Whilst the Kawasaki is off the road – whilst I recover from my serious crash last year – I thought I’d take the opportunity to swap the numberplate over, as the ZRX’s ‘plate is ‘better’ than the Abarth’s.
Getting them off the vehicles and onto retention certificates was easy online but I then hit a snag in that you can’t immediately reassign them until the new registration documents (that you won’t be using for anything else other than immediately making them obsolete) arrived.
Great! So whilst the bike is fine in my garage, I had to park the 124 on a private road for a couple of days until I could get it reinsured with its new numberplate.
So 2000 RM is no more (in terms of the 124); long live 3 RHM!
I decided to join in with Movember again this year: fundraising for men’s mental health. A good cause. But yes, I end up looking more ridiculous than usual and hating the annoying slug festering under my nose! At least tomorrow I can shave the bastard off or at least trim it right back!
The 6th was the Bring Me The Horizon gig at Brixton. A good one, if I’m honest, although the band’s lead singer was a knob trying to look big in front of the predominantly young, female, screaming audience. More noise from them than from the stage.
That Friday it was the PurplePort London Social: it was good to meet up with some photographers and some models, including Sakura Star who’d previously said she was keen to work with me on a somewhat noir bondage and fetish project going forward: she has some excellent work on her portfolio already.
The next day it was off up to Norwich to see Norwich City beat West Ham United and thereby save Chris Hughton from the dole queue for a little longer…
The following week was fun at work: I was put forward for a major commission in Canada without my knowledge so I had a meeting planned with my boss – the owner of the business I work for – which never happened as we’d heard that I was needed in Chicago for a meeting which was then cancelled at short notice as they’d gone with a local company instead of ours. So that’s parked for another day…
I had a couple of days off that week to recharge and the Wednesday was a good opportunity to have one last thrash on the Sprint before winter sets in. I headed off down to Sussex, for a “Bigboy Breakfast” at Wesson’s Cafe, stopping off en route to get a warning for a dodgy numberplate as it’s too small, apparently. Oops! Must order a legal one: the bike never came with one because the vanity plate came later. The that night it was off to the O2 to see Vampire Weekend and Noah and the Whale in concert. GT and I stayed for three songs, it was that rubbish…
At the weekend, GT and I were off to an 80s party in the evening: her goth’d up (more so than usual thanks to crimping her hair) and me with a poodle perm wig, Frankie Say Relax t-shirt, white linen trousers and some horrendous white canvas shoes. A late one at that, DJ-ing from my iPhone with some 80s tracks. And then there was the Sunday…
GT had a race first thing in the morning, so while she was gone I got up, bathed and had a coffee. When she got back I made more coffee and joined her in the bathroom whilst she had a post-race bath. I told her there was something wrong: I felt she wasn’t that in to me any more – we’ve been seeing each other for nearly 3 years now on an irregular, regular basis – and that it’s become more pronounced since she was promoted, working longer hours with shifts, etc. GT agreed that she seemed to have no time to put in to a relationship these days to make one work, so we agreed to split up rather than just going through the motions. We then spent the afternoon shopping in Kingston and had dinner before I left.
The following weekend was all about gigs and bikes: on Saturday it was off to the NEC for Motorcycle Live. A chance for me to buy some new Goretex Alpinestars SMX Plus bike boots in black for next summer’s Austrian Eurothrash. It was also great to bump into Emma Kate Dawson for a chat and a catch-up.
Then on the Saturday night I saw Queens of the Stone Age at the Wembley Arena and as I had a spare ticket – I always buy two out of habit – I invited Sakura Star along as I knew she was at a loose end having just split up from her bloke. She showed me some great photos that another photographer had taken of her in a fab leather and feather dress which are now on her profiles having got clearance from the designers and we had a few drinks before the gig. QOTSA were excellent and SS was good company.
Queens of the Stone Ages
Then on the Sunday night it was off to the Hammersmith Apollo with GT to see the Pixies who were also absolutely superb.
The Pixies
The Pixies
Last week was busy: London, Birmingham and Manchester with lots of different hotels and lots of travelling. And there’s more to come soon when I pop over to Toronto to speak at a major event.
At least that should keep me busy and my mind off relationships past, present and future. In the meantime, I’ve booked next year’s holidays to Fuerteventura with my ‘kids’ to go with the Austrian Eurothrash.
My son came down to London to stay the weekend. Unlike his sister, Jack had never been keen as a young child to go on any of my bikes (Amy had regularly scored cool points at primary school by riding in on the back of my bikes and made sure to keep her helmet on her coat-peg). So it was that at 17, he’d never really been anywhere on the back of my bikes.
My trusty Scala Rider headset had packed up recently, so rather than doing a like-for-like replacement I had opted for the Scala Rider Teamset Pro: two headsets that link together by Bluetooth for a little bit more than an individual headset. The plan next year is to take GT on the GT (!) to somewhere in Europe – possibly Austria – on another Eurothrash so being able to talk rather than relying on taps and hand-signals would be a bonus.
So we checked that one of my helmets fitted Jack securely, hooked up the headsets, kitted him with gloves and leathers and headed down to Loomies in Hampshire via Ryka’s in Surrey. His Mum was more than a little concerned when she found out what was going on…
Jack, on the other hand, was a natural and the 160 mile roundtrip was enjoyed by both of us and being able to chat on the road was a new experience for me.
Purge was at Loomies on his equally new Ducati Multistrada and I pointed out a missing bolt from the rear mudguard … as Yox pointed out a missing bolt from my fairing! Oops! Another little thing for Metropolis to sort out at the first service in a couple of weeks.
In the meantime, I’d sent off the forms to transfer another plonker plate onto the Sprint: 8000 RM. The new tax disc and authorisation arrived today, so I’ve let the insurance company know, printed off a new insurance certificate and ordered a new numberplate to fit to the bike, hopefully before the weekend…
I recently acquired another cherished numberplate to go with the ones on my car and bike as I did think about getting another vehicle soon and wanted a more memorable ‘plate.
But I’ve changed my mind about that, so I’ve advertised the plate – 8000 RM – on eBay starting on 16th April around lunchtime if anyone’s interested.
The number is currently on a retention certificate and the price includes the DVLA Assignment Fee but not a DVLA change fee if required.
I have seen similar numbers advertised on the trade sites at between £8,000 and £17,000, so I am seeking a realistic price for the ‘plate which I’ll keep and assign to another vehicle of mine later on if it doesn’t sell.
Well since I last updated this blog, a lot has happened. Obviously the main event was my trip along Route 66 on an Electra Glide (posts syndicated below and on my Big Trip Blog). Breathtaking!
A week back in the UK – missing the States a lot – and I was off to Paris for a couple of days again with one of our Clients.
Back in London and the weather was wonderful at last, making walking home from work lovely if challenging – trying to avoid pubs!
Silhouette
Paralympics were on, bringing with it the Mayor’s fun: a big screen on Potters Field between County Hall and Tower Bridge with stalls selling all sorts of food and a bar. Made walking home and indeed lunchtimes different and bringing out the crowds.
Tower Bridge Adornment
GT got us tickets for the weekend’s Paralympics so off we went for a look around and to be awestruck.
Coca-Cola “Bubbles”
I think GT’s favourite part of the Olympic Park was probably the champagne and seafood restaurant where we spent a pleasant hour or two!
Then the following week, it was my daughter’s 21st birthday, so she came down to stay at mine for the weekend, with a trip to the West End shops for a dress and a champagne afternoon tea at Harrods’ Georgian Restaurant (after we’d had the Best Milkshakes Ever!).
Shake It Baby!‘Arrods
My 21st birthday present to her was a vanity plate for her car: 1991 AM (her birth year and initials). This was the end of the weekend that I’d spent with GT shopping in Kingston for an LBD for a do coming up with a lovely vegetarian meal on the Thames.
The following week saw more meals out plus a trip and stay in the Midlands to train a client’s staff. Great fun as always, but hard work.
Last week was fun: GT came with me to a champagne drinks reception at the Spencer House in St James Place, hence the new Karen Millen dress and Jimmy Choo killer heels! Driving in the back of a cab over Waterloo Bridge, we saw a huge ride at the Southbank that we decided we had to go on, so plans were hatched for coming back last weekend to ride on Priceless London Wonderground’s high-spinning swing ride, the Star Flyer, the tallest travelling ride in the country at 60m tall, with amazing views of London (especially when we went back later, after dark.
That was a weekend of film too, seeing “Killing Them Softly” (slow-paced but well done) on the Friday night and “The Sweeney” (which was an enjoyable romp if paying only lip service to the original series) on the wet Sunday afternoon.
Quite pleased too, recently, with the release of iOS6 and the iPhone 5 which is a lovely shiny thing!
And finally, Esther, I’ll leave you with my favourite track during this period which sums up a lot of things (more of which later):
I’m looking to buy a plonker plate through the DVLA Registrations website. This requires you to set up an account and log in. So this morning I registered on the site which then immediately fell over:
“service unavailable
sorry…
This service is temporarily unavailable. Your last action cannot be completed and details have not been recorded.
If you have not received confirmation of a successful transaction then your application has been cancelled.
Please click the button below to return to the DVLA Personalised Registrations home page.”
And that’s how it remains at present: you can search and view the public site but try and log in…
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