CV Burp!
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Welcome to the latest addition to CM, a sideways look at the road transport industry on telly, radio, papers and even t’interweb You couldn’t keep the world of commercial vehicles out of the news this week as the FairFuelUK campaign hit the headlines. I say hit the headlines; it had a two-and-a-half-minute slot on the One Show squeezed between Vanessa Feltz (pictured) and scorpions. Ouch!
Still, you can’t knock an appearance on the One Show. It’s a family dinner time favourite, so the CV Burp household settled down only to be told by presenter Matt Allwright that the UK was facing the prospect of fuel strikes like we saw in 2000.
Well Mrs CV Burp and I leapt in the car and immediately went to Waitrose to do some panic buying. She couldn’t possibly face a week without a bottle of Chablis and some Kalamata olives. Despite being committed readers of CM (and Motor Transport and Roadtransport.com, which encourage you to wear your bumper stickers with pride), we had missed this looming threat that would bring the country to its knees!
But, oh no, it appears that Allwright had fallen into the same trap as the Observer a few weeks ago; between navel gazing and contemplating a new Republic, the bastion of the Left had assumed that unhappy truckers equalled striking truckers... Still, there’s nothing like an empty threat to attract the unwitting public’s attention. Thankfully FairFuelUK campaign leader Peter Carroll was on hand to reassure the public that they could still do a big Friday shop in Asda.
Finally: CV Burp came across this little gem during some late night surfing of the internet. It’s the story of 40-year-old Namibian trucker Willebard Nghitotewa. The father of eight had spent the past 11 months using a fake driver’s licence. It emerged that he had added an ‘E’ next to the ‘C’ improving his qualifications with some swift pen strokes. His excuse? “I wanted to drive bigger lorries,” he told AllAfrica.com.
● If you see, hear or read anything amusing or intriguing about the industry email christopher.walton@rbi.co.uk