Gordon Selway, respected cycling stalwart and one of the original old guard of UC-UK when it was still working and good, died last Sunday.

I don’t have many details, however I understand he passed away peacefully on a train.

My first memory of Gordon was as the large and affable gentleman who turned up to the inaugural UC-UK ride from Oxford to the White Horse at Uffington and back in the dim, distant and hazy past of 1999. My first ever proper distance ride, undertaken on an over-sized Raleigh Dynatech XC80 called Percival. Gordon, much to my newbie-cyclist astonishment, did the entire ride (including the climb up the hill, which Frood, Mike and I decided to skip) on an old, venerable, British touring bike with a typewriter stashed amongst the panniers.

As far as I could tell, he was still riding the same bike with the same luggage when I next bumped into him, at the end of the 2004 Dunwich Dynamo.

I will always remember Gordon as being someone who practised and encouraged, even insisted, but did not preach. He led by example, and his contributions to those cycle campaign lists on which we shared memebership were infrequent but erudite and pertinent.

He will be missed.

May I introduce Deodor and Irrit, Frood‘s long-craved and finally-obtained giant radioactive ants.

To be fair, the image below is my fault. Too much caffeine and sugar, probably. Although without Mortimer‘s friend Katey (we miss you, Katey!), I’d never have had the Sasquatch.

I have spent the majority of the last two days sitting in the public gallery in court. Two different courts, I might add, for two different purposes. They say “court sits” for a very good reason. Now, of course, my back has locked up because being still for so long simply isn’t good for me. Especially on seats designed to make sitting in the public gallery as uncomfortable an experience as being in the dock.

This torture culminated in the train ride from hell. I can say that because both the police and the British Transport Police were involved, and the train on which I was travelling was taken out of service as a result of the damage the stop after I got off.

To the young lady with the trembling lower lip and the silver Claude Butler who ignored my three offers to let her go when the guard on the 1704 from Stirling refused to allow more than plus one because it was “more than [his] job is worth to have three bikes so close to the toilet” (despite it being perfectly possible to stack carefully enough for all three bikes to take up the space of two loosely packed bikes) — you got the better end of that deal. I’m sorry if you were upset when I finally went ahead, although I did tell you to go three times and you stood there prevaricating. We would have ended up with neither of us getting a ride.

To be honest, I wish I’d stayed behind with you on the freezing cold platform. Gods I need a drink. And a hug. But Frood‘s out doing the drinkies thing with work.

As all the people I’ve mailed this to are off busy, I shall share.

I go out to reception this morning whilst working up the gumption to go out and do some work on site. The guy on reception is a lovely young man who deserves biscuits. It’s pouring with rain. Absolutely dreichit. And cold.

“I don’t want to go out there,” I tell him.

“You have to. It’s your job.”

“But waaaah!”

“You’ll be fine. You get all those lovely fleeces and things.”

“I want my Mummy.”

“Have you got a brolly?”

“No! Nasty things. You’ll have someone’s eye out with one of those. Already lost one, don’t want to lose the other.”

“Not with a brolly?”

“Nah. Stuck a piece of wire in it when I was fifteen months old.”

“Seriously?”

“Aye.”

“Were you trying to eat it?”

I stare at him for a few seconds. “That’s the strangest thing anyone has ever asked me about my eye.”

There is a moment’s silence. “No! The wire, silly!”

We both collapse into hysterical giggling.

I finally worked out which random address setting was stopping Blogger from posting the correct post address on the RSS feed!

Go me!

Just as well, really, as I got no response at all from support.

Hmmm. The Stranglers, Roxette, Big Audio Dynamite…

Must be 80s afternoon on Pandora.

Saw this sign on the A702 heading into Penicuik yesterday. I didn’t have time to stop and take a picture then, but my perambulations took me out that way again today and I made the most of the opportunity.

I find it unspeakably bizarre that people need to be told this. Isn’t it obvious? There was one of these signs roughly 30 yards before every single traffic island for maybe a mile of road.

You shall be mine!