yen_powell

Bit of sump oil run through the hair and a rub of a car air freshener from the local pound shop always brings me up a treat.

Optical illusion, no matter how grungy they get, they always look cleaner in photographs. It's similar to the flattening of steep slopes effect. Also of course it's only a year old, the muckiness is still a work in progress.

That tree's a bloody liar.

I hadn't realised that one of those event photographers was there until I saw the little tent with a board covered in zillions of tiny images with numbers next to them. I stared hard as it blew back and forth in the breeze, but without reading glasses I had no chance of finding myself between 8am and 9:30am. Grabbed a card instead so I could find the website and checked it out on my large screen, much easier.

No idea, I just liked the red and white seats. I took the picture of the Bond Bugs next to this 3 wheeler because I used to have an orange Dinky toy exactly the same.

Went and visited my brother who lives about 2 miles away afterwards, not seen him since 2019 I think. He was telling me that he found two women walking along his street opening up peoples' wheelie bins and taking stuff out of them. He told them to fuck off and knocked on his neighbour's door to let him know that some one had been going down his bin. The neighbour exclaimed, oh it was probably them that stole the trainers. Turned out his son had trodden in dog do big time and left the trainers outside when he came indoors. When he came out to clean them they had been taken. edit. It's chucking it down outside now, perfect timing!

The kids, adults and a Lampkin throwing bikes over things

Last week I was helping my mate excavate a collapsed shed at his late father's house. We were trying to recover two bike wrecks he had stored back in the mid 80s. One was a TS250 frame and few other parts of it in boxes. He sold it for £450 to a dealer. I found it for sale today.

Never been before, which is a shame because it only cost a tenner to get in and was much better than the sad excuse for a show at Peterborough (Devitt/MCN?). Couldn't find my bike in the bike park when leaving, like a doddery old pensioner (no offence Pete). I was wandering up and down in a confused manner. Only XT1200 there as well. Turned out that in my head I was about 8 rows back from the front, I was actually only 3 rows back. I could see one of the stewards watching me, I must have looked like I was casing the joint for a bike theft. Dougie Lampkin was poodling past where I was standing when he saw a little girl waving so he slowed down and waved back. I was taking pictures of him at the time so caught a bit of it. I offered the picture to her parents, but it turned out none of us could manage to send it, so had to email it when I got in. There was some very young children attempting to ride over upturned skips, very brave, especially in front of a crowd. I had the place to myself when I first got there, so took a few pictures of the trials area and a lovely hearse and a product for the site owner.

Has he got a bike you hoped would be left to you in his will?

You drove away a whole generation!

He has a youtube account, as well https://www.youtube.com/c/sarkybstard/videos

I gather he has moved to Scotland and given up bikes now, cars and motorhomes is the only vehicles he has I believe.

Worth a trawl through his page photos, very nostaligia inducing, not just rallies, other stuff as well. He got about, from Shetland Isles all the way down to Portsmouth.

The fighting Moroccans continued Because Normsboy had dobbed me in to the old bill, I was given notice that I was going to be interviewed and to keep myself available on the days they would be at our office. Now if it was a tv drama, they would walk casually alongside me asking pointed questions as I carried on working, with me occasionally shouting at a road worker to sort himself out or else and with only half my attention on the interview. In real life they take you to a quiet room, get out large witness statement notebooks and pens and write down everything you say, then they make you sign and date it all afterwards. This is how you start your career as a Supergrass. I think they also made enquiries about my holiday plans for the next few months. As they led me through my story, they would occasionally ask for more detail on certain points. One of these was the first knife I had seen. I asked if I could just sketch it rather than describe it. This was agreed and I knocked out a quick piece of artwork in their notebooks. The police woman was most impressed and said that I should get a job involving drawing. This led me to believe that she hadn't been paying attention when asking me my occupation at the start of the interview. Eventually I was let out and the next person called in. The person brought in to be interviewed after me was a lady called Fiona. Fiona was famous for two things, well three things, but two of them were a matching pair and had been allowed to hang free since some time in the 60s and showed no intention of giving in to gravity or age. The third thing she was famous for was being in an almost permanent state of drink induced happiness. A few months later we heard that there was to be a trial and quite a few of us were to be called as witnesses for the prosecution. Well it was a day out, even if it was in Southwark Crown Court. The two opposing Moroccan families, henceforth known as Family 1 and Family 2, had chosen different paths to justice. Family 1 had decided to all plead guilty, so we weren't called to their trial and most were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. Family 2 however, about 6 or 7 of them, had all pleaded not guilty, so it was the full trial by jury jobby, with a barrister for each of them against one and an assistant barrister for the prosecution. The wig bill alone must have been huge. My friend who had been subpoenaed was still determined not to go and stayed at work on the day of our trial appearance. Nothing came of that and she heard no more about it. The rest of us, about 10 people all told, set off on the London underground to get to the mysterious south part of London. Only the other side of Tower Bridge, but an alien land to most east Londoners. Fiona and her two friends quivered along with us, she was always happy, and weaved occasionally as we negotiated various trains and escalators to get to the court.

I don't know if anyone else follows 'Fall Off Phil' on Facebook (he is on another bike site as well), he posts all of his motorcycle rally photos and was a regular sight wherever I went. His rally pictures (and some videos) start about 1980 and the bike ones stop about 2015. It's fascinating to see not only the bikes change, but the clothes, the tents, the food choices, the beer types. What doesn't really change is the people. It's young people in the 80s and old people after the millennium. i.e it's the same people going, not much new blood. I have yet to see myself in a single picture, although I do find other people I know who I was there with. I have only made one comment on FB and no one followed it up. It was a picture of a rally in the 80s and out of 4 people three were posted as RIP. All I said was, That sounds like a rough rally! but I think my comment was 'too soon'. Phil Drackley is his real name. He's bound to be one of Pete's friends actually.

When I was young I couldn't work out why Hitler was on top of the pops. hang on voting for a strike on a zoom meeting.

For a couple of pensioners they have still got it.