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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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Qualified cats - bogus diplomas

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A few years ago the wonderful Dr Ben Goldacre of the Guardian’s ‘Bad Science’ page got his cat a diploma in nutrition … much like the discredited ‘Dr’ Gilliam McKeith. It’s a great – true – story that exposes the bogus McKeith, but it set me thinking – are any other animals so highly qualified? It turns out there are loads of them! Colby Nolan the cat was awarded an MBA degree in 2004 by Trinity Southern University, in a Dallas, Texas. In 2009, George, a cat owned by Chris Jackson, the presenter of the BBC show Inside Out North East & Cumbria, was registered with three professional organizations, the British Board of Neuro Linguistic Programming, the United Fellowship of Hypnotherapists, and the Professional Hypnotherapy Practitioner Association, securing George's accreditation as a hypnotherapist. Back in 1967 Oliver Greenhalgh, the cat, was accepted as a Fellow of the English Association of Estate Agents and Valuers, after a payment of eleven guineas. ...
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109 miles per gallon … but not in the real world

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The winning drivers of this year's MPG Marathon recorded a staggering 108.78mpg, in a Ford Fiesta Econetic 1.6 TDCi. Now that’s impressive - it shows how motor manufacturers have refined the internal combustion engone.   But it’s hardly 'real world’. Real world is being stuck in traffic at a standstill.   Real world is short journeys.   And even with all the super new ideas like quick warm-up technology on the latest Renault diesels, for example, you can’t buck the physics – cold cars use more fuel. Former rally drivers Andrew Marriott and Andy Dawson managed the 108.78 mpg in last week’s ALD Automotive/Shell FuelSave MPG Marathon over a 370-mile route that took in the hills of South Wales and the Cotswolds.  They were driving very carefully and skilfully. But, crucially, they never once stopped to put their car in the garage to cool down.  Or go shopping!! As a result, they managed to improve on the Fiesta's official EU Combined economy of 85.6m...
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