YEEELLOOOOOOWS

What a result for the Stags yesterday!! To be honest, I was expecting us to take 3 points, but not in such emphatic fashion; 5-0! I’m really pleased for Simon Brown too, he’s had his fair share of injury woes over the last 12 months or so but he showed he’s back on form with a well deserved hat-trick. This is the way I knew the team were capable of playing and with a 3 game unbeaten streak we’re gaining some serious momentum now, I just hope it holds out for the next game; Hereford away. It’s going to be a real battle and if we slip up we’ll get slaughtered, I think a single point is the best we can hope for but if we keep our shape at the back and feed Mickey Boulding the odd-ball or three we’re definitely capable of winning it. Looks like the change of ownership has built some serious morale up in the dressing room and all of the lads seem to be showing a lot more confidence and resolve now, maybe I was too quick to write-off that trip to Wembley this season?!

Last time I blogged it was Thursday and it’s been another busy few days. After work on Thursday I went to Graham’s new place on Amwaj Island for a nosey round and a few beers and it was pretty cool. Amwaj is a completely man-made island and is known as “the floating city”. All the places are lovely though, when you drive in it looks like any other sort of housing estate, but once you get inside one of the houses or apartments you see that backing on to all of them is a network of canals. You literally walk out of the back door on to a balcony, and then there’s a set of steps which takes you straight in to the water where you can have your boat or jet-ski waiting for you. It’s such a picturesque place to be and it’s so quiet; I’d definitely have moved in to a place there if I’d have been staying here. Graham and I both decided we wanted a quiet one so we got some cans out and sat watching a few movies including Freddy Got Fingered; I’d forgotten how funny that film is!

Friday morning was a relatively early start (10:00am) and Morgan, Louise and I got a lift of Graham and went to Starbucks for some much needed breakfast and what can only be described as a bath full of hot chocolate! Once we’d finished up here we headed off out to the BIC (Bahrain International Circuit) as the Australian “V8 Supercar” touring car series was in town. I went last year and it was really good so I knew we were on to a winner. As well as the Aussie V8’s there was the launch of the new “Speedcar” series too, which basically takes full-blown NASCAR’s from the States and races them round the circuits of Asia. There were some really good drivers taking part too, like Johnny Herbert, Jean Alesi and Ukyo Katayama. There was pretty much non-stop track action as the supporting cast of Formula BMW, the Lumina championship and the Radicals did there stuff too. I was pretty disappointed by the fact that there was almost zero merchandise available though, I quite fancied a couple of t-shirts as there were some pretty decent teams in the Aussie V8s like Jack Daniels Racing, Jim Beam and Team Chevrolet. After poncing my way in to the pit-lane and grabbing one of the Jack Daniels Racing mechanics I discovered that they weren’t allowed to bring anything to sell at the track. For the Jack Daniels and Jim Beam teams this was pretty easy to understand with this being a Muslim country and the cars were bearing “Jack Lives Here” and “The Team” instead of their usually livery, but that didn’t explain why the likes of the Chevrolet, Mobil 1 and Vodafone sponsored teams weren’t allowed to flog any gear. Once again, only in Bahrain eh?!

Once the track action had dried up for the day the others decided to go to the pub. I headed home though instead as I’d got sponsorship proposals to sort. As I mentioned previously, without a sponsor Kirk Motorsport will be no more as another self-financed season is just out of the question. In light of this, Friday evening was spent emailing as many companies as I could think of asking them if they’d take the time to consider our 2008 sponsorship proposal. There were obviously plenty of “good luck, sounds great, but no thanks” type replies but O2, Sky TV, Southern Comfort and Samsung all replied saying they were interested and for us to send them our portfolio. I’m still waiting on about a dozen or so replies from other companies yet too so it may not be over just yet! Fingers crossed eh?!!

Not much to report from yesterday really other than the aforementioned slaughter of the Silkmen at Field Mill I did find watching the Newcastle –V- Portsmouth game quite amusing to watch though, especially the result

Time is ticking!………..

The 1^st of November, the last 1^st of the month I’ll get to see as a resident of the Kingdom of Bahrain. I can’t believe how fast time is flying now, it doesn’t seem 5 minutes ago that November was way in to the distance yet here we are and I’m sure the next 3 weeks before I move back to England will pass by just as swiftly. It’s been a bit of a time for reflection over the last few days really, thinking about all the experiences of the past 12 months; what started out as an exciting adventure for me and my ex that rapidly turned in to a living nightmare at times. Since that split though and getting to the other end of the rocky road things have turned out ok really, to the point where I’m actually quite fond of this little island. Home for me is where the heart is, and for me that’s always been at home with my family & friends in England; don’t get me wrong though, there have been numerous occasions where I’ve contemplated whether or not going home is the right thing to do. Not being able to go out on the boat on a Friday morning and float around with the dolphins is certainly and experience I’ll sorely miss, but at least I’ve done it; nothing can take away your memories eh? As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve made some amazing friends here and met some characters I can’t even fathom how to describe but I’ll keep in touch with them, and it’s not like I can never come back.

The biggest problem I’ve encountered here when deciding to stay or go is that it’s not a place to grow; you can save money and buy lots of toys, but as far as actually living your life goes, the options are somewhat limited in my opinion. For a start it’s surprising how frustrating it can get being in such a small place, it’s not like home where if you fancy doing something different you can drive to Skeggy at night or something, or decide you want to go to London for the weekend or anything like that; what you see is what you get and in a country that you can drive from one side of to the other in about 40 minutes, what you get isn’t a great deal and it’s almost claustrophobic sometimes. The second thing is something that I’ve touched on before, and that is that there is almost 0% possibility of meeting someone decent out here! The “being single” thing has got really boring now over here, because there are just no opportunities to meet someone. Granted, there are reams and reams of air stewardesses, but they’re all shallow gold-diggers who use meeting anyone male as an exercise in how to bleed someone dry before they move on to the next sap…not for me I’m afraid sweetheart!! Of course they too are always up for the “free and easy” one nighter approach too, but as crap as it sounds the prospect of a one night stand has never appealed to me and hence the reason it’s never happened! Maybe I’m just too old-fashioned it that sense, but taking some possibly-clap-ridden tart home for a night and then waking up to realise she actually resembles Camilla Parker-Bowles is a frightening prospect! Let’s not forget the copious amounts of Thai “working girls” too that are here; yeah because what screams sex appeal more than a whore-bag with bad teeth and little regard for personal hygiene?!! Once again….no thanks!! The problem is though, that’s it; take away those 2 varieties of the fairer sex and there’s nothing left! I’m not the sort of person that has to be in a relationship or has to be seeing someone, far from it, but the option would be nice! Besides, it can be a lonely place out here and everybody needs someone right? The fact that “somebody” will never appear out here is another good enough reason for me to head home. For my last few weeks I’m just going to make the most of it and enjoy the time I’ve got left, but at the same time looking forward to getting home again; just a shame I can’t bring the 50 degree heat with me!!

In local news….errm….not a deal to be honest! The past few days at work have been fairly “samey” to be honest; broken down cars, whinging customers and the odd brain-dead staff member; I swear there must be some procedure that happens when they sign a contract here to turn their brains to soup! As far as playing out goes, Morgan, Lou and I stopped in with a film and a pizza on Monday night, and for the past two night we’ve been at Seef kart track to watch stuntman Graham rag his go-kart around. It’s been the regional qualifiers for the world championships next month so he thought he’d give it a shot. His kart is an absolute weapon; full race 2 stroke motor with electric start, reverse and all that guff, 4-wheel disc brakes, 2-speed transmission, multi function digital dash, the lot! Unfortunately though it’s the first time all year that he’s actually driven it and despite a couple of top 3 finishes, by the time he got used to it properly it was all over.

Not sure what the plan for tonight, although with it being a Thursday night I’m sure a few cleansing ales will be involved at some stage. As for tomorrow, the Australian “V8 Supercar” touring cars are in town for their only round outside of Oz so I’m going to head over to the F1 circuit to take in some of that. There’s also going to be a “Speedcar” demo too, which should be good. These things are basically Nascars that have been setup purely for circuit work and there are a few ex-formula 1 drivers like Jean Alesi and Johnny Herbert that are going to put them through their paces so it should be pretty cool….

Busy busy busy!………

Well, the last few days have been pretty non-stop really, it’s a bit of a long one so go and grab a brew or somet! When I last updated on Thursday night I was just heading out of the door to go in to town and it was pretty crap to be honest, there just didn’t seem to be much going on and I never really got in the mood so it wasn’t exactly a late one.

Friday morning started really badly, as I discovered there must be pikeys in the building!! Ever since the infamous washing machine incident I’ve never really trusted it enough to use it again so I’ve been doing my washing in the communal washroom on the ground floor which is no real big deal to be honest. So, Thursday evening I take out my dark stuff and bang it in a drier and then bung in a load of whites to be washing while I’m out. When I came home later that night I pretty much totally forgot about it and went to my pit, so when Friday came I moseyed on downstairs to fetch it. Thing was, when I got there it was gone!! Yup, some thieving gypo had nicked my load of white washing; including all my work shirts and about half a dozen pairs of boxers!!! My dark stuff was till there though, so I had a dig through all dozen or so machines and the whites really were missing, how bad is that?! I don’t think someone would actually nick it, I think they may have just picked it up by mistake or somet, but if it were me and I noticed I’d picked up someone else’s shirts and trolleys I’d take it straight back but that’s obviously just me! After shouting at the brown people for a few minutes and soon realizing I’d get more sense and assistance from a mute quadriplegic I jumped in to the car and headed for the mall to get some new shirts for work. While I was there I got a call from Graham saying that he was heading out on the boat again if I fancied it so as soon I was sorted flew across to the yacht club for some more water stunt action. After narrowly making it out alive the previous day, I again jumped in the rubber ring behind the boat, although this time I was with Louise so it was taken a bit steadier this time, rather than the kamikaze driving style of the previous day with Morgan at the steering wheel! It was absolutely perfect day to be honest weather wise and after we’d all had our turn being flung around in the ocean we killed the engine and just floated around at sea for a bit. Fortunately too, we were right in the middle of where the dolphins were and they even came for a swim past on their backs to put a bit of a show on for us; they really are lovely creatures up close. Thinking that they may come close to us if we were in the water too, Louise, Chris, Neil and I decided to jump in to the sea and have a butcher’s. By now though they were long gone and we found ourselves in the middle of a war zone!! The sea around Bahrain is so salty that you can just relax and float around with no problem, but as we were bobbing about we found ourselves under attack by what I can only describe as miniature jumping swordfish! Although the fish were only quite small, their noses were massive and looked razor sharp too; the little sods literally surrounded us everywhere we turned and were jumping out of the water towards our heads! God knows what they were exactly but I was glad to clamber back aboard the vessel! Once that ordeal was over we took a trip over to one of the small islands nearby, this one in particular consisting of just a beach, a bar and a few sun loungers. There was a big party going on so we stayed about 300 yards away in the sea and just chilled out listening to the tunes with a few cold ones. It was now that I took “the device” for a blast out; Chris’ brand new Sea-Doo RXT jet-ski….what a weapon!! This thing’s got 215bhp and will hit 70mph no problem and it was awesome. There were a few shipping trawlers heading out for the night so I managed to get myself in the wake of a few and it was such a laugh just jumping up in the air and then nailing the throttle again.

With everyone’s skin now resembling synthetic leather from the sun and all of us hungry enough to suck diarrhea through a tramp’s sock we decided to head back to dry land for some snap. After a quick shower and change I met up with Morgan, Louise Sarah and Graham in Bam-Bu. Bam-Bu is a gorgeous Chinese just around the corner and they do an all you can eat and drink deal for about 15 quid, so needless to say we were there for the night and I was ready to burst by the time I got home!!

Saturday morning was a real drag as they always are, and I really get the “Monday morning blues” type feeling at the start of the week (damn you single day weekend!!). After saying goodbye to the German technical on Thursday I was greeted by 3 more Germans on Saturday! This time though it’s for the ongoing Prime project that’s happening here; basically Mercedes-Benz are trying to drag this place out of the dark ages but it’s no easy task! Anyway, while I was chatting to them we got on to the discussion of why I was leaving work and they tried to convince me to stay here. Once it was established I was on my way I found out that there are placements available in Korea, China and in the US headquarters and Tuscaloosa in Alabama. The basic gist of the discussion was that Mercedes are always on the lookout for good, skilled technical guys and if I ever fancied another job abroad sometime in the future that all I’d need to do is call. That’s nice to know to be fair, as I can’t say I’ll rule out another move abroad forever and I’d love to live in the States for a bit. That’s some distance away in the future though for now though, as I want to concentrate on home and catching up with everything I’ve missed and get some semblance of normality back! Don’t get me wrong, I’ll miss plenty of things from out here, but home is home and it’s not until you’re removed from it that you realise.

Saturday evening came and we were all still pretty knackered to be honest, so once Morgan got back from work we crashed on the sofa along with the 2 Doris’ (Louise and her mate Sarah) we stuck on a movie. We ended up watching the Hills Have Eyes remake and I thought it was tip-top to be fair, although Louise found it a bit much and had to abort half way through ha ha

Yesterday was more of the same work-wise, although I did have the pleasure of taking the S65 AMG for another blast which was great! The thing with this particular model is its decorum; there’s no real noise, no drama, no fuss, you can happily waft along at 60mph and it’s as refined as any other car on the road. If you peg the throttle though it’s almost surreal; again there’s no real fuss, just the faintest hint of turbo lag, a flicker of the traction control light, and then it’s like someone smashing you in the teeth with a sledgehammer! It’s a weird feeling though, because with other cars like the CLK DTM for example, it’s loud and brash and you expect to be pinned in the seat and there’s a real sense of drama about it. With the S65 though it just punishes your organs in almost deathly silence! Why anybody would want to buy a Maybach after driving one of these things is unreal. It looks totally sinister; Full AMG kit, metallic black with 19” anthracite split rims and subtle “V12 Bi-Turbo” badges on the wings. Inside’s black nappa leather for the seats and dash, black suede headliner and black maple wood everywhere covered with piano laquer; gorgeous. To me that’s a proper car; massively powerful, refined, comfortable and sod the fuel economy ha ha! You could upset Impreza and Evo drivers all day long away from the traffic lights!

On the way home from work I got a call from Graham saying that he was off to Trader Vic’s if a fancied it . So once again it was a quick shower and change when I got in, and then I rounded up Louise and Sarah and we jumped in with Graham and off we went. There are quite a few Trader’s around the world, it’s a really nice cocktail bar and restaurant; this particular one happens to be in the grounds of the Ritz Carlton hotel so we had to stick our glad-rags on! When we arrived Morgan was already there as he went straight from work and we had another top-class night. Once the cocktails got flowing we sensed that we were perhaps in the wrong place for 4 corrupt Mansfieldites and 1 mad Geordie so we rounded out the night at the Warbler for a couple of swift ones. By the time the 4 of us got home we’d got only one thing on our minds; FOOD!! After devouring a mountain of assorted Pizza Hutt fare we ended up watching some bizarre subtitled Spanish film about Labyrinth’s and goat men or somet so I decided it was far too odd and went to bed!!

Right, I better get some work done now!………….

Water stunts, dead cow and good friends……….

It’s been a busy couple of days here and it’s been pretty tip-top to be honest. After finishing work yesterday Me, Morgan, Louise and Sarah (one of Louise’s mates who’s staying with us for a week) headed round to stuntman Graham’s apartment building for what is now becoming the regular weekly barbeque slot. Once again, in much the same fashion as last week, once we’d sank copious amounts of dead cow and cans of Tuborg, we turned our attention to the swimming pool! After a few run of the mil dive bombs we tried to up the stakes a tad and attempt a few more interesting moves whilst landing on the lilo. How I didn’t manage to break my neck pulling off a back-flip I’ll never know, but needless to say the Barbie lilo wasn’t up to the task of supporting 15 stones of Mansfield lout and promptly burst on landing……she did us proud though ha ha! Once we realised we’d pushed our luck probably as far as it’d go without a call for medical assistance we retired back around the barbeque with a few more cans and as usual spent what seemed like forever just chatting away about various random topics! It took it’s toll though, all the various flips, flops and rolls had rendered me red roar and I was still stinging when I got up for work this morning!!

Today at work was surprisingly good, but once again the cars played a heavy part in that! For some reason, we seem to have had all the playthings in the workshop this week and it’s been great. It’ll be along time before something tops the CLK DTM but today I managed to sample a 614bhp twin turbo V12 S65 AMG, a brand new 520bhp S63 AMG and an insane 5.5 V8 engined C55 AMG with a Kleeman aftermarket supercharger. Standard C55’s are enough of a handful, but this one’s pushing out over 500bhp was an absolute scream, especially exiting roundabouts! It’s amazing how fast days can fly by when there are motors like that on the scene!

With today being Thursday, that meant it was a 1pm finish so I went straight to the yacht club from work.  I decided to slip on the Elvis shades on the way there and some of the looks on the local’s faces was priceless! Once at the yacht club I met up with Morgan, Graham, Louise and Sarah once again and we headed out on to the open sea. To spice things up again today we borrowed a 2-person inflatable tube to tow behind the boat and it was hilarious! Louise and Sarah tested it out first and after a good 10 minutes of visual comedy watching them trying to get in it we were away, I’m sure the screams could be heard from down-town Manama ha ha! Thing was, we were only using around 60-70% of the throttle travel and it looked like more than fast enough to be swinging around on the back of a speedboat from! Graham and I soon came to realise that there was plenty faster to come as we jumped in and Morgan assumed the controls. Unfortunately this is akin to giving an axe murderer a shiney new hatchet to try as he only knows 2 speeds; off and fast! My arms are still a bit shakey now from gripping on for dear life and I can safely say that 50mph is plenty fast enough to be skimming the surface of the water at! Despite numerous attempts to shake us out we managed to stay on-board the whole time but we both took a real pounding from the wake and were relieved to have survived Morgan’s driving! It was a great time actually and I’ll gladly be doing it again soon! While everyone was getting the feeling back in their arms we chilled out with a few beers and some choice tunes until Graham posed the question “I wonder if I can stay on on my own??”. As you can imagine Morgan jumped at the opportunity to hurl someone around the ocean at break-neck speed again and with only the weight of one person in the tube it was all over the place! We eventually shut the engine off with Graham holding on by the tips of his fingers and he looked a broken man once he came to a halt ha ha! By now it was getting dark and we took a steady jaunt back to the yacht club and floated around a bit. While we were there we experienced one of the most amazing sights I’ve witnessed in a long time; feeding time for the King fish. King fish look sort of like Barracudas in that they’re long, sleek and fairly chunky. What they do when they’re hungry is get together and drive all the other surrounding fish towards shallow water and then whip around in circles to drive their prey to the top of the water where they snap them up. We saw a little bit of comotion going off so took a steady idle over to see what was happening and found ourselves smack in the middle of the circle! There were literally thousands of small fish all jumping up out of the water in unison as they were whipped in to the air by the King fish, it was an amazing sight.

Once I’ve finished typing this I’m going to get changed and head out in to town to meet the others and see what Thursday night has to offer, so on that note I shall depart!………………

Road Test!…….

It’s been a pretty quiet couple of days over here to be honest, I think I’m still recovering from England’s awesome sporting week! Yesterday stood out though for one good reason, we had quite an interesting motor in the workshop. Anyone that knows me will tell you I can be pretty anal when it comes to cars; I’ve been interested and involved in motors all my life and nothing cheers me up more than a tinker under the bonnet and a good blast out. Mercedes-Benz make some exceptional cars, but unfortunately we tended to see more of the more mundane offerings when I worked at M-B Mansfield, what with our location opposite the Bellamy Road estate not exactly being a metropolis of independantly wealthy international playboys splashing out on snazzy rides! Being in the Middle-East for the past 12 months had definitely changed that though, and it’s the cars I’ll miss the most about leaving this job. From SLR McLarens to 612bhp G-Wagens and AMG engined Maybachs, I’ve had the opportunity to drive some amazing machines but yesterday’s was by far and away my favourite…..a CLK DTM AMG. There are only 100 of these handbuilt machines in the world, and they were built by Mercedes-Benz AMG to celebrate the CLK’s success in the DTM (Germany’s touring car championship). The interior is almost completely stripped out save for a couple of made-to-measure bucket seats, and from the wheel arch extensions to the boot floor, door cards, dash board and bumpers, carbon fibre is everywhere. The suspension is lifted almost directly from the DTM race car and there’s a 5.4 litre supercharged V8 under the bonnet lifted from the SL55, only now tweaked to 582bhp. This example belongs to the Royal family and was in for a routine engine management software update, but unfortunately the mechanic doing the job managed to add the software for a 1.8 litre CLK 200 in to the control unit and almost knackered it up! Luckily at the minute we’ve got a guy in the workshop who’s from the factory in Stuttgart who’s here to help with any technical issues and he knew a couple of people at AMG HQ in Affalterbach who provided us with the neccesary code to sort it all out; what a relief that was! So after we got it sorted we needed to check it was all ok on the road, so I jumped in the driver’s seat and we headed out on to the road for a quick blast. It all seemed to be pretty cool as we were cruising down the highway weaving our way through everyone who prefered to look at the CLK rather than the road! As the traffic eased up a bit the technical guy just turned to me and said we need to check that the 230kph limiter had been removed ok (the limiter should cut in a 199mph when working properly!), so after a deep breath I tapped the left paddle a couple of times to change down and mashed the stinger; awesome! Unfortunately we ran out of clear road at around 278kph (somewhere around 175mph) and I had no choice but to anchor up, but what a feeling! I was waiting for someone to pull out in-front of me at any second and in the King’s son’s car that wasn’t a prospect I was looking forward to, but these opportunities don’t arive every day so I kept my foot firmly planted. 175mph is fast enough, but doing it with 2 lanes of traffic beside you is something else, a mental buzz! So after we’d established how well it went in a straight line I took it around a couple of roundabouts to see how it handled the twisties; I’ve never experienced a feeling like it inside a car! AMG supply instructions on how to setup the suspension and it’d been done perfectly, the steering was pinpoint precise and I’ve never known so much front end grip on any car I’ve ever driven, including the SLR 722 edition, it’s just mental. It physically started to hurt going around the bends owing the the lateral force this thing could generate and it never once felt like breaking traction…..until the following roundabout. As we approached the following island the tech guy suggested I try the same thing with the traction control off, and on one of these things off means off! We exited the roundabout completely broadside and smoked the rear tyres virtually the entire length of the dual carriageway, it was like something of Top Gear haha! Needless to say I was a very happy bunny when I got back to work, and very sad to see it leave!

It’s not all bad though, there’s a 614bhp twin turbo’d V12 SL65 to try tomorrow, happy days!!!………… 

Wow, how good are we at sport?!……

Just got back from the boozer after watching the Formula 1 finale and still can’t quite believe how Mr. Hamilton managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory so convincingly!! Fair do’s he had a car glitch, but he shouldn’t have been way back in 8th when it happened anyway! If he’d have just tucked in behond Alonso in 4th after he was passed, he could’ve got the position back on the next lap after the field had settled instead of the failed kamikaze pass around the outside!! Saying that though, I guess he wouldn’t have been a true English sportsman had he actually come through and delivered *sigh*.

So to round up our sporting year; we got smashed in the ashes and pretty much the majority of the other cricket tests bar a few, threw away a 1-0 lead against Russia to virtually throw away any chance of qualifying for the European football championships next year, got spanked at the rugby last night, and now managed to throw away an almost certain Formula 1 World championship victory! We can’t even rely on darts anymore because “Barney” is kicking our arses and last time I checked the boys from the Far East were mullering us at snooker too!!! Let’s not forget of course our athletes either, who despite being pilled up on horse steroids and speed still can’t win! Jesus, what happened to us? How as a nation have we become so predictable at throwing away opportunities to succeed in sport? Every time we show some promise at something we somehow manage to let it slip by. Don’t get me wrong, Lewis Hamilton has had an awesome season and 2nd in the points is not to be sniffed at, but let’s be right, whoever remembers 2nd place? At the end of the day he had a commanding 12pt lead 2 races ago and had it in the bag, only for McLaren (good old English team!) to mess up the strategy and leave him on tyres resembling potato sacks until he slid off the road! Then coming in to the last race where he only needed to finish in 5th place, the car screws itself and he makes a pointless mistake to throw it away.

We must be due a vintage year for sport next year because 2007 has been murder to be English…………..

We came, we saw, we con…err…went down like a wet fart!

Well, what a roller coaster day today has been!! I’ve just returned from the pub and must say I’m not impressed with how the rugby turned out! I thought the lads got off to a really decent start and even at 6-3 down I thought we still looked pretty strong. Towards half time though it was looking pretty dire, and how we didn’t concede a try I’ll never know! Fair play to the defence though, they performed admirably. During half time I exchanged a couple of texts with Sir Wigston of White and we both agreed that our only hope was to score an early try in the second half. Well, low and behold; about 5 minutes in and we nailed one!! Well, by everyone else’s reckoning anyway, but apparently the video replay said otherwise. Pfft, we got screwed over there, big time! I guess having a ref who’s half French and half pikey was never going to work in our favour though! After that, we never really looked like hitting the try we desperately needed. Oh well, only another 4 years to wait now ’til next time. To be fair, against all odds the lads have played great over the last few weeks and excelled themselves just getting to the final, but I was so hungry for the win! Let’s be honest, it’s not like we’re going to have the football to look forward to if Wednesday’s performance was anything to go by!!! Looks like the pride of English sport rests firmly on Mr. Hamiltons shoulders for tomorrow, although he looked awesome in qualifying against the low-fuelled Ferraris. Maybe all is not lost!!

This morning started off a bit rough to be honest; Saturdays are always a bind as it’s the first day of the week here, but it was particularly blue this morning when I jumped in the car to leave for work. I switched the radio on and pulled out of the car park just in time for the beginning of “All My Life” by K-Ci & Jo-Jo. In my last relationship this was “our song”, one that meant so much to us both and at one time completely typified what we had (or what I thought we had at least) and I’m man enough to admit I got a lump in my throat. I’ve been through breakups before, some clean, some messy, but never before have I had to stomach the words “I don’t love you anymore” and it took a long time to get past it. Hearing that song knocked me for six a bit and I instantly recalled the moment we both heard it together; why is it your mind can forget the simplest of things when you’re trying to remember something important, yet can instantly recall anything remotely painful or negative?! Damn you brain!!! Anyway, life goes on eh? Don’t get me wrong, I know deep down that I’m better off now and that there’s no way we’ll get back together (nobody gets the chance to hurt me twice! Ever!), it wasn’t a “I miss her” but more of a “wow, what went wrong there?” if you catch my drift?! Like I said before though in my first post; “let’s just wipe our mouths and move on eh?”……exactly, I’m sure there’ll be the right person in my life someday.

Work was its usual self; disorganised, hectic and full of alarmingly stupid questions, actions and staff ha ha!! One moment did stand out though in particular that took me by surprise a tad. Rumours were obviously rife within the workshop about me turning down a new contract and one of the guys asked me if it was true, so I told him the score. Straight away he just shook my hand and told me that it broke his heart to know I was leaving soon, apparently the lads in the workshop like me because I take their thoughts and opinions on board and talk to them properly, instead of just barking out orders and ruling with an iron fist. It meant a lot to be honest as this has been my first sort of managerial role and it’s nice to know I got something right along the way.

After work I went straight to the barbers to get my head buzzed down to the bark again. Obviously, as my ex was a hairdresser it had been a while since anyone else had cut my hair and up until July I’d never been in a place out here at all. Luckily there’s a barbers just around the corner from the apartment but the experience still freaks me out a tad! After having a serious personal space invasion by the most effeminate  looking Thai bloke I’ve ever had the displeasure to become acquainted with, you’re directed to the chair. The first bit is the usual guff; adjust the chair and slap a robe type thing on, but then they get some stretchy tape like stuff and wrap it really tightly around your neck before folding it down over the gown. It’s great for keeping hairs out but to be honest I enjoy breathing far too much for it to be comfortable! The hair cut itself is pretty straightforward but then when he’s finished you get shoved forward for a head and neck massage, very un-nerving!! Then comes the classic….”shampoo sir?”. Erm…you’ve just given me a number one all over, what exactly is it you’re going to shampoo?? “Oooh, yes sir of course, silly me”. Silly you indeed, idiot! The most unsettling part of the whole experience is leaving the salon and being greeted by the guy who’s been washing cars outside; “body massage sir?”. Errm…….I’ll give it a miss ta, now clear off!!! They’re all the same though, so I just have to go back and try and get it over and done with asap everytime ha ha!

After I returned from my haircut ordeal I had a couple of mods to do to our sponsorship portfolio before forwarding it on the the team gaffer (Dad) for approval. We hadn’t really pushed our achievements from this season so I added a new page blowing our collective trumpets a bit more! Fingers crossed it does the trick! During this I was keeping an eye on the Stags result was pleasantly surprised to see us stick 2 past Notts County in quick succession…..result!!! With Wrexham losing to Barnet too, and Lincoln only managing a draw, we’ve clawed back some vital points in our battle for safety. I hope it’s the start of a decent streak for us because we’re really overdue one!!! Time will tell eh?!

After that I got sorted and headed off to the pub. Seeing as I’ve already covered that bit I shall bid farewell to today and retire to my pit ’cause I’m shattered now!

Rock Bottom………

Now all the Ramadan stuff is over and done with the working week has returned to normal (as normal as it gets anyway!), and that meant half day yesterday. I was so pleased to see 1pm come as well, as work was a mad house; why is it people choose the last day of the week to bring their problems to me?! They always demand their cars back the same day too, which on a Thursday is just never going to happen, especially as ranting and raving just makes me want to push the job through slower!

Anyway, with Thursday being the “going out night” over here, me and a few others headed off in to town. Our establishment of choice this week was Rock Bottom, a pretty apt name considering the place but it was all you can drink for 9BD night (about 12 notes) so we went regardless! It’s quite amusing actually, as the mainstay of the clientel consists of the US Navy lads and you see some very interesting sights. I’m always amazed how Americans can never seem to buy clothes that actually fit properly, it’s like walking in to a room full of 5 year olds or something; oversized t-shirts and baggy jeans with their arses hanging out. I guess I must not be “street” enough, but they just look amusing, and lets not forget the delicately perched baseball cap too, how they stay on their heads is a mystery to me, but one or two did get swatted off during the evening *snigger*. After listening to the A-Z of hip-hop for a few hours and watching what can only be described as auditions for the next Busta Rhymes video or something (they throw some very interesting shapes around on the dancefloor!) we decided we’d heard enough and needed to bring some class to proceedings. I made a quick request to the band that were playing and we managed to battle our way to the front of the stage in time for their rendition of Wonderwall! Graham, Lee and I even managed to ponce a mic from one of the band too to add our own set of vocals! I don’t think any Oasis track has been so suitably murdered in a very long time haha!

Once it got to about 1am the place started emptying as it was getting past the Navy boys’ bedtime, and the few that did have a letter off their parents and were allowed to keep playing out began to disappear with a few of the Thai ladies that were “on duty” in the place….classy! Lee, Morgan, Lou and Graham headed off to the Warbler but I didn’t fancy it to be honest. The Warbler is the local and our place of choice for watching the match and meeting up for a cheeky pint or three during the week, but the problem is it’s like everywhere else in Bahrain; it’s a sausage-fest. Trust me, there’s nothing worse than being single on a night out and going places where there are no women (exluding our Thai friends of course, but there’s more chance of me plaiting piss than going anywhere near those clap-ridden swamp donkeys!), and that’s one of the main problems with this place! Of course there were a handful of girls of the fried chicked eating variety at Rock Bottom, but after speaking to a few in the past it doesn’t exactly make for rivetting conversation if you catch my drift, and they’re not exactly shy when it comes to swapping spit with their fellow countrymen so on the whole they’re to be avoided too, at least without having a series of jabs first! So as the others headed off I took a stroll home, it’s still surreal to me though that at 1am it’s still 30 degrees, I don’t think it’s something you really get used too after being in England! I quite enjoy a good walk though as strange as it seems, it can be a pretty cool place when you take the time out to have a good mooch around, and I suppose it’s getting towards the time now where I should be making the most of it now, before I know it I’ll be freezing to death with nipples like Scammel wheel-nuts in Mansfield again!…………..

Anyone for tennis?…..mixed doubles……?

Yesterday was a tad quiet to be honest, although I must admit I was a bit of a lazy git and spent most of the morning in my pit! I had a bit of a scout around the net for a bit (I’m still eyeing up motors for when I come home) and had a bit of a natter on MSN with a couple of mates. Once I’d finished that I nipped to the boozer fora couple of cheeky ones but there wasn’t much doing so I came home again. As I sat there munching away on a large slab of Pizza Hutt’s finest I thought “I know what I haven’t seen for a bit…Max & Paddy”. No matter what mood I’m in, those two northern monkeys make me crease every time and before I knew it I’d watched the lot start to finish. For anyone who’s a fan, this is obviously the reason behind the title, so anyone that was expecting to read tales of me mincin’ around on centre court or something will be sadly disappointed haha!

So to today, first day back at work…nightmare. I’d had 4 days off recently to celebrate the end of Ramadan and it was bliss! I won’t say I hate my job, but I’m pretty bored of it now to be honest, I’ve had my fix of it and I’m ready to move on. It’s pretty hard to apply myself fully as well when I know I’m leaving soon. Anyway, it was pretty quiet but somehow I managed to be stupidly busy all day, which did my swede in a bit more to be honest! We had a visit from a technical guy from the factory in Germany too, but seeing as in depth work was a bit slack today I ended up having to try and entertain him for the most part of the day too. It’s nice that Daimler-Benz in the fatherland are showing a bit of willing now in helping us out, but it’d be nice for a bit of warning!

After a busy day there’s nothing better than unwinding with a good ol’ bbq, and tonight’s effort was spot-on. It was a bit sad in some ways though at the same time, as tonight was one of the occasions I am going to miss a lot. My mate Graham had got his parents over for a while which is what the barbie was in aid of, so Morgan, Louise and I headed to the roof of his building armed with plenty of dead animals and a good ol’ bag of booze and it was great. We just sat chilling around the pool chomping on burgers and having random chats and there was no escaping the fact that I wouldn’t be able to be doing this at home in mid-October; thermal underpants and a balaclava just isn’t a good look!! 9:00pm came and Graham’s parents disappeared into a taxi back to their hotel. What followed can only be described as Tuborg-induced, out-of-our-depth pool stunts! Armed with an inflatable square and a Barbie lilo (seriously!) we took it in turns to perform a series of highly dangerous flips and rolls in to the pool. More often than not it was only when we were skimming the side or bouncing off the bottom of the shallow end did we even nearly consider how close to casualty we were. Still, it was a good laugh all the same and one of the many fond memories of this quaint little island I’ll keep with me for a long time……….

Say it isn’t so……….

Anyone that has known me for anymore than about ooh 5 seconds will know that my main passion in life is drag racing, more specifically the family owned race car. I was kind of born in to the sport and spent much of my growing up at one drag strip or another, so consequently it’s in my blood, I’ve met some great people and experienced some of the best times of my life at the track. 

So, the Camaro. Some people don’t understand the bond that some people can posses between themselves and a material object, but trust me…it’s possible!! I was 11 years old when she arrived in to the family, and I was soon under the back scraping off the previous owner’s 10 year old rubber and it kind of spiralled from there I suppose! Unfortunately competitive drag racing at our level takes vast amounts of time, money and effort, and without it dominating much of your life you just couldn’t bring yourself to do it, it has to be a passion rather than a simple hobby. A good example was readying the car for the 2006 season; We’d made major changes over the winter to stay competitive and decided to repaint the car too so there was a ton of work to be done. As ever, funds weren’t in place until quite late in the day so we had a small time-frame to get everything done so we could make the first event. We were due to leave the track on Friday morning to give us time to get set up ready for qualifying on Saturday and the car was pretty much together apart from one vital piece….the engine. This was the preceeding Wednesday and my Dad went to fetch the newly built bullet ready for us to install. We’ve done this loads of times and can pretty much bolt the engine in place in a night so we weren’t overly worried. So after an epic journey in a less than pacey van we cracked on and started prepping everything ready for the drop-in. One slight hic-up occured though….it didn’t fit!! We’d had a new external oil pump fitted and it fouled the steering rack, which couldn’t be moved because it sat against the radiator mounts, oh dear. This was at 1:40am on the Thursday morning. We thought about giving up but some words of encouragement from my Mum and we set about it at 5:30am again. A call was made to our engine builder Clive (who also happens to be a great TIG welder) and he hired a welder, jumped in his car and was on his way while me and Dad figured what we were going to do! When Clive arrived we realised there was only one thing for it, so we jacked the car up, cut a large portion of the chassis away at the front and started again! We got a new bracket for the oil pump mocked up and sent it to be CNC milled asap while we remade the mounts for the radiator and steering rack, adjusted the steering column, remounted the fuel system and bolted everything back-up. By midnight on Wednesday the engine was ready to drop in, so we bolted it in and went for a couple of hours sleep. First thing Thursday we were back and mounting all the auxillaries, but moving everything around meant we needed more bolts that just happened to be sizes and threads that nobody local carried. So Dad shot off in a van while I bolted up the clutch, bellhousing, transmission and propshaft. I’d just finished assembling the interior when Dad returned and we finally got everything wrapped up that evening. So the car was finished, and now we had a day’s work infront of us to prepare the truck and trailer!!!! Another extremely late night on Friday and we were all set to go after getting everything finished, and the following morning we were up at the crack of dawn to get the car loaded (we were literally too tired to even attempt it the night before!) and headed off to the track on the day of qualifying. We arrived, unloaded the car and got her scrutineered, set the awning up, set up the engine, clutch and suspension tune-ups and were all set with a few seconds to spare. With the first run rapidly approaching we remembered that we hadn’t actually fired the engine yet, but luckily she lit up a treat. We rushed down to the startline and unloaded a 7.94 @ 176mph with a completely untested setup…..then it rained for the rest of the weekend! We figured we’d had around 4-5 hours sleep in the last 3 days and were completely exhausted, but it was worth it. That’s the kind of experience that makes you realise just how much you love doing something! 

Despite wrapping up our first championship last season which was an absolute dream, all is not well in the land of Rat Fink at the moment. Chasing a championship takes a lot of commitment and unfortunately cash, and grabbing that number 1 plate has taken it’s toll on the financial situation. For 2008 we need a new chassis to be remain competitive and to try and retain our number 1 status, but at present that’s highly unlikely to happen. The Camaro is for sale but without additional funding there won’t be enough cash to fund a new project so in a recent email my Dad told me it’s looking like retirement is the only option. We could freshen up the Camaro for another assault, but she’s tired now and needs a new car to take the reigns. We simply can’t be competitive for another season with the same car, and there’s no sense in doing something without being competitive at it. So that’s the reality, if we don’t secure a sponsor by Christmas we’re finshed; truck, trailer, car, equipment….everything. Sponsorship propsals are being circulated at the moment but there are no firm leads at the minute so this really could be it……I’ll do everything I can to keep us going though……I live for this.