The Bumpycat sat on the mat

How many things do you need for a duel?

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:28:13 GMT

Army people shortages

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:43:50 GMT

A personal anecdote.

A figure I've heard is that the RLC (the Really Large Corps, or the Royal Logistics Corps), which is the single largest Corps in the Army, needs 80 new Regular officers per year just to maintain manpower levels.

The Territorial Army is (on the books) about 40 000 strong, as opposed to about 100 000 for the Regular Army, so by my calculations it would need about 30 new TA officers a year just to stand still. The 2IC (second in command) of 240 Squadron told me that his troop commanders course a few years ago had just over 20 attendees. This troop commanders course runs once a year at Deepcut in Surrey, and I'm booked on the course for this year, as are three other people from my Regiment - M from 562 Squadron and S and L from 210 Squadron.

That's it for new TA officers in the RLC this year. Four of us. All from the same London regiment. We're the sum total of new subalterns attending the troop commanders course.

That's a pretty dire state of affairs.

(I'm working through a list of things that I want to talk about. Next journal topic: Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition!!)

Firefox download day

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:22:05 GMT

Today, June 18th, is Firefox download day. I've been using Firefox version 3 at home, and it's pretty good. Download it, just so you can contribute to a Guinness world record!

The list of downloads by country is particularly interesting. The numbers are good overall, but the really interesting part is the low end of the chart. One lonely soul in the Falklands has downloaded so far, and two in Sierra Leone, three in Turkmenistan and four in Tonga. Also, Iran has nearly as many downloads as the UK, France or Spain, which says quite interesting things about a country that is often vilified in the halls of power in the West.

Man what

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 13:00:46 GMT

Epic fail from the Daily Fail? It's a story about the world's biggest drug stash being torched. Now, I don't know much about drugs, but the line

Officials believe the area - near to the Taliban stronghold of Quetta in Pakistan - was turning dried cannabis leaves into heroin.

caused me to raise an eyebrow in caustic disdain. Please, tell me I'm wrong. Please say it is possible to somehow turn cannabis into heroin, and not that the journalist is an idiot.

Also, why bomb it? Bombs are a great deal more expensive and not nearly as thorough as thirty guys with, you know, burning sticks. Also, I'm sure there were plenty of other targets for the bombs. Seems a bit of a waste, really.

Getting stuff done

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:58:23 GMT

The final Cyprus report was handed in on Tuesday night, with a great deal of assistance from the 508 TQMS. It ran to about 33 pages in the end. That's a huge, er, millstone off my neck? Weight off my back? My brain isn't providing the correct answer ...

I've mostly finished moving into my new place, back in GG. I'm actually within a stones throw of Starbucks (the elevation helps) and in the same postcode as several Japanese and Korean restaurants and shops. Score!

E, G and I are now wrestling with the logistics of getting out of our old place without having to pay any more rent and dealing with the changing requirements of the owner. We've mostly sorted that out.

Yes I am back in London

Thu, 29 May 2008 22:44:21 GMT

I had the most amazing time kayaking in Cyprus, and really enjoyed the rest that Cyprus had to offer. We finished the week with a long paddle around Cape Greco, the south-east tip of Cyprus. I have just this second found out is the home of the Ayia Napa sea monster, which would have been good to know at the time, or maybe not. You NEVER KNOW.

The main visible result is a rather patchy tan, ranging from "What sun?" on some parts to "Blistered and peeling from radioactive fire!!" on others.

The overall problem I have with sea kayaking is that I get massively sea-sick*, which is strange for such a little boat which bobs, pitches and rolls with every swell and wave ... ulp. I remember a disastrous early date with tsukikoneko on a boat in heavy seas off Cape Point, and to be honest I am still amazed that she wanted to see me EVAH AGAIN. But she is sweet that way. So anyway, I probably fended off the Ayia Napa sea monster by feeding it my breakfast. Let me tell you, it's quite something to throw up over the side of a two-foot wide kayak in open sea swells and not capsize. I am a master of that, at least. On the plus side, we were being shadowed on shore by the vehicle and trailer, so I could put in at any convenient beach and spend the rest of the day with the support team. On the minus side, Cape Greco is all cliffs until you get right around to Protaras. There is one tiny landing spot just around the Cape, and I powered ahead with strong and vigourous strokes to put myself ashore at this haven from the sea. Actually paddling means that you are less affected by the swells and are also distracted. Overall, I don't think sea kayaking is my thing. River kayaking maybe. Anyway, we put in at some sea caves only accessible to very small boats from the sea. We had lunch (I ventured as far as eating a Snickers) at a crystal-clear bay. The afternoon in the support vehicle was a little more interesting - it proved rather hard to navigate once we were off the main tourist routes, but we managed to find our way in the end.

We went to Ayia Napa on the last night there, and had a great time. Basically central Ayia Napa is a nocturnal town where the main industry is bars and clubs, populated mostly by English tourists and English bar workers. The final day was spent in a variety of other boats, and the afternoon was spent in admin, cleaning up, returning kit and generally looking around. Dekelia Garrison is large, compared to most of the other military bases I've frequented - it took me a good half-hour to walk from the front gate (there's an excellent fish and chip shop opposite) to our accommodation.

The flight back arrived at Gatwick at 02h00, and I had a scary minute or two being quizzed by passport control. There's always the chance that I might not be allowed back in. I crashed at the TA centre, where someone kindly showed me to a bed and then I was roused by someone else swearing at me for sleeping in their bed**.

* I've decided to preempt any mocking on the part of the rest of the regiment by telling everyone immediately that I get massively sea-sick and sea kayaking is not really an option for me.
** Given that the bed is an issue bunk in a store-room, it is hard to see his logic here. I've been annoyed all day at this.

Rather a change from London

Fri, 23 May 2008 22:09:59 GMT

So I'm here in Cyprus, residing in a barrack block at Sovereign Base Area Dekelia. It's quite comfortable, although I'm already sunburnt from insufficient vigour and thoroughness in application of sunscreen. I'll have to make sure that doesn't happen again. The weather is warm, the plant cover reminds me of the Karoo, and the Mediterranean stretches off towards Africa, calm and blue. Coming from the Cape of Storms as I do, I'm quite surprised to see a sea this calm.

Today we've drawn kit - kayaks, paddles, and all the odds and ends that seem to be required for adventure sports. Tight lycra clothing comes into it once again! I'm beginning to suspect that sports clothing doesn't actually NEED to be tight, but is just made figure-hugging so athletes can show off their bodies. Tomorrow we're out on the water, but the whole planning process seems to have passed me by. I need to draw up an itinerary of our activities (we're mostly sticking to the shallow water of a bay near the base area, but we're also planning a longer trip to get the full open water kayaking experience*).

The overall pace here is pretty relaxed. Due to the heat of summer, the working day is from 06h30 to 13h00. There's a lot of scope for adventure sport in the area, and most people spend there afternoons doing something like kayaking or diving. We just got back from a little town to the east of Dekelia, where we had dinner. It's quite striking just how British Cyprus is - it was a colony for decades, and now a major part of the economy is tourism for English visitors, so all the street signs are in English and Greek, and the tourist areas have most of the sign in English.

* For some reason I suddenly thought of the Jaws music.

Funniest political protest/hack evah (NSFW)

Tue, 20 May 2008 08:16:13 GMT

NSFW!! A political meeting where Gary Kasparov was speaking was interrupted by a flying penis-helicopter. It's a case of life imitating Second Life!

Also, read the first comment. Some random commenter added some brilliant dialogue.

My new toy, let me show you it

Wed, 14 May 2008 23:06:55 GMT

Did I mention I have a new laptop? I have a new laptop. It's a Lenovo Thinkpad R61e. I gave up the Asus EEE, with the vague idea that I could actually test server stuff (LAMP, research computing, wikis) on this. It's a Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.1GHz, with 2G of RAM, for the entirely reasonable price of about £600. About fifteen seconds after I powered it up I started installing Ubuntu 8.04 over Windows Vista, and it's looking pretty good. I'm still tweaking the install, but it's a pleasure to have portable Linux at last!

Result, #2!

Tue, 13 May 2008 17:05:15 GMT

I have another little medal thingy, this time a team medal from the Regimental shooting championships last weekend. On Saturday several teams took part in a variety of shoots, generally involving both physical exertion and time pressure. My team's overall result for these was very good - we won all the contests that day. The couple of very good shots in the team made up for my merely adequate shooting. Combining sprinting around and donning gas masks with the shooting makes it a much better test of military skills. It's reasonably hard to hit a man-sized target at 400m, but it's even trickier when you've just sprinted 100m (again*) and are breathing heavily, causing your rifle to wobble all over the place.

On Sunday we had more shooting, including a rather amusing contest against a team of civilians. There were four people in each team (the subalterns vs the visitors) and the ENTIRE REGIMENT was watching. So I felt rather good about hitting more targets than anyone else in that shoot, even if I still wasn't that brilliant. There was also a pistol contest, which was a bit awkward for me. I've fired pistols before, but only left-handed. I was hoping to practice right-handed shooting, but instead was sent straight into the contest - "In ten seconds the targets will pop up for three seconds. Fire one shot at each of the two targets." In my confusion I tried to hold the pistol with BOTH hands in the dominant hand position, and was whacked rather painfully on the thumb by the slide. I cheerfully achieved the second lowest score in pistol shooting, in strong contrast to another 240 Sqn person, who is training as a vet prior to entering the Royal Army Veterinary Corps. She has previously put down sick pigs with pistol at point blank range; after her astoundingly good shooting this weekend (target shooting for the first time), our troop staff sergeant joked that she didn't need to even go into the field to finish the pigs off any more***.

The weekend was dubbed "The Empire Strikes Back" by a fellow officer, because the officer's contingent included a South African, a New Zealander and an Australian. The Kiwi and myself were in British DPM, but the Australian officer is on an exchange program and so was wearing Australian uniform**.

Unrelated to the weekend: my visa to Cyprus has been approved, so my trip can go ahead. It was very good to hear that I was approved, following my rather tragic attempt to visit Serbia.

Also unrelated to the weekend: I'm moving back to Golders Green. Y and I have found a place very close to the tube station (yes, we're moving in together) after a whole 36 hours of flat-hunting.

* One sprint-shoot-sprint-shoot-sprint-shoot run had to be repeated because the scoring machine wasn't working.
** Which is a sort of desert-woodland mix, and standard head-dress is a floppy bush hat.
*** Is this a little ghoulish? I'm making jokes about killing.

Bursting with real coffee flavour

Fri, 09 May 2008 14:21:19 GMT

Which is really a euphemism for "doesn't contain real coffee".

I have a shiny new laptop - a Lenovo Thinkpad R61e.* It arrived this morning, at the same time as my order from Play-asia of CJ7. I won't be watching CJ7 just yet, though, for two reasons - there's a regimental training weekend starting tonight (on the ranges! With pistols! I haven't fired a pistol for years), and they sent me a Blu-ray instead of the DVD I ordered.

My 3-year term of enlistment in the Army expires today, but I have already signed up again. For another twelve years. This might seem like a long time, but not only can you leave at any time, if you just don't turn up for training for about six months most regiments will just drop you. Then again, I usually don't plan dinner more than an hour in advance, so signing up to anything for twelve years seems like quite a commitment.

Also, I'm trying to keep up with about 150% workload, and finalise details for the Cyprus trip. Aand, I'm moving in the near future**, and my sister is moving to London. It all feels a bit frantic.

On the plus side, I've been Gazetted! This is a good thing, for those (like me) who weren't sure what that means.

* The extended wait for an Asus EEE dampened my enthusiasm, and I eventually settled on a serious laptop to test Linux stuff.
** The house is ok, but the landlady is ... ah ... someone we don't get on with very well. And it would be nice to move back to GG again anyway.

Odds and ends

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:04:08 GMT

More odd than ends, really. Dinner last night was squid and duck. Presenting the new Asian super-food, the squiduck!

New favourite word - "callousthenetics". Obviously, it means working on your callousness. Thanks for crackity at the Monday Cthulhu game for that*.

My plans for Cyprus are on track, so barring any problems with visas (which has never happened to me before**) I'll be off kayaking in less than a month.

* The game also produced "No-one expects the Carlysle Expedition!" and "Quick, Bloody Tongue Man! To the Bloody Tongue-mobile!". Followed by sound effects.
** I joke, but there is some bitterness there

You takes the good with the bad [sic]

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:23:33 GMT

I'm suffering from a bit of outrage fatigue at the moment. With Phorm, Zimbabwe, uninvestigated war crimes in Kosovo*, and the continuing unavailability of the Asus EEE, I'm alternating between rage and despair. Then again, what can I do?

After everyone else had a massively bad dose of flu (housemates, girlfriend, work colleagues), I caught it earlier this week ... and shook it off within a couple of days. This is a major improvement over my usual susceptibility to flu. I was rather glad that I wasn't too badly hit, since I've been doing a course on MySQL this week.

* the BBC seems to have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to news from the Balkans that doesn't fit a, er, certain viewpoint. I still haven't found any mention of this on BBC news.

Man what

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:35:38 GMT

I barely even have time to breathe, let alone glob^H^H^H^Hblog. And my typing is going.

On my desk are four sample boxes of cereals which were being handed out in Euston station this morning. I was able to stride through the throng of hungry, breakfast-seeking commuters, politely deflecting a cereal with a brand name of "curiously cinnamon". I prefer to find curious things outside the realm of Food, thanks. However, my colleague, unable to resist the blandishments as he criss-crossed the station in search of his morning coffee and newspaper, picked up FOUR. He then used his terrible knowledge that I cannot let anything go to waste* to unload these cartons of curiousness onto me.

Roleplaying is infectious, and I am regretting my dwindling availability.

The last weekend was a field weekend. 240 Sqn did some field drills in camouflage, movement and the orders process over the weekend. It was the first time since Sandhurst that I've been out in the field, and naturally it was the weekend with a heavy snowfall. I managed to position my basha facing into the wind (all-round defense means that someone will be the unlucky one) and woke up with wind-driven snow coating everything.

In creepy police-state news, anti-terrorist legislation was used to justify Poole council spying on a family for three weeks** to be sure they were applying for the right school for their child. Seriously, what the fuck is this?

Also, BT are trying to sell every detail of your web usage to a spyware company. People are, unsurprisingly, complaining about this.

* I still have an unused "Cthulhu for President 1996" sticker
** "Female and three children left house. Took usual route to school and work"

Please to get some danmuji ...

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 15:30:43 GMT

... and also ugyejiguk, 1 portion, and miyekguk, 1 portion. Helpfully, Y included the Hangul on the shopping list, but that didn't help much when I was trying to find these items at Seoul Plaza in Golders Green. Finding, say, 우거지국 when everything in the shop is labelled in Korean is not easy. On the plus side, they had Pocky!!

I was handling the shopping for Korean foodstuffs because Y, like trippingowl, is currently laid low with a particularly nasty strain of flu. I've avoided it so far, but I'm not sure how - I think I'm less prone to illness after a couple of years of exercising in all weathers.

Tomorrow is the end of the training year for the TA, so there is much paperwork and last minute training that needs to be done. I gave a couple of lessons yesterday, and there is even a fitness test today. Nothing like last minute training. The main reason for the nick of time effort is financial - a TA soldier only qualifies for their annual bounty if they pass all the training for that year. It's another of those quaint traditions that we're paid a bounty for our efforts (I'm spending part of mine on an Asus EEE, if I can find one).

Work is a bit chaotic at the moment. I'm now working in the email/web admin team (as opposed to the Linux team) while still working in the research computing team. This not only means that I'm now reporting to two bosses, but also that a particularly knotty confluence of LDAP/userid problems on the research systems is mine, mine, all mine.

I fucking TOLD you it would happen!

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:18:56 GMT

MI5 wants complete access to all Oyster Card travel records.

And some Orwellian nutjob* wants children as young as 5 to have their DNA stored on the police database if they show "criminal tendencies".

He goes on to say "the notion of universal sampling - everyone being forced to give their genetic samples to the database - is currently prohibited by cost and logistics". No concern about civil liberties, of course.

As a soldier, I've had a little briefing on the Forces DNA database. The line is that "in theory, police would need a court order to access the DNA samples", but they said the same thing about the Oyster card, didn't they? Quite hearteningly, nearly a quarter of soldiers told them to fuck right off*** when asked for a DNA sample.

* actually the "DNA spokesman for ACPO**", which confirms that DNA has a rather big role to play in policing. Where is the associated DNA Rights Commissioner? Or is all DNA policy to be decided, unchallenged, by the police?
** Association of Chief Police Officers
*** I paraphrase

So anyway

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 10:02:32 GMT

As trippingowl said, we were burgled on Monday. The burglars chucked a rock through the back window to get in. They then proceeded to barricade the front door, ransacked all the rooms, and then left through the back garden. I only lost my camera, and there were no unsaved photos, so it's no great loss for me.

I called the police from outside the front door. The nice policeman kicked open the front door; I thought of asking if I could do it, but that might have seemed strange. Overall, I'm pretty much unfazed. I mean, I've been robbed at gunpoint before, and threatened with various weapons, and burgled many times. On the scale of trauma, this is minor - for me. Y is feeling a little unnerved by the whole thing.

In other news - well, not much. TA stuff continues to happen at a staggering pace; it really can fill your entire life if you let it. A lot of it is boring admin stuff like vehicle/equipment checks and signing things for people.

And another thing!

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 13:27:47 GMT

Man, it really fucking sucks to be a citizen of a third-world country and try to visit other countries. It's like they think I'm going to want to stay in a foreign country with no means of support and not speaking much of the language (although I guess some people do. Want to stay, not speak the language. Although many people DO speak the language. 저는 한국어 못합니다!!*). Getting a visa for South Korea is quite an undertaking. I can't wait to get my little red book.

At least people from other European countries visiting EU countries get a sort of fraternal tolerance. I'm just persona non grata everywhere, including my homeland.

In other news, today I had to search through a list of users for Akira. Immediately afterwards, I shiftily glanced around and then did another search for Tetsuuooooo. (I didn't find him).

* I particularly like how "mot" ㅁ + ㅗ + ㅅ ends up in Hangul as 못, which looks like a little stick person.**
** The transliteration I was reading might be wrong, because even I know that ㅅ is S.

Ganbatte!

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 00:27:31 GMT

The life of a junior officer is rather busy. Combine that with working full time and a girlfriend, and my time is pretty much accounted for. Thus the paucity of blog postings since I returned from Bavaria.

This last weekend was another training weekend, finishing the various annual tests for people in the squadron. I duly went along for my annual tear-gassing. My final test was tonight - the BFPA (press-ups, sit-ups and run). I was pleased to completely defeat everyone else in the squadron. I think I've set an example there, which was good, because I was the only officer present tonight.

I'm also too tired to post anything resembling a coherent blog. Maybe next time.

Result!

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:38:14 GMT

Check it out. I didn't come back empty-handed. The team from 151 London Regt (V) won two team prizes, TA Nordic team runner-up and TA Championship team runner-up. If the patrol race had gone better we might have done even better than that. My personal position was 72nd out of about 150 competitors, after the handful of non-RLC people had been filtered from the list of finalists.

A big shout out to N from BFPO, who not only is an avid reader of my blog but was kind enough to share some of the more lurid stories with a brigadier (I'm not sure who), her commanding officer, and many other people at the championship. I'm famous! Or infamous ...

Anyway, a selection of pictures is in the Picasa album, which I'm sure I could make more accessible but don't really have the time to do at the moment. I haven't really had time to catch my breath since getting back.

The final couple of days were fairly unremarkable for me. I wasn't in the patrol race, so the rest of the championship was just admin.The patrol race was a bit of a nightmare - the 20km race ended up being 32km for the 151 team after they misread a sign, and then we were disqualified anyway for missing a 5km loop at the end. The final test of the race was to carry a huge log around a 1km circuit. Most teams had two people take their skis off and run around the circuit with the log, with other team members carrying the excess skis and poles. Some teams with stronger members had one person carrying the log. The captain of Team Evil, on the other hand, simply hefted the log onto his shoulder with one hand, and simply skied off, building up a lead over the rest of his team by the finish*. He needed his massive bear-like strength to carry off his fistful of medals at the end of the prize-giving.

On the final day I drove a left-hand drive car on the right side of the road, both of which were new to me. I was chanting "stay on the right!" to avoid mishaps, and every time I changed gear I began by scrabbling at the door with my left hand. But, I didn't crash or break anything. The drive from Ruhpolding back to London was quick - we pushed the minibus** and made pretty good time back to rainy England.

Tomorrow I'm back at work, and back into the London routine***. I feel the urgent need to get my body into gym, since I've been doing 20km a day of Nordic skiing and running in fresh Alpine air, and need to keep up the level of fitness I've reached. My body neeeeds to mooove - I've been bouncing up and down all day! Today has been spent at a teddy bear fair, which was a change of pace, somewhat.

* for those unacquainted with Nordic skiing, moving with just one pole is ludicrously hard work.
** it nearly died
*** including going to the Monday game for the first time in a ... little while. >.<

Winnah!

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 17:33:16 GMT

W00t! I came 77th in the race today! Up twelve places, and beating all my immediate rivals!

Today´s race was the 15km classic. There are two styles of Nordic skiing: classic, and skating. Skating is newer and much faster, but classic is much easier for beginners. I´ve been doing all the races in the classic style, mainly because I haven´t learnt skating yet. So, the 15km classic is much more about fitness than skill, which is important, because I have a great deal more fitness than skill. My improved ranking is due to the fact that I could overtake all the skaters who were cruising past me in previous races.

I still dobbed many times, and lost a whole minute after one crash in which I bent my ski pole, and had to stop, unfasten it, and straighten it out. I came to the important conclusion that it´s better to take a corner slowly and keep some speed, rather than whizz round and pile into the trees. In the last two races four people had to be stretchered off the course after coming off on one particularly tricky corner.

Alas, my races are now over. There are three races left. Two special races take place tomorrow, for the top-ranked Nordic and Alpine skiers. On Wednesday is the final Nordic race, the patrol race. This is a 20km biathlon-style race, in military kit only. The race includes a few command tasks (those delightful British Army physical/mental puzzles) and a target shooting test. The team for the patrol race does not have to include a novice, however, so the 151 (L) Regiment team is going to use the experienced people in the hopes of beating Team Evil.

So, the rest of my stay in Ruhpolding will be relaxing and drinking hot chocolate. I´m back in London on Saturday.

Injuries: a scrape across my lower back, but it looks like that´s it. I´m relatively intact!

Getting better

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 16:31:13 GMT

I´m actually doing relatively well for a novice in the championship so far. I have enough fitness to make up for my pretty awful technique. The word "dob" means to crash, and I´m pretty good at dobbing. So far, in the races, I´ve dobbed on the notorious Dobbers´ Hill five out six times. Yesterday was the first race where I didn´t slide to the bottom of the hill on, well, my bottom.

The 4x5km relay on Friday was not my best race - my time was average for a novice, and my immediate competition (G and H, also from London, who have been learning with me) beat me. I avenged myself yesterday on the 10km freestyle, beating them both by more than 2 minutes. Tomorrow is the 15km classic, and this is the race which determines which of us is the best. So, maximum effort tomorrow. And less falling over. I´m fitter than both, but they tend to fall over less at crucial points. Over the longer distance, I think my fitness will make the difference!

On the subject of Alpine vs Nordic skiing: in Alpine skiing, the combination of adrenaline, terror, cold air, and a few minutes of exertion combine to produce a flushed, slightly panting, exhilarated person, standing triumphantly at the finish line. I think you can see what I´m getting at. Alpine is very sexy.

At the end of a Nordic race, however, the cold, massive exertion, sustained effort and all-over exercise means the competitor finishes the race gasping for breath, drenched in sweat despite the cold, and with their face covered in snot (you can´t blow your nose because you´re using your arms and your ski poles will stab you in the eye). The finish line is manned by someone to give you a tissue, someone to catch you and take your skis off, and someone to guide you to the recovery area. This is not sexy. I was watching the finish of the womens biathlon in Östersund on TV today, and most of the competitors collapsed just past the finish line and lay face-down in the snow.

Anyway, I remain convinced that Nordic is far more interesting than Alpine, and I´m going to continue with it. There have been many photos taken of the races, which I will post once I get back to London. I was not wrong when I said the race suit is tight. Various descriptions have circulated in my head, but I think the best is that it is utterly impossible to hide even a peanut in this suit.

On the international front, Kosovo has declared independence. I do not think this is a good thing. There´s little doubt that the Albanians are not likely to treat the Serb minority well, and this sets a dangerous precedent for, well, many other regions where an ethnic group wants to secede. What happened to the EU principle of unity despite ethnic differences? Does that only apply when it doesn´t hinder military and economic goals? It´s all rather sad, but I suppose this was inevitable.

My personal injury count: badly bruised hand (from dobbing on Dobbers´ Hill) and bruised elbows.

Six more sleeps until I see Y again! :D

Ok, quick update

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 17:48:59 GMT

I came 89th out of 150 entrants in the race, which was not a bad fist for only a week of training. I have an interesting comparison between Alpine and Nordic skiing, but it will have to wait until my next post. No major injuries, but more scrapes, bruises, and a pulled muscle.

Onwards!

I can ski!

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:44:47 GMT

Granted, not very well, and only classic Nordic (not skating Nordic, or Alpine). As with many things (like this German keyboard), skiing is far more complex than you would imagine (well, than I imagined). I´m now going to stop using brackets and the letter y, since they have a different location on this kezboard^Hkeyboard.

So, anyway, the trip to Bavaria wasn´t too difficult. My NATO travel order got me through passport control in Folkestone easily, and after 25 minutes on the Eurotunnel train we were in France. An extended drive across France and Germany took us until 14h00 on Monday the 4th, when we arrived in Ruhpolding, Bavaria, where I now sit. It´s a little (very, very little) town, but has quite a range of facilities for cross-country skiing. There is a Biathlon centre in town. There may be more than one Biathlon, but the Biathlon of which I speak is cross-country skiing and shooting. The top-ranked Chinese female biathlete is called Chun Li Wang, which is a good name for those who remember Streetfighter 2.

Anyway, on to the skiing. Alpine or downhill skiing is very different from Nordic or cross-country skiing. I´m doing Nordic skiing, which is a lot less exhilarating and a lot more work than Alpine. It certainly makes you a lot fitter than Alpine. There is no effort involved in Alpine at all - you take a lift up to the top of a slope, and then let gravity take you down the slope. I know because on Saturday we popped across to Austria for a rest day of downhill skiing.

Nordic skiing is both up and down hills, and is basically about covering long distances of natural terrain. I started the first day with the basics, and by the end of the day could ski on the level. Day two was about going uphill, and I proved a natural, to the extent of missing a turn on a track and climbing halfway up the mountain overlooking Ruhpolding. People were very impressed with my fitness, if not my navigational skills. Day three involved learning how to go downhill, and, most importanlty, how to stop going downhill. This is a very important skill, and less painful than falling over to stop yourself. Day four was spent practising all of these skills. To complicate things further, there are two different ski styles for Nordic, and at least three different kinds of skis. Suffice it to say that Nordic skis are lighter and much narrower than downhill skis, and that my skills are currently limited to classic Nordic skiing on fishscale skis.

As mentioned, Day five was a rest day spent lounging about on the slopes of an Alpine ski resort. We (the four novices, which includes one English officer, myself, one South African soldier and one Gurkha soldier) went to the nursery slopes of the resort. We knew we were on the right bus when a bunch of five-year-olds in pink snow gear piled on the bus with us, directed by a ski instructor. What was especially galling was watching the five-year-olds cruise past on the slopes while I was cartwheeling down in a flurry of skis, poles, limbs and snow. I haven´t fallen nearly as often as I was expecting, and the only injuries are bruises, a slightly sprained thumb, and a few scrapes.

Sunday was also a rest day, although I still did 15km of cross-country skiing. The actual competition started yesterday, with the arrival of a zillion white UK-registered minibuses. The scene outside the competition registration office on Sunday was quite funny - a horde of white busses with clusters of people standing around, staring each other down. Our arch-rivals (we have arch-rivals?), the Scottish transport regiment ski team, arrived all dressed in black ski gear like Team Evil.

There are two days of classes and courses before the first race on Wednesday. This first race, a 7.5km sprint (sprinting for 7.5km seems unlikely) is the seeding race which will determine our individual positions for the rest of the championship. One interesting feature is that every team must include a novice in every race. Since I´m the only novice in our team, that means me! It also means that fresh blood is brought in every year (often literally, if the course is as icy as it is at the moment). Of course, the definition of "novice" is that the person hasn´t skied for any Army team before, so some novices are not that novice at all. Nonetheless, some of the novices I met today were very very new, so I know that I have a little advantage after just five days of training.

So, tomorrow we walk (ie, gently ski) the course, and the day after is the race. I´m feeling pretty calm about it all. I probably won´t be able to blog again for a few days - I´m currently using the only public internet terminal in Ruhpolding (the other one is out of order), so expect an update this weekend - probably Sunday, since there are two more races (the relay and the 10km freestyle) on Friday and Saturday. A final note: Nordic skiing works ALL your muscles, but especially your glutes. So, if you like nice bums, Nordic skiers are where it´s at. Triceps are also worked hard, but seriously, who even looks at triceps?

This is just getting silly now

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:52:59 GMT

I really wish I wouldn't grind my teeth like this. It's been close to six days of unrelenting, rather intense pain, and the accompanying absolute lack of sleep. I'm feeling more than a little dazed. I went to the dentist yesterday, on the off-chance that it was actually something serious. He said to man up and take painkillers (I paraphrase).

The kickboxing class I attend is taught by a scary Polish guy, and there are a few other Polish students in the class, all of whom are equally scary. What is it about Eastern Europeans and martial arts? One of the warm-up exercises is running around the dojo several times carrying your partner on your back. I'm pretty good, and can overtake most people while carrying an 80kg person, but the guy I was partnered with sprinted around the hall carrying me as if I wasn't even there. At the end of the lesson, another Polish guy launched a flying elbow strike across four metres, setting the punch-bag swinging wildly and eliciting a puff of plaster dust from the wall bracket, all Tony Jaa style. My general rule of "Don't get into fights with expert martial artists" now has the suffix "especially muay thai, and especially Poles". I'm still getting rather bruised, but I think I'm toughening up a bit.

Last night I was staying at Y's place. We managed to slip past her four Japanese housemates (all female) as they were throwing a large party in the lounge. Later, I was in the shower and heard an animated discussion in Japanese outside the bathroom. Apparently, they had no idea who was taking a shower, since Y was downstairs and all the other guests had left. I was facing the prospect of explaining myself to four strange Japanese girls (only one of whom I have met) while wearing nothing but a very small, very pink towel. Fortunately, Y was able to disperse the crowd ...

On Sunday I'm heading off to Ruhpolding in Bavaria for the RLC ski championships - three weeks of it! I'm entering as a novice (never a truer word was spoken) in the Nordic skiiing competition. About a week ago I was about to give up on attending, because of my filthy SA passport, but the nice admin people in my squadron have arranged a NATO travel order for me, so I'm now travelling on military/diplomatic papers. I can say "deeeplomatic eemunity"! I don't actually have it, but I can say it. The Nordic/cross-country skiiing is a bit more energetic than downhill. The first week, a practise session, consists of 15- and 20-km runs and ski patrols. I'll be spending a small fortune on kit on Saturday morning, but my actual ski gear will be rented, and the extraordinarily tight Nordic skiing uniform is provided by the regiment.

My last week of work has been consumed by training in a new system that we haven't actually bought yet and I probably won't be looking after. Many critical systems (ok, two) are sitting around neglected as a result. I hope nothing goes wrong while I'm away.