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.