Early Morning Rain Pt 2 – Kick Start Scooter Rally review March 13 2010

In the early morning rain

With a dollar in my hand

And an aching in my heart

And my pockets full of sand

When I was a teenager I was a Rude Boy. Two tone suit, pork pie hat and wrap-round shades. Two years later I ditched the look and became a Mod.  Sharper threads, better sounds and chrome scooters.  A few years later, I moved on.  Football got the better of me and the casual look was where it was at.

I may have swapped lanes, trading parkas for Fila tracksuit tops, but some things never change.  I never lost my love for Weller and I never lost my love for scooters.  The years may have passed but that smell of teen spirit has never left me.  We move on.

Standing under the gaze of the London Eye in the early morning rain, I cast my mind make to those teenage years.  The scene before me has got me thinking. Nobody does youth tribes better than the British.   It seeps into our soul at early age and stays with us forever. That’s why 300 plus like-minded souls stand under grey skies, next to treasured scooters.  They’ve come from far and wide.  Portsmouth.  Leeds. Reading.  Whisper it, but a fair few of them appear to edging towards 50.  Some might say they should know better. But they can’t kick the habit. British youth culture will do that to you.

And so we leave.  Cameras flash, tourists are awed.  We’re quite a sight, “Those Brits, fuck they’re cool,” is written all over their faces.  I’d give a dashing smile and a royal wave, but it’s wet and the rain is getting heavier and I’m on my first scooter run and I don’t know the route…so better concentrate!

I easily keep up with the pack, the traditionalist might sneer at my scooter, but new school scooter means new school engine. 

Over the Embankment, the lights dance between red and green.  The pack thins out.  We head East, which is fine, it’s my manor.  But here, I should have slunk off.  I’m wet, I’m miserable and my £200 desert boots are getting ruined.  Still, I go on.  Down the A12 and over to Wansted, nearly messing up big time and ending up on the M11…don’t ask.

At some point, sanity kicks in.  I can’t make it to Epping.  300 have dwindled to 12.  The traffic lights and rain mean that groups have splintered off into smaller and smaller packs. 

I’ve lost Gary (ages ago).

I’m soaking wet.

I’m hungry (note to self…eat brekkie before you head out).

I conclude it’s an ok debut.  Of course, there’s a nagging doubt.  If I can’t do Epping which is only a few miles from home, how the heck am I’m going to do the IoW.  It’s a worry for another day.  I have a full summer ahead of me to gain more ride out experience and to research the scene. Right now it’s time to head home…

…With a dollar in my hand

And an aching in my heart

And my pockets full of sand

Finally…

Paul watched Spurs draw with West Ham and was truly gutted.  If we want Champions’ League footie again, we’ve got to beat West Ham, Wolves and Blackpool (we drew with two, lost to one and all three teams are shit).

Paul read the Guardian cover story on Ed Milliband and is still not convinced.

Paul was wowed by the greatness of Aretha Franklin on the way to gym.

Kick Start Scooter Rally, London Eye to somewhere in Essex, March 13 2010

Early Morning Rain…Pt 1

Kick Start Scooter Rally, London Eye to somewhere in Essex, March 13 2010

Ok, let’s go.  My first blog of the year, and I’m embarking on my first ever scooter rally.  I’m going to split this dispatch into two parts, as my blogs are only going to be 500 words long and there’s so much to say about this event, 1000 words will just about cover it.

On many levels this event terrified me.  I’ll list a few of the reasons in no particular order.

1 – I was going on my Jack Jones and knew absolutely no one.

2 – Scooter Snobs.  What little homework I’d done, suggested that my scooter (despite the aces panel artwork – Stax Logo on one side and Revolver album on the other) would be scorned upon because it lacks gears and is a ‘modern’ Vespa LX 125.

3 – The early morning rain.  Riding in the rain sucks.  Period.

4 – I didn’t know the route, (despite the good folks at Bar Italia making it available) or the rules.

All I knew was that the meet started at 10.00 am under the London Eye and at some point we’d all head off to somewhere in Essex. 

As a journalist of many years you get used to talking to strangers and so rocking up to people and getting a conversation going is something I find pretty easy.  That said I lucked in big style, because the first bloke I spoke to was an all round top geezer (all the more surprising as he was a Chelsea fan).  Gary Butler was his name and he hails from Essex (or Wimbledon…never quite got my head around it).  Gary’s bike was smart and original, with a leopard print seat and matching spare wheel cover (sounds moody, looks mint).  He answered my novice questions with patience and an easy charm. He pointed out a few crews, cliques and faces and introduced me to a few people worth knowing. As I plan on turning these scooter event blogs into a broadsheet feature at some point, knowing the bikes to look out for, the faces to know and the rules to abide by is going to be crucial.

Gary, I owe you a pint.

Anyhow we move on. Early lessons learnt (not only from Gary but others I spoke to).

1 – The scene needs to stop taking itself so seriously. (Sneering at lesser bikes is so not cool).

2 – The scene needs to lower its age group.

3 – The scene needs more women. 

4 – The scene needs more black faces (myself included, I noted only three people of colour in a gathering of over 300 people, which is odd considering black music dominates the scene).

On the last point, Jackie from the South London Revival Scooter Club (SLRC), told me, “There are one or two people here who won’t like you because of your colour.  And there are probably some scooter lads here from the far-right”.  I was about to say, “Jackie m’dear, when you’ve been to Millwall away or followed England abroad as I have, a few right-wing lads on scooters are going to be the least of my worries”. But I didn’t say anything.  Why? Because the early morning rain was kicking in and it was time to start our engines.

***Paul S Marshall (a photographer I met – www.paulsmarshall.com) took some great shots of the event.  They can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivoryimage/5523177862/lightbox/

Finally…

Paul is reading,  ‘77 Sulphate Strip Barry Cain (ex-Record Mirror journo - www.myspace.com/77sulphatestrip) tells true tales from Punk’s golden age.  Loving the chapters about some upcoming band called ‘The Jam’.

Paul is watching Treme (on Sky Atlantic). New Orleans never sounded so good.

Paul is listening to Wildwood.  For some reason my ipod keeps throwing up various tracks from this classic album and I’m loving hearing them again.  Just for a second forget the title track, ‘All The Pictures On The Wall’ is Weller at his finest.