BIRD'S EYE VIEW
Page 28
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BY THE HAWK
• If the Christmas festivities have not completely addled your brains, you may remember we ran a caption contest in our 23 November issue. Yes you remember; that fetching pic of Transport Minister Robert Atkins being "nabbed" by a local bobby.
Anyway, the Hawk has decided to award the best of all possible prizes: a Commercial Motor sweatshirt (better than a Blankety Blank cheque book and pen) to Brian Andrew of Duckinfield, Cheshire, for: "No, not me officer, I don't repair tachographs."
• The Hawk has a word of advice for toy manufacturers. Bluebird Toys has seen its share value drop by nearly 20% after disappointing Christmas sales, despite seeing its Big Red Fun Bus numbered amongst the Christmas top sel lers. So what went wrong?
Well, other playthings on Bluebird's product list include the 'Dust Demon', the 'Grass Gobbler' and the `Winky Waggon', which apparently failed to capture the toy-buyers' imagination. It wouldn't have happened if you'd stuck to trucks and buses, boys.
• Drivers on the M4 might have had trouble staying awake when they began counting sheep which strayed onto the motorway near Magor, Gwent last week. By the time the traffic cops arrived, crooks in hand (geddit?), they had flocked off. A spokesman says: "We thought the drivers must be dreaming."
• Electrical retailer Dixons has gone on the wagon with its mobile poster campaign, to fight a £568 million buyout bid from Kingfisher. It has a couple of trucks trundling around London bearing the question: "One in five televisions are sold by one retailer. Guess who? Dixons Group."
• Tokyo, Los Angeles et al had better look to their laurels, if they want to hang on to their reputations as world-leaders in the air pollution stakes. Tests in our very own city of Sheffield revealed that its residents may be breathing in as much exhaust fumes as their suntanned cousins in LA. Environ mental experts are calling for more power to be given to councils to prosecute drivers of vehicles with excessive exhaust emissions.
• Last week the ferry from Dublin to Liverpool sailed for the last time. Until two years ago the service was operated by B&I Line, but it gave up because the route did not pay. Now Sealink has given up too, leaving only one service between Dublin and Liverpool the Guinness boats fetching the wondrous black stuff from the Liffey brewery.
• Looters in Newbury, Berkshire have expensive tastes, it seems. When a lorry bound for France crashed in the town recently, £10,000 worth of goods were stolen from the back. No, not videos or the like, but salmon and prawns. Local police would like to hear from anyone approached in a pub by a shady customer offering to flog them a cut-price crustacean.
• A tyring problem could become a major environmental hazard if proper disposal facilities are not provided for the 19 million scrap tyres dumped in landfill and scrap sites through out Britain, warns National Tyre Distributions' Association director Richard Edy.
Such plants would cost around £25-30 million each and could, it seems, be used to generate electricity.
• A TNT truck loaded with emergency supplies was among the first relief vehicles from the UK to cross the border into Romania after the revolution.
In response to a request from the UK Free Romania Group, the truck set off for Timisoara just after Christmas and arrived four days later. Customs regulations and the Austrian lorry restrictions were lifted to rush supplies through.