Pterodactyl

Xavier posted a fantasy pic on Facebook which reminded me of a motorcycle I'd owned some years back, a very fast Moto Guzzi based on a Tonti-framed 850T which I called the Pterodactyl. It was the only bike I'd ever given a name to. Three nights later I put the TV on whilst cooking dinner and SBS were playing a Godzilla movie with scenes featuring a flying dinosaur. I sat down to eat and chose foreign language movie at random, one I had no prior knowledge of, titled Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec. And what should it be about? A tomb-raiding vamp, Egyptian mummies and a pterodactyl!

Faster Pastor

Paul, aka Revving Rev or The Faster Pastor, has had his fair share of adventures. His latest project is a blog which makes interesting reading particularly for those of the Christian persuasion. He and Marian recently appeared as the vicar and his very cute wife in the movie bearing their names. Paul had asked the director for a cameo and Jay Stern was so taken by the idea that a part was created for them.

http://paulandmariansinclair.wordpress.com/

Alpinating

This will have to be a very brief post...
and an unashamed plug for Cliff's Ozalps European Motorcycle Tours
Motorcycle Heaven - riding in the European Alps is just the most unbelievable buzz - whether or not you've seen big mountains, you're in for an extraordinary experience. The scenery is - I'm going to run out of superlatives soon - breathtaking, and the roads are just brilliant - one day I think we rode seven mountain passes, one of which had something like 80 hairpins. I'm going again!

Mullumbimby Gotcha

Excerpts from a series of emails...

The corner I crashed on is South of Mullum. I am sure of that, because the ambulance arrived from the North. Not hilly road, just level, perhaps following river flats. Hilly slopes just off the road on the west side. Unimportant now... but I remember everything. I can still remember threatening the ambulance officer with a ‘gotcha’ if he cut my riding boots off. Ah. Happy memories.

The hilly slopes would be Coorabel Ridge, most likely, and that sounds more like Myocum Rd than the highway.. and what's a "gotcha". A mate of mine runs the hospital these days, and has taken up motorcycling again after a long break.

Definitely the Highway, as it was then anyway. Just two lane road. I was on my way from Brisbane to Glen Innes with a mate on a Tiger 100, intending to head inland from Grafton.

The ‘gotcha’? ho ho ho,

It comes from an old golf story.

An amateur bets Arnold Palmer that he can beat him over 18 holes of golf so long as he gets 5 strokes start and two ‘gotchas”.

Arnold Palmer doesn’t know what a ‘gotcha’ is either, but hey, the guys an amateur. He will be easy to beat, so Arnold accepts the bet.

After 6 holes Arnold Palmer has made up the 5 strokes start and reckons he has it made, but when he is putting on the 7th, the amateur comes up behind him and without warning shouts ‘gotcha’ and reaches between Arnold's legs and administers a violent ‘gotcha”. ( do I have to be more explicit?)

For the rest of the round Arnold Palmer’s putting goes to pieces because he’s waiting for the second gotcha. The amateur wins.

Okay…. So the ambulanceman pulls out a big knife and prepares to cut off my expensive (and hand made) motorcycle boots, so I show him my hand in a claw grip and offer him a gotcha if he came any
closer with the knife. He couldn’t concentrate for laughing, which is how I saved my boots.


You want memories? They aren’t always funny. I was in the next bed in Brisbane General when Sandy Macrae and Monty Petrola (look them up) were brought in to hospital. Monty died the next night.
The nurses took turns sitting by his bed trying to will him to live. “Come on Monty, fight it. You can do it” ….for hours.

Article on Sandy Macrae

You won’t find me criticizing nurses.

Sandy discharged himself from hospital against doctor’s advice and used to come to outpatients on his Vincent with one arm in a sling, his wife on the back reaching round to operate the clutch.

I thought he was a bit crazy, but when I got out I was riding a mates bike with my leg in a full cast up above the waist, and the leg propped up on the crash bar out front.

I had to be very careful when I stopped to fall over to the left.

Cheers Grant

White Mouse

The Lambrettaholic of the previous post knew all about Nancy, as it turned out. This morning he turned up with The White Mouse. So boo sucks to the unbelievers who doubt this synchronicity thing. I mean, what are the odds that the one person I write to about a relatively obscure book has an even more obscure autobiography by its subject and happens to live close enough to include it with delivery he'd planned to drop in to me the following day?

Not sure if I mentioned that as well as having a friend who lived next door to Nancy's Neutral Bay house in Holdsworth St - Stewart, from whom I bought the killer Lambretta - I attended the church across the road, St Augustines, where she had taught Sunday School and I also went to Neutral Bay Public School, referred to in the Peter Fitzsimons book as Intermediate.

Quote from a North Sydney gov.au document:

The growth of the Neutral Bay district in the federation era led to severe overcrowding at the school. The demands for extensions to the school were eased in 1937 when the Neutral Bay Girls Intermediate School was transferred to the newly formed Cremorne Girls High School in Murdoch St and the Intermediate Boys High School moved to Mosman.