MarkW

I do have the occasional sensible moment you know! On the other hand, I was called in to see my youngest son's teacher after Christmas for what was correctly assumed to be the slightly inebriated help I had given him with his homework over the holidays. They had been doing a project on famous speeches and the people who made them, and one question asked what the most famous part of the Gettysburg Address was. Suffice to say it wasn't "And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes, and slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us." Nor were they particularly amused to read that Martin Luther King said "I have a bream" and was the emancipation movements first celebrity angler. Christ knows how many bottles that was after...

Now healthcare is something I always knew I wasn't cut out for: being ill makes me cross, and so does being around ill people - I'd just tell most of them to stop being so mard and pull themselves together. One of my friends is a proctologist. She says when she joined the NHS she started at the bottom and stayed there. God alone knows how you motivate yourself to get out of bed in the morning knowing that's what the day has in store for you... Retirement sounds very attractive though. Only another 20+ years to go...

The first thing I remember wanting to be as a boy was a war photographer. My father was a keen amateur photographer, and I spent hours in the darkroom with him, watching how film was processed and how prints were made. I would say that my presence was barely tolerated rather than actively encouraged, but I still learned a lot. Then fortune smiled on me when the worthless bast*rd kicked the bucket a year or two later and I inherited all his gear. Result! One year, for Christmas or his birthday, I had bought him "Creative Photography" by Michael Busselle. I have it open on the table in front of me now. On page 165 is an image that gripped me from the first moment I saw it. It's called 'Aid from the padre' and was taken by Hector Lovera in Venezuela in 1962 during the brief military revolt against the government: Moments after this shot was taken the chaplain was driven back by a burst of machine gun fire, and the badly wounded soldier was killed. The caption in the book reads "The brilliance of the picture lies in the fact that it tells the entire story by itself; words can merely add supporting facts and figures." That was it - that one image captivated me completely, and I decided I wanted to take pictures like that - powerful images that had something meaningful to say about our inhumanity to our fellow man. Then I became an entomologist. I still shoot and process a lot of black and white film and make my own prints, but unlike my old man I love having my kids share the experience with me - my ten year old asked for a film camera the Christmas before last, and he loves it. But looking back I'm not really sure at what point I chose to take a different path; there was no clear defining moment. And whenever I look at iconic images, particularly from Vietnam - Don McCullin's shell-shocked marine, Nick Ut's napalm girl or Eddie Adams' Saigon execution to pick just three of the most famous - I can't help thinking that if I had my time again I'd choose photography over entomology, and actually spend my time doing something meaningful and worthwhile instead of being mired in the pointless and interminable bullshit I currently have to deal with. And with that, over to you. If you could make a living doing something other than what you currently do, what would it be?

Well practically the alternative is to with ban bottles, or allow knives etc. One of the 911 planes was hijacked with a Stanley knife iirc. I seem to recall being more than a little sarcastic with the airport security guy when he confiscated my corkscrew but not the glass bottles: "Quite right too: there was a time when the glass bottle was the weapon of choice in a pub brawl, but the ready availability of novelty dolphin corkscrews is the new scourge of our time."

Most of these rules - and the people who blindly enforce them - have more than a hint of shit-for-brains about them. When flying back from Canada some years ago the airport security staff confiscated a novelty corkscrew I'd bought from the aquarium and made me post it home. The glass bottles of wine and maple syrup in my carry-on bag were fine, though.

Back in the dim and distant past when I used to go camping, one of these was my multitool. Perfect for opening sealed things, levering stuck things, stirring hot things and stabbing hostile things. It could even be used as a screwdriver.

The key to safe filtering is to see and be seen. Riding between cars whilst doing a stand-up wheelie helps enormously, and is I believe actively encouraged by the police as a safety thing.

I'm still surprised how far a bike* will happily lean in a corner, even at modest speed, and I'm nowhere near what better riders are capable of. As my instructor was so fond of saying: "The rider will run out of talent before the bike runs out of grip." * By which I mean a sensible bike, like my K1600 or old ZZR1200. Not the Electra Glide I had a dalliance with, which whilst an admirable machine in many respects had the cornering ability of a potting shed.

Hi Neil I've got one of these kicking around - it's a TC Electronic BG250. It's been gigged a bit (only small jazz gigs where the full 1200 trouser-flapping watts of my stage rig would be a bit OTT ) but is in pretty good nick. It's got a headphone jack and an aux input so he can also practice silently to whatever takes his fancy. Cheers Mark

On the subject of nauseating Americanisms, one of my US clients said this during a conference call a couple of years ago: "Let us circle back to you on this Mark, and then we can reach out when we're ready to schedule a re-huddle."

Morning all! One of the bulb holders on the rear light harness of my old XC90 has failed. The contacts inside have corroded and broken off, and as it's a sealed unit I can't get in to fix it. The cheapest second hand harness on EBay is £33 with postage, which seems a bit steep when all I need to do is replace a single bulb socket. Does anyone know what kind of socket it is, and where I can get them? I've tried Halfords, Euro Car Parts and my local independent store, but no joy. I haven't bothered with Volvo - if past experience is anything to go on their solution would probably be to say I needed to have the back end of the car chopped off and a new one welded on. This is what the bulb holders look like: Any help much appreciated!

Nice to see a bit of retro 80s gear making a comeback. Some of my mates had sidewinders, but I don't recall them ever having problems with overheating...

Did anyone see this on the news last week? Stopped by police on the A9 in Scotland.

Looks like a strap-on to me. Bit spindly, snap off more than a strap on...... If it was going anywhere near me, the thinner the better is all I'd say.

Looks like a strap-on to me.

"I don't have my sub frame, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you..."

"Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then..." Love a bit of Bob Seger.

CAR HIRE KARMA: If the car hire company were praying for karma after I returned their previously pristine car with a huge gouge down the side, they've got it: one of our staff has just reversed into the front of my car, ripped the number plate off and put a nice dent in the bumper.

Having taken three flights this week I have to say that almost anything that comes of the mouths of cabin crew gets my vote. Amongst their endless stream of barely intelligible drivel I reserve a special hatred for their constant use of "At this time". "At this time we ask you to return to your seats..." "If we can be of any assistance at this time..." "We ask you to watch the safety demonstration at this time..."

Guilty as charged on both counts...

Aaaaand.... I've stuffed it into a wall. I told the parking attendant at the hotel it was too big to get through the alleyway to their car park...

ROME AIRPORT, AND IT'S THE USUAL BS WITH CAR HIRE COMPANIES: Hello Sir. - Hello. I have a car booked for a couple of days - here are the documents. OK. Now before we start, is it OK to send you a customer satisfaction survey by email? If I get enough positive feedback I could win this months 'Wow!' award. - Sure. Now, I see that you have booked an automatic. I can upgrade you to a manual for the same price if you like. - So that would be an 'upgrade' that costs less than the car I booked, then. Umm... - And in any case, how is a manual an 'upgrade'? Do you also offer a starting handle as an upgrade for people who refuse to truckle with the notion of an ignition key? OK, I'll be honest: we haven't got any mid-range automatics left. Sorry. - Not to worry - I'm sure one of your competitors here will. Good day. No! Wait! Er... I can upgrade you to a bigger automatic, free of charge. - Thank you. That's more like it. The only thing I have to charge more for is €30 for the satnav. - That's OK, I don't need it. Don't need it? - Nope. Feel free to take it out of the car. It's built in to the dashboard on all our cars. - Well you can't very well charge extra for something that comes as as standard, can you? Uh... - Look, pull the bloody fuse out for all I care - I don't need the satnav, so I'm not paying for it. Er... - All I want - startling as it may seem - is the car I booked online. No manual, no satnav, no bogus upgrades or extortionate pre-paid fuel plans, just the car I booked - no more, no less. And I remind you that I am still considering that 'Wow!' award... OK! How about taking this - it's one of our best cars and I'll give you over €50 of upgrades free of charge! - Thank you very much - that'll do nicely.

This. My brother and I have both had this sort of BS from insurance companies, and both when someone reversed into our cars when they were properly parked: in my case it was the woman who lives across from my mother, who shot out of her drive backwards, straight across the road and into my car; in my brother's case it was in a supermarket car park. In his case there were plenty of witnesses, and in mine not only did the driver admit in writing that she hadn't been paying attention, but my mother's neighbour (who had been in her front garden at the time) also saw the whole thing and provided a written statement. In both cases the other party insurance companies were adamant that the blame was 50:50 until we told them we'd be taking independent legal advice, and that if this advice concluded that they were wrong we would also be pursuing them for recovery of our legal costs, at which point they suddenly remembered how to do their jobs properly.

If you have provided your insurance company with watertight witness statements and the name of the policeman who spoke to the guy who rammed your bike, one of two things will happen: 1. They will say the blame is 50:50 and hike your premiums, because they are too lazy/stupid/dishonest (delete as appropriate) to assess the claim properly. 2. They will wait until your policy is up for renewal and then hike your premiums, because your bike clearly has magnetic/magical (delete as appropriate) properties that make it attractive to other vehicles.

The advice I got on here when looking for my first bike was to buy the bike I could imagine myself riding in a couple of years time. Naturally I ignored it, and bought a ZZR600. I think I bought it because I ogled them endlessly as a teenager when they came out in the early 1990s, but I got bored with it within a couple of months and traded up to the 1200. That thing was a super-comfy missile and I had a smile on my face every time I got on it. Plus, riding a 600 is a tacit admission that you're scared of going very fast, and girls know it. They pretend not to, or to care, but they do. I know this for a fact because many years ago I saw it happen when a mate on a 1000 got to take the girlfriend of a mate on a 600 for a spin. She dismounted, and turned to her friend Angela with the immortal words: "Fackin' 'ell Ange, I got a right draft up me flange!"