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Friday 8 August 2008

Croydon Voted UK Chav Capital

I was quite amused when a colleague bought this article into work today and I have to agree with the survey results.

Survey labels Croydon UK chav capital

However, the same could be said for many more towns around the country, not just Croydon.

I myself have been threaten in the streets of Croydon by a Chav. Read all about that incident here.

Proof That Smoking is Bad For Your Health

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Tuesday 5 August 2008

Time For A New Bike

I passed my motorbike test almost 5 years ago now and have ridden most days since. My first bike was a very low mileage Honda CBR600F-X on which I covered almost 40,000 miles.
Although still a lovely bike, she was getting a bit long in the tooth. 40,000 miles on a middle weight sports bike is almost unheard of. So back in March I started looking around for a new ride. My good mate Beefy and I arranged to test ride a couple of possibilities at Littlehampton Motorcycles one Sunny Saturday in late February.

These were:

Honda CBF1000
Honda CB1300

I also wanted to try a Suzuki Bandit 1250, but I just couldn’t find a dealer who had a demonstrator available. In the end I didn’t bother.

Chris, the salesman at Littlehampton turned out to a top bloke and a very good non-pressure salesman. He talk to us about to bikes and possible finance arrangements. After our ride he even suggested a couple more bikes we should try. So we did.

These were:

Honda CBF600
Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade

My Conclusions

Honda CB1300

I really wanted to love this bike before I rode it. It was good, but it just wasn’t quite floating my boat. Very quick and lots of fun, but it gave me some pain in my left ankle, which surprised me as the riding position was less extreme then my CBR.

Honda CBF1000


An excellent bike. Comfy, quick, great riding position, etc. It ticked all the boxes and comes with ABS to boot.

Honda CBF600


Almost exactly the same size its big brother. Obviously less powerful, but not too bad. The engine felt very similar to my CBR600 in fact.

Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade


OMG!!!! What an experience. On the open road it felt like it wanted to throw me of the back all the time. Quick is not the word, but what else would you expect from a 180 BHP sports bike. Great fun, but not at all practical for my daily commute to work and my lunch hours are not long enough for the endless visits to the chiropractors.

After careful consideration, which took about 2, maybe 3 nano seconds, I settled on a CBF1000. And I picked her up on 15th March. Here she is.


Four months and over 5000 miles later and I'm still convinced I made the right choice

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Saturday 2 August 2008

It’s Formula 1, For Sure



Every other week we as a family are glue to the TV to watch the trials and tribulation of the Formula 1 motor racing world. This year we have been paying particular attention to the career of number one British driver Lewis Hamilton. He’s doing rather nicely at present too. Let’s hope he can manage to keep this success going and gain himself a World Championship in only his second season.


However, over the last couple of years we have noticed a rather worrying trend amongst drivers whose first language is not English. During many of the post race press conferences they seem to repeatedly use the phase “For Sure”. In one such conference last year, Kimi Räikkönen said it a total of 23 times !!!!!



This year the situation has got even worse. Now the Brits have started. On at least two occasions Lewis Hamilton has said it and during today’s qualifying session, even guest commentator Damien Hill said it.



Who will be next? Gordon Brown, during Prime Ministers Question Time?



Usage of “For Sure” in English

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I’ve Been Away, But Now I’m Back

Many of you my have noticed (assuming anyone actually reads my drivel) that my Blogging has been a little lacking this year. In fact, this is my first entry for 2008.

I’ve been quite busy with other project and general life crises. Back now I’m back and hope to catch up with my musings on the world around me.

Did you miss me or has no one actually noticed my absense?

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