Bollox to this!!

Today it snowed, tomorrow it will be icy, for the rest of the week my fingers will seize from the ill remembered and ill suffered mild frostbite received at the hands of Jack Frost some years ago.

I remember the occasion of diagnosis well. I had for weeks been commuting 100 miles or so daily in the depths of the worst case fimbal winter for years on my GPZ900R (equipped with titanium belly pan slider for the daily Pevensey Roundabout heroics, and a pipe that used to set of car alarms if I cogged it down a few in a closed street environment (chortle)).
Each day I turned up at work furiously massaging my fingers into some semblance of useful digitry other than the reddened claws of a skin raped freak, the bike shop I worked in had no heating, so consequently the aforementioned claws remained cold all day and then I rode home.

I'm too much of a tough geezer to stop and pansy around trying to sear some heat from the sonorous and mighty R's 4-1 through my completely uselss (however hideously expensive, non waterproof- despite the myriad of swing tags that had attracted them to me in the first place, pieces of shit that passed as top of the range winter gloves)so consequently, by the time I had quick changed clutchlessly and kept as much momentum in the highest gear possible and returned home the aforementioned skin on the claws felt like it was peeling with intense cold heat.

Naturally I plunged them into the nearest warm thing I could find, usually a bowl of washing up water as a grim second to my then girlfriends cleavage which worked once but the skin on one side of my face also nearly peeled away at the harsh slap it received and was never an option a second time.

I digress, after a few weeks of this appalling scenario, my hands eventually puffed up into sausage like proportions. (Those who know me laugh now ((as you did then you swine)), but I can tell you it was rough), I literally couldn't bend my fingers or grip much at all.

I made an appointment to see the doc, who gingerly poked the grimy and reddened digits even himself likening them to sausages (the sarky b'stard)He asked me what I did for a living and the sorry tale of frost and fear and loathing on the Worthing trail was duly related (thanx Hunter you were a friggin' genius).
He immediately came up with a diagnosis and cure, the diagnosis was that some pipes or capilliries or summat had burst and the fluid usually contained therein had seeped out and swollen my fingers to epic porkinson proportions, (I briefly teased dogs with them), he said I have a perfect cure....... 'Buy yourself a car, don't worry they'll go down gradually but you'll probably notice the damage done in the future if it gets really cold and you don't wrap them up'.

I was ready to stab the fuckers with a scalpel/pencil/penknife, safety pin to relieve the pressure they hurt that much and were a very odd hue of bruised purple and livid cerise but he advised against it.

I eventually bought a right old crapheap Fiat 127 so that I could remain warm over the winter months.
Ironically the heater didn't work and it was dubbed The Fridge' by all of my winter passengers.

Because of Xmas and the the sundry requirements of grinning nicely in all the right places to all the right people, the kids off school and a wallet barer than a hibernating hedgehog's stomach, the Z1R has kinda taken a back seat for a while.

The rear wheel has been reduced to stained and definitely unvirginal bare aluminium finish by way of extensive Nitromors attacks and patient wire brushing.
It is actually ready to etch prime and paint but I need gainful employment to proceed, plus a warm environment in which to spray in, (the house is out of bounds despite breaking up the furniture to fuel the fire and the assorted rags wrapped around our miserable limbs for pitiful warmth don't help nozzle control also).

However as I think I previously mentioned, Yuasa company furnished some power through the loom and the all the lights work and the motor turns over. Which is very very nishe!
I have in my possession some fine pattern Hi-Flo oil filters which will be bunged into the sump, subject to removing the crusty pipes and not rounding the ancient sump plug and breaking fingers in the resultant slippage or gush of filthy fluid passing itself off as oil, though by now it must have reverted to it's original state of crude (just my luck barely 45 dollars a barrel, hardly enough to retire on, 'another kick in the bollocks Sir' leers an obsequious and oleaginous type voice from the ether or is that the inside of my head? No matter, Onward.

I did notice that the clutch doesn't actually work, though the gearbox does, due to the fact that its a half cable, half hydraulic affair which appears to have seized. Whatever possesed the the designers of Kawasaki Heavy Industries to pioneer this dreadful half bastard mongrel lash up is beyond mere mortal thoughts nearly thirty years hence. Hopefully if I can get the cockpit fairing off and remove the clutch master cylinder assembly, wire, and lever assembly and replace it Bob is truly all of our uncles and will desrve his place in Zed heaven.
If not then I'll be compelled to swear like a Sicilian and endeavour to embed my spanners into the side of the cinderblock garage wall and then sigh resignedly and have to take the clutch basket plates etc to task which is not a job I relish.
Still it's just time and a few bob, all of which I haven't got at present as I roam The Net and the styrofam littered streets of somebody elses drunken midnight kebabbery looking for discarded local papers that haven't been snapped up by the homeless hegemony for a worthy job for a man of my illustrious talents, all of which can be counted on the fingers of one hand no doubt.

But consider the girth and experience in those fingers my friends,dutch dyke owners fearful of When the levee breaks' (apologies had tosqueeze a rock n roll mention in somewhere, ladies........

Oh by the way anybody read 'When giants walked the Earth' by Mick Wall, (Biog of Zeppelin)?
On the book front I can heartily reccommend Iain M Banks's latest Culture novel 'Matter', am suprised at the actual humanity of Baron Von Richtofen (having read his autobiography >1917 recently)ploughed through a 700 page anthology of sci fi writers which was rather average other than a story entitled 'Mother Aegypt' which was fantastic and written by Kage Baker, and just started The John Peel biog 'Margrave of the Marshes' which is shaping up rather well.Tried reading an Irvin Yalom book entitled 'Loves Executionor and Other Tales of Psychtherapy, apparentley it may help me become a better person, I fear that it was quite tedious and discarded it after a number of cases were digested. I am to remain obviously a hopeless wreck of a man with no social graces or esteem in the world from any of my contempories or peers. Sobeit!!!

Shalom (contempory but far from the truth of the matter I fear)
or if you prefer....
Peace love, fast motorcycles, good reading matter, proper brown beer or Bordeaux red if you prefer a more subtle poison, watch out for the sharks etc, hope 2009 is good for you.

Note to self must raid Master Polnuds extensive library next time I see the bloke.