Long Vehicle, Short Vehicle

By now I was getting Yellow Peril sussed, I had done a whole bunch of ‘stuff’ to it (which I’ll talk about elsewhere – it’s not of interest to everyone) one of the key things being Locktiteing the timing cover screws – not just with Locktite either these were special and expensive screws with a plastic insert, so this journey isn’t about something that went wrong. Shhh, don’t tell anyone! 

I was heading across the A303, it was a lovely day, and I got stuck behind a yellow trailer, a very long one with Long Vehicle Signs on the back. Yes, I was immediately struck by the irony of the situation, a yellow long vehicle being followed by a yellow short vehicle. Well, who wouldn't be?

So was the guy in the mini metro who overtook us both, deliberately preventing me from overtaking by the way. How very rude! 

I saw the pointing and the laughing as this family went past me, especially the laughing, so it was no surprise to me after I’d got past the trailer – and I got further delayed by the scorpion tank which was not far beyond, when I saw this same car stuck on the side of the road, with the driver changing the wheel as I passed him. I gave him a totally non-ironic ‘cheery wave’ as my Short Vehicle left him in my dust. It confirmed what I’d always thought, my bike was possessed, but once more it gave me Justice!!  Yeah, baby! 

And yes, the other part of that journey was having a very hard time getting past the Scorpion tank which was on some sort of exercise (I am sure it wasn’t supposed to be on the road but I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.)   Those things are pretty quick! Those guys gave me a thumbs up as I went past so I am pretty sure they didn’t break down later! 

Just for reference, I saw quite a few tanks on the A303 – this was the first one however that was under its own power, the rest had all been on trailers and were mostly Chieftains. Those things were so unreliable that they gave Yellow Peril a solid run for its money and that's saying a lot.

Rebuilds and Mods

The list of things I did to Yellow Peril is quite extensive – by the time the bike did its last miles with me I’d replaced almost all of the Philips screws with Allan heads, and all the key ones had been coated with locktite. The Timing cover screws had been replaced as I’ve mentioned with special screws with a plastic insert which did a fine job of holding the points in place, a considerable relief let me tell you. 

 

In addition, I’d replaced the seals on all the shocks, and when a Haynes manual says some force may be required, what it actually means is a bloody great mallet and a lot of cursing, or more sensibly, don’t try this at home folks! 

That was just some of the small stuff I did. I’d also coated the downpipes in Zinc (not the nice plating either) because did I mention the finish wasn’t great? and chemically blacked them myself which was in reality some sort of high temperature spray called chemical blacking. 

I’d rebuilt the top end twice. Every 12k miles,  although the second rebuild was minor by comparison, reground the valves (twice), decoked the head, found that the tappets and camshaft were too soft on the first rebuild and with dads never failing help stoned them clean and had them case hardened. 

I'd also replaced the cam chain tensioner. I should probably have fitted needle roller bearings to the cam, but given what happened to the bike it’s probably a good thing that I didn’t. 

There’s more, most of it being small stuff like more locktite on many key bolts (which I didn't replace with something better, new and better headlight bulbs, plus all the usual exigencies of bike maintenance back then – not forgetting boiling the chain regularly in grease and causing a massive stink in whatever place I was in, which wound everyone around me up, especially mum who was a saint about the whole thing. Did I mention replacing the cam chain tensioner? The list went on and on and included replacing wiring, and as I've said already plug caps, those being the simplest thing I did.

In the end, I did get the bike working reliably, but on balance, while I learned a lot it so wasn’t worth it. I think back then it was something you just accepted if you were going to put any sort of miles on a bike!

Thor, Love and Thunder. In Review

 

Most of you who read this will already have decided whether you’re going to see this or not, so I’ll confine myself to saying that if you like superhero movies you should go and see this, and see it on a big screen with a good sound system. I thoroughly enjoyed this film, and while I had concerns when I saw who was directing it, I have to say that everything he did worked, and the first act flowed seamlessly into the last and set it off perfectly. One day they’ll do a bad one of these. Really.

If you want the wordy version of the review here we go! 

I’ve got to tell you all that I had pretty strong doubts going into this film. While Thor Ragnarök wasn’t by any means bad, it was tonally uneven and the Guardians of the Galaxy bit felt grafted on, even forced. Given that the films share the director, you’ll understand my concerns. However, I was so utterly wrong to be concerned.

I and finding it quite hard to write a meaningful review and keep it spoiler free, so I’ll confine myself to saying that like Thor Ragnarok the film is indeed tonally uneven but in a good way. Many parts of the first act and a half are laugh out loud funny, the interactions between the various characters are great, the Guardians of the Galaxy part was, in its own way awesome, and Russel Crowe totally stole every bit in which he appeared, especially in terms of his general campiness.

However.

This all serves to lead into the final act and  the contrast is all the more marked for what gone on before, As the adversary Christian Bale was lacking only in that I don’t think he got enough screen time, and the way his ‘stuff ‘was handled was just visually and conceptually amazing, while the way it ended was better than I could have hoped for.

While this film was literally a tale of gods and monsters, in the end it was a human story, and was all the better for it. Go see this.

On the Events Happening in University Bike Rallies and the Extreme Dangers of Beauty

I mentioned before that I joined the University bike club, and as a result I ended up going on several rides with them, and I learnt a lot, mostly about my bike going wrong. On one ride the screws on the side of the engine vibrated loose enough that the damned thing dumped oil on the road, and I needed to walk to the nearest garage for more, and on others all sorts of smaller bits fell off, like foot pegs and indicators, but at that stage I was still learning the ropes, OK?

On one particular ride down to the south coast, the silencer fell off. Yes, that big old chrome thing on the back fell right off. I would say that the exhaust note immediately got a lot better! However, I was going through Taunton I think, so this happened in front of a lot of people. One enterprising chap shouted. ‘Mate, You’ve lost your exhaust!’ Words to that effect at least. 

Well, duh. Yes, the huge clanging sound and the change in exhaust note were slight clues as to what had happened. I had, in point of fact, attained a basic understanding of recent events.

However, he then tried to be helpful and picked the thing up. 

Let’s just say that didn’t go well. At all. 

‘Damn and blast!’ he said. 

Actually, this gentleman kindly taught me all sorts of new words and considerably expanded my vocabulary; He impugned my parentage, sexual habits, intelligence and (at the very least) damned me to a very nasty afterlife having my gonads removed on a daily basis with blunt knives. In retrospect, it was all really quite creative. 

I did want to say something about picking up a hot exhaust being a generally bad idea, but I didn’t think that would go down too well. I just said ‘sorry mate’ and soused his hand with the bottle of water in my panniers. I don't know why I had one, to be honest. It wasn't to drink. I suspect that it was there just because if I didn't have water, I'd need it, even on an air-cooled bike! 

As I recovered from the absolute tirade of abuse, I waited for the exhaust to cool, got out of there with considerable dispatch. and made my way back home. Oh, I did love the exhaust note, but boy was the bike lumpier than 4 tonnes of school custard. Pity that.

Oh the remembered trauma of school custard!

On another one of these rides, my mate Martin and I were riding through Exmouth I think, on our way to Sandy Bay where the ride was going to start. He was on his CB400 and had learned to respect the power of Yellow Peril and no longer took the mickey out of my bike. (Some of the place details might be wrong by the way, we are talking a 40+-year-old memory here.)

What’s absolutely not wrong is that Miss Pulchritude 1981 was walking along the other side of the road. Oh, she was gorgeous! Given that it was a hot summer’s day she wasn’t wearing very much, and what she was wearing showed off her assets very much to best advantage. Sometimes it’s good to be young, right? Oh yes.

I had no idea that Miss Pulchritude was a thing btw. Here she is!

Well anyway, she was a head-turner and that’s literally what happened. Martin turned his head, let off a few ‘woohoo's’ (or words to that effect) unfortunately forgetting that the road ahead turned sharply left, whereupon he missed the turn and ended up pitching himself into a convenient passing hedge. 

‘It was worth it!’ He yelled, from the hedge, clearly none the worse for wear. ‘What are you doing tonight?!’ Well, I couldn’t blame him for trying, and at least she didn’t say ‘Washing my hair!’ which was (I’m sure) the response I’d have got. I think it was something like ‘I have a boyfriend!’ No surprises there, but she was laughing as she said it, and I have to admire Martin’s audacity. At that time I could absolutely not have done that!

Not quite 'in the hedge like this' but I liked it so it'll do!

The rest of the day passed without major incident, Martin was (fortunately) fine, his bike was undamaged and hadn’t hit him, so we both got a good story out of that which still makes me laugh, though it could have turned out much, much, worse. 

Footnote

Just so you know that these rides weren't all about things going wrong or ptotential accidents, I did have a lot of fun as well. One one of these is to do with this bike illustrated below

This is an image of a Morini 3 ½ stolen from Mark’s Sammy Miller Facebook post. I put it here because it was one of the most fun experiences I had on a bike while I was riding Yellow Peril. One of the guys at Uni had one of these and he let me take it out for a run. I had that lovely rider insurance that Norwich Union gave out in those days. 

After Yellow Peril, this was a revelation. A taut, over-designed chassis and a narrow frame meant you could do pretty much anything to this bike. I found the twistiest, most treacherous roads and it sailed round them with consummate ease. 

If only the gear-shift had been on the left and down and up like the bike I was used to! 

Film Review – Jurassic Fart AKA Jurassic World Dominion

In coming out of the theatre and already thinking about what I could write for the review, I very quickly came back to the Star Wars review I posted recently, and I feel it's worth excepting a small piece here because a lot of it applied.

‘It has all the action, spectacle, and explosapaloosa dinosauraloosa you could expect from a Star Wars Jurassic Park film, ties up most of the loose ends (including some from the original films) in a competent and stylish manner, and if you like your big-screen films to be really big you should see this one on a big screen.

dinosauraloosa

And that says it all really.

So, for the wordy part of the review.

For me, this film had a really serious case of sequelitis i.e they tried to top the previous movies by making everything bigger.

Bigger dinos to use the magic hand on

More action, more special effects, more plot lines, more characters. More, more MORE! You could substitute bigger for more in that sentence and it wouldn’t be wrong or out of place.

You see, speaking for myself only, more, or indeed bigger, isn’t necessarily better. Yes the action scenes are great, but some absolutely lack an edge of believability, which I can’t expand on and keep the review spoiler-free. Yes, the special effects are amazing but honestly it’s a case of been there done that got the shirt (though I did like the live-action dinos credit at the end). Yes, the expansion of the cast and plot was interesting, but not really necessary, and didn’t add much to the actual movie for me.

No magical contract bringing the dead to life AKA Dynasty!

None of this stopped me from enjoying the spectacle or indeed the film. I’ll just point out that the first one had me on the edge of my seat many times, a quality this one lacked in many respects (again I can’t point out specifics without giving plot elements away). I thought it was too long, had too many plot strands, and wasn't always sure of what film it wanted to be. I also thought the ending was a tiny bit ‘meh’, but given that they clearly don’t intend to make another (for a while at least) I see why it ended as it did. Still, I’ll point out again that none of this stops the film from being an enjoyable piece of Saturday entertainment well worth seeing on a big screen. 

So to finish I’ll except once more the Star Wars review:-‘Finally, yes, in my view, you should go watch this. I enjoyed it and will no doubt see it again. It has great spectacle, really good performances, and is a lot of fun.

For me, though, it could have been so much more.'

Travelling to Tenby

After the last story,  I am sure my two (now three) readers will think that further tales of Yellow Peril would be anticlimactic. Well, not really. Here’s one.

Yellow Peril Rides Again

For this tale, I was travelling up to where mum lived in Tenby. You’ll remember that mum and dad were separated.  Tenby was where she was living at the time, I missed her very much, and I wanted very badly to see her. 

Since I was still a learner, that meant that crossing over on the M4/M5 was out of the question and I had to go all the way up from Exeter to Gloucester and follow the A40.   That’s a 5½ hour journey roughly as opposed to about 3 ¼ hours by motorway.

But I was young, invincible, immortal and all that good stuff, so off I went.

I got up to Gloucester without incident, but then I got these shooting pains in my left leg whenever the engine was at high revs – and given the nature of a bike like this that was quite often! This really really, REALLY hurt! I don#t have the words for how much.

So moved my leg away from the side of the bike (God knows how stupid I looked) and looked down while I was revving the engine.  What I saw was a bit of a shock, when you revved the engine, the whole plug cap crawled with electricity! It looked light a little mini version of those tesla balls you can buy. I’d never seen anything like it before, or thankfully, since. It was clearly lightning FROM HELL!!

So, here we went again. Given that I was in Gloucester it was a relatively simple matter to find a shop, buy a new set of plug caps and install them. I could have done without the expense truthfully but it was what it was. When I look the malfunctioning plug cap off, however, all the bits inside fell out. It was a wonder it worked at all! So off I rode I went making a mental note to add a new thing to the toolkit. Sigh. 

This, by the way, isn’t the point of the story, merely a footnote. 

Sometime later – it was dark by then, I was riding through a village somewhere on the A40, don’t ask me where, when I came across what looked like a gentle bend in the road, which suddenly turned back on itself! No warning signs, no white chevrons, nothing.

Given the lack of handling of Yellow Peril, saying this wasn’t good is a bit like saying smacking yourself in the forehead repeatedly with a lump hammer is ‘somewhat bad’ for your health. Except in my case, where clearly the only risk is damage to the hammer! 

Yes like this

Or try this one for size

Where was I? Oh yes, in dire trouble, grinding my foot-pegs off, on the wrong side of the road going round a hairpin bend somewhere in Wales.

Like this, only not as cool because - Yellow Peril

The thing is, despite Yellow Peril’s boatlike handling, I was going to make it. I was! Then I saw a set of lights coming in the opposite direction. This was the first time that my life flashed before my eyes. I really thought I’d had it.

Strangely, salvation presented itself in the form of an open garden gate right in front of me! So I gunned the bike, avoiding the oncoming car, and came to an absolute screaming halt in a cloud of burnt rubber and humiliation in the garden path of this wonderful life-saving abode, narrowly avoiding smashing into the front door. A true brown-trouser moment. Phew!  

This is close! 

Just to add the last-but-one fillip to my embarrassment, the family was eating their dinner in their front room and had seen the whole thing. They were just looking at me with expressions of what I can only describe as complete shock and horror on their faces. My humiliation was (almost) complete, but at that point, I just didn’t care. I was alive! ALIVE I tell you!

And trust me - so it this (close I mean)

So, I got off the bike, pushed it out of their front garden and gave them a cheerful wave as I closed the gate. ‘Thanks for that!’ I said, as I prepared to ride off. It was then I noticed the biker on the other side of the road absolutely cracked up on his scooter. Now I am sure he stopped out of concern, but he had tears running down his face which I could see because he had an open-face helmet on, and was under a light. He could barely breathe he was laughing so hard. He gave me a thumbs up and rode off into the night. My humiliation was now complete! Thank you, Yellow Peril! Humiliated by a scooter rider!

I am truly glad to say the rest of the weekend passed without incident. Tenby was lovely. I was spoiled rotten, came back with enough food to sink a battleship, a new haircut, and cash for a tank of petrol. The journey back was relatively clear, just the usual timing thing, which was my fault because I didn’t go over it all before I left Tenby (I wasn’t rescued by Hell’s Angels on this occasion) and I was home. Phew!

FOOTNOTE: The Rules On the Placement of Corner Chevrons 

They are normally only used where speed-related accidents have occurred on bends, or where vehicles regularly leave the road due to the severity of the bend. 

Clearly, back then neither had happened yet though I do hope there’s a warning there now! I'm sure that family would have more than been grateful for them! 

I was told at the time that they were only placed if someone had died. I take this as evidence that my bike tried to kill me twice - once by electrocution, the second time by this convenient lack of signage. The evidence for demonic possession was growing steadily.

Star Wars - Rise of Whatever. OLD REVIEW

This was written on the release of star wars rise of Skywalker, so as such it's not really relevant today, but you know, it's quite entertaining so I thought I'd repost it here.

Work has kept me away from the cinema for some time, but as part of this week’s lazy buggery, I dusted off my Cineworld ticket and went in to watch Star Wars Rise of Whatever.

Firstly, let me make myself clear. I thoroughly enjoyed the film. It has all the action, spectacle, and explosapaloosa you could expect from a Star Wars film, ties up most of the loose ends in a competent and stylish manner, and if you like your big-screen films to be really big you should see this one on a big screen.

 But then most of you have decided whether you're going to see this already, right?

So, for the wordy part of the review.

 

I am one of those very few people who really liked and admired what Disney attempted in the second film. That is, to try and introduce a bunch of new elements, add depth and interest to old characters, and take the universe in a slightly different direction. This was especially welcome after the first of the latest trilogy which was essentially a remake of A New Hope with a bigger Death Star etc etc.

You’ll understand therefore that I was disappointed with the amount of retconning in this third film, and that they went with the safe choice of giving us a new version of Return of the Jedi, down to having an utterly cringeworthy bit in the finale, which I won’t talk about to keep the review spoiler-free. With J.J. Abrams at the helm, perhaps I really shouldn’t have expected anything more.

Being me, and being picky about such things, I’ll comment that much of the lightsabre fighting was not great, particularly after the standard set in the second trilogy, though there was one standout moment, which was clearly done by some highly skilled stunt doubles. Again, I won’t mention which bit for fear of spoiling the film for the one person who’s not seen it already.

There are lots of bits that leave themselves open to criticism, plot holes, reality-warping (and I mean real reality not Star Wars reality) but at its core what this film does have, all bells and whistles aside, is some really good performances, particularly from the two leads, which is the heart and soul of the film and just about raises it above a pure by-the-numbers sequel.

Finally, yes, in my view, you should go watch this. I enjoyed it and will no doubt see it again. It has great spectacle, really good performances, and is a lot of fun.

For me, though, it could have been so much more.