Meccano Magazine was started in 1916 by Frank Hornby, inventor of the Meccano hobby engineering sets (and later Hornby model railways and Dinky toys, some hat-trick) that did a brilliant job of keeping the minds of millions of teenage boys off their own nuts, for a while at least.

A bunch of insanely dedicate people have scanned and made available pretty much every copy of the magazine, which ran until 1981. There's even a searchable index. If you go in there, don't expect to emerge in less than an hour. The bikes, by the way, are from August and October 1929. Many thanks to Brownhills Bob for the tip-off. MP

Rye House is a track, North of London, that the DTRA regularly race at and rent for practices. To learn it has such history is great.

We race there on Sunday 21 September.

I find it interesting, that while US servicemen went back to California and set down the ground rules of what it is to be a motorcycle (and hot rod) rebel - rules still being mirrored by real and wannabe outlaws 70 years later - the British returned home and raced. Many of them raced on makeshift ovals on the latter years of the war.

We have a feature on 1939-45 warzone speedway in Sideburn 8. G

A be-fezed Sir Johnny Alpha has been in his basement of beat once again to bring us the latest Killer Diller Radio Show. A young beatster asked Sir Johnny if there was any theme to this edition of the 90-minute aural orgasm. 'No theme man,' came the reply, 'just a load of random great records.' Eclectic brilliance from the likes of The Kneejerk Reactions, Nobody's Children, Arthur Crudup, Soul Inc., The Phantoms... Listen to the stream, or download as an mp3. Either way, have a quart of Mount Gay to hand. MP

..today, since the break-out from Stalag Luft III. The Great Escape is a dramatised, Hollywoodised version of events. The truth of WWII break-out attempts is incredible. The ingenuity was mind-boggling.

The Great Escape is often wrongly remembered (by me at least) and depicted in UK TV skits as a feelgood movie of the 'good guys' winning the day. The poster, above, even calls it a great adventure - making it sound like a mountain biking holiday in Moab. Regarding the actual break-out, in 1944, of the 76 who escaped only three were successful - two Norweigians and a Dutch airman. Of the recaptured allies, 50 were executed on Hitler's orders (a war crime, as they were killed not during the escape, but when recaptured).

Apparently, a great deal of McQueen's Virgil Hilts character was based on the US Pilot David M Jones, who was on the Escape Committee and worked on the tunnels and planning, but didn't go through the tunnels and subsequently survived the war, went on to be a Jet Age test pilot and work for NASA. G

UPDATE: Coincidentally, Steve McQueen was also born on this day, in 1930. He died in 1980. If he were still alive, he'd be two years younger than Bruce Forsyth.

Cab Calloway's tune stands up on its own, no problem, but the eye-watering acrobatic dancing of the Nicholas Brothers steals the stage. If you're recovering from a vasectomy, turn off the screen and just groove to the music. Rumours that this routine will be re-enacted by Ben and Gary in the bar at Dirt Quake after the racing's over have yet to be confirmed. MP

UPDATE: These photos and captions came in from Simon (who wrote, and supplied great photos, about riding around the Falklands Warzone on a Bultaco for Sideburn 11).
My mum Mrs Mills (left), age 8. Right is Norma Knupple, her Grandad was German and came to Liverpool in late 1800's as a watchmaker. They came home, back to Liverpool Blitz, after months away evacuated to Machynlleth as they were homesick.
My Dad Bill Mills, age 20 in Royal Engineers and below transferring to Palestine Police 1943, peacekeeping in Palestine.

Apparently, some running and jumping event started in earnest last night, at a brand-new purpose-built stadium in London's Stratford. But the last Olympic Games held in Britain were based around The Empire Stadium, better known as Wembley Stadium, given its name by popular consent from the area in which its twin towers sat, in London's north-western suburbs.

The stadium was already 25 years old - none of yer purpose-build splurge in those years of make-do - and while it was being tarted up ready for the Games, the resident speedway team, the Wembley Lions, were turfed out for the whole summer and had to run home matches at the track of bitter rivals, the Wimbledon Dons, way down south on the other side of the river.

But for the 1948 British Riders' Championship final, speedway was back at Wembley and the September meet drew a crowd of getting on for 100,000 be-capped, Woodbine-fuelled spectators to see Australian Vic Duggan, the moustachioed Harringay Racers rider, take the title. Yep, 100,000 at a speedway event in Britain, and it wasn't uncommon. There's some Pythonesque BBC newsreel footage of the event here. MP

Vic Duggan in action in 1947. Pic: John Chapman/defunctspeedway.co.uk

Olympic opening ceremony, Wembley, 1948. Imagine the same sort of crowd for  a speedway meet. It happened, and often

I've heard this song a few times on BBC 6 Music. I like it, and the video's good too. Here's some blurb from the artistes.

Spitfire is the lead track from Public Service Broadcasting's new EP, 'The War Room', a collaboration with the BFI. Released May 28 2012 on Test Card Recordings, digitally and on heavyweight 12" vinyl. Video by PSB collaborator and all-round talented chap Owain Rich. Footage from 'The First of the Few' is (c) BFI National Archive / COI and used with kind permission.

Every bike shop owner (and those working in them every day) I've ever known, never seem to find the time to build their dream bikes, and more often than not ride a not so glamourous but reliable hack. They have all the bits squirreled away but somehow making private time for a personal build seems impossible. Wieger has amassed a few minutes here and there over the last 2 & 1/2 years, and his Indian is finally running. Savour the flavor, it should be worth the wait. BP

(click lower photo for excellent film link). BP

A couple of discs arrived at Sideburn HQ from Swedish retro culturalists HepTown. Now, stuff dropping on the mat is no guarantee of anything, so don't bother getting any ideas Mr Jay-Z.

First up, Astrolites - Play For Keeps. A three-piece (guitar, bass, drums) putting out, in their words, 'original hi-speed rockabilly'. It's that power rockabilly, more akin to The Stray Cats having a bust-up with The Cramps rather than purist Charlie Feathers twang-a-chug. Dick Dale, Duane Eddy, Billy Lee Riley... all in there. You're making yourself a cheese sandwich and this'll make you cut way too much off the cheddar and slice the bread all to cock. It made me run into the next room and punch the living shit out of an imaginary foe. It's that sort of thing. Great for making you feel like you're driving a slammed '37 Ford to a rumble, rather than the Multipla to Tesco. Almost all the tracks are originals written by the band, but a robust cover of Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire injects the urgency of a full-throttle search for a public toilet following an especially potent chilli-fest. Definitely worth a spin.

Next, Duck and Cover - The Pasadena Recordings. This throws you further back, to the Southern USA of the '40s and '50s. Far more mellow, bit of swing, bit of Ernest Tubb-style honky-tonk (and a Hank Williams cover, in fact), some rock 'n' roll. Great cover of Wanda Jackson's 'Funnel of Love'. Pretty authentic sound and apparently recorded on vintage equipment and all that. Now, instead of making me want to fight, this stuff prompts me to grab hold of Mrs P for a bit of impromptu bare-foot front-room dancin'. OK, I call it dancing, for Mrs P it's more of an unfortunate meeting with a twitching, tongue-lolling idiot, but she's very good about it and simply wipes the drool off her clothes and pretends it never happened.

Good albums, both. Seek them out. MP

Wieger at Star Twin in Holland has the resources to-hand, to build himself the most bling Ducati - and not just one tarted up with carbonfibre doo-dads but something serious peculiar with a one-off aluminium frame. But nah... He prefers 70 year-old Yanky heavy metal. BP

‘They were raised during the Great Depression, a time so harsh it makes our current economic mess, bad as it is for some, seem rather quaint. As kids, these blokes made it through the shoeless, dust bowl, soup-kitchen Thirties to emerge battered but unbowed into a full-on World War with enemies on all sides. What the heck, best get on with it, eh? Because, frankly, these were the days when not a great deal was done for you, when stoic self-sufficiency was the norm. Some will have flown in the Pacific theatres while others found themselves at isolated airfields in rural England, maybe Polebrook, Molesworth, Little Staughton, from where they'd haul laden B-17s.’
Extract from The Riverside Bombers, Sideburn #4

From the fantastic Defunct Speedway website...
John Hunter would get up early for a day at the seaside, with a difference. He would put his speedway bike on the local coast train at his home station, Wallsend and get it off again at Tynemouth [on the North East coast of Britain]. He would then push the bike down to the Long Sands. He got in some practise, but only if the tide was out. These photos were taken at 7am. He would wake everyone up and attract the attention of the local police. The plod would stop John, warn him about the frivolous waste of petrol [the second world war rationing was still in force] and tell him motorbikes were banned from the sands. John would patiently explain that speedway bikes ran on wood alcohol, not petrol and produce a copy of the beach by-laws showing that there was no ban on bikes using the beach at that time of year. He would then continue his session on the beach.

John, his sister and two friends pose for this photo during one of the early morning sessions on the beach at Tynemouth. The modern day Tynemouth residents would have a fit if they were woken by speedway bikes at the crack of dawn. BP