In praise of hi-viz

I have a new hat. It is awesome. In fact, it's so completely awesome that it's worthy of it's very own blog post.

I saw it across a crowded room and it was love at first sight in the Sealskinz catalogue, paid my £11 and eagerly awaited its arrival, like an over E-numbered toddler on Christmas eve waiting for Santa. And I waited. And I waited some more. WHERE WAS MY FUCKING HAT?!?! After some time T (where T > one sodding month) , and having almost given up hope that it would ever arrive, it came.

What a day that was. I seriously considered organising a parade in celebration.

Here is what I look like in my FUCKING AMAZING HI-VIZ ORANGE HAT:

Note: THE JOY. That's hi-viz joy, that is.

I have since discovered a multitude of uses for this hat. (Well, for the pedants out there, technically only one use, namely "as a hat", but "as a hat" in many, many different situations).

SCULLING!

RUNNING ABOUT!

PROGRAMMING! WRITING BLOG POSTS!

IN THE LIBRARY!

FORMAL OCCASIONS!

Fucking DANCING!

Annnnd breathe.

But yes, me and my orange hat are having a wonderful time together. I've got the feeling we have a lovely future ahead of us :-)


Rant time

Talking of running, why if you were, say, walking down the pavement in a line with your friends and saw someone running towards you, would you continue on you previous trajectory AND NOT MOVE OUT THE GODDAM WAY? I mean, it's not like they didn't have much warning - I had the equivalent of a massive orange beacon on my head, so why do people just stand there with a slightly perplexed expression on their face?

I'm sure Darwin would have something to say on this matter. If you don't have enough sense to move out the way when something with a lot of momentum is hurtling towards you (note the use of the word 'momentum' instead of 'speed'...hmm... :-s) then to be honest you deserve to get runned into. And I'm wearing a fucking awesome orange hat so am definitely going to come out of the collision better than you.

I wish this was allowed.

 And it's not like this happens occasionally - it happens ALL THE TIME. What is wrong with people?

Bloody. Muntering. Pedestrians.

Oh, I did have a moment of glory though when someone pushing a bike in front of me turned suddenly. 

It was BEAUTIFUL. (Well, if you've ever met me you'll know that graceful is one of the last adjectives you'd ever chose to describe me, so that bit is a lie. But it was still pretty cool.) Turns out that jumping over stuff is pretty good fun.

Watch this space for stories of me failing to clear gates/drystone walls/parking meters etc. and the resultant EPIC FACE-PLANTING :-D

There was also the incident with the Ugg boots at the station.

So there I was, innocently disembarking the train avec one panniered-up bike. Walking towards the ticket barriers, ticket ready, like you do. There's this middle aged woman in front of me, wearing some very pristine suede coloured Ugg boots. She eventually sees the ticket barriers so just fucking stops and starts faffing around looking for her ticket. I obviously can't react that fast so there was a small bike-Ugg boot collision. She then precedes to turn around an have a massive go at me, mainly due to the fact I had got some mud on her beloved Ugg things.

Yes, that's right. I had got mud on her FUCKING SHOES. I mean, how dare I? What a contemptible human being I am. Getting mud on people's shoes. Sure there's something in the fucking Human Rights Act about that.

Now, I'm afraid to say that I did the very British thing and apologised even though it wasn't my fault with boiling rage inside. I would have dearly loved to have done this:

I am not a fan of Uggs. I almost choked when I first discovered just how expensive they were. Just buy some decent walking boots and save yourself the ankle/knee/pelvis problems. Or just do what everyone else does, whatever.

I do LOVE a good rant me.

Some reasons why clingfilm is great

I recently had the inspired idea of wrapping my mp3 player in clingfilm when running/erging to save it from death-by-sweat. Works pretty damn well - I recommend it! You can also sneakily attach your house key to the back of said mp3 player so you don't then have to run with a bunch of keys.

I also found that it's good for (a) covering up your smoke detector if you burn the toast and (b) as a bandage when you're a retard and cut your finger chopping onions:

Blood: CONTAINED

I think it's supposed to also be good for covering up burns.*

*NHS Direct says so. Must be true.

So there we go. You can wrap up your lunch with it AND prevent getting blood everywhere.

THIS PUBLIC HEALTH ANNOUNCEMENT WAS BOUGHT TO YOU BY ANNA RAILTON, THAT TRUSTED SOURCE OF MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE.

*RANDOM CARTOON SECTION* 

FINALLY finally finally (this has been a rather sporadic one, sorry), I chanced upon these cartoons by Christopher Berry (who is much better at drawing then I am), and well, I liked their absurdity. And he said I could put some on here, so I am :-) (thanks Chris!)

Mmmm. CurlyWurly.

Poke weird things with a stick. Important life lesson right there.

If you want any more, tell me and I'll badger him get drawing! :-D