When Reindeers Retire, or Santa Gets His Licence

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The leathers were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that an Eight Four Eight soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
With visions of Moto GP in their heads;
And Mamma in her jacket, and I, visor down,
Had just addled our brains with a ride through the town;
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When - my wondering eyes hadn’t since seen the likes -
‘Twas a miniature sleigh, and a garage of bikes,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
“Now, Fireblade! now, ‘Prilla! now, Desmocedici!
On, Monster! on, Scrambler! on, ‘Stretta! Suzuki!
To the top of the drive! Fly up over the wall!
Now roar away! Race away! Dash away all!”

A Long Way Down

Ten days. Not all that long. Ten days to be away from bikes, biking, the roar of a Ducati, the smell of the grease. Well, not so much the smell, but you get the general, wistful, theatrically-alluding idea.

Working a long way from the homestead is generally manageable, but occasionally, just occasionally, the distance feels further than air miles can stretch or lost boys can fly, a necklace of Little Chefs and M&S Motos stringing out and separating me from the roar of a fire, the warmth of one’s own bed, the ample and cosseting familial bosom and the rosso of Bologna (is that wine or motorcycles? You choose).

Today’s stroll back from a replenishing lunch saw a lime Kawasaki Ninja bowling along a boulevard in too low a gear, its engine straining for revs but making an industrial, Marshall amp-blowing din nonetheless. Its presence was welcome, like a contraband sweet-thing whose appearance isn’t needed, but whose contented, continued existence is gratefully acknowledged upon an unexpected glimpse, a sense that all’s fine in this stressed and topsy-turvy world.

So I'm Like, Irritated

I expect it’s true that for most people who write journals like this, language is important. Yes, yes, I know that sounds daft. Maybe that should have been Language, capital L. And without wishing to come over all Lynne Truss (that could have been phrased better, an’ all), I’m afraid I’m one of those who finds the misuse of apostrophes catastrophic and pluralizing singulars horrific (something that seems to be forever on the rise, especially at the BBC; note to BBC editors – England doesn’t select their new manager, England selects its new manager; the government is not reviewing their policy, it’s reviewing its policy. Jeezus, how hard can it be?!)

Contemporary speech patterns change, of course, to reflect regionality, colloquialisms, catchphrases, even. But increasingly I’m wondering why they’re changing to reflect inarticulacy. A case in point:

A commercial on TV, for some type of skin replenisher. You probably know the scene; a reasonably attractive, yet everyday, one-of-us-looking woman simpers to camera about some perceived inadequacy that’s recently been eradicated by product X. I’d love to have seen the script. Because what the woman said was something akin to

“I asked my dermatologist and she was like ‘try this, it’s great.’ So I did and I couldn’t believe the results. Next time I saw her, she was like ‘how did it go?’ and I was like ‘terrific!’”

Was like. Was bloody like. ‘Was like’ appears to have replaced ‘said’, ‘asked’, ‘replied’ and, no doubt, all manner of verbs with a common goal to relay that a person spoke to someone else. And for those who say it doesn’t matter, imagine, if you will, how this seasonal tale would sound if written today.

The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear, like

‘Ding, dong!’

Scrooge, counting, was like ‘A quarter past.'

‘Ding, dong!’

Scrooge was like ‘Half past.'

‘Ding, dong!’

Scrooge was like ‘A quarter to it.'

‘Ding, dong!’

Scrooge was like ‘The hour itself,’ triumphantly and he was like ‘and nothing else!’

Worse still, ‘was like’ might be joined by that other great speech impediment, the erroneous use of the past tense of the verb To Go as a term to indicate speech. Imagine:

‘You have never seen the like of me before!’ went the Spirit.

Scrooge was like ‘Never.'

And the Phantom was like ‘Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years?’ went the Phantom.

Scrooge was like ‘I don’t think I have,’ and went ‘I am afraid I have not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?’

‘More than eighteen hundred,’ went the Ghost.

Urgh.

What has this got to do with motorcycles? Absolutely nothing. So forgive a little rant, bike-riding readers. I just find myself, like, aghast.

Getting In First, or How To Avoid Looking Like A Wet Dog

Bee-bee-beep. Bee-bee-beep. An eight a.m. alarm. A bleary-eyed look out of the window shows a brittle, concrete sky; a glance down to the ground reveals an absence of shimmering puddles. Extra layers, followed by biking leathers, determines the intent.

Outside and the red cover is unclipped and shed. A turn of the key makes the instruments jump into life, bouncing clockwise and then back to rest. A press of the starter button and the familiar bark of the engine announces its awakening. We’re ready.

Down the stony drive and out of the gate, swing round to the clocktower, blipping the growling throttle to the traffic lights, an eager gundog demanding a longer leash.

The A6108. A snaking dipper of tarmac, a gothic ribbon winding through greens and auburns and ochres, bisecting sodden fields studded with implacable sheep dressed in Old English White, bordered by rugged, flinty dry stone walls and naked, spindle-fingered trees. Past the hidden Lightwater Valley, lying low in its eponymous cleft, onwards through Great Stainley and its valued contribution to the British Sunday lunch, winding up through the gears and the revs, cutting through the icy air under an uncertain sky to Masham, Mass’m to the initiated, and the Dickensian temple to ale, the Black Sheep Brewery, two o’clock high as the bike turns left and then ninety degrees right.

As this small, beer-based market town disappears in my mirrors, a tight left hand bend flicks past a traditional dovecot, where half a dozen palomas blancas perch prettily, a burlesque confection of feathers and magic tricks, somehow surreal as melting clocks on this bleak winter morning, and onwards into the regal-sounding district of Richmondshire, through the Ellingtons, High and Low.

We’re speeding through Wensleydale and the palette overhead is appropriately milky white, bruised with a yellow that hints at snow, still high and secure, for now. Close to the tumbledown stones of Jervaulx Abbey, a coven of crows huddles and cackles before taking its fragmented black, broomless flight. The watery light and the stabbing scenery suggest a malevolent air, despite the reasonably civilised hour, and yet we’re at home, the Monster and I, its snarling voice a warning note to dragons and witches, Astras and 3 Series dawdlers. Middleham beckons, recorded in the Domesday Book, childhood home of Richard the Third and now an equine community as much as an historic one, home to the racehorse trainer Mickey Hammond. And it’s on the approach to Mickey’s yard that we slow, fifth to fourth, fourth into third, down through the gears and easy on the brakes as a string of princely chestnut athletes, each a Stubbs’ masterpiece brought to graceful high-stepping life, is led by a gaggle of grooms, puffa-jacketed and tweed-capped against the morning, breathing cumulus breath.

***

Later, the bike dry under its cloak of red once more, it’s biblical. Sleet joins the rain, turning to snow high up in the Dales, blown sideways by a dervishgod-driven wind, the elements battering towns, villages and fields alike, an indiscriminate assault on this sceptred, sceptic isle. Too late, shamen, too late.

MIssing Inaction

Like Corbett does Barker, as Zeppelin did Bonzo. As Rab C. Nesbitt will his sartorial garment of choice, as Gordon Brown does a double digit opinion poll lead, as English cricket does a victory (heck, at this rate as English cricket does a wet afternoon in the pavilion waiting for the umpire to declare a draw), I've missed riding a bike these past two weeks. The foulest of weather, the busiest of schedules and the impracticability of motorcycling the 220 miles that lie between home and office like a commuter's chasm has meant that the Ducati has slumbered under its red shroud, a hibernating Gruffalo alone with its red metal dreams.

So I'm hardly cheered by the fact that tomorrow's forecast is represented by the BBC as a marker pen cloud and a big, fat, coal-black raindrop. Anyone fancy trading a bike for an ark?*






*Does Ducati make arks?

Music to Ride Motorcycles By

Could it be that Apple, makers of the iMac, iPod and iPhone amongst other fine domestic consumables, knows more than it’s letting on? Not in a general knowledge, Stephen Fry kind of a way, but in an emotional intelligence, thought reading, 'Big Brother knows all' fashion (Big Brother being the Orwellian version, not the sordid mess that has become the Channel 4 voyeurfest, naturally).

Utilising the shuffle feature on my iPod, whilst seeking a little musical distraction from the monotony of the treadmill (a literal treadmill, at a gym, not an allegory for the working week) produced half a dozen tracks in succession that, had I been able to programme the machine to a cycle called ‘Match my mood’, or ‘Tell me what I want to hear before I know I want to hear it’ could hardly have been bettered. And whilst being aurally stimulated, my mind flew from a room full of heavy equipment and, frankly, torturous hardware, tinged with the vague scent of let’s-call-it-perspiration, to bikes.

So, those tracks, then. First up, Gallows Pole from the post-Zeppelin album No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded. A barrage of rhythms, energy and fused English and North African instruments, it feels inappropriate to grin to the repeated refrain ‘Swinging on the gallows pole’, yet grin I do.

Next, Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds, Hiding All Away. More dark, brooding lyricism, bursting into power and glory, music to drive tanks to.

Third, a real surprise, Weak by Skunk Anansie, a song I hadn’t heard in an age. Here, though, just right, and a vocal performance by a machine gun-toting angel.

After this, the iPod started to show off. Lost in music, to quote the completely unrepresented Sister Sledge, and still enjoying a small glow from Messrs. Page, Plant and Cave, what could have been better than Led Zeppelin’s Rock and Roll to kick on with? Nothing. And then three minutes and forty-two seconds of consummate boogie later, the handclaps and piano of Nick Cave’s Supernaturally, from the Lyre of Orpheus CD. What is there not to love about a song that rhymes ‘When the dead come rising from the seas’ with ‘With a teddy bear clamped between her knees’? I just hope the bear was suitably named.

Treadmill slowing, senses ringing, musical methadone’s required. And for a final time, Apple provides, in the shape of Jack and Meg and 300 MPH Torrential Outpour Blues, a whimsical, stuttering, explosive outpouring of torrents at, at least, 300 miles per hour.

Now a more technically adept type would have provided neat little links to samples of each of these six pieces by way of bringing the reader closer to the notion of track following track, perhaps to understand why I think that this mini compilation album would be the perfect soundtrack to ride a motorcycle to. Ahem. Note the word ‘more’.