My Mate Optimate

I guess it’s been a while since I last posted anything here. In truth, the Christmas and New Year period rarely brings out anything creative in me; I prefer instead to be decadently entertained whilst existing on a diet of excellent red wine, a cache of Stinking Bishop from the north's best cheese shop and assorted mince pies. It’s the one holiday of the year that doesn’t bring on any sort of work-related guilt, given that most of the UK seems to pull down the shutters for at least a fortnight, so any task that requires interaction with another living soul tends to fall by a defaulting wayside. Plus, I’m never going to be one of those blogging-types for whom a day without writing anything brings on a bout of C/O D and a next-day-keyboard groaning under the weight of angst and dull, self-absorbed drivel. So now here we are, already a week into the countdown to Christmas 2008; Easter eggs drift onto tatty, still-tinselled shelves, the day job makes its presence felt like a drunk with a megaphone at the office party and my typing fingers appear to have shed their yuletide boxing gloves.

The weather, of course, has been most unbikelike in this vast, rugged northern county. As cold as a polar bear’s lolly, as wet as an excited otter, it brought out the fair-weather biker in me like the seasonal credit card bill brings out a case of the sweats, for which I make no apology. Some years ago, my bike licence test was undertaken in snow and a few years’ commuting across London in all-weathers taught me that a) bad weather-biking is nothing to be worried about and b) it’s bleedin’ unpleasant. So, dues paid, I leave the Monster under its durable red canvas and wait until things are, if not warmer, then at least in a condition that doesn’t require one to ride against the tide.

Which, yesterday, they were. So thermals on, leathers zipped, cover off, key in ignition, starter button pressed and…nothing. Nada, nowt, nuffink, battery as dead as the atmosphere at a moon-based launch of a Katie Melua CD.

So hoorah, then, for the Optimate III. I’m a confessed-non-technical type, unable to change a light bulb without an instruction manual, a whip, a chair and a safety net, but this little gadget now has me enthusing like a QVC presenter with an overstock of tat to shift. Simply insert into your bike’s pre-prepared socket, kick your heels for fifteen minutes or so and hey presto! The drying tarmac and sweeping bends of North Yorkshire never stood chance…