BIRD'S EYE VIEW
Page 33
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
BY THE HAWK
• Serengeti of America has introduced what it proudly calls "the ultimate high performance sunglasses for serious drivers" who, no doubt, need to he protected from British tropical sunshine.
The specs cost a mere £.89; macho image not included.
▪ One of the more unusual loads you may have seen Suffolk-based Taylor-Barnard transporting is this 9m long bottleship. It is pictured en route from Felixstowe to Liverpool, whence it will be shipped to New York as part of "The Typhoo Atlantic Challenge", which is expected to raise over £500,000 for the National Children's Home.
The giant bottle is likely to startle seafarers even more than road users, because it has the hull of an ocean-going yacht, compete with an inboard engine. Presumably the emergency kit will include a bottle opener? • A stolen van was left on a railway line last week and sliced in half by a train at Bilston, West Midlands. Fortunately the train driver and passengers were unhurt.
• At the moment all politicians seem to be pushing for more bus lanes around Britain to help ease our growing congestion nightmare. Or they were, until MPs began to demand the removal of bus lanes outside Parliament to clear access for their car park.
Several bus operators have objected, including London Buses which says removing the lanes would hold up hundreds of buses every day and make the motorists' lives even more • The Hawk has heard of some Birmingham boys who have been having a whale of a time with 21 rolls of peachcoloured toilet paper. Colin Jones, estate manager at Whale Tankers of Solihull, has a rare talent for weaving rope from Andrex — and the soft, strong and 4m-long, 36mm circumference rope proved strong enough to pull along a vacuum tanker, built by Whale workers in their own time, to raise 213,000 for the Telethon charity event.
David Wilkins, who claims to be the strongest natural athlete in the world, seen here dragging the Telethon Tanker, also found enough strength to use his Andrex to move an 82seater 9,900kg bus. • Here's another fiendish brainteaser from Bolton-based truck driver Peter Holliday, this time clues refer to ferry ports. (For instance — Not secondhand. Could be paradise — answer: Newha‘en.) 1 Marine super stiucime.
2 Animal fodder. Work a con trick.
3 Take a drink. Do, ii the hatch.
4 Type of music. Ask the Druids.
5 Tighten cm-reedy. Start truck with it.
6 Cash box. Lancashire town.
Naturally the Hawk has the answers (well Peter told them to me); see next week's column and I'll let you off the hook.
• Two of our readers have written in response to retired haulier Norman Robinson's letter to CM, in which he reminisced about his two 3.5tonne Leyland Lynxes, which he lust to the aimy during the second world war.
Retired haulier Jack Ashworth and Fred Emsley are inviting him to visit the three 1939 Lynxes they are rebuilding; Ashworth bought the Lynxes back in May 1988 in scrap condition and the pair have already completed one, which has been entered in four rallies this year.
• Have you ever wondered what happens to all those used tyres? An American firm, Elm Energy and Recycling of Connecticut, has applied for planning permission to build a power plant in Wolverhampton which would burn up tu 12 million used tyres a year, generating enough eneigy fur 20,000 British honies.