After a bit of a late start (around 11am), headed off on the tandem through lovely green and lush countryside to Agon-Coutainville, where 3 course lunch was had [whelks; skate (R) turkey (C); creme brûlée]. Returned to the house by a slightly different route.

Still windy a.m. Went for brief walk up to Cerisy La Salle for some food. Back at house, decided to go out for short bike ride in the environs of Cerisy La Salle and Notre Dame de Cenilly. Rather good, different roads than usual. Encountered a line painting crew emitting solvent odours.Later, out for regular training route with Gerry on time trial bikes.

Only brief notes just now, due to flaky internet access!Very windy today, with occasional showers (remnants of one of the american hurricanes, apparently). Slept late, then out to do shopping. It was clearly not a day for going out on the tandem. Discovered french supermarkets close at noon on Sunday. Eventually went to Villedieu where bought baguettes and an apple tart.Back to house where cooked dinner (butternut squash risotto) and awaited Gerry & co.

Just quick updates, internet access flaky!Packed a.m. then drove to Portsmouth. Despite stopping for lunch, we still arrived very early (2h early, around 3h after leaving the house).A very smooth crossing, despite the rising winds. Interesting "Ocean Nature Documentary" with no sound. Sun over Normandy as we approached Cherbourg.As we were first on the ferry, we were first off, and zoomed off southward. Took less than 1:30 to reach the house, which is between Cerisy la Salle and Notre Dame de Cenilly.Unpacked, bite to eat, checked weather forecast, not good. And so to bed.

Well, it appears that the latest in Nadine Dorries' attempts to limit women's reproductive freedom got pretty short shrift in Parliament (The Guardian).  From the Guardian's live blog:

What does it mean? On Twittershortly before the vote took place Labour's Chris Bryant posted this:I suspect Nadine Dorries has done more harm to social conservatism on abortion than anyone in 25 years. Hurrah!Really? It is certainly a terrible defeat, perhaps even a textbook example of how not to approach a free-vote, conscience issue. Dorries tabled what appeared at face value a relatively technical change, and yet she ended up losing the support of her government, a large section of her party and even the co-sponsor of her amendment (Frank Field).But this wasn't really a decisive encounter in the culture war; it was more a case of Westminster ganging up on one of parliament's easiest targets. (Which is why the PMQ's exchange earlier was significant. When your own party leader treats you as a figure of ridicule, you are in trouble.) Does this really tell us much about the balance of power between social liberalism and social conservatism in Britain today? I doubt it. The only lesson that really stands out is that, if you want change legislation on a contentious issue, don't ask Dorries to take the lead.

I don't suppose that will stop her attempts to limit abortion rights.

Over at Posterous:Once again Nadine "70% fiction" Dorries falls short on telling the truthYes, the Tories do want to lose the NHS

VeloNews has an article saying that a report in Gazzetta dello Sport says an investigation into disgraced cyclist Riccardo Riccò's mysterious collapse earlier this year was indeed due to a self-administered blood transfusion  (Probe reveals Ricco self-transfusion – report).  Having spent this weekend reading David Millar's excellent account of his fall from grace into doping, and his subsequent rehabilitation (Racing Through the Dark: The Fall and Rise of David Millar), it's just so depressing seeing someone who is quite probably a very talented athlete take themself so close to death.

In all the furore over the Dorries-Field attempt to restrict women's reproductive rights, I believe that it's important not to lose sight of the fact that this reflects a mere handful of amendments to therather larger legislative effort, a bill to reform the National Health Service.More over at Posterous...

This event was one that we'd been targetting for some time, as it offered an opportunity to ride a 2-up time trial a couple of weeks before the 'big one', the Duo Normand.  The preceding evening saw classic Team Grumpy preparation, a large Thai dinner in the local Thai restaurant washed down with lashings of energy drink.  We must be getting a bit used to this dietary assault as we had no ill-effects (for a change).The Norlond '10' was being run on the F12/10, which uses the A505 Leighton Buzzard bypass, turning at its junction with the A5.  On arriving at the HQ, we had a chat with some of the tandem riders. who were off in front of the 2-up teams, at 1 minute intervals (the 2-up teams were riding at 3 minute intervals) and then set up the bikes and went off for a warmup.  Because we were near the start of the field, we had the opportunity to warm up on the course.  This was good, as it gave us a good feel for how the wind (which was rather stiff) would affect the course.  It turned out the return leg was definitely the harder leg, so we decided to take shorter turns for that leg.  It was also useful to gauge my body's response to effort: I had been suffering from quite a bad cold for the best part of two weeks which had kept me off the bike.  In fact, the worst I felt were some twinges in my legs which cleared by the time I started the event.We lined up at the start, in our usual starting formation with Gerry poised to lead off.  I exhorted him in front of witnesses not to look over his shoulder after he started, and for once, he didn't!  Somewhat disturbingly, I was in a bit of  a high gear for starting, so a gap quickly opened, but it closed quickly as I horsed the gear round.  I was at the front as we approached the Billington roundabout and for once we sailed through with no interfering traffic - indeed I stayed on the tri-bars.We powered off towards the turn, taking turns of about 1-2 minutes.  This was a quick leg, with a stiff tailwind assisting us.  I was surprised at how good I felt, and our changeovers seemed very smooth and professional.  Up the ramp to the turn and a gap opened up, but only briefly, we were together coming out of the turn.  Heading back was indeed tougher with a stiff headwind, but we responded by keeping the turns short.  Gerry exhorted me to take shorter turns, but all I could make out was a seemingly inarticulate and strangled shout.Back to the Billington roundabout again, and once more we got through without traffic problems.  I shouted to Gerry to go all out to the finish, which was by now in sight (I dare say all he heard was a seemingly inarticulate and strangled shout!).  Getting to the lne, I was annoyed to see a motorcyclist blocking the timekeeper's line of sight, so I bellowed out our number.We finished with 22:15, not a bad time in the conditions.  We'd caught a team for 6 minutes and were the fastest 2-up team (but the only all-male team, so that's not too important).  What was hugely encouraging for the upcoming Duo Normand 2-up, is that we both rode really well as a team, which highly effective changeovers.  Indeed some spectators later commented that we were riding so tightly that when seen oncoming we looked like a single bike.  All in all, a very encouraging race.  And just what we needed in the run up to 'the big event'. 

Nadine Dorries' thinly disguised attempt to limit terminations seems to be running out of momentum as an understanding of its implications and motivation spreads (Anti-abortion bid in disarray as critics rally | World news | The Guardian).  Some statistics relating to terminations in England and Wales have been published by the Guardian (Abortion statistics for England and Wales: see the latest breakdown).Excellent news.  Now let's display the same attention to detail where the wider aspects of the Health and Social Care bill are concerned.  Does it endanger the NHS, as the BMA suggests?

Via the National Secular Society comes this appraisal of Nadine Dorries' plans aimed at restricting women's reproductive rights (Nadine Dorries’ abortion proposals – Fact and Fiction | National Secular Society).The key issue here is the use of the word 'independent'.  Dorries uses it as 'independent from the abortion providers', but knowing full well that the bodies she seeks to use for offering advice are anti-abortion organisations (and generally religiously motivated) intends Parliament and the public to misinterpret this as 'independent" in a more general sense.In this article, the National Secular Society has provided a detailed synopsis (with links) as to why this set of proposals are so thoroughly objectionable.It's interesting to note parallels between the devious language usage here and that used by American creationists - 'Teach the Controversy', where there is no controversy save in the minds of the cloth-eared creationists.  There's a constant strain of dishonesty apparent in the way that those motivated by christian beliefs seem to try and influence policy.

I don't often blog about political issues here, but I'm finding the illiberal and frankly unjust policies of the Tory government too much to bear at the moment.  And, yes, I regard this as a Tory government since their LibDem partners seem particularly passive.Nadine Dorries, MP for Mid-Bedfordshire, has long desired to eliminate as many terminations of pregnancy as she possibly can.  She has repeatedly relied upon misinformation and untruth in her campaigns (see for example this, this, this, and this).  Her latest gambit is to file an amendment to the Health and Social Care bill due to be discussed in parliament next week.  This amendment seeks to require women seeking termination to receive 'advice' from a body distinct from the termination provider.This is couched in language that on the face of it seems reasonable.  But it's only in digging deeper that the serious flaws in the proposal become clear.  The advisory groups envisaged by Dorries are principally those with an anti-abortion agenda.  You can read more about the lies deceit and ignorance being spread by these groups in this Guardian article: Abortion: pregnancy counselling centres found wanting.  Naturally, those in favour of a woman's right to choose over her reproduction are up in arms over this amendment.  It would seem from a later Guardian article that the depths of duplicity in this amendment may have finally sunk in to Number 10: Downing Street forces U-turn on Nadine Dorries abortion proposals ( though see below: Dorries has claimed this is untrue).  In my view, this ghastly MP is not making these proposed amendments through any desire to help women, but rather through a deep-seated objection to terminations.  This is shared with Frank Field, an MP with a long history od such objections.I suspect Nadine Dorries is now feeling her PR advantage slipping away.  She's now been posting increasingly hysterical articles on her 'blog'.  Her blog, by the way, doesn't permit any commenting and in any case is 70% fiction according to her.  This is the latest, posted Wednesday, 31 August 2011 at 23:45 [Blog articles at blog.dorries.org have a habit of disappearing once the author realises her foot is well and truly planted in her mouth, so I pasted the text below.  Its current URL is this. Emphasis in bold is mine]

For those who have read this in the Guardianhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/31/downing-street-uturn-abortion-proposalsas has just been confirmed on Newsnight, Downing St has denied the story.If Downing Street were going to do anything, does anyone seriously think they would give it to the Guardian first?No, obviously, but Evan Harris would.The truth behind the story is probably slightly more menacing, more menacing even than Evan Harris.Bear in mind this amendment is to offer women the option of independent counselling, delivered not by the abortion provider, not by a religious organisation, but by one of the 80,000 BACP professional counsellors across the country who are prohibited at present from working with pregnant women.It’s just an offer, they don’t have to accept it, however, those who have doubts and need help may do and if they do, then so be it, surely it is their choice?Rumour has it that Evan Harris, abortion and assisted death zealot, is applying huge pressure to the office of Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister. That would be the no longer an elected MP Evan Harris.  It would appear that he believes he has immense influence on Government policy, more influence than elected Liberal Democrat MPs even.I am led to believe that this story in the Guardian originated from him.I am quite sure that the office of the DPM would like to have a little more information about what the public thinks before it tried to apply pressure on No10 to put the brakes on an amendment which has such huge support amongst women. When I say women, I don’t include those who write for the Guardian, obviously. Nick Clegg may also like to hang fire awhile and see what else pops up in the papers over the next few days. I can assure him, it will be far more interesting than anything Evan Harris has to say./blockquote>Isn't this a bit strong?  And in any case, Dorries is economical with the truth when she says 'independent'.   She is also wrong to claim that abortion providers seek to make profit from terminations.  I note a blog article (Abortion Amendments to the Health & Social Care Bill) at the Conservative Women's Organisation blog concludes with this:

You still need two doctors to authorise a termination. Both of them weigh up the patient's decision and will only sign if they believe that she has come to the decision independently and has considered all other choices - they would be negligent if they didn't.Instead of making abortion physically and mentally harder for women in the UK, we should be looking at prevention and education - and by this I do not mean we need to teach graphic details to 13 year olds and give lessons with condoms and bananas. Parents need to take a bigger part in the education of their children and talking about sex appropriately when they're young is the best way to de-stigmatise it.The fact is that the health and welfare of women would be affected in a bill that doesn't mention termination once in its 420 pages.I urge every MP, woman or man, on whatever bench, to allow women to choose for themselves. I urge every constituent to contact your MP to get your voice heard.VOTE AGAINST the 3 amendments and do not allow the government to introduce any other comparable legislation.

As a final note, despite the appalling Dorries and her vile amendment, it's important not to lose sight of other issues around the bill as a whole.  Some commentators have observed that it may well lead to the complete breakup of the NHS.Update:  Despite Dorries' assertion that "as has just been confirmed on Newsnight, Downing St has denied the story", the BBC is reporting (David Cameron 'won't back abortion advice change') that

David Cameron "cannot support" an attempt by a Conservative MP to change the rules on the advice that can be offered to women seeking abortions.The PM's office said he was sympathetic to Nadine Dorries' view that women should be offered independent advice.But he was concerned the planned amendment to the Health Bill would prevent abortion providers like Marie Stopes from giving counselling as well

Having written just the other day why I view the iPad as an appliance or a gadget rather than a personal computer (my judgement revolved around limits to what the user is able to do with the device), I found myself limited by iTunes 10.4 running on Mac OS X Lion.The problem surfaces for two reasons.  I dislike iTunes because it's clunky and painful to use, and I dislike iTunes because it seems to limit how I deal with digital music - I like to choose the file format in ways that iTunes appears not to like, for example.  Anyway, I investigated removing iTunes, and it turns out OS X throws a bit of a wobbly when you try this, claiming that it's required by OS X.  Now, I don't know whether that's true or not, but even having found a method of doing this I thought it better not to try (most such efforts are a prelude to making a clean reinstallation).  I don't synchronise my iPad to my MacBook, and I've recently replaced an iPod Touch with a more reasonable device from Cowon (review part 1, part 2) partly to get away from iTunes.No matter, I thought, I'll simply assign the default application for opening audio files such as mp3 to Songbird, and that'll deal with the issue or iTunes opening every time I open an mp3 file.  Well, I can report that on my MacBook at least, iTunes refuses to relinquish its role as the audio player foisted upon me by Apple.Irritated, I had a bit of a Google about, and found recommendations to try an application called RCDefaultApp.  This seems to over-ride the iron grip of Cupertino and forces iTunes to take a back seat!  The whole episode does seem to reek rather of control-freakery and reminds me of one's inability to remove Internet Explorer from Windows.  I do wonder how required iTunes really is for OS X...and whether this is symptomatic of a move of OS X towards the iOS way of working.

Ars Technica has an interesting article pondering whether the iPad can be considered a Personal Computer or not (The iPad is a Personal Computer—true or false?).  This is something I have considered, in the year or so since I became an iPad owner.My own personal view is that iOS devices such as my iPod Touch and iPad occupy a space somewhere between an appliance and a computer.  I'm used to being able to do what I want with my computers: something that reaches the heights with my various machines running Linux (two laptops and a desktop running Ubuntu 11.04, and a Mythbuntu system).  Even my most recent acquisition, a MacBook Pro laptop, falls into this category.  Despite the surface gloss, it's a Unix-like OS at heart.  The GUI may be remarkably limited in configuration possibilities, but I've still set up Perl scripts, done limited Bash scripting and negotiated aspects of networking, particularly for my backup system.  Significantly, I can install what I want, where I want, and put files where I want them.How different that is from iOS.  Applications selected from a tightly organised (and some might say censored) list.  Application install in some space in the filesystem, and the files associated with an application go in that application's defined filesystem space.  In fact it doesn't seem terribly easy to see the filesystem space!If anything demonstrates why I don't consider the iPad a computer it would be any one of those restrictions.  If the iPad was a proper personal computer, I would be able to install Flash on it.For me, the iPad remains a gadget, something that's a huge pleasure to use.  But it's not a personal computer, for there's no way it can replace any of my computers, be they running OS X, GNU/Linux or Windows.  It does come close.  I routinely use my iPad for quite a lot of things:

• - email/calendar access
• - navigating my music collection
• - remote access of computers by VNC
• - limited wordprocessing
• - reading pdfs
• - reading e-books (though it isn't as good as a Kindle)
• - web browsing (except for those sites using Flash)
• - simple games
• - watching TV (either from apps such as BBC iPlayer or from  my Mythbuntu box) and videos
• - Twitter, Facebook and the like

Much as I've tried several Office packages, none really come close to using a notebook or desktop PC, even when using a Bluetooth keyboard to speed text entry. 

So, today I was riding the Chronos RT '10' over on the F2A/10 (A428), courtesey of Clive who kindly gave me a lift over.  The day had dawned rather calm and sunny, but the wind had built up during the morning and by the time we got over to the race HQ, it was really quite strong.  Added to this was the threat in the weather forecasts of light rain at about the time the race was to be on.I got to the HQ and got the bike all set up, and rolled off to do a warmup.  This went OK, until I suffered what appeared to be a front tyre blowout* at about the furthest point from the race start.  I am very grateful to #52 (Jan Ertner of Cambridge CC), who insisted on riding back to the HQ to fetch a wheel, which he lent me for the race.  I also have to say the number of riders who stopped to see if they could help was really heartening.  In the end Jan found me again, we swapped out the wheel (the replacement was a standard road wheel) and I sprinted for the start while he took my trispoke to leave with the time keeper.I made it to the start line in time to see #36 depart (I was #35).  Fortunately I didn't have long to wait for a start, as #37 was a DNS.  Somewhat disturbed by all the excitement, I failed to reset my computer (hence the somewhat extended Garmin trace below) as I set off to rescue my day.  I zoomed off from the start, made the sharp left at the roundabout and hacked off down the sliproad onto the A428 at about 29mph.  The speed ddn't hold for long, as it dropped to around 23-24mph for a bit as the full force of the head wind took its toll.Once into the swing of things, however, the pace picked up.  The course is actually pretty flat and if one could ride on a calm day might be pretty quick.  I reached the turn, which I negotiated easily, despite the motorist who tried to drive through me.  The return leg was a fair bit quicker, as the cross wind had enough of a tailwind in it.  I spent much of the return leg ruminating on what time I was likely to to finish in (as I'd not rest the computer), and felt pretty comfortable cruising along.After finishing, I paused at the start to see if they had my wheel, then back to the HQ.  As I write this, I don't know my exact time, but I recall a short 24 on the results board.  Taking into account the extra two minutes, I think that's a decent result on the day**.*Back home, I examined the tyre and tube closely.  There are no punctures in the tyre, but a series of small holes in the inner tube.**Paul T. who was manning the results board tells me 23:05 including 50s late start penalty...I'll add the results when they are available.  In the meantime here's my Garmin trace:And a photo taken by Dave Jones at the Cambourne underpass.  This was on the outward leg.  Note Jan's wheel![caption id="attachment_1609" align="alignnone" width="576" caption="On the outward leg of the Chronos RT '10', with borrowed front wheel"][/caption]

Back in January of this year I posted an article (Unreleased products top cyclingnews.com 2010 tech innovation poll!) pointing out that two 'products' that had been awarded a best product award for 2010 had yet to emerge onto the market.  Well, bikeradar.com now reports that the Garmin (formerly Metrigear) Vector pedal-based power-metering system faces release in March 2012 (Garmin Vector pedal power meter available in 2012).  Not bad for a product that won an award for technical innovation in 2010.Somewhat annoyingly for me, the device now uses Look Keo pedals, rather than the originally slated SpeedPlay system (none of my bikes have Keos, but two do have SpeedPlay).  No word currently on whether Polar's parallel system, which is also based as far as I know on the Keo pedals, will see retail shelves in 2012.The Garmin system does look pretty neat compared with crank-based systems.

This event was the last evening event in the North Bucks time trial series (the remaining events will be run at weekends).  The turnout was quite small (about 9 riders, I think) probably because of the weather.  The drizzly weather had set in during the afternoon, and by the time I left work to ride over to the race, it had turned into rather more persistent (though light) rain.Still, this was a counting league event, so some of us were up to it, including Lindz, Tony and Geoff - all of whom are on good form at the moment.  For my part, I wasn't looking forward to dragging my body up the hill on the outward leg, particularly as my attempts at weight loss have been a bit derailed of late.  This 'anticipation' pretty much reflected reality.While I satisfactorily reeled in some of the riders ahead of me, as usual I found tackling the first half to be the usual hard ride.  Indeed, I reckon it took me 15 minutes or so to reach the turn.  In my own defence, I have to say I was taking some of the turns a bit conservatively, as I wasn't keen to take a tumble so near to the Duo Normand.  Anyway, the return leg was as usual much quicker, peaking at 69kph.I finished in 27:10, not too bad for the conditions.  I'm pretty sure that Tony (26:08) and Lindz (a long 26) both finished with course PBs.  I've no idea what my best on this course is, and have no easy way of finding out, I think.

An odd morning, weatherwise - quite bright as we drove out to Tempsford but rather heavily overcast for most of the event.  In fact I was quite surprised it didn't rain, and the general darkness of the cloud certainly suggested we might be in for a bit of a downpour.  An additional worry for me was that I'd only just returned from a week off the bike at residential school in Nottingham.  Not only does that keep me off the bike, but the diet is rather dodgy, with too much greasy and stodgy food topped off with more alcohol than I'm used to.So it was with trepidation that I set off for this event.  I wasn't feeling too great, having slept badly and got up early, and to add insult to injury my inward parts were still suffering from the last week.  I made a vague effort at warming up, during which my heart rate resolutely refused to rise above 150bpm.  Anyway, I returned to the start line, had a chat with other riders and the start crew, then off I went.The event was on the F1B/25, reputedly the slower of the two courses based on the A1 near Tempsford.  You can see the course on the Garmin map below.  After joining the A1, the course heads south across the Sandy, Biggleswade North and Biggleswade South roundabouts, to turn at a roundabout under the point where the A1 becomes the A1(M), near Baldock.  In general terms, the turn is higher than the start, with considerable uphill and downhill sections in the southern section.  I had no real problems, other than lassitude in the legs, and no traffic related issues other than nearly seeing a car crash happen at Biggleswade North (which had my heart in my mouth), and getting delayed by a lorry (but that won't have delayed me much) at the Sandy roundabout.I got to the turn in a bit less than 30 minutes, which is usually OK, as the return leg is often a bit quicker.  There was a stiff sidewind which meant that the return leg wasn't as consistently fast as I'd hoped.  Still, I finished with 58:15.  That's the fastest '25' I've ridden this year, I believe, but only because it's only the second solo '25' of the season.  Let's face it, my 2011 season has not been good so far!  Tony finished with 55:43 I think, a sterling ride on a not-so-quick day on a not-so-quick course.

The recent spell of hot and muggy weather continued through to this event, although the lunchtime thunderstorm caused a bit of concern - were this to happen at the event, I could have seen the third cancellation in four events!  By 7pm it was rather better than that, but with a breeze that made conditions rather harder on the outward leg.Annoyingly, I got stalled by traffic at the first and second roundabouts, which always interrupts my concentration a bit.  On the dual carriageway, I initially found my concentration wavering, but then set to the task of catching my minute man (which took until some distance beyond the turn).  Rounding the turn, I was counting the time off until I saw Tony - when I did see him, it seemed to me that he was on a good ride.Back of the dual carriageway, and I was horsing down the hill to the last two roundabouts.  Unfortunately I was again held up by traffic at both - once by a huge white lorry with a train of following cars that (in discussions after the event) had encountered riders at elsewhere on the course.I finished in 4th place with 22:19.  Tony was in first place with an excellent 21:30, so a nice return to form for him!Results:

	Name	Club	Time	Cat	Vets Std	+ / -	Vets Pos
1	Tony Parks	NBRC	21.24	V46	26.42	+5.18	4
2	Geoff Perry	TeamMK	22.04	V51	27.46	+5.42	1
3	Rob Saunders	NBRC	22.19	V51	27.46	+5.27	2
4	Richard Golding	TeamMK	22.21	V42	25.54	+3.33	6
5	Glen McMenamin	NBRC	22.32	S
6	Lindz Barral	iTeam cc	22.58	S
7	John Buchanan	TeamMK	23.22	V41	25.42	+2.20	8
8	Dave Carrington	TeamMK	23.43	V46	26.42	+2.59	7
9	James Vaughan	Twenty3c	23.49	S
10	Clive Faine	TeamMK	25.38	V65	31.00	+5.22	3
11	Alan Lawson	NBRC	26.48	V43	26.06	-0.42	9
12	Gilbert Wheelwright	NBRC	27.10	V68	31.45	+4.35	5
13	Tony Brunton	NBRC	29.12	V46	26.42	-2.30	10

There seems to be a growing tendency for software updates to be pushed out to users at a fixed and high frequency. I've kind of got used to this through Ubuntu GNU/Linux releases every 6 months (but there it's generally a large collection of packages, many of which will have had significant updates during the 6 months). Additionally, periodically a release is denoted for Long Term Support.More questionable is the Rapid Release cycle adopted by Mozilla for Firefox. In this release cycle, updates are pushed out four times a year. For most domestic users, this might not be a problem (it's not a major hassle updating a browser), but for the corporate sector, it's a headache for the IT managers (Rapid-release Firefox meets corporate backlash).What then do I make of the upcoming release schedule for the Joomla! CMS which I use for a number of sites? You can see the sort of situation in this infographic:This strategy seems to involve releases of different support durations, which is confusing in itself.  To add further complexity to the upgrade path is that often upgrade requires database changes as well as updating files.  For the 1.6.5 to 1.7.0 migration, the Joomla! devs have kindly supplied a 'one click' upgrade tool accessible from the back end of the site to be migrated.  Unfortunately on the two sites I've tried it on, it doesn't work.  The second method proposed in the documentation, in which a migration package is manually applied through the extension manager, also doesn't work.  Irritatingly (and I presume this is to to with my particular hosting company's setup), there's no feedback to indicate where the problem lies.  At least not that I can find.  And the migration documentation isn't too much help.Yet another level of complexity is presented succinctly in this snippet from the documentation:

Check that all installed extensions are compatible with Joomla 1.7 by checking the JED Listing or developer site.

Very wise advice (and I suspect it could include templates).  I use several extensions on my sites - none very exceptional - and few appear to be compatible with Joomla! 1.7 so far.OK, so I probably can't migrate my sites until the extensions and templates are compatible with 1.7.  Who knows how long that may take?  I have every sympathy with the extension developers, who have presumably found themselves at the mercy of a rapid release schedule!As it is, I'm looking at the manual installation, where I have to copy a whole bunch of files and folders over to the site, delete another bunch of files and folders, conduct a migration of the database using an sql script.  Now, I'm competent to do this, but it seems like quite a hassle, particularly when the version being installed is only going to be supported for 6 months (and half a month has already elapsed!).Looking at the release schedule, it looks very much as though version 1.5 will be supported beyond 1.6, and to the point when the replacement for 1.7 is released.  Perhaps I ought to have hung on to 1.5, missing out releases 1.6 and 1.7?  I see security updates for 1.6 continuing for the moment, but for how much longer?  Maybe migration out of Joomla! is the best course?