some candy talking

last time i saw the jesus and mary chain was october 1989, my memory of the gig was a twenty minute set, noise, strobes and the band were gone amid a fistfight between the brothers jim and william reid and a guitar left leaning against an amplifier in a wall of feedback. 26 years later and i'm back again to see the band perform 'phsycocandy' at rock city in enemy territory [s'nottingham] the band hit the stage around 2100 hrs and play the encore first, leave the stage and have a brew before coming back to an old newsreel of the town of the future, or, their hometown of east kilbride, to perform the phsycocandy album in full, no breaks, end to end, thirty eight minutes of bliss, smoke, feedback and amplifiers turned up to eleven, the waistlines may be a little thicker and the hairlines a little thinner, but they kick it, big time, all too soon, the 'game over' slide appears and the house lights come on and we stumble out into the cold rain, almost thirty years gone.....................................

still fighting it.

 life. it's a fight ain't it, every morning when that alarm chimes in at 0500hrs, every weekday and most saturdays, it's that ringtone of dread, sometimes i don't even know how i get up. wash. clean my teeth. get a brew and let the dogs out, drive to work for a shift, been doing this for forty-one years now, fifteen when i left school and started my apprenticeship, forty-one years of fucking hard collar, manual labour, mauling pipes and fittings, climbing ladders and scaffold, breathing asbestos fibre through a martindale mask, might as well breathe through an old sock for the protection it provides. bad cut's, sprains, stitches, wet through to the bone, freezing fucking cold on building sites the length and breadth of this sceptered isle, the worst of times and the best of times, laughing until i can't breathe, nailed to a shed door through my heavy welders overall's, fist fights and a weeks wages lost on a game of cards, toasting sandwiches on an upturned gas heater, boiling egg's in the canteen tea-urn, piss-takes and heartbreaks, lost mates and alcohol shakes,  these day's? well. i'm still living for the weekend, when saturday comes, it's football, 90 minutes to lose yourself, week nights it's working on the bike, [bikes]. loads done this week, brakes bled, lockwiring sorted, [love lockwiring stuff, very therapeutic], new, blingy, gold renthal chain fitted and new h.t. leads and caps sorted, yeah, i'm still fighting it......

hookworms

hookworms, 'on leaving'

tell me when my light turn's green

i really do not like bad manners, [no, not the eighties skinhead / ska /scooter scum band, i rather like them actually, especially 'walking on sunshine' reminds me of so many rainy, bank holiday mondays....] no, i mean bad manners, rudeness and a lack of respect. you see it everyday on the streets, people just lobbing mcdonalds wrappers out of their car window's, leaving dog shit for someone to step in, [pick it up and bin it you morons] chewing gum stuck to the pavements and smokers crowding around the entrance to a hospital / shop / football ground, inhaling deeply on their tar soaked cancer stick and blowing noxious fumes out over everyone, don't give it the 'it's my right to smoke' bollocks, poison yourselves and your fellow smokers, your children and partners but, fuck off out of my face with it!
      same with driving, i had a couple of days annual leave recently, i went to pick up my boy jack from work as his car was in for some work. bloke pulls out straight in front of me, i brake, shrug my shoulders and he takes offence at it, he's lost it, giving it the big-one, making cut-throat gestures and i can tell he's pretty pissed off, i shrug again, this seems to inflame him even further. i back off to let him go his way, that's really fucked him off, he slows, jabbing on his brakes and swerving in front of me, finally he anchors up in front of me and he's out of the car, throwing his expensive sun glasses onto the road with a flourish. i estimate him to be mid-twenties, puffa-jacket and he's shouting at me that 'i'm gonna beat you up bad man, what you shruggin' at man, i'm gonna hurt you bad fucker!' oh dear, i think he's annoyed,  i get out of the car and he's threatening to kill me. his girlfriend / wife / partner isn't helping the situation, she's shrieking 'get in the car gary, get in the car gary, get in the car gary' he's lost it, he feint's to punch, i don't move, he's six feet away from me, the typical action of someone who doesn't actually want to fight. i let him carry on his abuse. he's in too deep now, he can't back down, his adrenaline has carried him over the edge and he's realised that he really, really doesn't want to go through with this. i offer him a way out, i tread on his expensive sunglasses and smash them, 'pull over to the left matey, down there where no-one can see' that's all he needed, a way out, he get's back into his car and with a final shout of 'fuck you!!!' he's gone, the art of fighting without fighting i suppose.
     so, what's all this got to do with the peaky blinder ducati project? well, three months ago i ordered a carbon fibre seat unit from a well known sheffield based outfit, i chased my order up yesterday, 'hi, just wondering what the progress was with my seat unit? i told them i had a trackday booked for the ninth of march, 'well, you won't be sitting on our seat!' squeeze me? baking powder, what happened to customer service? the twat on the end of the phone told me 'it's not really worth our while producing these seat's as they are labour intensive' what the fuck! he's had my one hundred and sixty quid sitting in his arse pocket for twelve weeks and it's not worth his time? keep watching fight fan's, this ones got 'classic' written all over it.........

aftergrudge......

'hello sir, ooh, wiring sir? all that cable? where does that go sir?  plug it in sir, a nice cozy fit....' wiring, i don't do wiring me, electrickery. can't get my head around all that bollock's. some people get it. [barse is a genius at it. he get's fucked off with me when i ask him why does that go there?......... 'bailey, you are a moron, just pass me the needle-nose pliers, boil-up some water and check my bid on those shovelhead clutch plates'] a week spent wrestling the ducati loom in the shed, it looks like a dismembered octopus to me, i start by plugging in the main connection to the ecu and work back from there, ahhha, that bit only plugs into that bit, what's that bit for? dunno, i chop it out, bollocks, thats the feed to the coils, stick that back with a bit of sticky tape, sorted. any- old -how, i just stick to what i know and knock up a bracket to carry the coils instead, hit the ratty said items with a matt-black rattle can, sorted. [picked up a couple of cd's on amazon too this week shara nelson 'friendly fire' and innocence 'belief', an english penny each, plus postage, what's that all about then? pure.fucking.soul.music. check them out. i love shara nelson me, the voice of massive attack. she must be related to aretha franklin? perhaps not...............

blink, [now you've missed it]

after all the glam, lovely stuff, it's time to get down to the boring bit's [excuse me, as i type this old bollock's 'three feet high and rising' by de-la-soul kick's in my headphones, what a tune.....] the airbox, after a good shoeing, sprayed with gunk and well rinsed, stood on the radiator in the shed to dry and then, on a ragga-tip from the mz forum, see's me applying a liberal coating of black shoe polish, well, bugger me! it actually works, the old, discoloured, dull plastic look's brand new, brilliant! new stainless hose clips, [carefully positioned so you can't see the worm drive, just shiny, plain stainless finish] the ratty, 'big-issue' injector bodies stand out against the sea of matt-black paint, a glimpse of stocking-top, just need to steal myself to start thinning out and cleaning the wiring harness now........

building steam with a grain of salt

three days annual leave, need to get the house sorted out, i've neglected it over the last couple of years, err, the last five years, uhhm, the last ten years, really? is it that long? under no pressure from the long suffering mrs b who patiently juggles the finances to enable us to have great holidays, pay the mortgage, get the shopping, pay the vet's bill's, gas, electric, council tax, [don't get me started..] and a thousand and other household bills and then, to indulge my passion for buying perfectly good, [but a tad tatty i grant you] motorcycles and cut the shit out of them in the shed, follow my [broken] dream to be a motorcycle racer, go to the island for the classic tt with dangerous, sweary and chalky and never, ever, moans about it. so, i have a prick of conscience, the house is a tip and begging for a lick of paint and attention, that's it then, emulsion, egg-shell and varnish, i'm on a mission me, get the house sorted out = more time to ride in the spring when the weather takes a turn for the better.
        up at sparrow fart to drop jack off at work, bollocks, where did that come from? derbyshire is under a heavy covering of the white-stuff, we dig out the car and make a treacherous journey to work, back home and i walk the dogs as dawn breaks, the two j.r terriers are full of it, rolling and tumbling in the deep snow, back home and a brew in hand,i'll just five minutes before i start painting the hall / landing / stairs, the two tins of matt-black engine paint are sitting on the radiator in the shed, i idly shake a tin and apply a quick blast to see what it would look like.... the rest of the day is spent between painting the house and painting the engine, coat after coat, upstairs, downstairs, i eventually call it a day, wash out my brushes and retire to the shed, go on then, oh alright, i pick at the masking, just to see what it looks like mind, a bootle of beer in hand and a couple of hours carefully taking off the last few nights work, white spirit see's the sticky residue gone. everything is covered with overspray, all three bikes, the bench, tools, the walls, everything, i'm coughing up black snot, my fingers and thumbs split from the combination of different paints and spirits, but, well, i'm well chuffed with the result.........

can you guess what it is yet...?

dangerous nipped up to nelly's at cornerspeed mid-week to pick up the ducati750 engine for the 'peaky blinder' project, there's good news and there's bad news. the good news is that the motor is in rude health after a good shoeing by nelly, he even managed to find us a couple more bhp by careful measuring of the base gaskets and swapping them out to raise the compression, a little work on the heads and a valve job. the nikasel barrels are like new, no horror stories with the cams or desmo valve gear, the clutch and bottom end all clean and fit for purpose, a right result then. covers screwed on with turned up stainless hardware,  [thanks rich and sarah!] all good then? well, err no. ok it's me, i'm sorry. i try and ignore the finish on the motor, i cleaned it up before despatching it to nelly's for the engine work, but, i, err, really can't live with the 'tired' finish especially with the newly powdercoated silver covers. i go as far as cleaning off the powdercoating from the frame to mount the engine, careful filing and finish with wet and dry to enable  fitting. the ducati engine is a tight fit in the cradle frame. it should be, it's a stressed member, the engine hanging on two bolts under the beautiful trellis tube frame. a night spent fitting the engine, [after removing the shock, swingarm and back wheel of course, the frame and front end 'wheel-barrowed' by your's truly while dangerous tries to align the mountings. i'm stood on the hydraulic bench, i'm banging my head on the roof joists and swearing loudly at dangerous, 'hurry up you twat, this fucking thing is getting heavy!' ' you calling me a twat?' say's dangerous, 'have a look in the mirror, what's that hat all about?' he is, of course, referring to jessica's beanie hat that she left at our house on her last visit and which i have purloined] i like this hat, especially the ears on it and the big daft eyes, mrs b say's it gives me a 'softer' persona rather than the miserable git i normally am, [hey, i take that as a compliment, take them while you can and anyway, the dogs like it so i'm going to keep wearing it, imagine if obama or cameron or clegg or merkel or putin wore a daft hat when they were talking politics, everyone would take them far more seriously, or perhaps not.....] anyhoo, back to the plot, dangerous is giving me 'that' look, he know's what i'm going to say, 'i can't live with it', 'we can't spoil the ship for a 'hapenny of tar', blah, blah, blah. we spend the next four hours masking up the frame, swing-arm and anything else likely to get hit with the overspray from a rattle can. simoniz vht matt black, two-tins, warming on the radiator ready for sshhh, sssshhh, shhhh, black index finger and choking paint fumes in the tiny 'tardis' shed..........

this is england

this is england. cold, wet, dull. long nights and short days. football is a welcome distraction at this time of year. losing to our bitter rivals, forest, last week gutted me, came home from the match and went sraight to bed, my phone ringing and the filth giving it me big-time, e-mails galore and yet, i have so many links with the scutty neighbours, [who wear green tights, robins best mate is a bald headed monk and they run around robbing the rich to pay the poor] red-dog-rob, grant, spence, med, bramcote kev, you-two tony, drug-free fee, tyrone, pally, derek the dalek, gaz, the shaw brothers, gunny, julie, national front neville, [relax, he's a black bloke, long story, the only black skinhead in nottingham to join a racist gang] fuck off you wankers! so, you beat us and we were playing chesterfield in the cup today, [and we beat them two-nil and are through to the next round and you were playing? oh yeah, no one, you got knocked out!
     back to motorbikes, my shock turned up mid-week, realm engineering, ram shock, bespoke made shock, beautifully engineered, made to suit my weight at a fraction of the cost of an aftermarket shock, check them out at http://www.realmengineering.com/ anodized fittings, deep powdercoated spring, 13 click pre-load adjustment, just a thing of beauty. got a lovely suprise too, a jiffy bag full of stainless fasteners from long term followers of the blog rich and sarah, we have never met in person, [though dangerous got 'school-boyed' by them at stafford a couple of years ago, 'excuse me, are you dangerous dave?' 'yes, i am' say's dave,[rich kneel's down and sarah pushes him over] serves the twat right i say! so, out in the shed feeling good about the world and the bonneville kicks me in the bollocks, batteries fucked, more expense, that cllllll, cllll, ccchhhh, noise, love this bike though, already i'm thinking about scrapping the unecessary 'down-tubes' the cradle is redundant from day one, put there to mimick the original, we can save loads of weight, i checked out the bonneville performance race bikes and they don't run them, 'ahh, mr hacksaw, i've been expecting you.......'

ladybird books

must admit, it's very rare that i actually buy a daily newspaper, i tend to scan the online versions, my favourite is probably the guardian, yesterdays issue featured the artwork of the legendary 'ladybird' books, i was immediately transported back in time to an age of innocence, a time before quantitavite easing, internet, mobile phones and the pressure of being a 'grown-up' a time when you had to catch a bus into town and buy a record from a record shop, on something called 'vinyl' if you wanted to listen to music, a time when you had three channels on tv, a time when we had power-cut's, strikes and you went to butlins for a week if you were lucky, a time when you saw your dad on a sunday afternoon because the rest of the time he was working to get you a weeks holiday at butlins. i've always been able to read, or so it seems, i will read the label on the brown-sauce bottle, i suppose i haven't really, i guess someone taught me along the way, way back in those halycon day's of endless summer holidays and cold, snowy winters. ladybird books played a part in my education, from pond-life to the admiral nelson, easy to digest and artwork that will stay with me until i punt off this mortal coil, one of these books is a very naughty, but very funny pastiche of the classic books, you will have to look hard to find it i'm sure........

it's a dirty job, [but someone's got to do it]

fuel injection, whoa, harry potter shit, only ever worked on bikes with carbs before, [ok, the last ducati i had was a fuelie but all i ever had to do was change the oil and adjust the chain] this was a job i've been dreading, but, i was pleasantly suprised, very few moving parts and a night with some scotchbrite and we are good to go, the more time i spend in the shed, the less i want to venture outside......