a momentary lapse of concentration

Whenever I make a mistake, I always try to work out why I made the mistake and how I can avoid making the same mistake in future. This is especially important with those activities that require a measure of physical and mental skill, such as driving. It’s the only road to improvement, because constant practice is pointless if you’re not aware of any errors being made (and most errors are trivial, most of the time).

With this in mind, and with nothing else to do for five days but lie on my back in the local hospital following the unfortunately premature end to our last Saturday morning adventure of 2011, I spent quite some time trying to work out why I fell off my bike while negotiating a bend that I’ve negotiated hundreds of times in the past without mishap.

Admittedly, the bend in question is quite sharp, but I certainly wasn’t going too fast, even though the bend is at the bottom of a long downslope on the cycle track from road level. One likely clue is that the crash was precipitated by scraping my right-hand pedal on the ground. I was sprawled in a heap on the ground within a small fraction of a second of this happening, with no chance of regaining control.

But why would I allow my pedal to scrape the ground? I learned long ago that it is prudent to freewheel around tight bends to avoid precisely this fate, although on the odd occasion when it had happened in the past there had been no dangerous repercussions. Still, freewheeling is the safe option.

However, the bend leads into a short subway, beyond which the track continues back up to road level. And the upslope begins at the bend. It was at this point that I remembered I’d found myself in too high a gear and foolishly decided to change down as I rounded the bend. But in order to change gear, it is necessary to pedal. Ooops! You can be sure I’ll be checking which gear I’m in the next time I have to tackle this bend.

Unfortunately, that next time will not be before March. Although I was banged a bit about the head, that’s what helmets are for, and mine performed according to its job specification. However, my left knee took the full force of my downward momentum, and I ended up with a fractured patella and a plaster cast from ankle to groin, which I shall have to put up with for the next six weeks.

This also means that I probably won’t be posting much for a few weeks, because sitting at a computer for any length of time is rather uncomfortable. On the other hand, I do have at least a dozen posts at various stages of completion, so once the discomfort has eased, you can expect quite a lot from me within a short period, including the real reason for the 2008 financial crisis, a complete overview of black music in the 1960s, the psychology of law-breaking, and why the Saturday morning adventure is so much fun, as long as concentration is never allowed to become anything less than total. The consequences of any lapse can be painful.

wounded knee

a special piece of thought from paula
Cycling has become a part of life in the past seven or eight years for my husband and me as we have found so much joy and challenges, despite how many times we do the same route. As Dennis described our favourite route, going to Sham Chung in previous blog post, we enjoyed every trip to the place as we enjoyed both the food and the chat with Tom. This Saturday, the last day of 2011, we repeated the same route and had a very special treat by Tom, who served us a fantastic combination of seafood, including scallops, shrimps and clams, with broccoli and crispy pan-fried noodles. As we had finished the noodle of the town, we headed back with a full stomach thinking that it was another wonderful experience before the end of 2011.

Pan-fried noodles with seafood combination

On the 22-mile homeward journey, we passed many cycling groups and did not encounter any hazards, which can happen on weekend afternoons in the cycling lanes. After one and half hours of cycling heading back to Fanling, Dennis fell off his bike as he approached the end of a downward slope while making a sharp right-hand turn into a subway. He felt a heavy impact on his knee. I was right behind him and saw the accident but could not help to stop it.

My immediate response was to call 999. As I was waiting for the ambulance, I immediately moved his bike aside in case there were cyclists passing the corner. When the ambulance staff arrived, they made a speedy examination. Dennis could not straighten his left leg, and it was taped to his right leg. Meanwhile, I had our bikes locked up first, knowing that I would be accompanying Dennis to the nearby hospital, and I noticed that the chain of Dennis’s bike had come off when I tried to push it.

As we were in the ambulance, Dennis’s blood pressure and pulse were being monitored. The ambulance staff were quite surprised how fit Dennis was as a result of the regular cycling, with a pulse of 56 and blood pressure readings of 110 and 68. It did not take too long to reach the hospital. After taking an X-ray, the pain was caused by the direct impact and the patella was cracked. So, Dennis had to be hospitalized; there was no other choice.

Arriving at the orthopaedic ward, Dennis was set to a bed next to a window. A doctor on duty came and assessed the condition of Dennis’s knee. As he did some twist and turn to the knee, I saw a growing mushroom as some internal tissues were ruptured, causing swelling above the knee. I could hear Dennis making excruciating noises and see him expressing pain on his face when the doctor asked him to keep the left leg extended in an elevated position. Not long afterwards, two staff members came with a trolley with stuff to prepare a temporary cast for Dennis. It did not take too long to have the left leg wrapped with bandages and the cast. This was how Dennis experienced the last day of 2011 and he misses the live contact with the world. However, he has been told that he will need an operation to repair the damage and will be out of action for at least six weeks.

Dennis in hospital

a riddle

If Ricky Nelson was the man, and Creedence Clearwater Revival was the band, who was the light, and what were they all doing?

Please note that only comments with the wrong answer will be published. However, the name of each reader who posts the correct answer will be published. This is to allow everyone who wants to try this puzzle the opportunity to do so.

eclipse

Going, going....

I’ve seen quite a few eclipses of the Moon over the years, but last night the sky was completely clear, and for the first time I was able to watch one from the comfort of my own home with a bottle of red wine for company. Mind you, ‘comfort’ may not be the most appropriate word to use, because as Paula and I sat on our balcony watching the Earth’s shadow creep slowly across the lunar disc, a strong and very cold wind was blowing from the north.

I couldn’t help but recall the two coldest nights I’ve had to endure during my lifetime. The first was in 1968: I’d just arrived in Libya, and I’d heard that it got very cold during the night in the desert, so I’d brought a thick sweater with me.

“You’ll need a jacket,” said my colleague.

So I bought a suitable jacket at the local oilfield supplies store. On my first night in the desert, I made sure to wear both the sweater and my newly acquired jacket as I worked through the hours of darkness. I’ve no idea of the actual temperature, but I couldn’t wait for that ‘busy old foole’ to rise the next morning and thaw me out.

My second cold night experience was in Glen Affric, in the Western Highlands of Scotland, in 1973. Because of the snow conditions, I’d been unable to reach my intended destination, so I decided to spend the night in a bothy, a makeshift shelter of a kind that is found all over the Scottish Highlands. I had with me a high-quality down sleeping bag and a polar-quality down jacket, which I decided to wear to be on the safe side. I shivered all night.

I also recalled a lunar eclipse that I’d witnessed, off and on, in 1978. Actually, it was more off than on, because I was driving a taxi at the time, so I did have to pay attention to where I was going. However, during the eclipse I amused myself by asking each passenger I picked up whether they’d noticed anything unusual.

“You do realize that we’re in the middle of an eclipse of the Moon,” I said, as each passenger answered in the negative.

I assume that the night sky does not hold the same mystery for modern humans as it did for our remote ancestors. Even my wife, who is usually quite inquisitive, tends not to look up.

“Notice anything unusual?” I asked her a couple of years ago on the first night of a trip down under to stay with an Australian friend.

No, she hadn’t. Of course, I had the advantage of spending almost the whole of 1970 in the Australian outback, so I already knew about the extreme blackness of the night sky. And there is more to see in the southern hemisphere too, notably the Magellanic clouds, seen by Ferdinand Magellan, as the name implies, during his circumnavigation of the world in 1519–21 but known to earlier astronomers in the southern part of the Arabian peninsula.

These are nearby galaxies, although ‘nearby’ is a relative term here. The smaller of the two is 160,000 light years away and the larger 200,000 light years. They are also much smaller than our own Milky Way, which is unmistakeable against such a vividly black background.

But back to last night: it took 81 minutes from the time the Moon entered the Earth’s shadow until it was completely obscured; the total eclipse lasted 52 minutes, and a further 82 minutes elapsed before the Moon emerged from the shadow. Oddly, when the eclipse started, the Moon seemed so bright that it was impossible to focus on it (see first image above), and with the naked eye the boundary between the still-lit and the darkened parts of the Moon was anything but clear-cut. During the total phase, the Moon didn’t disappear completely but appeared a dull, reddish brown disc, illuminated by the small amount of light that was being diffracted by the Earth’s atmosphere.

The Hong Kong Observatory’s website tells me that there will be an annular eclipse of the Sun on 21st May next year. Now that’s something I have never seen.

...gone (almost).