yen_powell

Perimetral, that's the bit between your bollocks and your chocolate starfish aint it?

Couple of nails were for holding my torque wrenches between. They're still on the same bit of wood.

When I first had a garage I had all my most used sockets on a plastic wall board, really easy to get at and also to see if anything was missing. Think I bought them from Halfords in the mid 90s, they stopped doing them a little while after. I still have one with a few sockets on, then I started moving stuff about to get my ramp in and switched to more stuff in my tool boxes and decided to have a crack at the foam when lockdown started. It's easy to do, just cut round the tools and peel out how many layers you need for the right depth. My spanners were on cup hooks screwed into a long piece of random wood, with say two 8mms on the first hook, a couple of 10mms on the second hook etc up to 27mm. You occasionally need two spanners the same size up to about 17mm I have found. The piece of wood is still on the wall only now it has a few T bars hanging on it and a couple of IKEA LED anglepoise desk lamps, plugged in, which I can slot into the bike ramp on either side if I need extra light on the subject. I do have some of those hanging cabled or battery lights but they always seem to twist and shine the wrong way at a critical moment, usually right into my eyes. My work bench (which is mostly covered in crap) and half the cost of my compressor was bought with my 25 years long service money I got in 2011. If I had it as cash in my wages it was taxed at full rate, if I bought something and showed them the bill I didn't pay any tax and they transferred it into my bank account. Apparently you used to get a clock in the 50s but they changed it to cash later on. My long service certificate arrived unwrapped in a box with 4 others and it had been thrown about so was scratched to buggery, it has pride of place in my toilet!!! It is however signed by our first ever directly elected Mayor who later went on to get himself chucked out of office for electoral fraud. He's standing again this year, his ban is up. The 4 people who took him to court and won have never received any costs from him to this day, some may have lost their homes over a case that the government should have funded by rights.

Got a lot of drawers, they aren't all neat and tidy but at least I can usually find what I want. That's your feed line Pete.

There's all sorts. I have a socket butchered by an angle grinder that means I can use a torque wrench to set my head stock bearings that dates back to 95, A T-handled cross head screw driver stolen off my brother in the early 80s, the infamous cheap impact driver that I've had since I was 18, an odd socket drawer for those times when nothing will fit or reach, each one may only get used once or never at all. I've got some spanners from my Dad's old car tool box which must date back to the 50s. The toolbox itself is an old machine gun ammo box made of wood which he either bought from a surplus shop in the distant past or more likely stole from the RAF Police. I've got about 4 concrete paving blocks (100x200x80mm) that are brilliant for putting a rear wheel back in. By rolling the wheel onto one to get it to the right height, another one follows to keep it there and by tapping gently you can raise or lower the wheel, move it back and forth with no effort and push the axle through in your own time.

Whilst Pete's side stand is short, shrivelled and stumpy, mine is proud mean and long and needs at least half an inch removed from it. let's just swap stands.

I'm on holiday for the week. So far I have been to Tesco once and had two rides out on a push bike, it's a bit nippy for that though. Living the dream here. My local river has flooded the paths in my nearest park so I spent a lot of time pedalling through glutinous mud whilst trying to stay upright. Still at least I don't have to answer a zillion emails and I've managed to watch series 1 of The Expanse. A robin landed on a branch about 18 inches from me yesterday as I was walking to Tesco and sat there looking at me with something wriggly in its gob. I locked eyes with it and slowly got my phone out to take a picture. By the time I'd faffed about getting the camera on he hopped into a proper tree, but still quite close. Also just fitted the plastic covers to my new to me fog lights. I hadn't done it before because they only stay on with friction and I was worried they'd disappear and they are bloody expensive. I drilled a few holes and zip tied them on. Need to find some small black zip ties, only had white ones, but they'll do for a while.

Twoesme is a term used by people serving time in clink at her Majesty's pleasure, said when someone lights up a cigarette by other people who want to share it.

I'm watching Michael Caine and Sean Connery in The Man Who Would Be King on the telly. They have just passed through the Khyber Pass with their camels disguised as Afghans. I'm thinking, that looks familiar so I googled locations for the film. I have ridden my bike through there. Todra Gorge, we popped out there when following a washed away track all day through the Atlas Mountains. My bike on the left and me with my back to the camera leaning on it slightly.

I look at that and all I think is, who did he have locked in that garage. You've obviously got that tractor's exhaust connected to the hose pipe which is pumping fumes through the wall. Was it DA?

I too am not proud of my rust, but I don't care about it either. Rust only bothers me if it is going to make something break. Also I have heard that if you use too much Autosol you can develop an allergy that gives you quite a nasty crotch rash.

What are you polishing your bike seats with?

To be fair, one of those bikes had 55k on the clock and the other was probably on about 80k. Having said that, the rust probably appeared in the first 10,000 miles.

Me, my son and my first Africa Twin around 1995. I think he's wearing his superman cape. Also my oldest granddaughter and my now grown up son's left arm in 2018.

I had to push my mate Charlie through the mud on one of those. He came out with road tyres green laning in the middle of winter. My wheels are exactly like that, but have two vertical webs from the rim for the spokes to join onto rather than one as in the picture. Not changed a tyre on it yet, but I'm sure to be doing that before the warm weather hits.

I've just come back from work and I am happy to report today I saw people driving on both sides of the road....towards me...... and also a man pulled up next to me in his car on a long one way road to ask directions. He was facing the wrong way!

Titian blonde I think you mean.

My new bike has spokes and is tubeless. The wheel looks similar to the one Honda used on its XL600M thing in the 80s, I think they had a hold on the patent at the time but you see other makes with them now.

I googled it and it is exactly like this but with a blue side panel. When we are allowed out again I will get a picture of the actual bike.

So can I, he smiles exactly the same as you do, it's uncanny how much that looks like you.

My mate Ted has got an old Enfield twin. I'm not sure what it is, all old Brit bikes look the same to me, but I did watch an old black and white episode of The Saint and the contract killer was riding exactly the same model, as confirmed by Ted who said they were quite rare. When we go to the classic bike shows in Kent and Sussex there are always people running up and taking pictures of it. Then he makes me start the thing so he isn't out of breath for the ride home. Years of owning the bad kick starting DR350 model mean all other bikes are a doddle in comparison. I had a short ride of it, the gear lever and rear brake being the wrong way round is a bit disturbing. Also disturbing is the front brake which seems to be for show only, whilst the back brake is lethally good, this wouldn't matter if I wasn't stamping on it to change down gear and skidding instead. No idea what gear I was in when I got back, but you can put it in neutral some other way it seems. He's also got some other black British Classic, AJS I think. Another twin, I can only tell them apart because the Enfield has a chrome tank and blue paint work, the AJS is murky black all over. Edit. I think it might be a Constellation, but I could be wrong.

I forgot I had this to use for about 6 months, it was my late dad's car and it was upsetting my mum on the drive outside her window after he passed away so I took it away. I green laned it a few times before selling it on and it was pretty good in proper gloop and super ruts. I thought about hanging on to it, but two cars take up too much room, you only need one to get spares for your bike.

No photographs of most of my 4 wheeled vehicles. So snips from google instead. Well there are two real pictures below, one is a bit embarrassing. The first 4 wheeled vehicle I ever drove was a forklift truck, sort of like this one, with an embarrassing name. That was when I was 18. I didn't drive my first car officially until I was 22. Then after I passed my car test I got an ex Essex County Council Transit Truck. This sort of shape but rusty as buggery and bright yellow. Sold that for the same money I paid for it including dodgy MOT supplied by my then girlfriend's dad who's first name, even then, would get your head kicked in if you shouted it out loud in a pub. Let's just say it began with N and he shared it with Guy Gibson's dog. Then I bought a 1968 Beetle in grim grey for 200 quid in 1988. Had it sprayed up in Ford Rosso Red after fitting new front wings and running boards and sold it for about £1500 a year later. Then I got on my employers lease car scheme and took over my mates Ford XR2. Looked exactly like the screen grab below. Then I swapped that for an XR2i. Now I do actually have a picture of that one. Taken because some fuckers stole 4 of my wheels. Managed to keep that quiet from the lease company and went carless for a few years until fatherhood made me buy my 2nd favourite car of all time, slow, odd starting habits, but I liked it, a Peugeot 405 estate. Then I got a new Fiesta diesel, that thing flew. 1.8 or 1.9 engine from the Focus in a smaller lighter car. Got a bad back driving to Normandy and back in that. It was there at an unattended fuel station I discovered I didn't know what the French word for diesel was!!!!! Luckily a native hove into view and told me it was gazoil or something similar. Then a few years without a car and got a VW Golf diesel. I had my stroke the day after it was delivered and didn't drive it for 6 weeks as you get a min 4 week ban which in my case got extended by 2 weeks by my doctor. Then I got my current car which I bought in 2009 when it was about 9 months old. This one has been my favourite car so far, very slow, but I really like it. Passed its MOT today, after fitting a new front wiper blade as there was a small split in it. Here it is the day I bought it, not so shiny now as you can imagine with anything I own. As I tell everyone, if you're gonna have one, have a long'n! You have to set your watch and hour forwards if you sit in the back seat as it's in a different time zone.