ANOTHER OF THE MASTER'S EXCELLENT WORKS
l1 VE STARTED BEING INTERESTED IN CHAINSAWS RECENTLY.
For instance, did you know that Bosch do the PKE30 for around £75, and it's advertised as being 'with 1200-watt motor, builtin chain-sharpener, and semi-automatic chain lubricating system, lightweight with hand-guard, and chain retainer bolt for safety'? And it's from the people who bring you BMW electrics, so it's bound to be reliable.
This has nothing at all, of course, to do with the recent news that the Greek Government is planning to ban drivers who are more than 70% overweight for their height from driving because, it's decided in its infinite Hellenistic wisdom, that fat slobs aren't healthy, and their reflexes aren't too good. My God, a decision like that'd take 80% of Harley riders off the roads, both here and in the States, and I know enough of these gross degenerates to be able to say that there's nothing wrong with either their road-craft or their reflexes... which's why I avoid arguments with them in bars, or finding myself in the middle of half-a-dozen of them on the blacktop 15 minutes before closing time. I don't need a drink that badly, and neither does my sphincter - not enough to be kissing footrests round bends I wouldn't walk round normally for fear of getting dizzy and falling over.
A decision like that, of course, would probably take me off the roads, too - I expect it's pretty well known that I'm on the, errr... larger side of colossal myself. A girl I once knew remarked that either I was the tallest dwarf she'd ever met, or I'd spent 10 years being a pit-prop in a Welsh coalmine and it was beginning to show. I can live with it - I've got this theory that I'm exactly the right weight, I'm just sixteen inches too short.
By now, I guess, all you long, skinny bikers must be just about puking with laughter. That's okay. Wait until they start shortening your thigh-bones by five inches... That's one of the reasons I've been thinking about a chainsaw recently - if I'm off the roads with my teeth wired up, I want to be the one who modifies all you tall bastards. I mean, if you've all got lowriders, you might as well be, err... adapted for them.
No, that isn't the real reason. Neither is it for all those people who were kind enough to write to me, after reading my stories, and show their appreciation in the customary manner by telling me I was in serious danger of hellfire; I ought to be returned to the pool of slime that engendered me; I've done to the English language what cholera's done for chartered accountancy; or, more directly, that someone ought to pick up a shotgun and blow various bits of me away before sticking it the wrong way up my alimentary canal to deliver the coup de grace. Listen, all of you. I've been done over by real critics - people who can write English themselves, in joined-up writing, and don't damage their brains every time they sit down, so I'm not too bothered. And to everyone who's written to me with praise, wit, appreciation, and the comment that I occasionally touch the high points of what biking's really about, because most of what I write about's happened to them, all I've got to say is you're very intelligent and perceptive people, and thank you both.
Did I tell you that there's this rumour going around in biking circles that I don't really exist? The theory is that I'm a figment of the collective, undeniably warped, imagination of the BSH staffers, all of whom take turns to write one of my stories every month, which explains the variable quality and subject matter of what I write. One month it's Isaiah writing a rib-tickler, the next it's Myatt himself producing a magnum opus of turgid purple prose, the month after it's Maz with a snappy number on horror and violence, and so on. You just wait for Alison's story about the peanut butter, the armadillo, the Electra-Glide, the frogman's suit, and the naturist bikers who beat themselves with nettles! Come to think of it (no pun intended), I must write one like that someday. No, the real reason is very simple. All the stories are translations, and some of my translators are better than others, and I can't keep an eye on what they're doing all the time, because I'm pretty busy otherwise. Well, you know how it is when you're Pope?
Anyway, to get back to the chainsaw - what I'm really keeping it for is people with bikes who pester me. I can just about