Off Topic The Goodhand Arms

John Mahoney from Frasier has passed away

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42953979

 

Loved that show....and John Mahoney got a lot of the great punchlines.

 

Elon Musk is carrying out the first flight of his new $90m heavy falcon rocket to send his car to mars tonight.



Its supposedly twice as powerful of any rocket in operation (equivilent power of 4,000,000lbs of TNT) and this is its first test flight which Elon gives 50 - 50 chance of succeeding (and may well just blow up spectacularly).

Launch around 6:30 tonight. will be livestreams around so may well be worth a watch .

edit: here's a livestream.

edit2, thats 8:45pm now due to wind.

 

The most brilliant and most stupid parts of humanity in one action.

 

Huge achievement. And nice touch of humour...not enough room for eccentrics in today's society. He would have got on well in Victorian times. Not suggesting anything dubious about Mr Musk, but doesn't his name sound like a villain in a futuristic space drama. The mysterious super villain running a faceless corporation that is overcome by one woman and sidekick.

 

The final bit of the rocket came in too fast (ran out of fuel to slow re-entry) and missed landing on the drone ship, but you learn from errors....so a very successful endeavour.

 

Well, well, well. I ordered my new car from work in November and the lady at HQ told me 3 months delivery, so end of Feb. Second week back in January we were told this lady had left the company. I checked all ok for my car with the new lady only for her to find out that the First Lady had not placed the order and that the car company had no record of the order. Never mind. It happens. The order was then placed last Friday and I was told delivery would be end of April.

This morning I get a car from the UK dealer of the car manufacturer to arrange delivery of my new car!!!! The first order was placed and now they’ve ordered two

 

Don’t tell your company, and have a word with Accounts to lose the paperwork...

 

Ever wondered why Skates are thick, messed up junkies?, here's who is teaching them..


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan...rtsmouth/0&link_location=live-reporting-story

 

Harsh, I'm sure I drove plenty of teachers to drink or drugs when I was a kid

 

Strange experience today. I took the Guzzi for it's MOT (passed ) but while the chap printed off my docs another customer came in with his mate and started to create about the fact his bike failed a couple of days ago. It all got very heated and I felt very sorry for the mechanic who, rightly, stuck to his guns pointing out it was touch and go if he'd let the guy ride it away as the brakes were non-existant and tyres illegal. The bolshy buggers left muttering threats to report him but who'd think the life of an MOT inspector was so exciting.

However it seems a good time to introduce the new arrival in my garage -

 

Guzzi looks nice - you gonna scrape those footpegs on the corners or are you sensible these days? The awareness of mortality has taken a lot of the flair out of my riding these days (which isn't very often as I don't own a bike at the moment)

 

Not that sensible, just a bit older. My first Guzzi, the 750 Nevada, was bought with laid back cruising in mind. It took me about 5miles to realise it handled far better than it had any right to. Cue grin and tutting from Mrs greensaint. But yes, I no longer think I'm invunerable to harm and anyway enjoy rapid but steady progress. Racing between traffic lights has lost any appeal it might've had, I never won anyway

 

I had a Yamaha VMax which I tried to tell myself was a cruiser...scary when you accelerated too hard out of a corner as it was twitchy as **** and weighed a ton but was surprising comfortable and useable for longer distances. Not sure I'd get one now, 25 years later but it was a great machine when I was still immortal. Monstered traffic light races too.
Never really went all in for fully faired sportsbikes with a few exceptions like an all to brief time on a GPZ600 and a great year hacking around on a Yamaha FZR1000 but my first love was always yamaha 2 and 4 stroke dirt bikes, favourite being the DT 175.

 

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/159...e_lit_up_by_a_spectacular_light_show_tonight/

Some lovely photos of lightshow at West Quay. I do like this development of restaurants which has resulted in revealing this lovely stretch of the City walls which was in an out of the way area to most visitors.

 

My old man had one of these. He was made to give it up when he broke several bones in his body one day. He decided that would be a good idea after he asked me to take him to the recovery yard to see the bike, when he came out of hospital. It ended up about 80cm long!

 

Sounds like he was quite lucky Fats, but at least you can say he actually was the fastest milkman in the west.
I wrote my GPZ off, or rather a stupid car driver helped me, and I could have got the whole bike in a cardboard box after that little incident.
I always felt that full on sports bikes were great if you wanted to race (whether on track or road) but a pain to use on a day to day basis as the riding position is only comfortable when you're going at speed. My modified FZR did around 3 miles a minute flat out and was stable and comfy, but it hurt my back to ride it at 30 through town. Horses for courses I suppose.
I'm happiest these days trundling around at about 30 up on Salisbury plain somewhere, able to see all the wildlife and the amazing landscape up there rather than head down and racing the devil

 

Dad only rode his as a hobby. He never took it out in the wet, but one day (just after it started raining whst he was out) a “lesser” bike overtook him on a stretch with double white lines.... once the double lines were gone he decided he was not having any of that and throttled back passed the other rider, only to touch the brakes at the next bend with a now damp road on a 90 degree bend.... oops!

 

Oops indeed . I commuted on bikes at various times so was pretty sensible most of the time when it was wet...had a few slides despite that. Man hole covers in the rain on corners were the bane of my life as wet metal provides no grip whatsoever and when your bike weighs 600lbs like my VMax did, it is a struggle to wrestle it upright when they start to go over. The picture is of a stock early VMax, mine was mostly matt black and looked awesome...I miss it despite it trying to kill me every time I rode it

 

I alway thought the best thing about the VMax was it looked like it was doing 110mph while parked

(Touch wood mode on) I've only had a few spills in my 40yr riding history. I wrote once off a Honda VT500 by driving it into a wall.

Rather strangely the two other serious accidents happened within a few yards of each other but 10 years apart. I'd only been riding for about a year when my front tyre burst as I entered Lyndhurst on the A35 from Southampton, made worse by me speeding at the time, it hurt. My cheesecloth shirt had to be soaked off me due to the blood

Second one was just before the cattle grid entering Lyndhurst on the road to Beaulieu, completley lost it on snow and ice. It was very surreal as I hit the ground and slid, overtaking the bike before we both hit the grid.

Glad I was able to learn from my mistakes, but I still twitch on the occasions I visit Lyndhurst.