School Play

This morning Sarah's class put on a play. Parents were invited.

The play had something to do with animals and hunters and being proud of who you are. I missed a lot of the words because many lines were read quietly. Sarah played a monkey and had one line.

Footie

I played football with some work mates this afternoon in London. I haven't played much at all, ever. I don't even like football. But it was good exercise and it was fun.

It all started last month at our company's Christmas party at a Belgian restaurant in Covent Garden. Whilst quaffing Trappist ales some of us were talking about favourite video games and one of my teammates waxed about FIFA 2007 and ultimately suggested we get a team together at the office. Last week the emails went around and we settled on a let's-see-how-it-goes game for today.

The day didn't start well. It was the start of a cold, scarf-and-gloves week, but it was also raining this morning, seemlingly right at the point where you'd expect it to snow. When I went out for lunch it was raining buckets. Fortunately it stopped early afternoon, and things dry here pretty quickly. But with an outdoor game, I was still wary of swimming in mud until my mates explained we'd be playing on artificial turf.

It was a long walk to the recreation centre but it served as a good warm-up as well as cool-down afterwards. In the locker room I was chagrined to see I'd forgotten to pack my trainers (I could use the that's-what-happens-when-you-get-up-at-5am excuse, but it's flimsy) so I borrowed a mate's as he'd brought in real spiked ones. Unfortunately, he's a size 7 and I'm probably a 12. My toes are still sore. Partway through I chucked the shoes and played in bare feet.

I think I did more good than harm. If you were to put a lamppost on the field and paint a smiley face on it ... I think my performance would have been a bit better. I was more effective at defense, since guarding is about the same as it is in basketball. I don't have much control of the ball in offense, so I played really conservatively. I did take a few goal attempts but fudged them all. I also got a turn as goalie, even wearing those padded gloves, which as cool. I blocked a few, once with my fists, but missed at least one - a sneaker sent after an interception just as we were sending the ball downfield and I wasn't paying attention. But it was kinda fun overall. My stamina held up for the full 45 minutes so I'm not feeling too out of shape. The bike is definitely helping there. But it's a good thing I have a day job.

Sarah Bronzed

Sarah has earned a bronze award at her school. I'm not sure what exact calculus determines the awarding of this prize but I've been told it involves the earning of Humpty Points. Being a competitive parent, I naturally assumed Sarah had been passed up for silver or gold awards, but apparently they only offer bronze. At any rate, Sarah is very proud, so as a result, so are we.

I Saw Charles Babbage's Brain

Yesterday Sarah and I made a day trip to London. Sure, I'm there every weekday. But more than any place I've lived or visited, London has such a treasury of things I'd like to see that I'll probably never get to take in as much as I'd like. Architecture. Museums. Parks. Dining. Famous sites. London is a massive city, and unlike many cities where all the good parts are hemmed into one place by being on an island or peninsula or surrounded by hills, London just goes on and on, and the little I've seen so far is already pretty overwhelming.

So mid-morning, after Sarah's swim class, Margo dropped us at the train station. The ride in (and back) was not as pleasant as I'd expected. Scheduled maintenance on the line between Manningtree and Colchester meant we had to get on a bus from Ipswich to Colchester. And buses take much longer than the train. I was also disappointed in the train itself: instead of the normal cars , four seats to a row with a good assortment of tables, one of which I was hoping to use to play chess with Sarah, we had fewer cars, no tables, and were packed in five to a row.

But enough of my whingeing. Arriving at Liverpool Street Station, I got us some food, because everyone with a young child knows they require regular feeding. We went outside and ate on benches by the ice skating rink. (We'd tentatively planned a skate but Sarah cut her toe earlier in swim class.)

Then we took the Tube to South Kensington to the cluster of museums beneath Hyde Park. Within a few blocks are the Natural History Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Albert Hall (where now they know how many holes it takes to fill), and our destination, the Science Museum. There's even a convenient underground walkway from the station that surfaces at the museums.

After a queue to get tickets (like most museums, admission is free, but to see the main exhibit costs) Sarah was enraptured by the elevators on the way to the cloakroom so we admired them for a while. Instead of overhead cables, these went up and down on metal columns, and the whole works was walled in glass for easy study.

Then it was on to our main draw, the Game On exhibition featuring a historical collection of video games. We played Space Invaders on a stand-up console; tennis on a Dreamcast (she handed my butt to me); we raced collections of rectangles that vaguely resembled cars on an Atari 2600; and pressed buttons on XBoxes, PlayStations, vintage computers, and some massively-adorned battle sim (pedals, two joysticks, dials, knobs, buttons, and switches) that seemed stuck toggling between a menu and a neverending mission briefing. Entry to the exhibit was by appointment and timed to an hour and a half; like most visitors I'm sure, we were surprised to be asked for our tickets and informed we were just past our time limit.

By now, Museum Weariness was beginning to set in, and the little one was once again due for a feeding, so we found an as-expectedly-overpriced cafe and indulged in a cup of fruit and a plastic cup of fruit juice which, upon tasting, revealed itself to be a wee bit of Ribena and a lot of water, sold to harried minds like mine for 70 p.

Knowing that time was running out, I surveyed the impressive selection of remaining exhibits (I remember topics like geology, veterinary science, manufacturing ...) and choose space exploration and computing. We saw rockets and engines and surfaces of planets and moons. Then we saw Difference Engines (including a new one being built on the spot, apparently the world's largest) and much of Mr. Babbage's aforementioned neural bits. They also had the world's only still-operational all-vacuum-tube computer (which took up quite a bit of exhibit floor) donated in 1984 by (I think) an insurance company in Stockholm who purchased it in the 50s.

We also saw there was a hands-on area in the basement so we went to the land of little people and made noise and looked at ourselves in funny mirrors and splashed in sinks of water (all in the most educational manner, of course) and as always happens, Sarah did not not NOT want to leave, but somehow we did and made it home without much else worth reporting.

Mike, Bike: Together Again

Last weekend I bought a Giant Escape N7 city bike. Unlike the picture below, mine's blue and was configured with several extras: a chain guard, front and rear fenders, and a rack.



One of the selling points for me was that the brakes are in the hubs. That means I spend less time replacing brake pads (I hate adjusting brake pads) and I don't accumulate that sludge on the rims after wet weather rides. And like my last bike, the gearing is internal also, so there's fewer exposed parts to clean and maintain, and the chain doesn't twist back and forth when shifting, so it lasts much longer. It's also convenient that this was available at the bike shop at the end of our street.

I've made a few rides around town since then, including a ride to and from the train station last Thursday. For now I'll be using it mostly on the weekends but I expect to use it more during the week as the weather improves. I pay 16 - 20 pounds a day for cab fare, so if I were to bike instead, the bike will pay for itself in a few weeks.

There isn't a convenient space for keeping the bike in our flat, so I got a nylon cover for it and lock it to a downspout next to our back door.