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Unusually for a bank holiday weekend, the sun's been shining.  I had committed myself to showing people round my Department's research laboratories, but it was such an excellent sunny morning I took the long way round, scoring 27 miles en route.  Fortunately I avoided coming to grief at the paws of a particularly dim lagomorph - happily, as I would have cut a sorry figure for the lab tour otherwise.

Once that was done and dusted, I rode home for a spot of lunch before nipping out for a tandem ride on the blue tandem (it was the other one I overhauled yesterday).  This was pretty uneventful, though we went down lanes new to my stoker.   Home and a bottle of Speckled Hen beckoned irresistibly.

My MP, Nadine Dorries, has been at the receiving end of accusations from the Daily Telegraph that she too has been on the expenses take (My MP gets "expenses" letter from the DailyTelegraph).  Now, I've got a bit of a soft spot for Nadine, despite her political belief being approximately the polar opposite of mine, that her parliamentary activities being pretty appalling.  I guess that's because she's always taken the time to respond to my letters and emails.  Well, except for the one pointing out that she really shouldn't be supporting homeopathic hospitals - particularly as the chucks around her past like as a nurse.  I also found her slightly juvenile blog articles quite appealing.  Valdemar Squelch, commenting on an article at Heresy Corner quite shrewdly observed:

Her whingeing, self-righteous style would be almost acceptable if she were 14, had just painted her bedroom black, and had been told by her parents that they're not going to buy her and her friend Clovinda tickets to a death metal concert.

Each year before taking the tandem away for our annual cycle tour, it always seems prudent to give it the once-over and to replace various parts.  So far (and for the tour starting in about a week), I have done the following:

• Fitted new front pannier racks - I've gone for the thoroughly excellent but rather hard to fit (at least to our tandem's braze-ons) Tubus steel racks.  Very elegant looking.
• Fitted new tyres.  Unfortunately I bought the wrong width (35mm instead of 32mm), so I had to take them off again!  We've switched to Schwalbe Marathon Plus, which seem to be the closest to virtually invulnerable tyres we've ever used.

I know that doesn't sound too much thus far, but today's schedule includes:

One campaigning point regarding the vile Phorm deep packet inspection system has been to suggest to major websites that they consider whether they should request that Phorm do not spy on their visitors. In recent months, some big players in the internet have done just that - Amazon and Wikipedia are two stand-out examples.

Since the BBC run one of the most visited sites in the internet, a number of people have written to enquire whether the BBC might do the same (and of course at a slightly more trivial level, the BT-Phorm system is branded BT-WebWise - very similar naming to the BBC's entirely different Webwise).

I had originally expected to be unable to ride this event, due to work commitments.  After several days of really quite bad weather, I was quite pleased to have been able to ride the event, as the wind dropped (and I am sure it was considerably more gentle that the forecast 14mph!), and the sun came out.

Judging from the readout on my HRM, the ride out to Stony Stratford was  quite an effective warmup, especially when keeping the speed up negotiating the roundabout over the A5!

HT: Grumpy Twin

The UK Government's obsession with knowing what we've done, what we're doing, and what we're planning on doing is not only intrusive but borders on the dangerous.  The Daily Telegraph reports (ID cards: taxman allowed access to personal data) that tax official will have access to data held by the ID card system.

HM Revenue and Customs staff will be able to examine people's financial transactions on the scheme's database and search for evidence of undeclared earnings or bank accounts.

The Internet seems to be abuzz with a new "natural language" search engine called WolframAlpha, widely touted as a Google-killer.  But what the heck is it, and how does it work?  More to the point, how much will it cost?

There's a video from WolframAlpha which seeks to explain it...though it looks pretty spiffy, I guess they've chosen topics they know will produce visually arresting output.   Cnet News has a useful article (Wolfram Alpha shows data in a way Google can't) featuring opinion from several users.

Sunshine and showers today...and flipping strong wind!  Intrepid as ever, I set off in good time to ride over to the race HQ in a Scout hut in Leighton Buzzard.  Unfortunately, this ride came to an abrupt halt half a mile from the house, as I suffered a front wheel puncture.  To add insult to injury, a shower passed over as I was replacing the tube!  Since this was the only spare tube I had with me, I returned home, where I pumped it up properly with the track pump and grabbed two new tubes (and, in a fit of paranoia, some preglued patches).

Off once again, with a bit less latitude in timing.  The wind was really rather strong, and was causing a bit of trouble with the front trispoke.  I was quite confident, based on pat experience, that the wheel woudn't prove too much trouble when racing (higher speed and more weight on the front).  Fortuitously, Alan "Tintin" roared by in his big 4x4 and offered me a lift over to the race HQ, an offer that I accepted after about two nanoseconds of thought.