On the face of it, the riders were presented with an appalling set of conditions - the warm and sunny weather we had for the previous week or two had vanished, replaced by cold and grey conditions, with a very strong wind and the threat of rain.  To add to this, I had a real lack of enthusiasm and couldn't stop yawning as I lined up at the start.

Mind you, having Tony Parks a minute behind me was sure to spur me on.  I nearly got tipped off by the wind catching the front trispoke just after the start, but after that I had no trouble.  As expected the wind assisted me down the main road towards Chicheley, but more astonishingly, it seemed to help most of the way back to North Crawley.  That mystifies me!  Anyway, I was pretty pleased - not only did the rain hold off, but I limited my losses to Tony Park to 30 seconds, which was pretty good given his form lately, but I improved about 11 seconds from three weeks ago.  An encouraging event...next race is the Norlond '50' on the F1/50 on Sunday morning - this will be my first 50 since the 2006 season!

There's a report from Tony over at the NBRC web page.

Both the Open University and Oxford University websites have their own versions of the press release. 

Lynne had a TV interview with BBC Oxford yesterday, while I had a radio interview yesterday and another scheduled for tomorrow (broadcast for today and tomorrow respectively).

Our paper in Aging Cell describing the identification and characterisation of a Drosophila orthologue of the exonuclease function of WRN is now available online, and open access.

This was an afternoon event on the hottest day of the year so far, hot enough that I found it rather oppressive. By the finish, my HR had climbed to some pretty unreasonable levels.

The F12/10 runs on the A505 Leighton Buzzard bypass, and while not a dual carriageway it is a pretty wide road.  The surface is a little rough and fractures in places, and the road undulates quite a bit.  The course suffers a bit from being quite exposed to crosswinds, though this wasn't an issue for this event, as it was virtually still.  There have been traffic management changes since I last rode the course, with increased traffic levels through the Grovebury Road industrial estate where the HQ was, and on the section of road where we normally warm up - possibly due to the new Stoke Hammond bypass road.

I rode to and from the event, and I must be on a roll as I had no punctures.  During the race, I quickly dropped into a good rhythm, but after 5 or 10 minutes the heat began to get to me.  I had a clear run through the Billington Road roundabout in both directions and had no trouble at the turn.  I finished with 22:45, which I think was 9th.  Tim Carter and Tony Parks r=finished in 21:27 and 21:50 respectively, giving the North Bucks the team prize.

I had a visit from a BBSRC Press Office person on Wednesday 8th May.  (The BBSRC are the UK Research Council that fund my current research into ageing, using Drosophila as a model system) This was to record some video footage to accompany a press release concerning a paper that will be published online on Monday 12th May.  She went on to visit my collaborator Lynne the following morning.

It was quite a surreal situation - being filmed in the lab while people carried on working.  I imagine the raw footage is very funny, with all the false starts and stops - the difficulty was in stopping myself from using technical terms that would be opaque to the general public.  Typically I'd be on a bit of a roll, then suddenly grind to a halt having uttered a word like "phenotype" or similar.  I have to say that the BBSRC person was most helpful and sympathetic (I presume she deals with inarticulate and camera-shy scientists on a regular basis!).

I picked this story up from Pharyngula.  The crazed Islamic creationist Harun Yahya, real name Adnan Oktar has been banged up for three years by an Istanbul court (Reuters).

Oktar runs a bizarre publishing enterprise that sends out huge and lavishly illustrated but bizarrely argued tomes vainly trying to discredit evolution.  The strategy seems to be to compare fossils with extant species, claim no morphological difference between them, then state this proves evolution to be false.  As a wild-eyed strategy this is rather amusing, such as the comparison of a spider crab with a spider.  He is certainly taxonomically challenged.  Perhaps I'll scan some examples later...I have a copy of one of these volumes that was sent to me a year ago...

He's been convicted of "creating an illegal organization for personal gain".

We had a lovely summery spring evening for this event, one of our interclub events between the North Bucks Road Club and the A5 Rangers, and it brought out a field of 32 riders.  There was quite a stiff easterly breeze, which made me rather apprehensive about likely times on this course, which is not exactly a dragstrip!', '

In the event however most, if not all, riders recorded improvements, with some particularly strong rides.  I was pleased to improve by nearly half a minute to 22:56.  The breeze actually helped us up the hill to the DC section and up to the turn.

Tony's official writeup is here.

Once again (again), the forecast was for rain, and this time (unlike Wednesday), it turned out to be a pleasant morning for a time trial.  This was only my second solo 25 of the season, and it was held on the F1/25, using the version with turns at the Sandy and Buckden roundabouts.  In past seasons, I've never had a good ride on this course. On the day, it was pretty mlld, and in fact I felt a bit too warm with my arm warmers on.  Once again, I rode the Cougar with the trispoke clinchers - a configuration I'm very happy with.', '

I had quite an early start, at 7.16 (number 31, bizarrely).  The seeding of the field seemed a little odd.  Not that I am disputing being on a 1.  What little wind there was presented a headwind for the southbound legs (i.e. to the Sandy RAB, and from the Buckden RAB to the finish.  This didn't present too much of an obstacle, in contrast to my inability to keep the speed up over the undulations in the course.  I suppose that offers some pointers to how I should modify my training.

My result was a 57:43 (and no punctures in contrast to my clubmate Ian Stokes, who was a DNS due to a puncture before he started).  Out of a full field, I came 32nd...

Once again, the forecast was not good for a time trial: this time the forecast was accurate! It turned out to be a hard evening on the course, with a headwind up the hill to the turn, and light rain.

Because the event was over at Stony Stratford (F5u/10 - though despite what the code suggests, the course version we use is 11.4 miles), I rode down to work on the Cougar TT bike, then on to the event after work.  By then, there was light rain which eased a little by the time I got to Stony.  On the way, however, I had yet another puncture (while I was evading a traffic jam on Brickhill St by popping briefly onto the redway).  I had no tyre levers, but discovered I could use 50p coins instead! This was the fifth puncture of the 2008 season.

The forecast was for rain, but as it turned out, this event was held on a rather lovely spring morning, with a gentle breeze.  The event was organised by the North Bucks Road Club, with the clubroom used as the HQ,  We used the F5d/10, which is the new '10' course based on the Stoke Hammond bypass.

Conditions were fairly similar to those for the recent NBRC club event, and I improved by a measly 3 seconds to record a 23:25.  As far as I recall, the winning time was a long 21 - a fine ride by Jason Gurney (Team MK).  It was good to see a strong turnout from NBRC members.

This is the third event run on the F5d/10 - I reckon it's a pretty tough course, with a lot of climbing (OK the gradients are pretty shallow, but when trying to maintain a reasonable race pace they are quite hard!) to the turn.

This was the Beds Roads slowest 90 '25', and it was the first solo '25' of my 2008 season. I travelled over to the event with Richard Moule (Bossard Wh), who was riding the medium gear event held immediately prior to the main 90 rider event.

Before we set off, I'd popped out to see what the weather was like, and was pleasantly surprised at how mild it appeared to be: No Frost! However, by the time we got over to Tempsford, where the race HQ was in the village hall, we discovered that over there there had been a hefty frost. I had of course made a decision not to bring fleecy gloves, a decision I was regretting when I met Stuart Tarry in the hall - Stuart was smart and had packed a variety of full fingered gloves, a pair of which I borrowed. Richard was due to start shortly after 7am, with me following at 7:34. I duly made a vague attempt at a warm-up, but felt pretty chilly as I lined up for the start.

I notice that the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council  (CNHC) are now online.  At this time, the website is pretty spartan, but what is notable is not so much what is said, but what is not said. 

There's no indication that any of the named individuals are medically qualified (though they my be).  An unidentified group of people seem to run the show:

Well, spring had certainly sprung as I set out for Astwood, and a fine evening prompted an excellent turnout of 30 riders to take part in the latest club time trial held on the Astwood circuit. I've raced there so many times this year that I think I could do it on autopilot!', '

Weather conditions certainly were different from those allocated to Ian Marshall for the Team MK event last weekend - hopefully we'll see some more balmy evenings.
Some excellent performances were seen - particularly a close race for first place between Stuart Tarry and Simon Cannings. Bizarrely claiming to be a newcomer (!), Aaron claimed 3rd place, not far behind those two. The man with the watch (Tony Farmborough) tells me that several NBRC members set personal bests last night - the honours go to the following riders.

Chris Hartley.....................36sec
John Buchanan................. 22sec
Chris Parkes.....................14sec
Alan Lawson......................3sec
Brian Primett......................2sec

Many thanks to Tony and the support crew, and to the 30 riders who turned out to savour the delights of the Astwood circult on the first fine spring evening of 2008. The NBRC are organising the Norlond 10 on Sunday, and road races on Saturday - see the newsflash on the main page. Offers of help and assistance at both those events will be most appreciated by the organisers (Alan Lawson and Gordon Batcock respectively).

UPDATE:

This was the last of the early season Saturday time trials organised by the North Bucks Road Club (the events now shift to Wednesday evenings), and the first of 2008 to be held on the Stony Stratford course F5v/10. In the version used by NBRC, this course is about 11.4 miles and is a sporting course. It's also the furthest of our regular courses from my house, so I set off quite early, shortly after 7.30 am, in bright sunshine.

By the time I reached Stony, the temperature seemed to have dropped (eventually it snowed by Sunday morning), and the reasonably stiff breeze threatened the return leg. It was good to ride this course again - however some of the rougher sections seem to have deteriorated over the winter. In particular, the first sharp lefthander after Beachampton on the return leg has some nasty potholes. In the event,the outward leg was pretty uneventful, other than the line of cars parked juset before the turn (appeared to be parents unloading children for some unknown reason) - slightly worrying with oncoming traffic, and car doors pinging open and shut. All the riders seemed to get by OK. The return was quite a bit tougher than usual, due to the headwind, and I'm always a bit cautious about roaring downhill on slightly twisty roads (call me wimpy if you like, but I prefer to avoid bodily mangling).

In previous years, the organiser of this event (Ian Marshall) has managed to ensure bright, sunny and warm conditions. It was a shame therefore that this year's event was unusually cold and windy. Fortunately the forecast rain held off until after the event. As usual, Team Grumpy (Gerry Oram and myself) entered the 2-up event. This is likely to be the last opportunity for us to practice 2-up riding before the Duo Normand in September.', '

After signing on at the race HQ in the Cranfield University campus, we somewhat reluctantly warmed up, by riding the circuit in the other direction from the race (which had already started). We had been a bit worried by the wind, but we had no problems with the trispokes. Back to the car to remove jerseys and jackets, then off to the start. The version of the course used in this event differs in the start point from the usual course used for the NBRC club events (about half a mile after the Bourne End/Cranfield Road junction), so the climb to Astwood is mid-lap rather than at the end of each lap.

Overall we rode well, though I think we could have organised the changes better - we took turns that were too long (sometimes because it was difficult to change due to traffic). The section from Astwood to Chicheley was seriously with the stiff tail wind. We also had no difficulty with the various climbs on the course, staying in the big ring throughout. In the end, we finished with 47:40 for fourth place.

Well, this was the first of the 2008 NBRC evening events, and was held on the new F5d/10 course that had ony been used once before, for the New Year's Day '10'. The full report can be read here.

The F5d/10 uses the new Stoke Hammond bypass, a nice new smooth-surfaced dual carriageway. We had an excellent turnout, to the point that we worried about failing light towards the end of the event!

One of the explanations frequently cited as to why an otherwise intelligent individual espouses one or other of the many CAM therapies out there is that it is an old and trusted traditional remedy or therapy, and must in some quasi-bonkers reasoning work in some way that is as yet unknown to modern science. The excellent Quackometer blog site has a couple of postings that, by and large, put the lie to this curious notion. In the first, concerning Hopi ear-candling, it seems that the technique is a recent innovation, and the links to the poor old Hopi are spurious to say the least. A follow up blog entry, The Age of Quackery, describes the origins of Reiki, Reflexology, QiGong, Applied Kinesiology, Bach Flower Remedies, Aromatherapy, Homeopathy, Osteopathy and Chiropractic, and Acupuncture.

The best quote here has to be from the originator of Osteopathy, who said he could "shake a child and stop scarlet fever, croup, diphtheria, and cure whooping cough in three days by a wring of its neck". As the Quackometer says, this could have been a line from The Simpsons.

The Register reports that the Information Commissioner has reported that the Phorm system must be opt-in to comply with the law. Interesting, especially since BT therefore engaged in (presumably) illegal activities during their 2006 and 2007 trials of webwise (which, don't forget, they strenuously denied at first).  There's also a story at the BBC.

Oh, and the Phorm share price continues its slump (at least on 9/4/08).

I came across this website (http://www.inphormationdesk.org), while cruising around the badphorm.co.uk forums. It gives a very clear outline of the Phorm system, and why many of us object to it.

Not only did BT trial the offensive Phorm system last year (despite denying it at the time and subsequently), but it transpires that BT ran tests on 18,000 customers back in 2006, again without seeking permission. (Register article, BBC News article)
In essence, the story is as follows:
1. The pilot ran from 23/9/06 to 6/10/06
2. All 18,000 customers were opted-in with no attempt to seek consent
3. BT still plan to change their terms and conditions (which they presumably violated in the 2006 and 2007 tests) before any further implementation.
4. BT refuse to say where these 18,000 customers were.
5. In 2006, the system was called "PageSense".
6. The BT tech guy at the time was Stratis Scleparis, now he's with Phorm.

The BBC report quotes a FIPR spokesman as saying that the tests were "an illegal intercept of users' data".