'sitting on the dock of the bay' i don't know how many times i've heard that song, it was on the radio tonight, i actually stopped what i was doing and sat down and actually listened to it rather than it just playing away in the background and me joining in the whistling bit that i always do when i hear it, anyway, little job on the mz racer carb for andy tonight, he suffered the famous mz racer carb jumping off the manifold syndrome at snetterton so parceled up the carb and mounting rubber for us to machine a mounting groove in the carb body, out with the four-jaw chuck, the carb body isn't concentric so wouldn't spin evenly in the chuck, dangerous set up the clock while i stripped the carb of it's float bowl and fragile brass floats, [we had problems with the floats splitting regularly and them filling with petrol and well you know the rest, we borrowed a set of the rare nylon floats that the club had made some years ago off des davies and never had anymore problems], carb mounted in the four-jaw and a nice locating groove machined into the carb body to match the raised flange in the rubber, that should do the trick and prevent further premature carburetor ejaculation, yeah, i know just how otis feel's, sitting around waiting for my boxer engine.......

tattoo's, motorcycles, music, fighter's, i suppose you don't need to be a psychologist to work out what i like, i'm a simple derbyshire lad me........

i picked up the john robinson 'endurance racing' book again today, it really is a classic, i can remember the john robinson articles from the old bike magazine articles, he was a brilliant journalist, his stuff was well researched, well written, but above all, what shone through was his enthusiasm for motorcycles, anyway, enough of all that old bollock's, what you saying about 'comstar' wheel's?, brilliant, light-weight, strong and a design classic to boot, come on honda, time for a revival?

me and the girl child jessica dropped into belper to get some paint, to paint, some thing's that needed painting, i can't go into belper without visiting the oxfam shop, today, i'm almost wetting myself as i discover this gem, 'endurance racing, ride it!' by the legend that is john robinson, i spend the rest of the afternoon drinking tea, reading this legendary tome and listening to radio derby, the ram's gaining a point away to bristol..........

i reckon this may well be the first reggae tune i've featured on the 'vinyl vault' that's amazing really when i think about the influence it's had on my musical education, from the prince buster and roland alphonso of my youth club days, the older skinhead's had moved on, no more football for them, mortgage's, kid's and d.i.y beckoned, no more bank holiday's in skegness, the skin's had evolved into the suedeheads, hair a little longer and well groomed, prince of wale's check trouser's, round collar ben shermans, 'tank top's' red sock's and tonic suits, brogues, penny loafer's and sheepskin coat's, we were taking our style cue's from our west indian 'rude-boy' contemporaries, the suedheads, a distant relative of the mod's embraced the rare soul scene that eventually grew into the northern soul scene, this changed again when punk rock kicked everyone on the bollock's and changed the music scene forever, the early punk gig's didn't have enough music for the dj to play before the band came on stage and so padded out their set's with jamaican reggae and ska, so forging a link that even the mighty robert marley acknowledged with the 'punky reggae party' seven-inch release, this is a mighty, mighty tune from back in the day, junior murvin's 'police and thieves', famously covered by the clash, this is a tune that summed up britain in the mid 1970's, [click last photo to play the song....]

me and dangerous had a clean up in the shed today, we cleaned down the miller and lathe, put all the tool's back in their right place, all the waif and stray fastener's that fall off the bench, the various container's of fluid's, [oil, brake fluid, engine oil, gunk, paint stripper, mr muscle, brut aftershave, guacomale, sour cream, ac 90, cutting oil, paul smith aftershave, hob-nobs with chocolate, spilt peroni beer, shiraz and merlot] we were going to go out for a ride this afto, but, guess what? no benzine, no gas, no petroleum, i can't think of a better way to waste some fossil-fuel, but, the fucking pensioner's are queueing at the pump's to 'top-up' by four quid, but, on a better note, it's the weekend and i found this old 'bob heath'  visor in the shed, if anyone has any original sticker's let me know, i want some for the racer..........

whitelinepsycho, the best blog on the whole interweb, old whitey is the real deal, he's played with some of the biggest names in rock, his blog is honest, informative and laugh -out-loud fucking funny, me and old whitey have it going on, we are from different part's of the globe, he's in sunny oz, able to ride his sporty all year 'round and looking at the 'ladies' profiling along the beach-front, me?, well, i'm from 'sunny' derbyshire, the ladies are wearing lot's of clothes to protect them from the frost, [apart from that 'freak' day in february when the temperatures hit 12 degree's, we have melanoma warning's, dog's shouldn't be left in car's and a fucking hosepipe ban] he had the pleasure of playing with debbie harry, [ooh 'er matron], i'd almost dismissed blondie as pop pretender's until i re-visited this, two minutes of pop-punk genius, from a time when you had to queue up to use a telephone, not get it out of your pocket and collect 'orange wednesday' voucher's, old, bitter, bastard?, me?,,,,,,,,,

 'classic racer' is my favourite magazine, i've got every copy, all stored in chronological order, [like you knew it would be], they live in a massive storage unit in our bedroom along with all my treasured books, some of my vinyl collection and lot's of my other treasured item's that the kid's will chuck in a skip when i shuffle off this mortal coil, i read the print off the back issues, one of the stories i keep returning too is the one about the czech 'ceska zbrojovka' or czech arnaments 500cc v4 racer that was campaigned between 1969 and 1972 [eat your heart out honda], the type 860 was a masterpiece of engineering and despite the lack of good quality materials and components, they managed to compete against the japanese and italian factories, it's a story about the under-dog taking on the big boy's......[the 'shiny bike' pictures are, i think a replica, sorry, i don't speak czechosolovakian and i cribbed them off a czech classic racing site, the bike with the 'patina' is deffo an original type 860 racer that escaped from behind the iron curtain and ended up in a collection in britain, i saw this bike at 'the festival of a 1000 bikes a couple of year's ago......]

       fell asleep watching one of the music channel's on sky last weekend, snoring on the sofa, dog's cuddled up, i woke up around 0400 hrs and this tune from b.traits featuring the vocalist elisabeth troy took me back to the nineties, proper old school house tune, can't believe this is a new tune, when the piano driven break comes in, well, the weekend start's here..........

 the loveless mz racer was in action this weekend at snetterton for the opening round of the 2012 brmzc season, now in the hand's of new owner andy smith, fittingly, this was the last track that the bike was raced in anger by me in 2010 and by andy in his first ever race meeting in 2012, he managed to finish all four races and picked up some point's in the mz novice championship and the over 40's mz championship, well done andy. andy saunders had a great start and is leading the series from dean stimpson who has returned to the 'zedder's this year, my old mucker des davies had a good weekend too, he's currently sixth in the bmzrc championship and leading the over 50's championship.........