Engine Punk

For many weeks now I have been approached by people asking me about progress on The Wormington Lamb. I thought there was something wrong with their ears. Some people have a kind of aural dyslexia. My grandparents had a cleaning lady who suffered terribly from this. Her domestic heating was powered by coloured gas. She was particularly proud of the pompous grass that grew in her garden. But with so many people asking me about The Wormington Lamb I was convinced that this hearing deficiency was becoming a twenty-first century epidemic. They never made this mistake when they saw the title written down. My fears for their health have now ceased, however. My own ears have now been opened because I heard a recording of me talking - quite clearly - all about The Wormington Lamb. Hearing myself speak on a recording is always a something of a shock. I sound much posher than I really am. Imagine my surprise when I heard me, quite distinctly, talking about The Wormington Lamb. Somehow, I manage t...

Everyone should have a scrap buddy. Rob Robinson-Collins is mine. You'll have heard about him before on this blog and I do what I can to be his scrap buddy. This is how it works. If either of us becomes tempted by a desirable piece of scrap, they ring the other up and enthuse all about it. The scrap buddy's job is to offer wise counsel to the scrap addict and generally talk them out of temptation and get them back on the tidy uncluttered road to impossible self-righteousnes. "Right," says the scrap buddy to the scrap addict. "All you want is one car and one bike and that's it." Of course, it never works like that. We always start out with the best intention but before long the scrap addicts enthusiasm gets the better of both of us and the scrap buddy will interrupt the ravings of the scrap addict with a small but significant question. "How much did you say they want for it?" Or "And has it got any shiny bits with it?" ...

A sign has appeared in the window of Liskeard library. "Beat the Credit Crunch - borrow books from the library!" Obviously it doesn't apply to The Horsepower Whisperer, because it isn't available from libraries - yet - but this just goes to show what difficult trading conditions there are at the moment. But it won't last for ever. Apparently there are 7 steps in impinging on your potential customers awareness before a sale is made. So while the credit crunch is on I must impinge like a looney.

The internet is still buzzing with anti-Amazon sentiments following alleged strong arm tactics to coerce print-on-demand publishers to use Amazon's in house pod printer BookSurge. The penalty for not using them would be the loss of the "Buy" button on the Amazon site. When all this blew up, The Horsepower Whisperer was not available from Amazon in the US. Its status in the UK remained unchanged - it was available and qualified for free delivery if the order was over £15. As of today, The Horsepower Whisperer is shown as available through both branches of Amazon on either side of the pond. I know this because I checked. What prompted me to check was an e-mail from Amazon as a valued customer, recommending Dan Poynter's self-publishing manual. So on Amazon my book is represented better than it was. But many small presses and self-publishers do not want to kiss and make up with Amazon. On balance I reckon Amazon is a good thing. It encourages customers to search out simi...

Binky and Ginger contemplate Bishop's Wood before nailing it and going BOBO - Ball's Out, Brain Off I have a great deal of affection for this machine as this is what Team Robert campaigned in the 2005 and 2006 Land's End Trials. It belonged until recently to my mate Rob Robinson-Collins. That's him driving and that's me poised to do some rapid gymnastics to stop us crashing. The photo above was taken by Charlie Wooding (the official MCC photographer) on the 2005 event in Bishop's Wood near Wadebridge moments just before our finest five minutes. This remains one of my highs in a sporadic competition career. Career? I didn't get any money from it - I paid to do it. We just careered everywhere and it felt great, me, Rob and the Cox Triumph all doing our own thing and somehow going in roughly the same direction. On this section, we had to cross a steep forestry track at an angle and then blast up a sunken lane between the trees. We went BOBO - "...

Regular followers of this blog might remember that a friend of mine ordered The Horsepower Whisperer from Waterstones in Andover, Hampshire. Well, to cut a long story short after five and half weeks it still hadn't turned up so Professor Yarlett (that's what I decided to call him to preserve his anonymity) cancelled the order and got a refund. The assistant said that as the order was in the system The Horsepower Whisperer should turn up soon and that she would hold it for him. That was on 16th March. Prof Y underwent some surgery after that and after having to sit at home with his legs at right angles to his body for 15 days (!) he was able to struggle into town and enquire after The Horsepower Whisperer. You have to hand it to him - he's keen. That was on the 15th April and it still wasn't there. The assistant checked her computer and said she didn't know when it would be in. "These sort of books sometimes don't turn up," she said. I have now supplied...

Good Charlotte rocked the Carling Academy in Bristol on Wednesday night. I first became aware of GC when I joined a gym and “Girls like cars and money” was one of the few decent songs playing on MTV at that time. A subsequent recommendation from my mate Gary – he doesn’t do this often – and I got a couple of albums. I’m not the only person to misunderstand Good Charlotte’s image but it’s the music I like and that’s what matters. They look like they might break into rap at any moment but I'm happy to say that they don’t. They’d lose me if they did. On the inlay card to their first album they made a great deal of their Christian beliefs and this surprised me. I don’t associate religion with punk rock. When the prospect of seeing them in Bristol came up I took it although I wasn’t sure what to expect. Support band was Rooney, a Californian five piece some of us thought we’d heard of. I think they were on the sound track of Herbie Re-loaded, which (funnily enough) is one of the f...