3rd April 2017 Distance exercising on The Internet of Things.

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Monday 3rd 37-50F, 3-10C, bright, calm and clear with an overnight frost [or heavy dew] on the grass. The BBC announces that 20 billion Britons are not getting enough exercise to remain healthy. That's not only statistically significant but sounds downright deliberate to me. Luckily I am doing enough for several of them so that's a dent in the right direction. I just hope they are grateful! All remote sweat donations to charity, please.

Right, I'm off to harass the birds again. The first anticlockwise loop through the forest in quite a while and back by the other way.  I started with a gorgeous plover gyrating madly around the sky in its black and white plumage. Fortunately it quickly became tired of its gymnastics and settled on the roughly ploughed prairie at a safe distance to watch my progress. A deer was grazing at a distance too but too far away to capture with my camera. Unless you like pictures of fuzzy, dark blobs in grassy meadows?

The forest is showing signs of pink fluffiness from afar as this year's fresh leaf buds appear. Later on, a pair of hares dashed through the growing crops towards the marsh. It must be standing room only in there what with all the wildlife concealing itself in the daytime. If the farmers don't send the lawnmowers out soon the straggly grass will get away from them! It will end up looking like a council estate. Meanwhile assorted skylarks rose at intervals to practice their songs. Just a short ride today. 7 miles in bright sunshine. My upper chest pains continuing unabated. The Chief Medical Officer refused "excused [MTB] boots" due to a poverty of organic milk.

Tuesday 4th 33-53F, 1-12C, white frost but bright and clear with hardly any wind again. I was out on the lawn until 11pm last night [in another life] and can personally confirm it was chilly. My recent rants on speeding and security cameras seem to have stirred up a hornet's nest. It seems that people's private security cameras are streaming their private lives and that of their children online without their knowledge. The problem, apart from the online perverts and voyeurs, of course, is the lack of password protection. Now the most basic logic [duh?] suggests that NO system should be allowed to be connected too "t'Internet of things" without a password.

But that would assume that laziness, greed and perversion do not exist. The manufacturer's are in a far off land and unlikely be persuaded to have a password system which demands some simple change before connection is even possible. I'm not talking about a password which people don't know they need to change. But a password system which, by default, MUST be changed from the protective default before the camera, fridge or toaster will function.®

An internal random number generator makes sense. With enough digits and letters to make the pervert's work very much harder. Perhaps the answer is a complete import ban on anything which avoids such obvious protection? If your smart toaster starts getting spam from its sales outlet don't come running to me in tears because some pervert, business or thief, finds you, or your children's private lives, rather more interesting than you do.

Why does the smart device owner even need to know the 'rolling' password? The smart device can go on producing random numbers and letters every half hour, or five minutes or seconds, for all it matters to the owner.® If that makes the NSA's life more difficult then boo sucks! Or whatever the expression is in the pervert nerd's professional circles these days. Who's watching the watchers? Saint Edward?

Just a short walk to see several hares lolloping about on distant fields. The breeze is building slowly. Rest day. Not for the farmers though. First day of stinking pig's muck spreading above 6.5 on the Richter scale for this year. Cue repeated choruses of: "Takes my breath aw-ay." Why is it that I may not walk on their land but they have complete freedom to pollute and trespass in my home and garden. Spreading their cocktails of deadly toxins and a foul stench, at will? Farming is not a public service. It is private enterprise with the sometimes grandiose intention of making a profit. Are they not subject to the same pollution rules as factories? Much of their activity is factory farming. Factories do not usually get fat, taxpayer subsidies to mass produce antibiotic-resistant bacteria for public consumption.

Click on any image for an enlargement.

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2nd April 2017 About face!

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Sunday 2nd April, 47-56F, 8-13C, almost calm, heavy grey overcast, light mist. Promise of showers and a threat of sunny periods. The Chief Medical Officer keeps referring to my rhino hide. So I have to apply copious quantities of the old SPF50 to my neck before being allowed to slip out by the Servant's Entrance in a wide-brimmed, cycling helmet. It was so dark this morning that I overslept until 7.25am. Exactly the same time as yesterday. One can only blame the clocks springing forward. I didn't get where I am today being a lie-abed! 

There are problems enough in the world according to the BBC. Apparently there is a black hole in a Croydon pub which is attracting scum like a zombie plague. Just ask the irate, local MP. Who tweeted: "It really gets my Goat! They should build a GREAT WALL around that pub." At least, I think that is what he said. Google Translate doesn't do Cockney Rhyming Slang yet. So I had to use a bit of imagination in my translation to Pidgin Danish and thence to the familiarity of Ye Olde Twirle Anglo-Saxon. The BBC has an awful lot to answer for!

My walk was interrupted, at intervals, by changeable weather. Just when the windmills were stretching for another day they slowly creaked to a stop. With hardly a zephyr to complain about the starter motors obviously couldn't cope after the batteries had gone flat overnight.

There was a troubling sight as I approached the village. The local McSlobbery outbreak is fast becoming a pandemic. The virus has obviously mutated into aerial transmission of a parallel strain of Belcher King. McSlobs will have to seriously rethink their viral packaging if they are to continue competing for the verges. I wonder whether these two giants of discarded packaging pay remotely enough taxes to subsidize the terrifying increase in surgery for those too obese to feed themselves? The Danish news relates a Dastardly plan by the politic-ooze to deny surgery to anyone weighing under 3 tons! Which, I suppose, probably means most of them will starve to death! 
 

Despite the unhappy timing of the traditional, spring spreading of the spiky twigs the birds are becoming overabundant. The dozens of new nests in the roadside hedges had been totally decimated by the tractor clipper. Yet, hardly a branch of the surrounding trees is free from the feathered tree rats. Even the Red Kites are at it! Like buses, you can wait for ages and then two come along at the same time! Don't you just hate copycats?

Local children have abandoned their healthy indoor pursuits to explore the set-aside fields. None of them look old enough to hold down a steady job behind the checkouts at Fakta. I blame the parents!

If it gets any darker I shall have to fit my lights back on the trike before setting off. I have been saving my ration cards for organic milk but  they rarely have any stock. When I complained to the manager he just sneered and said ; Cut out the middle man." He presumed it would be healthier to eat the grass ourselves. To which I retorted; "What about spray drift?" To which he had no answer.

Left before lunch with a helpful wind to reach a distant garden center. I had to stop and remove my jacket on a long climb because it was so warm. At nearly 3/4 of the way there my wife rang me to see how I was progressing. I was then remotely controlled to another destination. At which point it became very dark so I donned my jacket again. To fight the wind all the way home. 27 miles remembering to keep my cadence high. I was doing a lot climbing out of the saddle. So may have undone the good intentions of spinning everywhere.

Another top British cyclist injured by SMIDSY driver.

Welsh Olympic cyclist 'lost road confidence' after crash - BBC News

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1st April 2017 Last "englænder" standing?

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April 1st 46F, 8C, misty and still, with a threat of brightness. There is no traffic. At all! Given the date one is inclined to think that there is a wickedly funny policeman sending the traffic via the back lanes. But Denmark doesn't have any policemen. The Danish news website has just confirmed it. They even printed a map showing how many hours it takes for the police to attend an emergency call by geographical region. It is remarkably sober reading material.


Where is the constant traffic which rumbles along what passes for our humped and twisting "main" road? The traffic which often wakes us, but, unaccountably, not this morning. Where are they all? Are we the last left alive after a zombie outbreak? Has our rural isolation provided a negligible delay in our inevitable demise?

Should we prepare for the onslaught? As a hundred blood-covered, raggedy dolls stagger down our collective, potholed drive towards their next gory meal? Dare we raise the portcullis and lower the drawbridge for the non-existent post-bud Per? Where are the habitual collectors of bread, greasy pastries and rolls on the early bakery run. i.e.Those who feel compelled to always screech their tires on every corner? The sooner to be back into the hygge of their families and a hearty breakfast of snaps and beer. There is absolutely no sign or sound of life anywhere on this auspicious day.

Dare I go for a walk this morning? I have no standard issue, "family model" assault rifle. Not like our favourite cousins in the Colonies. What shall I do if I am confronted by a hoard of marauding, transsexual Danes with a collective ill-will towards all Gravely Blighted rats leaving the sinking, EU ship? Perhaps I should leave the orange jacket at home just for today? Wear all green and pretend I am a weekend warrior hunter. That might work if I adopt my usual [ministry of funny walks] gait to make me invisible amongst the locals. Wish me luck... I may need it! 😉 I decided to go for a low key outfit in dark green slacks with V--necked top, sporting autumnal, knitted, cable accents.

Eventually I worked my way carefully along the backs of the roadside hedges. It did not take long to discover the real reason for the hiatus in the usual roaring traffic. Staccato commands were being barked at an elite task force of heavily armed agents in all-black, unmarked Hummers from the ironically-named, Danish Job Centers. Motto: "Work is Freedom, to stay!" The elite force had stopped another convoy of deluded, left wing politic-ooze. Whom had been unsuccessfully attempting to ferry yet more "illegals" across Denmark to the safety of Sweden's ghettos.

The fate of the "illegals" will probably remain unknown. As they were swiftly taken away at gunpoint in a fleet of IKEA's forced labour lorries to an uncertain fate. While the terrified politic-ooze were bundled together in one of the Hummers and taken back to the nearest Job Center. To be mercilessly interrogated by their psychological torture specialists.

So, the unexpected, commuter's "Silent Spring" was but short lived. As the completely innocent, traffic queue was soon released on their way to speed to their usual statistics. I kept to the verges on the way back with my head bowed. Just in case my scruffy dress style attracted attention as a possible escapee from the convoy. Once safely back in our rural hovel I could finally relax. As I tucked into marmalade covered rolls and instant coffee. Though always with my one good ear listening out for that dreaded knock on the door and a quick dive through the trapdoor into the escape tunnels.

I desperately need to build up my reserves for another surreptitious ride. To get more rations from the dingy backstreet supermarkets. Since they are all owned by offshore fund managers they will serve anybody with ready cash and a badly forged permit card. Even an unlikely tricyclist with a very dodgy accent. It helps that I am always heavily disguised as a Lycra clad weekend-warrior-clown. The staff take one look and quickly dismiss me as just another downtrodden, Job Center-damaged immigrant.


There are spies everywhere since the "Employment Minister" offered a small tax rebate as  a reward for information leading to every conviction of an "illegal." So I play my part, from long practice, but my heart still pounds with fear of discovery in the endless queues at the checkouts. Which are routinely "manned" by prepubescent, eagle-eyed, true [obese] Aryan Danes.

Even long after reaching [Danish working classes] retirement age I am not safe. Broxit status is as good as "stateless" to the ruthless staff at the Job Centers. I could be forced onto the next plane home to a life of grinding poverty under May in the slums. Where everybody speaks in Cockney rhyming slang learned from the BBC's daytime, antiques fencing programmes.

The Danish middle classes have no such problem and always retire in their late 40s. With a free Audi, a summer house, a roof full of solar panels and a pension which constantly drains even the 98% taxation of the Danish working classes. Whom are forced to work from before long dawn to long after dusk during their long and arduous working lives in semi-Arctic conditions. Always at the mercy of a 'sting' by their own trades unions. Or [infinitely worse] hourly attendances for "re-education" when their jobs are "exported" en-masse to the ex-colonies which still openly practice slavery.

I tell myself that my fragile existence could be far worse. Only 100 years ago I might have been placed in a cage at the Tivoli Gardens and exhibited as an "entertainment of undesirables." Arranged for the visitors to poke with sticks [provided for a nominal sum] just to see if I would bite. Grrr?

In breaking news: I reached Assens and returned unscathed. Except for the fly which I inhaled on a climb. Leading to much coughing over the following miles. I seemed be completely bunged up. 19 miles.

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