Contrails

I suddenly realise I haven't posted in a horrendously long time.

I'm currently sitting in an apartment after a relatively stress-free day at work while the rest of my team are still at the office beavering away on their own tasks - I'm doing the user training, which tends to mean fairly strict start and end times and everything is prepared well in advance for a change so there's no need to develop tomorrow's course tonight.

I'm also looking through a load of photos I took yesterday while on safari (oh yeah I guess I should mention I'm in Kenya. It's a tough job this, but someone has to do it). OK so they'll be the standard set of clichéd shots taken by many tourists before and after me, but hopefully there will be some good ones which I can post when I am back home.

In the meantime, here's a shot I got while on holiday in the Peak District earlier this year. There's a lot of conspiracy theories on contrails if you search around a bit.

Driving to Work

I've been driving to work recently, now that I found out I have somewhere safe park. Do like my reserved spot?

Actually, no, I haven't been given a huge bonus (this photo was taken in Switzerland, not London). Instead, the company who manage the office at work have announced that there are two parking bays in the car park reserved and free for use just for bikes - the motorbike kind, not the pedal kind.

This is a bit of a surprise as I'm sure we asked a year or two back and were told we'd have to pay.

Anyway, now that summer is finally here and I can leave my bike safe in the knowledge it will be there when I return, I can arrive and leave at times that suit me and save a bit of money too, rather than relying on the trains all the time.

EDIT: I wrote the above last night and was thinking about it again while riding in this morning: I realised that, if anything, driving is actually more expensive than the train. A weekly train ticket costs something like £92 - call it a round £19 a day. Driving costs £13 a day in petrol, tyres add maybe £8 a day (really! A pair costs nearly £300 and will last possibly 4000 miles, which is about 35 daily commutes), while general servicing and wear and tear add even more. Who would've thought the train would be the cheaper option?

State of the nation (2)

It's not often I read a newspaper. This week though I've had a couple of free copies of The Times and a particular story in Thursday's edition, about proposed changes to the driving test, caught my eye.

The on-line version of the story has been re-worded for some reason - maybe to give a work experience kid something to do - but the gist is the same. The sentence that caught my eye in the print version says 'The DfT consultation paper, entitled Learning to Drive, also proposes to stop publishing the questions for the theory test, meaning that candidates would no longer be able to memorise the answers without understanding the principles.'

For anyone who is unaware, the driving theory test for cars and bikes consists of a set of multiple choice questions, of which 43 from a selection of 50 must be answered correctly, followed by a hazard perception test in which only about 60% of potential hazards need to be spotted. The multiple choice questions can be downloaded, bought or practised on-line, while mock tests for the second part are also available in numerous places, such as here.

The proposal sounds reasonable then doesn't it? After all, the questions are derived from the Highway Code and multiple choice quizzes are never the hardest in the world, often relying more on common sense than knowledge. Almost everyone who pays their £28.50 (!) must pass easily with minutes to spare right?

Wrong. The actual pass rate for the driving theory test in the UK is less than two thirds.

<sigh>

Burning Trains

My train journey home last night took two and a half hours for what is normally a forty minute high-speed dash up the country.

It all started well, but the train came to a halt at Wembley Central and some of the lights went out. About ten minutes later the Train Manager announced that there was a burning freight train just ahead of us and, as the fire brigade were busy spraying water around, the power to overhead lines in the immediate area on both sets of north/south lines had been cut.

A while later the train's backup power supply depleted and the remaining lights went out. All passengers were forced to vacate and wait on the platform for a while, before squeezing into an already overcrowded London Overground train to Watford where another fast train was waiting.

Stopping the trains sounds very sensible - everyone knows that water and electricity don't mix very well (or do, that being the problem).

But ... hang on ... what happens when it rains?

No Parking

This appeared sometime in the last week and I spotted it the following day on my walk to the train station on the way to work.

It is perhaps most pointless set of double yellow lines I have ever seen. OK, so it is next to a driveway and it is opposite the (footpath) entrance to a church, but this is a tiny road and here is the only stretch with any form of road markings.

Either a resident has taken it on themselves to police highway code item 243 or our local council doesn't have enough to worry about.

Made me chuckle anyway.

Nokia N73

Isle of Man Weekend

Last weekend a friend and I went to the Isle of Man to ride the famous TT course - a 37 mile road circuit taking in some of the best, and fastest (there is no speed restriction outside of towns) roads in the country.

After the awful weather we have been having here for the last couple of months we were a little worried about our prospects, but we were incredibly lucky, with sunshine for both days (until arriving back in England that is).

I haven't had a chance to go through my photos properly yet, and only had my phone with me to take shots with, but here is the first - my Suzuki GSX-R600 on the mountain road, with a view towards Ramsey.

Donnington Moto GP - Casey Stoner

My personal favourite photo from the Donnington Moto GP last weekend - Casey Stoner navigates the Esses at the Donnington circuit at the British Moto GP. I think this is my favourite because of the line that starts in the bottom left and leads the eye across, up, back and across to the biker in the top right - even though he didn't follow that line, you can almost feel that it was the line that he took to get where he is.

Nikon 80-400 VR at 400mm, 1/640sec, f/10

Donnington Moto GP - Capirossi, Barros, Pedrosa

Another battle for position from last weekend's Moto GP, at least during the first few laps, was seen between Loris Capirossi (number 65), Alex Barros (4) and Dani Pedrosa. The photos below show just how close they were. Unfortunately Capirossi slid out due to the wet conditions, leaving Barros and Pedrosa to finish seventh and eighth.

  

Nikon 80-400 VR
280mm, 1/1000sec, f/9                 400mm, 1/640sec, f/9                 400mm, 1/640sec, f/9

Donnington Moto GP - Valentino Rossi

Valentino Rossi started the Donnington Moto GP second on the grid, next to his team mate Colin Edwards, but got a bad start from which he never recovered.

Nikon 80-400 VR at 400mm, 1/500sec, f/10

 

1/1000sec, f/9                                            1/1500sec, f/9

Donnington Moto GP - Edwards vs. Stoner

Today I went up to Donnington for the British Moto GP (and managed to stay mainly dry despite the rain). You may have seen some bike racing on the TV, but until you actually go you can't really understand how LOUD the bikes are. Its an amazing experience.

Over the next few posts I will be showing some of my photos from today, all taken from the inside of the track, with a view towards the Esses and Goddards corners. Some of them will look a little blurry and I apologise for that - I was standing behind a chain-link fence.

The main battle of the race was between Colin Edwards and Casey Stoner. Edwards started in pole position and had a good start, while Stoner started fifth and didn't get a good launch. However, within a couple of laps Stoner was back up to the front and the following few laps saw him battling for an overtake. Eventually he got it and Edwards could do nothing to catch the Ducati.

Here's a shot taken while Edwards still had the lead.

Nikon 80-400 VR at 400mm, 1/640sec, f/10

Boat Jumble

While walking along the beach/harbour front in St. Ives, Cornwall I spotted this pile of upturned boats and the mixture of colours and weathered textures caught my eye.

Nikon 12-24mm at 16mm, 1/400sec, f/8

Shipwreck

A shipwreck, seen from Land's End in Cornwall. I could be wrong, but I think this is the RMS Mulheim, which ran aground in March 2003.

This is the only decent shot I got at Land's End from our recent visit due to bad weather (the only outdoors shot anyway - some from the Doctor Who exhibition coming soon). A shame as we quite fancied a stroll along the cliff side path.

Nikon 18-200mm at 170mm, f/9, 1/125sec

The Grand Union

A few weekends ago (before this unseasonably warm and sunny weather began) the Jiffler suggested a pub crawl down the Grand Union canal. The starting point was set as Tring station, and the end point Hemel Hempstead - a total distance of about eight miles, and six pubs. OK, there are actually seven pubs on the way, but the three in Berkhamstead were unexpectedly close together so we skipped one.

The two shots below were both taken between Northchurch and Berkhampstead, before too many pints of Guinness were consumed.

 

Nikon 18-200mm VR
70mm, f7.1, 1/80sec                  40mm, f4.5, 1/160sec

London Motorbike Show

Went along to the London Motorbike Show on Saturday. Much as I expected - lots of new bikes to sit on and imagine owning (the Ducati 1098 ... mmmm), lots of things to tempt me from parting with cash (I resited - all I bought was a coffee and a car sticker), and a show of some description that is impossible to get into unless you're willing to stand in a queue for ages.

Still, a good time was had, and it gave me a chance to get a ride on my new bike - its only got another 120 miles to go and I'll be able to ride it properly :-)

I got a fair number of pictures from the event and a lot of them turned out very well - I am more and more pleased with the ability of the Sigma lens in low light conditions.

Here are some of my favourite shots from the show: Rossi's bike (the one he didn't quite win the championship on), a Ducati Desmosedici RR (the headlight grabbed my attention - it really looks like an eye staring back at you) and a custom bike (which would set you back £32500 if you wanted it).

Sigma 30mm, f4.5, 1/20sec, ISO-640

 

f2.5, 1/45sec, ISO-640                       f4.5, 1/160sec, ISO-640