Modern Vespa

When did the Beamer go?

Sold it privately a couple of months ago.

Well, I disappear for a month or two and it all goes mad around here...

1. Genie buys a house (congratulations)

2. Ashbrook copies some of my scooter blackness and goes beyond it too (nice - tempted by the mirrors - details please)

3. Lots of people in the UK seem to be IAM or whatever it is bonkers (I need that actually but not riding enough at the moment).

4. Doug has become a biker and probably changed/bought and sold 2 or 3 bikes (not really as surprise)

Anyway, just wanted to see if any of the South East UK Donks want to come along to the event below being organize by Dave and TLSBS and Niall at Retrospective. Its on Saturday 26th April in Wood Green area. I will post on the Events Page for full details.

Charles.

i'd be up for that

I'd love to go to the Retrospective event Charles, but unfortunately I'm at a LAM Norfolk weekend...

Oh and Mr Dog, I forgot to say thanks for the cream tea this afternoon. It was yum...

Damn I missed it

Me too

Me three, Dave is a jewel in the scooter crown and a very nice chap to boot.

Possibly me too

The mirrors are from a Piaggio Liberty sport in black. Spike/Nomad68 gave me this link:
http://www.ridewill.it/p/en/rms-122760830-left-rear-view-mirror-piaggio-liberty-sport-50-200/26858/

Please, call me Noel

My friends call me Noel

Ooh, me too, Stan mentioned that was on the cards sometime. I played telephone tag with Dave about doing the floorboard and paint on the GTR and haven't got down to see him yet. Two birds with one stone methinks...

Sorry mate Noel it is and thanks for the info

Great, seem to already have a few takers. We can co-ordinate on the best time and routes perhaps, nearer the time.

Could meet up somewhere easy to find and head over there or something (Ace for those in North/North West.

I am sure there are better organised people than me.

Charles.

PS: As an aside, there are some lovely vintage racing cycles there too. Niall normally has 20-30 in stock - depends on time of month. [url]www.retrospectivecycles.com[/url]. New stock just gone live this weekend.

...and the classic scoot line up is pretty fine as well.. http://www.retrospectivescooters.com/page/showroom/ 8)

£12k for an original 90SS anyone...

Good to see you back Charles - fancy the Ace Café meet? Looks to be a biggee... March 30th Ace Cafe, Meeting at COCKFOSTERS TUBESTATION

I rode the Triumph for a little bit today and I enjoyed it very much.

It has the sweetest gearbox of any bike I've ever ridden and an exhaust note to die for.

If I owned it I may well acquire some points.

Nice day out Doug so thank you.

Actually the BV is worth a mention now it's seat bolster is out.

Granted the screen chucks air into your face as opposed to above it and the fuel gauge needle drops like a stone quicker than it should but apart from that it's a brilliant all rounder.

With superb handling, exceptional brakes and tonnes of mid range grunt it all makes the Beverly a very capable mile eater. Munch munch munch.

Bill xxx

Congratulations on the house, genie! I especially like the space under the eaves, though I shall cry if you paint over that wall. A red feature wall is one of my (sadder) dreams

Today's LAM ride seems to have been a bit drier than yesterday's, with only one floody bit. Sunny weather meant 24 riders split over 3 groups, one of which I tail-ended. I chose wisely, as we got to the pub first...

It's in the diary.

I've just informed the other tenants in the building that i'm going to be leaving the bad news is that my flat will now be listed at 'market' rates, which means that nobody who is already here will be able to afford to move into it. the good news is that they will all continue to have access to the garden and will have responsibility for looking after it. that's a great relief to me - i was worried that some stranger was going to move in and let it go to rack and ruin (not many renters in this neighbourhood seem to have the time or interest to sort out a garden, let alone a pond).

So last week I got over taken by a BMW i130 electric car doing around 75 mph which was quite impressive and today I got blitzed by a lady riding a white Kymco Downtown 300 which was going like the clappers.

Why these two facts are important I'll never know buy both made me smile.

Bill x

There was an i3 at Shelsley Walsh at the weekend, and I was pleasantly surprised how good and spacious it looked.

900 posts. I wanted it to be here, where it's already tomorrow.

Been on a horrible temporary duty with some really good people setting up brand new computers throughout an entire hospital for the last 4 weeks. Not my usual cup of tea, but it had to be done. I get to come back to my regularly scheduled job this week and go back to thinking for a living. /yay me.

Weather is getting more tolerable. Makes me miss the gts all the more when I see every freakin' biker out on the roads Sunday last.

Cheers, good people!

well, i'm just about ready to submit my mortgage application ... for £65 per month more than I presently pay in rent, I can get my house paid for in 20 years and I was only slightly surprised to discover that buildings and contents insurance is quite a bit cheaper than my present contents-only cover.

i know this isn't interesting to most of you but it's all new to me

Well done genie, the house looks beautiful!

Putting a little more money into a mortgage each month makes a lot of difference in the long run!

I know there are many who might disagree, but I prefer to pay my own mortgage than someone else's.

Well done, Genie.

I've been paying somebody else's mortgage since I left home at 17 do not ask me to do the math on that one

Not unlike a lot of us out here. We weren't able to own until we we 40. Congratulations. Now all repairs are on you! Seriously, enjoy, what a nice, very nice, looking place.

Now for something completely different - the world's dumbest mobile phone! Currently being tested along with many others for my UK ISP's new SIP2SIM service.

Video at:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10153890615415537

SIP2SIM:
http://aa.net.uk/telecoms-sip2sim.html

are those buttons modelled after south park characters? if so, i want one of those phones immediately

I got back to my hotel a couple of hours ago from a long business meeting here in a rural area of south India. I had my dinner of tuna, cup-o-noodles and a diet coke on the room's patio (it's actually more of a cottage than a room) while watching the sun set over the Indian Ocean.

Once it was completely dark out, I went back into the room, closed the sliding glass doors... making sure to draw the curtains so I wouldn't wake up in the morning to find monkeys staring in at me from the patio (something that happened on a previous visit to this place).

No sooner had I settled in at the desk to start typing up my report of the day's meeting, when I suddenly heard a series of loud pops from not too far away. There was a brief pause, and then more pops - bangs, actually - and then a series of loud explosions that were close enough to change the air pressure slightly; each one feeling as though someone had elbowed me gently in the stomach.

Then the power went out, and I found myself sitting in the dark staring at the glowing screen of my iPad, which was the only thing in the room emitting light.

Although less than 10 seconds had passed since the first pops had caught my attention, it felt like I had been sitting with my mind stuck in neutral for the better part of an hour... vaguely aware that something was not right, but not mentally engaged enough to sort out what, if anything, to do about it.

Finally, when the lights went out, my mind clanked into gear and I started to run through a checklist I had heard in dozens of briefings but had never believed I would ever need to employ:

Run to check that door is locked, latched and dead bolted: check.
Turn off light switches so that my room wouldn't appear occupied should the power go back on: check
Check lock on patio doors: check
Push dresser against door: check
Sit on floor on the side of the bed away from patio doors so nobody outside the room can see there is anyone inside the room: check
Take out cell phone and card with my list of emergency numbers and start dialing security officer at the nearest Israeli diplomatic mission (Mumbai): ch...

As I was about to hit send on the cell phone, a new series of pops and explosions shattered the silence... but from my new vantage point sitting in the dark on the floor, I could clearly see through the sheer curtains that the sky over the beach was lit up with a multi-colored fireworks display.

I dropped the phone onto the floor, leaned my forehead against the bed and sucked in a ragged breath... suddenly aware that I hadn't been breathing.

And then the power came back on, accompanied by the various beeps and boops of my various electronic gadgets starting to charge again.

As I climbed shakily back into the desk chair and flicked on the desk lamp, I noticed the hotel activities flyer sitting next to the desk blotter.

And there at the end of the day's planned activities... after the yoga and meditation classes... after the spa and health club hours, treatments and sessions... after the list of restaurants and the hours that meals would be served... was an invitation to come to the beachside bar to enjoy a complimentary cocktail while watching a special fireworks display.

Holy crap, I really need to pay closer attention to the hotel activities flyer.

It turns out the short power outage was simply a case of unfortunate timing, but not that uncommon an occurrence in a resort that is situated in the midst of tropical jungle.

For the first time that I can remember... I treated myself to a couple of little airline bottles of overpriced hooch from the room's minibar. Let my company accounts manager try to argue with me over the expense. Have I got a story for him!

i'd have gone out to the beach and had the complimentary cocktail as well

Never a dull moment Trep.

Hi all from sunny Lisbon
First time visited
Definitely not the last
Love it
Hope all well
Kitty
X

pics or it didn't happen

I simply don't believe that happened.

Nope.

Bill x

Getting a security briefing before every business trip makes one a bit paranoid. It becomes second nature to assume the worst.

I left Mumbai a few days before the huge terror attack in 2008. I lwent home a week early because I was sick. The hotel where I had been staying was targeted, as was the chabad house where I had eaten dinner every night.

I'm a little tightly would when it comes to these things.

I've just been told that I didn't get the internal job I applied for five months ago. I've been trying to leave the merry world of front end web development for ages, as I'm pretty bored with it, and this looked like the perfect opportunity: a subeditor role, in a company where I've been working for a year and subbing/proofing everything that passes across my screen even though it's not part of my job.

I'm thinking about quitting entirely, as I just don't think I can bring any enthusiasm at all to my current role now.

ugh, Alice, I'm sorry I'm sure with your talents you can find something that you are enthusiastic about.

I had a horrible ride in to work this morning - one long traffic queue from my place to northwick park not only did i time it wrong and hit the school run bang in the middle, but every single one of the 49 traffic lights on this particular route was red. i'd been a bit worried about taking the A12/A406 to work when I move, but there is no way it can be worse than this - even when the A406 is packed solid, at least you can filter. this morning i couldn't even do that for most of the ride. bah!

some of our staff were in Mumbai when those attacks happened as well. luckily nobody was hurt - they were staying in a hotel nearby, although they had stayed at the Trident in the past. since that time we have to fill out risk assessment forms on every overseas trip we make for the university, even if it's a jolly to Paris to look at some exhibitions.