Moron spotting

Not sure who takes the prize for today; the drunken romantic type in ASDA who got a smack around the chops from his other half in the aisles for calling her a scrubber in front of everyone, then grinningly repeating it; or the fat woman at Donna Nook bombing range who completely failed to take any notice of the perfectly visible warning signs....

... like that one, then strolled her fat arse and her fat kids down the beach to have a good look at the targets while the red flag fluttered in the breeze and a jet flew around the circuit. Could have seen Darwin in action there! Sometimes my exercises in people watching really make me dispair for the human race!

A quiet afternoon ensued, very little on the range... seems they're doing missile countermeasure trials there this week; a Lynx helicopter spent the time strolling around chucking flares out of the back; an RAF 146 VIP airliner spent forever strolling around the circuit doing whatever it does to protect itself.... certainly didn't involve anything I could see. Some folks might like watching miliitary men play with their choppers, but personally I got bored and went home. Five hours later I'm still fishing thunderflies out of my ears and hair. Gah!

And the bike's up on blocks. Treated myself to a blat up to Squires with a mate on Saturday; had a good letch around the car park at the two wheeled hotness on display; the biggest single rideout of Suzuki Bandit's I've ever seen... must have been a Bandit Owners Club bash or something; could have gone home at this point but I had the afternoon still so pressed on and got as far as Scarborugh which I realise to my shock I've not been to in fifteen years. OW!!!! Lads holiday in 1993; unsuccessful flirtation with a barmaid called Nicky, fifteen pints a day and a daily curry for seven straight days. Ow !! It's been on my visit list since I've been living up here; never gotten around to it, but it's supposed to be very bike friendly and indeed it does have free bike parking bays all along the seafront. Except that in between York and there, my speedo broke, which when you're riding a litrebike and there's as many speed traps as there are, could be a problem. The problem is simply one of metal fatigue. The small metal bit that connects the doings has snapped. Bound to happen sometime. Techically the bike has now done over fifty thousand miles. This is some kind of milestone. Of course, the clock only reads 49,923, about a hundred miles ago when everything stopped working. I feel I should mark this somehow. Speeding ban??????

Madness

Talk about media scrum. "A service exists whereby viewers, in return for a monthly subscription, are paged everytime a pursuit is being shown". That's why things like this happen....

Another night, another kill

Yowling from downstairs marks the demise of another rodent in the paws and teeth of the cat of the house. He's into a seam of Voles at the moment; maybe being semi aquatic they're doing better than the mice at the moment in the floods. Not around here they're not !!!

Well, it's Friday night and I'm in for it. Not that I'm especially happy about that, but funds are short, I'm tall but I still can't afford to go and rip it up. Just balancing on the edge of horridness, but as long as the demons don't push me beyond the overdraft, I should be ok. Nobody local's coming out to play, NB's in for the weekend doing family things so it's looking like a quiet one. But the bike's still got petrol in it, so a trip may be in order tomorrow.

Working week finished acceptably; two days of fairly manic activity but the senior blokes kept the boss in check and everything sensible; was doing nice and smooth today and keeping it all in check myself for a change, when the bloke insisited on coming out himself and everything went manic and incohesive. Quelle suprise. Oh, and a little car chase at the start of the week, but the less said about that the better. Fun though. Glad it's over though. The threat of cancellation of our weekend to address an issue has been lifted so this means our uberboss doesn't get lynched over the nearest lightpost by a very grouchy team - I'm considering reinstituting my old team's nickname of "team needlework".... we were forever getting stitched up.

Interesting rumour time.... there's a lot of buzz on the net, and there's apparently been press conferences that the American Air Force are considering reinstituting the Mildenhall Air Fete. Oh most glorious of airshows! Smaller than fairford, but much more of a fun American experience.... all the food flown in from the US two days before in ginormous transport planes and BBQ'd, rather than hiked price concession stands being invited in for profit.... this idea is very much in the "I'll believe it when I see it" sector at the moment, but American Military, if you're reading this... prove me wrong.

Mildly annoyed at the need for financial realism

The one clear Thursday I've had in yonks, and I'd have liked to have indulged in my one sporting activity for the first time in quite some time tonight.... unfortunately there's so little fuel in the car that I can't justify it's use for basically triviality. Which I'm actually quite cross about. Oh well. I struggle on. Maybe Monday if the cash fairies are kind to me. This week has been incredibly austere, that's not to my taste. And tonight the club's really calling. Damn.

Also, didn't need the oversleeping "twenty minute from eyes open to being at the desk" maniac driving experience this morning. And I didn't need the two hour shift extension either. Nor did I need the knowledge that they're considering cancelling my weekend to deal with something, after seven days straight of early starts. And to add to that, a lot of really heavy duty uncertanty and discussion about the future of my service. I refuse to speculate, it could go good, it could go bad for the staff that is. What they're planning certainly needs doing; I just have to restrain my sceptisism that the modern government can organise a piss up in a brewery.... they've not managed it so far with any new monster they've yet created. I shall watch.

And I shall go to be early. That's sensible, as I've got an enforced night in, I might as well make the use of it.

Moochtime

Just for those that remember my typed drivel for more than the full stop at the end, there's that fire-eating sunset, shot driving at great personal risk while it burned over Coventry coming back from the Fairford Air Tattoo. Good eh?

No travel today. Short on petrol money, short on time. The fifth day of early starts... normal jobs have a weekend at this point, I've got two more days to work before I get a rest. Beginning to show to; I'm getting a bit ragged and so are the other guys. Ended up working in one of the secure rooms today, stuff that had to be done. The problem is, the place reeks at the best of times thanks to what's kept in there, and this room's been flooded and not properly fumigated because of it's status. That's my department for ya !! So, came out feeling unwell and frankly very smelly. It's rank in there, and it's put me off full pace for the rest of the day. Back here and it's been more mooching than mania today. Healthy salad thang, and the remainder of the red wine meant no trip out on the bike tonight. But then after all those earlies, get up and go's gonna have got up and gone to a degree... This lack of buzz is catching. The small guy's lacking his usual kerzang as well. But the place is looking better, and the mooching hasn't been pointless and lazy, things have been done, effects ahve been had to some small degree. Let's force a bit more out of tomorrow....

Fly the friendly skies

A friendly sound from the old days as I was driving back from the fun factory today... only one jet sounds like that, the high pitched whine and slow speed. Looked up and glanced two A-10's at a couple of thousand feet up, clearly turning to work the east coast ranges. Hmmm, maybe I aught to wander up there tomorrow and have a looksee. Those things used to fill the skies from Bentwaters and Woodbridge, just close to where I grew up; although they flew a lot lower, in fours instead of pairs as they do these days and they were painted dark green, not light grey. A damned sight rarer in the skies too; they're based in Germany now and are rocking horse poo in this country. So in any respect, a nostagia kick for me and a nice thing to see anyway.

Apart from that and fun factory aside, it's been more work today. The tiles in the kitchen are still there; the sweet potato soup recipie works; nice to know I can actually do something with the damned things that doesn't taste of starchy shite; and the clearup continues. It'll take months.

Travel lines tell lies

Which is why I found myself in Lincoln, having taken beer after the departure of the last bus and train back home, and with a prerequisite to be in the office for six am. Ah. That would be the fact that the quarter past six bus, as the online travel resource thingy tells me all about would be a bit of a fabrication then? Or a complete porky? Could be. A pity really, 'coz it blighted a pretty damned good afternoon. Into town, jump on the train, trundle along for a bit until Lincoln arrives in the window, jump OFF the train with a little pub crawl'ette in mind and a Good Beer Guide in pocket. Yes indeed, a good plan. Started at the Victoria up on the hill, just below the castle. And they weren't kidding when they named that street leading to it "Steep Hill"... that'd be the socialist realism approach to naming roads at work then. The problem with starting at the Victoria is that once you start there, you may not leave. It's that good. In fact we didn't, until much later. Some Lincolnshire beer, some Yorkie beer and some naughty brain bashing Biddendens cider. Yum! Anyway's up, time had come to make a move to the train station, only the taxi let us down and it was a walk for the promised last bus instead, via the Jolly Brewer - another fine pub of my aquaintance - and a nice pint there. A bit more of a liberal establishment that, quite rock pubby but loses none of it's alehouse credibility, or in fact it's rockpubby credibility, a mean balancing act. And there was plenty of time for a pint, as we were well in time budget for the last bus, and here comes the bus station, and here comes the timetable and...... oh.

So, a jump across the road for a crisis management session over a pint. Credit here to the good beer guide and Lincoln CAMRA's map, and also to the regulars in Sippers. A very silly name, a very good pub; good bunch of guys, very supportive to a couple of pissed up and pissed off travellers, had a jolly time there while working out what taxi drivers owed us favours (none), how many of them would come out cheaply to rescue (none) and how much it was going to cost to get home by a local cab (actually less scary than I feared). Of course, mixing wine with beer is never a smart plan, especially as I seem to remember running into the pub by the station for a pint as soon as we got back to down, strolling into Abby's wine bar for several large ones before closing may not have been a smart idea. Certain people I know were dead 'til eight o' clock on Sunday evening, and I certainly misjudged just how much an early shift on Sunday was going hurt. The answer to that one, by the way is "lots".

And since then, there's been a bit of domesticing going on, so I've not been spending much time on here; sorry folks. Don't know where the motivation's come from, but it's never sure how long it's going to last for when it arrives, so make hay, etc. Been tiling this evening. Something I've never done before. Time will tell how bad a lash I've made of it.....

Naughty, naughty Independant

Got a press cutting from the Indy's media guide from a month or so back, it's been stuck to my fridge for a while. Advertising an exhibition of photographs of the Falklands campaign at the Imperial War Museum North, in Manchester. Now, if you know me you know I like photography, photography exhibitions and the Falklands was on when I was young and impressionable, so off I went to see what was what. I can waste hours in a gallery. Of course, if they'd have said that there was only going to be 31 pictures in the place; the exhibition hall was going to be the corridor between the main exhibition hall and the canteen and that half the pictures have been already been circulated in various commonly available publications previously, I probably wouldn't have bothered. The classic image of the Belgrano going down shot from a lifeboat that everyone's seen a million times already is NOT worth that journey.

So, the IWM(N)? Well, having braved the horrible roads and horrible traffic on just about the most miserable day of the year, it was a promising start; an award winning building with a "zoo" sitting outside it (ZSU-23 Russian built self propelled anti aircraft gun; fearsome repuation, even A-10 drivers are scared of them). I wanted to like the place, I really did. God knows, went far enough to see it. The problem is, there's just not enough of it. It's all style and not a lot of content. Oh, what's there is nice... a Harrier; the very first British artillery gun to fire a shot in the first world war. But it seems all the investment's gone on the building; full to bursting it is not. Everything's nicely presented and artilly lit, but it's a little rock video, if you get my drift. A full day out it is not. Also it seems to me that the message it's putting out is a bit preachy peacenikky. Might just be me, and I might be being devils advocate a little, considering my own recent disquiet as to what the real purpose of my beloved airshows is... truly to include and entertain the local population in the life of the forces, or to acclimatise them to the existance of martial society and to pacify them and involve them in accepting a foreign policy which centres on invading other peoples countries and dropping bombs on them? Hmmm, think I'm walking a bit of a line here with my boots on either side. But anyhoo, I think I'll have go to Leeds armoury next and see how it's done properly.

With a crunch and a squeak it's morning

The small killer of things squeaky here can't have been satisfied with the half mouse deposited outside my bedroom door this morning. Strolled downstairs to find a carrier bag shroud for it, to find he'd done it's mate as well and left it on the lounge carpet. By now I'm used to the excellent camoflage opportunities afforded by this, and the resultant "spat" sound and retching from me as I pancake a corpse under my bodyweight and thus don't get caught out. I also don't walk downstairs barefoot anymore....

Well, an evening at the fun factory again.... blisters on my thumb from driving too hard; don't ask. And there's beer in the fridge again thanks to Tesco's very sociable 24 hour serving policy. Yay! Big salad for supper; I know the theory is that you're not supposed to eat after 8pm, but I get home at half midnight, tell someone who cares. And yes, a beer. Was watching that "stick James May in a Eurofighter" thing that was on the Beeb on Tuesday, on Youtube..... his pilot has the same name as my old history teacher, even the same nickname "Godders" - in fact even looks like the bloke. Of course, no way it IS him unless he's been cryogentically frozen for the last fifteen years. Apparently May is chuffed as mustard that he kept his guts in his body and his sickbag unsullied, where of course Clarkson famously barfed all over his F-15E joyride, and kept on barfing until they let him out again. Top tip - expect that to be mentioned on the new series of Top Gear, LOTS.

Binge drinking evaluation

Ah well, it's back to the grind and no mistake. Eventually returned from the show, burned my clothes, shoved the contents of the freezer's icemaker down my skiddies* to beat off the effects of "Fairford Crotch**" and next thing I knew it was Sunday, whereupon it's Sunday papers, and onto the train and off to the pub. Ah, civilisation!! What is it about train pub trips that I like so much?

And back to a new week, back to the fun factory and back to a very strange graveyard shift which involves not so much of the ordinary nonsense with which they fill our lives, if we're lucky, and a lot more of the buggering about, choosing our own destiny that we LIKE to to if given half a chance; also extra time for all those administrative chores (what chores? pint of Broadside please, eye thenk you) that we normally leave by the wayside as our lives are clogged up for us by other people who sit in offices. A little destructive on the old social life, but I actually seem to be the team freak (so what's new) on this subject as I seem to PREFER 1600-midnight thirty. And on top of that, booked my leave for Croppers folk festival, and even booked my ticket so this time there'll be none of the ever sociable Kev sending me texts during the mid-morning while I'm at work saying "hmmmm, fifth pint and it's only ten o clock" and "mmmm, isn't this Old Hooky tremendous". With friends like mine, who needs total bastards :o)

Other stuff? Well, I scuttled off to Waddington yesterday to see if I could catch thoseIndian fighters going home, as they were scheduled to. The answer? I couldn't. They'd hurtled off just after six am, when everyone was still snoring except for the diehards who slept in their cars (and people call ME sad...). However, I did see the last of those big Ilyushin transports that aren't built to please the noise campaigners go, a very happy wavey flight crew that was....

And a couple of American F-15's bashing the circuit.

While there, seem to have fixed the glitch on my camera that was underexposing everything and causing me grief. All I've got to do now is go through about 500 photo's I've taken in the last month and fix their problems by hand.... gaaaaaah!!!

The bad news is that working this shift pattern and running about the country chasing hairyplanes leaves little time for shopping; I'm out of white wine and good quality lagerbeer, or refreshing light bottle conditioned. The wine racks are positively depressing in their lack of bottles, but I'd deliberately done this for reasons of economy. This may have be a mistake, which as I have dedicated today to domestic tasks, I should do something about. As it is, got home last night with the munchies for chilled drinkies, don't think I've ever drunk so much gin and tonic in my life. Result? Chronic case of the munchies while I was enjoying the drinks, and a slightly fuzzy head this morning. Don't think gin's good for my waistline. I shall stick to beer, and obtain some Czech Budvar if I can.

* Not really. It's called a metaphor

** Medical condition, particular to this airshow. You really don't wanna know....

Mikey Goes to Fairford

Oxfordshire's got some beautiful country in it, some incredibly wonderful villages, wonderful buildings. I guess that's why to live there I'd have to absolutely sacrifice any morality I've got and make some proper money in life, or get six numbers. Gorgeous anyway, and I had to pootle through a lot of it; Warwickshire too, on my way to this year's Air Tattoo at Fairford. Broke the journey overnight in Warwickshire, having learned my lesson from a few long distance trips that have gone wrong this year - dropped in to see my mate Ellie and her fella Neil. Quickly made friends with his dog, then popped into the garden to take a look at how the Mike Border is getting on. Last time I saw these plants they were leaving my house in the back of her car; she's of the gardening fanatic persuasion and the two of us with her daughter gutted and redesigned my once terrible garden in a single day last summer.... all saveable surplus plants from the jungle were donated to any uses she could think of rather than going in the composter; she made up a whole new border in her garden with them and rather excellent it looks too. Nice to make a contribution.

Anyway; set off at stupid'o clock in the morning for the short final leg to the airfield, and a good job I did too.... one navigation blunder; one articulated recycling truck in the back lanes and one slow moving vintage car (an Austin Seven... I looked) meant a frustrating journey for me, which gave me time to consider a thing or two.... for instance, I really hoped the US Air Force hadn't done what the RAF's done and replace most of their flying demonstration's with "Role Demo's"... there's just too many British people going to be there for that to be a good idea with the A-10 tankbuster about, it'd be carnage.

Anyway, arrived at the airfield and got all the gubbins sorted, cameras, backpack, waterproofs. It struck me as I pulled on my heavyweight super-dooper walking boots I'd brought along for walking the airfield all day - far more punishing on the ankles than you'd think if you've not done this before - that the last time I wore them was this time last year, going up Mt Stol on the Slovene-Austrian border and they still had mud on them from it. Soon wear that off and get them broken in again. Made my way through the queues and security to get in. Quite a hassle that; it did strike me as I considered the cost, the security, the constant blocking of the pedestrian access with criss-crossing airshow traffic with associated delays for the visitors; that maybe this has stopped being fun. Who knows. At the end of the day, I still considered it a good day out, so I guess not.

Now. Here's something you're not expecting in this review. Ex girlfriends. Sometimes they cheer you up in ways you're not expecting. Strolling off from the food van where I'd picked up my bacon roll and cup of tea, I looked across and espied an old former friend for whom I've no longer got much time, and if he's there, in all probability so should be my ex of about four years ago, with whom I've not had a civil word with since. And indeed, right on cue there she was. Didn't see me, but I saw her. Older, portly and with an extremely ill advised blonde highligh hairdo. Made a note to myself "maybe I aught to buy him a beer". Heh, it's nasty and I'm not a nasty person (???) but isn't it a feeling of grim satisfaction to see that your ex is old, fat, frumpy and looking silly. Whereas I just look in a mirror and....... oh.

Heheheheh..... schadenfreude is your friend !!!

Anyway, upwards and onwards, and in the case of the flying display, literally. Marched onwards towards the showground, to make my way around the static displays. This is a day long job, even on the reduced scale that the air tattoo is nowadays. In the old days you could do the static, watch the flying or go through the stalls but never all three. Even now, it's just an overload. As usual, the ropes around the aircraft were too tight for photography but I'd thought about that and packed a wide angle lens which could handle it. What it didn't deal with was the fact that every single aircraft had a red traffic cone parked close in front of it, with a number and an exhortation to go and buy a checklist, whereupon the casual visitor could find out what each plane was. Well, I'm not a casual visitor and they didn't do my photos much good!!! Muppets! Had a good mooch around the static; some gems in there but you have to accept that it's not going to be of the scale of the Fairfords of old that I used to attend; it can't be... all airforces have rationalised, the budgets are tighter and lots of them are off bombing other people in their own countries. But there was groovy aeronautical goodness to be found in the in the static park.

Was a little peeved by the including of a couple of the new generation of unmanned drones in the static.... the manufacturer Northrop-Grumman have a display of this sort thing, they'll probably be down at Farnborough next week so it's an easy thing for them to do, but I always wonder what the point of these arms business displays at a public airshow are. Part of an insidious campaign to convince us that bombs are good? For me it gets away from the point of flying; the original point was to take men further; to be like the birds, that's what the Montgolfier brothers and the Wrights were about, and after them Cody, Alcock and Brown, Johnston, Von Zepplin, Bleriot... all about pushing the envelope further. Can't help but feel the rush for unmanned aviation is yet another step backwards. We seem to be doing a lot of it lately.

Anyway!! Now, the flying display.... kicked off good and early with a Finnish Hornet, then continued in good weather and good displays from such good things as a Russian built Hind gunship (genuinely scarey piece of kit), a couple of F16 demo's and Eurofighters from the Spanish and British air forces. The yanks had a thing or two flying and were probably feeling all mushy and patriotic when they put up this "historical formation" of Mustang and Strike Eagle....

... and then the Brit's went and aced them later with the four origional Battle of Britain Flight Spitfires and the Red Arrows! Can't but wonder if Red Leader was sniggering when he saw the American flypast, knowing what was planned....

On with some more of the flying...

Just 'coz I'm not in Slovenia doesn't mean I don't get my alpine fix.... PC-9 training plane from their air force.... (above)

Back to the Yanks... the usual pretty airbourne drill sequence from the Thunderbirds team, not as fluid as the European displays but it impresses the martially minded Americans. Luckilly I was far enough from the speakers not to have to plug in my Ipod to drown out the patriot brainwashing nonsense that comes from their commentator at these events. As an aside, they come with all their own support kit in a transport plane, including a start up generator specially painted in the team colours.... I wasn't close enough to their lineup to get a picture of it, but some unkind spotters have been referring to this as "Pimp my Genny" since they arrived in the UK last week :o)

And rather a pretty display from the Italian Frecce Tricolori, their display team who I remember best for scaring the crap out of me at Bentwaters in 1988 just one week before they went splat on top of the crowd at Ramstein. But the last few times I've seen them are replacing that old uneasyness I've had for them for a decade or so with a feeling of just how damned well Italian national colours work as smoke against a sky background...

Wandering back out of the airfield, noticed that the fine art of zapping is still alive and well... the Irish crew didn't leave their new shiney helicopter on it's own all day, maybe fearing a return visit from the RAF puma squadron who's aircraft they stuck Irish national markings onto while their backs were turned; but the German Army (HEER) CH-53 crew weren't so wise....

And that's it for another year, just the two hundred mile drive home via fatigue, partial dehydration, heaven's own sunset over Coventry and a whole lot of road that I don't really remember, which is in itself quite worrying !!!!

Ah, that's more like it!

That's more like it, one sleep later I feel shite - like a booze free hangover - and have missed my lunchtime pub appointment. D'oh. Life and fatigue are back on track.

Seem to be spending a disproportionate amount of time releasing bluebottles ("hello kep'tain*") from the house and they buzz up and down the windows in compound eye stupidity. Wonder where they're coming from. If I did what most folks do, splat 'em, I'd be up to my eyes in bad karma and fly corpses, I'd need George to get rid of 'em. That, just for reference is the big green hoover, not the kitchen grill. Yeuch.

Anyway, power and noise. Amongst other things, saw the current replacement for my bike at the bike night... I ride the 1100cc model of my particular beast, but that's been out of production for six years. Now they've made a 1400cc.... I rather like the look of it to be honest, if I were in the mood for to purchase "Son of MileEater". I think the mirrors suck dead donkeys, and I don't like the aerodynamic fins down the side (reminicent of the RF900, how middle aged is that), but the look of the thing - the front end - is just so damned agressive I'd want to give it a go. Performance wise, it's supposed to be limited to 299 kph..... wonder how easy that restrictor is to remove......

*If you got this reference you may be as sad as me!

BikeShow

Oooh this isn't good! Back from the last nightshift of the week after five days of the full on "pissholes in the snow" look, and I don't feel remotely tired. I've passed through the tiredness barrier and getting back into day mode without sleep, this isn't remotely good. I know this one, it's when I carry on regardless and run out of steam in the least convenient place and time possible, probably halfway down the M69 later on today when I'm riding down to - if you pardon the phrase - crash overnight at my mates pad in the deepest south, before setting off to Fairford Air Tattoo on Saturday morning for much anorakky propellorheaded fun. Joy!! The week at work....? Not enormously productive if I'm honest, but very useful. Out and about, doing bad things in the dark, sneaky sneaky.... there's a school of thought that says that these dry runs are as useful as hitting into something good, for reasons of practise, familiarisation with our nocturnal haunts etc. Of course this doesn't fit in with very senior management who want success every time we step out of the door. But of course, they're twats.

Made time to get to the Barton Bike Show on Wednesday..... not small; around 10,000 people there according to press accounts. Quite a pretty town actually, but literally in the shadow of the Humber Bridge. HEAVING with bikes and bikers; every pub seemed to have a barbie and there seemed to be a competition for the title of Dodgiest Tribute Band in the World.... live music and not very good live music either was order of the day. Funny, my order of the day was "for ferk's sake be quiet". Very much a truncated visit unfortunately; what with domestic stuff to do here, and worky stuff to do when the clock struck ten, I didn't get there early and didn't stay there late. But to be, be be there beats the arse, arse, arse out of the alternative, and another nice little blat down the backroads was very much in order.

Anyways, I feel this week beginning to tear at me a bit, so now's time to turn in .......

Advantages

...to this ridiculous night shift business.....

Watching the dawn rise; and having two playing fox cubs bounce across the road in front of my car. No Miss J, I couldn't have put my foot down ;o) !!

You don't see that every day !

Well there's a thing. A decent day for once; once the morning tasks of slobbing and laziness were out of the way, and the early afternoon tasks of whatever the hell they were I decided to take the Mile Eater out for a serious attempt on the local roads, haven't done that in a good long while. Most fun too. Back roads the order of the day, a bit of social networking then more back road blattage. Write out a hundred times "I must do more miles on the bike than I did last year"; but heading back, and WELL after dark walking down the road towards my area I spot a tall slim blonde lady, who appears in no distress but is just walking along wearing nothing but a thong. NOT what you expect to see in THIS town. Or any other come to think of that, with the possible exception of Amsterdam....

Bad days at Black Rock

Clever wee beasties, cats. I'd not got the key in the door when I hear a rumble of small velvet boots down the stairs, a leap and a meow, and a visible flash of black behind the frosted glass door. I've been down before and he always knows when I'm off colour and so it was; too many early shifts, bad meetings and a barney with the boss; the cat is required to demonstrate his psychic abilities again, meeting me out of the car, far more friendly than usual and acutually keen to play. Folks, don't underestimate your pets.

It's been a heavy one. Seven straight days on for my team; only six for me 'coz I cheated and took a day off, but still, no fun. And barney's and meetings that aren't fun. We were due to finish at one on Friday; we stayed on til seven with no result to show for it because some silly little man in an office miles away thought he's had a good idea. We're back on Sunday night, around midnight. Not a happy bunch of wanderers we are at the moment, not enjoying the prospect of our microweekend, people are feeling shafted; I'm thinking of instituting my old team's nickname ("the needlework team"... always getting stictched up). It's down to the new systems of working that have been imposed by the centre that we basically haven't got enough staff for. Staff aren't being replaced as they quit. Tell me this is a good thing! Remember boys and girls, micromanagent from the centre is good for you!

Death by weekday

What the hell is up with me this week? Why's my energy been sucked out? Two days running, my afternoon and evening upon return from the fun factory has been "sit down and sleep intermittently until late evening". I have things to do, things to plan, people to see! Things are slipping! This will not stand !

Oh, the good news is that His Lordship appears to have forgiven me for exposing him to the vet's yesterday, relations are nearly back to normal. Just the usual annual jabs; for followers of the Assassin of All Things Smaller, he's officially in rude health and good condition; but he never takes these things in his stride, although he was braver than usual, and is currently flicking his tail at me in a very tailflicking kind of manner.

A helluva time to come back!

Was just texting off the latest bunch of topical gags to folks in mobilephoneland; when I get back a "erm, do I take it something's happened...?" from one of 'em. Good time to be in the Maldives. Bad time to come back. Welcome home Jen; speedyladybiker.

Propellorheading in the damp, finding answers to questions

Don'tcha love an answer. I know I do.

Back in March I blogged the following here, after a visit to Doncaster's Propellorheading Museum; I know I did 'coz I cut and pasted it...

" Strange... they've gotten these aircraft up in a Falklands 25 year exhibition, but the Gazelle they had ... another Falklands vet', actually shot down on the day of the British invasion is missing. Wonder where that's vanished to. " The answer is "off to a REME workshop to be totally restored as a memorial", which I personally think is very, very groovy. It turned up in an exhibition at the airshow at Waddington on Saturday, which someone's actually gone to quite a lot of effort to put together; a shame the show was cursed.

Before...

After...

Isn't that better. Note the memorial crosses on the landing skid... the pilot of this chopper died making the crash landing. Actually the show was also inadvertantly pretty Falkland'centric; both the Royal Navy Lynx helicopters were there in 1982, the one in the static was actually on the ill fated HMS Sheffield when it was hit, but no mention was made of that anywhere; you've got to be an anorak called Mike with the definitive history of that air war in your library to know that sort of thing. Additionally, they have the very Vulcan bomber that hit Port Stanley airfield preserved on the airfield, and the Falklands exhibition took place in the very spot where the bomber used to stand, but they've fixed it in place on the far side of the airfield now.

Anyhoo.... strolled down to the airfield with no hangover - oh no officer - in very good time after a good early start. Beat the rush, clearly learned a thing or two in the EEEEEEEK years that I've been going to airshows, and fought with the weather all day. If perchance you're reading this in the Gobi Desert, you'll not be aware that we've got this thing called rain, we've had rather a lot of it and just in case we thought we'd had it all for the year, they found even more to throw at us at the weekend. Lots of it. Oh yes. So, the majority of the day was spent shower dodging (ahah, just like life, that's why my shirts are so reeky(JOKE!!!!)); the early start actually aided in this as I was able to park the car in the middle of the airfield, right in the midst of everything; in fact spent a good chunk of the flying display sheltering from the elements in GLC, eating packup, with one ear on the tannoy to time my sprints through the mud get quick pictures of whatever took my fancy. Clocked my first Mk.4 Nimrod flying; nice to see the Indians fly, even though it's just a flypast as they're not display cleared here. The Typhoon's high energy approach was noticeable in the amount of vapour clouds it formed as it went around (it's an aerodynamics thing, don't worry about it, just looks groovy), and the Red Arrows had to abort their display halfway through, only the third time in EEEEEEK years I've ever seen them do this. They're flying with only eight jets this year and as a result it all looks a little bit lopsided; I noticed I was standing next to a fit looking guy in a red flightsuit and expensive looking millitary issue leather jacket, turned out I was actually standing next to the guy having the worst day on the airfield. Red Three, the pilot that's buggered everything up by falling over and breaking his wrist shortly after he's completed the six month Arrows's display training, but still has to do the full "ambassador for the airforce" malarky anyway. I'd have taken a photo but frankly I didn't have the heart.

The display continued to suffer... somehow the Falcons free-fall team managed to find a gap in the crowd and jumped from only about two thousand feet; but the much vaunted "RAF Role Demo" got cancelled (not many proper display routines this year, the whole airforce is off bombing Arabs), only after the second wave of jets had been sat running on the end of the runway ready to go for about ten minutes, with the commentator hyping up their take off perfomance and thrill-factor, before they had the humiliating taxi past the crowd to return to their standigns. Heh, if you were of a cruel and cynical mindset you might say that's a pretty accurate role demo; burn a lot of fuel, cost a lot of money, train to the hilt then do naff all. Anyhoo, there was a bunch of explosives left to get rid of that they weren't going to remove by hand, and two Marham Tornadoes already in the air, so they let them through anyway and let the bangers off as they went past; simulated airfield attack. Actually rather cool.

So, a wet and soggy show ended with a squelch back to the car feeling the first signs of that particular Propellorhead malady "Fairford Crotch" (trust me, don't ask) but I had a much better day than those folks who turned up on Sunday. The crowd had been arriving for two hours when they scrubbed the show due to the fact that the car parks were basically drowning, and the police wanted to put there people elsewhere in the waterlogged county to deal with other problems. A bummer, first major airshow I've known cancelled in a long, long time. Even the mudbath at Binbrook in '87 didn't scrub. A certain amount of conspiracy chatter on 't 'net since then that it was actually for security reasons; allegations of a bomb threat but according to people I know with very senior RAF sources, it was weather, pure and simple. Damned shame considering how much effort folks put in. Not a whole lot that can be done about it I guess.

Propellerheading

So, the Indians. Got 'em in the end. GLC was up on blocks, having it's minor tweaks hammered out, so the fun stuff was loaded onto the fun transport, two wheels the order of the day. Not as smart a departure as I'd have liked timewise, but a departure none the less. Thursday's the start of the arrivals for the airshow at Waddington; I'd not normally bother until the Friday but this promises something rather groovy.

So, an enjoyable blat down to and through Lincoln, a mental wave to my mates there, and out the other side. Looking at the watch, the program for arrivals put me about half an hour late for the first wave of jets... had to accept that they're probably already down, but I'll settle for the second wave; when with about a mile to go before the airfield car park I saw a distinctive jet in the airfield circuit cross over the road right to left. One thing about the Sukhoi Flanker, you know it if you see it. Distinctive it certainly is. And also, one of the few things known to man that's faster than Milo the Mile Eater, my beloved Kwakker. Racing jets is neither big nor clever; last time I did it I pranged my Mini something wicked; but when you're keyed up from the ride, you can't resist the bite, and damnit, nothing ventured nothing gained, right? Gave the engine a certain amount of the beans in the 40 limit and I know I was going WAY too fast when I passed the Police car going the other way; filtering all the way past anybody who had the cheek to be slower than me, pretty balls out by my standards. And it paid off. Coming up to the traffic lights at the approach where the jets cross the road, they're lit red... turn right into the airfield carpark, pay booth up ahead, no time for that; sidestand down, engine off, gloves off, glance up the approach - first jet's coming in - topbox unlocked and opened, camera out already set up, front of helmet flipped up and just in time to clickclickclickclickclick. It really doesn't get any closer than that. Who says plane spotters can't be adrenaline junkies.

A serious time budget was the order of the day here, and the jets were clearly running late... what I saw turned out to be the first jet of the first wave, half an hour behind schedule, which was nice. The other two fighters, and the accompanying tanker came in; I had to be away for a leaving do for a chap at work but balanced it out and figured I could get away with sticking around to catch the second wave, they turned up about an hour later in a nice formation with their own tanker keeping them company, a big Ilyushin 78... these things are not make to keep the environmental mob happy, they are LOUD! Spotters being big kids at heart, bikers doubly so; there was a certain amount of grinning when that big lad dug into the Lincolnshire air with his thrust reversers, boom boom shake the room.

So what of the rest of the day... well, a little time spent watching the first of the arrivals for the show; not much to speak of at this point in time, but it's early days. A nice early highlight, a Hawker Hunter beating up the 'field before breaking to land; for the 'planesmart, one of the prettiest fighters ever built. Always a pleasure to watch. Must be even nicer to fly. Oh lottery gods, be nice to me... Then back on the beasty and a blat back up to Hellville to quickly get turned around into something more presentable and jump into a taxi, join my team in the pub for a bite to eat and a bit to drink, to see our lad Chunky off after many many disreputable years in the job; a declining generation of more interesting people this fella represents; public schoolboy, former draftsman in the aviation (worked on TSR2 for gods sake) and car industry, bon viveur and he ends up in our cursed trade and stays there. Anyway, a whole bunch of folks turned up, cards, balloons and presents were the order of the day and I got ver' ver' drunk but that's alright because so did everybody else.