Doing Things By Halves

Today I hit half a million steps three days before the half way point in this challenge. I didn't doubt I would be able to do this but some days getting started is a slight chore. I think it's improving my diabetes, possibly making me a bit fitter. I've reduced my insulin by 20% and blood sugar readings have improved. Weight seems to still be hovering around 105 Kg (roughly 16.5 stone) which is a damned site better that the 123 Kg( 19.3 stone) I was at my heaviest. I still need to trim 30 Kg so am still a total lardy person, but it gives me something to aim for.

I still love chocolate and fish and chips, but don't indulge in them every day, maybe I should fast more, as that is another way to reduce the need for insulin, but I am enjoying the walking and I have gone through winter with it, so I am sure that, even after the Million Step Challenge is over, I will still maintain at least 10K steps a day, which is around four miles.

I know I've not written for the last few days, even though I've meant to, and I also have another #LikeNoOther song lined up, but today, there can only be one song, and it's a classic from the band everybody hates to love, Carter USM one of my theme songs "Sheriff Fatman". Sleep well my friends

Idiots on Wheels

I went out for a short walk this morning and getting towards the end of the road I saw a car which I thought was turning into my road, so I got on to the grass verge as Yorkshire seems to be very short on footpaths. The car stayed there, then I realised it was positioned to possibly cross the Pickering road, blocking the road, then another car came up behind it. The car blocking the road was a BMW and you start thinking about the stereotype expensive car owners and their habits.

German cars are a beacon of engineering excellence, and that makes drivers feel much safer, and some drivers start to think that they own the road and screw everyone else.

The the passenger got out of the BMW, walked round to the drivers side and open the back door and take out a road map, walk back and get in then they started looking at the map. All the while there is the car behind being blocked in. They then sounded their horn. No reaction from the BMW driver so the car behind was forced to overtake on the wrong side of the road (very dangerous, but the BMW driver was oblivious) and get on their way.

The thing is, if you're lost you find somewhere safe to park up then look at where you are and need to go, but this BMW showed absolute idiocy in what he did and could have caused a serious accident. The Helmsley to Pickering road gets quite busy and the car forced to overtake could have been hit because they couldn't get a good view of the main road, or a car may have tried to turn in off the main road.

I think an appropriate song for this post is one of my favourite car songs from Chuck Berry, the excellent "Maybelline". I need to hit another eight thousand steps so maintain my holiday step average for my Million Step Challenge, which I think should be well within my capability.

Waiting For The Great Leap Forward

It was raining today but I thought I would try and catch up on the steps I missed on Tuesday.  I was thinking I might get 7 or 8K in, but ended up completing my 11K for the day. I then thought I might try a few more and this pulled into place advice and wisdom from people who have helped me in the past.

My dad suggested that no matter how far you are going you should identify small targets and hit those. So you may be walking ten miles, but in that walk identify a lamp post or a tree and aim for that , then identify your next lamp post or tree, and so on and so on until you finally hit your target. You break up your task into manageable chunks and eventually you complete it.

My doctor suggested that I should walk for half an hour and work up a sweat to  properly exercise your body. That has happened several times this week, so I think I am doing the right thing.

My son in law Mark told me that once you hit half an our of walking, then your metabolism starts improving and kicking properly, so I now always make sure I do at least forty minutes in a walking session and try to do 10K a day. I'm almost half way through my Million Step Challenge and today I kept going to record my highest daily step total since I started this on the first of May. I'm just over 17K but may nip out and do a couple of thousand more before today is over.

I was thinking of the election and the effort that the Labour Party has put in while the government has just assumed it would be a walk over backed by the right wing press printing desperate front page lies to sway the electorate. There's only one song for this, Billy Bragg's "Waiting For The Great Leap Forward", I found a great live updated version for you all.

Walking Through Pockley

Today I returned from Whitby, where I had hoped to do a lot of walking. I didn't do that much. I decided to take a walk to the end of the south pier, but half the wooden walk way is no longer there, and it was chained off due to the waves (and the fact there are no real safety rails). Still I took some video of the waves.

I got home and decided to walk towards Pockley (in the semi hope of finding a shop). One of the problems with this part of Yorkshire is that it's not heavily blessed with footpaths, so a walk to Helmsley, say, is virtually impossible without severe risk to your personal existence.

Anyway I walked up the hill and came across a large barn conversion that is in mid project, then I came up to the first house in the village. It is a nice one road village, with a church, a house that sells free range eggs, then at the end of the village was a field with two ponies in that you can see here.

One of the oddities are there are lots of signs for public footpaths, but they don't say where they go to. Now I don't know about you, but I think setting off on a walk across some fields to an unknown destination is not the best idea.

Still I managed 14K steps today and that has put my Million Step Challenge back on track, well almost. Tomorrow may be more rain, so there may be another setback , but Friday may be another trip to Whitby.

There has been no TV today, but I think I'm going to go with The Dictators "Sleeping With The TV On" which is something we've all done, or should have done.

Stranger Things When It Rains

Yesterday it just sheeted down with rain. I was surprised I managed to get 2.5K stems in given that the cottage is quite small and the opportunity to go outside was almost non existent. You can check it out here and it is extremely comfortable and quiet with options to walk (weather permitting).

Today will entail a trip to Whitby (as the skies are blue and there's only huge puddles and the odd pummelled plant to remind us of yesterday's awful weather). There was rain on Monday but an umbrella was enough to keep me mostly dry, yesterday and umbrella would have been just irrelevant, today the weather looks fine.

The Whitby trip might enable me to make up some of the steps I missed yesterday, but to fully make them up I'd have to hit 20K, but we shall see. Overall I'm still ahead of the game and I know I can make up the steps.

We are now up to episode six of the excellent "Stranger Things" so I expect to finish that tonight. The series is excellent and Fiona reckons it's a cross between Stephen King and "Outnumbered" which is an accurate analogy. As well as being an excellent series the soundtrack lives up to it, and I am going to include Joy Division's Atmosphere which opened the last episode. I've used this video before but think it fits in with the sometimes nightmarish episodes of "Stranger Things".

Have a great day everybody

Welcome To The Machine

I've just been struck how much machines are encroaching on our working lives. The Luddites smashed the machines during the industrial revolution because they feared that their jobs and therefore their livelihoods would be threatened. The French threw their clogs (sabots) into the machines to wreck them (hence the word "sabotage"). It turned out the Luddites were wrong , the industrial revolution produced great economies of scale for goods that could be mass produced, and generally standards of living improved.

Production lines had people doing repetitive tasks aided (and driven) by machines and wages enabled people to buy goods, creating demand because people had disposable income.Everyone was a winner.

However when I see staff being replaced by autotills at the supermarket (which often break down or don't work) but we as customers have to put up with it because there is no other option. If one doesn't work you move to the next one.

Bookmakers are turning into slot machine arcades, often opened in poorer areas (I have two with five minutes walk where I live), again replacing staff and making existing staff work more than twelve hour shifts often alone. Both these examples I do not see a benefit to the customer or staff only to the business owners.

I don't see myself as a Luddite, but I am worried that a lot more people will soon be out of work with no way of getting back in , and then I see this BBC article on future inequality, read it and frighten yourself because it could happen if we don't do something about the world.

In our own lives think about the phone numbers you can remember. I know my own. That's it. I used to know lots but my phone remembers for me. This is a good use of technology because it doesn't reduce what I can do , it enhances it and that's what the introduction of machines in the workplace should do for people. I also use my phone to measure my steps on my Million Step Challenge, though the app (Google Fit) needs resetting every couple of weeks as it keeps stopping or slowing down .

So I could have gone with The Beastie Boys "Sabotage", will will go for the more obvious "Welcome to The Machine" by Pink Floyd. And remember that alarm clock that wakes you up for work tomorrow, that's another piece of good technology, though I think most of us hate it.

Sleep well my friends

Listen If You Dare

Well it's late for me. I started this before the journey south and am just picking it up now. Have had an unsuccessful search for a disused railway line which actually may be a lot closer than I thought, finally got to eat at Helmsley Spice, which I was very impressed with, and have started the holiday just missing out on my 11K steps, though I did drive down here.

I am very glad to see some of the country starting to think about who they want to govern them next week and have been very very impressed with the slick and professional attitude of Labour as opposed to the shambolic mess of the current government's campaign.

I can see a lot of walking this week and I want to hit 30K steps in a single day, that will be about 12 miles so we shall see if I can hit that many. I won't be distracted by work so there is a small chance that I might be able to do it.

I'll bet you will be glad when I finish the Million Step Challenge. I will be, but I will find something else to aim for.

I sometimes wonder who reads this, I know I have a few regular readers, as they leave comments, but I wonder if the majority are sponsored and government robots checking to see if I am a threat to national security or their sales figures. Paul Nuttall would probably want me locked up for visiting Helmsley Spice or if I mentioned ISIS, or said that I sympathised with Yemen who are being targetted by British weapons.

But it's late Saturday Night and it's the fiftieth anniversary of the release of Sergeant Pepper which Liz Kershaw devoted her show to today which you can listen to here for two weeks. She ran a poll to choose the nation's favourite track from the album and of course it came out as "A Day In The Life". Now I think it would have been a nice anarchic touch to play The Fall's version or The Residents' "Beyond The Valley of A Day In The Life" both of which I will include for you here.

Liz kept listing all the tracks on the album which highlighted to me that "Revolver" and "Abbey Road" are far better albums. OK goodnight and listen to these if you dare.