le fall?

Next to last day in August, and it is a beaytiful autumn day.
The pack of lies that is circulating regarding Toronto`s weather continues.
I have variously been told " August is always ridiculously hot in Toronto", "in the winter we have snow 6 feet deep", "you will be unable to ride your bicycle", "minus 30PLUS the windchill"!
Perhaps it is a jealousy of the other bits of Canada that are not Toronto (where the remaining few thousand reside), having some serious weather. Or is it some Al Gore inspired global warming conspiracy, or bio terrorists?

Listen to this

"Hamish and Dougal", "You`ll have had your tea"
Fifteen minutes you won`t regret,http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/
Graeme Garden, he was the best one in " The Goodies" in the seventies , along with the genius that is Jeremy Hardy, and Barry Crier, and Alison Steadman.

This is where it all begins

Adventures in cyberspace continue with the discovery that I can listen to the radio, LIVE, And BACK IN TIME, at the click of a mouse. Stumbled onto http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/ today and I was off........
BBC Radio 4, direct from this home page has some of the worlds best current affairs ,COMEDY, and Comment.
Hitchhikers note ,........... this is where it all begins..

I should really have looked at the map

Today, I received a phonecall out of the blue from an ex colleague. We had talked , as you do, about a mutual interest, and then he left,........... and that was that!

Not any more, I had a phonecall from the beach, "Dude you have to get a wetsuit, Autumn is comming with waves. i paraphrase to cover the excitement.

So now I must buy a wetsuit,(the old one had one to many days of not being properly cleaned-that Yorkshire seawater doesnt come off without a fight) and make my way to ..the lake?

Yes its all freshwater here on Canada`s fake Eastern seaboard, still I cannot deny the anticipation of water so cold that you can not be sure it is not boiling. Pain is pain.

In my minds eye I still dream of Cornwall, now there was a beach, fine surf ,..and a bar!

76 years

As of a few hours ago ,the planet Pluto is now the"Dwarf planet pluto".
It's orbit apparently messed with that of Neptune, a meeting was called under the performance evaluation framework, and it is now no longer one of the nine.
The remaining eight sit uneasily awaiting a backlash. Shortly there may well be at least three others as moves go on in the corridors of power, where will it end?

Football proper

Now that the days are shortening and the cooler nights drawing in, It's time to sit back and watch some football,the world cup was great, but a man's second love is always the other football( at least they have some form of drug testing policy unlike the Canadians whom are a bit slack to say the least).
Goldie Hawn was right it is "the sport of kings,better than diamond rings...football"
Philidelphia fans are a breed apart, and I am proud to say I have been a Foreign correspondent since the mid eighties, lots of very late nights.
Now I have arrived in Canada, Like the "Fourth and twenty- six" all I have to do is BELIEVE, and I can here them cheering even though it may be a matter of about 4oo miles

Mammoths instead of cows

It`s been in the papers again, seems to come up every summer when there is not enough news.
The Japanese are the latest scientists postulating using frozen mammoth DNA in elephants to produce a hybrid mammoth.
Their main drive in this effort is to provide an animal more pleasing to look at than cows, which you could presumably also eat( like whales) in the name of scientific research...

official state soil is...

Saw a piece in the paper yesterday re-printed from the wall street journal, to the effect that over 20 US states now have official state soils!
Alabama has an official amphibian AND an outdoor musical.
I thought I had misread that but it is an outdoor musical ,and not an outdoor musical anything in particular.
The official state pie of Florida Is Key Lime.
New Jersey is in discussions with itself over whether to have the tomato as the official state vegetable!!
There must be Official state things for Ontario and I will have a look around...

World Dragon Boat championships Toronto.

I attended this event yesterday in Toronto(held here for the first time).
I imagine it will not be held here again as the commentator was suffering from something which made him unable to comment in a helpful way. Though new to this sport , we were surrounded by competitors whom were similarly bemused by the commentary! I am sure it will look good on the Rogers sportsnet segment.
As you can see they were VERY fast, and it looked great, are there any teams out there needing someone to laugh at?
In the film "Dodge Ball" there is a great advert for a magazine that caters to activities that are"almost a sport" ,well having seen Dragon Boat racing it is definately a sport and I would take my hat off to them were I wearing it, "ultimate frisbee"on the other hand....

Where have all the bees gone?

Back in the UK we had a huge bee population on a flowering shrub in our front garden.

I would park the car , get out, and about fifty bees would nod "Morning"( this is obviously were the idea for the fish tank in Monty Pythons "Meaning of life" came from).

Since arriving in Canada I do not recall seeing any, until this one yesterday, it didnt say any thing, it was probably shy/French/busy, but it was good to see one around.

Apparently they are under a general threat from changes in land use , gardening practices, an increase in natural predators. The Scientists are encouraging us to grow more trumpet shaped flowers , bees can see UV markers on flowers but not the colour red.

There are thousands of bee species but only a very few used by man to produce honey and pollinate some commercial crops.This bee may be the common honey bee (Apis Mellifera) or its closely related cousin the bumble bee which tends to be larger and furrier than other types, it didnt say..

Altered reality, better get a "book"

I usually read the paper at work, the Toronto Star for the local stuff and occasionally the Globe and Mail for the bigger picture.
The story yesterday about the "enhanced" photographs unwittingly published by Reuters further erroded public confidence in what the Media tells us and how it is portrayed.
I gather this story was broken by someone from the blogging world, perhaps this is where the real news exists and gets reported and commented on!!
The newspapers are hopelessly handicapped by having to print the newshours before they publish, but the 24 hour TV and radio are only happy if they can get a reporter "live" on the scene and then endlessly replay bland question and officially guarded replies.
As I logged on I noticed an article about the current terror alert back home, perhaps it is me but I feel sure the TV station was primarily interested in flight delays. I will go to work and the papers will have nothing, perhaps it is time to get one of Douglas's "Books" so I can keep up and access the blogging world to find out what is happening.

Coffee

Yesterday, at work, I had moved somewhat earlier than usual onto my third coffee of the day.
The first is always at a local Tim hortons not five minutes drive from work,I cycle to work and afterwards am in need of a coffee flavoured hot beverage-about a pint usually does it.
when I first arrived in Canada all I could drink were the "small" sizes in what looked like ordinary cups. Now I have begun to assimilate the "extra large" looks reasonable and is good value at ten cents more than the small.
The second cup is usually from "second cup" where they do "European" style coffee (ie coffee),it is strong and they do a great dark roast.
The third cup is usually at that time of the night when all you can get is stacked in favour of 'Tims"as they are like everywhere ,like starbucks back home.
As a shift worker back home I would drink ten or so very small instant coffees from the machine in the hospital ER ,actually next to the nurses station, the queue for coffee would often get in the way of the more seriously ill patients. It was poor but had some coffee in it.
Here in canada they do good coffee but you cannot get it next to the nurses station-swings and roundabouts!

The Brits are comming!

Professor Colin Pillinger is exactly the type of mad scientist persona that makes me proud to be British, in the tradition of Sir Patrick Moore he "does the science thing" and has a team of people to dress him and remind him to eat!

UK aims to be major space player
By Jonathan Amos BBC News Online science staff

Aurora would put a rover on the Martian surfaceThe UK is almost certainly going back to Mars and is set to become a major player in Europe's efforts to explore the Solar System.
Science minister Lord Sainsbury says the country will pay the £5m interim subscriptions needed to maintain a premier place in the Aurora programme.
Aurora sets out a vision for Europe to visit the planets with robotic probes and perhaps one day even with humans.
Initially, however, the aim will be to put unmanned vehicles on the Red Planet.
Britons have always been explorers and this is an opportunity to rekindle our sense of adventure
Lord Sainsbury UK planetary scientists are keen to follow up their ill-fated Beagle 2 mission which attempted to place a 70kg science laboratory on the surface of Mars on Christmas Day last year.
Lead nation status
Although the robot did not survive the entry and landing phase of the mission, scientists and engineers from academia and industry believe they should be allowed to build on the expertise they acquired.
Over the next 18 months, they will be asked to map out how the UK could be involved in three future projects:
A demonstrator mission that would show Europe could land safely on the surface of the Red Planet with a static robot
A car-sized roving robot, much like the US space agency's "mobile geologists", which could move across the surface of Mars and dig two metres into the ground
A mission that would land on Mars, collect rocks and return them to Earth for study in the laboratory. Discussions will be held with partners in the European Space Agency on the UK's precise role in these projects.
It could lead to the country paying around £25m a year to lead some missions.
"Britons have always been explorers and this is an opportunity to rekindle our sense of adventure," said Lord Sainsbury.
Need for speed
It is hoped the research and development effort involved in designing and building the missions will have major spin-offs - such as new failure-tolerant software that can still function when components go wrong; or "lab on a chip" technology which is capable of analysing extremely small samples.
"By investing a small amount of money at the right time and at the right level, you can influence the direction of programmes and you give our industry the opportunity to win leading roles - to win the primary contracts," said Dr Mike Healy from EADS-Astrium, one of Europe's leading spacecraft manufacturers.

What happened to Beagle 2 as it headed to Mars?
In picturesAurora is still at a very early stage in its development. European ministers still have to approve the full programme. But if they do, the UK would be expected to pick up about 17% of the total budget which is likely to be in the region of £150m a year.
It is not clear yet when the first mission - the landing demonstrator - will actually launch. Currently, the rover is earmarked for 2009 but commentators believe this may be too soon.
In which case a "Beagle 3", or something like it, could be sent in that window on a mission whose primary objective was to test entry and landing technologies.
Professor Colin Pillinger, the chief cientist on Beagle 2, said it was imperative Europe made key decisions quickly, otherwise the field would be monopolised by the US.
"If we don't get a move on, the science will have been done by the time we get there," he said. "And I don't believe in 'me too' science."
Budget pressures
Dr Sarah Dunkin, from the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and vice-president of the Royal Astronomical Society, said she thought the European missions could do different things.
"There are payloads and experiments which haven't been flown to Mars and still have no opportunity to go to Mars because America's payloads are sewn up," she said.

Europe would have to avoid just repeating US missions"So, there are still opportunities to carry out novel science that the American's won't do first because they won't be flying those types of instruments."
If Britain follows through with its intentions and joins the full Aurora programme, it will inevitably put some pressure on other areas of the UK science budget and could mean other researchers having to curtail their ambitions.
Two areas in particular are mentioned in this discussion: the global project to build a next-generation linear collider to study the fundamentals of matter; and an extremely large telescope to look at very faint objects in the Universe.
"The bottom line on this is that we can play a significant role in all three programmes," said Lord Sainsbury.
"Can we provide the money to satisfy all the demands of all communities? The answer is 'no'. At the margins, there will have to be a debate about which programme gets more?"

shot in the foot- Floyd for President

So the B sample is out there, and another world class athlete ends his career in shame.
The shame is not that there will always be those whom believe that he is innocent or guilty, BUT that many people will turn away from watching , funding, and even competing in cycling.

The international governing bodies shot themselves in the foot when after the Festina affair they failed to put there house in order, they let DAVID MILLAR back in after he admitted cheating, the atletes keep on doing it because they often get away with it, and if caught can retire protesting their innocence. BEN JOHNSON was found to be breaking all the rules in `88, he lost his gold medal and world record and was banned for two years, in `93 he was caught again and banned for life(at the end of his career)!
JUSTIN GATLIN is alledging `positive by proxy` after some masseur alledgedly massaged testosterone into his legs, LINFORD CHRITIE an ambassador for UK sport was banned for two years(again at the end of his career), after registering 200 times the normal level of nandrolone.

The world is full of fakes and these sporting icons did very well out of it, one man admitted to taking steroids throughout his professional career as a bodybuilder during which time he won the highest accolades, became one of the most famous athletes of all time , minister for sport, and govennor of the richest state of the richest country in the world, he may yet become the worlds most powerful man, unless Floyd beats him to it....

Highway to nowhere

Since planning to move to Canada and choosing Toronto I have read lot of Tourist books on the city and they all have sections on the Gardiner expressway.
It is explained that this elevated roadway which moves traffic right across the bottom end of town has been considered in numerous studies designed to improve access to the waterfront and make Toronto a`world class city`.
They want to remove it or bury it, both of which are expensive, in order to walk down from the city centre to the lake. Whilst this would have been great in years gone by there are now at least a million condos in that space so all you woukd do is walk in their shadow!
As I rushed home from work late last night the gardiner was revealed in it`s true beauty, plenty of space ,fast moving traffic , stunning views of the down town core and the waterfront at midnight.
This is a big city warts and all, and if you can`t sleep in the next `humidex advisory` borrow rent or steal a car and do the few miles from the lake end to the dvp, turn round and do it again, repeat til dawn.

Coalition of the willing

Its` very late so I will be brief!
Earlier this evening I caught a bit of the first half ( the rest to be shown God knows when) of a film called` the corporation` which I have been meaning to see for ages.
Along with Al Gore`s `an Inconvenient truth` they are both examples of the sort of thing that I love, need to watch more of and the find myself lapsing into late night comedy and `end of the day chilling`.
A few minutes ago, I caught( on my way back from the wine bottle) the tv which is showing a fantastic example of political satire tv that from of all places the USof A. Canada is good like that!
`The colbert Report` with Stephen Colbert is examining the coalition of the willing in the war on terror with a series of short films entitled `meet a ally` tonight it is Palau- I had to look it up as well, ...... `and I think to myself,what a wonderful world`

What the LANDIS do we know?

OK, so I have sucessfully improved my blog by putting an image on it, Awesome, as they say here in Canada.
This is me, the very amateur athlete in PAIN!
Steve Cram the British and Olympic Medal winner pointed out that all athletes suffer, the good ones are just goinng a lot faster!
So pick a marathon, anywhere in the world, its full of septagenarians, cancer survivors, amputees as well as those dressed as wedding cakes or subway trains.
They all hurt.
People do it for fun ,to save face after drunken arguments about how flat the course really is, and increasingly for charity( big small ,and often intensley personal).
NONE of them do it for money or personnel prestige.
There are countless fine professional athletes in every sport the world over. They are competitors/ entertainers/proud to compete for their club town city or country.
Then there are the OTHERS, those who choose to take drugs in order to improve their chances, and therfore money and prestige.
Which brings me to my point( I may well go on about this problem for weeks).
Floyd Landis is currently embroiled in a drug accusation after winning the worlds greatest cycle race. He is accused of having eleven times more testosterone in his system than the normal value. The tour de france has been plagued by drug problems for years, and many of us sports fans would like to think that it was all largely in the murky past, the next few weeks will tell.
As a child I had no specific sporting ( or other) heroes. As an adult I have followed the Tour, every olympics, the Philedelphia eagles, etc, I am now officially disillusioned, but know there are hard working professionals out there tonight, training, eating egg whites ,drinking huge amounts of water and going to bed early , and they will do this every day until London 2012 when they will compete for the love of it, for Canada(or one of the other 168 or so nations).
I wonder how you tell them from the others???

I want blue teeth

In a couple of weeks I should have the hang of how the internet works for the regular blogger.
I am investigating/being shown, one step at a time, how to put links in etc.
This will help enormously as I read other peoples blogs with awe: I want hyper links, gammalinks , real -time streaming blue teeth, I want to listen in to the international space station and maybe send them music clips, I want help out NASA with some extra terrestrial research whilst I sleep, and log on in the morning to a free pass to watch the next shuttle launch (sent by video invite).
I know the internet loves me and is there to help me blog/tell me when and where to surf/talk to people whom know what Floyd Landis has or hasn`t done/learn about this thing with Mars on the 27th/and link me with others whom know things.
It`s 32 degrees in Toronto this morning and I must now cycle to work, comming back to learn more tomorrow.