I’ve been involved in motorsport since the end of 2002 after my inaugural sprint at New Brighton. Myself and my friend Gordon Holmes (a champion Autotester) set off in a pair of Golf GTIs with the aim of finishing approximately mid-field in our very standard, very ordinary cars.
It would have gone a lot better for me if I hadn’t clipped a kerb, dislodging the battery, which then bounced into the radiator and subsequently caused the car to overheat. A quick decision was made, and Gordon allowed me to borrow his car for the remaining runs. And that was the start. A year later I had an Elise, and then I accidentally took a corner off (thankfully with no chassis damage!) at the same track! Needless to say, New Brighton always makes me nervous these days – I’ve not suffered damage at any other circuit in the country. Yet!
We achieved what we set out to do, comparing well to experienced drivers in faster machinery. Gordon stuck to his Autotesting, while I set plans to compete in the regional sprint championships. I quickly established myself by becoming Novice Champion for 2003 in the ANWCC (North West) sprint championship. I’ve since gone on to take and hold the class record at Aintree, second overall in the Liverpool & Chester Championship. Although 2004 and 2005 were low-key due to other commitments, my aim is to attack the 2006 season with a little more determination and commitment. In the longer term I hope to take up circuit racing – at least for one season, and at a reasonably high level. If I don’t, I’ll never know for sure whether I had the potential to live up to my boyhood dreams.
I compete through the Liverpool Motor Club – a jolly nice bunch who organise the excellent Aintree sprints as well as other events in the North West.
In the Peruvian jungle, along the Amazon, lurk mosquitoes carrying botfly eggs. Nothing exotic ever happens to me on trips, so finally, something interesting to write about. I’ve highlighted this post because since I first wrote about it, this page has been visited by over 100,00 people… who are probably somewhat more scared of jungles than they were before.
Argh - looks like an alien!
Please note this is a reproduction of the webpage I originally created for this story. I just thought it’d be better included in my journal rather than off on its own. Easier to manage too. The extraction happened in March 2006. Since then, thanks to B3ta, Digg, StumbleUpon and others, well over 100,000 people have visited and read this story – which is astonishing really. So thank you all. In the near future I’ll be re-writing this page to make it more thorough and give more information. In the meantime, enjoy!
Help me find my dad – if you’ve just returned from a holiday in South America, consider taking a look at my page about my father. Does he look familiar to you? If so, drop me a line.
Maybe it’s a karma thing. I dunno. I changed my plans and decided to go to the Peruvian jungle at the last minute because I was tired of mountains and deserts. But I’d forgotten that one advantage of dry mountain terrain is the relative lack of insect life.
The jungle was great, but one day I made the mistake of wearing a thin t-shirt made from a ‘technical’ fibre – ie, cooling and comfortable in the humid heat of the jungle. Mosquitoes struggle to bite through thick cotton, but these fibres are just so easy for them. In one day with this shirt on I managed to acquire about fifty bites, mostly on my back. Interestingly, the locals, even without deet repellent, receive far fewer bites.
One of these bites didn’t heal quite right. A week or so after I’d noticed it would hurt quite a bit, like a needle being pushed into my back. I guessed it was a little infected. This was late February. After a week or so of this I went to my local clinic where the nurse had a good look. She’s travelled tropically herself and was impressively clued up. After enquiries she felt it was likely to be a bug inside me. There then followed a slightly confusing phase when nobody seemed available to help me out, but eventually, after a few visits, a doctor at the famous Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine offered to take a look. He couldn’t find anything at the time, or extract it, sadly, but the pain continued and the now bigger wound was starting to hurt for longer periods of time. This, apparently, is the botfly larvae moving around and snacking on my flesh. Eventually it was a friend (who is also a dentist, which helps) covered the wound with vaseline and watched carefully for some time through a loupe. It soon became obvious that a botfly spiracle was popping up for air every now and again.. Which meant this bad boy was inside me:
The larvae, if left alone, would live inside me for up to eight weeks and grow up to 25mm long before leaving in order to pupate into the adult fly. I believe the fly can then live for up to two weeks, purely on the stored energy from its larval stage – it can’t eat as an adult. The adult then has to mate, and the female with then capture a mosquito in order to lay its eggs on it. When the mosquito bites someone, the eggs fall off and the warmth of the host causes those eggs to hatch and in a very short time the little grub will burrow in and get snacking.
Nice!
My friend Geraldine is having a baby and has shared the video of its ultrasound. Not wanting to feel left out I thought I’d share my own little ‘baby’ video with the world! But also I felt this page may help people who get the same problem – there are other resources, but none struck me as that clear to the layman, and there are none with a video to show you what to expect.
Some information that I’ve been able to find – the scientific name is Dermatobia Hominis. It has a mouth with scraping hooks, a main body with rows of hooks to hold onto its host, and a spiracle through which it breathes. Symptoms are an enlarging lesion (spot!) that has a small pinhole in the centre for breathing – this hole will not heal as long as the bug is alive. Occasionally you’ll feel sharp stabbing pains, lasting up to half an hour, as it moves or eats. It won’t burrow especially deeply and is unlikely to cause any real damage even if left to mature.
Extraction – we’re currently trying to persuade it out by covering the wound in vaseline. This forces it closer to the surface as its spiracle searches out air, and it may even come out completely. See the video above. As this story progresses I’ll update this page. I also plan to add some links to resources. Watch this space!
OK – I just gave birth to a baby worm. I always said I wanted children, but… not sure if this is the way.
Removal of the botfly larvae:
It wasn’t easy. Squeezing didn’t seem to work, and is said to be almost impossible if the larvae is still alive. So we settled on trying to kill it or weaken it. However, although there are approaches that give you an almost instant kill, the method we used helps to encourage the fella to come closer to the surface.
We needed some kind of dressing that was flexible enough to go on the back and able to keep as much air out as possible. We settled on the lid from a tube of jaffa cakes, filled with vaseline, and thoroughly taped in to place. After a night’s sleep I could feel the wriggling in the morning. Eventually the lid slipped and I removed it completely to see a lot more of the larvae sticking out. Result! I covered it once more, and quickly went to see my friend who was then able to gently tweezer the tip up enough to get another pair of tweezers lower down and slowly extract the bug. Mechanical removal like this isn’t usually advised, but as the larvae was weakened by this point after a night of struggling for air it seemed to be ok. My only concern now is that it might have a twin! But the wound is healing well, which is a very good sign. There’s still some inflammation but it’s improved.
Here’s some pics of the little blighter. Someone could probably make a rather neat little animation. You can see the movement of his mouth parts as he wonders where the hell his meal’s just gone. The goo is just vaseline, by the way.
When you compete in motorsport one of the peculiar things is the change in your perception of what’s possible. You do an amazing run and you just think to yourself “there’s no way I could go any quicker there.” And then next time out, you go that bit quicker again. And you wonder where on earth the extra time comes from. I have some theories – but more on that further down the article.
If you’ve followed previous posts you’ll know that having the car in a fit state for this event was a problem. The toelink had failed and gave the car handling that could most charitibly be described as ‘novel’. With the field at Aintree being full of quality drivers such as Bobby Friars and Gary Thomas there was no way to compete without a well setup car. At 4:30pm the day before, I collected the car from Christopher Neil in Northwich – Paul there had done a sterling job in getting the Eliseparts kit fitted in time for me. You have to give credit to any franchise dealership willing to fit a third party item to a car. Unfortunately, apart from a quick run on local roads there was no way to be sure that the kit was going to work properly or the geometry hadn’t been messed up.
After first practice at Aintree it was quite obvious that everything was just fine. The car still handled beautifully and I was able to post a first time of 52.40 – only a third of a second slower than the record which stood until this year. I felt good, though I noticed Gary Thomas had gone fractionally faster. We’d set out our markers and it was obvious where the battle was going to be.
For second practice it rained. I was able to go much quicker than Gary, but quite possibly that’s just because I’m much more stupid. If it continued to rain I might have a straightforward win, but frankly I wasn’t interest in just winning – I wanted my old class record back. It stood at 52.07, before Gary took it with a 51.84.
First competitive run… and… 51.44! I cheered the car as I passed the finish line – it was .63s faster than my best ever and a long way inside Gary’s best. I felt like I had the record! Which is a shame because when I came I was told Gary’s time… 51.07! How on earth….? I was wondering where this extra time was going to come from. I’d beaten my own target of breaking 51.5s but finding another half a second was going to be some challenge.
Second run. I’ll mention now that Gary went a little slower. But me… I had to nail it. The first corner was slightly wild, but still quick. The rest were great, everything coming together. As you come towards the finish line at aintree you can see the clock ticking up for what seems an age. 49… 50… and as I crossed the line it flicked over to 51… point 14. Damn!
Third and last competitive run. I had to really be perfect this time. And I was – the start was great, the first corner utterly perfect, the second just right… and then I decided to go asleep for a second. Really – I was so angry with myself. As I approached Bechers I braked just a tad too early. It’s not a huge problem, but perhaps worth 1/10th of a second. But what really messed me up was that as I turned in I realised I’d not shifted down for the corner. Now, in a race, if you’re followed by someone slower they still won’t pass you if you make a mistake like this. And if you’re chasing someone slower… well, you’ll make up the lost time on the next lap. But in a sprint at a simple (ish) and fast circuit like Aintree you have no chance of recovery. So what did I do? Well of course I made things even worse by changing down to third, mid-corner…. corrected the resultant slide, and headed for the finish line.
Stupid stupid stupid. Now, let’s go back to my first paragraph – when I set the 51.44 time it felt rapid. Really good and it was hard to see how I could go faster. And now, in spite of rampaging stupidity and careless driving I’d managed a 51.40. Huh?!
But it was game over. Gary drove a stonker on the next lap and is now the first to take a road-going production car around the sprint circuit in less than 51s, with a 50.97s time. Damn – he was the first to crack 52s as well! We’d pushed each other so hard that we’d smashed up all the old records. Gary has a distinct power advantage over me, but it’s possible for me to drive better still. I believe I’ve managed to develop the car to a point where its handling is pretty much perfectly balanced and benign. I could add more power – the underbonnet engineering is done now to handle over 200bhp and I guess that would bring me in line with Bobby and Gary’s cars.
Theories on speed
At some point I’ll write up an article on what I think it takes to get quick on the race circuit. But for the time being I’ll expound one little theory I’ve been building up.
I reckon there are three phases that you go through in becoming a decent driver, maybe more. I can only really speak from my own experiences.
But it’s kinda hard to explain. You get through these three step changes – from first fumblings in a kart you realise that winning isn’t always feasible – so you learn to maximise what you have. Then you discover that a ‘moment’ won’t necessarily turn nasty if you keep cool. So then you go a bit quicker again because you’re not scared of the car. Then suddenly something else happens – a smoothness develops, along with courage over recovering the car, and so on. And suddenly you’re getting there. I guess there’s more still to come, but I’ve no idea where it comes from. If it happens to me… I’ll let you know!
A bit of a long time since the last update, but here we go…..
At the end of May I did the MGOC Anglesey weekend sprint and, on the day before I did a trackday at the same place. All seemed great at the start of the trackday – the Elise going beautifully and showing itself well even amongst sticky tyred race cars. I was confident about the sprint.
But then, about half way through the day, the handling seemed to go somewhat awry. I put it down to the tyres going off, but the handling never seemed to return to where it should have been. Oh well – I continued on. The next two days I competed in the sprint but as there was only one Elise (me!) I accepted a class amalgamation into the mod-prods. All slick shod race cars and there’s me with standard road tyres. But I do like a challenge :o) Day one I did ok and came second, and day two I won it by a modest margin. Happy enough I went home, parked the car up, and didn’t think about it. My times hadn’t been amazing, but I didn’t worry.
Two weeks pass and the car is unused. I have enough to deal with on my house refurbishment without stressing about the car. I hopped in and drove off to Anglesey for another sprint – this time with Chester Motor Club and just for the Sunday. I was a little late and going at an, erm, modest pace along the A55 when I hit a bump and…. weave. Weave?! That was a new feeling. I wasn’t sure if it was me being tired or the car but it certainly did feel a little out of sorts.
Once I arrived I started checking over the car and then found the source of all my problems – the rear nearside toelink was rattling around like it was about to drop off! Not good for handling, and potentially dangerous too! I managed to tighten it a little, and others were a great help offering parts and assistance. In the end it was tight enough to nervously compete for a single run before I decided to cut my losses and head for home. As the Elises were once more under-represented I ran alone this time and got my win and, more importantly my championship points – though if you run alone you can only get the equivalent of second place.
This coming weekend I’ll be at Aintree and there’s a great field, including four Elises. That’s more like it! It should be a fun event, so long as my toelink can be sorted by then. I’ve ordered the Eliseparts kit as Lotus are all out of replacements. It means spending £280 instead of £30, but this is the problem with competition cars. Sometimes you need to spend in order to keep alive in the championships and compete effectively. The upside is that the new kit is substantially stronger than the old and should put up with years of track abuse.
Ok – I’ll admit it…. I’ve become so used to making Aintree my own that I was getting complacent. Last year Gary Thomas was running me close but I stayed ahead, kept my record, and was happy. Ish. But I knew the car wasn’t perfect – roll oversteer made it a sometimes tricky proposition and getting it back in line always meant a big lift and sometimes even application of brakes. The only closed-season work I really did to the car was to sort the geometry and to fit the braided hoses at the back that have been waiting two years to go on.
And what a dream to handle she now is! The biggest difference seems to be the effect of mid-corners bumps. Before they would throw the car around, often resulting in oversteer, whereas now the correct ride-height means the dampers can work properly.
The big problem, for Aintree, would be my utter and complete lack of track time. Not only did I have no time to get used to the new suspension, but I hadn’t even driven for two of the past four months, let alone been anywhere near a race circuit for six months. It wasn’t a good way to start the season.
First practice run was very much setting out feelers. Seeing where the circuit had grip, and how the suspension would react to different situations – in particular the very fast Bechers corner which has a vicious bump as you head for the apex. It all felt good enough, but it was a timid start with a 54.84 and Gary setting down a healthy 53.9 run – nearly a second quicker and setting an early pace. Third quickest was James Kerr – always a good driver but at Aintree it’s tough for the 205 cars to compete against the Elises in spite of often being more powerful and only a little heavier.
Second practice run finished with identical times for myself and Gary. It was going to be a close day. As we lined up for the first competitive runs my heart felt like it was trying to get out of my chest and do its own sprint. I needed to set a good early time to let myself play a little with the rest. And while waiting, I just had enough time to spot Gary setting his first time – a 51 something… and a new record! With a trap speed of 120mph at the finish line his car was also obviously a lot more powerful than mine. Uh-oh! I did my best… honest I did, but a 52.69, whilst it would have been fine a few years back, was nowhere near good enough today. I got in, checked his time, and it was 51.89. A time I felt was a long way from me. It’s also at this point that it occurred to me that perhaps the 160bhp he always said his car generated might be at the wheels. I asked him, and he couldn’t keep his face straight. Rumbled! Well… I’m not a big believer in power… but in spite of everything I could only turn in a 52.11, and a 52.04 – the latter a personal record. But not good enough, even though Gary never bettered his time. I had to be satisfied with second.
I did, however, continue to get quicker…. At Aintree, the efficiency of the organisation means that in spite of running 140 entries, they often manage to squeeze an extra ‘fun’ run in at the end of the day. I usually take these as track time’s important – but I usually find myself a little slower and less commited. Still, this time it was important – I needed to push the car harder, to see if the Bechers bump would upset it if I threw it in even faster. It wasn’t a great run – the giveaway being my trap speed of 114mph. Yet the time flashed up… 51.89. Just 5/100ths slower than Gary’s record setting time. And there’s still some speed in the car. So hopefully, just hopefully, that record can be mine once more come June.
Right…this is my first ever posting using a mobile phone. And it must be said that my usual 69wpm typing has rather gone astray but it ain’t half bad either…
Anyway, it’s the night before Aintree and I’m more nervous than usual due to lack of prep and track time. The car has been set up beautifully by Albert Walsh but without track time I can’t be sure of the handling.
When someone says they want to see you at noon, your mind usually meanders to thoughts of lunches. A salad perhaps, or maybe some pasta. And a beer. Hmmmm… lovely lovely beer.
Not Dr O’Dempsey. Nice bloke though he is, he had an ulterior motive.
You see, since New York I noticed that a mosquito bite had been getting larger and sometimes painful. It was like a stabbing feeling in my back that would last up fifteen minutes. As time passed it would ooze a little blood, and the pain was getting sharper.
My first port of call was a local clinic (I no longer even bother trying to see a GP any more) where she poked around at it. This nurse however, is one of the sharper bunnies at this clinic and she did actually listen to my symptoms and take a good look. After I left she thought about it, rang the world renowned School of Tropical Medicine in Liverpool, and then asked me if I could go back later in the week. It might be a larvae that I had.
Cool! This would make a great anecdote!
Various checks were made, vaseline smeared on, and so on. But nothing popped out, and the doctor was left with just one course of action. Cut an X in my back and take a peek inside. Let me say now, that even with a little local anaesthetic, this still hurts quite a lot. Still, after a bit of poking about he found nothing, apologised and patched me up. He couldn’t dig as deep as he’d have liked to as there’s a risk of getting too close to the lungs, and so although there’s a possibility there’s something in there there’s not a lot, short of general anaesthetics and a surgeon, that can be done.
If something’s in there it’ll probably die now and my body will absorb it in due course. If there’s nothing there… well at least the pain’s stopped.
For information – the symptoms that made them think it might be a bug:
Pricking sensation at times.
Inflammation and a bump, but no real sign of infection such as pus.
Getting larger over time.
And I got the bite in the Amazon.
Anyway, now I have a nice X on my back to remind me of a great holiday ;o)
I’ve often wondered about this – a lot of travellers take out traveller’s cheques or buy currency from their bank in advance. They often then exchange at banks when abroad.
As a regular overseas traveller I always felt, but hadn’t really researched properly, that ATM’s and credit card transactions were best – in spite of 2% commission charges.
Then I learned Nationwide makes no commission fees.
You then have the currency spread – ie, the difference between the price you buy and the price you sell. That’s pure profit. A lot of money changers in airports are working on up to a 10% spread. That means they’re taking 5% of your money each time you change. That’s a significant hit. If you expect to spend £1000 on your trip, £50 might easily make for an extra night somewhere, or a nice meal one day.
So after seeing a forum posting about this subject I decided to do some research and responded as follows:
Hmmmm… my experience of Travelex has been that they have a large spread on the currency prices, which usually means there’s a big profit somewhere. But interested by Stepehen’s claim I thought I’d investigate the website.
So, to the pound:
EUR = 1.4122
HKD = 13.1911
USD = 1.7021
Now let’s try my favourite with all things travel-money related. Nationwide:
EUR = 1.3937
HKD = 12.8700
USD = 1.6737
It’s a significant difference. However, I know Nationwide are using Travelex to provide their exchange service. So we have to pay extra to give both parties a profit, by the look of it.
But interesting.
Then my usual method – VISA debit card from Nationwide either to pay for things or from cash machines.
EUR = 1.46
HKD = 13.57
USD = 1.75
Though that’s what the website says, it looks like the figures are rounded in all those cases.
So far it seems to suggest that the mighty old card is better. Even if you take the usual 2% that most banks charge, you’re still better off with the ATM. Just. Having said that, the VISA site isn’t clear as to whether you pay more if you withdraw from a cash machine than if it’s a transaction in a shop.
Incidentally, the forex rate right now appears to be:
EUR = 1.45935
HKD = 13.498
USD = 1.73880
Which VISA actually appear to be bettering, though VISA’s prices may only change daily.
Shows to me that the exchange rate for actual cash is significantly more expensive than using cards.
I should now look at the exchange rates I get from banks for Euro cheques! Never looked so closely really and I’m convinced we get fleeced.
Well… kind of. You won’t see much difference, but I’ve just upgraded the software for the blog to v2.0.1 – in reality it makes the blog a fair bit easier for me to use, but won’t make much of a difference to you except that with a bit of luck you’ll see better updates. The theme’s changed too, so the colours and layout may look a little different, but all the functions remain the same.
Of course, my trip’s over now, so the updates on here won’t be so frequent. However, there’s the background stuff I promised, and then there’ll be information and updates on my sprinting and hillclimbing this year. Within a short while I’m also hoping to sort out the upload of some pictures from the holiday. But there’s a lot to get through… I managed some 2000 photos in two months!
