Mutch's Diary
The Road's editor
I am delighted to receive an email from Mr Chetam in the Abidjan Republic of Cote D'lvoire who has $15m US that he wishes me to look after for him. I am always honoured by the trust that complete strangers are prepared to put in me and have made a lifelong habit of reciprocating this trust which has very seldom been abused.
My friends in Sturgis are very trusting folk. They leave their house open throughout Bike Week, despite the fact that there are half a million strangers around, any one of whom could stroll in, help themselves to anything they fancied and stroll out again. We should be able to leave our homes open and our motorcycles on the street without locks and enjoy the kind of crime-free life that exists in few places outside the fertile imagination of London's Chief Commissioner of Police.
The fact that in an age of unprecedented affluence we are incapable of getting a grip on crime, is one of the great indictments of today's society. What is clearly happening instead is that substitute criminals are being used to replace the real ones while substitute crimes are displacing genuine crimes in the consciousness of the judiciary. So it is that the evil thug who repeatedly torments a family on a sink estate is ignored for months before being given a string of meaningless ASBOS. Meanwhile the guy who hits 50 mph on the 40mph dual carriageway for the fourth time in 4 years, loses his license, and then his job, his home and maybe even his marriage. Couldn't happen? It did happen to ex Roads Minister and safety zealot Peter Bottomley (at least the license part) and if it can happen to him it can happen to anyone.
The point I am making yet again is that our society is getting its values totally warped. Our government refuses to confront genuine crime with the kind of measures that popular expectation and common sense demand, so it focuses on a bogeyman that it thinks it can intimidate, just as the school bully picks on the weak kid who is no real threat to him, rather than the champion athlete he's scared to confront. Collective behaviour often reflects that of individuals and this is a case in point.
The case of the hard shoulder incident (ROADs passim) continues, with the launch of a complaint against the zealous police officer who identified me as a threat to public morals. In the light of this I am being offered an interesting opportunity. Formal complaints are unpleasant affairs and the more conciliatory option of a face to face meeting with my tormenter under a 'Local Resolution Procedure' has been floated. This is wonderful news and I intend to take this course. I shall keep you informed.
I see that BP have launched a website where motorists can assess the impact their motoring is having on the environment and then find out what it will cost to pay for initiatives that will neutralise it in terms of carbon recovery from the atmosphere. www.targetneutral.com. After contacting them I learn that they will be adding a bike field to their on-line form. It's a great idea but if they are so concerned then why don't they ease up on the ludicrous extravagance of air conditioning in their garages that they tend to run full bore every time the temperature rises above freezing?
In this mind set I book a ticket to the USA on British Airways as they have made an issue of incorporating a carbon surcharge into every ticket price. This surcharge, they say, will be used to finance the planting of trees whose carbon catchment will neutralise the CO2 emissions of their flights. In this self righteous frame of mind I set out for Sturgis where I observe more CO2 production that anywhere on the planet outside the crater of Vesuvius. I assist this extravagance by riding around on a 1450cc Harley-Davidson which is loaned to me by my good friend Pepper who is too busy running the motorcycle museum to ride the bike herself. I am glad to be of help in exercising the beast and see some spectacular things in the process.
You'll find an appeal on page 50 of this issue for help in raising funds for Krissie Willis who has been a stalwart of MAG in the West country for many years. Krissie has contracted a particularly viscious strain of MS and has been loaned a sum of money to try stem cell treatment which is not available on the British health service. While individual MAG groups often have charity runs for local causes it is most unusual for MAG as a national body to ask people to help with money for a cause other than MAG. This is a very special case however, as Krissie has put so much into MAG over the years and we reckon she deserves every chance that she can possibly have.
I ride to Manchester to give a presentation on MAG to the Rainy City Harley-Davidson Club. I pause en-route to see Frankenstein the Quasi Humanoid Life Form, who some may remember simply as 'Frank' from AWOL days. Frank escaped the squalor and violence of East London to set up home in Macclesfield with his four children and stunning wife Anita - good move. I am served dinner and then ride on for the meeting where seven members join up, bringing the total percentage of souls present to just over a third, some already having seen the light. If we could replicate that percentage in all clubs we'd be doing pretty good.
On to Castleford for lunch with our erstwhile Chairman and then an hour at Eddy's of Leeds. One of our most faithful advertisers, Eddy takes a load of MAG literature to distribute with his mail-outs and makes me a cup of coffee. And so on South to the steaming Metropolis where I have a new tyre fitted to my bike. Next stop Calais and parts further South, much further South - later.
Oh a new book is out - 'Lowrider', a shortish tale of adversity and mechanical mayhem by hard tail Triumph chop across Europe to Israel in 1980. Illustrated by Louise Limb of BSH fame, it's a great read but then I would say that wouldn't I? Check it out on www.bikerlifestylepics.co.uk
Ian 'Three books' Mutch
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