Progress at last: my Trimuph has had its service, fork seals fixed and a nice Scottooiler fitted (that automatically oils the chain as you zoom) plus brand new battery. The engine management warning light has gone out (after three rides as people were saying on the net). Also my Bandit is sold to a man from the South coast who looked really at home on it as he rode off (it was sad to see this nice looking bike go off) and the cash is in the bank awaiting the £400 bill for the Triumph. Yesterday I stretched its legs a bit and rode over to Clare, pretty village in Suffolk, past Haverhill, via Fulbourn and Balsham. The petrol gauge (which I am not used to having) told me I was running low so didn’t get much time to do more than get there then head for the nearest filling station where I could squeeze in £12 of fuel. This bike just says to me ‘don’t take me on these short runs, give me a challenge’. So, next task is some luggage for it, avoiding Triumph’s own hard panniers costing £660. Now its raining so I am very glad to have got out while I had the chance. Now its, work, and I have some nice books, Ted Simon’s Dreaming of Jupiter, Lonely planet guide to Croatia where I am going in August and Mindfulness in Plain English. When can I give up work and spend my time with these enjoyable pursuits?

Tomorrow I fly out to Melbourne for a 10 day stint of talks and workshops, expecting some warm sunshine for a change after our horrible weeks. I hear from colleagues there that the weather has just turned – cold and rainy. Here it has just turned sunny and warm-ish.

My details are on my business card…

I have just got back from seeing Blade Runner. This ‘director’s cut’ has been around for a while but I have never seen it. Its also the first time I have seen it on a big screen with decent sound (music is by 80s icon Vangelis and at times I imagined it turning into the theme from Chariots of Fire. Luckily it didn’t. Having seen so much of Harrison’s Ford’s laid back acting style in other films I took more notice of beautiful replicant Sean Young. What’s fantastic about cinema is that the screen is so big so that ultra closeups of replicant Rachel undoing her hair, for example, and her highly produced lips are breathtaking and intimate and of course I couldn’t help falling in love with her. It would be impossible not to. She was so beautiful and so vulnerable and this is clearly what Ford’s character, Deckard, is drawn to. Now, there is the debate about whether Ford is actually a replicant himself, a suggestion which I don’t like for some reason as it spoils the intense and central ambiguity about a human falling in love with a non-human, but apparently director Ridley Scott has acknowledged that it is plausible – for a couple of very subtle plot reasons. Check here from 7 years ago or here.

Just when I was having problems: 1) I wanted to improve family life. I was planning to buy a new three piece suite and get cable TV – but not any more. 2) I wanted to oppose the devil, of course, and was planning to do this by buying a new three piece suite and getting cable TV. But this flyer arrived through my letterbox.