All hail me, for I am the IT king. No bastard would tell me what was wrong with my 'pooter (did you note the use of past tense? I tried to be subtle.) , so I fixed it myself. Impressed? I am. I tried system scans with three different bits of software, I ran registry cleaning software, I even downloaded a manual which is supposed to explain how the registry works and what all the file names and extensions mean and manually fucked with it modified it. I downloaded another couple of browsers, nothing worked. So I bit the bullet and did something I thought would bring about the end of civilisation as I know it. I worked out how to do a clean install of Windows and blow me down if it didn't work. I didn't panic when it told me to insert a CD into the drive when I dion't have a CD of the name requested. I didn't even scream when I had to reconfigure the satellite software. I held my nerve and succeeded against all odds. I've put a proposal to Jerry Bruckheimer, but he directed me to the Hallmark Channel. It should be on a cable TV near you by Christmas.
I'm going to go and touch myself inappropriately now.
If you have been trawling my archives or - heaven forefend - reading this drivel for long enough, you will know that my dear old daddy and I would go to Bathurst each Easter for the bike races. Persons who have never been to Bathurst may be labouring under the assumption that it was a weekend of violence and debauchery. It was. Except for the violence. In ten or so trips to the mountain, the only interpersonal violence (as opposed to violence committed upon a motorcycle*) was directly outside the police compound and was committed by the police. I have since heard from a retired policemen that there was quite some competition for the Bathurst job each year. I suppose everybody has to vent. Be that as it may, I never felt threatened or intimidated by any person or situation when I was there. Dad obviously felt the same because he gave me free reign even as a twelve year old to go pretty much anywhere I wanted by myself. I worked out that the best way to get around was to buy a T-shirt emblazoned on the back with a motorcycle logo; didn't matter what brand you chose, somebody would be riding that brand and would stop to offer you a lift. In those days when you were actually watching the races you would usually find yourself in a conversation with whoever happened to be nearby. Later in the evening, if you happened to run into those people at a pub, you would have a beer with them. If you were walking around the campground and they spotted you, they would call you over for a beer. Generally speaking (and I generally am), it was the most consistently friendly and socially accepting atmosphere that I have ever experienced. Cut to the present Day: I was on the telling bone with Dad on Anzac Day talking about The Old Days **. Dad went Phillip Island for the MotoGP this year. Dad will turn 80 next year and is a fairly gregarious chappie. Apart from monosyllabic grunts and the guy on the gate, nobody spoke to him all day. Although he is quite thick skinned and one of the toughest blokes I know, this upset Dad. He's been involved in motorcycles and motorcycling for over sixty years. Which illustrates something that has been gnawing at me for some time. The nature of motorcyclists and motorcycling has changed, I believe for the worse (All changes are for the worse). Originally, when Dad started riding, motorcycling was an economic decision; you rode because you couldn't afford a car. Only a small percentage of riders rode for pleasure and of those, most raced. This meant that there was some sort of camaraderie between riders, sort of a mutual support group. Then, when I started riding in the seventies motorcycling was populated almost entirely by pleasure riders. Cars were cheaper, people were richer. If you rode, it was because you wanted to. At the time motorcycling was not quite respectable. A lot of people had misconceptions about motorcycling and motorcyclists, considering it/ them to be somewhat dangerous. These opinions were fuelled - as such misconceptions usually are - by sensationalist stories in the populist media. Some fuckwits even had their opinions reinforced at the movies. However, this also led to a sort of camaraderie among riders. It meant that you would never drink alone in a strange pub or run short of someone to talk to at a race meeting. These days there is still a camaraderie among riders, but it has changed subtly. Some older riders - and I include myself here - have retained the old attitude of welcoming anybody with the correct number of wheels. A lot of riders, young and old, now reserve their 'brotherhood' for riders of the same ilk i.e., sports riders, tourers, Harleys etc. Worse, a lot of them have a strong clique mentality whereby you have to become accepted into their lofty social strata before they will recognise their existence. Fuck 'em. *I saw two blokes having an argument once. One bloke had a Ducati and the other had a Suzuki. Suzuki Man claimed that Ducatis were pretty boys with no staying power. Ducati Man said that Ducatis were just as tough as the working class Suzukis. To resolve the argument they got the bikes wheel-to-wheel, started them up and held the throttles wide open. For a very long time. Eventually the Duke heard the alarm go off, thought that it was time for work and put a leg out of bed. Dunno how Ducati Man got home. **Shut up. Just shut up.
Osama's boys have hit my 'pooter again. Internet Explorer don't wanna work no more. Which is fine by me, except that I like to use a freeware browser called Crazy Browser, which is basically IE with tabs. It's a ball-tearer. Fire up the 'pooter (gotta give it a bit of choke now that it's getting cold in the mornings), open Crazy Browser, open the favourites thingy, left click on about twenty sites, go make a cup of coffee, come back and all twenty sites are opened in their own little tab. Except now they aren't. Firefox is still working, but it is too clunky for me. I want IE back. I've run Norton 2006 and Ewido but nothing shows up. I've tried restoring to earlier dates but nothing has been changed since January. When I get home I'm going to see if I can remember how to do a clean install of Windows and see if that does anything. Failing that, I'm going to throw a major league tantrum complete with extreme swearing and thrown objects.
Absolutely nuthin' War! (Huh!) what is it good for? Absolutely nuthin' - say it again y'all
Which is a pretty stupid way to start an ANZAC Day post, but I figured 'Lest We Forget' would have been booked out. I don't know why Gallipoli assumed such significance in the national psyche, nor do I really understand why most nations identify themselves to some extent to particular military campaigns; the US national anthem is about the defiance of Fort McHenry after eighteen hours of shelling from the poms in 1814 (And a very stirring poem it is, too. I wonder how many Sepps could recite the final three stanzas from memory?). If you think Roseanne Barr didn't do credit to the anthem, then go here. Wear earplugs. The original title of La Marseillaise is Marching Song of the Rhine Army and comes from revolutionary days. The poms still invoke the spirit of the blitz. The Germans have been quiet on the subject in recent years. Apart from Texans and the Alamo, Aussies and Merino molesters are the only people I can think of who identify so strongly with a defeat. It isn't like we were short of victories to crow over - Beersheba, for instance. I guess it's because Gallipoli was our first major engagement; the Boer war was a relatively small scale affair for a purely financial cause. I don't see how Gallipoli marks a coming of age for the nation, either. To my mind that didn't come until Curtin cut the apron strings. I find it difficult to understand why people think that sacrificing a generation of young men to a foreign cause is a sign of maturity. It does illustrate a point, though. Australian people and Australian governments of both parties have always been willing to involve themselves in the problems of others, our shamefully late entry in East Timor notwithstanding. Sometimes, as in the Great War, we've involved ourselves to our own detriment for little or no potential benefit to ourselves - we were still paying the poms back on the loans we took out to save their arses well into the thirties. There is one other thing that I take from the Gallipoli story and also from the story of other campaigns; every person involved was just an ordinary person and almost all of them acquitted themselves well, which gives me hope that if I am ever in a desperate situation then I too would acquit myself well.
I will leave you with a 1934 quote from Kemal Ataturk*, a Divisional Commander at Gallipoli and whose name literally means 'father of the Turks':
Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives... You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side now here in this country of ours... you, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land. They have become our sons as well.
*Incidentally, Ataturk was also a member of the CUP, or Young Turks, which is the group which carried out the Armenian Genocide. This is the progenitor of Hitler's 'Final Solution'. Indeed, when questioned on the wisdom of the Final Solution and whether the public would stand for it, Hitler is said to have asked "Who remembers the Armenians?"
The Armenian genocide is commemorated on April 24.
Added bit: It took me so long to write this that I forgot the most important thing. To all those who have served and all those who are still serving; Thank you.
So old Lizzie turned 400 or something at some stage in my short-term memory. There's been the expected outpouring of vitriol from the usual suspects and probably the usual parade of sycophancy from the other usual suspects. I say probably because I didn't really notice her birthday sneaking up on me so didn't look for any coverage of it in the housewife porn mags*. I have nothing personal against Our Monarch, I just don't like the idea of having a monarchy. Lizzie is only playing the cards that she's been dealt. As far as nominative (and ceremonial) Heads of State go, she doesn't do a bad job of it, either. Nor do I dislike Chuckles. He's a bit whacko, but at least he has opinions which are his own, which is refreshing. Also, anybody who likes the Goon Show can't be all bad. Needle nardle noo and all that. Admittedly the Windsors are no competition for the Grimaldis when it comes to hornbag-ness or even wackiness, but they provide amusement. Which doesn't mean that they should have anything to do with The Great Southern Land. Adhesion to the poms has been a mistake financially and lately, diplomatically. It was always a one way street militarily - Boer War, anyone? World War One? (At least the yanks had the brains to sit out the first few years. Smarter than our mob.) World War Two was our go, but it wasn't until we got rid of Pig-Iron Bob and Curtin sided with Roosevelt over Churchill that our national security was, in fact, secure. The poms were ready to sacrifice us. Malaya was us, nothing against the poms there. Ditto Vietnam, given the locale and the (ultimately wrong) Domino Theory. Pity the Sepps didn't look a bit closer at how the Poms handled Malaya, the outcome may have been different. Wars are not won by statistics. It is now easier for a Cypriot or Estonian or Lithuanian to enter, stay or work in Britain than it is for a bonzer Aussie to do so, fair dinkum. And yet conservatives- and I use the term here to describe one resistant to change - still cling to the monarchy as if it were indeed a Good Thing for the nation, instead of just a security blanket for people who fear the new. Of course, some of those people will point to the Summit or whatever it was called that we had in Johnnie's first term and say that Australians don't want a republic, carefully omtting the point that the whole thing - from membership to agenda - was carefully orchestrated by one of Australia's most ardent monarchists especially to produce an unpalatable outcome. I saw Tony Blair on Parkinson last night because I have no life and Blair said that Bill Clinton was the best 'politician's politician' that he ever met. I feel that this is a slight on Howard, that man is a genius.
I am by no means as slavishly devoted to the concept of democracy as most people would have you believe that they are. The trouble with democracy is that the same people who vote for the Logies also vote in general elections. The same people who made McDonalds the most popular restaurant in the world select the government in a popularity poll. For this reason, I think that a minimalist approach to a republic might be the most logical and likely to get up. Just stop the Governor-General from being a Vice-Regal representative. You wouldn't have to change the way that the Gee Gee is selected, or anything else for that matter. Call it the Presidency if it's important to you, but it doesn't really matter. Change the flag, if you want, but that doesn't matter either. I don't give a two nobs of goat shit what the flag looks like. I've heard all the arguments pro- and con- and I don't care if the blue ensign has never been officially elevated above the red ensign, I don't care if you want to get rid of the tea towel in the corner and I don't care if you fought for and died for the flag. Incidentally, anybody who fights for a flag is an idiot. Go to the disposals and get another one; it's a piece of dyed cloth, it's not important. The purpose of a flag is to provide a recognisable symbol of the nation. The current one serves the purpose; so would a new one. It's the nation that is symbolised that is important, not the design that is chosen to represent it. Too many people confuse the wrapping paper with the present.
Democracy is ok, works well to varying degrees in most cases and usually corrects its own mistakes given enough time, but I find myself being something of a fan of benevolent despotism. Democracies, by definition, are nations run by committees. This means that it takes ages for any decisions to be reached, they are usually poor compromises and errors are always somebody elses fault. The only trouble (but probably an insurmountable one) with benevolent despotism is ensuring its benevolence. I'm still working on that one.
While the minimalist approach to a republic is logical and pain free it isn't my preferred choice. I favour a much more extreme makeover of the whole system. If I had my druthers I would scrap the State system and revamp the way that Local and Federal government operates. Of course you would have to retain ceremonial State borders. I couldn't live without State of Origin, that's just silly.
I would break the whole country up demographically so that there was a Local Government Area for every hundred thousand voters. Each Local Government Area would elect a council of ten members. These ten people would then select a Federal Representative from amongst themselves. This representative would then go off to Canberra and have nothing more to do with the running of the council, which would look after the traditional council stuff. All the reps from all the councils would then form a government along traditional party lines, the Prime Minister, who would be selected by the reps, would be the President. No more playing the blame game in health, education or anything else. Plenty of power with nowhere to hide. Everybody's vote carries the same weight and the bloated bureacracy would be less bloated.
I am a fucking genius.
* I am a fairly difficult person to offend. I don't have a thin skin and I am tolerant of divergent opinions. Some things disgust me, though. Probably what exemplifies it best was the cover of (I think) Women's Weekly that had a full page photo of Princess Di on the Pec Deck. Not that there was anything particularly lewd or lacivious in the photo itself; more that it was seen fit for publication at all, let alone on the front cover of a national magazine. I didn't give a rat's arse one way or the other about Di, I certainly never bought into the whole 'People's Princess' bullshit - she was a Sloane Ranger who managed to elevate herself into the position of Uber Ranger by boonting an ugly inbred. She wouldn't have given 'the people' the steam off of her piss on a cold day. Which doesn't mean that she wasn't due her share of privacy. People who enter into the public arena (as opposed to being born into it) must expect to have their every public move examined and critiqued. They shouldn't need armed guards at the upper story windows to prevent photographers from feeding housewive's addictions to salacious material. I don't dislike papparazzi - they've seen a market and they're exploiting it - I hate the prurience and hypocrisy of the scum who buy their product.
As you are no doubt aware; because he's world famous in my house, my dear old daddy used to race speedway bikes for a living in the UK. Way back in the dim, dark, old timey, pre stuff days, it was a fair trip back home in the off season, so he didn't make it. He would stay with a family in Wales on their dairy farm. He had many stories about this place and still corresponds with them (Hi Wlliams family.)(That narrows it down, huh?)
It gets cold in Wales. The house was old, like fourteenth century old. Add old and cold and you get walls four feet thick. The fireplace had seats inside it. There was a hole in the back wall of the fireplace which had metal doors in it. There were rings in the front wall of the fireplace. The idea was to stick the trunk of a tree through the hole in the wall, get the fire going and drive spikes into the tree trunk. As the trunk burned away you would put a chain around the spikes and through the loops and winch the trunk in a bit further.
We've all lived in places where you have to drain the radiator overnight to prevent cracks in the engine block, or where you fill saucepans with water before you go to bed so that you have water (ice) for coffee in the morning.
In Wales they had a tractor, which they would sometimes find a use for over winter. If they were going to use it that morning, they would put a kerosene burner under the crankcase and go for breakfast. By the time that they had finished breakfast the oil would be warm enough to flow that well that you could hand crank the motor. Still no hope on the key, though.
Crows are smart. Anybody who has ever seen one calculate the width, velocity and trajectory of your vehicle before taking the precise number of steps away from the roadkill carcass necessary to avoid your tyres by less than two centimetres could tell you that. In Wales, they're smarter. They had a murder of crows (which is the best collective noun, ever.) which were hassling their..., umm..., calves, I guess. Or something else, can't remember. Anyhoo, they had an oats paddock next to the house and the crows would all hang out in a row of trees on the other side of the paddock. You could go out into that paddock banging rubbish bin lids, drums, waving your arms around, nothing. You could get brooms, mops, hoes (not hos), whatever and point them at the crows like a gun and you wouldn't ruffle a feather. Walk out of the house with a shotgun and the crows would be gone before you could take a shot.
As you could probably work out from the photos in the previous post, we've finished picking. Because we are in Australia and therefore adhere to Australian culture and customs, we celebrated the end of the harvest with a deeply spiritual activity consisting of heavy consumption of intoxicating liquids and ingesting pieces of charred, dead animals. So Thursday wasn't the most productive twenty four hours in the history of cotton farming. So, Easter. So, Roma. The Young Bloke and I stayed at a motel and got drunk a lot. I am nothing if not cultured. Being Good Friday, no beeratoriums were operating when we got there, but a pub disco/ nightclub thingy did open at midnight. Did you know that women in nightclubs just aren't as pretty when you are sober? For those keeping score, it was a nil all draw, although the Young Bloke had better stats with two phone numbers to my one. I think I'm past my peak. Next day was a bit hectic. Brekky down the street, clothes shopping (no, we're not a couple)( actually a young chicky babe in one of the clothes shops arranged to meet me that night. Pissed the Young Bloke off. I missed the meet. I really am past my peak.) and goat racing. For reasons I don't know, Roma has an Easter In The Country festival every year. At Easter. For reasons I have even less of an idea about, this includes goat races up the main street. I don't take good pictures with a hangover, but even if I was straight out of the health spa (I'm so going to go to one of those things one day. Pampering suits me.) I don't think that I could make it exciting. Moderately amususing for a little while, but...meh. So after the goat races, we went back to the motel, dumped the stuff we'd bought and went to something Easter-y that will resonate with Christians everywhere - went to the Mud Bash. These things are institutions throughout rural New South Wales and Queensland. They seem to be more popular in cotton growing areas. Dunno why. Essentially what it involves is two vehicles, which bear a vague resemblance to motor cars, racing on separate tracks through a bunch of mudholes. Spending money, or using competent tradesmen is tolerated but not encouraged. They had a bar there. Guess where the photo was taken from? As you can tell from the hats in the foreground, the majority of the audience were My People. Some kids came around selling raffle tickets. Dunno who it was in aid of, not too sure what the prize was, either, but the Young Bloke and I bought a few tickets and off they went. Five minutes later they were back, with a Mum. Apparently you're not allowed to let them keep the change. After the mud bash, we kept our necks red at the speedway. Sad to say that the speedway didn't have bikes and pretty much sucked. So it was back to town and a couple of very noisy pubs. Nil all draw again, without even a phone number. I need a life coach. Next morning I went and had a very pleasant breakfast, while the Young Bloke cultured his hangover. After he had recovered sufficiently, we headed for the drags. Ironbark raceway is only an eigth mile track, so they don't have the really fast boys, but they had a few altereds and suchlike, with a shitload of hotty street cars.This was the car that interested me the most. Not exciting to watch race, it was a pretty cool little jigger to have a closer look at. It's called a Junior Dragster. Like the name implies, it's a kiddie car, for ten to sixteen year olds. The engine is a replica of a 5.5hp Briggs and Stratton lawnmower engine. It's made by a mob called McGee who used to be based in Sinny, but are now in the States. Last I heard of them was about twenty years ago when they were making 511 cubic inch Top Fuel engines. This thing is still a 3"x3" sidevalver, but with an alloy rod, roller bearings, turbocharger and nitrous oxide injection and makes about 28hp. I love the pointlessness of it.They had a few bikes there, too. Mostly road bikes, but a couple of proper drag Harleys, on old 750 Honda drag bike, and this. It's handbuilt from the ground up. It's the loudest thing I've heard in a long time. They didn't have the best day on the track. They only had one good run, which was on the back wheel for the full length of the track. At the end of proceedings, there was a bit of a presentation thingy where people were given trophies for stuff. After the presentation was over the real crowd pleaser was conducted, the burnout competition. More of an Urban thing that a bush one, the kiddies put on a pretty good show. Well, I liked it. This girl won it. That's right misogynists, the blokes were out-testeroned by a breast bearer.
After the burnout comp, it was back to town, junkfood for tea, and a few beers at the Irish pub. At least, I had a few beers. The Young Bloke couldn't back up and didn't have a beer all day. Bloody kids, what's the world coming to?
Next morning we hit the road, stopping only for groceries.
Happy Easter, Passover, Spring Equinox Fertility Rites, whatever. If you don't put the addendum to 'easter' you just ain't in the loop, man. Anyhoo, I've got four days off, so suffer in your jocks, urban types. I'm going to Roma for the weekend to abuse my liver and take advantage of tourists. In the meantime, you might be interested to know what the headline is all about. Dave Scott was the first bloke to drive a moonbuggy on the moon. This is what dinkum Aussie cottongrowers call a moonbuggy: Impressed? I was, the first time I ever saw one. Most of the other times that I've seen one, as well. Particularly this one.
Not because the moonbuggy itself is much different from other moonbuggies that I've seen. Rather, it's because the bloke operating it is one of the best machine operators I've seen in quite a few footy seasons.
Like watching a craftsman or skilled tradesman at work, a skilled machinery operator is a joy to behold. There is an economy of movement and a flow to their work that is as rhythmic as any dancer; in some instances, such as a shearer or cabinetmaker, it is beautiful.
This bloke is that good. No wasted movements, no corrections and no rush. He loaded eighty-one modules, weighing an average of about sixteen tonnes, in seven hours. About two of those hours were spent waiting for the trucks to return from the gin. Equally importantly, he left minimal cotton on the ground. I bow before his awesomenessity.
About six years ago I was working for a contract cotton picker. I was doing then pretty much the same as I am doing now - following the pickers (and mulcher) around with a sidebuster. I don't even like being on cotton farms at picking time; when asked once what job I wanted to do at pick I said "Sow wheat." So I got to sow 8000 acres of wheat while everybody else was getting stressed.
Anyhoo, back to six years ago; I was driving the tractor back to the contractors place between Boggabilla and Goondiwindi, a distance of about 250 kilometres. As the tractor and rig was overwidth I had an escort vehicle front and rear (should have had a police escort but, heh.). For the first 110k's or so we managed to stay on backroads out of the traffic, but the last 130k's was straight up the Newell Highway. It is usually a fairly uneventful experience roading a tractor and implement; occasionally a truckie will talk to you on the two-way for a while, asking how the implement works or telling you about his time on tractors, and now and then some goose will get a bit stroppy for slowing him down.
As I said, I had an escort vehicle front and rear. We were all talking to each other all the time, so if traffic was building up behind, the rear escort would let me know and I would pull off of the road. If a truck was coming up behind us the front escort could tell him when it was safe to pass, regardless of the linemarkings. Generally speaking, this system worked well, except for a couple of Grey Nomads who were in a Hilux ute pulling a caravan which needed a Landcruiser to tow it safely. I was heading up a single lane rise - double lines - and we called a truck through. So far, so good. Old Mate in the Hilux saw the truck go and thought "What's good for the goose..." and went, too.
Big mistake. The truck took off up the hill like it was supposed to and the Hilux wheezed up beside me like an asthmatic old dog. The rear escort vehicle erred in not letting me know that he was coming and I didn't notice him until he was nearly level with me. At pretty much the same time I noticed a road train coming over the hill towards us. He had nowhere to go but over the Hilux and the Hilux had nowhere to go but under the road train. I hit the turning brakes and went bush to give the Hilux somewhere to run. I bounced through the table drain at nearly 40k's in a vehicle with no suspension and two or three ton of sidebuster hanging off the back of it. I split my head open on the cab roof it bounced that much. I was lucky not to break a diff housing.
In what was pretty much the single best piece of driving that I have ever seen, the roadtrain driver did the same thing on the opposite side of the road. How he kept the wheels underneath it is beyond me. Some people are just born to their job. The Hilux driver just carried on, oblivious to it all. I don't think that he even noticed anything.
Naturally enough, there was a fair bit of chatter on the two-way after that. Most of it was about the dickhead in the Hilux and what a **** **** **** ******* ****** he was. After a couple of minutes the dickhead came on and joked about it like nothing had happened. Much attempted re-education ensued, to no avail. He was old and had seen it all before.
We got back tp Boggabilla and washed the tractor down, did some maintenance and packed it in, ready to hook in the following morning. We were staying at the caravan park. On my way back from the shower, I noticed a familiar Hilux. My first thought was "Crush, kill, destroy!" but he was old, so I had to show a bit of respect. I went over and tried some more re-education. Still didn't sink in. He was a monument to his upbringing and you can't put brains in a monument.
los partos uno los partos deus los partos tre los partos quattro OK, I'm on a roll and nothin's gunna stop me now. Whe I was a young bloke, I lived in motorcycling heaven, but 'cept for the weather. Smooth windy roads all over the shop. Lovely. The first road bike that I spent any serious amount of time on was one of these: Ain't she pretty? It's a 1975 Honda CB400F and it's still just about the perfect bike to just have fun on. Haven't ridden one in over twenty five years, so I would imagine that they would be a bit short of neddies by today's standards, but if anybody knows where there is one for sale, my email is on the sidebar. I want one to play with again. In their day they were light, flickable, well braked and just generally sporty without being overly macho about it.
They had the sexiest header pipes ever put on a Japanese motorcycle, too. Didn't sound too sporty until you stuck a bit of rod through the baffles in the muffler, but damn; they looked good. The engine looked good from the other side, too:
I love being able to see the engine on a bike. Fairings are a good thing when you are actually sitting on the bike, but nothing beats naked to look at.
Dunlop used them to advertise theit TT100 tyre, which I guess from looking at the bikes in the top of the picture below;
was their road-going version of the old triangulars.
It occurs to me that it is quite some time since I added anything to this series. When I was a little tacker and we had the servo, we became sort of sub-dealers for Kawasakis. We sold the entire range of G4TR/A ag bikes. High-tech beasties they were, too; high and low range, rotary valves. Cutting edge stuff. We got cool stuff, too, like Kawasaki overalls and, umm..., pamphlets.
So it should come as no surprise to you that number four on my non-graded list of favourite motorcycles is the Kawasaki Z1, or as the one in this picture is called, the Kawasaki Z1B. In fact any of the early air-cooled Claggy saggy four bangers will do me. When arr woor yoong, my dear old daddy and I used to wait out the front every morning to listen to Somebody flog the crap out of his Z650 on his way to work. We lived on one side of a small valley and Somebody lived on the other side. He was either late for work every single morning of his life, or he was normal, but that Kaw copped a pizzling. It had a set of four into ones on it and sounded like (to quote dear old daddy) somebody tearing a sheet of cardboard inside a water tank. Aurgasmic.
Like a Hollywood actor, they got heavier and slower as they got older even though they looked leaner and meaner. I had one in the eighties. It started life as a Z1000. Before it departed it was up to nearly 1200cc and had a hodge-podge of bitties inside it. I don't remember the details and I'm not going to try and fake it, but it had bits on/ in it at various stages from Moriwaki, Yoshimura, Keihin, Tranzac, Ceriani, Two Brothers (I think, although I can't for the life of me think what it might have been) and ..., others. Went like shit off a shovel. Handled like shit off a ..., well, just shit.
I still wasn't even close to being as fast as this bloke, but. Graeme Crosby could ride the wheels off of these things. They were the weapon of choice for production and superbike racers. Jim Budd, in particular, used to impress me. Fucked if I remember why. Gregg Hansford never looked comfortable on them to me.
These bikes, along with the old sohc 750 Hondas, revolutionised motorcycle styling in a way that has never been fully recognised. Before these bikes came out (and with a very few notable exceptions, one of which is already on this list) motorcycles all looked cobbled together, like the engineering department wasn't talking to the styling department and vice versa. These were the first bikes that had a cohesive design; that looked finished. The engine wasn't something sent up from the workshop to fill a hole in the design, the engine was the centrepiece of the design from the outset; and rightfully so, it was beautiful.
In fact, it's so beautiful that you can buy a life sized pewter sculpture from the people from whom I stole the photo. I have no idea if it's any good; buy one and tell me.
Telly heads could tell me if Claggy Saggies were the bike of choice on CHiPS; I think so, but I lost my remember. All those persons who realise that real race bikes don't turn right would know that Bruce Penhall had a role on CHiPS.
Actually, while I'm tired and rambling, does anybody remember Barney Miller? The character Fish, played by Abe Vigoda (don't even try and tell me that I've got a poor memory) had a spin-off series called Fish. Would have paired well with CHiPS. Just sayin'.
The telly is on. On the telly is McLeod's Daughters. I heard sombody making the same "C'mawnn." call an ex-boss of mine used to make when calling up his self-mustering Belmont Reds, still my aller time fav'rit cows*. On McLeods Daughters they were mustering. They had four people on horses to work about thirty head of the chubbiest little Hereford and Angus cows, about half with calves at foot. In the lushest Eastern Victorian improved pasture I've seen since the last time that I was in Eastern Victoria.
I love reality TV.
* The cows were only a part-time thing on a thousand acre hobby farm. Every time he went up there he'd call the cattle in and give them some lucerne. After a while they got all Pavlovian about it and would trot up every time you called them. The first time I went up there I tried it. For about thirty seconds there was nothing. Then a faint, but heavy rumbling. Then there was dust rising , the ground started to shake, my fillings came loose and charging up the laneway was about 1500 pounds of the biggest bull I had ever seen, snorting and slobbering and tossing its head. Did I mention the unholy gleam in its eye? It had an unholy gleam in its eye. I was trapped in the open with a biscuit of lucerne in my hand and nowhere to run - not that running was feasible on the bouncing ground. When the bull was about fifteen feet away, he locked them up and skidded to a halt at precisely distance required to eat the lucerne out of my hand - and wagged his tail while he was doing it.
Those of you who have been here for a while may remember the amazing disappearing underling. Well, he's back. Sort of. Before he started working here, he was employed by our picking contractor. Now he's employed by our picking contractor again. After he left here, he got a job at a larger cotton property the other side of town, where he lasted three days. It's anyone's guess exactly what happened after that.
Apparently he's been in jail a couple of times and was in a fairly unsavoury state when said picking contractor rescued him from the gutter and dried him out.
I lived in Alice Springs for about five years. I liked it. If it wasn't for the fact that it is too far to anywhere else - and I could travel for five or six hours north or south redlining in top gear without scraping the pegs; I'd still live there. It was a very friendly place and you could get pretty much anything done for a carton of VB.
Four eggs ample, the downline from the powerline to my workshop burnt out for some reason. The official cost for replacement was roughly $3000, with a wait of about three weeks, or two days if it was an emergency. A mate of mine was an electrical contractor and he was down the road with a(n?) NTEC crew putting a downline in to a new factory. One carton of beer and two hours later the NTEC crew and mate had supplied, fitted and tested the new downline.
I worked in various industries while I was there; used cars, tourism, foodservice among them. I also ran a small mechanical workshop in a black market sort of way. I specialised in keeping old bombs going. Mainly for backpackers, but I also like to think of myself as something of a pioneer in teaching aboriginal people that motor-cars do not have to be a short-term, disposable item.
Up until the mid to late eighties the majority of vehicles owned by aboriginal people in the Centre were driven 'til they dropped, having only minimal (but sometimes ingenious) repairs or maintenance. When they stopped forever, they were left where they died, all desired personal effects removed and the family wandered into town for another one.
"Here's a market." I thought, and gradually built up quite a large clientele of repeat aboriginal customers. As is natural, a lot of them deserted me for larger, more impressive operations, but I didn't care; I was making a reasonable living, dealing with customers whom I liked. I gave it away when the lease ran out and no other reasonably priced, suitable premises could be found. Also, going 'straight' would have meant too much paperwork.
At this time, I inherited a red cattle dog who was fairly well nutso. He was two years old and had never been off a chain. He stayed on the chain during the day after he came to live with me as I had to leave the gates open, but I let him off at night. As soon as I let him off he would run around the perimeter fence at about 90% of the speed of light. He looked like that bloke on his old Indian doing the wall of death. I'd go inside to watch a bit of telly and let him run around. After about ten minutes he would come barreling through the door and slide to a halt in front of me and put his head in my lap for a bit of a scritch.
Five minutes of scritching and he would take himself outside for guard duty. Best guard dog I ever had. Never barked at passing cars or pedestrians, always barked whenever anybody touched the fence or whenever a group loitered too long.
He was a bugger of a dog to take for a walk, though, I used a choker chain on him and still his front legs didn't touch the ground for the first fifteen minutes.
Every now and then I would grab a mate or two and take the dog camping. We'd go out into the desert somewhere and let the dog out. We'd go home when the dog came back. Sometimes it was overnight, sometimes it was three or four days. Whenever he came back to camp he'd be covered in burrs and dirt and blood, quite often his own blood, and he'd be as happy as a pig in shit.
I was heading back into town after one of those trips when I spotted an old Toyota Landcruiser ute about a hundred metres off the side of the road. It was missing a back wheel and had tarps hanging down from the tray to make a humpy under the back. There was a small fire behind it with an old black man sitting near it. I walked over to him "Ai, Tchilpi."
"Ai." he replied.
"You good?"
"Ai."
"Flat tyre."
"Ai."
"No spare?"
"Him flat, too."
"Somebody come?"
"Ai."
"Got tucker? Water?"
"Ai."
So we left him there and continued towards town. About four kilometres down the road we caught up with a six or seven year old girl wheeling along a Toyota tyre. We piled her in the back and kept going. Two kilometres later we caught up with her nine year old brother and another wheel. Three kilometres later was mum and wheel. We dropped them off at Hermansburg and kept going.
