I was very unsure about this years' World Cup, mostly for its hosted location, Qatar, and the very known issues it has with human rights, gay rights and, well, just rights in general. I appreciate the need to respect other countries culture and way of life and I believe that, to a great or lesser extent, Western nations have meddled too much in the affairs of other countries. That being said, that doesn't mean a competition such as the World Cup which, in my opinion, is meant to be one meant to unite all nations and all walks of life, should be in a country that it, itself, does not abide by. This also throws a unique curveball with the USA among the joint hosts for the next one and their record isn't exactly squeaky clean either.

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Whilst this particular iteration of my blog is a mere six months old, I've had one, of some description for, heck, fifteen years at least. That being said, it's not been a hotbed of activity in that time, particularly the last ten years that I've been in Australia which is odd. You'd think moving to the other side of the world would provide no end of content. Different style of life, things that take getting used to and hot takes on local politics from the point of view of a relative newcomer. However, as it was, I barely posted. I think that was mostly down to worrying that people would find it offensive(?) maybe. I dunno, but I didn't want to put anything up that might be mis-read.

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I've been working in IT for just over fifteen years now. One thing you understand, though, is that you forget more than you learn and that there's always something out there that you never knew about but, once you discover it, you're amazed you didn't know about it before. This happened to me today whilst flicking through TikTok. A lot of the TechToks, as I like to think they're called, are things I've come across before or just seem a touch sketchy. However, despite some initial reservations I'm glad I gave this one a go as it's potentially quite revolutionary for me.

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It was my birthday last week, the last one of my thirties. I'll need to set a reminder that I'll need to change all my social bios next year to 'forty-something.' Turning thirty seems far longer ago than just ten years. It was a fun birthday though. It had an epic cake, my mum and brother were visiting from the UK and I was probably the fittest I've ever been (or likely to be if I'm honest). Will my fortieth be the same? I'm not sure. As far as I know, no family will be visiting but I'm sure my wife and kids will make it pretty epic and we get a test run this year anyway as my wife turns forty herself this December.

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It's been a while since I've actually rode my bike consistantly for any period of time. I used to ride fairly regularly and occasionally added in a long ride here and there. Once upon I team I rode from Sydney to Canberra, over two days, for a charity. That entailled 182km on day one and another 100km+ ride the next. It wasn't too bad, split up into 60km or thereabouts segments it was an interesting way to see the towns and roads that skirt the Rememberance Highway. However, life, idleness and a general lack of enthusiasm saw me ride less and less. A few mis-steps, consisting of failed day rides like Fitz's Challenge here in Canberra reduced that enthusiasm, or what was left of it, even further.

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This past weekend's Formula 1 Grand Prix at Spa Francorchamps was pretty much a procession. There was a bit of drama at the start with Lewis Hamilton squeezing Alonso a touch too much causing his Mercedes' rear-end to be launched into the air and his ex-Mercedes teammate, Valterri Bottas, beaching himself in the gravel trying to avoid an accident. Once the safety car period had ended, Max Verstappen proceeded to scyth his way through the field and taking a win that, despite starting from the rear of the grid, even the pundits gave short odds on

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