Favourite Saturday of the year

Saturday was World Naked Bike Ride day. Probably my favourite Saturday of the year. This year was much better than last year because it was organised better. There were five separate start points, which really worked well, and it was great weather, which brought lots of people out. I’ll do a proper entry later in the week. with some tasteful pictures. Actually, maybe I won’t bother being tasteful. Anyway, I don’t have many pictures yet. I need to go and bother other people for theirs.

Somehow on route to (or from) London Paddington I managed to lose my train season ticket, so I have to beg for a replacement, and pay £10. I have no idea how I lost it. I can only think I dropped it on the platform or something.

Sadly Iain Banks has died. I had no idea he was ill. I’m halfway through “Stonemouth”. The man wrote like a God and he was just 59. I don’t very often get upset when a celebrity dies, but in the case of Iain Banks, I’m going to make an exception. Apparently he learnt of his cancer just two months ago, while he was ironically completing a book about someone with terminal cancer. That book is to be released this month and is titled “Quarry”. Apparently Banks married his partner when he learnt he was terminally ill. Isn’t that the saddest thing?

For anyone who hasn’t read any Iain Banks, “Wasp Factory” is a brilliant, if disgusting book, and I would recommend both that and “Consider Phlebos”, which is a science fiction classic. But he never wrote a bad book. He was one of those writers who wrote so well, it didn’t matter if he had nothing to say, it was still great to read.

Both Prince Philip and Nelson Mandela are in hospital. I suppose both of them must be in their 90s. Perhaps because they are both very old, I am less moved by this news than the news of Iain Banks. I quite like Prince Philip, and I am fairly indifferent to Nelson Mandela.

And finally, the stupid story of the day. Swedish train operator Arriva banned it’s male train drivers from wearing shorts during the summer months on the grounds that they were not regulation uniform. The drivers responded by coming to work in skirts, because they were in fact regulation uniform. Arriva initially said that the male drivers were welcome to wear skirts, but have since relented and allowed shorts to be worn. I don’t really have an opinion. I do like rebellion however, so a happy ending.