philosophically axed

Sometime last week I noticed a little bit of play on my pedals, which wasn't fixed by tightening everything and quickly worsened to the point where every pedal stroke begat a clink and every hard pedal stroke a clank as the chainring wobbled sufficiently for the chain to rattle against the front mech. Seven years is long enough for a bottom bracket to last and new ones are fairly cheap, though this marks the removal of the last remaining original non-frame and non-front-wheel component of this bike. I did wonder about temporarily reinstalling it after removing it to check that the dimensions I'd measured with the crank removed were accurate but thought it might be interesting to use the spare for a day or so, though it was fortunate that I then went to get the spare out of the shedbox as the front tyre turned out to be flat, technically breaking the Armadilloes-never-get-punctured rule but as it was one of the extremely old tyres which came with the bike it probably doesn't count. It now has a nice fresh Armadillo Nimbus fitted and should be sufficiently invincible to commute on for as long as it takes a BB to be shipped if no-one has the right size in stock tomorrow lunchtime.