i spent the day trying to get the studio back into some sort of shape and throwing away all sorts of old garbage that’s been in boxes since we moved back into the country… getting somewhere i guess.

ollie dwyer came over late in the evening and we chatted about his new project. his first engine rebuild. he picked up a dead 2litre type 4 motor last week and plans to take his time stripping and rebuilding it to go into his early bay camper. we got chatting about this and that and engine this and engine that and then round to drag racing and the vwdrc.

i started this whole racing thing as a project. to see what i would learn and where it would take me…
…well, it’s taken me unexpected places and i’ve learned the strangest stuff. the effect that a prepped and non prepped track has on road tyres vs race tyres. why the bus runs faster in the mornign than the afternoon (humidity and air density dontchaknow) how a track will run different if it’s overcast rather than sunny… sandbagging – dumping races … all sorts.

i’ve been thinking about all sorts of stuff recently. the whole akciddento thing and where it goes being one of them. i’m going to follow the team akciddento tip for a while. see where it leads, i like the idea of being able to use it as an umbrella for all kinds of activity.

akciddento (publishing) Ltd. has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it ?

talking with ollie about his bus and what he wanted to do i asked if he’d thought about racing it. hmmm.. maybe was the reply. ‘i’d like to see what would happen’. with luck i can convince him to race and sort out a sponsorship deal so that he races in akciddento colours.

personally i’d like to put together a proper akciddento bus racing team for next year.

realising that made me also realise that i guess I AM racing next year. despite my protests to **ed** and jimby it seems inevitable that i will race the bus for another season at least. next year i think i’ll try to get to the beach some more and do some more of the interesting side projects i’ve had in mind.

anyhow. i was lying in bed reading ‘how to be an artist’ by bill drummond (he of k foundation and KLF fame, the ones with all the great music and reputation for burning ?1,000,000 in cash). it’s nothing to do with how to be an artist. more of a long rambling story about the things that he likes, similar in style to the other books i’ve ready by him (33 and 45 respectively, written when he was, you guessed it, 33 and 45 years old) i like the chatty unassuming conversational style he has in his writing.
anyhow the book so far follows his project to sell a picture that he has by the artist richard long called ‘a smell of sulphur in t he wind’. it’s a moody black and white photograph of a stone circle in iceland. he paid $20,000 for it and wants to sell it for exactly $20,000 and then take the cash in one dollar bills and bury it in the middle of the stone circle in iceland. to this end he prints up 500 estate agent style signs saying ‘a smell of sulphur in the wind, richard long, $20,000’ and travels the country putting them up in places and taking photos of them.
the project was called‘ a smell of money underground’

i was enjoying all the banter in the book when i recognised something. it’s akciddento spotting. the photos even look similar.
very odd.

maybe this whole akciddento thing is a big work of art. (ho ho ho) and everyone across the counrty with a sticker in their hand or t-shirt in their wardrobe is making it.

hmmm…
art, who knows.

instead here’s a picture of martin at taylor machine with my new engine

i never remember him pulling faces like this but he always seems to look like this in photos…

odd that.