BIRD'S EYE VIEW
Page 22
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BY THE HAWK
• The Hawk is an old smoothie. There is nothing he likes better than relaxing in his pied-a-terre, listening to the latest compact disc, or swanning along to rock concerts in Europe's stadia and theatres and sharing the limelight with the stars.
Some of his chums, George Michael, Whitney Houston and Fleetwood Mac, have been helped through the odd disaster by vehicle recovery fimi National Breakdown. Its PR people tell me that when George's huge artic and trailer ground to a halt on the way to Milan and when Whitney's brakes on her equipment truck failed, National Breakdown was the first on the scene. It even repaired Fleetwood Mac's coach air conditioning.
I am humbly reminded that, while the celebs and I jet from venue to venue and from luxury hotel to luxury hotel, it is road transport, and its vital back-up services, that make sure drum kits, speakers and the like get there in one piece.
• England's hard-pressed cricket selectors have once again ignored the Hawk's implorings and infinitely better judgement with their so-called team doing disastrously against the West Indies in the Third Comhill Test.
At least Rockfield Truck Rental did a bit better supplying six refrigerated vans to service Lancashire County Cricket Club's catering division over the week.
• Luckless Alan Sherwood — the transport manager who has been turned down for 1,620 jobs (CM 30 June-6 July) — has informed the Hawk that we got one or two points wrong in our story.
CI He has the full set of CPCs — national and international; haulage and passenger — not just one, as we reported. U It was to Blackburn, not Blackpool, Borough Council that he applied to be a public transport manager with.
"I would love to be a fly on the wall if/when Blackpool personnel office reads the article," he jokes. El Several companies that we said Alan had been rejected by this month are still considering his application.
They have not turned him down (yet), he says.
It is the last one that disturbs him, he adds, because, "they probably don't realise it at the moment and probably never will, but I am just the person they are looking for." I'm sure you are, Alan. Apologies and good luck.
• The Hawk always likes to be one of the first back from France with a generous ration of each year's Beaujolais Nouveau, but I hear that my efforts have been somewhat overshadowed.
Over 100 lorry drivers, sailing on P&O's Pride of Dover, have won a place in the Guinness Book of Records for carrying the biggest-ever load — over 1.5 million bottles — of the much-hyped plonk Beaujolais Nouveau in one go.
P&O says that, such was the demand for space on its ships from hauliers when the 1987 wine was released, that it made all the vehicle space on one sailing available to freight vehicles carrying the new wine. • Truck insurance rates in South America must be astronomical, judging by a harrowing tale from Brazil. Scores of truck drivers in Brazil are falling victim to particularly savage attacks by lorry hijackers. They ambush trucks as they cross this vast country's often deserted highways, steal the loads and leave the drivers to die in the jungle.
Transport leaders are calling on Brazilian politicians to take action. Some say 1,300 drivers have been murdered in the last 10 years and at least 19 are still missing.
• Huge fuel bills, vehicle excise duty, long queues at filling stations. Aren'tyasickof em.
Now a computer boffin has produced a batter-powered vehicle which has whizzed round a 1921un circuit of the M25 racetrack at an average speed of 701(rnili for a total cost of only 60p.
It would not be much use for the heavy haulage industry perhaps — but it could have a future for the small parcels "pony express" marltet. The vehicle, produced by British manufacturer Automotive Concepts — is only the size of a mini. It cost £9,000 to build, and driver and inventor Karl Bowers is anxious to jump into the niche for which Clive Sinclair's ill-fated C5 was designed. Whatever happened to that?