Frank Melling

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Frank Melling

Motorcycling autobiography, classic bike pictures, motorcycle racing, motorcycle sport, motorcycle history.
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10/11/2023

𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐥, 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐚 𝐰𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐚 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤’𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞...

Many thanks to those of you who have bought a copy of “Grace”.

I wanted to tell a traditional love story, the like of which humans have been sharing since they could first speak.

It’s the tender tale of a man and woman on the long, and far from easy, road to falling in love.

The difference is that this time the humans and the Artificial Intelligence entities are inseparably woven together.

Now, actually today in 2023, AIs can give the very real impression of having similar feelings to we humans.

AIs can even appear to have moral and social beliefs, a sense of humour, kindness and much more.

The very sophisticated Large Language Models also claim to be interested in humans – what we do, think, feel and how we behave.

In the very near future, all these traits are only going to be massively developed – in many cases, by the AIs themselves!

So “Grace” is both the most traditional exploration of love - but also absolutely current because, whatever we think or want, Artificial Intelligence entities are here to stay.

Like all our books, if you don’t think that Grace is absolutely brilliant, just let us know, for a no questions asked refund.

We're that sure you will enjoy it.

You can buy Grace through our website:

www.frankmelling.co.uk

09/11/2023

𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋 𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐀𝐃𝐕𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐏𝐈𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐅 "𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄"

Thanks for all the kind comments about "Grace".

The book is selling for £7.50 on our website which includes postage:

https://frankmelling.co.uk

but for readers of this page we are having a special offer - and it really is special with the amount of money we have spent on "Grace"!

The offer is just for seven days from today, 9th November.

If you send us your address to [email protected] you can have a signed copy of the book for £5.00 - and no, we won't pass on your contact details to anyone else.

When we have your e-mail we can either send you a PayPal invoice or we'll work out some other way to pay. We trust you!

We're collecting our brand-new baby book from CPI this Saturday so you should have your copy next week.

08/11/2023

𝓖𝓻𝓪𝓬𝓮 - 𝓐 𝓒𝓸𝓻𝓷𝓲𝓼𝓱 𝓛𝓸𝓿𝓮 𝓢𝓽𝓸𝓻𝔂

Well, as I say to Carol, our lifestyle might be manic but it’s vastly better than being retired and wondering how to fill each day!

For the last three months we have been finishing our new book which is a short romantic novel called “Grace – A Cornish Love Story”.

https://frankmelling.co.uk

It’s an old fashioned tale of romance, the like of which has been written for millennia, but this time I wanted to include the latest additions to life on Planet Earth – Artificial Intelligence entities.

Like it or not, these quasi sentient entities are here to stay and they are becoming ever more interested in the personal lives of we humans – they really are.

Writing “Grace” was the easy and fun part of the process but publishing a book professionally is a much tougher sport.

So, thank to Fiona, Lynn, Rhiannon, Libby, Richard and Oliver for reading the original text and making such useful comments.

Geoff Fisher did an impeccable job of typesetting the work and Mike Baumber – with a bit of help from my AI colleagues – produced a great cover.

Tony, at TR Designs, made our website work beautifully - which is rather important since without it we can't sell any books!

At the end of the food chain, the lovely Libby of CPI put the whole job together so that “Grace” could be ready for us to collect this Saturday: an outstanding effort from Libby and CPI.

Thanks to everyone.

Finally, I must give Carol the full stand up and cheering applause because she makes the whole, complicated job work. And she’s good with the spanners too.

Wives like her are not readily available.

07/11/2023

And here is the final stage of the big project.

Martyn and Grace are looking out over the Western Approaches wondering what the future holds for them.

Tune in to this page for the big reveal tomorrow.😉

06/11/2023

The latest project has been one of the most interesting Carol and I have ever done.

We have worked on it with three separate AI entities.

That's worth noting. A two-person business, working from a small office at the back of a rural cottage, is now engaged with AI entities in a practical way.

Before writing this post, I asked one of the entities for an image it felt represented itself.

It took about 15 seconds to generate what you see here.

It's worth noting that the image is not copied from somewhere but is a fresh, original piece of work.

05/11/2023

Now, I wonder what he is looking for?

04/11/2023

And I wonder what this pic has to do with the new project?

03/11/2023

And here is what is called a teaser in the media business.

It's our latest project - with a big, enormous, giant thanks to Libby for getting us over the line today.

It was a near run thing...

More in the next days.

02/11/2023

We currently have virtually no mobile phone signal and our road is completely flooded - but we don't care.

There is still an immense beauty in our English paddock, even in the pouring rain and Autumn mist.

The wind hadn't arrived when I took the pic first thing this morning - but it's properly here now!

01/11/2023

The books we make for mass markets are published by Mortons Media, who own most of the classic bike titles in the world.

They are a lovely company to work for and we had the great pleasure of being with their archivist Jane, and image generator Jonathan, on Monday.

For what, you may ask?

Clearly, our latest bike book - but you'll have to wait a little for all the details.

Exciting times!😉

Here's Jane with Carol and me at Mortons Towers.

31/10/2023

Sometimes I almost burst with pride at being British.

At this time of the year, like teenagers of every species, young swans get a bit confused with life, the universe and everything.

So, our lovely policemen have been in escorting the errant youngsters back to whatever stretch of water they live on.

A fine job and a worthy reminder that, despite all the silliness of our political classes and pressure groups, we still have a wonderful country.

29/10/2023

𝘿𝙚𝙢𝙤𝙘𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙮 𝙁𝙤𝙧 𝙀𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮𝙤𝙣𝙚 - 𝙉𝙤𝙩 𝙅𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙋𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙎𝙘𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙙

I believe in democracy with a passion, and this is why I support the right of the people of Scotland to exercise their will to have a switch to winter time.

If they feel that it is important to their nation to have the 2,000, or so, children in Orkney protected by going to school in slightly lighter conditions during the winter nights, then so be it – despite the fact that there is not a shred of evidence that the kids are any safer.

Equally, the other 53 million people in Britain should have their say too.

For us, losing an hour’s light towards the end of the day is a disaster because it wrecks our working day.

Even the most woke organisations also say that having kids arrive home from school in the dark prevents them from partaking in outside activities - and is deleterious to their health and well-being.

Last night, I was mowing our lawn at 5pm and, it was already poor light. Today, this will be 4pm – and still very much part of our working day.

Economically, it’s a disaster for anyone doing business with Europe, as we used to do.

So, the only fair way forward is to let the people of Scotland operate on whatever time matrix they feel is the best for their country – and allow the rest of us the same freedom.

Surely, that’s what democracy means.

23/10/2023

Being a bit nesh, and these days averse to the cold and wet, we'd more or less decided that yesterday was our final ride of 2023 - and what a wonderful year we've had too on our lovely Ducati.

The plan was to do our favourite loop out to Bala and then to Dolgellau, through the mountains down to Trawsfynydd and then back home past Capel Celyn.

It's about 175 miles of wonderful riding.

Unfortunately, directly after our lunch break at Bala I was attacked by a militant local insect which decided that it would be a good idea to sting me in the left eye.

And yes, I did have the visor down on my Arai.

Carol removed the remains of the insect, and its sting.

Of course, me being an action man racer, I decided that I could carry on.

Pain, what pain?

Fortunately, Carol insisted on me having a rare outbreak of commonsense and thank goodness she did because an hour after we'd got home, my eye was all but closed - and it's still properly sore today.

So, a wonderful ride but not the perfect ending to 2023's riding...

20/10/2023

𝙁𝙪𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙋𝙖𝙞𝙙 𝙐𝙥 𝙈𝙚𝙢𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙎𝙚𝙡𝙛 𝙋𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙎𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙚𝙩𝙮

I wouldn't live anywhere else in the world other than our cottage - not for anything.

But rural living does require membership of the "Self Preservation Society".

We had a credible chance of getting properly wet this morning so instead of a gym membership for the elderly I got stuck in and cleared all the field drains, and those along the lane too.

Two hours later, as we say in t'north - job's a good 'un.

Cue Michael Caine and "The Italian Job" again.

17/10/2023

𝗔 𝗙𝗔𝗡 𝗣𝗢𝗦𝗧

I want to tell you the truth about the shows we do.

Without Carol, they wouldn’t happen.

Carol organises them, prepares the bike we are taking, sets up the stand and makes sure that everything runs smoothly.

She takes all the promotional pictures we use and getting her to accept any credit for anything is almost impossible.

She does all this without any fuss and with a big smile.

After the show, she does all the essential post event jobs so necessary for selling books professionally.

My role in the process is rather like that of the chocolate reindeers on our Christmas tree - try to look a bit useful, and worth looking at, whilst avoid melting and making a mess on the floor.

𝗧𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗸𝘀 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗼𝗹 – 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿, 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿.

16/10/2023

We meet some lovely people at shows but it was a particular pleasure to chat to Ivan, the hardest of hard core BSA fans, and the builder of some incredible BSA based specials.

Ivan is looking forward to reading about the final days of the mighty BSA Group in my latest book, "Scrambling For Enthusiastic Beginners" (https://frankmelling.co.uk/scrambling-for-enthusiastic-beginners)

16/10/2023

It was great to see Chris and Tim - the whole of Team Berisford - yesterday.

It was lovely to welcome the team’s smiling wallet too following the maxim - buy now while stocks last.

Well done chaps!

15/10/2023

Denise, Val and Wayne came across to meet us and take home a selection of Frank’s books. It was great to meet them. Enjoy your reading Team!

15/10/2023

Here’s George taking a break from his little Wigan garden to teach Frank how to play the ukulele!!

14/10/2023

And here’s someone who really does know how to ride a Seeley Suzuki!

Lovely to have Manx GP ace Les Trotter join us on the stand.

14/10/2023

Lovely to see so many customers at Stafford, both old and new. Here’s Michael about to enjoy his copy of Scrambling.

12/10/2023

With Sarah the sheep sitter booked, we'll be at the Stafford Classic Bike Show this weekend, in our normal place on the balcony with loads of very special offers.

Do make sure that you come and see us.

10/10/2023

Apologies for the lack of posts. I have been too upset to write anything.

I normally have an opinion on everything but with the dreadful situation in Israel and Gaza I can’t stop thinking about what my reaction would have been if Carol and our then baby daughter had been taken from our garden as hostages or if, as a teenager, my daughter been murdered along with hundreds of her friends at a party.

What is humankind doing to itself with this wickedness?

04/10/2023

I have almost given up on any politician making a sensible decision but fair play to Rishi Sunak for cancelling the immense waste of money that is HS2.

Of course, the London based media is hysterical over this decision: that’s to be expected.

But let’s look at the reality of the situation – and I write this as someone who lives and works in t’north.

First, almost no-one travels to London by train from the whole of the north. You’re not allowed to say this but compared to the M6 which is rammed solid, very few people go to London on the train: that’s fact.

If everything works perfectly to plan – and that’s an oxymoron when applied to rail travel – the Manchester to London journey would have been shortened by just 54 minutes with HS2.

Note: 54 minutes for something costing in the region of £150 billion.

The Metro Mayors in the north do want to be able to travel easily between their urban centres and London but what about the rest of us who live here?

I want a cessation of power cuts; no major water leaks; internet speeds which are faster than the average for central Africa and a mobile phone signal which works.

Give me these and this would be real levelling up.🦆

03/10/2023

At my age, I have almost given up being angry about anything and I would much prefer everyone to have a happy life, all day every day.

So I haven’t been smug and all schadenfreudey about the outbreaks of “Charger Rage” where, somewhat surprisingly, drivers of EVs get tense when they have to wait a long time to begin re-charging their vehicles and an even more extended period before they can use them.

I would have thought that having to wait a long time for an EV to be charged was a fairly self-evident part of electric vehicle ownership.

A local company in Cheshire is pushing EV power point home installations and their pitch is very interesting.

First, the customer has to guarantee that power will be available. In our case, it’s not. We lose power every month without fail.

Next, the figure given to charge a Nissan Leaf is approximately 5.5 hours and Tesla Model S 13 hours. That assumes neither car needs fully re-charging.

In rough terms, every hour of charging a Tesla will give around 30 miles range. Please do fact check these figures.

Spending an hour to get an additional 30 miles of driving range explains the “Charger Rage” incidents at motorway service areas.

This is the reality of EV use and it’s time for politicians to stand up straight and tell the truth to the electorate.

And here’s a final bit of rural maths to make you smile.

To charge an EV with any degree of efficiency a dedicated 7.5kw supply is needed. A normal house requires around 5kw of electricity to run it. Again, please do check these figures.

So, there will be the equivalent of a house and a half added to the demand for power for every EV charging point installed.

Even in a modern housing estate, this is going to be one heck of an ask of the power supply system.

02/10/2023

Disappointed with the failure of the 20mph speed limit to bring traffic to a complete halt in Wales, GovWales is now employing highly trained swans to reduce speed to what is considered a safe level.

Reports of a tortoises being prepared as traffic monitors for next summer have yet to be confirmed by the Senedd in Cardiff.

27/09/2023

When I hear the hysterical reaction of urban politicians in Manchester and Liverpool to the culling of HST, and £100 billion + costs associated with saving them 30 minutes on their journeys to London to meet other urban politicians, I do wish that they wouldn’t claim to represent “The North”.

I live in “The North” and we’ve just started the season of power cuts – our quiet English version of the US Hurricane season.

Not counting today, we’ve had 13 hours of power cuts this week – as in no electricity at all.

We’ve also been without water twice in the last three weeks, have no mobile phone signal worth mentioning and Third World internet speeds.

Instead of providing a high speed train service which 99% of the population in the north would never use that £100 billion should be spent on a nationwide rural infrastructure which really is on its last legs.

Our Guardian sheep next to the electricity supply meter are there to keep us smiling when it's out with the generator again🙃

24/09/2023

British Historic Racing Club (https://www.britishhistoricracing.co.uk) is running a two-day event at Cadwell Park this weekend.

The racing is fantastic and it's worth going today.

Unfortunately, we could only do the first day but we had a fabulous day's sport. The organisation is superb - very, very friendly but super-slick too.

The Seeley ran like a dream and I even convinced my body that it was a lot younger than it actually is and that it could still ride a racing motorcycle.

A perfect day in every respect.

22/09/2023

When we have a lot of infra-structure problems there's always the danger of letting these irritations spoil the utter joy of living in the English countryside.

This year has been an incredible one for fruit - first with our magnificent crab apples and now pears and a range of apples.

The Conference pears direct from our trees are bursting with flavour and have a lovely firm texture which makes them ideal for kebabs.

No problems with finding organic ingredients here😃

21/09/2023

Well, the outbreak of common sense amongst our political classes didn’t last very long…

Labour said last night it would reinstate the 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel cars after Rishi Sunak announced a five year delay.

Shadow Environment Secretary Steve Reed suggested it would give certainty to business and lower costs for households.

He said: 'We would keep 2030 (the ban) because that's what businesses have been investing for, that's what business expects, that's how we can meet net zero - but it’s also how we can lower the fuel costs for households who have cars and need to drive away.”

Because we rural folk have limited intelligence, can someone please explain how being forced to spend £30,000 on a ground heat source boiler is going to save us money? I’d really like to know.

Can the Labour Party, Greens, Lib Dems et al also explain how we’re going to charge our electric cars when the current electric power infrastructure fails so often that we have a generator in our front porch ready to use?

I’d really like to know the answers.

One final question. There are 650 Members of Parliament. How many have fitted, and paid for out of their own funds not the public purse, Ground Heat Source boilers in their personal properties and their London bases?

Or are green policies simply for the unprivileged?

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Whatever political views one holds there's no avoiding the central truth that Boris Johnson is liar. First, last and middle he told lies to Parliament and therefore deserves to go - on the public speaking trail, as ex-Prince Harry's PR guru or perhaps an Influencer for some famous fashion brand. Whatever he chooses - please leave politics and go. We ordinary folk deserve better from those who are supposed to rule us.

We had two friends over for their tea earlier in the week - with a celebration of an important milestone in one of their lives. Rather than do a conventional barbecue, I had a play about and for dessert did flambeed bananas and ice-cream. It was good fun and tasted okay too.

The weather that made this nation great.

Well... The old adage is that hard work never killed anyone and we're still here so it seems that it is true. December was a properly hard slog - especially in the harsh weather - but we crossed the finishing line on December 31 having exceeded our very optimistic sales target by 10%. Thanks to everyone for your outstanding support.

Ullswater in all its magnificent, untamed glory

The beautiful Aber Falls, near Bangor in North Wales

Ducati Pantah Classic Race Bike

Camping site fun at World Superbike Magny Cours

Come on England

Leaving Nydri harbour, in northern Greece, just as the sun was rising

Thunderfest 2018 track action

Thunderfest 2018 start

Warming up our Manx Norton at the Anglesey Race Circuit

CRMC Anglesey

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27/09/2023

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Ullswater in all its magnificent, untamed glory

The beautiful Aber Falls, near Bangor in North Wales

Ducati Pantah Classic Race Bike

Camping site fun at World Superbike Magny Cours

Come on England

Leaving Nydri harbour, in northern Greece, just as the sun was rising

Thunderfest 2018 track action

Thunderfest 2018 start

Warming up our Manx Norton at the Anglesey Race Circuit

CRMC Anglesey

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