BIRD'S EYE VIEW BY THE HAWK • A pat on
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the back is due for Scania (GB), its West Midlands distributor, Keltruk, and tyre manufacturer, Goodyear, who joined forces last weekend to hold a sponsored commercial vehicle wheelchanging event to raise £1,000 in aid of ITV's Telethon '90.
It was staged at Keltruk's West Bromwich base and the winner was A Hingley Transport of Brierley Hill in just 88.27 seconds. Negotiations are underway for an entry in the Guinness Book of Records.
• Protest groups, greater crested newts and even badger sets are well known for their ability to hold up the progress of man and his great road building machinery. Now it's the turn of ornithogalum pyrenacum — wild asparagus to you and me — which is holding up bulldozers waiting to carve a new £250,000 bypass across Dunkerton Hill in Bath. Engineers have been told to hold everything until experts can find a way to save the rare wild Bath Asparagus, which was apparently introduced into Britain by the Romans. Avon County Council has asked the Nature Conservancy Council to think of a way of digging up the species and transplanting it somewhere else. The Hawk suggests that they try transplanting it to a pan of boiling water for a few minutes and then preserve it on a plate with some melted butter.
• The Corby branch of transport company C Butt is quick to pass the butt (sorry) when asked what happened to its 16.4-high trailer.
"We only lent the trailer to the Northampton branch for a day, reminisces Corby-based assistant manager John Davies. "But it was a new driver and he wedged the trailer under a bridge in Nottingham because he was only used to driving 13.6m-high units."
The trailer is being repaired by Southfields Bodyworks.
• Another hapless driver got into an sorts of difficulties when he had to make a sudden and unexpected diversion due to the closure of his planned route ahead. He took a right and a left, and to the great non-delight of other motorists in the area, miscalculated both the gradient and the curve of the road, wedging his trailer very firmly, right outside the local hostelry.
As I always say, if you have to leave your artic in a bank, do it next to a pub.