Who is in charge of the Universe?I have a complaint.

The Sous Chef and I wanted to go away somewhere warm with our bicycles. Since the summer is off (due to my studies) it'll have to be in winter that we go away (and I have two weeks off work at Christmas - unpaid, mind).

After much thought and impatient jabbing of fingers on the world map on our kitchen wall (yes, we have a map of the world on our kitchen wall. Doesn't everybody?) we decided on


I admit, it's a long way to go for a curry but we did some research and the southern tip of India is doable by bike. I have been going out of my mind chasing the best fares possible to Chennai (used to be named Madras). If you know of a site that does low cost flights, trust me, I've checked it, rung the number, sent an email.

On top of chasing prices I have also collected a vast store of knowledge regarding the bicycle policy (the taking thereof) of numerous airlines. It ranging from "Free" to "150 Euros each way, with some including and others not including it in your 20Kg baggage allowance. I have spoken to staff at numerous airlines to check their policy.

Yesterday, checking for more flights while researching the cycle policies the 'best offer' that looked the one most likely we'd take DISAPPEARED. The prices went up by about £200 each! This was starting to unravel so I spent most of yesterday getting cross-eyed comparing prices, checking flight/transit times and cycle policies once more and found a BETTER price. WOohoo (so far so good, Person-in-Charge-Of-The-Universe).

I've had airplanes on the brain, so for some light relief I head to Youtube and in the area marked "Recommended for You" the top video is:


footage of a Garuda aircraft crash taken by a survivor.


erm. thanks Youtube. The recommended section usually has items similar to stuff I've watched. That means it generally has salsa, some Indonesian tv programmes, animated short films from the Vancouver Film School and the usual assortment of cute kittens and laughing babies. I'm not in the habit of watching plane crashes, especially not just before going on a long-haul flight.

my exam is today

It is the morning of my exam. In 4 hours' time I'll be sat at a desk, unwrapping my polo mints and wondering whether I maybe should have gone to loo after all..

The Sous Chef has been testing my knowledge with revision sheets. I can remember shitloads of stuff about Cognitive Psychology. I thought I knew nothing, but I woke up at 4 am this morning and (of course!) found myself unable to go back to sleep. So I dredged up all my revised material and was aghast: it really is in there! Amazing. The skill in the exam will be applying what I know to answer the question (not to be taken for granted, but at least I know stuff)

What else has amazed me is how much the Sous Chef now knows about Cognitive Psychology. It's very tedious for him but he's been marvelous in testing me and listening to me blather on about the phonological loop and visuospatial scratchpad of working memory. He knows more than most about subliminal priming, Biederman's geons and can tell you the difference between agnosia, prosopagnosia and aphasia. He might even be able to tell you where the parietal lobes are and what the amygdala is for. Definitely NOT things he particularly wanted to know about. I suppose I should be thankful I'm not doing a degree in Geology (snore) or Theology (yawn) or Art History. I can whitter on about my subject of choice for blooming hours! (Hopefully up to three, which is how long the exam is).

Anyway, I am prepared. I feel confident I can do this. My biggest problem will be staying focused for that length of time (1.5 hours is about my limit for keeping on task). Wish me luck!

What is consciousness for?

that, folks, was the totally not at all vague title of my final essay for this Cognitive Psychology course. I can’t blog much about its contents because of plagiarism (we get into trouble if we make that kind of thing available) but maybe I’ll create a private little area where I can shove all my old essays and ideas and notes and password protect it or something.

The course has been fascinating, its been difficult and it’s been excruciating at times. But overall I’ve enoyed it. All that is left now is the exam in three weeks’ time. Less than a month until… GOOD GOD! LESS THAN A MONTH?!!? HOLY CRAP! HOW THE HECK AM I GOING TO CONVINCE AN EXAMINER I ACTUALLY STUDIED THIS COURSE?!!

If I’m caught blogging, shout at me for procrastinating. I shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near my (or your) blog until after 5.30 pm 13th October.

now excuse me while I go have a panic attack in the corner over there.

Rumba - Cuban and Ballroom

Rumba is a dance that has left traces in cuban salsa, particularly in the styling. It has rich, layered percussion and is one of the slower Cuban dances. To me, it has a gooey toffee quality to it, arms sweeping with each step. Its movement are smooth, very African with full use of the shoulders, the hips, the arms. It doesn't have 'footwork' or step patterns as such, it's just about transferring your weight at the right times and doing this softly within the music and doing it so it fits with your partner (but you can dance Rumba on your own. Sometimes men dance Rumba against each other. Trust men to make it competitive).

The 'vacuna' I mentioned in an earlier post is, I suppose, its own competition. He tries to catch her out with a swift hip, hand, knee or foot movement and she has to block him. They are dancing together but battling at the same time.

Here is a clip of some Cuban Rumba. See if you can spot the vacuna attempts. To help you out, the first one happens at 00:16 (and is successfully blocked). She's not always so quick.



Ballroom Rumba, on the other hand, is something entirely, totally completely different. Ballroom has ruined many a dance such as Samba and Tango, mostly by standardising, formalising and regulating every inch of the dancers body and form and creating some (in my opinion) ugly movements. The biggest difference is that Ballroom Rumba is danced with a straight back, straight arms and the dancers step on a straight leg. In Cuban Rumba on the other hand, the only thing that's straight is the dancers.

Here's some ballroom rumba:


perhaps I'm just a snob but ballroom rumba makes me reach for the sick bag. To get that awful ballroom stuff out of my head, I'm going to watch Rafael and Janet show you how to do it right:

Afrocuban Weekender

Just got back from an afrocuban weekender in Norfolk with my good friend and fellow salsa nut C-side. She persuaded me to go despite my current broke-ness and revision-commitments.
I figured a weekend of some smooth cuban would be a nice distraction. I haven't danced cuban salsa in a loooong time (the more recent dancing escapades have been 'cross-body' style, a different animal entirely)

So I went and I had TOTALLY underestimated how much fun I would have. The weekend was absolutely TERRIFIC. The teachers were great and taught with plenty of humour. It wasn't wall to wall salsa, either. As well as salsa, we also had rumba (cuban rumba not that ballroom rubbish), son (oh diVINE!), belly dancing (respect to belly dancers. jaw-dropping skill and a heck of a lot of muscle power), Lambada Zouk (fluid and beautiful), bachata (move those hips), reggaeton /9move every muscle in your body) and some drumming workshops if the dancing had taken its toll.

Lessons went on throughout the day, at 7pm we were fed and then had to get a few hours kip in before hitting the dance floor as parties went on until 6am or 4am. (with more lessons the next morning).

Somehow, C-side and I managed to always drag our weary bodies to the dance floor and have a great night to the 3-2 of the clave beat. And no wonder! We were spoiled for choice with lots of great great dancers. No one stepping on toes or wrenching our arms, no sleazy types (although I did slap one chap. More on that later). It was just really really nice people who you could get to know between lessons and arrange to dance at the party later.

C-side and I quickly pointed out our favourites to each other. Sweet-E (a gorgeous dancer on the floor and a shy little sweetheart off the floor) ranked very highly. As did some very nice chaps from Laahndon who kept insisting we go to visit the capital and dance there (I must admit I'm tempted - the standard of dancer in London is higher than in Brighton). C-side and I were definitely in the groove. I haven't had so many terrific dances in a looooong time.

Mind you, I did get caught out- and this is where the slap happened. During a salsa number my dance partner and I broke apart and started dancing Rumba for a bit. Now in Rumba there is a sort of game. You do not touch your partner at ALL. The woman is meant to be seductive but coy while the man is preening (like a rooster) and trying to gain her attention. The moves are very simple but it's how you move, no fancy steps. Since you're not touching, you can move a distance apart but you're still dancing together. She is supposed to flirt but not too much while he puffs out his chest and struts. But it's not all innocent. The guy can, at some stage in the music, suddenly, even at a distance, gesture sharply (often with the hips, a foot or a knee) toward her (this is called a vacuna or 'vaccination') and she is supposed to spot this and quickly block by placing her hands over her privates. She might, if she fails to block in time, show her defeat by drawing a pregnant belly with her hands. So there I was, seductively dancing Rumba when suddenly! - aaargh!! under the circumstances, I decided not to draw the belly and just slapped him instead.

I think we managed to squeeze in about 11 hours dancing in every 24 hour period so it's no wonder c-side and I were both groaning on the train home. My legs and abdominals are sore and I definitely haven't recovered from the hours of dancing yet and it's been two hot baths and three early nights since then.

Definitely will be going next year. Definitely.

The internet connection keeps cutting out. I can stay connected for no more than ten minutes at a time. This is ANNOYING! Just writing a short blog post takes forever and I actually have a big essay to finish (rather than blogging, reblogging and reblogging)

What this means is "What I did for my holidays part 2" will have to wait (I know you're all on the edge of your seats for it, but please do try to stay calm, ok?)

What I did for my holidays part 1

Every good holiday should start with cycling around London. It might sound crazy but it's a bit like the advice to swallow a frog at breakfast. At least now you know things aren't going to get any worse.

Don't get me wrong, I am used to traffic and roundabouts from cycling across Brighton, but Brighton isn't London. There aren't as many tourists stepping off pavements without looking, as many side streets, as many street signs and distracting attractions plus in Brighton I know exactly where I'm going. In London, every street is a surprise.

Also, I'm not a Londoner so when I see Picadilly Circus my immediate instinct is to go "ooh looky at all the preeety colo-aaaaargh!" (which is the point where I realise I'm on a bicycle in traffic and taxis are insured for killing cyclists plus someone with a camera just stepped backwards off the pavement in front of me. "Yeah, arigato for that"). It's strange and cool to be cycling past all the sights of London but it's also hella scary. I was so intimidated that I refused to navigate around Trafalgar Square and reasoned it'd be quicker to use the pedestrian lights anyway. (A useful trick when pushing a bicycle through a crowd is to always look over people's shoulders into the distance. They magically take responsibility for their safety and move out of your way).

We got to Euston station in good time but there was a problem with our carriage on the sleeper train. Everyone booked onto car H had to be moved to the lounge car instead. A number of First Class passengers (not on H) kicked up a stink that they couldn't sit and enjoy their drink in the lounge car and had to take their refreshments in their berth. One in particular was nearly thrown off the train because he couldn't understand that he might have to be inconvenienced so that people like us would have somewhere to sleep.

We did sleep on the floor of the lounge car (with the lights on all night) and I got about as much sleep as you can expect when sharing a carriage with an obese man whose snoring sounded like wet farts. Confucius say: "only loudest snorer get best night's sleep".

So we arrived in Inverness the next morning, as fresh as newly trampled daisies. For those who are not au fait with Scottish geography (like me) the town of Inverness (or Inbhir Nis in Gaelic) lies at the tip of Loch Ness, which together with Loch Lochy neatly cleaves Scotland in two. Loch Ness is HUGE. According to some touristy blurb on a plaque we found, Loch Ness contains more fresh water than all the lakes in England and Wales COMBINED. It doesn't look that big, because it's not some vast expansive lake, it's just very very very very deep and very very very very long. It is also where we met the first midge.

It took us a couple of days to cycle from the West coast, along the Lochs to the East coast (via Fort Augustus and Fort William) and arrive in Oban where we would catch the ferry. We had planned a walk up Ben Nevis while in Fort William but since the weather was so bad that we couldn't even see Ben Nevis, we figured it wouldn't be safe to actually be up there. (we've done the getting into trouble at the top of a mountain when the weather turns for the worse before. I don't need to repeat the experience).

So we cycled on to Oban, which is a little fishing village/ferry port that is cute and small and nice but also a bit touristy (Ceilidh evenings every night, anyone?). Bagpipes were meant to strike fear into the hearts of the enemy during battle (the enemy reasoning that if the Scots are capable of slowly torturing a cat for that long, God knows what they'd do to captured prisoners)! In the 1700s, they were classified as an instrument of war and outlawed for this reason after the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie - My question is: who brought them back?! Instruments of WAR, people! Sweet music it ain't.

We found the campsite which turned out to be on top of a hill on a hill located on a hill (that was not a cut and paste error) . The height meant we did have a beautiful view of a bay and the weather was splendid, though.

So the next morning, we caught the ferry to Oban but not before the Sous Chef weighed his panniers down with a bottle of 10 year old Ardbeg, a whisky glass and had a taste of a £180 whisky at the shop. I wish I could elicit that look of true love in his eyes, but until I can become sweet and smokey with not too much peat, I'll have to get used to being his second favourite thing in the world (or third, after cycling).

The ferry took 6 hours to carry us to Castlebay on the island of Barra. The Outer Hebrides are like a half-excavated dinosaur skeleton poking out of the Atlantic ocean. Barra is the tail and we would cycle up its spine and catch the ferry home in a week's time.

Barra is so tiny you could cycle around it before breakfast. We cycled only halfway round before spotting a terrific beach and some grass to camp on. I'm not a beachy person but even I couldn't resist this entirely deserted stretch of sand and surprisingly warm sea.

Meanwhile the Sous Chef couldn't resist breaking open the Ardbeg and having his first taste of whisky on the Hebrides. It was worth going all that way just for that one evening, overlooking a beach, sipping Ardbeg, breathing in the crisp Hebridean air and going to sleep with the sound of the ocean. As it turned out, this was not to be our last or even our best beach.