It starts now, fuck it!

Well then, what a totally utterly shite start to my birthday month. I've had the'kin virus from hell resulting in all plans being shelved - hmmmmmm! Loads to catch up on! This weekend I've just got back on the bike to start getting some miles in and realised that it's only 6 months until the start of my local cyclocross series-bollocks! I didn't manage 8 races this season but if I had, I would have placed low 30ties based on times and results, as it is I placed 40ties out of 90 plus riders. Not bad for general riding. I've learned what I have to do to improve and my goal for this seasons is 20ties. Thinks it's doable, at least I've lost the weight following the virus!! So am going to put some specific training in from this weekend and see where it gets me. Will share some baseline stats to see if I can see some improvements to help motivate!

As for the 5, thinks it's a really good example of an early (1992) mk1. Went out for a meal at a local Italian which required a hoon along local moor roads. Think I am changing my mind about NA and will go for the chavvy turbo option, not sure, could change my mind again. Jobs done so far:

Remove hard top-surprise, soft top has a glass window!

Hard wired in iPod

New mk2 sport wheels fitted

Proper internal/external clean

Pictures from evening run for Italian:

Food and company great! Mmmmm.

Home safe after food and fast fun!

So, car is going to be a laugh this summer and I'm going to put some effort into being competitive this season with the cycling. Also, going to keep up the swimming, more for the mind than the body, seems to clear my head before work. So plenty to look forward to!

Music, I'm going to see KingKing in May and the MLB beginning of next month. My own playing has stagnated a bit, just getting better at playing the same shit but am looking to Jimi and Stevie for some inspiration this month. Speaking of inspiration, my friend sent me this pic, couldn't agree more! Have met the main man and he is a really great guy, it pays to meet your heroes, they can inspire you
as much in real life.

Well said!

Reading: Michael Cobley - Ancestral Machines

Music listening to: Black Crowes

Music learning: arpeggios

Miata, MX5, Eunos.....

Who gives a ....... The only question should be, 'Is it a na, nb or nc?' And , the only answer is Mk1. Just picked up my new import from Japan, thanks Ant, Dan and Steve, and what a cracker it is!! Fab, fab, fewkin fab. Because it's had a total rebuild in Japan, I'm going to drive it a few months before I decide what to do with it. Def natural aspirated probably head skim, ecu and throttle bodies poss reground cams! Soooooooo excited!

Here are a couple of important pics, remember this car is now 22 years old.

Christmas Sex

Is it really any better? Does it live up to expectations? From what I've witnessed, much is promised and talked about, but so little actually happens. Trees, lights, unusual changes to sensibilities and weird dressing up (clothes that would never be considered at any other time) all suggest either cozy romance or wild care free liaisons are up for grabs. My experience of being around many couples this Christmas, and my attendance at more parties, confirmed that most of us eat too much, drink too much, spend too much and end up squabbling too much to be in any fit state for superb seasonal sex. I seriously think it's as big a myth as that of Santa taking all night to empty his sack!

So, in terms of intimacy and private moments, what does improve? For one, the quality of farting improves! The acceptance of it, the volume of it and of course the carefully nurtured aroma consisting of a rare combination of food types that are only present in the human stomach during the festive season. I have witnessed some truly epic farting this year ranging from one example that scared (scarred even!) my friends boxer dog and another that consisted of three parts which ended in a whistle. I thought all was going well with her and things looked promising until she accidentally let rip with the most awesome example of air biscuiting I've ever witnessed. I think I liked her even more, but she left the party very quickly after, in a waft of hastily applied number 5.

And, speaking about the number 5 I've found that although good Christmas sex is rare, Christmas lusting is alive and well! Why the number 5? I'm lusting after Mk 1 MX5s again, oh shit!!!

Singleman Christmas

Well, it's 3:30am in the morning and I can't sleep. I'm swimming in 3hrs time so no point in trying to force sleep, it's the last day at work before the Christmas break I've got my chrimbotica Christmas jumper and am all set so don't know why I can't sleep. Well I probably do but don't won't to admit it-yet. I'm writing this post but my mind is more on my next one, the title is going to be 'Christmas sex v everyday sex', I have theory for 'kin everything. Off to make a quick flat white! Mmmmm love coffee most in the morning!,

So, a week ago I was asked to go round a friends house to 'help' them with their Christmas decorations. I was warned that it was a chaotic affair with lots to drink and eat with family, friends and boyfriends all adding to the 'Christmas spirit'! As usual, I rode down to decompress at the end of the week hmmmmm, the usual excuse. My first job was to help my friend get the decorations down from the loft , hundreds of black bags littered the floor full of all sorts of mysteries, not really difficult. But then, the children arrive, the boss starts to input and the 'Christmas spirit' really starts and mainly consists of:
1. Really, really questionable music
2. Arguments
3. Rearrangement of decorations
4. Arguments
5. Dodgy music
6. Repeat repeat repeat

Until, eventually, several hours later this!

Then, the boyfriends arrived, family friends arrived, food served and home made cider demolished and there is dancing, weird singing, tall tales, sloppy hugs and then even sloppier goodbyes.

I cycled home, again not feeling any pain and started on my decorations which consists of taking my knitted Christmas tree out of its bag and plugging in the lights.


Until, eventually, several seconds later this!

I don't know  which Christmas experience was the best, but I did learn one thing. My friends homemade cider tastes lovely but is absolutely fukin potent! I woke up the following day, went to go for a ride only to find I'd ridden home with two punctures without knowing and actually it wasn't morning but afternoon. Forget the Christmas spirit, it's Christmas cider for me from now on!!

Next post-the sex post!!!

1969 Led Zep

Just remembered that I was going to write about a weird connection I made when riding into Mordor a while back, when I clipped a little dog.

I must have been 5 year old, possibly younger. I can remember the day really well. My uncle was at university and he had just returned home for the Christmas break and he had brought home loads of records that he used to play there. On this day he shared some with me and it was when I can first remember hearing electric guitar and it was awesome-all the classics, including Led Zep.

Later that evening my dad suggested going to the off licence to buy a few bottles of beer for him and his brother. Well, my dad was a cop and he used to ride a huge black police bicycle and he used to let me sit on the crossbar, feet on the down tube with my hand on the bars, used to love it. The thing had dyno powered front and rear lights. The front casting a waxy yellow glow that barely reached to the ground.

After picking up the beer we rode home. My dad decided to take a short cut over some rough ground that included a down hill bit. Here's what I had always remembered. We were riding downhill, I had an itchy wool jumper on, I could hear the beer bottles clinking in a blue shopping bag. The next thing I remember was the bike hitting something solid, being thrown over the bars into the air long enough to think before hitting the ground. I remember my dad swearing, me landing on the bag of bottles and a really blurry image/outline of something creamy white. My dad asked if I was alright, was the beer alright and I asked if we had just seen a ghost. I still remember dad not having an answer which was really unlike him.


Really spooked me all my life, not knowing what we hit despite having an image of something until the ride the other day, I really had no idea what we had hit. The Led Zep link is because my uncle was playing Ramble On when we got in. Well, as my mind was wandering during the ride I described the other day, the memory of the mystery ride with my dad came storming back into my mind - when I
hit the dog. Then, hey presto, there in my mind was the missing piece. A golden retriever. The creamy solid object that we had hit, was a golden retriever. I can now see it as clear as day! Weird how the incident, images and music caused me to fill in a missing mental jigsaw piece. Weird!

Tried to upload a pic but my machine has just shit the bed! So:
Reading: Neal Asher Polity Series
Listening to: Mitch Laddie Band
Learning: Limelight guitar solo

Close call, or just perfect timing?

Not the post I was going to write, a bit unplanned really and it all revolves around friends and food.
It all started yesterday after the gym. I called at my friends cafe to start the day with an early morning healthy breakfast of salmon, eggs, spinach etc and ended up with this perfect beast.

Mmmm! Yummy gooey perfection. Then went round to my local music store to see how a friend had connected up his new/old TEAC reel to reel. You wouldn't believe it,  perfect. Even customers in the shop were commenting on the quality of the sound and how easy and natural it was to listen to.

Jump forward to today and after getting home after the last of my Christmas shopping and I get a phone call from a friend.
"Hi, would you like to come round to mum and dads for Sunday dinner."
This post should be called friends and food!
This is what I got!!

All lovely, complete with a couple of glasses of wine. But, and there always is one, I'd decided to cycle down, using my bike as mode of transport, unglamorous, unsexy just functional. Now the last time I visited these friends in the summer, for a bbq I ended up getting very well oiled, cycling home in the early hrs of the morning, with a very ropey head torch, several large trout in my jersey pockets whilst dodging sci fi dogs with LEDs .

Back to tonight, my friends were insistent that they give me a lift home as it had started snowing but I was having non of it, so off I set. Into the rain, sleet, hail then snow.

Hmmm, half way home and it became obvious that the cold has sapped my battery more than expected.

But then out of the gloom! One of my local pubs. Ha ha!

So, in for a quick warm up, both me and my battery then on home.

Just as I got home, the red light of doom!

And then some really bad weather!

Close call? Nah,  perfect timing!

Anal v digit?

Analogue v digital, vinyl v cd, valves transistors, what is best? Have been thinking about this all weekend as am not racing because I have far too much green stuff in my nose and lungs; I really hate viruses! And, due to the fact that I live at over 1,000 feet, the northern weather has been shite for riding. Here is a pic of the climb out the back of where I live.

Beautiful, barren and bloody cold in the wind! What really gets the pulse going are the 50mph+ downhills with surface run off from the fields, that whilst only a foot or two wide with the odd one frozen certainly focuses the mind. Not wise to do when not on top form.

Well, back to the question, what is the best? I have gradually being rediscovering the delights of vinyl as a format for storing and listening to music. My friend had really pestered me to by a budget
turntable because she said, "You'll really love it and you can start collecting something else other than bikes and guitars." Well, a year later and I did as she suggested and it was nothing short of an
epiphany.

To put it into context I clearly remember an event that happened over 30 years ago. After spending all of my student grant on the best hi fi system I could find I can still remember the first CD players hitting the shops. I left university and spent my first pay cheque on a technics CD player, basking in the clarity of the horns on Simple Red's Holding Back The Years. That was it, CDs were the way forward, cars, Walkmans, the future was here and it was perfect in all its digital glory.

Fast forward to now and why I know vinyl is really, really the best...............for me! The reason why I have come to this conclusion is quite simple - emotions! When I first stared to notice music it was in vinyl format and the period was my early to late teens, some of the most emotionally formative years, or so I've been told. When I first listened to vinyl, the second time round (Hemispheres and
Strangeways Here We Come), I had an unexpected emotional response, a bit like the response I probably had the first time I heard them. But, it was not just the music it was the way in which it was reproduced with the limits of vinyl etc. Possible nostalgia but I think more to do with the whole listening experience which was more 'comforting' or 'familiar' for want of better terms. Anyway, I prefer it and am enjoying listening to music more. What's really weird is that I was reading an article by Billy Bragg recently in which he claims music for him was about rebellion, expression, searching etc and he thinks that has now been replaced by social media for a generation who don't look to music to poke the system. Interesting idea, not sure I agree but may help explain why somethings are going the way they are.

Anyway, got me thinking about how we come to the conclusion that certain  things are better than others when there are so many factors involved - often at a basic level, when I stumbled across this picture. It's obvious to me which one is best!!

It's obvious, for simple reasons, which one is best!