Saturday, March 6, 2010

It’s been a busy couple of weeks around these parts. Gaston* was born by caesarean section on the morning of the 22nd February. Then he was re-admitted into hospital because his weight had dropped, he’s back out now and all is well. We’re simply coping with the no-sleep bit now.

The NHS is a remarkable institution; you might even look at it as history’s greatest art project. It challenges Darwinian and capitalist principles; resisting their most venal forces, focussing instead on sustaining and nurturing our human spirit.

We experienced both sides of the NHS. On one hand there are the highly trained people who take you through the birth experience – the midwives, doctors, paediatricians, anaesthetists and nurses. Every one is calm, matter of fact, professional and of course, highly skilled – I’m in awe of them.

The administration that glues the piece together is not so great. We ended up using hospitals in different counties – they both had different systems and paperwork and they couldn’t fathom each other out. In one of the hospitals there was a lack of signage and a reception that had no clear idea of where anything was. At one point we were sent to an examination room and left because the person we’d talked to hadn’t put us into the ‘system’. This might seem minor, but in a heightened sense of stress, these are the little things that make the whole experience more comfortable. You would hope these were the easier bits to get right, but it seems not. Is this the price of ‘efficiencies’?

The problems make the NHS a more remarkable success. It is an incredibly difficult thing to get right given its size, complexity and the implications of getting it wrong. Why we as a country are not more proud of it is a mystery; we should resist the urge to criticise it and instead be contributing and investing in its success – it is this country’s life’s work and our greatest triumph.

* Gaston is not the child’s name – it’s the name of the ladybird in Ben and Holly’s Little Adventure, a sort of Lord of the Rings for three-year-olds.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Hot Chip is a band with a great record collection. They craft a sound that brings together Kraftwerk and more obscure electronica and puts it together with distinctly indie song craft. What’s not to like?

The new album, One Life Stand is full of their trademark ramshackle rhythms, this time overlaid with ravey nineties piano chords. Had they been around in 1989, they’d have been darlings of the Hacienda.

Early on, it threatens to be a big old party, and yet, the whimsy in singer Alexis Taylor’s voice never quite allows them to peak before they drift some mid-album melancholy. This is all very lovely; you can’t get bored of Hot Chip when they’re just being Hot Chip like this.

Building to the album’s close, the band turn into early-Depeche Mode, as if to illustrate this, when it finishes The Mode’s Some Great Reward comes on the stereo and the music barely misses a step. All of which means that Hot Chip have created really nice album that doesn’t quite take them away from their charming left field quirkiness.

You suspect that everything Hot Chip need to become massive is hidden inside their retro Krautrock t-shirts. Depeche Mode were driven by good old-fashioned 80’s greed, New Order by financial profligacy. These factors turned them into global superstars. I suspect Hot Chip would feel this would be an affront to everything they stand for.

Friday, February 5, 2010

You can’t read a book about professional cycling nowadays without talking about drugs, but Paul Kimmage’s Rough Ride was one of the first.

The book broke the silence on systematic doping within the professional peloton turning Kimmage into an instant pariah. History hasn’t exactly treated the book well; the version I’ve read has a couple of updates bolted onto it that increasingly portrays Kimmage as a curmudgeon rather than a crusader.

He now trusts nobody who is successful. I’m not unsympathetic; he was one of the best Irish cyclists, yet average in the European professional context. He was the victim of the Peter Principle in a sport where he found he was only just competent enough to be paid.

Kimmage’s central argument has two tenets that are difficult to reconcile. The first is that drugs are bad and immoral. The second is that the book aims to portray the life of a domestique.

A domestique is a hideously difficult job. It’s poorly paid and professionally unrewarding. The work includes collecting water bottles and food for the team, riding with the team’s star if he drops back because of injury or mechanical fault. If he gets to the point of victory, he will frequently sacrifice their glory for that of his team leader.

So, when faced with the reality of being underpaid, on a short contract with no transferable skills and having to cycle through unspeakable pain just to stay in a job, drugs aren’t just an attraction, they’re a professional necessity.

Which is not to condone drug taking, but it does start to explain it. Kimmage touches on this in the early part of the book (when he’s still a professional) but once he’s left the sport he applies an arbitrary morale code and applies it to what he sees.

In such an unforgiving profession, should we blame those involved for bending, stretching and then breaking a morale code that is imposed on them?

Kimmage tries desperately to dismiss the sport now, claiming no interest in the leading contenders. What he misses is that those who can truly influence its direction – the fans – are interested in the winners and the circus that surrounds it.

Current professional Mark Cavendish has a more refreshing view. He was asked about what he thought about Ricco Ricardo, who was busted during the 2008 Tour de France. Cavendish simply hates people who use drugs because they put him through so much pain. Cavendish is does not have the physiology to climb mountains, he’s a sprinter. When someone on drugs blasts up a climb, it rips Cavendish’s to pieces, both physically and competitively. He doesn’t hate Ricardo because he’s immoral, he does because it hurts him physically, and that pisses him off.

I like Cavendish; he’s British, charismatic and successful. I therefore don’t like the likes of Ricardo and want to see him fail. Drugs, in themselves, are interesting; whether you like it or not, three of the most interesting stories of modern cycling are Operation Puerto, the Festina Affair and the death of Marco Pantani – all drug stories. But I don’t like people who piss off the people who I like. Therefore, I hope Ricardo fails in everything he does. That’s sport; we love the people we love, we hate the people we hate.

So, if Kimmage wants to be a force for good he should be promoting and championing the heroes and their successes not shouting over the wall at the immorality of it all. If we can inflate the heroes, then we’ll kill the villains. What’s more, in classic storytelling style, the killing of the villains will, in itself, make the whole thing more interesting.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Blimey, a blank blog is daunting. Like being the new boy at school, or being stared at while you put up your tent in a campsite. Above all, I don't like the idea that people will one day stumble across this lying dormant, and read it as over indulgent trash trying to be an internet phenomenon. At least if you get a few years under you, you've given it a good go.


I’m not exactly new to this; I’ve got this, which I’ll happily to say is mine, and I’ve got (or had, I can’t decide) another which I’ve decided to move away from. The one I've left behind was abandoned after the pressure of constantly updating became boring. Not that anyone was reading; but that wasn't the point.

I’ve been thinking about starting again for a while. The question was; do I restart the old blog with its 5 year history, or start a new one? If I go with the former then I need to check 540 plus posts before letting anyone know it's there. You see, the reasons for wanting to start again is that a) I enjoy it and b) I want to be a little less guarded in the fact it exists. I also want to link it up to my Twitter account, and maybe my Facebook page. Both of which is the real me linked to people I know in real life. If I want to do that, the old posts need a polish.

The old blog was a bit raw, not exactly Belle De Jour, but it didn’t have any of the editorial controls and checks I now know I should have applied from the outset. At some point, I might read the lot and import it into this site, giving it one long history. Maybe. But not now.

For the record, the title is basically nonsense; there is no ‘Sometimes Ruffled Bicycle Camp’. The ‘Sometimes Ruffled’ is a repurposing of the previous blog’s name. The ‘Bicycle’ bit is just because I like cycling. The ‘Camp’ follows the fashion for bands with quaint ‘community’ names like , The New Young Pony Club, The Mull Historical Society and The Bombay Bicycle Club (which I have obviously aped, even though I've not heard a note of their music).

Apart from the name and a different design, it’s basically the same blog – it has no particular purpose or agenda, it’ll just talk about me and what I’m interested in. It should get more interesting than this. A bit, anyway.