St Landrew

I know there is supposed to be a connection with SFC, but I can't remember what it is. Is it that the original landlord, way back when, was a die-hard Saints fan..? Someone remind me please.

Note the forum you're in, please people.

Tbh swanny, I can't hear them. I mean, they must be making a sound, as they are, as you say, straight cut gears. But all I can hear is an absence of anything mechanical other than what you'd want to hear. The exhaust note is really superb, and the acceleration to higher rpm from the engine when you blip the throttle is instant. All without any clatter whatsoever. I think you may well be right with the good bits of kit remark.

Yeah, well it seems that things are going to draw out a little longer than I anticipated. I reckon it'll be the end of next week before I can ride the bike, going by the progress I'm making now. Had a word with the DVLA this morning, and one of their experts on unconventional ways to legalise your vehicle, told me that I next need to MOT the bike, on the vin/chassis number, and then get a few days/one week's special insurance on the same [he gave me the number of specially approved brokers who'll do this] and then I get down to the Portsmouth office to register, and tax the bike, with all the fees and proof of ID, which will take a further 72 hours to complete. Then I get a number and then I can get a plate made. So I'm basically in slow-motion today as, of course, I have to work in between all this. The thing is, the bloke at the DVLA assured me that I was 90% there with all the hoops I have to jump through, so it's just a matter of time. I can wait.

Yeah, I saw HIGNFY and the comparison. I thought Frank Skinner did quite well as a host too. I notice all the comedians who host try not to laugh at Paul Merton's stuff, but when he really gets going they can't help themselves. Skinner's face was creased practically all of the time.

A cracking little Sherlock Holmes adventure called The Ferrers Documents. Holmes/Watson fans will instantly realise that this is NOT a Conan-Doyle story, but one of the many clones, this time written by Bert Coules, for the BBC canon of SH stuff. IMO, he writes rather well, and his Watson is slightly less deferential to Holmes, than the proper one, although C-D's Watson was no slouch or thicko. It's 45 minutes of pure Victorian escapism. I absolutely love radio drama.

I do mate, I certainly do. I shaken my head at a few of them in my time. They don't give bikers the best of reputations. We're not all like that.

Thanks for your concern mate. I appreciate that. I promise not to screw up. Thankfully, I've kept my hand in, with bikes, over the years, and if I ever really want to be properly crazy, there's always one or two sailing mates with their poor technique, to get me to fully realise how mortal we all are.

Ah sorry. It's a red 2000 Honda VFR800Fi with cam gear wheels, hence no camchains, as mentioned earlier. Being straight cut, they add a very pleasing background to the overall engine note. The 2002 model went back to camchains and added VTEC. I'm told many VFR riders regret the move back to camchains, and it does appear that Honda's little achilles heel on their bike engines does resurface on the later one. Mine has done 39,500 miles and sounds really mechanically quiet. It's actually a joy to blip the throttle. Anyway, to the result. It sailed through. As it was pretty much a stock production bike the only sticky points were whether all the switchgear worked as it should, and the emissions were low enough. Although the examiner first checked all the dimensions and radii over the bike, that they conformed to GB regs. This is largely where kit and custom bikes are said to come unstuck, and I saw a couple outside being modified to conform. The switchgear worked perfectly, the headlight, speedo, odometer did their proper jobs, the brakes were progressive and powerful, and that left the emissions. The examiner checked his gear and said, Blimey, that bike's running on fresh air. Which did kind of make me feel a lot better, because I knew that the MOT would be a doddle too. So that's all the unknowns gone. Now I'm back in familiar territory. I took a bit of a flier with this bike because of a lack of paperwork with it, but after checking it through, it has proved to be 100% legal and straight, and I'm really pleased with it. There's no way I'd recommend anyone doing what I did, but a gut feeling told me this one would be all right. Here's a little photo of the model. Got to get some crash bobbins for it now, and that occasional cover for the dualseat [see in photo]. Should be on the road by the end of the week. Thanks for all the good wishes.

Thanks Pancake. That's the interview I saw too. Yes he implies that he considered giving up, but that's not actually saying it, and there is a big difference between the two things. I don't think he could do anything else, in any case, or would want to. The lad was born to race cars. And I don't think it is necessarily required to like or dislike Hamilton either. One just has to appreciate his skills or not. Michael Schmacher was an utter sh!tbag in a car, and he used every means possible to win. But you had to appreciate his talents too. And Hamilton is way, way more acceptable than Schmacher ever was. Or do we cling to an ideal that British sporting heroes must be whiter than whiter..? Hamilton is fast, but he's also a racer. Of British drivers that I remember when growing up, Hamilton is in the mould of Jim Clark and Jackie Stewart, where he can make the best of the machinery he's driving, whether it is crap or brilliant - look at his teammate. That's extremely rare in a driver, and only happens a couple of times in a generation. Let's appreciate that.

It's a 2000 model. No timing chains. Yippee..!

Very good, but not quite accurate. In the rule book it clearly states that the ref shall add on time to: 1] Allow Arsenal to equalise 2] Allow ManU to equalise AND score the winning goal. All footballs that enter the ManU net after they have equalised will be deemed unsporting, and therefore ineligible. The Webb, sorry Ref, can decide how long he can get away with this.

Wish I shared your optomism. As I've said before, on a purely personal level, I'd rather have no SFC than one with Rupert Lowe involved, or in the background, pulling the strings. Just my opinion. If it happens, I'll concentrate on my sailing, and stop watching football completely.

Test is today. It's meant to ensure that the bike conforms to UK requirements. This includes; speedo primarily in mph, odometer reads miles, headlight dips to the left, everything else works, etc... Also, as the bike will be issued a British registration, the weights and emissions need checking. There's no riding of it, but it must be presented with a full tank of fuel. It all lasts about an hour, and I have to do all the pushing and pulling around of it. Great..! The thing weighs 463 pounds dry, and this one'll will have 5.5 gallons of petrol in the tank.

That would be near the end of his first F1 season then. Hardly topical or relevant to the latest interview.

Not where I'm going matey, and there's a heck of a lot of cold water out there to warm up, in case you hadn't noticed. I shall do fine. Or should I say we..?

Nope. That's Shaka Hislop.

I just thought he was being honest about it. After Jake Humphries asked the question, Lewis seemed to consider how much he was going to reveal before coming out with the line. His bounce has gone, so he said, and I know what that means too. I don't know why other people can't see what he means. Or perhaps you just don't want to. And I don't think he mentioned anywhere that he considered quitting.

Well that didn't go to my prediction, at all. But some of those minor questions got an answer. Nicky Hayden didn't get to tame the mighty Ducati as he was taken out at the first corner, and came down on his already injured back again. James Toseland is beginning to realise he has a MotoGP bike underneath him, and not a relatively slow and wallowing Superbike. And Kawasaki certainly came somewhere, with the lone Marco Melandri doing far better than any Kwacker has done in seasons. But the major answer was that Lorenzo won, as he stalked his teammate Rossi, and then passed him. Rossi being the racer he is, hung on and hounded Lorenzo for a while until he made a slight error and fell back into the clutches of Pedrosa, of all people, who seemed to have finally overcome his multiple injuries, and rode a factory 2008 machine because he has had no testing or development of the 2009 bike. So fast was Pedrosa that he left all the 2009 Hondas in his wake, and kept them there. Then he had the temerity to pass Rossi, who obviously thought this was one shock too many, and the pair had a really nice dice, passing and repassing for a couple of laps. It was MotoGP at its proper best. Eventually, Rossi found a rhythm [his words] again, and sped away to chase Lorenzo, but he was too far ahead to be caught in time. Behind this pair, Casey Stoner was having a bad time on the bucking and weaving Ducati, but found enough rhythm of his own to eventually catch and pass Dovizioso. So there you go. And it didn't rain. Thanks Matty. MotoGP race result: 1 J Lorenzo (Spa) Fiat Yamaha 43 mins 47.238 secs 2 V Rossi (Ita) Fiat Yamaha 43:48.542 3 D Pedrosa (Spa) Repsol Honda 43:51.001 4 C Stoner (Aus) Ducati 43:52.929 5 A Dovizioso (It) Honda 43:56.445 6 M Melandri (Ita) Kawasaki 44:17.793 7 L Capirossi (Ita) Suzuki 44:19.994 8 M Kallio (Fin) Ducati 44:26.654 9 J Toseland (GB) Yamaha 44:30.344 10 C Vermeulen (Aus) Suzuki 44:30.483, 11 R de Puniet (Fra) Honda 44:32.072 12 C Edwards (USA) Yamaha 44:33.778 13 A de Angelis (Smr) Honda 44:40.763 14 N Canepa (Ita) Ducati 45:09.042 15 T Elias (Spa) Honda +1 lap World Championship standings: 1 J Lorenzo (Spa) Fiat Yamaha 41 points 2 V Rossi (Ita) Fiat Yamaha 40 3 C Stoner (Aus) Ducati 38 4 A Dovizioso (Ita) Repsol Honda 22 5 D Pedrosa (Spa) Repsol Honda 21 6 C Edwards (USA) Monster Yamaha Tech 3 17 7 M Kallio (Fin) Pramac Racing 16 8 C Vermeulen (Aus) Rizla Suzuki MotoGP 15 9 A de Angelis (SM) San Carlo Honda Gresini 13 10 M Melandri (Ita) Hayate Racing Team 12 Manufacturers standings: 1 Yamaha 45pts 2 Ducati 38 3 Honda 27 4 Suzuki 18 5 Kawasaki 12 And thank you Beeb.

Executive/Critical Decision. Umpteenth time of watching and it never disappoints. Great stuff.

My bike gets an MSVA test done on monday as it is a Dutch import and has never been registered in the UK. Most of its paperwork has been lost, as it had been sitting in J2 Honda's workshop, wasting away for the past 2 years, before coming to me. I've never encountered an MSVA test before and I'm a bit worried about it, although I'm told I shouldn't be. The new headlight now dips to the left and the new speedo reads miles. Even the separate LCD odometer has been configured to display and record miles instead of kilometres. But I'm still on tenterhooks. It hasn't helped with VOSA wanting me to fill the tank [5.5 gallons] to the brim. Why..? Once it gets through this though I'll relax, as the MOT should be a formality. Then it's down to [cough] Portsmouth, for the registration and road tax. Next week I'll be mobile for the summer, and as Ponty has already pointed out, the hospitals can go on keen alert for donor organs. I'll defy them though..!

Another early start. I shall be happier when the European season starts. It's 6.45am to 8.00am, and highlights later around 2pm during the F1 Bahrain GP, so I don't expect many people to break off from a LIVE F1 race, even me. Looks like the ol' HDD recorder needs setting again. BTW, Rossi on pole to start. Stoner and Lorenzo in following order. Here's a prediction: If it rains Rossi will win. If it is bone dry [and I mean absolutely dry] I reckon Stoner will do it again. Lorenzo or Dovizioso in third place.

OK, It's gone all The Dukes Of Stratosphear now. I'm just exploring the limits of Spotify at the moment. There's a few things I can't find, but the Dukes aren't one of them. Here's your chance to hear utterly superb sixties music, but written in the late eighties. Try them by typing in the band name. See how many bands you can name that have influenced each original track. By the way, Spotify doesn't put them in the correct order, so they don't flow quite as well as they should. 25 O'Clock should always be first up. I'm listening to You're My Drug at the moment, and the sixties sense is almost palpable.

This is TMS. If this thread was in The Lounge I would take your concern very seriously, as I share it. People need to learn again how the live within their means. Thankfully, I have never forgotten it, and I am resourceful. Which reminds me, as resource scarcity will probably be the next extremely big thing, and climate change will fall from the headlines, especially as loads of people refuse to change their living habits. Water and resource wars will make them sit bolt upright. P.S: By all means, I could do with someone changing the other staysail.

You're just getting older mate. It was the same for your parents. I'm sure they despaired for the country and world as they got older too. It's a generation thing. I despair too, but I've a plan to climb into a boat and set sail just as it all kicks off.