now this little xs650? things that make you go hmmm................

derby day, the street's of our fair city are buzzing tonight, forest, the ram's biggest rival's are coming to town, making their way down the sixteen miles of road that link the two cities, brian clough way, or the a52 if you want the official designation, they are after revenge for the defeat at the city ground when derby beat them with only ten men, the goalkeeper, frank fielding having been sent off early in the game, we are desperate to beat them tonight and inflict damge to their hopes of relegation survival as well as 'doing the double' over them for the first time in almost forty years, as we make our way to pride park, the home of derby county football club, we can hear the chanting of the rival supporters, the derby fan's walking in from the town centre and the forest fan's under police escort from the railway station, half a mile stroll from the ground, their are groups of fan's standing under the statue of brian clough and peter taylor, the dynamic duo who had massive success with both club's, as we queue for the turnstiles we see our rival's for the first time, and the tension rises again, up the stair's and the concourse is packed, singing, swaying people, drinking and spilling beer as they jostle and sing, just a coke for me and the boy jack tonight, it's a 'school night' so no alcohol, i honestly don't need it and make my way to my seat, the team's take to the pitch and the noise is incredible, a moment after kick off and the first tasty tackle goes in, yellow card and the scene is set for the rest of the half, it's a scrappy affair, the ball spend's most of the time in the air, being launched forward in the hope of connecting with a respective striker, the second half continues in the same vain, more bruising tackles and card's, one particularly savage assault on a derby player sparks a twenty two man melee on the half way line that see's our goalie running the length of the pitch to get involved, turn up the gas to mark 7, the next challenge see's our centre-back badly injured and stretchered off with career threatening knee damage, the forest fan's gloat and chant while the stricken player, shaun barker is receiving attention from the medical staff, a section of the derby fan's decide to retaliate with their own chant, 'where's your chairman gone?', reffering to the death of the forest chaiman nigel doughty a few week's ago, it's getting hot in here, time is clicking away,but due to the ref sorting out the battling players and barkers injury there are 8 minutes of extra time, then, it happens, jake buxton, on as a substitute for barker, stoop's low to head in the ball at close range, 95 minutes gone, the ground explodes in noise and i can actually feel the upper teir shaking as the derby faithful go wild, the next 3 minutes take an eternity, then mr durso raises the whistle to his lips and blow's...........'tell me mam, me mam, to put the champagne on ice, we beat the forest twice, tell me mam, me mam............'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01byhrg  a fascinating radio article on bbc radio four from last month, i missed it as i was at work at the time but, if like me, you have any interest in the racing mz machines then this will be right up your street, [thank's to nick for the tip-off] available to listen to now on the bbc i-player. [just click the link]

mz, the racers, the book by jan leek, originally published in 1991 by 650 publications, the story of walter kaaden, the father of the modern racing two-stroke, his secrets stolen by ernst degner and sold to the rival suzuki factory when degner defected  to escape the repressive east german regime and start a new life with his family in the west, the book is as rare as the proverbial rocking horse excrement, even rarer than dangerous getting a round in, yep, that rare, i've been after a copy for about four years now and still not managed to track one down, imagine my delight when i found out that squire neil from the comecon collection blog had spotted a copy on ebay and got a virtually new copy for peanuts............

sunday morning in the loveless household, the day's are finally getting longer, i'm aware that it's light and that the sun is shining but, the pull of the land of nod is too great, so, beat me up, we are a busy family, me and the boy jack are up at stupid o'clock everyday for work, mr's b does silly hours and home late everyday and jess? well, she's in the sixth form, you don't realise how hard it is putting your make-up on and talking to people on the phone, i drift into conciousness again, the dog's are stretching and sleeping respectively on the end of the bed, better get up then i suppose, drinking tea in the garden, still chilly but the first real spring morning, breakfast, mexican flat bread, eggs, veggie bacon and portobello mushrooms, more tea and off to walk the dog's, can't believe how quiet it is, there's nobody about, home, another brew and i try and get my list of job's prioritised, cut the grass, clean the car, clean the windows, sort out the security light that's given up the ghost, mend the airing cupboard door, fuck that, it's a lovely day, the first day of spring proper, 'just nipping out duck, the battery on the sporty need's charging, be half an hour' mr's b isn't impressed, i change into my riding kit, leather jeans, goretex jacket and dig out my trusty arai full-face, why didn't i clean the fly's and shite off the visor before i put it away for the winter? start the bike up and listen to the steady ruummpp, daruumpp, darummp, ruuummmp as the sporty vibrates down the drive of it's own volition, the sidestand threatening to flick up at any time and deposit the plot onto the tarmac, dangerous phones me, 'is that your bike?' ''yep, you should have motted your bike tosser, told you it was going to be a good weekend' my bike promptly splutter's to a halt, dangerous has been out on it last week and ran the tank dry, wanker, i scrat around the shed and find enough fuel in various can's to top the tank up, i'm just about to set off and dangerous trap's on his neighbours honda hornet thing, off we go, up to clay cross, chesterfield and call in at the harley dealers, the tea bar isn't open and we console ourselves with looking at the sad bastard hoggie's buying bubble wrap crap for their wank-glides, up to curbar, traffic thinning and so is the temperature, we are a long way above sea level here, picking our way around the frost damaged roads of the high peak, down through froggatt edge and call in at 'outside' for tea and toasted tea cakes, i don't know what it is about 'outside' but the young ladies who work there are stunning, replete we trap on, back onto the a6 north towards buxton, i've never had a run at these corners like this before, there's usually quarry lorries or john deere's in the way, almost always on the apex to a decent bend, cut back on the 'secret' road, onto the 515 back towards ashbourne, turn left onto the via gellia and y'all know what time it is, this is derbyshires answer to the tt course, frightenlingly fast, stone walls, damp patches, [on the roads, not just the rider's calvin's] pass the wanker on his kawasaki race rep, threepenny-bitting around the corner's on the drop into cromford, left turn clyde. the traffic is tailing back down the a6 and all the bikes are doing that, throttle, brake, fuck, watch the bus, twat! you can't do a 'u'turn thing, i can't believe how busy it is in the 'bath, first time i came here was almost forty years ago, it was a january afternoon and i was riding a puch vs 50, hand change moped, i got a cuppa and nearly fainted when the hot-aches kicked in, you tend to get cynical after all those year's, but, the lad's on their automatic scooter's profiling through the main drag have as much right to be there as anyone else, today, everything was different, i kept my cynicism in check, there were some great bike's out today, just because they don't fit in with your idea of 'cool' doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with them, the wes cooley '34' superbike replica, the triumph, uncle bunt hardtail, the goldstar, the lambretta with the stunning air-brush artwork, the sidevalve harley, the brilliant bsa goldflash, spring's here england, let's play some jesus and mary chain........

adams apples, 'don't take it out on this world', one friday night at cleo's, mid winter and the weather was foul, the legendary soul sam couldn't get through for his regular friday night pre sheffield 'samantha's' all nighter, local dj, spiv didn't trap and hector was panicking, the club was packed and he was running out of vinyl to spin, i duly stepped forward, made a quick taxi journey the three miles home and picked up a record box full of prime northern soul, this was the first record i put on, the place erupted, happy day's indeed....

well, what do you know, it's saturday and it's football, bit of a novelty this one, first home game on a saturday afternoon, three o'clock kick off since early january, call me old fashioned but 1500hrs saturday and 1945 hours wednesday should be football, not fitting in with sky tv's agenda, yes, i know, sky put a lot of money in, but so what?, it's all relative, my season ticket isn't cheap, i shell out a lot of hard-earned to watch mediocre second division football, because, again, it doesn't matter how you dress it up as 'championship', it's division two, times change, they had to after bradford and heysel and the awful afternoon at hillsborough, you can't see your loved one's off to football and never see them alive again, the 'english disease' had spread out of control, no longer was it about stealing scarves or taking end's, the whole game had spiralled out of control, the hooligan's were more organised, outwitting the old bill and roaming this sceptered isle unchecked and even worse, europe, violence, beamed directly into mr and mrs joe public's home, the majority of the grounds were relic's from a bygone age, no segregation, terracing and crush barriers, not even proper toilets, people pissed where they stood, the grounds packed to capacity, you couldn't move until the final whistle, it's a saturday, people are having a beer, the whole atmosphere was one of violence and intimidation, i remember travelling to away games in the '70's by intercity trains or the infamous 'football specials', we were treated like cattle, herded onto out-dated rolling stock, no lightbulbs, broken toilets, ripped seats, beer cans and vodka bottles rolling up and down the aisles, we were like an invading army, you always had that sense of trepidation as you pulled into a faraway station, the whole train would go quiet as we approached the platform, then, as one, a whole cacophony as to a man we let them know 'we are derby, we are derby...' mounted police, dog's and missiles from the opposition greeted you on arrival, thing's had to change and they did, mr's thatcher's government brought in draconian laws aimed at suppressing the football fan, cages built around the terracing to prevent pitch invasions came back to haunt the game at bradford and hillsborough, even travelling to a match became difficult, lesson's learnt in the miner's strike were used to harrass the football fan, all seater stadiums became the order of the day, mascots and the emphasis on 'family' entertainment, football was taken away from the working classes, we were not welcome anymore, then, money came into the game, it started to be run by business men, my own club was one of the first, we were taken over by the newspaper magnate, robert maxwell, [who met a rather unfortunate end falling off his private yacht, excuse me, i've come over all emotional-not], sky sports entered the fray, no longer was the game saturdays and wednesdays as the fixtures were juggled to suit tv ratings, with the tv money came the high player wages that have seen the game reduced to it's knee's, club's in insolvency, rich, greedy journeymen football players driving bentley's and bitching and moaning about 'it being a short career', save your tear's you wanker's, i don't want to see you kissing the badge, you don't know what it means to support your team like we do so don't fucking insult us, you would be off in a flash if some other club promised you another two hundred and fifty thousand pound's a year more, yeah, things had to change, but you know what? not alway's for the best, i'm going to stick my neck out here, i miss the old day's, the crack, the banter, the lad's out on a saturday, you didn't take your missus to football, you didn't clap the mascot's or take pictures of the players cars in the stadium carpark, you went to football with your mate's, had a beer, it was war, walking down shaftesbury street, the terraced houses with boarded up windows, the smell of hot metal and sand from ley's foundry, the aroma of cheap hotdogs and fried onions, beery breath and swearing, baiting the opposition and dodging the nut's and bolt's, [i kid you not], i'm a dinosaur me, football's sterile and corporate, we got beat two-one today, but, we've got forest at home on tuesday, our hated local rival's, 'if your tired and weary.....'