emchi.co.uk

Moi petit voiture is in the garage… I have horrible visions of how much it’s going to cost me.  The unspeakable things its having done to it… its innards are being pulled out and replaced.  Think of it as a heart and lung transplant.  To top it all off I’m a prat and left my locking wheel nut key in my jacket so had to go back with it.

So the list of work its having done:

1 x Cambelt

1 x Off Side Drive Shaft

1 x Near Side Ball Joint

1 x Full Service

1 x Air Con Refil

The cost… well I haven’t been as spanked as I could have been.

Right, back to work for me.

So I live in a village, we’ve established that, there’s no M&S at the bottom of the road, there’s no 10 minute drives to Starbucks, the post never arrives and the rubbish / recycling situation is a little bit, shall we say, stupid.  There was a report in the news at the end of last year that the dustbin men wouldn’t collect a recycling bin because one tin hadn’t been washed out properly… These councils want you to recycle but they don’t do a thing to help you.

Anyway, we’ve gone from two bins in the flat and a “just chuck any of the above in one bin and we’ll sort it out” to having to sort out glass, tin and paper for a fortnightly collect, plastic and cardboard you have to take to a skip in the village once a month and everything else goes in the wheelie bin, but if you don’t close the lid they won’t collect it.  Whilst I was shoulder deep in the recycling bin pulling out cardboard and plastic at the weekend, I pondered, is it really worth it? Probably, I feel bad throwing out stuff I know can be recycled, because most items are a finite resource so I should do my bit.

Just so you all know… I am not carbon neutral, I couldn’t give two hoots, it’s all propaganda.  Cows produce more Co2 than the rest of us, what are we going to do, kill all the cows to get our carbon footprint down?  My car is of a higher Co2 class, but hey it’s about 10 times less than cars made two years before mine.  It’s all another way for the governments to indoctrinate us and get us to spend more money, which hey, if you hadn’t noticed, people are running out of.

On other subjects, given the current credit crisis, can I say, we had a lucky escape, and I’m so pleased (or should I say smug and self riteous) that we didn’t end up buying the flat in London.  Best thing that ever happened to us, even if at the time it didn’t seem like it.

Well we have a move date of a week on Monday, fingers crossed everything goes ahead without a hitch.  I mean seriously fingers crossed!! So I’ve got another week of staying with my friend, which has and is great.  The drive to work has been a lot less stressful than catching the train every morning. 

My sleeping patterns are a bit off, and the drive from Witney is about 50 minutes long.  However for some reason my body clock has been waking me at 3am, 5am and then around 6am… it’s a bit annoying, but at least I can get straight back to sleep again. 

So getting up early here is bizarre, I mean I know I’m leaving earlier than I did when I was working in London, but it’s so quiet, and there’s nobody on the roads in Witney, it’s like it’s about 3 in the morning in London.  It’s heavenly, so quiet (even if I am near an RAF base). 

So my commute to work has changed massively, instead of hoping there will be a train when I get to the station, then wondering if I can get onto the train, knowing I won’t get a seat until London Bridge, fighting your way off the train at Charing Cross or Cannon Street, then struggling through crowds of annoying people who are rude and in a rush all the time to your next mode of transport.  To, getting in the car and being able to see stars in the sky, driving down country lanes that have hardly anyone on them, not getting annoyed when someone impatient overtakes you, listening to my choice of music, having space to think, waking up mentally without worrying about having someone fall on you.  Tower Hill is now a little road that I drive down past a new housing estate with no cars and Faringdon is a little village I drive past that has a tower on top of a hill near it.  It’s all very refreshing. 

So anyway, I’m thoroughly enjoying the team I’m working with, they’re a great bunch of people.  I don’t feel like someone is about to stick a knife in my back at any moment.  It feels genuine here and I feel like I fit in.  I’m going to enjoy working here.

There seems to be a bit of a furore over the appeal lodged by McLaren regarding the potential disqualification of BMW and Williams cars following the final race of the season.  Everyone is coming out and being rather nasty towards McLaren.  Including Bernie “The Poison Dwarf” Ecclestone, someone in my mind, who should remain impartial and keep their opinions to themselves.  Everyone seems to say that what they are doing is damaging to the sport.  Bear in mind that these were not the same people that were saying that seeking to have McLaren thrown out of the championship was damaging to the sport.

All McLaren are doing, following research of similar findings over the last twenty years, is to rightfully insist that these cars be disqualified as to not do so would be a massive exception to the rules previously applied over the last twenty years.  I’m sorry but to me it looks like Ferrari are poor losers, they went after the constructors championship in an underhand manner, and they won the drivers championship by default because four cars were deemed to be in contravention of the sporting regulations.  In my mind, McLaren are the winners of both the Constructors and the Drivers championship, having done so much to achieve what they rightly deserve.  Ferrari? nothing but petty bullies who push until they get what they want by any means necessary.   So whatever the result today, I think Lewis is the winner.

Manic weekend! I think six hours in a hot car, not enough water, and heavy food contributed to the migrane and projectile vomiting at 4 o’clock on Saturday morning… still a good weekend was had by all. Cousin enjoyed trip, I un-wound somewhat, and dad enjoyed Eater Lunch at a country pub…. job well done.

My dad lent me The Queen, (no not that one, I’m sure that people might talk if they did), the film that’s just won all the Oscars. I have to say that I can see why Helen Mirren won the Oscar it was a stunning performance, and I sympathised with her. I can’t quite remember what happened to my feelings that week as I remember spending three days wanting to throw up quite a bit (I know you probably think there’s a pattern forming here, but honestly there’s not). From what I can remember it was a lovely shade of blue thanks to a job lot of blue curacao (the detrius, not my thoughts, although the blue curacao could have contributed quite significantly to the lack of memory, ok so it DID contribute quite a bit but that’s a story for another time).

Anyway, the film was rather good, and it only served to make me hate the Blairs even more. I would strongly suggest that their time coming to an end soon can’t be soon enough in my books, however, Brown must not stay. Again, I digress. I wanted to say that I watched Mansfield Park the other week, what an utter pile of crap. Who wrote the script? Was there a script? did it say “poorly cast actresses should look whistfully at each other a lot as they can’t act for toffee and there’s no point writing a decent script”? I mean seriously, who on earth though ITV could make a period drama? They should leave it to BBC and Merchant Ivory.

Which leads me nicely onto my final tie in (getting reasonably good at this aren’t I?), we stopped off at Wilton House this afternoon, which was used in a couple of scenes in the recent Pride and Prejudice film. Quite interesting, not much open to the public, but it is nice to see a stately home still owned and used by the family with some rooms open to the public. The grounds were probably better than the house, as it did seem a little muddled. Anyway, that’s enough for tonight, I’ve got stuff to sort out for work in the morning.

I may get around to blogging about the horsey set that were permanently camped out in the hotel / pub that we were staying in… If I hear one more person say “mummy” or “daddy” who’s old enough to know better I might go slightly postal…

There are two petitions that you absolutely must sign…

The first is to stop the Government’s new attempts at Orwellian surveillance by forcing us to pay yet another tax and monitor our driving by having a “black box” fitted to our cars that will charge us for the pleasure of using the roads.

Travel Tax

The second is to save the Red Arrows…

So I’ll be posting when I get back, if I get back, moutain roads and fast cars is giving me flash backs.

Never mind eh?

Well the starting line wasn’t as interesting as last year as they didn’t have the cars lined up in the same way as before, making it difficult to get to the cars (they had barriers lined up and the cars were like the ark, i.e. two by two.

So we had a quick scan, got back on the train, got home and zoomed down the M20 to Folkestone, to the bridge right over the entrance to the Euro tunnel entrance. We lost a bet, we thought Team Polizei was going to make it first, they came in second. For some reason the police had obviously held the cars up in groups of convoys in order to stop them from speeding so we got to see them coming in as groups. Lots of excellent cars making lovely sounds, the best I thought was the sound of the McLaren Mercedes which I can’t help but wibble at the sound of every time I hear one, they sound so lovely.

Anyway got to see some of the driving start at the start line, including Bam Margera, Ryan Dunn, Tony Hawk, Alex Roy, Tourquenstien, the guys who drove the ice cream van last year, Goldie Looking Chain (in a mini van made up to look like the A-Team Van), Jodie Kid and a few others that looked uber rich (well given the cars they were driving and the entrance fee, it’s not surprising really).

To view the photos taken visit www . itsnotarace . com - remember, it’s not a race… it’s a rally.

PS at the time of going to type (i.e. me publishing this), at least one car appeared to be impounded by the German authorities, one car was written off (dodge viper).

Well the Gumball is back again this year, and again leaving from London so guess what I’ll be doing tomorrow (the first one who says hanging around on street corners looking for work will get slapped).

Just checking out the entries and there are going to be some seriously hot cars there, sadly the rumours of a Bugati Veyron being there were slightly exagerated (they haven’t been delivered yet), and Goldie Looking Chain are going to be starting the race and not taking part in an A-Team van, but the usual people are going to be there so it should be quite interesting.

Anyway, check back for links to pictures, and I may take a stab at filming some of the proceedings (Steven Spielburg I am not but you never get anywhere without practice).

… off to watch the first round of the British Touring Cars at Brands Hatch… I think I might get a bit wet and cold. It’s all in the pursuit of sport :o)

UPDATE
Bugger me it was bloody cold out there, strong cold winds at Brands made it a rather chilly experience. Still saw a couple of offs, got to see both of Nigel Mansell’s sons racing in formula BMW. We missed Matt Neal go off at Druids, he lost braking and did a 180 in order to save the body work on the car. Still he ended up with kitty litter all over the car.

Should be a good race tomorrow, if it’s not too cold to go (did I mention it was bloody cold there?)