Man in the moon, Ballyhoo.
http://media.roets.co.uk/sa/man-in-the-moon.mp3
Johnny calls the Chemist, Fallin Mirror
http://media.roets.co.uk/sa/chemist.mp3

Die tema lied vir Misdaad.

http://media.roets.co.uk/misdaad/misdaad.mp3

Die tema lied vir Derrick.

http://media.roets.co.uk/misdaad/derrick.mp3

New Honda Cross Tourer

http://media.roets.co.uk/bike/motorcycle.mp3

(Page soundtrack included: Press play button above)

The market for the Adventure Tourer is booming. Honda has now eyed it and the heavyweight is moving in with a their new Crossover.

The bike is built around their V4 800CC engine (782cc V4 liquid-cooled engine – a successor to the engine that powered the VFR800) and has been shown as a ‘concept’ at Milan – however they admit they can have it on the road in time for ’12 spring season so they must be a long way toward production already.

There are several reasons for this move but the main one is the market segment of this class has really grown in the last few years.

Many avowed speed freaks, like my friends Albie, Neel and myself have, through circumstance, landed up with bikes in this class and I believe I speak for all three of us, that we would now not consider any other type of bike.

Whats in it?

Firstly it is definitely the Charlie and Ewan effect. I know that I can go on a long journey to exotic locations. (Believe you me you seem some exotic things in Scotland.)  These are also all-weather, all-terrain bikes and are, by their very nature, built to last.

The Suzuki VStrom 1000 GT - the model I ride

Then for me the most important factor:

This bike may look sedate but it is the most fun I had on a bike in decades. My specific model has the engine of a 1000cc racer and you can definitely feel it.

Following on from that the ride itself lasts so much longer. On a racer you ride at a maximum of 2-hour increments. More than that and you are facing muscle aches and strains.The adventure touring class has been designed to sit upright and comfortably and the bike can tick over happily for hours. (Witness the 14 and half hour single session trip I did up to Scotland earlier this.)

This hasn’t gone unnoticed with manufacturers.

BMW has made a fortune in sales with the GS1200 (and had the added resultant bounce in life style marketing) since “The Long Way Round”.  KTM who was first choice but backed out must still be kicking themselves.

The current market has a few contenders other than the omnipresent GS. On the one end of the scale is my bike, the Suzuki VSTROM 1000 – less off-road than the GS but with similar performance on other levels. However it comes in at literally half the price (and its smaller 650CC stablemate even more so).

In the middle of this range are Triumph Tiger, KTM Adventure, Aprillia Caponord, Ducati Multistrada and if you are a US biker the Harley powered Buell  Ulysses.

The reality is that most people like myself (my SA friends excluded because they have the terrain) will do 95% of their riding and touring on road  - albeit windy Scottish single lane roads.  So in a sense this market is booming at the cost of other classes such as sports tourers and street bikes.

There is a whole brace of bikes coming from other manufacturers.

Triumph is copying Suzuki and has created a second smaller Tiger model with a mid-sized engine while Aprillia has been testing the new Tuareg.

However the exciting one, the potential game changer, is the Crossover. Having owned a VFR this is going to force me into some hard decisions in two years time…

An example of performance of existing bikes in this class was done by MotorcycleUSA.com where my model came in tops.

The same B and B as last year and had already pre-booked our stay a year ago on our last visit.

Musicport is pretty eclectic. Not in your cliched “Oh my music taste are eclectic” kind of way – but proper different. It ranged form Indo Jazz fusion from Leeds, Samay performing with this year with a school form Hull through to Japanese Dub and some Brel and Piaf mixed in for good measure.

Art work was supplied by David Owen with a English folk with an iconic twist: http://theinkcorporation.co.uk/5000-morris-dancers-2/

Friday night highlight was Richard Hawley of Long Pigs and Pulp fame – and producer of Lisa Marie Presley’s new album.

Anarchic punk poetry was supplied by John Cooper Clark http://www.johncooperclarke.com/ I especially liked his take on “Urban City Living” marketing of the last few years.

He did his classic poem Beasley Street and then gave it an Urban Splash redevelopment and re-read it as Beasley Boulevard, cappuccinos and all – excellent.

A Brummy reggae band – Xova (pronounced crossover) doing UB40 style big brass reggae – checkout their cover of Gangster Paradise.

Lastly Sunday had a few highlights but the best for me was Jah Wobble (ex Public Image Ltd) teaming up with Keith Levene (The Clash) and some traditional Japanese musicians to do reggae and dub mixed with Taiko drums etc.

Videos to follow on FBook

Here are two artists / groups, Goldfrapp and Leftfield I would personally like to see. Its not Rock, more Dance but definitley not of the fluffy variety. These acts have been known to be artist’s artists and highly influential.

Goldfrapp

Goldfrapp

1. Oh la la
http://media.roets.co.uk/angelica/oohlala.mp3
2. Lovely Head
http://media.roets.co.uk/angelica/lovelyhead.mp3
3. Ride a white horse
http://media.roets.co.uk/angelica/rideawhitehorse.mp3

Leftfield

Leftfield

1. Phat Planet
http://media.roets.co.uk/angelica/phatplanet.mp3
2. Open up
http://media.roets.co.uk/angelica/openup.mp3
3. Afro Left
http://media.roets.co.uk/angelica/afroleft.mp3

Ubuntu is the Linux distro run by Mark Shuttleworth the South African entrepreneur under the ubuntu philsopy.

My server was in bad need of updating; I’ve been running Fedora 8 for al long time and the current Fedora release is already version 13. The upgrade path, version for version and doing it piecemeal was just to much.

I re-imaged the server to run on the latest version of Ubuntu Linux. The whole process was really quick thanks to the way my hosting company www.bytemark.co.uk has set up their server farm.

A quick admin login, choosing a new OS, re-image, copy of the /var/www and some permission jiggery pokery and we where away.

A few years ago this would have been a major pain to do now it was done in minutes. this is some times a benchmark not really looked at, how common tasks get sped up by the progression of technology as opposed to the cutting edge and new product launches which garner most of the press’s time.

The team have in anticipation launched a micro site, http://www.ripedesign.com/formula1 and there is a news story on our website http://www.ripedesign.com.

We had many sleepless hours, loads of weekends worked and sterling effort by all in the team but particularly Michael Backhouse.

I had the opportunity to visit the hotel as it was being built – not so many months ago… and there was just sand and structure – the building rate and overall creation was phenomenal and the scale and ambition of the project is huge.

Now this coming Sunday I will watch the Grand Prix as it race THROUGH this building.

Had a rip roaring time in which we saw: The King Tutankhamon  exhibit at the O2 arena (Millenium Dome) and went to see the Lion King in the West End.

Bit worrying that part of town is getting familiar. Had a meeting there only days before.

Well worth it though – good company, “events” and oh a Nando’s and aSpur right next to each other!

Ja, veertig. Nou die tyd vir ‘n middeljarige krisis.

So in my introspeksie het ek ‘n lysie gemaak.

1. Aande in ‘n kroeg

2. Motorfiets

3. Jeugdige blondine.

Lysie verder besigtig.

1. Kroeg maak my moeg en Katja en ek was laas nag uit en more gaan ons na ‘n rock gig – so skraap.

2. Het alreeds motorfiets en ry die goed vir meer as twintig jaar – nie eintlik rebelieus nie. Skraap.

3. Jeugdige blondine – Wel my vrou se sy sal dit definitief nie toelaat nie. Skraap en verwyder bewyse dat ek ooit selfs daar oor gedink het.

Lyk my ek sal maar grasieus oud word.

Vannaand sal ek in my sluimer stoel oor ‘n bedeesde glas whisky maar weereens introspektief wees.

Hier weg om nege in die oggend en daar aangekom middernag. Tussen tyd was daar twee vlugte drie trein reise en ‘n paar taxis. Laastens was daar ook ons drywer aan daai kant – wat blykbaar glo dat enige kant van ‘n kar is die korrekte kant om verby te steek.

Nagmerrie – en toe vinnige afspraak en toe die hele spul oor die volgende dag.

Die nadeel van sgn Europese binnelands vlugte. Ek kon vinniger aan die anderkant van die Aarde gewees het.

Nou ja die kos was ten minste lekker.