Engine Punk

I spent some time this week following up leads about book reviews. With The Wormton Lamb coming out at Easter, I want to create more of a media splash than I managed with The Horsepower Whisperer. The ultimate is to arouse (good word) some interest from the national media but this seems to be a closed shop. If you are not a buddy of the editor I don't think you get a foot in the door. I could send them a copy but from remarks Bill Bryson made in his introduction to The Ascent of Rum Doodle by W E Bowman, newspaper offices are awash with books sent in for possible review that either get pulped, binned, sold on eBay and Amazon or used as Christmas presents by skinflints. Not that Bill Bryson would ever do this, of course. The point of his introduction was how pleased he was to have discovered The Ascent of Rum Doodle , which enjoyed a kind of cult following among rock climbers against all the odds. As you can imagine, that kind of story interests and inspires me great...

Although I am a confirmed car and bike nut, I am also an enthusiastic user of public transport. It's so agreeable to look out of the window as you fly over rivers and roll through the rolling countryside. You can talk to your fellow passengers (they are a lively and fascinating lot) or you can have a nap if the day job has been strenuous. Since, embracing rail travel between Liskeard and Plymouth, I have become something of a leisure driver and enjoy being the behind much more. I am there because I want to be, not because I have to be. Rail ticket prices rose by about 6% at the start of this year but even with petrol at about 85p a litre I still think rail travel is preferable. Punctuality has improved in the seven years I've been using the train and there's less crowding. Fewer trains than seven years ago but still less crowding, which must indicate a migration to the roads. Last week this insidious little sign appeared on the fence at Liskeard station announcing ...

Remember when the future was good ? A Vintage Thing? Or not a Vintage Thing? That is the question. The best Vintage Things are obvious. They are high performance cars and motorbikes that are either rare or look great, an engineer or designer's dream come true. It's a very simple definition but occasionally I like something just because it's odd. And I'm often surprised by what I stumble across and get enthusiastic about. And some of the Vintage Things have been dangerously close to the kinds of vehicles I have come to despise. See what doesn't make a Vintage Thing. what doesn't make a Vintage Thing. During my teens, I went through a passing phase of drawing multi-purpose vehicles. I drew them everywhere and got into trouble at school for doing so. I didn't break windows or smoke, I just filled my rough book with drawings. At the time, I felt particularly inspired by buses and coach designs from the 1950s and early 60s. I was exploring a different...

I checked my website stats over the Christmas hols and found this. Now, I know that I had not been publicising my enterprise as assiduously as I might have done while revising my book covers but this looked a bit disappointing to me. Back in the summer, my Anarchadia site was getting nearly 700 uploads and 200 unique visitors a month. During August this fell away to almost nothing. Then it occurred to me that since smartening up my Anarchadia site in Serif WebPlus X2, I'd omitted any stat counter code. I didn't know how. Fortunately, Serif WebPlus offers on line help and pretty soon I had identified where to insert the code from Statcounter. A couple of page loads to test that I'd spliced things in properly and everything was set up again. Suitably encouraged, I found where to insert the code on my blogs, too. Boy, am I glad I did! When I checked Statcounter again about a week later, I found that my Anarchadia websit e is getting 40-50 visitors a week with about...

Now I know I should be blasé about this and not get excited but I can't. I don't see the point of even trying. I was in The Herald again last week. Yes, The voice of Plymouth was talking about me again. It's to do with my unconventional approach to raising funds for my publishing adventures but it's still publicity and who knows what connections it'll make with the general public? I'm using what's called peer-to-peer lending with Zopa and it could be the answer to the banking system's problems. There are no brokers or bankers or middlemen - just the good old internet, matching lenders and borrowers with each other. Here's the link - Author Bob's sci-fi dream

The Buzzcocks began their latest Another Bites tour on the 13th January 2009. The idea is very simple - they play their first two albums - Another Music In A Different Kitchen and Love Bites - in their entirety plus some of their other hits. They even do the intro and outro using bits of Boredom . This is the music that established their reputation and introduced a load of people to the more cerebral side of the punk rock revolution. These are thoughtful songs that pull you up short and it's very difficult not to move about to them. And the crowd on their first date at the Lemon Grove, Exeter University were highly appreciative and really had a good time. I was there with the usual reprobates - Gary, Rich and Nick. Actually, that's not a bad name for a band. Support was by The Lurkers, a band who I'd somehow contrived not to notice over all this time. I suppose that's what lurking is all about. I don't (whisper it) like every song by The Buzzcocks. Their ...

In response to Kevin Barnes' request following my previous post for a photo of his car - I can happily oblige. In fact it's such a good photo - even though I say so myself - I'm surprised I didn't use it earlier. But let's not stop with just this photo. Anyone else got a snap of this crew's derring-do?