Tale of woe...

Perhaps it was when I was unable to resuspend some carefully prepared and deeply frozen bacterial cells that I should have taken note of the direction the day was running?

Perhaps when I dried out my expensive chromatography column this morning - TWICE - I should have reconsidered my days plans?

I had after all spent a week, several months ago, preparing all the materials for todays protein purification, with the aim to mix some special components togehter ahead of a synchotron trip on Friday (this is where the crystallographer slaves shoot their crystals with high intensity radiation and get the data they need to solve protein structures). I was to have prepared just such a crystal by Friday.

So when, after performing the penultimate step in treating my cells, I managed to drop the tray on which I was carrying EVERYTHING, including four glass beakers (all smashed), about two litres of ice (everywhere - and very nicely hiding afore mentioned smashed beakers), my pride (gone completely) and four very precious protein samples (only three of which I've found so far - figures - and none of which had secured lids), I started to feel like a bit of a tit.

I refer you to my "What do you do" page. Further to my work analogy, I think I can safely say I have dropped the toast on the floor; it of course landed jam side down on a pile of dog shit.

I hope we can all understand what has happened here today. Now I have to figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my day (week!)

*sigh*

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"Pat" Morita "waxes off" this mortal coil...

Pat Morita (1932-2005)

Today I discovered that Noriyuki "Pat" Morita has died aged 73. Two of my favourite characters from childhood were Mr Miyagi of Karate Kid and Arnold of Happy Days...simple times. It was of course Karate Kid that got me interested in Martial Arts, though not Karate, which I found very dull - probably why they used so little in the actual movies, favouring more exciting Taekwondo moves instead, or at least the more exciting Karate style of Shito Ryu. I still practice Aikido and Judo (when the damn student clubs aren't on holidays - which is most of the time!), which are my preferred forms these days.

Anyway, by gones. Despite not being a practicioner of Karate, he will always embody that character for me.

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eBay woes...

Once again I find myself trying to get myself a bargain on eBay, and once again I am being thwarted by newbie eBayers who seem complicit in their aims of driving the prices toward their retail values! Arrgghhhh!



I think with some of these people it's more about the winning than the bargain. My tack is one of stealth. I case out the other "early bidders" to identify which of them like a last minute battle and whether they use random odd numbers in their bidding (the like of which has won me many auctions by mere pence). I usually bid in the last 10 seconds with the absolute maximum I'm willing to pay, plus a silly amount like £3.62 or something.

However, more important to me is that I get the bargain! So when you see some over zealous newbie ramping up the price of an 18 month old used item to 80% of its current retail value, you have to ask yourself: Are these people stupid? or is the seller using a friend to drive up the price. I'm a cynic, so I believe people are capable of both, but it is more likely the former. As Einstein said: "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the former".

Anyway, I'll wait for the next one to come along and hope the losing newbies don't flock to that too. Perhaps I've got this all wrong? Perhaps what I should be doing is selling more gadgets on eBay. After all, I have an iPod I bought for £140 six months ago....so that would probably sell for £200.

p.s. Thankfully the newbie flaked out before we reached £100 and I went on to win the day, getting my item for a reasonable price with a £2 lead in the last 10 seconds. Score! Not that it's about the winning or anything. No, no, no....but it helps ;-)

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Driving dyslexia....

There is this electronic sign on the motorway I travel along every night on my way home. It usually says:

THINK
DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE

But I always read it as:

DON'T THINK, DRIVE

That probably says more about my driving than perhaps I should let on!

...but whilst I'm on the subject, it occassionally says:

DON'T USE YOUR MOBILE PHONE WHILE DRIVING

This really annoys me as I'm sure it should read "WHILST DRIVING", the former being "a portion of time" and the latter meaning "during that time, meanwhile or for a time".

Why I'm anal about grammar on one occassion and dyslexic the next is beyond me.

Meh.

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"A Mini adventure...."

...but without the Mini, afterall a mountain top is a silly place for a car.

I spent the weekend in Great Langdale in the Lake District, staying at the Stickle Barn Bunkhouse, for a mere £10. On that basis alone I'd recommend it, but the fact that the room was warm, cosy and didn't leak was a bonus. Thumbs up.

Steve (a friend I made on my Mountain Leader course) and myself were the only two people occupying a room for eight. Given the weather was freezing (and liberal quantities of hoar frost may well have hampered half-hearted attempts to bend pegs into the ground), the warm bunkhouse room was infinitely preferable to the camping we'd initially intended.


Cold evening


Cold morning

The food was ok, as is the pub (with roaring fire), but it's overpriced. That being said, get the steak and ale pie; it's cheaper and also freshly made. Great stuff.

Anyway, come Sunday morning we met up with another chap from the Mountain Leader course, Stuart, and his housemate, Sarah, who was an enthusiastic novice walker. The plan was to head up Pike o' Blisco, along by Great Knott to the Crinkle Crags. Do all the Grade 1 scrambles over the tops before finally bagging Bow Fell, the highest peak of the day at mere 901 m.


Route plan - including dipshit detour!


View over my shoulder


View over the other shoulder ;-)

As I said, the weather was freezing, but generally clear. There was a bit of an inversion going on, meaning the valley floor was an ice bowl, though thankfully the temperatures rose as we ascended. There was more mist than we expected, but the day was physically, rather than navigationally, strenuous. Or so we thought.


Icebowl Great Langdale

We set off up Bow Fell at 3 pm, leaving ourselves one and a half hours of daylight to get up there and be back on route by darkness. However, for no apparent reason, when we left the top of Bow Fell we did so in the wrong direction. This is the one caveat of this tale, the admission of a silly mistake; has to happen as some time in your climbing career. It was misty, so ideally we should have taken a bearing to ensure the correct descent, but instead we alighted on a path that we believed to be the route we'd taken up (not that we were thinking too much on it).


Fancy a bit of Grade 1?

It was only as the mist cleared that we realised that we were in the wrong valley, there being no civilisation in the valley below being a good clue. A quick parlé and a few compass bearings later we'd realised our mistake. We knew where we were, but given that it was now very much dusk, we had about 20 mins to get back to the col between Bow Fell and the Crinkle Crags. We contoured around Bow Fell by darkness - avoiding the crags - and then night navigated our way down The Band, which is the spur of Bow Fell leading back to Langdale.


Excellent sunset - taken whilst descending into the wrong valley!

As it was, Sarah took all this in her stride, and we guys, despite being rather pissed off at taking our eye off the ball (too many cooks and all that), were quite enjoying the extra challenge and night nav. At around 6 pm, two-thirds of the way down, I saw a flashing light from a mountain side on the other side of the valley. It was signalling SOS. I communicated back towards it to notify I'd seen the signal, and a signal was returned in acknowledgement. We dug out the GPS and got an exact fix on our position and I took a compass bearing to the light source. Checking the map we determined its origin as Mart Crag Moor, a high level moor with a very steep scree/craggy slope descending into the valley. We called Mountain Rescue, who interviewed us, took all the details and sent out a team. Meanwhile more team members met us at the valley floor and gave us a lift to the rescue base at the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel. We spent a bit of time there making a report before being dropped off at our cars.

When we got to Ambleside for Fish and Chips, we received a call to say they'd found a lone male lost on the edge of Mart Crag Moor. The Mountain Rescue call-out entry is online at the Langdale and Ambleside Mountain Rescue Team website. As ever, I think these MR team members are excellent. So job well done, and had we descended several hours earlier as planned, we'd never have seen his distress call.

So all in all, a quality mountain day, and one for the log (if they believe it).

More pictures here

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Weekly blog...

Yes, I seem to have become a weekly blogger, a temporary lull one can only hope. I shall be off walking again this weekend - the full weekend, and this is why:



That's a big fat high pressure system that's been sat on top of the UK for most of the week. We've had crystal clear skies, beautiful winter sun coupled with some seriously freezing temperatures. It's also repelling the low pressure systems, bouncing them away back to Greenland or into the Bay of Biscay. This is set to continue into the weekend, which is what I will be enjoying. Look out for some decent pictures becuase I'm taking Big Bertha (Canon EOS 300D) out with me.

Where does meat come from?
Anyway, I'm venting some spleen right now. I have stumbled across yet another "sign of the times". Apparently there have been complaints at an advertisement by Burger King that depicts a living cow with the Burger King logo. The complaints run to the tune of "the message of an animal being made into a burger is distasteful". Whilst the advert is perhaps a little misguided, and I certainly don't condone Burger King or any fast food (for it is all crap), when will people realise where their food comes from?

I wouldn't think to mention it, but apparently Jamie Oliver's killing of a lamb in his current Italian tour programme - on rustic Italian cooking - has been commented on as "immoral". Immoral! he was the guest of a farming community who live off the land in a sustainable and ethical manner. This particular killing was perhaps the least distressing I've ever seen and there was no wastage of the sacrifice. On the other hand, when people go by their joints of de-animalised meat, perhaps they should wonder at how these animals were killed, and how many of those killed whose meat is wasted?

When the UK has the same level of understanding as the Italians when it comes to children (and adults) knowing what their food looks like at the "living" end, the less likely successive generations of Brits will be happy surviving on reconstituted, re-formed, high fat, high salt, deep fried meet products.

So to those ignorami out there - WAKE UP and smell the mochaccino!

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This weekend, I 'ave mostly been....

...well, here:


Back o' Skiddaw (the ridge)


About to get pissed (and snowed) on!


Borrowdale and Newlands Fells


Sky over Ullswater this evening.


Ullswater

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Today, I 'ave mostly been....

....getting piss wet through and kicked about by a gale on the top of Sergeant Man in the Central Lakes.

Yes, I've been for a yomp in the Lakes to hone my navigational skills to something Ray Mears could use to fell bamboo! Alas, I must admit that doing this kind of thing in a pair or group, even if you are the one member of the group who can read a map, is infinitely prefereable to going alone; as I did today. You see, when you're faced with the descision of back tracking off your intended route due to highly unpleasant weather and the nagging uncertainty of something awful befalling you, it is often easier, when in a group, to justify the action on behalf of the other group members, rather than one's self.


Easedale Tarn


You'd be forgiven for thinking there is a smouldering volcano on the horizon.

As it was, this is where I found myself today. Thoroughly harranged by the wind and rain and not enjoying the boggy underfoot, nor the multitude of sub-10m ring features throwing out my "navigation by the land" approach. My top quality waterproof jacket also wetted out and started seeping - so that'll have to be re-proofed now. I ended up cutting short my intended sally over some of the most exposed summits of the central fells and took the next path out into the Easedale valley.

For those not conversant with an Ordnance Survey map, any knoll or hillock below 10 metres in height escapes notice on a 1:25000 scale map. Occassionally you can predict where they might occur, but not today. So here I am, trying to negotiate my way from one map-featured ring feature (hillock) to the next using pacing and bearings, and I'm surrounded by huge land structures where the map says I'm in an openly flat plateau. I should point out that I pointedly left the path as soon as I could, in order to rely on my compass and maps skills, but in the absence of a better handrail ( a land feature than you can follow, i.e. fence, wall, stream, cliff face, path), I had to track back to the path and plod along.


The injured party is under that yellow speck (a bothy bag/kisu shelter) in the distance

Anyway, I came upon a chap with three teenage lads, one of whom appeared to have broken his ankle. The chap had it well in hand as he had a shelter and had called Mountain Rescue. Typical, by this point the shitty front that had been kicking my ass for the past 3 hours passed over, leaving beautiful clear blue sky and great views. Damn! I wanted to go back up, but there just wasn't enough daylight, and I still had to make the 150 mile car trip home. Anyway, I left the guy some of my water (I'd had plenty!) and proceeded back to the car - passing nine Mountain Rescue team members on the way, poor buggers, those stretchers and cumbersome weighty affairs.


MR team members with strechers on their backs - good job the wind had died down as those things are like sails!

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The French are revolting!

They like to go to town when they do anything don't they?



Revolutions, strikes and now anarchy. I'm not sure whether it is all immigrant led, or whether there is an unrestful contingent of disaffected French youths involved, but seriously, come on Paris, get your house in order!

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On absurdity...

Toothbrush trouble
I destroyed my electric toothbrush this morning. It was a desperately impetuous act and I fully admit that it was a stupid thing to do, but it drove me to it. There I am, minding my own business, trying to go about my ablutions and the said toothbrush failed to work. Rather than yielding the batteries to me, so I could replace them, it decided to remain welded shut. Despite a thorough pounding the only thing I managed to free was the business end of the brush. Which isn't exactly meant to be free. Oops.

So now the buggering thing is in the trash. With it's dead batteries fully intact.

Hindi strangeness
I have a lot of Hindi friends, well, three, but more than the number of similarly devout Christians I know. Anyway, I happened to catch the tail end of a documentary on British Hindi life last night. It seemed there was this "group" who had spent some not inconsiderable time trying to decide what to do about some Women's shoes (made from leather) that had been adorned with the face of their Lord Rama. Evidently heretical - the leather, and the God thing.

Anyway, they sat around this pile of shoes, which they'd obviosuly commandeered at great expense, deciding how to despose of them in a sacred way. They just couldn't decide, so called in a holy woman who suggested that the face of their Lord Rama be carefully picked off, stored and sent to India to be sanctified and purified in the River Ganges before disposal. The now plain leather shoes were to be ritually burnt.

I mean W.T.F!

There is too much pain and suffering in this world to spend inordinate amounts of time, and undoubtedly money, on such ridiculous trivialities. Honestly! Can't their time be better employed seeing to their families, looking out for the welfare of their friends and countrymen, or bettering themselves?

Hmm, perhaps I will retrieve my toothbrush and ritually dispose of it? After all, it has been in my big, toothy trap so I'll freely admit it's probably quite holy. After all, I'm on the final stretch before 30 and I have not one filling. Nope. Clean as a whistle. That's genetics and good diet for you folks; dentists, schmentists.

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ML pictures...

So here are some pictures from the Mountain Leader course (courtesy of Steve and Stuart - cheers chaps), click to get the full (quick load) image:


On the way to Camp


...still on the way to Camp


Our group, with Keith Fleming MIC.


On way back from a demanding high-level climb in the Glyderau. Llyn Bochlwyd in the background.


One time, at camp...


View from the tent.

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Atmosphere

It has been just over a year since I took this picture, and I still haven't done anything with it - so much for digital photography! For those interested, it is Derwent Water, looking south from Keswick towards the rocky volcanics that are the Borrowdale Fells.

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