day's annual leave today, i booked it off so i could listen to the last day's racing on the island, oh dear, our cold, rainy 'summer' continues today, i tuned into manx 365 for the up-dates, no racing today, i sit in the shed drinking tea, the dog-gang curled up on 'their' chair, i have a tidy up and decide to finish the top yoke off for johnny owd bollock, i carefully cut the splits in the aluminium casting with an 18x1/2x12 blade, swap it for a worn out re-cip blade to gain the clearance and clean it up with a riffler, i take a gamble, i don't think john will be a stickler for tradition and tap the pinch bolts out in 8mm metric, too late now, i can't get in touch with him to ask him so metric it is, the radio is chugging away in the background and i catch the weather forecast, not good, high winds, low temperatures and rain, lots of rain, poor old dangerous, he's away down cornwall in his motor-caravan, hope he's got the awning tied down, i give johhny owd bollock another ring, he's in, i set off to my old stomping ground to drop off the yoke, john is old school, not 'old school' as in all that shit they put in the chopper magazines and on the interweb, old-school as in 'been there, done that' a very successful 'scrambler' and road racer, he's had every bike under the sun since when god was a lad, three hours go in a flash, he tell's me about the old '45 harley he bought for eight quid, rode for a year and sold for four quid, the goldies, nortons, indians, the martinsyde flat tanker he restored, his gixxer thou that he reckons is the best bike he's ever had, his ex-keith-flint-of-the-prodigy-ducati that's a six thousand mile beauty 'but a piece of shit, need's the belt's doing and it's only done six-thou', welding, titanium [this is another story all together that i dare not repeat for the amount of time that the parties involved would be banged up for] his methanol burning monster 680 jawa engine on the bench and his four, yep, four rickman mettise projects, i'm spellbound, the bloke's a god, he truly has been there and done it, to death if the truth be known, my head is spinning as i make my way home trying to take it all in, his shed is a shrine to all things motorcycle, magazines, tt programmes, old metal signs, tool's hanging off nails in the joist's, the smell of oil, petrol and 'essential' fluids, welding equipment, proper...........
well, i've sat and looked at it for a couple of day's and today i decided i really couldn't live with it, you have to be true to...
early seventies at southgate secondary modern and the young loveless was getting his ear turned by black music, mostly motown and what later...