another delivery of dark shadows?

I was planning to post about something else today, but then I heard this morning's interview with the Prime Minister. It struck me as both a great lesson in answer avoidance and a great example of the use of FUD.

I remember the whole Good Things and Dark Shadows approach to Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, from being marketed to back in the last century. It used to be applied mainly to large-scale computer sales but has drifted across many other areas.

The prime incumbent's campaign has gone negative, resorting to slagging off the competition rather than extolling its own virtues. And, naturally, don't tell the electorate what to really expect after the results are in.

Perhaps it will be the betting shops that give the best view of outcome, although even they seem stumped by this one, judging by this summary extract.

In this social media era, politicians still use the air war of radio and television for their simplistic sound bites, along with tokenistic sponsor-paid visits to far-flung corners for their ground war missives.

The so-called direct social media experience seems to comprise mainly of requests for money to support campaigns, in some cases with the possibility to get into a raffle to win something or someone for a dinner.

Judging by the predictions for who will govern, there's still a good further week of news stories to follow as people start to haggle over the meaning of the words on Page 14 of the Cabinet Manual, produced by David Cameron and Gus O'Donnell.

I'll be voting tomorrow.

It is likely, of necessity, to be a tactical vote and I shall probably wear a Mickey Mouse tee shirt to the polling station.

Alternative tee-shirt serving suggestion?

down by the canal

The canal paths around parts of London can also be useful short cuts between areas, like my route from St Pancras to Camden.

There's the added dimension that the routes can be relatively calm compared with main thoroughfares, although there's always the need to listen out for bicycles which can be surprisingly stealthy.

Like the normal cycle routes, there's increasing amounts of TfL style signposting which can also encourage travel.

Bank Holiday?

Bank Holiday weekend, which included spending part of yesterday out of London in one of the most badly designed town-centre road systems in the country.

Today it's been easier, as we've been out on twisty lanes. Our original plan for the Bank Holiday was to become short term exerts on kitchens. It didn't work though. Counterintuitively for a Bank Holiday, I noticed that some banks were open although the kitchen showroom we'd targeted and its near neighbour were not.

in which I use a paperclip to change the bike chain

I swapped the chain on the mountain bike, doing that thing where you count the number of links before putting on the replacement.

As I counted out 106 links (twice) I noticed that some of the ones on the old chain were slightly twisted. They say that chains don't stretch, instead its the little rollers that lose their roundness. I'm not sure about this twisting though.

Then I had to lop 8 links off of the new chain with one of those special little gadgets, making it 105 links in length (It has a 'golden powerlink' to join it all back together).

Thread the new chain through the gears, rig up a paperclip to hold the ends in place whilst connecting the powerlink, pull the chain tight and then spin the pedals to test it.

No skips and a much smoother gear change. Try out all 3x9=27 combinations, even the ones that are not recommended. Yes, it all works.

Now to put the front wheel back so that the bike is functional again.

Battersea and Chelsea Bridge changes

There's a few famous pictures of Battersea Power Station, like the one with the pig on the Pink Floyd album cover. Most people take their picture from the side of Grosvenor Bridge.

My casual attempts are a result of my regular walks backwards and forwards across Chelsea Bridge.

I took the top picture and the one just above in December 2013.

Look carefully and you can see the exploratory work on one of the chimneys before it was dismantled by the builders redeveloping the area. There's a special regulation that all four chimneys must be preserved and that one must be standing at all times during any restoration work.

So above, a full year later, in December 2014, the first chimney is removed, to be replaced before the other three can be simultaneously replaced. Notice the sign that says 'Spot the Difference?'

Now, five months later, the sign is hard to see because of the work that has been taking place. The first batch of new apartments have more or less blocked the lower view of the power station from Chelsea Bridge.

Slightly further east along the river, other new blocks are being prepared, although the new residents of both this area and the adjacent Embassy Gardens are likely to be rather international.

pause a-while

Sometimes it's good to just sit and watch the world go by.

There's a spot along the Regent's Canal where they put in those green astro turf steps. Although artificial, it makes an inviting break in a journey.

It's fascinating to watch commuters stop here for a while instead of just powering back home.

don't pass the doughnuts

Thursday evening I was along to the Guardian's offices to be part of a pre-election discussion. Yvonne Roberts is pooling thinking to write this Sunday's Observer leader article to show a position. This count-down discussion took place in the hour or so ahead of the BBC's televised debate which further reinforced some of the points raised.

One frustration is the way that the politicians (particularly the Tories) won't explain where the savings they intend to make will actually come from.
There’s a similar integrity gap around discussion of the statistics released a couple of days ago, causing both the major parties to declare victory for essentially opposing points of view. It isn’t just slapdash (which would be almost forgivable) - its a more calculated disdain for the voters, exemplified in the Tory positioning.

I've also wondered about some of the topics being used to drive the debates. Europe and 'the deficit' being a couple of examples. Will Hutton and Andrew Rawnsley raised the point about the deficit and its financial treatment. It was along the lines of ‘borrow cheap money on long term repayment and use it to build economic strength’. A subtle point that runs counter to the Tory position and doesn't get much airtime. Instead we get Cameron saying work hard, take the medicine, further austerity (I suspect he's been told to dial that down now) and more undisclosed cuts so that he can 'finish the job'. I've noticed he uses 'I' a lot, rather than 'We', when talking about his party and its direction. He's not using the phrase 'Small State' yet, but I expect it will emerge sooner or later.

For Europe, the televised debate actually surfaced Nick Clegg's positioning, which amounts to only holding a referendum if there's a surrender of Sovereignty. Again it's subtle but avoids the EU-debate as a noisy distraction and major source of economic instability. His position comes out against the 'Small State' argument: be alone and potentially fragmenting or be part of a 500m people market.

John Mulholland added points about electoral reform, first raised in some of Polly Trenow’s commentary about the middle-aged white men running things. There’s a game being played in the political system, where regular faces have right of tenure to the comfortable club.

Of course Cameron and his sound-bite puppeteers like the current set-up and shape of Parliament. Westminster may temporarily move across the road whilst the Palace gets rebuilt, but there’s still a high probability that the £3bn rebuild will keep the same sword-length system in place. If so, it will be such a waste of money. Contra-voters in habitually-voting massive-majority constituencies like mine have little real chance to affect anything - no wonder people become disengaged.

Well, that's the fifth week of eating election doughnuts. One more to go.

hippy dippy eggshell moment

Okay a bit of a hippy dippy post today.

Simply the blossom in the garden fallen from the cherry tree.

Next I spotted an empty blue robin egg although - oops - this one was a bit close to the back door and I accidentally scrunched it. I could still see the little raggedy line around one end where the fledgling bird had pecked its way out.

realigning the gears

The first stage of getting the mountain bike checked over. Cleaning it with Muc-off helped and has made the garage smell quite fragrant. Then I put it onto the spinny thing to realign the gears.

After I've reset the cables and the derailleur adjustments the gears are changing like a new bike. It has that SRAM system that lets the gears go up and down in 2s and 3s also, which was entertaining as part of the tests.

It does need a new chain though, the current one is occasionally skipping and I've worked out that it has stretched.

Still, I was expecting to have to buy several bits and pieces and in practice a new chain seems to be all that is needed.

he's just hangin' around

Aside from Cameron's picture of future Britain being a photoshop of the Weimar region of Germany, his displayed statistics are also questionable.

The one that leaps out says the deficit has been halved. If we are really talking about UK's national debt, then the Office of National Statistics shows different picture.

ONS shows a progressive increase in UK national debt from 2010 at £956n to now at £1502bn. How is an increase of £546bn (around 57%) shown as a decrease? I worry about these politicians and their math skills. Perhaps its just another Camerwrong moment?

Of course, the skilful Lyntonite advisors no doubt told Cameron to edit out the cracks in the picture of the road along with the spillages and skid marks, which were visible in the original. Clever choices, perhaps to airbrush away what is beneath the Photoshop.

Lynton Crosby and his chums, including that well known truth addict Grant Shapps have been masterminding behind the scenes for Cameron, including the count of seats to stay in Government.

If the current estimate is 272 or 273 seats for each party, then Labour plus the SNP could just squeak in with the needed 326 overall majority. An academic outcome because Milliband has already blown up his powder by saying he won't link with the SNP.

So Cameron will attempt "I'm king of the castle" to stay in Downing Street while hatching another back garden deal with Lib-Dem and some others to show that Conservatives have the upper hand. I'm sure the are inventing a few new cabinet titles to give away already.

At this rate we could get 'same old same old', amounting to a quiet Establishment victory maintaining the status quo.

finding quiet technology instead of the shouty stuff

A few weeks ago subtle software updates to my iPhone installed the Apple Watch configuration Applet on my iPhone's first screen. The first thin threads weaving another social linking mechanism. Is that a sweet siren's song I can hear faintly in the background, or only Siri practicing?

It is certainly adding more continuous location data and telematics, but at the moment I'm not sure.

The first Apple Watch is likely to be quickly replaced by one with better battery life and a slimmer form. I understand the idea of the wrist device for the various lifestyle monitoring applets, but I'm not sure that I want to be even more comprehensively interruptible.

I'm often an early adopter with technology, so I used a Pebble watch when they first appeared. It was okay, rather than good. The App interface was fiddly and the various alerts were interesting but hardly essential. There was a also an increase in battery drain to my iPhone, culminating in the day when I arrived at an office to find the iPhone battery had been almost emptied on the morning commute. The Pebble lives in its box now after just a few weeks of half-hearted use.

The best of the small wearables that I've used has been the Fitbit One, which I've used for a couple of years. The advantage of the 5cm Fitbit One is that it can be invisible, tucked in a pocket or clipped away somewhere unseen. Proper 'quiet technology'.

It sends the fitness data to either an iPhone or a PC/Mac for its re-sync to the Cloud. It monitors step count, flights of stairs, calories, distance, activity level, throws in competitions and awards, provides for quick chats with others, monitors sleep yet requires only a weekly recharge. Oh yes and it tells the time and features a silent alarm (which I don't use).

I tried the similar Withings gadget, which I don't think is as good as Fitbit at differentiating between activity levels, nor as good at reporting calories. The handy little heart rate and blood SATS was interesting for a few days, but the Withings eventually joined the Pebble on the 'not good enough' step. Maybe their wifi scales and other healthcare components will extend these capabilities in a useful way?

I've also been using the Garmin wrist-mounted Vivofit 2. As a user of Garmin Edge for my bike stats, I really want the Vivofit to be useful, but for some types of activity it gives the wrong results. The Fitbit hangs in there when I'm biking but the wrist-based Vivofit 2 relies on a type of motion that returns a null value from cycling. Fortunately my bike computer resolves all of this. As an example, today I've cycled about 30 miles. Fitbit will give me credit for that effort in calories, steps and activity level but the Vivofit tells me I'm well behind my daily target and need to get up and walk about some more.

It brings me back to the Apple Watch. If it is supposed to tell the time, a basic quality is to be 'always on', something that evades the 2015 battery technology. Although it can be left on, the battery life drops, so the activate option helps manage the power. It's only a simple wrist shake to wake it - either as a clock or on the last used App.

But I'm not sure how that affects the polite meetings test? That moment near the end of a session. Fiddling with the tech is somewhat more obvious than a glance at a proper wrist watch. I suppose more people twiddle phones during meetings nowadays, so the polite protocol's days are probably numbered.

But the other thing is the tactile response from a watch. There is something satisfying about proper downtime. I can take my 'work watch' off and that action itself becomes part of the feeling that I'm powered down. The new gadgets (whether the Apple Watch or the Garmin Vivofit 2) are more or less suggesting they should stay attached to the wrist. Actually, the Vivofit's one year battery life works for this, but the 15-18 hour Watch will still require removal for recharge. One of those lifestyle messages that says 'be 24x7x365'. Kind of shouty rather than quiet.

Still, only a few months before we get Siri as a home controller.

bicycle days are here again

A messy bike picture as I start to get machines properly functional for the summer months. I'm doing the London to Brighton again in June and am thinking about which bike I will use.

I've been riding the aluminium hybrid which has good pumped up tyres, sharp brakes and my own patent gears using combined SRAM Doubletap road and mountain parts. It's the same bike I use with the turbo and doesn't normally get long runs on the road.

The summer carbon bike is functional too. Although ready for action, it will benefit from a quick once-over on the bike stand.

I'm actually torn between the speedy well-maintained Focus Cayo for L2B and trying it with my in-need-of-attention mountain bike. The lightweight Cayo got suitable Oohs and Aahs from my fellow cyclists in Brighton last year, but might not be the best choice. My experience from last year was that the route can be quite slow, with quite a lot of standing around. The mountain bike has crazy low gearing and platform pedals which, given the amount of standing around, might be better so long as it has some slick tyres.

I'll have to consider this, as well some more hill practice. Unlike my companions from last year, I wasn't able to get up Ditchling Beacon without a pause. Some would say it was the extreme choked road conditions, but I'll also admit to a lack of puff before I reached the top. They all bought triumphal T-shirts, but that's one I don't have.

Meanwhile, I'm still quietly clocking miles, this year at 1,491 miles according to my Garmin readout. My rolling year average is still around 4,400 miles although that is about to plummet when May 2014 drops out of the averages.

Still, I'm on track for my personal Bronze(74%), Silver(49%) and Gold(37%) for 2015.