1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136 
• En route to supervise his fledglings at the CM
Page 34
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
eyrie last week, the Hawk spotted one trucker who was obviously determined not to be outdone and to have the biggest and best red nose on show for Comic Relief.
Instead of buying one of the little, itsy-bitsy garaged red noses, he had gone out and bought himself a red bucket instead and fixed it onto the front of his truck.
Game for a laugh; and I'm sure he made a contribution to that worthy cause (which is, after all, the whole point of the red nose fashion).
• Our American cousins' fixation with automobiles and televisions has come to a somehow inevitable conclusion: drive-in funeral parlours, which display the late lamented on a closedcircuit video. Car-less colonials are catered for too. The Reverend Yvette Gash of Chicago booked a coachload of friends to view her 70-year-old sisterin-law: "The bus drove down on one side, then it had to back up and turn round so people on the other side could see," enthused Gash. "It was like watching a good television picture." Which might tell us more about American TV than the decorum of its citizens.
• Some things change; some things never do, as the Hawk found out after flitting bat-like into the Labyrinthine vaults where the Commercial Motor back issues live. In the preHawk era the The Commercial Motor (whatever happened to the The?) ran a column headed "One Hears. . .". Here's one's selection of CM quips, published in March issues up to half a century ago: O 1939: One Hears. . . Of someone who thought that p.s.v stood for "pleasant sort of vehicle" . . . Readers amused (but not really surprised) at the ignorance of the Lincolnshire magistrate who thought £4 a day from a lorry was all profit. . Repeatedly of drivers being confused by illuminated advertisement signs.
O 1949: One Hears. . . Threats of higher taxation in general to meet further Socialist experiments . . . That horsed transport is becoming increasingly out of place in congested traffic . . . That stepping on the gas is often as fatal as inhaling it.
O 1959: One Hears. . . That safety belts will save many lives and such serious injuries as burst spleens, if they can be made popular. . . That the low bus may become more common, but there is certainly nothing vulgar about it. . That a "cold container" is not a man who has 'flu and tries not to give it to others.'
• United Road Transport Union boss Frank Griffin is never at a loss for a bon mot. His comment on the URTU's campaign to encourage employers to give their workers smart working clothes: We had no mean machine so we decided to have a clean machine."