So I read that new gloves might help relieve the pressure, and so ordered some Chiba Comfort Gel Mitts. I've been using them for about a week now, and the difference is huge. I haven't done any long rides yet (about the longest so far was about 5km) this week, but I can tell that the new gloves are really helping. There's no sign of numbness, and the pain in my palms is much reduced.

Of course I've also read that hand pain can also be caused by a badly adjusted bike seat, so I may have to talk to the folks in my local bike shop to get some advice on how to change it.

A couple of months ago I switched my current account to a new bank, and as part of the switching process the old bank notifies every company that takes a direct debit from me of the new account details. Now for every other company I deal with this worked fine. They received the details, changed the direct debit mandate, and took payment from my new account. But not UPC it seems.

The usual April payment didn't come out of my account, but I was reassured by a text message form UPC saying that a double payment would instead be taken from my account in May. So I naturally thought they have received the new account details, but hadn't managed to set them up in time for the April billing cycle. And so I waited. But then I got another text message a couple of days ago saying that I need to update my Direct Debit details online. So I dutifully logon, and give them the same details as supplied about a month ago.

But then I get a phone call this morning from the UPC credit control department, demanding immediate payment over the phone. They say that there's no Direct Debit set up on my account, and that they will not set it up until I pay not only the April payment, but the May payment too (which isn't even due yet). I ask them to simply collect this money by Direct Debit as per their original text, but they refuse to do so, saying that they can only set up Direct Debit mandates for accounts that have a zero balance. And they refuse to acknowledge they they've messed up at all. In their eyes it's all my fault that the April's Direct Debit was rejected, and further that I should have been in touch to rectify the situation, despite the reassuring text message suggesting that it's all in hand.

So anyway, I eventually agreed to settle the balance owed over the phone, and gave them my card details - only to be told that they don't accept Visa Debit card. I must provide either a Credit Card or Laser card for payments over the phone. But they do tell me I can pay by Visa Debit online, although I should select 'Laser' when I make the payment - but this turns out to be a lie, as they don't accept Visa Debit online either.

The bank are also withdrawing entirely from retail banking, so that all customers of the Halifax will need to move their current accounts, savings accounts and credit cards to alternative banks by the end of May 2009. All branches of the Halifax will also close. Mortgage customers can maintain their home loan until it is paid off if they want, but no new loans will be offered.

Situated on the Phibsborough Road D7, they are a community project that takes donated old bikes (as well as abandoned bikes from around the city) and renovates them in their workshop; selling them on second-hand at a very reasonable price.

I really love the concept, because it promotes recycling and reuse, sustainable transport, and community-based education.

I just wish my new bike would hurry up and arrive in the shop, so that I can donate my existing ride to the project.

St Ann’s employs a professional chamber choir to sing it’s Sunday morning service. The choir sings a broad repertoire of traditional Anglican church music at the alternating Eucharist and Matins services on Sundays at 10.45am.

Ideal candidates will have experience of singing in a church choir, have a committed attitude towards the choir, have good sight-reading ability, and a voice that blends well in a small ensemble.

Auditions will take place on the afternoon of Sunday 21st March. Please contact the Director of Music, Charles Marshall, for details of the audition process and renumeration level.

Email: tcmcharlie@gmail.com Phone: 087 975 2017

• Praetorius-Sandstrom - Es ist ein Ros entsprungen
• Tavener - The Lamb / God Is With Us
• Poston - Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
• Lauridsen - O Magnum Mysterium
• Maxwell Davies - O Magnum Mysterium

The concert will take place on Saturday 12th December at 8pm in the Pro-Cathedral Marlborough Street. Tickets are priced at €15 / €10 concessions. Tickets are available at the door.

• Cycling in Dublin - City of Dublin cycling portal, with bike route maps and a facility to suggest and vote for new cycle parking stands.
• Dublin Bikes - the bike sharing scheme with 40 rental stations around the city centre.
• Dublin Cycling Campaign - representing the interests of everyday cyclists.
• National Bike Week - which ran from 14-21st June 2009, and organised a load of biking events,
• Smarter Travel - Department of Transport site outlining sustainable transport plans, including the National Cycle Policy Framework.
• Bike to Work - details of the government’s tax-efficient scheme allowing staff to purchase new bikes for commuting to work through their employer.

And so, when there was a knock on the door earlier today, I assumed it must be one of our neighbours. But no - it was a salesman - and he must have persuaded one of the other residents to let him in. I've flatly refused to let other salespeople into the apartments in the past, as I hate the concept of being doorstepped with a hard sell.

Anyway, so this guy was from Airtricity, and he was trying to persuade me to switch electricity suppliers to them. He asked if I had a recent electricity bill that I could show them, and he would explain how much money I could save. I declined, but he kept talking, trying to persuade me to play along - reminding me why I hate this kind of selling.

The thing is, I'd been considering moving my supply to Airtricity anyway, as they have the cheapest prices on the market at the moment, and are a good way for eco-agnostics like myself to feel a bit better about saving the planet, without any of the down sides of being properly green (such as putting in any effort). I even had the company's website loaded up on one of my browser tabs. But this recent visitation has put me right off the company, and I may well end up going with Bord Gais instead, just on principal.

On my ride home from work today I heard a distinctly loud clunk, and stopped to find that the rear wheel was way out of line and rubbing against the brakes and frame. And at first thought, I guessed it must be a broken spoke or two, but I checked them and they all seemed fine. So I looked a bit more, and eventually spotted the wheel axle itself was broken. A disc of metal had broken off, and all this lubricant stuff was leaking out, and you could see the ball bearings popping out.

It’s yet another repair that I have to deal with. The bike itself was pretty cheap - but with the amount of money I’ve spent on it since then, replacing and repairing various bit, I’ve probably doubled the original outlay. And there’s only so long that I’ll be prepared to throw good money after bad.

I had been pondering the idea of a new bike for a few of weeks anyway, and I guess today’s problem is helping to focus my mind. I have an idea about the kind of bike I want to get, and I’m rather hoping that my employer with embrace the Irish government’s Bike to Work tax-efficient scheme, as it would give me a significant discount.

And until I decide whether to go for a new bike, I’m rather loathed to get the old one fixed. After all, I sense this repair might cost a few quid, and if I then tried to sell the bike on second-hand, I doubt that I’d get that money back. And so, I guess I’m back to being a pedestrian again for a few days.

It’s not that I’m particularly interested in installing dozens of unauthorised applications. Indeed, I’m quite happy with all the legit applications I’ve downloaded from the iTunes store. I did the jailbreak in order to unlock the phone and allow me to use another network’s SIM, ahead of an upcoming trip to the UK.

I’ve been stung quite badly in the past by data roaming charges. In one case last year, I had a similar trip to the UK for a week, and while there made only light use of the phone, but still managed to run up a staggering €160 of data roaming charges - based upon a cost of about €5 per megabyte. And although O2 Ireland have improved things slightly since then (you now only get charged for the first 4 megabytes each day while roaming - but still at €5 per megabyte - so a potential of €20 a day), I was still looking at a potential bill of well over €100 worth of data charges if I wanted to use data.

This is in contrast to the domestic data charges of an operator such as Orange, who charge a maximum of £2 per day for up to 25 megabytes usage - and that’s on their prepaid tariff.

And so it was pretty-much a no-brainer, in term of deciding whether or not to get my iPhone unlocked. I’m going to be saving a fortune while I’m away - and as I’ll have my UK SIM in the iPhone, I’ll not have to carry two phones around with me.

With some 450 bikes available in 40 different locations in the city centre, users can take a cycle for free for up to 30 minutes, and after that it’s only 50 cents per half hour.

My main focus was on classical and choral music performances, because that’s the kind of thing that I’m interested in. And despite the mainstream media’s best attempts to portray the Fringe as solely a comedy festival, there are lots of musical things happening as well - in addition to theatre, dance, children’s shows, and exhibitions - but the scheduling of the stuff in which I’m interested shows a staggering lack of creative thinking.

Check out the amateur choirs and orchestras doing proper classical music, and you’ll that almost without exception all their concerts are at 7.30pm on a Friday or Saturday night. And while that’s a sensible programming choice for a wet weekend in November, it’s a crazy choice for the Edinburgh Festival - because everyone has ended up scheduling their concerts at the same time - thus dividing their potential audience.

As for me, I’ve found three different concerts I’d quite like to see - but I won’t see any of them, because they’re all taking place on the same Saturday evening - and I already have tickets for something else that night in the International Festival.

One choir I used to belong to is still going strong in the Fringe, with two performances this year. And back when they started, their original plan was to schedule their first concert for 7.30pm on a Friday night of the middle weekend of the Fringe - until I stepped in and convinced them to go for a 10.00pm slot on a Tuesday. My thinking was that we wanted to avoid clashing with anything else. Indeed, the plan was to make our concert the musical equivalent of a nightcap - somewhere for weary concert-goers to stop in for an hour’s reflective wind-down, on their way home from something else. And you know what? It worked, and continues to work today. In 2006 we sold-out our 400-seat venue about half and hour before the concert. In 2007 we sold-out a couple of weeks ahead of the gig. And they’re still playing to capacity crowds today - thanks to a bit of creative programming.

It’s just a shame that more groups haven’t thought a bit more creatively about when they schedule their concerts.

Firstly, I discovered a few days ago that two of the spokes on my back wheel are broken. I noticed the wheel was buckled about 10 days ago, because the brake pads had been catching on a certain section of the wheel, and I had assumed that some moron had kicked the bike when it was parked up in the city. But the real truth is that two adjacent spokes on the same side of the wheel had snapped (I know not when), and the subsequent imbalance of tension from the spokes on the two sides had warped the wheel. So as an interim measure, I adjusted some of the spoke tensions around the break to staighten the wheel a bit, and kept riding. But I realise this is only a short term fix, and that I have to deal with it properly.

Secondly, my saddle - or rather the bracket that holds it to the seat post - is in a very poor state. The metal bracket has over time buckled quite considerably; such that the saddle now wobbles considerably front-to-back. It’s still okay to ride for short trips, but it does feel quite strange, and can sometimes press uncomfortably on the nethers.

Sadly, both of these mechanical problems almost certainly stem from the overly excessive strain placed on the bike by its heavy rider (me). I’ve had other cycle problems in the past because of my weight, such as a pinch flat and two sets of broken pedals, but generally the bike had held up remarkably well. It just gets expensive when these problems crop up, and my visits to the cycle shop have become frequent.

None of this has put me off cycling however. Ever since a friend of mine convinced me (some 9 months ago) to blow the cobwebs off my unused bike, I’ve been a convert - and have developed a passion for all things cycling. I used to walk pretty much everywhere, as I’ve avoided owning a car in Ireland, but it used to take a long time to get anywhere. Whereas on the bike, I can get to placed further afield than on foot, and much faster. And now, I hardly walk anywhere.

All this week the events continue, with free bike tune-ups available across the country, and various rides and cycle-to-work days. I’m hoping to take park in the Dublin City Cycle on Wednesday evening.

It’s a pain in the arse, because now I have to walk to work tomorrow, and then set aside some time for the repair. I have a patch kit somewhere, but I haven’t got any tools to get the tyre off. When I was a kid I remember that we used to use spoons out of the kitchen drawer - which probably accounted for the cutlery with kinks in the handles that my family had to endure for years.

Maybe I should just admit defeat, and get the cycle shop to do the repair.