Mutch's Diary
The Road's editor
To Morocco via a wedding in Spain where old friends shake my hand as I depart, in a manner which suggests they will never see me again. What nonsense, the Moroccons are wonderful, the country is sensational and I only fell off once.
I return in time for MAG's National committee meeting to find a tall man ironically called Short sitting at the table.
"Ello ello ello" he says.
"What's all this then?"
"Err we're a riders rights group" I explain, we stop bad laws and have a laugh.
"Hmmm, mind if I join?" he asks.
"Who are you?" we ask.
"Well I was the Chief Superintendent of police for North Yorkshire." he says.
"Hmmm all right" we said, "you can join if you like but we don't want to get any tickets or lectures or stuff."
"Ho ho ho, I should coco" he says and we all had a nice cup of tea. He seems all right, bit too tall though. We'll take anyone these days.
At the International Motorcycle Show I meet Bill Wiggins MP who is chairman of the All Party Group for Motorcycling. I take a picture of him sitting on a motorcycle and hand him a copy of The ROAD. He seems like a decent sort of cove, but it's noticeable how these MP chappies are disturbingly young these days.
Down to Gillingham in Kent for the SE AGM. I am half an hour early but still find several souls standing outside the meeting place waiting for the doors to open. In we go, and at ten past eleven I find myself helping to arrange chairs in rows for the anticipated 30 to 40 members. Since it is now already twenty minutes beyond the start time and there is no sign of anyone else, I am feeling faintly idiotic when Stu the SE Rep turns up, and in chiding him for being late I learn that the clocks went back an hour the previous night. Why does no-one ever tell me these things?
I have a new mobile now, a rather Ritzy slimline black Motorola that opens up like a hinged After Eight mint. I let a friend play with the dial tones and alarm settings which was a mistake. It never goes off in the morning when I want it to, but at odd intervals of the day when you're least expecting it, the contraption suddenly bursts into life with a gruesome travesty of The Ride of The Valkyries.
It's not long before I am back in Kent, Canterbury this time for an evening HOG chapter meeting where I am giving a talk on MAG. Ten members join on the night and many have the good taste to buy my books. It is far too cold to ride back to the smoke so I am chauffeured to a wonderful 12th century house where my host, Andy, plies me with smoked salmon, Parma ham and fine bourbons. I am also offered a brace of Partridge to take home but forget to pick them up. Could you have your game keeper drop them by at your convenience please Andy, tell him to bring the 12 bore and he can have have a little sport with the hoodies at the end of my street, thank you.
On the way home I drop into Sunset Motorcycles in Bexley and sign up Dave the owner who has been promising to join for years, hurrah! All things come to those who wait, good man!
To Glastonbury in preparation for a meeting with the Somerset police who have offered me the option of a 'Local Resolution procedure.' This is a kind of conciliation procedure designed to address the public's grievances over the behaviour of police officers without things getting too nasty or expensive. I opt for this to try and get some satisfaction over the hard shoulder incident at the Severn Bridge (ROADs passim). Sadly I get lost on my way to the Almondsbury HQ and turn up 2 hours late only to be told that in fact I am 26 hours late as I should have been there the day before, bugger! Apparently my mobile was full of 'where are you' messages which I do not yet possess the technical expertise to access. The meeting is re-scheduled for the next day. So back to Glastonbury for the night where a she bear prepares me dinner again and tries to show me how mobile message systems work.
Second time lucky - I arrive at the Roads Policing Unit and spend almost an hour going over the issue of the incident in which I was prosecuted for lying on the hard shoulder photographing motorcycles. I've already been to court and paid the fine and costs but it was the issue of the officer's aggressive and vindictive behaviour, and his attempt to get me done for failure to display road tax (the disc had vanished but he refused to check his ANPR) that had 'got my goat.' I was given every opportunity to explain why I felt aggrieved but the officer persistently retreated into a defence based on his authority to act as he had, insisting that my actions were the most dangerous he had ever witnessed during his time in traffic division. Clearly he has led a sheltered life in traffic; I scarcely feel I'd make star billing on the World's wildest police videos.
In conclusion; I was disappointed that the officer in question did not feel able to concede that his behaviour had at the least erred on the zealous side of thorough and I told him so. On the positive scalepan however, I was impressed by the very fair and considerate attitude of the senior officer who umpired the meeting. He left me confident that my effort had not been wasted and that was important. I am probably at least £500 out of pocket in time, costs and fines but it was worth it. It is a credit to this nation and its police force that this degree of accountability exists. Cynical whingers love to compare our country to banana republics, and on the basis of regrettable incidents, argue that we are some kind of fascist state. Such critics should try living under a truly repressive regime; a cliche ? yes, but true. We are a democracy and our police are accountable. If it seems that the powers do not heed us as often as they should, it is because we do not shout often or loud enough, and lapse into defeatist resignation, but the mechanisms are there. It's up to us to use them, MAG certainly does and if every rider in the land supported us we'd have even more clout than we do.
Ian 'what day is it?' Mutch
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