One of the greatest nights of my life was spent watching The Unbelievable Truth and eating pizza with a girl I was falling in love with.
For some reason Underneath Gold by Black Before Red reminds me of that night.
Life is strange sometimes.
Archive for June, 2007
Something messed up with my bike today.
I was cycling along when I noticed the back wheel was making a distressing sound, rather like a small dead animal had gotten stuck to the tyre and was being gradually squashed to oblivion.
It wasn’t that though, the tyre was just escaping from the rim. I couldn’t push it back in and so I cycled tentatively to the nearest bike shop.
I walked in and asked for his professional opinion. He told me I needed to let the air out, squeeze the tyre back in and then pump it up.
Simple enough you might think.
He told me I needed a special adaptor thing for his pump outside the shop. He handed it to me and as I moved towards him I proceeded to knock over three of the bikes that he was working on. Classy.
I made it outside, adaptor thing in hand, and placed my bike next to the pump.
After about five minutes of faffing about, and my sunglasses falling off the top of my head, I figured out how to let the air out and squeezed the tyre back in. Then came the pumping up part.
I tried to fit the adaptor onto the valve but succeeded only in dropping it down the storm drain in front of the window where it lay, shimmering amid some particularly unsavoury street detritus.
I looked inside the window and the bike man was staring at me with a mix of bewilderment and horror.
Luckily I have abnormally long arms so I managed to retrieve the adaptor and successfully pumped up the tyre with no further mishaps.
I reckon Danish children are taught basic bike maintenance as soon as they can walk. In England, you learn how to sniff glue and microwave.
Those of you that have ever taken a look at my Flickr stream will know that I have a thing for girls on bikes.
It’s purely an artistic thing you understand, nothing to do with me being a bit of a perv.
Some of my pics are OK but I am merely the apprentice to the master that is Zakka.
We got talking over the interwebzone today and I found out he’d started a picture blog dedicated to the beautiful women of this city who make our bike rides to work so much more enjoyable.
I can tell from the number of views I get of my pics that girls on bikes is a pretty popular subject, so I reckon this might just take off. It would be cool to see if anyone recognises themself.
Anyway, go and check it out . . . Cycle chic – Copenhagen girls on bikes.
As this sad, sad story demonstrates, mostly everything we read from Iraq should be viewed with extreme suspicion.
Thankfully, the days when centrally distributed news were swallowed by the unquestioning masses are all but over.
I’ve been interviewed by a blogging site. I say interviewed, they sent me a link to an online form which I filled out in four minutes.
Read it here. Go on. And vote for me too please!
If like me you’re fascinated by the idea of lost cities being discovered underwater, speculation about the architecture of the future, or the journals of forgotten Victorian explorers, then BLDG BLOG will probably make you happy.
Today’s post tells the strange story of how ship hulls were used in San Francisco to reclaim land. Apparently, the basements of many older houses are actually the decaying hulks of scuttled ships.
I’ve come across two quotes today that I thought I’d share. . .
“The point of living and of being an optimist, is to be foolish enough to believe the best is yet to come.” – Sir Peter Ustinov.
“Man’s real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.” – Edgar Allan Poe.
My name Aleksandra. I want to find to myself the man of the dream and I have come in Internet – cafe
and began to search for the man. And you have very much liked me. You very solid the man and me very
much it would be desirable, that we learned more about each other. It would be so wonderfully. So it
is pleasant for me. I very much hope, that you want dialogue with me and we shall learn each other
more. You very lovely and I very much hope, that you search for the woman such as I. It will be very
pleasant for me if you to me write. I was born August, 20 in 1980 in city St-Peterburg it is such
fine city and I always liked to live in it. my weight 53 kg my growth 169 cm, color of hair blonde,
color of eyes dark. I very much hope, that I to like you and you to me write. I at all do not know
why but when I have seen you in my heart at once began so perfectly and I have understood, that you
very fine the man. I very much hope, that it will be very pleasant for you to write to me because I
shall wait for your letter with impatience. Unfortunately it is time to me to go home, but I
necessarily shall write to you if you to me write on mine e-mail. Aleksandra.
The joy of Myspace.
I decided to get the train today. I don’t know why; it wasn’t raining and there was nothing wrong with my bike. I think I just wanted to be transported with minimal effort.
One stop along, a class of schoolkids got on. They were five or six and were all clutching fishing nets, buckets and jars. They filled the carriage with their chatter, looking earnestly and with curious eyes at the beleagured adults on their tiresome commute.
Their two teachers, a good-looking man and woman both in their early 30s, held tightly onto their takeaway coffee and moved up and down the carriage, gently manoeuvering the children into spare seats, picking up stray nets and exchanging knowing looks with the other passengers.
I don’t quite know what point I’m making here. I was only with them for a couple of stops and then I left them, heading out to the country to splash in ponds and catch minnows.
Thanks to Isabel and CB who both left charming messages about me over on Marie’s post about this ‘not-integrated Englishman’. It’s good to know I have some friends in the blogosphere!
Marie herself has also taken steps to defuse this potential Anglo-Danish blogging war with an eloquent post (in English) explaining her original intention.
I hope one day to be able to respond in Danish.
Something rotten 