I found this "non-job" description while browsing the comments of Guido Fawkes blog at www.order-order.com


Networks Manager
Salary; starting from £37,451 (including London Weighting)
The FTN runs a series of networks (currently nine) to enable participation by our members at executive and board level in national policy making, professional development and learning through sharing good practice. Currently the networks are professional groupings, as well as special meetings for Chairs and Chief Executives and a group for Mental Health members. In future they may well extend to other specialist groups of members. We are seeking an experienced manager to support the networks, to manage our events programme and to develop more diverse strategies for member engagement.
starting from £37,451

So, what is it that you actually do?

Yesterday I took the "normal" bike to work. The hill from home to the top of Quinton was felt in my knees due to the extra effort.

Judging by the slight ache that I have this morning, I think it's going to be a while until I can regularly cycle more than 2 miles without my knees hurting. On level ground it's ok, but Birmingham and the surrounding countryside isn't very flat!

.. today I cycled the grand total of 20.9 miles!

Admittedly it was using my electric bike, but I estimate that the effort is evenly shared between my legs and the electric motor.

It was a glorious "long way round" journey home from work and I again went up Romsley Hill, but via a different route. I travelled via Uffmoor Lane today instead of the drag up the Bromsgrove Road.

I am very tempted to use my conventional bicycle tomorrow. I've oiled the chain and made sure that the tyre pressures and brakes are adjusted. I can't see myself doing 20 miles on that bike just yet, but we'll see :)

... forget about MPs scamming the taxpayer via expenses, forget about industrial action on the underground, stop fretting about global warming, and think blue...

A bunch of funloving people broke the world record for the number of smurfs gathered in the same place.
Over two thousand people got the blue body paint on and met in Oceana, Swansea to set a new Guinness World record.

I like cycling. I like getting some exercise while getting outdoors and enjoying the Great British weather.

However... I found a few months ago that due to inactivity, weight gain, beer and fags I'm not as fit as I was. I managed to ride the 12 miles from Birmingham to Bromsgrove, but found that I was done in. I wouldn't have made it back without my knees getting very painful. Its not so much the general level of fitness but the pain from my knees that makes me stop when climbing hills.

On Saturday I went to Presteigne to have a look at electrically powered bicycles. Most of them have an electric motor that works in parallel with the pedals to give a cyclist some assistance when riding up hills or into a headwind.

I had a go on a bike made by a company called Wisper. The standard of construction was very good. Welds on the frame were to a high standard, there was no flex in the frame, and everything worked as it should. The battery assistance kicked in within a second of starting to pedal. It was like having someone push the bike along. All very nice. The only problem is the price. Electric bicycles are not cheap. The Wisper 905 that I tried retails for £1300. Ouch. The other bikes that I saw weren't much cheaper. 

As I really like cycling and want to get back into it, I'm looking for less expensive, yet reliable options to achieve my aims. I've been doing a load of research on the internet, have been following the discussion and reviews at www.pedelecs.co.uk, and making myself aware of the legal restrictions placed on powered bicycles. 

I have a rough and ready shortlist of bikes that are of interest to me...
Synergie Mistral. £519 + £20 delivery.
JuicyBike Sport. £695 +£30 delivery.
Cytronex Trek. £995 +£45 delivery.

I could get a conversion kit for one of my existing bikes. This would be considerably less expensive than buying a completely new bicycle.
Alien Electric Bicycle Conversion Kit. £399 +£20 delivery.

I've been using LJtoys to keep track of who reads my journal. As I thought, there are still a lot of users on my list that either don't read my stuff, or I don't read theirs.

I'm not going ask people to comment to stay on my list, coz lets be honest, I know who I'm going to cut, and if you leave your name here, never read nor comment usually, its a bit sad really. I'm not here just to boost the numbers on your friends list.

If you haven't logged in and viewed my journal since the beginning of this year, its time to say goodbye.

What do you call a thousand bankers at the bottom of the ocean?

A good start. 

... and you view the pages while at work and you get told off, its not my fault ok.

Apparently the hip way of saying it is NSFW ;)


I've been reading the DailyMash. A satirical, lairy, website best described as a mixture of Private Eye and Viz.

It makes the working day just that little bit more bearable.

I've just been outside for a smoke. I felt the sunshine on my back. Mmmm summery warmth :)

.... Chuck Norris stared at my LJ and the words appeared out of fear.

In one of those daft moments I have between those scary nanoseconds of compos mentis I was thinking about cats. Specifically ones that use litter trays.

If a kitten doesn't wipe their feet properly after pooping they get poopaw. This is similar to winnits, or tagnuts, but on the paws. And yes, I put poopaw into google...

Poo-Paw Inc., make barbecue sauces, and seasonings for meat. So.. they make something akin to brown, sticky, kitty litter.

The universe works in mysterious ways.

I watched Defiance last night. It it set during the German occupation of Belarus in World War 2. As the Nazis march East they systematically rounded up, imprisoned and killed the Jews living in what is today Poland.

Four brothers flee the death squads and find safety in the forest where they set up camp and hide from the German SS. Gradually other people join them as they are also on the run from the Nazis.

It is a battle for survial and of guerilla warfare. The need for food overrides everything else. Foraging raids on nearby farms are a regular occurence, the shooting and consumption of a dog gives the now swelling ranks of people some much needed meat. Daniel Craig is the leader of the group and when finding that 1200 Jews are being held in a ghetto he decides to take action and devises a plan to help them escape...

I'll be watching it at the cinema when its released here. Gotta love bittorent :)

I was thinking again about the protesters that trespassed onto Stansted Airport a few weeks ago. Plane Stupid are "a network of groups taking action against airport expansion and aviation's climate impact."

I was wondering how much "climate impact" occured when aircraft had to be diverted away from Stansted to land at other airports. If those aircraft had to fly further, would they not have used more fuel, and hence added to the perceived problem of Boeings and Airbus' spewing out CO2? What about the diverted passengers that then had to get collected by car from an out of the way airport? How much extra CO2 was produced by those extra car journeys?

There is a solution. It doesn't involve making people pissed off when their flight is cancelled. A bit of joined up thinking wouldn't go amiss from the environmentalists. A holistic, systemic approach needs to be considered. I know that groups such as Plane Stupid feel very strongly about what they believe in, but if themselves and their ilk are going to disrupt people, they need a bigger argument than saying that air travel is bad and they believe its true just because Al Gore said so.

I have a better idea. Instead of trying to abolish air travel, why not use the land around airports to cultivate crops? Crops and trees use CO2 during photosynthesis to grow. To get a 747 into the air takes a lot of energy, a whole lot of fuel is burned and a lot of CO2 is produced. Carbon Dioxide is denser than air and will fall to the ground where it can be utilised by an agricultural process. I'll admit that the exhaust of a jet engine contains lots of nasty chemicals, but if the crops that grow around airports weren't used for food, what would be the problem?

I propose that new airports will be surrounded with plants and trees that can be used for construction, paper and maybe even biofuels. Its a long term plan, and it takes a human lifetime for a tree to become big enough to create planks and joists and beams. Grass can be harvested and used to make straw bales for insulation. Imagine the new jobs it would create, every airport would need a forestry manager, coppicers, and wildlife officers. Instead of buying duty free booze, you could buy locally made gifts from wood grown within sight of the runway. Fast growing trees could be turned to wood pulp and paper to fill the shelves of Waterstones and WH Smith to help alleviate the boredom of a long flight.

In regard to protesters attempting to make their voices heard about their beliefs regarding global warming, I'd just like to say that I'd have left them out there to freeze and let aircraft take-off around them. I bet by 1 in the morning most of them would be grateful for a bit of warming to help them defrost.

That is all. Move along, nothing to see here.