Wordle 1,253 6/6*

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10 mins.

Not so cold today, about two degrees warmer, or less cold, than Wednesday. The wind was coming from the west and I thought I'd do the same as last time, but maybe not so far. Down the western leg of a Twycrosser, and back up the same way.

Well, when I got out there, unfortunately, conditions felt worse than Wednesday. I was definitely colder, despite the modest uplift in air temperature. The bright sunshine made a lot of difference, last time. Also I found that I didn't really feel like coming back the same way again. So I decided I'd do a regular Twycrosser.



However .. by the time I'd reached Sheepy Magna the sun had come out, the roads had dried up a bit and conditions were generally a lot more accommodating. How to extend the ride? My first thought was to go east to Kirkby Mallory and come up through Bagworth and Ellistown. But that would mean a cold headwind after Bagworth. So I looped back to Sheepy, pedalled north all the way to Measham then went west for a bit of the "Lower Westbound" route. Before I got as far as Acresford, I hung a right toward Ashby through Willesley. Not sure if I'd ever been along that stretch between Acresford and Ashby before. Not for years if I have, anyway. Back the usual way from Ashby.

I listened to 5 Live.

Back on 62.65km.

Glad to have clocked up 179km on the Boardman without a flat tyre. The front wheel is still spinning nicely without a wobble, as well.

https://www.strava.com/activities/12958682503

Wordle 1,252 5/6*

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About 6 mins.

I had the idea of sneaking my own guitar solo onto an old big band tune, like The Good Life or Fly Me To The Moon.

I'd more or less decided to use Sinatra's version of The Good Life, but Tony Bennett's is a bit slower so I decided to use that one. The plan was to take the vocal off one of the verses using AI and substitute guitar. But: it's very short and the song just won't work with half the vocal missing. So ..

I split the tune into vocal and music parts using https://vocalremover.org/ and loaded both the tracks into Audacity. Then I repeated the first verse (there's a sort of verse - verse - chorus structure, so it's now verse - verse - verse - chorus). Then I muted the vocal for the second verse (actually Tony comes in with the vocal a couple of beats before the split point so it wasn't quite that straightforward). So it's now 3 mins 10 seconds long instead of 2 mins 15 seconds, with a nice instrumental backing section to play over. It was really seamless, sounds very natural.

The hard part of course is recording a guitar solo over a beautiful old classic that doesn't sound like a crime against music. Fingers crossed.

Wordle 1,251 2/6*

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Surprised when that came up all green .. 15 secs or so.

Some of my favourite YouTube comments under the ad:

I'm sorry what exactly are we trying to sell with this ad? Elevators, rocks, or being gay on Mars?

Is this an ad for a car company or a discount fashion store for 12 year old girls? 

They decided to appeal to their predominantly male audience by portraying a man in a pink dress wearing lipstick.

Imagine if you just bought a Jag last week.

More like DRAGuar, how about no 

Tell me what to wash my eyes with to forget this? This is definitely too much. I don't want to have anything to do with this. I'm putting up for sale my XF this weekend. Goodbye Jag. 

I don't know why everyone is hating on this beautiful expression of art, progress and social justice. My wife's boyfriend loves it as well.

Olympic 2024 opening ceremony part 2

Absolutely ridiculous. What the fuck are they thinking?

This is their "Head of Brand Strategy", which I think pretty much explains it.

Sunset tonight was 16:04 here. A the moment we're losing about 1 min 15s of afternoon daylight per day, but that's slowing down. By 5th December, sunset gets earlier by less than 30 seconds each day.

The earliest sunset here will be on 13th December. The sun sets 4 seconds later the next day.

A very cold day, about 1C. But sunny. I hoped I could tolerate the temperature long enough for 40km or so. I thought I'd do a shortish version of the Twycrosser.

Well, when I actually got out there, I found that the conditions were more than tolerable. Unexpectedly, it turned out to be quite an enjoyable ride. Bright sunshine helps a lot. Actually really nice out there.

So I did a Twycrosser, with a brief excursion down the Dad's Army route (maybe I should stop calling it that? I don't know how many people read these but no doubt some find it baffling). I turned at Old Grendon, but instead of continuing the usual loop to the east and back up, I just went back up exactly the way I'd come down. An - if you will - Double Half Twycrosser.

Took the pic near Alton Hill and annoyingly, I got mud and snow stuck in my right cleat so it wouldn't clip in properly, which made the hill more of a challenge than usual.

Back before sunset. I could have stayed out longer. I did have lights. But my thumbs and toes were starting to get a bit cold. It had been a nice ride. I didn't want to spoil it.



Back on 58.93. It's looking like I might be able to match last year's distance total, 10321k. Depends what the weather's like in December. 9582 done in 2024 so far.

Listened to more of Boris Johnson's Unleashed. Right up there with Pete Townshend's book as one of the best memoirs I've ever read. Or listened to.

https://www.strava.com/activities/12945145075

Wordle 1,250 3/6*

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Took a bit of thinking .. about 10 minutes.

Quote from: pxr5 on November 19, 2024, 12:54:30 PM^ I see he's suing his local council - er right, that's going to work - not! Yep an idiot.

In saying that I managed to lock myself out of 3 Raspberry Pis yesterday after installing and enabling ufw whilst forgetting to allow port 22 through. I had to mount the drivers elsewhere to edit the ufw  config files to disable temporarily.

Couldn't you just attach a screen and keyboard?

Quote from: Slim on November 19, 2024, 11:52:06 AMCold out there .. I shall keep this afternoon's bike ride to a bare minimum.

I've chickened out, the roads are too wet. Tomorrow perhaps.

Cold out there .. I shall keep this afternoon's bike ride to a bare minimum. Very light snow when I took this 90 minutes ago. Stopped now.

I'm at Newcastle City Hall, at a Ben Elton gig. It's the present day. I remark to my companion that I hope he doesn't spend the whole gig bashing the Tories. We're near the front.

Ben comes on. He's just not funny. He looks serious. After the first two minutes he steps down in front of the stage and sits in a rocking chair to continue his act. I can still hear him speaking, although he's nowhere near the mic. I realise he has a lapel mic on.

Wordle 1,249 5/6*

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Good one, about 6 mins. I was baffled for a minute or two I must admit. Couldn't even imagine a word to fit for the 4th go.