Nurburgring Trip Day 1

Thursday 15 July 2010 at 3:32 pm

EDIT: 27 April 2011.  Just heard from Trev that John was sadly killed yesterday in a crash on his Hayabusa.  These holiday memories become all the more poignant and are dedicated to him.  R.I.P. John Blackman.

Thursday 8 July
Home to Saint Quentin, France
Mileage start:24114  end:24419  miles travelled:305

Ride to Trev's:  left my house at 7am, via petrol station and arrive at Trev's for a quick coffee, exchange of spare keys and off we go!


Meet Ian at Ipswich:  bear in mind that the furthest I've ever ridden my bike is to Coventry (from Lowestoft), and I'd never driven outside the UK, let alone ridden a bike, I was a bit daunted by the upcoming trip.  I'm the kind of person who gets excited when I cross the Orwell Bridge, as it seems like a long way from home!

Dartford Crossing:  after a quick bacon roll our southward journey was fine until Dartford - Trev and I went through the toll barrier together, but Ian suddenly disappeared.  It was a baking hot day and in the long queue all our bikes were getting warm, and we worried that he'd overheated.  We slowed for a stretch, waiting for him to catch up but it turned out he'd found a free tollbooth and buggered off!  Thanks to the wonder of mobile phones, we were reunited and it was on to Dover.

Meet up with John at Eurotunnel:  at Dover we met up with the fourth member of our group, seasoned 'Ring rider and ex-military children's entertainer John (ZZR-1100).  For me this was when the excitement really ramped up, and I was staggered to be riding my bike onto a train!

 

Wrong side of the road:  so here we were at Calais, in actual French France!  A quick fillup of l'essence sans plombe and we were away on the wrong side of the road.  Veteran european tourist John in the lead got a bit impatient and decided he'd accelerate my rider training by making me filter through traffic in a strange country on the opposite side of the road.  Thanks John!

Stop off in Chambrai:  a mainly motorway-based spell of riding followed, and we stopped off in the town of Chambrai for a coffee.  From there it was not far to our final destination for the night.

 
 

Hotel at Saint Quentin:  the hotel was a late choice by trip organiser Trev, after our first choice was full.  It was booked unseen so we didn't know what to expect.  As I stepped into the room I was due to share with Ian, I could only see one bed!  But no, there it was, on what I can only describe as a shelf on the wall.

When Ian was packing for the trip, he'd chatted to Trev who'd said, 'no, you won't need a towel, the hotels supply them'.  This particular hotel's towels were a little on the small side, about the size of a small tea-towel, and nowhere near big enough to fit round a full-grown human being.  Mind you, it was so hot that showering was a pretty pointless excercise as you'd be sweating again immediately afterwards.  With 'Towelgate' behind us, we locked up the bikes and went to the restaurant next door.

Restaurant:  This was a very pleasant place, and as the only one who could remember any schoolboy French I tried (poorly) to translate the menu for us.  All went well until the coffees, when maybe the couple of beers we'd had kicked in, and it all went a bit wrong.  John's language skills mostly consisted of saying what he wanted in English, but with ze French accent.  It was like a bad episode (is there any other type?) of Allo Allo.  "I want coffee like zees weeth no creme..."

And so to bed.  On a shelf.  In the middle of an 24-hour industrial area.  In a sauna.  With the tiniest pillows designed for Hobbit-children.  Night night...

Fuji S200EXR shutter release self build

Saturday 10 July 2010 at 6:51 pm
circuit diagram

I built a shutter release switch for my Fuji S200EXR out of an old mouse.  This is the circuit diagram.  The idea came from this website www.trafficshaper.com, where there’s a view of the inside of the RR-80.  As it’s only 3 resistors and a couple of switches it was pretty straightforward to build, although it’s impossible to find a 2-stage shutter button switch without actually dismantling a camera!

The other difficult bit is getting the Mini-B USB plug.  I got mine as a solderable one from Maplin, but it only connects to the standard 4 USB pins.  The 5th pin is what’s required here, so I had to modify the plug, too.

So on my otherwise standard-looking mouse left-click is focus, right-click is shoot.  More details and pictures available if anyone’s interested.  Here’s a pic of it in action to take a self-portrait with some burly bikers!

 
The next plan is to build in a timer circuit so I can do unattended time-lapse photography.  Watch this space, probably won’t happen for months!

My DC logo

Saturday 16 January 2010 at 7:08 pm

 This is my original DC logo, dating from 1978 and my first art lesson at secondary school – we had to design a logo for our folders, and as I was only 8 and had no idea about anything, my art teacher (Mr Robinson) had to design it for me. In those days, of course, it was records. Then much later in life when I got into music & computers, it became CDs. Fascinating(!)

My heiroglyph logo

Saturday 16 January 2010 at 7:05 pm

 The heiroglyph logo is (I hope) a representation of my name. If you're a proper Egyptologist, please feel free to correct me... Years ago I got bought a copy of a book of heiroglyphs, complete with rubber stamps to make your own cartouche. Anyway according to the book the heiroglyphs are phonetic, the hand represents 'D', the vulture a long vowel sound, wavy water line thing 'N', reed leaf is a short vowel or 'Y' sound, and apparently the open mouth is kind of like an 'R', as there's no 'L' sound. God this is dull. Like I said if you really do know about this stuff, let me know. I hope it's right, cos I have it tattooed on my arm...!

My fascination with Ancient Egyptian stuff came about when I found an almost-mint copy of E.A. Wallis Budge's Book of the Dead, left lying in a puddle near the post box on my way to school. I don't begin to understand most of it, but I love the pictures!

Samson in the national press

Friday 08 May 2009 at 8:19 pm

Samson is mentioned (ok, not directly, but it is him – paragraph 7) here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/06/tom-cox-cat-man-pets

Biiiig Face

Wednesday 25 March 2009 at 11:16 am

Harry Hill Big Face

This makes me laugh till I’m sick. Every time.

Cat pics

Thursday 29 January 2009 at 9:12 pm




Two comments

Tom Jones-inspired dwarves.

Tuesday 27 January 2009 at 3:43 pm

Tom Jones is a bit odd. Here is a list of 7 words which could also be names of dwarves. That is all.

trashy
sleazy
slimy
greasy
curly
oily
creepy
pants