Can we stop to do some shopping?

If you have a bike, then go to Wales..... unless its a Hardly-Ableson as they have corners and bends in Wales that require you to lean the machine into. Something the Hog was never designed to do.

I've just come back from 3 days of intensive biking (750 miles in total). Five blokes, four of them IAM level and one who's almost there..... and not one whining over sensitive fun bothering female person in sight...

God is a biker, there's no other reason to arrange the hills and valleys of Wales in a way that makes almost every road a technical adventure to negotiate on a bike. The Devil of course drives an underpowered Skoda towing an unfeasibly large caravan, or as I like to call them, moving chicanes.

Luckily for us, the Devil was off shaking chimney stacks in Kent and left the Welsh roads caravan free. Bloody fantastic.

Left hander......possible knee down event.

I quickly and unconsciously skim through "the system".... the bend is visible all the way through, nowt on the road, nothing to hit, my position adjusted, just left of the long white divide. Speed and gear selection needs to be perfect, enough speed to keep the adrenalin flowing and the correct gear to neutralise the suspension bias front and back.

Everything slows down, becomes quiet and I feel a tightness spread across my face as the inevitable grin begins to show.... Arse slips off the seat to the left, right elbow anchors itself into the recess contoured into the tank design, left knee and leg rotate outwards ready to skim the bitumen.
Subconsciously I begin the turn, but thats not enough to do this correctly, I need to apply some science and have heroic amounts of self belief to stop under-steering and meeting an oncoming tree....or worse.
Forcing a 1000 yard stare up the road to where I need to be in just a few short seconds and applying a forward push on the left bar to countersteer the bike and myself around the apex...... Ground rush becomes apparent to peripheral vision as the lean angle increases.....I try not to think of the forces being transmitted through the bike, to the suspension and down to the tires and onto a contact patch with the road the size of a credit card.

I can feel the increase in G's spike then begin to fade, perfectly in unison with the degrees of lean. The throttle is slowly opened making sure I don't over do it and spoil the whole experience by spinning up the rear tire too early and invoking a spleen shattering high-side......

As the bike returns to its perpendicular attitude and my arse finds its usual residence I begin to hear a strange noise in my helmet , sounds like a screaming, giggling, over excited 10 year old at a Beyonce concert....... feck...... that noise belongs to me.

Oh look! another bend up ahead...... possible knee down event.

Note to self....

Who needs drugs when you've got music? It can change your mood quicker than a dose of prozak..

So, Mr Hunt is out and about on another tour along with Miss Fidley (aka Erica, pictured above... ain't she scrummy!). I urge you to pop over to his new Myspace page and have a listen to Note to self, to say its bloody marvellous is an understatement in the extreme.

The tour is planned to coincide with the new album released at the end of this month (Not an Exit), so if ya liked the samples on his webpage then get yaself a ticket or two and who knows, I might see ya soon....



I'll be in the usual place at the Half Moon in Putney May 22nd, in the usual drunken state I expect.

Is that bone I can smell burning?

Damn my dodgy hip....

I'm at the stage where I'm attempting to help my daughter to ride a bike. She's 6 and very confident..... which is great, but you do need some basics before you take the training wheels off... like the ability to point the bike in a direction that dosent end up in a collision with either people, trees, kerbs or me. The use of "brakes" seems to be an afterthought... usually after she's hit something.

So, I've been out to the park attempting to "help".... but how? I've found it very difficult to just "let her go" or perhaps that should read "let her fall off".... I got her knee protectors, elbow protectors, hand protectors and a cycle helmet, but its still not enough to put my mind at rest. Maybe I should let her wear the gear instead of me..

Eventually my hip decided it was time I should let her go, I'm not built for jogging in any condition let alone 23 degrees of sunshine.... unless being chased by carnivorous wild animals which thankfully are few and far between within the M25 area. Actually, I'm not really built for any kind of outside hard labour, my genes lie with a life of cold underground digging. When I'm exposed to sunshine my skin turns from its natural northern blue-white shade to a very angry and burnt red colour.

Anyhow, Emily did very well, she scared herself a few times as well as a few passing joggers and dog walkers but didn't actually fall off. Best of all she enjoyed it although she didn't quite get to ride without the training wheels.... maybe next week

I had to resort to a heroic dose of combined pain killers and the walking stick came out to play again..... I just hope Em cracks riding the bike sooner rather than later as the smell of burning hip joint isn't pleasant.

Oh well.

Barking mad

Everything seems to be sorted in the flat.... well, all the major stuff anyhow. For a single bloke that means all the audio/visual equipment is installed and my clothes are still in boxes in the bedroom.

Still dont know a great deal about my neighbours, I'm sandwiched between two single mothers with an undisclosed number of children..... all below the age of 5. As these flats were built in the 70's before compressed straw-walls were invented I've found little noise pollution, but ask me again in another month or so.

The car park outside the flats tells me there's a copper living close, as well as a taxi driver.... the other inhabitants have alluded me so far.

The only strange thing worth mentioning are the kids in the taller block of flats over the road...... they.....bark. Once you get over the initial shock you start to notice that it's not just one type of bark, they seem to be able to produce several types of canine auditory manifestations which include howling, yelping, growling, snarling and occasional whimpering. Thankfully we're separated by a large fence and brick garages. I've have yet to determine if they also foul the pavements and/or bite

The Groove Controller

"The Groove Controller"

Secondhand Serenade

I just cant help it, there's something very warm and now and friendly about an acoustic guitar.

Maybe its just me and the people I've had around me while growing up in a northern town. Very difficult to say what you really mean except when its presented in song on an acoustic guitar.

So, go and sooth ya lugs and listen to whats on offer from this fella.... dunno how much of all the lovey-dovey stuff I can put up with, but it's holding my attention so far.

Secondhand Serenade

My fav at the moment is Maybe, then possibly Your Call (which is a little too sweet for me)

Anyhow, let me know what ya think.

It's all down to me

I no longer need wonder at what point someone else is gonna make me homeless. Which is the feeling I've had since 1993.



I'm the sole name on my mortgage. And that's the way it will stay. I understand that other factors may come into play to force me into a cardboard box under a bridge somewhere, but at least it wont be on a whim and a prayer of some vacuous shallow bint with the morals of a footballers wife.



I came out the other end of my little adventure, battered, bruised and scared for life. It wont happen again, and because of this I carry a small bit of peace that I unfold every night before I fall asleep.



If you're married and a UK bloke then God help you. You'll need it. Our legal system hates you with a passion, it'll leave you bankrupt, homeless and it'll take your children away...especially if you're the one who remained faithful as blame isn't a factor when dealing with divorce.









Tomorrow I'll be talking about the positive side of suicide.