18th September 2015 Another McLardys rant!

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Friday 18th 55-60F, 13-16C, rather breezy, bright sunshine, lots of high cloud. Isolated showers possible in places. Whatever that means. Yesterday's gales have been reduced to "only"13m/s or 27-28mph today.

It seems that my sacrifice in hardly ever using the car, for a number of years, was a the result of a complete con. If oil and its myriad abuses was banned from yesterday there would still be global warming. Animal husbandry worldwide produces more CO2 and other major greenhouse gasses than "nasty" oil and all its countless abuses.

Animal husbandry is responsible for rainforest clearance, pollution on land, waterways, lakes and at sea. The supposed environmental lobby groups are just money-growing businesses. They deliberately maintain their blinkered public stances to ensure maximum contributions to their own narrow "cause". All of them studiously ignore animal husbandry as the major contributor to global warming, forest depletion, slavery, poverty, mass human migration, species loss and drought. To raise the spectre of the daily activities of their supporters being far worse than their specific target for criticism would lose them their loyal members and income.

Every single hamburger takes thousands of gallons of water to produce and pollutes waterways, ponds, lakes, drinking water and the oceans at the same time. The cost of a hamburger at the counter is but a small fraction of the global public subsidies and loses to wildlife in its manufacture. As human population grows unchecked agriculture destroys it own productive land with mono-culture, overworking, pesticides and saline inducing irrigation. It all causes desertification on a massive scale. Meat and dairy production is completely unsustainable even without the the theft of vast tracts of public land and the murder of thousands of activists and innocents by big agro.

Even if we carried on using oil, until it finally ran out, there would be hardly any reduction in climate change. Banning animal husbandry for meat and milk production would have a huge global impact in countless beneficial ways. Remember that, when you desperately need that next, subsidized meal-between-meals, at our expense, and then throw the pointless-packaging onto our verge!

Snacks and sweets were once a treat given as a reward to children for very good behaviour. Ironic that McLardys and Slugar.com have made a vast fortune out of rewarding those least worthy. i.e. Those determined to commit wobbling, staggering, slow public suicide at our entire planet's expense. Not to mention the crippling health care costs of regularly turning millions of tons of blubber, in intensive care beds, using a crane. [Will all hospital beds be compulsorily fitted with heavy duty, industrial lifting robots in the near future?]

Perhaps it's long overdue that McLardys changed over to WHEELCHAIRS ONLY "push-through" counters? Not so much drive through but presently managing a nicely profitable bottom line in international genocide from drive-through killings! 300,000 deaths in the US alone, per year, directly attributable to obesity. Why no sign of (cough) heavily-armed teams of FBI operatives ransacking take-away headquarters? Where are the air strikes, drones and enemy combatant prison camps for those evil Slugar executives? Why are supermarket staff not harassed and prosecuted for dealing in the white powder and animal fat? Why are members of the public allowed anywhere near such life threatening products without being constantly busted by undercover cops?

The US and Europe spend hundreds of billions combating evil and deluded terrorists. Religious nutters who hardly even register on the deaths per year scale away from their active war against innocent people zones. Isn't a fat person a terrorist? They terrorize nurses, firemen, lifeguards, police and ambulance staff who have to move them! They terrorize me when I think of the billions they are costing society globally in increased, but completely unnecessary, health care.

Yet they waddle through the supermarket checkout  clutching their vital "gas tanks" of Croak without any sign of an imminent Grub Squad raid. Who's fat arm reaches out to gather a basket full of sweets, cakes and biscuits arranged so helpfully at the checkouts to boost their already massive calorific intake? Who queues patiently at the takeaway stand out in the car park? Only the obese. The only overweight kids at school in my time had sticky bags of sweets force fed to them on a daily basis by their doting parents. Their numbers were literally tiny and they were crap at PE and cross country in particular.

This one is from my "Muddy Period" according to the pundits.

I just had a potter around a rural "block" by local roads and lanes. Breezy but quite warm in the sunshine. More enjoyable exercise in beautiful surroundings. The number of other walkers and joggers I see on my morning walks can be counted on the fingers of one finger. I have seen only one chap, about once in several blue moons, walking his dog over a period of several years. It even tried to attack me once as I passed on my trike!

It seems like several years since I started on that 10' hedge! Another few hours spent dangling by a fingertip instead of doing something more serious like riding my trike. According to The Grauniad's guide to 10 cycling tribes I am a "righteous cyclist."  Always banging on about how little I use the car. While wallowing in self praise for using my trike as a removal van, shopping trolley, delivery van, taxi and excuse for a political soapbox. Let's not forget tripod and camera bag. Another rest day moving and climbing ladders, sawing and clipping hedges, walking, moving compost heaps and generally slacking off.

Seller-Brooks has sent me a lottery email to see if I want to join the ravenous hordes in testing their latest and greatest Cambium 13. Unlucky for some? Unlucky for all those early adopters taken in by the CF rails, black rivets and narrower, but still rock hard "rubber" top. Think Unica Nitor hard! The Brooks hype glosses over the structural reinforcement fabric which completely removes the rubber from the compliance equation. i.e. Think Nidd style, reinforced leather which would still be waiting to break in if it had been in continuous use since early Egyptian times!

Seller-Brooks are [allegedly] trying to resurrect their former monopoly on the tour peloton. And everybody knows that the weekend warriors copy their idols slavishly, don't they? It could be "a nice little earner" for a while until the mood changes. The pros will ride on a house brick if their sponsor tells them to. So, good luck with that if you are a copycat, cycling accessory junkey.

Perhaps the new and narrower C13 saddle will find favour on the "hotter" tours? There is gossip on the grapevine that the Cambium actually becomes softer above 85F. Though it is still only a forum myth so far. I may have to stuff mine with Rockwool to see if it actually raises [UCI] compliance. Perhaps Seller-Brooks should have a "Temperate" model which actually displays "rubber-like" properties? Nah, that might actually catch on [for a while] with the hair shirt brigade who count their annual distances in terms of saddle sores.

The reinforcement fabric is probably a  ruse to allow [wink-wink] Max-me-boned riders to keep their saddles longer under the usually vague claims of longevity. This,  despite applied sit-bone pressures which exceed the once infamous stiletto heels! Brooks claim a Cambium lifespan well beyond the fragile [and highly profitable] plastic, instruments of torture so beloved of "serious" cyclists. Perhaps they should only be allowed to sell racing saddles through back street sex shops specializing in "bondage and discipline?" "Pssst! Wanna buy a steamy video of the Tour de France S&M? Strictly under-the-counter, this is. Yours for 150 quid if you are up for it! Lot's of glossy vinyl but a bit short on rubber for my tastes!"

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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