The Cosmic Shaft hits hyper reality

You may be wondering why this blog is called the Cosmic Shaft. Apart from the fact that any of the other clever titles I thought up had already been taken (except "Ag Shame", but I decided not to go for that!), the Cosmic Shaft has been associated with me for many years.

This has been some journey. The Cosmic Shaft was an old BMW R60 that I rode as a student in the early 1970s. It was a time of rebellion and rage in South Africa as the old regime came under increasing pessure from within and without to abandon apartheid. The 70s white boys were conscripted and put in the front line, the panicking Government tried to silence its critics with increasing force, and paranoia and spies abounded. It was the climate of tension that made everything vibrantly exciting and fearful. Loyalties were made and betrayed, the protesting voices were often quelled with whips and guns but history was being made every day. And in this vast troubled country it was often necessary to seek some solace in in its far-flung corners. The Cosmic Shaft allowed this to happen for me.

The old BeeEmm took me all over southern Africa, allowed me to get around reasonably cheaply and taught me a whole lot about mechanical maintenance. It wasn't particularly glamorous or fast, but it took me places that I might otherwise never have seen and made me many friends. In some ways it was a machine that defined my future. My identity became inextricably bound with motorcycles and motorcycling. The Cosmic Shaft made me a biker. The name was emblazoned on the back of my black leather jacket festooned with badges, which became my hallmark uniform wherever I went. 

So now the Cosmic Shaft is no longer with me having been sold to defray burgeoning debts when I got to Ireland in 2001, but the abiding spirit of adventure that it imbued me with continues.  A long association with many machines followed, but my preference for two wheeled transport abides. But just as the bikes have changed, so has the journey. It now moves beyond the confines of earth-bound constraint into that greater universe that now preoccupies most of us - the World Wide Web.

So here we are at the start of another journey. As usual there's no fixed plan or destination. I just want to see where the road takes us ...