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Friday 29 June 2012

Buses and Jet-Ski's and Poop (Oh my!)

While I may suffer the boyish good looks of Justin Beiber, and the upper body physique of an Olympic pommel-horse gold medallist, pretty much everything from my thighs down is knackered. I’ve got connective tissue damage in my right foot, and an irritated ligament in my left knee.

When either of them flair up, I start to walk like Mr Tumnus. When both of them do, I just don't walk.

I’ve had the knee thing, on and off, since I was about 13, but because my Local Authority roll as 'Pointless Desk-based Pleb' has been temporarily superseded by another, much more active position (one that only causes me to consider injecting Cillit Bang directly into my eyeballs once every other day, rather than every hour, of every day, which was customary), this has recently caused the front of my left knee to swell up like walnut, and my right foot to sporadically and painfully relinquish some of it’s responsibility in keeping me upright.

Still, the new job is only a secondment for 3 months, one of which has passed already. Plus it’s such a welcome diversion from the norm that I’ll happily put up with hurty feet and gammy legs in the ongoing pursuit of job satisfaction.

Without going into specifics, the new role requires me to go out and about, roaming the streets of Brighton & Hove in a big hi-viz bomber jacket, which makes me feel like a Policeman, but makes me look like a Lollipop Lady.

The little green van I eluded to in my last post is only sometimes available to me so its more often the case that I have to grab my work-issued, free travel pass (thank you tax payer), and hop from bus to bus as I traverse our fine city.

As a way to pass the time aboard my diesel chariots, I often whip out my iPhone - other smart phones are available...but none of them are as good – and play one of the many thumb-swipey mini-games that I own. They generally cost about 69p a pop, and I’ve spent a cumulative fortune on them, and they’re all the same:
Aim ‘object thing’ in direction of ‘target thing’, swipe thumb back to increase power to propel ‘object thing’, release thumb and watch ‘object thing’ – be it a missile, rag-doll, screwed up ball of paper or disgruntled bird – as it shoots towards ‘target thing’ and yet another 5 seconds of ‘life thing’ slips, unnoticed, out the back door of existence.

Thousands of us are addicted to these little pieces of pointless software, and we continue to commit fragments of our souls to oblivion on a daily basis. Others may have even bettered my score on Save The Pencil (but I doubt it).

Take now for example. I'm currently sitting on a stony beach on a hot summer's day (I like stony beaches. They are a great leveller of people. You may be six and a half feet tall, with a rippling 6 pack and biceps the size of rugby balls, but on a stony beach in bare feet, everyone walks like a twat - with the exception of Joe Addison, who is a mentallist and does everything in bare feet.).

Anyway, here I am on a beautiful day in a beautiful place, and the only thing I'm considering is 'have I got enough time to complete my current level on 3D Mini-golf  before I go back to work'. The only reason I'm not doing it now is because I chose to write about it instead.

Bugger it, let's engage reality for a change. What's going on around me?

Well, there's someone zipping around on a jet-ski about a hundred yards out to sea. Jet-ski's look fun. If I ever get to have a go on one, I will of course review the experience here, although I can probably give you a bit of a preview now:

"....then I hit the water, face first, at 50mph...."

"....I screamed at the swimmers to move, but it was too late...."

"...they had to close the pier for 3 hours to cut me out of the wreckage..."

All I need now is someone with a jet-ski to facilitate my inevitable catastrophe. Any takers? No?

I realise that this post isn’t really going anywhere, which is why I’ll end it with the most fantastic anecdote I heard recently:

A friend recently hired a chalet in a resort in France. Both him and his Grandma were staying there – although he was only staying for a week, while his nan was staying on for longer. On his last day, he felt the urge to go to the toilet and subsequently had the most enormous poop; no doubt a result of the previous week’s gluttony and fine French dining. Upon pulling the chain he soon realised that the small chalet toilet was unable to cope with his transaction. He tried again, and again, and again. Each time the bowl would fill with water, but slowly drain away, leaving the mucky prize behind. This left him with 2 choices: He could either tell his Grandma and leave her to deal with it, or he could seek the assistance of someone who he would probably never see again in his life. So, faced with this lesser of two evils, he went to get one of the maids that serviced the chalets. He barely spoke a word of French but managed, through wild gesticulation, to get a maid to follow him back to his bathroom where he lifted the toilet seat, pointed at the offending item, and said in his best French accent “regard”, upon which he pulled the chain, and the whole thing just flushed away normally…….. Now imagine that you are the maid. What just happened?


Friday 15 June 2012

Can I be a Cool Rider?

At about midday today, we (the great Brightonian public) experienced a modicum of sunshine through a letter-box sized gap in the clouds – I know! In mid June! Who’d have thought it?

I happened to be out on the road at the time, pootling around in the little green Escort van that my Local Authority day job often requires me to use. Driving it makes me feel like an environmentally conscious Postman Pat.

Anyway, at the appointed hour, the clouds parted and sunlight smacked the windscreen, which caused the ambient temperature in the van to rise almost instantly, forcing me to reach for the partially snapped window winder by my knee (no expense sparing spared, when it comes to tax payer’s money). As the wind forced its way into the van and hit me in the face, I was presented with the same thought that often presents itself when I experience a cool breeze on a hot day:

God, I really want a motorbike! (uttered as a yearning statement, rather than an actual prayer – note the absent prefix of ‘Dear’)

A proper motorbike! Not that tiny thing I ride for Chauffeur Monkey, which is, in essence, a child’s toy. I want a proper motorbike with a proper engine. I want something that could not be overtaken by, if such a thing were able to travel, a washing machine – which I worked out some time ago, our washing machine at home could achieve just over 50mph on maximum spin if the drum were in contact with the floor. The long winter evenings just fly past at my house….

It is at this point I must, in order to justify the reasons behind this post, make the single most embarrassing confession I’ve ever put into print:

I used to bunk off school. That’s not the embarrassing part – lots of kids used to bunk off at my school, or to use Sheffield’s finest learning establishment, Newfield Secondary School’s colloquial terminology,‘wag it’:

(the following typical conversation between my schoolmate and me should be visualised and conducted in your best Bernard Manning accent)

“Are you waggin’ it today Jake?”

“I’m waggin’ it. Are you waggin’ it?”

“I’m defo waggin’ it. Wanna wag it round mine? Me mam’s not in”

“Aye! Let’s wag it”

And with that, we’d pool our loose change, buy ten B&H (plus a packet of Rizlas for making ‘butt-rollies’ when we’d finished all the fags), and head to my erstwhile school chum’s mother-free house to watch for the thousandth time – I kid you not – Grease 2!

In my defence, it was always his idea to watch it (he shall remain nameless to prevent any undue distress and/or possible legal action). However, and to my utter discredit, I never objected. While the majority of my peers were gaining that essential foundational education that would set them on course for their glittering careers, I was, more often than not, to be found in a dingy attic bedroom, smoking copious amounts of cigarettes signing along to ‘Let’s Bowl’.

As a plot device, the cars in the original Grease have been swapped for motorcycles in Grease 2, as if by doing so, no one would suspect that it’s practically the same film as it's predecessor, but in reverse. This time it’s the guy who’s all shy and quiet to begin with, while the girl – Michelle Pfeiffer – is a sassy rock chick on the lookout for a ‘Cool Rider’ to sweep her off her feet.

To save myself further humiliation I will say no more about it, other than the idea of being a ‘Cool Rider’ has permeated my entire life since,and refuses to abate.

As a first attempt at achieving my dream, I once bought a Honda C90 motorbike from someone at school for £20. Alarm bells should have started ringing when he produced it from inside a nearby hedge, but my mum said it was ok for her 14 year old son to buy a motorbike for £20 from someone at school, so those alarm bells had effectively been disconnected from the mains.

It didn’t work (obviously) so I free-wheeled it through the park down to my house, where I was determined that I would teach myself to fix it. I lugged it through the back door, through the kitchen and down to the cellar, where it stayed untouched until I moved out. Best 20 quid I ever spent!

From that point to this, I have periodically thought about owning a proper bike - Usually, as I said, when the wind is in my hair, fuelling the fire of boyhood fantasy. The trouble (or saving grace, depending on how you want to look at it) is that I’ve never really had enough disposable income to buy one, so it’s always been sandwiched in between ‘another tattoo’ and ‘salad tongs’ on my list of priority purchases.

And while I still can’t afford one, sometimes, if I’m out on the Monkey Bike on a clear warm summer’s evening, I close my eyes and just imagine myself astride a Honda Shadow 750, with Michelle Pfeiffer (circa1982) dressed head-to-toe in leather, squeezing me round the waist, as I power off into the sunset.

The fantasy never lasts long however, because believe it or not, it’s incredibly dangerous to close your eyes while riding a motorbike, regardless of it’s size.



Twitter: @Ihavewrites

Wednesday 13 June 2012

The Mercedes E Class Cabriolet Vs a Volkswagon Polo with no clutch!


So, last night was a bit of an action fuelled adventure. Remember the E Class Mercedes I wrote about? You know, the big flashy fanny magnet?

Well I had to do the same job last night, which meant that instead of bombing to the customer on my monkey bike, I was driven to him by one of my monkey colleagues, who would then also drive to the client’s house at the other end in order to pick me up and drive me home. Well, that’s the theory anyway…..

Upon arriving at the client’s house in deepest, darkest Essex at around midnight, I noted with a little dismay that my monkey chum was not awaiting my arrival with the usual self-satisfied grin that says: “I didn’t have to professionally stick to the speed limit like you did in order to get here

Still, without wishing to concern the client, I parked his Merc, bade him farewell and wandered slowly up the road, hoping to get a better signal on my phone in order to call my simian co-worker and find out what was keeping him.

The following conversation took place:

“Hi Jake”

“Alright Neil, did you get stuck in that tailback too?”

“Yep, but I’ve got another problem-ette”

“Riiiiiight? What’s up?”

“My clutch has gone! I’m in gear now…… but….er…. I can’t stop, otherwise the car will die”

“WHAT?”

“Yeah! I’m near you now, but you’re going to have to jump in while the car’s moving”

“O…..k…. What gear are you in?”

“4th”

“Shit!”

There then followed a scene that wouldn’t have been out of place on ‘Police, Camera, Action!

Neil, to his credit did try and slow the car down to the absolute capacity of 4th gear, which turned out to be about 10mph…. any slower and it would have stalled.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had recourse to open a car door whilst sprinting? If you haven’t, but are interested as to what the experience is like, let me put it this way: It’s not something I’ll be doing again in a hurry, but I’m glad I can put it on my CV.

So, the passenger door was now open, but the effort I had spent in the successful bodily coordination of running and door opening had lost me precious ground, and the car was slowly creeping away from me. This coupled with the fact that I am possibly the un-fittest living entity on the planet, meant that what little breath I had left was about to leave me and force all of my major organs to shut down.

Neil tentatively released some pressure from the accelerator and the car slowed a little, but started to shudder under the strain of having to remain in 4th gear at such a relatively slow speed. I made a last-ditch attempt at a sprint and leaped, feet first at the open car door.

I landed, with unsurprisingly little finesse, on the passenger seat at which point Neil and I burst into child-like guffaws as I closed the door and we sped away.

It was the closest I think I will ever feel to being in an action movie. Not a good action movie mind; I’m thinking more Action Jackson, than Commando.

But our adventure was not over yet……..

“Neil, even if we manage to make it to the Dartford bridge without stopping, we’re going to have to at least slow to a crawl for the barrier to let us through”

“Yeah… I’m not sure how we’re going to manage that, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it”

“I see what you did there”

Thankfully we managed to avoid any major hazards between Essex and the M25, other than a set of traffic lights that were decent enough to remain green until we passed them. I have never before thanked a set of traffic lights with such enthusiasm.

“I’ve had an idea” said Neil as we started to climb the Dartford bridge.

“Go on…”

“If I can match the engine speed with the gears, there’s a possibility I can put it in a lower gear as we approach the barrier”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“The gears are moving at a certain speed. If I can match that speed with the engine, I might be able to jam it into a lower gear without the clutch”

“mm-hmm, and what happens if that doesn’t work?”

“It might get a bit Thelma and Louise-y

“I’m not being Thelma”

As we started our descent on the other side of the bridge, Neil slipped the car into neutral and we began to coast towards our inevitable doom with a sort of tense contemplation. Alanis Morissette's ‘Ironic’ was quietly seeping out of the radio as we drew closer. I wondered if anything about our situation was ironic, and decided that it probably wasn’t. However, seeing as Alanis Morissette has no idea what irony is, perhaps that fact alone would perversely inject irony into our own situation. Probably not!

It’s a shit song anyway. And not in an ironic way.

Resigning ourselves to the fact that one of us would soon probably have to jump out and walk across multiple lanes of motorway traffic to bother some night patrol person and explain that our car was properly fucked and couldn’t move, we trepidatiously crept up to the barrier.

After 10pm the Dartford toll is free so the barrier dutifully sprung open as we hit the pressure plate at about 2mph. It was at this exact moment that Neil screamed:

“I’VE FOUND SECOND GEAR!!!”

With that, we lurched forward and then powered out onto the motorway to a cacophony of crunching as Neil successfully managed to also find 3rd, 4th and 5th gear without the aid of that pesky clutch.

As the motorway lanes narrowed to the usual three, we passed a trio of ‘lads’ on the hard shoulder in a souped-up, but very much broken-down Citroën Saxo.

IT’S LIKE RAAAAIIIIEEEENNN, ON YOUR WEDDING DAY……

The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful in comparison. Because of his new found powers of gear changing without a clutch, Neil reckoned that he could drop me off on my road as I live on a hill, as long as he was facing down. He was right!

I’ve not spoken to him today to ask how he parked upon his return home, but I suspect ‘badly’ might adequately sum it up.

Maybe he’ll comment below?



Twitter: @Ihavewrites

Sunday 10 June 2012

Austen Allegro


Well, it’s been a while since my last post, but I didn’t really think I’d get as far as I have with writing this blog anyway.

I love writing, but I never seem to be able to keep it up. Believe it or not (why would you not? It would be the crappest lie ever), there are about 5 other blog pages floating around in cyberspace that I’ve both started and discarded, untouched and I daresay unread since I last looked at them.

I find that thinking about this leads me down an eerie path.

In December 1947 we began to discover fragments of parchment in a cave on the shoreline of the Dead Sea in Israel (‘we’ as in people, not ‘we’ as in me and you. At least, I don’t think I was there…… 1947 was a bit of a blur if I’m honest)

These pieces of manuscript were to make up what are now referred to as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest accounts to date of Jewish biblical history in writing. They apparently date back to around 150BC, which, without wanting to labour the point, is fucking old.

Why mention this?

Well, because of our incessant need to modernise (‘our’ as in people’s, not ‘our’ as in mine and yours. I still think file’o’faxes are a good idea), in two thousand years from now – long after every computer and every server in existence has crashed or died – unless it has been successfully copied, the vast majority of digitally written information we currently hold will be lost…… forever!

No one is going to dig up a Kindle in 2,000 year’s time and be able to use it to discern anything about how we lived over two millennia ago.

The same goes for pictures. We’re going to lose them too.

Hardly anybody makes hard copy prints of pictures any more. Photo albums are already becoming a thing of the past. As we plough on and continue to digitise everything that we produce, in 2,000 years there could well be no pictorial or written evidence that a civilization from our great grandchildren onwards ever existed if we don’t successfully copy the information we produce.

While the thought of this is slightly unnerving, thankfully it does mean that in 4012 it’s likely that no one is going to stumble across my mainly pointless internet based musings, and use them to construct a model of 21st Century life. I wouldn’t be doing us justice.

So, safe in the knowledge that my cyber ramblings will not survive the test of time, I will continue to brain-spew every now and again as fancy takes me.

I’m beginning to regret being so specific with this blog. I can usually think of a ton of stuff to drivel on about, but to try and squeeze it into a framework that involves cars, something that I don’t actually care about that much, has really managed to stifle my creative juices.

Whilst I fell in love with the idea for this blog, the trouble is that while I do get to drive a load of motors, 90% of them are just average, run of the mill, boring cars. Who wants to hear about an old VW Passat? No? What about a Vauxhall Zafira? Hmm? How about a Ford S-Max? I’m boring myself here.

I’ll give you an example of how much of a poor choice cars are for me to write about:

My grandma had an Austen Allegro when I was growing up. I have such fond memories of that car. It was green with a rectangle steering wheel and I used to sit on the bonnet (when it was parked, I hasten to add……. Not as some kind of dreadful punishment). That is my review of the Austen Allegro in its entirety.

I recently briefly considered purchasing an Austen Allegro for purely nostalgic purposes, only to discover that The Sun ran a public poll in 2008 which voted the Austen Allegro as the worst car ever made. Ever Made! That’s how ill suited I am to writing about cars.

So what is to become of this blog?

Well I reckon I’ll keep writing, and report on fancy/interesting/unbelievably shit cars as and when I get to drive them, but I think that widening the spectrum of content will do wonders in my ongoing battle against writing apathy.

So from now on you can expect erratic whimsical opinion pieces on pretty much anything that falls out of my cranium. I will try and cram cars into as many posts as possible though. For example, I was thinking of writing a post about Jeremy Kyle, and what type of car I’d most like to run him over with.

I’ve had some really good feedback about this blog, so I hope this change of direction doesn’t dishearten you my dear reader.

I’ll leave you for now with the immortal words* of the great Jerry Springer:

“Until next time, take care of yourselves….. and each other”






*Not to be confused with his other phrase:

“Somebody get me some more Viagra. I can feel my heart slowing down and I’m not red enough”



Twitter: @Ihavewrites