Hot Rods, Classic Cars, Real Ale and Food

I cannot accept responsibility for the content of any links. If anyone has any complaints please mail me.

About Me

I live near Marlborough and Swindon in Wiltshire, in a little village called Bishopstone.

This is a land of legends, Stone Circles, mysterious Crop Circles and without a doubt one of the most beautiful parts of the U.K.

Bishopstone has 2 pubs (The True Heart and the Royal Oak). The True Heart does excellent food and has 3 rooms for B&B. If you hate anonymous town Hotels and enjoy friendly company then I can recommend a visit. This pub has changed managers at least 7 times in the past 2 years. Visit it to see who is the manager of the week!

I have a passion for Hot Rods, Classic Cars, Real Ale and Good Food. I decided to teach myself about the WWW and set up this page to communicate with other like minded individuals.

I own 4 cars - a 1968 Series 1 Rover P6B fiited with a 1979 (Electronic Ignition Model) Rover SD1 3500cc engine and 5 speed Manual 'box. I also own 2 x Austin A35, one a 1957 2 door and the other a 1958 4 door. Last on the list is a 1968 Singer Vogue Estate. I would dearly love a proper Hot Rod but commute 100 miles daily to Reading down the M4 Motorway. If you know of a Hot Rod that can do 30 m.p.g. at 70 m.p.h and costs abot £3000 then mail me - I'd be interested in buying it!

By day I work for Borland International as a Technical Consultant on InterBase and Client/Server products. I am particularly interested in making database applications work over the internet/intranet. Thanks to Borland I have ready access to the internet and am able to spend time learning how to do things such as produce web pages etc.

There are lots of exciting products coming out of Borland at present including IntraBuilder and InterClient (a Java based database driver to allow the connection of Borland's excellent database product InterBase to web based programs). Just around the corner are a host of new products that will really cause a stir in the software development arena! Watch this space.....

Here you will find a bunch of useful links if your interests are similar to mine.

Hot Rods

I have spent some time trying to pull together in one place a good list of Hot Rod related links. I will also try and provide here write ups of any of the events I attend. I have just attended the 10th Goodguys West Coast Nationals at Pleasanton in California.This was a superb event held in the Fairgrounds with apparently 3000+ Rods. The most amazing thing I saw was a V10 (Dodge Viper engine) powered rod. I was so excited I can't even remember the type of car it was. The noise it made was superb. There were some truly outrageous cars there including the 'Hot Rod from Hell' which was straight out of an Ed Roth cartoon. I don't know if he created such a beast but this was amazing. I'll try and get some piccys scanned in soon and do a more detailed write up. I also saw a 350 chevy engined Pop (nothing that special) with a 27,000 dollar price tag on it. Some Rods were for sale for even more, right upto 50,000 dollars!

I read in the latest Gasser that Nick Harrison hoped that NSRA(UK) membership would be just for owners of Hot Rods. What do you lot think? I'm outraged - I don't own a pre '49 car but have attended Hot Rod events for the last 17 years. I have only missed one Billing in the past 15 years. Due to my love of Hot Rods I now belong to the NSRA. Is it getting snobby? How many others love Hot Rods but don't own one - yet still belong to the NSRA.

If you feel strongly about this send me some e.mail and I'll pass it on to the NSRA.

• Boomers Hot Rod Page
• A great place to find some Hot links to other places of interest - nearly all US based stuff. An online BBS can be found at the Cyber Crusin' link called a Rodders Round Table A place to get into conversation with other Rodders
• NSRA (USA) Home Page
• Loads of event listings and the like for the USA...
• NHRA (USA)
• The National Hot Rod Association (USA) - loads of great Drag Racing stuff.

Mail me some good Hot Rod links

Classic Cars

• Vicarage Jaguar
• If you love MK2 Jags this is the site for you. Some lovely pics

Mail me some good classic links

Real Ale

TheCampaign For Real Ale site is well worth a visit.

• An Index of Beers
• If you love Beer then this is a great link to follow. Tons of Beers you will love to read about.
• Front Street - Santa Cruz, USA
• Santa Cruz is not the best place in the world to drink beer. I can now say that from experience. I visited both the Front Street establishment and another place called Seabright. The beer in both places was very cold, very gassy and had a strange metalic tang to it. In the Seabright pub they had one beer on a hand pub which was sold in Imperial Pint glasses at $3.50. It was awful - you couldn't see through it as it was so cloudy! They did have a nice Oat Stout though which was deceptively strong.

Mail me some good Beer links

Good Food

This section will get updated from time to time and on reccomendation from others. 2 places I can reccomend to eat locally to Marlborough are:-

• Baba Sadhu's
• Baba Sadhu's - an Indian Restaurant in Marlborough - a very extensive menu. Lots of mild curries and dishes ranging from Onion Bhajee to Lobster. Well worth it.
• The Royal Oak- Wooton Rivers
• A place where I have personally stayed for a couple of months while looking for a place to buy. This is a 16th Century Thatched Free House which serves excellent food and a superb pint of Wadworths 6X. It is situated in the picturesque village of Wooton Rivers not far from Marlborough. The village boasts a church with a clock built by Jack Spratt and the Avon and Kennet canal passes through. Make the trip its brilliant.

Mail me some good Food links

Indian Recipes

This section will get updated from time to time and on submission and trial from others. I love Indian food and cook quite a bit at home. Below I will share with you some of my favorite recipes. Sorry they are not their yet I have yet to type them up but I hope the below will get you to come back and check for the recipes.

• Prawn Chilli Masala
• It not quite as hot as it sounds. A simple dish made of prawns cooked in butter, ginger and garlic with a yogurt sauce. Whole hot green chillis are added during cooking for that bit of a bang!
• Chicken in a fresh green coriander sauce
• As the description above describes - chicken cooked in yoghurt with ground spices and finely chopped fresh green coriander (lots). My mouth waters just thinking about it.
• Indian Recipes on the Internet
• I found this huge list of recipes. I have not tried any yet but some of them look good. Let me know.
• Tamil Recipes
• Sri Lankan Recipes
• Some lovely, delicious sounding stuff here - watch out though slow to load big gif on first page.

Mail me some Recipes

Please mail comments or links to me

Thanks