BIRD'S-EYE VIEW
Page 42
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IT 'FAKES a lot to disturb the composure of DA Trucks (GB) managing director Roger Phillips. But just for a moment, at a Daf press conference at the Scottish Show a couple of weeks ago, a look of disbelief tinged with horror replaced his usual cheerful expression, I le turned around to see Barry Sheene apparently attacking one of his Scottish journalist guests with a judo throw. Sheene and the journalist were back-tohack with their arms locked together. Then the former works champion motor cyclist leaned forward, lifting the scribe's feet clear of the ground, and began to bounce him up and down. At this point Phillips moved to intervene thinking: "Shecne's gone mad. He believes that he's got hold of Kenny Roberts.
It turned out that, like the motor cycle ace's untiring efforts in Glasgow and elsewhere to raise money for the Disabled Drivers' Association, this impromptu wrestling was also in a good cause.
The journalist had complained of back pains and Sheene was simply demonstrating physiotherapy which he had learned from a motor cycle mechanic in Tokyo.
I am pleased to be able to report a happy ending to this story for all concerned. The journalist says his back feels better and Messrs Sheene and Phillips were soon back on good terms. So much so, that the following day Dais MD handed over a cheque for 500 to Barry for the Disabled Drivers' Association.
0 NCE AGAIN the Pirelli calendar has burst upon a breathless world in an eruption of superlatives and artistic hyperbole. The company commissioned 12 students from the Royal College of Art each to paint a picture and then selected 12 beautiful models, each to pose in front of one of these works.
Following last year's practice, this combination of "the two creative disciplines of fine art and photography," the blurb tells me, "incorporates, very subdey (sic), the design of the famous Pirelli P6 tyre-tread pattern.
Subtle it certainly is — and who am I to complain? By the time I reached March I had forgotten it. What greater compliment could I pay to "12 visually stunning works of art?"
The paintings, incidentially, are being auctioned by the Duke of Westminster on behalf of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. But not, I hasten to add, in front of the children.
DEMOCRACY is a system by which an MP for Aberdeen North can lead the opposition to the route of a by-pass of beleagured Okehampton, about 620 miles away, against the wishes of many local people.
Robert Hughes. Labour's chief transport spokesman, who represents the Scottish oil port, would like the whole wretched business of a public inquiry to be started afresh although one covering 96 days was held nearly two years ago and the inspector recommended the route that the Government has decided to adopt.
After 17 years of' nattering about a bypass the Devon townspeople are entitled to relief from the traffic that stifles local movement and, even more important, effects the economy of a large part of the region. At last they are going to get it.
Democracy also enables one person to obstruct the construction of the muchneeded extension of M40 from Oxford to Warwick, ultimately to provide a second London-Birmingham motorway, after 270 witnesses have given evidence at a 132-day public hearing costing 1:1 millions, a sense of proportion would not come amiss.
ACROSVILLE bus driver who showed kindness to a woman with a child and pushchair by picking her up between official stops was dismissed because it was alleged that he intended to pocket her 14p fare. He could not safely issue a ticket while he was driving, he said, so the 20p she tendered, for which she had been given 6p change, was still in the cash tray when an inspector boarded the bus.
The inspector put 14 and 6 together and made 01,256 compensation for unfair dismissal. In fact there was apparently a much more sinister reason for removing the driver; he was rocking the union boat.
In India, where self-reward is customary, there is such a shortage of small change that on New Delhi buses sweets are frequently offered in lieu of coins, I wonder how many busmen arc sacked for eating their "cash" float.
FUEL BILLS can vary by as much as 23 per cent between customers, according to their clout and business acumen, says the Freight Transport Association. Those who are paying too much should welcome a kind of Glass's Guide to gas oil and dery prices that the association is to begin to issue next nionth.
The Road Haulage Association gives point to it by complaining that there
ALL those stories of the Department of Transport being the sponsor department of the road haulage lobby, the one which will do anything Pr the industry for the merest crumb of lunch in the sleaziest tali' in the backstreas of Whitehall, look a bit odd against this latest publication from the DTp.
Is the image of a burnt out "juggernaut", twisted and tangled in the ; carnage of the M25 pile-up last winter really the way the DTp's thinkers want to advance the rational case Jr road freight or motorway development?
have been 11 dery price changes this year — seven upwards and four (much smaller) downwards — making an overall increase of 7.82p a litre, apart from an 0.67p rise in the Budget. The RHA maintains that dery buyers — a captive market — are subsidising petrol users and wants the Office of Fair Trading to intervene.
AS A CAR-MAD small boy I used to gaze in rapture at the unique ceramic-tile picture of motor racing in the Edwardian era on the walls of Michelin House in Fulham Road, Chelsea. It has a Grade II listed facade built in 1910.
After 75 years the Michelin commercial headquarters has moved to a new habitat at Harrow and the building has been sold to a partnership of Paul Handyn and Sir Terence Conran. They plan to convert the ground floor and basement into a retail store, with offices above and yet another Chelsea restaurant. Whatever they do, however, they must not touch that exciting facade.