Typing Finger...

Another test animation...
The idea is to have the finger type out individual letters that will appear in the white panel toward the bottom right...

Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream...

I think you were in it...

Airer Maid Restoration...

I grew up dodging my Grandma's stockings and Grandad's vests which dangled above my head from the airer over the range...
This set of airer hangers belonged to Linda's family and have a least 15 layers of paint on them...
Fortunately the thickness of the paint makes them easy to take back to the metal...
I haven't decided on the finish yet and am tempted just to give them a coat of some clear sealer rather than paint them...
The airer must be sorted out before the winter's grip or I'm going to have to dodge around horrid wobbly plastic clothes airers for the next 4 months...
No, we don't have a tumble dryer...

This project finally sees completion here:
The Back Room

Adventures In Modern Cycling No. 5: East Beach. Selsey

This ride is essentially a reliability trial for the 'Dobson' which I have decided is a sports/tourer bicycle...
I shall dress appropriately:

• White Airtex shirt
• Knee length shorts
• White ankle socks
  
• Cycle shoes
• Paisley cravat
• Sensible sunglasses
• A badge featuring a depiction of Eastbourne's De La Warr Pavilion
• Canvas 'Pippy' bag

After leaving Bognor Regis I join the Selsey road at the village of Hunston.
This road is one of the most dangerously congested in the area. I knew there was a cycle-way that would take me nearly into Selsey but didn't know where it was so took my life in my hands and braved the main road.
This turned out to be a good (?) move as I spotted another pair of feral shoes:
On reaching Selsey I stopped off at Enticott's Bakery for a well earned snack of bread and butter pudding washed down with coffee:
The poor child working behind the counter in the bakery became a little confused when I asked for the coffee and had to consult her colleague on how it was made.
Awww, bless...
On to East Beach and my goal:
The place where Eric Coates stood when, looking over to Bognor Regis, he was inspired to write 'By The Sleepy Lagoon'...
The ride home was uneventful save for having to adjust the gear cable...
I found the cycle-path (route 88) which made the return journey pleasant...
The bike behaves well but the saddle has to go as it puts me to far forward and there's no more room for adjustment...
Close to home I rode up onto the prom and suddenly realised I was riding 'look, no hands!'
This is a reliable bicycle...

Infants In Peril No. 3

I was outraged to see these poor mites being openly traded at a local market...
I remonstrated with the female proprietor of this disgusting enterprise...
"F&%k off nutter!" was her succinct reply...

O.S.M. Cycle Ind. The 'Dobson'...

George Bernard Shaw said, 'Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will."
Which is basically the process I used to build this bicycle...
There are those who may assume that I named this bicycle the 'Dobson' in homage to my favourite out-of-print pamphleteer...
They would be wrong...
The name 'Dobson' comes from a steep hill in my home village of Summerbridge in the Yorkshire dales.
As a child I could never ride my Vindec Speedster up Dobson Bank. Since then, every time I've built a bicycle I find myself thinking 'could I ride this up Dobson..?'
The years have passed under various sets of wheels that have taken me up every major climb in the country (I used to be a member of Audax U.K.) but Dobson Bank remains the bench-mark...
Another of the influences for this build is, obviously, the Pashley Guv'nor (how much??!!!) but I found that, when the handlebars were in the 'racing' position, my back hurt...
I've added Mucky Nutz beer bottle bar plugs supplied by Charlie the Bike Monger...
Sadly non of the bottled beers I like have printed tops...
Gold chain and a leather chain-stay protector supplied by Freshtripe Bikes...
My beloved Lepper saddle...
I took the bike out for a test ride and it's as near perfect as I could hope for. I didn't even need to adjust the gears. They worked first time...
(Still needs a 20 tooth rear sprocket or I need to get fitter...)
I can now say that my 'bicycle building phase' is over. At last....

Hooting Yard Parp-O-Phone: Update...

I have been asked, by a Mr. Dobson, for an update on the Hooting Yard Story Silo (which I really want to re-christen 'The Parp-o-phone')...
I am currently editing the contents of 162 half-hour long pod-casts into individual stories...
Each pod-cast takes around and hour to edit if I can get my hands on enough thimbles and nougatine....
I can usually find the time to edit 2 pod-casts per day if the wind blows from a favourable direction...
Errr...?
This stage may take a little while longer...

I am also on the look out for a suitable speaker system to add to this item and have already rejected 3 possibles due to them being impossible to fashion into complimentary add-ons (no plankton smoothing brackets)...
In the mean-while I spend a good deal of my time in the Kaleidoscopic Lettuce Museum drinking petrol and barking at pigeons...

I hope this answers your question Mr. D.

Feral Shoes No. 4

A vain attempt to fly away together ends in disaster for this pair seen in Bognor Regis...

Oooh! Treasure...

One of the advantages of 'doing a bit of gardening' in older, overgrown gardens is that I uncover exciting items like this cast iron wheel...
The owner of the garden was quite happy to let me take it away asking 'are you going to sell it?'
When I replied that I intended cleaning it up, painting it and using it as an ornament I could tell this caused him some inner turmoil...
'An ornament?' he said 'Y'mean like a vase..?'
It was originally one of four wheels on a sheep feeder he tells me...
With luck (and a bit of digging) I might find the other three..!
Joy..!

The Face With Green Lightbulb Eyes Mounted On A Stick...

Finally finished...
I en-vision this piece as being a comforting night-light to be placed at the bedside of some infant terrified of the dark...

Then again, perhaps not...

Feral Shoes No. 3

A 'modern' take on the sandal seen on the Aldingbourne/Westergate road.

More food...

Sausage sandwiches (sigh...)
Always use a good quality sausage (O'Hagan's provide my sausage of choice) you don't want anything full of ear 'oles, eye 'oles and arse 'oles...
I alternate between Heinz Tomato Ketchup and H.P. or Daddie's Brown Sauce as a dressing...

Adventures In Modern Cycling No 4: Halnaker Windmill

Dull and overcast day today...
Warm though..
Halnaker (pronounced Ha'naker) Windmill is one of those local landmarks that I tend to pass saying 'I must go there one day'...
The day has come...
The windmill is accessed via a disused part (not under tarmac) of the Roman road Stane Street. It's quite steep and having to lift the bike over stiles tends to pale after about 3 but, despite the gloomy sky, it's worth it...

From The Inexplicable World of Outa_Spaceman...

The insides have been stripped out and it would make a great overnight shelter for the tent-less nomad...

From The Inexplicable World of Outa_Spaceman...

The views of the local area are spectacular but, sadly, the camera in my phone can't do them justice...

From The Inexplicable World of Outa_Spaceman...

Having obeyed the dire warnings prohibiting cycle riding on the way up the anarchist in me breaks out and I bump and rattle all the way back down the hill to the main road (stopping to negotiate the stiles again)..
The return journey takes me down a lane whose name has me in fits of laughter...

An idea did occur to me as I stood by the windmill... Local people seem very animated in their opposition to wind turbines... Why not just build them into old windmills..?

Food and Drink...

Flap Jack is my cycling fuel of choice...
I prefer not to buy commercially available Flap Jack and, therefore, make my own...

From The Inexplicable World of Outa_Spaceman...

My recipe goes like this (sorry about the 'Napoleonic' style quantities):

Ingredients:
100 grams of butter
100 grams of demerara sugar
250 grams of porridge oats
2 tsps of golden syrup
A couple of handfuls of any dried fruit available.

Method:
Melt butter and sugar in a pan over a low heat.
Add golden syrup then stir in oats and fruit.
Spread to an even depth in a well greased oven-proof dish.
Cook in a pre-heated oven at 180c for about 25 mins.
Cut into squares whilst still warm then allow to cool.
Wrap a couple of squares in grease-proof paper, cycle off to a distant point, remove from grease-proof paper and eat them.

(BTW Linda says this isn't 'cooking'..)

Linda has decided that it may be a good idea to make her own plum wine...

From The Inexplicable World of Outa_Spaceman...

There's a good deal of furious activity going on in this demijohn...
'Only another 6 months to go' says Linda...

The Hooting Yard Parp-O-Phone...

Built into the head of a Pang Hill orphan, nourished by a bottle of Dr. Gillespie's Vital Nerve Tonic and standing on a Von Secker plinth the 'Hooting Yard Parp-O-Phone' provides hours of Hooting Yard style entertainment read by the genial Mr. Frank Key...
Very soon everyone will have the opportunity to bid for this item the proceeds of which will go to the fund for out-of-print pamphleteers.
Watch the Hooting Yard site for further details...

P.S. It should be noted that this piece has nothing in the slightest, infinitesimal way at all to do with 'Steam Punk'...

Feral Shoes No. 2

From The Inexplicable World of Outa_Spaceman...

Spotted on Felpham Beach during a wood collection expedition...

Blue Plaque Spotting No. 2: William Blake...

I don't know why I didn't post this earlier as it's, literally, just around two corners from where I live...

From The Inexplicable World of Outa_Spaceman...

Much is made locally of Blake's association with Felpham, mainly by the redoubtably stout ladies of the Women's Institute who become all wistful and dewy-eyed at the mention of his name...
I bet he wouldn't get invited to any of their fashionable garden parties if he were around today...
Blake gets two plaques, the above being on the side of the cottage where he lived and, below, outside The Fox public house (an establishment catering for 'families' and saloon bar xenophobes) where he got into a bit of a tussle which led to him leaving the area...

From The Inexplicable World of Outa_Spaceman...

A vain streak in me wonders if any of the pubs I've been arrested outside of will one day feature a similar tribute...
Almost certainly not...

Mortal Coil (Shuffled Off...)

We are pitched headlong into despair at the passing of 'Pinky'...
Not the friendliest lovable ball of fluff you were ever likely to encounter but endearing in her own way...

Feral Shoes No. 1

Seen hanging from the barriers around a culvert on the Oving/Drayton road...

Lizard or Newt..?

I nearly (accidentally) cut this little cutie in half with a pair of garden shears...
I found another five of them in the undergrowth...
Having tried, and failed, to identify it I have abandoned my ambition to become a top naturalist al-la David Attenborough...
For any top naturalists reading this, who wish to further expose my ignorance, it had an orange underside...