Welcome letter from the Editor
A warm welcome to the September edition of Scootering
Mainly for my own amusement, I spend a lot of time observing everyday situations, people’s behaviour and reactions. Despite the myriad of one-liners, mischievous comments and obscure thoughts which flash through my mind, on the whole I tend to keep tight-lipped. It just seems easier that way. Nothing good ever came from getting involved in one of those crazy Facebook rants you often see kicking off, and my face-to-face ‘comedy comments’ are rarely appreciated… or so my wife tells me, when I proffer up a verbal quip now and then. So I guess it’s my own fault for breaking my own rule, by recently commenting in my column regarding some rather ‘oddball’ and ‘amusing’ letters I had received here at Scootering, because that column seems to have set off a landslide of obscure letters now coming my way. I knew I should have kept my mouth shut!
The ‘best’ of the bunch this month, and keep in mind the title of the magazine is ‘Scootering’ (clue is in the name), was a letter from a chap positively lambasting me because one of my writers had (in an article about Scootering legend and stalwart Kev Walsh) referred to Kev’s car as a Reliant Robin. We are reliably (and angrily) informed by said reader, that it was, in fact, a Reliant Regal, the precursor to the Robin (yawn) and we were told to ‘get a grip’. It took me a good five minutes to stop laughing. So in an attempt to cease the flow of unusual and obscure, non-scooter related correspondence infiltrating my Scootering Mailbox, I sincerely apologise to anyone offended or upset by this disgraceful error, and all future errors of a similar nature, should any further non-scooter related inaccuracies ever occur. Funny.
In other news, next month is our 400th edition of Scootering magazine. That’s nearly 34 years’ worth of magazines since our launch in 1985, and although my tenure is for only 10% of them, I have enjoyed being the editor for every single one of the 40-something editions now under my belt. I guess most people never anticipated, back in 1985, that in 2019 (and beyond) classic Lambretta and Vespa scooters would be so popular (and damned expensive) as they are today. By the same token, I’m sure very few people expected Scootering magazine to last 34 years (and beyond) either, yet here we are… and more importantly, here you are. Long may it continue.
Anyway, that’s enough of my ramblings, it’s another belter this month… enjoy the issue.