He who comes last, laughs loudest...

Check out position number 29!!!

In my defence, I did arrive half an hour late for the race and everyone else had started racing! And yes, I was beaten by a guy on a Brompton...

And another thing...I have now decided to name my bicycle "The Orange Destiny".

Muggers beware

Partially encouraged by my near-mugging terror, and partially by the shouts of ridicule from passers-by, I have "re-invented" my cycling persona. Gone are the dorky glasses and the simpleton's grin - my new 'tougher' image is now in full effect.

So, good people of Keynsham, please be aware that the new me is in the muthafreakin house and may or may not be in a good mood!

Ruddy Duck

What do you give the eleven month-old who has everything?* Why, a knitted duck of course! Like this one. Knitted ducks make ideal pets for small children. They're just like real ducks, only quieter. And less buoyant. You don't have to feed them bread or anything, and they're very unlikely to make a mess on your carpet.

Why not make one yourself? I'll lend you the pattern if you want. I knitted this handsome fellow up in a rather tasteful combination of red and green, but there's nothing to stop you using inferior colours. He came from an old knitting book I bought on ebay, and if I may say so he turned out much better than the one they had in the picture. So what's stopping you? Pick up your needles and knit a duck today!

*Well, everything a little baby could want anyway. I don't think he has an iPod or a 7-series BMW just yet.

Revisito Mexico City

They say that old computer games never die: they just get decompiled and posted on the internet in a variety of ROM image formats for use in your favourite 8-bit emulator. None of our titles have yet reached the abandonware stage, but this weekend I've been inundated with literally one and a half requests for a link to our old favourite Recuerdo Mexico City. So, for those of you who are hankering after a mind-altering memory challenge of the highest order but can't quite be bothered to scroll down through the archive page, here it is again.

Wart Biter

First, my apologies to fans of orthoptera and/or warts: the insect pictured is, of course, the dark bush cricket Pholidoptera griseoaptera, and not its verruca-curing cousin Decticus verrucivorus. It does, however, give me an (admittedly thin) excuse to quote Monsieur Figurier on the subject of Mademoiselle de Merian.

"In the plates to her work, Sybille de Merian represents always the insects she wishes to describe under its three forms of larva, pupa, and perfect insect. With the drawing she gives another of the plants which serve the insect for food, as also of the animals which prey on it. Each plate is a little drama. Near the insect is seen the greedy lizard opening its dreadful mouth, or the ferocious spider watching for it. The short life of insects is shown here in its entirety, with its continual struggles, its infinite artifices, its rapid end, and all the episodes of its existence, for which life, as in the case of the moral man, is but a long and painful struggle."

"Such was the work, such was the noble devotion and the worthy career of Sybille de Merian. Let women, let young girls, who are martyrs to the ennui of a life devoid of occupation, peruse her beautiful books, and learn from it how much a woman may do with the time which is now either utterly unossupied or only devoted to useless employments. To study Nature in any of its phases ought, it seems to us, to give more satisfaction to the soul, more strength to the mind, and cause more admiration of and gratitude to the supreme Author of Nature than doing a little embroidery."

Quite so. And, in an age when many young ladies seem to show more interest in alcopops than arthropods, possibly as relevant today as when it was written.