crowcity

I bought my Sevylor Ranger months ago, but hadn’t been able to take it out because I’d knackered the tendons in my feet and couldn’t walk. Real progress over the last few weeks meant that finally today I could give it a go. I talked my friend Tom into coming along. He’d never been on one of my trips before, so didn’t know what to expect. I think he thought it would be fun.

We put into the Welland on Stamford meadows, amid laughter from onlookers. It took around 5-10 mins to inflate the Ranger and get it afloat in clear skies and sunshine. The river was flowing nicely, and we barely needed to paddle at all. Seeing Stamford from the river for the first time was fantastic, as we cruised past the old stone buildings, imagining the waterway in Medieval times, when there was a thriving wool trade and loads of alchemists.

We portaged the big weir to the south of the town (photo) and stopped for a bit of lunch. Pretty soon we hit our first white water. I use the term extremely loosely. It was genuinely scary, but we made it through OK. Just a few minutes later however, we hit more white water and got stuck on a rock and pulled broadside to the current. I jumped out and pulled us clear, but it turned out that we’d ripped the polyester hull. If it hadn’t been there, that probably would have been the end of the trip, but the hull saved our inflatability nicely.

The following stretch was probably my favourite. We saw a heron and three kingfishers, and I may have seen a water vole, although at one point I was convinced an otter was swimming alongside us, and it turned out to be a log.

A torrent of hail was then unleashed upon us. It lashed into the water around us, and bit any exposed flesh. The journey was still enjoyable at this point, but soon a serious storm blew up, and we were assailed by hail, sleet and rain, with an icy wind thrown in for good measure. At this point one of the self-bailing plugs came open and soon we were sitting in cold water. We were also pretty lost. Suddenly a horrific stretch of white water came into view. We were fairly shot at this point and only just noticed it in time. Luckily we made it to the bank, but once we climbed up to the top, the wind was excessively cruel on our wet bodies. We did however spot a church steeple from the top of the bank, so Tom ran off to see where we were (photo).

After draining the boat and stoppering the plug, we carried along for a while until we got stuck again. I hopped out again, but got sucked into the mud and had to really wrestle to pull my feet free. A little while later we came to a bridge (photo). At this point Tom decided he’d had enough and would walk to the car from there, even though we had no idea where it was. Another minor miracle when we climbed up the bank and realised the car was just on the other side of the railway track. If Tom’s spider-sense hadn’t stopped us there, we would probably have been killed in more rapids.

It was sad to see the rip in my pretty Ranger, but I’m sure it can be fixed fairly easily. All in all a fun trip, and just what I’ve been missing whilst cooped up indoors for months with knackered feet. Bring on the next trip!

The repression in Tibet continues, and many people are wondering what they can do to help the Tibetan people in their struggle to be heard. Below are some ideas to get you started. Please add comments if you have further suggestions of your own.

What can I do to help support Tibet?

1. Send a letter/email/fax to Gordon Brown. Urge him to call for a UN team of investigators into Tibet as soon as possible.
   • Fax: 020 7925 0918
   • E-mail the PM.
   • Write to: Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP, 10 Downing Street, London SW1A 2AA
2. Write to your MP. You can find your MP’s contact details here.
3. There is a march in support of Tibet taking place in London. Join the march from Park Crescent (west side) to the North terrace of Trafalgar Square: Starts 12 noon, Saturday 22nd March.
   
   Edit: This has now taken place. Read the Times Online write-up.
4. Sign this petition at avaaz.org.
5. Sign this petition at thepetitionsite.com.
6. If you are a British citizen or resident, sign this petition at petitions.pm.gov.uk.
7. Further ideas on what to do.
8. For the latest news and what you can do to help, go to FreeTibet.org

Many thanks to Shuman Dasgupta for sending in these photos of Indian crows, taken on holiday. Shuman says …

The first is the Indian House Crow. They are extremely bold and curious. I have seen them hitching rides on trucks and lorries. They have also been spread around various parts of the world by their habit of hitching rides on ships. There is even a very small colony in Holland having been brought there by American warships. Whilst I was in India I remember having to discard my cup of tea which I was drinking outside. I turned my back on it for less than a minute to look at something. When I turned around a house crow had its beak very close to my tea.

The other picture is of the Indian Treepie. It is India’s version of the magpie. Its Bengali name translates as thief of shiny coins. I took both pictures on my recent trip to India in January/February 2008.

I’ve published my poetry through lulu.com so if there’s a massive electromagnetic pulse that wipes out everything electronic, it’ll still survive in some form. It contains all my best poetry. If you want to check the poems out, there’s a link under Pages to the right. If you like them, go ahead and buy a copy of Silent Call. It features Catfish, which had some artwork commissioned from Luis Rey to illustrate it, and went on a tour of Japan and the USA. There are also a few I performed with Aware, back in the day.

Years ago, a friend and I started up the Totem Generator, which can generate a native British totem animal for you. The text is kind of nonsense, but uplifting nonsense, but Peter’s illustrations are amazing, gorgeous. He is incredibly talented, and his forte is nature.

The good news is, the images and text are now available as a book! There’s a bit more text in the book than on the website, and there are also a couple of bonus animals not available on the website. Here’s the link to preview or buy it: Native British Totem Animals.

I recently downgraded one of my hosting set-ups as it was costing too much, and realised to my horror I no longer had anywhere to store MP3s to play on crowcity. After a quick search I found MediaMax.com which gives you 25GB for free. I haven’t been able to find the amount of bandwidth you get, but hopefully it’ll be enough for now. You can store and share all kinds of files there, not just music files. And you can link directly to them - you don’t have to play them through MediaMax, which is cool.

Googlepages have a similar set-up but I haven’t been able to check it yet as the audio device on my laptop has gone dodgy. When I get a chance I’ll test MediaMax V Googlepages and report back which loads faster.

It was great to see rooks getting some positive exposure on Nature of Britain. Watch the clip below.

The RSPB has requested I remove details of the whereabouts of the roost, since there is not the local infrastructure for large numbers of visitors.

Read more on the BBC website - you have to scroll down a bit to get to the rooks @>~

I’ve been having a nightmare with tendinitis in both my feet since the start of the summer. There’s a lot of information out there for Achilles tendinitis, but hardly any for the other tendons, which are the ones I’ve messed up. I thought I’d post here what I’ve found helpful, in the hope it might help someone else.

The image above shows all the tendons in the foot. I’ve messed up all of mine except the Achilles tendons. It was a classic case of going from no activity to ridiculously intense activity (killer rip currents jealously guarding swell I just couldn’t resist, as I only get one week in the surf a year). My feet went incredibly creaky afterwards, then became very painful to walk on, and subsequently swelled up massively. After rest, ice, Voltarol and elevation they eventually got better after a few weeks, but flared up again a couple of weeks later. I think standing in line at a theme park caused it, but I’m not 100% sure. I didn’t rest them completely as taking time off work seemed impossible, and within a few weeks I couldn’t walk at all. Then began my current obsessive quest - trying to get my feet sorted.

Acupuncture

First off I tried acupuncture. My Mum had tennis elbow a few years ago, which is a form of tendinitis, and one acupuncture session was enough to sort her completely. I had several sessions which worked incredibly well to get rid of the muscle spasm and get the bloodflow going in my feet again. It also helped to get rid of a lot of the pain.

Ice Bandages

I then saw a physio who imparted a fantastic secret … ice bandages. You soak a crepe bandage in water, squeeze most of the water out of it and freeze it. You then wrap the frozen bandage tightly around the foot and ankle and elevate the feet for fifteen minutes. This gives compression, ice and elevation at the same time. The swelling in my tendons went down very quickly using this method, and I’m currently doing it four times a day. I follow this up with stretching exercises (with a latex strap), an application of Voltarol (anti-inflammatory) lotion, and gentle massage, to get the blood flowing again and get rid of any muscle spasm.

Neoprene Ankle Support

I’ve also invested in some neoprene ankle supports. As well as supporting the ankle, they improve bloodflow in the area they cover, promoting healing. I’ve been wearing them when I’m doing anything other than sitting with my feet elevated. I’ve also been wearing them when swimming, and my feet feel much stronger after the exercise than they did without them.

Swimming

I started out just treading water really gently, and have been building up to very light swimming and some walking whilst supported with water in the pool. It’s easy to overdo it, but swimming seems the best way to get my muscles working again. I’m currently up to half an hour and am going every day, unless my feet are feeling strained.

That’s pretty much it for now, but I’ll update this post with any further tips if they arise. Please add any suggestions you might have by adding a comment.

Update 7/2/08

I’m getting nowhere with my tendons. Perhaps I’ve torn or shredded them and am just going to have to have the surgery. I can’t walk on them anymore, not even when the majority of my weight is supported on sticks. If anyone has experienced anything similar, please contact me. I’m desperate now, and will still have to wait weeks for the specialist.

Update 21/3/08

I’m pleased to report that my feet are finally on the mend. I basically bought some Crocs knee-pads and crawled everywhere and it seems to have given them the space they need to start to heal. Still resting them majorly, as I’m so scared of over-doing it, but swimming is helping, and at last I have some hope for the future.

Christine Field has sent me some extremely cute photos and the story of Squawk, the jackdaw she raised.

Squawk was probably found one day old, had fallen from a nest. Squawk was put in a basket, bald, cold with little hope of surviving. After a day in the airing cupboard, he showed some life. From then on, our friendship developed.

Diet: Squawk initially had bread/milk, boiled eggs, soon moved onto Whiskers kitten food in the sachets. As he continued to grow he would have a selection of foods, including meal worms, baked beans, potatoes. He expected to be fed even when he was old enough to feed himself. He would demand his food, squawking loudly through the day. He would literally lift his wings (then just stubs) and gesture for food. He had a brief period of around two weeks of going through half a large tin of Whiskers a day. He also would refuse certain types (not chicken) at times.

At a week or two Squawk would travel to work at Park View in a little basket. He would interrupt work to demand feeding. He had a team of admirers (Paul being one). He outgrew the basket, moving to a box. In the end he would sit on the dashboard and look out of the window for the journey in. Once at work he was in a large cage for a brief period during the day. He would spend hours cleaning and tidying himself as his feathers developed. In the cage we would try and amuse him - he liked bright, sparkly toys: foil, jewellery etc. Squawk then decided he wanted to learn to fly. The more feathers he developed the more he would try and fly. Initially just around the front room, bedroom, office. He then was encouraged in the garden to have a look around - gradually he would fly a little. This was brief and in no time he was flying around. We would need to duck when he came in to land, as his skills were limited.

Squawk seemed to have no boundaries having been with humans, and I recall hearing the neighbours screaming. They had opened their back door and he dived in past the neighbour into their house. One patient at Park View was subject to Squawk dive bombing near him. I could just imagine the poor chap going back to staff and telling them and being told - don’t be silly - he’s delusional.

Squawk was with us from around mid April 2005 to end July 2005. The bond between us was very strong. He continued to demand feeding even when he could feed himself independently. He would also demand and receive attention regularly. He must have been a male - his play with my teenage son and his mates was boyish and rough; he would peck around ears, eyes - he was the boss. With female friends wearing jewellery, he would become excited with his tail feathers bobbing up and down, as he played amourously with earings, finger rings etc.

At night Squawk soon refused to roost anywhere but on my arm. Each morning I would be woken by him jumping on my face, shouting for breakfast. Having been fed he would be out of the window and off (5 am). Sometimes he would return by 7.30am and come to work with me, or not, in which case he would spend the day at home. I would leave windows open for him, and a buffet lunch. He had made friends in the village and would socialise until my return.

Squawk loved travelling in the car. He was like one of the family, spending weekends with my parents who have plenty of land if Paul and I were away. If we were ever looking for Squawk he would often return by being called loudly - he would return my call, and return to me. Often he would circle me a few times - almost teasing before he finally settled on my arm, hand or head.

Gradually Squawk spent more time away i.e. from hours to whole days and evenings, until finally one day he just did not return. I spent tortured days/weeks looking, calling him. Unfortunately I don’t know what happened to him. I have to assume he found some mates and was free to return to the wild. I really miss him, but have very special memories I could not have realised the sense of fun Jackdaws have, their naughtiness, their inquisitiveness, and they really are little thieves, or borrowers several fingers rings disappeared - found in odd places, keys buried under leaves they just loved to play.

Thanks for sharing this with us, Chris. Squawk is unbelievably cute, and I’m sure he’s still doing his thing, somewhere out there in the world.

I’ve finally got restarted on my Dr Who Weeping Angels game, based on the episode from last season. The idea is you have to get the key off an angel, then use it to enter the tardis, without being sent into the past by an invisible angel. I was unsure whether to do it as a puzzle or an adventure game, but have gone for a puzzle game, where the character (currently just Sally Sparrow, but it’s impossible to keep an eye on even one angel with just one character) moves a square at a time, as opposed to having free movement. I’ll still try and make it scary though!

I’m using Gamemaker, a freeware games creation software. It’s used a lot in education, including universities, to help people understand the basics of PC games programming. I need to brush up my skills with it as I’m using it on the BND in Media (Games Development) course at the college I work at. As you get your head around programming concepts, you can start to use raw code more and more. I used it with some other students last year and they picked it up really quickly and some of them created great games.

Once I’ve made it in Gamemaker I’ll rewrite it in C for the Nintendo DS. Not sure when it’ll be finished though! Depends how obsessed I get with it!

12 Sept 07 - I’ve got the basic functionality working. Just need to work on the graphics now.