yen_powell

No idea why this popped up, but I know the song from the UK TV series (comedy?) MUM which is brilliant and well worth a watch, by the same writer as Him and Her I think.

Oh yeah, Riding my XL250R along a city street and there was a man standing with his back to the kerb looking at his roof. Just as I passed he stepped back to get a better look and my left handlebar gave him a crack and I wobbled to a stop fighting my handlebars which were going everywhere. On my FJ1200 riding along a busy shopping street just coming up to a zebra crossing. From behind me on the right a large dog was running like a loon. He passed me and turned suddenly left across the zebra. Just as I was thinking, 'I'm going to hit him', a car coming the opposite way ran him over, went over his back legs and belly. I stopped the other side of the crossing shaking like a leaf, when I looked round the dog had got up and was running in circles yelping. Pedestrians dragged it into the vets right next to the crossing, no idea what became of him.

Going too fast on my CX500 on a dual carriageway, saw a queue and started braking, brakes not up to it so carried on down the middle still braking like mad, reckon I passed about 15 cars before I got to the speed I should have been filtering at. Riding into the Blackwall Tunnel when a metal hub cap came flying at my face from traffic going the opposite way. I jerked my head so quickly to avoid getting knocked out I had a bad neck for about a week afterwards. On my GPz750 late at night, I came flying round a corner on a dual carriageway hill in town. Two cars had stopped for no apparent reason so I braked and came to a nice controlled stop. Looking in my mirror I saw a Ford XR3 Turbo thing with all its wheels locked up screeching up behind me. I clenched everything and it stopped gently touching my number plate.

That was most marvellous!! I was a bit embarrassed reading the sign in the convent. More room was taken up with all those ridiculous titles than the main text. I think the Duke of Wellington was Irish so I can't imagine he used all the titles in day to day conversation, it would interfere with drinking time.

There are shitloads of you tube clips of mad inventions and if you look at one the place will plague you with suggestions for others. Honestly, how did we not get a man on the moon before the Yanks I'll never know.

I've probably told this before, but just in case I haven't. A well known character I worked with bought a house cheaply because of the shocking state it was in. He added an extra level in the roof and extended the basement out the back, the place was huge when it was finished. Next door was the Bishop of Stepney's official residence, huge garden full of old fonts I recall. It ended up worth a small fortune and he was very proud of it. The well known character came wandering in to our office and my boss at the time shouted out, Boss: Oi Grouty, I hear your house value has dropped down. Grouty: What do you mean? Boss: I see in the papers that there has been a new Bishop appointed. Grouty: So? Boss: Well he's a black bloke. Grouty: You're talking out of your arse, what difference does that make? He's a man of God AND a Bishop. Boss: Well yes, he is, no denying that, but you're not telling me that you won't be bringing your car stereo in at night from now on.

It's a fine art and there's going to be mistakes during the training period, that's just a fact.

Stinky Sheridan had one leg and used to sell matches in Whitechapel Rd, I mean, this stuff is gold. I'm also going to dig out some of my old school reports and post them up I think, then you can see what a truly lazy bugger I was at school. https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/10/14/barbara-jezewska-teacher-o/

I only had a bike licence for years and then one day two blokes who had moved to a different new bit of the council came to see me when I was a trainee and asked me if I would like to go and work for them. You'll get a pay rise, a new donkey jacket and a car they said. I don't have a car licence I said. Well get one and watch out for a job advert they said. My first lesson was a few hours after the 87 hurricane, shit, trees and water everywhere. The job advert was so specific it was embarrassing, only myself an a chef at Sainsburys applied. The interview was worse, I was rung up the night before and told what the 5 technical questions would be. Then at the actual interview, the same silly sod asked me the whole 15 on his sheet because the HR person was looking over his shoulder. Luckily she didn't know the answers and I could make stuff up. For the next few years if I mucked anything up they used to moan that they should have had the chef. I did eventually get the car, it took a lot longer than they promised and then the tax man crucified me over it a few years later.

Spanish dwarf photographer, apparently the place is heaving with them.

Must be something to do with these pretend BMWs, because when I had a picture taken with one I stood so that a bit of volcanic rock behind me appeared to be a gnarled dick sticking out of my right pocket and nodules growing on my left fore arm..

The pillar box trick. https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/10/13/aubrey-silkoff-at-the-boundary-estate-x/

That got there quickly, God bless the Royal mail, I only posted it a few days ago. It's a Molotov cocktail for you, but I think the petrol must have leaked out leaving just the fuse.

Looking for a salary note I made a few months back and have since lost (I want a rise), a drawn out search uprooted this document buried deep in my personal documents. Back at the turn of the century when we all had our own desk and PC I used to have my PC on top of the desk. Everyone else had theirs on the floor where they sucked in all the fluff and crap and whenever they had to check cables or connect anything they would crawl about on the floor and you would hear the gentle bonk of head on wood and the creak of knees and backs when they finally emerged. My boss kept telling me to move it and I would just ignore him. Then the boss of my boss told me I had to move it. I explained why I liked it where it was and asked why I had to change its location, he said because I had been told to and that was an end of it. I asked what would make him change his mind. He replied that nothing short of a Papal decree would change his mind (he was a good Irish Catholic and a big bastard as well). Challenge accepted I thought. I checked out the Vatican website and found that the then Pope had letters to various groups of people on there. I harvested a letterhead and saw the general style and knocked up what I think was a pretty good version of a decree. As explained in my Yen Stories thread, I was mostly known as Motorhead then, hence the reference in the text. I printed it out, popped it in a nice envelope and using a red wax road marking crayon, I sealed it using a bit of ribbon and a foreign coin from my holidays. This then got posted in with the general mail in the mail room. I was allowed to keep my PC where it was, the big fella took the joke in good heart.

That's some sort of squid isn't it. You must have terrible trouble getting bike gear to fit. Put everything you will want on the ferry in one place so you can grab it easily as soon as you have secured your bikes because we weren't allowed back to the bikes after we left port. This meant me paying through the nose for sea sickness tablets and wishing I had my book and more snacks with me. Having said that I just watched this bloke do a trip to Spain and eventually Tenerife and he was allowed back to his vehicle (UK/France though). Worth watching for places to stay in Spain, they had some good results, especially as it was only a few weeks ago so still current.

Who have you upset this time?

I use a few different testers and I have noticed that the speed increases between the start and the finish of the test. I am sure all providers have a list of testing sites and some clever software gives you a temporary boost when you are using one. Mine started at 18 on the download then suddenly went up from the half way point. I suspect 18 was the normal speed I get.

Smuggled Steak you say? Okay................ but I want it rinsed properly before you cook it. https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/10/08/a-brief-introduction-to-criminality/

A street works certificate 5 day course followed by tests in an unheated shed in January with a true pig of a man acting as lecturer. I wouldn't mind but it was a repeat of stuff we did 5 years before and I had to do it again a few years ago, but that one time was the absolute worst. I have never been so cold indoors before, nor disliked a lecturer as much. Whenever I had finished writing out reams of old shit I would go and get a coffee or visit the toilet, when I came back there would be a circle of people around my paperwork copying it feverishly. If I got something wrong so did they. I was doing the repeat in 2019 when I went to A&E at 3am with my last kidney stone so I missed the last 2 days. They tried to stiff me out of my Street Works supervisor card and said I had to do the two missing days, but I did some research and the units I had completed was enough to get the basic card.

A street works certificate 5 day course followed by tests in an unheated shed in January with a true pig of a man acting as lecturer. I wouldn't mind but it was a repeat of stuff we did 5 years before and I had to do it again a few years ago, but that one time was the absolute worst. I have never been so cold indoors before, nor disliked a lecturer as much. Whenever I had finished writing out reams of old shit I would go and get a coffee or visit the toilet, when I came back there would be a circle of people around my paperwork copying it feverishly. If I got something wrong so did they.

Also found pics of my big bollocked road planer that we used for a resurfacing job one day.

Found my Columbia Road cycle track pics on the same back up disc. I had to replace some grim 1960s brick planter full of needles and rats. I found an old giant plant pot thrown away by the City of London in one of my contractor's storage yards when I was choosing some second hand granite setts one day (they have a contract with the City as well). I got it for free and employed a sign writer/artist. I showed him what I wanted and he did the bizzo. I had some drain holes drilled in the underside, plonked a steel post in it, ordered some direction signs and made a little cycle track junction sign up. The old bloke in the pictures is Dead Ted, the most gentlemanly person I ever met. He was live Ted back then. I think he was 82 at the time these pictures were taken. Had a family box at Wimbledon Tennis ground and was brought up in Canada and Ireland before joining the RAF as an officer, then became a policeman, car salesman, highways inspector and finally highways contractor. I miss him. The bloke laying the turf is Jim, who will be setting out with me on Sunday. The blue duct tape on the indoor pics of the plant pot are mine so the artist knew where the pointy hands had to be (there are two in total) and which way they had to point.

Here's my road, the only pictures I can find is where we've already done the big bit at the Hackney end and have just started on the bit in the old tree area. It has grass growing through it now so it doesn't look so stark. The London Air Ambulance started using it for transferring patients to the London Chest Hospital after we finished it as it was clear of trees at one end and a nice stable landing ground in wet weather. I've got a video of articulated lorries running on AutoTRACK simulation between my trees somewhere on the server at work.