling that the Athabascans have about their totems but we wouldn’t know
  because we’re not of that culture. We only know what it means to us. It’s
  a belonging that for many of us is deeper and more strongly felt than any
  connection to our biological family, and it’s something that we’ve always
  felt.
• Q. That’s stealing the cultural principles of the Native Americans! How
  dare you! And I’ve seen you use Athabascan terms!
  A. Really, it’s not. Saying we’re stealing cultural principles is like
  claiming that any human community following a tribal structure is stealing
  culture from the Native Americans (or First Peoples or whatever they want
  to be called). Or saying that people following the teachings of the Dalai
  Lama in Germany are stealing the culture of the Tibetans, even though the
  Dalai Lama is quite public and keen for his teachings to go worldwide.
  Raven is not confined to the Pacific Northwest, although I’m sure there
  are plenty who wish he were.
  

  We used Athabascan terms for the same reason that the Welsh word for
  television is ‘television’. Or the English word for Manga is Manga. And
  for the same reasons that the descendents of the evil Western Christian
  oppressors are now expected to call the tribes who immigrated to the
  American continents from Europe earlier than them whatever those tribes
  demand to be called. Raven demanded it at the time and he’s a lot bigger
  than us.

• Q. Is this an Otherkin thing?
  A. No. While we may exist in a small pocket of outliers compared to
  everyone else, undeniably similar to each other but not to the rest of the
  population, we’re all human. Skin, hair, eyes, teeth. Legs. Ears. No
  wings.
• Q. But I’ve heard at least one of you talk about being a different species.
  A. It’s a figure of speech. The most recent medical tests haven’t shown up
  anything concrete to indicate we’ve departed from the biological norm. Not
  that isn’t still within the human distribution, anyway.
• Q. Are you all part of this family thing then?
  A. Only two of the current residents belong to Raven. One of us isn’t
  Family at all. His contract is held by a Goddess, and a very demanding one
  at that.
• Q. Contract?
  A. This is an FAQ, not a lesson in basic English.
• Q. Okaaaaay. Cranky, ain’t ya?
  A. You would be too if you’d spent ten years dealing with idiotic
  questions like this from total morons.
• Q. Is that how long the website has been up?
  A. The website was first created in 1997. It’s 2006 at the time of
  writing, and we have had the RF domain name for about 8 years. Prior to
  that we had a website hosted at Fortunecity.
• Q. That was where the Nascakiyetl stuff started.
  A. Yes, that’s right. That was what we were originally told to publish.
• Q. All that Core and Key nonsense.
  A. If you like.
• Q. Well, it was crazy, wasn’t it?
  A. By everyday standards, certainly.
• Q. You didn’t really believe all that stuff, did you?
  A. ‘Believe’ is a strong word to use under any circumstances. It’s a model
  to describe what we experienced and works pretty well, as models go.
• Q. What happened to them?
  A. Who?
• Q. Core and Key?
  A. They moved on. In many different senses.
• Q. Okay, but you know, even though it was crazy, some of that stuff really
  clicked with me. I mean, I’d really like to join…
  A. Hold it right there. No. This is not the sort of group you can join.
• Q. I don’t mean the Raven Group — well, I do really, but I understand
  that’s not your decision and you’re not the Group — it’s just that I’m
  Family. I feel I’m Family. I mean, maybe even Raven Family. I just want to
  join and hang and learn about this stuff.
  A. You’re not Family. Fuck off.
• Q. I’m sure I am. I think… I think I’m going to be the next Raven Core.
  Please help me.
  A. No. You are not going to be Core of any description, least of all Raven
  Core. You are a deluded individual who has spent too much time reading a
  crazy-ass website. There are plenty of weird websites out there, you just
  happened to pick this one.
• Q. But I am. I hear voices and everything.
  A. You’re really not.
• Q. I am! I’m just like you!
  A. –La la la la la la la we’re not listening– .
• Q. Well maybe not just like you…
  A. Are you still here?
• Q. But I want to be like you. You’re dark and mysterious and seem so
  powerful.
  A. Gods I wish I could say I was making up this crap – look. You can’t
  become Family. Either you are born that way or you’re not. That’s just the
  way it is. And don’t confuse aesthetic web design decisions with a
  sympathy for the Dark Lord of the Sith. Go away and get a hobby or
  something.
• Q. You’ve infected me with your pineal worm! That’s what it is!
  A. Sure. Right. That’s as good an explanation as any. We infected you with
  our inflatable pineal worm, making you want to join our evil gang. But you
  can’t. So fuck off.

Last night I had a dream about the sewage treatment works and pumping stations in Lower Largo.

I mean, it wasn’t actually about the sewage treatment works and pumping stations — it was about something else entirely — but certain aspects got mapped as sewerage.

That’s… just a tiny bit disturbing. Akin to the feeling one might get on discovering one’s adored boyfriend likes to sniff one’s panties when putting them in the laundry.

On my LJ profile it says:

the reason I “friend” users is because I am interested in reading what their journals say and commenting on them… I lack motivation to keep my beak shut just because my opinion is actively not wanted.

This is true. I can’t resist giving my opinion. I don’t necessarily expect anyone else to agree with it, but it’s in my nature to spout forth about anything and everything.

Recently I friended someone I hadn’t had contact with in a couple of years, because I still think about him entirely too often and it was nice to find out he was still out there and still active and I had access to his thoughts and writing again — I’ve always liked the way he expresses himself. I like the shapes his prose makes, even if I don’t necessarily understand the references.

Being unable to keep my fat beak shut, I made to comment on a particular post, only to discover that this old acquaintance of mine has set his journal so that only friends can post comments. So I can’t, because he hasn’t friended me. And, being subject to a complex series of rules and protocol regarding manners in this instance, I am not in a position to ask that he does.

I think this is cheating and unfair and I wish to lodge a complaint. I shall sit here and pout until birds perch on my lower lip demanding to be fed with corn and sunflower seeds and caterpillars.

If you email me doing the whole “Yo Sis! Teach me the ways of Core, dawg!” thing, and I respond in my usual hostile fashion telling you to fuck off (although currently this will be more polite than I would like because I’m under a brutally unfair restriction that bans me from just telling idiots to go shaft themselves with a power washer), this does not mean that I will forget your name or your email address.

If you carry on this conversation by insisting that you know better than me while at the same time wheedling at me for my godly wisdom and abasing yourself by saying you are just a lowly teenager who doesn’t know what he’s talking about and who loves it when adults tell him he’s wrong, I’m not only going to remember you I’m going to forward all your mails to my closest friends and we are going to have a good laugh at your expense.

If, after all this, you send a subscription request to Atropos expecting me to approve it, despite having demonstrated that even if you are biologically an octogenarian you have the mental maturity of a kid on his first day at kindergarten and despite being yet another one of the scores of people who try to join without following the clear instructions in the FAQ; then I’m going to blog about your stupidity so that the entire world can poke fun.

OK?