57

It's hard to explain American football, I don't mean the rules, although that would be difficult enough, I mean why, why does American football exist at all? Why the complexity and show, why not just play rugby? It's as if someone sat a five-year-old boy down with some paper and a box of crayons, showed him a game of rugby and asked how it could be improved. The game of American football was then invented from the explosion of colour that remained after all the laser sticks and tanks were removed.

And it's the colour, complexity and show that mask what the game is all about: the simple act of violence, male violence over territory and possession. All that razzmatazz is just a way to authorize, to establish credibility and create approval. In some ways it's how the acceptance of religious doctrines and bonding in the military is achieved. Chanting and trinkets, beating music and uniforms all appeal to the most basic of animal instincts: to belong to a group is the way to survive. Paraphernalia makes a powerful contribution because it provides the illusion of legitimacy. In this way American football endorses itself, fluffs up its feathers and struts its stuff.

And once a following is established it's time to plant the idea firmly in the minds of the people by playing the game. The wealth of the church, the loyalty of soldiers and the success of the team depend on the cooperation of everyone involved. In American football, a player's number indicates their position and 57 is usually a centre. His job is to get the offensive going by snatching up the ball and passing it to the quarterback, then block any attempt by the opposition to thwart his teams' plans. He plays his part as his team advances, bit by bit, yard by yard, all the while ensuring his own continued status and position. And it's all achieved in a flash of colour, the chanting of orders and the sound of clashing armour.

Rugby is just as much about territory and possession, but its violence is raw and open. Rugby is much less of a spectacle than American football and in that way more honest. Maybe in part due to the dull, overcast and muddy fields of Britain, I always think that Rugby is best not watched in colour. There's no illusion, just grit. It reminds me of the pure and simple fact that sometimes, when the need arises, you just need to get stuck in. Like Tom Yately did in 57, when the violent Red ruled the roost.

The 1957 film, Hell Drivers, was a first-rate B movie about a firm of tipper drivers. It came out of an era of change when traditional roles were starting to be challenged. It's a male dominated black and white drama that sees good conquer evil. Filled with conflict over position and possession, Hell Drivers is more than just a British western: the characters, although extreme, were contemporary, authentic and real. The film shows how aggression is sometimes needed to defeat the damaging parasitic effect of wrongdoing, in this case by a rough, antagonistic top driver and a corrupt employer.  Here the team of drivers are weak and uncoordinated against the powerul Red and his boss. But Tom, their '57', snatches up the ball and goes on the offensive. Simple, undressed male violence. There's no need for deception or illusion; it's refreshing to watch.

Ice, baby

The distant mountains are swathed in the beautiful colours of dusk. They've a reddy hue, reflecting the evening light, a mixture of aquamarine, crimson and darkening yellow. I wish I had the ability to paint them.

I look to the nearer hills and try to remember the little geology I know, and  wish I knew more.

Below, in a valley of varying shades of green, I see church spires and the ochre roof tops of a small cluster of houses.  I dwell for a moment on their history, but only long enough to realize that a lifetime could be spent in study and only a fraction understood.

I see animals in the fields and admit to myself I know nothing of their anatomy, or even husbandry.

The sky is beginning to fill with clouds.  There's a front approaching, but that's all I can really say; I can't tell you a great deal about meteorology. 

It's then that I look to the ground at my feet, to the grass that runs along the lay-by, and I see the plastic bottles, the fast-food wrappers and plastic bags discarded by god knows who, passing through, ignoring the mountains, valleys, villages and skies, while trashing the verges.

Perhaps it's our virtual existence, seeing life through a series of screens that does it. Travelling from television and computer, at home and at work, looking out at the world through a car's windscreen, or a bus window.

We seem to have lost contact with the real environment. Soon even the space between our eyes and screen will be eliminated by Google glasses.

Is knowing the real world that bad?  According to most people it is. Almost all adults use one form of drug or other to alter their perception of life. Alcohol relaxes; cannabis makes you happy; cocaine, confident;  ecstasy, chatty too; speed, full of energy; mephedrone, all of the above; and methamphetamine (ice) arouses.

But don't drugs, whether stimulant, depressant or hallucinogen, simply represent a way in which we choose to interact with the real world?

And what price do we pay for this maltreatment of life and environment? Drug abuse costs the English and Welsh tax payer about £19bn per year.  Alcohol abuse about £6bn.

The environment Agency spends £10 million annually collecting roadside rubbish. In fact, 2.25 million pieces of litter are dropped in the UK everyday, apparently by 48% of the population.

As I drive down from the mountain I see a sign warning of ice - someone has daubed 'ice baby' across it. I wonder if, as they did so, they marvelled at the vast forest that lay behind the road, the mountains beyond, the history of this land, or the way it was formed.

It's a world I wish I knew better, in all its natural beauty.

Letter to Classic Bike Guide

About 20 years ago, I did three things within three weeks. I moved into a new house, bought an old bike (by chance a Matchless G2) because the new garage didn't smell as a garage should, and on the advice of the bike's seller, started getting CBG. 

Reading about Dave Mills and his AJS model 8 in November's issue made me realise I was right on all three counts. The house is in beautiful South Devon, my garage smells wonderful and CBG produces great articles, like the one in which Dave talks about the pleasure in simply plodding around the lanes. The only difference being that here an AMC lightweight can be pretty exciting. There's a hill down into Sidmouth  that's so steep it always makes me feel like Evel Knievel on approach, John Surtees on the way down and Ted Simon arriving home at the bottom.

Speed, of course, is relative, like when Captain Mainwaring once asked Corporal Jones if his van could go any faster and Jonesy replied, ''What do you mean, we're doing twenty now''.

  

Letter to Ride Magazine

Simon Weir, you've redeemed yourself after that prattish article which can only be summarised by, ' I'll remove my helmet when you remove your shoes'. (As a motorcyclist, Simon was protesting against being asked to remove his crash helmet when buying fuel at petrol stations). Come on Simon, don't you understand what goes on in the real world?

But dealerships being the backbone of motorcycling (Ride, December, 2013), that's a whole new issue and here you've hit the robber on the head.   You're absolutely right, we're seduced by the personal touch. In fact, I bought my Bonny SE irrespective of price because I was offered a cup of coffee. I know it sounds daft,  but it's true. However, hindsight is a wonderful thing and when I returned to the same dealer to buy a Rocket, it was because they offered the best deal. I took off my helmet, they took off their shoes, we got something going; I  got what I wanted, they got a sale.  It makes a difference, the personal touch; but cost, price, value rules.

Surly Long Haul Trucker

“It's you”, my wife said when we first set eyes on it. “It must be fate.  Just what you want and your name's written all over it”.  I had to agree to some extent: it was certainly my size, and the style I was looking for, but it was the name that really got me.  A transfer identifying the American manufacturer, Surly, had been fixed to the front tube and one saying, Long Haul Trucker to the crossbar. “Surly Long Haul Trucker”, giggled my wife. “It's you”.

The LHT, according to the internet site we were looking at, was one of the most popular and capable touring cycles you could buy and that was apparently what I wanted, a bike to go touring on. You see, my wife was planning a cycling holiday, a change, I suppose, from the usual lying on a crowded beach watching oil soaked blubber eat its way through the day. She had decided on something that would allow us to travel about a bit and see a few things. No sitting down all day looking at the world through a screen. Slow, also, so the countryside could be appreciated instead of whizzing through it on motorways and A roads.  We would go gliding down lanes and tracks away from other traffic, in quiet tranquillity; relaxed, avoiding all that confrontation while in complete harmony with all we would meet in the rural idyll.

I didn't like to disillusion her and tell her of the self-satisfying smiles and forced pleasantry you get from everyone you meet when venturing beyond the safety of the concrete landscape; that there would be animals everywhere, depositing goodness knows what all over the place, including the roads on which we would be cycling; and those pony club women stuffed into filthy jodhpurs; the smell.  Friendly fresh air? Give me the stern-faced, sweet smoke of the city any day of the week.  

“Me, Surly? I don't know what you mean”. I  protested.  “Long haul trucker I may be, but Surly...?”. I'd always considered myself pretty laid back, a listener, always reasonable and above all, considerate.  She looked at me sideways.  “What about the Ministry chap who was snooping round your cab looking for a speed detection equipment detector, thing”, my wife said.  “You were pretty surly with him by all accounts.  In fact, by your account, actually. Remember”?
Oh yes, I remember him, snooping around.


Surly Long Haul Trucker and a snooper from the Ministry.

It was just a normal road check, somewhere in West London, I think, on the North circular Road.  I had just left a factory estate in Park Royal and was heading south for the channel when I got pounced on by a police motorcyclist and told to pull into the next slip road. When I stopped, I got out of the cab to speak to another driver who was standing next to his truck smoking, while a man from The Ministry tapped out a familiar tune on the underside of the chassis. We were exchanging a few pleasantries when said musician emerged from under the vehicle holding aloft the headless shaft of a small hammer.
“The tops come off”, he said, through a broad smile.
“Why were you using it, if it was defective”? I said, straight faced.
“Well, I didn't know it was going to break, did I”. The smile had disappeared now, replaced by the dismayed look of the victim.
“When did you last check it”? I asked.
He didn't answer and strutted off to a small group of officials that were gathered round a couple of cars, idly chatting and drinking take-away coffee.

It was then I noticed that the passenger door of my cab was open and someone was standing on the top step looking in, the top half of his body obscured by the open door. I walked back to the truck and stood behind him. I could see the reflective jacket and clipboard with its pen attached, the coat and claws of the fault-finder
“What are you doing”? I asked.
“Just looking, driver”. He didn't climb down, just swivelled his head and upper body to face me.
“You should ask first”, I told him.
“We have the power to enter”.
“Not uninvited you don't.  You can't force me to let you into my cab”. I said, with false politeness. I pride myself on remaining calm in these situations.
“If you don't show me your records or the vehicle unit. 'The tachograph'”, he added, intending to show the teeth of his knowledge, but instead simply sounding smug. ''That's obstruction”. He wasn't budging, neither in his stance on looking in my cab, nor from the step.
“I can't. I said.
“Why not”?  The clipboard began to shake in anticipation
“You're obstructing me. I can't get in the cab”. I said.
He fixed me with a stern look for a few seconds, then smiled and suggested I go round and get in the driver's seat so that we could discuss the matter in comfort.  There's no point in crossing the line with officialdom, so I made my way round to the other side of the cab and climbed up.

The line in these matters being the stage where a government official can crawl back behind the cover of legislation.  It's always easier to destroy than create, that's true in all aspects of life: my truck took a lot of effort to put together, but it'll eventually corrode away all on its own; my business took years to build, but it could be destroyed in a day by any incident  serious enough. The right approach is to be in the right and not give anyone the chance to destroy. So, after he had inspected the tachograph and my records, and found nothing to report, and the wheel tappers had flattened a few more edges on the nuts and bolts that hold my truck together, I said that I wished to leave.  He, though, seemed to have other ideas and his eyes began to wander around the cab.

“What are you looking for”? I said.
“We're clamping down on speed enforcement detection equipment”, he said. “Do you have any such  devices”?
“What defines 'such devices'”? I said.
“Such things that allow you to tell if your speed is being checked”.
“Like the mirrors”, I said.
“What”?
“Well, if I look in the mirrors and there's a police car behind, I check the speedo to make sure I'm not speeding”.
“No, you know what I mean”. He was becoming a bit tetchy, I noticed. “Devices that detect police radar, and that sort of thing”.
“I've got a GPS, I think that gives camera positions.  But that's perfectly legal”.
“Ah, but not in France”, he said, triumphantly.
“But we're not in France”, I said.
“Look, it's perfectly natural for the police to enforce the speed limit, and for them not to want to be detected”.  He became a little more animated now, his hands jutting to and fro as he warmed to the theme. “Otherwise drivers would have an unfair advantage”.
“What's natural, as you come to mention it”, I said, doing my best to sound logical and not too mocking. “Is that predators have eyes in the front of their heads, so they have 3-D vision which enables them to judge speed and distance.  That way they know when to pounce.  Prey have eyes on the each side of the head, so they have all round vision and can see the predators coming from any angle. That way the prey stay ever vigilant, and respectful of the rules that govern their behaviour”.
“Erm, well … . I don't see...”.
‘‘If I'm driving along and I see a speed limit sign, I look at the speedo to ensure my speed's appropriate for that road.  It's the same if I see a camera or police car.  All the while I'm checking my speed to make sure I'm within the rules.  It would be the same if I had any other type of detector, which, by the way, I don't.  It's all good for safety, the more people check their speed, the better”.


We eventually went on our cycling holiday, me and the wife.  It was a bum breaking, leg aching, damp affair spent dodging lunatic tractor drivers and oblivious country folk in their four wheel drives. On the last day, as we turned from a busy B road and into a lane close to our home, a truck driver, obviously frustrated by our presence, wound down his window and yelled, “Get off the f*****g road”.  I, of course, gave him a thumbs up.

Lands of Rock and Roll

The Earth rotates on an axis through its Poles. The Moon travels above, in an orbit, a continuous curve dictated by its speed and the force of gravity. The Earth's winds and tides are effected by gravity and rotation - the forces of the Earth's turning and the gravities of both Earth and Moon. The Earth itself is fluid. Plates that support continents shift due to forces created by heat, but they are also dragged by the force of the Earth's rotation and pulled by its gravity. The Earth is a dynamic thing because of force.

In the North there are two lands formed from crushed earth and molten rock. Lands forced into being by gravity.  Once joined they now stand on two sides of the North Sea.  These lands are Norway and Shetland.

A Scania rounds a bend in the Norwegian hills, its loaded with rock, heavy but low. The forces that press the rock to the Earth hold the Scania to the road. A side force created by the truck's weight and speed as it travels through the bend pulls on the rock and the truck drifts out. The trailer swings slightly before straightening and the truck continues its journey.

A Scania rounds a bend in the Hills of Shetland. It's a concrete mixer and the  load is fluid, high and to one side, as the drum rotates. The forces that press the concrete to the Earth hold the Scania to the road.  A side force created by the truck's weight and speed as it travels through the bend pulls on the concrete, and the truck rolls over.

The Earth rotates on its axis through the poles, and the moon orbits above, in a continuous curve, and at such a speed that it is held in place by the force of gravity.      

       

Danish Mikael

Danish Mikael emerges from his small tent holding two plastic bottles, each containing a yellow fluid. “It saves me having to get out in the night”, he says. His bicycle lies nearby next to a small trailer. This is Danish Mikael's life: cycling around Denmark and this part of northern Germany looking at history, living in a tent.

Danish Mikael tells us that he's never fitted in with those around him. He's an intelligent, communicative person, but at the same time a loner. He remembers his childhood and the fights between his parents. Danish Mikael describes his father as a 'strong man'. He often visits the past.

Danish Mikael has diminishing assets. He exists on savings and state benefits. His world is shrinking, a result of all the personal difficulty locked into his life. Danish Mikael no longer has a job and colleagues. No close neighbours. No family. He has a small tent, a bicycle and a trailer.

Danish Mikael cooks, eats and sleeps in his tent. He doesn't join us in the camping site's communal kitchen. In the world of his tent, Danish Mikael looks within himself, and writes. He asks me to read a short piece he's written. It describes a woman living in a castle. She has all the material things anyone could wish for, but she sees no one. She is well fed and comfortable. She roams the castle finding rooms that give her pleasure, soothing tranquil places and dark sinister dungeons that terrify but at the same time excite her. She can go anywhere within the castle, the choice is hers. But one day she manages to see beyond the limits of its walls. She sees a world so different from her own that she longs for a life beyond the confines of the grey stone. The outside is full of life; there's a horizon.

A light rain has set in and Danish Mikael waves us off in the drizzle. He'll stay another day, he says.