What with flooding, foot and mouth disease, train crashes, war and civil insurrection it's a miracle the Bulldog Bash took place at all this year. So even a little rain wasn't enough to spoil the weekend for the huge crowds of bikers that descended on Avon Park Raceway over the weekend of 10th - 12th August to help celebrate the 15th anniversary of this pivotal event on the UK's biking calendar. And what a great party it was too.

I spent a good part of the weekend partying with old friends and getting completely blitzed with new ones, and realised on Sunday morning that I had once again managed to complete a whole Bulldog weekend without seeing a single band. Which was particularly galling when I realised I had missed Manchester legends The Fall, a long time favourite in my grubby CD collection. Bugger. However the weekend was filled with new and exciting experiences for me including being whirled round at ridiculous angles on some gigantic fairground torture machine before being suspended upside down and watching my bike keys spiral down into oblivion into the grass hundreds of feet below. Fortunatley they were still there when I remembered to go looking for them an hour later.

Many thanks to Linz and Stu for keeping me supplied with a variety of cocktails and substances throughout the two days, even if we did occasionally run low on mixers and had to resort to borrowing Pat's Sunny Delight from the 100% Biker stand. And if you've ever tried mixing Sunny Delight with Spanish Brandy forget it, the whole thing turns into a kind of slimy orange snot that only a desperate magazine editor could claim to enjoy drinking. If I have any criticism of the Bulldog at all it's that it proved impossible to get any ice and a decent slice of lemon for a cocktail at 3am.

Other highlights had to be the Fireforce jet car that turned a 6.0 on the strip with a terminal speed of 261mph, a spectacle that left us standing with jaws on chests and made us forget to point a camera at the thing. And that enormous bloke that pulled a wheelie the length of the strip. A naked lady blessed with the moniker of Violet Storm got pillioned up and down, apparently in an attempt to get the punters to buy tee shirts from a stall called "Tiny Penis". Nice try Violet, maybe next year eh?

And the bike show, what a feast. The outrageously long "Malice In Wonderland" 750 Honda left even me gasping "How does it go round corners then?", while Linz was most impressed with a stock-looking Jap streetfighter with "Guinness" painted on it, despite the proximity of a gorgeous flat-head Indian and that orange Vee Max that turns up each year in a new and wierder guise.

Thanks to the Hells Angels for organising possibly the best weekend of the year, and how refreshing to see so few police wandering around looking for trouble. Now if they could just persuade the god-botherers to stay home as well...

Dr.Rod.