Engine Punk

It seems I was a little premature in writing off blogging as a novelty. Blogworld Expo in the states examined, among other things, how blogging can be made more profitable. One way of doing it is to have affiliate links so that any on-line purchases resulting in a sale from following a link from your site will earn you money. It’s blogging’s ability to share that’s being exploited and delegates were keen to emphasise the value of making lots of small connections that add up world wide. I am not sure this would be appropriate for my blogs. I think it would compromise my freedom to express myself freely if I had to get in a brief word from my sponsor. I have affiliate links with Amazon already on my website but only for my own books. This makes sense for the Anarchadia blog and I could expand it to include books I’ve enjoyed or artists that have inspired me. And the Engine Punk blog could offer links to sites selling examples of the tasteful music I enthuse about. But the whol...

As found it looked a little forlorn but compare with the "after" picture below. Photo Tony Suckling It seems that just by writing about something I really stir things up. If you follow my Anarchadia book blog you'll know that real life is starting to follow the fictional world of The Horsepower Whisperer and The Wormton Lamb and probably rejoiced to hear that - from now on - all my books will feature brilliantly sunny weather. Well, now I'm stirring things up with Vintage Things. I blog about them and more come out of the wood work. If ever I fit ICE to my Llama I'll need speakers that big. Photo Tony Suckling This Siva Llama belongs to a doctor who has owned the car from new. He’s commissioned Tony Suckling in Kent to get the car going again and, through the wonders of the interweb, Tony found me to ask a few questions about Siva Llamas. It’s a 1975 car so a few months younger than mine and it looks like it’s the same colour. Mine’s been resprayed but...

Zoe Margolis - the Girl with a One Track Mind – is probably the most famous blogger-cum-author. Except that she tried to it all anonymously. In publishing the author is the brand but by calling herself Girl with a One Track Mind she gave herself an instant identity. Belle du Jour did a similar thing. Perhaps they rode on then reputation of established by the earlier works of Anonymous. Girl with a One Track Mind was said to be revolutionary and her expression of female sexuality was subsequently published. By Virgin. Actually it wasn’t, it was Ebury. This doesn’t sound all that revolutionary to me but there was a feeding frenzy among literary agents earlier in the noughties and when Margolis was “outed” by the tabloids the publicity did wonders for sales at the expense of her privacy. Belle du Jour is still in cognito . Some say she doesn’t exist. Blogging allowed them to express themselves but they started when blogging was new. Nowadays it’s much harder to mak...

A Vincent-HRD A series engine looks even more purposeful in a Morgan (Photo : Jeff Smith) As a result of correspondence about VT8, the Vincent-HRD A series, I came across this device. It's the "plumber's nightmare" A series Vincent HRD engine plumbed into a Morgan three-wheeler. I'd seen a later Vincent engine in a Morgan for sale once and the combination - inevitably known as the Mogvin - looked just right and produced a very desirable piece of rolling sculpture. This device has something else again. It doesn't look so elegant but it has a knobbly, technical look that the later more streamlined Vincent engines don't offer. It was built by a chap called Harold Pass (I'd originally seen his name quoted as Howard) and the photograph above was taken by Jeff Smith at a bent sprint at Curborough on 29th July 1973. The engine depicted had already enjoyed an illustrious history before being fitted to the Morgan. St John Horsfall with one of his As...

The new cover designs for The Horsepower Whisperer and The Wormton Lamb are coming on. Although I would have preferred to have finished them both by now, I'm enjoying myself. I haven't indulged in painting with oils or gouache since I was at Falmouth School of Art. I'd forgotten how much I like the smell of turpentine and the feeling of the paint on the brush. I've forgotten a lot about technique but the most striking thing of all to come back to me is that profound sense of peace when I'm focussed on painting. It's taken a little while to return. I was hurrying too much to start with, treating the materials as if I was familiar with them and in control. I've been using sprit markers for year but they seem a bit unsubtle for illustrations, although fine for renderings of cars or motorbikes. Another thing that's come back to me is how awful green tastes. If I'm doing a wash, inevitably I lick my paintbrush if it's too wet or carries t...

I still can't understand why these guys aren't major league stars, The Hellacopters rock - they really rock - but for now they're calling it quite and going on to other things. I've never seen them live so now I never will but there are many great songs on my iPod that wouldn't exist if it were not for them. I discovered The Hellacopters by accident. Actually, it was terrorist action. I'd ordered The Flaming Sideburns first album from Amazon but amid all the confusion in London during the tube bombings was sent a compilation from the same record company with a serial number just one digit different. I rang them up and the guy said, "We'll send you the proper album gratis. We've just had some very strange days up here." So thanks to Al-Queada, I got Pushing Scandinavian Rock to the Man. That must mean me, then. The Flaming Sideburns had one song but The Hellacopters had two. At first I thought they were awful but it wasn't long before ...

It's probably nothing to do with this blog but Brian Verrall's A series Vinnie sold at Bonham's auction for £214,800. The estimate had been £125,000 to £150,000. I am ambivalent about this. I'm glad that such machinery is appreciated and this is a record for a British bike sold at auction. I'm sad that the original "snarling beast" is beyond the reach of most mortals. What a bike, though! This is the model that established the Vincent-HRD and Vincent reputations and a fine example such as this is undoubtedly of historical importance. It's a work of art and is priced as such. I'm just not sure how much use any machine will get if it's worth the price of a house. Around 50 are thought to still exist out of the 78 built, which is a pretty good survival rate but I think both these numbers are too low. They should have built more and how could anyone break one up? The Vincent Owner's Club has put together a register of the survivors and a ...