The 63kg women’s event took place in the gym of the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. An unlikely setting: there was not much aerodynamic about what was going up here.

These were metal bars loaded down with so much gravity-attracting metal that never mind soaring skywards, the sane would employ a JCB to get them off the ground.

Britain’s Michaela Breeze was an early faller. She managed a total of 185kg in two skyward thrusts, roughly the equivalent of some couch potato watching back in her home town of Watford (plus the couch).

If that seemed a superhuman effort, it placed her only 15th. The leader in the preliminaries had been a stern Russian called Svetlana Tsarukaeva, who doesn’t appear to have smiled since 2003. But in the final, she had trouble with her snatch, the discipline which involves hauling the bar in one smooth movement to above the head.

After failing three times, she whelped like a forlorn dog and then compounded her misery by walking into the frame of the stage exit, whacking her head. As with every competitor, she was followed from the stage by a cameraman, the images relayed on a big screen as she staggered back to the dressing room. Thus could the entire crowd watch as she decided to slap her coach. Talk about drama, this was like an episode of EastEnders.

The competition was left to Kazakhstan’s Irina Nekrassova and North Korea’s Pak Hyon Suk. The Kazakh had an elderly coach who carried crutches, perhaps to defend himself should things turn slappy, while Pak had an osteopath, who gave her a vigorous bear hug before every lift in order to snap her back into place, ready to take the strain.

And what a strain it was. There is no equivocation about weightlifting, no close things, no 8.5 from a judge for artistic merit: you either lift or you don’t. This is primal sport, stripped of flim and flam. And the weight these women were lifting is preposterous. In the final round, Nekrassova went first, attempting to hoist what appeared to be the weight of a small bus. She almost got it up, but, as the bar rested temporarily on her throat, her feet would not stay put. She wobbled forward, her massive load heading ominously in the direction of the referees. Unable to recover, she dropped the bar with a thump that rattled the rib-cage. And promptly burst into tears.

So Pak had one lift left to become the first North Korean ever to win Olympic gold. As the crowd stomped, she stood behind the bar, leaned forward and pulled it up to her chest. The collective breath was held as she lifted again and locked her elbows. To a huge roar, she stood for a moment, the winner, holding the bar with an ease that suggested she must start as favourite in the forthcoming annual Pyongyang dissident-tossing championships.

Afterwards, Pak faced the press. She made only one statement, announcing, in a bold attempt to cut through political stereotype, that “I am overjoyed that with this medal I have brought joy to our Dear Leader.”

If only a British medallist could similarly dedicate their success to Gordon Brown, that really would constitute drama.

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www.MondayToFriday.com

I’ve finally found a woman who owns an apartment a stone’s throw from Farringdon Tube station and so 5 minutes walk to my clients offices, which is a real boon as I won’t have to suffer a tube or bus commute. It also means that I don’t think I’ll need to get a travel card, which will save me about a thousand pounds a year.

The apartment is in a private managed block with porters etc and closely resembles a hotel in appearance and quality. It’s on 2 floors and with open plan kitchen, dinning room, living room, bathroom and 2 double bedrooms (one en-suite), it’s actually bigger than the homes of some people I know! But that’s not the best bit. The owner actually lives in Bedfordshire and this apartment is her weekend London retreat… she’s not there all week and I’ll have the place entirely to myself, which is a right result.

So I’m rolling up on Monday with my bags and a cheque book and letters of reference, so fingers crossed it’ll all go well and I’ll be in Monday night.

Then the next task will be to find a Crossfit friendly gym in the area. I’ve already started the search and I think I may have found the idea place, which will also be an amazing bargain, but that’s another post.

World of Workcraft - takes 30 seconds to get going

Did you recognise the Counter Strike map?

I’m still working down in London full time for my new client and will for the foreseeable future, so I’ve been flat / room hunting, which is turning out to be much more of a pain than I’d anticipated. Seen good flats in bad locations, bad flats in great locations, bad flats in bad locations, and a great flat in a good location, but the guy doesn’t know when the room will be free and is going away on holiday for 3 weeks from next week!

I may end up just taking the closest one to work and be done with it. I went to see one yesterday that is 8 mins walk from work but is like going back to university halls of residence, 16 individual rooms across 4 floors each with communal kitchen, showers, toilets, and lounging space. As long as it’s not full of students (which is unlikely considering the exorbitant rent!) as the land lord attests to, it should be ok.

In other news, I tried out British Military Fitness last night. Not quite Crossfit, but I figured as close as I am going to get. The format is pretty basic, about 60 people all in Finsbury Park running around doing circuit training in the great British summer…. that’s right, a thunderstorm parked itself above us for about half an hour and we all got soaked!

The group is split up into bib colours: blue (for beginners), red (for intermediates), green (for advanced). As a first timer I was put in the blue group. I’ll see if I can remember the exercise routine, or some approximation to it:

Run, press ups (push ups for the Americans reading), run, sit ups, run, star jumps, run, burpees, run, touch 2 trees, run, “sawing” whilst holding a partners hands, jumping to change feet position, more sawing, run, partner leg locked sit ups, push up hand shaking with a partner, run, sit up to “high 10″ with a partner, run….

That was about the first 20 minutes there was another 30 minutes of the above basically lots of short runs interspersed with more press ups, sit ups, burpees, some tuck jumps, some lunge walks, a tiny bit of sprinting, some plank holds etc etc. There was a 2 minute water break half way through and the instructor asked me if I wanted to upgrade to the red team there and then ? Which was nice, seems Crossfit has equipped me reasonably well, but I figured I’d stick out my first session in the blues, only to get a good comparison between the 2 of course! I am however promoted to red for next time apparently.

But how did I find it? Well it lacks the intensity of Crossfit. At no point did I feel as tired as I do after any normal day at a Crossfit gym workout. Whilst it had been raining, I didn’t even feel particularly sweaty at the end. Yes I was tired but issues during the hours workout were general muscle strength failure. No matter how I do them, once I get over 50 press ups, they will only subsequently come in 2s and 3s. I reckon it’s not an exaggeration to say I did 100-150 press ups, and yes (karl :p) they were all full depth chest to floor, probably the same with sit ups, running was probably 2-3 miles in total (in lots and lots and lots of short stints).

Interestingly though, I don’t feel sore at all this morning. Typically after Crossfit’s Angie say, I would feel my pecks and abs for days afterwards. What does that say about BMF considering I think I did more press ups and more sit ups than Angie’s 100 of each? I guess it comes back to that intensity thing. Spreading the load over a longer time period means less power output and less of an impact on your body.

I will think about it today, but I suspect I’ll go back, given that I’m down in London and don’t have a Crossfit facility I can go to. I have to say though, gve me Crossfit any day.

All together a perfec

I got a new bona fide Personal Best down the gym on Saturday. Not just a 2008 PB as I rebuild backup to my pre golfers elbow issues, but for the first time this year a lift that beats my previous best in 2007 too. I was doing Push Jerks and I managed a single at 82.5kg, beating my previous PB of 80kg. 82.5kg is over my own body weight by the way.

As you can see my elbow is holding up nicely. We were actually doing sets of 3 and it was only when I got to 60kg that I started to notice it. At 70kg it was starting to become uncomfortable and at 75k there was a bit of pain, so I stopped the 3 reps. Actually it’s not the act of lifting the bar that hurts, but bringing it down to the rack position (on your shoulders) in order to get the 2nd and 3rd rep, that’s when the elbow is under most load whilst bent. That’s why I decided a 1 rep PB attempt was ok, I could just dump the bar afterwards.

In other good news, I alluded to the fact recently that I was going to make some changes at work and to that end I have a new client, one that is going to occupy 90% of my time for the foreseeable future. It’s a good project too which will see me effectively working for British Telecom on a high profile role (read Director level project sponsor). As a result I will not be taking on any new clients as this one will be occupying all my time.

Now for the bad news…

The new client means I’ll be spending most of my time working away from home in London Monday to Friday. Apart from the fact that I’ll be away from the family all week again, as I’ve got used to seeing my daughter every day, there are other considerations too: the weekly commute is damned expensive: £230 for a normal return ticket; I’ll also miss the guys and gals from my lunchtime sessions at Crossfit Manchester. They’re a great bunch of people and seeing them only on a Saturday would be a drag.

It’s worse than that though, as I’ve just discovered that Crossfit London only does group sessions on the weekends, which is of course when I’m back home in Manchester. I knew there wasn’t a Crossfit London gym, but was hoping for evening classes on a Tuesday and Thursday say just to keep my hand in. Seems I’m going to have to find a “normal gym”! Oh the horror! Actually to be 100% honest, I’ve never actually been in a normal gym, so it’s likely to be a rather intriguing experience.

Can anyone recommend a Crossfit friendly gym in the EC1 / N1 area?

I’m also obviously looking for digs too. My mate Jim has kindly offered to put me up for a bit on his sofa until I find a place. Easy Room Mate.com (dodgy name for a site!) has been recommended to me as a good site, and certainly I’ve already found 10 places on there that are potentially suitable. Anyone got any tips for how to chose a room to rent, not something I’ve ever had to do? I guess it’s mostly location and gut instinct on the other occupants.

So any way you look at it, it’s been a busy week.

This is incredibly detailed.

Ahhhhh, a warm fuzzy feeling one.

Having been mulling this over for a couple of months but had not really reached a decision, rather lazily after a brief search of the web I’d come to the conclusion that finding a reliable source would likely be the major limiting factor, so let that make the decision for me.

Today however, being the last Sunday of the month, I went to Ashton Farmers Market, where amongst the usual purchases of wild venison, rabbit (or Hare as it was today), assorted organic meats and a large bag of salamis, I also found myself at the Cheshire Cheese stall of HS Bourne. This was nothing out of the ordinary until he mentioned that some of the cheeses were from unpasturized milk and before I knew what I was saying, I asked if he sold unpasturised milk?

Imagine my surprise when he told me that he was in the process of getting approval and license to do just that and he would probably be able to sell it within a few weeks. There ensued some evangelising about raw milk and how healthy it was and how his whole family had grown up on it etc, but the real effect was that is spurred me on to do some proper research.

So a lazy Sunday afternoon with my mate Google later, and I am now as informed as I think I’m ever going to be on the subject. I had intended on reading the research papers myself but soon discovered that pretty much all serious research isn’t fully published on the net and you’re looking at about £30 to buy a research paper. However I did find what I suspect is the most comprehensive post on the net on the subject of unpasturised milk, indeed it took me about an hour to read it end to end.

Bill Marler summarises every major piece of research I’d come across and many more that I hadn’t, giving succinct bullet points on the germaine factors of each one, including not only their key findings but also what (if any) conclusions they draw. For example, I was particularly interested in reading a 2007 study entitled “Unpasteurized milk: health or hazard?” by M R Perkin, a 630 page research paper. Bill however summerises it thus:

• This is an editorial in the same issue with the Waser article below
• Reviews epidemiological evidence of the protective effect of raw milk for allergic disorders in children
• He concludes that the Waser paper “adds to the weight of evidence that a protective effect is associated with unpasteurized milk consumption….The key issue now is to determine what underlies this protective effect and whether it is possible to separate the protective effect from the hazardous [pathogens] substances.”

As you can surmise from that extract, the general opinion on the subject goes like this: There is most definitely a statistically signifacant relationship between raw milk consumption and reduced incidents of asthma and allergies (although some studies don’t necessarily distinguish between unpasturized milk and the more general benefits of living on a farm, aka the “hygiene hypothesis” which argues that exposure to a more biologically dirty environment as a kid, builds an improved immune system later in life).

However that increased health benefit comes with an increased risk of disease (e.g. salmonela, Cryptosporidium species, Campylobacter species and E. coli O157), further the damage done to the milk by pasturization is debated as a matter of science and the exact cause of the increased health benefit is not known. Therefore the general “official” opinion is that the benefits are not worth the risks.

I however am not convinced. I know lots of people with asthma (me and the Missus to a mild degree) and lots of people with allergies / excema. However I am only aware of knowing one person who had Salmonella and that was not due to raw milk or even eggs, it was an improperly cooked burger. In terms of statistics these are quoted in a legal case in America against Alta-Dena, a producer of Certified Raw Milk (CRM):

Dannemeyer traced the history of opposition to Alta-Dena and CRM from 1966 and said that the public has lost respect for public health authorities in California in regard to this issue. He claimed that health department records show that 3.6 million human cases of salmonellosis were reported between 1971 and 1982 in California, and that almost half of them were attributed to food service establishments, most of the remainder to meat and poultry, and only 103 to certified raw milk.

I had to read that 3 times before it sunk in: in 12 years there were 103 cases of salmonela attributed to raw milk, but that was out of 3.6 million other cases. 103 our of 3.6 million, that’s a tiny 0.003 percentage of cases! However the stats are confusing, as the previous quote was from an advocate of the raw milk trade, this next quote was from an antogonist:

Dr. Bolton exhibited a chart which analyzed the 123 cases of S. dublin reported in California in 1983. It showed 51 patients who used raw milk, including 44 who used it from Alta-Dena. Only 10 of the 51 had been exposed to such other possible sources of S. dublin infection as raw eggs or raw or rare meat.

Whis is a little odd, how was there 3.6 million cases in the 12 years to 1982, how come there was only 123 cases in 1983? To be honest I’m inclinded to believe the second statistic, it seems a more plausible number. Either way, it’s still a very small number and less than half are attributable to raw milk. Also bare in mind that none of these studies has reported any deaths as a result of unpasturised milk.

So in conclusion, I find that on the balance of probabilities, asthma, allergies and eczema are far more serious and massively more prevelant, 500 asthma related deaths each year for example in the under 65’s, with 74,000 emergency hospital admissions each year.  Compare that to a handful of salmonela cases… it seems ludicous to me to compare the two.

It strikes me that it is fear that makes the establishment advise against raw milk.  Fear of the unknown in that they can’t say what it is that bestows the health benefits; and fear of saying something is safe that they can’t explain, especially in this litigious society.  It’s a shame, but there you have it.  I’m going to look forward to my first batch of unpasturised milk, I wonder if it really tastes as good as people say?

Which made me think about checking out some of the best cat collection videos, here’s a couple:

Saved the best one till last:

Dear Mr McNulty,

On behalf of the European Space Agency, I wish to thank you for your application and interest in joining the European Astronaut Corps.

I regret to inform you that after very careful consideration, it has been decided not to retain your application for the post of Astronaut. However, should you not object, we would like to keep your file on record for other career opportunities at ESA and contact you if a post which matches your profile should emerge.

I would also like direct your attention to ‘Careers at ESA’ website in which we advertise all current external vacancies. You may also be interested in subscribing to our recently introduced job alert feature. In order to receive the regular updates on vacant positions at ESA, please click

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Careers_at_ESA/index.html

and follow the link ‘Subscribe to ESA vacancy notices’.

On behalf of the European Space Agency, I wish you all the best for your further career.

Yours sincerely,

F.C. Danesy
Head, ESOC Human Resources Division

And just for those sore losers out there, it ended:

This is a no-reply email address. Please do not respond to this email.

I was always going to have only a very outside chance, but it was worth it for the fun of applying. There’s not many people who can say that they even tried to become an astronaut and I’ve already had my monies worth in conversations it’s brought up with friends and relatives (like the look on my parents faces when I told them! ).

Good luck to those who got through, I shall be watching with interest to see if any English people make the final cut. And now, if you’ll forgive the self congratulatory tone of a job application, here are my (obviously WRONG) answers to the big questions on my astronaut application form (actually these are my initial long versions before I realised that the word count limit was actually a character count limit! I had to cut these down to fit the application form):

Why do you want to become an astronaut?

Arthur C Clarke said: “Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we’re not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.” The universe is very, VERY big and if we are alone, there are unimaginable wonders out there that will never be witnessed by anyone except us. If we are not alone, then one day mankind will discover that there are bigger issues at stake than those confined to our small world. In either case, the most momentous events in human history are yet to happen to our species and they are inextricably linked to our manned space program.

We have the technology and the opportunity to reach out and explore our solar. History will look back at the 20th and 21st century as the pioneering age of space and record how it laid the foundation for the future of human space travel. If what humble skills I have can be put to good use furthering the development of our manned space programme, then it would be a privilege to devote the rest my working life to the greatest adventure known to man.

In your opinion, what are the main tasks that should be performed by an astronaut?

Put simply, the promotion of human space flight to the public. We have the technology, the ability and the imagination to achieve phenomenal progress. What is lacking, particularly in Europe, is the political will. In the 1960’s it was the Cold War that drove the US space program and the moon landings, since then the world has moved forward in co-operation with the ISS. It’s is ironic then that it’s exactly that spirit of co-operation and lack of an “Us vs Them” conflict that has seen the contribution of public funding reduce in recent decades, to the detriment of the space program. It is a credit then to the current US administration that they have recommitted to the manned exploration of space, something that needs to be replicated in Europe.

It is the duty of members of the European space community then, to promote space travel in order to influence political agenda and funding decisions. What better ambassador for the space program is there than an astronaut, truly the fairytale hero of every school boy and girl. It’s exactly these children that grow up to be the voters, the policy makers and world leaders of the future. By promoting and sharing the dream of manned space travel, we can galvanise public opinion and secure long term future funding for our manned spaceflight programme.

Write a candid description of yourself as a person.

Colin is a calm, thoughtful person and a sublime generalist, excelling at any task undertaken. His organised and structured mind is able to quickly grasp the core issues in complex situations, reacting with composure in the face of pressure. Whilst showing a high level of personal initiative, Colin’s affable nature sees him work very well in close nit teams. For the last 15 years Colin has worked in and successfully lead, multi-functional teams comprising 3 to 30 people, from a variety of countries and cultures. Cross cultural man management skills have been well used working on time critical projects with budgets up to EUR 30 million, where Colin typically takes on the roles of technical consultant and general trouble shooter.

Other

A broad engineering background enables Colin to grasp technical concepts quickly, which coupled with an empathetic comprehension of the layman’s level of knowledge, has enabled Colin to spend a decade bridging the gap between the deeply technical and the ordinary man on the street. Whether that be tutoring school children, being the face of technical projects to users, running workshops or giving training courses, Colin is able to explain complicated concepts in engaging ways that anyone can understand. This confidence born from experience, gives Colin the comfortable self-assurance to give presentations to wide ranging audiences, from blue collar worker up to a board of Directors.