First in a new very occasional series.....2-bob cooks.

Chunky Chili

This is not a recipe in the accepted 'Delia Smith' sense of the word, more a discussion of what you could sling together to make a decent Chili. I use soya protein substitutes for meat, partly because of the health benefits of low fat content, the fact that I can't eat meat anyway without getting the raging squits, and the risk involved with consuming anything that used to have a face that has been factory farmed and processed on an Industrial basis. Please feel free to apply your own sensibility or risk tolerance to the 'meat' aspect of the list, and don't come crying to me if that cheap processed meat product eventually kills you.

This is also not meant to be a gourmet 'best possible' Chili, it's just easy to make and bloody tasty.

To make: LOTS.

3 Onions
Large pack of Mushrooms
3 Chillies. Use your discretion as to what you use, I use 3 regular supermarket Chillies, i think it gives a nice balance of flavour to heat. The headbangers will use scotch bonnet and pretend to like it, wooftahs can use less. Chop them fairly fine. for less heat remove the seeds. If you wear contact lenses make sure you either wear gloves to do this, or wash your hands LOTS before taking the lenses out tonight. Stand on me.)
1/2 clove of Garlic, chopped fairly fine.
4 teaspoons of vegetable stock powder - marigold is clearly the best.
4 teaspoons of Bisto Onion Gravy granules. (shit I know, but they do a job.)
1 teaspoon Chili Powder
1 teaspoon smoked Paprika powder
2 teaspoons Jerk Seasoning/Cajun seasoning (you can make your own if you are a ponce)
Sprinkle of mixed herbs, fresh Coriander by the handful, or whatever else you fancy
Splosh of Mushroom Ketchup, Tabasco and Soy sauce to taste.
1 can Kidney Beans
1 can Black Eye Beans
1 can Pinto beans
2 cans chopped tomatoes
2 packs of Asda 'beef style meatballs'

1 big pan (approx 5 litres or more)
1 large frying pan
1 litre jug

Cheddar
Spring Onion
Soured cream (small pot)
Chillies

Firstly chop the onions and fry them off in the big pan, chop the mushrooms and add them once the onions start to brown a little, turn down the heat and put a lid on the pan to boil down the mushroom juices. this should take around 10-15 minutes.

Whilst that's happening you'll need to stir the onions and mushrooms fairly regularly, so make the stock by the stove so you can keep an eye.

Put the stock powder, gravy granules, chili powder, Paprika, Seasoning, herbs and sauces into a jug and add about a Litre of water.

Turn the heat back up under the pan, and reduce the mushroom and onion juices until you can fry off the Garlic and Chillies in it.

Add the Tomatoes, Beans and Stock to the pan and simmer gently for a good while.

In the meantime, fry the 'meatballs' in a heavy frying pan until golden brown, and season heavily with salt and pepper.

finally, about 20 minutes before you want to serve, add the meatballs to the Chili, and continue to simmer.

This pot will improve overnight and is happy to be he-heated later, the longer you leave it the better it gets. It also freezes well.

Serve with some grated cheddar, soured cream, chopped spring onions and chopped chili as garnish.

Today's thoughts.

Must do more blog stuff.....

Must get my act together for Big Bang at Santa Pod next weekend.....

Must try hard not to be over cynical about the media's hype of the 25 Aniversary of Hillsborough.

Must try hard not to be over cynical about sudden appearance of photographic 'evidence'

Must try hard not to be over cynical about the claims made for new improved Bold Automatic.

Must go and clean out the 'Shed of huge disorganisation' as I promised the Doris.

Must get off my arse and get read to go racing this summer, as sitting at home whilst my mates where out at the Pod last weekend was bloody horrible.

Must not write any more sentences that start with 'must.....'

The Guardian Guide - slightly biased review....

'The Guide' is part of the Guardian's Saturday package, a combination of editorial and listings that resembles a pared down 'Time Out'.

Now, I have to declare an interest here. I like the Guardian, despite it's not very good Sports coverage and it's willfully Northern outlook, I can get past the slightly wet Liberalism and sometimes unrealistic worldview to find something good to read.

And I usually love 'The Guide'.

So why so vexxed young master 2-bob?

Well, allow me to tell you.

In the last few weeks, there has been less of the good stuff, no Charlie Brooker, and far too much of the odious little scrote who is Pete Cashmore.

Pete who? You may well ask, well a P.Cashmore used to be employed by 'Nuts' magazine, and I believe ran the 'Nuts' website. This is interesting because as far as i can see the sole purpose of the magazine's website is to solicit vulnerable young ladies with self esteem issues into posting pictures of themselves with as few clothes on as possible, on the premise that this may get them a modeling contract with the magazine, for the pleasure of the social inadequates who inhabit the site. Quite how this fits with the oft trumpeted values of The Guardian I'm not sure.

Two things I do know for sure though, are that our Pete doesn't really like anyone questioning his authority, when I asked quite reasonably if he thought that the website was appropriate and whether he thought it exploitative, he banned me from the site. The other thing is that Cashmore is nowhere near as funny as he seems to think he is, in fact I've had funnier rectal prolapses than that.

So there we have it, formerly well written and amusing magazine now unfortunately in the thrall of one of a man entirely deluded about his comic abilities, whose Ego rules his word processor, and who it seems to me is far more suited to his former life of pimping delusional young women to the internet's dregs.

Good Stuff we are liking....

Motorsickle.com 'No smoke without Tyre' T-shirt, modelled by the lovely Spannerboy.

Financial Fools Day

Lets be honest, this is equally as rubbish.

Nobody worth talking to is going to have their minds changed about the validity of the modern Capitalist society and the Global Banking System based on a few thousand people who clearly haven't anything better to do getting dressed up as members of Neds Atomic Dustbin and hanging around London for the day.

We are not going to see a seismic shift in public opinion just because some rent-a-mob bunch of trust fund Anarchists hand a banner off the side of a building quite near County Hall.

The only manner in which we will achieve a better balanced and fairer world is when the people of this Country and others re-engage with Political Activisim within the framework of democracy that we have. We need people who have a grasp of the issues that address real people, and the will to act on the basis of what is right rather than on the basis of Party Political Dogma. The Politics of the Right or the Left will not solve the problems that the western world faces at the moment, it's fresh new thinking that is required, people who are able to think outside the vested interests of their Fiscal supporters.

PMQ's are on, and it's too depressing to think any more about politics.

April Fools day

No.

I'm not doing an 'April Fools' gag.

Because the last recored one that was actually funny was published in the 1903 Frimley Times and Argus, relating to a specially developed pair of coal fired bloomers worn by Mrs Amberley Mabblethrupp whilst enjoying a perambulation from the Post Office to Mr Jackson Dornier's Fruit and Vegetable emporium and self service Shop.

Fuck 'em.

Saturday Afternoon Wrestling.

No, not that American nonsense, the real deal. Kendo Nagasaki, Giant Haystacks, Big Daddy, Johnny Saint....those where the days my friend.

From the opening theme tune, to Dicky Davies announcing that we where going live to some hall in Preston, to watching the little old ladies going mental in the front row and Pat 'Bomber' Roach did something naughty again, it was manna from Heaven for the 10 year old 2-Bob.

The WWF (later getting it's lilly ass kicked by the World Wildlife Fund into changing it's name, how hard is that? duffed up in the Courts by a Panda and his mates?) was never the same, too showbiz, too much Lycra and Steroids, too much poodle hair and production values. It didn't look anything like as real. Hulk Hogan now has his own reality show on MTV the gently balding peroxide loving pooftah. I bet Mark 'Rollerball' Rocco is lifting hods still somewhere outside Dunstable, thats real geezer.

Anyway, British wrestling was Great. Shirley Crabtree I salute you.

The History of Rotten Racing.

This Month's VW Ultra has a cover story on 'Herbielizer', my Drag Racing VW Beetle.

As it's now in print, i guess it won't harm to share with you the story as i told it to Keith Seume of VW Ultra

On the 12th of May 2007 I was more worried about my Football Club being relegated than about Drag Racing, My Blue '63 that had been brought as a rolling shell from Max of the Greenhearts was mostly finished, including a 2165 (78x94mm) Motor breathing through 48mm Jenvey IDF pattern throttle bodies talking to an Omex ECU and running a lumpy FK89 cam that the Fuel Injection made more tollerable for the Street. It was my dream car, the big Engined classic Cal-Looker, one piece windows, T-Bars and Centreline 'Big-Rivet' Wheels.

On the Afternoon of the 13th of May, West Ham had beaten Manchester United, I'd been at the Champagne, and Brian Burrows was on the telephone from France talking about the Two Turbo cars he was bringing in from the States, one for himself and one to sell to another racer to boost the number of quick cars in the VWDRC Pro ranks. Whether by a mixture of elation and inebriation or just a complete lack of common sense, by the end of the conversation I had agreed to go up to Tewkesbury to see the cars, and had as good as commited to buying one of them.

Brian had sent both cars to Raceshack to have a few small jobs done, and more importantly to get their jetting sorted out for UK conditions, with less heat, humidity and Altitude than their US homes. By the time I got there Brian had selected the car that he thought had the most in it, and I saw a white '58 with a standard steel body and all it's trim retained, but for an Aluminium Jammar front beam and a missing deck lid. Around back sat a big ass Turbo that had a Holley carb hung off the back of it with a Carbon Manifold, and that dominated the engine bay. We had a chat about the price, Brian showed me all the bills that proved that i was paying only what he had spent, and as I had just two passes in my '63 under my belt at that time, Brian wanted to run some shakedown runs in the car before handing it to a novice, so we agreed that Bug Jam would be the handover day.

In the meantime i had decided that Claire Williams would be driving the Blue '63 without it's Nitrous system in the Sportsman Class as as well, so we turned up at Santa Pod with two cars, and no forward planning...more of that later. I had planned a few gentle runs to get myself used to the car, but after two passes I decided that it was running so nice that I wanted to open it up a little. Danny Allen agreed to coach me on the startline, and with his help i peeled off an 11.4 second pass at 118mph. Since that day we've never topped that run, mostly because it was a touch of beginners luck and I've never been that quick off the line since, and partly because of the myriad of small mechanical problems that have dogged me since.

On that Quick run, the car threw it's crank pulley out the back as i came through the finish line lights, thankfully missing people and other vital engine parts, to this day it still sports a small black mark on the MSD distributor body as evidence of that cheap ally pulley's bid for freedom. Being dumb i fitted another aluminium pulley for VW Action in September, and this time we noticed the crack in the webs before putting the car out, another disapointing day at the track foiled by inadequate components. There was much more of those sorts of thing to come, but a more pressing matter came to light, I really hadn't thought it out how i was going to get two race cars home from the Pod, and more to the point where I was going to keep the new one.

The VWDRC came up trumps with Team Filth sorting me right out, Andrew running about to find help, Abi (Sambasaurus) Teather phoning her mum to free up some gagarge space at her house, and the ever helpfull Rob Judge (later to be Crew Chief) of RNJ Motorsport driving home to fetch his trailer to drag it there. They are still far better organised than me, I'm lucky to have great people around me that help us out all the time and keep us racing.

In 2008 we where looking forward to Big Bang as the first meeting of the season that we could make, but it didn't go well. The car seemed to be slipping it's clutch, and more experienced onlookers noticing that it seemed to have a slight missfire and was 'flaming' from the exhaust on shifts. Along with yet another pulley going west, I decided to park the car as it was blowing more oil than i liked. People from the VWDRC wanted to get the engine out and help fix it, Shane Rae even trying to convince Claire to take me off to party whilst they made a start so I couldn't say no, but I stood my ground, helped by a dose of man flu giving me the hump, and we trailered the car back to RNJ Motorsport.

When Rob opened the Engine up it has sheered all the dowel pegs and destroyed the mating surfaces of Crank and Flywheel, and was dangling the Flywheel by a single turn of the Gland Nut. we believe that it was due to vibrations from the rear main bearing that had also contributed earlier to the pulley issue, but I still dread to think what could have happened if the flywheel had come off at the top end turning 7500 revs.... During the rebuild we brought in a Gene Berg pulley to finally put an end to that problem, even though it's four times the price of some other 'quality' manufacturers parts, and fitted a new clutch and preasure plate due to oil contamination.

The new Black Magic disc certainly made a difference.... Bug Jam 2008 saw a return to the track, and some crazy issues with traction. We had too much of it and every launch sent the nose reaching for the clouds. This scared the hell out of me, and ruined my ET's for the day, but we pushed the terminals on to 125mph, so there was clearly a major improvement in the car from that point of view, if only the driver could get his act together.

Bracket racing is cruel to those whose technique isn't perfect, and with a wildly varying ET I still am nowhere near consistent results in the VWDRC, unless consistently bad counts, but i am loving every minute. The car's history closed for the moment with a loss of oil preasure at the top of the strip at VW Action 2008, I hadn't noticed that the oil return line to the filter had crimped, so much for the American 'very expensive' braided hoses. By this time i had been made redundant and funds have not been there to get the car prepared for 2009. The lesson of all this i guess is, Drag racing can be a cheap weekend's fun if you know your limits, but chasing the dream (mine is a 10 second floorpan car with a back seat) is expensive, and what you would call near anal maintainance levels for a street car isn't nearly enough for a VW motor churning out 340bhp plus. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

It looks like I may get to go racing in 2009 as a few people have shown an interest in sponsoring the team, but it's not a done deal yet. I must thank Rob and Polly at RNJ Motorsport for all their help and support, Abi and Andrew and the rest of team filth for being great people, and John Johnstone at Big Digital (www.big-digital.co.uk ) for his financial support and friendship. We couldn't have done it without you guys. Finally to Claire for being amazing and to Mike Knight for being an all around good egg.

See you all at the track!

So there you have it, nearly the whole story of a boy and his Volkswagen. One Love.

Blimey it's been almost a month!

Bloody Rubbish, I have had loads of things that I've wanted to share with you all, and have been either too busy or just too bloody hacked off with life to be bothered with typing them up.

Today, however, we are looking at a new begining. The dawn of a new age of blogging from 2-bob, a few promos for some mates, and a bit of light entertainment.

Sit back and enjoy the show.