THAT'S RAD NEWS

Talalla Surf Camp

2012-01-18T11:47:00.000Z

Hannah and I spent a great week surfing with Jack at Talalla Surf Camp, Sri Lanka. Highly recommended. Check out the video they made of our week.

Will Self on wind turbines

2011-10-20T09:49:00.000+01:00

I've always enjoyed Will Self's books and newspaper articles. Always incredibly eloquent and seemingly forming his own opinions based on reason rather than dogma. I'm happy to hear his view on wind turbine development has been unaffected by the endless shite that is churned around the Daily Mail and The Telegraph (click on links for examples).

This programme is well worth a listen- I particularly like the section between 7-8 mins where he puts into context the undeniable contradiction that is the 'NIMBY'.Not sure how long it will be available on BBC iPlayer so if the link doesn't work- I apologise.

Anglesey exploration

2011-10-11T08:12:00.002+01:00

I've spent the last week up in Anglesey, North Wales. We were staying at my parent's house in Rhoscolyn, a small village on the south coast of Holy Island.

Despite having visited the area 3 or 4 times a year since I can remember, I've never managed to fully explore the island. That is until this last week when it was just Hannah and I exploring further afield. I can't believe how much I've been missing out on. There are so many beautiful beaches on every side of the island, quite often with no one on them but us.

We visited Newborough, Church Bay, Rhosneigr, Portmeirion (not technically Anglesey), Beaumaris, Red Wharf Bay, Moelfre and Borthwen. All of which we highly recommend. I've made a little video of our week:

Fibonacci hares

2011-09-14T22:30:00.000+01:00

I've just received some prints I've ordered from The Printspace, my favourite high quality photographic printer in London. I ordered a few copies of my 'fibonacci hares' photograph as a giclée print on hahnemuehle photorag paper and am really happy with the results.

The photo was taken a couple of years ago when I was on a site visit for a windfarm proposal. There had been particularly heavy snow in the preceding few days and visibility was pretty poor so the site visit was compromised somewhat. Mainly just to have a bit of a walk, myself and a colleague decided just to head out into the snow and see what was there.

I remember it being very quiet, other than the sound of our footsteps in the snow. We stopped walking briefly and out dashed three hares from the hedgerow. I'm no biologist but from watching the events that followed I can be fairly sure that they were two males chasing after one female.

I managed to take a few frames, one of which was the basis of the print. I particularly like the faint triangular silhouettes of fir trees in the background.

Why call the print 'fibonacci hares'? Well, briefly after I took the photo I was watching a really interesting documentary about the origins of the Fibonacci sequence. Supposedly, the Fibonacci sequence first appears in the book Liber Abaci (1202) by Leonardo of Pisa, who was known as Fibonacci. He was considering the growth of a hypothetical rabbit population (yes- I know rabbits and hares are different species but forgive my artistic license).

His assumptions were as follows:

That a newly born pair of rabbits, one male, one female, are put in a field and the rabbits are able to mate at the age of one month.
With a pregnancy duration of 4 weeks. At the end of its second month a female can produce another pair of rabbits.
That rabbits never die and a mating pair always produces one new pair (one male, one female) every month from the second month on

The puzzle that Fibonacci posed was: how many pairs will there be in one year?

He concluded that:

At the end of the first month, they mate, but there is still only 1 pair.
At the end of the second month the female produces a new pair, so now there are 2 pairs of rabbits in the field.
At the end of the third month, the original female produces a second pair, making 3 pairs in all in the field.
At the end of the fourth month, the original female has produced yet another new pair, the female born two months ago produces her first pair also, making 5 pairs.
At the end of the nth month, the number of pairs of rabbits is equal to the number of new pairs (which is the number of pairs in month n − 2) plus the number of pairs alive last month (n − 1). This is the nth Fibonacci number.

This results in the Fibonacci sequence (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55...) where the next number is the sum of the previous two numbers.

The documentary went on to explain the relevance of this sequence, two aspects of which I found really interesting. Firstly, how closely the sequence relates to the golden ratio, which is conveniently evident in the photograph itself - with the horizon placed 1/3rd of the way down the page. Secondly, how the sequence appears in numerous biological settings. It is suggested that everything from the gaps between branches in trees, arrangement of leaves on a stem, the flowering of artichoke, the shape of an uncurling fern to the arrangement of a pine cone all display a adherence to the Fibonacci sequence.

Given the events that occured in the snowy field that day, it seemed appropriate to name the photograph after a study of breeding rabbits. This is also why I have decided to give the photograph as a wedding present to a few close friends of mine.

RNLI tour of Britain - Stage 2

2011-08-25T12:14:00.003+01:00

Nick P-B and I are about to set off on the second leg of The RNLI Tour of Britain- a cycling trip that visits every lifeboat station in the UK. We are hoping to raise £25,000 for the RNLI over then next 6 or 7 years.

The trip has it's own blog, visible here. We are also tweeting some of the more notable events, our twitter account is 'Rad_and_Nick'.

Last, but not least, is the fundraising page, where you can unload some of that hard earned money of yours to help the RNLI 'save lives at sea'.

Enjoy.

How many lightbulbs?

2011-03-03T12:21:00.006Z

David MacKay clearly articulates energy use in the UK and the potential options that we have available to us.

The Sartorialist

2011-01-28T17:24:00.002Z

A great little video about The Sartorialist - the person and the blog. Check it out.

Cycling & HGVs

2010-12-07T14:12:00.002Z

This morning I held the hand of a lady that was run over by a HGV. She was cycling on the inside of the vehicle that turned left. I very much doubt she survived.

I don't want to scaremonger and still always encourage people to get on their bikes but PLEASE watch this video to understand how to avoid being the next victim. No matter how much experience you have it's always worth reminding yourself about this problem.

You have just as much right to be on the road as any other vehicle- never be afraid to dominate your lane and make motorists follow behind you.

Cycle safe,

Rad

Do the Green Thing

2010-12-02T09:57:00.011Z

The Green Thing

I attended a very interesting lecture at the Royal Geographical Society last night. Accompanied by Nikki Linsell of Reset Development. It was part of the RGS' '21st Century Challenges' series and this one was titled: Can the UK ever be Sustainable? Chaired by Jo Confino (executive editor of The Guardian) with three speakers: Sir Stuart Rose (CEO of Marks & Spencer), RT Hon Hillary Benn MP (Spineless politician... more on that later) and Andy Hobsbawm (founder of Do The Green Thing).

Stuart Rose spoke first, he discussed how M&S have managed to change their business model to 'Plan A'. Making matters of sustainable development (Economic, Environmental and Social issues) a priority. He has shown that large corporations can achieve significant triple bottom lines and have a responsibility to play a part in the 'paradigm shift' (his words not mine) that is necessary to achieve a sustainable future.

Next up was Hillary Benn, whose opening line revolved around (and this is somewhat paraphrased) how "humans had achieved wonderful things in the last 4 million years since the world was a burning ball of gas". This left the majority of the audience squirming in their seats, who were quite aware that humans (homo-sapiens) have only been around for between 55,000-200,000 years (depending on your definition) and that our earth, not being a star, did not originate as a burning ball of gas but as molten rock.

After this, he strayed into what I imagine is far more familiar territory, somewhat animated self-congratulatory prose about the few political achievements the UK can be proud of (Climate Change Bill, Feed-in-Tariffs etc.). He was of the opinion that the responsibility to act on Climate Change lay both with the populations and the governments- it was shared. On the surface, this sounds very nice and democratic but it is increasingly apparent that very little is being achieved with this set-up... more on this matter below.

His speech was presented in a manner that reminded me of a preparatory school headmaster whose only remaining pleasure in life is to bask in the attention of his 10 year old pupils because anyone old enough to think for themselves has realised he is full of shit. My prevailing thought for the latter half of his speech was how ironic it was that the two most inappropriate words I would use to describe him was Right and Honourable.

Fortunately, he was followed by Andy Hobsbawm, whose presentation was both relevant, interesting and remarkably inspiring. The audience was captivated. I urge you with whatever limited persuasive power I have to check out the website of the non-for-profit he co-founded: Do The Green Thing. At a very minimum you should meet The Green Thing.

His philosophy is based around the idea that if we are to change people's behaviour to lead a greener lifestyle, we must make them want to change. That the best ideas to address climate change should be actions that people would like to do, rather than ought to do. I completely agree with him.

The Green Thing seems to operate on the principle that the individual have the ability to act on climate change and make a significant difference. That it should be a grass-roots movement that forces politicians to take notice and listen. I would love to believe this and still, albeit rather optimistically, hope we live in a world where one's individual actions can inspire a generation.

So, just a quick round-up: there were three speakers loosely representing business, government and people and three ideas of whose responsibility it was to lead us on a path to sustainability. Who is right? Personally, I believe that at both a national and international level there exists a 'tragedy of the commons', that while looking out for our personal interests (holidays abroad, meat intensive diet, consumerist urges etc) we have failed to address our common interests- the natural environment on which we all depend and on which our individual interests ultimately rely.

This has led to a stalemate, where we all shift blame and responsibility to other parties and nothing is achieved. This is particularly relevant considering the (rather unproductive) Cancun Climate Change Conference is in progress as I type. What we really need (at least on a national level) is for cross-party agreement that Climate Change is an issue of such international significance, with such diabolic consequences, that it warrants the decision to be taken out of the hands of the public and strive for cross-party government consensus that outlines that path the UK will take to a sustainable future. In short, they must lead us.

After all, we as a nation, never had a referendum on capital punishment. The public was never asked of their opinion- instead our politicians, of all parties, showed leadership and agreed that it was in the national interest to abolish it. I can not think of a more suitable issue than climate change that calls for government to act in a similar manner.

It should also be noted that Jo Confino chaired the panel excellently, encouraging interesting debate and not taking any prisoners.

Without wanting to distract from my main point of this post, I always like to finish on a positive note, so check out these wonderful blog posts from Do The Green Thing's blog (there are so many but here's three that caught my eye this morning):

Be inspired folks.

Sally Mann: The Family and the Land

2010-06-23T14:12:00.007+01:00

Sally Mann is having her first solo retrospective at The Photographers' Gallery.

"Mann is perhaps best known for Immediate Family, her third collection, published in 1992. The book consists of 65 black and white photographs of her three children, all under the age of 10. Many of the pictures were taken at the family's remote summer cabin along the river, where the children played and swam in the nude. Many explore typical childhood themes (skinny dipping, reading the funnies, dressing up, vamping, napping, playing board games) but others touch on darker themes such as insecurity, loneliness, injury, sexuality and death. The controversy on its release was intense, including accusations of child pornography and of contrived fiction with constructed tableaux. Mann herself considered these photographs to be “natural through the eyes of a mother, since she has seen her children in every state: happy, sad, playful, sick, bloodied, angry and even naked.” Critics agreed, saying her “vision in large measure [is] accurate, and a welcome corrective to familiar notions of youth as a time of unalloyed sweetness and innocence,” and that the book “created a place that looked like Eden, then cast upon it the subdued and shifting light of nostalgia, sexuality and death." [Wikipedia]

This is a really enjoyable exhibition. Although the photographs of the decomposing bodies (her most recent photographic indulgence- see photo 5 above) did not move me greatly, I thought that the full face portraits of her children (now adults- see photo 4 above) taken on a plate camera and developed with a wet-plate collodion process was some of her best work since 'immediate family' (photos 1-3 above).

It made me want to explore similar printing techniques and the exhibition in general was quite inspiring.

I learned great deal from the 80 minutes documentary that is shown in a small room off the stairs. I really recommend it to anyone that wants to settle the argument with themselves about whether Mann's photographs of her children are exploitative and offensively provocative. I was relieved to hear her children (now in their 20's) all speak comfortably and intelligently about their mother's work and they showed no signs of retrospectively regretting their involvement in 'immediate family'.

A highly recommended exhibition.

Food for thought folks...

2010-04-20T08:39:00.005+01:00

I wanted to share this interesting graphic from 'information is beautiful'.

It beautifully illustrates the extent of european aviation emissions compared to the Icelandic Eyjafjallajokull volcanic eruption.

What will it take to make people realise the impact that aviation is having on the environment? How long will it be considered 'normal' to fly thousands of miles each year for a holiday?

The British Isles has some of the most amazing scenery I have ever witnessed, yet I know more people that have been to South America than I who have visited the wonders of the Scottish Highlands and Islands.

Brits are so fortunate that we have access to an incredibly large rail network- europe is on our doorstep and this is beautifully explained by 'The man in Seat 61'.

I know the volcanic ash is causing unknown amounts of grief for people all over the world (let's ignore the fact that a friend of mine is stuck in St. Lucia with all expenses being paid) and they all have my deepest sympathy. But rather than curse unstoppable natural events, perhaps it is worth appreciating the various advantages of alternative methods of travel.

It is at least some food for thought....

Terence Coventry

2010-01-07T18:44:00.005Z

Just a quick post to share a video I rather liked about Terence Coventry, once a Cornish pig farmer, now a sculptor of bronze and steel. I like that his work has been inspired by a lifetime of observation, particularly the part where he is talking about the weightlessness of rooks at the moment of take-off viewed from his tractor while ploughing. That said, perhaps I am just a sucker for the emotional major chord piano soundtrack?

Stephen Wiltshire for Order magazine

2010-01-01T22:22:00.010Z

Last week I took a portrait of Stephen Wiltshire for an accompanying article in Order Magazine, an Los Angleses based hip-hop magazine. I will post the link to the article (written by good friend Zachary Gottlieb) when it's available.

Stephen is an artist and a Londoner. He is known for his ability to draw incredibly accurate cityscapes. In May 2005, following a short helicopter ride over Tokyo, he drew from memory an incredibly detailed panoramic view of the city on a 10-meter-long canvas. Since then he has drawn Rome, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Madrid, Dubai, Jerusalem, London and New York on giant canvasses.

Although I must admit his work is not particularly to my taste, he certainly has an incredibly unique talent. I met him in the Stephen Wiltshire Gallery in the Royal Opera Arcade, Pall Mall, London. He struck me as a quiet, gentle but confident man and I hope this comes across in the portrait. Click on the images to enlarge.

The Craft Cartel and the felt vagina

2009-12-28T12:20:00.004Z

My favourite blog title so far....absolutely loving The Craft Cartel. Their slogan being "For crafty types who don't dig rose-scented doilies- celebrating all that is irreverant, iconic, kitschy, delightfully offensive and made lovingly by hand".

Anyone that has the motivation to craft a vagina... I am a fan of.

check it out.

Christian Marclay vs. David Hockney

2009-12-28T11:51:00.007Z

Sitting in bed doing a bit of internet exploring it one of my great pleasures- primarily because it is the only warm place in an otherwise unheated house in mid-winter. Anyway, this morning I found an awesome post by Marcela Fae on the work of Christian Marclay, an American visual artist and composer based out of New York. A few years ago he did these great pieces stitching together old vinyl record covers.

They reminded me a lot of the joiners/photo-collages that Hockney did in the early 1980s to which I have developed a small obsession with.

above: David Hockney, My Mother, Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire, 1982

How to make a canvas apron in 10 steps

2009-12-27T15:43:00.012Z

I decided to make as many Christmas presents as possible this year. I wanted to give people something homemade, something useful and something personal. After much consideration I decided on personalised aprons. They are really quite straight forward and perfect if you are still getting to grips with how your sewing machine works- as I am.

Below is a step-by-step guide to making one. All you need is the following:

a 35 inch (89cm) x 33 inch (84cm) square(ish) piece of cotton canvas or cotton drill (I chose a very durable heavyweight cotton, with the idea that it would last a lifetime, but feel free to use a more flexible lightweight cotton)
100 inches (254cm) of 1 inch wide ribbon (a 26 inch piece for the neck strap, 2 x 37 inch pieces for the waist straps)
136 (345cm) of 2 inch wide ribbon for trimming.
reel of thread the same colour as the ribbon

Step one:
measure out the square of cotton canvas according to the measurements below (click on the image to enlarge) or cut around an existing apron that you like the shape of. If you are using the measurements here, be sure to fold the material in half prior to cutting the top corners so the curves are the same both sides. Place this to one side.

Step two:
Get your roll of 2 inch wide ribbon, and peg one end of it to the end of an ironing board (having some tension in the ribbon will make ironing it in half much easier). Fold in half (width ways) and iron flat. Be sure not to have the heat too high if the ribbon is synthetic, plenty of steam should do the trick. Ironing the ribbon will make trimming the apron much easier.

The finished product

Step three:
Cut the 2 inch wide ribbon in to 6 pieces- of lengths corresponding with the edges of the apron. I would highly recommend leaving an inch extra at each end (particularly on the top curved corners which require a deceptive amount of ribbon).

Step four:
Cut the 1 inch wide ribbon (for the neck and waist straps) in to 3 pieces (a 26 inch piece for the neck strap, 2 x 37 inch pieces for the waist straps)

Step five:
The 2 inch wide ribbon should fold nicely around the edge of your canvas material. Pin the bottom edge in place (roughly). You do not need to leave any overlap on this edge as the side edge trimmings will go over the bottom corners (neatly folded).

Step six:
Sew this bottom edge trimming on staying as close to the edge of the ribbon as you dare whilst making sure you are not missing the side underneath with your thread. I usually leave 3mm buffer to be sure. A simple straight, medium length stitch is all you need for attaching the trimming.

Step seven:
Sew one of the side edge trimmings on. You must start at the bottom edge (on the corner that you have just sewn), but this time you must fold over the ribbon by 3/4 inch or so to stop the end fraying. This will hopefully make the corner much neater. Remember that there is likely a front and back to the canvas, so if you have to make one side neater than the other make sure you choose the front. Continue this around the edges, folding over the corners where necessary.

Step eight:
Now the apron should be the correct shape and fully trimmed. It is best to do any personalisation now (before attaching the neck and waist straps) as you do not want to inadvertently sew the neck strap to the back of the apron with about 500 stitches. I learned this the heard way.

First you want to mark out the letters lightly in pencil. I recommend marking two lines to indicate the top and bottom of the letters, and work between these. I used the width of a ruler for this.

To embroider with a regular sewing machine, you can set the stitch pattern to 'zig-zag' with and a very short (but not non -existent) length. You must test the stitch on a scrap of material first (perhaps from the top corners that were cut off earlier) and adjust as necessary.

You will quickly realise that straight lines are far easier than curved, but with practise you will be able to deal with curves (again, use the scrap material). I found that lifting the foot of the sewing machine and carefully repositioning the needle produced much better results than attempting to do the curve in one go.

To avoid constantly starting and stopping, you can do all the horizontal lines first without cutting the thread. Then cut and do the vertical/horizontal sections.

Do the vertical sections first without cutting the thread to save time.

then do the horizontal sections

Step nine:
Hem the neck and waist straps by 3/4 inch or so then attach them to the corners on the back side of the apron (leaving the front nice and neat). These are going to be tugged at over the years so you will need to do a fairly thorough job. I did a 'Z' patten, using the reverse mode for the diagonal.

Step ten:
Trim off all the bits of thread and admire your handiwork.

Best of luck.

I see! you saw me sew...

2009-11-01T19:53:00.011Z

I recently bought my first sewing machine. It was sold to me by a friend, Alix Pietrafesa (who makes some beautiful clothes- click here), who was moving to Hong Kong and was selling a bunch of her stuff. Despite being a bargain- it's great to finally own one myself.

It regularly amuses me to see my friends' reactions when they hear that not only can I use a sewing machine but I have just bought one! I recently spent 5 minutes attempting to convince someone I wasn't lying. Admittedly, I can't deny that stereotypically it is the tool of middle aged mothers, making curtains or costumes for their 5 year old's nativity play but I wish this wasn't the case as I feel a lot of people are really missing out. I was only lucky enough to learn how to use one because I was a windsurfing instructor in Greece and helped out mending sails on an industrial sail repair machine when it wasn't windy.
I have made a couple of great costumes over the summer with it. The first was for Winterwell festival, where the theme was 'outer space'. I made a Ziggy Stardust inspired silver lycra body suit and accompanying space gilet... and yes- that is my brother behind me in a full silver lycra gimp suit.
The next was for a UV party that Harty, a good friend was having at his house. I bought a few sheets of UV material from Soho and made another lycra number- but this time with a cape. I like capes.

under UV light the costume really comes into it's own.

Today I used some of the spare UV fabric along with some offcuts from Peter Jones' fabric department to make an ipod case for a friend whose current one is looking a bit worse for wear. My favourite part is the hole I made for the earphone jack. My sewing machine has this great feature where it will sew perfect button holes for you- you just slot the button in question into a little holder and press the foot pedal. It was one of the most satisfying feelings seeing it work it's magic. My next project is to make a shirt. A big step up from an ipod case.... hmmm- we shall see.

the ipod case buttoned shut.

the case open- I used a 30 year old popper as the fastening mechanism. It is amazing what you find at the bottom of the sewing box. I think they were my granny's.

a close up of the popper and earphone jack button hole.

another close up of the button hole.

Portrait of a boy fishing

2009-06-29T14:10:00.004+01:00

I was in Dorset this past weekend and saw this boy fishing off Swanage pier with a friend. They were really excited that they had just caught a fish and were taking photos of each other holding it with their camera-phones. I asked if he minded me taking a photograph and he just turned, held the fish up and stared through the camera. I like this photo. Click on it to make it bigger.

Vegetable protection and South London squirrel stew

2009-06-12T18:55:00.013+01:00

I have recently been battling nature to keep my vegetable garden (which is coming along nicely) safe from a variety of predators. The birds ate a fair few seeds after I originally sowed them but this is somewhat expected. What I didn't count on were the squirrels and foxes digging up (and leaving!) many of the carrots, onions and lettuce.

Something had to be done. I looked into buying a fruit cage style cover for the whole plot but the prices seemed on the steep side, so, having a bit of time on my hands I took the opportunity to make one.

The whole structure can be assembled and disassembled since I used nuts and bolts for the vast majority of the joinery- which means it can come with me when I move house- whenever that may be. The netting I got from Harrod Horticultural, a company that initially seemed to be promising but turned out to be rather disorganised (I once spent 36 minutes on hold to their customer service dept. when I finally gave up and called their sales telephone they answered in under 5 seconds!). In short, I would recommend looking around for alternative suppliers if you are considering making one yourself, but if all else fails make sure you order the netting about 2 weeks in advance as it takes them a while to deliver it.

The wood was purchased from Travis Perkins, but while I was there I noticed that there was an amazing amount of wood they were throwing away because of faults that would not cause too much of a problem to a structure like this. Unfortunately, it was too late for us but in the future I would try my luck in their skip first. Just make sure you ask for their permission first.

The only problem with this is that the cage doesn't cover the cherry tree. For that I have been using the air rifle. Which brings me on to the second half of this post- South London squirrel stew.

I shot a squirrel that was helping himself to one too many cherries and decided that I would see how it tasted. After all, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is full of praise for the way the squirrel tastes a and couldn't understand why more people don't eat it.

Feeling confident after paunching the hare earlier in the month and after a quick refresher by HF-W's amazing River Cottage book, I set about gutting it. I warn you, some of the photos below might not be to everyone's taste so if you are eating I suggest giving this a read later.

After the success of the hare, I got Brownie and a somewhat hesitant Cowie around again and we essentially made a slow cooked "squirrel au vin" (or more technically écureuil au vin). Here are a few photos of the gutting and cooking process (the more squeamish of you may not want to scroll down):

an incision was made up the belly of the squirrel exposing its guts.

the guts were removed and carefully slicing with a sharp knife between the meat and the skin the legs were exposed.

the head and feet were chopped off leaving a rather neat carcass.

The squirrel was then boned.

... and fried briefly with butter in a hot pan.

some onions, bacon, mushrooms and garlic was also browned and then stewed for a few hours with the meat in red wine.

The meat was still a little tough but very enjoyable. If I am honest it's taste was rather overpowered by the other ingredients and the wine. Still, the result was one less squirrel eating my cherries and a very cheap enjoyable meal. Perhaps I will wait until Autumn before cooking squirrel again once they have had a chance to fatten up over the summer. I will keep you informed.

Hare- three ways

2009-06-12T18:43:00.012+01:00

During my last visit to Rhoscolyn, Anglesey, I managed to bag a hare with my recently acquired air rifle. Nick kindly instructed me on how to skin, paunch (gut) and joint it but I knew immediately who would be up for cooking it- Browny, one half of the previously mentioned Around Britain with a Paunch (a rather appropriate name for this post).

the hare in question

the hare once jointed

Having spent the morning at Rosie's Deli Cafe's book launch, we picked up a few ingredients from Brixton market and headed back to work out what we were going to do with the animal. After many interesting suggestions from Brownie's twitter followers, we decided to cook it three ways- the front legs and lower back (I am sure there is a more technical term for this... anyone?) were used for some hare pate. The back legs (about 60% of the meat) were used to make a slow cooked ragout and the saddle (supposedly the most tender meat) was reserved for the BBQ.

The pate was a fairly simple recipe adapted from this recipe:

The front legs and rear saddle of the hare cut into pieces.
50g butter
1 parsley sprig
1 thyme sprig
2 bay leaves
4 peppercorns
salt
stock or water
2 oz (50 g) mushrooms, sliced
1 thick slice of bread, soaked in milk
1 egg yolk
6 tablespoons brandy or Madeira
pepper

1. Melt some of the butter in a frying pan and fry the hare pieces until they are lightly browned on all sides.

2. Transfer them to a saucepan, packing them in closely. Add the parsley, thyme, 2 of the bay leaves, the peppercorns and salt and just cover with stock or water.

3. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 2 to 3 hours or until the hare is very tender.

4. Drain the hare, reserving the liquid, and take the meat from the bones. Chop the meat. Strain the liquid.

5. Melt the remaining butter in the frying pan and fry the mushrooms for 3 minutes. Add to the hare meat.

6. Squeeze the slice of bread to remove the excess milk and add to the mixture. Mince or blend to a smooth puree.

7. Moisten the puree with a little of the reserved liquid, then beat in the remaining butter, the egg yolks, the brandy or Madeira, salt and pepper.

8. Put the remaining bay leaf in the bottom of a pate dish and spoon in the hare mixture.

9. Smooth the top, then cover and steam for 3 hours.

The ragout recipe was adapted from Thomasina Miers recipe and involved:

Olive oil, for browning
500g hare meat
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, cut into small cubes
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 x 400g tin of plum tomatoes
A couple of sprigs of thyme
A few bay leaves
A pinch of allspice
A pinch of sugar
300ml red wine
A square or two of dark chocolate or 1 tablespoon redcurrant jelly (we used both)
Salt and pepper

1.Heat a little oil in a heavy-bottomed pan over a medium heat and when it is smoking hot add a third of the meat.

2.Brown the meat on all sides and season with salt and pepper before removing and reserve.

3.Repeat with more batches until all the meat is browned.

4.Heat some more oil and add the onion and carrots. Cook for 5–10 minutes, stirring from time to time so that the vegetables don’t colour.

5.When the onion is translucent, add the garlic, and after a couple of minutes the tomatoes, herbs, allspice, sugar and wine.

6.Add the hare and simmer for a few hours. 10 minutes before serving add the chocolate and/or redcurrant jelly.

The final dish. Served on tagliatelle with pan-fried tomatoes on the side.

The BBQ'd saddle of the hare involved the following:

1 saddle of hare
parsley
chives
zest of 1 lemon
olive oil
6 juniper berries
1 garlic clove

Essentially all one has to do is create pockets either side of the spine with a sharp knife. Into those pockets go stuff the remaining ingredients, which marinate for a few hours. The joint is then tightly wrapped in tin foil and place on the BBQ until nearly cooked- the last few minutes are done without the foil. Ideally the BBQ should not be too hot as the longer this takes to cook the more tender the meat should be.

all the ingredients at the ready

It was generally accepted that the ragout was the best of the three. I think this was due to the slower cooking (4-5 hours) making the meat far more tender than the saddle (45 mins). However, the pate was a perfect starter, great to serve on lightly toasted home-made bread.

Gastromonic delights of Rhoscolyn

2009-05-05T11:18:00.017+01:00

I have just returned from Bryn Siriol, our house on Holy Island, a small island off Anglesey (itself an island off the coast of North Wales), where 11 friends and I enjoyed the May bank holiday. Among the guests were 'Brownie' and 'Cowie' the co-authors of around Britain with a paunch, they suggested I write a little blog about the food we prepared over the weekend. Please enjoy...

The fine weather provided the perfect opportunity to use the hot smoker I was given as a birthday present not so long ago (thanks Nick!). After rigging the boat (a ageing Wayfarer) and getting the sea kayaks out, we dropped a lobster pot and fished from with every method available to us- lines out the back of the boat and with rods from the kayaks.

walking the boat down to the beach

rigging the boat on the beach

Despite it still being a little early in the season, we caught 3 mackerel and 2 coalfish. To everyone's disappointment the lobsters managed to outwit us this time and just eat the bait and disappear. After gutting the fish and returning to the house, we lit the smoker, poured in some oak shavings and some rosemary and let it work it's magic for 30-40 minutes before unveiling what smelt quite incredible- fresh smoked mackerel.

the oak chippings and rosemary used to smoke the fish

the two mackerel

Reminicent of early childhood bonfires and trips to the beach, it managed to evoke wonderful sounds from those close-by. The order of the day was smoked mackerel pâté which is an incredibly simple recipe (again provided by Nick P-B):

3 mackerel (smoked and filleted)
1/2 tub of cream cheese (philadelphia or something similar)
juice of half a lemon
generous seasoning with salt and pepper
parsley for decoration

Essentially all one has to do is whack it all in a blender for a few blasts (not too much- otherwise the texture of the fish will be lost). The pâté works well with crisps but even better with some freshly baked bread, which we had fortunetly prepared earlier in the day. We used a recipe straight from Delia for 'quick and easy wholemeal bread' to make 2 loaves but added a few twists.

Her recipe is in the link above but we used 450g of wholemeal flour, 2 teaspoons of salt, 1 teaspoon of sugar, 7g of dried yeast and warm water to get the right consistency for the bread base, then in one loaf we (primarily Linley) added some dried chilli flakes, grated parmesan cheese, sunflower seeds, chopped sun-dried tomatoes and chopped chorizo and rosemary to the mixture. In the other we added some thyme, basil and sunflower seeds. We allowed the bread to rise then baked it for 30 minutes.

I am certainly not experienced at baking bread however this was not only lots of fun but also incredibly tasty- especially with the mackerel pâté!

This was the starter to our supper, which was followed by another Delia classic- 'chicken with whole spices' - a dish that claimed to taste "authentically Indian, but with an added 'home-made' freshness that is so often lacking in Indian restaurants". Although designed for the oven we decided to BBQ it and the result proved to be popular. This was accompanied by some local welsh sausages and roasted peppers stuffed with tomatoes, onions, garlic and anchovies.

starting the BBQ

the chicken with whole spices on the BBQ

Linley tending to the welsh sausages

The weekend in general was so much fun- thank you to all that came (Linley, Kiri, Brownie, Cowie, Matt, Tom, Charlie W, Charlie L, Jen, Zoe and Kate) and to Nick for his wonderful smoker.

Contrail

2009-04-09T17:43:00.005+01:00

I was just sent a link to this by a good friend of mine and avid commuter cyclist - Ellie Grace. I just fell in love with the concept- although still unsure how the chalk is administered, if it creates any drag on the wheel and how long the chalk lasts- nevertheless- a fantastic idea. Here is some text copied from the designer's website:

Contrail is a tool for developing bicycle communities. As you ride, contrail leaves a faint chalk line behind your bike. The goal is to encourage a new cycle of biking participation by allowing the biking community to leave a unique mark on the road and to reclaim this crucial shared space.

The old cycle: More cars on the road --> more percieved danger for bikers --> fewer bikers on road --> even more cars on the road.

The new cycle: A few bicyclists ride with contrail a couple times per week --> faint lines on the road inspire curiosity and remind bikers where it's safe to ride --> new bikers are encouraged to ride and use contrail --> contrail lines get brighter as community grows.

We like how doobybrain.com phrased it:

By using this device, bicyclists will have a clearer path on which to ride safely and out of the way of vehicular traffic. At the same time, as more bicyclists using the Contrail go over a line created by a cyclist before them, the line gets brighter allowing drivers to clearly see a marked bike path where there might be none. It's sort of similar to what happens when a dirt path appears in a grassy field after lots of people have taken the same shortcut over a period of time.

I just want to know where and when I can buy one.

Vegetable Garden

2009-03-24T14:45:00.011Z

I have spent much of the last week gardening, which doesn't strictly count as job hunting (supposedly my primary objective) but the weather has been amazing and one doesn't often get the chance.

In addition to the usual tasks of mowing the lawn, weeding the flowerbeds, de-mossing the garden path, I brought back to life our veggie patch which is now looking rather exciting- in a rather unexciting way- if that makes any sense.

veggie patch

I have potted some chili peppers, thyme, garlic and sweet basil, which are to be kept indoors for a month or so until they can be transferred outside.

potted chilli

potted thyme

potted basil

Already in the garden I have onions (both early and late season), parsnips, carrots, three varieties of lettuce, radishes and a decent wild strawberry bed.

Ready to be planted in a month or so are some runner beans, cherry tomatoes, purple sprouting broccoli, courgettes and cucumbers.

I have protected the onions, carrots and parsnips from the birds with the net, but only had one- not to worry... I recalled from a TV show a few years ago that CDs on string do the trick of scaring them away- I would have loved to build a scarecrow but felt that this might be going over the top. hmmmm..

Below are a few photos- I hope to keep you updated on the progress and perhaps a few of you would be kind enough to taste the produce once the harvest comes. arrrrggghh. back to the garden for me. Farmer Rad.

veggie patch with CDs dangling from the A-frame.

potted garlic

strawberry bed (currently just leaves) on the right

Photography by Dustin Humphrey (and David Parker)

2009-03-17T10:44:00.013Z

Occasionally, very occasionally, I see a photograph that just makes my jaw drop. I can clearly remember the first time it happened to me- I was 17 and it was a David Parker photograph called "Landscape III" (below). The original is about 7 feet wide and 3 feet tall, printed on this magnificent paper, framed and situated on it's own in the window of the Michael Hoppen gallery just off the King's Road, London. It was magnificent. astonishing. ethereal.

Landscape III by David Parker

Today, I felt a similar twang. To my disappointment it was on the internet. Don't get me wrong, I love the internet, but I am aware of it's limitations. Nothing can beat seeing art/photographs in person. I can only imagine my response if it had been to a real print, presented in a similar manner to "Landscape III". The photographer in question is called Dustin Humphrey. He has just won the first prize in the Advertising category for the Sony Photographer of the Year Awards. His entry was entitled 'NUTOPIA', originally commissioned for the surf clothing firm Insight.

"NUTOPIA" BY Dustin Humphrey

It turns out that originally, Dustin Humphreys or "D. Hump" as he is affectionately known is one of the surf-world’s most forward-thinking photographers. Originally from Huntington Beach but now based in Bali. Here are a few more images that will knock you out.

and for old time's sake, here are a couple more from David Parker...

Virgin Global Row

2009-02-15T19:12:00.005Z

Many of you will already be aware of Olly Hicks. He is currently wallowing around the Southern Ocean in a one-man rowing boat as part of Virgin Global Row- an attempt to row around the world single-handedly. He has already rowed across the Atlantic in the expedition called Virgin Row and a good friend of mine, George Olver, produced and directed the accompanying documentary through his company Pendragon Productions. He is naturally doing another film for this epic adventure as well.

Olly sends blogs from his rowing boat each day and they are more often than not fairly amusing- primarily because of the conditions from which you know they are coming from.

On the home page is a google map function that tracks Olly's progress, which currently shows just how hard the conditions are out there- the wind is pushing him around in circles while he stubbornly attempts to recover his distance each day. I do feel for him.

I would really recommend having a look at the Virgin Global Row website and signing up to the daily updates via RRS or e-mail. This is a chance to witness a global first in physical challenges. Imagine being in touch with Edmund Hillary during his asent of Everest!

"could she be... the most beauuutiful bike in the world [so beautifulll, beaut-i-fu-uuul]"

2009-02-09T15:19:00.005Z

I feel I must explain... if you are a touch confused with the title of this post, it was attempted word play on Prince's song The most beautiful girl in the world. Apologies.

These bikes are simply incredible. Ever since I owned my first racing bike aged 17, aptly named Whippet by Kate, a school friend of mine, I have developed a love for them. As much as I can appreciate some of the production bikes around, there is something magical about custom built bikes- they have their own personality. It's selfish, I know. But in the same way I wouldn't like hundred of clones of my (non-existent, future) wife around- I don't like the idea of other people having (and possibly loving) the same bike. Anyway, before I go too far with the comparison between wives and bikes... here it is.

Fast Boy Bicycles

They are simply beautiful. The designs. The finishes. The care. Just incredible. The guy that builds them seems cool and he has an interesting blog of his own on the website. Just beautiful. I hope you enjoy them as much as me.

George Monbiot's Blog

2009-01-28T09:21:00.004Z

Just bringing to your attention the new blog from George Monbiot. An interesting, opinionated, environmental journalist for The Guardian. I have been reading his articles for a while now and his honest, rational approach appeals to me. Hope you agree.

Mr. W

2009-01-06T14:36:00.002Z

I really liked this advert. Hope you do too.

Loop Station

2008-12-22T11:04:00.006Z

Thought I would share this video with you. It is a girl called Julia Easterlin, singing on a loop station. Just watch it the whole way through (it gets good in the middle)... hope you like it too.

You tube is one of the most amazing websites ever- I worry to think how much time I have spend on that website. But when you find gems like this one- it makes it worthwhile.

3 mph round the world

2008-12-05T11:03:00.008Z

Just a short one to put you in touch with a friend of mine (and his newly acquired fiancé) who are "seeking physical and emotional challenges whilst circumnavigating the globe for 21 months" they are "using as many modes of transport as possible, with the exception of flying".

Their stories are very entertaining and the whole project seems fantastic. I hope you enjoy it. Here is the link:

http://www.3mphroundtheworld.com/

location, location, location?

2008-11-11T15:37:00.009Z

This is one of the most interesting and, I think, insightful articles I have read regarding the property market. Not being an expert, I wonder what the myriad of friends I have in this sector think about it... comments welcome.

Click here for the article .

Who would you be?

2008-10-19T14:41:00.016+01:00

One of my favourite authors is Malcolm Gladwell. He writes non-fiction; so far primarily within social sciences - psycology and sociology mainly. He has written three books: The Tipping Point (2000), Blink (2005) and Outliers (not out until later this month). He is also a journalist for The New Yorker.

Blink, the only one I have read so far was incredible [postscript: just finished The Tipping Point and Outliers see end of this blog for a brief update]. Gladwell describes the book on his website to be...

"a book about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye. When you meet someone for the first time, or walk into a house you are thinking of buying, or read the first few sentences of a book, your mind takes about two seconds to jump to a series of conclusions. Well, "Blink" is a book about those two seconds, because I think those instant conclusions that we reach are really powerful and really important and, occasionally, really good."

Although the above doesn't give much away, it hopefully provides an idea of the subject material he writes about. Within Blink alone, he draws on numerous fascinating examples to illustrate his ideas- each of which could be a story in themselves. He is very gracious- although a very original thinker himself, he never looks for praise or recognition of this, merely lifts other authors, scientists, artists etc. up on a pedestal and manages to convey just how interesting and incredible their findings are. He has a rare ability to explain complicated ideas and theories to the layman, perhaps only second, in my eyes to Richard Dawkins, who I am sure I will blog about soon.

My motivation for bringing his work up was a recent article he wrote for The New Yorker, entitled "Late Bloomers". If you have 5-10 minutes to spare, click on the link and have a read.

The article investigates society's habit of equating genius with precocity. it is often recalled how Mozart was composing music at the age of five and wrote his "breakthrough" Piano Concerto No.9 in E-flat Major at the age of twenty-one. Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, at the age of twenty-six (how inspiring yet how depressing), need I say more? He drew upon the work of an economist called David Galenson, who approached this subject scientifically... I will not spoil except to say that his conclusions are very interesting.

Having forwarded the article to a few friends, it sparked up the question: "If you could be any figure in history, who would you be and why?"

What a great question! Although... strictly speaking it is two questions, Cilla Black never realised this so I doubt others will kick up a fuss. It just occured to me... while we are on such a digression- what a brilliant question for Blind Date- I think you could interpret alot from someones answer to this.

I struggled to provide an answer, after all, how can one compare both between generations, often millenia, and between subject fields as varied as philosophy, science, literature, art, sport, etc... after being denied the request to provide multiple answers, each pertaining to a different field in a similar manner to the Nobel prizes, I initially reluctantly and later affirmatively gave my answer... Charles Darwin.

At first sight, perhaps not the most exciting of answers, but lacking a better way to approach the question, I chose to ask myself: what single figure in human history has contributed the most to humanity overall?

He answered one of the greatest questions that will ever be asked of a human being: where did we all come from? With the acquired detachment of four or five generations and with the distortion of hindsight, it is hard to comprehend the challenge that Darwin faced. In addition, It is also hard to comprehend the breath and depth of his findings- it impacted virtually every area of academia- specifically theology. Without such a discovery I imagine our lives, particularly within politics and leadership would be very different.

so.. that's my answer. who would you be?

postscript: The Tipping Point was, like Blink, very interesting. Unfortunately I found Outliers a bit stale. I recognised the formula used in Blink and The Tipping Point but this time it seemed a touch contrived. It still had moments of intrigue but the overall message was not as interesting as prior books- it essentially tells us that amazingly successful people are borne not from innate natural talent, but the combination of enough talent, good luck and lots and lots of hard work. Good but not great.

Amazing envelopes

2008-10-08T15:03:00.007+01:00

I read this great little piece on Harriet Russell in The Telegraph (Horatia Harrod). I copied it below.

As family traditions go, it's unusual. But Harriet Russell is only the latest in her family to seek to amaze and befuddle the men and women of the Royal Mail. Her great-great-great grandfather, Henry Ponsonby, was an eminent Victorian - a veteran of the Crimean War, private secretary to the Queen - who also had a hobby of embellishing the envelopes of the letters he sent with whimsical pictures. The addresses would appear as signposts in snowstorms or as huge envelopes shouldered by tiny people.

Russell's approach was more challenging. Over the course of a year, from her flat in Glasgow, she sent herself 130 envelopes with addresses in the form of anagrams, crosswords, tests for colour blindness, dot-to-dot puzzles, cartoons. The first one she sent was in mirror writing, and when it arrived back at her flat - in the same time it takes for a normal letter to arrive - she knew that somewhere at the Glasgow Mail Centre, someone had enjoyed her work. So she pressed on.

Although she worried about the project at times - 'I thought I might get a letter saying, please stop wasting our time by doing this,' she told me - there were many sustaining little victories. She never met any of her accomplices at the Post Office, but they seemed to be enjoying the game. The crossword she sent out was returned, filled-in, with the proud comment on the back, 'Solved by the Glasgow Mail Centre'. And ultimately only 10 of the letters she sent didn't make it back, among them a particularly testing anagrammatic one, and several that lacked a postcode (the key to getting any letter delivered, she learnt).

The man who reads dictionaries by Tom Geoghegan

2008-10-08T14:51:00.006+01:00

From the BBC news website:

Ammon Shea spent a year reading the Oxford English Dictionary - 20 volumes, 21,730 pages and 59 million words - and he rates poring over a dictionary as enriching as reading a novel. Why?

The prospect of talking to a man who reads dictionaries for fun prompts a sudden vocabulary-insecurity complex and a fear that every word he utters might sound like a painful medical condition.

But thanks to Ammon Shea's belief that long words only hinder conversations, there's no need to consult any dictionaries while he clearly explains his eccentric hobby. "I'm not against big words per se or fancy or obscure words, obviously I love them, but I'm opposed to using them for their own sake," he says. "If words are to form a communication, you use them as a tool to communicate to people and it's pointless to intentionally use a word that no-one else knows."

Mr Shea, a 37-year-old former furniture remover in New York, has spent 12 months conquering what he describes as the Everest of dictionaries, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), by ploughing through 20 volumes weighing a total of 137lbs.

In the process, he became the Morgan Spurlock of lexicologists, devouring words for eight to 10 hours a day, which caused him severe headaches, deteriorating eyesight and injuries to his back and neck. So why bother? "I've always enjoyed reading dictionaries and they are far more interesting than people give them credit for. And I think everything you find in a great book you would find in a great dictionary, except for the plot.

"All the normal emotions - grief, happiness and loss - exist in a dictionary but not necessarily in the order that you would think." If you come across a word like "remord" (to recall with a touch of regret) it's impossible to read that word without thinking of things that you regret yourself, he says, or to read "unbepissed" (not having been urinated on) without a chuckle.

"Knowing what to call something makes me more aware of that thing. For instance, it's not terribly useful for me to know that [the sound of] leaves rustled by the trees is a psithurism.
"I don't want to walk down the street with my girlfriend saying: 'Listen, there's a psithurism.' But knowing it means I pay more attention to it."

Similarly, knowing that "undisonant" is the adjective to describe the sound of crashing waves and that "apricity" is the warmth of the winter sun brings these things more often to mind.

"It's not easy to use them in conversation and so I enjoy them for their own sake. They are like one-word poems." Turning page after page of unfamiliar words made him sometimes feel like he was reading another language, he says. That was dispiriting but also intriguing, because it showed how rich and powerful the English language is.

But absorbing so much made Mr Shea lose his grasp on his normal vocabulary. He recalls being fascinated when reading the definition for the word "glove" before he realised it was a word he already knew.

"That happened frequently. I guess it gave me a useless large vocabulary and in the short-term I lost my normal vocabulary. I would go to the shop and forget the word for milk. Momentarily I'm looking for the cold, white stuff."

Mr Shea is not alone in his love of dictionaries. WH Auden waxed lyrical about them and Arthur Scargill said his father would read one every day because his life depended on the power to master words.

Thousands of avid Scrabble players read dictionaries looking for words, especially those with a high-scoring J, Q, X or Z, says Elaine Higgleton, editorial director of Collins Dictionaries. And crossword fans devour dictionaries for the same reason.

"We also have people writing to us who have been very interested in obscure words and obscure definitions.

"A student in Iraq was trying to learn English and he sat down trying to learn every word in the dictionary, starting at the beginning with A and working all the way through.
My father still reads the dictionary everyday. He says your life depends on your power to master words

"It's probably not the best way to learn English, and you'd learn many more than you would need."

But dictionaries are a wonderful source of learning about the origins of the English language, she says, and especially the Greek and Latin roots to many of the words. Collins, which records everyday language rather than all known words, is involved in a campaign to save some of the lesser-used words from being edited out of its future editions. Stephen Fry, for instance, has championed "fubsy", which means "short and stout".

"One of the nice things about dipping in and out of a dictionary is that although people are very comfortable with the vocabulary levels they have, there are some good fun words in there that offer an additional dimension of interest," says Ms Higgleton.

Some of Mr Shea's favourites garnered from the OED include "assy", which means behaving like an ass, and natiform, which means "buttock-shaped".

It's impossible to be intimidated by a dictionary that uses a word like assy, he says, and to pick one up and glance through one - rather than just opening one when in trouble with a word - can be a captivating experience.

And how much of what he has read has stayed between his ears? Throwing 10 semi-hard words ( from the OED at him, Shea correctly guessed five definitions. That's a considerably higher success rate than many of us would have scored, after reading 59 million words.

On your head be it...

2008-09-28T11:03:00.002+01:00

Okay, so for those of you that have not received Eliot's e-mail, this post concerns the issue of wearing bicycle helmets. I wear a bicycle helmet virtually every time I cycle. Although I have not previously analysed why I do this, off the top of my head I can identify two primary factors: the first is that general public opinion suggests that wearing a helmet reduces the chances of death or brain damage should I be in an accident. The second was that my mother, who is a consultant peadiatrician, has seen the victims of bicycle accidents and is convinced that helmets have saved the lives of numerous patients that have entered her hospital.

I imagine that I am one of many people to have followed such reasoning and while I believe it to be both understandable and reasonable, I must admit that it is that my decision was not logical in the truest sense of the word. In short, it is not based on educated, independent, unbiased reasoning- a process known as a full risk assessment.

One can not lead a normal life, as you and I understand it, fully evaluating the risk of every action. For most situations we use our judgment. For example, on deciding to cross a road on foot, one does not calculate the magnitude of the potential losses (one half of risk assessment) e.g. death, brain-damage, broken bones etc., and assign a value to each, then calculate the probability of each loss occurring (the second half of risk assessment) based on, in this case, traffic density, driving capabilities, athletic ability to dodge cars etc. and formulate a rational decision based these data. Instead, we, consciously or not, estimate... most of the time.

Eliot quite rightly brought up the issue that our estimates are often based on erroneous information. He provided an interesting graph (below- click on it to make it larger) showing the number of deaths per billion passenger kilometres for various transport types.

In other words, it shows the probability of dying by riding a motorbike one kilometre, compared to the probability of dying if walking 1km etc. and so on for each transport type.

This could be interpreted as "you are roughly 3 times as likely to die by riding a motorbike than you are if you walk". However, to gain perspective, and to understand the probabilities that we are dealing with, one can phrase it as "there is roughly a 1 in ten million chance that you will die if you choose to travel that 1km by motorbike, but a 1 in thirty million chance if you walk".

As Eliot noted, and as is commonly cited, traveling by plane results in (according to this) at least 26 times fewer deaths than traveling by car. It is important to note that this does not mean it is 26 times safer as the data only provides information on deaths.

So... returning to the topic in hand, it can be observed that probability of dying while cycling is on a par (it is in fact slightly higher) with the probability of walking. It is therefore understandable to suggest that since they are of roughly equal danger there should be as much (if not more- as the probability is slightly higher) encouragement for pedestrians to wear helmets as there is for cyclists. This is the basis of Eliot's argument and although the suggestion is understandable, I believe it is misleading, as I shall outline below.

Although there exist some academic peer-reviewed articles suggesting reasons not to use a helmet (provided in the link at the end), there is little doubt within the medical community that in the event of an collision, helmets themselves reduce the chance of sustaining a head injury and thus reduce the chance of death. The most widely-quoted case-control study, by Thompson, Rivara, and Thompson, reported an 85% reduction in the risk of head injury by using a helmet. However, as with most studies, critics exist. Suggestions that other factors were at play, for example, the cyclists that wear helmets ride more cautiously than those that do not. However, I am fairly sure that this is not the point Eliot disagrees with, so we can move on.

Now, although I am often victim to putting my helmet on far too early than is reasonably necessary, I have, as of yet, only heard of one pedestrian to wear a helmet (Eliot informed me of this person himself). However, I know of numerous cyclists that wear helmets religiously. While figures on helmet use vary (15%-80%), an estimate that 60% of cyclists in London wear helmets does not seem unreasonable. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the figures in the graph above would be different if I knew of only one cyclist that wore a helmet. The effect would surely be an increase in the number of deaths associated with cycling. I think it would be foolish to attempt to put a figure on the extent of this increase but I would not be surprised if it at the very least it moved cycling into '2nd place' on the graph above, thereby making cycling more dangerous than walking.

In addition to this, the data does not seem to account for demographics. Although I can provide no specific evidence as yet, I imagine that children who have not developed the foresight of adults, are more often on foot (chasing a ball in the street for example) than on their bicycles. There are even several years (~2-7 yrs old) when children have not learned to cycle but can put themselves in danger as a pedestrian perfectly well.

On the other end of the spectrum, I know of more elderly who walk than cycle. I assume that this demographic have both the reduced ability to quickly react thus avoiding an accident and (like small children now I think of it) an increased chance of dying, rather than being injured, should they be involved in a collision with a vehicle.

Now we are aware of the two key parts of risk assessment- 1. magnitude of potential losses and 2. probability that each will occur, we can make progress. For someone like him (and me) who cycles far further than they walk, the question that needs to be asked is not 'if pedestrians don't wear one, why should cyclists?' but instead should be 'by how much does wearing a helmet reduce the magnitude of potential losses (e.g. sustaining head injury or dying?)'.

Should the final magnitude of potential losses be calculated and the probabilities of each of them occuring be identified, it is only then that enough information exists to complete a risk assessment.

In Eliot's case, if we really want to narrow the issue down, we need to ask two questions:

Question 1: 'What is the probability of...a male, aged 25, whose frontal lobe (the part of the brain that provides the ability to recognize future consequences resulting from current actions) is likely to be still developing, who is known to suffer from anger in traffic, who (admittedly after looking) goes through red lights, who enjoys going fast, who occasionally cycles without hands, who is likely to be easily distracted by hot girls, on a bike with only one brake ...getting into serious accident"

and

Question 2: What are the magnitudes of potential losses with and without a helmet?

Question 2 is the important one. To which, as discussed, there is substantial evidence for proposing significant reductions in magnitude.

One final point, with respect to question 1- the fact that he has had no serious incident thus far (a point I am sure he is thinking as he is reading this), albeit interesting, is not particularly relevant since (as you will recollect) the level of the probabilities in question are so small (1 in many million) as is the time frame being considered (2 years- probably less than 600 journeys).

So... what conclusions? I hear you ask.

Well, yes... Eliot is correct in thinking that most of us have a distorted and often incorrect ability to perform risk assessment. I will include myself in the section of society that suffers from this- I would be lying if I said the thought of a plane crashing did not enter my head on every flight I have been on, yet I have been in many car journeys without thinking of car crashes. However, I must also include Eliot in this group, since in the process of evaluating the risk, he is asking the wrong questions.

In addition to this, the argument that once the risk is fully established, it is still up to the individual to decide whether to wear a helmet or not, since choice over one's life is a basic human right- is not as bulletproof as it first sounds.

It is after all one's family and friends that have to look after brain damaged victims, seeing individuals once full of life and promise, be incapable of performing basic bodily functions without help. So, one could say that choosing not to wear a helmet puts a burden on such people without having requested their permission. We are all in fact, actively encouraging him to wear one.

With all this being said, my reasons for wanting Eliot to wear a helmet are entirely selfish. Because, Eliot- if you were in an accident and died, I would really miss you... plus, who would I have to play mario kart with?

For more information, here is a link to an independent website that outlines all the arguments for and against the use of helmets for cycling.

and here is a PDF- with a summary of many academic articles on the subject.

"This is water, this is water"

2008-09-27T10:02:00.000+01:00

This is a copy of an article I read in The Guardian. I had not heard of David Foster Wallace before the news of his death. It is sad that the greatest exposure of his work arrived as a result of it. However, I must admit after reading this article I am definitely going to find more of his work. The situation reminded me of Van Gogh, who apparently only sold one painting while he was alive. It is strange how early, unexpected death often facilitates the promotion to iconic status- Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, JFK to name a few. It's a rather pessimistic attitude but perhaps this is because they have not had the opportunity for the quality of their work to decline, or one could apply economic theory- now the supply of their work is suddenly restricted, the demand for it increases. Whatever the case, I hope you enjoy this, I thought I was terrifically observant and motivational...

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"
If you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise old fish explaining what water is, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude - but the fact is that, in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have life-or-death importance. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. So let's get concrete ...
A huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. Here's one example of the utter wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely talk about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness, because it's so socially repulsive, but it's pretty much the same for all of us, deep down. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you've had that you were not at the absolute centre of. The world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, or your monitor, or whatever. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real - you get the idea. But please don't worry that I'm getting ready to preach to you about compassion or other-directedness or the so-called "virtues". This is not a matter of virtue - it's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centred, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.
By way of example, let's say it's an average day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging job, and you work hard for nine or ten hours, and at the end of the day you're tired, and you're stressed out, and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for a couple of hours and then hit the rack early because you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there's no food at home - you haven't had time to shop this week, because of your challenging job - and so now, after work, you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It's the end of the workday, and the traffic's very bad, so getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping, and the store's hideously, fluorescently lit, and infused with soul-killing Muzak or corporate pop, and it's pretty much the last place you want to be, but you can't just get in and quickly out: you have to wander all over the huge, overlit store's crowded aisles to find the stuff you want, and you have to manoeuvre your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts, and of course there are also the glacially slow old people and the spacey people and the kids who all block the aisle and you have to grit your teeth and try to be polite as you ask them to let you by, and eventually, finally, you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren't enough checkout lanes open even though it's the end-of-the-day rush, so the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating, but you can't take your fury out on the frantic lady working the register.
Anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, and pay for your food, and wait to get your cheque or card authenticated by a machine, and then get told to "Have a nice day" in a voice that is the absolute voice of death, and then you have to take your creepy flimsy plastic bags of groceries in your cart through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and try to load the bags in your car in such a way that everything doesn't fall out of the bags and roll around in the trunk on the way home, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive rush-hour traffic, etc, etc.
The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing comes in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm going to be pissed and miserable every time I have to food-shop, because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me, about my hungriness and my fatigue and my desire to just get home, and it's going to seem, for all the world, like everybody else is just in my way, and who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem here in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line, and look at how deeply unfair this is: I've worked really hard all day and I'm starved and tired and I can't even get home to eat and unwind because of all these stupid goddamn people.
Or if I'm in a more socially conscious form of my default setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic jam being angry and disgusted at all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUVs and Hummers and V12 pickup trucks burning their wasteful, selfish, 40-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers, who are usually talking on cell phones as they cut people off in order to get just 20 stupid feet ahead in a traffic jam, and I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and disgusting we all are, and how it all just sucks ...
If I choose to think this way, fine, lots of us do - except that thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic it doesn't have to be a choice. Thinking this way is my natural default setting. It's the automatic, unconscious way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I'm operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the centre of the world and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities. The thing is that there are obviously different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stuck and idling in my way: it's not impossible that some of these people in SUVs have been in horrible car accidents in the past and now find driving so traumatic that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive; or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to rush to the hospital, and he's in a much bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am - it is actually I who am in his way.
Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'm saying you're "supposed to" think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it, because it's hard, it takes will and mental effort, and if you're like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat-out won't want to. But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her little child in the checkout line - maybe she's not usually like this; maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband who's dying of bone cancer, or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the Motor Vehicles Dept who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a nightmarish red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible - it just depends on what you want to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important - if you want to operate on your default setting - then you, like me, will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying. But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars - compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: the only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.
Because here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship - be it JC or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles - is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things - if they are where you tap real meaning in life - then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already - it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness. Worship power - you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart - you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.
The insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the "rat race" - the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.
I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational. What it is, so far as I can see, is the truth with a whole lot of rhetorical bullshit pared away. Obviously, you can think of it whatever you wish. But please don't dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr Laura sermon. None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness - awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: "This is water, this is water."
· Adapted from the commencement speech David Foster Wallace gave to a graduating class at Kenyon College, Ohio