S-Westerly

I needed a PCR test within 72 hours of my travel date to go to the USA in April. As I was flying over the weekend I had to get it on the Thursday to ensure I had the result by the Saturday. It cost £215. (Company paid). At check in they took it seriously. A guy ahead of me had one 74 hours old. No flying for him!

Yep, they are on my list of replacement boots when my current ones wear out. No sign yet though!

I'm breathless.

Can't beat an empty road.

Yes when I'm not a few thousand miles away like I am now. In all weathers too including snow.

I had a jacket a few years ago which had a back protector like that - bloody surfboard it was. After a couple of hot months decided to wash the jacket so removed back protector which came out in 3 pieces. Quite shocked tbh as I'd not come off or anything. Can only assume it was from sitting down on some cafe chairs or something. Since changed jacket and now use one of these D30 type you can roll up. Much thinner and cooler too.

I think the technical term is f**ked.

I seem to remember a similar moan about availability of Chinese bike parts from others a while back. Just saying......

Greta doesn't love me anymore and Greenpeace and XR would probably try and glue themselves to the hull.

Absolutely agree with the red colour except when you get offered a brand new bike with 2 miles on the clock for 9k instead of 11,500 but it's white. Guess what I've got?

I always used to fish at anchor. Didn't use to catch much apart from mackerel but quite like fresh mackerel sushi so no real hardship.

All for saving the planet but it has to be a global effort. European refineries are still producing high sulphur fuel oils which are the thickest black shite you can imagine and it has to be heated to 60 C just to pump the stuff around. However in Europe you can't burn the stuff but are quite happy to ship it to the far side of the world where they still use it because its relatively cheap. Out of sight out of mind. I'm about to load 150kt of the stuff and take it from the Med to Indonesia.

Nice bike apart from the very subtle and understated BMW logo.

I can strongly recommend the multistrada 950 but then I would as I've got one and love it. Had a boat as well 35 ft Dudley Dix. Took it to Portavedie once and having argued with a lobster pot in the dark had to get the boat hoisted to pull the shift to change the stern seal. Kept mine in Bangor as it was half the price of Scotland.

I've got used to it tbh. I'm so senile these days I can't really remember what the old system was like.

I think someone missed a trick there. Where I used to live there where flats selling for over 800k and there were enough bunny huggers around to be creating committees for vehicle charging to be made a priority. This was 5 years ago. I sold up 3 years ago and there'd been no movement up to then.

What's the percentage of EV vehicles in Fife compared to ICE - I'd suggest it's bloody low so far.

Still not buying one though. My wife nearly did, put a deposit down on Tesla Model 3 having fallen for their very slick advertising. When after 2 years they still couldn't give a delivery date and the price had gone up considerably to the original non-binding price she cancelled it and bought a Lexus instead. Nothing to do with me as I don't have a car as I don't need one.

Given the time frame we are supposed to be looking at I'm not seeing much urgency about this. Where I live virtually the only street furniture with power to it is street lamps of which there are maybe 4 over a mile. Bloody long cables needed and the light fingered among us are going to be making a fortune nicking cables.

I'm not so concerned about power generation its more the how each vehicle owner is going to be physically able to charge their vehicle. Given there's probably thousands of households with street side parking only where / how are they going to re-charge?

Dunno if you've been driven over by one of them I suspect you might be a bit spread out and possibly feeling a bit flat.

I quite happily admit to complete ignorance about huge trucks being electrically powered. I'm not holding my breath though for the day they all become they another few billion in Elon Musk's pockets. And I still would like to know when/ where all the infrastructure for all this charging of EV vehicles is going to magically appear. I'm not particularly Luddite about this but I am a bit of a sceptic and not particularly convinced that EV is the only way forward.

Boy, are you ever looking for the silver lining! I suspect the diesel will be around for a bit - can you imagine the size of the battery bank needed to keep a 20 t wagon on the road? Probably weigh 5 t all on its own.

You mean it snowed?

I use Halvarssons single layer jeans with a Halvarssons jacket which has good venting. Using their belt adapter I zip the jeans to the jacket. No flapping, good venting and reasonably comfy up to the high 20's. My helmet is mainly white as I really don't fancy boiling my head with a dark helmet again. Once was enough.