This morning I was toddling along the Calder Road, enjoying the sunshine. Blackbird was out for sushi and movies last night so I had Shackleton between my thighs and we were spinning at a steady 80 – 85rpm up the slight rise to the roundabout with Saughton Road.

I realised I’d picked up a tail.

As a result of my over-active imagination, I’m always on the lookout for tails. You know, black-ops military types lying in wait to whisk me off to some hidden lab somewhere to prod and poke and generally turn my latent mutant superpowers into a secret weapon. I mostly get trapped in that particular bout of paranoid fantasy on public transport, however I’ve been getting a lot of attention on the street of late and I’m not convinced it’s just because the warmer weather has me dressed in skimpier clothing and my 32DD assets (coupled with a 22″ waist, which makes all the difference) are being noticed more often.

Although you never know.

Boobs aside, this morning I have a tail. After 5 minutes or so I relax my legs and let the natural inclination of a fixed gear to slow down if its rider seems to have lost interest have its way. Eventually my tail takes the hint and pulls in front.

Frabjous day! He has some manners! He gives it half a breath so I can spin up to speed and take his wheel. And then we hit the roundabout. He times his approach for one, not two, and I am forced to squeal to a halt in the face of a fast-moving blue Lexus.

Right. That’s it.

I give chase, catch him before the next roundabout and go past. Now he notices that I’m a girl on a fixed gear. And I’ve overtaken him.

Guys don’t like that very much.

Without boring you with the details of roundabout approach tactics (I’m an outside girl: he was an inside man) and him taking advantage of his gears on the long, slight descent (I refuse to spin up to more than 120rpm at that time of the morning: it’s indecent), suffice to say I won.

Naturally.

I have taken tomorrow off. I have also ordered the Orange Box express delivery (not to mention a pile of Marvel comics — note to self: don’t tell Frood how much it all cost).

Winning a commuter race is hopefully the start of a good long weekend. Certainly takes the sting out of having to work today.

Woah! Dude!

I had to sit through 2 hours of Robert Downey Jr playing action hero (admittedly doing a good job) and the inevitable long big punch-up plus the credits for 5 measley seconds of Samuel L Jackson as Nick Fury?

Nick Fury should have doing his “the man” thing from about 20 minutes in. And no way do they get to retcon SHIELD into being part of the “war on terror”. No. Dude. No way. SHIELD = UN task force. Not part of the Dept of Homeland Security. On that I will not budge.

So now I have to hang on and hope that when the New Avengers finally gets together they make a good job of it.

All that aside, though, Robert Downey Jr managed to make me like Tony Stark. That’s some feat. And the suit was cool.

I wish Jarvis at the League could render and fabricate like that.

Since growing my hair (it’s quite long now) I have discovered that I like riding my bike with my hair loose and unconfined. I like the feel of the wind blowing it about and I like watching the shapes made by its shadows. It’s all whipping tendrils.

Whipping tendrils mean massive tangles.

Thing is, I don’t have proper hair. I have fluff. My hair is incredibly fine. It’s so fine it’s practically weightless. So when it comes to brushing out the tangles…

Ow. Ow ow ow.

Ow.

Prompted by a friend’s realisation that xkcd has something other than banal alt text for its comics (as does Dinosaur Comics, incidentally), I’m wondering how many people ever look at the titles on the avatars I use.

Not that it makes any difference. It has always been for my own amusement anyway.

As if the scenery and the sheer fun were not enough, there are smells.

This is the Burton’s factory (AKA the Edinburgh Bakery), snapped by me the other morning on my new phone from the other side of the road (keeping a safe distance, you see). If it’s a headwind on the Calder Road, which it usually is, then I am tormented by the smell of baking for a couple of miles before being left bereft and starving for the last mile or so to work. If it’s a tailwind then that delicious scent envelopes me in a warm, biscuity hug as soon as I draw level and holds on until I reach the bike shed.

Of course, this always means I am absolutely ravenous when I arrive at the office, and have to make an extra willpower roll to refrain from demolishing every baked good on offer from the various bready comestible purveyors who visit us each morning.

Even worse: they have a shop. So far I have managed to beat back the temptation to stop either on my way in to work (aided and abetted by trying to pass by before they open) or on the way home (spurred on by the siren call of my very expensive gym membership).

One day. One fine summer’s evening I will fall prey to temptation of a bag of broken biscuits. Just so that I can go inside.

“What are we having for tea tonight?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Well, what takes the longest?”

“Kedgeree doesn’t take that long. I suppose there’s the joint of meat. We want to do that long and slow.”

“Right. We’ll do that then.”

“Besides. There are horses playing badminton on at one.”

“What???!”

Stolen from Dooj.

Food, glorious food

1. Are you a vegetarian? Vegan?
No. I will not, however, eat hare or cetacean for reasons of personal politics.

2. What’s your favorite food?
It’s a tough choice between chicken and sushi.

3. White bread or wholemeal?
I don’t eat much bread at all.

4. What’s for breakfast?
Weekdays it’s a protein shake made of whey isolate and leucine powder flavoured with Green & Blacks drinking chocolate powder. At the weekend it’s either eggs, fruit salad or porridge.

5. You’re making a Dagwood sandwich. What’s in it?
I don’t eat sandwiches as a general inclination. I certainly wouldn’t eat one of those.

6. What’s on your pizza?
Fresh tomato sauce, mozzarella, anchovies, black olives, goats cheese and red onion. Basil if it’s in season.

7. Coffee, tea, milk, or soda soft drink?
Yes. Except milk. And don’t even threaten me with Dr Pepper. It will go badly for you.

8. Dark, milk, or white chocolate?
Not a huge chocolate eater. I will eat small quantities of either Maya Gold or really good quality milk chocolate. I can destroy an entire packet of the G&B;’s mint chocolate.

9. Teetotal, beer, wine, or hard liquor?
Wine usually. Beer after racing. Gin and tonic (Bombay Sapphire, thank you please) for special summery occasions.

10. Does coriander leaf taste like citrus, or like soap?
It tastes like bad parsley. Neither citrus nor soap. I could spend a while describing the various flavour components, but suffice to say that it works as an ingredient in some things while I don’t particularly like it by itself.

11. Is chorizo the greatest thing ever or is it totally disgusting?
I quite like a bit of chorizo, but I am not liking these false bipolar choices. Something can be neither the greatest thing ever nor the worst.

12. Do you use garlic like a vegetable or like a spice?
Both. Depends on the dish.

13. Onions: raw, cooked, or not at all?
Again, it depends on the dish.

14. Does broccoli taste sweet or bitter?
Neither. It tastes like broccoli (I’m starting to think that whoever wrote this quiz should get his taste buds checked out).

15. How do you feel about fish?
I like all marine fish, not so keen on freshwater fish.

16. How about sushi?
Mmmmm. Sushi. Very naughty, owing to mixing fish with rice (bad dog!) and yet I seem to get away with it. Sushi is my friend.

17. Fave ethnic cuisine?
I couldn’t say.

18. What’s your favorite fruit?
I really don’t know. Raspberries, maybe, although I eat a lot of bananas.

19. Cheese – thumbs up or thumbs down?
I like cheese. Not all cheese.

20. Finally, favorite dessert?
I don’t eat a lot of dessert, it has to be said. I like creme caramel and a really good cheesecake is a joy forever. Mostly when I make desserts they’re for Frood. He’s the pudding monster.

“Gah!!! What the FUCK is that?”

I’m looking out of the window. It’s dark. We’re watching our fave TV show (NCIS – Abby is so hot). I have seen a UFO. Possibly an earthlight. Definitely not a will-o’-the-wisp. It’s moving too damn fast.

Frood, used to me seeing things, gets up and has a peer. His usual expression of “Here we go again” is replaced by a fascinated grin.

Outside, on the rough ground behind our block of flats between us and the old gas storage structure (so Robert Rankin), an incredibly bright green thing is darting around. I can’t judge how far away it is or how big it is. One moment it seems to be on the ground and quite big, the next it seems to be on the outside of our window and really quite small.

“It’s chasing da bunnies!” I exclaim, as one of our resident lapine population takes fright.

“It’s a laser pointer,” Frood tells me. “Someone is chasing da bunnies with a laser pointer.”

I’m instantly a tad concerned that the laser could blind one of the rabbits and contemplate knocking on the doors above us to find out who’s doing it and get him to stop. The green light vanishes.

Fortean mystery to potential animal abuse in one easy step.

Random apostrophes are almost forgivable compared to mistaking a comma for one.

Ask me nicely and I’ll tell you the company. It’s not a one-off mistake by the livery painter because it was on all their vehicles:

The funny-ha-ha tagline loses something when all attention is distracted by the punctuation.

New phone! I has it!