i just went down the step's to the slightly damp vinyl vault and randomly opened one of the storage boxes, stuck my hand in and plucked out this gem, ' rosemary what happened' by richard 'popcorn'wylie, originally released on the karen label, the song was loosely based on the film 'rosemary's baby' the 1968 film starring mia farrow and john cassavetes, directed by roman polanski and dealing with satanism, hardly a recipe for a huge northern soul floor-filler but, there you go, 'popcorn' wylie was a highly respected detroit bandleader and producer who had an almighty fall out with berry gordy at motown, he left the famous label and went on to work with j.j. barnes, edwin starr and jamo thomas, [famous within the northern soul scene themselves] the grapevine label operated between june 1977 and early summer 1980,  releasing proper rare soul vinyl, each release numbered around five thousand copies, this one is a rarity as it's a 'demo' copy, highly sought after by soul collectors and not to be confused with the 'pressings' that were released, [bootleg copies of the original items, even 'pressings' are fetching stupid money, they are, after all, almost forty years old themselves] i'll tell you how i came about owning a load of demo copies of 'grapevine' label vinyl another time, and i might just tell you how much i paid for them.......................

fairing finally mounted, screen on, it's been a nightmare, glad that's out of the way and we can move on, rearset's are next on the agenda, just need to lose some weight off the fairing mounting bracket's and off the fat bastard rider, i'm on a serious diet, loads of home made soup's, no bread, no alcohol, carrots, celery, no chocolate, crisps, pringles or chips, cut the dairy down to the bare minimum, no use trying to shave gram's off the bike here and there if i'm not fit to ride it, monday to friday, i'm on it, focused and training hard, come the weekend? listen, i'm nearly fifty three, honda ain't going to come knocking and offer me a work's ride............

 football. f.a. cup third round day, for me the most important date in the football calender, [apart from when we play the red dog filth], for as long as i can remember i've loved this day, i think of the glory tie's we have had in the past and rather forget embarrassing exits to lower league opposition that we have had to endure, that's the beauty of 'the cup', the 'giant's' can get stuffed by a bunch of lower league, or, god forbid, non-league opposition, today our opponent's were fellow championship side crystal palace, on a freezing cold east midland day we beat them one-nil, not the stuff of back page headlines but, you can only beat what's in front of you, we were the better team and deserved it, the cup has slowly been eroded by the bigger club's fielding reserve sides or in manchester united's total lack of respect, dropping out of the competition all together a couple of years ago, how dare they? the arrogant bastard's, the minnows of football have the right to cup glory as much as the big clubs who have their sights set on european success, big-up's to the supporters of unfashionable club's, the lad's who follow their team's week in and week out, it's not always pleasant, [i'm a derby supporter so know all about that, worst team in premiership history for one.......] but the cup? i'll be there tomorrow watching the draw, we are number eighteen, 'please god, i've been a good lad, can we get ................'

after the big new year clean up i opened up the the big vinyl cellar and got lost for a couple of day's and night's, i really, really tried to thin out the collection, i had all good intentions of thinning it out, getting some records on e-bay and trying to raise some fund's for a holiday/ the race project/ the drive being tarmaced/paying some bill's or any other of the boring, mundane, everyday thing's that life throw's up, i try and sort them out into stuff that i don't play, don't listen too, [enough] all the records fall into that category, i've got lazy, i listen to my music on my i-pod or from my i-tunes library, i'm a fat, lazy, bastard, i don't even play cd's anymore, why do i need these slabs of vinyl from a hundred years ago? i make five piles of stuff i won't play again, then, then, then, i put them back into the carefully marked boxes, fuck that, no way am i going to get rid of these gem's, my kids can do that when i'm dead, they will throw them in the bin, discarding them as 'that old shit music that dad used to jump around too, dance, cry, play imaginery sax/guitar/drums too' to them it's worthless, to me, it's my heritage, every disc hold's a memory, i can remember hearing them for the first time or buying them, you don't get that with clicking a button, the classic concerts, the wednesday night blues parties, the northern soul all-nighters, the early rave scene where everyone was your best mate, the edgy drum and bass scene, the reggae soundclashes at the carib club, the prog rock, glam rock and hardcore punk scene, all the new wave sounds, all the tunes that just give you goosebumps, nah, i can't get rid of any of this stuff, so, the first in the series, [not for any reason, i just closed my eyes and dug in deep], is this gem from 1977, the year of punk rock, i was eighteen years old and like a sponge, caught between two tribes, bang into the sweet soul music of northern and the complete 'fuck you' attitude of punk, it was a natural progression, i was travelling all around the country, i worked in the north and the south, i was travelling to away matches all over the country, it was exciting, i was a derby supporter, we lived for the weekend as our contemporaries before us had, the mod's the greb's and the skin's, we caused mayhem all over the place, it was all about having a laugh, beer fuelled and sometimes amphetamine driven, i'm not proud of it now, [as a nearly fifty-three year old], but, you know what?, i really don't give a fuck, when i listen to music like this, slaughter and the dog's, 'cranked up really high', apparently it's been voted into the punk top one hundred singles listing and loads of well respected music critic's, [who are probably aged about twenty five and know fuck-all about music apart from what they have googled to find out what they think they should like], don't know about that but i know it's an un-holy row and i love it, the pictures are mine, the sleeves are not in the best of condition, the vinyl is scratched, [not least by george peckham in the run out groove, he's the legendary master engineer, responsible for many, many, punk, post-punk and new wave recordings, also known as porky prime cut's] check out your local oxfam and charity shops, your local independent dealer, you can of course download them if you want, but you won't be buying something that means anything, when you buy vinyl you are buying the real-deal, something you can hold, pour over the artwork and the cover sleeve and imagine some eighteen year-old dancing around their bedroom too while their parent's are shouting 'turn-it-fucking-down,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,!'

two night's dicking about trying to get the race fairing fitted, it's driving me mad, dangerous wanted to post a picture of me headbutting the vice in frustration, no progress photo's then i'm afraid, have these two pictures of this well 'ard boxer instead, love it, [thank's jan], normal service will shortly be resumed....................

bugger, sometimes things just don't go right, no matter how much planning and preperation you put in, the first attempt at the mounting cap that carries the fairing rails was a failure, i didn't allow enough stock and the tap broke through into the work, dangerous spun up a replacement on the lathe and i drilled, tapped and bent the rails to shape, made a couple of 6mm studs rather than threading the ally bar and loctited them into position, not a total disaster but dead annoying, i've wasted some stock and it's cost us another nights work..........

one of those day's in the loveless household, up late, breakfast, go on then, i'll have just one more brew then i really have to walk the dogs, we are out over two hour's, boxing day and new years day, anyone who has dogs to walk or who walks on a regular basis will tell you, the amateurs are out and about, clad head to toe in northface, trekking poles and gps sattelite to hand, space blankets stowed in their new rucksack's, they've left a sheet with their movements and timings with a reliable source in case of difficulties, and they are strolling three miles to the local hostelry for a nice new years day lunch, it's one of the most mild winters on record, i'm out in a pair of shorts, my berghaus, a base layer, crmc baseball cap, my boot laces are shagged, half the length that they should be because i keep forgetting to buy a new pair, i'm unshaven and hungover and when a meet up with a bunch of twice-a-year-tosser's-who-think-their-bear-grills-and-their-fucking-kids-are-jumping-up-at-the-doggy-who-is-trying-to-rip-their-face-off-as-i'm-trying-to-restrain-him-and-the-parents-are-smiling-at-their-little quentin's and sofia's trying to 'relate' to the canines i'm pissed off, i don't want to exchange pleasantries with anyone, i just want to walk my dog's, it start's raining, brilliant, the 'traffic' thin's out and i'm left alone, mr anti-fucking social, get home and it's the dog's annual shower, they look at me in disgust as i shower them and clip the gus-one with jack's clipper's, he looks like a puppy again and me and mr's b ooh and ahh at him, we dine on homemade soup and freshly baked bread and then mr's b's scottish genes kick in, major tidy up, clearing the deck's for the new year, holy shit, where does all this rubbish come from? i load up the v8 cutdown jimmy shine paint free lower than a snakes belly badass pick em'up truck, [ok, i admit it, i put a couple of bags in the vw one-litre polo shopping car] and drop the stuff off at the rec-ycling] home made chilli, guacomole and salsa and a couple of bottles of australian merlot, guy martin tt dvd and some 'talcum soul' northern soul compilation cd's, [remember them?] and it's all over but the crying........................................................................................................................

 played west ham united today, we were at home against one of the top teams, thirteen minutes into the game and we are two up, they get a goal back just before half time and the next forty five is a war of attrition as we stick ten men behind the ball and they try and break us down, not to be on this occasion and big sam will be choking on his port and lemon at a point lost, got talking to some old boy's, [like me] at the game, to tell you the truth i've always had a bit of a soft spot for the 'ammer's, they play some nice football and have brought on some great talent through the academy, we drift down memory lane and one that sticks out in my brain is a wednesday night game, [remember them, no fucking sky tv then], they bought around two hundred fans up and they battered the derby hooligan element all over town, [myself included, i was out for revenge for a right royal pasting that i received at the boleyn ground, yes the boleyn ground not upton fucking park, that's the station nearby] they ran us all over town and we all fucked off home, imagine my suprise when i read the derby evening telegraph the next night, not content with scaring the shit out of the derby faithful, they had only gone down to the fair on bass's rec and battered the fairground workers, anyway, i digress, got home and knocked out the cap for the top yoke mounting bracket, the mounting rods and cut the oem tacho into the fairing complete with that cheeky racer style red-line at twelve o' clock, happy new year everybody, i'm forever blowing bubbles.............................................................................

 well, me and my big mouth, the 'easy' part of fitting the fairing proved to be the bracket off the headstock, the hard work and beard-stroking starts here, there are a lot of things to consider, clearance for the steering lock and to allow the controls and hands not to foul the fairing, remember the fairing stays in one position and doesn't move with the forks, height is crucial in this respect too, mounted too high and you lose the aerodynamic advantage of fitting the fairing in the first place, too low and it fouls the controls, [see how close to the top of the master cylinder in the second photo] fore and aft positioning needs consideration too, if it's fitted too far to the rear the rider won't be able to get his head behind the screen, again affecting the aerodynamics, too far forward? the clip-ons foul the descending edge of the fairing lower, i started by scrapping the rectangular bracket on the front of the headstock and just went with a single hole through the glassfibre, a couple of rubber washers and i could fasten the fairing to the mounting, fix a datum point and still allow movement to help the positionioning, straight away it became obvious that the lower edge of the fairing would have to be trimmed back, off it came and i carefully trimmed and filed the glass to shape, [this is race quality 'glass and is very thin to save weight, not like the more robust abs plastic found on road bikes], this was a procedure i had to do another three times to get the right fit, i also had to raise the clip-on's by twenty millimetres to allow clearance for my hands when on the bars, the single fixing will not be adequate alone to support the fairing so i have to come up with someway of supporting the top edge and screen, the bottom two photo's show the start of the solution to that little problem, the large chamfered screw with the allen key hole is the standard fixing for the top yoke which also acts as the adjustment for the steering head bearings, some material was cut out of the bottom of this on the lathe and two phosphour bronze bushes made up to run independently, [remember the fairing stays in one position, the forks, yokes etc turn to steer the bike], just got to figure out how to fix this to a support that allows all that to happen, no one ever said it was going to be easy............

after all the work trying to fit the manx seat, the fairing bracket came as a pleasant suprise, i roughed a piece of dural out and drilled it to the centres of the two bushes that chris w had welded to the frame, bolted it up with a couple of socket-heads, worked out the angle-of-the-dangle with a protractor so that the fairing will run in line with the frame rails, mounted it in the miller and drilled the hole to suit, i had bought some half-inch stock at the classic bike show at stafford but when measuring it i found out it was oversize, not enough meat to machine off in the lathe so i wet and dried it down to a nice sliding fit, dropped a 6mm helicoil into the end of the mounting tube and made a bracket to carry the front of the fairing, sometimes it just comes together so easily, sometimes it fight's you all the way.........