Archive for August, 2024

Ender’s Game is a science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card. I was looking around for more science fiction (I love Asimov and really enjoyed Blade Runner recently) but I wasn’t sure about this one. Sounded all about war and fighting. But it was recommended by so many sources that I thought I would give it a go.

It was excellent. I really enjoyed it. There was quite a lot of fighting in it. But it didn’t get in the way of a good story. Ender is a very likeable character, in my opinion, faced with difficult moral choices. It is easy to forget that he is a child, which itself adds another layer of complexity to the rights and wrongs of the situation.

Bunratty Castle is a castle and folk park that is open to the public. Folk parks are living museums where traditional buildings have been relocated and are often populated with staff playing characters and or demoing 19th century trades. We’ve done St Fagans and Ulster and this one was also good.

Ulster was excellent: great role-plays and lots of cool stuff. But it was quite spread out. Bunratty was all a little more compact and the map was spot on so it was easy to find your way around.

I finished the namely challenge! I was the last letter I needed to spell my name. It’s a lovely parkrun: along the banks of the estuary, trail, plenty of shade and friendly.

Thorp Perrow is an estate near Bedale. The parkrun is almost entirely off-road. There are bits of track but moatly you’re running across grassy fields. It makes it quite aoft underfoot, and therefore hard work, and I imagine much more difficult in winter. So not a PB course but a beautiful one. Nice cafe, too.

History, countryside, ice cream. Yorkshire at its best.

Last time we went to Flamingo Land, we were the only people there. And it was lovely. This time, there were lots of other people there and it was annoying. Especially as it costs £49 to come in summer, and is much cheaper in winter. Still, we struggled on.

It is the first time Venla has come with us and she had lots of fun on the rides. Plus we got to see the black rhinos, white rhinos and hippos, as well as lots of other fun animals.

Classic British garden party. We put the gazebo up to protect ourselves from the sun. Then it lashed it down. Then it was too hot again. It was a lovely day, great to catch up with people, and eat a lot of cake.

What a games! I have such good memories of watching London 2012 and Rio 2016 was a superb performance from Team GB. In comparison, Tokyo 2020 was a little deflating because everything was on in the middle of the night and you would just wake up to see what happened. So, when Paris rolled around and back in our kind of timezone, I cleared my schedule to watch.

In fairness to the organisers, they were brave in trying to do something different with the opening ceremony. But it wasn’t my favourite part. The athletes parade is long enough when they are walking, let alone when you put them on a barge. And stuff needed faster cuts. That horse was running down The Seine for like five minutes. Just get Danny Boyle to direct it next time.

The water quality in The Seine was also an issue. But people in glasses houses and all that. The UK struggles with water pollution and there were similar problems in Rio.

Everything else was brilliant. The venues were beautiful. It was right in the heart of historic Paris. The Eiffel Tower was ever-present and made for some amazing finish lines. And world records were broken in a slow pool. I tried to take in as much as possible. At one point with the gymnastics on the TV, golf on my laptop and road cycling on my phone. I was pretty Olympic-fatigued by day 14.

Overall, we can be really proud of Team GB. Seventh in the medal table is a low finish for us. Japan is arguably on a post-hosting bounce, and similarly France were the hosts. But we would want to beat Netherlands and Australia. Some things just didn’t go our way with Josh Kerr, Matt Hudson-Smith, Beth Shriever, Beth Potter, Kimberley Woods and others narrowly missing out on gold. And it would have been great to see Kate French try to defend her title. But there were plenty of success stories, too: Alex Yee and Tom Pidpock both made amazing comebacks. Bryony Page smashed it, Keely Hodgkinson was a dominant as everyone expected and Nathan Hales set a massive new Olympic record in trap. Also, Toby Roberts is Spiderman.

So, despite being seventh, if you rank it in terms of total medals, we’re third behind the US and China. We have one first place, back in 1908 but by Atlanta in 1996 we were down to 36th place with just one gold and 15 total medals. Compare that to 14 golds and 65 medals in Paris. The BBC has a good breakdown. Many of our Olympic athletes are trying to fit training in around working full-time. When we fund British athletes, we unlock their potential and we win medals.

It’s a shame that Discovery+ own the rights. The BBC’s coverage of London 2012 was much better, whereas Discovery+ has consistently bad service and technical problems.

Two weeks until the Paralympics. We’re consistently the second strongest nation in the Paralympics, after China, so let’s hope we can keep that streak going.

The Suspect is a murder mystery novel by Rob Rinder and the second in the Adam Green series. It’s a fun read and I enjoyed it.

Cycle Against Suicide is a mental health charity. I recently took part on their King of the Castle Sportif which had celebrity guest Sean Kelly leading the ride. Kelly has four green jerseys at the Tour de France and red jersey from La Vuelta and is now one of the leading cycling commentators.

I have taken my bike outside about a dozen times since IRONMAN Copenhagen two years ago, so I signed up for the 65k rather than the 120k, and even then this was a lot further than I have ridden this year. I was nervous after having so many problems with getting my bike fixed.

They did a neutralised rollout at the start with motorbikes stopping cars at junctions and keeping everyone together. It was a bit chaotic but no crashes and felt very pro. The first half was lovely. There was one small hill but otherwise it was relatively flat. And was the ride went on, the rain lifted and the weather became much nicer.

I was following everyone else but my GPS said we were off course. I discussed it with a few other riders and everyone agreed we were on the right road. I decided to slow down and stick with the group so that I would have some local knowledge around me. After all, my GPS was clearly not reliable because it was saying we were on the wrong road when everyone agreed we were on the right road.

We were on the wrong road. But we managed to find our way to the feed stop. After some lunch, there was another rollout and we headed back down the coast. The view was lovely but it was also into a headwind and I started feeling pretty bad. I just stuck with it and tried to eat some more. At 10k to go, my nightmare scenario did happen and the rear tyre lost pressure entirely. Luckily, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been: I was able to pump some more air into it and it held foe the remaining ride. But there is clearly still a problem there.

Overall, a lovely chilled out event. With a burger included at the end as well.