Titanic Days

This year I am trying, as much as possible, to cycle to work every day, which saves me £5.80 ($9.30 or thereabouts) a day on Oyster. It's not just for that reason, I really enjoy cycling, it's the only sport I've ever really been able to do well at, and it's really good exercise for my poor sick legs.

Obviously it's still winter so I've been able to do it maybe two or three days a week if lucky. I'm going to try to build that up in the coming months because just to make it fun (and to allow me to play with maps and stats and stuff) I'm riding to the US this year.

On a heading of 288.55 degrees from our front door, it's exactly 3,664.52 miles to L's parents' house in MD. Currently, since January 1st, I've ridden 442.1 miles exactly, or 12.064% of the total distance.

Assuming I'm riding in a dead straight line I headed out of London through Chiswick, Brentford, Southall and West Drayton, passed between Oxford and Abingdon and then on into Wales. I hit the Irish Sea at a place called Aberaeron and hit Ireland near Tinnacree, Co Wexford. I then crossed Ireland and have hit the ocean again in Co Clare, where I miraculously survived a plunge directly off the 214m high "Cliffs of Moher".

I am currently at 53º04'05" N 10º14'47" W, which puts me in the Atlantic, 17.77 miles off the westernmost tip of Inis Mór, one of the Aran Islands (home of Father Ted).

I will next make landfall after 1,889.35 miles of rather boring ocean cycling (that's 2,331.44 miles or 63.621% of the total distance) on Eastern Indian Island, a small island off the coast of Newfoundland, due south of Fogo Island.

There's a small fishing settlement on the island and some villages on Fogo, but the nearest place of any consequence appears to be Gander Airport, 44 miles SSW. St John's is 153 miles away heading SSE (that's 246km, on account of now being in Canada).

The ride will then take me across the central part of Newfoundland, before crossing the Gulf of St Lawrence and hitting Prince Edward Island at Stanhope. From there, I cross the central part of the island and pass across the strait to New Brunswick, going just south of the new road bridge to PEI.

Passing across the isthmus between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, there's then another lengthy period of seaborne cycling, heading down the Bay of Fundy and skirting the coast of Maine, always keeping within sight of land.

I will hit the USA proper at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge in Essex County, MA. I then skirt several large towns, passing between Lowell, Boston, Framingham and Worcester before crossing into CT just east of I-84. Through CT I skirt the southern suburbs of Hartford and hit NY in Westchester County, where I pass north of White Plains and Yonkers before crossing the Hudson.

The ride continues through NJ and across PA, passing through King of Prussia and the botanical garden at Longwood before crossing the Susquehanna within sight of the I-95 bridge. From here the final stretch is through central Baltimore, crossing the harbour, then down through MD, over the Beltway, through a large and pleasant tract of suburban housing and Sligo Creek to my final destination.

I then got to thinking, what if I was to take a heading in the exact opposite direction and go 3,664.52 miles that way.

This journey takes me through mainland Europe (fine so far) on a line running from the Pas de Calais from a point midway between Calais and Dunkerque, through Belgium, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Bulgaria, hitting the Sea of Marmara, which is the name given to a stretch of sea dividing European Turkey from Asian Turkey, about midway between Gallipolli and Istanbul.

I would then cross Turkey and a small section of the Med just off the northern tip of Cyprus. Unfortunately the ride then becomes a bit less appealing. It's a straight shot across the Syrian Desert, passing across the north eastern corner of Jordan. I then do a bit of border hopping, from Jordan to Iraq, back to Jordan, back to Iraq (I spend 1.5 miles total in Iraq) and then across bloody Saudi Arabia, where I will cross the main runway at King Khalid International and through the north eastern suburbs of Riyadh.

This route ends at a random point in the Omani desert, 111 miles short of the Indian Ocean. The nearest identifiable place on Google Earth is called Kubbat an Nasr. It looks like some kind of walled compound. I don't fancy it much.

And this now concludes your geography nerdgasm.

So I don't have much of a review to offer of Deathly Hallows 1; I thought it very much a case of it was what it was.

Never having reread Half Blood Prince or Deathly Hallows (and never having seen HPB either) I came into it with a certain degree of blindness and had a job remembering some of the people who I should have done.

Despite that I thought it about on par with the better early ones (Azkaban and Goblet). Thought Dumbledore's tomb peculiarly modernist for a fantasy environment and Harry peculiarly well-muscled for how his character is described. And bizarre use of Nick Cave. But anyway.

The real purpose of the post was to gauge interest in the idea of one last old school fandom 'event' viewing like the one we did for Chamber - block booking at the Leicester Square Odeon close to opening weekend, room at a pub afterwards, etc etc (please no costumes, some people are in their thirties now).

I know a lot of people who came to see Chamber twice in November 2002 are scattered to the four corners of the earth now, but how about it?

On Friday, London witnessed the not wholly unsuccessful launch of the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme, our very own version of Paris' Velib programme and the apparent culmination of Mayor Boris Johnson's avowed desire to get us all on two wheels.

Now, I'm no fan of the big-haired blond bombshell but I have to say I am, in theory, fully on-board with his big plans for cycling, and I believe it to be a genuine enthusiasm.

However, having thought through the London scheme, I'm not at all convinced it's a good thing. Here's why.

1) The bike docking stations are peppered across a comparatively small area of central London, but Boris has said they are meant to get people out of their cars and onto bikes.

The thing is people do not drive into central London in that way; I believe that without extensive, station-based docking points in the suburbs, the scheme is basically a lame duck. It will achieve nothing more than getting people off the Tube and the bus system and reducing fare revenues.

2) As a corollary to 1), it will find favour among tourists, who are unfamiliar with British traffic law - let's not even get started on driving on the left - and are liable to be a danger to themselves and others.

3) It is indubitably dangerous. The bikes are heavy and hard to move. In thick traffic it will be hard to get out of a sticky situation or manoeuvre around fast-moving vehicles (especially moody cabbies). Frankly I am waiting with resignation for news of the first Borisycle death. Also, no helmets or locks. And a £300 fine if the bike is nicked on your watch? F**k that.

4) The scheme conforms to a Tory ideal of cycling, besuited executives with bicycle clips on their pinstripe suits, pretty girls in summer dresses flying through Notting Hill with organic veg in the basket. It has nothing to do with the gritty, often wet and frequently dangerous reality of cycling in London. It is an upper-middle-class perk that I doubt - although I'd love it to be otherwise - will appeal beyond that group, and a reflection of Conservative ideals.

In my view, there are so many other things that need to be done to make cycling in London a safer, viable option for all before spending cash on a flagship scheme.

For instance.... Why did Boris not consider mandating cycle training among taxi and bus drivers? Why no mirrors at junctions to help lorry drivers see us? Why not enforce advanced cycle waiting areas at lights? Why not investigate the possibility of allowing bikes to left-turn on red, a move that could save lives? Why not refresh the substandard, dangerous, counter-intuitive cycle lane infrastructure that we do have?

A coherent cycle-centric transport policy, combined with effective education of both bike users (stay off the f**king pavement, stop at the lights) and car drivers (at least three feet when passing, keep out of the damn ASZ) could get thousands of Londoners out of their cars and create a virtuous cycle - pun intended - of biking.

I believe - and the example of the Netherlands and Copenhagen is pretty compelling evidence - that when more people take to the road on two wheels, creating a critical mass of bike riders, the net result is that usage of dirty, dangerous cars decreases, and the remaining drivers become used to bikes and drive around them safely.

But the London cycle hire scheme is not going to accomplish that. It wrongly assumes that we have reached that point of critical mass, and that those menaces of London roads, the taxi and van drivers, are going to accept a bike-centric status quo right off the bat.

It's a case of cart before horse if I ever saw one. If anything, inexperienced people wobbling around the city on heavy bikes is going to increase frictions.

Now, this said, I could see myself taking advantage of the scheme. For short trips of under 30 minutes it is free; I am a proficient rider and could probably get across Zone 1 in that timeframe. In nice weather, for a short hop from, say, Chinatown to Oxford Street, or along the South Bank, it makes sense. I could even use it for work; I'm often in town for interviews and briefings and the idea of being able to ride to them is appealing.

Yes, I will probably use the scheme eventually, but at the same time I am really not comfortable with it.

At any rate, I've not signed up for the full £45 p/a membership, I'm going to bide my time and wait for it to be made available to casual users and then, if I get any value out of it, I may consider joining.

So, aegeus and I are now, after six years and eleven months, husbands, with legal documents and rings and everything.

For anyone who unaccountably missed the detail, we got married in a small registry office in Weybridge in Surrey at 10:30 in the morning on June 19th, and then in the afternoon we took about 75 family and friends on a four hour cruise along the Thames from Hampton Court to Richmond, which was very relaxing and full of lovely company and cake, and we didn't even drink all the money that we'd put behind the bar...

I know a lot of friends couldn't be there and some people we were not able to invite due to space constraints and if that is the case you really were missed.

We flew out to the US two days after the wedding and had four or five wonderful days at L's parents' holiday/eventual retirement home in the Blue Ridge, which was lovely and high up and therefore several degrees cooler than DC. It was laid back, peaceful and sunny, with a lot of time to sit outside reading in the sun with a glass of wine.

The following week we came back up to DC - slightly earlier than planned - did a day trip out to George Washington's house at Mount Vernon, had awesome dinner chez wordplay and chromodynamics, then hung out with NY people pre lovely Saturday wedding BBQ, and yesterday did 4th of July fireworks from a top floor apartment with panoramic views of all the different displays.

The last couple of days I have not been the most awesome company, however, as late on Saturday evening my body went 'noo, fuck this shit' and conspired against me, with the upshot that I am sick and run down and about to go back to work, which is not way up there on the scale of global suck, but is still UNNECESSARY. Too much has happened and frankly, I need a holiday to get over this one.

So we are about to go to Dulles the day after 4th July, and I just know it will be full of waddling tourists and church groups going home after spending Independence Day in the capital, and I am ill and the thought of a seven hour flight, even with Virgin, is just upsetting.

Anyway, I will do some proper blogs on the last three weeks when we are back in the UK and I have some time to write.

Thanks to everyone who made the last three weeks truly unforgettable.

Five years ago I wrote a blog on why I intended to vote Liberal Democrat. Well, I wish I could tell you I was going to vote Liberal Democrat again. I was thoroughly impressed with their performance in this campaign and the debates. Many of their policies make sense to me, and it I believe is high time we addressed the thorny question of electoral reform. Nick Clegg has promised this and I wish him luck.

But here’s the Independent’s exceptional Johann Hari on the changes wrought by a Conservative council in West London. This is a story of a council that turfed an eight-month pregnant domestic abuse victim onto the streets, advising her to seek accommodation in the private sector after closing down vital homeless shelters that Labour set up. This is a story of a council that closed a century-old youth club facility that, under a Labour council dispensed CV advice and UCAS forms. Now the kids that used it are on the streets and, oh, here’s a thing, ASBOs are up! Crime is already up under the Tories and if they win the parliamentary election it will rise across the board.

Perhaps most tellingly, this is a story of a council that sold one of London’s most beautiful parks, where local kids played football, to a polo consortium that tore out local facilities and now shuts the park down every so often so that rich Tory yahoos from Eton and Harrow can come in and play a sport that nobody gives a toss about, and then piss off and drive their coupes around west London and get smashed on £200 cocktails in Mahiki!

Who needs a polo pitch in Hammersmith? Get in your bloody four-by-fours and drive to Windsor!

The Conservatives don’t want London to be a city where the rich and poor and local and immigrant live cheek by glorious, messy jowl. They want to force the rest of us out and hand our city over to toffs.

This nightmare vision – which is happening, today, in Hammersmith and Fulham, and Wandsworth, where I live, and other Tory-controlled councils – is what Dave ‘Botox’ Cameron has in store for us all.

The Conservatives have come at us claiming to have changed, claiming to have become the party of tolerance, but that mask of tolerance has not just slipped, it is on the ground in pieces and behind it is the same old, twisted, evil face that stomped on the miners, brought in Section 28 and the Poll Tax and privatised an improving railway system for a quick buck.

That face has taken in many. It’s taken in progressives; it’s taken in people who want to get back at Gordon Brown for being a tad socially awkward at times, or people who are still smarting over Iraq. It’s taken in people who have forgotten the amazing work Labour has done in the past 13 years to make this country brilliant.

That face speaks to a more sinister spectre than closed youth clubs or help for single mums. The Christian right is lurking behind Botox Dave; its candidates, one of whom was linked at the weekend to prayer centres purporting to ‘cure’ gay people, are standing in this election and taking out injunctions to stop our media asking them tough questions.

I can't stand to see the Christian right gain leverage over British politics; even with Barack Obama in the White House their influence still looms large over American politics.

If Cameron gets in, better not be young or gay or disabled, better not be a low-earner, better not get pregnant, or be a victim of domestic abuse. Better not drive while Muslim, or walk down the street while black. You’ll get nothing from them.

If Cameron gets in, kiss bye-bye to the progressive agenda for the next five years, and maybe more for, as Jonathan Friedland wrote in this morning’s Guardian, they will get to work on gerrymandering the country to reduce the number of MPs at Westminster – a stated policy and one you can bet they will follow up – and shore-up a Conservative majority for the next election.

This naked political cynicism scares me silly. In the last few weeks, the Conservatives have laid into people like me and other left-leaning progressives for trying to scare people off them with negative campaigning. But with their attack ads plastered over London they sure can teach us a thing or two about negative campaigning. Talk to the hand, Tory boys. I’m done listening to your apologists.

So here’s my negative campaign. Unless you are rich, white and straight you should be damn scared of a Conservative majority. You should be scared out of your mind.

This is why the only possible choice for me tomorrow is Labour, and if you value what this country has become, fairer, safer and more tolerant, then I believe the only choice for you is Labour.

If, like me, and the majority of Britons who supported a centre-left, progressive agenda in the 2005 election, you’re proud to live in a country that is politically correct, then the only choice is Labour.

If, like me, you have the guts to see past the bitter taste in the mouth left by Iraq, identity cards and the risible Digital Economy Act, then the only choice is Labour.

Yes, we’ve got problems, but I would prefer 10 more years of Gordon Brown than 10 minutes of David Cameron.

Please vote tomorrow and keep this country on the right track.

Hi, everyone.

Just wanted to make a quick, rare post - I'm fine by the way - to try and see who would be up for some form of birthday party - meal, drinks, club, hanging round outside Balham Sainsburys etc - on the first weekend in May.

So which of the three days - 1st, 2nd or 3rd (Bank Holiday Monday) - across that weekend suit you best? Then we can firm up more details nearer the time.

I will absolutely not be 28 this year.

Anyone not checking LJ? We're trying to get a sense of numbers, hash out an invite list and so on. If you've not done so yet please fill out this poll, comments and answers screened, obviously.

http://aegeus.livejournal.com/133672.html

As I am just about to head out of the door to catch my plane to Boston I thought I should stick my head over the parapet and make a quick post. Looking forward to seeing some of you over in the US. Um, email, comments or DMs on Twitter will be the best way to get at me for now.

There will, afaik be something happening on Wednesday, and if anybody is free on Friday during the day I'll be tooling around doing vaguely touristy things and maybe poking a shop or two before my flight and the company would be welcome.

Hai guys.

So this Boston conference doodad is going ahead from the 1st to the 3rd. I am tentatively trying to arrange to fly back on the evening of the 5th, so would have Thursday evening and Friday of that week to see people. I think I may also have the evening of the 2nd if people are around.

Now, I have been booked into a stupidly expensive hotel on the waterfront (Summer St) but the organisers will only cover accommodation costs for the dates of the event, so does anybody know of any relatively cheap (and good) hotels/B&Bs, or is prepared to provide floor space for the night of the 4th June?

Much love, etc, and will cross-post to LJ later.