Desperately Seeking Offence.

I’ve been trying to recall he last time I was offended. You know, the last time somebody said something to me which was so designed to hurt that I was genuinely upset and taken aback.

Pleasingly, I can’t remember. The reason this is pleasing is that I do at least remember that I don’t like being hurt or upset. I don’t like being offended. In fact I hope I’m never offended again.

However, it would appear that in this I may be behind the zeitgeist. The evidence for this is that 31,000 people complained to the BBC about Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson’s comments on public sector strikers (and another 736 complained to the broadcasting regulator Ofcom). 

In world where twisted extremists on left and right regularly spout pseudo-murderous bile, the fact that tens of thousands more people felt moved to complain about Mr Clarkson than ever pick up the phone about the BNP or extreme Islamists must mean that he said something almost beyond belief when he appeared on the BBC’s One Show in November last year. Let’s have a look.

The exchange came as Mr Clarkson was asked his opinion of the people engaged in a day-long industrial action over pensions.

His initial response was: "I think they have been fantastic. Absolutely. London today has just been empty. Everybody stayed at home, you can whizz about, restaurants are empty."

However, he then added: "We have to balance this though, because this is the BBC. Frankly, I'd have them all shot. I would take them outside and execute them in front of their families."

Well that can’t be right can it? That’s clearly nothing more than a fairly poor joke about the need for the BBC to show balance in all its commentary on current affairs. Poor, certainly, but very clearly a joke.

Not according to the Assistant General Secretary of the union UNISON, Bronwyn McKenna, who declared that many of those intending to strike would be scared to do so in case Mr Clarkson’s comments were taken seriously and they were shot (presumably in front of their families but, in fairness to Ms McKenna, she didn’t specify). 

Now only two possibilities exist here.

One – Ms McKenna is suffering from serious and debilitating issues of delusion and paranoia which have left her unable to function as an adult in the real world, in which case we must hope she gets the treatment she so clearly needs and makes a full recovery, or…

Two – She’s being a tit.

In its judgment this week, clearing Mr Clarkson of breaching broadcasting rules, Ofcom said (with a commendably straight face): “It would have been clear to most viewers that his comments were not an expression of seriously held beliefs or views that would be literally interpreted.”

Not, apparently, to almost 32,000 people though; and this brings me back to where I started about being offended. Their interpretation of the word is clearly different to mine. I think it means being shocked by something somebody says, which you perceive them to mean, and to be left upset by it. To them it appears to mean “Here’s a chance for me to be centre stage – I will howl with outrage about this offence until I’m listened to and told my views are important and, whilst I’m at it, attempt to get all my Twitter followers to do the same.”

Unlike me, thousands of people seem to suddenly have taken a perverse delight in being “offended”. They would appear to be sitting through television programmes they loath with gritted teeth, remote in one hand, phone in the other with the BBC’s complaints department on speed dial.

I’m lost as to why. If I find something disagreeable, I avoid watching it. Not a day goes by without comedians on radio and TV saying brutal things about politicians or personalities they don’t like. But because I’m a functioning adult I recognise these are jokes, not a call to arms for the populous to rise up and lynch the subject of the gag.

Mr Clarkson, for whom I carry no particular torch, apologised for any offence he had caused; rightly, I think, as his joke was pretty crass and, more importantly, not very funny.

But to the millions out there who read the initial stories, saw the lunacy of the responses and have now seen the Ofcom judgment, all this does is reinforce a nagging suspicion that not only is the Left institutionally humorless and self-regarding, but also has its priorities all wrong.

I’m reminded of the late, and much missed, Humphrey Lyttelton, who signed off one episode of BBC Radio 4’s “I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue” with the line: “If you’ve been affected by any of the issues raised in tonight’s show, please write to the BBC Helpdesk, Wood Lane, London, clearly marking your envelope ‘lunatic’".

I don’t believe anybody complained.

The Patient Leaves Intensive Care

 
Just a little update for those of you following the truck rebuild.
Like a patient who's been hospitalised for a while the big news is she's now home. She's also insured, taxed and has a lovely new MOT. She's now my "car", in other words, with the A8 sold and my wife effectively annexing the XC90 for her/family use.

She doesn't look hugely different to the wreck we found at first glance, except for that hood, but actually she's a hugely different truck.
It's taken almost a month of hard work, marriage-threatening hours up at the garage working on her and, of course, large sums of Moolah to get her to this point and, if truth be told, there's still a huge amount to do - we've only really stopped the bleeding. But she feels less like a project now that she's getting used.
The major issue has been the bulkhead. It was not good and we struggled for a while to decide whether to replace it with a 300TDi version now, or weld/plate it up for an MOT.

In the medium term the plan is to remove the old 2.5TD motor, pretty much the worst LR ever made, and replace it with a 300TDi (from a Defender, not a Disco) and uprated gearbox. In the end we plumbed for bodging on the basis that a new bulkhead would add between £500 and £1000 to the bill, too much right now. We were happily stripping the wings off when we found a hole beside the servo box - instant MOT failure and requiring hours and hours of stripping out most of the top of the engine et cetera to get a welder in there.
Meanwhile the underside needed steaming clean, the handbrake needed unseizing, all the electrics needed overhauling to give us working lights and wipers (still only got one speed but that's a minor detail), the doors needed rehanging (and the mirrors replacing whilst they were off), the floor needed a weld, repeaters need replacing and securing, the battery needed replacing, she needed a new hood, one tire needed tubing, the brakes needed servicing, she needed a new exhaust, a new UJ on the prop-shaft, we had to build a bracket for the new tailpipe, door handles needed replacing, the dash needed securing, and she needed priming and painting (albeit by me with a brush, rather than a paint shop) in the areas we'd welded and where she was through to metal anyway.
And in all this she fought us every step of the way. Dozens of screws and bolts are missing, others have been replaced with wood screws and pretty much everything we needed to undo was corroded solid and needed lengthy "persuasion" or hacksawing off. All of this added hours and hours to the jobs in hand.
She bit and struggled as if afraid but in the end she was done, thanks to huge amounts of work and a very friendly MOT testing station...

Getting her working, though, is only the pre-stage. It means she'll be running and used and warmer, and that's all good, but the list of next steps is just as huge as the list of emergency operations we've just done.
First up she'll need servicing this coming week. Then we have the tire issue. All five tires are technically legal in terms of tread but very old and perished and need replacing, which brings us on to the wheels which themselves need either recoating or replacing. A set of wheels and tires, depending on what I put on her, will be anything between £650 and £1100.
The MOT spotted some nasty suspension corrosion which'll need sorting, although it's not too bad, together with rusted brake pipes.
The seats are torn and probably beyond repair, we'll see, and most of the dash needs urgently replacing as it's hanging on by a thread (four threads, to be precise). Some electrics still aren't right, back gate can't be locked, not sure why, and the wiper motor probably needs replacing too.
So all that's next, followed by the hunt for a new motor and gearbox and bulkhead (but that'll have to wait for a bit, as it'll cost a lot of money).
And eventually we'll get to the fun bit: paint, winches, snorkels and general silliness. I'm looking forward to that, obviously, but we have to kind of earn the right to make her pretty by making her healthy.
Nonetheless, driving up the snowy lanes yesterday with four-year old in the front in his child-seat pretending to be "in an army truck", dog bouncing about in the back and wife sat up on one of the rear jumpseats conceding, through gritted teeth, that "it's not as cold as I thought", it all felt great.

Perfectly sane people's love for Land Rovers, which are noisy, uncomfortable, cramped, unreliable, rusty and slow is a puzzle; but I get it. It's like a giant Meccano kit, rather than a rolling degree in computer science. Unlike my XC90 it doesn't furiously beep at me if I don't pop a seatbelt on, and then get so angry at being ignored it cuts the radio off and beeps even louder. It's my truck, it doesn't want to be in charge. It's more like the relationship between man and dog than man and wife.
Need to think of a name for her...

Know Your Enemy

I remember walking into a military field hospital in Iraq a few years ago and noticing, above a door, a hand-carved sign that read “If you can’t take a joke, you shouldn't have joined”.

Staggering advances in battlefield medicine meant that, within that hospital, were young men with injuries so unimaginably appalling that just five years earlier they’d have been dead before they got near a casualty evacuation.

And yet there was that sign, a uniquely British way of dealing with hideous mental and physical trauma, and often death....cock a snoop at it.

I was gently reminded of that sign when I saw a document recently about how London is going to operate for those of us who live and/or work there during the Olympics. There was much to it but here are the highlights:

• 35 miles of London’s already crushingly congested roads will be shut to us mere workers, reserved instead for athletes, sponsors and VIPs.
• A number of Tube trains at peak times will be closed to we normal folk, reserved for VIPs, Olympic officials and sponsors (so they don’t have to get squished in like we do, poor things).
• Businesses in London, especially in the City and the east side of the capital, will be advised to close their doors and have staff work from home.

So, to summarise: if those of us who work in London try to come to work as usual and, er, work, the entire thing will grind to a halt. Despite their own private lanes to drive on and their own private Tubes to ride on, fat executives from MacDonalds will have to get stuck too, VIP sponsors or not. In other words, the success of the infrastructure element of the Games relies not on the razor-sharp organising skills of those in charge, but the goodwill of Londoners.

And here, I fear, the planners may have over-looked something.

I remember the day the 7/7 bombs went off in London. I remember, in the early evening, standing outside a bar near my north London flat and watching thousands of men and women walking, slowly, past me. Some had probably already done four or five miles. It was the only way to get home. Most were smiling, despite the horrors of that day. Local people were ferrying trays of cold drinks out to them from their houses, and the landlord of the pub kept a steady flow of free half-pints of lager appearing on the table outside, paid for by all of us having stuck money behind the bar.

When it matters Londoners can be absolutely relied upon to display incredible camaraderie, compassion, selflessness and grit (as the deeply moving stories of ordinary people’s heroics that day came to demonstrate). However, when they feel they are being put upon, taken for granted or mistreated I would contend that there are, in this entire world, no buggers more awkward.

“Bollocks”, is what Londoners will say when asked to queue for an hour to get a Tube their taxes pay for because the chaps from Sony don’t want to be late for their Champagne breakfast.

“Sod it”, they’ll probably exclaim, after 45 minutes in stationary traffic watching rotund American Nike executives swan past in chauffeur-driven Mercedes-Benzs.

I’ve seen it happen. Crossing Leicester Square last year I heard a commotion. It turned out a number of security personnel, replete in black jeans, black t-shirts (bearing the word “SECURITY”, in case one wasn't sure) and radio earpieces, turning away crowds of commuters trying to get to the Tube station. Why? A film premier. The red carpet was laid in their path. “Go round” was the simple, rude, instruction (that’s round as in three streets round, by the way). Tempers were becoming frayed. Finally, as we arrived, a harmless looking chap in a Macintosh simply said, loudly, “You are a security guard for a film event. You have no legal right to bar my way. You have no more powers than I do. This is a public right of way, and, before you think about it, you have no right to lay hands on me for walking over your red carpet either. You shouldn’t have left it there. I’m getting the Tube. If you choose to assault me for doing so, so be it.”

And off he went. Four security guards leapt in like Ninjas, furious, but, as if he radiated static, none quite felt able to be the first to physically restrain him, or his little briefcase. And the floodgates opened, and through we all went.

Whilst they’re spending millions on air-to-ground anti-aircraft missile installations and retina scanners, I think the Olympic organisers are likely to be derailed not by the terrorists they fear, but by Mr Jones, on his way to the office, to do some important filing.

This lovely British trait, the refusal to conform to silly, bumptious or petty rules, has been under threat since 9/11. Every petty unofficial official in the country now considers themselves on the front line against terror and able to call for police support if so much as questioned (my favorite being the under-cover Westminster Council warden who threatened to call for police back-up when he tried to fine me for dropping a cigarette butt). It is exemplified by Chesterton’s poem “The Rolling English Road”:

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode, 
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road. 
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire, 
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire; 
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire, 
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire; 
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed 
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands, 
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.

His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run 
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun? 
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch. 
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear 
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.

My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage, 
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth, 
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death; 
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen, 
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.

Quite. And it is the spirit of Chesterton, not Osama bin Laden, I suspect, which will pervade when the bloated, arrogant, get-rich-quick leviathan which is the modern Olympiad arrives in London.

A Man Needs A Thing, Not A Task.

At first glance today’s post should only appeal to petrol-heads and even then just a small proportion of those (if your idea of fun in cars is reading about the latest nickel-plated Bugatti in Top Gear you may wish to look away now).

I contend, though, that there is more to this post than some guff about the rebuilding of a Land Rover, although that’s what it amounts to really. Bear with me, at least for a moment eh?

Most people work in jobs that, given the financial choice, they wouldn’t do. Of those, the majority work behind a desk, staring at a flickering monitor, sat on a chair. Whatever they do, however much they change by doing their job, when they leave at the end of the day the desk looks much as it did when they arrived. I can’t speak for you, but I always find this a little sad. I feel there’s something primeval about creating something physical, looking upon something that wasn’t there when you started and thinking “I made that – I put it there – a small part of this world is down to me”.

I feel that when I cut a huge pile of logs and look at them, hours later, stacked against the wall. I think people, particularly but not exclusively men, need to feel this.

The only people I know who would continue to work at what they do if their Euro-Millions ticket came up make things (and I include tending the countryside in that).

Well, here’s what, for me, is going to slate that thirst.

She's a Land Rover 90 convertible from a year or two before they started using the "Defender" tag. She started life as a County (which is why there are what are now somewhat redundant switches for things like rear washers and heaters in there.)

She's seen better days, poor thing. Have a look.




















I'd been hunting for the right Landy for six months, with no luck. I looked at a host of 110 Station Wagons to use as our second car. So, how did I come to take a 90 rag-top?

Well, generosity, actually. This 90 belonged to a friend who works abroad, these days in private security since leaving the army. He hadn't seen her in three years and has no plans to return to the UK for some time. So, when his brother, another friend, suggested I go up to Nene Overland near Peterborough, where she was being stored after the previous storage company went bust, I thought "why not?".

Sadly, the condition we found her in was, as you can see, not what any of us expected. The previous storage lot had obviously left her outside and this was the result. It's a crime, really, as she'd once been a wonderful truck.

He and I spoke and he took the view that whilst financially he could have her rebuilt by Overfinch, in Platinum, without noticing the expense (he's well paid, and rightly so bearing in mind what he does), he wouldn't be here to drive her. He wanted to see her not only returned to her former glory, but also loved again; used, enjoyed. He's a top chap, although he could probably kill you in 78 different ways.

So now she's mine. A project, certainly, but a lot more than that. She's my link with that physical thing I mentioned at the beginning. I'm going to make her right.

Initial expenses ran into a few hundred pounds to have her inspected, and then low-loaded down to me, but the bills are really flowing in now. She's at the local one-man-show mechanic's I use (he's that rarest of things, a brilliant but honest car technician, and also a Landy enthusiast). He also lets me work on her there and he does the stuff I can't do (which is lots).

When she arrived I went to see her. I spoke quietly to her, reassuring her about what would happen, and how she was going to be a family vehicle again. The car-whisperer. It's something I have always done with motorbikes - somehow makes me feel better.



Since these photos were taken she's changed a bit. We've cleaned her up underneath and although she looked terrible, actually the rust was mostly surface deep only. She needs a couple of very small welds, which will get done when the wings come off to weld up the bulkhead (which will last about a year - needs a new one really but the plan is to get her MOTed first, so she can be used).

She's got a new rear exhaust section in stainless steel, and today she'll get a new universal joint on the rear prop shaft. The door bottoms are going, we discovered when I replaced the handles last week, but they'll last a short while. Two new doors will be needed by the end of the year though.

Once all that welding's done a new hood will go on. The excellent Exmoor Trim supplied a sand-coloured canvas effort which I think will look great.

She also runs now, thanks to a new battery, and the engine's pretty strong, although it needs a service and O&F changes et cetera. The electrics need a total overhaul where the water's come in through the lack of a roof and a broken dash and wiped out all the connections too.

There have been some pleasant surprises. She's poly-bushed all round and has a later Defender rear axle with disc brakes and the four folding seats in the rear tub include two seat belts secured on the half roll-cage (will add a back half to that and two extra belts when funds allow).

There's a huge amount to do, and it won't be cheap, but when it's done she'll be a great truck, and a lot of fun. My wife doesn't seem to think the nipper (who's four) should be allowed anywhere near it but I suspect he's going to remember this vehicle with great affection in the years ahead. The dog will also almost certainly fall out of it, owing to a mix of dim-wittedness, inexperience with open vehicles and discovering what the wind does to Labrador ears when you lean out.

Security will be a big issue. Old Land Rovers are amongst the most stolen cars int he UK, with most being shipped to the former Yugoslavia and other central European states. I've taken care of that by spending a lot of money on physical security (Clutch-Claw, Disklok) and ordering a tracker.

She'll get a new coat of paint too, when the new bulkhead goes in later this year. Not sure which colour yet, but thinking a nice grey might work. Let me know your thoughts.

I also need to find somewhere to keep her in the village. The garage I rent for my (now sold) motorcycle isn't tall enough and I need somewhere I can work on her in the long evenings after a hard day bashing computer keys and having meetings.

And when she's up and running she'll replace the A8 as the second car, and my station run car. It's a practical choice: the Landy will be slow, noisy, uncomfortable, cold, bumpy and, of course, damp.

I'm going to love her very much.

To Protect And Serve, the public sector at its finest

The DVLA HQ near Swansea. 

Some lengthy telephone menus and lift music later...

"Hello. DVLA. XXXXX speaking how can I help you?"

Hi. I’ve brought a car from a friend. I need to tax it but I don’t have the V5 as he’s in Afghanistan and hasn’t seen it for a few years. So I need to apply for a new one in my name please. I’ve got form V62 filled out but I’d like to know how quickly I can get it done as until it’s taxed and therefore roadworthy I can’t get it home and fix it up properly, and it’s just out in the rain.

"Well we will write to the previous owner for confirmation, which will take around four weeks."

Okay. Would you like his address in Kabul?

"No."

Sorry?

"No. We will write to him at the address we hold for him."

Right. But he’s not there you see, he’s in Kabul. He hasn’t been there for four years or so, and he’s off to Africa next.

"We’ll still write to him there."

But he won’t reply.

"I understand what you’re saying."

Er, yes, thanks. So do you want his Kabul address and email and phone number too?

"No. We’ll write to him at home."

But he won’t reply, you see. He’s not there. What will you do then?

"We’ll write to him there again. We may write up to four times. At the end of that time we will take a decision on issuing a new V5."

But he’s not there. How long will you keep writing to him?

"I cannot say that. It may be a number of months. That will be a decision for that team."

Months? But that means I can’t tax the car for months. Look, I understand you have a procedure but there must be a sensible way forward. There’s no point in you spending lots of man hours and money writing to someone you know isn’t going to reply to you is there?

"I understand what you are saying."

Yes. So what can we do?

"Nothing. That is our procedure."

I understand that, but in this case it won’t work will it? Surely you could write to him at home and in Kabul? Or would you like me to get him to call you, or you could call him? What can I do to make things work?

"We don’t do calls. That is our procedure."

But it’s a bit Kafkaesque isn’t it? It won’t work, it’ll cost you and I time and money, it’ll take months and, at the end of all that, we’ll be back where we started. That can’t be a sensible use of your funds. Can nobody there apply a bit of flexibility to this and agree a workable solution?

"No. I’ve explained our procedure. I can’t really tell you again and again. We’re just going around in circles."

Yes, but that’s because you’re going to do something which makes things worse and won’t work. There must be a better solution.

"I’ve explained everything to you. I understand what you’re saying. Why not attach a letter to your V62 explaining the situation?"

Okay, great. If I do that and include all his contact details will that speed things up?

"No. We will work to our procedure."

So why am I attaching a letter?

"To explain the situation."

But you’ve just said it won’t make any difference!

"I didn’t say that. I said we would stick to our procedure. If you include a letter that team will see it."

Okay. Can they then make a decision to contact my friend in Kabul.

"No. They will write to him at home."

For Goodness Sake! This is ridiculous. Can I speak to a supervisor please?

"There’s nobody here."

What? There’s nobody there at all in a supervisory capacity.

"I didn’t say that. I said there’s nobody here who will tell you any different to me. This call is going around in circles. I think I am going to terminate this call."

...and then there were none...

"'Tis better to have loved and lost", a man with an impressive beard once suggested, "than never to have loved at all".

To the lonely, the heart-broken and those who found themselves living in something of a void he was effectively saying: "Come on. Could be worse. It might always have been like this." Treasure the memories, in other words.

And so I tried to do this week, as I stood in the centre of a naggingly empty garage floor. Tool boxes, bits of motorcycle, old pieces of riding kit and, defying my attempts not to become emotional, a few tauntingly placed drops of oil - but no motorcycle.

"I ride therefore I am" might have been my mantra for years. I rode constantly, I rode everywhere. I rode all winter. I went to meetings in the driving rain 300 miles away, with a suit in the panniers, and changed in a disabled loo when I got there; and I loved it.

Moreover, I was the kind of biker who (mostly) privately, sneered at fair-weather and part-time riders. Biking Life and all that.

Motorcycling kept me sane, it kept me happy. It defined me, and I was happy that it did.

 And now it doesn't. Because I'm no longer a biker. I don't own a bike.

The GSA you see atop this blog is gone and I have no plans to replace her, other than with a Land Rover 90 convertible I'm restoring.

My wife has been kind-hearted enough to suppress her delight. She's always hated motorcycles, never been on the back of any of mine and hated the fact that I rode, especially since our son was born.

I've made clear to her that the issue is just about good sense and money. My new job sees me leaving the village at around 6am every day and not coming home until 8pm at the earliest. Attempts to ride to London were fruitless as, by the time I hit the B-Roads near home, I was dangerously tired. As for weekends, when you haven't seen your child or partner all week you simply can't disappear on a bike for five hours.

So, there was a £10,000 bike in the garage, not getting used, but being paid for each month, and insured, and taxed, and serviced. Silly, right? Had to go.

All of this is true, but it's not the whole truth. That is more fundamental and, for me as a rider, more disturbing.

Those of you who ride know that you have lots of "incidents". Some idiot will try to kill on most journeys, or you do something silly, but you learn to live with it, to compartmentalise it as the Americans say. You laugh at it later. Rather like soldiers in a war-zone, if you actually thought about this stuff rationally you'd never get out of bed so you just macho it out and, you know what, it works.

Except it didn't any more, not for me.

I was out for a pleasure ride a few weeks ago. Nothing hardcore, and nothing off-road, just a trundle. Coming back into the village in the rain I came off a roundabout where there are two huge drain covers and two huge painted arrows - all like black ice to a bike. The front end went, fairly hard and a long way. There was a car coming the other way and, with a brain working at adrenaline-filled light speed, I knew what may be coming. 

It stayed up. I like to think a few things I learned from the great Simon Pavey about front end slides helped but in all likelihood it was the German engineers who designed the bike that saved me.

Either way, I rode home, hopped off, sparked up a fag and sat on a pannier box. This is what I'd normally do. I'd then write a furious letter to council about drain covers, paint and spilt diesel and go to the pub.

This time, though, I didn't. This time I thought about my four-year-old son, involuntarily. I thought about what could have happened ten minutes earlier and what they'd say to him in later years had it done so. "Daddy was killed in a motorbike crash".

It's, well, shit...isn't it? What a rubbish reason to grow up without a father. Undertones of selfishness, a suggestion that I was prepared to risk that, for him, for my own pleasure but, overwhelmingly, just shit.

And at that point I knew my Mojo, my beating, pulsing, all-consuming biking Mojo, had simply upped and left, without so much as leaving a note.

In the weeks that followed riding wasn't fun. I avoided it unless logistics dictated otherwise but when I had to ride, it was a question of getting through.

And now a nice chap in Scotland has the bike, and I have an empty garage.

I miss it. Come summer I'll miss it so much it hurts. And come the days when my friends are loading tents and stoves onto their bikes and heading off to wonderful places for a little adventure, I'll probably weep. But it's right. I know it to be right, deep down.

Last summer I was at a dinner party and one chap, a deal older than me, said he was shopping for a new bike having sold his last one 16 years earlier. His daughter was now 18, he said, so he felt okay about riding again. We talked options and I tried to be helpful but, underneath, I clearly recall thinking he wasn't much a biker.

Perhaps he wasn't, and perhaps I'm not either, but I understand now he was a good father. I'm trying to be one too, and it feels good.

I'll need to decide what to do with my blog. I hope I can still write on biking, if not riding, if you see what I mean, but I guess I'll have to change the look. I hope you'll stay with me, not least because I so enjoy writing it.

 Anyway. From Tennyson to Arlo Guthrie's "The Motorcycle Song", I think. 

"Late last week just the other night, 

"I thought I'd go up and I'd see Mike, 

"So I went up and I saw Mike

"But Mike no longer has a bike." 

The 2011 Making Progress Blues Awards

Darn the holes in the red carpet! Prepare to have to pretend to find James Corden in any way funny in case the cameras are on you! Day-dream pleasantly of beating Jonathan Ross to death with half a house brick!

Yes, it's that time of year again! Welcome to the ballroom of London's glittering Grosvenor House Hotel (not, in any way, a table at the back of the saloon bar of the Lamb & Flag) for the 2011 Making Progress Blues Awards!

And what a year it's been for those of us who travel on two wheels. Our awards tonight recognise all that's wonderful, and much that's shit about biking.

We'll celebrate the highs, we'll remember the lows, we'll forget which awards we're at after an hour of sneaking off to the loo during the ad breaks to imbue cheap cocaine provided by the PR company and, let's be honest, later we'll be arrested for punching a paparazzi outside the Ivy.

Let's kick off the show with the award they all want to lose.

The "Yeah, I'm In The Car Mate" Award for worst driven car of 2011.

This award recognises the vehicle which presents the greatest danger to bikers by being driven most consistently with no care and attention, or any skill whatsoever.

The nominations are:

1. Last year's winner, the Audi A4: over-priced, under-powered, over-blinged and always driven with something to prove, this hideously aspirational shitbox excelled again in 2011 with endless tail-gating, fog-light use, under-taking and general needle-dick-with-issues-carrying uber-twattery.

2. The BMW 1-Series. Days after spending £35,000 on one, most 1-Series drivers realised it was a shopping trolley which could be out-dragged by a Mini and proceeded to try to drive it like the M3 it wasn't - badly.

3. The Range Rover Evoque. An unlikely entry as, thanks to the fact it's never seen outside central London, it never achieved more than 22mph at any point. However, judges were impressed by the haughty but mypopic driving style of the women involved and the ability to slam the brakes on without warning on spotting a parking space, a friend or Fortnum and Mason.

And the award goes to........ 

The Audi A4! An incredible achievement in turdishness as the salesman who thinks he's Fernando Alonso's favorite retains the award for 2011! Well done Nigel!

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The George Monbiot Award for Prat or Prats Of the Year.

Let's have a look at the nominees' work this year:

1. The Government - Coming to power promising to end the "war on the motorist", remove pointless speed cameras, shut down local camera partnerships and recognise the value of biking both to the environment and the economy the Coalition has done....that's right! Nothing! Zip! Sweet FA!

2. Suzuki's board of directors - Removing their last remaining bike from the 2012 Moto GP grid helped cement Suzuki's reputation as a bike company that was big in the 90s but is now just a bike company that was big in the 90s. Marketing gold.

3. Wim van de Camp MEP - the R1-riding fella who has helped drive through the EU Parliament some of the most restrictive, damaging legislation ever introduced around biking, helping to castrate the next generation of riders before they've even bought a bike and maul the industry at a time it desperately needs help.

And the winner is....Wim van de Camp!

Let's hear it for the man who shows us all why the EU Parliament really does work for each and every one of us!

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The "Shiny! Shiny!" Award for bit of kit of the year.

Judges argued long and hard into the pint, I mean night, about this one. Let's look at the contenders:

1. Hein Gericke Master V textile suit - elderly now but still the best value out there, and supremely dry and warm.

2. Garmin 660 Zumo sat nav - does it all, and more, right down to beaming tunes into your ears as you ride along.

3. Fags - A controversial entry but as the judges recently fell off the smoking wagon nobody could argue that a good smoke after a ride is pretty much unbeatable.

And the award goes to.....fags!

To borrow from Churchill, kinda, a good ride is a ride but a cigarette is a smoke. 

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The Proper-Sized Penis Award for best driven vehicle of 2011.

This coveted award, previously won by such greats as the Porsche 911, recognises the vehicle which can best be relied on not to do something stupid and to be driven with a degree of skill and attention.

This year's nominees are:

1. The Caterham 7 - it'll probably be doing 80mph but as that feels to those aboard like 180mph they're usually looking where they're going.

2. The Land Rover 110 - oddly its shorter brother, the 90, is usually driven by mono-eyed maniacs in the middle of the road at full speed, trailing cider and Camel Trophy stickers, but the 110 seems to attract a different class of owner.

3. The Bentley Turbo R - despite being wider than Cornwall, and faster in a straight line than Mars, the venerable old B seems to be driven with a courtesy not seen on British roads since all cars were preceded by a chap with a red flag.

The dildo-shaped trophy goes to.....The Caterham 7!

Proof that men in bobble hats really are better drivers. Well done.

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The "I'm Going To Follow You Home And Feed You Your Own Collar Bones!" Award for properly deadly driving.

New this year, judges felt that the stratospheric scale of idiocy, selfishness and downright cockery behind some of the maneuvers seen in 2011 needed recognising. Let's have a look at the nominations:

1. The sudden change of lane or u-turn in traffic jams - a far from original way of killing bikers but still being finessed by turds across Britain. A classic, the judges felt.

2. Properly fast cars deciding that nothing could ever be faster than them and, thus, blasting out to overtake slower traffic without thinking there may be a bike behind them doing the same and bothering to fucking look. Incredibly dangerous and performed with particular panache by the Audi RS6 Avant.

3. The delivery of oral sex by passenger to driver. Deadly but utterly forgivable and therefore in with no chance of winning. At all. Ever.

The award goes to....lane changes and u-turns in traffic! Well done you selfish, evil, ignorant bastards.

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The "Yes! I AM Nicky Hayden! Kneel Before Me!" Award for best road of 2011.

This award is somewhat dependent on the roads the judges have actually ridden during the year. The nominations:

1. The A260 from Banker's Hill to Banbury, Oxfordshire. Nominated last year too, but failed to win. Perhaps 2011 will be it's year.

2. The E21, dropping down through the Alps from Geneva into France through endless tunnels, huge cliffs and drop-offs and surrounded by cloud.

3. The N106, south through the Cevennes National Park to Florac - twisty, lovely, lovely and twisty.

There could only be one winner though, for sheer speed and scenery and the ability to drive through mile-long tunnels the E21 is the clear winner in 2011.

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And our final award, as is traditional....

The Making Progress Blues Award for Biking Personality Of The Year.

The award goes each year to the individual who's had the greatest impact on bikers or biking.

This year - no nominations, no spiel, no jokes, no fucking justice...one winner:

Super Sic

20th January 1987 - 23rd October 2011

God Bless

That concludes the 2011 awards everybody. Ride safe, ride well. Let's hope we can end on a gag in 2012.