Aston Martin Rust Oration

I’ve been told off.

‘Why don’t you write about your restoration instead of your holidays?’ writes one disgruntled reader.

Dear disgruntle.

I have just spent a lovely three day holiday on a farm in the english countryside. When it wasn’t raining, the sun shone gayly.

But the best part of all was the lovely half built Aston Martin I was able to play with…

In fact I have recently had two trips to the farm to work on ROJ (Interrupted by a week in Turkey – but more of that later).

I have completely rebuilt the king pins at the front – with new rubber gaiters from Davron and fitted the steering rack complete with new track rod ends.

As shiny as a new (king) pin

This last week end I fitted the differential. This was a time consuming job as I had to jack it carefully into position and the fit the bolts without knocking it off the jack. I used a couple of olde seat belts to strap the diff up to the mounting bar as a safety measure.

Always use a seat belt!

And now finally fitted – waiting for the Dedion/Watts suspension and drive shafts to be fitted next weekend.

It looks like for once I’ll meet a target date – ROJ will have wheels before Christmas!!!

Now dear disgruntle – don’t think you are getting away with it..

We had a splendid week in Turkey.

We did some chilling….

Sun, sea, boats and food.

We did some sailing….

An ocean life for me

We did some rubble gazing….

Roman rubble

And I did some old car spotting… Anyone know what this thing is?

What is it?

Good. Not as good as Casino Royale. not as good as From Russia With Love or On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. But much, much better than Die Another Day or anything with Roger Moore in it.

I was sitting this morning trying to recall the story line. I remembered the car chase. I remembered the boat chase. I remembered the foot chase. I remebered the aeroplane chase. (I don’t remember the alpaca chase – although as they were in South America there must have been one!) but the plot…? er, um.

I really liked the Le Carre-esque ending. I like Daniel Craig’s gritty interpretation of Bond and I love the locations (especially the ones I’ve been to) I am rather bemused that one can find quite so many fast boats in Haiti and I was really really disappointed in the demise of one of the characters from the last film.

Overall I’d say four stars out of five, but if Broccolli and Wilson keep to this new harder format – this particular Bond fan will keep coming back for more.