Jimdo

So spent time this month creating a website for Sally-Anne Adams, artist. I was going to create the site on Wordpress, also looked at Wix and Weebly.

Jimdo seemed easy to set-up and had nice clear crisp templates to choose from, and the benefit of not having so many choices that its hard to select one. I started doing a mock up on that. Then realised the site went live straight away, so decided to stick with it and make it active. Working on live site isn't that recommended though!

While the template fitted well I then had a play with selecting other templates and viewing how the site looked with those. The editing was fairly straightforward and seemed OK and the site uptime seems fine so for a free website quite impressed. Have just added it to google so hopefully will be active soon.

For original and unique artwork go to Sally-Anne Adams, acrylic and watercolour paintings. Also available at Sally_Anne Adams Instagram and Facebook. Why not have a look?

Who would want to be a coach?

After England didn't win the Rugby World Cup, that they hosted, the head coach Stuart Lancaster took the blame and was ousted.

Now Eddie Jones has been appointed. While it was clear Lancaster was going to be the brunt of the lack of success as a coach he had been lauded before the World Cup, much like the new man, Eddie Jones is being. Will he do the trick and help England onto a winning path? On paper it looks encouraging. But the odds are stacked high, only one team can be the best in the world, only one team can win a tournament. So where does that leave all the rest?

RIBA Cycling

While I do admire modern buildings, somehow another year of RIBA buildings are here, and yet again expanses of glass, pillars of modern materials be they steel or concrete seem ubiquitous. I grasp the concept that designers have to design for their clients, but surely someone wants a different looking building in the whole of the modern world, and not one that looks as tho you could design it with lego bricks and then do some sort of computer modelling “substitute sheet glass for lego plastic”. DONE.

I mean they’re all quite striking. But just heft and weight. Not something you can really say “wow”. Last week a Vulcan bomber flew overhead, on its last public flight. The Vulcan has been flying for 50 years. You still look at it and go wow, same with a Jaguar E-type, it just exudes sheer design style.

Burntwood School: Nearly £41million. Please can someone pay a bit of attention to the cycle stand outside the school. Presumably quite a lot of kids could arrive on a cycle. What do they get?. A cold windswept corridor of stark metal hoops. Oh and there’s a rubbish bin right beside them, as if to say this is an area for a right mess, the naughty kids and smokers. Oh and you can park your bike here. Not under cover, not protected. No. just against a metal hoop, near a rubbish bin. Great. Actually maybe it is a striking design feature – the blurb says they have “produced grown-up buildings for Burntwood School, which make kids raise their game, instead of pandering to them” so there! Raise your game don’t arrive by bike.

Where's the sail?

The world's largest SuperYacht has been announced. Its pretty massive and really is it a yacht? It looks just like a massive boat.

The old joke is that if you step down and it moves its a boat. If you step up and it doesn't move, its a yacht. While yachts are seen as luxury recreational boats, they can be sail or motor (mostly both). But in some ways you expect a yacht to be able to sail. Superyachts are mammoths of the sea and are privately owned but professionally crewed. Still you'd expect them to be able to sail it every now and again.

The Welsh Beach Boys are Surfin USA

It sounds like an April the first spoof. An artificial surf lagoon has been built in Wales. So you can go surfin in Wales without hitting the beach or the sea!

Built on the site of an old aluminium works on the edge of the Snowdonia National Park in Conwy valley in North Wales it provides newbies with the chance to learn without endless trashing, as well as offering a consistent wave (it can be changed) that can suit all types.

Given the vagaries of the weather and surf, and with added attractions like warm changing rooms, it could be a winner at this new outdoor enthusiast attraction. Mind you it will have to work – they have already had to close it and drain the 6 million gallons of water to fix a fault since it opened on 1st August – Dunno what the fault was, maybe sharks in the water?

Of course they will need to recoupt their costs of such a monumental structure - some £12M...maybe surfers will expect sunshine as well but come on this is wales after all!

Cav is Back

July. And so it must be the Tour de France (TdF). After falling off last year Cav is back and after a few fast and furious sprints, where he missed out, he is now back to winning in style.

Froome is also back after crashing out last year, and after the team time trial it will be up in the mountains. Time for the grand challengers to show their form and try to beat froome, who looks on form, and Contador, who is rated highly after winning the Giro (the other grand tour in Italy, held back in May). Nibali is there and Quintana, both of whom have lost vital time in mis-judging the breaks on the fast and demanding long flat stages in the fast-paced hectic first week. But the mountains will be where the real action is and huge chunks of time can be lost and gained, by strength, tactics, response to the weather, and sheer luck (or ill-luck). Allez, allez!

Too fast for Solar Impulse

Still way too fast for the Solar Impulse - The cycling world hour record has been broken. Bradley Wiggins completed 54.526km (33.88 miles)in the long-awaited attempt at Lea Valley in the UK. Beating the previous recent record held by fellow cyclist Alex Dowsett, who had done 52.937km (32.89 miles) back in May. So that's it for a while.

And no it wasn't all downhill!