Do you know anyone that went to Eliots Green Grammar School, Northolt in the late fifties/early sixties? I ask this question because if you can help me with something (or you are connected to someone else who can) I’d be extremely grateful.

My dad, Neil Baldwin, went to Eliots Green from 1957-1964 or thereabouts (he's in the photo below). One of the things that he kept for decades after was his knitted school scarf.

​I lost it for him in 1992 and my sister and I are trying to get him a new one made. The problem is that given all the time that has passed since we last saw it, we can’t remember the colourway or the thickness of the stripes - certainly purple, yellow, some white we think, but after that we are vague.

My dad can’t remember the colours, neither can my uncle or my Godfather and all of them went to the same school. My sister has tried the school’s Facebook group and drew a blank there too.
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The circumstances of the loss of the scarf still irritate me 30 years later. The scarf was actually stolen from me on 28th January 1992. I was at a Zodiac Mindwarp gig at Reading University Student Union with my good friend Chris Williams. Whilst it was bloody cold outside, it was hot and sweaty inside and I’d taken off my leather jacket and scarf and left them at the back of the hall.  At the end of the show my jacket was still there, but my dad’s scarf was gone. As I left the gig I was looking to see if anyone was wearing it - there would have been trouble if I spotted the new ‘owner’ – but I didn’t get lucky and that was that.

​Dad isn’t especially sentimental about any possession, but he did value his old school scarf. It has come up in conversation occasionally over the years and I genuinely feel some guilt that it was lost under my stewardship.

So, my sis and I are trying to right a wrong and get him a replacement. In our interconnected world, it must be possible to find someone that has still got a scarf and can tell us the colours, the order of stripes and the width of them. Maybe someone could even send me a photograph.

On LinkedIn I am connected to around 500 souls, on Facebook I am connected to almost 150, and all of those people are connected to many others. The other day I found out that I have got seven connections in common with Quentin Wilson and nine in common with the CEO of Porsche UK, so it must be feasible to track down an Eliots Green alumni or two.

This is where you can help. Please share my quest with your connections and let me know if anyone out there can assist. My website has been live for a decade, and this is the first time I have ever asked for a post to be shared in this way. I hope that the request sits okay with you.

And you never know, if this piece happens to be read by the person that helped themselves to the scarf at the Zodiac Mindwarp gig in 1992, maybe I could even get the original back. Stranger things have happened.
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That fact is that my old man is getting on a bit now and my sister and I would love to be able to replace his old school scarf while we still can.

My thanks in advance ​if you are willing to help.

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Every so often I waste my time and reflect that I’ll never get the hours back. Then I regret that I didn’t do something more productive. Watching Nomadland is one of those instances.

Bizarrely, having wasted a few hours already, I am now writing this blog post which, because no one will read it anyway, will waste a bit more of my precious time. Still, on the off chance that I might save a few readers the bother of watching the film, it might do some social good.

Nomadland is a multi-award winning film (that’s the reason I chose to watch it) about the US traveller community that focuses on the life of Fern. Frances McDormand, who plays Fern, delivers a brilliantly balanced low-key performance, and was perfectly cast for the role.

The film is well crafted, it is like a clever mixture of film and documentary, it involves real members of the travelling community, and I can understand why it appealed to the film making industry.

An Amazon reviewer stated that it’s “a powerfully moving story of hope and resilience“ but, as far as I am concerned, Fern’s story is just depressing.

She loses her husband (he dies) and then, because it was connected to his job and the whole company is in ruin, she loses her home in rural Nevada, and with it her teaching job. Through what amounts to poverty, she has to live in a panel van whilst travelling around the country to work in a succession of crappy, minimum wage jobs.  

Fern’s poverty is grim, the van is grim and when it breaks down, she can’t afford to fix it. So much for self-sufficiency and independence, she has to beg her sister for financial help. She has no toilet or shower facilities (think shitting in a bucket) and when she gets ill, it’s even more bleak. She even has to cut her own hair … so that looks shit too.

To make matters worse, there are two points in the film where she has a chance to live with a fancy man, or with her sister and have a proper roof over her head, and she declines both times to carry on living in her bloody van.

And when you think it couldn’t get anymore miserable … it does. Her friends start dying.

At one point she is driving by her old home to find that it, and all the other company houses, are empty. What a fucking waste – the place is a ghost-town and everything is in decline. The evicted folk might as well have been given the scope to stay in their homes and keep the community going.

I watched the film worrying that I was going to find out that Fern had been mugged, raped or even murdered – seriously, it was that bleak that I was worried it was going to get worse.    

But in the end, not much happens, the film is long and it plods along at a sluggish pace. If you like an action movie, this isn’t it.

I persevered right until the end but then wished I hadn’t because by that point it was late at night and I honestly felt miserable and lonely. Admittedly it probably didn’t help that Mrs Baldwin and the kids were away for the weekend and that the house was quiet.

JK Rowling and Harry Potter came to mind because watching Nomadland was like getting a visit from the Azkaban dementors – the joy was well and truly sucked out of me.

Which, all in all, isn’t a good recommendation. If you are depressed, for God’s sake don’t watch this film. If you want to evaluate how lucky you are, watch it for a little while and then go and do something else.

One could argue that any film that generates such a depth of feeling must be good – but I don’t normally watch films to feel miserable afterwards. Why would anyone want to do that?

The best film I have ever seen is Schindlers’ List. When I came out of the cinema after watching it, I felt overwhelmed, quiet and rather tearful. And so did the rest of the cinema goers; I haven’t experienced such a quiet exodus from a film in the decades since. The experience was deep and meaningful and never repeated.

Nomadland was similar, but only in the sense that it will never be repeated.     
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As much as I am looking forward to seeing Boris’ tenure at number ten come to an end, I have been paying close attention to the news of late to keep tabs on something completely different.

The situation in the Ukraine is bothering me a lot more than Boris’ fuckwittery.  Russia is going to invade and one of these mornings I am going to wake up to read that our world isn’t the same anymore.

There is a suggestion that diplomacy may yet prevail, but I don’t believe that for a moment. Putin didn’t move all the troops and equipment to the Ukraine border just to move them all away again.

To read most recently that the Russians are suggesting that the Americans are increasing the tensions and pushing them towards war is utter nonsense. The Russians are trying to spin the narrative and justify their invasion plans.

It has been suggested, by the Russians, that NATO is testing them and that Putin is responding to threats to his national security, but again that is just bollocks. The NATO allies haven’t been moving their troops and equipment to Russia’s borders and threatening to invade.

When the invasion of Ukraine happens, the global fallout is going to be significant, and we’ll all be a lot less secure.
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And on the subject of fallout (though this really is a digression), I guess the Russians let Europe fund, design and build the Chernobyl shroud (read earlier post) before making any decision to take the landmass back.

To make matters worse, the Chinese appear to be allying with Putin. A second major superpower with its own expansionist agenda (think Taiwan) might be more inclined to flex its muscles whilst other chaos is underway.

And then there’s North Korea firing its missiles almost daily…

The latest news is that the UK and US governments have instructed their citizens to get out while commercial flights are still available.

War is coming and I am certain that it’s so close that if I spend any more time working on this post, it will be old news. But I am hoping to God that I am wrong.

It’s looking very grim in the east and it’s extremely concerning.

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On Saturday 20th November 2021, I took part in a Biker Down course organised by Northamptonshire Fire & Rescue Service and Northamptonshire Police. It was held at Northamptonshire Police’s Wootton Hall headquarters.

I first became aware of the course in August via Facebook and requested a place. The September course was oversubscribed, but the organiser was good enough to place me on the waiting list so that I could take part in a subsequent one.

This is how the course is positioned “the free first aid training will help you to manage the scene if you come across a motorcycle traffic collision”.

I had never attended a first aid course before. Over the years I had numerous opportunities to become a workplace first aider but, whilst I fancied the knowledge, I never really wanted the responsibility that came with being one. But as part of the motorcycling fraternity, I thought that taking some responsibility was the right thing to do because I’d want to be able to help if I came across a downed rider … and I’d want others to have some insight if they came across me in a downed situation.

Everyone that rides a motorcycle knows the risk that they are taking. Motorcycle riders are so much more vulnerable on the road and have a far greater chance of being killed or seriously injured in an accident than those in cars.

I know that I could end up in serious trouble if I come off, but it’s not something that I dwell upon. If I did, I wouldn’t ride.

At the event, the presenters shared their experiences of real-life situations in a graphic way that would bother the squeamish and potentially put would-be riders off bothering at all.

For example, the fire service uses thermal imaging cameras to find riders, or bits of them, at accident scenes because riders, or their passengers (or bits of them), may end up some distance away from the crash. Nice.
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The presenters were riders themselves and the point of the course was not to scare attendees, but rather to create awareness and give practical advice to better manage risk.

In essence the course ran through the following:

• Avoiding getting into an incident through sensible riding decision making
• Managing the scene of an accident
• Making sure that you/others are safe and can be seen
• Communicating with the emergency services
• Taking care of casualties as best as you can
• Liaising with the emergency services once they are on scene

The course took an entire morning so I can’t share all the content with you in this post. There were some great bits of advice however that I’ll share with you now.

The police and the fire service are fans of hi viz. When the room was asked ‘who routinely wears it’, my hand shot up … but as it turned out, I was in the minority. My hi viz has always been yellow, but it turns out that different colour hi viz has benefits at certain times of day. In daylight orange stands out more than yellow and at night, the reverse is true.

Another valuable piece of advice was aimed at car drivers who help others at crash scenes. Apparently, it is not uncommon for concerned passers by to let those involved in accidents sit in their cars to keep warm. That will sometimes end up with the well-intentioned helper getting their car roof chopped off. The reason this happens is that those involved in car accidents often get a surge of adrenaline that masks the pain of things like whiplash. As soon as the adrenaline hit wears off and victims are in pain, getting them out of a vehicle may end up involving the hydraulic cutters. This is because the blue light rescue folk are required to keep a victim’s C-spine straight – that means lifting them straight up (and a roof is then a problem). The fire service has had to cut off police car roofs for this reason too.  

Another valuable hint/tip was about location identification. I wasn’t familiar with the 3 Words app, but it is now downloaded to my phone. The app, which the emergency services use, mean that they can pinpoint the location of an incident easily and get to it much faster. And bloody useful if you are in a flap to have an app think clearly for you.

It wasn’t just advice on offer, practical stuff was being demonstrated too like helmet removal and CPR. I got to have a go at CPR on a dummy and blimey, it’s harder and more brutal than I ever expected. The force by which you need to pump is often enough to crack a person’s ribs. It’s exhausting too; you have to maintain a rate of about 100 compressions per minute – 30 check, 30 check etc.  It’s quite a workout and easier if two people are present to share the workload.

I didn’t realise that the purpose of CPR is only to keep blood flowing around the body manually until the medics can administer the drugs that are actually likely to get the person’s heart going again. Keeping blood moving is essential in reducing the post heart failure impairments that a victim might have to live with if they survive.

So, after a morning’s investment of time, I came away with much to reflect upon.

Thank God though that I haven’t had to put my newfound skills/awareness into use yet.

I have since acquired some orange hi viz so that in the daytime I can look like a motorway roadworker when out on my Honda. On the bright side (cause it’s hi viz, haha – pun intended), I now look less like a lollipop person.

By way of a wrap, I recommend this course to others. They are being organised around the country by local emergency services and are well worth the time. And on that matter, I want to thank the team that gave up its time on a Saturday morning to help inform and educate me.

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Since 17th January I have been taking part in an event from Big Team Challenge called the “WellMeWalk”. After active encouragement from the company to shake off the January blues and the extra weight piled on over Christmas, 36 teams have been formed. We are tasked with covering the length of the Great Wall of China.

In order to contribute to the cause, I have been running at lunchtime, diligently counting the steps on my phone and logging my achievements on the event website at the end of each evening.

Running in single degree temperatures from West Haddon towards Long Buckby and then back again has been cold, repetitive and dull, but not without some moments of wonder.

On Tuesday this week a Hercules C-130 flew over my route at such a low level that the pilot and I could have waved to each other. The aircraft was impressive, noisy and going slowly enough to defy gravity. As it thundered overhead, the dark grey bird was huge, and frankly awe inspiring.

And one bird leads to me another.

For the last week or so, I have regularly been accompanied on part of my journey by a pheasant. Honestly, there’s this bit of woodland where this male pheasant was hanging out and, when I ran by, it would run alongside me (only separated by about six feet). The first time was surprising, but then I began to see the same pheasant in the same place every day.

I actually started to keep an eye out for the bird and even started calling it. After some noise from the undergrowth, out would pop Mr Pheasant and he’d run with me again.

As a digression, I normally hate pheasants because they are stupid and unpredictable, and when you ride a motorcycle, they are a menace and more dangerous than you might think. Only a few weeks ago one of my motorcycling buddies had a pheasant fly into his crash helmet and he was lucky to stay on his bike. His helmet was wrecked in the incident.

I appreciate that projecting any kind of human thought process on to a bird with less intelligence than my keyboard is silly … but it was like Mr. P. was my running buddy. Most probably he was just trying to run me off his patch, but he was good, if bizarre, company.

Over dinner the other night, I shared my running story with misses B., miss B. and the younger mister B. It’s fair to state that there was much eye rolling and suggestion that I was mad and ‘so embarrassing’. But I didn’t care and yesterday Mr. P. and I ran together again.
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​On my run today though, Mr. P. didn’t come when called. And then to my horror, I found a mangled body at the side of the road.

Now admittedly, one pheasant looks a lot like another.  So, it might not be my running pal … but the body was right where I always see Mr. P.

When I called today, just in case it wasn’t him, no pheasant appeared. And that was rather sad.
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A bit like me according to my kids.

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In recent weeks I have made it to a few gigs at The Craufurd Arms in Wolverton, Milton Keynes. It was great to be able to do something ‘normal’ if you like. Prior to these events, I hadn’t been to The Craufurd, or to any other gig since March 2020.

The first outing on 17th November was to see Girlschool and Alcatrazz and the second on 7th December was to see British Lion.

I am not going to write gig reviews as such, but rather make some general observations about my experiences.

Girlschool/Alcatrazz

Girlschool has been going since the late seventies and was part of the scene known as the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM). Girlschool was frequently associated with Motorhead because Lemmy collaborated with the girls on a number of occasions.

Alcatrazz was formed in the early eighties and, despite being old school rockers, are American, so can’t be labelled NWOBHM.

The bands were on an equal footing for this gig, double headliners if you like.

Having seen neither of the groups before, I thought I would buy a ticket because, frankly, no one is getting any younger. If you want to see these bands, you need to do it while you still can. The passage of time is going to be a key theme of this piece.
 
For any band that has been going for 40 years, original members are going to be pensioners or rapidly approaching retirement anyway. That’s not to say that musical skills will have been impacted, but these rockers are not going to look young anymore.

For Girlschool, you can therefore dismiss any thoughts of St. Trinians and instead start thinking more along the lines of the W.I. When the ladies took to the stage, it was clear that they have all aged in the same way that I, and pretty much all of the audience at the gig, have. Singer, Kim McAuliffe, 62; guitarist Jackie Chambers, 57; Tracey Lamb, bass, 58; Denise Dufort, drummer, 63.

The average age of the gig goers must have been fifty something, which I guess is no real surprise because folks in their twenties/thirties perhaps wouldn’t have even heard of the band/s.
   
With Alcatrazz the experience was similar, but the band was/is all blokes. Doogie White, singer 61; Gary Shea on bass 70; Jimmy Waldo, keyboards, 62; Joe Stump, guitar, 61 etc.

Whilst the girls and boys rocked, and were clearly having fun, it was a little bit like watching your parents, or your old school teachers (well perhaps aside from Jackie Chambers, who can still get away with the tight PVC).
A good gig though and worth the Covid risk to see the bands. I’d happily go and see either again.

British Lion

This band is not old school, it doesn’t have the heritage of Girlschool or Alcatrazz. but what is lacks in history, it makes up for by having Steve Harris as its bass player. Steve ‘Arry’ Harris is a legend, a heavy metal icon, headbanger royalty and the galloping rhythm behind the monsters of metal, Iron Maiden.

I’ll be honest, I am not a fan of British Lion - I was going to abbreviate to BL, but that makes me think of British Leyland … and so I won’t. I was not even particularly familiar with the band’s music.

When The Craufurd Arms dropped me a line to state that Arry was visiting Milton Keynes, I bought a ticket immediately. The chance to be six feet away from a fella that used to hang on my bedroom wall was not to be missed. I have seen Iron Maiden (and therefore Arry) a number of times since 1988 but never in such a small, intimate venue.   

Spotify helped me catch up with British Lion’s back catalogue.

British Lion was supported by a band called Airforce. I was not familiar with the group at all, but when the quartet took to the stage, it was clear that three quarters of the outfit were of an age. The singer, a much younger chap called Flavio Lino, announced that the band were part of the MWOBHM movement, I thought that he was fibbing because he was/is too young, or that I had missed a trick somewhere.

Subsequent research proved that Airforce, established in the late eighties, was primarily a touring band rather than a studio band … and I had simply never come across Airforce on the gig circuit. 
  
Bearing in mind that British Lion features Steve Harris, it was interesting to note that Airforce drummer Doug Sampson (64) was part of Iron Maiden in its early days. On top of that Lino sings in a way that bears a lot of similarity to Bruce Dickinson.

The Iron Maiden thing was a big deal in the audience too, Maiden shirts in evidence throughout the hall, which was packed with punters.

Airforce turned out to be quite good. My only gripe was that Flavio was too obsequious towards British Lion.

Arry

When British Lion took to the stage, Arry was directly in front of me, less than six feet away. I thought I might be a bit star struck but I wasn’t at all; to me he was just an ordinary person, no more exciting than anyone else on the stage around him, smaller than most of them too.

I actually found myself thinking that he was looking old and then, perhaps worse, I started getting distracted by wondering why his hair wasn’t grey. Clearly his long locks are being dyed to keep them their brown colour. I then started wondering why he felt the need to dye his hair instead of letting it be grey. Perhaps he doesn’t like looking like his 65 years. Bizarrely though, the brown hair was the thing that drew me to thinking about his 65 years.

As you have already worked out, I was more interested in my thoughts around one of my idols than I was in British Lion’s music. Some tunes sounded a bit Maiden like, others just washed over me without having any impact at all.  
At one point when Arry was to the front of the stage on the left side, there was some wince inducing distortion from his bass that ruined one of the tunes and took my mind off on a tangent about whether heavy metal/hard rock should be the preserve of the young.

I decided ‘absolutely not’ because the age of the musicians has no impact at all on the music … and I am not going to stop loving heavy metal just because I am getting on a bit. But I do think that age probably ought to have an impact on the way the musicians dress, keep their hair and how hard they try to be cool.

Chop Pitman, Tony Hatton and Doug Sampson from Airforce made no effort to hide their ages or keep their hair long and they looked more authentic/better for it.

And that sentiment pretty much brings me to the end of the post because I thought that Airforce was better than British Lion. Steve Harris, a legend though he is, was not enough to make British Lion a standout act.

This gig posed a much greater Covid risk than the Girlschool outing because there were so many more people, no social distancing and very few masks evident. I took a chance and got away with it, but I wouldn’t have taken the risk if the event had been closer to Christmas. And British Lion wasn’t a good enough band to justify being ill/isolated afterwards.

I have a ticket to see some other aging rockers at the Craufurd in late January. The Diamond Head gig has been cancelled twice already because of Covid.  Thanks to the Omicron strain, I bet that the next few weeks will see gig going becoming less and less palatable/justifiable and I have no idea if the date will get changed again. 

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A week has passed since the Abu Dhabi grand prix and I am still angry about how it ended. In my opinion, Lewis Hamilton, having led almost every lap, was robbed in the last one by race director Michael Masi’s poor decision making.

Masi effectively broke the racing rules by allowing just a handful of cars to unlap themselves following the safety car period. He put Verstappen right on to the back of Hamilton and effectively left him a sitting duck. The race should have finished under the safety car if there wasn’t time to get all the out of position cars passed the safety car.

If it was football; it would be like a draw where one side was given an undeserved penalty in the 89th minute and then the goal posts were moved further apart for the poor goalkeeper facing the spot kick.

To make matters worse, apparently the FIA relied on a caveat clause that the race director has the authority to pretty much do what he likes in a race. That scuppered the appeals process. It was Michael Masi that was effectively allowed to choose who won the 2021 drivers’ championship.

The season end had been quite exciting with Hamilton and Verstappen evenly matched. In the last race of the championship both were matched on points and it was going to be a winner takes all situation in Abu Dhabi.

Verstappen had performed well all season and was a deserving winner of the championship, but the way he won it in the end had me screaming at the telly. If the race had been fair at the end, all the out of position cars had been allowed through, and Max Verstappen won it then fair enough. To be frank, I’d still have been disappointed for Lewis, but I wouldn’t have been so bloody cross.

I have watched/listened to F1 for the last 20 years or more and I am a fan of the sport. But if Masi keeps his job or Lewis decides he’s had enough, I’ll never watch or listen to another race again. If F1 is going to be run like the Conservative Party, it won’t be a sport anymore, it’ll be a laughingstock. 

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This month sees my website reach 10 years old; I can hardly believe that so much time has gone by.

More than 550 different types of post have been created in that period and that equates to an average of an article a week, every week for a decade. Now I know that the posting hasn’t been anything like as orderly as that, but the volume of work is there for all to see.

It’s been entertaining to go back and read some of my own stuff; I’d forgotten that I’d even written about some of the things I have covered.

The site was originally created when I found myself out of work and with more time on my hands than was normal. An interesting thing to reflect upon is that I had one job in the prior ten years and four in the ten years since this site was launched.

Aside from employment, much has been rather more consistent, Mrs. B. is still the same model; my enjoyment of seventies stuff, unabated; the pleasure derived from heavy metal and punk music, undiminished; the appreciation of old cars, unaffected; I am even still running regularly; and … the random nature of the articles posted remains – you still never know what you are going to read about next.

But that has got me thinking, because there is no plan as to what happens next and into the future. More of the same? Something completely different? Nothing at all?

Writing is a curious pastime, it can be entertaining, cathartic, creative, but it is introverted, often revealing, can be lonely, the output is hardly noticed, and it takes up time that could be more productive if put to different use.

All that aside, reaching double figures is something. When I started this, I never expected the environment would be around for that long.

While my interest levels in my own site have waxed and waned over the years, I have arrived at this anniversary and I am pleased with myself to have kept the momentum going. Ten years feels like a proper achievement.

Thanks to all of you that have joined me on the journey.

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A few months ago, I wrote about an approach from the Viking Group, a Californian motorcycle apparel/accessory business that offered to send me riding gear in exchange for reviews.

Well, it wasn’t a complete surprise if I am honest … that nothing ever happened. Despite some promises, the company didn’t end up sending me anything to review, and so that was that. Unreliable lot those Vikings.

On the biking front though, much is new to report. At the end of June, I bought a 2008 Honda CBF1000 GT. The CBF was my first foray into four cylinders and my first Honda too. My decision to get an alternative bike was driven by my desire to expand my skills and experiences by riding a machine with different behaviour and handling characteristics.  I had test driven a CBF and had decided that it was the next bike for me - the extra ‘go’ and smooth four-pot power delivery won me over.

For a few weeks before my Yamaha TDM 900 went to its new home, I had two bikes in the garage. The TDM had served me well, been utterly reliable and, over the 5,000 miles I had ridden it, the Yamaha had become a mechanical friend to me. When I sold it, I was genuinely sad to see it go, but at least it went to a good home.

The Honda and I are getting along well enough now; though the bike is newer and has a lot less mileage than the TDM, teething troubles marred the start of our relationship, and for a while I regretted my decision to upgrade.

It was like changing an old girlfriend for a younger, sexier model and then finding out that age, performance and looks aren’t as important as shared beliefs, values, attitudes and history.

Though the honeymoon period with the Honda was all too brief, the challenges are now largely in the past, and my plan is to keep this machine for the longer term.

Since acquiring it, I have added over a thousand miles to the odometer, that’s more miles in less than four months than the bike had done in its previous four years.
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I took part in Rugby Bikefest on 26th September. On the bright Sunday morning, I joined the ride-in from the truck stop on the A5. It was good fun, hundreds and hundreds of bikes riding in convoy, two abreast with a police escort into and around the town centre.

​Next to me for the ride-in was the chap on a Harley (see left). A distinguished gentleman rider if ever I have seen one. Burgundy velvet jacket, open face helmet and a pipe for gawd's sake. The velvet did look rather cool, but it wouldn’t do to fall off in it, and you certainly wouldn’t want to ride in the crappy weather either.

He did look dapper though in his shades and bike-colour-coded smoking-room attire. And the pipe just cracked me up. His machine was nice and noisy too, so he wasn’t struggling to get noticed. The MC in the town centre targeted him specifically for an interview.

Unfortunately, having picked up a slow puncture, I had to contend with a deflating rear tyre  – my tyre was literally screwed. It’s not much fun riding with a flat. In the gallery photo (below far left), you may be able to see that my rear tyre isn't at its correct pressure.

People lined the streets through rugby to watch the parade thunder by, and the town centre was packed full of people, motorbikes and concessions. It was the busiest I have seen anywhere in more than eighteen months. So busy, it was rather disconcerting. Not many face masks in evidence.

​My final biking related update is that I have got myself booked on to a Biker Down course organised by Northamptonshire Fire Service. In November, I am going to find out how to help fellow motorcyclists that end up in trouble. I am sure it will be an eye-opener for me.

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I saw a TV advert earlier in the week for Marmite beer and decided that I had to get some. The ale, brewed by Camden Town Brewery in conjunction with Marmite, is limited edition and limited in terms of availability – for example sold by Tesco but only from the Extra stores; available at Sainsbury but not at Asda.

As a Marmite fan who sought out Marmite chocolate, rushed out to buy Dynamite chilli Marmite, loves Marmite peanut butter and even has Marmite shower gel in the bathroom, I had high hopes that the beer would be something special.

I went out on my motorbike on Saturday determined to find some and scored a hit at Sainsbury in Sixfields, Northampton.

At £1.80 per 330ml can, it’s not cheap in Sainsbury though.  I later went to Tesco’s large store in Hunsbury, Northampton and you could buy a four pack for £5 with a Clubcard. I paid £9 for five cans and felt that I had badly been ripped off. If you want to try some of this stuff too, I wholeheartedly recommend you seek it out at Tesco.   

Yesterday evening the first can was cracked open and the tasting could begin.

Here’s my review. The beer is dark in colour and nice enough; it isn’t devoid of flavour, but there just isn’t enough Marmite about it in my opinion. It could smell better, and it could taste more authentic too. I think that Camden/Marmite missed a trick – they played it too safe. If it didn’t say Marmite on the can, or I had blind taste tested it, I would have had no idea it had anything to do with Marmite at all.

If you like a flavoursome ale, Adnams Broadside is an excellent brew and it totally outclasses Marmite beer. Guinness Export is also terrific for flavour.

The positioning for Marmite is love it or hate it – in this instance, and in my opinion, neither label applies. Marmite beer is okay, but that’s all it is. If you drink lager, you might hate it, but I can’t see a real ale or a Guinness drinker stating that they love it.

All in all, I was a bit disappointed, which is a shame.
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