Stats

• Distance: 20.85 km / 12.92 mi
• Journey Time: 3h 31m 7s
• Altitude (m): min 111 max 153 tot 42

View in Google Earth

Odd, I thought, as I believed that Google used network cell strength to obtain the location through triangulation. Surely the area of Leeds I was travelling to wasn’t in any more of a network blackspot than anywhere else in the city? Then I remembered reading on Friday about Google’s admission on capturing SSID information (and “accidentally” payload data too) from their Street View cars.

I turned WiFi on. Sure enough, within a couple of minutes the ‘My Location’ accuracy circle had shrunk right down around the central blob. Google was using both network cell strength and the physical location of visible WiFi routers in the residential area to find out where I was.So that must have been the reason why they captured all of that information from their “experimental WiFi project”. Impressive stuff.

I’ll let them off, but I don’t think the German DPA will give in so easily.

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Posted from Leeds, England, United Kingdom.

For example, where did that awful Journey song come from? The first time I heard it was on an episode of Family Guy a few years back and the next thing you know everyone is singing along and there is no escape.

It is like someone from the future has gone back in time, inserted this racket and then gone back to their own time to reap the rewards. Or just annoy me. Then again, surely a time traveller would buy a lottery ticket, or would that be too suspicious?

• Killers
• Keane
• Kaiser Chiefs
• KT (aka Ugly) Tunstall
• Kylie Minogue

No doubt I’ll be posting something interesting here in the next few days, but all I have to say at the moment is “check out my new geek site“!

All but one of the descriptions/photos were accurate (a stile had mysteriously disappeared) but fortunately someone’s parents had recently done the same route so we had inside knowledge of where not to go! Even the three-hour estimated length of time to complete the route was accurate, but we did have a few breaks.

The weather was also pretty amazing for September, especially after the misery suffered the week before.

What is it with pedestrians and iPods? Do they lose all sense of their surroundings as soon as they spin that click-wheel? At least he was a fairly large lad, so it probably hurt him more than me when he looked but didn’t see, and just stepped right out.

Idiot.

Unfortunately, the weather had different ideas. When we started at just gone 6am (don’t you just love 2:30am wake-up calls?) it was actually quite pleasant, and in the photo I managed to take I think the sun is out. Then at around 7:30, the sky darkened and the waterproofs went on, never to come off.

Courtesy Care International UK

Think gale force winds, horizontal rain, 20m visibility and you’re a fraction of the way there. It was thoroughly miserable for everyone who took part, but there was always the target of completing the event of climbing 24 peaks, each over 2400 feet, within 24 hours. However, even this became an impossibility when the event was called off on the Saturday afternoon with our team, Urban, just two peaks of that day’s ten to go. Fortunately we heard about the day being cancelled when bumping into the (very strong, and leading) India team who had managed to get lost on Great End after overtaking us earlier, as our radio had ceased to work by this time. We therefore descended with them and the mountain guides waiting for us with some other teams (but not a ‘lone walker’ who had apparently left his team as they were too slow!) further down the mountain.

This did mean that we got back to the hostel in Grasmere slightly earlier than we would have done otherwise, but still meant we wouldn’t get much more than 4 hours sleep that night before getting to the starting point for 5am on Sunday. At least we had some “better” weather to look forward to…

Or so we thought. Although we started our ascent of Red Screes in the drizzle, the conditions gradually deteriorated with the summit of Fairfield being particularly hazardous, just before the event was called off completely after our descent from Seat Sandal. Even though it was only 10:30 by this stage, apparently the conditions at Helvellyn were absolutely treacherous and the organisers had no choice but to cancel, with us having just one major climb (Dollywagon Pike, which India managed to complete before having to backtrack to get to the escape route) and eight smaller ones left. Again, it was quite lucky that we bumped into another team to find out the event was cancelled as our radio had packed up by this stage.

Courtesy Care International UK

So that was it. We had managed to complete just 13 of the 24 peaks, but this was all we could have done in the circumstances, even though we all wanted to continue due to the effort we had put in both on the weekend and in training for the event. I think we would have finished in the top three teams, but ultimately everyone was given the same time of 24 Hours on their certificates, presented at the (unimproved, dubiously four-star) Low Wood hotel that evening.

To top things off there were only a couple of amusing moments worth mentioning, including two people attempting to tackle Scafell Pike wearing jeans, looking like they had got lost on their way back from the Leeds Festival. The other was when we passed some Asian youths also on their way to the same peak (after our day had been cancelled), without even a map. They did have a long pole and one had fluorescent orange trousers though!

I suppose there’s always next year >:O

Last night’s guest host was T4 and Popworld‘s Simon Amstell, probably best known for being a guest on the show twice previously and being one to have a dig at celebrity á là Monsieur Lamarr. He was quite nervous and I don’t think was as quite in control as what I can imagine his predecessor as being – in fact the first half of the opening round went on for over 90 minutes and will probably be edited down to five at the most! Simon also got a bit confused a couple of times during the show, but overall handled the pressure well.

Being the first show I’ve seen I think it was a good choice (Mock the Week was taking place in the next studio) and it’s interesting to see how it all goes on behind the scenes. Unfortunately most of the material will be simply unbroadcastable – I’m not sure if the ‘C’ or the ‘F’ word was the most frequently used – including the on-going joke at Kenzie‘s (oh come on, you know the one. He’s ex-Blazin’ Squad!) expense which I can’t possibly mention here.

There was no mention of the other guest hosts lined up probably for tonight and into next week, but the guests themselves were pretty poor compared to previous shows but I think they have been on the decline for a while. This used to be one of my favourite BBC2 shows, but could this be the start of the end of another institution, as happened with They Think It’s All Over? I hope not. After Angus Deayton left HIGNFY I think it in some ways improved, with the team captains being able to have regular digs back at the host, which is quite rare for that type of programme.