millionreasons | Please don't grow up, just get older

All week, the weather forecast has indicated rain on Saturday. Are you sure you want to cycle from Cambridge? I asked David repeatedly throughout the week. Wendy says it's going to be fine, he huffed. I believe what Wendy says. In the end the weather capitulated to what I think of as The David Birthday Paradox in which it always says it's going to rain and it's always hot and sunny (I'm unsure if Wendy is aware of this).

Dave set off at some un-birthday hour and I a long time after, cycling up the Lea River to meet him at Waltham Cross, although I only made it to the end of the A-Z (Enfield Lock), based on my assumption that the faster I cycled, the longer I'd have to do so. Once past Stonebridge Lock, the dog-walkers and joggers evened out and I had the towpath to myself, only the occasional fisher-dad & bored kids, and solitary male cyclists who tipped me the wink. I never knew I was so attractive to men in lycra (well, two of them).

As ever, I loved the mix of industry and rurality, the incineration plant and the kayakers, the ponies and pylons, blackberries and the bus depot, the sheep on the top of covered reservoirs. Between Tottenham and Enfield is pure suburban hinterland and I feel very at home there. Met David who gave me some cashew nuts and his sunglasses and we cycled back to Clapton, huffing and puffing up the hill in Springfield Park.

A shower, scrambled eggs and birthday presents later we went out t'pub to meet a motley crew of various drinkers and their offspring and stayed there for the next 7 hours or so on the real ales and the rather nice food. I was quite surprised at one point that no-one (I asked) knew who the Chartists were. The hophead beer makes me forget why I started this conversation but I was reasonably shocked that a bunch of intelligent/educated/leftish people weren't aware of the Chartist movement; I thought they were a household name like the Suffragettes or Hitler*.

Please note that I don't assume a sense of superiority for having once read something about Chartism and remembered it; I stand slack-jawed in awe as people put up tents, fix dodgy wiring, understand how science works (I believe things like electricity work on magic and don't wish to be disabused of this notion), assemble ikea furniture and the like. Is my super-power to digest and retain a lot of information? If so, what am I going to do when the apocalypse comes and history ceases to matter? Swap titbits on Isambard Kingdom Brunel for food?

* Watching Coach Trip the other day, one guy said to his friend: "World War 2, that's Hitler, right? So what was World War 1? Hitler's dad?" I love Coach Trip.

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In other news, I like this meshing of culture website.
I also like this grumpy graphic designer who seems to be involuntarily taking part in a Douglas Coupland novel (I would play Shannon in the film of the book).