Well if the tooting and parping going on outside work and a couple of other street corners was anything to go by on my way home from work you’d be forgiven for thinking that Barack Obama was going to win today’s West Virginia Primary at a canter.

Although I’m not too sure whether the signs the supporters were holding up were asking drivers to “Honk for Obama” or stating that those holding them were “Honkies for Obama.”

In this racially tinged, singed or flamed campaign nothing would surprise.

But as you people wake up to blearily take in the hammering Obama is about to receive here in West Virginia, you’ll probably listen to many a talking head dismissing WV as racist, dumb or dumb and racist.

I seriously have no idea what the rest of the state is like, although it did dawn on me the other day while reading the potential blowout on offer and its reasons that I’d left one Bermuda Triangle of race relations in the UK to find myself in the American equivalent.

Although I was pretty astonished when I learned today that the largest city in West Virginia has a population of 60,000 (wiki stats alert). Bizarre.

Last weekend we travelled back down from Elyria having been to an extended family shindig and decided to drive through Salt Fork - a little state park near Cambridge, OH. And what a great hangover cure that place is. Now this will be the first and last time I ever mention being overpowered by the waft of apple blossom on the breeze, but it hung in the air like the smell of chats and candyfloss at Nelson Fair, or stale piss and disinfectant at Nelson bus station.

How I miss home….

Still, in our infinite wisdom and slightly tipsy on our sudden connection with Mother Earth, we decided to drive back the scenic route.

Now a scenic route over here is not quite the same as a scenic route round the UK. You drive on country roads round Pendle and you can easily see the nearest town or village just over the horizon; and if you can’t it’s soon upon you. Drive the back roads over here and it’s two hours before you clap eyes on a rickety old petrol pump.

America isn’t a place you ever fancy getting lost in. And the part of America where Deliverance drew its inspiration isn’t even a place you want to drive slowly through. You see, the scary part of Deliverance isn’t when everybody is having a spot of backdoor bother with the natives, but on subsequent viewings when the locals seem to be lulling them into a false sense of security by being all chummy.

The more we drove, the more odd little shacks, trailers and beat-up pickups we came across. The scenery was truly stunning, it’s beautiful round here, but Deliverance was really starting to freak me out. I was particularly worried seeming the car cigarette lighter had packed up and the mobile was dead and the gps didn’t have too long to go. As soon as that packed up we were alone - we’d need a local.

Bugger…..and I mean that literally.

As we raced against the clock hoping to find a point of remote civilization we almost careered into some girl walking along the side of the road who simply offered one of those chummy waves as we whistled past her. I could’ve sworn blind I saw a blind cousin loitering in the bushes duelling his banjo.

The mouth was now completely dry and the heart badoinging like a a bee in a drum. I was twittering and fluttering like a petrified budgie. I really needed us to find some kind of road out of nowhere as the gps woman was even telling us that power was critically low.

Then we came to a crossroads and awaited notification from our gps as to whether we needed to go left, right or forwards - there wasn’t a cat in hell’s chance we were going backwards - but not a dicky bird. Total silence.

We exchanged glances and tried to garner a sense of direction from a road sign, but not only was its wording beyond readability, what you could read wasn’t pointing anywhere.

Where the bloody nora were we. Even if we did find somebody to ask that wasn’t going to point us in the direction of their cousin’s trailer and have us for kippers, we were hardly going to find our way home if it had more than two turns.

We hadn’t seen a store, shop or anything other than sparse hints at civilization for over an hour and knew our Garmin still had an hour to go before it gave up the ghost. We also knew wavy hillbilly girl was following us up the road. One wrong move and we would be toastier than a marshmallow at a scout camp.

Then, as the panic was reaching feverish proportions, Steph noticed what looked like a possible oasis of normality among my own invented desert of dysfunction.

We drove a little further and there it was - a bloody garden center - the only store of any kind we’d seen for sixty miles. A tear welled in my eye as I sent Steph out to have a word with the locals. And before you express your disgust at my cowardice, with me and my accent they could’ve mistaken me for speaking in tongues - and we really didn’t want to be mistaken for Pentecostals.

The next thing you know, my door flung open and I was dragged over to a small greenhouse containing 13 begonias and a trailing labilia.

Which one did I prefer?

My Deliverance nightmare had suddenly taken a truly horrific twist……

Hillary
Where’s the sixty quid you borrowed off me for the gas?
Hillary, The Fall

Never in the history of political machinations and sycophantic panderings to the will of the common man has the humble sheet metal worker / steel mill worker been as important as in 2008. It’s the new blue collar barometer.

It all started with the $400 haircut, John Edwards, and his incessant ramblings about his Dad having worked the steel mills all his life. The tone had been set, and once he dropped out both Barack and Hillary continued to carry that particular torch.

But it’s Hillary who is somehow the champion of the humble sheet metal worker. She’s been endorsed by SMART and has also been hailed as having ‘testicular fortitude’ by Paul Gibson, the President of the Sheet Metal Workers’ Union:

“If you’re thinking the next President of the United States should address and amend and convince people that here are the flaws with that law, and here’s what we’re supposed to do and it shouldn’t cause harm to either border,” said Gibson. “Well, you know what, then I truly believe that that is going to take an individual that has testicular fortitude, that’s exactly right, that’s what we got to have.”

Gibson told the crowd that he is fed up with people who exploit American workers. “I am sick and tired of these Gucci wearing, latte drinking, self-centered, egotistical people that have damaged our lifestyle,” he said to a standing ovation from the crowd.

But it didn’t stop with that nonsense. A couple of days later we had Hillary actually travelling to work with a ’sheet metal worker’ and fielding questions at a gas station as the sheet metal fella pumped the gas. Not that she fielded them awfully well as she confessed to having not filled up for a good few years as the secret service tends to take care of that kind of thing.

Oh, us working class folks can empathise with that, love.

But, being the true working girl she is, Hillary managed to stop off to pick up a brew while simultaneously pandering to the working class sheet metal type who’s spent the night previously getting smashed by struggling to work the coffee machine. Although, Jasper has never had the same problem after hitting the cooking sherry:

Trust me when I say not all sheet metal types are automatic Clinton shoe-ins. Unless you’re a sheet metal type that consistently runs to the right of George Bush that is.

Then again, what do I know? I’m nothing but an elitist blogger.

A curious instinct tells me I should make Steph get out more. Whether I give her a key or up her housekeeping are a couple of options I’m pondering.

The problem with her doing bits and bobs for me is that she’s very easily distracted. I should know seeming I’m forever having my tract dissed. Once in a while she’ll concoct a scheme or get diverted by an online interest that is, well, remotely interesting.

Of late, she’s been getting into all things Tesla - the first time she mentioned a Tesla Coil I replied that they wouldn’t come cheap at the Family Planning Clinic. Then again, cracking woofers like that and I should be slightly worried about her tapping me up to be the hamster in this particular Tesla cage:

If you like electrical and scientific wonderments - and if you don’t then you’re a bit odd - the Tesla site I found that on has loads of other amazing Tesla-related stuff you can replicate (or not) in your back garden.

I may show you some of the more exciting stuff at a later date, but something I did come across was these Bernoulli Balls:

And this stainless steel Bernoulli Ball:

Now the weird thing is, round about the same time I was being Tesla’d 24/7 by Steph and checking various Tesla sites out, we received an inquiry at Butler Sheetmetal about a stainless steel ball sculpture that bored little oiks kept knocking off its perch:

Stainless Steel Ball Sculpture

And they wanted to know if the boys could do something to ensure the thing remained upright for long enough for people to enjoy it. It’s not too much to ask, is it?

Obviously, with Bernoulli Balls in mind, I suggested an oversized leaf blower and some elongated industrial straws for balance. Personally I thought it was a bit of inspired genius.

They just told me to stick to the blogging. Fair enough fellas.

Hopefully I’ll have something to show you once it’s done to show you how they did it.

I really don’t anticipate any Benny Hill-esque chase routines as they try to fix it and it goes hurtling off down some field.

Not that any of them would catch it, mind.

Ready for next week’s MACH ATTACK?

MACH is the UK’s premier manufacturing technologies event, encompassing metalcutting and metalforming machine tools along with all ancillary and related products and services.

For 2008, MACH will also incorporate MACHplus exhibitors from related industries and MACHconsult, industry advice from experts. MACH attracts over 500 exhibitors and in excess of 22,000 + visitors to each show and is the only place to find out what’s new in the marketplace.

Register for MACH 2008 now.

Harland & Wolff Ship Broken for Scrap

The linked photoset from this weekend’s Guardian:

April 12 2008: Belfast, UK: The MSC Napoli cargo ship lies in a dry dock at Harland and Wolff ship builders as it is dismantled for recycling. The ship was grounded off the English coast after getting into difficulties during bad weather in January 2007. After she was split into two pieces, the largest front section was floated to the Harland and Wolff shipyard for recycling in August 2007. After the removal of approximately 80 cubic tonnes of waste oil and other pollutants 150 workers began the task of cutting up the high grade steel of the Napoli by hand. The steel is then smelted locally in Belfast and will most likely be used for ship building. The whole process will be finished in three to four weeks.

This is one for Jasper seeming he spent his apprenticeship in the shipyards of Glasgow. I’d like to say he’s bored us rigid with his tales of welding ship floors, but we still don’t have a clue from day to day what he’s talking about. Think of it as a blessing in disguise.

But I’m also pretty confident it’ll get everybody who swarms round The Tinbasher for out-of-date scrap steel prices hot under the collar, too.