StreetCowboy

Thanks for that! I know what a raj I am when I’m drinking, but thanks for reminding us about the eejits I might meet!

To be honest, this discussion is pointless if you are not both in the same room, with heavy objects to hand. If you want me to hold your jacket, I’ll be as far as I can on my way home by a non-obvious route. for the sake of the forum, though, have about yez, in a big way!

A lot of expat wives don’t have the social opportunities that their husbands have through their jobs, and routinely have to adapt to new countries, new schools, etc. The expat clubs are a great source of support from those who have gone through the same.

Who doesn't miss school dinners? "Are you sure you want gravy with your chocolate sponge?""

You have now. The world is full of learning ooprtunities, and only the most thrawn turn them by.

That's why God gave us whistling. If you're unhappy whistling your favourite tunes. maybe God's earth is not for you any more. Life is full of hardships, real and imagined, and if Youtube issues rank high in either category, there is only one place to go

Back in the day I was walking, and learning. And what I learnt was that things can always get worse. Much worse.

Sweet dreams are made of this Who am I to disagree I've travelled the world and the seven seas Everybody's looking for something You're only young once, and that was a good time back.

Brevity. Soul of wit. Wilde

You and I are not like great sportsmen - I can say that with some confidence from my side, though in your case, I might be going out on a limb… In another forum, I was discussing the decline of one of the world’s top Scottish sportsmen, and I had the thought: ”Maybe some people are great sportsmen because they love to win and be better than the next man, while other sportsmen are great because they want to be the best that they can be”. Of course, to be the best that you can be, you need to compete against and beat your peers, while to beat the next man, you need to be as good as you can be…

We had the drama of the FIE Snail Racing last night and I knew in advance that I’d struggle on today’s ride. Fortunately, no-one else turned up, and I could struggle in discreet solitude.

Some years back, I highlighted that the zombie apocalypse had started, centred on Nana Plaza. The wise amongst us may be able to ignore the apocalypse until its inevitable finale, but for the weak-willed amongst us, I suggest you invest in blinkers, blindfolds, welders’ helmets and whatever else you need to ignore the next moment apocalypse. On a similar theme: - One dinosaur said to the other, on the approaching meteorite “Are you not upset about our up on Ng extinction?” ”No; we saw it coming long enough, but it’s not global warming: it’s not as if there was anything we could’ve done to prevent it”

I had planned a ride to The Palace Of The Golden Horses, but had it not been a gentle ride in favour of my buddy’s doctor’s recommendations, I’d have had my trepidations. As it was, I was happy to sit for half an hour waiting for New J to turn up, and given his higher level of fitness and enthusiasm, I was not sad to head off with just the two of us. You can call it illness, or malady, or poor health, lifestyle, whatever, but I was counting down the kilometres from the moment we left the station. The outward journey was marred only by its length, but I think we benefited from a tail wind out along the Federal Highway, and KESAS Highway has a nicer bike lane, which, today, we rode all the way to its East-most end. As usual, we bantered unsuccessfully with the security guards to get into the racecourse, then proceeded to the other side with similar disappointment. ”I think you gave up too easily”, my buddy said, “Next time, they’ll feel emboldened and just tell us to bugger off”. I’d have been delighted to ride round the back of the race track, but I had lost the enthusiasm for witty yet unsuccessful repartee, and we headed for home. We followed Road 217 (Bukit Jalil Highway), and it has some junctions that are not good for cycling, and I accept that we did not always take the safest line. We persevered through partially familiar roads, and met up with my buddy’s sister for a short ride to the pub. I’d originally planned for this section to be 20 km, but given that I’d lacked the enthusiasm to debate with the second lot of security guards, my buddy’s waning enthusiasm, the height of the Sun in the sky, the phases of the moon and the tides of the sea, there was no dissenting opinion when I stopped: “Right, that’s 5 km, it will be more than 10 km when we get to the pub, and that’s an easier target to improve than 20 km”

I took a rake this afternoon, on the occasion of the Thaipussam public holiday, to Johnny’s My Bicycle Shop. He offered me a gratuitous can of beer while he fitted new panniers to my bike, but my refusal was pointless; the mere opportunity was enough to arouse a thirst, and when it started to rain on the way home, it became a question of which pub to stop in for lunch.

Sunday saw us up at Sungai Buloh Leper Colony - a tentative candidate for a UNESCO World Heritage site, if my 30 seconds’ internet research is to be trusted. We took the opportunity to trial a new U-turn under a flyover on Jalan Sungai Buloh, and given that it’s the only walking route from Kota Damansara to the MRT station, the provision for pedestrians is dismal. The new Sungai Buloh Hospital is an impressive edifice, and I can commend their care in case of mishap. The Leper Colony is on the other side of the road, and the nurseries are popular at weekends. The roads are well-made gravel, but not wide enough for SUVs and oversized pickups to pass one another. I was baffled by a new highway junction that is under construction, but we persevered further than necessary. Eventually, we found ourselves back on the planned road, and shortly thereafter, on tarmac once again. A few minutes later, and we were at Sungai Buloh Pasar Segar, where some years ago we had picked up “wild mountain water melons”. I had misremembered the geography of Kampung Kubu Gaja, and stung by the deserved derision of bystanding village boys when we reached the limit of our dead-end wrong turning, I was reticent about a second attempt to find a way through to the familiar industrial estates of Kampung Baru Sungai Buloh, and instead we cut through to the new town of Subang Bestari. I think I have broken the Navigational Fruit Machine; in an attempt to keep the mileage up, I had planned to proceed past the old airport, and approach the pub via a lap round Tropicana Mall. You can’t turn right or go straight (steady … go straight ahead!) where you emerge from Subang Bestari, I was in no mood for the humiliation of another U-turn, and I resignedly led us back the shortest route to the pub. After initial rehydration, I walked home to collect my mountain bike, which is going on loan to my buddy’s sister. As I was walking in the scorching heat of the afternoon sun, I thought “I can’t believe we cycle in this”, but once I was on the mountain bike, I had to loop round the block, because it really is a lovely bike, albeit a bit heavy.

No-one gets to pick their nose. It’s inherited.

What do you do with coins? Or quoits? or pancakes? It sounds like those are missing from your life, and a good toss is a joy in its own right.

Let us praise the Lord that so few judges are without sin nor Puritans

Back in the day we had Red and Green labels. I think Heineken was generally considered positive, and McEwans negative.

Back in the last millennium, when I was even younger than I am now, I formed the opinion that Germans did not queue as politely as British people. But maybe they had different ways of figuring out how the queue was formed.

I think that Covid-19 made people much better at waiting in queues, and managing queues.

I’d planned a trip to Bukit Bloke That Sells Drinks, coming back via a wrong-road-rampage and the Kerak Highway, which I anticipated would be a spectacular fast descent. I’m still anticipating, as the guys who like hills never showed up due to me not sending a reminder email. Instead, we took the highways to near Klang; it was a lovely easy pace on the way out, and a struggle on the way back. We had a good selection of second-fastest times on the outbound leg, thanks to the tail wind. We paused for a bit of abnormal heart rate shortly after How High Is That Viaduct? (Not so high, if you take it steady) and we took our normal, safest-option route home. It had been a shorter ride than I had planned, and I knew that the Bell& had no cider, so I was slightly nervous that Soi 42 (formerly 42, previously E42T or East 42) might not be open (“I can drink Guinness, but not after cycling”). All’s well that ends well…

It was God's will

It's always good to find a gym you can cycle to, with somewhere safe that you can lock your bike