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The Burns that binds
Page 12
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Take a stroll with us through the little sideroads of haulage, the diversions and detours, the quirky, the quixotic and the downright strange...
Like On the Margin's face after a heavy night on the gin and a piece of living room carpet, those two fine trade associations the RHA and FTA have decided to stick together following their recent brush-off by the government.
However, unlike the face/carpet problem, which tends to be a long-lasting relationship and usually requires the application of a spoon and ajar of Swarfega, we're not convinced that the RHA/FTA dalliance will last.
We have a sneaking suspicion that both organisations are on the rebound from the tender affections of the government and have only shacked up with each other out of mutual convenience. In tact we can see cracks in this alliance already. Just before their unveiling of the latest project -the Burns Report the assembled members of the press were rather surprised, given it was all meant to be a deadly secret, to discover that the details were already up on the internet and had been so for the past few days.
But where had they appeared? Ah yes, on the website of Roadway, the RHA's lifestyle magazine. Could this be the wedge that drives them apart? Certainly the dark mutterings from the FTA don't auger for a happy relationship.
But perhaps Robbie Burns will be the glue that binds the two trade associations together. That would certainly be a commendable trick for the overseer of the inquiry into the LRUC's death to pull off -and apt too, if a recent description of the man by a nameless source can be trusted: "I thought he was like a cross between David Dickenson and Paul Daniels, only twice as irritating and half as charming."
Let's just hope Burns' eventual report is more 'bobby dazzler' than 'cheap as chips'...