Engine Punk

It was as we were returning from Andover and making a pit stop for fuel that we spotted this splendid example of a Chevrolet Carryall. The following day was Remembrance Sunday and this Vintage Thing was prompting motorists into remembering the fallen. Just like John Sartain's Dodges, this is a remarkable survivor and is essentially a civilian vehicle that was pressed into service at short notice and without much adaptation. Its full title is a Chevrolet Series BJ Carry-All Suburban. As part of the AK series of light trucks it was rated by the military at half a ton and had the standard 85 bhp 6 cylinder Chevy engine. I am reasonably certain it's a 1942 model. How do I know? My big book of Chevrolet suggests the tailgates were different. On the '41s, it was split horizontally and the '42s had the option of a vertical split. The sheet steel pressings were essentially the same. Later versions of the Carry-All Suburban lacked the chrome on the grille. Whatever th...

Just in case you didn't know already, to see a larger image of any illustrations on either this blog or my Engine Punk blog that grab your interest or look like they might fascinate, all you have to do is click on it. And anything written in purple or blue - like Engine Punk above - is a link to something amazing. I just thought I'd mention it. Wouldn't want any of you to miss out.

As you can probably imagine, I am very excited by the prospect of seeing my new covers in real life. Lightning Source got back to me today to confirm my instructions. They just wanted to check that I really wanted to revise the files for The Horsepower Whisperer. Those for The Wormton Lamb we obviously a resubmission but as The Horsepower Whisperer was already in production they wanted to make sure that I wanted to revise it before they leapt into action. I'm glad they did this. I find there's never any harm in checking and I can only assume that they have found this out as well. Now that they have my confirmation, I can already see from my customer account area on their website that The Wormton Lamb as its new cover and a proof copy is already available for ordering. The Horsepower Whisperer, which has new files that both the text block and the front cover, is still in pre-media. The immediate timetable works out something like this. I should be able to order ...

I recently completed reading the biography of Arthur Rimbaud who apparently is famous for his poetry. At risk of sounding like a complete philistine, I knew of him as an explorer in Africa. And I'm not really keen on reading poetry even when it's written in my own language. Rambo - his name rings a filmic bell - has inspired generations of musicians, writers, anarchists, all manner of creative and experimental types and Sylvester Stallone. I can't really say why there was so much fuss about his scribblings but he certainly had an extraordinary life and this biography by Graham Robb really gripped me. I thought it would be a dry academic tome that I might dip into and out of but I soon couldn't believe what our little Rambo Rimboard was going to do next. And his life in Africa was so divorced from his life as a writer I think I can be forgiven for not knowing anything about him as a poet. Okay, so I thought Verlaine was Tom Verlaine out of American punk band Telev...

A few weeks ago, I had a comment on this very blog that mentioned voice-activated dictation software. It described Dragon NaturallySpeaking as a secret weapon when it came to formatting text documents in readiness for publishing. I've had a lot of problems with using Word and PDF generators but had got around it by using Open Office Writer. I was interested to hear about this Dragon product as another alternative to using Word. It was as I researched Dragon NaturallySpeaking that I realised that this might be an alternative to learning to touch type. I had already embarked upon a touch typing course (E-typing) but it soon became apparent that I would never be as quick as I fought or spoke. I am a reasonably fast two fingered typist but very often my ideas come spilling out of my brain and my fingers trip themselves up. In fact, I seem to be getting less accurate as I get older. I decided to try Dragon NaturallySpeaking and ordered the Preferred version, complete with a Phili...

I was near Andover at the weekend with my neighbour and tractor man Andrew. We dropped in on my scrap buddy, Rob Robinson-Collins who has a weakness for Allards. Here are Rob and Andrew in Rob and Tina's back garden. If ever Rob rings me up to tell me that he has discovered another Allard, or parts thereof, I don't dissuade him. I encourage him. I'm happy to say that he is rarely in any doubt about the desirability of any Allard or Allard parts so it is not difficult for him to follow my advice to, "Buy it!" We both realise that this is not really what having a scrap buddy is all about. What should happen, is that one of us says to the other, "Look, what you really want is just one car and one motorbike and that's it." Sometimes, one of us might actually say this but it is quickly ignored. Very often, this sentence is not uttered at all. Here, Rob is explaining the niceties of shortening an Allard chassis to Andrew's boots. You may have not...

Both The Horsepower Whisperer and The Wormton Lamb are now in revision at Lightning Source. I can enter my account area to monitor progress and once the revisions have been accepted I will order proofs. It's a case of checking every day now. Once that stage is complete, I should get proofs in a couple of working days. In the meantime, I've been working on the next part of the Soul Trader trilogy. The title for this is The Grey Ones. This is also the title of a short story by J B Priestley, which I really enjoyed. The story is completely different but if anyone challenges me about it I'll say I'm paying "an homage" to it. I probably mentioned this before, but I raved about this story on a car club forum a few years ago. Everyone was griping about the growing police state and the sense of big brother watching you and slowly grinding our spirits down. I recommended J B Priestley's story to those in need and many years later at a meeting in Edinbu...