There are moments when you realise you’re simply not going to get your way and the sooner you quit defending these positions and formulate another plan the sooner you feel, at least, you’ve regained some vestige of control. My Motorcycle Diaries are turning out to have less bike news in them than the eponymous story, which is disappointing. I’ve got bigger fish to fry of course and it’s not that I resent this ‘impasse’, but messing about with the Black Bullet has been my shed pursuit for some time and now I effectively no longer have one. I’m going a little stir crazy waiting for this baby to arrive, if I’m honest, and I'm unlikely to have any more time to myself afterwards.
So I’ve enlisted some help. Old Pete used to service his AJS back in the day and yesterday I swallowed my pride and pleaded with him to give me a hand one weekend after Christmas, to take the top of the engine off for a look-see and maybe bang some new clutch plates in. It will be good to have a slot agreed to do the work in, and Pete has a proper workshop as well, stocked with bolts and bits of old imperial engineering [TBB 1.8]. I’m a bit nervous about his somewhat ‘gung ho’ approach but that’s what this project needs if I’m going to finish it in time. I’ve got a book to write, a job to do, a family to serve, a dream guitar I never play and a Fine Wine habit to nurse along, and I need to get this baby rolling.
The only other guy with a vintage bike in the village looks at me like I’m a lazy pot-smoking hippy. He wouldn’t have been far wrong 25 years ago but he’s ex-army so anyone a bit laid back is not going to come off particularly well under that type of scrutiny. Also, I haven’t seen, or heard, his bike about for over a year, so who cares what he thinks.
In between now and then, I have a bit more to say about some other things which may or may not be related. While waiting either on building sites, trains, or for babies to arrive, I have mused on this and that and made the most of the time available. This passes the time and, frankly, when I give vent, like most people, I feel all the better for it. This is not to say the points I try to make are not considered or meant, just that they are restricted by time, intellect, and to some extent the medium. I mean, if equality in hierarchy wasn’t enough of a chew for a blog, or trust as a tool in crime prevention, how about freedom as duty? For this is what I’m lining up to with all this talk of reorganisation.
Unfortunately, as useful as this time has been, these are complex subjects and I begin to feel the limits of my ability to write about them in an entertaining and enlightening way. It’s better to make no point at all than to make a good point badly. It’s like fighting with a child to get them to eat their greens. Basically, they’ll never ever eat them if you boil them to fuck and then make an issue out of it.
I’ve come down this route with my eyes open, however, and if I take fright, crunch into reverse and whine back up the track, I will feel foolish. I would seem to be at an impasse whichever way I try to go. On reflection, I’ve implicated the medium in the blame but it’s also my saviour. I wouldn’t be having this discussion with myself if I didn’t sit down to write in these pockets of surplus time, so blog on is my only answer.
