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Friday, June 07, 2002
Well, I finally got off my arse and got through the backlog of submissions for the Fifty Word Fiction site. There’s now nearly a hundred and sixty entries at the site. Expect it to be another three or four months before I get around to doing another update. This of course is part of the whole deal of doing websites: you get and idea and it’s so easy to get it immediately into effect, and then just as quickly you want to move on and do something else, and things get left to slip and slide… Such is life.

Speaking of numbers, I worked out that since January first I have been out for a bike ride at least once every four days, which for me is pretty good going. I don’t think I’ve done that much since I was 16 or 17. And I’ve covered over 1800 kilometres. I’m afraid I don’t know how many miles that is. My brain is too small to work it out.

It’s retro city here in the Tangents attic at the moment, what with non stop listening to cool ‘60s West Coast Pop and, at the moment, a compilation of all the Postcard singles that is being copied to mini-disc for a friend. Bob Stanley’s ‘Soft Pop’ recommendations in this months’ Mojo magazine meanwhile have had me spending way too much money on tracking down Japanese imports… Bob, if you ever read this, I’m sure my bank manager will be in touch.

The retro angle is maintained by my half-term habit of watching old videos of early ‘80s Grand Prix seasons. The marvellously named Duke Marketing is the store of choice for these. I wonder if they would send me a roll of their packing tape that has ‘DUKE’ written on it in bright red? I doubt it. Today I watched 1982, which was of course filled with tragedy, what with the deaths of Gilles Villeneuve and Ricardo Paletti, and the end of Didier Pironi’s F1 career in the German rain. I know it’s only edited highlights, but the races seem to be so much more exciting and, well, actual races than they do in 2002. But maybe this is just me looking at the TV screen with rose tinted spectacles.

It wouldn’t be the first time.