Fri.14.09.07. The week has gone backwards again with very little progress being actually made. All the internal panels are finished, they have also been painted in the appropriate colours. The template for the dash is now available for who ever wants the job: both Richie and Dave Brown are in the frame. Their different talents have posed this problem of choice. Richie has the flare, Dave has the solidity of approach, but both have the determination to ensure a successful outcome. But, there again so do I. Over the previous six months the amount of premature designs, discarded patterns, ceaseless unresolved ideas has undoubtedly improved my personal woodworking skills. I now have the confidence, technique, craft, but more significantly, the ownership, to seize this golden opportunity for myself; and I probably will.
Mon.17.09.07. After studying alternative dash design construction I have quickly realised that the impressive most successful images have a gentle shoulder that smoothly encircles all the instruments with a natural rounded rebate accentuating the form, but, also, only permits the merest part of the bezel to be exposed. The gauges are therefore not totally surface mounted but appear recessed nestling contentedly within the warm comfort of the luscious timber. I have attempted to replicate this feature by making a 6mm template of the clocks but have enlarged the cavities sufficiently to incorporate the softened shoulder. This model was then placed over the 4mm dash pattern. The sandwich of plywood ensures that the clocks sit flush on the original prototype but the enlarged upper layer provides the exposed contours of the finished article. In practise this effect can be achieved more accurately using a router, with the appropriate ‘bit’, to cut the exact profile together with the correct size of hole. I have a meeting with Dave Brown later this week to seek his advice as to how best to approach this problem. I can only access particular amateur ‘tools’ that over the years have been nourished by limited personal experience to produce a successful outcome of this peculiar, unique task.
The Oak had been particularly quiet over the weekend with Salty’s son Robert getting hitched the previous weekend in the Scottish Highlands to Christina Woods, the dreaded ‘Evening Post journalist’. Most of the pre-selected post wedding ‘in crowd’ had been summoned on Friday to attend the ritualistic Saturday event to collectively witness Philip’s bogus generosity. Drinks and Rugby in the Bowling Green followed by the evening buffet at the ‘Highmoor’. I am still baffled as to how ‘one’ is invited to any of Salty’s ‘do’s’. I am not Scottish, do not understand the nuances of 15’s rugby, I am not prepared to be bored shitless by dull monotone sycophants and I am definitely not impressed with his transparently phoney deep pocket. Having missed out on the weekend trip to Edinburgh as well as the jollities of the actual wedding I still await my opportunity, perhaps in the future, to say no. But whereas in the past I always pondered as to how I could gently inform the ‘captain’ that I unfortunately would be unable to accept his invite I now have the burning compunction to inform him that, ‘even if he offered the very last seat on the space shuttle that would take the very last surviving person from our decaying planet to a new trouble free life on Mars, I would have great pleasure to tell him to ‘stick it up his arse’.
Situations such as this are part of anyone’s daily grind, the everyday contradiction, the manner of ‘class’. It is not jealousy, nor the whispers that invariably hatch these covert celebrations, the reminder of not completely belonging within the group or any other form of exclusion: it is the secrecy, exclusivity empty false grandeur that is rooted in the very spirit of the activity. Or, it could be the simple matter that, with all the persuasion in the world Chris could not accept an invitation to my beautiful daughters wedding where even his best friend, David attended; a festive atmosphere of genuine loving celebration freely and kindly offered, but, conversely without question, he gladly accepted an invitation to a function of a person he has personally distrusted all his life. Or, is my mood fuelled simply because I am just pissed off with the lack of progress of the car?
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