yen_powell

I used to watch the Dakar in the mid 90s when I had cable tv and Eurosport. Always felt sorry for the poor sods starting on New Year's day or close to it. watching Stefaen Petehansal ride the big Yamaha through dunes was like watching a ballet, so smooth and planned compared to everybody else dug in or plummeting off sheer drops and cartwheeling. I was gutted when he switched to cars. I don't really have any interest in any motor sport unless people fall off or crash a lot, so it ticked all my boxes.

What Boris says and what is actually made law are not always the same thing. You need to see what is published.

You just left that hanging there for editing didn't you!

Just rewatched it seen myself at 7:09 on the Suzuki with the blue seat, paddling slowly and avoiding the water in case my pants get accidentally washed (97)

I searched John Deacon on Youtube and up came a 1998 Cambrian Rally highlight video with a brilliant commentary. I'd forgotten he used to do those as well. I know I was there and he mentions 3 people I was there with, Strange Dave, John Perk (Perky) and Jackie Mawhood, but I must have been too slow to get near a camera. Worth watching just to see Pat Tighe muscling his Africa Twin through the boggy bits and the Transalp with a customised fairing, customised by leaving a large piece in the welsh scenerey by the look of it.

I was walking around the BMF show years ago and there was a bloke standing all on his own by a BMW rally bike, no one seemed interested in him. I went and spoke to him and had a sit on his bike. I left shortly after he talked about going over his handlebars and breaking his pubic bone. I walked with my legs crossed for about 20 minutes afterwards, felt a bit queasy. That was John Deacon who died a few years later.

Just seen this and it must be shared.

https://www.hackneygazette.co.uk/news/rainbow-crossings-for-pride-month-3631924 The little bald fella in the photos is my ultimate boss. He's turned up late to a few of my VC memorial unveilings because he gets the bus everywhere.

If it's the same as here, it is a crossing celebrating the LGBT people. I may have missed some letters of there, can't remember it exactly.

Last time I tried to buy a number plate for the car it was such a drawn out process that I told them to keep it after they made it when they asked for a passport as well as my log book and driving licene before letting me pay for it. Putting a GB sticker on is a walk in the park in comparison. They bring in a law to supposedly stop people making false number plates and the only people it will affect is the people getting legitimate plates, do they think villains planning a robbery or a kidnapping use Halfords for false plates??. As for the rest, getting a green card is not difficult if required, I had no problem getting one for Morocco and I've hired bikes in Turkey using a paper UK driving licence and they aren't even in the EU.

You can have a look live here, close up through a telescope.

I really like it, also the one set on the French Riviera, but not the one set in S America. I have a habit of liking films that are flops. I really rate John Carter and the last Lone Ranger film.

I predict a riot!

Oxford and Regent Street get stupidly crowded during Christmas shopping season. I was there once and at such a time and it was very easy to get knocked into the road, it's like the front rows of a punk concert!

No, she's in Devon, her parents are still in St Clears though. Her Dad has been helping my son on his new house in Devon, building a false chimney breast and plumbing in the new kitchen fitting gas heating etc, he's got to be knocking on 80 and still very active. Just been googling her Dad last night, he was in a band a long time ago called The Vikings, a skiffle band if that helps date it. The band gets mentioned in stuff about The Move and Wizzard as various members went on to form those. He left at exactly the wrong time by the sound of it. Still got his drums though and plays a mean guitar a skill he has passed on to my son where as I failed my recorder test at school.........

I have been through most bits but only knew a few areas well. East London obviously as I work there and have to move about it. The route from there to Paddington via Madame Tussauds and Sherlock Holmes house as I was dropping my ex off to get the train to welsh Wales (St Clears) or to work at the waxworks regularly. And the route along the river to cut through to the M3 when I was travelling to Devon a lot on the bike. Anything else I was usually lost. The last time I was lost about 18 months ago I saw Buckingham Palace, a lay down protest by cyclists in Parliament, riot police running to another row about race and St Pauls Cathedral before I found my way back to east London.

I could be wrong, but one of those guards looks like a famous writer/comedian (who used to be in Not The Nine O'Clock News) who ended up in court over downloading child porn. He called another celeb to court saying he had told him he downloaded it as research for a script he was writing and the celeb (Paul Whitehouse I think) said he remembered no such thing.

Back when I was about 18 and I was working at a badly paid, filthy and dangerous job in a scrap yard, I was asked to work on Christmas day for some super dooper stock taking exercise. It was triple pay or something like that so I said yes. There were about 5 of us due to be in, including a new bloke called Lionel. Lionel came to work on the bus, he would have to walk to work on Christmas morning as there would be no public transport. Lionel asked another bloke called Dave, who had a car, if he would mind dropping him home in his lunch hour on Christmas day so he could at least sit down to Christmas dinner with his wife and very small children, he wouldn't have time otherwise. Dave told him to sod off! Feeling sorry for him, I said I would drop him home and pick him up again if he didn't mind being on the back of a motorbike in the midst of winter. Thank you Yen he said, oh and by the way, you are invited to Christmas dinner with us. The bloke called Dave immediately said he didn't mind dropping him off after all if there was a dinner in it for him. Lionel just gave him a withering look and walked away. So that year I ate a very fast Christmas dinner with Lionel who I'd known for a few weeks, his wife and two small toddlers who kept up a barrage of questions about who the hell I was and why I was there as they ate. The I had to go home and eat another one in the evening!

Just seen this online on another site and it made me laugh so much that some wee came out. I'm going to Hell for laughing If anyone on this group is alone at Christmas please get in touch. I’d like to borrow some chairs. 1 Comment

I'm not in the last picture, because I am taking it, see how we are struggling for survival in the Arctic circle just outside East Grinstead, the outside toilets froze solid. I think we knocked the bloke on the right over the head and ate him on the last night. This is the only photo I have that lets me know what the registration of my CX500 was.

This was just after he'd failed his first bike test.

When I was a kid my Mum and Dad would take us on holiday every year, usually to Devon, driving through the night and towing a caravan or trailer tent depending on the year. My Dad's car had one of those tape decks that will play the same tape over and over and for about 3 years we had the same tape, this song was on it. I think I know the words by heart to the 12 or so songs on that tape even if I didn't like the song.