back up north, talking this talking that.
on a mission to drop the new engine over at martin tayloprs workshop in bradford so he can fit up the fuel injection and dyno it and map the ECU. i call over at steve walkers and have a look at his new audi estate. nice car. nice leather interior. drives lovely. completely mad brutal 3 litre twin turbo monster. but subtle looking with it. on the way over to chez retro he proves the point (in a completely responsible way) to two accountants going home on their shiny japanese motorbikes with matching his and his leathers.

when we arrive steves landlord pete has bad toothache – wisdom teech hassle- and has been self medicating foir the past day or two. I suggest some of the soluble paracodol i have jammed into the tooth. worked for me when i cracked a tooth in newzealand. so soon we are sat round the kitchen table with mugs of tea, chatting buses as pete, sat in a dressing gown, chops up lines of paracodol and proceeds to sit there rubbing the powder into his gums…

after the best chinese takeaway that 17 pounds can buy we settle into a evening of playing old punk records and muttering about what is scary about the ‘car wash’ disco phenomenon. i try and find positive or charitable things to say aboput it and i just ebnd up feeling like a bitter old cynic.
nothing new there then…

its wrong, its just plain wrong, and it’s a fire hazard.

we get into a discussion of classic first albums and the list gets reeled off. when i mention the stranglers and ‘black and white’ pete, steve’s landlord, rushes off and retunrs with a box FULL of stranglers 7 inch singles. being a bit of a stranglers fan myself and having grown up the younger brother of a stranglers fan, i pitch a few things at him, then i ask, casually
‘oh, did you get the free ‘white single’ with the album?’

‘of course’ says pete, with mock indignation and promptly produces TWO copies of the aforesaid rarity. whereupon he thrusts a copy into my hand and insists i must have a copy. despite my mumblings that i donj’t have a record player and i’ve sold ALL my cds (after ripping them to mp3 of course) i still leave with a precious copy.

heres pete with TWO copies of ‘the white single’.

then its eleven o clock and the tv goes on for bo selecta, i’ve not seen it before. everyone else laughs but i just sit there bewildered. i don’t understand. it just seems like a load of people shouting at other. after a bit of consideration i realise that it is just a load of people shouting at each other. in between there are adverts.
adverts scare me. luckily this evening i just feel like they’re aimed at someone else.

after bo selecta big brother comes on. i can’t believe that people actually fell for this as television. the tv goes off and we waffle some more. mostly about women and buses. we reach no coonclusion on the first count but fare much better on the second subject.

the night ends on agreement. as long as it works and goes scary fast who cares….