Tuesday 31 May 2011
Stand up comedy benefit evening for Kim Seddon
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=204982646191979
The Frog and Bucket Comedy Club 102 Oldham St Manchester M4 1LJ http://www.frogandbucket.c Kimberley Seddon is a talented young football player from Ashton-Under-Lyne who has been offered a four-year football scholarship at Wisconsin University in the USA. The cost of this four-year course is fully covered by the university as part of the scholarship. However Kimberley and her family must meet the cost of travel, insurances, personal expenses and some ancillary equipment. Sadly the costs relating to this golden opportunity for Kimberley are far beyond the means of her family and while they and a number of their friends have rallied around to support Kimberley in following her dream it has become all too apparent that without additional sponsorship this wonderful opportunity and indeed the promising future of this very talented and intelligent young lady will come to nothing more than one more bitter failure of our society to nurture and support its brightest and best youngsters. This is the chance of a lifetime for a bright young lady whose dream it is to one-day play football for England. We aim to see that she gets this chance! The superb line-up of comedic talent at this event guarantees a night of top-class entertainment featuring: Greg Cook (Headliner) Jonathan Mayor Ruff Daddy & Bad Mutha Dave Twentyman Rick Hulse (Host & Compere) Tickets are just £6.00 each for a fantastic night of comedy and the chance to change the life of a talented youngster for ever. That's more than just a bargain! for advance bookings telephone: 0161 236 9805 Anybody wishing to donate to this fund can send a cheque made payable to: “The Kimberley Seddon Scholarship Fund” and send it to: 69 Penrith Avenue Ashton-Under-Lyne Lancashire England OL7 9JQ The scholarship fund will be independently administered by Shirley Hauxwell and Derek Durham (both of whom are also registered charity trustees of the NABD). |
Wom and the bats.
Wom, a game much like cricket but played with Wom and Wombat is a burgeoning sport in some circles. It requires very little skill or understanding the game of cricket and involves beer and or cocktails.
Sadly it will involve a little effort and danger but happily some of the effort involves the fine art of ‘Fingering’. For full instruction on the finer points of ‘fingering’ please see ‘ Fingering – From Albacore to Zebra, you can do ‘em all!’ Available in hardback form Philistine Publishing at a value price of £3-99. Penned by that fingering philanthropist’ Il du Everyting’, Polynesian Zen master of all things fingering wise.
Once you have mastered the finer points of fingering you will be fully prepared to prepare your wombat. Wombats, contrary to the nonsense published in most zoological publications are not just grumpy, burrowing, powerhouses with attitude from New Zealand that poo* cubes but they are in fact ideal for playing Wom.
A little known fact that the wombat despite being very difficult to handle without specialist equipment* is especially susceptible to fingering and can in fact be ‘fingered rigid’ Once rigid it’s stubby tail and broad shouldered body lend themselves to the wombats secret purpose for being. Being the bat in a game of Wom. Once prepared your wombat will remain rigid for at least four hours and I’ve never known a game to go beyond two and a bit. In fact if you have the right person mixing the cocktails it’s all done and dusted in two. It winds up being a last team standing sort of deal.
Obviously you are also going to need a Wom, it is after all the point of the game to strike the hurled Wom as hard as you can with your wombat.
Procuring a Wom is perhaps almost as dangerous as preparing a bat and should only be carried out by professionals.
A Wom is made up from the following components, all of which are rare as hen’s teeth or bloody dangerous to procure.
First you will need the left hand sack from a male kangaroos scrotum, it has to be the left hand sack, as these tend to hang lower and leave enough of a flap for sewing. One of the more obscure rules of the game dictates the kangaroo must survive the procurement so it’s a hands on job.
A kangaroo is a marsupial from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning 'large foot'). Being from ‘Australia’, a ‘ Bloke’ and defiantly Liking the ‘ Sheila’s’ Male kangaroos unlike most marsupials cannot be fingered into submission. In fact inserting any part of your anatomy into a male kangaroo’s chocolate starfish will result in severe injury or death or both. The best way to render your chosen kangaroo senseless is with a tranquilliser dart but ‘Real Blokes’ club them with a cricket bat.
The second and perhaps the most rare part to a Wom is the filling, A short spined echidna covered in cotton wool balls. The echidna from Australia and the cotton wool from ‘Boots’. Echidnas and the platypus are the only egg-laying mammals, known as monotremes. The female lays a single soft-shelled, leathery egg. They roll into a spiny ball when threatened.
You can sew them in alive but it might be best to find one that has expired from heat stroke avoiding ‘Blokes’ chasing kangaroos.
The game itself is simple, you need two teams of even number and booze . The playing field need only be about 50 yards square, or oval or even round if you prefer. Set out much like a game of cricket but without all the poncey safety gear most ‘Blokes’ avoid being seen in. There are no runs as such it’s scored on a single, half and pint formula. A single being just that a single. Once the Wom is hurled and struck with your wombat any Wom that falls within the boundry results in a single run scored and a single downed. A Wom that is struck and rolled to the perimeter is counted as a half, effectively scoring a run and having a half to down. Any Wom that crosses the perimiter is two runs scored and a pint down.
If the Wom stikes a wicket the Batter is out and has to leave the field of play and continue drinking an equivalent to every run his team score.
This is where tactics and hollow legs are often an advantage as it’s the team with the most players left standing that wins the game. Catches are a rare as you have to be either mad or very drunk to want to catch a kangaroo scrotum stuffed with a dead spiny marsupial, cotton wool or no cotton wool. A high run rate is not always the best strategy in a game of Wom. There are often cases of total team collapse and occasional bouts of hysterics but all in all it’s a pleasant way to pass an afternoon should all of the shite on telly not appeal.
Give it a go, start a Wom team and see if you can win the league.
See you at a game sometime, somewhere soon. .
Grabbing the bull by the.......
Now it strikes me that the trait of ‘Grabbing the bull by the horns’ is an admirable one. And in fact several great technological advances have been made in the most part because of the tenacity of the inventor. Television, the jet engine, the steam turbine all seen as madcap inventions not worth the time but now are things we can’t live without. We wouldn’t have the magnificent bikes we ride today had someone not decided to fit an engine to a bicycle and see if it’d work.
Great battles have been won against the odds when a leader has faced a problem head on and stuck to his plan despite advice to the contrary. Waterloo, Trafalgar, and El Alamein. All battles fought and won despite being out numbered or outgunned because the commander of the day ‘Took the Bull by the horns’
However it’s evident that often ‘Grabbing the bull by the horns’ is confused by a lot of folk with a lesser known phrase ‘Grabbing the bull by the balls’.
Although it’s the lesser known of the two phrases it’s sadly the one most implemented.
Now believe me, ‘Grabbing the bull by the balls’ leads to nowhere but ridicule and misery. Sadly most that do grab the wrong end of the bull are the type that despite all sensible evidence to the contrary, believes that they alone are right.
I’m talking about people who having discovered you can’t fit a round peg into a square hole will persist in trying anyway just on the off chance a miracle will happen. Finally they may as a last resort demand the hole should have been round before they were given the job anyway.
I’m talking about folk who despite written proof their position is wrong persist on taking the moral high ground. People who despite being given information in an easily understood format will only accept the information if it coincides with the viewpoint they take or answer they are seeking.
I’m talking about people who despite ultimately realising the bull is well pissed off with his tackle being squeezed still hang on like their life depended upon it.
They know that it’s going to lead to shame and ignominy but cling fanatically to the balls hoping against hope that someone somewhere will jump in and save them from themselves.
The type that often post in a thread to carry out personal agendas or vendettas for some perceived slight or misconstrued comment. The type that bottles it when asked to step up and do a bit instead of whining all the time. The sort of person who despite all promises to the contrary will always let you down.
Who am I talking about? Bloody keyboard warriors is who!
You know the type, pasty faced, and sweaty palmed “Pug form the Beano” look-alikes hunched over a keyboard in the small back room in their mum’s house. Totally nocturnal and allergic to work, been on the drip since he left school type of troglodyte that’s the apple of his mummy’s eye.
Who according to their online persona are better looking, stronger and more intelligent, better paid and more sexually active than anyone else in the chat room or forum. The type who claims they know celebrities and drive flash cars. The type that regularly rides like a dick but always ducks the plod as he has no equal on two, three or four wheels and should be racing but hasn’t the budget.
The type that flies relief supplies to the needy and consults for MI5. The archetypical stand in when 007 is having an off day.
These are the type that cause a lot of hassle in chat rooms and forums with their crappy attitude and negative waves all the time. The type that with their incessant whining and top trumping in every thread or topic totally ruin the spirit of the forum.
These folk are not urban myth, I’ve seen it happen to several forums and chat rooms in recent years and it has put me off visiting many of the once decent forums and chat rooms.
Registering a Home Built trike for use by a Disabled Rider
It’s a safe bet that some of the readers of this blog are disabled bikers and perhaps even members of the National Association for Bikers with a Disability www.nabd.org.uk. It’s probably also safe to say that like myself they are on a limited budget when it comes to getting on the road and will have had to have a trike built, or even built one at home with the help of friends and family.
Being a home built vehicle its going to need a thing called an MSVA (Motorcycle Single Vehicle Approval) Easy enough to book and have done if your trike is built to the criteria laid out in the MSVA and it complies with the C&U (construction & use) regulations. It might fail however if it has adaptations for use by a disabled rider fitted to it.
The list of reasons a perfectly well built but adapted trike would fail the MSVA is a bit long to list here but if your trike would fail because it’s adapted for use by a disabled rider it’s not all bad news.
Fortunately there is a way to get your registration and inspection sorted out without too much bother. As a disabled person you are entitled to use a dispensation within the legislation that means that you only have to take the trike to your local DVLA site or office for an inspection before registration and for a MOT and weight certificate so they can issue your tax disk. The MOT station should also be able to stamp your frame number on for you. The weight of the trike will also determine the class of MOT it will be subject to and the price of the MOT. A trike with a weight of less than 410 kg will be a class 3 test and cost £35-00, any trike over 410kg is class 4 and will cost £50-00
I have been through the process and have been taking notes so that I may be able to steer some of you through it without too much hassle. This is sort of how it went.
Contact your local DVLA office and ask for form V627/1 a Built Up Vehicle Inspection Report and form V55/5 Application for a first licence for a used motor vehicle and declaration for registration.
Now I have to point out that my trike was home built using components from at least 4 different vehicles and as such is classed as a built up vehicle and not a new one. There may be different forms for other vehicles.
Make sure the person you speak to at the DVLA has all the information about your build and adaptations so they can send the correct forms. There’s nothing worse than having to fill in and post a second set because you were sent the wrong ones the first time.
The DVLA staff at the Manchester office were extremely helpful and made sure I received the correct documents to complete.
I found taking the forms into our local office a better option than posting as it saved time and one or two mistakes were corrected on the spot instead of having to wait for them to be posted back and forth.
Some of you may have been told that you can ride the trike to the inspection. This is not true and if caught you could face prosecution, the trike needs to be on a trailer. As an unregistered vehicle it is not allowed on the road and the DVLA staff told me it had to be on a trailer when it arrived for the inspection.
The Manchester office of the DVLA will not do a home inspection on your trike so if you live in the area you need to take this into consideration. Each office has it’s own way of doing things so it’ll be best to check than wind up disappointed.
It used to be the case they would but in an effort to reduce waiting times it’s now an appointment at a DVLA approved site instead.
Apparently it saves time as they can do more inspections in the time available if they do not have to travel to folk’s homes. I’m all for this as I expected to wait for a month or so at least but got in within 2 weeks.
There are some folk that tell me that they did it differently and rode to tests etc, or in some cases they had home visits. That may well have been the case but recently things have changed at the DVLA concerning the process with regards trikes and bikes built for use by disabled riders, for the better I hope. Hopefully in the near future all DVLA offices will start to use a countrywide strategy to get this done as simply and as quickly as possible.
So off to the inspection, not a MSVA test but an inspection to show that the trike is exactly as you describe it on the built up vehicle report and the registration application. Make sure you arrive in good time, these places run like clockwork and you will not be seen if you are late.
At the inspection the DVLA Inspector took a few photos and took the details of the parts down for comparison with the receipts I had submitted. He then told me he would put the details in the system that afternoon to produce the documents and Identity for the Trike. They would be posted out the next day. Once they arrive you can then take it for a MOT test and stamp the VIN on it. You can make your own Vehicle Identity Number up but I found it best to let the DVLA issue one as it saves time.
The DVLA will then issue your tax disk and registration number with for your trike. They will issue a number plate authorisation certificate so you can get your plate. Your registration document will arrive in the post a short time later. It’s also a good idea to itemise your receipts and include the list and all receipts with the forms when you send them off. I would also write a letter explaining your reasons for building the trike and highlight any adaptations you have fitted to suit your needs. This makes it easier for the staff at the DVLA to process your application without them having to contact you for additional information.
The more you tell them the first time means they don’t have to waste time writing to you. You will also need to include your DLA 404 to prove you are in receipt of the disabled tax entitlement. The proof of entitlement is down to the person registering a trike and you will be liable if you make a false declaration.
It’s a relatively simple process but make sure you have all your paperwork in order and I strongly suggest you do a proper job of the build. Even though our trike is not having an MSVA I am pretty certain it would pass one. Don’t do a half-baked job on your build just because you can get it registered without a MSVA, your safety and that of others depends on your building it right.
It’s also worth noting that if you fit a bolt in rear end you may be able to have your trike re- registered without having to have an MSVA or use the dispensation. I did my GSXR with a bolt in rear end and I only had to have a visual inspection and pay for the tax disc once it had been re- registered as a trike.
There are also some sad people out there who think the dispensation within the MSVA for a disabled rider is a loophole to be exploited. This is well out of order and in fact is a criminal offence. Supplying false information on the declaration you sign is in fact fraud and you will be prosecuted if caught out.
Rick Hulse, Chairman of the National Association for Bikers with a Disability put a lot of time and effort into winning the dispensation for disabled riders and it should not be abused. The NABD is always involved in ongoing consultations to try and improve the system and protect rider’s rights to build and use home built trikes and bikes.
If the abuse continues the government will pull the dispensation for disabled riders and ruin it for hundreds or even thousands of disabled riders all over the country.
The build wasn’t easy, or that hard come to think of it. The process of registering the trike was simplicity itself. It was only easy because I took the time to make the calls and gather all the paperwork I needed. I do think a simple bulleted leaflet with the steps on sent with your application forms from the DVLA would be helpful and hopefully it’s something they may consider and implement in the near future. It would save people a bit of time having all the information before you apply.
Like most things in life, It was easy because I made sure I got all the information I needed before I tried to register the trike and if you go about it in a similar fashion you will have relatively little bother in getting on the road.
I’ll be doing it all over again once the new trike build is done, I’ll see some of you on a country lane sometime soon.
Summer is upon us, the weather is looking decidedly ‘trikey’; remember to take care out there while enjoying yourselves.
Ride safe folks.
MSVA Information
Links to DVLA information
Form 55/5 http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/motoring/buyingandsellingavehicle/registeringavehicle/dg_4022316
V627/1
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/diol1/doitonline/dg_4017568
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