The Rike Bide

Picture by The Neville of www.b3ta.com

My life isn't quite as beautifully bollywood as Vasco's, but, i did go on an excellent bike ride the other day, from my house to xav's (international; i live in wales, he lives in england) over hills as high as 260m and through forests as dense as Moses. It was utterly beautiful. Right after one of the biggest storms to hit here in years. Floods, hailstones breaking windows, gales, thunder lightning, all to the point that the place i was trying to work had a power cut every five seconds (distressing when you're working on a computer using a harddisk, camera and various other expensive electronic equipment that could be fried in an instant by a big enough spike) and i nearly soiled myself. The bike ride however, was serene and clear, the river was swollen and red, like a searing liquid rash, but we followed it all the way, seeing such amazing sights as a fox catching a fish, trees falling on roads and a van skidding across a road before clipping a bus. Quite an awesome ride, i nearly died but it was worth it.

In the news...lets see....they are beginning to stop banging on about Madeleine Mccann or Maddy or whatever name theyre giving her. I am sorry but i dont quite see how she gets more publicity than the other hundreds of kids that go missing all the time. Is she gold-plated? No. It's very sad what happened to her but there's really no need to keep reporting that "they havent found anything yet". It's as superfluous as "Elvis is STILL DEAD".

Newspaper faces are plastered with how shit our school system, prime minister, labour party, government and general parliamentary system is. Blair is stepping down and Gordon Brown (think a scottish John Lawrenson with the politics of a miserly Kip Sumner), his understudy so-to-speak, unquestionably steps up to replace him. I don't quite see why this should be so and in all practicality a new general election should be called as we did not vote for the party with this candidate as leader. But then again, the protocol for the government to follow is ambiguous as we have no written constiution and its "all a bit complicated" as my grandmother likes to put it. Our school system is one of the worst in Europe with statistics scarily similar to those Vasco quoted. Blair is becoming Catholic. Generally people are happy to see Blair go

http://www.b3ta.com/links/Goodbye_Tony_Blair

but the replacement isnt so great either. And a young girl was wearing a chastity ring, (chastity, for people like Andrea who might not know the meaning of the word, is when you do not have sex) as propagated by her fanatically christian parents, to school and was told she would have to take it off, has accused her of discrimination against Christians, complaining that headscarves can be worn so why can't chastity rings. The school has replied that wearing a headscarf is part of an organised religion, whereas wearing chastity rings is cheap, nasty, a little bit weird and far too "holier-than-thou" to be allowed at any self-respecting school. Ok maybe the last bit was paraphrased a little creatively, but you get the gist. Who wants unbiased news anyway?

Another excellent thing i've done recently is hung out with my dad. We made 30 litres of beer together. We cut the hedge by him giving me a strimmer (basically a lightsaber; consists of a massive pole with a motor on one end and oscillating blades at the other), placing me on the back of a pick-up truck and driving down the lawn with me slashing and swiping madly at the mass of green streaming towards me while both my father and I laugh like little kids. Bloody good fun. The other day he showed me something cool. Some guys my dad knows randomly made this tesla coil in america. A tesla coil, for those that dont play Red Alert, is a massive apparatus that zaps out sparks of lightning. It does have a more detailed explanation than that, but this is my E-systems version. Go look on Wikipedia if you're interested. Anyway. This one was special because not only was it MASSIVE but they modulated the frequency of the spark to play tunes on it. What's amazing is the sheer loudness of this spark. It effectively means they have an awesome lights show and LOUD music (dogs barking and people screaming are wholly drowned out) all in one. Expect them to hit your local geek-clubs soon.
Find the video and site here:
http://www.hauntedfrog.com/gt/movies/2007/duckon/SingingTeslaShow.html

In other news i will be making a pilgrimage to Bern this summer to seek out the Hang instrument that Nat and i experienced in Amsterdam. If you know anyone in Bavaria or switzerland or north italy that MIGHT be have a sofa or time to show me around a beautiful city for a few hours i would be forever indebted.



I hope i've offended someone's religion with this post. Especially my own.

Your Vitriolic UK Correspondent,
Jonny