Friday bike

1994 Morbidelli 850cc V8

Pot ugly - silly price (£40,000, 50,000 Euros, US$ 60,000) - only 6 sold. That kind of sums it up!

Sculpture corner

Good to see there's going to be an exhibition of the work of Scottish artist George Wyllie.

link

The 'Straw Locomotive' was built for the 'Mayfest' arts festival in 1987 and suspended from the Finniston crane in Glasgow, which had been built to load locomotives onto ships. It was only intended to be on display for the month long festival, but as birds had nested in it, it remained until the winter.

 It was then transported to the Springburn area of Glasgow and ceremonially burned by George on the site of a former locomotive factory as a piper played a lament. George always referred to himself as a 'scul?tor' as his work was intended to make people think, and as the train burned away, a large metal '?' was revealed. (I was there that night.)
I try and get along to the exhibition and post some photos.

No messing!

How Ambulance bikes in the Netherlands get to the job!

Waaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

Something else

I'm not a great fan of football, but I came across something worth posting. There's a Swedish football team called Djurgården who play in the stadium built for the 1912 Olympic Games.

Now that's what I call a football stadium!

Friday bike

Another rarity, and another bike I've never seen.

 Jawa 500cc OHC twin

Know very little about them, but the model above is the 'typ 15-02' built between 1954 and 1958. There was an earlier version 'typ 15-01' built from 1952 - 1954, (below). Compare this to British bikes of the era, and see how advanced it was especially for something built in a Communist country. Now very rare, there are none on Czech Ebay, so chances of ever seeing one are slim.

Rather than retype details, I'll just cut and paste from another website.

Here's a video file of one being started:

...it started with a dream....

This is probably the weirdest post I've even done....

Last night I had a dream that I was in the café in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow. This is an art gallery filled with works donated to the people of Glasgow by shipping magnate Sir William Burrell. It's situated in Pollok Park, subject of a recent post by Stuart. This isn't very far from where Stuart and I grew up, and mr combo also spent a lot of his childhood nearby.

Back at the dream – I was sitting in the café drinking coffee when one of the staff came up to me and said, 'excuse me, but August Darnell would like to talk to you, but is too shy to approach you'. August was the lead singer in 80s band, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, and when I looked up he was standing there in his stage clothes! (Told you it was weird!). Can't remember any more of the dream, but when I got up I decided to go to the Burrell.

Details of the collection is here, but Burrell had collected an eclectic mixture of items – paintings, sculpture, furniture, armour, you name it, he collected it. It's housed in bright airy gallery with large windows that make the collection feel part of the park.

It was a very dull day so my photos are quite poor, but there's more pictures of the building here. I checked the café, but August wasn't there!

I good look round and who did I meet but Stuart. We had a good wander round before having a coffee, then heading off to nearby Maxwell Park, another childhood haunt where I met a former work colleague that I hadn't seen for twelve years! Could this day get any weirder? 

 

Maxwell Park has a pond that since my childhood has been 'naturised' and birds encouraged to settle.

When I was about three years old, my family visited Maxwell Park during the winter where I tested the strength of the ice on the pond by trying to walk on it! Needless to say, it wasn't strong enough and I fell through! (Stuart is convinced that this took place in another park, but I'm sure it was here. I'll check with our father to see if he remembers.)

So, a strange day full of coincidences, and after all, people always say you should 'follow your dreams'!

Here's August and his chums to round off the day: