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I can't make up mind whether Britain is using Nineteen Eighty-Four or Brazil as a template for our government.

Today was the trip to the DVLA, clutching a swathe of documents and cash. £70 covers the first registration fee (£55 for any vehicle) plus 1 year's road tax (£15, yay). All the documents from LS Imports seem in order, so I'm hoping that I won't be asked to bring the bike to a test centre for identification - a poster over at the Chinese Bike Forum was asked to do so.

I took a photo of the VIN plate, printed it out and slipped it into the document pile, but on reflection, the suspicious, bitter, hollow shells of people trapped in the bowels of the DVLA - mad love to all y'all - may view that as part of some shadowy sinister plot to confuse and confound them by being helpful. We'll see soon - or later - enough. It's all a mystery, really, since the desk zombies at the Glasgow DVLA answered all my questions with a stiff-lipped "Mon't mo", which I presume is DVLA-speak for "don't know."

In anywhere from 48 hours to 2 weeks, I should hear something from them. I'm beginning to see why folk might want to pay a premium to dealers to handle this sort of soul destroying paper shuffling. A little note to government - you know you're watching - about tight grasps: the reason why so many bikes are (apparently) unregistered or untaxed may not be that your procedures are too lax, but that they are so stringent that it's far simpler to just not bother. There are people on eBay happy to produce any number plate you want, no questions asked. Since the chances of being pulled over by a live copper are now next to nothing, you can see why it might be an attractive option to skip the tiresome and expensive paperwork, and become speed-tax-camera proof in the process.

Anyway, back to the bike. The NGK D8EA plug (thanks, Dave) went in, and the bike started up nicely. The stock plug is already a little sooty, which could just be because I've been doing a lot of cold starts on the choke, or it could be a rich mixture. I'll need to get it properly up to temperature before adjusting the mix though.

On the subject of starting, the bike seems happiest on half-choke and just a soupcon of throttle, then off the choke within a minute. This seems consistent with the other owners' reports that I've read.

One thing puzzles me though; why isn't the starter motor isolated by the engine cut-off? I spent a frustrating minute cranking the bike before realising that I'd nudged the isolator. I'll need to work on my mental checklist.

The tightening and greasing proceeds apace. Today I got all the bolts under the rear mudguard. There are two up high near the front that have square nuts on them that I couldn't easily get off, so I just added two spring washers and extra nuts (loctited, of course) on top.

There are three bolts at the back of the mudguard that hold the light cluster and number plate on; they were given spring washers and loctite, although the bolts are (surprisingly) grommeted through rubber bushes, and so may have stayed tight anyway. I did a quick pass down the sides of the bike, but everything there already seems tight. Maybe I got a Monday bike?

Then I came back to the sidestand cut-out switch, about which I'm in two minds. It does seem like a useful safety feature, but its connector block is in an insane position, right under the bike. I'll leave it on at least until I know that I won't be subject to any kind of DVLA inspection, then come back to it. In the meantime, I've pretty much encased the connector block in grease, and also greased the cut-out plunger and switch.

Finally, I put on a front L plate. eBay provided some nice metal ones, rather than the floppy flappers available at Halfords. There's a Huonaio badge at the front of the bike, just under the headlight. It's just pushed through two rubber bushes, and pops out, leaving two handy holes ideal for bolting a plate to. The holes are quite big, but luckily I'd kept the 8mm bolts from the shipping frame (tight Scotchman, d'ye ken?) which worked a treat. I did have to unbolt the horn temporarily to get access; it got the obligatory spring washer on re-attachment.

One observation that I made was that while the headlight appears to be aligned fine vertically, it looks to be diverting the beam slightly to the right rather than the left. Tsk, tsk, naughty Jiangmen Dihao Motorcycle Company Ltd. Still, if I'm blinding drivers, at least they'll see me. On that subject, I'm not going to be blinding anyone with the stock glow-worm bulb, so a brighter bulb is on the list of things to get. I haven't yet taken the headlight apart to figure out the part yet: I hope it's one that's available to civilised man.

[Update]
Someone seems to have taken the bike (insured and registered in my name with the DVLA, I hasten to add) out for a slightly extended U-turn. It looks like the L plate is fouling the front mudguard when the weight is on the forks. Lesson learned: check things with the bike on and off the stand.

The rider here is 5'6" in his or her stocking feet: it should be clear from that that the Huonaio is a neat little bike. It's significantly smaller than a Jinlun-11 125, and about the same size as slightly smaller than the (now sadly defunct) Honda CG125 that I did my CBT on. The low centre of gravity makes it feel stable, and though it supposedly masses 130kg dry, it's quite possible to turn the bike just by lifting the back end and heaving it around into position. A bit like the wife, really.