Priest in the Church of England. Father, husband, son. Keen biker.
General thoughts on bikes… and stuff.
This is a really short really simple guide to buying a tent – taking you through the basic designs, Dome, Gedesic, and Tunnel we explore what to look out for and what the main differences between the budget ranges and the more expensive options on the market.
Special thanks to P&J camping in St Albans and Traveldri-Plus
I don’t mind the rain, in fact I list my favourite sound as rain against canvas. But this weekend we were due to camp on Dartmoor testing out a new tent from The Aussie Shop called a swag bag – old fashioned canvas and it all fits into one bag on the back of the bike – tent, sleeping bag, mattress.
We spent most of the day filming a new short piece for Journey To Russia with Les at Travel Dri Plus about tents (we had to de-camp to the village hall), then set out for the moor. As we arrived a Sea King was airlifting people off, there were amulances and police land rovers rescuing people… we thought we were touger than that and set out to find a shelterd place to camp.
Driving for an hour we found a location not already under-water and stepped out of the vehicle still full of the excitment of camping…. then we got back in the car and debated the relative costs of B&Bs before hauling ass back to South Wales and taking shelter from the 40mph winds.
Not the most constructive weekend and I’m now sat at a services on the M5 on my way to the North West Lab waiting for War of The Worlds to download from the iTunes music store.
There’s nothing better at the end of a hard day than a long cold beer, except perhaps a beautifully rich, deep bodied, glass of Bordeaux. Neither is that practical on a bike. The beer? Well it tends to be warm, and the wine? Frankly it doesn’t get out of France before I’ve finished off my three week supply.
So to my absolute delight I discovered that you can freeze-dry wine – no seriously – you can buy 200ml of wonderfully rich ‘rouge’ wine direct from Touratech, and in a tiny little silver packet. Perfect.
I was open minded about the wine, I’m not a snob and tend to drink bottles that are less than £5 a pop, but for £3.04 plus p&p even I was a little worried about the quality of the plonk delivered in a mere three weeks.
I prepared the equipment (a jug with 200ml of water, a long stirring thing, and a glass), opened the sachet and dropped in the rather lumpy, congealed powder – not confident at all it was going to dissolve. But to my surprise, the wine dissipated after only gentle encouragement. Five minutes dragged by and I was rewarded with a deep red jug of wine, ready for drinking at the fireside. What could be more perfect?
The only thing remaining was to actually taste it. This is where the dream of wine on-the-go falls to pieces. Dear Lord… holy cow… and some other non-printable expletives. I’m struggling to describe it without having to resort to blawah, but I can’t come close. It tasted of chemicals, with a hint of toilet cleaner, and and after taste not dissimilar to Sunny Delight.
This is a great idea, and I’m sure if somebody spends some time thinking how it actually tastes rather than trading on the idea of wonderful modern ease and travel, then it may succeed. Until then, drop into your local supermarket, buy the cheapest box of red – remove the outer packing – and be in rouge bliss.
Well how can I not comment, I’m just too damn excited right now to write very much. But here we go, we conceded only two tries all season, we didn’t lose a match, and we finished in style.
Now of course I’ll watch with glee as the Lions side is chosen and not a single Welsh player is selected.
Watch the match, and ready about Wonderful Wales over at BBC Sport
oh yes baby
From Crave
I mean… come on… 9 inch screen, £300, 1gb RAM, up to 12gb Flash based HD… get me one now!
In fact, Asus, I’ve pretty much sold an entire truck load of the 7inch versions for you, so just ship me the 9 inch now and then I’ll review it here.
Go on… you know you want to.
I’m not sure when it happened, but all of a sudden I seem to be a potcher. Anytime I find myself twiddling my thumbs I gravitate to the garage where I start taking things appart and attempting to make them better.
It may seem harmless, but my poor motorbike is getting a little sick of having everything taken off and messed with. I keep finding myself looking at sites that advocate building your own pannier systems.
I think it all stems back to that mech engineering apprenticeship I did when I left school, it still feels like only yesterday but as my father reminded me this weekend it was 12 years ago. The motorbike mechanics course at Merton also has a part to play, and Stace has just started a welding course at Hammersmith that I think I may sign up for next term.
The garage is pretty much complete now, the work bench is finally in, all that remains is to wire in the electrics (to the bech), pipe in the compressor and complete the shelving for the fridge and microwave….. oh my dear Lord… I am turning into my father.
I don’t think I’ll ever forgive the wonderful Sarah Mines for this but there you go.
Here are the rules:
So, trying to gather some pace with this thing here we go:
I was a nurse. Seriously I went to Swansea University and spent eighteen months learning how to look after quite ill people. I really really enjoyed it, and would still be there if my demo to the local radio station hadn’t resulted in a breakfast show. It has made me incredibly un-sympathetic to sick people though.
I was a commercial radio breakfast show presenter. Rather amazingly, off the back of one rather bad demo Bridge FM in South Wales made me their breakfast show presenter for six months before I had a massive falling out with the manager, luckily I already had a job at the BBC by then.
I’m a buddhist. Not random, but new.
I have a problem with tools. I spend any slow Sunday shopping in Machine Mart. I wish there was some kind of rehab.
I like nothing better than the sound of rain on canvass. I’m a big fan of camping and drag my poor suffering wife to damp fields in sub zero temperatures just so I can listen to the dew landing on the tent.
I have two cats, had a dog, but have a secret hankering for a family of goats.
I was a member of the New Labour Society in University, but then got thrown out for supporting an independent candidate in the student district of Swansea. At the count for the election I was punched in the face by a New Labour type who lost the election. I’ve not got involved in politics since then.
I secretly wish I was on the stage. Ever since school I’ve enjoyed acting – to the point where I actually believe I could be on the stage in the West End – I’ve even thought about going to auditions. Reality then kicks in and I discover how much talent you need to do that kind of thing and how far out of my depth I am.
Okay with that over with let’s think…. eight people to nominate.
Euan Semple – fantastic ex-BBC who taught me a lot
Frank Boyd – wonderful chap behind the Innovation Labs.
Tom Coates – totally awesome guy, ex-BBC now Yahoo!
Chad Dickerson – gentleman and a scholar, a true blue and genius to boot.
Robin Hamman – a fellow St Albans resident and blogging guru.
Jemima Kiss – very clever journo at the Guardian
Jag Singh – fellow guest once on blogger tv
Peter Cashmore – never me, never talked, but the surname is so rare and he keeps coming up in my google results.
Well not quite, but if you’ve found this site you’ll notice that it’s been a little while since it’s last update – that’s because I’m back from Morocco and now concentrating on the next challenge – Russia.
Once we’re back from Russia we’ll be turning this site into a all you need guide to getting to Morocco on a bike to partner with the all you need guide to getting to Russia on your bike… and so on 🙂
So from all three of us – if you’re planning a trip to Morocco – good luck! Please do join us on our own adventure to Russia.
I’m serious. Go home tonight. Pull your draws down and get them out. Give them a good feel, really move them around in your hand and make sure they’re as they should be.
If you need a hand… Everyman has a very good guide.
Okay I know this post is a little strange, but as Journey To Russia starts to get off the ground again I’ve started looking at what we can do to get the message out about balls and checking yourself.
So go on… go to it.
Rachel Stevens may be able to help….
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