Getting the Fix
13 May 2007
I’ve found a place where men salivate, spend loads of cash and come out of the premises with a self satisfied smile on their face.
Where is this Holy Mecca? I hear you all ask.
Spearmint Rhino? Gloucester RFC Club Shop? The Go-Kart track at the end of Weston Pier?
No, No, No.
Screw Fix Direct - No females allowed (unless they’re serving behind the counter). The door at the entrance might as well bear the below logo…
As soon as I walked in to buy an electrical stopper I knew I wanted to belong to this elite group - workmen from the City of Gloucester queued up patiently, waiting for their order and talking shop…
‘Sevurn ‘n ‘aaafff tunnur she wuz, baaaak aaaxul wuz fokt tho’
‘Noine strip loitz pleez luvver an’ sum ‘o them rubba gluvs’
‘Ee wuz mixin’ freee to fockin’ wun the sloppy swoine, it went on loike a Maccy’s chocerlut friggin’ shake’
I felt like the Ready Break kid as a warm glow engulfed me while I stood there listening to the banter bounce of the walls.
The uniform of choice on this drizzly spring morning was a fleece bearing a natty logo on the left breast - it was de rigeur to have a hole and/or rip in the elbow and white paint (hopefully) stains splattered in a Jackson Pollock style across the chest. As soon as I get home I thought I’m attacking my ‘Berghaus’ with a pair of scissors and a bottle of Tippex.
3/4 length shorts seemed to be the order of the day for leg covering the hem of which was either undone or bearing the signs of wear as the threads hung down limply pointing towards a pair of dirty white socks and some scuffed Caterpillar Boots. Basically, like any Club that was worth its’ salt, if you wore trainers you wouldn’t get in.
As I collected my order and placed the nattily sized 800 page booklet under my arm I sadly drifted out of the shop sadly realising that I could never belong to a Club like this - when did this dawn on me?
While I was stood in the queue and the Lady behind the counter confirmed a burly workmens order…
‘Chisel’ she said. It took a massive amount of self restraint for me to not shout out ‘My Nizzle’ followed by a childish giggle.
The Anthill Mobb have got a lot to answer for.
Not this Anthill Mob
Pimp My Ride
12 May 2007
The Summer transfer Market Beckons and with that in mind, recently I chopped my 206 GTi in for a Ford Focus 1.8i Sport - I’m still unsure whether I’m gonna take to the new vehicle, time will tell I suppose. On the plus side I can’t say that I was sad to see the 206 go after all the niggling electrical problems I had with it…
Out…
In…
I’ve already added some mud flaps to the car - a two hour chore which bizzarly involved the removal of both rear wheels. Today I fitted my newly delivered Alpine Stereo (the ida X001), an Ipod compatible headset that connects to your tunes and gives flawless (according to the promotional material) playback and enables control of your Ipod from the unit itself as opposed to having to have the Ipod on display…
As I opened the box I was met with the following contents (apart from the two Ipods obviously!)…
Then I set to work removing the Standard Ford Stereo. I’d purchased some removal keys from a German Bloke on Ebay but he unfortunaly sent me four coke can ring pulls instead - Thankfully they seemed to do the job and after a minute or so of getting jiggy with it I managed to slide the unit out of its’ holster.
It was then that I realised that the fittings from the Ford wires were incompatable to that of the Alpine’s so after a quick trip to Sextons I returned with some wires that would do the job. The ones shown are NOT compatable with the steering remote control but sensing my eagerness to get the job done the friendly bloke at the aforementioned shop let me have them as an interim solution until he had some steering remote ready looms in stock…
I then wired the Head Unit up loosely purely to see if there was a power supply getting to it…
The next job was a Knuckle Scraper. I want my Ipod to sit hidden in the glove compartment and I had to figure out a way of getting the long usb lead from the back of the Head Unit into it. Without getting a drill out there was only one way in and that was through the tiny light hole that is apparant when you open up the glove compartment. I managed to squeeze the USB Cable through the hole, thankfully my paws are trowel like as opposed to shovel like and I was able to grab the cable and pull it through to where the headunit would sit…
AS the standard Ford Unit is what I would call a ‘Lump and a Half’ fitting a standard Head Unit required a Fascia Adaptor - this was purchased from Ebay (a decision that I now regret after seeing the item in situe) and I fitted it relatively easily…
As will become apparant in the pics further on the Fascia is slightly too big for the hole and consequently it bends and can be visbily seen warping at the bottom - I’m gonna have to buy a standard Ford one…
Then it was just a question of squeezing the New Head Unit into the gap…
Head Unit and Ipod Display…
As you can see the warps in the bottom section of the fascia are clearly visible - I’ll fit a new ‘un when I pick up the steering remote leads.
I usually measure jobs like this in profanities uttered, on a scale of one to ten, one bing only a ’sod it’ and Ten being a ‘For Focks sake you Bastard *insert item name here*’ followed by a hit, chuck or punch of said *item* - I’d give this job a www.steveqpr.co.uk rating of 3.5