A baptism of water (and air).

I'm now the proud owner of a 1991 3AJ Tenere.  

Picked it up yesterday evening in Wiltshire and started chugging up the motorway in the dark.   It was about 1am and absolutely pissing down.  I was flat out (about 100Km/h in the slow lane) and the engine just died.  It had been been spluttering a bit all the way, particularly on a wide open throttle but this time it was completely dead.
I pulled into the hard shoulder hoping I'd just run onto reserve (a bit disappointing at 280 Km on the trip meter, I was expecting 280 miles) and tried to get the bike started.  Nada.  Not a sausage.  Fully expecting it to be water on the electrics I phoned ahead and said expect a recovery truck (and a bill), they were cool with that so I left the bike for half an hour, tried it again and set off up the motorway to the emergency phone.
The Highways Agency guy on the end of the phone said they could sort out recovery to the safe area in the next service station so not having much choice, I handed over my phone number and went back to the bike to wait.  At this point a police car had stopped next to the phone.  They were professional, courteous, and completely non-condecending.  Completely out of character for UK plod.  They didn't even bother checking my documents when I didn't know the bike reg so I guess they must have believed my story.  They gave me a lift back to the bike, put some traffic cones and flashing lights around it and said they'd check on me next time they went past.
Sat at the side of the road for about two more hours.  The rain stopped although I was already soaked (my waterproofs being in one of the panniers and obstructed by a spare tyre cable tied to the box) and eventually I got a call from the HA explaining terms for my recovery.  £141 for recovery to the next safe area, £90 if I cancelled.  Having little choice, I agreed and then thought "wouldn't it be just typical if the bike started now" so I gave it a go.  It coughed straight into life.
I left the bike running and waited for the recovery guys.  I wanted to get a bit of charge back in the battery and not having a phone number for the HA and rather than just fuck off and leave, I wanted to speak to the guys on the truck and see if I could talk my way out of the fee rather than get threatening letters sent to my folks' place.  They turned up exactly when the HA had predicted and would have been happy to cancel the fee but needed sign off from the HA who were less accommodating and ended up phoning home for a credit card number at ungodly o'clock.
Back on the road, the recovery truck followed me for a couple of exits to make sure I was OK and then turned off to go back to base.  Just at this point, the bike died again.  This time there was a little spluttering as I pulled onto the hard shoulder.  Turning to reserve got the bike going again and I cursed myself for not filling up when I got the chance a few miles before the first breakdown.  When I eventually got to the services, I filled up.  I'd done 280 Km and put 22L of fuel in the bike, tank capacity is 23L.  Got home at around 5am with no further complications.

Addendum.  Went out this morning to get some pictures of the bike and got a puncture about 3 miles down the road.

I shall be going back to work on the BMW.