Superman No.1

Read the first edition of Action Comics, and the first Superman story scanned for you online: here.

Disconnection disconnections

How hard is it to cancel a service via modern company phone systems? I recently signed up for a contract with TalkTalk after discussion with a sales rep as to how it would cut my phone bill. After studying my phone bills in more detail and finding a £3.95 monthly charge that would appear after 3 months of use (no-one mentioned that) I decided to cancel. I rang TalkTalk several times during the 10 day cancellation period, each time choosing the options that would take me to the appropriate cancellation department. Each time I failed to get through to a real person because: 1) "sorry all our operators are busy right now, call again later" disconnected... 2) I was just randomly disconnected with or without being on hold, 3) "sorry but that international number is not recognised" disconnected (after connecting to the TalkTalk phone system). When I did actually get through to a real, live human being it was because I had not chosen the cancellation options, but picked sales. That's rather dodgy, isn't it? Of course that real live human person then had to transfer my call to the "cancellation department". The first time I actually got through to them (the third person I spoke to) there was no record of my contract yet, so they couldn't cancel it. The second time I was transferred to the Carphone Warehouse, and after holding for 8 minutes was told that they (of course) could not cancel a TalkTalk contract. I was given a direct number to the cancellation department. Could I get through? Not a hope. Days went by repeating these processes, and the 10-day window cam and went. I gave up trying, as I'm sure was the intention.

So now I am a TalkTalk customer. Oh, how happy am I?

I just rang Orange to cancel my contract. Well, actually I don't want to leave Orange entirely, just drop the contract and swap to pay-as-you-go because I use my phone much less now that I'm not commuting. So I carefully followed their phone system's options to take me to the cancellation department. Can you guess what happened? "At Orange we value your call and the quality of our customer service, and your call may be monitored and recorded for training purposes"... disconnected. Aaaaargh!

Sunny Mornings

I really didn't want to come in to work today. We'd had an excellent extended weekend and I was woken by Jack at about 7.15 this morning. I was nice and comfortable at home and Jack was really sad about the idea of me going to work for the day (I'll aim not to work too late this afternoon). By the time I had packed everything I needed for the day I really couldn't muster the energy to get on my bike. It was chilly too, with the suggestion in the air that September starts this week.

Nonetheless, I got on my bike and onto the cyclepath (after an unusual struggle to turn right on the road with car drivers uncertain of their ability to drive properly). The sun was out, the woods were bright and green, and I soon warmed up pedaling easily uphill. As usual, by the time I reached the sea I was feeling much better - awake and brighter. The tide was almost in, and the sea was flat calm. The sky was still blue, so it was very pleasant. I found myself looking forward to getting to my desk and preparing the next few weeks of teaching with a cup of tea.

So far all is going well. I think I must be lucky to enjoy my job, right?

Drop an iPod in the toilet and bring down a plane.

This is pretty nuts, and seems to be corroborated by Canadian press. A young man on a flight accidentally dropped his iPod in the toilet, which was noticed later. This caused the flight to take an emergency landing, all the passengers to be interrogated by customs, the police and the bomb squad, and the plane searched for explosive devices. Oh dear.

The guy was flying to meet a World of Warcraft buddy, so the whole story is on their forum. Read it here.

Long Weekend

I've been taking a nice long weekend. It's a bank holiday weekend that crept up on me, so I took advantage of it and extended it. My dad has been able to visit, and as I've been to the driving range quite a lot recently he took me out on a couple of rounds of golf on the local small par 3, which greatly improved my beginner's game, and then destroyed it by giving me too much advice on the driving range. It's all good advice but my tiny little mind can't cope with it all and my swing suffered. I'll work on one piece at a time and it'll all come good.

Next week our next batch of students start, so I've been keen to relax as best I can before it all kicks off again. The autumn term up until Christmas is very busy. It has been excellent to spend some time with Dad, & Jack has certainly enjoyed it too. My brother and his girlfriend popped down yesterday (2 hour drive each way - it's a good job he's a professional driver) so we all went to the beach to build sandcastles, play football and hunt around in rockpools. I think most of the family really enjoy the area in which we live and it'll be very nice to be able to play on some of the local golf courses (there are many) with my dad and my brother.

OK, so now I'm training for triathlon and playing golf. It should be interesting to see how that all gets fitted in, but it should balance my head nicely through the autumn.

Grandad's visiting

Swings!

Laptops

Thwack!

Running Music

I had an interesting idea a few weeks ago. I don't listen to my iPod when I'm running or cycling, but I know that many people do. Kim won't go without hers. I also know that interval training in both running and cycling are very important in developing speed and muscle energy systems. Running intervals once or twice a week also makes the run itself more interesting, and can be fun if your fitness is developing well. I have a watch that beeps at me to tell me when intervals start and stop, and the heart monitor lets me know if that I am exercising at the right level for that interval and for the subsequent recovery. For those that use MP3 players you should be able to do a similar thing with music. I'm sure someone must have implemented this already, but I'll explain myself anyway.

Someone could record a podcast, using favoured music of an appropriate tempo, and change tracks depending upon the speed or effort required for a particular section of the run. Fast music for fast intervals, slow music for the recoveries, the warm up and warm down. You could even add a vocal track, counting down to the end of the hard, fast section, encouraging you, or informing you how many intervals remained. I suppose famous sporting heroes could be asked to provide the vocal motivation, or to provide a podcast version of their favourite (or most hated) training sessions. This could be a free or cheap service for those that don't want to train with a heart monitor. You could even provide a series building up to the athlete's chosen event, say a 10km race or a marathon.

Just a thought.

Bat to work

I'm back in work again this week, as we have a week of resit exams for the first years. The first exam that I was involved in today had bats flying round the room half-way through. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come this week. We may have a plague of locusts by Friday.

We very carefully captured the bats. One was very tired, the other very maternal (mother, youth pair?) After reviewing the excellent information on the Bat Conservation Trust's website I decided to keep them safe during today in a cardboard box, and to come back this evening at dusk to release them. I hope this works. The "tired" bat seemed to have recouped some of its energy by the time I took this snap.

Teen Horror Films

I'm watching "House of Wax", and as usual I'm rooting for the killers. It must be my age, but the kids in these films annoy the hell out of me. They're rich, sexy, sex-focused, moronic, insensitive, stereotyped, serial-killer-fodder. I'm just glad the secretive nutters that prey on them keep coming up with new and interesting ways of killing them. It doesn't help that the psycho in this film looks like a short Ozzy Osbourne, making the chase scenes a little Benny Hill, and I keep expecting to see Scooby Doo sitting in amongst the waxworks hiding from the killer.

Should I be worried about this (not the Benny Hill thing, the rooting for the killers thing)? I think I just see through the Hollywood tricks (direction, camera work, special effects, etc) too easily unless the film draws me in properly. The George Romero nods at the beginning didn't help with that. Truly original horror films still freak me out.

Plasticine

I'm working from home for a few days this week (I'm supposed to be taking holiday, so this is maybe a compromise) to spend more time with Kim and Jack. This is what they do on rainy days - they make plasticine BMW's.

Time Off Work

Burying Jack on the beach.

Fishing with Kim for bass.

Building sand castles.

Saw this in the car park. Religion *and* a sense of humour?

Green Machine Reborn

Some of you may remember this frameset. It just got rebuilt with a new Campag Mirage groupset and Campag Khamsin wheels for a cheap revamp to become a training bike. It's a steel 853 frame, and it's heavy, but so am I. This is about as clean as it will ever be, as I'm about to take it out for a wet 30km intervals set.

Kim pointed out that the bottom of the forks are rusted and bubbling the paint around the brazing holes, so I had better be careful over the cattle grids. Sounds like I need a new pair of carbon forks and a new headset too. Ouch.

Bristol Zoo

Today we went to Bristol Zoo. It was rather good. The lions even woke up and roared for us as we were about to leave.

Follow that caravan

Ace. Read this article about a guy in a microlight chasing a stolen caravan after he watched it getting nicked from above.

Link.

Mass

I've been picking up the triathlon training over the last 5 or 6 weeks. You may remember that I was getting very bored, so starting running again seemed like a good idea. My various injuries seem to be staying down so far, and running is good. Swimming and cycling have been picking up too, and it feels really good to be able to do what I used to do.

Anyhoo, my daily calorie burn has increased by 400-500 calories a day on average, and my eating habits have changed so I'm taking in fewer calories. Naturally this meant that I dropped 4kg in a few weeks, but now my weight has leveled off, and I even put 0.5kg back on this week. Of course I'm still burning fat, and this weight increase is caused by an increase in muscle mass (muscle weighs more than fat for volume), but it's still weird.

Swansea Wikis

Swansea. Would you like to know more?

www.globalguide.org/wiki/index.php?title=Gower_Peninsula
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swansea

Jacks recent moblog pics

Running around on the climbing frame.

Jack's skeleton costume.

Really heavy rain showers in Swindon.

Building big cranes with Dad.

In the stocks.

Landis' Testosterone

I'm a little slow to catch up, because I've been involved in a number of things recently, but I've been reading up on Floyd Landis' failed drug test. If you haven't heard, the winner of this year's Tour de France failed a test for testosterone levels after his stage win that put him back within reach of the yellow jersey.

I understand some of the science behind the test, in that an athlete's ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone is measured and calculated. Normally epitestosterone production levels shadow testosterone levels, so the ratio is around 1:1. Exogenous testosterone added by injection or patch does not affect the levels of epitestosterone, so the ratio shifts in favour of testosterone. The UCI's limits for bike racing are at 4:1. Landis' ratio was at 11:1.

There are a number of things that really don't add up for me here.
- Firstly, other than methods of quantifying it for drug testing, I don't think epitestosterone is that well understood. Its functions, sites of synthesis or biosynthetic pathways have not been conclusively determined (as far as I am aware) and natural variations in quantity do occur (J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 2003 Oct;87(1):27-34). Those facts would make it a little worrying to me to use within a doping test.
- It is well known that doping tests compare testosterone levels with epitestosterone levels, so why do athletes get caught if testosterone doping is masked by epitestosterone injections? Are professional athletes stupid, or is it just a small mistake at the wrong time?
- Testosterone would not give an overnight improvement in ability. As an anabolic steroid, it is difficult to see how testosterone would account for the difference between Landis' bad day on stage 16 and his great day on stage 17 (although they way the journalists write they certainly suggest that it would). For testosterone to have any useful affects it would need to be taken for a long period of time, so what do all of Landis' other testosterone tests show? He has been racing successfully for a number of years, and will have been regularly tested.
- Landis is recorded as having drunk whiskey after his stage 16 disaster. It has been documented that ethanol ingestion affects the testosterone:epitestosterone ratio (J Chromatogr B Biomed Appl. 1996 Dec 6;687(1):109-16; Clin Chem. 1988 Jul;34(7):1462-4.) Evidence for the defense or a safety-line?

I'll assume him innocent until proven guilty, but whichever way it falls international cycling has disappointed me again.