bignoseduglyguy

Today, as with most other days, my inbox has a bunch of forwarded emails, jokes, pictures and spam along with the legitimate stuff.  Amongst these were a couple of emails on the same subject – the East Anglian Ambulance Service’s In Case of Emergency (ICE) campaign.  In light of Thursday’s events in London and considering the distress of those who are waiting to hear from missing family members, I thought it deserved a wider audience.

“The idea is that you store the word ” I C E ” in your mobile phone address book, and against it enter the number of the person you would want to be contacted “In Case of Emergency”.  In an emergency situation ambulance and hospital staff will then be able to quickly find out who your next of kin are and be able to contact them. It’s so simple that everyone can do it. Please do.  Please will you also email this to everybody in your address book, it won’t take too many ‘forwards’ before everybody will know about this. It really could save your life, or put a loved one’s mind at rest. For more than one contact name ICE1, ICE2, ICE3 etc.”

You can read more on the campaign at the following links:

“A Cambridge-based paramedic has launched a national campaign with Vodafone to encourage people to store emergency contact details in their mobile phones.” – East Anglian Ambulance NHS Trust

“Eight out of ten people aren’t carrying information that would help if they were involved in an accident. Storing next-of-kin details in your mobile phone can assist the emergency services if you’re unable to tell them who to contact.” – ICE sponsor Vodafone

This morning, I am sobered by the fact that the revised timing of the Edgware Road blast last Thursday now places me about 2 minutes away at the next station, Paddington.  With SWMBO evacuated from a train in the City of London area and our second eldest safely off the train and walking the last 100 yeards to school, I am thankful our family has been spared the pain and grief others are experiencing today.  Having also missed the 1996 IRA bomb at South Quay by just a few minutes (we live 200 yards away), one is tempted to read all manner of significance into such near-misses.  However, I am convinced that we are no different to millions of families who live in London, Belfast, Madrid, Jerusalem, Gaza, Bagdhad – ordinary folk who have little choice but to pause, reflect and then carry on as normal.

As we look forward to a sunny afternoon in the garden with our extended family gathered around us, my heart goes out to those whose loved ones perished on Thursday or have not been seen since.  I wear my London shirt for you all.

Local cyclists enjoying the Lea Valley in June 2005

The same view of the Lea Valley in 2012

Whilst the politicians and the business people and the sports people are all head over heels, I and a good many others are not so happy with today’s news.  I was born at one end of the Lea Valley and have lived at the other for most of my life.  I have cycled up and down it many a time and enjoyed many happy times taking in the flora and fauna, not to mention the peace and quiet the valley has to offer local city-dwellers and visitors alike.  I am sad that riverine landscapes and marshland habitats are to be lost.  I am sad that well-used existing grassroots open-to-all facilities will disappear in order to make way for open–only-to-some ‘centres of excellence’.  I suspect that compulsory land purchases and aggressive building schedules will mean that we have but a few short weeks in which to enjoy the Lower Lea Valley before public access is withdrawn and lost forever.

The London 2012 web site is showing ‘unavailable’ at the time of posting.  The irony of the that statement is sadly pertinent.

This is a real picture of my kids – which one should I choose to lose?

Let’s play a game.

• Stop what you are doing. 
• Leave the mouse and the keyboard alone for 60 seconds. 
• Close your eyes and visualise a nice group portrait of your nearest family or friends. 
• Once you have the picture nice and clear in your mind, now choose the one you love most right now – there are no favourites, of course, are there?.
• Imagine them dying suddenly – crushed by a drunk driver, knifed by a mugger or killed in a workplace accident.
• Imagine the police knocking at your door in ten minutes time and then imagine living the rest of your life without seeing them ever again.

Senseless?  Inconceivable?  Maybe.  Try again:

• Imagine your loved one dying slowly in your arms.
• Imagine being unable to provide them with even one meal a day.
• Imagine them fatally ill for the lack of over-the-counter medication.
• Imagine holding them, touching them, smelling them, washing them, kissing them for weeks and months whilst you are completely and utterly powerless to prevent their passing.
• Finally, imagine what it would be like to know that their death was all because of what is basically an overdraft.  Your loss of a loved one was directly caused by the crippling conditions and interest charges levied against a bank loan you never knew you were liable for. 

Senseless?  Absolutely.  Inconceivable? In London or any other major city perhaps, but it is all too conceivable in the 28,800 other places where it will happen today.  What is a macabre and unsavoury mind game for you and me, surfing the web over a mug of conscience-salving Traidcraft coffee on a lazy Sunday is daily reality for millions in Africa and elsewhere around the world.

– – –

OK, you say, but what about the G8 summit next week, they’ll have it sorted.  Not really.  The much-vaunted debt relief and cancellation program, worked on for years by many unsung folks, will be announced in a blaze of PR and hype by Blair, Bush and Co.  However, the eight will announce that like it’s just happened since they got involved and the Live8 concerts were all they needed to finish the job.  Ongoing aid, via the organisations and charities who were involved before the world took notice, will continue.  Their efforts will continue to be fractured, uncoordinated and derailed by so-called first world governments extracting whatever political leverage and votes they can by piggy-backing the efforts of NGOs and aid agencies.  Whatever trade solutions are proposed or implemented will undoubtedly have the sheen of philanthropy but will ultimately benefit the first world just as much if not more than at present.

Enough of the ‘the greatest gig ever’, pompous pop star politics and credit cards easing consciences. 

Do something.  Inform yourself.  Involve yourself.

If you really can’t be bothered then, at the very least, copy the game above and email it to your elected political representative and ask them: what are you doing about this?  My eight year old wrote to Blair recently and got a patronising brush-off letter in return.  Do you know what she did?  She wrote back and insisted he answer the question in her original letter.  Now, are you going to stand beside her or are you going to leave it to someone else?

my lo-fi ears are listening to She Cries Your Name/Beth Orton/Pass in Time

I’m getting in the mood for today’s Tour de France prologue time trial by listening to the excellent KRAFTWERK – TOUR DE FRANCE SOUNDTRACKS.  The prologue will provide the first glimpse of the much-touted battle between six-times winner Lance Armstrong and arch rival Jan Ullrich.  Free UK TV coverage will be on the ITV2 digital channel.

Later tonight, BBC4 digital channel will be having a Tour de France evening including Death on the Mountain, the story of Tom Simpson, who died whilst on the tour; Sunday in Hell, the classic documentary about the notoriously punishing Paris-Roubaix one day classic and Belleville Rendezvous, the animated movie featuring the Tour de France and some exploding frogs.

Tom Simpson

Dear Ken

Thanks for stating the obvious but tell me, what ever happened to putting a brick in your cistern or filled bottles in your tank?

Yours

Puzzled

We have just had a visit from two young women who are planning to buy our flat.  One of them is either Toni Collette, the star of Muriel’s Wedding, About a Boy and The Hours or her stunt double.  If it is her, she must be ‘resting’ between roles or doing research because she told us she’s working in a London hotel.

Apple returned my iPod today via those jolly chaps in brown, UPS.  The whole reformat your iPod, update you iTunes, upload your music saga that ensued reminded me that my Sony Fontopia earbuds had gone AWOL about the same time the iPod died. 

Having accused all four offspring of ‘borrowing’ them previously, I though it best to carry out one more search of my belongings before accusing them again.  During a thorough search of the umpteen pockets and compartments of my laptop bag, I not only came up with the aforementioned earbuds but also the dessicated remains of a bee.  Yes, a bee.  The mind boggles.

The Tour de France, widely and rightly acknowledged as the most physically demanding sporting event in the world, begins in 7 days time.  Once again, ITV1 & 2 will have early and late evening shows covering each days highlights.

Meanwhile, despite being unable to commute by bike because of a thief, I continue to try and keep my meagre weekly mileage up in order to participate in the Dunwich Dynamo 120 mile night ride, which finishes on the same Sunday as the Tour.  Having tried and failed to locate my stolen Brompton amongst the stolen bikes being hawked by [expletives deleted] in East London’s street markets, I have swallowed my anger and ordered another.  As new models have been released since the theft, I took advantage of Brompton’s new bespoke service and ordered a stripped-down P in stealth black.  It is similar to the one below, though stripped of rack and lights but with the reduced gearing and Brooks saddle options.  I’m looking forward to picking it up and getting back to my normal canalside ride to the station in the mornings.

Tonight’s Critical Mass ride meets, as always, at 6p.m. on the South Bank, just under Waterloo Bridge, outside the National Film Theatre.  Departing around 7pm, the ride normally lasts about 2 hours but, with this weather, tonight’s ride might just be longer and if we’re lucky, we may get a repeat of the beautiful sunset we were treated to on Greenwich Cyclists’ Afterworker Ride last night.

Yesterday’s sunset over the Isle Of Dogs