Walk The Black Dog

Category: Background Braps

  • Emerging From Winter.

    Emerging From Winter.

    My CSC TT250 wears the typical makeup of my winter commute; the usual mixture of water and mud, baked onto the engine casing just after I arrived home.

    The TT250 has been an absolute champ, an I’ve done most of my winter commuting on it. Next year I think I’ll store the Ninja 300 in the bad months as I barely used it.

    I will make the time to do a more thorough review of the TT250, I just haven’t had much spare between work and virtually continuous family sickness…

  • Spring has sprung…

    The weather did not get the memo, however.
    Fuck freezing temperatures
    Bollocks

    It’s just for a couple of days, and it’s not actually been too bad. I took the Ninja out yesterday for the commute and the bike felt really good. I’ve been fighting surface rust on the chain for weeks on the Ninja, largely because the expensive new cover I bought fits tightly due to the taught elastic and tends to wick moisture up around the bottom 3-4 inches. Next year I’m going to store it over winter and just use the TT250, as that’s one of the main reasons I bought it.

    Speaking of which, I have a few ambitions for the Chinabike, as I’ve got an aftermarket carb working really well on it. In no particular order:

    • An aftermarket exhaust system. The stock one is doing the standard OEM cheap job of oxidising heavily around the downpipe, I really want some stainless steel on there. You can get a decent one for about USD 120. I will have to find someone to drill out the flange and make a bracket though; I lack the necessary workspace at home.
    • Stainless spokes for the rear wheel, which will also mean a truing stand and some other bits.

    The bike has survived winter pretty well, however the exhaust header and rear spokes (and it is just the rear) are determined to return to nature, so I’ll deep clean them for now, but spending a couple of hundred bucks on a more permanent solution sounds better than constantly trying to clean them up.

    The weekend is looking good for a long ride; it will be the first since October.

  • The CSC TT250: Smiles per Gallon

    The CSC TT250: Smiles per Gallon

    The CSC TT250 review. The background to my decision to get a TT250 is here.

    I’d put on around one-thousand miles on the CSC TT250 as the first green spots started to emerge on the the Pennsylvania woodlands. The bike held up well over Winter, and between the endless rain and salt, winter is a harsh environment for machinery. I’d gambled on the TT250 being a dependable winter warrior, and thus far it has done well. It’s surely a sign that I often choose to ride the bike on my commute over my Ninja 300.

    The Good

    The TT250 is a well-made bike. The finish is excellent; the frame shows little aggravation from the ravages of winter, though I was decidely liberal with my application of anti-corrosion ACF-50 spray. Some fasteners inevitably dulled, but this is no different from my Kawasaki (which I rode through last winter) and generally speaking I am pleasantly surprised how durable this bike is.

    Cold and wet: The TT250 in Winter commuting duty
    Cold and wet, a typical morning commute for the TT250.
    TT250 Engine after a typical winter commute
    The warpaint of a typical winter commute

    The engine, an air-cooled 229cc single, is absolutely superb. There’s only around sixteen horses, and about 18nm of torque at 5.5k rpm, but there’s more to it than the numbers. The power band is sweet, and considering it’s a relatively unsophisticated single, it’s very smooth. Western Pennsylvania is not short of hills, and the engine deals with everything with little complaint. I average about 55-60mpg, but this figure has increased over engine break-in, and includes my commute which is terrible for fuel economy.

    Once I got my carburetor dialed in (I fitted an aftermarket Mikuni VM26 clone, commonly available on Ebay) the engine started with little hesitation in temperatures right down to 17F. The stock carb was satisfactory, if a little hard-starting when cold, propably due to lean jetting, and by ‘cold’ I mean less than 40F. I chose an aftermarket carb to allow more adjustment should I fit an exhaust system, and the carbs are as cheap as chips. Tuning them is a pain in the arse, but there’s plenty of help at Chinariders if you get stuck.

    Stock gearing is 17/50, which isn’t too bad, but if you’re riding mainly on the street I would pick 17/47, which is less hectic at 55mph. Apropos of top speed, you could take this bike on the freeway, but I wouldn’t, unless traffic truly moved around 50-60mph. It’s superb as a back road basher, and absolutely devours city pavement. CSC offer a 49 tooth rear sprocket as an option, and I did actually purchase one, but after researching the forum and the ever useful Gearing Commander site, I went with fitting a 47.

    The five-speed gearbox is smooth and precise, but you must ensure you allow the gear lever the full range of movement – that was new to me and before I got used to it I suffered the occasional missed shift.

    The TT250's engine
    229cc of fun

    The tyres are seemingly generic dual-purpose ‘knobblies’. Conventional wisdom says you should get rid of them and fit some rubber from one of the big brands that you trust.

    Don’t.

    They are quite simply fantastic road tyres, within the performance envelope of the bike. I have ridden these on soaking wet roads, on gravel and salt, on roads with a film of mud on them, and they have been absolutely marvelous. I have taken them on mud and grass, and they’ve been wonderful, confidence-building tyres every step of the way. When the weather is crap, I will take the TT250 because I know I can trust those tyres. By comparison, my lightweight sportbike with Michelin Pilot Street 4 has excellent traction wet or dry, but as soon as the road surface has any artefacts like gravel or mud, it’s terrifying; see this gif as an example of what mud and a wet road can do:

    Looking at the wear rate, I’m not sure I’ll get much more than 2000 miles out of the rear, but I think that is reasonable for a general-purpose tyre that will do asphalt and any off-road riding the bike is capable of.

    tt250 after some off-roading 1
    tt250 after some off-roading 2
    The TT250 after some fun on a muddy forest trail.

    The TT250 is exceedingly comfortable in stock form; I’m 6’3″ and around 210lbs, and the rider triangle is pretty much perfect for me. I didn’t realise how cramped I am on my Ninja until I started riding the TT250 frequently. The stock seat is very comfy. I haven’t ridden the bike that far, but on many weekends I’ll routinely spend a couple of hours riding pretty hard, with no discomfort.

    Handling is superb; really very, very good. It feels at times like a giant mountain bike. It’s very easy to hold a line, and turn-in is sharp, perhaps not surprising on a bike so light. Off road (I am by no means experienced here) the light weight and easy manners translate into a stable, well-mannered platform. The bike encourages you to have fun, and this really is the strength of a dual sport. On some back roads and see an open trail, or a gravel road? What about that nasty looking back road? Go check it out. It’s great.

    Here’s some video of me riding the TT250 on its second day in my possession around the wet roads near home:

    The Bad.

    I’ll say up front these are minor gripes, but it would be remiss not to mention them, lest people think I’m taking money from CSC (I wouldn’t do that of course. Though if they wanted to, I’d accept an RX3…:D )

    The brakes are well put-together. You get steel-braided lines (I don’t even have those on my Ninja!) and lever feel is firm, but if you’re giving them a workout (for example: aggresive riding on downhill twisties) and it’s a hot day, they can fade pretty quickly. Not an issue if you’ve trained yourself to use both brakes, but if you’re heavy on the front brake only (like a prototypical supersport rider), they’ll fade. They do recover rapidly. Of course, all bikes will do this to a degree, but it’s more pronounced on my TT250 for sure. My front rotor has also had a little runout from day one, and I think I will be replacing it soon as I believe it’s getting worse.

    TT250 rear brake assembly
    The brake system is well made, but don’t expect to be able to push it like a sportbike without some fade

    The clutch isn’t great. I have probably been a little spoilt by the Ninja 300’s clutch, which is just superb. The TT250’s clutch is durable enough, and I suspect it’s a consequence of uprating the clutch to cope with the 229cc’s higher torque (the original CG was 125cc) but once the engine is up to temp, it can be a grabby, snatchy affair until you get used to it. I struggled for a while to get the lever adjustment right and actually ordered a replacement clutch cable, as I wasn’t certain mine hadn’t prematurely stretched too much. In fact, the adjustment is very particular and in my case is better done with the engine warmed; setting it while cold will result in very slight drag once the engine is warm.

    These issues won’t present themselves most rides, but if you’re in stop-go traffic on a warm day, the clutch pack’s tight packaging and air-cooled character of the motor will begin to make themselves known. Get used to fighting a little bit to get neutral, and I’d recommend 15w40 synthetic (once you’re past break-in) if you’re running the bike in a city during summer.

    The Ugly.

    Everything here is a function of where I live, and the fact that I ride my bikes whatever the weather. Except ice and snow. Sometimes even then. I’m British, after all, and we’re a bit daft like that.

    The wheels look great, but the spokes aren’t stainless and it’s a fight to keep the weather off them. At some point I will probably replace them with stainless spokes (the rims seem fine), of course, this will cost, but it’s a function of the climate here, and I need something that will take the weather a little better. I don’t think this will be an issue for any owners that aren’t in the rust belt and ride all year round.

    I did strip one of the sprocket carrier bolt holes when swapping the sprocket out; I suspect this was because they were very tight from the factory. It was a straightforward repair, but I’ve read of a couple of other instances of this on the Chinariders forum. The bolts are hard, M10x1.25 steel and the hub is pretty soft; I think studs might have been a better choice. Still, if you potter about with bikes, this isn’t unknown by any means.

    Also – and this is by no means an uncommon problem on most OEM fitment using steel pipes – the stock exhaust header is looking worse for wear, and I will probably replace it soon with a stainless system, but this is a largely cosmetic concern.

    Is it worth it?

    Unreservedly. You really can’t go wrong, and I’m looking forward to many more adventures on the bike, especially now the good weather is here. Put it another way, I’m strongly considering an RX3 Cyclone as my next bike, possibly as a replacement for the Ninja. That’s my faith in the company’s product.

  • A Place, A Time

    A Place, A Time

    Kiski Junction Railroad, Pennsylvania, June 26th 2016.

    I’d taken my family to ride this little railroad just the week before. On the road down I’d noted the last few miles would make a good bike ride, and so one week later I took my Ninja 300 there.

    It was a boiling hot day, but a curiosity is how it’s the details of the bike’s life that stay with me: That chain was on its last legs, and had a tight spot I just could not massage out. The rear sprocket would soon be gone too, but the greatest recollection of all was the valve adjustment. just a few days later over the July 4th weekend, I tackled the valves. The diminutive Ninja had about 8000 miles on it; the recommended check was 7600; conventional wisdom on the Kawasaki Ninja 300 forum was to leave it to 15000, I did not want to leave it to chance.

    It actually turned out to be a long undertaking, and the exhaust valves were indeed out of spec. I got the job done, and the bike still runs today. It remains the most complex thing I’ve done mechanically.

    The joy of bike ownership, learning to do things you never thought you could.

  • The Perfume Road

    Spring riding.

    April 28th, 2017.

    Late Spring’s a glorious time to ride. The sun comes out, mornings are cool and bright, and the olefactory system gets bombarded with a range of pleasant distractions. It’s still cool enough that the asphalt doesn’t get heated to the extent your senses are overpowered by hot tar and exhaust fumes.Cut grass,petrol, and the pleasant cocktail of plants in bloom.

    Most of all, there’s a short period when people’s windows come down, before they start surrending to the heat, closing their houses and cars up, and resorting to the air conditioner. You pass houses where breakfast is cooking, fresh laundry is carrying on the cool breeze, and nobody looks in a hurry.

    Somewhere in front, perfume escapes through a car window, for miles and miles. It’s hypnotic.

  • Be Paranoid

    Be Paranoid

    If you think they’re out to kill you, it’s because they behave as if they are.
    Crane Truck McFuckface was hiding in this tunnel
    The tunnel monster is real

    Riding to work this morning on my dual sport, I negotiated this blind corner and came upon a stationary utility truck (the type with the dorsally-mounted crane) head-on smack in the middle of the road.

    My guess is that the driver did this to allow the crane to clear the tunnel ceiling. Be that as it may, it was poor judgement as the this tunnel has a blind entry on both sides:

    Blind entry to tunnel in both directions
    Blind entrance, both ends

    I’m assuming the driver had his window down, heard me, and stopped. There were no lights, no flag man, nothing. Had I been riding more aggressively than was prudent, had I been on my sport bike, this might have been a little hairy; you can see it is an appealing pair of corners; that’s why I ride this little road in the first place.

    Ride safe, folks.

  • Sebastian Vettel On His Way To Work

    Silverstone, England

    Seb’s a cool bloke. Here he is riding his Suzuki GT750 ‘water buffalo’ to work:
    ulygkscd8c9z

  • Summer Blues

    Summer Blues

    August 8th, 2017

    I’ve been riding a lot, but I haven’t been writing a lot. It’s definitely not been due to a lack of things to say; but time’s played a part. I’ve been spending a lot of quality time with my kid, and Summer’s been pretty fun outside of problems with my bête noir, the Pittsburgh weather.

    I’ve ridden a lot of bikes; more Ducatis, some Yamahas, and a Suzuki, so that’s a target crossed off this year (I wanted to get a lot more demo rides in).

    I’ve also made some more riding friends and been out on group rides a few times, and bike nights have been a blast.

    I have also, truth be told, experienced a little fatigue towards riding, although everytime I hop on the Ninja I’m invigorated. I think it’s some irritation toward the lack of any real bike culture here, so riding becomes a little close to tedium at times, and tedium is a very efficient passion killer.

    I’ll write some more about this, I need to think carefully about how I word it as I may come off as a little harsh.

    We will see.

  • Odyssey, Pt. 3

    FAIR SEAS, BUT A Storm warning

    The millennium had arrived. 2000 was upon us, all the computers kept working, the apocalypse would have to wait for now. My auditing job at the College was coming to a close. They were trying their best to keep us on, but the urgency for the work was no longer present, and by February it was clear I’d need to move on. Martin, the curriculum manager at that time, told me to call him if I needed to keep the wolves at the door. I appreciated that. City College would feature in my future, in a significant way.

    A note on memory and perception of time – I had been in Southampton less than 3yrs at this point, but in recollection it felt more like ten. Memory is an odd thing. Jobs I did for six months felt much longer, and it’s curious to me that this is not a long period of time I’m describing, but it feels it, perhaps because of the high number of events.

    The university interview was one month away. It was not a certainty, I had an assessment to get through. In the meantime I needed work. On the way home to Middle Street I dropped into an Agency I’d noted in passing several times, they were small and I think Independent. I registered with the desk and they told me there was actually a job available In their office – talk about landing on your feet – and I could start when I liked. The rate was decent, just over £6 an hour (seems nothing now but it was enough for a modest living in Southampton in 2000) but it dead mean long days, 0830 – 1800 which I knew would be a drag. That was not the only issue.

    The owner was a whip-thin middle-aged woman whom referred to her banana yellow German convertible as her ‘baby’ and seemed exceptionally highly strung. She barely spoke to me – ever – and instead relied on the office ‘business development manager’ Bernie, who was around 40, ex Royal Navy, and your stereotypical idea of a sales guy. He would schmooze customers, but was overbearing and brusque with employees. Between him and the owner, you never knew what you were walking into. The office manager was a German/English woman called Chris, who was quiet and a lot more even, but she also seemed ineffectual. Bernie was the owner’s bagman, and he knew it. An interesting feature of this workplace at that time was it allowed smoking, the only place I witnessed this, before or since. They all smoked. I could not, as I was out front.

    I would deal with assessing employees and passing off leads to the consultants. A recruitment consultancy is a sales operation; the product is people; they stand or fall on their ability to secure staffing contracts from local business. This means most of the consultants day is spent trying to sell the company services. The staff are seen as lightbulbs, unscrew one, put another one in. This consultancy was an industrial recruiter, meaning factory workers were the majority of their business. I was the last ‘commercial’ (office) placement – in their own shop.

    One morning I was at my desk writing some notes, and the phone rang. One ring. Bernie charged over and told me pointedly “You’ve got to be picking up that phone! Don’t let it ring!” Also keep the desk tidy, and stop going to the toilet so much (I mean, was I?). The owner was glowering at me, or us (I could not tell) in the background. For whatever reason, Bernie was on my case. One of the other consultants told me not to worry about him, that he did this to everyone – which he did – but I was already of the opinion that life was too short for this. I had my interview to look forward to. Whatever this was, I knew it wasn’t forever.

    March had me attending the Lanchester Building at the back of University of Southampton’s Highfield Campus. It was a sunny day. I had an introductory talk about the foundation year (which lead into a full BSc engineering degree either there, or another university, for a total of 4 years). The head of the Foundation year was Dr. Anna Barney. Dr. Barney would, from start to finish, be fantastic. She asked me to do a single page mathematics assessment, which I was dreading. It was not difficult, about GCSE Maths level. She talked me through my performance (I could not remember how to do some fractions) and she was happy with the results. I’d got over the worst part.

    This is important because maths was the big thing I was worried about and it didn’t seem to be the mountain I feared and I convinced myself it would be alright.

    That said, I’d already made the first of many errors here. The crucial point I had underestimated is that I had been given a reading list and a table of topics I was expected to understand in fluent terms at the time the course started, i.e. it would not be covered, you’d be expected to know it already. The course starting point would be beyond these topics. This matters in mathematics because it is a semantic tree; you need to know the roots before the trunk, the trunk before the branches, the branches before the leaves. I emphasize this because it’s highly relevant to what came later.

    I was in. I’d be starting October 4th, 2000. I went back the office, Bernie picked up on my good mood and did his best to ruin it, but it didn’t matter. This was my break. I would finally embark on a meaninfgul degree, start exploring my potential, and it made my modest existence completely tolerable, but I still had seven months to fill.

    P, for his part, had also decided to go back to school and was prepping for a chemistry degree. In Leeds. He’d already taken a preparatory A-Level at my old shop City College, as he needed it for entry requirements. P, in retrospect, got it right. He is incredibly intelligent and I had the feeling it all came easily to him. What this also meant was we would definitely be parting ways, that the Southampton epoch was coming to an end. For him, at least. I would remain for another decade.

    For me, I had to sort out my work situation. I was in my sixth week with the recruitment people; they had secured the contract to staff the Tall Ships Festival in Southampton that April. The resultant workload had caused objection from one of the consultants, Jackie. They sacked her on the spot, it was very ugly stuff (she left in tears, humiliated in front of everybody), and Bernie was the axe man. He came to me and told me “We’ve terminated Jackie’s contract, so any calls for her are to be directed to me”. It was all quite unpleasant. I understood the owner had a business to run but this seemed a bit much. I also realized that if that was how they treated tenured employees I was probably not going to last long.

    On some days, Bernie would have his young son in, and I’d keep him busy with the pinball game on the desktop computer. Bernie can’t have been all bad because his lad was a terrific boy, but I caught Bernie glowering at me when I was talking to his son, as if I were about to offer him some heroin, but I hadn’t brought any with me that day.

    when I was filing away paperwork in the main office something on a consultant’s notepad caught my eye. It was a telephone number and the word ‘Receptionist?’ written next to it. We didn’t do commercial recruitment. Reception was one of my responsibilities. I knew my number was up. I asked the consultant the next day and she told me I wasn’t supposed to know but yes, they (meaning the owner and Bernie) wanted someone else for my job. Bernie got wind I’d asked about it and called me upstairs to grip me.

    He told me that “..You are not the world’s best receptionist” And I reminded him this was not a requirement of the job, because this was not the world’s best recruitment agency. This didn’t go over too well, and he told me I wasn’t a great employee, took too many breaks, ‘hovered around’ too much. I told him I didn’t plan on doing this forever, and he actually took a lot of interest in my plans. I had the impression office Bernie was a totally different person to the actual Bernie.

    I didn’t care for the man, but I didn’t hold anything against him, he had his ways and that was it. He’d taught himself this overly assertive management style, but I think he needed to get out from under the owner, this was obvious to me, because it was toxic. I walked out at lunchtime and headed straight to the pub. That recruitment agency would be gone within two years, leaving just their head office in Basingstoke. Southampton has an abundance of employment and letting agents, most of the smaller ones get bought or die off.

    I knew this was coming, so I’d already applied for a job at P&O Nedlloyd (herein PONL), the container line that had an operations office in Southampton. I did not disclose I had no intention of staying beyond October. The job was on the imports side, arranging land-side movement of containers coming into Southampton, and other UK ports. My prior experience at Meyer basically secured the job. There was a probationary period whereafter you’d be a permanent employee. It was about six months, the starting pay was decent. There was a week’s training, too.

    This would be a very social place, it was a full floor of young people, with old bosses. My desk boss Mike, was a good guy but he picked up an air of indifference from me that drove him mad. I overheard him once talk about me to another employee. “The problem with James is that he thinks this place is a holiday camp.” I did not. I had no idea what he was on about. Perhaps it was the fact I continually ignored his repeated complaints about my work. You had to do a lot of billing calculations and I always left it last minute, because I didn’t like it. Then I would go and ride the ferris wheel.

    It was all a little too much like hard work, and I knew that this was not going to be my career, so it was difficult to find much motivation. The high spot was the very active social life the place offered – I really enjoyed it.

    By now I was doing regular study at night, for the first time in years. I was working through the foundation mathematics workbook as instructed by Dr. Barney. Progress was steady, and I wasn’t concerned, I just needed to keep at it. This isn’t foreshadowing, I did keep it up, but I realized I’d not complete all of the topics in time. I did not fret on the basis that I hadn’t struggled with any of it and so assumed that would be the case for the remainder.

    I wanted to see if I could secure some part time work to help offset the cost of my education. University was no longer free, and my accomodation plans (I decided I wanted to stay at the university to get the full experience, leaving my girlfriend free to continue living in her very small apartment). I was concerned that if I tried to keep a foot in two worlds It might affect my commitment to the whole endeavour. My accomodation would be about £80 a week and anything I could do to offset the student loan would help. I got in touch with some old colleagues at BT, and they asked me to come back as a contractor but wanted me full time until October, wherein I could pick my hours. It was more money than PONL.

    I gave Mike the good news who wished me good luck, and told me “not to fuck it up”. And so ended my time at PONL. I wasn’t especially sad to leave but I did miss the people, it was a fun scene. I never saw any of them again, which is a weird and repeated phenomenon given it’s a small town. PONL no longer exists either – they got swallowed by Maersk. I still see branded PONL containers here in the US. The former office was Carnival Cruises for a while, before being converted to student flats.

    By now I’d fully realized a separate life from the people I’d come to live with and love. I had my own friends, had my own social circle. We still hung out all the time, but I no longer felt dependent on them, which was good because before long we’d all go our separate ways. This is one of the reasons I felt less positive about the Middle Street house – I associate it with this terminal period in our friendship.

    BT was going through some changes. The corporate clients people had all moved into Friary House (where it all started for me), Telephone House would be sold, and the office was divided into fulfillment (back office) and services (talking to customers). I floated around fulfillment, handling work orders. My mate Beth was still there, and it was great to be back in regular contact with her. She was heavily pregnant, but it didn’t slow her down much. Helen was around too, and there was a lad called Matt who was another contractor, who I’d get to know. There was also Vicky(?) (I am not certain of my memory of her name), yet another Northerner who was a little stand-offish at first but we became good friends. This would be the most relaxed time at BT, nothing like before, and I felt the duties were appropriate to contract work; none of this bullshit of treating them as if they’re fully-signed up employees but with none of the rewards.

    The Boat Show takes place around every September in Southampton. I didn’t usually bother going, it was expensive even for locals and attracted a lot of the hooray Henry and Henrietta types. All Range Rovers and hockey sticks. Not my people. For whatever reason, my mum decided she wanted to spend this weekend with me prior to me going back to university. It stays with me because we had a really pleasant time together, and it was the last time she would visit me there on her own. We looked at the brand new West Quay shopping centre (Europe’s biggest city-centre mall at that time) and around the boat show, laughing at all the yachties and marveling at the gin palaces. I had the impression she was worried about me, for some reason.

    I think she knew something I didn’t.

    TBC.

  • Odyssey, Pt. 4

    Disaster And Defeat

    “Success teaches us nothing; only failure teaches.”

    Hyman G. Rickover

    The time had come. The band was breaking up. P was heading back North, to begin a new adventure in Leeds, Kevin would stay in Southampton with his fiancé, Rob would eventually wind up back in his beloved Wales, and I was starting a foundation degree at the university. I have a distinct memory of helping P load his parent’s car for the journey home. I rather stupidly wondered if he’d ever return. I knew he didn’t love Southampton, was entirely unsentimental about it, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he never looked back, but I would see him – and everyone else – that Christmas.

    I would stay with my then-girfriend until the start of Semester, in October. Like the year before I recall it was a bright and sunny summer, all the girls wore designer sunglasses and cargo pants, tramp stamp and visible thong seemed to be the thing. The All Saints look, as I thought of it. The lads all looked like they shopped at Fat Face because they did.

    There was a definite feeling of change though. I was equally excited and apprehensive. I was 26, technically a mature student (anyone would testify I was anything but mature) and I was a long way out from any kind of academic study. I was wondering how I’d get on. There’s not much time between school leavers and 26, but it’s also another world, and I’d be living among them. Would I hate it? The work I wasn’t too worried about. I was telling myself I had done enough.

    I would discover under the most difficult circumstances, that I hadn’t.

    I’d wanted to live in halls, but the only availability was in catered; in other words they served breakfast and dinner, which was easy, expensive, and kind of novel. I wouldn’t have to worry about cooking, which is fortunate, because I couldn’t, as the lads would testify.

    My move-in day was Monday October 2nd. Most people were already there. I pulled all my belongings out of the boot of my friend’s little Peugeot hatchback, got my keys, and took stock.

    The university accommodation fruit machine had allocated me a room in K Block, Glen Eyre Halls of Residence. Glen Eyre was a large housing complex just North of the Highfield Campus, featuring several blocks of varying vintage. K block was part of three identical blocks, 3 stories of concrete in brutalist style. It could have been made in Minecraft. In 2005 they were extensively redeveloped with an additional floor and extra wing changing their plan shape from a ‘C’ to a square. Back then, I think the fixtures and fittings were all original, it had a distinct 1960s feel to it. Shared bathrooms on every floor, blue-tiled kitchens (2 on each floor), white hardwood cupboards, knackered microwave and cooker, and the hot water came from a small electrical header tank over the sink.

    The corridor was grey carpeted, seemed perpetually slightly-too-warm, and varnished wood panelling punctuated the painted concrete walls. It was all very beige. My room was tiny with the window looking out onto the middle space of the block, a single bed, scuffed-up old wardrobe and a basic desk. There was a telephone socket and an RJ45 port but these were extra, and not cheap. and I don’t think anyone I knew paid for them. No internet otherwise. Seems unthinkable now, but that’s how it was. A single computer room on the first floor allowed access to the delights of email and the web. If you needed to download something substantial – say a large patch for Half-Life – you had to use sneakernet – walk to the labs on campus with a writeable CD-R.

    I was the oldest person on my floor, but nobody really cared. The kids, as they say, were alright. My previous experience at Southampton was at the Institute, which some people unkindly referred to as the Chimpstitute. It was a different class of school. One morning Sarah (a neighbor on my floor) told me she would be spending the day in the Library. I laughed, assuming she was joking, because obviously going out for a daytime pint or two was a better idea. She wasn’t. She pulled 8 hours in there like it was nothing. She did this often. These kids were dedicated.

    Here there were lots of Harriets and Tims, rather well-to-do kids who were also very, very bright. The first person to introduce himself to me was Joe, who is still in touch today, and was my closest friend there. He seemed shy, talked himself down too much, but also possessed a keen and sardonic wit. Josh was a tiny computer science nerd from London, Ellie was a very sweet girl from the home counties somewhere, and Tom reminded me of every kid I went to grammar school with. All confidence and tall good looks. Sally was 17 and at university early because she was super clever or some shit, and Nina was the most local, from Bournemouth, and super cool, when you could get a word out of her. Sarah was striking, a bit plummy, very bright, and carried herself as if much older. Alex was a bear of a lad, awkward, but a heart of gold. Joe told me he thought Alex looked up to me. I didn’t even look up to me. There were plenty of others but these are the ones I remember the most. Joe recently reminded me about Rachel, who I didn’t remember at all until he mentioned her, and she lived on our corridor! Memory is a funny thing. It’s not as reliable as you might think.

    The floor was its own self-contained entity – we did not know anyone upstairs – and had further subdivision into different corridors, forming cliques and alliances. There was a kid called Tony from the other side (the floor, not the spirit realm) who had seen too many Guy Ritchie films and talked like Danny Dyer. He walked around repeatedly with his hand on his crotch like an Italian pimp and was a bit of a plonker, but definitely amusing. I think he was from Tunbridge Wells. People we didn’t know but saw regularly (the entire block had breakfast and dinner together) acquired nicknames like ‘badly-dressed girl’ and ‘ponytail twat’.

    People slowly figured out I was a little different due to background (but not a serial killer), and I was really quite fond of everyone, which was fortunate, because I didn’t really like anyone on my course. The first week was full of things like orientation (“this is what a bus looks like” etc) and motivational talks from course leaders. The actual classes would start the following week. There was an orientation day at City College (foundation year is delivered there, but run by the university) giving me the odd experience of forced trivia about a place I knew back to front. The rest of the time was spent exploring the union bar (really very nice) and the Glen bar (local to the halls) watching South Park and The Matrix about 2 million times and generally enjoying myself. The difference in age, while small, melted away completely.

    Monday morning would be right into it with double maths. About fifteen minutes into class during which some fundamentals were rattled through – simultaneous equations, quadratic identities and so forth – I realised I was in the shit. I wasn’t up to speed on this stuff. Not enough. The remainder of the day featured physics (which went a little better) but my apparent lack of preparedness for the maths had given me a sharp jolt. I returned home to halls and went over the material. I could do it, but not anywhere near quick enough – and it was only going to get more difficult – and there were some concepts I still had trouble with. I lacked confidence.

    The rest of the week was more of the same, logarithms, binomial theorem, polynomials…I was struggling to keep my head above water, and more complex physics theory started being introduced. I enjoyed Stress and Strain (irony) but struggled with some of the electrical theory. The big problem from my point of view was the tempo was crazy fast, I felt like I was drowning. My habit was to retreat back to my room and figure it out in my own time – I got very stressed out trying to make progress in class with someone standing over me.

    The college had a half term in its own timetable, during which it was closed. The university called this a ‘reading week’, essentially a break from class. I got endless shit from my K-Block mates for this, perceiving it as a holiday (which it was) but I knew it would have to be fruitful or I was fucked. I resolved to head to my parents, by now in Cambridgeshire and take a breather. This may have been a mistake. I still don’t know. I should probably of got my head down and stayed in Glen if I was to have any hope of avoiding what happened.

    At my parent’s place, I had something approaching a nervous breakdown. I was suddenly fixated on the idea that I did not want to go back, that I could somehow stay in rural Cambridgeshire indefinitely. I discussed it at length with my mum, and my dad tried his best to assure me it was just a wobble. He told me stories of his own experiences and It helped, but I was having an almost complete failure in confidence and I could not see past it. I think I completed one homework assignment (of two) and could barely stand to look at the reams of printouts of algebra worksheets for fear I might burst into tears. I overcame the panic and returned to Southampton.

    At this time I did something very stupid. I stopped going to class. I spent my days idling around, very occasionally looking at some work before changing my mind, and shooting the shit with my neighbors. There was always somebody around, and something to do. Get lunch on campus, spend the afternoon in the union bar watching MTV, anything to avoid thinking about work. Nobody knew what was happening. I kept it all to myself.

    Eventually, inevitably, the system caught up with me, and I started getting pressed to go and talk to one of the tutors. I put it off for as long as I could, before going in. He was very understanding, told me to keep my chin up, collect the work I’d missed and knuckle down. I came back armed with an enormous amount of course material (they continued to move fast) and after Christmas there was the first final, a maths exam, which would determine progression. A retake was possible for this one, but what I’d need was a miracle.

    It was December. I’d started to seriously consider finally fucking it all off. I was not so far in that this would cost me much, I could quit and cut my losses right now. I decided not to do anything too hasty, see how study over Christmas went and assess if I had the slightest chance of passing the first assessment. I was nowhere near where I needed to be. I’d started behind, and it was only getting worse.

    Fate also had a part in a particularly terrible way. On the evening after my birthday, during a reunion with my old housemates, there was a serious fire at my girlfriend’s place. It is believed a candle had started a fire near the sofa, causing that to be completely destroyed, and the whole apartment contaminated by smoke damage. We had to live with a friend for a couple of weeks, while the flat was completely redecorated. It was just one more thing on the plate, even though it was sorted out remarkably quickly.

    I tried to find a way out of things.

    The best analogy I can make is being able to run a competent 5K, and entering a marathon. You’ll never make it, have no hope to get up to standard during the race, and are just going to damage yourself trying.

    I started to let people know that I would be leaving after the break, in January. Everyone was great about it, we’d all keep in touch, all the usual platitudes. Dr. Barney, for her part, expressed absolute confidence in me and insisted I re-apply the following year. She said I just needed more time. And with that, I withdrew. My return to education, the thing that was meant to change my life, my big opportunity to really do something for myself and launch a career, had completely shattered, after just three months. I felt completely defeated.The experience was so wounding, and left me so soured on it, I would never return, and resigned myself to finding another path. It haunts me to this day.

    Writing it now, with the clarity of hindsight, I should have bailed much earlier – the moment I realized I wasn’t ready – and come back the following year. It was a much more realistic plan, but at the time, I just had no sense of it at all.

    Over the years I asked myself if I could have pulled it out of the fire. I just didn’t have the right mindset to even begin to do that, it would have taken a work rate I had never demonstrated, confidence I didn’t have, and aptitude I thus far hadn’t shown. Adrian Newey, Southampton Alumni and world-famous aerodynamicist for Red Bull Racing, struggled badly with maths during his engineering degree, and the answer he discovered was for him to simply knuckle down and try harder. So really it is simple, but also not so simple, unless you’re Adrian Newey.

    More preparation was required, but I didn’t realise it. All the clues were there, I just had failed to notice the competencies – in black and white – were absolutely literal. I had a false sense of security from doing alright in the initial assessment and had made the fatal error of believing it would be alright on the night.

    P had got it right, he’d done an A level, and this gave him practice at the standard near where he’d be starting university at. I should have done the same, because A level mathematics was pretty much the starting point of the course. I wasn’t used to academic work, to study, to organizing my time, or to pacing myself in lessons. It had been a long time for me and the level I’d achieved off my own back was only really a starting point. I should have done ten times more.

    I packed up my stuff and moved back to my girlfriend’s newly refurbed flat, and would try and pick up the pieces. For her part, I think it planted the seeds of a perception of me that would eventually cause the end of the relationship, because from her point of view, I was going nowhere.

    To be continued…