Puuuuut the caaaaat ouuuuuut


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Mick Woollett, a true gent.

Mick, a proper gent – I’ll miss him Mick Woollett (easy to remember the name, double everything except ‘e’ and ‘w’) died on Monday.   He was my editor at Motor Cycle Weekly in the ‘seventies and early ‘eighties.   He was mature in every sense of the word, made editor in his early fifties and a proper gentleman, having to work with an office-full of (mostly) youngsters. He never lost his cool, was unfailingly courteous, never swore and was always perfectly mannered.   Extraordinary. I plan to get a lot more off my chest about Mick, but for the moment I’ll leave you with this, true, story from, about 1982. MCW had one mouthy sub, a Kiwi called Brendan who was always shouting off about everything.   He knew everything, was witty, but packed full of bluster and b**s**.   In the run-up to the Daytona Speed Week one year he’d been shouting the odds about how HE ought to join the team because of all his experience, skills and how he’d do a better j...
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Vada a bordo, cazzo!

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Francesco Schettino, the self-styled 'Captain of the Costa Concordia' who jumped ship, was ordered by back on board his stricken vessel  with the words - ' vada a bordo, cazzo! '. The coastguard official who gave that order - even if you don't understand Italian, you just know it IS an order - has been hailed a hero for his no nonsense approach.  That's in sharp contrast to the braggart captain who has caused 11 or so deaths and so much tragedy. So how does this, now famous, order translate? I'm told it goes somethimng like this, "Get back on board for f**k's sake".  Helpfully Google Translate gives us, "go on boardf, f**k!" The phrase has made it onto t-shirts - see graphic.  You can hear the radio exchange on  YouTube : As for me, I won't be buying their coffee ever again! Nb: The Captain's name is pronounced 'Skettino', not as you may have wished.
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Swing Low Sweet Chariot - let's put all the cultural baggage aside and appreciate a great song

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Today I want to talk about how today’s debate about race and injustice seems to have drifted off into a world of intolerance and hyper sensitivity – where everyone is, or professes to be, angry and ready to take offense about pretty much anything – statues, historic slavery, microaggressions and cultural appropriation, attitudes from years ago.    I want to make a plea for everyone to stop rushing to judgement and to take offense, because in a real way that is the perfect example of prejudice. It seems we’ve got this rush-to-judgement in our DNA – when we were hunter gatherers, we needed to know at a glance whether a wild animal, for example, was dangerous.   Of if someone posted a threat – stopping to worry about prejudice didn’t come into it. It was a matter of life and death. So, today, we still can’t help ourselves, to a degree … but what we CAN do is recognise this genetic programming and check ourselves.   It’s a Christian thing to do.   We’re no longe...
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