The seductions of speed

Blog-visitors to Works Well who aren’t turned on by motorbikes are having a thin time just now I’m afraid. But Plutarch asked me to explain the visual appeal of the Honda Fireblade (see July 5 post).

Honda admit this Fireblade has very strong links with the bikes they race in MotoGP – the two-wheel equivalent of Formula One. The phrase “street-legal racer” is legitimate. So what are the clues?

First, this is clearly not a two-seater. The distance between the wheel centres (the wheelbase) is too short; this makes the bike more agile round corners. Secondly, note the exaggerated distance between the rear mudguard and the rear wheel to accommodate the springing action of the (horizontal) rear fork. Very much a racing bike feature.

Speed through corners is dictated by the angle to which the bike can be heeled over as the picture on the right shows. Because of this components must be drawn as close to the engine as possible. Especially true of the exhaust pipe which is routed almost entirely under the engine.

High speeds require powerful brakes with most braking effort coming from the front wheel. Note the huge front brake disc. And the grippy fat rear tyre.

Yet despite the tight purposeful contours of the Fireblade’s engine it is liquid-cooled. Oh, and it revs to 12,000 rpm.

Again, thanks to Honda for the pix.

Old bones need warm radiators

After six years in the USA, returning in 1972, we were ill-prepared for a Britain which still lacked central heating. Desperately poor we somehow scraped up the money to have it installed in our tiny house (“suitable for an urban peasant”).

Heating technology had progressed which was just as well. The heater in Pittsburgh resembled a phone box whereas the Kingston-upon-Thames unit was the size of two large suitcases. In Pittburgh the furnace roared on through the night and, given those winter temperatures, we wouldn’t have had it any other way. In Kingston a timer switched things off at 10.30 pm, encouraging an interest in thermal blankets.

The new furnace (actually now 10 years old) here in Hereford is smaller still and is tucked away in the garage. It heats the detached four-bedroom house with ease and has only put up one black so far when the feeder to the pilot light became blocked. It took the plumber some time to remedy this as I furiously enquired how much an electronically fired furnace would cost. Pilot lights seemed so passé. When all was well the plumber cautioned patience and the furnace has worked perfectly for the ensuing four years.

Distrust giant steps for mankind

Great leaps forward in the kitchen end up, as the Americans elegantly put it, getting filed under Drop Dead. Think electric carving knifes and chicken rotissomats. The best developments are incremental. This pan of ours, fairly recently acquired, qualifies I think. The holes in the curtain below the lid "stop the lid diddling" (in the judgement of my technical adviser) and, since the holes align with pouring lips on the pan itself, they allow sieved water to be got rid of. Also the pan looks good.

No one who has commented on my posts will need telling that the vegetable is rainbow chard which I was about to sub-title the poor man's asparagus. I now withdraw this casual definition. Chard has a flavour and - especially - a consistency all its own.

Further note on pans. Speaking as the house washer-up I regard non-stick surfaces as terrific. But in the end they get scratched and the pan should then be thrown away. Not used to mix paint or to create a bird-bath - thrown away!

Did I mention I was a bike nut?

In a May blog my friend Plutarch wrote: “A shining, red, brand new Harley Davidson…catches my attention. I stop and stare… I have never driven a motor bike and have reached the age when, if I tried, I would certainly fall off. But this is a thing of beauty.” With it came a partly veiled invitation for me to respond.

I did so in two posts. More will follow since motorcycles shaped my youth and their memories warm my advanced years. (The hell with euphemism. Shouldn’t this be “old age”? – Ed.)

Plutarch finds motorcycles alien but can see their attractions. So, let’s pretend he was unaware of the graphic arts (he isn’t) and had just seen his first oil by some competent Englishman – Joshua Reynolds, perhaps. That’s the Harley. What follows takes him up to Rembrandt.

Here's a Honda Fireblade. At our age, it’s a bike Plutarch and I would be advised to stay clear of. It weighs 171 kg, has a top speed of 180 mph and takes 10 sec to cover quarter of a mile. Of more relevance to this blog the Fireblade develops 175 bhp. By comparison my car weighs 1500 kg and develops 140 bhp.

Plutarch may still find the Harley more beautiful but that’s because he hasn’t undergone the two-wheel equivalent of visits to the National Gallery, the Louvre and MoMA. I’ve done my time and find the Fireblade stunning. It’s made to go fast and that’s self-evident. I’ll try and explain why later after a session with drawn curtains and a wet towel.

PS: Thanks to Honda for permission to use the pic.

With a car, you can always park

Driving a car is mundane - a two-dimensional experience. Planes are three- if not four-dimensional since time also enters the frame. Flight is transient, limited by the fuel carried. Running out of fuel means running out of time.

I've always over-admired people who could fly planes. The technical requirements (especially navigation) fascinated me but I never took it further. Successful flying, like the price of freedom, depends on eternal vigilance. I imagined my mind wandering; buying the farm while pondering Thomas Pynchon.

I bought Microsoft Flight Simulator and sought mightily to land the Cessna at Meigs Field in Chicago. No go. In tutorial mode I found myself sweating at the injunctions of the instructor even though I was only facing a computer regurgitating advice pre-written years before by someone in Washington state.

Later, on a journalistic trip, I sat by the pilot of a light plane as he made his approach to - I think - Darlington airport. I could see the airfield straight ahead. What shocked me was our heading, way to the left of the runway centreline. Yet, as we got nearer, our heading and the centreline converged. Crosswinds, of course. Confirmation that I don't have the temperament for those extra dimensions.

DUKWs OK; Canuck French "difficult"

Perhaps not all Canadians would agree but one of the country's major attractions is the way it distinguishes itself from Big Brother south of the border - by ensuring French is omni-present. Though it didn't exactly work out the way I expected.

In the seventies, with time to kill in Montreal, I took a city tour in a DUKW (called "duck" in Britain) an amphibious military vehicle used in WWII.

Being a smarty-boots I didn't let on about my nationality, thinking I could busk the commentary. That was a mistake. From the moment the guide pronounced the city's name - Mawn-ray-orl - I knew I was in trouble. If I understood five per cent that would be over-stating it. My French has improved but I still think I would struggle if I went back.

The reason for the DUKW became apparent when it suddenly plunged down a ramp and continued the tour afloat in the harbour. A nice touch that. Though whether I'd have felt like that arriving at Omaha Beach in the same vehicle is another matter.

Note: The pic isn't a DUKW (the door opening beneath what would be the waterline blows the gaffe straight away) but partially resembles one. Will do better next time.

It's got cars - and much more

TECHNO-ART A famous French author writes, “… the vehicle starting off, covered in one bound, twenty paces of an excellent horse. Distances are only the relation of space to time and vary with it. We express the difficulty we have in getting to a place in a system of miles or kilometres which becomes false as soon as that difficulty decreases.”

That’s Proust getting to the technical heart of the difference between cars and horse-drawn carriages. Seventeen pages into Chapter Three of “Cities of the Plain” the fourth book constituting “A la recherche…”

And there’s more. “Coming to the foot of the cliff road, the car climbed effortlessly, with a continuous sound like that of a knife being ground…”

I’ve never urged anyone to read Proust because the objective difficulties – sentences lasting a page and a half, for instance – are formidable. But the subjective benefits arrive page after page. All I ask is that received wisdom is put to one side. Yes, Proust concerns himself with snobby aristocrats but one of his greatest creations is the cook/servant Francoise. Outside the salons he ponders the nature of place names, politics, houses of assignation, railways stations and alcoholic euphoria. He’s interested in everything. Even cars!

My thanks to Plutarch for tracking down the above quotes and for alerting me to the plot summaries that bring to a close the three volumes of the Scott Moncrieff/Kilmartin translation by Penguin. I’d completely forgotten that very useful feature.

Monoglot Rosbifs are twice blessed

If you’re reading this you’re anglophone. So consider yourself lucky.

On a France Inter radio chat-show the head of Microsoft in France had to field repeated whinges about the plethora of manuals, help sources, etc, all in English. In response this pragmatic Frenchman uttered the following Académie Francaise heresy: if you want to understand computers you have to speak English.

And this is why. In protecting their language (with which I sympathise) the French authorities have translated all those terse computeresque terms into pure French. So, don’t send an email, rather envoyer un courrier électronique.

My computer has an OS (operating system) called Windows XP. My friend in Milly-la-Foret also has XP but it's his système d’exploitation. And perhaps the French for word processing (traitement de texte) would be otherwise unexceptional if it weren’t for those Berlingo vans making deliveries from the local traiteur. But then a hard disk may look like a slice of charcuterie.

Whatever one’s feelings about computers they’re not quaint which is the quality these translations confer. Finally here’s a lulu. Where we refer to a Heath Robinson contraption the Americans say Rube Goldberg device. And the French say: un engin bricolé avec les moyens du bord - a thingy put together with what’s to hand.