Underneath the arches

Debate of the day: should I give McDonald's another try?

Like everyone else who isn't minimum-wage or under 20, I gave up on Mickey D's the moment I entered my teens and haven't visited since. The yellow arches don't even feature in my perception of street furniture these days; they're just visual junk, not even registering with me. If you asked me if there's a McDonalds in my neighbourhood, I'd have to think very, very hard.

The reasoning behind this is that I'm spending a lot of time on the Edgware Road these days around lunchtime. And when it comes to the Fried Chicken Test, this street doesn't just fail the test; it's been refused entry to sit the exam*. The centre of London's Middle Eastern community, but there's a real lack of the falafels, thick coffee, and other delights you might expect. Instead, it's a strip of hardware stores, greasy kebab joints, and downmarket retailers. And - probably - a McDonald's, although thinking back I can't remember one.

Anyway, having noticed the 'toasted ciabatta' ads, and respecting how hard McD's is trying, I'm sorely tempted to try something from their new menu. I laughed when I first saw a darkly-panelled coffee shop corner in a Dublin McD's a while back; as they've added salads (albeit with more calories than a Big Mac) and sandwiches to their menu I'm gaining a grudging respect for them. I may just venture inside the Golden Arches next month, for the first time in at least 15 years.

Or maybe I'll just wait until they've got a wine list.

* The Fried Chicken Test: if a street has 3 or more shops selling fried chicken and no chain coffee shop on it, any estate agent describing the area as 'up-and-coming' is lying.

1000km in a day

It's a while since I travelled a thousand kilometres in the same day without a plane. London to the Northeast and back is really too far to go for two meetings, especially when you're up against the unglamorous lot of the British commercial traveller - instead of exciting Asian cityscapes or smooth European roads, you've got my private hell of the Motorway Service Station. Not a bad lunch up north though, at a Michelin-starred hotel.

Katrina and Rita

My vote for unluckiest people of the month: those who got turfed out of New Orleans by Katrina, and are now having to take off from Houston with Rita on their backs. Was the Day After Tomorrow less of a movie than a calendar appointment? The US certainly seems to be getting an unusual battering this year.

Assault of the Anglo-Saxons

Now this could be interesting. It looks like Angela Merkel's going to be Germany's next Chancellor. Merkel is pro-Bush and pro-Iraquagmire, which will create an interesting shift within the EU: she's likely to team more closely with London than Paris, perhaps giving Blair his last chance to build the lasting legacy he desperately wants for himself. (It's a strange kind of justice that all Blair's likely to be remembered for is Iraq.)

But seriously... can't you just imagine her saying 'You are the weakest link. Goodbye?'

Missing the swim

The London Duathlon!

Run, bike, run. The biggest duathlon event in the world before it even started. With a renewed interest in sport fuelled by the 2012 Olympics win, London just does athletics bigger these days. (I'm waiting for the swim centre, personally - but thanks for the additional Tube station being built behind my house.)

The event at Richmond Park turns out to be surprisingly hard. When I arrive before 8am there's still frost on the ground, and that's no weather to be wearing a Trisuit; glad I packed running tights and a jacket. Keep ignoring the pangs of forgetting my wetsuit; habits die hard, and although I know I'm not going to get wet today my eyes keep being drawn to the unusually empty compartment at the base of my bag.

At first, it seems a little too... organised. Waves of just 10, released every 30 seconds - overkill, surely? It's only out on the course that I realise the whole race has to happen along a single lane of low-capacity road, and spreading people out is the only way to make it work. Whoever planned this was brilliant.

The first 10K goes ok. Slow (I'm a bad runner) but steady; saving myself up. Plenty of people pass, in accordance with prophecy. Nothing creates a problem. I'm fine, and I'm rolling. Duathlon transitions are a cinch if you're used to Tri. Onto the bike, and I start making up places again; it seems everyone here is a runner. They're trading up, while I'm trading down.

The bike goes well - hitting 35km/h even on these narrow pathways. But the third leg really hits hard. Coming off the bike and running - again - is a problem from Step One. I decide to plod: small steps, still nominally running, but slow as a US Government disaster response when black people are the main group suffering. 2Km from the finish, a spasm starts itself up in my right leg - the feeling you get just before a major cramp twists a major muscle into an orgy of pain.

Instead of the standard response - you know, that inner monologue of 'Oh no! In half a second this is going to hurt like a motherfucker!' - and letting it happen, I fight it. I push the thigh on each step, a brief massage that stops it collapsing into chaos. I'm concerned that if I stop that'll be the trigger for the cramp to kick in, flipping a major muscle 180 degrees under my skin and turfing me out of the gym for days.

I haven't had a decent cramp since 1997, and while it scares me, it also excites me a little. I will the spasm to subside, and it creeps up again and again, and somehow I keep it down.

"Strong finish!" yells a spectator as I head for the line. In a Tri I can usually manage a sprint in the last 100m, but I can't finish strong today. The moment I stop I'm limping. Time to lie down and massage that leg, which works: within minutes it's walkable again, and a couple of hours later I can't feel the cramp at all. It's worked; I beat it. But I've learned respect for the Duathlon - a respect some triathletes don't have. A new multisport for me.

The worst kind of bureaucracy

What's the worst kind of bureaucracy? The kind where red tape is created without even the intention of making things better.

Take Ryanair's tussles at Charleroi airport. The little airport's been subsidising Ryanair's landing fees for years. In the process, the airport's grown, the region's economy has received a boost, and planeloads of tourists get to discover yet another destination on the cheap. Everyone wins, except perhaps the environment.

But these 'subsidies' (which are discounts for a steady customer, not subsidies) have been ruled illegal. And new rules and regs have been drawn up. Not because they thought it would make anything better - just purely because they wanted to be able to dictate terms, and the best way to do that is to write laws.

It's one of the few really bad things about the EU: the surging, irresistible urge to control. An urge that's led to a sevenfold increase in UK regulation in the last 15 years, with a cultural backwash that red tape's unavoidable, leading to other areas like the doubling in size of the UK tax code since New Labour took power. Creating yet more drag on the productivity of every worker and every business, as both wallow endlessly in the suffocating oily sludge of red tape.

Perry Marshall on Google Adwords

I've always enjoyed Perry Marshall's emails about Google marketing, and this article is his best yet. Snippet:

"I have a friend named Brad who used to work at the rail yards in Western Nebraska. He would watch huge trains pass through the switchyard on their way from one coast to another, full of commodities like corn and soybeans and coal. One day he realized that just by watching the flow of commodities in the rail yard from day to day, he could figure out what the fat cats were doing on the futures markets. He used this "insider information" to buy futures and make money...Most people see trains. Brad sees money changing hands."

So tell me something I don't know