Engine Punk

Here is my scrap buddy Rob. And what's that he's holding children? That's right. It's a new piece for his Allard chassis. He does this a lot doesn't he? Well, he's actually doing this more than ever. My scrap buddy Rob has become focussed on a single project. This is unprecedented - for either of us. You will probably have read about my scrap buddy and fellow member of Team Robert trialling equipe . If ever either of us are tempted by another price of scrap we are supposed to ring the other up and the other is supposed to say - in the spirit of mutal aid to fellow sufferers - "Look Robert, what you want is one car and one motorbike and that's it." Usually, however, we just egg each other on and whoever initiated the call goes and buys three - the one that originally tempted him, another one that the other Robert knew about and which could have been scrapped if it hadn't been bought for a song and, of course, another one for spares. We then spre...

This year's Land's End was the wettest for along time and not many cars got as far up Blue Hills 2 as Howard Clinton of Ponsanooth managed in this V8 Marlin. Even then he didn't make it, despite lighting up his tyres. I reckon I saw 12-15 cars get up during the whole afternoon. I left at about 1800 when cars were queuing up the opposite side of the valley. Bad weather had delayed proceedings and although I was togged up nicely against the wet I was getting cold, having been there from about 1200. It rained very hard at one point so I laid off taking pictures for a while for fear of waterlogging my equipment (Oh Matron!) but as the sun came out so did my camera. Regular readers of this blog may remember the exploits of the Team Robert trials team in previous Land's End Trials. Rob Robinson-Collins (who is commonly known as Binky to distinguish himself from me, Ginger) passengered Dave Turner in his Mazda MX-5 this year. This was their first time out and Dave said they ac...

I once met John Graham Mellor, y'know. It was in a club in Brighton (name now forgotten) along with something like 300 other people watching Joe Strummer and guests. He played a two part set, the first consisting of his latest material and the second half of Clash standards. Thatw as what people had come to see. The second half rocked. I particularly remember Brand New Cadillac , which has always been a favourite of mine. I can't say that it influenced my life greatly but meeting Joe Strummer often had that effect on people. It's the impact he made on two young men that's the subject of Meeting Joe Strummer , which played recently at The Drum Theatre in Plymouth. I thought it was a great show with just the two narrators and no set. I could relate to everything they said and so did my gang of friends in the audience, The Usual Suspects of punk rock inclinations plus some more high brow types. Some of us were practically euphoric at the end and when one of the characters...