Stuart Smith

R.I.P. Stuart Smith - the greatest stockcar driver to ever grace the oval track.

Defeated.

Even the mountain bike could not get through the snow.

The trip to the pub had to be abandoned.

Snow!

View from my apartment, and yea, it's definatly snowing... Meant to be going for beers with a buddy who's leaving work tonight. Think he'll be drinking alown.

Manchester

Christmas doesn’t start for me until I’ve had a glass of Gluhwein from the German Christmas market.

Camera work not the best as the first pic shows. It’s a random shot from out of The Mitre window showing the pub across the road, Sinclair’s Oyster Bar. Behind it is the Arndale Centre with M&S on the right.

Second pic shows punters selecting their Gluhwein (warm German mulled wine laced with sugar) actually very nice, but one mug of that is enough for me. A switch back to Euro fizz Lager is soon required.

Frosty!

Jees, how cold was it outside my apartment this morning. Not sure what these berries are, but they are very brave to be still hanging around in this frost.

Caucus

I parked my bike next to this caucus of a bike. Still firmly chained to the railing, but not much left of it.

When I leave my bike overnight, I use two locks. One a thick cable, the other a massively heavy motorbike chain. One through each wheel and both through the frame. The cable lock has been attacked but held. As far as I know an attempt on the motorbike chain has never been made. I don’t know of a way of getting through it, without oxy acetylene cutting gear!

Cable showing the cuts where Mr. Scrote attempted to cut through it.

Electra?

Spotted this interesting old bike outside Kew Gardens. Going off memory, I think it was called an Electra, although it was not an electric bike. Don’t think I’ve seen one of these before.

the pavilion

This is the pavilion that you always see on the TV when they are talking about Kew Gardens.

  



Here is a peek inside.

Looks fine, but I was expecting more. I think in Victorian days, it would have been amazing, but now-a-days your local B&Q will have a small version of most of these plants. So slightly less impressive to modern eyes.

Kew Gardens

This brave little fella stood his ground while the amateur wildlife photographer sneaked up on him. He’d barely time to jump back in his ‘larder’ and then zig zag away with a nut.

Well, it could have been a nut. Dunno really.

Feed the birds

Well here we are. A real life Mary Poppins style lady out in the park by Euston Road, feeding the birds. I suspect with inflation, those bags will be well over two pence now!

Boris’s Bikes

Spotted a row of Boris Johnson’s Electric bikes. A long queue of them here on Endsleigh Gardens in London. Couldn’t resist a look at them and check out the prices. I’ve never ridden one of these and fancied a spin.

No chance. First you need to become a member, that lets you buy a key, you cannot just pick one up on the day and then there are various costs. I wont go into it all, but basically to hire a bike for nine hours (work and back) it would cost you £54. Late charges for returning outside their time slot, that’ll be another £150, and another £300 if you damage it. See here.

Across the whole of Britain (that I’ve seen) , the attempts to get people out of their cars and onto bikes, are laughably inadequate. We all know about the cycle lanes that simply ‘END’, where you would actually need a cycle lane, like at a roundabout, or the lanes that disappear when the road gets too thin to paint in a cycle lane. Also annoying are the cycle lanes that run for five metres, and of course the helpful ‘Cyclist Dismount’ where the engineers have failed to put in adequate infrastructure to accommodate a bike - or more usually, for no good reason at all.

Although I appreciate that they are making some attempt at making things bike friendly, why don’t they see that most of what they do is whole useless, they must know, they’re not stupid people. Just send them on a jolly to Denmark, Holland, Germany etc. to look what they do. All of these countries have very similar solutions and work well. Where needed, bikes get a lane stepped up from the road, similar to the area that pedestrians get. Bikes also get priority on roundabouts, so you can actually go round them without being killed.

Anyone for a weeks commuting to work on one of Boris’s Bikes. That’ll be £270, thank you very much - and don’t scratch it!

Colder

Definitely getting a little wintery! But I’m snug in this duvet - I mean coat.

Ashton-under-Lyne

What happened here! Looks like someone swiped this bit of street furniture with a stray car, it should be upright. There are a line of these plant holders down the centre of Wellington Road. Seen here.

Olympic logo

Well, I’ve thought long and hard.
I’ve given it a chance, and I wanted to like it, but this Olympic logo is a joke.
It’s total rubbish. A five year old with crayon could have done better.
It’s simply an embarrassment that we are showing off to the world.
The committee that chose this should hang their heads in shame

MK bike

 

For no good reason, here is a surprisingly scary pic of me in my apartment with my current bike.

A mountain bike, with fat tyres, as I'm sick of getting punctures.

Sunset

Sunset over Grange Farm, MK.

BriSCA F1 Stockcar World Final

Weekend away at Coventry for the Stock Car World final. Excellent racing, and my guy won, Andy Smith, so I was happy. Some pictures here are of current BriSCA F1 stock cars and some are of the Heritage (old) stock cars.

Modern Stock Cars, they are mostly powered by large American Chevy V8 engines these days. Awesome machines.

These are the Heritage Stock Cars, and they were powered by whatever was the biggest engine in the scrap yard that week!

Notice this one has six wheels! It was actually banned from stock car racing when it first appeared on track over three decades ago, but still runs out in the Heritage event. Actually it won it’s race.

Incase you think you might have seen one or two of these old cars recently, well you have. Some of them featured on the recent Audi advert.

Back to today’s cars. Here’s the rolling lap before they set off next time round. All further photos after this were a blurred mess and ended up on the cutting room floor!

Stonehenge - not really.

MK does Stonehenge, not quite as impressive as the real thing is it.

Grand Union Canal

The Grand Union Canal runs through Milton Keynes. I cycled over to it and along the tow path for a mile or two. In fact, the first time I ever came here was on a narrow boat on this very canal, many years ago now.

Strange Fruit indeed

What the heck are these yellow thingys, dropping out of the trees?

The picture doesn’t show it, but there were plenty wasps sampling the goods. I didn’t linger...

Hiroshima - in Milton Keynes

Not too much to blog in Milton Keynes really, but I was out on the bike today and found a little Japanese garden dedicated to Hiroshima. All the items here are made to look like items at Hiroshima after the nuclear bomb.

Not what you’d expect to find on gentle ride out.

cloud and moon

I don’t do cloud pictures, but this one caught my eye.

bloke

 

Some bloke meddling with his push bike by one of the MK lakes.

Inflatables

Art in Milton Keynes.
Some say it has a double meaning. I can’t see it.

Stormy MK

Wow, did it rain!

These two lads in this video were so wet, it wasn’t worth them hurrying.

Shots from my apartment window.

Freezer

Yes, it’s just a picture of my freezer.

I left the door open slightly, all night and all the next day. So the walls and food get covered in fury ice, but despite the ice, the food is defrosted, a bit. I’ll close the door again. It’ll be fine.

The Plough

The Plough in Stony Stratford. How I wanted to join in, not on this trip though.

Stony Stratford

Cycled down the road to Stony Stratford. This is the view down the High Street
Felt like a million miles from the concrete carpet of Milton Keynes.
Stony Stratford is more like a village in Saddleworth. Very nice with it’s quaint pubs, shops and restaurants.
I’m off the beer at the moment, so couldn’t sample the ales in the local hostelries. Next time probably.

Reminds me of a long day/night in 1977. I think I had more hair back then. Bit thinner possibly.

where?

Where am I now.

Possible clue below.

:-)

horsing around

The Police, horsing around in front of MK Central station.

Vandals!

Look what they’ve done to this poor blokes bike.

Ripped off the handle bars, moved the peddles, stolen the bike seat, and attached comedy pram wheels to the back. Outrageous!

Concrete Cows

Ah, here they are. Hiding in the MK shopping centre - the famous Milton Keynes Concrete Cows. I’d not seen these before even though I’ve been through the shopping centre a time or two. Observant as ever!

The placard says that the cows were once cynically said to symbolised that MK is all concrete and that it’s not true.

Rubbish, it is true. MK is the most concrete happy place I’ve ever seen! OK, second only to Skelmersdale. There are plenty of green bits, but they are practically all of a municipal park style. Virtually nothing natural or wild. It’s not awful, just boring and predictable. Still, I quite like these concrete cows, they’re funny, and I have to say, these are not predictable.

I don’t think anyone from MK has seen this blog, if they had, I’d have been told off by now.

Tour de France.

Well, as some that click to this blog will have noticed, I follow stock car racing, also football, but I have to say, today’s opening race in the Tour de France was as good as many a stock car race I have seen. There were loads of spectacular cashes (I shouldn’t enjoy these, but I do), bikes, riders and street furniture bashed about all over the road. Entertainment indeed.

Oh, the stage winner was Alessandro Petacchi. Yes it was.

Screen shot from the tiny portable in my MK apartment.