Two wheels good, four wheels bad

I see Chris Froome was forced off the road and had his bike wrecked by an impatient hit-and-run driver. Shouldn’t happen and there is no excuse when vehicle drivers lose their cool or whatever it is that snaps when they deliberately endanger the life of a cyclist.

We see large numbers of cyclists while driving around Derbyshire, especially the Lycra-clad, hunched over the handlebars variety. Nothing wrong with that, but there is another side to this coin. Here’s an example.

The other day we were driving along a country road behind a few slow-moving cars. The reason for our slow speed was obvious, a large group of club cyclists had decided to ride in such a way that passing them was virtually impossible. It wasn’t a big deal, obstructions happen on country roads all the time. However, this one was obviously deliberate. 

It was easy enough to see that it was deliberate from the way the cyclists occupied slightly more than half the road until a vehicle approached from the other direction. No doubt their justification was that they rode that way for their own safety. If so then that is an understandable reason but obvious risks are passed on to other cyclists. This kind of behaviour adds a negative aspect to the image other road users have of cyclists. If the cyclists concerned don't realise that, then they are being obtuse.

We see many cyclists who ride as if their safety is the responsibility of other road users, especially when riding in groups. They ride as if they occupy some kind of moral high ground, well above those dirty, polluting vehicles trying to pass them safely. The attitude is bound to increase resentment felt by at least some drivers. 

The consequences we see all the time, but this is a politically incorrect aspect of road safety and seems to be officially invisible. 

Statins

Science News has an article on the contentious issue of statins and their expanding use. I don't take them but at my age the issue is of interest, particularly the idea that statins have a preventative role for people who have not had a heart attack or stroke.

Once the powerful cholesterol-busting drugs appeared, in the 1980s, scientists were able to show that a drop in cholesterol could keep a person who had suffered one heart attack or stroke from having a second. Later studies pointed to protection for even relatively healthy people. Researchers writing in the American Journal of Cardiology in 2010 declared that the drugs were such cardiovascular heroes they could essentially neutralize the health risks from a Quarter Pounder with cheese plus a milkshake.

I can't imagine taking any drug for the rest of my life without good medical reasons. That means reasons which apply to me and are not merely a product of government policy.

Sussman, of Michigan, refers to one of several online calculators that can help determine what that risk number is for any particular person. These kinds of tools take into account each person’s unique set of circumstances. In one online tool, a sedentary 60-year-old white male with a weight of 250 pounds, a total cholesterol of 225, no high blood pressure and no personal or family history of heart disease might have a 9 percent risk of having a heart attack in the next 10 years. A 60-year-old African-American woman with diabetes but all other parameters the same would have a 13 percent risk.

The guiding principle Sussman tells his patients is that the lower your risk of disease in the first place, the less you have to gain from statins. Patients also have to factor in their own sense of how much they fear a heart attack or stroke — all the while knowing there are other means of prevention with almost no risk that can get lost in the statin debate, including weight loss, exercise and a better diet. That theoretical 60-year-old man with a 9 percent risk could drop his risk to about 5 percent with 20 minutes of moderate activity each day and better eating habits.

The comments on the article are generally negative which is not surprising. Apart from being intrinsically suspect, any form of mass medication could result in unforeseen long-term consequences. I'll stick with moderate activity and a fairly healthy diet.

A host, of golden dandelions

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden dandelions;

William Wordsworth (near enough)

Photo taken today in the hills above Milldale. Even though dandelions are a constant menace in the garden, I find myself admiring the remarkable toughness of the little blighters. When they flower en masse like this they can look quite spectacular too. 

Knowing what they are takes some of the edge off it, but not entirely. This was just a small section of a large field carpeted with them from dry stone wall to dry stone wall.

Corbyn and the verdict of history

Yesterday Mike Smithson of politicalbetting.com wrote a post about a question he asked on Twitter –

How is history going to judge Mr. Corbyn?

Mr Smithson received a range of replies to what is a tempting but unanswerable question. The question also gives rise to an equally interesting but much more general issue. 

Jeremy Corbyn’s elevation to Labour party leader would not have been predicted only a few years ago. Even if his leadership had been suggested as a future possibility it would have attracted widespread ridicule. As it does now of course.

Ed Miliband’s bungled update to the Labour leadership election rules kicked it all off and Ed obviously didn’t predict this outcome or he probably would not have changed anything. A few years ago, Corbyn would not have predicted it either, yet a series of apparently unlikely events changed the course of Labour party history. At least for a time - we can't predict that either. A lesson for democracy perhaps. 

Let us go much further back in time, to the time of Jeremy's conception. First contact between his mother's egg and his father's sperm could have turned out differently and Jeremy could have been Jemima. Such as small matter yet these things change the tide of history. Apply the same thought to any major actor on the political stage and what do we get? We don’t know. We’ll never know. Things are as they are.

It all goes to show the validity of Harold Macmillan’s disputed but famous quote.

Events, dear boy, events.

A righteous man

For fifty years he had been persuading himself that he was a righteous man, and the conviction was now so firmly impressed upon his very soul that nothing could ever shake it.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Firm of Girdlestone (1890)

It’s a strange idea, the notion of righteousness. So often we have seen it applied to fictional characters who are emphatically not righteous, as Conan Doyle does here with John Girdlestone and as Dickens did with Seth Pecksniff. Both characters projected their supposed righteousness via religious and traditionally moral facades. 

Righteousness still has religious connotations, but much less so than in Dickens’ and Conan Doyle’s day. Even so, in view of her religious upbringing one might expect Theresa May to have a degree of righteousness in her political persona but she doesn’t. Neither does Jeremy Corbyn, yet Conan Doyle’s quote seem to fit Corbyn better than May. It fits his politics, it fits his supporters.

In modern times, the whole idea of righteousness has become much more political and rather more covert. It is signalled via behaviour and language rather than explicit religious quotations or moral maxims. It has morphed into political virtue-signalling and is not likely to be religious nor traditionally moral.

It was easy enough in Dickens' and Conan Doyle's day, but somehow we have made it even easier to be righteously stupid, righteously incompetent, righteously dishonest, righteously wicked. 

Strewth I’m idle

Yesterday Mrs H made some veggie pâté so I decided to make a loaf of bread to go with it. Sadly, after the pâté ingredients had been weighed out, the kitchen scales complained of a low battery and steadfastly refused to weigh even one more item. A feeble little 'Lo' appeared on the display for about a second before the thing went into an electronic coma. 

I make bread using a breadmaker and reasonably accurate quantities are important, but at the time I didn't want to toddle off to the shops merely to buy a new battery, so what to do?

Simple. I logged into Amazon and ordered a pack of two batteries for 24 hr delivery. Yes I suppose I could have nipped out to Sainsbury’s for batteries and made the loaf yesterday, but why bother when it is so easy to click, click, click even if one has to wait a day for delivery?

My little package of batteries was shipped out from Peterborough overnight and popped through the letterbox today while we were out visiting. When we returned I breathed new life into the kitchen scales via one of those brand-new, fresh from Peterborough batteries and my loaf should be ready in a couple of hours.

Where does it all end though? How idle is it possible for a chap to be? In future will I have any real need to leave the house at all?

The growth of garden centre culture

We visited a garden centre today, one we’ve visited occasionally for quite a few years. It is situated out in the Derbyshire countryside and once upon a time it was mostly a place to buy plants, shrubs and trees. Bit by bit the plants seem to have taken second place to the cafe, garden furniture, shabby chic decorations, farm shop and barbecue kit.

Today we discovered that the pace of change has accelerated. The garden centre has received a substantial makeover. Gone is the piece of apparently derelict land which once served as a car park. Now it has organised parking in rows so we couldn’t just leave the car anywhere and mooch off the entrance. 

Not only that but the entrance has moved too. The new one has automatic doors and once inside a brand new layout guides folk through all the indoor goodies before they have a chance of finding the outdoor area. The cafe is much bigger, that was immediately obvious, but it wasn’t at all obvious where the plants might be.

Fortunately we have a general idea of the layout so we were able to use our sense of direction and wend our way from the pervasive aroma of coffee to the outside world where things turned out to be much the same as always. Apart from the car park, no money had been spent outside as far as one could tell. In other words the place has become a copy of all the big garden centres hereabouts, if still a little smaller.

Had I been asked, which was vanishingly unlikely, I would have supposed that copying the big boys in the garden centre business would destroy any advantage to having one in the Derbyshire countryside set in picturesque surroundings. Apparently this isn’t the case as the car park was absolutely packed. People were even waiting for vacated spaces when we left. Never seen that before.

It was a bank holiday of course, but dull, overcast and chilly after early rain. Even taking the bank holiday into account, the makeover seems to have worked a treat, so this is what people must want from a garden centre. Coffee, cake, a bit of shopping and maybe a plant in a pot if there’s still time.