yen_powell

I only know the name because there was a tv programme about him a few years ago. Unfortunately only the name stuck and that it was from the latin to drink.

No, that's when he washes his bike.

How thick are these old paving slabs!

Shaun Rider Pam Ayres or Brian May

Bibendum

Not sure if I mentioned that I won £78 when Rolf Harris died, from our Poppit lottery. Well Tina Turner just died and she was the replacement name that took over from Rolf.

Is there not a tyre with a mongoose on it?

Today I ground my way at rush hour all the way to Spitalfields, it took an hour and half from home, I parked my bike and barriered it off from traffic wardens. I had a dry fork leg, so all good so far. I went into my little hut (sorry, I mean luxury Shoreditch apartment) and I put on my little yellow trousers (with holey knee from the nail incident), my big steel toe capped boots, my plastic glasses, my hard hat and my gloves and walked with Vas up to the building site gate. The gate guard shouted something in Romanian and Vas translated, "you have forgotten your hi viz vest". I had to walk back and get the poxy thing. Left there an hour later and went to the old Crossrail site at Whitechapel to walk a new job with one of my bosses and a contractor. As we were discussing it a withered old man stood near us shouting "eeeeurghhh" every 2 seconds like an elephant and flinging his arms above his head whilst walking in little circles. I said to the others after a few minutes that they had been working in the area too long as they didn't even seem to notice him. Put my bike inside the Crossrail site fence and walked across to the new town hall only to realise I had to walk right back as I'd forgotten I was doing a measure on another job at the same place. Glad I'd left my bike jacket and lid on the bike as it was a hot day today. Did the measure with Dan Dan the paving man and walked back to the town hall yet again. Then spent a few hours drawing up stuff to ruin people's driving experience before going back to collect my bike and had a very warm ride home.

No you don't. But your pillion and the rider has to.

I liked it when he discovered the local toilets were the hole in the ground version. Good for the thighs though.

I've got one of them, works a treat. The only thing is I made a mess of ordering the wheel weights and ended up with zillions of the things.

My mum left me a few gold sovereigns, Victorian, Edwardian and George 5th ones. I went through them spread out on the kitchen work top and selected a few to give to my son to sell as he was having a bit of trouble money wise at the time. I couldn't remember how many there were exactly, but I was sure I was missing one, gave up worrying about and put them away in a hidey place. This was about 5 years ago. Last month my dish washer finally expired after 20 years of faithful service. When I pulled it out from under the kitchen unit to replace it with a new one there was a gold sovereign sitting on top in the centre.

I did something in my last year of junior school, no idea if it was an 11 plus. There were only two of us destined for my senior school because we had both moved away from the immediate area but still stayed at the same junior school for the last year. We both had to go to a room and take an exam whilst a member of staff watched us and timed it, took about an hour. I can recall the questions were mostly English and Maths based, I know I had to guess a lot of them as it was stuff I hadn't heard of then. When I turned up at my senior school they streamed us, we had three bands and a dribbler class. I went in to the top stream and my mate went into the lower stream, but was moved up to the middle stream at the end of the first year. The dribbler class was wound up by the 3rd year and the occupants moved in to the lower stream.

My Versys discs seemed to be warped from very early on, I could always feel them pulsing when slowing down. I cleaned the disc buttons using brake cleaner spray with a bolt, washers and nuts to spring them open and it seemed to sort them. These are the 103,000 mile discs the dealer who videoed the bike said must be replacement discs.

Just back from a few days away. Back to work (on site) tomorrow and my paid for fork seal cleaner had arrived whilst I was away. As I said before, my home made one didn't really sort the leak, just reduced it a bit so I paid out for the Sealmate. The bike was already up in the air with the dust seal pulled down from before I went away so I have just been out and had a scrape. First attempt wasn't too good, I really struggled to slide the thing around. Then I removed the mudguard to give a bit more room and it all got easier. The trick is to get the bit of hook ended plastic shoved up past the seal, wrap a cloth around the bottom part and squeeze really hard and then just twist your hand around the fork leg. Went round three times then wiped off the film of oil that had run down whilst using it. Then I was bouncing the forks up and down till no more oil appeared, which took about 3 x 10 goes till it stayed clean. refitted the dust seal and put the fork cover and mud guard back on. I'll see how that is by the time I get to work tomorrow. Whilst away I called into a very small village to look inside this cupboard which is in the church there. There was nobody else there, had the place to myself, no signs saying what is there either. The square section between the grooved pillars opens completely up. What is inside to be revealed in a future write up.

The unions would be straight on to that and nip it in the bud, that's my job that is!

Give me contact details, they may dig it up as a favour to me, one road fucker upper to another and all that.

I am so glad I am not the only person who laughs when I see a lift with Schindler written on it. We had them at work until recently. Some of my best friends have been stuck in them when they broke down between floors.

Another song Terry Wogan introduced me to.

Had a leaky fork at work yesterday so I tried making one of those seal cleaners out of an old milk bottle and had a bit of a scrape last night. It seemed to stop the leak, but the ride to work tomorrow will let me know for sure. Gave the Kriega fork cover things a clean up and refitted them, quite a bit of grit loose inside the one on the leaky fork, but clean as a whistle on the fork that is behaving, so I'm hoping that was all it was.

Have you considered removing your string vest?

Bananarama

I'm back in my little Spitalfields site hut tomorrow. First time no rain is forecast as well. I shall spend the morning trying to memorise one of the Romanian's worker's names, either that or give him a nickname. I have no trouble with the building site security bloke, easy to remember something that sounds like VIRAL. No trouble with VAS (short for Vasil). It's our machine driver, can't remember it two seconds after he tells me. Knelt on what I thought was a sharp stone last week whilst measuring something. Turns out it was a large screw set into a concrete slab and pointing upwards. That made me jump I can tell you. Big hole in my yellow trousers, luckily very little blood. Washed it to death straight afterwards, I don't be wanting lock jaw or similar. Concrete has been broken out since thank god, because I'd only do it again otherwise.