With all the cardiac problems going around, here’s some important advice.
This sort of thing takes a bit of practice. Go too fast, and you’ll leave your heart behind. Conversely, not fast enough, and your heart will inexplicably somehow get in front of you. Mmm.
You don’t want that.
Keep it inside your body as you walk. And hopefully as you do everything else, as well.
A lovely little collection of images in The Guardian late last week, promoting an exhibition which includes the work of documentary photographer Chris Killip.
This one is a fog-(on the Tyne)-gy Wallsend, dated on the site as being taken in 1976. But the Tyne Pride – one of the huge ships being built at the Swan Hunter shipyard which was the be-all and end-all for all the families living in that area at that time – was actually launched in late 1975, so I think that might be incorrect. They built BIG SHIPS there back then. Here’s a better view of just how big:
Mark I Raleigh Chopper FTW!
I know Chris Killip’s work from his time on the Isle of Man, mostly documenting Manx farming life in the early 1970s. Not a lot had changed in the previous 100-odd years for many of those communities at that time, and not a lot changed in the 15 or 20 years after that either, so I recognise quite a few of the places and scenes (and maybe even one or two of the people?) from my time over there as a kid.
There are plenty of those images on the Manx Museum ‘iMuseum’ site here.
Life is full of people giving you advice. Whether you choose to take that advice comes down to a few factors: Do you want to listen? How does it correlate with your own judgement? And where is the advice coming from?
I can’t really control the first two, but my advice to you today comes from a good place.
It’s genuine, it’s honest, and I wouldn’t be sharing it if I didn’t think it might benefit you. It’s not at all complicated. Quickly and easily dispensed.
It’s just a little thing that I feel will make a positive change in your life, should you choose to follow it.
And the advice is this:
Don’t smash the bridge of your nose on the corner of a large chunk of 70mm square powder-coated steel bar when you’re next at the gym.
See? Nothing too amazing in that, but I can assure you that after a certain event this morning at the gym (involving piece number 17 in case you were wondering), this is advice that I would earnestly give to anyone and everyone that I care about.
And this means you, dear reader.
So. Sore nose, much blood, achy face and TMJs and neck, and potentially the final icing on the coffin which breaks the camel’s back of my burgeoning modelling career. And that weird foggy feeling that descends upon you when you bang your head (I checked and the nose is very much part of the head).
I’ve had better mornings.
Take my advice: don’t do that thing with your face and the steel bar. Really.
I’ve covered something like this before. Where is it now? Ah yes: here.
And I stand by each of those eight identifiers. They are a quick, easy and helpful guide to recognising that someone is more likely to be a bad driver, so that you can take preemptive evasive action before they drive badly and do some damage to you and your vehicle.
But after driving the N2 a bit on Friday, I’d now like to add another: personalised number plates
Now, if you are going to spend money on a personalised number plate, I think we can already see that you’re likely to be a Type A Personality. And what does that mean? This:
Ooh. Look at all that aggression, competitiveness, hostility and lack of patience. You sound lovely, and exactly the sort of person that I want near me doing a high speed on a major road. Fortunately, as I pointed out above, you can spot them a mile off because of that preoccupation with status, manifesting as big flashy cars and their (average-sized) flashy personalised number plates.
A timely reminder that this isn’t me.
In the Western Cape, personalised number plates cost up to an extra R10,000, and take the form of a string of up to 7 letters and/or numbers, followed by “-WP”, a hangover from the pre-94 name “Western Province”.
Because (quite reasonably) no-one would pay for a number plate ending “-WC”, would they? Bog off.
Now, we spotted a lot of bad driving on the 400km trip back in towards Cape Town on Friday – this is South Africa, after all – and sure, not all of it was from cars with personalised number plates. But a disproportionate amount of it certainly was.
Cars with plates like “TRIPLE R – WP”, presumably because he dRRRives like a wankeRRR; or the pisspoor plate “BIZNIS – WP”, presumably because he’s in the “biznis” of… driving like a wanker.
I’m not saying that all drivers of cars with personalised number plates are aggressive, dangerous tosspots, but let’s face it, some stereotypes exist for a very good reason, and this is very much one of them.
Over our back garden, last week.
A Jackal Buzzard being attacked by a African Harrier Hawk.
Is this a new phenomenon, or are birds literally attacking each other all the time and I’m only just noticing now? After all, in the last couple of weeks, there was this. And then this. And now there’s that (above).
What you can’t see in this image is the other Jackal Buzzard. That’s because the other Jackal Buzzard had already been attacked and was probably thinking that it was safer just to spiral away into the Spring-like sky rather than being attacked again. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this second Jackal Buzzard made the same decision very soon after this shot was taken.