bollast

On a beautiful September afternoon, just after lunch, the Triumph rumbled back into life. I’d spent Monday re-assembling the chaincase with dad and was about to launch into the ether when the bike stalled and we discovered that one of the carb rubbers had perished (causing an air leak). My heart sank, but at least it wasn’t a big deal, more rubbers were ordered and by Wednesday, had arrived.

On Wednesday, another unexpectedly glorious day, the bike eventually started. It should have started first kick but took a few minutes of pounding at the kickstart. Putting this down to the accepted characteristics of a British-built machine over thirty years old I was happy to confidently set off when it fired. And by Christ did we set off. The engine was peachy and responsive; indeed, it hadn’t run like this in a decade.

We flew down the A3, my intention was to pop by the office before pointing the bike Eastwards for home, but something wasn’t right. As I approached my destination round lunchtime, in a corner of South London too close to my old flat for comfort, the engine started to get fluffy and it stalled at a junction. It started again but it still wasn’t happy, when it stalled again I knew something was seriously wrong.

I spent a good ten minutes leaping up and down on the kickstart until I was literally drenched in sweat. It was no good; there wasn’t even a hint of life, so I prepared myself for a long wait after calling the breakdown unit. I parked the bike off the gridlocked road in full gaze of the static occupants, who seemed to be relishing my efforts with some self-satisfied glee, and retrieved my phone and the number I had printed on a card in my wallet.

It was then I discovered my phone was dead.

Of course, these days, unless you live in the sticks, there is more chance of finding a WMD than a phone box, working or otherwise. My heart sunk to my Doc’s, what to do?

Across the road I noticed a newsagent stuffed full of school kids buying crisps and porn, for a split second I figured there was a solution in buying a phone card for the phone box that didn’t exist, until I realised it wasn’t the 80’s and I was boiling hot. I wandered up the road for a bit and happened upon a pub.

I entered and sheepishly asked the worn-out bar man if there was a phone, of course not, but he agreed to lend me the pub one. I thanked him, ordered a coke, called the breakdown unit and after much sweating and puffing (I was still in my gear and weighed down by helmets, rucksacks and tools) I finally arranged for a pick up, ‘in the next 90 minutes’.

The bar man said I could use the pub phone number as a contact number for the unit when they arrived, so I figured I’d sit in the boozer until they called. Despite having solved the immediate problem I was still immensely pissed off, I didn’t even have a phone to check stuff in the office (let alone tell them I wouldn’t be in) more annoyingly the time-killing Angry Birds was out of my reach. Some degree of solace lay in the book I’m currently reading (god help me, Bill Bryson, but his ‘At Home’ is highly recommended) and the coke was a bonus after all the efforts employed trying to start the sodding bike.

I literally peeled off my jacket; my t-shirt was wringing wet, when the cool air hit it I sighed with relief. I arranged my accessories and sat down to read, drink, pass the time… A quick glance round the pub was enough to inform that this wasn’t a happy place. The shabby bar man leant over the bar cradling his chin in his hand, eyes glazed over a handful of middle-aged men sat alone staring into pints of lager or the flat-screen TV featuring a sport of some kind near the Gents.

I was just about to return to my book when I accidentally met the ping-pong eyes of a piss-pot sat a few feet away from my table. Before I had a chance to look away he suddenly started on me, ‘You looking at fucking cuntface, you cuntface?’ And then he said again, only this time a bit louder with an additional ‘f’ word and a troubling amount of animation.

That’s me, then, I thought. I wasn’t going to spend five minutes, let alone an hour and a half, in the company of some special needs case who’d taken a disliking to my having been born, with patently nothing whatsoever to lose. I sighed, drained my drink, picked up my gear and, before telling the barman where I was when the breakdown unit called, left them to it.

I walked out into the sunshine and sat by my bike on a wall with my back to the traffic, now slowly moving. It occurred to me that this would inevitable delay the rescue unit. ‘Bollocks’ I shouted.

I spent over two hours sat there, occasionally I’d try and start the bike, go over obvious signs of fault but a lack of tools prevented any real progress. The battery was charged, tank was full and as we hadn’t disturbed the timing or carburetion logically that had to be ruled out too. Fuck knows. I passed the hours getting increasingly frustrated, hot and bored. Finally, at the end of a queue of traffic I saw the unit, which promptly u-turned and disappeared down a side street. I grabbed my stuff and ran after it and, following a sprint of some note, managed to catch it up.

The bike was pondered over by the driver/mechanic, I curtly advised him not to touch it, just take us back to my folks and the garage full of necessary tools. This took an hour as by now it was rush hour, I then had to get home from there, another two crawled by as I was cheerlessly packed and stuffed into a variety of trains and tubes.

I was a little livid ball of fuck-off when I finally got home, with just enough time to push bread and cheese into my gob and meet my bro at the pub at 8 for a well deserved pint. It took me a while to unwind, and the silly cunt in the beer garden wasn’t helping either. We went indoors to escape her loud lectures on the why’s and wherefores of her horrific sex-life, later on one of her crew (the big-nosed arsehole had already annoyed me by not saying ‘thank you’ when I let him pass through a narrow gangway) dropped a tray of his/their drinks in the middle of the pub. Made my night that did.

Tonight I meet IC in town; she’s taking me out for dinner which is marvellous. She’s off to Italy in the morning leaving me to my own devices for a few days. Can’t say I’m thrilled at the prospect but it’s my own doing. I have a job this weekend which I am both dreading and excited about in equal measure. I’m afraid this entails an enormous amount of work next week so it’s likely they’ll be no Piqued…

Gerry’s chart, a tune (though not from the chart this week, I fancy something more insane) and I’ll be back soon yeah. Cheerio.

NO. ARTIST SONG TITLE Last Week Weeks On High Pos
30 Baxter Dury Claire 24 7 14
29 The Horrors Still Life 20 15 1
28 You Me At Six Loverboy 30 3 28
27 Cerebral Ballzy Cutting Class 21 8 7
26 The Fixers Swimhaus Johannesburg 23 5 23
25 Florence And The Machine What The Water Gave Me 29 2 25
24 Red Hot Chili Peppers ……..Rain Dance Maggie 18 8 14
23 Evanescence What You Want NE 1 23
22 She Wants Revenge Must Be The One 15 8 6
21 The Drums Money 22 3 21
20 Kids In Glass Houses Animal 16 7 16
19 Snow Patrol Called Out In The Dark 25 2 19
18 Mona Shooting The Moon 12 8 4
17 Cults Go Outside 19 3 17
16 The Kooks Is It Me? 26 3 16
15 Cherri Bomb Spin NE 1 15
14 The Blackout The Storm 10 6 7
13 The Wombats Our Perfect Disease 13 5 13
12 Japanese Voyeurs Cry Baby 9 7 2
11 Foo Fighters Arlandria 11 4 11
10 The Horrors I Can See Through You 17 2 10
9 Bring Me The Horizon It Never Ends 6 6 5
8 Kasabian Switchblade Smiles 4 7 2
7 Blink 182 Up All Night 14 3 7
6 The Strokes Macchu Picchu 5 6 5
5 Kasabian Days Are Forgotten 8 4 5
4 The Vaccines Norgaard 3 7 3
3 The Subways We Don’t Need Money…… 7 4 3
2 All The Young Welcome Home 1 11 1
1 Bombay Bicycle Club Shuffle 2 4 1