lobster shanty

This has turned out to be a summer of big dumb action movies.

It started out with Predators; which in the grand tradition of sequels, was nowhere near as good as the first one. It ticked most of the alien laser death romp boxes, but was a tad too predictable; and crucially, it didn't feature a chaingun-toting Jesse "The Body" Ventura. To be fair, this is a flaw shared by many films.

Next up was The A-Team. My only real expectation of this film was that it should be so ludicrously over the top, it would make Die Hard look like a documentary about modern policing and hostage negotiation. On this front at least, it did not disappoint. A great way to get hammered is to play a drinking game whereby you watch The A-Team, and every time something stupid and/or impossible happens, you take a drink. By the time they're flying the tank, you'll be paralytic. In fact, the only major failings (apart from the aforementioned lack of Jesse Ventura) was the absence of the white and red Corvette, and the fact that when Face managed to rustle up a speedboat halfway through the film, he didn't impregnate anyone in the process.

The Pixie and I rounded off our summer of big dumb action movies last week, when we went to see The Expendables. Slightly reminiscent of eighties classic Commando, this film was set in some kind of fantasy universe where men were real men, women were real women, and absolutely everything else was exploding. Like, all the time. It was so ludicrously over the top that it made The A-Team look like a documentary about military corruption and international crime networks.

Meanwhile...

The Renault World Series rolled into Silverstone a couple of weeks ago, and since it was free we (Matt, Laura, Dom, The Pixie and I) decided to bimble along. The day featured the same selection of races, static car displays and bacon sandwiches as last year...

...but sadly lacked the glorious sunshine of the previous year. It also lacked a chaingun-toting Jesse "The Body" Ventura; but he wasn't there last year either, so this was less of a disappointment. Ultimately, it was a fun - if just a little chilly - day out that got us thinking about our vile track slag again.

It's probably fair to say that the track slag has been somewhat neglected of late. The last time we took it out (a quick spin around some local roads to make sure that the wheels still go round), we noticed that the handbrake warning light was staying on... Matt and I decided to get to the bottom of the problem.

We started by eliminating all of the most complicated, unlikely and time-consuming possibilities first; a process that involved removing wheels, sucking air through teeth and shouting at wheel hubs. Then we noticed that the switch for the handbrake light was slightly bent out.

Bastard switch.

Still, we got to finish stripping out some of the superfluous bits of electrical system and gaffer-taped up the rest.

With next to no interior, the slag is now noisy, raw and unsophisticated, and feels like a proper deathtrap.

This pleases me.