Motorbikers are nuts...

... and I should know, I'm one of them, and passionately so (as I have mentioned before).

And I'm not just talking about nuts in the 'achieving questionable rewards for clear and present dangers', I'm talking about the sheer kind of pants on head lunacy that should have me checking into an insane asylum as soon as I could walk there.

I'll skip the obvious stuff to begin with for why we're so pencil up nostril idiotic and head right for some of the kickers:

Many people (myself included) originally got into motorbiking in some way related to the image. Forget it, you'll always be looked down on. If you're just starting then all you'll hear is about when you've first got your knee down. Then it's all about if you haven't had an accident then you've not pushed yourself hard enough. If you ride a tourer then everyone takes the piss out of you. If you ride an all rounder then it's all about when you get your superbike, if you get one of those then it's all about when you get a bigger one, even if you end up on the biggest fastest current bike then it'll be from the wrong manufacturer. But that's pretty standard in life, you can't please everyone, you'll always always have to be doing something just to keep still.

On the road you are the lowest of the low. Well apart from acceleration, but here is where we fall down:

• Least protected (except cyclists who don't bother to wear any protection). Cyclists even get their own lane - which bikers don't
  
• Less grip than a car - so you corner slower
  
• No inherent stability - if you make a mistake, you're probably coming off.
• Least visible - small, blocked by others

Everyone claims the community is so friendly, so welcoming, yet as soon as you try and get into it, you realise that you never match up to their requirements.

Now onto some of the more obvious reason we're so idiotic:

• Vulnerable in the extreme; both in accidents and to the elements.
  
• Buying the bike is the first of your expenses, add on helmet, gloves, summer protective clothing, winter protective clothing, waterproof over suits, upgraded under armour, thermal underwear, boots (summer, winter and casual), bike security, luggage, bike cover, alternate visors, helmet/clothing for pillion, the list just goes on and on!
• Picking up a pillion is often an exercise in logistics rather than a favour to offer to someone
  
• The training is never over - there's always another level!
• Carrying anything larger than a large hat is problematic to impossible.

But yet I still do it. Why?
I can only say that if only because it's almost as much fun/pleasure as sex but without the guilt and your partner is eternally willing. Although as said above, you need a much greater quantity of protective clothing for this...

Witches Of Eastwick - In Ipswich

This weekend we went to see the Witches of Eastwick production in Ipswich. Quick summary, I enjoyed it, but there were so many ways it could have been better.

Let's start with some background and disclaimers on my part:
My first exposure to Witches was to crew the show for The Festival Players in Cambridge.
My second exposure was that when I liked the show so much I got the soundtrack from Amazon (the west end version was all they had). This compared poorly to the Festival Players version as although without a doubt the quality of the singing was better, it had far less soul and wasn't half as much fun to listen to. Also they didn't have on it one of the best songs of the show: "The Glory Of Me" instead they had "Who's the Man"; this is fine though as that reflected the original run of things, not the re-worked one.

And so now we get on to Saturday's performance, I was almost giddy with anticipation, the first time actually seeing one of my favourite shows (when you're running the fly tower for a show you may not be able to actually watch it, but you can still enjoy it). So lets first get onto the stuff that was good about the show and make the inevitable comparison to the production that I was involved with:

• The singing was better than either production(including the west end version). For once when the witches sang "Perfectly in Tune" they actually were. And as for a Darryl who could actually sing - well that was a wonderful change from the west end version.
• The set was produced to the high standard you would expect from a professional touring show
• The wealth of new songs might not have been what I was expecting, but they brought fresh light onto a show I thought I new very well.

Now of course we have the problems with the show

• Marti Pellow was being a ham. The fact that the audience applauded him simply for walking on stage was a very bad start, but the fact that he carried on acting like a spoilt attention seeking child throughout the show almost ruined it for me, was it not for his stunning rendition of some of the songs I could never have forgiven him for his shoddy and unconvincing performance. I was not the only one who totally lost belief that Darryl as played here was capable of seducing these women. For those who didn't see it, he frequently rubbed various body parts in a very exaggerated manner that was as idiotic and unconvincing as it was inappropriate. This man has clearly read all the worst bits of Michael Green.
  
• The tech was very very limited. No arrival of Darryl through a trap door, no flying witches, only a few seconds of the self playing cello (and that was pretty pathetic), no pretty much anything; they even cut the exploding tennis ball and the frying pan kill. If an amateur group can do these things on our budget, for a single show run then that's the least I'd expect from a professional company doing multiple show runs.
  
• The lighting design was very basic - I have done better myself in Edinburgh in a 2 hour get in; and I am no lighting designer, just an enthusiastic amateur.
• The three witches never really gelled as a trio, individually their performances were the best I have seen/heard, however they didn't convince as a whole.

So all in all the individual performances were very good, together and with very harshly cut back tech they failed to deliver what I'd expect from even an amateur production, never mind a professional one.

Edit:
So after reading some online reviews in a few different places, this has brought me to a simple set of conclusions: Either they saw a different show, we are looking for different things/find different things entertaining, or all critics are idiots - which I'm sure they'd agree counted for me.
Thinking about it more the show was about Witches - it needed the Magic; which they cut out all of it. It needed great music and dialogue, a lot of which they cut out for new music (which might yet grow on me and is subjective so I'll save judgement). It needed charisma from Daryl most importantly he needed to be believable that he could seduce those women and I'm sorry that even if i had been a teenage girl with a crush on Marty, his idiotic gyrations and pissing about on stage would have instantly turned me off. As a 30 something man who always was suspicious of him anyway it was a sure fire way to blame him for the failure of the shows in my eyes, and the eyes of everyone who saw it.

Suzuki sv650s

So a month or two ago while my normal bike was broken I ended up with a hire bike; a Suzuki SV650 S. Suffice to say for my purposes it's rubbish and for almost any purpose I can think of, it's rubbish. I wanted a bike for long motorway trips with panniers that I could fit on - you know a replacement for my bike that was being fixed. What the SV650 is is very much a toy, and a broken one at that.
Well I'll rephrase using an analogy. Imagine a Golf GTI with the bottom of the range diesel engine in it. The engine in the bike is a twin so very torque-y, which would be great for touring or town work were it not for the riding position which feels like something off WSB - totally uncomfortable. The riding position has you leaning over in a sport bike position and for someone of my height this means a lot of my body weight is on the handlebars, which is a recipe for pain. Out around country lanes it's certainly very responsive, but runs out of power just where you need a sporty bike to have it. For example trying to overtake someone on it, it just doesn't have the power to accellerate once you get to 50+.
In summary for blasting around empty country lanes by yourself it's brilliant. For overtaking a car in front of you doing 50 it's rubbish. For taking a passenger it's rubbish. For having luggage on it's rubbish. For motorway riding, it's rubbish.