2 March 2024

Destructive removal of a single-speed freewheel

The freewheel on my single-speed bike needed replacing. It closely resembles this one:


The two dimples are supposed to give a purchase-point for removing the outer casing, which has a reverse thread – it is screwed on very firmly indeed by the action of the chain when pedalling. Special tools are available for this but for the average DIY bike mechanic represent overkill, since this is a procedure one is only likely to need every few years, if that.

Various videos on YouTube show a punch being inserted into one of the dimples and then hammered. The dimples on my freewheel were too shallow for this: the punch kept slipping out. I was on the point of taking the whole wheel to a bike shop when I remembered that I own an angle grinder with a metal-cutting disc.

I removed the axle (which needed doing anyway, as I intended to service the hub) and, wearing an old jacket I don’t care about, laid the wheel on my workbench and braced it against the wall with my body, in such a position that the dimples were horizontally aligned. The brace is easier if you leave the (inflated) tyre on. Next, with the disc perpendicular to the wall, I cut a radial groove in the casing, just wide and deep enough to take the blade of an old and sturdy screwdriver. This groove served exactly the same purpose as the dimples in the videos: some energetic whacks with a 16 ounce hammer turned the casing clockwise until it could be unscrewed by hand.

Then I removed the cog and whatnot, leaving just the body of the freewheel still attached. This unscrews anti-clockwise in the usual fashion. I used my bench vice to grip it and tried turning the wheel, but the vice does not have serrated jaws as it is designed for woodworking and the freewheel body slipped. Instead I used a pipe wrench: this also needed quite a bit of force, but soon enough the freewheel body came loose and could be unscrewed the rest of the way by hand.

I am putting this out there because nowhere else have I seen the use of an angle grinder recommended. Of course, this will be no good if you just want to clean and lubricate your freewheel, but they are cheap enough to buy if you find non-destructive removal impossible.

20 July 2023

Maureen Duffy and Caroline Sanderson in conversation


I have been a member of ALCS for very many years and am grateful to them for their efforts for writers everywhere and of course for myself. Here the redoubtable Maureen Duffy, one of its founders, discusses some of the attitudes towards writers, not least the idea that writing is not a ‘proper job’.

21 November 2022

The Relfe Sisters

 


Clive Wilson is a diffident young man much influenced by his parents. Late one Saturday afternoon just before Christmas he crosses the High Street and is about to proceed when for some reason he feels an urge to look back. A young boy is stepping into the road, apparently unaware of an oncoming Range Rover.

Clive dashes out to scoop him back but has misjudged: with a split-second decision he shoves the boy out of harm’s way but is himself hit.

The impact threw him into the air. The trajectory he described seemed to last an age, without pain, offering a crazy view of the High Street, its festive shop-windows, its stars and angels. He just had time to say to himself “I am being killed” before he collided with the merciless solidity of the roadstone and knew nothing more.

Weeks later, convalescing, he reflects that getting hit by that Range Rover might have been the first real thing that has ever happened to him.

And so it proves.


The Relfe Sisters: First chapter

The December dusk had turned to darkness when Clive finally got into Spurling’s. He made his way past the counter with its sweets and cigarettes, past the newspapers and magazines, to the stationery department at the far end of the shop, where, from the racks of disposable pens, he selected a rollerball and tested it on the squiggle-covered pad provided.
    The pen would do. He decided to buy it and moved off towards the greetings cards, where he set about choosing a birthday card for his brother. He found some of the cards insulting or vulgar or even obscene; Julian would find them yet more offensive, for he conducted himself with scant concession to modernity. Clive was content to use a rollerball, while his elder brother wrote only with a pencil or fountain pen, still called the radio the ‘wireless’ and wore such things as sports jackets, overcoats, brogues, and a watch that needed winding. Not that Clive himself was much more au courant: the influence of their parents had been, and still was, too strong.
    Still browsing the birthday cards, he came upon those intended for a brother. Most were impossibly sentimental. Even so he was tempted to send one meant for a boy obsessed with football, fishing, train-spotting or cricket. But that joke, too, alas, Julian might not appreciate.
    In the end he chose a blank card with a view of Venice by Canaletto. He would write the greeting himself, no doubt with his new rollerball.
    This was the penultimate Saturday before Christmas so he had to queue at the cash desk. Eventually, however, adding these purchases to his shopping bag, he was able to emerge into the air.
    The High Street made an attractive scene, what with the illuminated stars and angels strung across it, in diagonal rows, by the Chamber of Commerce and perhaps also the Rotarians, or the Round Table, or the Lions, or whoever they were. Clive knew almost nothing about such matters and rarely so much as glanced at the front page of the freesheet that was his only source of news about these goings-on. But Christmas was coming and this afternoon he was feeling more than usually benevolent towards the inhabitants of his little home town. 
    As usual during shopping hours, parked vehicles lined the kerb on the far side of the High Street. Clive had left his car in the council car park, reachable by an alleyway between two shops.
    At the moment the traffic was being held up by the pedestrian-actuated lights further down towards the War Memorial, so with appropriate circumspection he was able to cross, threading his way between two queueing cars to gain the empty half of the road.
    Having passed between a big, mud-spattered hilux parked on his left and a silver Mercedes estate car, he gained the pavement and was about to proceed when for some reason he felt an urge to look back.
    The traffic lights had turned green. Concealed from that direction by the hilux, a boy of about ten, in jeans and a dark hoodie with the hood down, wearing white earbuds, had entered the gap Clive had just negotiated and was showing no sign of caution. Either he had not realised that the lights had changed or he was misjudging the speed of an oncoming Range Rover – because he was keeping straight on, into the road.
    It made no sense to shout a warning. Nor did Clive think much about that. Purely from instinct he dashed out to scoop the boy back, but then he saw that there was no time for them both to change direction and retreat, because the Range Rover was still accelerating, and so, with a wild lunge, made clumsy by his bag, Clive shoved him forward and out of harm’s way.
    The driver of a Transit van coming from the left, towards the lights, must have seen what was happening: by braking hard he had managed to stop short of the place where the boy, arms outstretched, was falling headlong to the tarmac. The car behind the van could not stop soon enough and piled into it with a crump.
    These things Clive saw and heard in the last moment before the Range Rover hit him.
    The impact threw him into the air. The trajectory he described seemed to last an age, without pain, offering a crazy view of the High Street, its festive shop-windows, its stars and angels. He just had time to say to himself ‘I am being killed’ before he collided with the merciless solidity of the roadstone and knew nothing more.
・・・
He was extricating himself from a dream involving the disassembly of a piece of furniture – a wardrobe perhaps, or an armchair; he couldn’t be sure. It was finished in dark oak and comprised in part a number of inexplicable spindle-shaped objects holding it together. He had been taking it to pieces because, vaguely, a house-move was either in progress or mooted. Verity had been behind him, silently, somehow, egging him on.
    The dream faded, its texture and details dissolving, leaving him with nothing more than a sense of obscure and morbid nonsense involving his former girlfriend, such dreams being frequent with him of late. It was supplanted by the realisation that he was in bed, a hospital bed, and in pain, more or less all over, but chiefly in his midriff and, most particularly, in his right thigh.
    Besides all that he felt queasy, light-headed, just as he had felt on that wretched ferry to Jersey – again with Verity – when the rain had intensified and with it the swell. She had sat beside him, in the window seat, digesting her breakfast of bacon and egg and sausage while his had rebelled inside him. With rain sheeting down the glass he had stumbled to his feet. The vast cabin, full of holidaymakers and unnaturally subfusc on that June mid-morning, had seemed to present him with endless obstacles on his way to the lavatories, which were themselves crowded with vomiting passengers. That too had been a nightmare. His will had failed at the last moment: he had wanted to get into a cubicle, but none had been vacant and he’d had to make do with a basin in full view of everyone else.
    Clive was seasick now, all right, but he seemed not to be undulating and his stomach felt empty.
    Then he recalled what had happened opposite Spurling’s.
    Light from the corridor revealed that he had been placed in a ward of six beds, his bed being the second, clockwise, from the door. To his left rose two tall windows, now covered with pale blinds. Sundry small noises – congested breathing, faint wheezing and low, intermittent and almost inaudible groans – were issuing from his fellow patients. Judging from these noises most if not all of them were elderly men.
    His right leg had been encased in splints and suspended from a gallows-like frame. The different parts of his body hurt him differently. The dull, deep, heavy aching in his thigh provided a basso continuo for sharper pains from his ribs, though these too seemed muffled, robbed of their highest frequencies, as it were, which suggested that he had been given, or was still being given, painkillers: beside the bed stood a drip attached to his right forearm. He was unpleasantly sure that he had been fitted with a catheter.
    Clive’s dismay deepened. Not only had he landed in the clutches of the Nosocomial Horror Show but the nausea and various other sensations told him that he had been anaesthetised and operated on. What were his chances of avoiding sepsis? Or even of walking again? He was gripped by fear for the future. Would he even be able to return to his flat, still less look after himself?
    He felt parched. There may have been a jug of water on the bedside cabinet he could just discern to his right but it hurt him too much to turn his head further in that direction, though not in the other. With his painful left hand – bruised and abraded where it had hit the road – he groped about in the bedclothes for whatever they provided to summon help, but found nothing.
    His fellow patients seemed to be unconscious. No one yet knew he had come round. For a time, then, he could be alone with his thoughts.
    In a single reckless moment it was possible that he had ruined his life. Given half a second to consider the consequences he would not have behaved like that. That boy was old enough to have known better. If he had been run over instead, it would of course have been a tragedy. Given his size he would probably have been killed. Cruel, regrettable, and so on, but such things happened all the time.
    Clive saw again the oncoming LED headlamps, the looming radiator grille and bumper, the massive, uncompromising, box-shaped body – in some dull colour, grey, most likely – and wondered what had been the aftermath. At least one bystander would have called for an ambulance. An appalled but fascinated circle would have gathered round his sprawling form. If anyone had had knowledge of first aid, the rubberneckers might have been told to stand back and await the arrival of the paramedics. The police would have been called too. The High Street and perhaps surrounding roads would have become gridlocked, this spreading, even, to the bypass, which begged the question of how an ambulance had got through. Nonetheless through it must have got, or he would not be here.
    The driver, in distress or otherwise, might have pleaded, to anyone who would listen, his, or her, inability to avoid the collision.
    And what of the boy? Had he been hurt too? Had his family been present?
    The nausea was diminishing somewhat. Clive turned his mind to practical matters. In the short term at any rate he would be unable to return to his flat, which was on the second floor and accessible only by stairs. Assuming a long stay in hospital, he would have to ask Julian or Father to empty the fridge-freezer and switch it off, leave the central heating on its frost setting, shut off the water, and visit now and then to collect the mail and check that all was well.
    An unanticipated inspection of his flat by a member of his family might prove embarrassing. He recalled the reply he had written to Verity, which he had never posted but kept in his bureau, together with the even more caustic letter to him that had ended their affair; she had refused to respond to his phone calls and emails or even the doorbell. Then there was his laptop, which held certain data he would prefer to keep private, nothing pornographic, but personal, such as his correspondence, especially with Verity, together with details of his financial affairs.
    Julian, he knew, was too honourable to pry, but Father might be another matter. Access to passwords would be needed to deal with the utility providers and to respond to email. And what had happened to his phone? Had he broken it in his fall?
    Then there was his car. One key had been in his pocket, while the other was at home, so it was unlikely that anyone could yet have retrieved it for him. Would he have to dispute the excess charge the council would already have levied? Might they even impound the car?
    And what of his job? How long would he be off and would it even be open for him, if and when he recovered? What were the chances of someone – that reptile, Bewlay, for example – easing himself into Clive’s place?
    Clive’s mood rose a fraction when he remembered that as part of his package he was entitled to private medical care and fell again when he remembered that, as one of the junior employees, he was covered only for minor procedures. There was small chance of his being moved to a private clinic.
    The old men continued to groan and wheeze. He began to distinguish one set of noises from another and speculate as to the age and affliction of its source. At long intervals NHS bods passed to and fro along the corridor, but none entered the ward.
    Clive now perceived that what he had done could be viewed as heroic rather than what it was, idiotic. Might it even make the local news? Not the freesheet, which was only published monthly, but one of the regional TV programmes.
    Although Verity owned a television she watched the news only to scoff at it as a specimen of propaganda. She had firm opinions on such matters, as indeed on many others. For example, she had memorably defined voting as the adult equivalent of writing to Father Christmas. Such opinions were something he still missed almost as much as he was missing her body. Rather against his better judgement, he had been mulling over the idea of proposing to her when the end had come.
    Clive had never been good with women. He didn’t understand them and his shyness had prevented him from asking out more than a handful. Besides Verity he had only ever slept with one girl, during his first year at the university, and that too had ended in recriminations. She had accused him of various crimes abhorred by the left, such as being an unreconstructed member of the patriarchy and interested only in getting between her legs: the latter charge, at least, being valid.
    When Verity had come along she had taken him over and he was still not sure how that had happened or how she had regarded him; he had feared becoming henpecked and worse in later life. On the other hand, she was pretty, she had brains, and she had independence of mind. So independent was she, indeed, that she was working towards starting her own business.
    Besides, she was a good social fit for him. Her family and his were compatible. His parents approved of her, without, he was certain, being aware of how uninhibited she could be under his duvet or hers, for she had her own flat as well.
    The thought occurred to him that if she learned of the accident she might relent, just a little, and come to see him here.
    For a long time he lay there fantasising about this. At last he admitted that she would not be coming, full stop, and fell into a troubled doze, only to be aroused, along with his companions, at six o’clock when a nurse entered the ward and turned on the lights.

7 November 2022

Triangular Football

I haven’t posted anything recently because I have had very little I wanted to say. Besides, the times are so incomprehensible and bizarre that little can be said, especially on a platform controlled by Google.

However, the other day I was looking through some old files and came across a proposal I made in 2003 to Sky TV for a new sport – Triangular Football. They turned it down, of course, but I still like the idea and am putting it out here in case anyone else does.

Object and Draft Rules

The game is played between three teams of six players. Each team comprises a goalkeeper, left back, right back, left forward, centre forward, and right forward.

The pitch in plan is equilaterally triangular. Each side of the triangle is 100 metres long. The centre circle has a radius of 9 metres; each apex of the triangle is divided into a penalty area 22 metres across, within which is the goal-mouth, 8 metres across. The goal crossbar is 8 feet high, as in Association Football. Each team’s sector extends from its goal-mouth to the centre of the triangle and from the centre of the triangle to points halfway along each of the two enclosing touchlines.

The object is not only to score goals but also to minimise the number of goals scored against your team. Each goal scored earns half a point, but each goal admitted loses your team one full point. It is thus possible to emerge from a match with a negative score.

The game lasts for 90 minutes, divided into three periods of 30 minutes. Between each period is an interval of 10 minutes. After each interval teams change sectors, rotating clockwise. The sector occupied by any team is decided beforehand by drawing lots. The three teams are thus placed in sequence, A, B, and C. Lots are also drawn to decide which team kicks off first.

A standard soccer ball is used, kicked off from the centre spot. At kickoff all opposing players must be outside the centre circle and in their own sectors. The ball must travel at least its own circumference into an opposing sector, and the kicker may not play it again until it has done so. Subsequent kickoffs (after each goal or period) are taken by the next team in the sequence.

Only the goalkeeper may handle (but not carry) the ball, and then only within the penalty area. If the ball crosses the touchline it is deemed to have been put out of play and is thrown in by a member of the next team. (The ‘next’ team would be Team B if a member of Team A had put it out, Team C if a member of Team B had put it out, and Team A if a member of Team C had put it out.) If the ball is put out of play by being kicked over the crossbar, the goalkeeper takes possession and may throw or kick it back into play from anywhere inside his penalty area.

The game is controlled by a referee and three linesmen, who may signal infringements to the referee, though the referee is under no obligation to act on such signals.

Infringements are penalised by free kicks, which may be ‘direct’ or ‘indirect’. Direct free kicks, from which a goal may be scored, follow deliberate or major infringements, and indirect free kicks, from which a goal may not be scored, for lesser infringements. Offences by defenders in the penalty area are generally penalised by a penalty shot from anywhere along the penalty line, with only the goalkeeper in the penalty area: the goalkeeper is barred from moving until the ball has been kicked. Minor offences by the defending team in their penalty area are penalised only by an indirect free kick. There is no offside rule.

No extra time or injury time is permitted unless all three captains agree to it, in which case there may be another 15 minutes of play. If the game is not resolved at the end of ordinary or extra time it will be decided on penalties.

Tactics

The fact that three teams, not two, are in contention completely transforms the nature of the game. Like other sports involving two teams, conventional soccer has been called a metaphor for warfare (or a sublimation of it). Triangular soccer is a more apt expression of this in the 21st Century, when strategic alliances, mind-games and the application of overwhelming force are becoming the currency of international relations. [How prescient was that, in 2003?]

Team A and Team B might choose to gang up on Team C but, because only the team of the scoring player benefits from the half-point awarded for the goal, there will be fierce competition in the goalmouth between Teams A and B.

However, if A and B agree to share the points by alternating scorers, a stage will soon be reached where C has no apparent chance of winning the game. Now focus switches to the competition between A and B – a competition during which C may be able to recoup its position by scoring, or by abetting one team or hindering another. During such tactics, A and B are of course free to gain further half-points by scoring against C; but while doing so they will leave their ends only lightly defended.

As the score develops, A or B may decide to combine with C. In so doing it will risk C becoming a rival. Alliances will be in a constant state of flux. This alone will make the game more compelling than two-team soccer.

The shape of the pitch, funnelling every attack, will call for increasing precision of play as the goalmouth is approached; yet the lack of an offside rule will lead to furious and treacherous action in the penalty area, where as many as ten attackers could be ranged against six defenders. And, if none of the attacking players are in their own sectors they run the risk of a lightning, pitch-length attack from the defending team – which could go either left or right.

More goals will be scored than in conventional soccer, and play will be faster and on occasion very funny.

The changing alliances during a game will also be affected by the relative positions of the three teams within the league, which will in turn make the league itself both more precarious and more interesting to follow, with much anticipation in the media of possible tactics for forthcoming matches. This will improve ratings.

With only six players, a triangular soccer team will have a more evident personality than a conventional team. Analysis can be deeper and more amusing, which will increase yet further the game’s appeal to a TV audience; and the reduced periods of play (30 minutes as opposed to 45) will allow more ads to be screened.

12 December 2021

Stephen’s Purpose

 

Stephen Grove is a twelve-year-old schoolboy living in a small town on the south coast of England. His father walked out when he was three, leaving him with an unsympathetic elder sister and an almost equally unsympathetic mother.

Stephen is shy, friendless and studious, and has become the target of bullies. Their campaign against him is so vicious that he decides to hang himself. In the woods he chooses a tree and is about to climb up when a tiny bird appears above him in the foliage.

The bird glanced down at him, half over its shoulder as it were, revealing that the eyes were curiously tilted together by the shape of its skull. This lent it a benign, quizzical expression which seemed to be reaching deep, very deep, inside him.

He felt as if he had been found out and were being chided by an omniscient friend.

From that moment on, Stephen’s life is not his own.


Read first chapter