A beautiful afternoon and I wanted to escape from work at about 1500, and do a fondo. Then someone thoughtfully invited me to a meeting at 1700.

So instead I thought I'd take an extended lunch at about 1300 and do maybe 35 miles or so. A light wind was coming from the east, roughly, so the plan was to do about 18 miles of the eastbound route, then come back.

After about four miles, I entered Loughborough Road as usual, only to find that it had been "resurfaced", if I can dignify what they've done with the term, by having a huge quantity of dusty, sharp gravel piled onto it. I tolerated it for about 150 metres or so then decided to turn back. My tyres were liberally coated in grey dust.

I'll have to avoid Loughborough Road for a while, but fortunately there are other options for that part of the route.

I went west along the Coalville bypass then past Sinope and north through Peggs Green and Griffydam, up Top Brand. Rather than pursue the eastbound route I did a sort of loop through Belton, Long Whatton, Diseworth - just following my nose - and came back down Top Brand. Then west along Alton Hill, to Ashby then Packington, then Normanton Road to Heather, which I don't think I've done for at least two years. Back home via Ibstock, on 37.81 miles, in plenty of time for the meeting.

Really nice out there, warm and sunny. I trialled a pair of cycling shorts in a garish black and green colour scheme that were a Christmas present from Stepdaughter 2. You'd think I'd get a bit of credit for this from her mother but no, she just wanted to point out that they look ridiculous with a black and red cycling top. I suppose I need to buy a new top, I don't really have one that goes with it.

https://www.strava.com/activities/11432305648

Quote from: Slim on April 16, 2024, 07:35:29 PM

Quote from: Slim on March 21, 2024, 03:35:16 PMJust had a call from Vision Express. They've broken my Oakley cycling frames.

Cross-posted that from the "grumpy" thread with happier news. They refused to replace them, but offered a new pair of frames up to £80 in value (ie inferior). After an argument in the store - their manager lied to my face, claiming I'd been told they were likely to break and this would be at my own risk - I gave up and accepted, but I put a powerfully negative review on Trust Pilot.

Their complaints department contacted me to apologise, offered to replace the Oakleys with the original Oakley frames and told me I could keep the ones I'd already accepted as replacements - which actually I quite like. So I've ended up with a free pair of specs.

Just picked up my free Oakleys from Vision Express - very nice! Same as the old ones except black instead of blue / grey.

Wordle 1,063 4/6*

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2 mins exactly.

I haven't used VNC for a long time, I only ever used it to access Windows systems at work. As a desktop VNC client I used Remmina, worked well enough.

For my own Linux VMs I only use command line (SSH) now but when I did need a GUI environment I used virt-viewer, which is the built-in remote desktop solution for KVM VMs.

There was a really good Linux remote desktop solution that I used to use to login to my home Linux desktop from work in the noughties called NoMachine, https://www.nomachine.com/

Haven't tried it for years but it was really quick and responsive.

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25 seconds. And it still took four goes.

Helped myself to a bit of retro LCD fun. At £8.25 including delivery on eBay, I was half expecting it to be a fake!



_{.. and actually, it is}

Wordle 1,061 4/6*

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A minute or so.

Showers were forecast for the afternoon at about 1600 but I was keen to add some distance to the May tally, so I resolved to tolerate it. Last time I did that, instead of the light shower I expected, I got rained on for half an hour. This time, I didn't get rained on at all! The sky went ominously dark grey for half an hour at about 1630, but it didn't follow through on its threat.

A bit windy, not quite so warm as of late. I did a Twycrosser, with the added twist that I went east to Kirkby Mallory after Cadeby, to take in the last 12 miles of the return leg of the southbound route.



Back on 41.86. 318 this month now which is more than good enough for half way through May.

https://www.strava.com/activities/11411543098

This is a photo that I took in Wales in March, on the Pembrokeshire coastal path.



The camera (actually a Samsung phone) was only about 20 - 30 metres above sea level when this was taken. But I wondered if I'd be able to see the curve of the horizon if I compressed the pic sideways, like this (image is cropped but shows the whole breadth of the first image):



Although it's tempting to blame the curvature present in the image on lens distortion, I don't think that's the case here. The horizon was actually slightly below the centre of the image, so any barrel distortion would tend to suppress the curve, not exaggerate it. However I have no idea how to do the maths for the degree of curvature you'd expect to see from that elevation. So I suspect that is just an exaggerated view of the Earth's curvature.

Anyone any thoughts?

The "Arsenal Ultras" on a special forces mission:

https://twitter.com/AwayDays_/status/1790260639018918369

Update from Sam Altman -

Wordle 1,060 4/6*

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6 or 7 mins. Sneaky one.

3:5

I'd got about halfway through this one thinking it was below par, but it picks up nicely after that. There's an overlong sketch about the Fire Brigade in the first half that's pleasingly, very imaginatively surreal without being overly funny. Graham Chapman appears blacked up in full tribal dress in this one, doing a comedy West Indian accent.

I don't remember ever having seen this episode though I think I must have. But lots of the material from the latter half is familiar from the albums - especially a dialogue between Idle and Palin, in which Idle plays someone who can't say the letter C, and substitutes B instead. The line "What a silly bunt", present on the Live at Drury Lane version is not present here. Idle goes into a long, ranting monologue about package holidays and Watney's Red Barrel, again fondly remembered from the live album. Must have taken him weeks to memorise. Classic Eric Idle material.

I think the closing piece, regarding Anne Elk's theory on brontosauruses, is also present on one of the albums. Certainly I remembered that one very well.

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About half an hour!

If they get beaten on the last day, Forest will stay up with 29 points.