Theft

Two blogs in a very short space of time. I hope the few people who are reading this don’t have heart attacks. That morning I wrote the previous one, I was having other thoughts that I just thought I would like to share.

The topic is theft. We will leave aside for the sake of simplicity the theft conducted by organised bodies, legal or illegal, and focus more on random acts of petty theft (although much well thought out ‘white collar’ theft is indeed petty). Since C90 Dreams was a gurgling baby of an idea the three of us have collectively suffered roughly 4 or 5 attempted thefts (the simple attempt to cut locks with bolt cutters or hacksaws), 1 theft and recovery (Bon’s Maurice ended up in a graveyard with bits missing last year), 1 actual theft (Jamie’s first C90 stolen from outside our place of work) and most recently 1 brutal torching.

The most tangible impact of this is that 2 C90’s have been permanently lost. Jamie’s stolen one was never to be seen again, anyone that reads the Oxford Mail or Oxford Star may already know this. It was front page news on one of them (I forget which). Bon’s faithful Maurice however, was burnt to cinders the night we got back from our trip to the New Forest (September 2009).

The implications of Jamie’s lost one were fairly minimal apart from in monetary terms. It was a week before we were due to set off for Greece but Jamie admirably took the bull by the horns and bought another one by scouring ebay the day after the theft. In the end no disruption was caused other than to Jamie's bank account. Maurice being burned to bits however, is a pretty significant event. That bike hadn’t been taxed since the 80’s when Bon acquired it in the Spring of 2008. He restored it to MOT standard and rode the fucker all the way to Greece and back at 40mph since it wouldn’t go any faster. When we got back he continued to work on the bike on and off for a year (never going more than 40mph, sorry Bon). Then, for absolutely no apparent reason that night after the New Forest, while we were all still on massive natural highs the bike was placed in the centre of the road and set on fire. He now has no bike. It wasn’t just a bike but an embodiment of the original idea, a signifier for everything that C90 Dreams has been about. All those who go inter-railing on gap years or around the world on planes rarely have that vehicle to shower love and meaning upon whenever one feels like it. It is a true shame, and it is massively massively shit.

The battle rages on. I went to pick my C90 up from Jamie’s a couple of weeks ago to take for a service and low and behold, the lock and chain was half severed by some bolt cutters, another failed attempt that next time could be a ‘success’. C90’s appear to be massively desirable trophies to fucking oiks who long to ride them around a field and set them on fire. It makes my blood boil. People leave their keys in the ignition in Greece and don’t fear this kind of treatment.

Get the fuck off my C90, get the fuck off Jamie’s C90 and when he has another one, get the fuck off Bon’s C90. Why do these little pricks want them so much? Do they know what they mean to this whole thing? Of course not. They don’t know anything because their brains are made of chips.

Bon with Maurice & my Red C90 having happier times at the foot of the Acropolis:

RIP Maurice

Ends in themselves

I have spent a reasonable amount of time lying in bed this morning doing a bit of musing on stuff and generally feeling a bit sorry for myself. This situation can sometimes call for an ipod exploration. Is there anything I can listen to that will sooth my aching bones? What I ended up with was a test video of one of the days just getting into the alps during our trip. I began to feel that sensation that I often get when my mental energy is truly focused on the trip. Now, I’m fully aware of the amount of time I’ve spent going on and on about the significance of the trip to me, but the feeling I had was immediate and very powerful. I proceeded to watch a little trailer I made around a year ago. I don’t mind admitting to whoever is reading this that I was welling up at this point. It may seem a little pathetic but really thinking about that stuff sends me somewhere else, somewhere where I truly value things for what they are.

Treating people as a means to an end happens all the time in ‘real life’. Our jobs depend on those kinds of relationships to allow us to flourish both emotionally and financially. Much of the philosophy of ethics makes an attempt to teach us the exact opposite, which is admirable of course but ultimately impossible much of the time. Using people is something that has just become part of our daily lives.

That ‘exercise in the ridiculous’ that occurred last summer however, was a shining beacon of an example for treating people simply as ends in themselves. During that trip I really did feel that much closer to friends and strangers alike. It honestly felt as though nothing was a given, everything was a bonus and that made me very happy. Our inane chit chat, petty arguments and acceptance of the fact that what we were doing was essentially meaningless brought us closer together and formed a kind of relationship where it felt as though nothing could go wrong. As a result, nothing did. I do hope that my fellow road dogs had a similar experience.

The general public played a huge part in my experience too. A freebie bolt fitting from a kindly frenchman in a motorbike garage, a community of four households in rural Italy on a Sunday afternoon asking around for the correct fuse for a bike almost 30 years old or a simple toot of the horn from a Greek guy warning us that the corner we’re about to hit is full of pot holes. Not to mention the woops and hollers of every nationality, race and gender in support of these three idiotic brits on pizza bikes. These things make me insanely happy. If nothing more significant happens in my life I may start to regale this blog with these stories, because they make me love things.

What a stupid and life affirming thing.

The weekend is almost upon us

This weekend...

The time is nearer...the weekend is almost upon us...MOT’s can wait and just because we haven’t had an outing together beyond 1 or 2 miles since last October it doesn’t mean we can’t make it a few miles more to the south coast (or there abouts) of our country with a tent and pair of pants attached. Eating as cheap as poss, drinking booze to numb the pain, talking in sleep and most importantly the sort of camaraderie that only happens once in a while. Personally I can’t wait. 

The weather could well be a bit bleak and the task at hand is strangely a little daunting considering the success of such a much more mammoth journey in 2008. Obviously the other thing is that we’ve no idea where we are going to go yet. I think probably the best idea is to get a few beers in Friday night and get a map out. Its not like we haven’t done it before.

For 3 days at least....Street Hawk, Teen Wolf and The Guy From The Sweeny shall be free again.

For C90!!!!

The Wrath Of Poseidon C90 Dreams

The Wrath Of Poseidon.

General ramblings

Its a beautiful summers day and I am on the Oxford Tube heading to see my brother in Brixton. This should be a great thing really, but it has only just dawned on me that it would be the most perfect day possible to ride C90, and I am in a constant state of regret right now, just wishing I had taken this opportunity to cruise my way there. I know I had a bad experience last time but it really shouldn’t put me off having another lone trip to the capital and I feel a bit of a loser, a bit ashamed. What would my C90 think? He’s probably not going to be speaking to me when I get back since it was such a perfect chance to stretch his legs, he is a hardcore tourer after all and must be ridden great distances and for as long as possible.

I can only hope that Bon, Jamie and I finally get round to doing this reunion trip that we’ve been talking about. I think we are planning a little weekend away to the coast very soon. It will be an honour to ride with my C90 brethren again and I do long for it.

Editing the movie is going pretty well. It has taken a long time to get used to editing with Final Cut and the best techniques to using it but I am becoming more adept at it daily and have tried to let it consume me. The results so far however, are a little worrying. The entire production now weighs in at a mammoth 4 or 5 hours, and there must be some severe culling of boring clips involving riding, eating lunch or winging. We will probably keep a ‘directors cut’ for ourselves just so that we have a record of our adventure and can still relive the moments that we find hilarious even though nobody else would get it. Saying that, we are humans, and humans have a lot of things in common with each other even if they pretend not to. I suppose people might like listening to Jamie moan about how chocolate in France isn’t chocolate its always Nutella, or watch Bon fiddle with the arrangement of his bags, or witness my birds nest hairdo mumble incoherently from exhaustion atop a ferry.

Bring on the Cannes Film Festival!!!

New Honda Super Cub

Apparently a NEW Super Cub is being released in Japan in 2010!!!!

Problem is I seriously doubt we’ll see it over here which is a huge shame, would be so brilliant to see loads of them combating all the chav-tastic machines making so much noise about the place. Check it out anyway, its a beaut! Personally I really like it as it takes a lot of the old styling and modernises it a bit. I really do hope that we’ll see some over here at some point but as I say...I’m not holding my breath.

Knackered musings on Enlightened dreaming....

I find myself sitting alone in my living room on a Friday night having just drank 2 cans of lager in about 10 minutes, not cool you may say...but I’ve gotten to thinking a bit and anyone who has ever read these blogs (or spoken to me, ever) probably knows what that means. I thought I might put that fact to good use and get finger tips to keys in an outburst of meandering ‘think bits’ just to try and make life a little more coherent, for myself if nobody else.

Anyway. While eating my din dins and necking those beers I sit in silence with a book by A.C Grayling about the history of the Enlightenment. I’m not pretentious, trying to be clever (I’m not) or a pompous twurp, I just found it in a charity shop in Notting Hill. I inevitably relate this evenings readings to myself, I am human after all and humans do this an awful lot.

(Please bear with me, this will eventually relate to C90’s, sort of)

I’ve not finished the book but so far Grayling has mostly been giving an historical account of the oppression of ideas, science, creativity and human flourishing exercised by absolute monarchy and its relationship with organised religion, mostly Christianity: “For religious orthodoxy attempts, in the interests of holy truth, to constrain not just enquiry and expression but thought itself”. As he approaches the time of the enlightenment however, he begins to speak about an exciting time of the movement towards the freedom that many of us in ‘the west’ currently enjoy (or take for granted). My mind is humming with the excitement that must have been felt by the intellectuals engaged in this project and I try to realise just how fortunate I am to be in the position I am. I will be in no way dubbed a heretic, burned at the stake or both for disagreeing with the values of a monarch or poxy government, in fact I can barely remember who the pissing monarch is. My degree of freedom is unprecedented, more than I could possibly hope to understand so be thankful for that friends, not for the ready meal with the 20p yellow sticker on it or a free pint.

The book features a quote from Immanuel Kant’s 1784 essay ‘What is Enlightenment?’:

“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Saper Aude! [dare to know] - “Have courage to use your own understanding!” - that is the motto of enlightenment.”

Powerful stuff I think, and it begins to smack of C90 dreams (to me anyway). To understand the simple possibility of an act or event is understanding none the less. So here’s to the knowledge that any distance across land is possible to travel, regardless of the means. Here’s to the knowledge that you can drop what you are doing and it will either be ‘ok’ or it wont. Here’s to the knowledge that only you can do stuff, others can’t do it for you. Most of all: ‘HERE’S TO CREATIVE AND INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM!!!!!!!’

I raise what has now turned into a mug of tea to you my friends (getting drunk alone usually turns sour), because regardless of my 10 hour crappy day at work (it was crappy) I am now free to be creative, enjoy or make music and art, discover new science, make movies about C90’s or piss about in any way I like. Without the enlightenment, I would probably have no C90, and definitely no dreams.

C90 Dreams lives on! New blogs coming up....

So,

I have decided to begin writing again. Let the creativity flow and the stupidity engulf my soul! These blogs may occur every now and again from now on in an attempt to continue the marvelous thing that was/is C90 Dreams. It is almost a year now since the three of us handed in our notice at work and committed to something that I personally am still unable to define. The inspiration to start writing again was a conversation with Jamie over some med style dinner and a few glasses of vino. We discussed what it is to be a man. Big stuff I know, massive massive philosophy involved and in the most structured and coherent way possible. Well, perhaps not. Jamie did explicitly state however: “C90 Dreams is the best thing I have ever done”. Why was a pointless and so finite an exercise such a seminal moment in his life? So my first blog of 2009 will be what I think he might be on about.

First of all I must say that I don’t mean to over-egg C90 Dreams. It wasn’t profound and it didn’t change the world. There are still totalitarian regimes and there is still plenty of suffering whether human, animal or Earth itself. It did however, do something for those involved, it did make us feel different. The world is now smaller, more malleable and we are even less afraid to be silly. In fact I now question whether its being silly that allows one to cast aside one’s existential concerns or questions. Maybe it really is just that all we can do in this life is be a bit stupid and in well measured doses hoping not to cause anyone pain or suffering. Being silly doesn’t necessarily have to mean immature either. You can be silly and have as many adventures as you like in this life, its just that as we grow up we cease to call them adventures and begin calling them ‘challenges’. Why is having your first child a challenge or burden? Why isn’t it an adventure? Being silly with a child is exactly what you have to do in order to communicate with them after all. Of course this comes from a man who has no children on the horizon in any way, but the theory is there!!

It seems on this trip we really struck a healthy balance of those sort of higher pleasures difficult to obtain such as riding unfit bikes 2000 miles (and 2000 miles back if you’re me or Bon) and baser, more convenient and instant pleasures such as French patisserie treats and coffee for breakfast. I wont forget the somewhere in-between pleasures of pure observation: the great fields of gold, the alps, the ocean and the road.

Riding C90’s every day proved to be arse aching and absolutely shattering, but never unrewarding. It was something which I don’t think any of us necessarily thought we would actually do, a mere pipe dream thought up because we were all a bit bored. We did it though, and the funny thing was it wasn’t even that difficult. It was just a case of shifting our consciousness into a different realm.

George Orwell said that poverty annihilates the future...well C90’s annihilate almost everything outside of one’s current sphere of consciousness. Most days they focused our minds to simpler things: the road, beauty, hunger, thirst or simply the disbelief that we were actually in France or Switzerland or Italy or Greece on C90’s. There was I suppose a good few nights of putting the world to rights with some tins as well though, can’t forget those.

So maybe what Jamie was drunkenly trying to say the other night was just that it was an experience like no other, simple as that. As long as we don’t let the finiteness of life depreciate such an experience, then I am sure it is something we will always hold very, very dearly to us.

Liam