Having started this thread I suppose I should now come clean with a warning about the inherent dangers of turning mushrooms...…
About 3.5 yonks ago (back in the days when 'Hot' and 'Cool' were opposites!) I met a sailing friend of mine on the river and he asked me if, while doing that 'latheing' business (his word not mine!), I could make a mushroom.
"Easy peasy beginners project," says I, "why?"
"My daughter has started a collection and would love a wooden one".
"Is that the daughter whose other half builds 3 wheeler motor bikes?" I asked.
"The very same".
I, foolishly as it turned out, offered a collectable mushroom in exchange for a ride on a trike and went about my business ignorant of the jeopardy I had just put my dignity in.
I made and delivered a handful of differently styled mushrooms and promptly forgot every word of the rest of the deal.
Many weeks later I was at home swotting for my upcoming 'Old Fartdom' entry exams when the quaint sound of a Spitfire crash landing in our road drew my attention. On closer examination I found a vehicle whose supercharged V8 engine was longer, and taller, than my car and its rear tyres looked like a rubber version of those found on a steam roller.
No rider/driver could possibly reach over the engine so it was steered by a cute little wheel no bigger than the old half crown. In short the motor-bike-with-an-extra-wheel I had expected had morphed into a one-wheel-short dragster.
I was instantly hussled onto the rear seat (two bits of ply and a cushion... Why are so many engineers so frightened of working with wood?) and we set off in fits and starts of jawdropping acceleration intersperced with braking which risked my dentures, through the town and onto the local bypass.
A cold sweat has come over me as I expunge the memory of that trip: No helmet, no jacket, no goggles and, so I was assured afterwards, 140 MPH. I would rather describe my laundry problems in public than to relive those 15 minutes of sheer terror.
I was dropped uncerimoniously at home, ashen faced and jelly legged, and the 3 wheeled appirition disappeared in a cloud of fumes... I never even discovered the driver's name!
I did, however notice the name of the supercharged monster? 'THE BLOW JOB'! What else could it be?
All the best
Brian