Thursday 8 September 2011
Purging Demons
Monday 9 May 2011
Screaching to a halt
Sunday 13 February 2011
60,000 miles: Wet footwells & dodgy geezers selling very dodgy motors
Friday 31 December 2010
Great Escapes
Sunday 28 November 2010
MOT aka The Bothersome Lower Suspension Bush and Blown Bulb Blues
Thursday 28 October 2010
Towns Called Malice
Told you trade was relatively slow. Been chasing about to the seaside towns and more locally getting shots that might well define the social consequences of economic downturn but as yet there's no sense of public anger or unrest. Photographers studios lay bare along the high streets, a stream of unopened mail scattered around the floor the only footfall, others stand boarded shut while bohemian craft stalls seem sullen, if grateful for every solitary pound that changed hands.
"The empire strikes back" is my assessment of the social phenomenon detailed here. It has little to do with spending cuts in the interests of public solvency/ long term socio-economic prosperity and more in keeping with eroding the post war reforms to education, opportunity and health. Cooperative communities are in my view cohesive to meritocratic, upward social mobility and more egalitarian social frameworks. However, I'm pleased to report from a micro climate some small businesses are presently flourishing but this serves to illustrate how economically interlinked we all are. Remove money from the economy and reduced consumer spending, whether derived from earned income or benefits will see large sections collapse like the proverbial house of cards with costly social consequence. Increasing, rather than slashing benefits might not be ideologically sound for some but in the short term at least, would support a fragile economy and prevent those most likely to be reliant upon state assistance losing their employment. These people have cars, consumer durables and other items. Should they choose not to have their cars serviced, their hair cut or indeed that Friday night takeaway, our local economies shrink. "Gentrification" of inner city areas including Hackney, Waltham Forest amongst others during the mid 1980s under the premise that such sweeteners would bring the middle classes and by default,prosperity/investment had little positive impact upon the immediate, established communities. The affluent newcomers enjoyed relatively cheap housing, convenient commuting to city jobs/restaurants and other amenities while the skilled artisans and businesses retired or relocated. It is difficult to predict whether we will see social unrest of the sort last witnessed during this period or whether people will seek solace in cheap liquor and sit huddled in their homes akin to the passover."People getting angry" is an immortal line from the Specials' seminal track " Ghost Town" arguably defining the immediate era of post 1970s Britain. "Tell me why?"; Is another extremely poignant song penned and composed in response to a brutal racist attack that rendered Lynval Golding hospitalised after he left a South London nightclub accompanied by two white women. In recent weeks I have been threatened twice while driving through Leytonstone by a black man in his mid twenties driving a very distinctive Q plate VW based kit car. Is this deep seated racial prejudice, simple unprovoked, pick- a- fight thuggery or a case of mistaken identity on his part?
Racism is widely regarded as a singularly white, male phenomenon, most prevalent amongst those from the lower economic sub-strata when it is inherently more complex. For several decades, young men of black and Asian origin have been subjected to inequalities of legal representation and disproportionately harsh sentencing compared with white counterparts committing (or at least "guilty")of the same offences. Drawing parallels with third wave feminism's inability to successfully challenge and obliterate reductionist two-dimensional gender stereotypes, there is a disturbing hypocrisy amongst some who use colonialism and slavery as justification for their own deep seated prejudices.
He's just a stereotype, he drinks his age in pints, he has girls every night and he doesn't really exist... Ignorance, prejudice and hatred serve to profit those who gain advantage from dividing and fragmenting people. Equal opportunities hiaraches are developed by careerists who control thought and the use of language in terms that are positively Orwellian while failing to have any positive effect upon the day to day experiences of the surgeon who is systematically undermined/ humiliated in a professional capacity by her colleagues, or the hirsute young man stopped and searched in the street because he fits a very simplistic "terrorist" profile. Sat in a Polish cafe' one afternoon, one such bureaucrat blundered through the door demanding to see documentation.
I squirmed in my seat (nursing a large coffee and awaiting my meal) as he conducted himself in the most patronising manner imaginable with a woman whose command of English rivaled, if not exceeded his own. The moment of reckoning came when he asked to see "The licence for the stripper"... Her polite tolerance vanished, cake and coffee retracted, replaced with a stern retort. Needless to say, he left looking very sheepish and muttered something about returning in a couple of weeks.
One of my favourite myths is that of the "repressed" Indian woman but no-one notices as the strong, independent but deeply feminine figure slips from a sari into leathers and across town on a 750cc Suzuki leaving everyone else "ten paces behind".
"Uncle" Benny, director of Sowman plumbing & Heating LTD has busied himself with some renovation works to his MG Metro turbo. Faded wings are being resprayed, presenting the opportunity for some mild engine fettling/tidying. Next to go is the dubious dump valve. Installed by the previous owner, welding is workman like at best-although the jury's out as to whether it's sloppy TIG or just mediocre MIG. Benny's vision is to employ the services of a skilled machine shop and have them cut out the offending area, neatly welding a plate in its place.
Thursday 7 October 2010
54,100 Another service, bulb and two front tyres
Fifty four thousand, one hundred miles was as close to the ten thousand service interval as I wanted to get, particularly since the condition of drum and disc brakes needed establishing. Received wisdom and past experience suggests pad replacements every nineteen thousand miles, more in urban contexts or the discs will be tantamount to scrap. Interestingly, braking was given the all clear but the two front tyres were down to the legal limit and frankly, my trade seems to attract sufficient police introspection without giving them additional/just cause for reprimand. That aside it was simply routine plugs, filters oil and a replacement bulb. Total bill £255 including VAT.
Autumn has become progressively drier, albeit cooler but hasn't presented opportune moment for further chassis waxoyling. However, I took the precautionary measure of shooting some WD40 into locking mechanisms, touched up a few stone chips before treating the coachwork to a thorough hard paste polishing seeing as the Ka finish needs a little help and pigeons have been taking rather accurate, acidic aim at the panels. The driver's side mat is looking increasingly threadbare too so I'll replace that come the next available opportunity.
Work's been slow these past few weeks-allows me to concentrate on some other pressing matters. Cash flow has certainly taken a dive but in these straitened times, creative types have to get creative... Is this a crisis or the opportunity for greater collectivism? I'm not referring to the cynical rhetoric espoused by the political elite but a greater sense in which people form workers cooperatives and other, similarly empowering collaborations. The potential has never been greater but the question remains whether people will actively embrace this or will online activity remain deeply routed in rudimentary one dimensional pornography and consumerism...
Ending on a happier note, Florence has been seen driven locally- We'd had some adventures and very happy times together-maybe our paths will cross again.