Mark's Blog

Spotted this on one of my regular forum haunts about the new motorcycle test that started yesterday (Monday 27th) and felt the irresistible urge to share the funny (albeit not for the riders concerned) with you all…

Rotherhams new bike test center had five tests today. four of those candidates failed with two of the four crashing and one of the those ending up in hospital.

A few instructors were saying that the high speed avoidance manoeuver was dangerous in the wet.

Best of luck to all those yet to take the new test just hope it not raining for you.

wizzzard at Bike Chat Forums

Absolute classic, DSA seem to be doing as well as ever these days.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or living in another country, in which case I’m sure you have your own privacy battles to face ) you’ll realise that Phorm is well on its way to launching properly in the UK. Now, putting aside if it is legal or not (it isn’t, by the way, and the EU seem to have realised this as well – BBC & El Reg) we need to all come together and take steps to put this beast out of business permanently.

So, if you are currently with an ISP that is thinking about Phorm inform them in the strongest possible terms of your viewpoint. If they continue with the roll-out then switch supplier to somebody who isn’t going to snoop on your browsing habits.

I’ve also taken steps to get this site removed so that the crawlers are no longer able to visit and use this site’s data to send targeted ads to you. I’ve done this by emailing website-exclusion@webwise.com stating that I wish to remove this domain from their systems. One fully hopes that they comply with this request, and I’ll have no hesitation in taking more formal proceedings against them if they don’t. I’ll also be posting the full transcripts of both my email and the response(s) that I receive on my writings page, so check there for updates.

Thus, if you currently operate a site I would request that you email the above address detailing all your domains and requesting that you don’t wish to be a part of their system. If you want more information on Phorm, there is plenty available online and elsewhere, I’m sure.

My “Keyboard Not Found” avatar goes everywhere online with me; chances are you’ll probably recognise that before my username, so I very rarely use anything else.

Now, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t get edited once in a while for special occasions; we’ve had Christmas and general winter variations as well as a special Easter egg one very recently.

You’ll also probably be aware from previous blog posts that I’m a Burnley FC supporter, and if you are following the Coca-Cola Championship you’ll realise we are pushing for a “play-off” spot to get into the top flight of English football, the Premier League. To celebrate this, and to offer my support towards the campaign I’ve added our club crest onto the avatar as you can see above (if you click on the image you’ll see the avatar in all its glory; 512×512 instead of the usual 120×120. You should also be able to scroll through and view the other variations I’ve talked about).

Let’s hope that all our omens and rituals are worthwhile and we’ll be contesting in the premiership next season .

• Button on pole again. Should be a great season for Brawn GP #
• What a crazy GP we’ve seen this morning/afternoon… #

Woooo , I am now the holder of a category A (officially A2 as I will be restricted to 33bhp for two years) license according to the DVLA .

After two days of training it all came down to the 45 minutes with the DSA examiner, what a nerve wracking time that was; I’m not sure that I’ve been so nervous before a test. This was compounded by the fact that, as I explained earlier, there was only one shot at this before the reorganisation of the motorcycle test.

Regardless, with that in my mind I set out and was reasonably happy with my riding. I was even happier when told that I’d passed with only three minors . Much thanks to the examiner who was understanding about the fact that I was riding a oil tanker and so asked me to attempt the U turn on a road that is suitable for a bike of that size.

Of course, this also means that the L plates are well and truly in the bin (for bikes anyway) and that I can now enter the weird and wonderful world of motorway riding. I’ll have to try that next time I’m on “the mainland” .

Finally, much thanks to John et al. at Ryderight who were superb in the training that I recieved over the two days. Highly recommended if any of you happen to be on the island and are looking for a motorcycle training school.

James Cridland makes an interesting point about Britain and her websites:

“Websites were invented by a Brit: that nice Tim Berners-Lee. And British people are continually innovating – from the clever crowd at moo.com, gigulate.com and dopplr.com, to the world’s biggest broadcaster, or the world’s best newspaper. Our little island is continually punching above its weight when it comes to the web. And we should be proud of that.“

He encourages British sites to display a flag in a display of patriotism, and I for one am happy to oblige seeing as this is a British site on a British server. Thus, if you scroll down to the bottom of this and every page on the site you’ll see a “Made in Britain” tag. Yay for a bit of patriotism .

Photo courtesy of James as well, thanks!

Oh well, happens to the best of us…