Juniper Cup maps and courses

I promised to scan the maps and courses, so here they are. I have my own day 1 and 2 courses and a day 2 W50 course, which I have because we were going to go out for Barbara late on day 2, but eventually she turned up and we didn't need the map.

You can see the amazing juniper jungle, which is hellishly difficult to correctly navigate by. It is a very accurate map, but it is still so hard to identify features on the map as against on the ground and vice versa. Day 1 had a 1:7500 map, which was slightly easier to read, but still not easy. The course was excellent, but 100% map contact was needed not to get lost. The leg between 1 and 2 on day 1 I executed mostly walking and even then there was an unnecessary hook in it when I went further in the white forest than necessary and then had to go round one bit of dark green. Still, in the history of this event (this is the 5th year of it) I have so far always had at least one control in this bit and this time I executed it with only a small mistake. I have had 20 minutes worth of mistakes in this bit before, so I am slowly improving. I got beaten by Ildi by 2 and half minutes on day 1, which I was quite satisfied with.

The real shock came on day 2 on the 1:10000 map, not because it was more difficult to read, but because W60 were given a 2 year old map and a hand drawn course. The technical challenge of this course was nil and I believe that an intelligent 12 year old would have been bored by it. Had I been well and fit I could have done it in 20 minutes, but even then it would have been a travesty of a course and an insult for us to be given an unupdated, old map. I have scanned the W50 day 2 course for comparison. That was on an updated new map and visited the juniper again, which we hardly did. 2.4km is an insult, especially as we are perfectly capable to run double that, or at least 3.5k and that might have got us away from the boring, low quality area which lay between the start and the finish. The planner was a guy whom I have always had a high opinion of before, but I will have to revise my ideas in the light of this event.

I wonder what area they will take the Spring Juniper Cup in March 2011? It will depend on that whether I will enter it or not.

Back in the village

After everybody has returned home following the Juniper Cup Roy and I stayed in BP for another 3 days to recover. I seemed a bit slow to get over my gastric flu and I also had an amazing book to read which is always easier in the flat. Less to do and easier to put your feet up. This book is a new kind of thriller (at least for Hungary) where the author is a TV journalist who put his fictional story in a milieu which is 100% accurate historically, politically and militarily. I am really enjoying it, even though the hero is a macho SAS type and the baddies are all Russians. Still, they mostly gangsters, so they can get their comeuppance any time the hero wishes to bump them off!!!

While in town Roy fetched the last laptop from Dylan, so no more Vista machines, hoorraaaahhhhh! This one acquired a second hand hard disc for £16 and Windows 7, so hopefully our problems should be less from now on. Dylan is due on Wednesday to install WiFi in Ber and after that all we need to do is to clear up the hard discs now and again, defrag and maintain them and should anything go wrong, just holler for Dylan.

We got home on Friday afternoon after quite an uneventful bus journey. The snow arrived that night. The fridge is empty, so we are living on handouts, what we could get in the village shop and what was still in the freezer. Hopefully the sun should come out tomorrow and we can go to Tesco's in Hatvan.

Callum was supposed to have had a small operation yesterday, but a few emergencies have bumped him off the surgeon's list. Hopefully, next time he is luckier and can get it over with. Today, his parents went to do some Christmas shopping and rang us on Skype to show us what they got him with the money we sent. I have also managed to take some video snapshots while we were chatting, so the pictures above are of the little fella using his new piece of cardboard with a pencil and playing with the Zany Zoo he got from us for Christmas. He is still as sweet as ever. I can't wait to see him next summer - he will be 2 years old by then.

The Juniper Cup weekend

Gillian arrived on Thursday and on Friday morning Roy went out with her to show her a few of BP's sights. I was feeling a bit sick, so I didn't go. The minibus arrived even before 2pm and after a slightly fraught trip in the rush hour we got to the airport a little bit late. Carol, Barbara and Nigel were already waiting and we made tracks towards Kiskoros. It got rather foggy and dark towards the end of the trip, but with Roy driving all was well. Except I was sick (thankfully into a prepared bucket) in the back of the bus. This was not a good sign as Roy had gastric flu earlier in the week and now it looked as if I got it.

Once at the Hotel we met up with Nick, Sarah Jane, Elizabeth and John, who then joined the crowd (minus me) for dinner at one of Kiskoros's rustic eateries. I managed to be sick once more in the night, but otherwise got a few hours of shuteye.

Next morning - after no breakfast for me - we all went to the event. The day was mild, the juniper as fierce as I remembered, the courses excellent and it looked as if everybody had a good day. Even I had a reasonable run on a completely empty stomach and no sustenance for over 24 hours. Ildi only beat me by 2 and half minutes. In the meantime Roy joined the sicklist as he managed to turn his ankle outside the restaurant the night before and was by now seriously hobbling.

We went back to the same restaurant in the evening where we all had a lovely meal. I only had half a bowl of soup, but that was more than the night before. The unexpected 30% discount of the night before unfortunately did not reappear, but we still had good value and nice food in a lovely atmosphere.

Sunday dawned a bit colder and there was a promise of easier courses. The sicklist grew further with John having severe toothache which needed early attention. After some painkillers he decided that the dentist can wait, but he didn't dare to compete. The rest then valiantly went out for the second time to wrestle with the juniper.

While most of our group had good courses, the two W60 ladies had a really raw deal. We had a rubbish, idiotic insult of a course, that was barely adquate for a 14 year old on a 2 year old map and which I am going to complain about. I finished about 3 minutes down on Ildi, so I finished 2nd overall. Considering my general state of health + the gastric flu, that was an excellent result.

Of the rest of the group Nick was also second in M21, Elizabeth 2nd in W21, Carol 3rd in W50. Barbara had definitely had her money's worth, but finally turned up just after the launch of the search party (Nigel and Gillian). Amazingly she was very happy, in fact on a high after she doggedly struggled through and did not let the juniper beat her.

Sunday's dinner was taken in a fish restaurant up country, which proved a gem of a find. The group photo above is of the 6 of us there as the younger contingent left straight after the event. The earlier photos are of Nick flogging CompassSport and Carol being pleased with her 3rd place.

Building gazing in BP

We had to go out for some shopping yesterday and combined it with a bit of sightseeing and photographing. I got involved with a new web site called I love Hungary and needed some interesting photos for the article I am writing. I chose the topic of how much artistic pleasure you can get even from ordinary buildings,if you keep your eyes open and look up high, rather than going around with watching your feet. Starting with a school which is only just round the block, followed by some gorgeous mosaics up high on an apartment block, then looking at the Basilica, the entrance of a bank, majolica decoration on an Art Nouveau building, ending up with some "boys from the black stuff" it was an interesting hour and a half walking about.

I was also involved with something very important yesterday: I circulated by Facebook and e-mail a Petition from the staff of the Philosophy Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences asking people to sign it, if they agree with its sentiments and demands. I will paste an English translation here with the link, so if anybody reading this blog feels like looking into it, nay sign it, they can.


Petition to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

To: The Hungarian Academy of Sciences

János Boros, the recently (at the beginning of this year) appointed director of the Philosophy Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences has yet again declared the majority of the researchers unsuitable for their work at the Institute: he lately shared his opinion with listeners of Hungarian Radio, stating that most of them do not even know the necessary basics.

We appeal to the friends of philosophy, those working in this field and those outside it, inside and outside Hungary, that if they value the freedom, prestige, and multifaceted nature of philosophical research in Hungary, to sign our petition and thus protest against János Boros’s high-handed regime, which has so far led to dozens of unprecedented cases in the labour court.

János Boros (1) established as normal practice the total disregard of workers’ rights, daily confrontations, threats, misinformation, regularly takes advantage of his professional power and a practices a level of secrecy which the ombudsman declared illegal and against the constitution;

(2) This summer as a response to opposing opinions he unilaterally declared as “unsuitable” nearly two thirds of the Institute’s staff (amongst them professors, academic doctors and – in all likelihood motivated by political considerations – the entire staff of the Lukács Archive). He did this using such a secret process that even he had to admit later that both its legality and validity could be questioned and might only be limited. This was confirmed by his boss, József Pálinkás, the President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences;

In spite of this (3) and totally disregarding both the President’s declaration as above as well as a warning from the Philosophy Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, he recently started wrecking the Philosophy Research Institute by removing five researchers (Sándor Ferencz, Pál Horváth, János Laki, Miklós Mesterházi, Miklós Tamás Gáspár) and threatening further dismissals.

With our signatures we join the internal and international protest and ask the leadership of the Academy to intervene and put an end to the terror, established by the director without any professional basis and without any legality, currently existing in the Philosophy Research Institute.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned


http://www.petitiononline.com/MTAFKInt/

The kinky pepper

This was probably the least smutty angle. Isn't nature wonderful?

Autumn Spartacus Cup

On Saturday we had the most amazing day for November. The temperature was well over 20 degrees Celsius and in the sun it was over 25. I ran in a flimsy T-shirt and O suit bottoms and was hot all the way round. Afterwards we sat in the sun, chatted, ate our sandwiches and our friends drank beer. I shouldn't have alcohol and Roy couldn't because of driving. He also had a nice snooze and looked quite happy.

If you peruse the Day 1 course you can see that it was appalling. The planners were two young men who obviously had no idea about how to plan for veterans. I felt that this course would have been an insult for an intelligent 12 year old. Still, I was out in the fresh air, in the sunshine and had some exercise. Considering the year I had so far, this should in and of itself be an achievement. As for results: I came 4th, behind three Swedish ladies who were quite a lot faster than me. Considering that out of 8 people in my class 6 were Swedish that result is not that bad.

By Sunday the weather turned; it was overcast and considerably colder. Thankfully the part of the forest Sunday's course took me to was a lot more technical and even our youthful, gung-ho planners couldn't completely wreck my course. I really enjoyed the fact that the grey matter had to be engaged and that slowed the Swedish ladies sufficiently for me to come 2nd on the day by only about a minute and a half. Overall I remained 4th which gave us a chance to scarper pretty sharpish.

We got back to Ber by 3pm, unpacked, had lunch and watched the Brazilian Grand Prix. Unfortunately there is going to be no British World Champion this year, but of the remaining contenders I hope Webber manages it next week. Vettel is good too, but he is so young, he has plenty of time to get there yet, while Webber is getting a bit long in the tooth. The only person I do NOT want to win is Alonso, but it looks that he might still do it too. Boooooo!

We're off back to BP on Thursday for theatre and a concert on Friday. The last Grand Prix (Abu Dhabi) is on Sunday, followed by an Opera visit next Tuesday. After that it is the Juniper weekend with an international group, so we should be busy for a while yet.

Old Jewish Cemetery (again)

As the weather was gorgeous, sunny and mild today - Andor, Roy and I went to the old Jewish cemetery again to take some pictures. It looked really different from last winter as most of it was really jungle like. I took some piccies of some of the really high memorials and in one place photographed several gravestones which toppled on to each other. The place is really atmospheric, although it might look a bit better if they cut back some of the jungle.

En route home we managed to get on a totally empty tram, so I took a picture of it 100% devoid of passangers. Spooky!!

All Souls Day

Well, it is still only All Hallows Day (1st Nov), but most people prepare for visiting the graves of their dear departed the following day. Thankfully, since we brought my parents' ashes home in the summer we don't have to go too far. I managed to get some nice looking (they are Dutch!!) chrisanthemums and some night-light holders - some in red - to decorate the memorial. Tonight we will light the candles and think of them together. My Dad has been gone for over 50 years, my Mum for 30.

We're off to town tomorrow: Spamalot in the evening and a few days in the city for a change. Last week I was quite ill with the current coughing lurgy, but am beginning to get a bit better. Unfortunately now Roy is going down with it, but in close proximity of his favourite restaurants I am sure he will get over it quicker than I did.