(no title)

Returning to miserable form, here’s a blog post that isn’t just about bikes, or Rush.

I have been living in Cardiff for 2 weeks now. To summarise University, I’d say the first year went like: “Oooh, hmm.” With the second year being: “Sigh. Awwww.” and now, entering the third year: “SHIT.” Soon to be: “Fuuuuuu. Uck.” As I work through it. I really do wonder quite what I was thinking during my UCAS application. At least soon I will be able to join the ranks of Freelance Benefit Claimants. Still, just one dissertation and 2 (or 3?) projects until I’m officially unemployed, and sick of all things photography. Strangely, I’ve been officially unemployed and sick of all things photography for a while now.

However, I am looking forward to living this year in Cardiff. That’s how good Newport is, I’d rather walk for miles to a station, catch and train and then a bus. Then leave again. My room in Cardiff is okay, there’s awful textured walls, I imagine living inside an iced cake would feel much the same. There’s also a really bad Venetian blind. The other day I managed to knock my clock off the wall, it fell onto the radiator, which now clings awkwardly to the wall. Fortunately, I was able to grab my clock before it hit the floor. There’s no visible damage, it must be pretty hard. With just enough space for my double desks I have to squeeze past them to move around the room. When I was walking about this week I was surprised to see some nice houses in Roath and imagined their spacious bedrooms. I’m still planning to paint my floors white when I own a house. And I’ll have two dining tables from Habitat to work on, a worthy investment. If I were to hit my Habitat clock onto a Habitat table, the mysterious outcome could herald a break through in science, marking the Large Hadron Collider obsolete. Continuing with the repetition of future plans, I saw a brown Porsche 924 for sale at just £850. Great value for someone seeking a repulsive relic, like myself. That’s another criteria for my first car now, the name of the colour should begin with B, apart from Blue. I’m thinking Brown, Bronze or Black.

Rubbish cars aside, I haven’t listened to much Rush lately. I don’t think I’m in the mood for it. I am so severely lacking ambition that I cannot rely on A Farewell to Kings to scream me into action. I’ve started to listen to Porcupine Tree again, something I’ve avoided since Easter. It’s not an attempt to be trendy or relatively up to date, it’s just because. Perhaps I’m trying to make up for my Supertramp indulgence of late? Yesterday I cycled for 50 miles. Passing through progressively more shit places in South Wales, such as anywhere North of Cardiff. Finally, I reached Aberfan, luckily the hillside wasn’t too muddy. I was concerned about my bike, not children. Apart from some on-road obstruction, Supertramp was on emanating from my mp3 player. There were some epic moments as the songs matched my actions. It was a fantastic afternoon and here are some excessively captioned bad photographs to celebrate:

I stopped on a damp bench to blow my nose here. It’s shocking the amount of times I blow my nose when I ride my bike. I take between 4 and 6 tissues with me.

Horse poo related near fatal accidents are a regular occurrence for me. Here, I stop to scrape some off my shoe. I wear Adidas trainers on my bike because they’re comfy. I had to get them from Sports Direct, a local Chav Church. It was awful. Until today, I wore shorts when riding my bike. This was until I went to the pub in cycling attire, it got very cold.

Packing 2 Penguins, I eat one in Pontypridd. The joke on the Penguin was “snow” much better. Ha.

Leaving Pontypridd, some plants obscure other dire places.

Suddenly, my progress was halted. I had to go around in circles until the Crime of the Century concluded. I’m glad I don’t have a mountain bike, they’re shit.

I wind up at an industrial estate, get a bit lost and blatantly include my Brooks bar tape in another suitably crap photo.

Returning home I identify a lone Skoda Felicia and what appears to be an empty budget supermarket. But it’s not Aldi, Lidl or even Morrisons, it’s another Welsh University that disappoints me. Glamorgan, the one in an inconvenient place. At least Newport’s new campus is in the middle of an awful place, not next to one. Thinking of Newport, I switch to Journey’s Edge of the Blade. An excellent song which accompanies me when I strop in my room or speed past inbreds walking dogs.

Only now have I realised that I’m yet to introduce my bike that I’m planning to keep. It’s a 1986 Koga Miyata Flyer. I got it imported from Holland because I didn’t want a bad Raleigh bike and the man had a neat garden and some deck chairs. I added some toe clips, a bottle cage, a Brooks B17 and some Brooks bar tape. Buying a Brooks was a tough decision, however it’s worth it. The tape probably isn’t though. I was relieved to appreciate how much better my bike is than the 2 previous £30 bikes I had. It feels like an old friend already. Here it is in Cardiff, I added my OMP vintage racing gloves and made the photo black & white for maximum twat factor.