What would Camilla say?

Taken from this weeks Holy Moly mailout…

weigh-day friday

Now, I’m getting into this – after the revelation about the tale of the tape earlier this week its time for another weigh-day friday…and I’ve been really focused for the last two weeks. I finally understand that the absolute correct way to do this whole weight loss thing is really really simple.

Eat Less, Move More

To add to that, I’ve learnt that there is an optimum way of burning fat (which, to be frank, is what I’m all about at the moment), they even mark it on the machines… 65% = Burning Fat / 85% = Cardiovascular. So after spending my first few weeks focused on the CV speed to get my fitness up, I can now spend 95% of my time at the gym with my pulse rate sitting at 65% of my recommended maximum.

So I do a quick warm up on the treadmill, followed by about 40-45 minutes between the elliptical machine and the cycle.

The results are speaking for themselves!

Damien Rice – Reading Hexagon

 My first trip to the Hexagon in Reading, which could quite honestly be the ugliest building in the western world, but it has parking close by and places to eat in reading – so its not a bad venue. We pitched up at around 8pm, and the venue was nicely full of very well behaved couples – exactly as you’d expect the audience at a Damien Rice concert to be, we strolled into the standing area and managed to stand about three rows back to the right hand side of the stage.

About half eight, there was the sound of a violin tuning up or soundchecking, which built up into about 8 or 9 minutes of earsplitting violin/cello/bass loops…it was utterly shocking….and quite a few people had their fingers in the ears. I’m still not sure if it was part of the music played by the production crew, or whether it was an intro to the gig, but right at the end Damien and the band ambled on – and right on cue started talking.

He opened up with a gently rambling story, whilst a wine waiter served them all a glass of wine – and the delivered an excellent, drunken ’Cheers Darlin’ to kick us off. He played a fantastic version of my favourite ‘La Professor et la Fille’, with its lovely french ending, and a great version of Eskimo Friends. Towards the end he was talking with the crowd and asked a guy in the front row what he did…he obviously said he was a singer/guitarist and Damien Rice actually pulled him up on stage to sing with him, the guy did a great version of ‘Cold Water’ with Damien Rice singing Lisas backing vocals – it was an amazing moment at a great gig.

At the end of the gig – Damien Rice stepped in front of the mic, and sung one with out any amps – purely busker style, you could hear a pin drop.

Damien Rice redeemed himself yesterday- last time I saw him I didn’t think he was much good (Brixton Academy 2005), but last night he was excellent.

My pictures from last night in Reading are here

UPDATE : This is the guy that got up on stage last night with Damien Rice – he even has Cold Water as a cover on his myspace…

Tale of the tape…

They still compare boxers by size as well as weight – you see heavyweight boxers compared by the size of their waist, thigh and then their reach. Its clear to me that two people can weigh approximately the same – and yet have two different body shapes.

So why the hell didn’t I start measuring myself when I started on my quest to lose weight and get fit. I’ve been mildly frustrated by the fact that I’m eating really well (healthy, lean food), and working out almost every day (6 out of 7 last week) – and yet the weight loss progress seemed to plateau a bit.

However – this weekend, I had a revelation…I went to buy some clothes for an upcoming holiday…and nothing fitted. I had to go a size down on shorts/trousers and ended up buying shorts for my holiday that I wouldn’t have fitted into for the last 5 years.

Thats the tale of the tape!

friday in the club…

Blonde Punter : “You look like a famous DJ, are you famous?”
Me : “Nope, just a local DJ”
Blonde Punter : “No, really – you look like that guy…erm”
Me : “Whoever he is, I’m not him…”
Blonde Punter : “Thats it, Chris Moyles…”
Me : “…”
Blonde Punter : “Yeah, you really look like him…”
Mr : “Thanks…”

(Shikaras / Friday 29th June 2007)

weigh-day friday

Honestly – I’m surprised I haven’t put a stone on – the week in the US was really tough for me, big portions, dressing on every salad and excuses to take a beer or two. Plus I  only got to work out twice while I was there because of some crazy early starts. So, I got my head down this week in the gym and have put in 4 good workouts (only missed yesterday due to a full day in London). Weekend at Mums should be OK, I have to resist the beer in the pub – but I plan to go running for the FIRST TIME EVER.

Next weeks travel schedule looks ideal – I should be in the gym 4 days out of 5, and I have no evening temptations lined up.

So – I end this week two kilos lighter than my last weigh day – next weigh-in will be 13th July

home

Back after a fine week in Seattle – strange week, feel like I did very little work – and now I have the inbox from hell to pay me back for time spent in offsite meetings, awards dinners and ‘morale’ events.

Suitcase issues aside, it was pretty good – weather was lovely and Seattle  life is always pretty good fun for me…some nice meals, catch up with my team mates and some tourity thing sin the mix.

Full set of photos over here on flickr. I only took my point and shoot, and not my 350d – so no miracles should be expected.

Now I need to go and fill out the huge form to claim some expenses from British Airways!

sixteen

So – this was supposed to be a cool thing showing 16 random books from my website…but it broked my RSS feed, so I’m removing it till I understand what the fudge is going on!

the ideal condition – paul hartnoll

 Its been ages since anyone released an album that I wanted to write about, and suddenly three or four have arrived at once. I was eagerly awaiting an album from either of the Orbital brothers, and finally ‘The Ideal Condition’ from Paul Hartnoll has dropped.

Orbital were one of my all-time favourite bands – combining tough electronica with beautiful melodies, and straddling the line between Dance and festival still rock music perfectly. Seeing them live was an extraordinary thing, and I still love listening to their albums now.

The Ideal Condition is a slight departure from that – reducing the electronica down to an almost film-score like atmosphere, and delivering some really beautiful soundscapes. Added into the mix are some real vocals (including Robert Smith) and a more song-like structure to the material. Its a stunning album, that restored my faith.

treeware – online

We have bunches of books at home…loads and loads of dead trees stacked on neat looking shelves around the house, thanks to Sandrine we have many books in French, and I’ve always been an avid reader – so we’ve accumulated a small rain forest.

I’ve always wanted a list – mainly so I can track the books we’ve lent out to people, but also so that I can just set back and see the body that we have collected.

I stumbled across Librarything some time back – and bookmarked it so that I could come back to it in the future, but now we’ve got most of our books online.

I’m really pleased with how it looks – and we’ll be adding as we go.

Our library is here.

(Does anyone know if theres a Library thing for CD’s?)