JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE PARANOID...

Jawa, so what would you recommend?"

So I gave him the benefits of a lifetime's pain, disgust, anger and careful contemplation. "Forget about Vincents, Gold Stars, Velo Thruxtons, Manx Nortons, and Enfield Interceptor Mk Ills," I started telling him.

"They're all overpriced, and they're all bastards. Norton twins are pricey, and AJS and Matchless twins tend to blow themselves apart, but the heavyweight singles aren't bad, and neither are Enfield singles either. BSA singles are all slugs, but they keep running, but avoid anything made for the Army - M20 and M21 sidevalves... and the atrocious 500cc TRW Triumph side-valve. A lot of people go for Ariel twins and singles, but I reckon they're inferior BSAs, and while we're talking about the old BSA/Ariel/Sunbeam combine, steer clear of the Sunbeam S7 and SS shaft-drives - they're heavy, gutless, and a lot of original bits are suspect, even if I still fancy one. Norton singles are very collectable, so they tend to be a bit overpriced, and never buy a British twostroke - they all had Villiers engines, apart from the BSA Bantam which was... err, okay, so they're all just like modern East European strokers, but thirty years older and suffering from metal fatigue. Panther singles are okay, ifyou're that way inclined, but most of them were attached to doubleadult sidecars, so the frames are probably out of alignment by now, what frame they had anyway, so they might be a bit dodgy as a solo. This," I finished off, "leaves Triumph twins and BSA twins, and the ordinary Velo 350 and 500 singles. I'd be tempted to go for a soft-tune Velo MSS 500, or a 350 Viper, but Velos are getting a bit pricey now as well, which means you've got Triumph and BSA twins, and the rule of thumb is this - non-unit motors are always better than the later unit engines, and bigger isn't usually better. Triumph and BSA triples are overpriced for something that's basically a 500 and a 250 bolted together, and they're a bit fragile if you thrash them. The Rocket Gold Star is a collector's gem, so it's at a premium, but the other 650 twins are okay, from the AIO to the A65L, but avoid the A65 Spitfire it's collected, but I had two, and they were two of the most unpleasant and finicky bikes I ever rode. The BSA A7 500 is nice, but the later A50 is a bit overweight and gutless. The Triumph twins are all okay,", 1.ICI STIIIT 111811

I concluded, "but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend the 350s, the 3TA or the Tiger 90. I wouldn't recommend a 750 twin of any sort to my worst enemy, but the 650s aren't bad - the Thunderbird's a nice old all-iron plonker, the Trophy's pleasant, and the 650 Bonnevilles are still pretty entertaining. The best of the lot has to be the various sorts of Tiger 100 - they had a fair amount of guts, but they didn't vibrate as much as the 650s, or possibly a more staid 500 5TA as an alternative, if you're not into fast riding. How's that, huh?"

He looked at me very doubtfully, and I began to realise that there were obviously bikes I hadn't mentioned that had caught his imagination.

I tried to think what they might be. 250 Royal Enfields? A possibility, not bad little bikes. 250 BSAs? Well, the CHG and Cl2, maybe, but surely not those nasty little C15s, SS80s and all their other derivatives. The Ariel Pixie? The BSA Beagle? The Ariel-3, for God's sake? The Tiger Cub? Yes, he did look like the sort of guy who'd go for a 200cc Triumph, come to think of it.

"Well," he said dubiously, "there are a couple you haven't mentioned..."

Got it - those malodorous and smoking bastards with no real frame and no real brakes, but pretty good performance for their day, the Ariel Arrow and Leader two-strokes!

"What do you think about the Velocette 200 LE?" he asked me.

Well, a water-cooled, shaft-driven, flattwin sounds pretty good, huh? A sort of British BMW? A sophisticated design pre-empting the advent of oriental technology by about 20 years? Don't you believe it - they were dogs, even if 200,000 policemen did ride them (which might be proof enough).

"But Velocette made them," he whimpered, seeing my horrorstruck expression. "So they must've been good?"

"Velocette made pills, rickshaws, and rollerskates," I told him, "and I wouldn't've bought any of those, either." It's absolutely true, too - it's all in the book about the firm, and would I lie to you? People who've owned real Velos, like me, don't like to talk about LEs, even if the production of the 200cc flat twin did keep Veloce Ltd. going longer than could've been expected.

It's a very sore point - even Honda tend to keep quiet about all those C50s and C90s they're still producing... no glamour, no image, only bread-andbutter. Then he went one better.

"How do you feel about the FrancisBarnett Falcon? Or the James Captain?" he asked me, and then backed out of the room because he saw me pick up the chainsaw catalogue, and start looking for a model with a 34" cut which, coincidentally, happened to be the waist size of Levis he was wearing.

That's one good thing about being a porky, incidentally - no one makes a chainsaw big enough! It'll have to be a circular saw or nothing for me, and you'll all get hernias lifting me on to the bench anyway.

I sometimes wonder if the whole world isn't conspiring to send me bananas, but I'm getting pretty certain now. I once ordered some Levis from an establishment (now bankrupt, and I can't say I'm surprised, but at least it proves that there is some justice in the world), which claimed to be the most wondrous denim emporium in the known universe. I wanted indigo denim, straight legs, 42" waist, 30" inside leg - straightforward, huh? No hassles? No problems? So how come I got Sunset Pink jeans? Flared? In a 30" waist and, can you believe this, a 42" inside leg? They're okay if I breathe in a lot... providing I don't fall off the bloody stilts, of course.

I was once on a computer mailing list for a book club and, for some reason, the computer was upset by the fact that I was 'I.J. Fogg' in its memory banks, so it kept writing to me requesting my full names completely and without exception.

By the time I got the fifth letter requesting this information, I was so mad that I wrote back, 'There's no reason why not having my full forenames should make any difference to your organisation, and I see no reason to give them. Please note that I wish to continue on your mailing list as !.(only) J. (only) Fogg.'

I shouldn't have bothered. The next letter I got from them was addressed to 'Mr. Ionly Jonly Fogg'. It just proves the truth of what a friend of mine used to say: "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they're not all out to get you...'' This is Ionly Jonly Fogg signing off

- it's time to look through the chainsaw catalogues again.