Engine Punk

This ex-Army Armstrong MT500 belongs to my mate Pete Low and is an excellent example of a “back to basics” motorcycle. These bikes have established something of a cult following. They were never available in the shops but were the British Army's despatch bike of choice for many years. As they've been sold off as military surplus, a number of people have realised what great bikes they are. “I bought mine in late '05,” says Pete, “partly with the idea of doing MCC trials on it. I liked the ruggedness, no chrome or shiny paint etc. but discovered the less desirable points that most MT500 owners will not admit to. “It was difficult to start from cold, and had a tendency to cut out at low revs, especially, it seems, at traffic lights. Both these problems are increased by the awkwardly placed left hand kickstart, but can be improved upon by junking the standard Mk2 Amal concentric carb and fitting either a 32mm Mikuni or 34 mm Dellorto. This also helps a bit, but not muc...

More has emerged from the Amazon pod publishing spat that kicked off last week. Many small publishers in the US have indeed lost their buy now buttons for their titles on Amazon. They are still available from third party sellers but presumably at a greater discount i.e. less income for the author/publisher. Meanwhile, in the UK, Amazon has expressed its fury in an article in The Times about competition from Waterstones and Borders since these high street chains are under cutting Amazon's prices AND stepping up their internet marketing campaigns. Penguin and Bloomsbury are also undercutting Amazon's prices. Amazon may retaliate by regarding a publisher’s online price as the recommended retail price and applying its trading terms to that. So it's not just with the little people that Amazon is crossing swords. The Horsepower Whisperer is still listed on Amazon as in stock. Buy it now while you still can! In the US, it is out of stock. It should be shown as in stock thanks to ...

Don't worry it's nothing weird, just a Fiesta that's been got at by Ed Holloway After all the shock horror stories in the publishing world this week (see my Anarchadia book blog on the right if you're interested) let's have another Vintage Thing. This is another device from that affable automotive anarchist Ed Holloway. I was already familiar with his work having seen the Weeny Leaper in action - see VT 11 - when the Tryagain Trycycle hove into view while I was spectating on the Land's End Trial a few years ago. (I'm sorry - I can't find relevant programme in the Boogie Wundaland archives. Er, that's where I live. Maybe someone out there can advise me?) Of course, it had to be Ed. The Tryagain Trycycle cleared the section but provoked a round of tut-tutting and disapproving remarks from the marshals and spectators. It seems that this such sort of thing shouldn't be allowed and could bring the sport of trialling into disrepute although n...

Lightning Source went out to its customers today with an open letter saying "be calm" as a means to re-assure publishers who feel threatened by Amazon's insistence that pod books are printed by BookSurge. Here's the contents of the e-mail I got today:- Lightning Source announcement regarding Amazon/Booksurge Dear Customer, Lightning Source has been following the recent press coverage and discussions about Amazon.com and BookSurge. We are aware of the concern this is causing the publishing community. The issue centers around Amazon.com tying the availability of your books and terms of sale at Amazon.com to the production of books at the Amazon.com subsidiary BookSurge, specifically requiring you to use BookSurge in order to sell on Amazon. Like you, we are very concerned about any conduct that would serve to limit a publishers choice in supply chain partners and to negatively impact the cost of your products to consumers. We believe that choice and selection of best...

Over the weekend, there was a tremendous amount of traffic on the self-publishing and Yahoo groups to which I belong. At first, due to my playground sense of humour (I do have others by the way), I suspected this might be an elaborate April Fool's joke. But now it would appear to be true. Amazon contacted a number of US small presses and self-publishers to say that if they didn't use Amazon's in house print on demand wing called BookSurge then the "Buy" buttons on the Amazon page for their books will be removed. They could then only sell their books on Amazon through a third party. Word quickly spread among the small presses and self-publishers who had been approached with this “offer they couldn’t refuse.” Approaches seemed to have been made by phone call with nothing in writing. It was all very mysterious and I couldn’t help feel that somebody was (successfully) winding an awful lot of people up. For many, BookSurge is not the first choice of printer for print ...

I've just signed a petition to reduce the rate of fuel duty . A few years ago there was a plan to abolish the road fund licence and put it all on fuel. Politicians really liked this idea so they increased the fuel but FORGOT to abolish the road fund licence. This is my way of reminding them but they are so forgetful, it's more than likely they'll forget again. At least I will have tried, though. I believe we should do what we can to protect the environment but I am appalled by the government's cynicism in raising revenue on environmental grounds and then not investing in its protection. I retaxed my motorcycle yesterday. Last year it cost £62 - it's a BMW R100GS, the big trailie, an air-head not one of those new fangled oil heads. This year the reminder was for £64. Except it wasn't £64, it was £66. In some good-natured repartee with the lady in the post office, she pointed out a disclaimer stating that the price might change, well go up. No chance of a...

I think the computer gremlins might be working on my side now. We fell out of favour with each other and it may be tempting fate to even the voice the idea but I think the latest pdf is not only in the right format but also the right size for my chosen paper size. The problem with earlier submissions was that everything looked okay on my screen but wasn't producing the expected result on the Lightning Source system. To complicate matters I was submitting not only the revised textblock for The Horsepower Whisperer but also the textblock for The Wormton Lamb. Both used the same template and both were either too small or too big, never the right size. And there was nothing to indicate why. This was particularly galling because I had successfully uploaded the textblock for The Horsepower Whisperer using this method before Christmas. Something had changed during the interim. I posted a query about this to the Yahoo! Self Publishing blog and the response was that I was using the wrong so...