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Light Rain;  Temp: 8°C;  Wind: SW 9mph;  Hum: 95%;  Press: 1016mB;  Vis: Good
Stony '11.4'  F5u/10 course description

The BBC website rather gloomily predicted light showers this morning - rather fortunately after a brief shower just after 7am, the morning was fine, with some sunny spells, which was nice.  I warmed up by riding over to Stony Stratford.  At that time of day the traffic was pretty light, and it was quite pleasant, despite riding on the main MK grid roads.  I signed on as number 8 and had a quick spin up and down the opening mile or so of the course.  By the time I started, i was feeling a little chilly, so I was quite pleased to get started.  Unfortunately, the tough outward leg which climbs up through Beachampton to Nash was made a little harder still by a nagging headwind, and as I approached Beachampton I had a feeling of regret that I'd even started!  I was, however, motivated by the presence 1 minute behind me of the 2-up pairing of Leigh and Wayne - despite their being on road bikes rather than time trial bikes, I was concerned they might catch me.

On the climb to Nash I was finding that my rear wheel was spinning slightly on the damp tarmac when I  was making out of the saddle efforts.  This was a little worrying given the speed I was likely to be making on the return leg descent.  I always pass through Nash quite tired from the climbs and find it quite difficult to pick up the pace on the relatively level section to the turn, and today was no exception.  But once round the turn, I felt really much better, topping 40mph in 55x11 at times on the descents.  The final section between Beachampton and Stony was a little wind-assisted, which was rather nice, and I roared past the finish timekeeper in 28:22, which isn't a bad time for such a tough course at this point of the season.

Result of the NBRC Time Trial held on Saturday 4th of March 2009

Course:- F5u/10 (Stony Stratford)

Pos	No	Name	Club	Time	Cat	Vets Std	.+ / -	Pos. Vets Std
1	21	Ian Marshall	TeamMK	28.03	V40	29.20	.+ 1.17	3
2	13	Chris Dunwoodie	TeamMK	28.09	S
3	8	Rob Saunders	NBRC	28.22	V49	31.26	.+ 3.04	2
4	12	Lindz Barral	i-team CC	28.32	S
5	7	Gordon Spencer	TeamMK	29.26	S
6	6	Matthew Barton	TeamMK	29.43	V40	29.20	.- 0.23	5
7	15	John Buchanan	NBRC	29.53	S
8	2	Darren Haydon	NBRC	30.09	S
9	22	Geoff Perry	TeamMK	30.38	V49	31.26	.+ 0.48	4
10	11	Gareth Richards	Roy Pink Cycles RT	30.58	S
11	18	Michael Smith	TeamMK	31.10	S
12	14	Richard Golding	TeamMK	31.31	V40	29.20	.- 2.11	7
13	5	Chris Hartley	NBRC	32.21	V51	31.56	.- 0.25	6
14	3	Yvonne Gurney	TeamMK	32.39	L
15	20	Gilbert Wheelwright	NBRC	32.51	V66	35.56	.+ 3.05	1
16	1	Alan Lawson	NBRC	34.49	V40	29.20	.- 5.29	8
17	19	Katherine Dilks	NBRC	34.51	L
18	17	Leah Williams	TeamMK	35.10	L
19	4	Tony Brunton	NBRC	36.07	V44	30.15	.- 5.52	9
20	16	Mike Fitsell	TeamMK	38.16	V46	30.43	.- 7.33	10
Two Up Team TT Result :-
	10	Wayne Maquire	Alpha RC/Phil Corley Cycles	29.20
	9	Leigh Smith	Alpha RC/Phil Corley Cycles

Time keepers :- Mary Hartley, Steph Norris & Tony Farmborough (NBRC); Pusher off :- Bryan Scarborough. (NBRC)

As a child, I can remember my parents illustrating the lack of freedom within states such as the USSR by pointing out that the citizens of such countries were not accorded the freedom to move and travel at will within the borders.  Little did they (or I) know that such restrictions would be proposed by a UK Government. The new proposals are, of course, a consequence of the much pushed and overstated terrorist threat.  This time the measures are held within Contest 2 legislation, which The Guardian's Henry Porter has picked up on (Planning a day trip to the Isle of Wight?) :

 At what stage, I wonder, will those who say the loss of liberty isn't happening concede that it is? Maybe if they examine page 113 of the Contest 2 (pdf) counter-terrorism document, which Jason Lewis of the Mail on Sunday pointed out means that anyone boarding a ferry to the Isle of Wight, flying between British cities or travelling to Northern Ireland will have to provide their name, date of birth and address.

The records of the movements of 60 million domestic passengers will be kept by the police and, if current trends are anything to go by, used for much more than counter-terrorism operations. Not content with introducing what will in effect be an exit visa – you must supply more than 50 pieces of information before you leave the country or will not be able to travel – the government is now erecting internal borders.

These measures require photographic ID of some kind (presumably a passport until the ghastly ID card scheme turns up) would be required to book domestic trips by air or sea.  The Home Office spokesdroid apparently also confirmed that this would include ferries to the Isle of Wight and the Isle of Skye.  Which of course indicates the spokesdroid is stuck in the past, since one can reachSkye over a road bridge (itself the subject of the Thatcher legacy toll).  One wonders quite why the freedom-hating minions of Wacky Jacqui think they need all this information - on top of all the car journeys they record (and the proposal I blogged about the other day for recording all car journeys within Europe). 

The dogged determination of the UK gorvernment to maintain intrusive records on all aspects of the population is quite astonishing, and I share Henry Porter's question as to when the British public will wake up and reject this creeping database state,

The Guardian reports on UK proposals for EU-wide vehicle surveillance (Big Brother is watching: surveillance box to track drivers is backed - dated 31/3/09, so presumably not an April Fool!):

The government is backing a project to install a "communication box" in new cars to track the whereabouts of drivers anywhere in Europe, the Guardian can reveal.

Under the proposals, vehicles will emit a constant "heartbeat" revealing their location, speed and direction of travel. The EU officials behind the plan believe it will significantly reduce road accidents, congestion and carbon emissions. A consortium of manufacturers has indicated that the router device could be installed in all new cars as early as 2013.

This is getting ridiculous.  We are the most spied on country - CCTV cameras everywhere, planned monitoring of all our communications, restrictions on travel within the UK, and now our dear Government want to monitor where all drivers are, where they are going, what their speed is etc.  As usual, the UK government is at the heart of the proposal:

The Department for Transport said there were no current plans to make installation of the technology mandatory. However, those involved in the project describe the UK as one of the main "state backers". Transport for London has also hosted trials of the technology.

Of course it'll start as a voluntary technology, but as the article says:

Although the plan is to initially introduce the technology on a voluntary basis, Kompfner conceded that for the system to work it would need widespread uptake. He envisages governments making the technology mandatory for safety reasons.Any system that tracks cars could also be used for speed enforcement or national road tolling.

Roads in the UK are already subject to the closest surveillance of any in the world. Police control a database that is fed information from automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras, and are able to deduce the journeys of as many as 10 million drivers a day. Details are stored for up to five years.

So basically, we're already spied on as we go about our lawful business, but the government has plans to go after all of us.  Simon Davies of Privacy International, who has proven to be entirely useless over the intrusive Phorm deep packet inspection technology, has been quoted:

"The problem is not what the data tells the state, but what happens with interlocking information it already has. If you correlate car tracking data with mobile phone data, which can also track people, there is the potential for an almost infallible surveillance system." 

No, Simon, the first problem is the quantity of information the Government proposes to collect about its citizens who are on the main just going about their own lawful business.

It appears that the James Randi Educational Foundation have had their YouTube account suspended - no reason is known. The JREF are an outstanding bulwark against the rise of paranormal and supernatural ideas in society, internationally.  The blog and forum at the JREF website make for excellent reading.  I cannot for the life of me see why this decision can have be made.  The JREF's mission, as quoted from their website:

The James Randi Educational Foundation is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1996. Its aim is to promote critical thinking by reaching out to the public and media with reliable information about paranormal and supernatural ideas so widespread in our society today.

This mission statement seems eminently reasonable to me.  You can write letters in protest, though I guess it would help if we knew why the JREF's account had been suspended.  Perhaps the JREF trod on too many toes -from what I've read, YouTube tend to react quickly to takedown requests, but can be persuaded to reverse their decision, as in the case of David Colquhoun's video work.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7Cn_gjevik 480x295]