today is a bit of am odd day.
paul venners – of the commentating, ‘botch boys – team botch- fame- is round for a few days doing the welding that needs to be done on the 412. he’s tapping and welding and grimnding away.

my boy louie came back from school yesterday and walked through the gate and looked at him criticaLLY and announced
oh look, a welding gnome’

seems that paul actually likes the label….

any cartoonists out there ? he did say over coffee that he’d like a welding gnome cartoon ???

because pauls car full of tools is in the drive next to the 412 i had to start giving the bus some TLC & tuning on the pavement outside the house, with all the attendant yardies & cronies looking on…

i sorted out some wiring giubbins and found why the stereo is crackling and also noticed that the float bowl on one carb seems to be intermittently sticking, re routed the breather, carb balance, timing etc etc….

changed the fanbelt, CLEANED IT !
(after the ‘brisk’ run back from the ace cafe on tuesday night there was a fine film of oil over everything from the breather system.

as i was doing this and old jamaican guy in shorts and wrapround sunglasses with a towel on his head and a bottle of white rum and a can of redbull wandered over and sat on the kerb behind me and started muttering to me.

so, i smiled back and got on with what i was doing….

until

amongst the general patois i heard him mutter
‘das a big breeder system on dat’

oh, so he knows engines ?

i pull out the timing gun and as i’m blipping the throttleand connecting cables with my arm in the engine bay a large scarred brown hand thrusts itself in the the engine bay and starts thrashing the thing and muttering…..

in my mind i can see his hand going through the fan belt and rounf the pully a few times, fingers flying in all directions and me cleaning blood for weeks.

eventually he stops and sits back down.

ya got a valve sticking and two plugs is brok man’

ok.

whatever you say…

and dis need bigger dampers, dis mogel should ride igher, yaknow

hmmmm… this is starting to get odd.

a few minutes later paul wanders out and has a listen… we both agree it’s not right… a quick twiddle etc etc. i tell him what the jamaican guy says and

of course, it’s right…. (or close enough)

inside later having a cup of tea while my girl emily packages up all the new shirts we get chatting about this bizarre occurrence with the mashed up elderly ex-vw mechanic. i decide to do something and grab one of the new akciddento shirts (in a fetching red colour) and head out to the street.

sure enough there is my new friend sat in the gutter/on the kerb behind the bus.

i squat down and we chat a bit.. i give hime the shirt and we talk about things, i tell him a bit about the racing. he reckons it’s best to lose. losing is less stress and people don’t hate you if you lose, so he says…
bearing in mind he is proper mashed up…
he then takes a capful of white rum and circles the bottle with it and mutters some stuff and throiws the rum on the ground. this process gets repeated but this time the rum goes all the way down the back of the newly washed bus.

‘you be alright now wid dat…’ says paul (as i have found out his name is)

so, my bus has been blessed.

watch out everyone !