aermacchi

well, there you go, after all the hard work over the winter, today it actually paid off, sweary and chalky were clucking and fussing like expectant parent's, me and dangerous have been here before load's of times, battery charged, bike off the bench, roll it onto the rollers, press the starter foot control and...... it start's straight away, i'd been joking that it would settle down to a steady tickover, fuck me, it actually did, still need to do some fettling to fine tune it but, we are nearly there, check out sweary and the dangerous one's faces, priceless......

northern soul

so, i've got to melt down my northern soul records and turn them into plantpot's then? yeah, whatever, if you think people are dancing to a different rhythm then you really don't get it do you? here's a classic tune from the motown label, the supremes ' love is like an itching in my heart'  listen to that rhythm, follow the beat, perhaps you can't dance? no shame in that whiteboy, some people can, some people can't, at least you'll look 'cool' sitting at the back of the dancehall in your new shoes sneering at everyone else having a good time,  me? i'd rather be wearing my sole's, [soul's] out on the floor........

northern soul

i really cannot wait to see the elaine constantine film 'northern soul' for all of us who were there it will bring back the memories, for everone else? well i just hope it spark's something off, for everyone who has a soul, for everyone who just 'get's it', search out some compilation albums like the 'talcum soul' series, there's loads of stuff out there, available dead cheap, but, if you really want to experience the essence of northern soul, get to an all-nighter, listen to the scratchy vinyl, smell the sweat and just let the soul music seep into you, i bet you will end up spending a fortune on rare soul vinyl, you won't be able to pass by a second hand shop without going in and looking through the records and i bet this music will change your life, forever......

football

good-friday, [every friday is a good friday in my book, no need to wait twelve month's] after a particularly chilled day, long walk with the dog's, scoring four cd's in oxfam and a chippy dinner, it was time to watch the mighty ram's take on bottom of the table bristol city, as we walked to the ground you could feel the temperature dropping, i'm sick of this cold weather, it's really getting to me now, my thumb's are split and sore, my lip's chapped and i reckon i might have trench-foot because my boot's haven't been dry since last march, to top it all, derby county football club have decided to check season ticket's at the turnstiles, i'm in no mood to stand there having my ticket authenticated and just brush past the steward, the boy jack is a little more forth-right in his answer and gives it to 'em, both barrels, what's all that about? attendances are falling, we have payed up front, two month's in advance for next season's games, we are going to be lucky to finish in mid-table in the second tier of english football and this club are doing it's best to piss off the loyal supporter's? no swearing, no standing, just sit down and applaud politely, bollock's to that, football was always a working class game, not like the egg-chaser's 'rugger' we pay for the privilege of watching run-of- the-mill football, the stewards get paid, that's the difference, don't tell me 'it's for your own safety' i wouldn't have risked hypothermia or poisoning by the pissy lager you overcharge us for if it was for my own safety, don't tell me to 'sit down because you are spoiling the game because other's can't see' when there's acres of empty seats behind me, i'm nearly fifty-four, the last time i got told to 'sit-down' i was at primary school, anyway, back to the football, three-nil to the ram's, we missed a penalty again, bristol look doomed, the trapdoor of relegation is starting to creak,  fair play to the city faithful, travelling to derby on a fucking freezing friday night, a bank holiday to boot to watch your team get dicked three-nil, they got their first shot on goal at eighty minutes, the city fan's going wild, 'let's all have a disco' and 'we're going to win four-three' gallow's humour at it's finest, no bigging it up and baiting the opposition at the final whistle, just a polite ripple of applause at a job well done, no satisfaction from beating a team who were beaten before the kick-off......

novocaine for the soul

me and the baby-girl jess headed over to rock-city in enemy territory for a gig by the legendary eels last night, been a fan for a long time but this was the first time i'd seen them live, bloodyfuckinghell, brilliant, the band, resplendent in old-school adidas, black and white, triplex stripe, tracksuits and adidas 'campus' trainer's, sunglasses and lot's of facial hair, tunes, old and new and a couple of great 'cover's' fleetwood mac's 'oh well' and the small faces 'itchycoo park mix that in with a 'secret, third encore, a good two-thirds of the crowd had already gone home when eel's came back on stage and devoid of stage lighting and effect's, kicked everybody's arse and, they didn't even play this tune........

aermacchi

right, here we go, firstly, bollock's to mister 'dog' william's! i've now got the 'pistol's 'i'm a lazy sod' as a fucking ear-worm due to one of his comment's! back to nanno's request for more photo's of the beautiful little starter, here you go greg, fill 'yer boot's mate, not chain drive, but a machined pair of roller's, drive via rubber belt, [complete with little 'jockey' wheel to maintain tension] and beautifully knurled to grip the rear tyre, plastic rollers to stop side movement and tyre catching on the aluminium supports, big old motor, looks like a lorry starter motor, no i.d. marks on it to reveal the origin i'm afraid, all in all, a brilliant piece of kit, well executed and nicely engineered, 10 out of 10 from me as len say's on 'strictly come dancing'.....

aermacchi

sweary and chalky turned up with this little beauty tonight, a tonge engineering starter roller, it's a lovely little thing, you just connect it up to a caravan or 'leisure' battery, back up your bike onto the rollers, drop it into gear and press the foot control to start your bike, sweary had been to the test day at mallory park last week and got talking to the bloke who makes them, next thing a few drinking vouchers changed hand's and sweary and chalky are stashing an ex-demo model into their car boot! sure beat's running up and down the road trying to bump start the bloody thing on a freezing cold day and an engine full of castrol 'r' 40........

aermacchi

i'm sorry, i know i go off on one sometimes, but, last night i got a bit 'tired and emotional' after a couple of beer's and a couple of bottles of wine, it's almost thirty years since the miner's strike, but it had such an effect on me at the time that it still comes back to haunt me even today, the sense of struggle and injustice, anyhow, back to the shed, sweary and chalky turned up with another dell'orto 30mm carb to try on the 'macchi, still don't know if it will work and i'd rather have a new gardener carb but we have to give it a go, we spent the afternoon machining a new carb to crankcase mounting stub, the previous carb was solid mounted to the engine rather than the preferred rubber mounting, we carefully selected the mashings of both carb's and tried to make one decent carb out a couple of shonker's, will it work? i don't know......

shovelhead

barse and the punk-rock shovelhead, nearly there, this year, he will mostly be having his kidney's mashed and  filling's loosened by running it in the rigid frame, not sure about those 'bar's, dig those 21 inch apes out of the cupboard and cank them forward a tad?

the english civil war

1984, england was a very different place, two years after we defeated the argentinians in the falkland war, mr's thatcher  and the conservative government thought they were invicible and decided to take on the miner's, mr's thatcher described the miners as 'the enemy within, much more difficult to fight and a greater threat to liberty' i was working as a pipe fitter/welder at the time, one of the job's i was assigned to was a re-vamp of the doncaster royal infirmary in south yorkshire, i was working for a, [excuse me while i clear my throat] a nottingham firm, nottingham miners were seen as 'scab's' during the strike for not supporting their brother's in yorkshire, [even today at football matches you will hear the yorkshire fan's chanting  'scab, scab, scab!' at their nottinghamshire opposition in retaliation of the nott's miner's breaking the strike and carrying on working] i was stopped every day on my way to work in yorkshire by the police,  i got pulled over because of the nottinghamshire address on the side of the van, they thought we were going to cause trouble with the yorkshire miners, we had the van bricked a couple of times because the local's thought we were 'scab's' intimidation was rife, either as a miner, strike breaking to pay his mortgage, or as a member of the police force, waving their wage packet at the strikers, boasting about the amount of money they were earning on overtime, the met officers were the worst,  fucking cockney's, i got spreadeagled across the bonnet of the van one morning, no numbers on their tunic's, giving it large to the 'northern monkey's', 'what you doin' round 'ere you facckin' caannt!, you a facking picket?' there were no winner's, i've deliberately not posted any photo's of scargill or thatcher because, really, they were bit player's in the english civil war, whole communities ruined because of politic's and ambition, father's against son's, mother's against daughter's, brother against brother and a whole legacy of hate that still exist's in my neck of the wood's even today.....

derbyshire

well, winter certainly came back and bit us on the arse today, i cannot remember such a spell of bad weather like this, from last april, [2012], flood's and week after week of heavy rainfall, cool temperatures throughout last summer, snow at the end of october, more rain, more rain then a very rainy place, wet, muddy, cold, miserable, here we are nearly at the end of march and still no sign of spring, this morning we woke up to heavy snowfall, a freezing easterly wind and drifting on the top's, i saw something today that i have never seen before, the wind had blown the snow away from the dry-stone walls on the lee side, i'd heard old-timer's in the village talk about it but never witnessed it myself, we're doomed, the new ice-age 'cometh.......

Katana

Katana, I actually had a real live-blade in my hand's once, I turned up for training one night at the dojo, Sensei Reg Andrews had bought in his Katana that he had been awarded for his services to Sankokai Karate, he gently powdered the blade and handed it to me, I had,of course used Bokken's in training and seen and felt the many Chinese copies that are passed off as a 'genuine' Japanese Katana, but this was the real deal, a genuine, 'live-blade,capable of decapitating a man so quickly and efficiently that he would continue talking, unaware of the mortal injury he had sustained, Sesei dropped a tissue onto the blade and it actually cut straight through it, the Katana felt nothing like the clumsy, wooden training Bokken's that I had been using, when Suzuki decided to name their four-valve-per-cylinder machine 'Katana' they knew exactly what they were aiming for, as the owner of a GS 1000, i thought I had the best bike in the world, then the Katana was released on the un-suspecting motorcycling public, i had to have one and four year's after they were released, i traded up, still regret selling it to a neighbour to buy a Citroen BX as we needed a more family friendly car to ferry the kid's around at the time, Katana, it's on my wish-list, loud, heavy and fast and like no other motorcycle in the world.......

Location:In The Shed