Bumbling to work

After a month of excuses (which started with Chicken Pox, but got progressively less valid as the month went on) I finally got back on the bike and cycled into work this morning.

The virtuous path is littered with rewards, if you count something like following a bumblebee for 20 metres up the road at eye level as a reward (which I do… maybe I’m strange.)

Of course there is also the fiscal reward. I drove past the service station the other day and marvelled at the price of diesel – 130p per litre! (For Aussie readers, that’s over AU$3… or £80 / $192 to fill up my people-carrier!) My immediate thought was that the only way I’m going to feel good about seeing that sign on my way to work in the morning is if I’m cycling past it. So I cycled past it this morning, and it was blank. I guess they were in the middle of putting the price up.

The other immediate benefits of riding in are the endorphin rush (cranked up ‘Whole Lotta Love’ on YouTube and enjoyed ensuing silliness around the office – not sure if my workmates did) and the internal thermostat adjustment – am sitting here feeling a lot less chilly than I was yesterday, though the office is apparently the same temperature.

Re: Whole Lotta Love. Isn’t it nice that Robert Plant measures his love in inches?

Wanted: Anorak (Zeppelin and Python)

I was just wondering, is the little syncopated riff that Jimmy Page plays in the outro of ‘In My Time of Dying’ a nod to Monty Python’s ‘Hello Operator’ song? The resemblance is uncanny.

You know the bit, right at the end of the song, Robert Plant goes ‘dying, dying, dying…… cough….’. Then there’s a little ‘doo-dy-doo-dy-doo, doo-dy-doo-dy-doo’ (the riff in question).

I have no idea if the chronology is correct. If Physical Graffiti came out before whatever series of Flying Circus contained that song, then obviously it can’t be so. It was the same episode as the All-England Summarise Proust competition.

I guess there’s only one person who can answer this important question. Does anyone know Jimmy Page’s email?

– Edit –

I’m getting to grips with the technology here… here is the (last few minutes of the) Led Zep song:

If you don’t feel like sitting through Robert’s wailings, scroll to 02:35 to hear the riff. (And the cough).

Now here’s the Monty Python song (it starts at 01:45):

So? It is, isn’t it?