It is Tuesday 26th April. roughly 7am at the time of knocking this blog up.
I've got to say, right now, THANK YOU to the people that have donated, entered raffles, provided parts and/or services for the car, given technical advice when needed, told me to grow up when I started to get a bit carried away (the white leather re-trim would have been lush though). For everybody that I have got into touch with since we sarted this rally and who has listened to my insane suggestions or simply put up with me telling them how long is left, I thank you.
To the postman who has single handedly brought most of the parts to my dooor for this project (and carried most of them back to the depot again) and my neighbours who have put up with having no rear access to their garden for the last 8 months or so due to various bits of cars in the way, I thank you.
I have met a lot of people in this period of my life (including "chuckles" at the sorting office) and I think it has been interesting. I have tried to bring about an understanding of why nothing goes to plan, and that if you try you can get a banger to a bloody high standard if you throw enough time at it.
Speech over with, lets get on to my week of suffering. And suffer I have. Since Friday night I have been very very unwell. The wife did a weigh in for me and I've lost nearly 8lb's over just 4 days. If I had that much weight to spare, then what a wonderful diet it would be. Unfortunately I don't and I am feeling a bit concerned. Vomit I can handle and put up with; wind the window down and just blow chunks trying not to hit whoever is following you, but the poo thing is really worrying. Even Immodium can't stop the rip tide that is flowing through my system. I am desperately hoping that my innards fix themselves before we leave or there is going to be issues with even attending the 'run. This is a bit close to the event for my liking.
That to one side, only 2 days to go.
The car is as ready as it needs to be. Sounds great, runs fine, all the legal bits covered, breakdown sorted, cb mounted, sound system grade B (I would say grade A, but I've got 2 spare subs in the shed that will be housed in there on our return to take it to A-), we have duplicates of licenses and passports so should those nice men in silly uniforms wsh to "retain" our documents, we can still get back into the country with the aid of an ambassador (I hope he has Ferrerro Roche' - I like them. Not as good as caramel shortbread but living in the land of Johnny Foreigner, they might be hardto get hold of).
So, providing my guts don't rot away in the next 2 days, we're golden. I'm going to try and update this on a daily basis but post it over the coming 5 weeks or so.
Finally, I'm going to have a crack at a poem. Not sure why as I'm not a poet, just seems a good thing to do as I'm hunched in front of a keyboard. I say a poem, I'm changing my mind. To the tune of "Party in the USA" by Miley Cyrus....
I hopped in the car, my Juliette,
It didn't really cost a bomb,
Need to book it for an MOT Test,
Make it a legal tin.
The garage well they
failed it the first time,
Look on the bonnet, see the Flop-py sign,
This is getting costly,
It all seems against us.
Time is ticking and the car is still in bits
sent it out to a man to work on
Thats when Sextons Dude amped the radio
and a Miley song went on,
and the Miley song was on
and the Miley song was on.
So I put my roof down
Get rid of the pong
The carpet has to go
Nodding my head like yeah,
Movin' my hips like yeah,
I got my roll up,
Hits from the bong,
Cypress Hill rocked in the day
Yeah the party starting near Calais
Yeah, the party starting near Calais
Get to the start with a roof that's rag,
The yoof are looking at me now,
Thinking "Who's that dick thats driving shit"
It's gonna need a new clutch now
Took it down to Hayling Island
Not sure if it's a dogging party
All I see is a focus
A shame I never got the photo
Time is ticking and the car is back in bits
sent it out to a man to work on
Thats when Triangle Dude ramped the scummer
and a Dolly song went on,
and the Dolly song was on
and the Dolly song was on.
So I put my roof down
Get rid of the pong
The carpet has to go
Nodding my head like yeah,
Movin' my hips like yeah,
I got my roll up,
Hits from the bong,
Cypress Hill rocked in the day
Yeah the party starting near Calais
Yeah, the party starting near Calais
Feel like shopping in the night (in the night)
Using eBay homepage tonight (page tonight)
Paypal stops my overtime (overtime)
I remember the budget it's alright
So I put my roof down
Get rid of the pong
The carpet has to go
Nodding my head like yeah,
Movin' my hips like yeah,
I got my roll up,
Hits from the bong,
Cypress Hill rocked in the day
Yeah the party starting near Calais
Yeah, the party starting near Calais
So I put my roof down
Get rid of the pong
The carpet has to go
Nodding my head like yeah,
Movin' my hips like yeah,
I got my roll up,
Hits from the bong,
Cypress Hill rocked in the day
Yeah the party starting near Calais
Yeah, the party starting near Calais
OK, so it's not fantastic, but I'm not a song writer.
Well, going to wrap it up on the blog side of things till we get back (providng my guts last that long).
Take care.
Savage
Tuesday 26 April 2011
Sunday 17 April 2011
11 days. ooooooh...............
I'm writing this little bit on Sunday morning. It's oh, so, quiet. Dadadade dah. Or something like that. And now I've got that damn Icelandic woman Bjork's song going through my head. I'll stick youtube on in a minute and see if actually listening to it shifts it.
Well, lets get down with what I do worst. Blog writing. You'll see (if I have set it up right) that there is a poll, Q/A thing to the right with a couple of headings. Next years car, Should I carry on the blog after Scumrun just with my weekly bumbling life story, and something else. Feel free to comment on there.
But back to this week. Well, importantly, we raised nearly £150 on the back of the raffle for the DodoJuice and Voltz energy drinks so that was a brilliant effort by a select few of you to get some cool stuff cheap. I think I've posted the result in relevant forums and if I missed any, then here they are. DodoJuice will be off to it's new owner "Marine Iguana" from the Escort Cabriolet Club, with a case of Voltz going to "Hightower" & "Neston Vasey" both from the Ford Enthusiast and Owners Club. We still have a few cases of Voltz left over but they are going to be sustaining Gruff and I for the duration of the rally with any extras being handed out to washed out looking rival teams.
I have exchanged a few emails with Rob Arnold - Chief of Voltz and not only do the drinks hit the spot, it turns out the company is run by a really nice guy. We have some new stickers from him, water bottles, drinkies and a pair of great shirts to wear.
There is a little thing he is understandably annoyed by. He has outsourced the printing work to a tshirt company with what he wanted on the shirts. At casual glance they look tickety boo, but as I was putting the graphics on the car I double checked something. http://www.voltzenergyshot.co.uk/ is the web address. The T-Shirt guys have done http://www.voltzenergyshots.com/ - although they look similar, the second web address does not exist. Rob seems a very calm individual but just a tad irked by this. I'm more than happy with them and have no issues wearing them and he's happy for us to wear them as advertising, but if I was sponsoring a team and the t-shirt folk buggered it up this close to deadlines I would be livid. On the phone, toys out of the pram, insisting that the next batch were issued immediately with the logo's made out of flesh ripped from the proofreader and ironed on. But Rob seems ok about it. Strange. Maybe I have too much frustration built up inside me. May be worth figuring out how to conceal weapons in the Scumrunner and go on a Mad Max / Death Race style rampage during the rally.
Apart from that, I liked the Tshirts fine. Mine fits and when I had a quick casual glance at Gruffs, it seems massive. However, Gareth popped round yesterday to have a cup of tea and he tried his on. There is a phrase dating back some way along the lines of "looks like 10lb's of shit in a 5lb bag". This is quite relevant as squeezing 20 stone of hairy taff into an xxl shirt was a bit of a challenge. If you can picture a Silverback gorilla wearing a wetsuit, you're not far off the image that I saw. It was a sight that I really wish I had captured on film and sent to the BBC.
We could have Attenborough's whispered and hushed tones as an audio track.... "And here we have the last known Gruffallo, making his way to the fridge in search of his staple food, pasties. He seems to be wearing an item of childrens clothing and looks in discomfort. If we watch here closely, you will spot that he has noticed the humans laughing at him and this does not bode well. shhhhh, hear his war cry - "Bastards" as he storms away..."
Well thats how my warped mind saw the event anyway. I've emailed Voltz and asked very nicely if the tshirty people can knock up another one as we did order the right size, they just sent the wrong one.
Whilst Gruff was over yesterday, we also had another visitor / worker. Matt from MRB carpentry returned and finished off the sound cabinet thingy. We now have a cushty (apologies for that but I've heard the word recently) little cubby hole with one of my eldest boy's toy cars as a door knob. In the words of the worlds only popular ginger male - Manama ma ma, I'm loving it. He's done a great job in covering the build frame that I made with flush to exterior mouldings, purple fleece, a hatch entrance to the cubby hole and he actually enjoyed doing it so thats good.
We broached the subject of improvements for when we get back and the new plan is going to draw some power. From a quick measure up and scratch of heads, we reckon we should be able to fit a lot of component mid-range and tweeters up front, with a couple of extra amps, the 6.x9's, 2 x 8"subs just below the rear windows together with a couple 12" sat behind each of the front seats. Thats the challenge for the next sound install.
We now also have 24 bright blue LED's for an interior light which look stunningly amzingly beautiful when lit up at night, boucing the colour straight back off the purple fleece on the sound build. Oh I really don't want to get rid of this car. Might have to put it into storage when we get back and Never sell it.
Thinking of when we get back and preps for another year of fun, I've been chatting to a couple of chaps who want to get in on the scumrun action next time round. How about those interested in forming a convoy for next year (I won't hold you to it, I just want a rough idea of numbers) email me floppythrottle@live.co.uk and we'll see if we can get a decent group sorted. Have 3/4/5 cabbies laid out the same (or any other cars) I think would be pretty cool.
Apart from that, good news. It seems that my nervous breakdown has been avoided. The trickling oil is apparantly soot, water and condensation. We have lost oil somewhere (seperate problem), but the black goo is the soot etc that normally settles on the inside of your exhaust pipe (hence it looks black on the inside of your pipe). As it's a new system, there's nowhere for it to stick yet, so it trickles out the end. This means I am happy happy.
So now we are back to where we were a couple of weeks ago... Just waiting for 2 graphics and we are good to go. I even got one of the printers round to my house, fed him and let him fawn over the car as a kick up the arse. It was a lovely feed, I slow roasted a duck over 6 hours (2 hours uncovered at 200, then droppped the temperature down to 70, wrapped the bird in foil with a little butter inside, and left for 4 hours). Whilst that was doing, I threw together a salad, with both leaves and sweet mix adorned by a small selection of tiny cheese cubes, with some fresh minted boiled with skin new potatoes. Pulled the duck out 10 mins before I served, ripped the meat, threw it in the salad still warm and it was gorgeous. This was followed by a Death by chocolate double choc cheesecake with a couple of clementine segments which countered the sweet chocolate with their sharpness an got the taste buds dancing like a Bollywood starlet at an audition. Hopefully we will get that vinyl on the car soon.
Thats my Nigella moment over and done with.
I've figured out how to change the settings on the JVC camcorder thingy, and if I take it down from 1080pHD to a boggo standard VGA setting, I can fit about 40 hours of recording on there. Thats loads more than I need. We'v run through a fnal checklist of stuff needed and the last item needed is a warning triangle in case of Euro breakdown so that is now on route to us.
In 11 days we will be making our way to "THE SCUMRUN 2011" and I for one am pant-wettingly, trouser-tentingly excited about it.
The only thing I'm still unsure about is this blog and I would appreciate comments below. I say appreciate, it doesn't mean that I will listen to the masses, I'm just seeking advice. When we return, do I just update the blog in one hit covering the event, or spread it out as 1 Day = 1 blog entry. Involves less effort for me and means YOU get to enjoy it longer, or get it over and done with in one hit and end the blog? Thoughts???
Savage.
Well, lets get down with what I do worst. Blog writing. You'll see (if I have set it up right) that there is a poll, Q/A thing to the right with a couple of headings. Next years car, Should I carry on the blog after Scumrun just with my weekly bumbling life story, and something else. Feel free to comment on there.
But back to this week. Well, importantly, we raised nearly £150 on the back of the raffle for the DodoJuice and Voltz energy drinks so that was a brilliant effort by a select few of you to get some cool stuff cheap. I think I've posted the result in relevant forums and if I missed any, then here they are. DodoJuice will be off to it's new owner "Marine Iguana" from the Escort Cabriolet Club, with a case of Voltz going to "Hightower" & "Neston Vasey" both from the Ford Enthusiast and Owners Club. We still have a few cases of Voltz left over but they are going to be sustaining Gruff and I for the duration of the rally with any extras being handed out to washed out looking rival teams.
I have exchanged a few emails with Rob Arnold - Chief of Voltz and not only do the drinks hit the spot, it turns out the company is run by a really nice guy. We have some new stickers from him, water bottles, drinkies and a pair of great shirts to wear.
There is a little thing he is understandably annoyed by. He has outsourced the printing work to a tshirt company with what he wanted on the shirts. At casual glance they look tickety boo, but as I was putting the graphics on the car I double checked something. http://www.voltzenergyshot.co.uk/ is the web address. The T-Shirt guys have done http://www.voltzenergyshots.com/ - although they look similar, the second web address does not exist. Rob seems a very calm individual but just a tad irked by this. I'm more than happy with them and have no issues wearing them and he's happy for us to wear them as advertising, but if I was sponsoring a team and the t-shirt folk buggered it up this close to deadlines I would be livid. On the phone, toys out of the pram, insisting that the next batch were issued immediately with the logo's made out of flesh ripped from the proofreader and ironed on. But Rob seems ok about it. Strange. Maybe I have too much frustration built up inside me. May be worth figuring out how to conceal weapons in the Scumrunner and go on a Mad Max / Death Race style rampage during the rally.
Apart from that, I liked the Tshirts fine. Mine fits and when I had a quick casual glance at Gruffs, it seems massive. However, Gareth popped round yesterday to have a cup of tea and he tried his on. There is a phrase dating back some way along the lines of "looks like 10lb's of shit in a 5lb bag". This is quite relevant as squeezing 20 stone of hairy taff into an xxl shirt was a bit of a challenge. If you can picture a Silverback gorilla wearing a wetsuit, you're not far off the image that I saw. It was a sight that I really wish I had captured on film and sent to the BBC.
We could have Attenborough's whispered and hushed tones as an audio track.... "And here we have the last known Gruffallo, making his way to the fridge in search of his staple food, pasties. He seems to be wearing an item of childrens clothing and looks in discomfort. If we watch here closely, you will spot that he has noticed the humans laughing at him and this does not bode well. shhhhh, hear his war cry - "Bastards" as he storms away..."
Well thats how my warped mind saw the event anyway. I've emailed Voltz and asked very nicely if the tshirty people can knock up another one as we did order the right size, they just sent the wrong one.
Whilst Gruff was over yesterday, we also had another visitor / worker. Matt from MRB carpentry returned and finished off the sound cabinet thingy. We now have a cushty (apologies for that but I've heard the word recently) little cubby hole with one of my eldest boy's toy cars as a door knob. In the words of the worlds only popular ginger male - Manama ma ma, I'm loving it. He's done a great job in covering the build frame that I made with flush to exterior mouldings, purple fleece, a hatch entrance to the cubby hole and he actually enjoyed doing it so thats good.
We broached the subject of improvements for when we get back and the new plan is going to draw some power. From a quick measure up and scratch of heads, we reckon we should be able to fit a lot of component mid-range and tweeters up front, with a couple of extra amps, the 6.x9's, 2 x 8"subs just below the rear windows together with a couple 12" sat behind each of the front seats. Thats the challenge for the next sound install.
We now also have 24 bright blue LED's for an interior light which look stunningly amzingly beautiful when lit up at night, boucing the colour straight back off the purple fleece on the sound build. Oh I really don't want to get rid of this car. Might have to put it into storage when we get back and Never sell it.
Thinking of when we get back and preps for another year of fun, I've been chatting to a couple of chaps who want to get in on the scumrun action next time round. How about those interested in forming a convoy for next year (I won't hold you to it, I just want a rough idea of numbers) email me floppythrottle@live.co.uk and we'll see if we can get a decent group sorted. Have 3/4/5 cabbies laid out the same (or any other cars) I think would be pretty cool.
Apart from that, good news. It seems that my nervous breakdown has been avoided. The trickling oil is apparantly soot, water and condensation. We have lost oil somewhere (seperate problem), but the black goo is the soot etc that normally settles on the inside of your exhaust pipe (hence it looks black on the inside of your pipe). As it's a new system, there's nowhere for it to stick yet, so it trickles out the end. This means I am happy happy.
So now we are back to where we were a couple of weeks ago... Just waiting for 2 graphics and we are good to go. I even got one of the printers round to my house, fed him and let him fawn over the car as a kick up the arse. It was a lovely feed, I slow roasted a duck over 6 hours (2 hours uncovered at 200, then droppped the temperature down to 70, wrapped the bird in foil with a little butter inside, and left for 4 hours). Whilst that was doing, I threw together a salad, with both leaves and sweet mix adorned by a small selection of tiny cheese cubes, with some fresh minted boiled with skin new potatoes. Pulled the duck out 10 mins before I served, ripped the meat, threw it in the salad still warm and it was gorgeous. This was followed by a Death by chocolate double choc cheesecake with a couple of clementine segments which countered the sweet chocolate with their sharpness an got the taste buds dancing like a Bollywood starlet at an audition. Hopefully we will get that vinyl on the car soon.
Thats my Nigella moment over and done with.
I've figured out how to change the settings on the JVC camcorder thingy, and if I take it down from 1080pHD to a boggo standard VGA setting, I can fit about 40 hours of recording on there. Thats loads more than I need. We'v run through a fnal checklist of stuff needed and the last item needed is a warning triangle in case of Euro breakdown so that is now on route to us.
In 11 days we will be making our way to "THE SCUMRUN 2011" and I for one am pant-wettingly, trouser-tentingly excited about it.
The only thing I'm still unsure about is this blog and I would appreciate comments below. I say appreciate, it doesn't mean that I will listen to the masses, I'm just seeking advice. When we return, do I just update the blog in one hit covering the event, or spread it out as 1 Day = 1 blog entry. Involves less effort for me and means YOU get to enjoy it longer, or get it over and done with in one hit and end the blog? Thoughts???
Savage.
Tuesday 12 April 2011
2 Weeks, 2 Days....
Whats happened in the last few days? Well, to be fair, not a massive amount.
The car is nearly good to go, with the exception of 2 graphics. 1 Big bold orange PM Electrical that will reach across the bonnet like a fat man hugging lard, and 1 last minute sticky sticky. Now I do want to point out that yes, it's a car. Yes it's quite large compared to, say, a business card, but it's not a bloody billboard. There is a finite amount of space on the car and it's pretty full at the moment.
The reason I'm bringing this up is 2 fold. 1-We've finally run out of room, and 2-If you want to advertise on a Scumrun car (other than ours) then it can still be arranged. With 120 cars going on this rally in a couple of weeks, there is bound to be someone struggling to raise the required sponsorship.
We have even managed to sell the rear window as ad space and even Sir Alan and his apprentice goons would struggle with achieving that - what with it being a fold down roof and the intention being that the rear window won't actually be seen. But, the good ladies at http://www.phoenixindependentmidwives.co.uk/ are such nice people that they don't mind.
The important thing is that they helped out such a good cause and the advertising issue wasn't the most pressing thing from the donation. Louise, one of the lovely ladies in question, has shown a massive interest in what we have been up to all the way through the preperation. If you live in the London area, you want to drop your sprog into the world with a scabby NHS employee riddled with disease, overworked with a case load that means she won't remember you at any meetings, and imported for a few pence, then go for it. Otherwise, either move down our way of the world and hope to get the ones we had, or, go private. Have the lovely Phoenix girlies on call 24 hours, with their low volume high care approach. The same midwife all the way through and genuinely passionate about your birthing experience.
Moving on from fawning about ladies in uniform that touch other ladies bits in a caring way, we almost have the sound cabinet finished.
To be fair, the sound part of it is finished. Speakers, amps, sub etc all fitted nicely together and looking splendid. Yes, I did use the word splendid. Ding dong, dash and bother will be coming out to play in my vocab soon so watch out. We have a functional, good looking sound chest thanks to Matt at MRB Carpentry giving up his day of golf and fitting the lid snugly. He is giving up another day of golf (hahaha) to butcher the work already done and put an access point to the cabinet so that such essentials as fags, energy drinks, water pistols etc are easily to hand from the passenger seat.
I got hold of Rob at Voltz energy and he is sending out the goodies this week so that's in hand and I've run through the checklist of paperwork required and once I get some more printer ink, we're golden on that front.
So this is the stage we are at: Awaiting 2 graphics, and 1 hole to be cut out of a box. Pretty good huh? Well, no.
We have hit a little problem. May not be such a little problem, I'm awaiting advice about quite how big a problem it really is. You may remember a while back that we had condensation dribbling out the back of the car and a decent thrash seemed to fix it? I'm no longer in the wonderful "it's condensation" place. When the engine is running, you can see little heated up balls of oil running out of the exhaust and dropping their little puddles to the ground. There is no leak showing under the engine, the oil level is dropping which means to my guess, somewhere, we are getting oil int the fuel system and that's really not a problem I want to be tackling with 2 weks left. It's not a problem I think we can get away with ignoring either. Bugger.
Once I know how bad it is, then I can either cry or have a complete breakdown. I'm under no impression that powered by fairydust is an option - it's an engine not a fictional chariot. I saw a great sticker the other day "Stick your fairydust up your ass - Cosworth Power" and made me chuckle.
To do list - photocopy driving license, chase vinyl printers, print copy of passport, fix engine, hold raffle draw (2 days to go - get donating), and find some clothes (apart from our genuine muslim worship Thobes - oh yes indeedy).
Hmmm eyebrows go up at that point? Thought they might. You may as well know our outfits now, as not long left until we go. We have a couple of hoodies sourced by Gruff with Floppy Throttle on the back and Gruff / Savage on the left tit for if we need to be grown ups, but we also have prayer robes. And masks. Full on hood to ankle worship rags.
So if you can picture 2 grown men in a purple convertible, dressed like fanatical worshippers, with masks that make us look a cross betwen one of the 7 dwarves and merlin, driving through passport control with replica AK47's (battery powered water pistols) you're not far off understanding the news report of "2 Englishmen slaughtered by Border control" which will most likely in the press in about 16 days.
Hi ho, hi ho, back to buggering about I go....
Savage
The car is nearly good to go, with the exception of 2 graphics. 1 Big bold orange PM Electrical that will reach across the bonnet like a fat man hugging lard, and 1 last minute sticky sticky. Now I do want to point out that yes, it's a car. Yes it's quite large compared to, say, a business card, but it's not a bloody billboard. There is a finite amount of space on the car and it's pretty full at the moment.
The reason I'm bringing this up is 2 fold. 1-We've finally run out of room, and 2-If you want to advertise on a Scumrun car (other than ours) then it can still be arranged. With 120 cars going on this rally in a couple of weeks, there is bound to be someone struggling to raise the required sponsorship.
We have even managed to sell the rear window as ad space and even Sir Alan and his apprentice goons would struggle with achieving that - what with it being a fold down roof and the intention being that the rear window won't actually be seen. But, the good ladies at http://www.phoenixindependentmidwives.co.uk/ are such nice people that they don't mind.
The important thing is that they helped out such a good cause and the advertising issue wasn't the most pressing thing from the donation. Louise, one of the lovely ladies in question, has shown a massive interest in what we have been up to all the way through the preperation. If you live in the London area, you want to drop your sprog into the world with a scabby NHS employee riddled with disease, overworked with a case load that means she won't remember you at any meetings, and imported for a few pence, then go for it. Otherwise, either move down our way of the world and hope to get the ones we had, or, go private. Have the lovely Phoenix girlies on call 24 hours, with their low volume high care approach. The same midwife all the way through and genuinely passionate about your birthing experience.
Moving on from fawning about ladies in uniform that touch other ladies bits in a caring way, we almost have the sound cabinet finished.
To be fair, the sound part of it is finished. Speakers, amps, sub etc all fitted nicely together and looking splendid. Yes, I did use the word splendid. Ding dong, dash and bother will be coming out to play in my vocab soon so watch out. We have a functional, good looking sound chest thanks to Matt at MRB Carpentry giving up his day of golf and fitting the lid snugly. He is giving up another day of golf (hahaha) to butcher the work already done and put an access point to the cabinet so that such essentials as fags, energy drinks, water pistols etc are easily to hand from the passenger seat.
I got hold of Rob at Voltz energy and he is sending out the goodies this week so that's in hand and I've run through the checklist of paperwork required and once I get some more printer ink, we're golden on that front.
So this is the stage we are at: Awaiting 2 graphics, and 1 hole to be cut out of a box. Pretty good huh? Well, no.
We have hit a little problem. May not be such a little problem, I'm awaiting advice about quite how big a problem it really is. You may remember a while back that we had condensation dribbling out the back of the car and a decent thrash seemed to fix it? I'm no longer in the wonderful "it's condensation" place. When the engine is running, you can see little heated up balls of oil running out of the exhaust and dropping their little puddles to the ground. There is no leak showing under the engine, the oil level is dropping which means to my guess, somewhere, we are getting oil int the fuel system and that's really not a problem I want to be tackling with 2 weks left. It's not a problem I think we can get away with ignoring either. Bugger.
Once I know how bad it is, then I can either cry or have a complete breakdown. I'm under no impression that powered by fairydust is an option - it's an engine not a fictional chariot. I saw a great sticker the other day "Stick your fairydust up your ass - Cosworth Power" and made me chuckle.
To do list - photocopy driving license, chase vinyl printers, print copy of passport, fix engine, hold raffle draw (2 days to go - get donating), and find some clothes (apart from our genuine muslim worship Thobes - oh yes indeedy).
Hmmm eyebrows go up at that point? Thought they might. You may as well know our outfits now, as not long left until we go. We have a couple of hoodies sourced by Gruff with Floppy Throttle on the back and Gruff / Savage on the left tit for if we need to be grown ups, but we also have prayer robes. And masks. Full on hood to ankle worship rags.
So if you can picture 2 grown men in a purple convertible, dressed like fanatical worshippers, with masks that make us look a cross betwen one of the 7 dwarves and merlin, driving through passport control with replica AK47's (battery powered water pistols) you're not far off understanding the news report of "2 Englishmen slaughtered by Border control" which will most likely in the press in about 16 days.
Hi ho, hi ho, back to buggering about I go....
Savage
Thursday 7 April 2011
OK, So it's late...
I know, as usual, the promised update on the Tuesday didn't happen. I'm not gonna justify myself to you as to why it's late as you haven't donated anything to the www.justgiving.com/floppythrottle website. Not a penny you tight arse. There's some raffle prizes up for grabs (worth well over £100), a fantastic insight into my warped mind (this blog), a fantastic charity to support and terminally ill kids you could be helping. But no, you just want to read this and expect me to update it and take take take. I've got an IP address counter thing linked into this (as well as loads of other counters and data thingies) and we've now got over 2,500 regular viewers. If you all donated £2, then thats £5,000 easily raised for charity. Still not reaching for your paypal password? Not going for your wallet and debit card? Well bugger off then. Go on. You're still reading aren't you? Well stop. Or cough up a measly £2 and make yourself feel good.
For those of you that have thrown some sheckels into the kitty, thank you. Thank you loads and loads. Our official target was £500 but we've breached that and have more pledges we are awaiting to come good. With a bit of a nudge to those folk that haven't parted with the equivallent of a kebab from the scabby van in every town center on a Friday night, we should hit the £1,000.
Now the harrass for cash bit is over, lets do an update. Not the biggest update on the scumrunner again as with the exception of 2 things, Juliette is now battle ready. Not sure that Gruff and Myself are, but the car is done. ish.
Lets resort to the old way of doing things, a snappy paragraph to get you lured in, sum up whats been happening, throw in some piccys and finish with a moan about donating. Oops, already done that bit.
Pedants moaning, photoshop, Sage accounts, Doggers at the beach (yes), Gruffs playlist (no), Leccy windows and full on Fry up's.
Let's start with an apology for this bit. The last update didn't really touch on Juliette the Scummer but more focused on HoboJo, the project. There's your apology. I wasn't gonna mention the Hobo but a pedant has wound me up. You know the sort of person... everyone knows the one who can rattle off 0-60 mph, top speeds, BHP of every car ever manufactured since Ze War. Up until a few years ago, I was that person. Like a deck of top trumps of useless car info. I still amaze the wife when we're watching a Touch of Frost or an old episode of The Bill when it shows the people getting into a car and I can tell her what car it is by seeing the trim cards on the inside of the door wen they shut it (yep, it's my rainman like hero power) but anything post 2000 I'm not that great on.
There is a bit of a geeky rant coming, so feel free to skip the next paragraph. Normal service is resumed there.
Where I'm going is this. Last update I said I had the 1.8Si Cabbie (HoboJo). One weirdy beardy has pointed out that it is not a patch on the XR3i variant as they were the same power (105BHP) but the XR3i was tuned better. As such, the Si would be nowhere near the RS2000 in terms of speed or acceleration. This is a point that I have taken on board, chewed over and spat back out. The Si was the direct replacement for the XR and produced with the 105BHP engine. It was also produced with the rarer 130 BHP which is the one sat in the project. Also worth noting is that although the RS is a 2.0 150 BHP, it is a tin top and carries a lot more weight. My argument still stands, here's 2 pounds, pop down to WH Smiths and buy some more Top Trumps and a can of fizzy wizzy. 'AVE IT!
Out my system.
We spoke very nicely to Triangle Cars and asked them to let us use their forecourt space for some piccies of Juliette. We're trying to get some close to each sponsor or at least relevant to their company and Triangle are the closest so figured that was a good place to start. We have taken some half decent shots (well I have, Gruff's not too technical when it comes to cameras - he appreciates the pictures that Google safesearch filters out of most peoples results but apart from that he has no interest) and I've loaded them up onto the lappy. A lot of them are ok as they stand but I like to tinker with things so had a go with photo shop. Not for touch ups but just to arse about with a representative image or 2. Theres a couple of tweaked but some standard ones as well.
Completely seperate but I may as well mention it, I have now run the expenses through Sage accounts as a project entry and I think we have spent far too much money. I have used analysis tools, charts and audit runs to see whats been spent where etc and generally buggered about. It took bloody ages to get all the data in. This is of no interest to you at all but the good bit for you is coming up... At college I am studying (well turning up and disrupting the rest of them) an accountancy course - The AAT. This uses SAGE software and I needed to draft up some stuff at home. I booted up the program, started a new company (cos I don't want to wipe everything off) and did my work. Unfotunately, a combination of baby crying, wife nagging and brain not working at the point, I backed my work up on the Scum expenses save file. So now if I look up what records we've had, it shows that I banked a cheque from Mr Patel in return for some bloody bulbs at a garden center, but thats about it. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Thankfully I kept my paper notes but that irked me.
I'm pretty sure that you've been looking for the word that comes up next since I mentioned it earlier. Doggers. Thats right search engines, come find this word and disappoint those that are searching :) Dogging, Dogger, Doggers. Dogging, slang; the practice of carrying out or watching sexual activities in semi-secluded locations such as parks or car parks, often arranged by e-mail or text messages. It was my birthday the other day and I've crested 33 years of age. And a memorable birthday it was too. All of the following events are TRUE and unplanned:
For my birthday, Mrs Savage had planned (without me knowing it) for the kids to go to her mums so we could have an evening child free. Once I found out the kids were going we decided it would be nice to go out for a blat in the Scummer down to Hayling. I have a new camera and we watched the sunset from hayling beach a week or so ago and it was beautiful. Figured we could take the scummer down there, take some artsy shots of roof down, sun setting across water with a fairground in the backshot. For that 1 targeted shot, realistically there's only one location which is a pebbled car park on the sea front.
We got down there parked in the corner so no other vehicles would be in shot at the angle we were looking and waited for the sunset (remember at this point, it is a sunny day, in a public car park). Whilst chatting to Mrs me I looked out her side of the car and saw to my amusement a middle aged dark haired woman facing backwards in the drivers seat. I don't mean looking over her shoulder, I mean proper sat the wrong way. At first thought, I guessed it was just a mother changing her son leanig over the seat. Then the gold focus really started to bounce and occasionally this guys head popped up . She was riding him proper cowgirl style. Then they had a break. Then they started again. It was truly the most un-erotic thing I have seen. If they were lookers, then maybe, it might have been fun, but no.
We have Scumrun on the outside of our car, whereas they had cum run down the inside of theirs :D
Anyway, to shorten this bit, we turned up at the beach, to find a couple dogging, sunset was poor and then we left. But I thought you guys might like to know. If you happen to be that couple in the gold focus and are reading this, then please feel free to correct me with a story about contact lenses being dropped on the floor and a game of twister, but I know what you were up to.
I've now almost got to grips with my seemingly working phone and started to load playlists onto it from the 'puter. Got the aux lead into the stereo wired nicely behind the central heater vents so it's not in the way but still useable. My tunes of choice obviously kick arse, but Gruff seems determined that we are going on an 80's gay pride march. Barry Manillow, Aha, Wham, ABBA etc are all on the playlist he wants. I'm going to have to corrupt the files or employ some random model to smash my iPhone with a spanner before his songs hit the "now playing" tab.
We were having an issue wih the drivers side window runner not opening and closing as it should. Not the biggest problem you might think, and you'd be right. Except if you want a drive through maccy D's have you any idea of how much of a penis you look dropping the eleccy roof to collect a meal when it's raining and you've parked to close to open the door? Picture it in your mind right now. You're laughing aren't you? So the window needed to be fixed. That's now fixed. Whilst out for a drive to Gruffs old place of work, we stopped off at a great greasy spoon in Liphook named after some old footballerist and had they're big bertha of a fry up. Bloody amazing. I recommend it. Opposite a parking area with a pavement outside. You can't miss it. :D
Thats pretty much me done for this update, 3 weeks today and we're off.
Oh, and before I forget, if you want a countdown of minutes and hours til we register at Brands Hatch, Joe @ Bugsplat has a countdown on his site - click the team bugsplat logo to the right for his blog and the timer.
I've changed the header picture to one of the ones submitted by Doug S as I think it looks pretty cool. Any other pics anyone wants to send? email us at floppythrottle@live.co.uk
Here's an interesting one I got sent as well:
Savage
For those of you that have thrown some sheckels into the kitty, thank you. Thank you loads and loads. Our official target was £500 but we've breached that and have more pledges we are awaiting to come good. With a bit of a nudge to those folk that haven't parted with the equivallent of a kebab from the scabby van in every town center on a Friday night, we should hit the £1,000.
Now the harrass for cash bit is over, lets do an update. Not the biggest update on the scumrunner again as with the exception of 2 things, Juliette is now battle ready. Not sure that Gruff and Myself are, but the car is done. ish.
Lets resort to the old way of doing things, a snappy paragraph to get you lured in, sum up whats been happening, throw in some piccys and finish with a moan about donating. Oops, already done that bit.
Pedants moaning, photoshop, Sage accounts, Doggers at the beach (yes), Gruffs playlist (no), Leccy windows and full on Fry up's.
Let's start with an apology for this bit. The last update didn't really touch on Juliette the Scummer but more focused on HoboJo, the project. There's your apology. I wasn't gonna mention the Hobo but a pedant has wound me up. You know the sort of person... everyone knows the one who can rattle off 0-60 mph, top speeds, BHP of every car ever manufactured since Ze War. Up until a few years ago, I was that person. Like a deck of top trumps of useless car info. I still amaze the wife when we're watching a Touch of Frost or an old episode of The Bill when it shows the people getting into a car and I can tell her what car it is by seeing the trim cards on the inside of the door wen they shut it (yep, it's my rainman like hero power) but anything post 2000 I'm not that great on.
There is a bit of a geeky rant coming, so feel free to skip the next paragraph. Normal service is resumed there.
Where I'm going is this. Last update I said I had the 1.8Si Cabbie (HoboJo). One weirdy beardy has pointed out that it is not a patch on the XR3i variant as they were the same power (105BHP) but the XR3i was tuned better. As such, the Si would be nowhere near the RS2000 in terms of speed or acceleration. This is a point that I have taken on board, chewed over and spat back out. The Si was the direct replacement for the XR and produced with the 105BHP engine. It was also produced with the rarer 130 BHP which is the one sat in the project. Also worth noting is that although the RS is a 2.0 150 BHP, it is a tin top and carries a lot more weight. My argument still stands, here's 2 pounds, pop down to WH Smiths and buy some more Top Trumps and a can of fizzy wizzy. 'AVE IT!
Out my system.
We spoke very nicely to Triangle Cars and asked them to let us use their forecourt space for some piccies of Juliette. We're trying to get some close to each sponsor or at least relevant to their company and Triangle are the closest so figured that was a good place to start. We have taken some half decent shots (well I have, Gruff's not too technical when it comes to cameras - he appreciates the pictures that Google safesearch filters out of most peoples results but apart from that he has no interest) and I've loaded them up onto the lappy. A lot of them are ok as they stand but I like to tinker with things so had a go with photo shop. Not for touch ups but just to arse about with a representative image or 2. Theres a couple of tweaked but some standard ones as well.
Completely seperate but I may as well mention it, I have now run the expenses through Sage accounts as a project entry and I think we have spent far too much money. I have used analysis tools, charts and audit runs to see whats been spent where etc and generally buggered about. It took bloody ages to get all the data in. This is of no interest to you at all but the good bit for you is coming up... At college I am studying (well turning up and disrupting the rest of them) an accountancy course - The AAT. This uses SAGE software and I needed to draft up some stuff at home. I booted up the program, started a new company (cos I don't want to wipe everything off) and did my work. Unfotunately, a combination of baby crying, wife nagging and brain not working at the point, I backed my work up on the Scum expenses save file. So now if I look up what records we've had, it shows that I banked a cheque from Mr Patel in return for some bloody bulbs at a garden center, but thats about it. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Thankfully I kept my paper notes but that irked me.
I'm pretty sure that you've been looking for the word that comes up next since I mentioned it earlier. Doggers. Thats right search engines, come find this word and disappoint those that are searching :) Dogging, Dogger, Doggers. Dogging, slang; the practice of carrying out or watching sexual activities in semi-secluded locations such as parks or car parks, often arranged by e-mail or text messages. It was my birthday the other day and I've crested 33 years of age. And a memorable birthday it was too. All of the following events are TRUE and unplanned:
For my birthday, Mrs Savage had planned (without me knowing it) for the kids to go to her mums so we could have an evening child free. Once I found out the kids were going we decided it would be nice to go out for a blat in the Scummer down to Hayling. I have a new camera and we watched the sunset from hayling beach a week or so ago and it was beautiful. Figured we could take the scummer down there, take some artsy shots of roof down, sun setting across water with a fairground in the backshot. For that 1 targeted shot, realistically there's only one location which is a pebbled car park on the sea front.
We got down there parked in the corner so no other vehicles would be in shot at the angle we were looking and waited for the sunset (remember at this point, it is a sunny day, in a public car park). Whilst chatting to Mrs me I looked out her side of the car and saw to my amusement a middle aged dark haired woman facing backwards in the drivers seat. I don't mean looking over her shoulder, I mean proper sat the wrong way. At first thought, I guessed it was just a mother changing her son leanig over the seat. Then the gold focus really started to bounce and occasionally this guys head popped up . She was riding him proper cowgirl style. Then they had a break. Then they started again. It was truly the most un-erotic thing I have seen. If they were lookers, then maybe, it might have been fun, but no.
We have Scumrun on the outside of our car, whereas they had cum run down the inside of theirs :D
Anyway, to shorten this bit, we turned up at the beach, to find a couple dogging, sunset was poor and then we left. But I thought you guys might like to know. If you happen to be that couple in the gold focus and are reading this, then please feel free to correct me with a story about contact lenses being dropped on the floor and a game of twister, but I know what you were up to.
I've now almost got to grips with my seemingly working phone and started to load playlists onto it from the 'puter. Got the aux lead into the stereo wired nicely behind the central heater vents so it's not in the way but still useable. My tunes of choice obviously kick arse, but Gruff seems determined that we are going on an 80's gay pride march. Barry Manillow, Aha, Wham, ABBA etc are all on the playlist he wants. I'm going to have to corrupt the files or employ some random model to smash my iPhone with a spanner before his songs hit the "now playing" tab.
We were having an issue wih the drivers side window runner not opening and closing as it should. Not the biggest problem you might think, and you'd be right. Except if you want a drive through maccy D's have you any idea of how much of a penis you look dropping the eleccy roof to collect a meal when it's raining and you've parked to close to open the door? Picture it in your mind right now. You're laughing aren't you? So the window needed to be fixed. That's now fixed. Whilst out for a drive to Gruffs old place of work, we stopped off at a great greasy spoon in Liphook named after some old footballerist and had they're big bertha of a fry up. Bloody amazing. I recommend it. Opposite a parking area with a pavement outside. You can't miss it. :D
Thats pretty much me done for this update, 3 weeks today and we're off.
Oh, and before I forget, if you want a countdown of minutes and hours til we register at Brands Hatch, Joe @ Bugsplat has a countdown on his site - click the team bugsplat logo to the right for his blog and the timer.
I've changed the header picture to one of the ones submitted by Doug S as I think it looks pretty cool. Any other pics anyone wants to send? email us at floppythrottle@live.co.uk
Here's an interesting one I got sent as well:
Savage
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