The Black Bullet 6.17 - Miles Covered 382.2

Stuck on site today, for hours, in a top secret MOD building failing its air leakage test. So, lots of hanging around listening to builders’ talk. Apparently servicemen must be, “a bunch of wankers for doing that job, ja’mean? Getting your legs blown off and then moaning about it afterwards because nobody gives a fuck.” Well, you learn something new every day. On the other hand, I take it that ending up as a labourer with poor personal hygiene does not similarly define you. I’d like to think we could all pull together to build a more equal and humane society but it’s like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how we keep from going under.

Today I want to talk about rap, and hip hop. It’s a subject close to my heart as I spent the best part of two decades being bombarded with it in Brixton. It’s wild and crazy and the really good stuff blows most everything else into the weeds. It’s funny, prescient, ballsy and haunting. I don’t dance, dancing makes most people feel free, it makes me feel a bit silly, it’s just one of those unfortunate things. If tapping my toes and waggling my head only counted as dancing, but I don’t think it does. For this reason I haven’t started out talking about beats.

If you don’t mention the beats, however, it’s like ignoring Italy because you don’t like ice cream, which I don’t, but that’s neither here nor there. Rhythm is the primary mood and scene setter here and some pieces are pared right back musically, giving greater emphasis to the notes that are left. I think of Missy Elliot's Get Your Freak On (2001 Goldmind/Electra), that nutty pizzicato koto thing swept up and down Coldharbour Lane all summer, in a variety of remixes, and it's so catchy it probably still does.

One of my favourite albums is Let’s Get Free by Dead Prez (2000, Loud Records). When you get down to it, it’s got a bit of a right wing black supremacist thing going on, in parts, which I can’t really relate to. Despite this I do sing along to, “I’m a African, I’m a African...and I know what’s happenin’”. If where you’re born is where you’re from, I feel I have every right to do this. Again, it’s probably like my dancing and not really within the accepted definition but this CD stays in my changer when all the others have been replaced twice over. These guys have the courage of their convictions, you can't fault that.

This reminds me of a ridiculous situation I found myself in the newsagent over the road one day. An old drunk Jamaican slammed a hand on the counter as I walked in and shouted, "Drink, Babylon!" at the Bangladeshi proprietor. It was an attempt to intimidate a free bottle of stout out of the guy, who wasn't going to take it. They were still cussing each other out as tried to buy some skins: "You hook up wid de white man Babylon," the rant went on, and then he turned on me, "Africa, Babylon, Africaaaa!" I could feel drops of his spittle on my arm as I handed over the money.

"Yes, Africa," I croaked, throat tight with fear and anger. "Like where I'm from. Africaaa! Have you ever been to Africa old man?" He blinked his rheumy eyes as he summoned up some reserve anger. I left without looking back. You've got to let it go to get free.

Flick forward to 2011 and Wiz Khalifa’s Rolling Papers (Atlantic & Rostrum); I bought this CD because I really liked the trippy retro keyboard sounds and, yes, the beats. The more I listened to the lyrics, however, the less I liked it. He’s really letting himself down banging on about his millions and when he isn’t drinking Crystal in the proverbial club, watching alla his bitches turn they ass out, he really could do with sitting down and thinking about the rest of life, such as what he could do for his less fortunate homies who is still on the block. But that’s just my opinion.

This is the flaw in the diamond; misogyny, egotism, an overt fixation on material wealth. Dead Prez may wanna fuck the system but these guys look more and more like a system that’s set to fuck its own and everyone else besides. I guess Wiz's peeps are no longer opressed, which is a good thing, but I dislike the broadcast view of his fortune. For example, I've rarely felt more ripped off or discriminated against than in a nightclub - I wonder if the irony of the VIP section is lost on him.

But the point is if you ain’t no nigga and don’t know how, or indeed, if, you’re going to be allowed to be part of the crew, this may impact your enjoyment at least of the lyrical content. Feeling a bit left out, for a while I bought into white UK rap such as Skinnyman, Biro Funk, Plan B, Jhest and so forth. This helped some but you end up missing the outrageous production of the top guys, like Dr Dre. To be fair, the best rappers don’t need to use the most obvious of sticks to beat the oppressor with and race doesn't really cut it anymore. It's bad versus good and it ain't black and white.

I’m not putting Dead Prez down here, I think their thing is getting history rewritten right and white power is always going to get pretty good going over in this context.

The spares for the Black Bullet have arrived making Hitchcocks the most reliable spares department I've ever used - thanks guys. Even so, I should unpack them and compare them to the bits on the bike, before we go - next week!

The Black Bullet 6.16 - Miles Covered 382.2

I realise that threatening the Kings of Leon with exile from my CD collection claims no moral high ground [TBB 6.15]. No more at least than the KOL publicity team does by cajoling their charges into trumped up self-aggrandisement. Being a celebrity sucks, when you look at it like this. I mean we’d probably all have the money, right, but the hands on our time, the pressure to perform one function or another to satisfy all these other people, it would drive you nuts after a while. And there’s probably more of this ‘other’ stuff to do than creating product, to use the vernacular.

This raises an interesting dilemma, from a business perspective, what if the creative requirement could be downgraded, or even eliminated, as far as the band, or brand was concerned? Inspiration is so messy and unpredictable anyway, what the entertainment industry needs is people who prefer and are most able to do all the ‘other’ stuff. A project team can slot in some backroom creatives to prop the whole thing up, and front it with the right look. If the star has any talent at all, well, hey, it’s a bonus. Just as long as they don’t think that gives them the right to do their own thing.

It’s not a pretty picture and I don’t include the likes of, say, Sigur Ros in this but celebrity, like all cults, has definitely grown into a bit of a crazy monster. I can understand kids thinking, ‘if I were a star, I could have my girl/boyfriend of choice, everybody would respect me and I’d never have to do homework again’, but adults should know better.

As usual, it’s a Pot Noodle analysis, just add boiling water, but I feel vindicated in having a bit of a stir, celebrity culture, beyond Cbeebies, seems kind of cruel and unnecessary. Unless you actually like living in a dreamworld that is. Forget about the millions the industry pays in taxes each year, and the thousands of jobs it supports, this kind of post-rationalisation is just a ruse that gets brought out and spun around everytime a big old duff idea finds itself under the scope. People love to spend money and I can't believe a lack of form without substance will stop them.

I’m trying not to live in a dreamworld and have bought some spares to take along to Le Mans. The front brake cable is new and the valve lifter and advance/retard lever cables are not essential to the running of the bike. So, in a spirit of economy, I’ve ordered clutch and throttle cables, points, bulbs, and a couple of other minor pieces. Damn carb still leaks a little but everybody who has ever said anything about old British bikes to me agrees that they stain the garage floor.

Got a lot of field testing on this week, so off to bed with you.

The Black Bullet 6.15 - Miles Covered 363.8

In 1973 the continental (supposedly Dutch but I think there was a Belgian in there somewhere) jazz rock outfit, Focus, released a Live at the Rainbow album. The indefinite article is used advisedly as this venue in north London accommodated many artists who subsequently released live albums recorded there - Bob Marley, Queen, Iron Maiden, Thin Lizzy, Ian Gillan and Genesis, to name a few. There must have been something special about the place. Indeed, Pink Floyd performed the first live sets of Dark Side of the Moon there, also in ’73.

There is no doubt Focus were match fit and on fire the night they recorded their eponymous live offering. I first heard it in the late 70s and still get goose bumps from it. I sommetimes catch myself involuntarily humming progressions from the unimaginatively entitled Focus 3, that’s how deeply ingrained Jan Ackerman’s guitar notes are. To be brutally honest, I don’t listen to the rest of the album much anymore, it's as if that version of Focus 3 has moved across the face of my expectations to form some kind of musical eclipse. Only that hesitant, haunting opening will do.

But music has changed, right? And I don’t mean the organisation of the notes. Help me out here, point me at a recent live recording where all the notes are played by the people on the stage and they are delivered in a way that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. There should be loads right? The Lady Gaga band at Radio One’s Big Weekend, perhaps? Maybe, maybe so, but does anybody know who those guys are, or are they just the Gaga brand facilitators? She sure can belt it out but hasn’t celebrity taken music hostage here?

Bless Jane, she said it all when I started watching a rags-to-riches rockumentary about the American band, Kings of Leon. “I can’t bear it,” she said, “why would I want to watch them manufacturing their own legend?” From that point on I realised couldn’t watch it either, it was like, "tell me buddy, what makes your bro such a great guitarist?" "Well, Dave, now that you ask, I reckon it’s all down to your sickeningly, sycophantic and repetitious rhetoric. Don’t you?”

I don't mean to be mean, I quite liked them, but now I can’t even listen to them. It’s not Jane’s fault either, they just blew any cred they had by being a teeny weeny bit too media savvy and a whole lot too previous. I got as far as the bit where the open-top interviewmobile pulls up outside the humble hometown venue where they cut their rock teeth. Even the frontman looks a bit embarassed, like he wishes they would move on before anybody catches wind of the toe curling self-aggrandisement that was going on out front. "How did I get myself into this shit, dude?"

It's part of the deal, even celebrities have to do as they're told. Maybe they should do a Live at the Rainbow album and pay homage to some established rock legends. If they can nail a version of Focus 3, I'll have them back.

The Black Bullet 6.14 - Miles Covered 363.8

There’s a quarry on the route to Brize Norton and the road there is peppered with grit. I was crying by the time I got past it the other day, riding with one eye shut and blinking back the tears in the other. Site glasses are clearly not the answer to my quest for suitable Black Bullet kit, on a budget. The tinted ones make excellent sunglasses at a fraction of the normal price but while there are gaps around the edges there will always be a way in for foreign objects. I could put up and shut up but riding with just one eye on the road is pretty damn well asking for it.

I’m not keen on cheap plastic goggles but leather and glass ones are expensive, so I looked up sports sunglasses and found some neat snow ones with flaps round the sides, for about eighty quid, also out of my price range. More intriguing still, a pair with a discrete foam rubber glasses-to-face gasket glued to the inside of the ocular part of the frame. ‘Perfect’, I thought, but a hundred and twenty bucks! Then I remembered the onion goggles I got from Jane’s sister one Christmas.

They look pretty ridiculous, I have to say, but for the time being the ultimate ‘no tears’ onion chopping glasses are my new best friend. What a winner and a hundred-odd quid saved, so thank you Julia and TJ.

Rob came over to help me replace the fuel filter, which is choked with rusty sediment from the tank. It’s good to have a buddy to bounce your crazy schemes off and go for a pint with and gently cajole the pointy pliers off the child while you’re in the process of pouring fuel all over yourself. Rob has helped me build a bed, erect a bookcase, make a desk, you name it. We work well together and his assistance is invaluable.

That’s what the press release would say. Typically, when he's not holding the thin end of the wedge, he looks on dispassionately with a roll-up clamped between his fingers while I fanny about posing endless rhetorical questions, laying a smokescreen, if you like, for ongoing fatuous ineptitude.

We started with the front sprocket cover which I wanted to remove to see if I could find the source of the oil leak. I detached the footrest and undid a nut which turned out to be a drain plug. It was a Laurel and Hardy moment as the thick oil spewed gently out. I thought it was just a cover, why would it be full of oil? That’s all I can say for now. Enduring ignorance ensured we made no progress at all on this issue before we switched back to our primary purpose.

The old fuel pipes came off easily enough although they seem to have gone off, turned yellow and gone hard. Perhaps lawn mower pipe isn’t really up to the job after all. Hitchcocks have supplied an altogether meatier grade of pipe with the same bore and Jubilee clips to match. We installed a piece of this on the reserve side however the pipe is too thick to make the required arc on the main tap side, which it has to do to accommodate the inline filter. So, I’m sticking with lawn mower pipe on that side until the fuel comes up clean and I can forgo the filter. To accelerate this end we sluiced the tank out, again, and recovered another tablespoon of rust particles.

There were some teething troubles with everything back in place, a leak, a split pipe, fuel overflowing from the throttle chamber (?) but a few tweaks and test ride later it all seems sorted. The rear footrest and sidestand bracket had come lose again, access to the nut is awkward but I tightened it as best I could, and the spark plug nipple came off in the plug cap. These are clearly vibration issues and so, note to self, a regular visual and tactile check of components is recommended during any trip. I could also make good use of some thread locking compound.

Poz protested at being left out by covering himself in his mother’s best lipstick. It’s difficult, I try to include him but not when I’m splashing petrol about the place. It was like a scene from a horror movie when he appeared at the back door, plastered in shiny red emulsion, smiling guiltily (see photo).

The Black Bullet 6.13 – 356.3 Miles Covered

The Black Bullet paid out a dividend today. I had a site inspection at RAF Brize Norton, so I took the Enfield. At 18p a business mile that’s about seven quid to me, or half a tank of gas at today’s prices. Unfortunately the oil leak is looking, shall we say, significant. I'm losing enough to have to top her up regularly, so I've shopped around on eBay for gaskets and whatnot in preparation for a post Le Mans rebuild.

One really nice thing about my job is the texture of it. Yesterday I attended Her Majesty’s Navy, at Portsmouth, today the Royal Air Force. There’s a distinct difference in culture between these outfits. I can’t discuss it with any authority but they feel very different. If anything, the RAF looks the poorer, judging from the dilapidated standard of the accommodation on this station.

While I was checking in at security I noticed the flight times to Iraq and Afghanistan listed on a screen behind the desk, then three coach loads of squaddies in desert combats pulled up as I waited for my escort. Despite my early morning reveries [TBB 6.12], this is as near to the frontline as I’m thankfully likely to get. Then I thought, would I have the quality of life I enjoy without these people? I squinted at them as they passed by in the bright sunshine. I don’t know how I feel about all of this. It looks exciting, but also kind of archaic and pointless. My escort arrived and I unscrewed my face, sparkling blue eyes under a bob of brown hair.

“You Mr Postman?” she said, getting my name all wrong.

“Er, yeah, shall I follow you in?”

“You’ve got your pass and everything? Good. Let’s go, Andy’s waiting for you.”

A smile and she was gone. I fiddled with the fuel tap and hoped the old iron would start nice and easy so I could catch her up. It wouldn’t do to get separated from my escort.

There aren’t many female site managers, or assistant site managers in this case. Curiously, this is not so with the continental construction companies we occasionally work for. First off you think of the sexist crap they must have to put up with but Aimee, my escort, seemed to positively revel in the attention she got and was able to use it to get things done.

Thinking more generally about work on the way over, after I received a bitch-mail from one of the management. A global popped up yesterday entitled New Invoicing Procedures and when I queried something I was told they are the same as the old procedures. The thing is, it took 750 words for my line manager to describe how the procedures hadn’t changed, so to get shirty with a suggestion that we all meet to discuss this appeared testy to me, to say the least.

I think I poked him in a sore spot, he knows he’s no good with people and he felt I’d criticised his management style, which, if he felt it, then I suppose I had. We sorted it out on the phone later but if I’d sniped back, cc-ing everybody else in, it would have gotten severely out of hand and hiearchy would have made me the loser.

We spend so much time at work that occasionally things get muddled. We lose sight of ends and means and get locked into battles of will, or clashes of ego. Worse still, we even start to believe in relationships that don’t really exist, in the sense that they may only be underwritten by the bottom line. I can think of plenty of people I’ve spent an awful lot of time with that I’ve never seen or heard of since I signed their ‘Good Luck’ card.

Consider the Social, or team building exercise, where you might find yourself wishing you were out with your mates instead. Or worse, fending off the unsolicited attention of a colleague who has finally got you to themselves, out of the way of significant others. I recall two occasions (no, three, if you count the boiler room episode) when I fantasised about making a play, or taking up a perceived offer. Thankfully all of these remained firmly in the realm of fantasy, unless you count the one years ago when I actually took the girl out only to watch her desire dissolve into the sticky pub atmosphere, as the reality of our situation loomed horribly, sweaty and bulging.

Anyway, we both escaped unharmed but the point was it's a damn shame that we have to spend so much time at work to make ends meet. There's a classic Sabbath track I haven't yet mentioned that says it all - Killing Yourself to Live (Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, 1973 MEMS). We're so busy we surely miss the trickle of time passing, kids growing, relationships maturing, communities evolving, stuff that can really make us happy.

The workplace is also a community, of sorts, but when relationships are metered by performance and shaped by imposed hierarchies, chemistry has nothing to do, so it sits down and puts its lazy-arse feet up. In extreme cases, the inability, or unwillingness, to seperate feelings from the needs of the business is marked as weakness. So I have to conclude that there's not much room for personal considerations in business, not really.

Management professionals might shout, “We want people to be able to express their feelings at work, feelings are good!” Well, whichever side of the line you’re on, just do one thing, take a leaf out of the big book of being Japanese and tell people at work about your feelings in a manner that always leaves you an escape route.

Avoid putting it in writing - there is a caveat to this, if a record is useful, but generally it is far more effective to talk directly to the people your feelings concern. Then you can gauge their reaction and modify your response, on the spot. This is how we sorted out the New Invoicing Procedures episode but, note, the initiative had to come from me, a shop floor level employee, and this is a bit disappointing. But if it's important to you you have to step up to the mark, otherwise you risk taking a hit in the self esteem department.

The Japanese go out after work and get drunk and claim they have no memory of anything unpopular they might, or might not have said while under the influence, which is brilliant. Drinking after work in Japan is not about pleasure-seeking. It’s hard being a salary man and quite common to see a wife tut-tutting her puke-smelling husband off a station platform and into the car after a heavy meeting. It may be wasted on my colleagues but I’ve secured a meeting to discuss the New Procedures, now if I can only get them all pissed...

The Black Bullet 6.12 - Miles Covered 317.1

First light. A quality all of its own. Filtering into the house through windows I didn’t even think faced the sun. It’s so tranquil as I sit on the bottom step and peel back the tongues of my site boots that I feel a little light-headed.

The preparation of PPE is like getting ready to go for a ride, which fills me with anticipation and makes me want to climb onto the Black Bullet and disappear, and not come back. I might get as far as Afghanistan before some paranoid war pig snuffed me out - for riding without due care and attention for Imperialism, or Jihad - but if they looked at the wreckage of this poor traveller and it made them really, really sorry, might it not be worth it?

Probably not, actually, definately not. Neither of these tyrants is likely to wait up to consider the lot of the free spirit in their schemes. The one that does not bend to their will is not useful, does not contribute to the cause. They would just pick me off and insist their work is righteous, unfortunate at times but nonetheless righteous. The world is full of people making allowances for their own shoddy behaviour, without giving an inch to the next man.

Wild and dreamy thoughts to start the weekend, which I indulge for a time as the rest of it is work. Even the farming programme on Radio 4 is in another place as I start the van. A female reporter comes on air mid sentence, she’s talking about lambs, and redemption, and I think I’ve got the long wave version where the Christians live. This dawn fervour is now getting out of hand so I slot in some Black Sabbath to push it all over the edge and pull out of the lock-up nodding to the beat of Am I going Insane (Sabotage, 1975, Warner). Sun floods into the cab, I change up and we’re off in a twirl of dust.

A schoolfriend introduced me to Black Sabbath with the double album We Sold Our Souls (1975, Sanctuary/Vertigo), which is rare in being an excellent compilation. I’m working in the Midlands today, also home of the Black Bullet, so Sabbath is an appropriate choice even though their experiments with production are now hurting my ears. Ozzy’s screaming voice is clashing with Tony Iommi’s sibilant guitar and these speakers just aren’t up to the job but I can’t listen to it quietly, what would be the point of that? So I sing along as loud as I can and give myself a cough.

Another real stormer from Sabotage is Symptom of the Universe, it’s like they sat down one day decided to try and find the meanest riff known to man. Even the economy of movement up and down the fretboard is mean. It chugs along with heavy dissonance, each phrase punctuated by a discordant jab. A messy swirl of overlaid slapback guitars finally gives way to what is, for me, a musical moneyshot. A completely unexpected jazz ending, with a guttural splat of Ozzy singing bluesy soul. Mesmerising.

I had a seven inch of this with Hard Road on the flip side, this is more traditional rock fare but I really like it too. It’s the chugging riff and the singalong chorus. Unimprovable.

In some ways it reminds me of the Blizzard of Oz track, Shot in the Dark (Follow the Reaper, 2000, EMI). This is altogether more slick and of-its-time but it has essentially the same ingredients. It also has a cool key change right at the start of the main solo, lubricated by a juicy squirt of slide. Nice.

The rock guitar solo has become much maligned, and for good reason in the majority of cases, however I would recommend Warning off the eponymous Black Sabbath album (1970, Nems), if you like it raw. Sleeping Village sets the scene and what follows is a gruelling trip though Iommi's virtuosity, squeezed out with single-minded grit and determination. It feels like it hurt him to do it and it's compelling for that reason alone. It makes me screw up my face and waggle my head.

Sabbath recorded some terrible tripe as well, it has to be said, but when they weren’t addled with cocaine, they were often inspired. Who knows, maybe drugs were also part of that inspiration, it could have gone either way. Snowblind (Vol 4, 1972, Sanctuary/Vertigo), for example, is reputed to be about cocaine use, and it’s a corker. In fact, there's a thinly veiled credit to their LA coke dealer in the sleeve blurb on Vol 4, and some other great tracks (also check, Wheels of Confusion), so bang goes another crackpot theory.

At least Ozzy went on armed with a rep and was able to afford some of the most accomplished musicians and producers for his ongoing solo projects. I haven't followed his career closely, moving on into an appreciation of other genres as I grew up, but I do sing along to Ozzmosis once in a blue moon. I picked it up in a charity shop - one of the best 50 pees I ever spent.

The Black Bullet 6.11 - Miles Covered 317.1

With Ravi Shankar on the stereo, the sun is hot and I’m squinting up the road imagining a different place. It’s not the B430 for Junction 10 (of the M40) anymore it’s the road to Chennai, or some other dusty place far, far away. For a moment I am transported and my heart quickens. Christ, there are animals all over the road - I swing the wheel of the car this way and that - and thin people loping along the verges. The only people you occasionally see along here are litter pickers and the unlucky.

I once hitchhiked out of the West Country and stood all day on the slip to the M5. I’d walked most of the way to Exeter, slept on the moors and in a field, and I was dog tired. There were a lot of solo drivers whizzing past that day, so much for no journey wasted. Perhaps it was the large backpack that put them off, or the crumpled friend, or the slug in my matted hair.

It used to be okay to hitch (from the right spot) and pick folk up but everybody's got the fear now. As a student, taking the train would mean blowing the ents budget for the week, so it was necessary at times to do a bit of hitching, or fare dodging. Problem with fare dodging is when you get away with it, it’s a party, when you pay and no one checks your ticket, it’s a party you missed out on. Also the adrenal buzz, the thud of your heart until your hearing starts to go numb, is addictive. Definitely preferable to the ‘walking dead’ of jaded commuters - that’s when you’re 18.

The cash has all dried up this month so the spares I need for my trip to Le Mans on the Black Bullet will have to part of June’s budget. Hitchcocks are pretty reliable so I’ve no concerns about getting them in time. It's just a shame the self-invested part of my portfolio is so long in the doldrums. I've decided to draw back from shares and shore up my cash position, via an ISA, the outlook is not rosy and I'm beginning to feel a bit 'exposed'.

Europa Oil’s MD has stepped down, giving me cause to suspect he pulled some levers to inflate the settlement value of his retirement package about the time I bought my shares [LON:EOG]. I don’t know what mechanisms are available to a man in his position but what a coincidence otherwise. The share price peaked when I read this interview with him that convinced me and probably lots of others to buy in. And all the while he must have known he was going to step down a few weeks later. I’m learning the hard way, but I’m not disheartened, just frustrated.

But, heck, to hell with all that. Congratulations to Nick and Catherine on the new arrival. Well done everybody.

The Black Bullet 6.10 – Miles Covered 317.1

All this talk about money is making my head spin [TBB 6.9]. Like technology, it kicks up a lot of contradictions. It's like reading a holiday brochure and really believing you can have a de-risked, pre-cooked, off-the-shelf experience that’s still full of adventure. The ingredients surely contradict each other.

The trip out to Banbury went pretty well. The Black Bullet didn’t blow up, it dropped a bit of oil but I gave it a good hard run and it made it, that’s the main thing, there and back. The oil seems to be coming out from under the front sprocket cover, so I imagine when I get the cover off it’ll be the seal to the driveshaft or something. It’s not much in quantity but it’s blowing onto the back tyre, which is not too clever.

I got a bit fed up of being hit in the face by bugs in studded leather jackets though. I’m new to open face helmets - very safety conscious as a courier - and even though I had my stand-and-deliver face cloth on, the exposed skin between this and my site glasses was shot-blasted by critters and stones and crud lifted up in the turbulent wakes of trucks. It seems a shame to opt for the full face but for a longer trip it’ll be safer and a lot more comfortable.

At times on the faster sections it was just a case of hanging on. The lack of suspension was curiously not a problem, it’s the exposed riding position that wears you out at speed. In fact with a load onboard the handling hardly changes, there’s none of that wallowing sensation in the corners or change of pitch in the riding position. My back is fine after two sprints of 45 miles and my bum did not go numb. You've just got to watch the road surface and avoid any holes.

The exhaust note goes flat in the open, with none of the glorious richness it has in the lanes. I missed the clear aural feedback and relying more on the feel of the bike is not without its problems. It took half an hour to get the feeling back in my hands when I arrived. All that fancy talk about gloves last year has come back to haunt me [TBB 2.8]. The gel palms, on closer inspection, only cover the heels of the hands, which is proving next to useless.

At one point, after a long stretch in top, I slowed for a roundabout and went for the clutch only to find the grip had slipped halfway off the bar, and my fingers were flailing about for the lever in thin air. I hadn’t even noticed this suicidal, slapstick development as I couldn’t feel a thing. This and the oil on the tyre are slightly worrisome.

The Black Bullet 6.9 - Miles Covered 224.0

The Black Bullet goes on test tomorrow. We’re off to the new office, in Banbury, to attend a pension review meeting. Yes, that’s right, even rockers make pension arrangements, but this doesn’t mean selling out, oh no, not when the company matches a percentage of the personal contribution.

Some of the guys at work are of the opinion that pensions aren’t going to be worth anything when they retire and they just about live on what they earn anyway, so no deal. I suppose they think if they earned a bit more they might be able to afford it. I couldn’t say but if my pension is worth half the combined contribution it’s still worth it. I can console myself by thinking it’s only the company’s money that went down the pan. As they say in Romania, if it’s only money, it’s cheap (thanks to Fat Tony for that one).

When Poz was born we took out a Child Trust Fund (CTF), back then the government was also giving out free money in the form of a £250 CTF voucher. Thanks to this and the generosity of his extended family Poz chalked up an impressive £750 stake in his first two years. The CTF has done well to date, better than my puny speculations, and he is so near the beginning of his life that he’s closer to the end, if your belief is in oblivion either side. To keep things fair, I have to find another £750 to invest for Child #2.

One night, before Poz was even born, I 'hid' a monkey in a unit trust, because I had it and I liked the sound of it, Jupiter Ecology. Little did I know but the markets were on their knees at the time and my 500 quid grew rapidly as things improved. I made 40 percent on it in two years, providing the stake I need for Child #2. It was beginners luck, for sure, but it sparked my interest in investing. I began to realise what the banks were up to, with their mingey sub-inflation level returns on our savings.

Some people might find it a bit distasteful talking openly about money. They might even try to hide knowledge of their income like it was their balls hanging out. Why is this? I guess you’d hide your balls if they were too big or too small, or really ugly in some way. I don't know about the latter but if your income is embarrassingly big, there are a number of simple solutions based on the same precept: ditch some of it, preferably in favour of those that have too little. It’s no more complex than that and I could even imagine it being good fun, like letting your balls hang out. It’s a cliche but giving it away is probably still the quickest route to freedom, which, as everybody knows, is another word for nothing left to lose.

If your income is too small, or you're just about doing okay and can only see poverty in all that hippy talk, earning more money or making what you’ve got go further might be your preoccupation. This would arguably be the lot of Everyman. Veiled modesty or not, big income earners often say it’s ‘the deal’ that keeps them going - they love the cut and thrust of business more than the money. If this is true, some of these guys must be on course to amass more wealth than they can usefully spend. Then I guess they develop a taste for the same top notch stuff they had before but now encrusted in diamonds, to keep that aspirational feeling.

It all begins to look like a self stoking cycle and what I can now say for sure, is, I know exactly what you’re thinking...It’s like a magneto-based ignition system, isn't it? Money makes money like sparks make more sparks, it's a beautiful system when you think about it like that.