friday, day off, mr's b and me have a lazy morning, breakfast, walk the dog's, heavy shower but warm, not like winter rain, i'm soaked to the skin, as i walk through the long meadow grass i can't believe i can get any wetter, i'm wrong, ben 'fucking' jones,' the world's most handsome man' has had a major cancellation, i'm in at 1400hr's, four solid hour's of tattooing, i forgot you have rib's at the back as well as the front, i'm sore as fuck, i get in the shower and the hot water hit's my wound's, love it.....

got to get my head in the right place, meditation, work through my kata, gentle stretching, run through my racing lines, total focus....... or, i could drink a couple of cobra's and have a curry, w.w.f.d?........

mallory park tomorrow, they reckon fifty thousand people there, that's massive, ran the racer up the road and guess what?, the clutch is fucked, raided some bit's off the new project and cobbled it together, just finished putting it back together, i'm buzzing and gus is drinking my tea, cheeky bugger.

mallory park this sunday, festival of a thousand bikes, spent the last couple of nights fettling the 'zed, some serious tackle out in my sessions, thought i'd better make the effort, lot of honda 'replica's' out in my group, [i love them me, mini fireblade engined watercooled 60bhp 'classic's' you might fool some of the people but me? nahhh] , fuck off, i might bolt a topbox on to my east german commuter bike to keep my pack-up in, see you out there, suckers.....[anyone who is going and fancies a brew, i'm in the race paddock, come and say hello,]

monday night is m.f.n. [miles from nowhere], the bike night at the old shipley boat inn, the scene of many motorcycle action group, scooter and streetfighter rallies in the past and with a great end of season ride in classic and custom show, i had a blast over on the sporty, my first visit of the year, soon caught up with stu, ammo, lyn and barse, [barse had with him the remains of the shovelhead primary belt that had exploded and ripped all the teeth from it on sunday as he and gordie were making their way over to uttoxeter for the vintjap show at the racecourse, i grabbed a coke, [proper, ice cold in a bottle, full sugar] and perused the carpark, i clocked wacky's little bmw cafe racer straight away, known wack for a few year's, we aren't mates as such but have the crack when we meet up, he's had some nice bike's in the past, used to race and got pissed off with the whole harley thing, [even though he still own's a couple], he built the 600 beemer for fifteen hundred quid and loves it to death, like he said to me, 'i've spent five grand on wheel's for a harley before now and i ain't had as many look's as i've had on this little fucker', great little bike and most of it done the old way, calling in favour's swapping and bartering, i'm loving the 'numberplate' stuck on the back of the battery, [wish i'd have thought of that], the cut down keihin pipes and the seat unit made by some bloke in mansfield who gave him the seat for nothing as he was sticking ten copies on ebay, mint, the ironhead sporty is class too, are brigg's and stratton some sort of custom shop?, [yes, i know who brigg's and stratton are do you?, look them up...........]

feeling better on sunday after my ordeal at the dentist's on friday i packed some tools in my rucksack and headed off for a longer shakedown ride on the sporty, midweek i had rode up to carsington reservoir and done a plug-chop, this confirmed my thoughts that the mixture was leaning off and causing the backfiring when i was rolling the throttle off, i got home and removed five diffuser plates from each silencer, i had a quick run out friday night to frenchy's rally and the bike felt really strong in the midrange, it wasn't as breathless as i thought at the top end of the rev range and checking the plug's revealed that the jetting was pretty spot on, result, i decided to head south and have a nice relaxing ride rather than trying to spot our friend's from the 'safety partnership', down through rempstone and wymeswold, melton mowbray and into uppingham, the harley/ducati shop is alway's a good place to grab a drink but unfortunately the tea bar was shut, quick look around the shop and a pleasant surprise, the confederate wraith was a motorcycle that i had only ever seen before on the 'web and here was one in the flesh in a sleepy rutland village, the engineering is amazing, the carbon bodywork flawless, isr controls lush and, let's face it, it should be for the price, this one was a positive bargain at 39 grand, fill up and past the grammar school and meander across to market harborough, into maccee-dee's for a coffee and blueberry muffin and i sit outside in the warm sunshine, back to melton and the bike is running really well, from melton i make my way to griffy dam, coleorton and back into derbyshire at melbourne, i'm just trying to decide which way to go home when i remember that the vintage japanese motorcycle show is on at uttoxeter racecourse, that's it then, up to ashbourne, wallash and past the vast jcb factory at rocester and i'm soon faced with the massive staffordshire bull's bollock's that adorn the statue at the entrance to the town, park up, pay the tenner entry and grab a brew, there are some lovely bikes here but, i'm sorry, i really never have seen the point in restoring bikes to manufacturer's specifications, especially stuff like cb125's, superdream's and xs500's, i know that everybody is different and i appreciate the time, money and effort that their owner's put in, it's just that i like to see them chopped up and made more individual, one of the most fascinating machines was a ratty 500 kawasaki, i tried to get into the person's mind who thought it would be a good idea to fit their bike with knobblie's and then screw metal screws into the heavily blocked tread, whoever you are, [or were more than likely with that combination of peaky, ill-handling mental two-stroke and metal studded knobblie's], i salute you sir, the fantic chop, fsie, norton, 500 suzuki racer and the beautiful lc350 were worth the admission fee alone, spent the next couple of hour's digging through the autojumble and again, as i said about the classic bike show, i've skipped better stuff than some of the vendor's offerings, i retraced my route back to ashbourne and past kedleston hall before turning back towards home, i pulled off into a gateway to have a quick look around the bike, everything appeared to still be where it should be, the primary weep seem's to have stopped, [i like to think the new gasket is doing it's job rather than the fact that there's no oil in the case and apart from some fuel staining around the quick filler breather hole and a healthy splattering of flies and road grime the plot seem's to be coming together, i check the mileage, i've covered 340 miles, no wonder iv'e got a sore arse sitting on a piece of 1/4" neoprene for that long...........

cadbury's fruit and nut 1 - loveless 52 year-old-teeth nil, sunday night, let the dog's out before going to bed, open fridge door and spy said chocolate bar shouting 'eat me', it's already open, one of the kid's already had a nosh on it, first piece snap's my lower left big molar straight off, bollock's, i phone first thing monday morning, first available appointment is friday, it's not too bad at first, just the occasional twinge, but, as the week goes on i know i'm in trouble, friday at last, i've booked half a day off and i'm at the dentist at 1230 hours, fifty minutes later i'm out, even through the anaesthetic i can feel it, apparently it's below the gum line so i have to have three pins drilled in to support what would have been my tooth originally, my dentist, sonia, reckon's it's the biggest filling she has ever done, this combined with the infection that had started running into my lower jaw and let's just say, i've had better day's, 1800hours and i'm out on the sporty, still feeling pretty secondhand but i'm on my way to frenchy's 'independance rally' at the duke william in matlock, don't feel like camping tonight after the day i've had so quick squirt up the a6 to say hello, i grab a coffee and wander down the site looking at the bikes, i'm liking the 'gulf porshe' twin cam, wrapped exhausts, race number's, quick filler and braced swinarm and the cheeky little buell s1, some very nice engineering touches, the lightened and drilled rear pulley, brembo brakes, one-off yokes, wavy discs, [and race number's], do it for me, i'm surveying the scene, not bothering anyone when  i hear it, 'oi', it's a voice from behind me, obviously they aren't talking to me, 'oi, you, it's a fucking bike rally, what you doing drinking tea and wearing a car t-shirt for?', my heart sinks, it's me he's talking too, i'm drinking coffee and i'm wearing a baby blue chevrolet 'built for speed' tee shirt, i turn to be greeted with the sight of four fat, black widow biker caricacatures, for a bunch of 'individual's' they all look the same to me, leather waistcoats, obligatory rally patches, dirty jeans barely concealing their bum cleavage and fat gut's, one even carrying a leather tankard, they have that early evening, sunburnt, after a day on the piss wavy thing going on, 'butch', [as i see he's called by the leather patch on his vest, i wonder if he see's the irony in that nickname?] stagger's towards me, 'oi, oi, oi, i'm talking to you', my back is to the setting sun, i have the advantage, he will only be able to see the outline of my shape, no detail or expression, 'it's' he pauses as if he needs his brain to catch up, 'itsafuckinbikerally', i look at his bloodshot eye's, he's hammered, i resist the urge to perform kokum-shote, chicken beak strike, knocking his head upwards with the back of my hand and raking his eyeball's with the descending strike, instead i turn and walk away without comment leaving the brothers to shout further insult's at my back, 'there are two kinds of dispositions, inward and outward, and a person who is lacking in one or the other is worthless.it is, for example, like the blade of a sword, which one should sharpen well and then put in it's scabbard, periodically taking it out and knitting one's eyebrow's as in an attack, wiping off the blade and then placing it in it's scabbard. if a person has his sword out all the time, he is habitually swinging a naked blade; people will not approach him and he will have no allies. if a sword is sheathed, it will become rusty, the blade will dull and people will think as much of it's owner,' hagakure, the book of the samurai,from the second chapter.

 my birthday yesterday, fifty two years on this planet, thank you to my wife, kid's and friends for the music, the new mz project, my batman and joker fridge magnets and my batman pants and of course, my mum for the apple pie and the chocolate cake.