yen_powell

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.

As I've been trawling through my pictures this triggered a memory of something I made back in the old days, I searched and there it was, same bike.

You might like this. The first bloke I ever sat next to when i started work at the council was a big scary skinhead. He ended up as our big boss and is now running another council somewhere. He was in a band called the 4 Skins. This is their version of Merry Christmas

This is better I think

I used to use an old woodworking chisel (and a hammer) as a wedge between the bearing and the stem just to get it to move a small amount then you could get tyre levers in to move it up further. It only has to go up a little way and then it just lifts off. Then I found that if you rip off the outer cage and the rollers leaving the inner race and get a Dremel with a small cutting disc with cut into it. You don't even have to cut right through, it will crack open once you are about half way through. Or there is the Delboy Vice, drift and hammer method which you can see him do on Youtube

What a lesson it was (the bike bit, the other bit you can get from videos). He got me to sit on the bike on grass in the middle of a shut park at night. He showed me how to make sure it was in neutral and how to start the engine (leccy boot on the bike). He told me to pull the clutch lever in, click it into first gear, open the throttle, let the clutch out and lift my feet up and away I would go. I did all the above except put it into gear. So the bike revved, the clutch lever was slowly released and I picked my feet up. I fell slowly onto my side with the bike on top of me! Second attempt I pulled away smoothly and rode in a giant circle about a mile in diameter until I was heading back towards him, I think I had changed into 2nd or 3rd gear without using the clutch. As I passed him I was shouting out that I didn't know how to stop.

When I were a lad and CB was all the rage, I knew a boy who had mounted a CB on his push bike and it worked quite well. The bloke who taught me to ride a motorbike had one on his CM200 with a mag mount aerial on the rear rack.

I'd buy that! This would be brilliant whilst driving/riding.

FIX!!!!! Oh hang on, I voted for him didn't I?

Just noticed this in my pictures folder.

What does this mean? reforesting” drill indexes depleted by years of child users

What's in the cardboard boxes? Bike polish or dunking biscuits?

They had a news item on it a few years ago and the reporter was stood in a vast candle lit space. He said that if you stood quietly (obviously there is no breeze) you could hear the rhubarb growing, a sort of creaking noise.

I hit my ickle Muntjac deer at 75mph, it hit my crash bar with its head I think. All I saw was a flash of fur in my headlight on the unlit 60mph road. If I had been obeying the speed limit I would have hit him full on and fallen off. Went back next day and took a picture, because I thought I had dreamt it until I saw the fur stuck down my greasy swing arm and the pain in my leg.

Ahh yes, full of them, not forgetting the jam butty mines. Google the 'Rhubarb Triangle'.

A month from now you'll see a washing line outside the XTreme hacienda with teabags drying out in the winter sun for re-use

I'm in with a shout there, I'm growing my own.

I was just trying to get closer to the castley area, the graveyard bounds one side.