Getting my space (a lunchtime hike)

What do you do when you're all revved-up with nowhere to go? GO.

Normally the plateau at Caesar's Camp (about 150 metres above sea level) can be climbed by bike, but seeing as it's 5 miles away by road or 15 cross-country, today one decided one couldn't be arsed. So, parking just a walk away and taking a hike was a good idea. It got a bit overcast, but hey, it was fresh air, exercise and a good view of the kingdom.



And then, on the way back to the wagon, out of nowhere, some bozo of a dog comes bounding up to me at full pelt and nuzzles me in the nether regions, by which time it's too late to fend him off or even realise the b*st*rd's soaking wet and filthy with mud. The dog that is. And then me. And my baggies.

So I made the detour home to post this, chuck my shorts in the wash and now might be able to finish off my shopping now without kids pointing and saying "ur, mummy that bloke's messed his pants" What? at the front? Yeah, I don't know how I managed it there either?!?!?

Bloody dogs.

I Want You...

...to play in England sometime soon...

Randomly surfing the 'net the other day (as you do) and saw some mp3 links for Danko Jones. Familiar name. Great sound. And sorry for forgetting where the links were, whoeveryouwere, you'd surely get credit if the memory served me correctly :)

Anyways - yeah, Danko Jones. Not much to say really but "shit hot". From the stuttering sleeze of Bounce, the raucous & lusty I Want You to the Thin Lizzy-esque Heartbreak's a Blessing... this Toronto power trio have a lot of flavours. Low-hung bass lines, punked-up blues licks and venomous vocal harmonies all topped off with bags of raw energy - these boys sound like they can really get the crowd moving.

So, if the north of England's greatest teenage groupie could lend a hand here (yes, Seffy, I'm talking about you) and get Danko Jones to play the UK then I'll buy you a Coke^TM ;)

Ooh look - Danko Jones downloads (MP3s and vids) and their latest LP - We Sweat Blood

"Bounce" by Danko Jones from the LP "I'm Alive and On Fire"

I love your black dress, your red lips, your long legs, your high heels
I love your thigh high boots, your snakeskin one piece suit
Yeah you really get me going when you put it all on
But I like it a little better when you take it all off

Baby C'mon Put it all on
Baby C'mon take it all off

I love your leopard spot bikini and your black kangol
I love it when you hop out of bed and dance to the radio
Yeah you really get me going when you put it all on
But I like it a little better when you take it all off

Baby C'mon put it all on
Baby C'mon take it all off

I love the way you keep me moving every time your standing still
I love the look in your eyes when your licking your lips
Yeah you really get me going when you put it all on
But I like it a little better when you take it all off

Baby C'mon put it all on
Baby C'mon take it all off

Sexy stuff huh?

Right - I gotta call big man and get my guitar and amp back...

Blue Skies...

Business in one department means laziness in another, so work gets 99% attention, the blog just 1%...

...so here's a quick shot of today's sky...

It won't come out...

I mean that; it just won't come out!

It went in about half 2 on Sunday and when I'd had enough I wanted it out.

But it just wasn't havin' it.

So it stayed there for the next 2 and a half hours.

And if it doesn't come out now it'll probably stay there forever and drive me mad...

'twas a Mini Adventure

FRIDAY: Glorious sunshine in the south of England, and a 4 and a half hour business meeting was a great way to start the day... By 1:30pm I was totally Hank Marvin and raced home to have lunch on the go, do the rest of the day's work and then load-up the wagon and head west...

It got grey and it started to rain...

The journey was pretty uneventful apart from getting hit by a stray hubcap and laughing my arse off at some twat in a Jag on the Severn Bridge. He stopped at the automatic toll booths where you throw your coins in a hopper and the barrier opens to let you through. Having only a filthy five pound note I went to the "manned booth". Only it was a woman - so why was it not a "womaned booth"? As my queue got shorter, the twat in the Jag was still at the front of his... either there was some malfunction with the machinery or it was his karma biting him in the ass for throwing some dodgy foreign coinage in there to pass-off as pound coins, not actually having any change, not having the right change... whatever.

The Rock & Fountain in Clydach was cool. The landylady had a lot of front, so that was a warm welcome :D A couple of local beers and a sirloin steak dinner and I was ready for bed. 9pm to be precise. Far too tired to be sociable. At 10 I was awoken by "the Summer of '69" belting out of the karaoke night...

SATURDAY: 8am and off to Merthyr Tydfil and Brecon to get a bacon roll and some cycling. Then back to the hotel for a wash and a change of clothes. Only one problem - I hadn't packed any underwear. Socks, yes, undercrackers, no. I asked the chambermaid where I could purchase replacement keks and she directed me to the nearest purveyor of pants - Tesco.

So, after a pantless dash to le supermarché and back, it was a time for a quick wash & scrub-up before heading off, complete with shiny new boulder holders, to the borders again for some Mountain Mayhem. The lads had got there only minutes beforehand so the timing was excellent. Mind you, they had stopped for a pub lunch on the way there. B*st*rds. LOL

Most of us had waterproofs & sturdy boots, so these were topped off with race suits & skid lids ready for some hot TomCar action...

It was too damn wet & muddy to even risk taking the camera out, so we just bombed 'round a Welsh field in our cars with jumps, drops, park-ups and the infamous water-run and got completely plastered in mud.

The mud up my nose had a distinctly "more than just mud" aroma to it... and I wasn't the only one to notice...

So the rain came down and we got wetter and eventually very cold too. But this was all forgotten when some modest old soul won the first prize - a trophy and a bottle of bubbly to shake & spray at the crowd ;)

SUNDAY: After an evening of much boozing we had a big fry-up for breakfast. The groom couldn't handle his eggs & bacon, but then he did sleep with a bin by the side of his bed...

The day was sunny and the event was hovercraft racing. We passed the field we raced in the day before and found a couple of horses in there... so yeah, it wasn't just mud...

The hovercraft were so much more difficult to control than the tom cars, needing a lot of leaning to coax the machines 'round bends. I was totally crap at it and, in complete contrast to the day before, came an enjoyable & most impressive last.

The best laugh came when *somebody* attempted a jackass-esque kamikaze manouevre and ditched the hovercraft violently into the deck before performing a commando-roll out of the lurching vehicle & then springing to their feet in jubilation. For a brief moment everybody was "having kittens" and then fell about the floor with laughter. Needless to say that was not the last I heard of it :D

Oh, yeah, and I "just popped in" to a castle that I saw on the way home too... Longtown Castle. I saw the castle on the map for the way home and then the sign at the roadside in the village of Longtown and made an impromptu stop to have a quick looksee and grab some photos...

And that was it, a thoroughly pleasant and enjoyable couple of days :D

How was your weekend?

It's a Mini Adventure

Yeah OK, OK, that's the ad slogan for the Mini, but there IS going to be a mini adventure of sorts this weekend...

...I was gonna blog on the title of "Crazy Kids" after last night's experience in the dojo... where Sensei's first comment was "kids! tsk" and he rolled his eyes, only to have a lesson with some new faces, one of which was a 7 year-old lad with what I can only guess was ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Man, I thought I was random, but this guy... whoah... after 15 minutes of laughing, titting about and making sound effects with every move, you could see Sensei's mood reach, what can only be safely called, "point break"... which was a good film, incidently. But anyway, like I say, I was gonna say all that but I won't...

Instead... it's off to "The Valleys" for some "Mountain Mayhem" this weekend...

...or in other words heading off to Abergavenny, Wales for a weekend with the lads; Buggy and Hovercraft racing.

No paintballing though :( I've never done paintball before, so that will have to wait. The groom-to-be didn't want us shooting him in the tackle or anything so he chickened out.

And talking of chickening out, who's the only one of a group of 9 to be going there on the Friday night to check out the local area and get some biking done on the Saturday morning? Well, I figured, you can't go to Wales and not get up in the hills or take the bike - and if it means going on me jack, then so be it.

It's actually really exciting as I've only ever been to the Black Mountains once (it was VERY foggy and I bumped into the SAS on exercise) and spent a very long day in the SONY factory at Bridgend... so to see Wales will be good to satisfy my modest travelling appetite. Maybe this is the start of greater things... more getting away from it all...

So if anyone knows any good pubs in Abergavenny and/or any fairly light bike trails (hardtail and no SPDs) then let me know :) I've been to the MBWales site... but it looks like you have to do a bit of research...

German Para Boots

Assuming I was going to get muddy this weekend too, I just bought a pair of used German Para Boots - they're soft and supple and someone else has kindly worn them in for me :) I checked them for size, splits, tears, general overall condition etc. and they're bloody perfect. When I go them home, you know what freaked me out...? They've only got my initials in them !!! How freaky is that? :)

Rhinestones? I didn't order no Rhinestones...

"Knock down Ginger" at 8 in the morning...

Trotsky the Postman does that when he's in a rush; Lets me know there's a parcel by ringing the bell and legging it...

So I find a box marked "Rhinestone" on my doorstep...

...who the F would send me rhinestones? I'm not even in the fashion industry, and besides, I don't even know anybody in... Carlsbad? Oh yes I do...

*Penny Drops*

Yeehah, I got Twinkies, I got Twinkies, oooh, and Lucky Puffs too - bright green - awesome, and they're coconut too - my favourite :D And a Moon Pie and a Spider-man Crazy Dip amazing crackling + lollipop and a note on a fluorescent green index card...

"Mmmmm...
Twinky Goodness from California!!"

Thankyou Vicious Summer xx

Mmmm, Twinkies, good... Twinkies and big mug of tea... ohh!!

What a great start to the day

Forget the Pyramids

Forget Niagara Falls...

Infact forget any reputedly cool destination...

...Hawley Woods are THE place to be. And the rest...

Going out for a "quick" ride yesterday (hot and Sunny) ended up in a blast through Hawley Woods and round the Hawley Lake, up Hawley Hill and down to Minley Manor.

There was even a minefield between Minley Manor and the pond, I thought you wouldn't believe it unless you saw it - so photo below - "Achtung - Minen"

Down to the Fleet Pond, past the NGTE, a quick hop along to the Basingstoke Canal, into Velmead Woods and up to the trig point at Miles Hill, overlooking the Farnborough Airfield.

Then a "bomb" through the Long Valley, past Tweseldown Racecourse, to Outridden Copse and Burn's Plain. Across the road and up, up, up to Ceasar's Camp to take in a commanding view of the Kingdom...

A dash along to Bricksbury Hill for a broad downhill section back to Burn's Plain and across to the back of Rushmoor Arena to catch a glimpse of the banger racing from the Fleet Motor Club, then over to the Army Golf Club and down the Farnborough Road...

...past the Air Sciences Trust (it's XS420, Dave ;) ), through our scabby old relegated town centre and then home...

So, apart form the last leg of the ride, it was a most pleasurable experience. We are so lucky to have so much around us - it just takes a 20-30 mile ride across country to take it all in.

And the people, oh the people were so good. Having just read RahX's ego post, it seems like a little luck rubbed off and everyone wanted to stop and say hello, have a chat, ask directions etc. Hurrah for humankind, we're not so bad after all.

And if anyone wants to do this trail, there's the map. Do as much off-road as you can to appreciate it, though the roads are only there to get you home quick 'cos you're hungry ;)

Follow Me, Don't Follow Me...

7:30am, grey, rainy morning. A good time to get in the car, drive to the bank and use the ATM to deposit a fat cheque before things get busy and I have to pay for parking miles away from where I need to be.

I drive to the nearby town of Fleet, and at the traffic lights there's a diversion and a sign BLOCKING the Fleet Road (the main hi street) that says

"NO TRAFFIC PAST THIS POINT"

or words to that effect.

Now, being a local lad I ignore this, swerve 'round it and drive down the road as far as I can (another 1/4 mile) before pulling up in a lay-by to cross the road and go drop my cheque in. As you can see from the photo that's about as far as I could go... there's holes in the road, barriers and NO vehicles can get past this point.

Funny thing is, as I get out of my car, there's a queue of traffic behind me - all these cars have followed me down the road, past the big "NO TRAFFIC..." sign, and now they all realise they can't get through.

There's a look of mixed perplexity and frustration on their faces as they all attempt U-turns in the road.

Hahaha silly fokkers... that'll teach 'em not to follow me...

Starlet Fever

Bought me out in a rash it did...

I took the Subaru in for it's service and repair this morning. 15 miles through country lanes, sun shining, not a cloud in the sky.

I get to Twyford, looking forward to driving the Subaru Forrester courtesy car they promised me, and guess what? They didn't have one. I ended up with a poxy little Toyota Starlet and if that's not enough it's a 1 litre automatic. 1 f'ing litre f'ing automatic. Grrr.

I hate it, it's horrible. 0-60 in 14 months, has the handling characteristics of a lilo, body-rejecting seats (as opposed to body-hugging - you know, the ones that curve in all the wrong places and try to throw you out at the first sniff of a bend in the road), crap radio, 2 pissy speakers, cheap tacky trim, wind-down windows, not enough room to chuck a bike in the boot and, as Brom man said the other day, there's a pedal missing.

This is embarrasing, it's just not me, this car. Whatever will the neighbours think? Probably reckon I've gone soft or something... "Oooh, you bought a sensible car" No I didn't, it's crap and it's going back - the sooner the better.

Roll on Tuesday afternoon, I want my 4x4 turbo back.

Prepare to meet thy Doom 3

I didn't mean to...

It just happened...

The paper shredder, intended to destroy sensitive information¹, was right next to the games section.

Well, OK, it was 100 yards away, but when the voice of logic & reason says "anything else you need?" it's always a good cue to check your mental list and avoid those annoying moments when you get home and shout "oh, bollocks², I forgot the XXXX".

So I checked my list.

• Paper Shredder.

So, yeah, lucky that happened otherwise I'd have got home and had to kick myself, having first shouted "oh, bollocks, I forgot to pickup Doom 3 for the Xbox."

Anyway, smug with the glow that only occasional self-satisfaction can bring, I went straight to the games section (right next door, remember? ) and grabbed the box at the number 1 slot.

Back at the bat-cave I waited for dusk to fall but then lapsed into a fall, of the sleeping kind, myself and awoke at around 3 in the morning. Darkness. Ideal for playing 18-rated games like Doom 3.

There was a lot of buzz amongst the PC community about this release some months ago, but back then Halo2 was my main priority. I admit to fearing that Doom 3 would break the nostalgic spell that still existed from playing Doom on a DX2 66MHz way back when...

...having a phat smoke before going to work and stepping into the lobby of the corporate HQ, the marble compass on the floor erily reminiscent of a Doom-style pentagram.

Into the lift, doors slid shut. Going up...

...OK, OK, so what happens when the lift stops? Click-click, shotgun ready...

...WTF am I doing? This is work in leafy suburbia not a research facility on planet Mars...

So yeah, there's a lot of history between me and this game - 10 years or more. But sitting with a new copy in 2005, the power of the Xbox and the lights out...

...I need new underpants and a heart bypass.

1. Apparently ID theft is getting big in this country. It's probably just some big conspiracy theory dreamt-up by paper-shredder companies. But hey I believe the hype, it keeps people in jobs right? ;)


2. See Bollocks

Oh my God, she's gonna blow...

Travelling west from my Uncle's on Monday we hit the M62 motorway at about 5pm. Everything was going OK for the first hour, including a quick stop at the M-way services for a jimmy riddle ;)

On the way back to the car I paused briefly at the store to check if there were any decent mags to read. Nope. No Custom Car, no Street Machine... I got back in the car...

A little further west along the M62 we started seeing smoke. A smoky old motor maybe?

And then flames.

And then everything stopped.

The whole 3 lanes came to a complete standstill.

10+ firetenders (in rotation), 2 fire support vehicles, 2 cop cars, an ambulance, motorway maintenance, a tow truck - all passed us by on the "hard shoulder"...

It was only a quarter mile or so ahead, we saw the fire as the traffic started to slow. Then there was smoke, burning rubber, smell of hot metal. A couple of explosions. BANG BANG.

The sheep on the West Yorks moorland couldn't stand the fumes, so they all buggered off.

And 2 and a half hours later the sun went down; it was dark, cold, the car was steaming up and, more than anything, I considered strangling my brother 'cos he's an impatient, fidgety and annoying "little" twat ...

I kept my cool. He lives.

The traffic started to move. Hoo-fucking-ray.

Normally I despair at the rubber-neckers who slow down free-flowing traffic just for a gawp - but after 150 minutes of going nowhere I thought we deserved to see what the hold up was...

A truck, not much of it - totally burnt out. 2 lanes completely unusable, cones and lights kept us away from the wreck. Apparently "It was one of the worst lorry fires we have ever had to attend. All we saved from the lorry was the front number plate!" said a spokesman for the Huddersfield fire station, "the fire had been so intense it had melted the road surface".

So there you go.

Luckily nobody was hurt but one guy further back in the huge traffic jam had lapsed into a coma. I hope he's OK.

If you want the full story you can read Lorry inferno blocks M62.

We arrived at the seaside a little later than we anticipated but still had time for a pizza and a bottle of brown ale.

Nouvelle Cuisine

If my dad and my circumferentially-challenged brother hadn't been there, I'd have had a better chance with the girl from Vancouver...

...she was the Maitre D...

...petite, pretty, a musical west Canadian accent, and with all the right bits to hang on to, she was even nicer than the French waitress...

...but I had to settle for the tart. With Goats Cheese.

And the peppered steak, with a red wine that was so delicious it tasted as much as it cost.

Next time, maybe next time, I'll leave the "grown-outs" at home and offer to trade her bottle for a six-pack ;)

So... what's been happening?

Well, it's been busy - leading a busy life is one thing but having so much going on that blogging duties are neglected... that sucks.

So... what's been happening... in the land of forever blue skies?

Tuesday: First off was the dreaded MOT - our Ministry Of Transport road worthiness test - the car failed, as I suspected it would, and the estimate for repair came to exactly what I thought... Lots ($$$$.$$) But that's OK; if it was an ordinary car that would be reflected in an ordinary bill... (looks can be deceptive and I like that - 200BHP 4x4 - you should see the faces on the GTi boys )

The car's booked in for just over a week's time, and if I can be clever and get some parts at trade, the authorised service garage will still fit them for me

However, Twyford in Berkshire is no fun to visit in the rain - there's really not a lot to do there...

Tuesday-Friday: Work has been interesting for once this year, so that was a fulfilling week, especially trying to cram 5 days work into 4 days. And then running a business on the side...

...not easy when your ISP decides to "upgrade" their service and it kills off all the PHP in the site. I logged support calls with them and they just said everything was OK. It wasn't OK at all, the stupid, inconsiderate bastards.

After nearly 2 days down time I sussed that all the full http paths, which worked fine until they meddled with their servers, now needed to be relative and not absolute... thanks Iomart, you were a great help NOT (makes you wonder just WHO the tech guy really is sometimes)

Saturday: After last week's mission to clear the attic of all junk, I was overcome, as often happens, with the overriding impulse to find a particular item... this was my old copy of the book "Karate-Do" by Tatsuo Suzuki. I couldn't find it... anywhere... maybe I lent it to a friend some years back... I couldn't be sure.

So I checked on Amazon for a replacement copy... £229.68... shome mishtake shurely... a typo maybe?... sod that...

And so I ordered another book on Kata and guess what?

Once I've ordered it and it's on it's way... I find my old copy of Karate-Do. Typical. LOL

Sunday: Well, it's not really Sunday to me right now, still more like Saturday night... I have to go "up north" today to go see my Uncle who's just started having chemotherapy.

Lance Armstrong beat cancer to win the Tour de France six times. His book is about more than just winning bike races, but a battle to save and create life. This year could be the record-breaking seventh year...

I hope Lance Armstrong gets this 7th victory, and yet; still smaller battles need to be won at home... the yellow band is not a fashion accessory, it has far deeper meaning... not just for international sports stars but for the "little people" too, and they sure know that, at the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Be happy and healthy my friends and I look forward to being with you again by about Wednesday.

Peace.