Finding the means

First Published on Monday, 14 March 2011

Today I went to visit my parent’s neighbour -Don. Don is a car nut with years of experience in racing and fixing old and classic cars. He seemed to be the best possible place to start with a very big question-

Should I buy a car in good condition or should I get one in bad nick and renovate it? 

    The question hinges on my lack of mechanical knowledge. 

    A good car is more likely to get me to Turkey, but if it breaks down I won’t be able to do much being so bloody useless with cars. However if I get a tired old banger and fix it up I will be forced to learn where everything goes and why. 

    Looking through some Classic Car magazines the price of an Austin Cambridge A60 seemed to hover about the £3000 mark, so before I struggled to scratch up that much I thought I’d have a word with Don.

    Having just got back from a quick round of golf in the Cornish sunshine he invited me in and we had a chat. Having gone over the premises of the trip Don was very clear- the only answer was to buy a good working Austin. The price of restoration, especially to a mechanics virgin like myself, would be out of the question. A lot of the parts would need to be handmade and without a workshop I was going to have to get someone else to do the job. That could add £5000 on top of the initial price of purchase. 

    So I think we can safely say that the way to go is to buy a car in good condition, but not immaculate because I would spend the entire time worrying about the paint job. 

    Don thought we should be able to get a car for well under £3000 and that he would keep an eye out for one that was within a sensible local distance. He also thought, much to my relief, that the car shouldn’t have any major problems getting all the way to Bursa in Turkey. Lets hope he’s right.

Conclusions: Finding a car is going to be half the mission. 

Next steps

Keep searching Classic Car Magazine for cars

Contact Austin owners clubs to see what advice they can give. 

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Japan Month

Friday, 22 October 2010

Evening Folks

Next month I’m planning to have a Japan Month, where I’ll focus on some aspects of a country I lived in for five years-food, travel, photography and, of course, books.

If that goes well then I might do the same for some other places...

Have a good week Matt

The world is changing..

Friday, 22 October 2010

Last night I was lucky enough to be invited to a lecture given by Dan Witters of Kiwa Media at University College Falmouth (who have just been voted the best place to study creative writing according to blog.saltpublishing). Dan and his team are award winning app designers working with both  the Apple and Android formats. According to Dan the Android share of the market is marching ever closer to a staggering 80%. 

Lets have a look at one of the apps Kiwa had made for Penguin publishing for one of their popular children's books- Hairy Maclary by Lynley Dodd

If you buy the print version it is a beautiful thing and a parent can read it to their child, brilliant. Yet the app brings a little more to the table-

The dogs tales wag and their eyes roll, not much extra you’ll say. 

If you touch the text the splendid David Tennant will read it to you, argh!?!? Sound good?

If you touch an individual word the app will spell it out for you. 

You can record you own narration if David Tennant’s brogue isn’t your thing.

Okay then, how would you like to change the language of the text with a click? Spanish anyone?No, how about Polish?

Well, how would you like to remove all the colour from the illustrations and with another click select from the colour pallet and finger-paint the trees blue and the dogs green?

There were probably a lot more, but at this point I couldn’t keep up with the note taking and anyway you get the picture. There is a whole brave new world out there to explore, if we have the courage...

I’m sure I’ll be returning to the subject very soon

Have a good week Matt

Oh, by the way the images were pinched from the ProfWriting website and amazon.co.uk

Waves 4 Water

Friday, 15 October 2010

I thought I would share a good deed with you

Jon Rose is a young man who has had a great life so far getting paid to travel the world and surf his brains out. Not a bad deal I think you’ll agree. Yet unlike so many of his peers who might feel third world poverty is something to be slept through on your way to the surf, (just turn up you iPod and snap a few picturesque shoots with your iPhone from the air conditioned bus) he decided on a different path.

Six years ago he set up Waves 4 Water to help give something back. In their own words Waves for Water was created with one goal in mind: to provide clean drinking water to those in need.’ their very simple simple water filtration system can be easily transported and with no more than a couple of buckets, a knife and the kit have clean water from almost any source up and running in an hour.  

Its a pretty neat and simple idea, just what the clip.

Have a good week Matt

Want to be a travel writer?

Monday, 11 October 2010

A funny wake up call to all writers, travel or otherwise.

Careful there are a few naughty words!!

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2xIhWr/www.xtranormal.com/watch/7327535/

Have a good week

Matt

Autumn Gold

Saturday, 9 October 2010

In a previous blog I wrote of the death of summer but that the real wealth, for those who live here, is often, or usually the golden autumns that we are lucky enough to have.

        To be fair over the last few weeks it wouldn’t have been easy to back up this statement. The rain and wind battered us about with a glee that seemed almost personal.

   Reading up on the next world contest over in Portugal, someone’s tweet read something like -’eight foot last night, two foot this morning, twenty foot predicted for tomorrow’. So we knew something was on the way, but as I turned the corner on to Pentire and craned to see the ocean across the golf course at Fistral beach, I caught a glimpse of a beautiful A-frame feathering in the off-shore wind. 

        An hour after I had finished teaching I snatched up my camera and dashed across the road and along the path at south Fistral. What a beautiful evening! The air was still warm and the winds, unlike today, were just strong enough to feather the sets without messing up the sea. The tide was as high as it’s possible to get without climbing the dunes into the golf course. Across the bay each set meant four to five peaks from north to south with a extra pair at little Fistral. 

South Fistral at dusk

        Until last year I hadn’t surfed Fistral in well over a decade. I felt it was overcrowded and overrated. With so many other beaches why struggle your way through the tourists to get a wave when there were so many quieter spots to choose from. But a mate from Bristol was down and he and his friends were already in the car park getting changed so in I went. Okay it wasn’t a revelation but more simply a realisation- that there may be a hundred surfers in the water but only ten of them are catching anything, the rest were just cannon fodder for the sets. It turned into a fun session, punchy and fast. 

        Since then I have had a bit more of a soft spot for Fistral, but rarely enough of one to drive into town. Yet last night was so beautiful, so clean, so beguiling that for the first time in ages I actually thought about shirking my responsibilities, struggling into my winter suit and getting my flabby arse back in the sea. 

        Time to sort out some work-life balance me thinks.

Have a good week

Matt

The 300 Slide File

As part of my on going project, The Escape Committee (where I am planning to drive across Europe in an Austin Cambridge to follow in the footsteps of my parent’s journey to Turkey in the sixties.) I asked Mum for some more shots from the trip. 

    All the images from the journey were taken by my parent’s friend James ‘Jimmy’ Holmes and while he has a host of images himself these are the ones that my parents own. 

Jimmy on the right, mum on the left at the Acropolis in Athens

Mum dug out this very cool 300 Slide File which has been home to their collection of images from the trip for over forty years. It’s still pretty cool I think. 

So, over the next few weeks I’ll be sorting through them to see which ones should again see the light of day. In the meantime for those fans of the period here are a couple more shots for you.

Have a good week. Matt

Dad, Jim and Mum. Up a mountain in Austria

Dad and Jim. Istanbul

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