30 June 2006

Lazy parkers...

Bleugh!

I'd just like to share with you the fact that I feel like poo this morning.

I woke up at 2.30am with a banging headache. I was awoken again at 5.30am by the milkman who has exchanged his nice quiet electric milk float for a diesel-engined noise machine.

The world fell out of my bottom about half an hour ago and now I feel very very sick. I'd go home, if it wasn't for the fact that I've got to get the car MOTd at dinner time, and the tax runs out today :o(

Actually, I might just put my head down on the desk and try to sleep anyway, until the boss comes in.

Lost Weekend's new album


Z RECORDS have confirmed the final tracklisting for Lost Weekend's forthcoming album.

Although the album's title is yet to be confirmed, the following tracks will be on the album :

  • Don't Go
  • Eternally
  • Forever Moving On
  • Seize The Day
  • Save The Best Till Last
  • High 'N Low
  • Is This Our Limit
  • Beautiful Mind
  • Higher Life
  • It Doesn't Have To Be This Way
  • Message From Your Heart
  • Time To Leave (What A Relief)
  • I Will Be Here For You
The album will also be made available as Limited Edition 1st Pressing of 1000 copies. This version of the CD will have an additional track called See The Light. Both versions will be available this August, just in time for the band's appearance at the second Z Rock 06 show in September.

The band are also working on adding more shows to their schedule for around this time, so keep checking back to their website for further updates.

Lost Weekend's confirmed dates are :
  • 27.07.06 : The Tivoli, Buckley
  • 24.09.06 : Z Rock 06, Dudley JB's
  • 04.11.06 : The Golden Lion, Halifax

So get out there and support them!

27 June 2006

Nostalgia time

Thanks to Yambabe for pointing me in the direction of this site, where you can remind yourself of the wonderful choones we listened to in the 80s :o)

unusual moth

I nearly trod on this moth. There were two of them, but the other flew off. This one very kindly posed for a photo :o)

26 June 2006

Didz and Claire's wedding.

Congratulations to you both. We all had a great time at your wedding, so I guess you must have done too :o)

Oh yeah, and if you were wondering what happened to all that food ..., erm... Woody?







Wax-a-Woody

How to raise lots of money for a worthy cause...

Despite the copious amounts of liquid anaesthetic, Woody assured me that it hurt like hell... and still does :o( Oh yeah, and his chest has gone all spotty.




19 June 2006

Farmyard Party

Wow, what a great weekend! Piccies here

Friday - hot and sunny, lovely ride to the rally site in Helmsley. Drank some beer, talked bollocks round the fire, slept like a log (but not one of the burning ones).
Saturday - very hot and sunny. Great fun doing the Farmyard Tour - a 90 mile round trip through some very lovely Yorkshire countryside (and seaside!). Cracking Pink Floyd tribute band - 'Shine On' - very faithful to the original songs and fan-bloody-tastic.
Sunday - pleasantly warm, with a bit of rain. Rather speedy ride home, followed by a meal in the local Indian Restaurant. Fine finish to a brill weekend.

15 June 2006

because I like it

good tag line

Shamelessly stolen from someone's sig:

The person who knows it can't be done should not interrupt the person doing it

14 June 2006

A good ride spoilt :o(

Well, I was having a great evening. Went to the Brickies Bike Club in Altrincham and had a laugh with a few mates. It's a nice cool evening and the ride home was pretty pleasant. I called in at the petrol station to fill up, so that I don't have to faff around on Friday morning before going to the Farmyard Party.

However, as I was coming back along the A6, I saw a car, about 200 yards in front of me, swerve round something in the road. As I approached, I could see it was a person, stretched out, face down in the road. I went over the other side of the road and then did a u-turn about 200 yards down and pulled over. A teenage girl ran out into the road and grabbed the person (who turned out to be another teenage girl aged about 15) and dragged her to the side o the road. The silly cow then went back out and lay down in the road again, so her friend dragged her back again. The pissed-up little dickhead then proceeded to run out in front of a car, which had to swerve round her. It was at this point that I took off my lid, got out my phone and dialled 999.

Whilst I was on the phone to the Police, she ran out in front of a further two vehicles, causing one of them to slam on and swerve, narrowly missing her. The Police said they'd send someone along to look. I took my time in putting my lid and gloves back on and then rode past her and her friend. Someone had obviously been to fetch an adult, because a man in a yellow jacket picked her up, threw her over his shoulder and started to march off, with her giggling her head off and her mate trotting along behind. I turned round again a short way up the road and headed off home, by which time the man and his inebriated cargo had disappeared. I never did see the Police, but to be fair, it was only about 3 minutes from my call.

I hope the kid has the hangover from hell in the morning and I hope her parents read her the riot act and ground her until she learns some common sense. It right spoilt my night, that did.

12 June 2006

The Burning Times



This is probably the funniest blog I've seen in ages.

New Tories New Britain?

The Tories have decided to get a new logo. It looks remarkably similar to the Labour one from a few years ago, except the Tory one is blue, not red.


















I think I preferBeau Bo D'or's version for the womens' section:

10 June 2006

an ill wind...

Big thanks to Cooldrums for pointing me in the direction of this one. All I want to know now, is if they do a ringtone that sounds like a fart?

You might want to turn cookies off first though, cos it tries to set bloody hundreds :o(

09 June 2006

smart bird

Seeing this clip of 'Einstein' reminded me of something that happened to me years ago.

I was working down in Aylesbury for a few days, and decided to venture out into the countryside to find a nice pub where I could have a meal. I found a cracking pub in Aston Abbotts, went inside and waited at the bar. There was no-one about, but I thought I could hang on for a minute and wait for someone.

A very polite voice from behind the bar said "Good evening, what can I get you?". I whirled round, but there was no-one there. Then it said again "Good evening, what can I get you?" so I peered round one of the pillars and there, in a case was a lovely parrot. I started giggling. Just then, the barman appeared and told me that the parrot always greeted the customers.

It was a lovely pub and a lovely meal.

08 June 2006

A new competitive sport?

This has got to be the best dive I have ever seen. Talk about precision! Oh yeah, and it's bloody funny too.

Tip - don't be drinking coffee whilst you watch this, cos it's a bugger to clean out of your keyboard.

I'd just like to say...

that I couldn't give a flying fuck about Wayne Rooney's foot.

I am sick to death of hearing about it. I feel sorry for him, actually, I've had a broken foot and it's bloody painful, and the last thing he probably wants is a bunch of morons hounding him day and night.

There has been talk of little else for days. Reporters at the airport waiting for his plane to land, reporters at the hospital waiting for him to go in, waiting whilst he's in, waiting for him to come out, waiting for a statement, waiting to see if he can play or not, waiting for him to go back to the airport.

I just don't care, OK? Shut up about it and get a fucking life!

07 June 2006

More 2@s

You see a small child lying in the road, injured. What do you do?

  1. Drive round her - after all you didn't hit her so it's not your problem, is it?
  2. Stop and help?

Guess what six drivers did when 8 year-old Cait Atkins got knocked down in Aylesbury? Find out here. I hope they feel guilty enough to perhaps make a donation to one of the many charities out there. Brake might be a good place to start.

What a 2@

This bloke seems to think it was funny to endanger the lives of TT racers, and I'm glad he got banged up. I'm told that this bloke owns a bike shop in Port Talbot. I wonder what his customers think of his little prank?

Middlewich Folk & Boat Festival

On 16 June, I'll be heading off to the Farmyard Party, one of the best bike rallies going. This morning I heard a plug on the radio for the Middlewich Folk & Boat Festival and was rather peeved to discover it's on the same weekend as the Farmyard. I was even more peeved when I made the mistake of going for a quick peek at the website and saw who's playing :o(

Michael McGoldrick - one of the finest fiddlers the UK has to offer. I could listen to him play all day. Indeed, sometimes, I do. I'm told that he taught another of my favourites, John McCusker, but I don't know if that's true or not.

CrossCurrent - I heard CrossCurrent at the Davy Lamp Folk Club back in January and was mightily impressed, especially with Damien O'Kane, a very charismatic tenor banjo player with amazing talent and a lovely smile.

Then there's the Family Mahone, already sold out, and (gasp) The Levellers, one of my favourite bands, doing an accoustic set.

It's just not fair, is it?

Bad smell :o(

Yesterday, at work, when I went to the fridge to get the milk for my brew, I got absolutely drenched, cos it would appear that some 'helpful' soul had unplugged it. The bloody thing had completely defrosted (it has an ice box), and the carpet got soaked.

When I opened the front door this morning, the smell hit me like a fist. It smells like bad drains :o( Fortunately, my office is upstairs and I can't smell it from there.

06 June 2006

Another balloon

but not Billy's this time. I took this picture from the car park behind my office. I first saw the balloon on my drive into work. At one set of traffic lights, I had to sound my horn because the driver in front was so busy looking at the balloon that she failed to notice that the lights had switched to green, silly cow.

Maybe this balloon pilot got lost whilst looking for the Coventry Balloon Festival ... ?

Sunset

Whilst riding home from the Fylde Bike Night, I decided to do a little detour through Chorley, then across through Cowling to Anglezarke, where I took the photos below. I chased the sunset up to Rivington Pike, where I sat for a while, watching the sun go down and the moon rise. I didn't see any other humans, it was just the sheep and me, and it was very peaceful. It's times like that, that I really feel at one with nature.

The first picture is of the Mormon church at Chorley, the others are of Anglezarke and Rivington reservoirs.














05 June 2006

Fylde Bike Night

What a cracking night I've had tonight. Nice ride out to the Fylde Bike Night at Lytham St. Annes, a fish & chip supper and a laugh with my mates. Whilst waiting for the others to get to the meeting point, I got chatted up by a teenage chav in a Fiesta , which amused me no end.

When Ian got to the meeting point, I noticed something in his back tyre. It was a screw, and the tyre was slowing going soft, although judging by the stickiness of it, Ian hadn't been taking his time to get there. He was mightily pissed off and managed to limp it home. In the meantime, we set off, having to stop half way for Darren to retrieve his numberplate which went AWOL at Wrea Green. The rest of the trip was without incident.

There were some bloody nice bikes out there, but I didn't manage to get a proper picture of the Royal Enfield cos the bloke rode off before I could get a decent shot.

The Honda 70 with the IAM badge amused me, especially since the badge is a red one, denoting that it was awarded for the car test, not the bike test, which has a green badge.

My favourite of the night was the Kettle. It's obviously someone's pride and joy, beautifully looked after and a pleasure to see.

The marshals did a superb job, as usual, stopping the traffic to allow the bikes through, and making sure that everyone was neatly parked up. We only stopped for about an hour and then set off back home again.













Billy's balloon

Dunno about funny, but definitely surreal... Billy's balloon

fed up

It's 3.30am, and I'm wide awake having been rudely awoken by the need to throw up. I don't know whether it was the white wine, the licorice or the marshmallows that did it. Or possibly a combination of the three.

So here I am tapping away whilst listening to Radio 4. I've even messaged Spike, but he's not awake, obviously shagged out after the PiL rally. Boy is he gonna have a surprise when he logs in - a whole load of whining from me :o( Yep, how sad is that, whining to someone who ain't even there.

Oh yeah, and I've got a really stiff neck too. It was hurting before my bike ride yesterday and has got worse. I had a hot shower at tea time, which helped for about half an hour, but now it's just something else keeping me awake.

Work in 5 hours. Ho hum. OK, let's have another go at this sleeping lark.

Night all.

04 June 2006

I was out on the bike for five hours today, and it was jolly good fun. I met up with the IAM mob in Shevington and we had a medium-paced ride through some great twisties to Preston. From there, Dr. Pain went home, cos the lucky git was off to see Bon Jovi in Manchester, and the rest of us headed off to Southport. Dave & I got separated from Barry and Kath, and then Kath got separated from Barry, but we still managed to meet up at the carousel on Southport promenade.

I decided it was time for breakfast at 11:30 and bought a chip butty, which was hot, but tasted pretty crap, and then we set off again. I passed a sign for 'Windmill Animal Farm', where my mate Spondon Chris works, as a steam train driver, so I thought I'd call in, but it was his day off, so I went for a blat instead and found some really nice twisties. I didn't really want to go home, but by 3pm I was getting a bit tired and thirsty, so I headed back to Keaw Yed City for a rest. Went to the Co-op on the way home to get a bottle of plonk and some choccies for this evening :o)

02 June 2006

Why I love the World Cup

What??? I can hear your sharp intake of breath!

Gordon sent me a list of rules for Women for during the World Cup. He doesn't seem to realise how much I truly love the World Cup. It's a fantastic time of year - all those footy fans glued to their telly at home, or glued to the big screen in the pub, leaving the roads lovely and clear so that I can play on my bike.

Who on earth would want to watch f***ball when they have a motorbike to ride? Weirdos! You watch your little game, if that's what floats your boat, but I'll be having a better time than you.

Bikers have more fun than people.

01 June 2006

words of wisdom

From Ian:

"Only a biker knows why a dog sticks its head out the window of a moving car."

How true :o)

sand sculptures

Wow! Have a look at these!

Low Oil Levels

BikerGran has discovered the real reason why our fuel prices are so high:

"A lot of people can't understand how we came to have an oil shortage here in our country. Well, there's a very simple answer. Nobody bothered to check the oil. We just didn't know we were getting low.

"The reason for that is purely geographical. Our oil is located in the North Sea.

"Our dipsticks are located in Westminster."