Tyred out (or, "What I did at the weekend") - LONG

Got a flight Thursday night via Dubai. Got upgraded to Business
Class, because they obviously recognised me as a fucking pos type of
motherfucker. Few glasses of champagne and a few gins and I
accidentally get quite pissed. Decent night's sleep.

Landed at Heathrow in the pissing rain. Ah, I remember what that
looks like. Went straight to Essex's finest motorcycle maintenance
emporium (Swift Motorcycles of Church Road, as if you didn't know) to
collect darsy's old CD200 and take it back to my parents' house to be
looked after by my old man. However, because it was cunting it down
with rain, I took to my brother's place thinking that I'd work out how
to get it moved later on in the weekend.

See the plan was: drive from Essex to Basel on Saturday, ride from
Basel to Essex on Sunday. Have bags of time Monday to move that CD200
and then get to a family party in Surrey and from thence, Heathrow
Terminal 3.

So I took my parents and my brother to the Blue Strawberry in Hatfield
Peverel for a bit of nosebag and a bottle of white burgundy.
Handsome. I had a couple of hours snoozing when I got back to Mum and
Dad's, and woke up in a very confused state:

Mum: Ben, it's 7 o'clock.
Me: In the evening, or the morning?
Mum: In the evening.
Me: What day?
Mum: Friday
Me: What time?
Mum: 7
Me: Evening, or morning?
Mum: Christ you're stupid, you fucker.

(I made that last one up.)

Went round my mate Dave's to get an early night and get an early start
for the 1000km drive to Basel. Had a few friends meet round Dave's
and then went down the local for a couple of lagers. Accidentally got
quite pissed. Bed at 1. Up at 6.

Left the house at 7, leaving the others slumbering in the spare rooms,
and filled up with juice. Having done 10 miles, Dave says to me -
this car's handling a bit funny; think it's the weight in the boot (at
the front), or having a passenger. I notice his hands really fighting
the steering wheel at only 100mph and think it odd, but don't really
care. A minute later he says, "oh ****" there's smoke pouring out of
the engine" and there is. We pull over and stop. As we lift the
engine cover, Dave is thinking about how much the engine rebuild is
going to cost him, because this is a Ferrari 360, and things don't
come cheap. I'm thinking how the **** I'm going to get to Basel, and
how rude it is to leave Dave to it and get a cab to Stansted to catch
a flight. We sit and work out what could be wrong: the instruments
didn't report anything wrong, so maybe it's an electrical fault. Or
maybe it's a mechanical fault and the instruments are independently
useless.

We call Ferrari Rescue to come and get us. When they're on their way,
Ferrari rescue tell us that the usual courtesy cars are Mercs, but
they probably won't let us take it out of the country. We decide to
phone the Ferrari dealership when they open, demand a replacement for
the weekend. The breakdown guy turns up and says: "smoke coming from
the right hand engine intake, wasn't it?" We nod, glumly. He takes
one quick glance, and says, "you'll have a flat tyre then". Dave
blows the breakdown guy.

So we get a pair of rear tyres from Elite at Rainham (500 quid), and
get motoring down to Dover. We get a Seacat 5 hours after the one we
were scheduled to catch.

Out of Calais and on to the A26 and I call Ace to check the situation
with getting caught for speeding. We like on-the-spot fines, we don't
like points, we don't like prison. France appears to be the ideal
place for us to go loony.

Just on cue, two blokes on Hornet 900s appear and want to play. After
25 miles of dicing at 140-160mph and while we're sitting at a steady
165, Dave says that he can't keep up that concentration for 500 miles.
Fortunately at that point, the Hornet fellas give us a wave and pull
of the motorway (for fuel, presumably).

Boring, boring motorway. We get to Ace's about 11pm, and he meets us
on the drive with a couple of bottles of cold beer. He's a good host,
that man.

We enjoy more beer, and plenty of wine, and *great* steaks. We have
pos banter. All of a sudden the spirits come out. Accidentally got
quite pissed. Then, out of nowhere, it appears to be getting light.
That'll **** the idea of an early start, then.

In the morning we put the new exhaust on the 400/4 and an enormous
thunderstorm delays us a precious few minutes. We fill up with juice
and head towards Calais over some mountains. Then, as documented
elsewhere, some dumb bitch with the technical right of way, but
without the moral high ground, causes Bruce to put the gixxer down.

So Dave and I set off back, but Dave is feeling a little iffy, and has
a fairly shonky sense of direction anyway, so he follows me at 80mph.
After 200 boring miles, we reach Metz and I tell him that he only has
one turn to make, and that it's signed for Calais. I'm likely to miss
the last Seacat, so he heads off to get it. I plan to get a
Eurotunnel and meet back at Dave's in the early hours to collect my
shit out of his motor.

20 miles later I think "this bike's handling a bit funny". Then I
stop, and I've got a flat front tyre. It's 7.30pm. Eventually I get
recovered off the motorway into a little town. (150 Euros) The bloke
tells me that he'll get my tyre fixed in the morning. I impress upon
him that I have a flight from Heathrow that I must get.

He takes me to a little hotel above a bar in the town. There's an
en-suite shower, but no shitter. There's no soap, no towel, not even
a fucking Gideon's bible. I go to the bar to drown my sorrows. I
hear the locals talking about me as I skull pints of lager. They seem
amazed that I can drink that much. I had a fucking thirst on, to be
fair.

In the morning I stood in the shower until I thought I might be clean.
I stood naked in the room until I thought I might be dry. I paid the
bill (20 Euros) and headed to the tyre place, stopping to buy a
toothbrush and some deodorant.

The bloke goes off and gets a new tyre (150 Euros), and I have coffee
in a bar. Then there's a mad, throttle on the stop, thrash to Calais,
updating my family by SMS at each fuel stop.

The Seacat is shut, and I doubt my ticket would be valid, so I go
straight to Eurotunnel to save some time. (150 Euros)

I got straight to Leatherhead, and *all* the family is waiting for me.
I skull a couple of beers, have a shower, discuss the requirement to
leave another motorbike somewhere I hadn't intended, and it's time to
get to the airport.

So I've got two motorbikes in places I don't want them. I've spent a
load of dough I didn't need to. I hardly saw my family. And I'm
fucking knackered.

 

But by God are you a funny fucker. I hope you write a book some day.

 

Heard it already, but from someone else.

D

 

You're not wrong there. Top bloke.
For a ponytailed ****, y'understand.

OK, you got me. That made me laugh out loud.

It was a great adventure though, Ben. And nicely told, too.
Is *everything* 150 Euros, or what?

 

But wasn't there an issue with a tubeless tyre or something?

D

 

I'm detecting something of theme here.

(Bastard. I'm on the wagon. Three days so far. NNnnnnng.)

 

You fucking ignorant non-snipping ****, Thomas.

 

Whoosh

that's the point YTC, a long story followed by "heard it"

try to keep up

D

 

you reckon?

So it was a joke then?

Try something humourous next time

 

Jesus Creeping Shit. Have you /never/ heard of snipping?

 

Fair enough...

<fx>mumbles off "I thought it was funny... bastards"</fx>

D

 

No

D

 

That is patently apparent - for in your rush to make another
"humourous response" by snipping half of the query, you neglected to
remove the redundant attribution lines. I have done it for you.

Now hold your hands up and admit you fucked up - twice, you pathetic
humourless ****.

Oh, and a sigsep would be nice - as would you learning to snip all of
a signature, not leaving the separator as you are wont to do. Sort it
out, fool.

 

I don't think so, fuckhead.

Is that right, you glob of rancid goat sputum?

Eat my dust, slowboy.

And sort yourself a separator for this "signature", eh?

Twat.

 

My only issue is with you, idiot.

 

Deep breaths now.... and relax.

D

 

It's english right?

D

 

David Thomas wrote:

The preferred language for posting to this group? correct.

 

I'm fine, ****.

Still no separator, I see. You really are inept.

 

No, it is English.

You had best learn to post properly, hadn't you? As made abundantly
clear by this post to which I am replying, you are spectacularly
clueless - you cannot write, you cannot snip correctly to save your
pathetic skin and you have no idea as to attributions.

Not to mention sorting a signature delimiter.