Author Archives: essiep

Roberts Sound 66

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8°C, clear but still damp.

DAB/iPod clock radio: ‘Tis a shame that it’s faulty. The sound is smooth, it’s reasonably easy to set up and has some nice detail features- you can set the alarm for one-off, daily or weekdays. That’s neat, I only need to switch off the alarm for each holiday instead of each weekend.

Roberts 66

The sound quality is good, certainly better than my old clock-radio. It’s a little rich and bloated in the bass & lower mid-range but there is an equaliser setting to hide the worst of this. It really needs a treble tweeter to add sparkle to the sound though.

Helen

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12°C, rain;

Film: Helen, An enigmatic film about the disappearance of a young girl. Shot with full use of wide-screen format, Tarkovsky’s reach has made it here, but with vivid colour and contemporary 20thC townscapes. The dialogue is measure, understated and full of space.
I’m not sure what happened but perhaps sleeping on it would help, or maybe another viewing.
I can imagine many people hating this one. Some actors seemed a bit stilted delivering their dialogue, perhaps the slow measure style didn’t always suit their voice- we all have a natural pace in our speech & the director needed to actors who speak slowly. On the other hand, some people do speak in an awkward way, people who are not destined to have a career in broadcasting or performance.
See Guardian’s review HERE

 

Abundance of caution

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14°C, grey, dry

playtime in Pripyat

Fix, mend, repair: that’s what holidays are really for. Today it was the shower’s turn to mend. The door has new runners and it’s all smooth running now. Did a few other things too boring to post here (as if my shower is interesting).

Oh, and my twisted knee is on its way too- I can walk on it. I felt nothing on a quick session with the turbo-trainer, no pain, no stiffness, nothing. I must be cautious though.

Ripped & pulled

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14°C,Wet warm & windy

camped in the lee of woods, winds gusting above 30mph

Poor attempt at a few day’s hiking this week. All I have is some very wet kit and a torn ligament. The ligament ripped in a motorway service station not somewhere heroic like a mountain side. If I’d been on a mountain, I would not have been wearing my smooth-soled driving shoes. If I’d been on a mountain, I would have needed rescuing, that state it’s in.
Then what? I was pulled over by the police for suspected no-insurance. She phoned my insurance company and they confirmed that I’m covered. Good outcome; but how many times will I get pulled before the Police database is updated?

Arrow: like new

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3°C, clear & the sun’s coming up.

freshly unwrapped.

New bike: well, it cost as much as a new one, it looks new and I’ve got to put it together today. That latest cold is guilty of stopping my cycling for over two weeks now.

I’m starting to get annoyed at the poor WordPress service, this morning I have made 3 attempts to complete a post started yesterday which resulted in no response from WordPress’s servers.

Buying stuff

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8°C, showers clearing.

Collecting the bike after its re-spray. It’s going to cost big monies, about £100 more than I thought. High up on my wants list is a laptop computer too, but I don’t get paid for another week.

 

Hawthron berries

Blogging: I haven’t posted much recently, not because I have run out of ideas but because WordPress is unreliable. Too many times i have tried to post and the server has not responded, it’s as unreliable as MS Live’s service was & they shut that down.. This is frustrating.

Notorious

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12°C, clear.

Hitchcock film (1946): Strange how they used to make them. Cary Grant’s performance was the big puzzle for me- he was an actor right? that means he was paid to act- not just read out his lines. Or is that how they did things back in the 40s? It felt, to me, like I was watching a football manager talking, all I wanted was for the guy to say it as if he meant it. It’s true that modern films from the US are typecast, full of unadventurous clichés and mostly un-creative; but so was this- from a master director too. I didn’t dislike the film overall, but Cary Grant’s performance was hopeless.

Single speed, two wheels

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12°C, clearing, ENE winds:

Should I order a new bike when I get that winter bike back? I’m considering a frame with track drop-outs which mean it would have a hub-gear (like a modernised sturmey-archer) or even a single speed rear wheel. With such a frame it’s easy to swap wheels to get a change of gearing- it’s even possible to use a fixed wheel. the big advantage is reliability and a large saving in weight. Dérailleur gears are over a kilogramme heavier and less reliable. So, it’s fairly easy to think up reasons to get one. The next problem is where to get one- mine needs a 59cm top-tube. Otherwise my knees hit the handlebars or toes catch the front wheel.

 


Single speed bike

Fixed wheel bikes are dead trendy right now-especially in London ( but it is flat there- so a natural choice). All this machine needs is a change of bars, add a rack/guards & it’s ready to go.
Shopping round it’s priced at £350, if it fits, I’ll have one.