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Bringing culture to London Transport
CONTROL of London Transport has passed from the Greater London Council to a bard, reports the Daily Telegraph. The Poet Laureate's duties will in future include chairmanship of London Regional Transport.
All communications from the boss will be written in blank verse. This is an instruction to staff of relations with passengers: Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportioned thought his act, Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
If this seems reminiscent of Shakespeare, not to worry: he can't sue for breach of copyright.
Hats off to the optimists
LITTLE boys and American men, particularly "truckers," delight in funny hats. British lorry drivers, with the elegant exception of You-Know-Who, do not. So Peekers, who are marketing the K-Brand-Peekers cap, a bulbous little number with an intimidating front porch, are likely to have an uphill struggle to get ahead.
"Peekers caps are genuine AllAmerican," I am told, which is bad news for British hat manufacturers. On the other hand, they have to pass through eight quality-control inspections, which is probably rather more than can be said for some of the vehicles whose drivers Peekers are wooing.
Road transport's . story comes to life
COMMERC1AL-VEHICLE history is to be brought to life in an imaginative new display at the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu. As part of its splendid effort to preserve Britain's road transport heritage, the Wincanton Group is putting 100,000 into sponsorship of the museum's trust, which will enable local delivery vehicles and buses to be displayed in model streets, with larger lorries on the perimeter to show the evolution of the commercial vehicle.
Sound effects and audiovisuals will be used in explaining the vital role of lorries and buses in an entertaining way. The new presentation will take until next Easter to complete.
David Yeomans, Wincanton's managing director, who has just been appointed a trustee of the museum, even cherishes the hope that the exhibition may persuade politicians that a larger slice of motor taxation should be spent on roads. Optimism, at least, costs nothing.
All done up in buttons and bows
WHO WOULD have thought there was a book on railwaymen's buttons, badges and uniforms? There is and it is due to be published next year. The author is David Froggatt, duty manager at National Carriers Parcels branch at Lincoln.
The scope for a 28-chapter, 50,000-word book ceases to be surprising when one is told that it covers 900 British railway companies, of whose past existence few people know. The question is how many of them care?
. . . and those in front cried "back"
SUCCESS IS beating yourself at your own game. This is what the Freight Transport Association did with its special map of the M25 present and future which was offered free in conjunction with the Daily Telegraph.
When the expected 30,000 applications turned into 80,000, the ETA cried for mercy and begged the press not to give the map any more publicity. If I seem to ignore that request it is only to compliment the Association on its enterprise.
Who knows, they may oust the Pirelli calendar as a collector's piece, even if it gives no hope to the service areas and lavatories for which there is such a public outcry.
RAC tolls the bell for river crossings
MY MEMORY was jolted when the RAC reminded me that road users had borne the burden of esturine tolls for half a century. This is 50 years too long and the Group has launched a campaign to end at once the highway robbery that began in the Mersey Tunnel in July 1934.
A proposal to increase toll charges on the Severn Bridge by 150 per cent to pay for repairs costing £33 million as well as an outstanding debt of £34 million is outragious. The cost of the Humber Bridge is even more farcical. The debt on it is rising by more than £20 million a year.
I lay odds of a sparrow's chirp to a clap of thunder that the bridge will have fallen down before users extinguish the debt. When will the Government bow to the inevitable and right off the bill, long that it is.
Petrol used in egg cups not gallons
BOYS AT Thornhill School in Sunderland measure petrol not in gallons but in egg cups. Inspired by a teacher, Jim Garnham, they entered the Shell/Motor fuel economy competition last year with a home-built contraption that won the event with a record 2,527.5 mpg over six laps of Silverstone.
Sponsored by Daf Trucks they constructed another vehicle this year but had to be content with third place with 2,438mpg. It was largely a sparetirne school project that could hardly compete with Ford's resources but it was a great effort.
"We'll be back next year with a new car if Daf Trucks are willing to help us out again," said Lucky Jim.