I’ve rather enjoyed the last month or so. Coming off the back of our Prague trip, the weather has been good, or at least unobtrusive, and sundry minor amusements have kept me occupied. A non-exhaustive list follows.

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Bikes: Back at the start of the July I headed into town to watch the Edinburgh Nocturne, a cycle race running in a closed loop along the Grassmarket, up the cobbles of Victoria Street and back down Candlemaker Row. A mini Paris-Roubaix, I thought, and cycled up there to meet Andy and Thomas (late of Proxy) just before the main race.

It was, sadly, slightly anticlimactic. The start was exciting enough: the competitors milled around awkwardly in slippery cycling shoes and warmed up on turbo trainers, forming up purposefully on the line with a couple of minutes to go; finally, the starting gun went off and after the briefest of lulls as twenty left feet clipped into twenty pedals the bunch charged off up the Grassmarket. Andy, Thomas and I precessed around the course to watch the action at different points, and after about 45 minutes we were back in the Grassmarket.

“Pint?” someone suggested.

We got a drink at the Blue Blazer, and by the time we got back to the race it was all over. No-one seemed to mind. Cycling — at least for the three of us, with only a fairly vague notion of the tactics and skills to watch out for in a road race — is probably more of a sport to get involved in than to spectate at.*

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Dogs: Maisie has been enjoying the weather too, although admittedly she enjoys being outside in more or less any weather short of an apocalyptic thunderstorm. There must be something in the air at the moment, though, because she has taken to barking at inanimate objects such as tents and telephone boxes. This is difficult to explain to passers-by.

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Drinks: I haven’t been doing a lot of boozing of late, but when I have roused myself from the sofa the results have been epic.

One Saturday night a few weeks ago Jeff and I went out for “a couple”, and ended up unsteady and bleary-eyed Hawke & Hunter around five hours later, having taken in Pivo en route and declaring it not a patch on the real thing.

Then, last Thurday night Davis and I met up, ostensibly to discuss what needs to happen to the Coba Fynn website before we launch the album, but having cracked open one beer we felt compelled to crack open a whole host more. Friday morning was unproductive a living hell.

Finally, this last weekend I went out for a Jez-by-proxy evening, meeting up with his ex-flatmate Beryl and and his sister Rowe at 99 Hanover Street (don’t worry, I’d tucked my shirt in and buttoned my cardigan in preparation), and was surprised to find myself in the sticky-floored cavern of doom that is Finger’s Piano Bar at 3 am after a night of excellent chat and ropey beer. The cocktails at 99 Hanover Street may be “sex in a glass”, but the Guinness was closer to “the unfulfilled promise of a lost lover”, or “a kick in the balls”. Still, a great night!

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So far, so entertaining. It was to my great chagrin, then, that I found the other morning that some criminally negligent moron had driven into the side of the car, leaving the driver’s side door rather more concave that it’s supposed to be. My month’s worth of good humour evaporated.

I fumed; I prodded the dent experimentally to see how bad the damage was; I glared around at nearby cars looking for matching scrapes, and then I saw a note under the windscreen wiper. Mr. Crashy the hit-and-run-bastard may have driven off without so much as a by your leave, but some crafty onlooker had seen fit to write down the offending registration number and leave it for me. I called the police and then the insurance company, and my mood brightened considerably as a result.

* As an aside, Rowe was on holiday in France during the Tour, and managed to watch Contador and Schleck battle it out on the Col du Tourmalet more or less by accident. Now that is a cycle race I’d have liked to watch in person.