Tea?

Easily the best thing I have ever seen on the internet: ISO 3103. Very rarely have I had to restrain the urge to telephone friends and relatives to inform them of the latest information to which I have become party.

In other news, The Scheme for Full Employment is an amusing novella masquerading as a novel. £7.99? Pirates. If the margins occupied less than 40% of the page surface, the type was 9pt rather than 12, and the lines weren't 1.5 spaced then I suspect the page count would drop from 250 to nearer 100. Tsk. Still a good read, anyway.

So, I said I needed a new a new freewheel. Well I got one. Oooh, shiny:



And everything shifted nicely, and hills crumbled etc. etc. Until last thursday, when I developed a requirement for a new helmet:



I'm fine (give or take cuts, bruises, grazes and pride.) As for the rust-beast, after a brief once-over, it appeared that the front wheel was the wrong side of pretzel shaped, and the stays were somewhat bent, and would need straightening:



Cost; about £60. Fine, I thought. Then, after a slightly closer look, it seemed that the chain stay was actually buckled and would need replacing. Cost now £90. But, hey, I could get the whole lot repainted for an extra £10 and get the dropouts sorted at the same time. That'd be ok.

Then, after my genius self had stripped down the frame to take to the bike shop, I noticed the socking great dent in the down tube:



Cost to repair: £more than I paid for the bike. Gah.

Now I need to find the person who knocked me off, and discuss "insurance." Bah.