50+ and proud of it.

Ha. Fixed it. For any one who has problems losing their sound with "Code 39" after messing around with an EasyCap device then this link fixed it for me in about 10 seconds:- Fix error Code 39 with sound card. Basically, find this key and delete the upper & lower filters entries:- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E96C-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} Enjoy.

I was clearing out my den the other day and came across a bunch of old VHS tapes that the children used to watch when they were little. One of them was marked "Home Video - 1993". I also found an old VHS recorder. I managed to get the player going and discovered that I had no means to actually view the output. I could of course just take it downstairs and plug it into the TV - but that would be too easy. The actual mission was to convert the tapes to DVD and then get rid of the tapes and player, thereby clearing some valuable space in my room. So, I ordered a Chinese knock-off "EasyCap" USB video capture-to-PC device off eBay (new) for a fiver. Now, this actually worked - well at least it played the video, the sound was lacking, but it worked sufficiently to see what was on each tape - which I religiously viewed "start / middle / end". Each one taking ages to forward wind etc. I previewed "Gone With The Wind", "Disney's Robin Hoo...

Right. So I win a bike bottom bracket on eBay and the normal stuff happens with the chap (or chap-ess) posting said item. A few days later, a "sorry we missed you card" drops on the mat. Normally, on none-delivery, the postie either takes the parcel to the main office in town or, takes it to the local Post Office - a five minute walk up the road. This time it was "Your parcel is four miles away in the next village" - WTF? I check online and find that the Post Office shuts on a Wednesday afternoon else I would have driven there and then in the smart. I read the note again. Yup, it's in the next village. And, rather lazily, the postie has only written my address on it, not my name as well. So, I cycle to work the next day as normal and afterwards cycle the four miles past my village to the post office. "Hello, have you got a parcel for me? It's a bottom bracket, so it'll only be about so big". I held my hands in front of me to give the la...

Well, I did it. I did the London To Brighton Cycle Ride last Sunday on behalf of Demelza House Children's Hospice, and to be honest, it was a bit, well, uninspiring. It was quite simply 4,000(ish) people cycling from London To Brighton - and not much else. There simply wasn't the comradery that I expected. Not many people took the time to pass the time, they just got on with it. "Nooo, look straight ahead, ignore the old chap trying to make conversation!" This had the result of half of the 4,000 simply getting in the way (and me getting in the way of the other half). It was fairly obvious that a lot of people had only bought a bike the week before and were probably regretting it. I have never known so many people walking their bikes on the flat. The slightest incline brought them all to a grinding halt. At some point after about 10 miles, my cycle computer stopped working, which was annoying to say the least. I didn't realise how much I used it. The firs...

In a couple of weeks I'm doing a London To Brighton bike ride in aid of Demelza House (again). We all signed up for this after Paris as we thought we needed something to focus on. Needless to say, no-one apart from me has done any training for it and I only have by default as I cycle for work. However, in a fit of enthusiasm sparked by Warped Woman getting a trike, I signed up for the Taff Trail Challenge the week after. I confess to spending more time researching this one than LTB. So much so that I even followed the entire route from Brecon to Cardiff on Google Street View using the organiser's instructions. I was amazed that Google even went off-road at some points. I even bought a new set of off(ish)-road tyres to replace the Gatorskins. Drive to Cardiff and back - £50 diesel New tyres - £40 Registration - £20 Sponsorship - £40 Evening in the pub the night before - £20 Why don't I just give the charity £50 and have done with it? Why? That would be too ...

I got a call earlier from the Assistant Warehouse Manager today. "My boss tells me that he's not getting any emails from the Heath & Safety System. He thinks he may be set-up as Michael.Surname , not Mike.Surname . Can you have a look please? He's not in today." I check the database. Nope, he's definitely Mike.Surname , so what's the problem? I check another older system just in case the mail is going via that route. That involves logging onto a remote server and waiting a bit for the logon. Nope, that's fine too. Bemused, I check the SQL that sends out the mails. I slice out the appropriate part and run it:- " To: mike.surname . Subject: An accident occurred " So, that's not the issue either. I write a long email showing my investigation, and basically, I have no idea. Is he receiving any email at all? *ring* *ring* "Hello, I'll just log onto his PC and check to see if he's getting any mail at all." ...

My wife and I went to France last week and had a very nice time thanks. Really relaxing, as this time, we didn't rush all over the place visiting everything within a 50 mile radius. No, we just put the bikes on the carrier and used them all the time once we got there. The days consisted mainly of cycle to town, get some bread, cycle back, have breakfast. Cycle to town have lunch, have a beer, cycle back. Cycle to town to the nearest bar, watch the footie and have a few more beers. Cycle back - carefully. One day we even ventured 10km to a small town inland by way of the cycle track which ran alongside the dykes and rivers. "Oh look, a brown beaver!" The large furry rodent sitting on the path gave us a withering look before gently gliding into the stream. Unfortunately, all the subsequent beaver jokes fell completely flat when we found out later it was Coypu. Such is life. On the last night however, we decided to have a "proper" French meal. Cycling to ...

Well, after nearly a year of training, the day finally came and 96 riders including "us" 1 set off on 30 th April on our 4 day ride to Paris. There's so much stuff on Facebook , Twitter and YouTube then it seems pointless repeating it all here. However, it's worth saying that it was one of the best things I've done in a long time and I would do it again in a heartbeat. In fact, most of us agreed that we could have cycled back the next day. Out of 170+ punctures, we had - none. Out of all the breakdowns, we had - none. Out of all the hills, I walked - none; as Alan said "that's ain't gonna happen!". Apart from cycling through the Somme and instinctively saluted a War Cemetery, there are two things that stood out above all the other things that stood out, one was arriving at lunch at the green of a beautiful old French village and noticing that the Church walls were a little worse for wear. "Yes", we were told, "those are bu...

Since the last post about the Dacia Duster, I've had quite a bit of interest from Renault about the mileage (or rather, lack thereof). They actually admitted that the motorway mileage wasn't "what they expect for a Diesel". Not sure exactly what they expect, but they're "looking into it". So fingers crossed. Now, gloves. It's now the last working day for me before I embark on the mad Sittingbourne-to-Paris Bike Ride, when 100 cyclist will be riding 260 miles in aid of Demelza House, our local children's hospice. There are seven of us in our "team" and for my sins, I was promoted to leader as I was the one who organised the training and pushed the guys to get out and ride. At some point, someone said we were like Dad's Army and I therefore got dubbed "Captain Mainwaring" by default. A few weeks ago, one of the guy's chain came off and we spent more time looking for a stick to use to put it back on than we actually...

Following on from the Christmas Day Power Cut, we got a cheque from UK Power Networks for £75 for "any inconvenience caused". You mean going down to MIL's as planned? Thanks.

Well, Renault have gone down in my estimation as bit. I figured that the (Dacia) Duster should be doing more MPG than it was so I moaned at them a bit. To be fair Renault Maidstone took the car in and checked the "clip" - i.e. they plugged in the ODB tester and found "nothing wrong". A Brownie Point to them for trying. So, I opened a case with Renault UK to see what they could do. A bloke rang me up to discuss how I should drive a Diesel. "Don't rev it more than 2,000. Don't put anything in the boot. Don't have any people in it. Throw away the spare tyre...". I lied about the tyre, but you get the idea. "Listen, my Dad taught me how to drive slow - he was very good at it too. But I'll try what you ask." I managed to get another 3 mpg out of it. It's a thin line between changing gear and having the engine flame out due to no revs. He rang me back. Another Brownie point. "Nope, still a load of old bollocks....

We went out last Sunday on one of our regular training rides in preparation for the Demelza 101 Sittingbourne to Paris 270 mile Bike Ride. We went out a) because it wasn't raining, b) because we had to and c) they do the best bacon sandwiches at the top of Tankerton Slopes at the cafe at the halfway point. It was however windy. Really windy. Piglet and Pooh windy in fact. It was also cold. We started from our regular start point in Sittingbourne and had, for the first time, managed to get in touch with one of the other participants, who, for the sake of anonymity, we'll call "Terry". Terry turned up on a dusty bike he'd found in his shed and was wearing nothing but shorts and a running top - and no gloves. "I have some spare gloves. Do you want to borrow them?" "No, Oim fine." "I have some rain trousers, that'll keep the wind out. Borrow them?" "Nope, Oim really fine." "You haven't got a hi-viz on, I...

I was going through the wallet-full of documentation that came with my new Dacia 1 Duster the other night. Y'know, just to ensure that I really did know how to wind up the windows and where to put the key in, that sort of thing, just before you file the handbook under "seen-it-before", next to the Haynes Manual about the Spitfire and Weber carburetors. Now, I don't know if it's a Renault thing, or a specific Dacia thing but when you tick a few boxes on the order form marked "extras", that indeed is what you get - extra. Extra paperwork by the ton. You get installation and user-handbook sheets for every single one of the extras. Dacia new car order forms work by having a box called "touring pack", which contains a tow-bar and an arm-reset etc. They have a box called "protection pack", which contains reversing sensors, mud-flaps and a metal plate that sticks to the rear bumper 2 etc. Oooh, lots of etc's. And so on. And so on. ...

Today I reached two milestones. One: I reached my minimum "you-can-go-to-the-ball" sponsorship level of £1,750 for the Demelza House 101 Bike Ride to Paris, and two: I clocked 1,000 miles in the Duster (in a week!), and thereby have officially run it in. Wow. This means that the bear can now get strapped to the handle bars - any £1 over the minimum is a mile towards Paris before the bear gets flung into a hedge (or The Channel). £270 over and it gets rinsed in The Seine. It's not coming back, OK? Trust me.

So, this is Christmas And what have you done? Another year over And a new one just begun Yoko Ono; John Lennon. Yes. That's just how I feel!   On the plus side, I bought a new car, like, brand new and I've never, ever, done that before. It's a Dacia Duster Laureate 4x4 . I picked it up Christmas Eve, just after "the storm" the night before. The interesting part was getting out of the village that morning to pick it up - a tree has fallen across our street which I had to cut out of the way with a hand-saw, then the main road blocked with a *huge* fallen tree, the back road blocked with a fallen power line and the only other road out was flooded to about 7"; which caused some concern when the vehicle we were using was a smart roadster which holds you bum about 2" off the tarmac. We got back from the dealer 1 ("don't worry sir, you don't need to run it in") and I settled down to read the owner's manual. Five minute...