Ni with digital evidence

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View from our train to Oberalppass

View from our train to Oberalppass

View from our train to Oberalppass

View from our train to Oberalppass – look at that road!

View from our train to Oberalppass

View from our train to Oberalppass

Coming into Oberalppass station

Oberalppass station

We cycled down that …

… but we couldn’t cycle up that!

Looking around from where I waited for Elly

Wierd thing en route

The Rhine emerges from Tomasee down the gorge on the right

The Rhine

Place-may in the pub: churches around Trun

Tide marks where I had kinesiology tape on my leg

We’re in a Romansch-speaking area. Our landlady speaks it, German and Italian. Also she seems to know at least one word of Russian: ‘spasiba’ (‘thanks’).

Advert in Romansch

Getting higher!

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Grüss-di aus Andermatt! Wir sind in Gasthaus Skiklub, auf Gotthardstrasse. That’s enough German: predictive text is being unhelpful.

So there were quite a lot of trains yesterday and today:

Amsterdam Centraal 18:55 Arnhem Centraal 19:59
Arnhem Centraal 20:44 Duisburg Hbf 22:14
Duisburg Hbf 23:13 Basel SBB 06:22
Basel SBB 08:28 Brig 10:40
Brig 10:40 Brig Bahnhofplatz 10:40
Brig Bahnhofplatz 11:23 Andermatt 13:20

Photo of view of Rhône from train to Brig

View of Rhône from train to Brig

Photo of part of Brig Bahnhof

Brig Bahnhof is watching you!

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Squirm!

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  • Cycling distance 19.30 miles plus a few bimbles in central Amsterdam
  • cumulative distance 30.88 miles

Elly has described a bit of magic that happened today.

‘Hello, world!’ from a cafe overlooking the IJ from the back of Centraal station. First thing to report to Napier friends and colleagues is that I’ve switched off my Napier e-mail. Personal email, text etc are welcome, although immediate response is not guaranteed, sorry.

It’s pleasingly ironic that netween us Lev and I had one good leg and one good pedal, not in contact with each other. Oops! Even more pleasing that the magic is here, despite a couple of shakedown breakages. Long pauses to watch the world and hydrate ourselves.

 

Squelch!

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Photo of Bruce and Elly’s bikes

All Levved up and Fidel’s to go!

The ever-wonderful Elly has described our trip from home to North Shields so what can I add? Well, I’m amazed I can even think about blogging after 4 hours’ sleep last night, but I’m just so happy to be travelling again with my lovely lady. And of course huge thanks to her and our employers and our various yoga-teachers, spinning instructors, and therapists for all their parts in enabling this trip! Continue reading →

Votez mes maillots!

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I’ve just received this (bought from Organic Athlete):

I do – but slowly!

But I only intend to take 3 jerseys on the honeymoon. So which of these treasures do I leave at home?

IRN·BRU

Tweet to @bruceryan_rants to let me know what you think!

 

 

 

 

 

 

On mature(?) reflection, I have to pay tribute to LifesCycle for keeping me fit and sane, and I have to take something slightly rude, and I won’t be able to feed my addiction while we’re away. So, with sadness, the Irn Bru stays in the wardrobe.

 

Answering some questions about e-voting (part 1)

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My most recent post on this subject was constructively challenged by someone I respect highly. This person asked:

  1. What are ‘high logistical and environmental costs’, in £££ and time?
  2. How many people are affected by mobility issues, visual impairments or other things preventing them from going to polling places.
  3. Concerning proxy voting, postal voting and statutory aids for people with visual impairments:
    1. How many people are involved?
    2. How many would benefit from the change?
  4. How often does it happen that polling places become unavailable?
  5. What would success in increasing turnout (due to e-voting) look like?
  6. Concerning ‘facilitating reliable and rapid results (including fewer spoilt ballots)’:
    1. What speed up could be expected?
    2. How many spoiled ballots happen?
    3. And under e-voting, how many errors?
    4. What are the risks & consequences of hacking?
  7. Concerning ‘reducing the costs of paper ballots’:
    1. What does it cost?
    2. How much would it cost to run e-voting instead?
  8. Interesting question is how/whether e-voting helps or hinders a sense of community…

This post attempts some back-of-a-fag-packet answers to questions 1, 2 and 3. The other questions will have to wait for another post.

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