Please read to the end. Really you should!

I have been up to loads this month and some of it only in other people’s imaginations. OK, OK some of it; in mine, but…..

No not just the board…

This board has meant that we have been inundated by the local nutters, each one assuming it is them. It was one, but we have since updated the sign to: several and are. It has been our most photographed sign, EVER, sort of the Lamborghini Veneno of boards.

Ibiza has come and gone; it will return, and so will I.

On a daily basis the shop continues to fill with items for Neil. Skulls, antlers, skeletons, drawings, books and photos, so the shop now looks like the London cross between Inkadelic and Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini in Rome, however it’s just me wielding the tattoo needle in this shop, and my hand isn’t that rock steady, especially after the Easter Weekend in Ibiza.

I have erected a shrine in Neil’s honour and the beast above it has 4 heads, 14 antlers, 5 arms, 2 spines and 4 legs. I keep finding extra bones and I’m not sure what to do with them, but anatomically the beast wouldn’t look out of place in either location, all it would need is a dash of formaldehyde behind the ear as an eau de toilette in order to find a mate.

I’d post a photo, but apparently there are children who read this blog.

I also wanted to make this entire newsletter an homage to Neil’s talents, but it would have meant typing until my fingers were worn to the bone, and the God knows what kind of display Neil would have made of them.

Emi and I left Pacha at 5am on Sunday morning; we had missed Eugene by a matter of moments. She didn’t really want to leave, she’d been eyeing up the bloke dancing on the podium, and well….

We missed Eugene again later in the day walking on the golden sands of Las Salinas. Emi came along on this trip to see her friend Andreea (Mona) who lives in Ibiza. Once we’d caught up with Mona, we headed for the Sunday night Party at Blue Marlin and Mona came too, I was taxi driver and chaperone. As you can see I’d have been fighting the suitors off with a stick, but the girls were inseperable.

Eugene had been partying solidly for 17 days, wearing the headdress, which makes him stand out above everybody else. He was the first person we spotted when we arrived. No surprise that!

He appeared to be floating, which was entertaining in itself, he also said he felt the same sensation, and perhaps in the end he had discovered levitation at the “Burning Man” festival, apparently he was high! And still is, so no plane required home then.

Moving to other things beginning with E!

Emanuele in Bologna has been doing his bit for hospitality. A large number of you have been visiting him at Drogeria and the feedback both ways has been fabulous. I thank those of you who have been, you’ve made me look very good, and you know how important that is for me, when I’m not in Lycra.

Talking of Lycra……………. When am I not?

Saturday was spent in the company of Adam and Sara at the Olympic Velodrome, hence the Lycra. I was wearing bright pink for my Stage 1 Accreditation. I’ll wear other colours which will show me less scared in future. The prospect of riding was pretty terrifying; I stood at the bottom of the banking with 11 other hapless souls and starred up and up to the top. Did we really have to ride all the way up there close to the top of Kilimanjaro? I think we all thought the same thing at the same time as the colour drained from our faces.

We climbed aboard our single speed, brakeless machines and Darren (Instructor) told us to look over our right shoulder, pull hard against the barrier and launch ourselves forward. I’m sure we all thought we would fall off immediately, but no, we moved off like a slow steam train. Darren soon had us moving up the boards, first the Cote, then the black followed by the red and finally the blue, and back down again.

I kept imagining that if I leant the wrong way I would end up sliding to the bottom, or falling off, or worse tearing my Lycra, but we all managed to stay upright, and in the end Darren relented and let us go hell for Lycra for the last 15 minutes.

What a brilliant time. We raced our hearts out and according to Neil (Trainer) I like nothing more than the chase. Give me something to hunt down and apparently I am in my element, the hunt, the chase, set me on the pursuit and I am gone. Adam and I are going to continue our accreditation and chase to our heart’s content, it was such a drug. Nothing like floating above the boards, the faster we went the safer we felt, and at the end none of us had fallen off.

I have included some photos of what was an amazing evening, topped off by dinner at The Wolseley…..

What part of me hurt the most at the end of the evening? Ahem! Everybody who rode the bikes said the exact same thing, our hands. Why? Because we had fiercely gripped the handlebars so tightly for fear of falling off.

Now for something that I don’t understand.

Yes, before you say it, it is a long list and not getting any shorter. Can someone please explain to me how this works? I book something through Tripadvisor or Booking.com and they continue to bombard me with offers for the destination I have chosen for weeks before I go there although I’ve already booked, and Amazon does the same. Once I have bought a Yodelling Pickle it is virtually impossible that I will want to buy it again, so why attempt to tempt me. Why not tempt with something which I may not have. OK, it’s unlikely that I will want inflatable toast, but at least try to sell me something different.

Sorry a pointless, but necessary rant.

Let me move onto things media related.

Firstly a big Thank you to Jay Brown, brother of Duran for wearing Volpe to the Premier of Locke. Secondly for Kiefer shooting the next 24 hours in London, it seems to have been going on for longer than 24 hours, but who knows by then time they’ve put the adverts in, it may total my finest hour.

Cinema releases have included a couple which I really hope Tony doesn’t want to go and see.

Firstly there is Pompei 3D, the story is; man versus a large exploding volcano. Well I think one of them isn’t going come out of this well, the next thing it will say is based around real events……

Also a true story! The Other Woman, is a film about man versus a trio of exploding women, once again one of them isn’t going to come out of this well. What differs is the calibre of the man, in one the hero, in the other the dog. Why not pick a fight you have a slight chance of winning?

I am also using the newsletter this month to promote a few friends businesses who lost out a little a couple of months ago in the debacle over the confused mail outs.

I have a friend who has a brewery. You mean to say that Adrian has a friend with a brewery, you cannot be serious. Why didn’t we guess that?

I am easily bought. A few bottles of free beer, and I’ll get your product out there. These are photos of full bottles, I can’t guarantee that they will still be full when you read this, unless of course he has sent me some new supplies.

So Stuart you now know what to do…..

http://www.arundelbrewery.co.uk/index.htm

It is a great beer, and once my eyesight has returned, I shall continue typing.

And then there is Chris ‘Magic Hands’ Lambert-Gorwyn, he says,

“How much better would it be if you felt physically amazing whilst being also being dressed to impress? (Know any good tailors?)

Ever wondered why you have more aches and pains today than you used to?

Have you considered what your body will feel like 10 years further down the road?

What if you could wave a magic wand right now and make all these pains feel better?

If you’re like 98% of the population and you can’t do the physical activities you used to without some sort of niggle flaring up, you need to see Chris Lambert-Gorwyn now.

London’s leading Chronic Pain Fixer, Chris is based in The Light Centre in Belgravia and Moorgate and is currently offering Volpe clients a complimentary Health Consultation worth £250.  There are just 5 spaces remaining and the offer is only available until the end of May.

Chris has spent over 18 years studying how the body works and has successfully treated thousands of clients.  After suffering from Cancer as a teenager, he became passionate about creating quick and permanent health solutions to get people out of pain and restore their true physical potential.  This developed into the unique 3-step system of healing that he is offering Volpe clients an exclusive introduction to.

When would now be a good time to resolve your pain and start feeling good?”

Contact me to get in touch with Chris.

GADGET FIENDS listen up; Al and Stuart have come up with an iPhone case in conjunction with Candyshell to produce a model called Amped. It doubles the volume of the speakers and improves the sound quality solely down to case design without any power usage. Kids, let the parents have it, it’s the only fun they may get.

Finally as the evenings are becoming lighter and warmer, I shall use this to wine and dine you all. Well to a limit. We will be having a series of evenings where you will be able to wander along and drink and eat, try some wines and some food both offered up by friends where such things are their forte. We will not restrict this to Italian produce, we will try to cover wines and food from around the world.

I will keep you abreast of events.

Lastly another sunset.

 

Copyright © 2014 Adrian Holdsworth. All Rights Reserved.