Emotion

An affective state of consciousness in which (in this case) joy is experienced

Tetley's Tea is available in Angola.

Speaking of tea, has anyone else noticed that drinking Coca-Cola doesn't actually slake thirst, it increases it?  I never noticed before, probably because I never drank coke unless it was added to cane spirit.  Now that I am out riding the bike every day I do get a bit parched and when I get home, I can't be arsed to wait for the kettle to boil so I can make tea, so I have a coke instead.  But I still feel thirsty so end up making a cup of tea anyway.  Now that could be because I was really thirsty so today when I got back, I decided to see if I would still feel thirsty after just a cup of tea.  I didn't.  Then much later this eveningm when I definitely wasn't thirsty, I decided to try a coke and I was suddenly thirsty again so had to make a cup of tea.  I am aware that tobacco companies laced their cigarettes with extra nicotine to make them more addictive so what conclusion can I draw from my research?  Well, tea is clearly better than Coca Cola so in order to speed the process of making it, I should invest in an electric kettle.

Alex's tutor is back.  She had to make an unexpected trip home leaving me to carry on with Alex by myself.  His number recognition is very good.  He gets that from his mother.  She can distinguish a higher denomination bank note from an inferior at 200 paces.  So I thought I would concentrate on enlarging the boy's vocabulary, especially idioms, which enrich our language and confuse natives.  I was particularly pleased today then, when his tutor asked me after the boy had finished his lessons whether I had been instructing him in her absence (she is native of South Africa).  Apparently she had confessed to being curious about what he had been doing while she was away, to which he had replied, 'Curiosity killed the cat.'

I know you shouldn't let children play with knives but Alex is half African so there are some traditional skills I don't mind him learning because they may come in useful,  In this case he is sharpening Pangas, which will be very handy if any of the missionaries the new church is attracting call to convert us.  Then I can illustrate 'cutting someone down to size.'

I needed an edge on the blades so I could chop these up, more fruits of the sea from our local fish counter, the Atlantic Ocean.

Time Expressed as Distance

Depends what kind of event you are describing I suppose but for normal day to day purposes, 1.8 minutes is not a long time.  It sounds daft to say that something is 1.8 minutes old so in this case, in order to demonstrate how fresh my fruits of the sea are, I shall express their age in metres. 

These soon to be devoured crabs are one thousand five hundred metres old.  That's the distance they travelled at 50kms/hr in my Jeep from where they were caught to my table.  I'll need to steam them for about 10 kms.

And now for some gratuitous fluffiness:

Rocky.  Much healthier than when I found him and twice the size.  Poor old Charlie is so patient.

He's a Gay Duck, just like his father and his father before him

Last year I bought some ducks, two hens and a drake.  I’d made them a nice secure run and knocked up a couple of coops for them, dug a small pond and ran a water line to it.  They had plenty of space, vegetation to hide amongst and plenty of feed supplemented with vegetables and suitable table scraps.  Life for them was pretty idyllic.

I still haven’t found a couple of geese so that poor old Goosey the Gander can unload his sauce, so recognizing that he must be up to his bottom beak in dirty water and might harass the ducks, I built him a separate pen.

The very next day after introducing the ducks to their new accommodation, I was rewarded with a nice fresh egg.  Unless you have cracked open a really fresh egg, you will be surprised at how gelatinous is the white and how proud both yolk and white stand from the plate.  I have cracked open fresh eggs before but it was a long time ago so I was pleased to be reminded of what a fresh egg looked like.  It tasted great.

The day after there was another egg and so it went on for a week.  Then there were no more eggs.  I supposed it might be due to the change in environment or diet so made sure they were getting absolutely everything recommended by Michael Grashorn in his excellent book on fowl, “Geflügel – Das Fotobuch für die Praxis”, with which Herr Klein had been kind enough to arm this novice.

Still no eggs.

The three birds I had bought came from a much larger flock along with sincere assurances of their egg laying propensity.  I began to wonder whether the drake that had been encouraging my ducks to lay wasn’t the drake I had been sold.  The bird fingered as the drake was certainly bigger and uglier than the two females but he didn’t really betray much anatidic masculinity.  My concern regarding his libido was transformed to alarm about his possible sexual orientation when he broke into Goosey’s pen and mounted him.  The fact that a much bigger bird would allow himself to be rogered without at least putting up a stiff resistance made me realise that Goosey had probably been without the company of females of his own kind for far too long.

Now I’m a live and let live sort of guy and have no problems with how consenting adults get their kicks but I was feeding and housing these buggers and I wanted eggs!

In the end, such was the passion of the drake for the unfortunate goose, I had to release the goose permanently into the garden, effectively sacrificing my crop of kohlrabi.  Clearly, if the drake had eyes only for a snow white gander, it was no surprise the ducks weren’t laying.

I determined two things:  I must find two geese for Goosey, and the next time the Duck Lady came round, I’d have another drake off her.  In the meantime, peace having been restored to the roost, I carried on feeding them, and buying my eggs.

Having long since given up exploring the nooks and crannies of the pen in search of eggs, it took something quite unusual to make me have a good look around.  Such an instance occurred yesterday when I went to feed them.  First, the bottom of the shade netting surrounding their enclosure had been ripped open; second, one of my ducks was missing.

Had this been the result of feral dogs, I would have found a lot more than just the odd few discarded feathers normally floating around the floor of a duck pen.  There would certainly have been no survivors.  ‘Perhaps it is loose somewhere in the garden?’ I thought, after all, if it were here, surely it would be with the others flapping around my ankles to get at the feed?  So I dumped the feed and went off in search of the missing bird.  Nothing.  No sign whatsoever, no tell-tale pile of duck down anywhere.  I found Goosey under the shop, surely he would have been an easier target? 

Sadly I made my way back to the pen to swab out the water pond and refill it with fresh.  The duck pond, as for want of a better name I call it, is about the size and depth of a large bath.  Made of concrete cast over a mesh, I hadn’t bothered with a drain so once a week I have to scoop all the water and accumulated muck out of it.  This sludge is great for the garden.  So as not to waste it, I trundle in a load of dirt and it is onto this that I throw the slurry.  After a few weeks, I shovel the healthily revolting looking mixture back into a wheelbarrow and cart it over to my raised beds.  If you are trying to get slurry to soak into soil, it is best to start with a hole into which you shovel the dirt to be soaked.  If you don’t, you’ll discover that water runs off a pile of dry dirt just as well as it does a duck’s back.  The position of my hole is between the pond and the first of the two coops and I, with gay abandon, was busy chucking bucket after stinking bucket into it, splashing everything within a six foot radius when, with an indignant squawk, the missing duck shot out of the coop as if it had been propelled by a punt gun.

If anyone asks me now, I say that the lids of the coops, which are really only very large nesting boxes, were cunningly crafted so that they could easily be lifted for egg inspections.  In reality, never having given much thought to the design, it was only because I ran out of nails while building them that they are now blessed with such useful functionality.  I lifted the lid and discovered this:

I don’t care if, now the drake has been denied his true love, it is a case of any port in a storm, the ducks are paying their way again and soon I’ll treble my anatidae holdings. 

 

I bet I’m not half as relieved as Goosey, though…

Cobblers

Subject: Cheaney Pennine IIR Country Boots in Burgundy Grain

“Dear Sir,

I am resident in Angola and would like very much to buy a pair of UK size 9 Cheaney Pennine IIR Country Boots in Burgundy Grain…”

I also asked them to provide me the package dimensions and weight so that I could have DHL Express collect the package and courier it to me.

 

Below the reply I received from them:

 

Dear Mr Gowans,

Thank you for your email.

Although we ship worldwide we only currently offer shipping to selected countries. Unfortunately Angola is a country that we are unable to ship to at present.

Kind regards,

John Pugh

Internet Sales Coordinator

 

No reason given, no apology, just a curt dismissal.  It is also risible; ‘Although we ship worldwide…’  Well they don’t, do they?

I get this ALL the time from UK suppliers, why?  What is it about Angola?  The supplier will be paid, in money not cowry shells, the same money that everyone else in UK uses, pounds Sterling, so what’s the problem?  I am not Angolan, I just happen to be here and am in need of a new pair of well made boots.  Don’t the authors of such responses realise how distressing it is to be turned down merely because of one's location?  Am I distasteful to them by association?  Association with what?  Natives?  Are they perhaps concerned that their boots would not hold up in an environment admittedly a little more hostile than a genteel shoot in Norfolk?  Does the military style risk breaching some United Nations arms embargo?  Or are they worried their reputation as purveyors of fine footwear to the nobility would be irrevocably diluted if a pair of Cheaney’s was seen on my plates?    The meanness of the response invites such speculation.

I really wanted these boots.  I have taken a little stick recently over my dress sense, or rather lack of it in the overwhelming opinion of my readers, and Marcia considered these boots further evidence of my disintegration into senility but if you know your boots, you will realise that these are boots to last a lifetime (what’s left of mine most certainly) and bring real credibility to the notion of living and dying in ones durable footwear. 

I haven’t been so crushed by rejection since Sally Bent, the gorgeous blonde the breasts of whom I was very sweet on, turfed me in favour of Nick Rushton and his Datsun 240Z.  I mean, a Datsun for goodness’ sake!

Now you know why I bought my industrial wood working machines in Italy and my bicycles in Germany.  CMC srl in Torianna have never shipped to Angola either but rather than turn me away, they asked me the best way to ship.  Bulls Cycles in Germany repackaged the bikes into DHL standard sized boxes so they could send them.

Yet a cobbler in Northampton can’t be bothered to receive payment for a pair of boots and have the package at reception so that DHL can pick it up.

And people wonder why the country is in such a mess!  It’s enough to turn an affable chap into a grumpy old sod, especially since I know I am really stuffed this time.  Italian boots would be far too fashionable and Jack Boots would only reinforce a few prejudices. 

Why should I be forced to subsidise one of Cheaney’s UK retailers?  I know retailers have to make their percentage, not only to make selling Cheaney footwear worth the effort but also to fund their facilities.  Their customers can come in and see the product; they can try their boots on before paying for them.  I don’t have that luxury.  I am buying Cheaney boots sight unseen because of the company's outstanding reputation and decades of familiarity with their products.  So why can’t I buy direct from the factory?  Surely selling a pair of boots to me in Angola will not infringe any franchise agreement, unless they were as short sighted as Habanos SA, the state owned company controlling the sale and distribution rights of genuine Cuban cigars, who sold the franchise for the entire African continent to a guy in Cyprus.  Just as we can’t buy decent boots in Angola, a good smoke is hard to come by as well.

The thing that really sticks in my craw, though, is that I have no choice but to ask my brother to wander into any one of the retailers selling these boots, buy them and stick them in the DHL for me.  Why is that so bad, you ask?  It is bad because, once again, George Osborne will get 20%, and that really bloody annoys me.

Cheaney Pennine IIR Country Boots in Burgundy Grain
Unquestionably the finest boots in a World so exclusive, Angola isn't a member.

Are You Tired, Son?

'No I'm not tired, Daddy.  Are you tired?'

'I'm not tired Son...'

'Are you having fun, Daddy?'

It was four in the afternoon, we had been on the road since eleven and I was bloody knackered.

The bikes are brilliant.  I had been a little concerned about the gears on Alex's bike.  He's never had a bike with gears before and now he had 18 to deal with.  He has a triple sprocket and a six speed cassette so on his left grip selector he has a choice of one to three, and on his right, one to six.  He had no trouble at all.

'I'm in Two - Four, Daddy, what are you in?'

'Two - Five, Son'

Gear mechanisms on bikes have come on a long, long way since I had to pedal myself anywhere.  Most bikes back then had Sturmey Archer 3 speeds if you were lucky, and a basket on the front if you weren't.  If any of us had problems today, it was me.  Rather than a twist grip, I had levers only I hadn't spotted two of them.  There were four.  Consequently I had changed all the way to top (mine has 21 gears) and couldn't figure out how to change down again before I fell off.  So yes, much to Alex's delight, Daddy was the first to crash before we'd even properly set off.

Once we got going, though, it was a delight.  First we cycled to the site, but that wasn't nearly far enough so we cycled back again and then on to the petrol station on the main road where a man had to show me how to use the airline so I could fill the tyres to the correct pressures.  We had a sticky bun and a stimms each but were in no mood to call it a day so we carried on to the golf course.  This gave us miles of tracks to play on so play on them we did.  All of them.  The rumble of thunder and a darkening sky warned us of an impending downpour so we decided to head home.  We got there but Alex still wasn't tired and it wasn't raining so we carried on to Rico's place to have another fizzy drink (I was feeling faint by this stage).  Of course Alex had to show them our new bikes.

'Official Blue Bulls training bikes,' I said.  All the South Africans I have met support either the Blue Bulls or the Sharks rugby teams. 

'Since the Bulls were kind enough to give us a couple of their official team training bikes,' I continued, 'Alex and I felt we should start supporting them; we have all the team kit at home as well.'

'Hang on, the Bulls sent you these bikes?'

'No, they sent them to an address in South Africa, a pal sent them up for us.  Is the bar open?  I'm gagging for a tonic water...'

I'll allow time to let that sink in.  I'm on for the best play ever so I don't want to strike at the first twitch of the fly...

'Well of course the apprentice does all the work, how else will he learn?'

 

I did my 'bike first then started on Alex's.  He'd have been off on his own otherwise!
Note the patented empty paint tin frame stand.

'Daddy knows what he's doing...doesn't he?'

Looking like a bike now and yes, Son, those are the gears

Final adjustments.  There is nothing to compare with German engineering.  All the parts are well made and fitted together perfectly.  Beautiful fit and finish, a delight to work on. 
One last job, make a note of the serial number stamped on the crank case...

Cambodia is a small town in Baden-Württemberg noted for bicycle production and Mohnkuchen

Indian Chief and Indian Scout
The easy way to distinguish between the two bicycles is to note that Alex's has a side stand.

A very chuffed little boy.

He's cycled three million miles and he still has the energy to run!



The Bicycles Have Arrived!

They arrived in Angola a week ago to be exact.  With the heavy rain the city has been enduring, however, we felt it prudent not to venture all the way to the Central Post office in the Baixa Cidade, a journey only the likes of Mungo Park would entertain under current conditions.

These are the second and third parcels I have now consigned to Angola using normal parcel post (as opposed to courier firms) and I must say, the system seems to work.  This being Angola, though, when the Post Office employee rang Marcia last Thursday to alert her to the shipment's arrival, they asked her not to bother coming to pick them up the next day as, it being a Friday, they didn't feel like working so the following Monday would be more convenient for them.  It was pretty civil of them to phone.

Looking at the picture of the shipment, the scars of battle very evident, you may wonder why two bicycles should each require such a very large box.  Oddly enough, a normal bicycle sized box of around 125 x 75 x 30 cms (0.28 cubic metres) exceeds the maximum allowed dimensions for international parcel post so would cost more like 600 Euros each (the price I was quoted by Lufthansa, you may recall).  If, however, the 'bikes were repacked into a box measuring 120 x 60 x 60 (0.43 cubic metres) they would fall within the maximum allowed dimensions and cost only 90 Euros each.  So nearly twice the cubic volume for a seventh of the price. DHL is owned by Deutsche Post and the boxes came in on Lufthansa.  No bastard demanding over 600 Euros a box from me at DHL or Lufthansa told me about the very cheap and just as secure alternative operated by the same companies across the same infrastructure.  I had to find that out for myself.  Is it just as secure?  You bet; just like a DHL Express shipment, you can track it online. 

Marcia is into Dan Brown at the moment.  Until she started on him the only book I have ever seen her read was the bible so I shouldn't really be surprised she has a taste for esoteric fiction.  Since there was quite a bit of free space in the boxes, I ordered a copy of 'Digital Fortress' for her which Micky had tossed in with the bikes.  Normally it is only a very impatient Alex I have to deal with when a Red Cross parcel arrives but this time I had Marcia hovering.  It was quite late in the evening and it would soon be dark, not the time to be opening boxes out of which any number of not already lost small parts might fall.  In addition, some of Alex's friends from the village were still hanging around providing a very compelling reason to delay revealing the contents.  I'd like at least the chance to build the bikes up before they get nicked.  But Marcia was insistent.

'I don't even know which box the book is in!' I said.

'It's in that one,' said Marcia pointing to the less damaged box.

'How do you know?'

''Cos I saw it when Customs inspected the contents!'

'If you saw it when customs opened the box, Marcia, why didn't you take it out there and then?'

You will note from the white 'Alfandega' sticky tape that Customs opened the boxes up side down.  I would like to think that these cunning revenue men supposed that if any contraband was concealed within, it would be at the bottom so best go in that way, but I suspect it was because they were pissed off with me for already having looked up the tariff code and told them how much I should be paying, eliminating a potential private revenue stream for them. 

This is the first book I have bought Marcia that's in Portuguese.  The others have been in English and they have improved her command of that language no end.  In addition, reading has provoked in her a desire to occasionally converse rather than spend the evening watching soaps, which makes a delightful change,  Conversations are sometimes bloody bizarre (how she can reconcile her faith with a belief in African magic escapes me) but anything is better than 'Paixão Proibida'.  The other day she asked me if the next book I bought her could be in Dutch. 

Dutch?  Marcia studied in Belgium, the bit that doesn't speak French.

'But Marcia, your English is better than your Flemish, Dutch is about as useful as Afrikaans.'

'How can you say that?' she retorted, 'you saw when we had problems at Brussels airport and I explained everything to the Ambassador and he called the head of Brussels Airlines and sorted it out!'

This was true, I did have a problem at Brussels airport when they refused to board Dominic because he did not have an Angolan entry visa in his UK passport.  I had been under the misapprehension that his Angolan passport granted sufficient authority to enter Angola and had been unable to conceal my disappointment when the nice Belgians pointed my stupidity out to me.

'Marcia, that was the French Ambassador, you were speaking French,'

'Oh yes.  But it proves I am good at languages!'

It proves you can bloody terrify Ambassadors, I thought.

I opened up the boxes, retrieved her book and gave it to her.  I resisted the temptation to dive straight in and assemble the 'bikes.  Having spread the bits out to evaluate what was there and, more importantly, what might be missing (nothing, as far as I could tell), the 'bike parts are now stored safely inside the cottage.

As I was stacking the bits neatly Marcia looked up from reading the fly leaf of her book.

'Do you know that Dan Brown is the all time best selling author?' she announced.'

'And malaria is the all time killer,' I replied. 'I know which I'd rather take my chances with.'

Beaten by Fluffiness

A comment on my last post:

Gay Welsh Luddite: 

“Thank fuck for that! Back to human, puppy interest stories with an Angolan twist”

My Response:

“Typical. I write about something that interests me and a few comments crawl in; I write about fluffy puppies and doe eyed little boys and in half a day I have a million hits. I know how Marvin felt. Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to write cuddly. Call that job satisfaction, 'cause I don't!”

I only delve into the engine room of blogger when I need to post but I decided to have a look at my stats to compare the relative popularity of interesting and fluffy posts.  While fewer comments were posted, the interesting posts attracted more hits from a far wider audience. 

If I was writing with my ‘Interesting’ head on, I would say that few conclusions should be drawn from such statistics as the interesting posts contain many specific search terms, such as ‘BMW 3.0 CS’, or ‘Double Overhead Chrome Dipstick’.  Although there are few who would Google these terms, statistically there are enough, and they would be directed to my blog whether they wished to be there or not.  These ‘false hits’ would skew the stats in favour of intelligent posts, so it would be quite wrong to suppose the evidence suggested that all those who visited my blog and did not post a comment probably like classic cars and joinery and the only little doggies they are interested in are the ones served piping hot with onions from an urchin’s barrow in the High Street.  If I was writing with my ‘fluffy’ head on, I wouldn’t bother with statistics at all and just say that people who bother to comment are such nice people.  I can see, though, that if I wish to continue writing about my lovely and very interesting new machines I need to introduce them as props in a narrative about hand crafted solid timber cribs for babes or twee little garden cottages for doggy-wogs.  Am I still allowed to say ‘doggy’?

While I was down in the oily bowels of Blogger, though, I was startled at the audience spread by nationality.  In top two positions are, unsurprisingly given the relative similarity between the two languages, the United States and the United Kingdom.  These are followed, and this really did surprise me, by four communist countries.  They are, in order:  France, Ukraine, Russia and Romania.  Apart from Cro Magnon, the tastes of whom are eclectic, why would anyone in France be interested in my blog?

 

 

Strays

About a year ago I noticed in amongst the usual crowd of excited children collecting water at the stand pipe, a tiny toddler.  Skinny, slight of frame, clad only in an old pair of raggedy shorts and filthy dirty, he was only remarkable for two reasons; first, he was being treated pretty bloody shabbily by his companions and second, he looked very much a miniature version of Alex.

Little Rodrigues was the unplanned, but surely not entirely surprising, issue of a union between a married mother of the village, and an itinerant Portuguese labourer.  Sadly, the lad was also very much unwanted.  His colour, of course, pretty much gave the game away and this ambulatory proof of his mother’s infidelity wasn’t particularly well received.  Her lack of compassion for him translated into abuse from his peers. 

I have been known to hand out a sweet or two to kids struggling under the burden of a full bucket of water and these little gifts were always politely received.  If I miscounted the number present (so very easy to do, especially as their numbers always seemed to multiply as soon as the doces appeared) and there were too few sweets, they shared.  I was shocked, therefore, that every sweet I handed this toddler was quickly snatched away.  He wasn’t guided by the tender clasp of an older sibling’s hand, he was tugged and pulled and shouted on his way.  He so badly wanted to belong but stood forlorn, isolated within a crowd.  It was heart-breaking; the colour of his skin, after all, was hardly his fault.

But there was nothing much I could do about it.  No, seriously, what the hell could any reasonable person expect me to do?  I could hardly throw my weight around in his mother’s house.  That is their way, their culture, I have to respect this.  So long as they stopped short of murder and weren’t physically abusing the boy too much (beating kids, and women, is normal here) all I could do was feel sorry for him.

Mini-Alex is now three and, as parents here allow, is considered old enough to wander about the village on his own.  I was delighted when a few days ago I noticed a little figure shyly watching me from behind a tree in my garden (the sandpit I optimistically refer to as my garden). 

Despite what you may have read, I am not very good with children.  I have found it best to treat them as I do animals.  Show them who is boss, be fair, reward good behaviour, chastise bad but don't beat, and add a healthy dollop of affection.  Men could do worse than treating their wives the same way.  You do not gain the trust of a skittery wild creature by marching up to it.  If you are lucky enough to spot it before, at your appearance, it buggers off sharpish into the bush, it is important to behave naturally; just carry on with whatever it was you were doing.  It was probably that which aroused the creature’s curiosity anyway.

So I ignored the boy save for a nod and a smile in his direction and before long he was in and out the house as if it was his home.  He does like his glass of milk and he definitely likes my European food.  I don’t suppose he has ever eaten ice cream before, he likes that a lot.  Other children pitch up here as well, no doubt some of the lad’s tormentors.  Fort Hippo, though, is Switzerland.  Well, not quite.  There’s not much snow here and unlike the Swiss, I will clip the ears of rule breakers.  At Fort Hippo, all men are equal so long as they behave themselves and show courtesy to their fellows.  The kids are all nice to Mini Alex when he's here.

Marcia, who had been away in town for a few days and only got back the night before last, was a little surprised, pleasantly though, to see Mini Alex so comfortable in our surroundings.  Naturally, she could not resist having a dig at me, referring to how we white boys stick together. 

‘Well we bloody need to with all the shit you lot give us, don’t we!’  I said, a tadge aggrieved.

The opportunity for revenge was swift in coming.  I had given the kids a sweet each.  The local equivalent of a Bounty bar, sticky sweet coconut covered in chocolate.  As usual, all the other kids except Alex (who knows at what peril he litters the house) made only half-hearted attempts to toss the torn wrappers onto the coffee table.  Most end up on the floor.  Not Mini Alex’s, though.  He eased himself off his chair and his feet onto the ground, toddled over to the bin wherein he disposed of his wrapper.

‘Did you see that!’ Marcia exclaimed. 

I feigned ignorance.  I had seen it and was just as stunned.  All Angolans toss litter; along with stoning dogs they learn to do so as soon as they can walk.

‘See what Darling?’

‘Rodrigues just threw his sweet wrapper into the bin!’

‘Did he?  Well why wouldn’t he?' I asked, 'He’s half white…’

Aah!  He's only three so likes his little nap.  I am glad he feels comfortable enough at Fort Hippo to kip.
They are still sufficiently ashamed of him to consider keeping his hair short and dyeing it black a necessity.
He looks cute in Alex's old Batman T shirt.  Alex was pleased to donate a sack of his old clothes to the boy.

Having bored most of you with my last few posts, which have been rather more technical than fluffy, I feel I should warn you I am about to do so again in my next post (not this one, today is Snuggly Sunday).  The factory in Italy, rather sooner than I expected, want to start production of my wood working machines and for this they need the final specification.  The final specification depends on the tooling and for this I need advice.  Anyway, all that going through my mind prevented me from sleeping last night and I was still sorting through tooling catalogues and spread sheets at four this morning.

About two weeks ago was another occasion I couldn’t sleep, not because I was preoccupied but because I could have sworn I heard whimpering.  Not just any whimpering, but the worrying kind that comes from places it shouldn’t, in this case from under the house.  Once bitten, twice shy; naturally I wasn’t particularly keen on venturing under a house in the tropics at night.  It is one thing facing down an irate viper from my full height of six feet, quite another to be eyeballing it on all fours with mosquitoes nipping the old bum.  In the end, though, there was no way I could ignore such plaintive and weak pleas for help so, spurning my rattler proof flip flops in favour of a towel round the waist, I crawled under the house hoping the stench of fear would keep the gribbly gremlins away.

How the hell it got there, I have no idea.  It was too small to have crawled far from anywhere and as soon as I scooped it up it tried to suckle my fingers.  Poor bugger, heaving with fleas and covered in insect bites, his eyes and mouth encrusted with dirt.  Charlie and his bitches were enough for me, I didn’t want another dog but sometimes they pick you, and there’s sod all a decent chap can do except dig out the warm milk and syringe.

Last night Rocky kept me company.  Alex came up with the name.  Alex has never met the youngest of my two brothers but he has seen pictures of him.  Christopher does bear a striking resemblance to Sylvester Stallone and if we ever manage to get him on Skype (Chris that is, not Mr. Stallone), Alex would discover he sounds like him too.  Chris spent a long time with the US Military and went so native he even bought something called an ‘I Rock Zee’.  It was big, and as bright blue as a baboon’s bottom.  His must have been a very technical job for he was forever rushing off in PT kit to ‘work out’ something.  Alex is into punching lumps off his punch bag and likes the Rocky films so when it came time to name the future guard dog of all my wood working tools and machinery, Rocky seemed as good a name as any.  Better than Sylvester.  No wonder Stallone grew up handy with his fists.

I suppose here I shouldn't be surprised, asleep on duty.

Nothing Like a Glimpse of Well Turned Ankle

When I had my dealership in Germany, I relied primarily on walk in trade.  Sure, I advertised in newspapers and occasionally got an article in one of the relevant magazines but these ‘adverts’ were really little more than ensuring those who perhaps had need of my services knew where to look for my contact details.  Don’t forget, these were pre internet days.  My business grew from one dealership in Berlin, to three dealerships in Bielefeld, Rheindahlen and Bratislava (I gave up on Berlin because the Wall coming down ruined the place). 

People would ring me from all over asking if I could get hold of this, or that and I usually could.  If a deal involved crossing borders, I wouldn’t turn the client away saying I did not export, or import, I would go out and find out what was involved in importing and exporting.  In this way, a very insignificant little dealership gained a bit of a ‘can do’ reputation.  To help out clients in a hurry, I have personally delivered vehicles to UK, Italy, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia (as they were then), the south of France and elsewhere.  I have driven some very elegant cars and ridden exotic motorcycles along some of the most beautiful roads in Europe.  I have slept in the cab of my panel van, or in the back if it was a return journey, in the laybys of some of the smartest auto routes on the continent.

If I really could not help the client, my willingness to pass him on to someone I trusted without asking for a finder’s fee meant that, in due course, a good portion of my business came the same way and a good portion of my stock arrived as a result of tip offs, both from those I had fed clients and clients themselves.  It was good for everyone, dealers and customers alike.

Naturally, I occasionally caught a cold.  I referred one client and a year later he called me; me, not the dealer who had profited by his business, to say that on trying to sell his car, he discovered there was a lien on it.  So I immediately paid the lien.  Why?  Well it should be obvious.  One happy customer might mention his experience to perhaps ten acquaintances.  A pissed off client will tell hundreds, whether he knows them or not.  A year before the guy had come to me first, that was worth something, and I had referred him to someone else.  Whichever way you looked at it, I may not have been legally responsible, especially since I did not earn a penny out of it and was now about to lose more than just a penny, but I was morally responsible.  If I argued over a few thousand pounds, I stood to lose a hell of a lot more in the long run.  Besides, if I took it up with the real culprit rather than leaving it to a forlorn client, I would not be bound by the same rules governing normal social intercourse.  Of inestimable value to me was that the client went away thinking, ‘Shit, that guy’s honest’.  Don’t forget, even though I had to pay him money, he was still a red hot lead.  He was trying to sell his car, wasn’t he?  Why do most people want to sell their cars?  Because they want to buy another one.  Not only did I get my money back in the form of stock from the other dealer, I sold the customer a car.

I am not sure how well such a business model, largely based on trust, would work today but I think the huge advances in information technology are as much a hindrance to finding a decent car as they enable the search for one.  Anyone with a browser can find a million vehicles at the click of a mouse but this leaves the client rather like a child stood in the middle of Toys r Us and being told to pick one.  How do they know which represent good value and which are to be avoided?  Then, of course, there is the time taken to walk along every aisle examining in detail each item on every shelf.  Furthermore, the trust is all one way.  The client has to suppose that what it says on the box is in it.  Some people are still willing to pay a small premium to stand in a shop, feel the merchandise and be served by a human being.  I reckon there’s still a place for old dinosaurs like me.

So, just to keep my hand in, here is an example of the sort of thing I got up to all those years ago.  Back then, of course, it was by scanning international classic car magazines and auction reports, now it’s by using the internet.  I no longer have the resources to buy these two vehicles and ship them to the States but if someone does, then this is something which, in the words of RM Auctions the other day, should not be overlooked.

To illustrate my last post I just pulled down the first image of a decent BMW 3.0 CS I found on Google images.  Afterwards, I made up my mind to track the car down and discovered that it was a restored 1974 BMW 3.0 CS, Chassis no. 4310374, which sold for $110,000 at Fort Worth on the 27^th April 2013.  With Buyer’s Premium, that would take it over $120k.  I was pleased; hadn’t I just been guilty of predicting the car’s rise in value?  I compared this with the average price being asked for other restored examples most of which are, not surprisingly, to be found in Germany.  €60,000 ($67,000) seems to be the norm for exceptional examples.  Already there is an interesting spread.  So I widened my search to find the best deal on a pristine 3.0 CS or CSi I could.  I found two, an example of each.  In Hungary.

Hungary?!  Why not?  I’d buy a carpet from an Arab so why not a car from a Magyar? 

Both cars are the result of a complete restoration using only genuine BMW parts to what is described as showroom condition, a claim substantiated with photos.  Given that the vendor is more likely to sell them back into Germany, he has priced them accordingly; there will be costs for anyone bringing them back to Germany.  At €45,900 ($52,000) for the 1972 3.0 CSi and €43,900 ($50,000) for the 1971 3.0 CS, you could have both cars for less than the price realised by a single example in the States.  And that is just on the asking price, no one pays that.  The fact that they are, apart from one being the fuel injected model, a matching brace in desirable Polaris Silver has to attract a premium when it comes time to find a home for them, ‘and one for her Ladyship, Sir?’.  Had I still my dealership in Bielefeld I would now be on a fast motorcycle tearing up the tarmac down to St. Kristof Garage in Pec (Fünfkirchen) to check them out before phoning a contact in the States. 

I might even have succumbed to temptation and just moved one on to subsidise the one I kept for myself.

I realise there are a lot of boring technical photos  below but we dealers, see, know what a pretty BMW looks like on the outside so, rather like a tart’s punter, we want a peek up the skirt before parting with our money…

 

Even if you aren't interested in old cars, you have to marvel at how the mechanical bits of two forty year old cars could be so clean.

You can contact the private seller on: +36 2059 52020.  If you do call, don't bother mentioning my name.  Hard to believe but there are still people in the world outside Interpol and Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs who haven't heard of me.