Stuff I’ve learned

  • If you want to ride fast in a group make sure you know and trust the other people in the group
  • If you come off at high speed don’t put your arm out to stop your contact with the tarmac – you’ll break your wrist, elbow and collar bone
  • Take up a martial art to learn how to breakfall – when you do stack it on the road you might not get quite so bashed around if you know how to hit the ground properly
  • It will still hurt
  • If you travel on business, the martial art that you learned to make it hurt less when you fall off your bike will also help stop you getting mugged
  • Also, if you travel a lot, or ride a bike or go into the hills for that matter, wear an ID bracelet with your name and your partner’s name and phone number on it
  • Look after your feet on long walks and always carry dry socks
  • Prep for your meeting 48 hours before you have to leave
  • Be sceptical of famous business people, especially ones who wear black turtle necks and lower their voices by an octave
  • Invest in decent shoes and never wear brown ones with a suit and never wear ones with pointy toes at all
  • Ernest Shackleton, Eddy Merckx and Muhammed Ali are proper heroes
  • Energy is the same thing as mass times the speed of light squared
  • Wear eye protection if you use a strimmer
  • Denmark can be cold in March
  • People rarely live or work as individuals
  • Nobody changes jobs for money
  • You are a lot more able than you think
  • Velazquez was a sublime painter but turned into an appalling social climber
  • Liberal democracy and the rule of law is a thing worth fighting for
  • It can be hot on the Golan Heights in July
  • Sunburn is bad
  • The best drink is beer, and the best beer comes from Belgium
  • A weekend in Barcelona is never a wasted weekend
  • The National Gallery in London is free
  • So is the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford
  • In the unlikely event you’re a trained clinical psychologist I genuinely value your insight into people’s characters and motivation – if you are not a clinical psychologist you’re probably guessing
  • You can tell a lot about a British town from the state of its football team
  • Dutch railways rarely take credit cards
  • The Louvre is not free
  • Family matters
  • If you think your boss is psychotic, he or she probably is
  • That doesn’t make you right though
  • A light-year is a unit of distance not time
  • My French improves in direct proportion to the amount of beer I have consumed
  • It is worth paying more for the extra legroom seat on EasyJet
  • Evening EasyJet flights are frequently late
  • Rail is a nicer way to travel than air
  • New York is America’s best city
  • The most beautiful view in the world that isn’t in Scotland is from Muley’s Lookout
  • Egyptian food is wonderful
  • Most people are quite nice
  • Dogs are a good thing
Posted on: 8th April 2019 by Ivor Campbell

Into his fourth decade of search Ivor has a voice with stories to tell, observations to make and the odd picture to share. Mostly related to the day job.

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