Well, this album was really a little out of the ordinary for me. The only other record I have featuring Scott Walker is a Walker Brothers collection of some of their 60s output.I bought this as a flac download  several weeks ago, on its release date, and I've been listening since. I don't actually buy into this godlike genius thing - I think a genius might release more records - but after a few plays of samples via the web, I decided to buy it. And I'm not disappointed, though on the other hand I'm not overwhelmed. The record has an interesting juxtaposition of Walker's voice with a odd array of sounds and aural textures, which on the whole I really like. My reservations are more that I haven't really got to the bottom of the lyrics, and with an album like this, it's difficult to really form an opinion too quickly. Many of the songs seem to be making quirky connections between widely disparate people and events. It's safe to say this one's going to take a bit of concentration.

This is a Rouleur publication (under the Bloomsbury imprint), and in common with that magazine, it's chock full of photographs, printed on high quality paper. In his introduction, Sykes admits he'd always promised that he wouldn't write a biography of Fausto Coppi (there are quite afe of those around). What this book represents is a collection of photographs from Coppi's career, punctuated with interviews with some of Coppi's contemporaries. Sykes' intention is to preserve the memories of these veterans.In this, the books succeeds admirably. It's not a book that provides a detailed biography of Coppi - you have to look elsewhere for that - but for all that it's delightful to read and to savour the often superb photography, with some of the often painful eyewitness testimony.The design of the book is lovely, with excellent reproductions of the photos on heavy paper. Unfortunately the photos are not captioned, so relating them to thw interviews is not always easy. As a nice touch, the text pages are tinted in what appears to a pale Bianchi celeste.Coppi: Inside the legend of the Campionissimo, by Herbie SykesPublished by Rouleur via Bloomsbury Sport £27-ishISBN 1408181665

From Stars to Stalagmites - How everything connectsWorld Scientific 2012 ISBN 13 978 981 4324 97 7Paul S. Braterman*I am a pretty avid reader of popular science books, but generally speaking I've mostly read books with a general emphasis on biology, particularly evolutionary biology. From Stars to Stalagmites is therefore a bit different from my usual reading fare, taking a chemist's view on the world. In essence, the book spends 16 chapters explaining how we know stuff. Stuff ranging from the age of the Earth to how CFCs were incriminated as the cause of the ozone holes. Many of these accounts are told with specific reference to the people who shaped the theories and the science. I don't mean just the scientists - policy-makers and politicians also feature highly - a good example being the chapters on figuring out the cause of the ozone hole and on global warming.I could summarise this book as "a collection of stories about stuff", but that would ignore the central theme that comes across as one read through the book: how we know how natural processes work, and how we can use this understanding to probe the deep history of our planet, figure out how to rescue our planet from anthropogenic destruction and so forth.On reflection some, if not all, of the chapters come across as excellent material for presentations. Whether such has been the origins of the work or not, I do believe that the book itself would have benefited from a bit more in the way of illustration...For me, stand out chapters include the opening chapter on the age of the Earth (Chapter 1), that on Fritz Haber, the First World War and explosives (Chapter 6), and the 14th Chapter on why water is weird. But I guess those preferences reflect my interests; the book is consistently interesting and clearly written.In dealing with the evolution of ideas about the Earth's antiquity, Braterman effectively sets the stage for all the controversies manufactured by the biblical literalists who insist in (mis)interpreting the bible to deduce that the Earth is a mere 6000 years (give or take a little). The chapter takes the reader on a journey in the changing scientific understanding of earth science, which neatly encapsulates the nature of scientific discovery. I think this example illustrates the value of this book. It's not necessarily in its factual content, but in the way rational and thoughtful investigation of the world and its material phenomena can lead to clearer understanding of the world around us. And more than this, several chapters describe how current understanding can and does change as science advances, both in terms of techniques and in the application of knowledge from disparate areas of investigation.To conclude, From Stars to Stalagmites is a valued addition to my bookshelf and a fine example of popular science writing.*Disclosure: Paul Braterman is a BCSE committee member, as am I.[cross-posted from Wonderful Life]

Amazingly, the after-effects* of September's crash has lasted through most of this month (despite managing the Duo Normand about three weeks after the crash). This, together with a brief bout of illness and a trip to Scotland has continued the general derailment of my training.On the bright side, analysis of the metrics collected via my turbo trainer and using the rather excellent Golden Cheetah does seem to indicate some pick-up in form. Hopefully I'll get the ball rolling through December and beyond, with the New Year '10' as an intermediate test of fitness. In all likelihood, the first real race of 2013 will be the Port Talbot Wheelers 2-up '25', which is usually in early March.In the meantime, I've got a clear idea of what training I need to do, which is not to say I have actually been doing it. We have had a couple of decent tandem rides on days when the elements have not been so set against outdoors activity, but apart from that, road riding has largely been confined to commuting to work (by tandem).It's about this time of year that we start thinking about next year's cycling holiday. We have a few ideas for 2013, most of which revolve around either renting a house for the holiday (rather than touring), or visiting Wales as a change from Scotland. Maybe we'll decide before Hogmanay. The timing is a bit more complicated this year due to academic calendar changes at work.* These effects have been rather odd: for two weeks I was mainly in graze healing mode: after this, the pain started! Firstly, a painful shoulder, replaced after the Duo with lower back pain. Since I cleared that away, I've had pain in hip joints, another bout of back pain, twitching leg muscles, calf pain and numbness in the foot. All of this affecting my right side, upon which I made abrupt and painful contact with the tarmac at 26mph. On the bright side, no bones have actually been broken. Indeed I must be heavy boned, as in all the scrapes, crashes and car-collisions I've suffered in my cycling career I have never broken a bone. Touch wood.

Apparently recording a cover album of Nico's classic 1970 album Desertshore was something of an obsession of Peter Christopherson (Throbbing Gristle, Coil, X-TG). Sadly this project was incomplete at the time he died. It was however resurrected by his X-TG colleagues Cosey Fanni Tutti and Chris Carter.The result has been an interesting artefact: a two CD release housed in an elegant and understated sleeve, along with a 12 page booklet and a postcard. The first CD consists of the covers of the Desertshore tracks, mostly featuring guest vocalists, including Antony Hegarty, Marc Almond, Blixa Bargeld, as well as Cosey Fanni Tutti. Before listening to this, I was somewhat worried that it might be something of a mismatch of styles: in fact, the individual tracks seem to gel really rather well, and I've found myself listening to the original Nico versions in parallel - enjoying both equally. The second CD is entitled The Final Report. As I understand it, X-TG is (or rather was) the three remaining members of Throbbing Gristle after Genesis P-Orridge left, and this is them signing off after the death of Christpherson. Personally, I find this an appealling set of tracks, but somewhat less marked that those of Desertshore with their characteristic guest vocals.Highly recommended - particularly for the TG and Coil aficionados. I bought my copy from Cargo rather than Amazon, due to the tax evasion situation.

This amended road sign in Scotland has always amused me.[caption id="attachment_2055" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Beware of the elephants!"][/caption]

Along with the website update, I finally got around to sorting out the report of our 2012 Summer Tour (click the Cycling menu item above and select 2012).  I suppose this was almost a Spring tour, as we had to set off quite early due to work commitments. On the other hand, I think this was 9 days of rain-free cycling, and possibly our first tour in which we had no rain. Despite the dates we cycled, we did encounter some midgies - but they weren't really much of an issue.During the nine days, starting and finishing in Oban, we visited Barra, Eriskay, South Uist, Benbecula, North Uist, Harris, Lewis, Skye and Mull. We made nine ferry crossings! Almost every B&B had free WiFi, making this our most connected tour - we took along an iPad to plan routes using Google Maps, to check weather forecasts and on one occasion find out about a road closure. The road closure was suspended because of the Queen's Silver Jubilee.

I bought my first copy of The Velvet Underground & Nico way back in the 1970s, when it was a relatively young thing of around a decade in age. Sadly, though it had the benefits of a gatefold sleeve, it lacked the peelable banana. Since then of course, the already considerable mystique of the Velvet Underground has grown and grown. During the transition from vinyl to CD, I did step up to the 5 CD Peel Slowly and See set, featuring the four 'real' Velvet Underground albums plus a variety of out-takes and demos (most notably the CD of the Ludlow Street demos).[caption id="attachment_2042" align="aligncenter" width="265" caption="The 6 CDs are housed in a large format hardback book"][/caption]So, having not fallen for the 2 CD Deluxe Edition released in 2002, you might think I'd not be that interested in this latest outing for this venerable and influential album. Well, of course I was interested! What were the attractions for me? Mostly the mono version of the album; the Sceptre Studios demos and Factory rehearsal tapes; and of course 2 CDs of the live show recorded in 1966 at the Valleydale Ballroom.CD1 - The album in stereo mix, followed by five alternate takes. Frankly not much needs to be said about this, it's one of the finest albums in my collection. In general, I'd note that the best choice was made on which song versions made the final selection for the album.CD2 - The album in mono mix (this is apparently considered to be the version closest to the sound the band were aiming at), followed by both sides of each of the two singles.CD 3 - Nico's first solo album Chelsea Girl. A bit of an odd choice for inclusion, despite featuring most of the VU on most of the tracks. But, hey, I didn't have this already and despite Nico's unhappiness with the final product, I quite like it - though I prefer other Nico albums.CD 4 - Possibly the main selling point of the set, this CD has the Sceptre Studios sessions, some from tape, some from the Norman Dolph acetate (which famously turned up in a New York flea market). Also on CD 4 are recordings from rehearsals at the Factory. All pretty much of interest in the evolution of the album.CD 5 and 6 comprise the whole of the only 'proper' recording of the Velvet Underground and Nico live. This was at the Valleydale Ballroom, Columbus, Ohio (which still seems to exist 45 years on!). At least parts of this set have circulated in bootleg form over the years. I have rather murky sounding CD of this set (with the two long free-from tracks omitted) entitled Down For You Is Up. I always said that the boot is quite good if you know what the song is before you listen to it! The recordings on these two CDs are definitely not high fidelity, but are definitely better than on the bootleg version.The six CDs are housed in slots in cardboard pages bound at the rear of the lavishly presented hardback book.This is packaging. Fine packaging. Very fine packaging. While I'd seen many of the photos before, many are new to me. The text is not what you'd call lengthy, but it really does set the music and lyrics in the set in their appropriate context.So basically, this is one of the truly great and influential albums from the 1960s. But I guess an expansive (and expensive) set such as this really is for the completist. I cannot believe that someone who doesn't already have a copy of VU&N would even consider this a reasonable purchase!

Normally at this time of year, I write a review of the past season. This year I won't, mostly because my season has been so awful. A combination of the weather, illness, injury, and having trouble fitting training in around my work all contributed to a poor season's racing (in combination with Father Time, it has to be said).I had intended to return from the Duo Normand and get straight into preparations for the 2013 season. By the time I rode the Duo Normand, my scrapes and grazes acquired in the crash on 8th September had pretty much healed up. Unfortunately by then what turned out to be a series of aches and pains had begun. First up was severe shoulder pain, and this was followed by lower back pain, hip joint pain, leg muscle problems and the like, all mostly affecting my right hand side (which had made contact with the road).So, as I write, I've effectively been laid off from cycling (other than a spot of cycle commuting) for the best part of four weeks. Not ideal. I was too crocked to ride the NBRC Hill Climb championship. This is held on the short but steep climb at Bow Brickhill. I am gratified to see that one of my NBRC club mates won the event, though by an excitingly small margin of 0.3 seconds! Personally, I dislike hill climbs - they make me feel unwell! Formally, of course, the final event of the 2012 club event series actually happens in 2013: the New Year '10' on the first of January.The layoff has been pretty useful in the sense that I had the time to follow up on the news coverage of the Armstrong scandal. I had read Tyler Hamilton's book The Secret Race on the Kindle just before heading off to France, so I had some idea of what the USADA dossier would say. But I wasn't prepared for the extent to which USADA savaged Armstrong and colleagues. The fallout has been epic, and I look forward to Bruyneel's appeal hearing to CAS over his sanctions.My bike club, the North Bucks Road Club, has had a bit of a rough year, with declining membership and lower turnouts at our club events. Our recent AGM addressed some of these issues, particularly fired by my revolutionary zeal. This earned me nomination as club Vice Chairman. Or, as I put it, Chairman of Vice. Having ploughed through the USADA report, one might say I am now well-qualified to be Chairman of Vice! But seriously, we do hope to pull the NBRC through the doldrums and capitalise on the upsurge in interest in cycling both locally and nationally. I've begun overhauling the club's website, though at the moment changes are somewhat behind the scenes unless you're a paid-up member of the club. Attendance at our Wednesday club events has been dropping, which probably reflects lower membership but also competition from other clubs' events - particularly those held on the fast Tring course which I think has attracted non-NBRC members particularly.

I was in London on Friday for the latest progress meeting of the SysMIC project. It's a project funded by the BBSRC as a resource for members of its research community: from graduates beginning their career through to established researchers wishing to improve their skills in mathematical and systems biology.Here's the course syllabus. There's also an overview of how SysMIC connects to the BBSRC's new doctoral training programmes (SysMIC briefing for DTP students - Word file).At the moment it's being 'road-tested' by some early adopter PhD students (and by me, the only member of the team with what might be classed as 'rusty' mathematical skills). At the end of our meeting, we wandered over to the computing lab to chat to these students, who all seemed to be engaging really well. It goes live to registered members of the BBSRC research community in January 2013 - the first cohort of students are PhD students in the new Doctoral Training Partnerships.I tend to focus more on the mathematical aspects of SysMIC: partly this reflects applications of this kind of training in the biological sciences, and partly because I perceive a rather changeable definition of 'Systems Biology'. I prefer to think in terms of developing models and using those in a predictive way to design and interpret experiments (my own definition of Systems Biology would be of mathematical modelling that integrates multiple and diverse data sources to model complex systems).I'm working through the material that's been prepared so far, and having fun with MatLab, the mathematics platform we chose for SysMIC, and while I have to say I've yet to move on to anything mathematically serious, I can see how a more mathematical approach could benefit my own research.