and if i fall.......

'blue peter' john noakes, valerie singleton and peter purvis, tea-time for little loveless consisted of a kraft-cheese triangle sandwich on white bread, finely sliced tomatoes and a bag of ready-salted crisps, i was the original 'latch-key' kid me, my old man working stupid hour's as a fitter at the local printing works, my mum working two-jobs, dinner lady at the local primary school and afternoon's at the 'mini-boutique' ladies fashion emporium, home from school, let the dog out for a pee and tv on, three channel's back then, bbc, itv and bbc 2, imagine that now? a thousand and one channels and nothing worth watching on any of them, but, back to blue peter, amazing what you can make out of some old washing-up bottles and cardboard, still stuck with me even to this day, why cut precious stock when you can mock it up using an old cereal box? i like making stuff me, but, sometimes, my head get's turned, i'm a sucker for oberon part's, check out the shit o.e.m, pressed tin clutch adjuster and compare it to the beautiful oberon item, lovely, have you ever seen the baby elephant, lulu, shitting all over the studio, live on tv and john noakes and the elephant keeper falling over in the mess? brilliant, check it out on you-tube.....

northern soul girl......

after checking my old mucker dave 'dog' william's marvellous 'whiteline psycho' blog out and his link for the boy pharell's latest hit tune 'happy' i went to bed, eh, well, 'happy',but then, somewhere, in that deep, sub-concious moment in the middle of the night, i realised how similar to an old northern soul tune it sounded like, ladies and gentleman, imagine my delight when i finally realised that it was the velvet hammer's, 'happy', a northern soul rarity, that was bugging me, even better, my favourite dancer, 'northern soul girl' had actually done a sound clash with both tunes, absolute brilliance, if you don't watch this and smile you ain't got no soul, the old geezer dancing along made my day, that's me that is..........

junk science

 another storm hit's us today, for the third day running, eighty mph wind's and yet more torrential rain, falling on already sodden ground, thank the prophet mohammed, or jesus or buddha or kurt cobain, or ronald mcdonald, or steve jobs or the chuckle brother's or whatever god you follow, that we live on 'badger-hill' or 'hale-brock', as i walk ted. the j.r terrier, [my other boy, gus, is making slow progress after his major surgery and is limited to three, five-minute walk's a day. just enough for six pee's and a dump and two attempt's to nail the neighbour's cat] the earth is literally moving under my feet, the ground so wet that there's no grip to be found, as i gaze up at the chevin, over the other side of the amber valley, i can see the 'W W 1' carved into the hillside and try to imagine what it must have been like for the tommy's in the trench's, living amongst the human filth, dead bodies and squalor of war, frozen with cold and fear, shell-shocked and suffering with malnutrition and trenchfoot, ordered to go 'over the top' to face certain death at the hand's of the well entrenched german machine gun's, or, shot for cowardice if you didn't. by a nineteen year old public schoolboy, 'officer' the working class, alway's touching our fore-lock's and uttering 'good morning sir' know your place scum! the expendable's? yep, that's us  and then? there's me moaning about getting wet taking the dog for a walk in the 'inclement' weather, talk about a reality check, i feel humbled when i think about the sacrifice of my fore-father's, what they endured so we can, eh, well, bitch about the slow internet connection, the roadworks on our journey to work, amazon not delivering our frappucino machine on time and a drop of rain, in february, made some progress on the 'false' triumph, front caliper mounted and finished, rear cagiva mito caliper, 'mr muscled' and cup-brushed, just need to figure out how to mount it, might try and use the o.e.m triumph bracket, nothing to lose, if i fuck it up, well, no-one died did they..............?

blood on the tracks

idiot wind..........................

everything's perfect

i'm everyone's dad me, i'm the bloke who shout's at my kid's when they get hurt, what's all that about then? instead of cuddling them and comforting them, i just shout and swear at them, i get angry that they are hurt, what a twat,  i'm feeling my dog's pain, i've had two day's off to look after him, he's a grumpy fucker, bit me big time, i must be getting old, i didn't see it coming, a low, gutteral growl and then? bang! he's got me, gripped and shaking, it's half past whatever and i'm done, i've tried sleeping with him on the sofa, on the floor, put him in the cage, in his basket, he's rattling the cage wall with his plastic 'his master's voice' anti-gnaw collar like a prisoner on death row rattling the bar's on his cell, i'm bleeding, he's bleeding, mr's b wakes from her beauty sleep at the row, comes down stairs and takes over, even dog's need their mum's, she send's me to bed and takes control, [even pissed-off jack russell terrier's know they have met their match against a scottish bird sufering from a lack of sleep] the cut-down o.e.m brake disc is a perfect spacer, mounting the four-pot brembo takes a little more figuring out, a two-angled cut on the miller should suffice, as long as the spokes don't hit the caliper and we don't break through into the piston sweep, fly-cut and offered up. it's looking good, excuse me, need to get back to my dog now, i'm sure you understand.......

three times seven

 the o.e.m triumph front brake is shit. a sliding caliper like you would find on a mid seventies h1 kawasaki and a disc made of cheese, magnetic stainless, rough as a badger's arse, fucking rubbish. i decided to spunk some hard-earned on something that would actually work, something more efficient than a 'john bull' set of rubber brake component's, right, the original disc is a 300mm thing, the aftermarket, full-floating item is 320mm, that's three quarter's of an inch in old school, not a lot i grant you, but ask your girlfriend/wife/partner how crucial that is, get the picture?] beautiful, italian made front, full floaters and wavy rear disc, [i'm not abig fan of wavy disc's normally, i always think 'chain-saw' but, i' don't use my rear brake anyway, so, if we can lose some un-sprung weight, well, why not?] we need to space them out 5mm to fit the brembo caliper's, a quick measure up and why invent the wheel? [so to speak], the stock disc's are wank, cut the carrier out, a quick fettle on the lathe and the perfect spacer to fit the new disc's. the jesus and mary chain, probably the loudest gig i ever went to, 'upside down' 'scuse me? baking powder.......

laika come home...

one week on from weighing in our turnings and swapping them into useable stock, the rearsets are done, stainless fasteners turned and nylon bushes machined, stainless rose joints fitted and short, fat, knurled footpegs done, nyloc's and loctited for piece of mind, i'm really pleased that the rear-mastercylinder is now behind the sidepanel rather than hanging below it, never seen this done before on a false triumph, [same as the headsteady bracket's, watch this space, the aftermarket manufacturer's will be copying this and marketing it as their own idea, just remember, you saw it here first] it's a lot of work, especially bending the actuating arm, filing and polishing the vice marks out of the steel item and then rattle-canning it with matt lacquer so it blends in with the scotchbrited finish of the aluminium parts, the stainless rose-joints, the numbers and letter's turned off the fastener's, all stuff that you don't notice but we do, [like the standard boat-anchor passenger footpeg / exhaust hangers, uglier than russell brands sister, the big, horrible, heavy, sidestand castings, just crying out for mr, hacksaw], bitch of a week, my dog gus isn't well, his cruciate ligament, back right leg, ruptured and he's had to have it removed and now has more titanium in his leg than barry sheene, sometimes bikes just don't matter that much after all....

airbox, snorkels and baffles........

the first of february, blimey, it's almost spring, better get my finger out and get something done on the bike rather than trying to flog 'merch', [must admit, i'm a bit disappointed with the response people, no orders recieved yet, fifty quid, [ or 75 dollar's american for a sticker] is great value, come on, send us some money for fuck's sake, fifteen hundred pounds for a piece of one-off artwork is small change, what's a matter with you? get those cheques, cash and year old  ducati's sent to us for a chance to own a truly iconic piece of, erh, something,,,,,, anyway, let's talk false triumph's, went up to my local dealer's to get a couple of  'consumable' part's, [ a front sprocket tab washer and a clutch cable] 'sorry dude, haven't got those in stock' squeeze me? baking powder?' 'i want a tab washer and a clutch cable for a two-double-oh-five bonneville' 'no, sorry dude, you have to order those, we don't have them in stock' i'm stunned, a couple of basic, service item's? not in stock? call me 'dude' again and i'm going to give you ippon-ken to your cheek-bone you cunt, i'm stunned, dangerous can get bit's for his forty year old, original bonneville off the shelf, in a little town like derby and yet i can't get basic stuff for a nine year old bike? what the fuck? anyway, triumph have to meet all the emission's, they are stifled, baffled and neutered, the induction noise has to be baffled to meet the reg's, we don't give a toss about that, reading stuff on the 'tinterweb reveals that removing the baffles and restrictons in the airbox is a right job, but. the results are well worth it, yeah, it's a bit fiddly, but, not beyond the average shed dweller, i must admit, i gave the parts bloke a hard time, i'm not proud of that, but, i hate being fucked over, i say it like it is, i'm not proud of that but that's the way i am, it's great to have a big, shiny, dealership, but, not stocking service item's? not acceptable to me i'm afraid, i'd expect to wait a couple of day's for fairing panel's painted in the year correct colour but a clutch cable? is it me or what?......

the root of all evil

me and dangerous are proud to present the loveless 'lifestyle' collection for twenty-14,  hand picked item's to make your life better, just buy them and you will gain instant street credibility, our hoodies are carefully selected, big, baggy, washed out and made in a sweat shop in pakistan, especially distressed for that 'in the shop' look, [even though you think shop mean's john lewis or macy's]  just like the ones you can buy in primark or, for our north american brother's, old navy, stickers, beanie hats and 'snoopy' winter-spring collection outerwear, just think 'radar' in the old vietnam war series m.a.s.h, cutting edge slogans, 'loveless, cool as fk' stickers and beanies, [we deliberately missed out the 'uc' so you can wear it to pick up your kid's or take your mum shopping without offending anyone, but, anyone who is down would know we actually meant a very naughty swear-word called fuck], limited edition 'loveless' turnings, from actual parts that we actually make for our actual bikes, [supplied in an actual authentic plastic zip-bag, numbered and signed by dangerous and me] then, we offer our hand made, loveless wine, me and dangerous choose the grapes ourselves, tread them and filter the mashings through a sweaty old sock to bring you a taste experience, [limited edition run, 9000 units only available]  and finally, an actual, original, hand sketched artwork by me, yes, timmy loveless, i like to think this enscapulates the whole ethos of loveless engineering, the fraught tensions of two genius bike builder's, one a conceptial, driven artist, the other, a brilliant engineer, two worlds collide in artistic liberation.........................................................................................