Month: September 2007

Adult Cereals

We were in the new look Sainsbury’s in West Hove yesterday, browsing along the cereal aisle, and then we spotted it – “Adult Cereals”. This isn’t really a term I’ve ever come across before, I’d considered Cereals as a whole category, or maybe with sub-categories, such as muesli or cornflakes or whatever. So, does this mean that to differentiate the regular, every-day kind of cereal they need to be rebranded as adult cereal?

For the interested, the cereal offered in “Adult Cereals” were things like Fruit and Fibre and All Bran. Definitely NOT more interesting than frosties, cocoa pops or rice crispies.

Sunday bike ride – 24.5 miles!

Clouds and South Downs Way

We headed off for a quick bike ride today, and ended up getting home 4 hours later after a catalogue of missed turns and optimism that resulted in a 24.5 mile ride. Our first obstacle was getting through the cyclists and spectactors watching the Triathlon, from then on we were aiming to do a route we used to do quite often, but somewhere along the way we missed our turn and so ended up heading along the South Downs Way for a while. We took a look on the OS map and decided to head towards Southease railway station and catch a train back to Brighton – we even used the power of mobile internet to check that they run on a Sunday. We rolled up at the station (after heading off down the wrong road to Piddinghoe for a mile or so) about 5 minutes before the train was due only to discover that there were maintenance works on the line and they were running a replacement bus service. We didn’t think the bus would like us and our bikes very much and so turned around and headed via Telscombe and back to Brighton stopping at Ovingdean for a slice of cake and a can of fizzy pop.

The Undercliff walk

We tracked our route using the GPS unit on my Nokia 6110 navigator, and have added it to our collection of GPS routes.

World Beard and Moustache Championships


Musketeer bear
Originally uploaded by Jane Dallaway

On Saturday, the World Beard and Moustache Championships were held at the Brighton Centre.

The event started, for the public (and for us thanks to a tip off from Andy) with a parade from the town hall, through the lanes to the Brighton Centre before starting for proper an hour or so later. Prior to the event starting, I thought it would all be a bit of a joke, but I hadn’t been prepared for the sheer amount of effort that people had gone to, especially their costumes. As if growing a large amount of facial fur wasn’t enough, at least one guy had painted himself silver for the occasion.

We met up with friends and headed off and the girls watched the ‘tache competition whilst the boys spend an hour (yes really) queueing for beer at the bar (which had 5 members of staff serving for 2,300 people – nice). After finally getting our beer we sat down in comfort for the freestyle moustache and the partial beard categories. Jeremy, Kirsty and Rory headed home mid way through partial beards, and we spotted Dom, Fiona and Amelia and so went and watched a few more rounds with them before deciding we were all bearded out and needed to head home.

There are, of course, more photos to be perused. The next championships is in 2 years time in Alaska, somehow I don’t expect we’ll be attending.

Nokia 6110 GPS Accuracy

I took Jane’s phone on a short cycle ride this morning to see how the Nokia Sports Tracker works when combined with the 6110‘s built in GPS. You can dig around the route on Google Maps.

It’s looking like the accuracy is OK (good enough) when away from buildings; and pretty wonky when in town. It doesn’t have the accuracy of our Bluetooth GPS unit, but it does have the considerable advantage of being a nice all in one unit.

We’ll give it a go on a snowy mountain: it should be great for tracking a run down a mountain.