Goodbye 2005

As noted last week, it's that time of year again (Or not in a few hours). Due to non-relativistic time differences across the globe, the New Year is celebrated at different times depending on where you are. If you lived in New Zealand and had a fast aeroplane, you could probably celebrate it twice, which means that you would have to drink twice as much and in all likelihood get twice the hangover.

I opted out of doing that this year, so I decided to have my New Years Eve celebratory drinks on December 30 at Kristy's rather impromptu bbq, which was in part brought on by the fact that Greg Boorer and Margie Hemsley were passing through town. Definitely a fun evening and I have added two new words to my lexicon, courtesy of Greg: Tidy and Complete Package.

After draining the last drop from the Grand Marnier bottle, we called it a night, or to be more accurate, an early morning. I'm certain that they put stuff in Grand Marnier that makes your head spin, round and round, up and down. It was still doing it 6 hours later when I arose, bright as a brand new pin to greet the dawn and start work. It was approximately at this time when I decided that I wasn't going to drink tonight (being NYE).

Translating Portuguese with a spinning head is never easy, but fortunately I had a trick up my sleeve courtesy of a Christmas present from Uncle Ron and Aunt Kate: a book called Superfoods: Fourteen foods that will change your life. For some reason, neither beer, potatoes, or chocolate are mentioned in this tome but I'll overlook that glaring lacuna.

To save you reading the book, the 14 Superfoods are: Beans, Soy, Blueberries, Spinach, Broccoli, Tea (not herbal), Oats, Tomatoes, Oranges, Turkey, Pumpkin, Walnuts, Salmon and Yoghurt. There are a number of allegorical similar foods in each Superfood group, e.g. cherries, strawberries, red grapes, cranberries, raspberries, blackberries and currants in the blueberry group. But blueberries are the tops in terms of the size of their nutritious punch. They even contain a couple of compounds (one is salicylic acid) that are anti-inflammatories!

Although it's obviously aimed at Americans with rubbish diets, I did find the book interesting reading. These foods are singled out because of their role in reducing diseases like cancers, stroke, arteriosclerosis, death etc. They're better than other "health foods" in this regard. Hell, even apples don't get a mention.

So I decided to eat a healthy breakfast this morning, having concocted the ideal Superfood brekky in my head: porrige (oats) with LSA mix (Linseed/sunflower/almonds - all good Omega 3 sources, like walnuts), blueberries and strawberries, soy milk and yoghurt, and a couple of cups of tea. That's six Superfoods in one meal, and it's actually almost identical to my standard breakfast anyway.

I must say that it had a remarkable effect on me. I went from feeling like I had been eating pure salmonella out of the can to feeling human again after having ingested brekky. Much better than a Berocca any day.

I still have to work on the rest of my diet, as for lunch I had two cheese and tomato sandwiches, an apple, a power bar, some chocolate and some muesli bars (jeez I was hungry). For arvo tea I had a cheese and tomato sandwich, a muesli bar, an apple and a cuppa tea. For dinner I had two toasted cheese and tomato sanwiches, a bowl of ice cream - with extra nuts - some muesli bars and a cup of milo - with LSA added.

OK you have to take these things a step at a time. No point going cold turkey...

NYE crit racing

I saw that they were racing at Sutherland on NYE so I thought it might be a good head clearer. It was nice and quite remarkable to ride 30 km out there from work along the Princes Highway at peak hour in almost no traffic.

We only had 10 starters, including the 9 foot tall Troy Glennan (FRF) and Dave Treacy (who has just joined Randwick/FRF). I went with the first attack and that ended up sort of being the winning break. We had three for a while and I was the strongest, which was nice. But then Troy and Dave bridged up, we lost one, and I suddenly became the weakest, which was not nice.

Troy eventually just rode away and we were quite happy to see him go. Dave stopped working because he was in theory a teammate (and I guess I was too) but it was academic. For some reason I ended up doing the last lap in front, even having a little dig up the hill when the other two started playing cat and mouse. But they came back, I led out, and of course finished last.

I had planned a ride home with Dave and Troy's brother but my tyre went flat just as we were leaving. I put one tube in and it was a dud, then another one in that almost worked, but then suddenly it died (the patch wasn't good enough). The auspices were not in my favour and it was getting dark so Dave's partner Mel kindly gave me a lift home. It was actually a bit of a relief to spend NYE fixing tubes and eating toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches.

I also bought my plane ticket back to Belgium today. Leaving Sydney on Feb. 14 and getting in a day later, I hope.

er, Happy New Year and all that. I'm getting auld. That makes approx. 50,000 words of bilge since I started this in May. What dribble.

Jeff's Christmas Blog

Dear all,

I am not a habitual Bible quoter (or reader for that matter), but this passage from Corinthians sprang into my mind the other day between Waterfall and Sutherland, and wouldn't leave. So it's going to make it into me Christmas update. Sorry for any offence - just don't take any; that's my motto.

51: Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52: In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the Last Trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. (1 Corinthians, chapter 15)

Yes folks, it's Christmas again, and that means it's that time of year. This can be done in reverse as well at no extra charge. As a bonus, I'll throw in a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to youse all for just $4.89, and that, believe me, is a bargain if ever there was one. Please send money to Jeff's Bilgespot, c/- The Steaming North, Australia. I'm not actually in The Steaming North as such, but it feels like it. For those with a geographical bent, I'm at my grandparents' place in Nelson Bay, approx. 200 km north of Sydney, and it's very steamy.

Thank you to all who have sent me Christmas cards and presents this year, but for those of you who didn't bother...don't think you are being removed from my email list that easily! Oh no, it's much harder than that. On a comparative scale, it's far easier to stop receiving offers for free Rolex watches and Viagra than it is to get off this spam list. I know where you are and I will track you down if you try.

Alas, this marks the end of my holiday period and that means that it's the beginning of my working period. I'm back on the job on Monday and will be going down to cover the Aussie Championships and Tour Down Under between January 11-24(ish). Jeez, that's nearly two weeks. I'd better make it my off-season. And in a cunning move to a) avoid even more Belgian winter and b) avoid getting deathly ill, I've delayed my return date to Belgium by a few weeks, until February 15 or thereabouts. Luckily I paid an extra month's rent on my place in Gent.

Speaking of holidays, an account of my holiday can also be mailed to you free of charge, save for the account itself which runs into several hundreds of dollars. This is on account of various activity nights over the past three weeks, and accounts of those can be read in the other updates on me Bilgespot. I have shown, conclusively I think, that lots of beer makes you dehydrated. I'm going to publish that as a Fact Worth Knowing, especially when you are in The Steaming North.

Anyway, it's been great to catch up with everyone over the past weeks, and I hope to do some more catching up before Departure.

Trophy Race reportage

There's not a great deal to report from the Easts Trophy Race, as it wasn't terribly exciting. Started with a bunch of 58 A and B graders, finished with a bunch of 25 A graders and a few disgruntled B graders who were chasing. There were too many teams interested in a bunch sprint so that's how it ended up. My plan was to try to assist one of the other Gallant Randwick Botany lads in the last few laps but several mishaps at critical points in the last three laps put paid to that. I managed to drop my chain (very rare on this bike), nearly hit Spongee Jenkins when he dug a pedal for the nth time, and nearly crashed into Katie Brown, who was warming down in stealth mode after coming third in C grade.

Oh well, Pat Naughton and I watched the sprint unfold from the back and saw some interesting shortcut tactics going on coming into the straight. Mr Fitzpatrick, S., guilty as charged, Your Honour. But José won it anyway so it was all to nought.

All up it's been a moderately successful summer for me here, with fewer placings but one win - so that's enough to keep me happy until next year. My sprint has completely gone to pot so I must be getting old, or not smoking enough.

Movies

The movie report will be even shorter than the race report because I haven't seen any movies at all in the last two months. I think most of my movie watching time has been taken up by recovery sleeps, and that's probably a good thing. But be warned, this section will be back, filled with more dross than ever before.

The Last Trump

Well, I've just typed over half a milli-simian, which is approximately ten times the output of a single monkey that has been employed to randomly write out the complete works of Bill Shakespeare. Basically, that amounts to a whole lot of drivel, and there's more where that came from. Mark my words.

For those of you who missed it at the beginning, and I don't blame you in the slightest if you skipped to the end to find out what happened, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and don't forget to hydrate properly.

To the Club

I am reminded of a song by Spankox entitled, "To the Club". It goes something like:

Monday night, to the club
Tuesday night, to the club
Wednesday night, what a headache, but I went...to the club
Thursday night, to the club
Friday night didn't wanna go, but my friend Michelle called me on the phone and so I went...to the club!
etc.

Yes, there have been more outings this week, including another and more "in depth" visit to the Belgian Beer Café on Wednesday, and a rather late (or early, depending on how you look at it) excursion to a nightclub on Friday. Belgian beer is good stuff, but I was reminded on Thursday that it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Thus, Friday evening after racing was spent drinking lite beer, which is a bit of a waste of money. You may as well alternate between a glass of real beer and one of water, because lite beer just doesn't quite have the flavour/alcohol/social ambience of the so-called real stuff.

Despite not hitting the turps too hard, getting to bed at 4am on Friday night was not really conducive to the Optimum Recovery from Racing Plan^TM, especially as I had to get up at approximately in the vicinity of that hour on Sunday morning to race at West Head. It's all in the name of Fun and Fitness and is slightly better than banging your head against a wall.

I've been brushing up on a bit of Barry McKenzie too - classy stuff. Also, ma and I murdered Schubert's Fantasia in F minor duet on Saturday night. There should be a law against playing the piano when slightly pissed (we had one of mum's friends around for dinner). Maybe the Philosophers Song is appropriate at this juncture.

Racing (Greg)

Only one more race to go this year so I've been doing as much as poss in the last few weeks. Five times in the last nine days has been pretty full-on, especially combined with the Optimum Recovery from Racing Plan^TM. However, it's been generally OK.

Last Tuesday at Heffron was our quickest yet, and I actually had good legs which was lucky, 'cos the FDJ-NSWIS boyz came down along with a few other hitters. We were lapping between 2'38 and 2'40 (a bit over 45 clicks an hour, utilising the metric system) and caught B grade with about four to go and C grade with just over one to go. The last lap and sprint was somewhat hairy, as they always are, but I managed to navigate my way through a bit of traffic to finish in the top 10 and well out of the money. But the sensations were good, as they say.

Just for a change I pedaled down to Sutherland for a Friday evening crit, and that was an enjoyably painful affair, with the emphasis on the painful side of things. At least it was only 24 km, so the pain was not too long lasting. Feeling suicidal, I attacked after about 10 mins and had a small gap when they blew the whistle for the first prime. My eyes lit up with the prospect of winning money, and I went flat out for the next lap to secure the princely sum of 10 bucks, which cancelled out my race entry money. Whoopee!

I hung out there for a few more laps until the hill started to take its toll and I was swallowed. The next two laps were rather painful but I just managed to hang on. At about 3.5 to go, a couple of guys attacked and - still feeling suicidal and not wanting to miss the fun - I got onto them at the bottom of the hill. It was a bit of a mistake as I couldn't even do one turn, and I was a little relieved when a couple of others bridged up. I hung on and finished fourth (they only paid top 3) and was a little annoyed that I was feeling so bad that I couldn't do any work. Thus, I vowed to drink lite beer that evening...

Sunday's Graham Jones Memorial Tour was a race I'd been looking forward to, because it was a change from the criteriums. We did an undulating 9.6km time trial, followed by a 45 km road race out to West Head and back, twice. I was happy with my TT, finishing in about 14'10 which was 15 secs quicker than two weeks ago. But for some reason, all (or a lot) of the times were out by roughly 30 seconds so I was given 13'45 for fifth place. Quickest was NSW State Champ Klayten Smith, who did 13'19, then David Rae (Easts, complete with shit hot TT bike) on 13'20, then NSW State runner up, Grafton and Tour of Bright winner Pete McDonald on 13'27, then another guy from Bicisport on 13'42, then moi.

With Klayten and Pete there, I knew there was approximately zero chance of me winning unless both of them crashed into each other. Klayten was a bit iffy 'cos his stem had a big crack in it, but we were all hoping that it wouldn't collapse on the way out to West Head.

The road race is always brutal. It starts with a 2 km climb and then goes up and down all the damn way, with climbs of between 500m-1km, dead roads and a nasty finish up a 300m/9% climb. Luckily there was no repeat of last year when the Tour leader attacked on the first climb and destroyed the bunch within two kilometres, with Robbie Cater and I hanging on for dear life. Robbie was actually with us today, but it was his first race back after a few months off so he just did one lap.

Given that David Rae was a TT specialist, it was really up to Pete to try to take the 8 seconds back from Klayten, which meant that he would have to win by 4 seconds as the time bonuses were 15-10-5 seconds for first three. On the first lap, Pete and David kept throwing in these little surges on all of the climbs and I kept yo-yoing off the back. Not good, as the group was still pretty large. But I didn't want to go into the red too much early on, and I was fairly confident I could rejoin on the downhills, which I managed to do each time. The group slowly got smaller and I thought about chucking it in on the way back on lap 1, until I saw David Rae crack. I chased back on and we were down to six riders, then on the finishing climb at the end of the lap, we dropped two of them and were finally down to four.

Lap 2 was a bit better as Pete's surges weren't as savage and Klayten was just keeping an eye on him. The other guy with us had beaten me in the TT by 3 seconds so all I needed to do was try to stay with him and grab the third place time bonus at the end.

Pete and Klayten finally cleared out with about 4 km to go and we really didn't have to chase them, even if we were able. On the finishing climb, the Bicisport dude sprinted hard from the bottom, which I thought was suicide. I was proved right as he expired halfway up so I secured third. Definitely happy with that, considering we had the top two guys in the State titles there.

I had better get some shut-eye. My body clock is just totally wrong.

Sweatin' it out

After the Week that Was, there came the Weekend that Wasn't. It wasn't as bad as I expected it would be; neither was it particularly good. If Josh is correct - and I'm sure he is - then the last Week that Was was at Noosa in Feb. '98.


The 'why am I here?' look on Saturday
© Tony Horneman

On Saturday I lined up at Heffron for the usual 18 lapper, fully expecting to be hammered by Grafton winner Peter "The Machine" McDonald. He did not disappoint, attacking on the first lap and not ceasing until in the end, he had whittled the bunch of 13 down to three. He sprints as well as I do, so he got third.

In the early stages, when we were seven, I made the mistake of sitting up after doing my turn and trying to go to the back of the group. There were two guys who refused to come past me and we were all dropped simultaneously. Rule number one: Never let Peter McDonald get a gap.

So I spent the next 14 laps chasing with another guy, slowly losing ground to The Machine's group of four, which eventually became three. I guess we kept putting time into the rest of A grade so it wasn't all bad. I actually ended up fourth, where I probably still would have finished had I been with the front group. But it's always nice to be in the lead break rather than chasing. It was a good way to work off the excesses of the previous week too, as the photo above indicates.

Sunday's fixture was a bit (but not much) different - a 47km crit up at Beaumont Rd, Mt. Kuring-gai. It's about 40km to get there but the start was at 8:15am, so I didn't have to get up at a completely stupid hour. The course is a hotdog circuit of 3.2 km, with a bit of a hill in the middle and U-turns at each end.

I was impressed with the turnout: we must have had well over 100 riders in four grades, including a good 25-30 in A grade. It was a fairly attacking race too, which was good. It was also extremely easy to sit on, because apart from the two corners there were no other technical difficulties and no wind. I managed to inveigle my way into a few breakaways at various stages, all of which were pulled back.

I thought I'd have a go on the last lap 'cos I knew that a top 3 in a bunch sprint was somewhat improbable. So I went on the downhill just before the last corner with about 2km left and got a bit of a gap. I made it to the top of the hill coming back and attempted to wind up for a last ditch kick for the line, but there was not a lot left. A South African kiddie - Raynold Smith, who rides for Van Hemert Groep and did OK in Belgium this year - flew past me on the run into the line and won easily. Another guy chased him and I should have tried to get his wheel but mentally I had given up the ghost. He was just caught by Nash Kent and Laurie Vignes for second and third. It was rather fun.

I rode home via Bobbin Head with most of the Bicisport peloton and that was also rather fun. Spent most of the rest of the day sleeping and buggering up Bach's Prelude No. 2 in C minor. I've nearly cracked it though...

More galvanising this week, starting with Janelle's very sensibly organised Monday night birthday bash. Must try to get out for a ride.

The Week that Was

Squally pocker dum. Oog. Walter the Wallabee has been spending the day week drinking beer with his pals Isembard the Iguana and Roger the Rabbit. This time, there was no inkblot to prevent them and Walter imbibed much amber ale. In the absence of real Belgian beer, I have Walter has opted for Becks, Hahn, Little Creatures Pale Ale, Redback, and - at a stretch - Tooheys Extra Dry. But no wine.

So far it's been all good. I feel like I've been drinking beer since Tuesday, December 7, and apart from a few breaks to ride my bike, it's not too far from the truth. Tuesday was fun - we came dead last at the Recognition PR Trivia Night at NSW Leagues Club and we were actually trying. Even if I had been there for the first two rounds and got questions such as "Who wrote the Nutcracker Suite?" correct (Hint: it wasn't bloody John Pachelbel, it was Mike Tchaikovsky) we still would have been shafted. Apart from getting our wooden spoons and Kit-kats for coming last, the highlight of the night was probably when each table was given a bag of straws, paper, blu-tack, scissors and elastic bands and asked to build the tallest free-standing tower possible. We started by joining straws together and that probably wasn't the best plan. We eventually built a foundation from rolled up pieces of paper and propped up our superstructure against the table.

It goes without saying that we lost the tower building competition quite miserably.

And so it continues...

Forget the hair of the dog. I find the best hangover cure to be a four and a half hour ride in 30 degree heat. So on Wednesday I set out north, bound for Berowra Waters and Galston Gorge, two climbs I haven't done for yonks. It was a fun ride, and Berowra is still a tough little climb, averaging about 7 percent for 3 km. Galston is much more fun because of all the hairpins, and it's only 5 percent for 3 km. By the time I got back it was mid-afternoon so I had to rehydrate in time to go to the pub with Steve later.

Thursday: repeat, except the ride was only 75 km and I still had a hangover. Evening. Pub. Paul M., Dave, Kristy, Kate M. Missed dessert and got home late. Worked on the hangover again. Hangover coming along nicely.

Friday: repeat, except the ride was only 40 km, I still had a hangover and I had to go to the dentist. I needed two injections to make my mouth numb enough for the Friendly Dentist to go in hard with the drill. It was only one filling, but I've been putting it off for the whole year. Tricky. I couldn't talk properly for about five hours afterwards, and even drinking out of a glass felt strange. Thus, I had to drink straight from the bottle for the office Christmas Party. That was at Tanman's rather fine apartment in Randwick overlooking Coogee Beach and a whole lotta other bits of the Eastern Slurbs.

Crikey it has been a tough week, despite being on holidays. I would have to backtrack to Noosa (199?) to find an equivalent week. I'll have to dry out over the weekend and race a couple of times, provided the weather eases up. It's pouring here at the moment, as it has done all afternoon.

In the meantime, I've been brushing up on my Bach and Chopin, and can now play that bloody Nocturne Op. Post. in C# minor without buggering it up halfway. I'm so proud. I've also sorted a couple of Bach Preludes, but I'm still nutting out Number II in C minor. Bit tricky, but I'm getting there. It's been fun playing the piano again!

Hits from the Blog

Huzzah, 'tis the holidays (for me anyway). That means I can be a sloth for the next three weeks before work resumes at Xmas time. Oh wot larx. My social colander is already filling up with important macaroni, and it's now five-sevenths full for the next week. In non-food layman's terms, this means that I am going out for five days out of the next seven, which is probably a post-university record. It also looks like quite a lot of alcoholic beverages, so I will have to pace myself like I did at the Australian Cyclist of the Year Awards.

Strangely enough, on the Sunday morning following the Awards, I woke up feeling very, very ill. It was strange because I should have felt worse on Saturday morning, but didn't, so I have retrospectively attributed this to food poisoning of some sort. I could barely eat breakfast but still rode out to Parramatta in 38 degree heat for the Teams Race. Dearie me, what was I thinking? Two punctures later, I got to Parramatta Park in the midst of all the 5000 people finishing the Cycle Sydney, and proceeded to not look forward to the race. Luckily for me, the worthy burgers at NSWCF Inc. Pty. Ltd. cancelled the race because the local Sarge hadn't actually approved it. I did think there would be a problem racing on the circuit when there were hordes of people still trickling in (some literally) from the Cycle Sydney. But what would I know?

I did make it to Josh's place a bit earlier and collapsed on the floor for the duration of the afternoon, being rehydrated by Josh and Anita and occasionally trodden on by Daniel, who is a fine child of two and more than a half. Anita is expecting another in January and good luck to her, I say. Fortunately Josh gave me a lift home because I was in no condition to move very far. All I could eat all day were some cheese and crackers and a chocolate biscuit. Even drinking made me feel ill.

Monday was pretty much the same, so definitely no riding. Once I got into work I was a little better and I could eat solids again. I really have no idea what was wrong, but I felt as if someone had flattened me.
Tuesday and Wednesday were marginally better, despite it being 40 degrees in Sydney(!) Jeez Louise. I managed to ride but had a tendency to blow up after about an hour.

It took until Friday to feel back to normal again. This was fortunate because we had an important Family pre-Xmas engagement over at Kiribati. Most of the Jones brigade were there: Alec, Libby, Antony (who's orf to China this week for a five week look-see at the Forbidden City and Great Wall), Alana, Sophie, Nik, Nina (child of Sophie and Nik, also very fine), Cathy (not a Jones but mother of Christina, of Sam and Christina fame, neither of whom were there), and Edith. All of the elder Joneses are pretty deaf so we spent the evening shouting at each other, drinking champers and eating Dolmathakia.

I felt well enough to race on Saturday so I did, and managed my first third place this summer season. It was one of those ridiculously strong Nor' easterly days which reduced us to a grovel on the back straight. I was using my 53x21 on the second 'pimple', to give you an idea of it. There were about 15 starters but after a few laps, Spurge decided that he'd had enough and attacked a few times. After five laps we had a break of five (Spurge, Pat Naughton, George Pappas just back from the Himalayas, and Nick Rathbourne) and that was it. I had a coupla attacks in the closing laps but I knew they would be pointless and they were.

The sprint was interesting: Spurge and I started at the same time, but Spurge managed to drop the chain off the big ring (he jumped in the 53x11!) and almost irreversibly injured himself. So that put him out of contention and Pat and Nick easily passed me to take first and second. My sprint needs some work 'cos it's nowhere near as good as last year yet.

Sunday, being my first official day of hols, saw me get up at a ridiculous hour (4:45am) and trundle north to Terrey Hills for what I thought was going to be a one day tour. I was almost late but they'd decided not to have the tour and just run a 9.6 km TT instead. Normally there is a really tough 44 km road race out to West Head and back twice afterwards. I would have preferred that to the TT, but anyway...

The TT course is reasonably tough. It undulates downhill for the outward leg but there is a nasty little hill right at the turnaround. Coming back is a grovel - it's more uphill than down and it's bloody hard to keep your momentum. I had a good ride going out in about 6'55 (4.8 km) but struggled a bit coming home. I've now realised my left shoe/orthotic is not at all correctly positioned and my foot was sliding all over the place, which was not good at all. I finished up with 14'24, which was 7 seconds slower than I did last year on what should have been a faster bike. But the winning time was 14'22 so I was second, which ain't too bad I suppoge.

We did get a bunch together to cruise down to Akuna Bay, which I haven't done for many many years, and then out to West Head/Church Point to satisfy our masochistic tendencies. That was good as it was a tres nice day and we still got our ride in.

On Sunday evening there was a Main side of the family gathering chez nous so we caught up with Jeff and Linda and Justine and Nick. Justine is also very pregnant with the Child expected sometime around Xmas, so good luck to her I say. We had much wine and Greek foodage, and no-one got food poisoning, which was a plus.

Luxury pet beds

Possibly the saddest thing I have seen this year is the Luxury Pet Bed shop on Parramatta Road, just before the turn-off to Crystal Street. Ma pointed it out to me the other night after we'd feasted at the Sushi Bar Rashai. Even though it's on a major road, it's in a pretty dead area for a shop and I can't imagine there'd be a lot of passing trade. But perhaps it wouldn't matter, because when you look through the window and see all these miniature beds for cats/dogs/other domesticated animals, you ask yourself "Who on earth would buy such a thing?". The beds are like real beds, with little iron bedheads, mattresses, pillows, and I'm sure you could get mini-doonas as well...

Ma said she's never seen anyone inside the shop. It's tragic really.

I'd better get back to murdering perfecting this Chopin Nocturne. Luckily it's a posthumous one.