And you think that you have had bad days!

My friend Simon is orf to Madrid next week and asks for suggestions on what to do. Here ya go Simon, muy bonita !.

Had the mother (father, grandfather, grandmother, banjo playing third cousin twice removed etc. etc.) of all hangovers yesterday due to a departmental quiz night followed by a seedy nightclub in Southampton. For a nightclub to be considered seedy in Southampton (and by me) it has to be pretty seedy, but we managed to lower the tone a smidge. We (myself, Tad, Tony and Paul) came 5th out of 15 in the quiz which ain’t too shabby considering that all the other teams were made up of graduates (young people who did well in the music and how to make pot noodles rounds).

Not motorcycling: I came to work in the car today in spite of it being a great day to ride the bike, call me a part timer if you like. I drive the car quite regularly but today made me think for some reason. It’s a different world, comfortable, warm, slow motion, almost pedestrian. I found myself in the middle of a slow moving train of traffic playing follow the leader. Any thoughts of information, position, speed, gear, acceleration pushed to the back of my mind by John Humphries browbeating John Read on the today programme. It seems that the safer you feel, the less attention you pay to what’s happening. Where I would normally be actively scanning the road for hazards and overtaking opportunities, I found myself on autopilot. I’m sure that I read somewhere (or was I told?) that the best safety device that could be fitted to a modern car would be a 12” metal spike on the steering wheel pointing at the driver. The car is due for a service soon so I might get one fitted. I’m sure that an Audi Driver’s Spike would be three times more expensive than a Ford spike, but it would be fantastically designed to retract in the event of an accident.

Food for thought, how can anything made from water, hops, barley and yeast not be good for you?

Fashion: I’ve often said that people who wear baseball caps backwards are crap drivers. Now, according to the landlord of the Swan pub in Little Totham in Essex, they don’t know how to drink either.

Is it ever considered socially acceptable to have the theme tune from Hawaii Five O as the ring tone on your mobile?

Motorcycling: Another hundred smiles per mile today. If you ever want to know why people ride dangerous, dirty smelly, noisy motorcycles just ask a biker on a morning like this. Blue skies (ELO going around on Brain FM), a freshly serviced Honda Fireblade and dry twisty roads. The chicken stripes on my rear tyre are getting thinner and the voices in my head are saying go faster, lean further.

Movie: Watched The Fast and the Furious on TV last night. What a totally pointless movie. Fantastic! Car chases, baddies on motorcycles, guns, larger than life characters and a striking similarity to Point Break. In my book, a movie doesn’t always need to be deep, meaningful or subtitled to be good. It just needs to entertain me.

News: I live in a village which has a great local pub, so the report that 20 village locals a month are being closed every month is a cause for concern. Perhaps the countryside alliance should run this issue up the flagpole instead of fox hunting and give it another go, it might highlight the steady erosion of local services. I suspect that most townies would find common ground with people who’s access to a pub (school, health centre, emergency services, post office, shop, bus service) is being taken away, rather than with those who are upset about not being allowed to kill wild animals for pleasure.