InvictaMoto's On The Road Again!

The Motorcycle Action Group (MAG) strongly urges Transport for London (TfL) to drop its victimisation of the poorest in society to no public or environmental benefit, and has called on TfL to demonstrate 'a degree of moderation and common sense.' MAG submitted a further response to TfL on the long-running threatened user charges for riders of older motorbikes. Machines built before around 2007 face a massive £12.50 per day charge in the capital. MAG's Director of Communications & Public Affairs, Lembit Öpik, has appealed to TfL 'to show a degree of common sense here. The category of riders using older machines is small, and they largely do so because they can't afford newer bikes. It's hugely socially unjust to hike up the cost of their commute by over 1,000% while drivers in cars like a new Rolls Royce pay nothing – even though these obviously generate more emissions than a 20-year-old 50cc four-stroke moped. We've made our points ...

Although he's seen snow before he kept wanting to go out in it and mess about. Mostly running about with his bone in his mouth and growling. Other Pictures:

Apparently some of the more eagle eyed among you out there has noticed the small pen-pic picture over to the right of the ramblings on this page. Yes. That is ME. Comments to this page and indeed all my blogs and shared blogs are for review and don't get posted if I don't like them.   This enables me to weed out the trolls and other fucking nutters that post some pretty nasty comments, usually nothing to do with the content of the article, but there you go. The picture was taken on a trip I did in 2016 to Germany and the Czech Republic for the MotoGP. It was taken in Nuremberg. It was taken of me on a balcony overlooking the Zeppelin Field.   Google it. Here is the easy to read part using simple English: I am not a supporter of an extreme right wing political party formerly associated with the second, third and fourth decades of the 20th century in Germany. I was simply a tourist visiting what is now a tourist site.  I was ther...

So off we went to Wembley to see Arsenal play Manchester City in the final of this cup competition.  This is a home trophy that Wenger hasn't won in the 20+ years he has been the manager despite getting to this stage on a few occasions.  ​ And he still hasn't. Pitiful might be a decent word to describe the quality of play from the Gunners.   Manchester City are one of the nouveau-riche clubs with a long history but always in the shadow of their bigger and more illustrious neighbours Manchester United. Although they have won things in the past they sunk a few levels down in the English football pyramid and then came back to the top league. With the help of the Arab oil barons that bought the club and the millions spent on players and being gifted the state funded City of Manchester stadium that was built for the Commonwealth Games for less than half the conversion from athletics venue to football stadium, they have started to...

Friday 23rd February This weekend's outings started with a Friday drive with Reggie to Bodiam Castle . The castle is a ruin built in the 14th Century and set in some grounds that are dog friendly.  It's a nice walk and for us humans it has a gravelled path to walk on. It was about 3°C when we arrived. First stop was to check in and sort out parking.   As NT members we get free parking and the new machines can read the QR code on membership cards. Then it was coffee time. Once we had warned up we took a stroll around the site. The castle is on an island although I expect the moat was dug later. We had intended to go across the road to the pub for lunch but we weren't all that hungry.  Instead we tried to get a signal to access doggiepubs.com to see if the pub at Rye Harbour was dog-friendly.  It's not on there. Instead I set the sat-nav for Rye on the coast and we would look for a pub called the Ship Inn. ...

The bane of the blogger's life?  Looking at old posts to get some information and you click on the link and get the dreaded 404 message appears!  Aaarrgghh! It happens to me when I went to  http://invictamoto.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/easter-saturday-family-war-grave-trail.html to pick up the URL's on two of our relatives that are buried in France in WW1. I ended up having to go to the CWGC website and re-entering all the details to get the new and correct links. Grrrr. I updated the original posting with an "Update" at the so as not to spoil the original alliteration. Job done.

The Motorcycle Action Group (MAG) is challenging the Mayor of London with three clear questions regarding 'extraordinary and discriminatory claims about motorcycling in London.' MAG has challenged London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, to justify 'some of the biggest transport contradictions in London's history' – following what they feel is a 'discriminatory' plan to charge motorcyclists for using the eco-friendly option of powered two wheelers (PTWs). London's Regional Rep, Tim Fawthrop, called Khan's comments about motorcycles in a letter to Conservative MP (now Minister) Kelly Tolhurst 'extraordinary and discriminatory.'  Tim says 'in his reply to Ms Tolhurst, Mayor Khan states that charging users of older bikes £12.50 a day will – and I'm quoting his words directly here – deter the use of older vehicles, including those with highly polluting two-stroke engines.  Doesn't he realise that these bikes often do more than 120 miles p...

"There'll be bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover" or so the wartime song that was sung by forces sweetheart Vera Lynn goes. But is it true **? Anyway. This weekend we had dog walks by two different faces of these cliffs Saturday afternoon Our intended destination was the National Trust's White Cliffs Visitor Centre and then a walk along towards the South Foreland Lighthouse.  But, as we approached the parking we found it closed.  There was a "police incident". On the road past the entrance towards the  village of St Margaret's we encountered lots of police and coastguard vehicles. Towards the cliffs we could see loads of hi-viz clad bodies. Bypassing them we ended up at St Margaret's Bay. It's a narrow winding road down the cliff to sea level. It was packed. Maybe with the NT closed this was the result? We managed to get a parking place and got Reggie out. The walk wouldn't be too long as the bay i...

Yep today. A milder weekend than of late with minus temperatures overnight being burned off by the early sun. One again Pepé needed to be boosted by dbpower unit! I chose a more roundabout way to the meet as I wanted to avoid the smaller country lanes that may still be slippy and debris strewn after many days of rain and the occasional snow storm. Breakfasts and chat were good as usual. Only four of us as others working or at the London Bike Show. Then time to ride back home. This time on the back roads.  Most of them dried up a bit but a lot in the shade still a bit slippery and the potholes! Big enough to take out a tyre. Luckily didn't hit one. So another forty miles completed. Today, I wore my old Belstaff Hypora gloves. Still waterproof and warm in low temperatures.  No frost bitten fingers today.

The weather has been quite wintery of late. That's to be expected as we are more than a fortnight into February. So after an afternoon walking the dog down by the sea in bright sunshine I booted the bike. It needed the dbpower unit to get it started. I togged up and set off. Just a 25 mile run along the coast towards the sun thst seemed to set a bit too quickly and then it was freezing. Body okay buy my fingertips were frozen.  Nice to get out though.  Tomorrow is Meldrews' Sunday.

I expect this will be a surprise; a write-up about a vacuum cleaner. "Get a Dyson" they said. So we did. After a succession of cheaper models including the de-rigeur cleaning company Henry,  we needed a new one. The Hoover it replaced decided not to work, no suck, and so I began to search Google for reviews. Hell.  Google seems to pay less tax than a 90 year old pensioner but their search engine, skewed as it is, does work. So we ended up with the Smallball.  It does the job and is far superior in design to the Hoover. Sucks well and it manoeuvrable it most situations.  Not as good on stairs but I manage. So is it worth £180? Yes. It does the job and I guess that's what you want from it.

This trip has been on the back burner for a while and I waited until I had something concrete to write about. November 11th 2018 is the centenary of the formal ending of the First World War and there has been very little written about what commemorations there will be. I saw a note on one of the battlefield travel tour operators for a trip to the Somme that included either a visit to Thiepval or to the Australian monument at Villers Brettoneux. I checked with the British Legion and they didn't seem to know anything about organised event at Thiepval at this time. I took a punt and checked out the Aussie sites and found that they were taking applications for ticket and so I filled in the forms for Claire and myself.  At the moment it looks like we have been successful and accepted.. So need to wait a while before booking anything... Oh. I forgot. I have booked the hotel we always stay in at Amiens....

And it is.  Tonight at the Leas Cliff hall we see the Illegal Eagles take to the stage. Another tribute act that sound like the original but make no attempt to be lookalikes. And all the better for it. Superb as usual. 

The Motorcycle Action Group (MAG), the UK's leading voice for riders, has organised rides in memory of Fred Hill to take place this weekend. Fred Hill was born in 1909 and was a motorcycle dispatch rider during WWII.  In later years he campaigned for a repeal of the helmet law and became famous for riding his motorcycle in a beret.  Numerous arrests followed, with Hill being sentenced to over 30 prison terms between 1976 and 1984.  He died on 10th February, 1984, whilst serving a two-month sentence in Pentonville prison, having suffered a heart attack, aged 74. He attended many MAG demos, at which he often spoke.  As a token of respect to this remarkable man, MAG continues to this day to remember Fred by organising Freedom Rides each year in his name. ( http://www.visordown.com/features/fred-hill-man-of-unshakable-principle  - Written by MAG UK Super Bloke - Ian Mutch) There will be a number of Fred Hill Freedom Rides taking place this weekend a...

I took this photo about 8 years ago. I saw it very often around the area and it was parked up not far from home down by the Royal Military Canal. I uploaded to a few Flickr groups and amazingly it has over 10000 views. Who would have thought it? https://flic.kr/p/83fgMm

Another night of fantastic music at the Leas Cliff Hall. Slim Jim Phantom and his band kicking off the night. Rockabilly from the former (or is that current?) Stray Cats. Really good. Slim Jim (right) and band And then. The main event. The Damned. Playing hits from their 40 years on the road  plus selections off the new album  called "Evil Spirits" - out on April 13th.  I have pre-ordered it on Amazon. Unfortunately, my phone was running low on battery power and it decided that to actually focus on the stage closer up than the pic above was a no-no!

Living in the South-East of England we don't get snow very often and when we do it usually stays for a few hours and then melts away and that's it. A couple of years ago we had about six inches and the nation was paralysed!  " They run trains in Canada " was the cry from people, forgetting that Canada gets snow and loads of it every year and so they are expecting it and not like us, a freak occurrence. So today when I got up and saw that the car roofs and windscreens were covered in a few centimetres I was expecting the worst.  There wasn't even enough to stop the wipers from working. I did take a picture for posterity. Hardly worth the effort!! On my fifteen minute drive to the station I pulled over to take a picture of the sun peeping from under a cloud bank just after it broke over the horizon.  Before I could restart, the snow started. Not the fluffy flaky stuff of the movies but strangely coarse granular bits about 3mm diameter.  It c...

Currently a little quiet on this trip. We have to pay the balance on the trip in March but apart from that we have not much to add. There was a newspaper article about cruise companies becoming a little stricter on what people are wearing on the ships during the day. With mass cruising there seems to have been a downturn in the standard of dress with people wearing football shirts and gaudy leisurewear. Maybe they shouldn't be letting stag and hen parties on in the first place, as one of the stricter rules is no messages and group wear..... On the only previous full cruise we have been on with Saga, there was a dress code and it is not hard to adhere too. But there have been loads of over reaction from people vowing never to go with NNNN Cruise again. P&O are one of the NNNN companies and have said that they will enforce a certain level of dressing on the ship.  I am all for that. Cue comments? And that's about it. https://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/news/news.cfm?ID=8202

Another of my brother Neill's travel blogs -  Wild Hogs in Spain