Ian,
You have entered into the Halls of Enlightenment, so perhaps I can give you
a view from the inside looking out? It's just that all of us are, from time
to time, one or two biscuits (cookies, of the non-computer type) short of a
packet. Depending on one's own resistance to viruses of the four wheeled
type, some people can happily deal with this affliction and otherwise lead
entirely normal lives. However, those "with a bad dose of" can occasionally
be spotted in the open air, head buried in the collected works of Haynes
and/or Bentley, studiously examining a wiring diagram, squinting at a
micrometer or casually cleaning the accumulated dust and muck from
underneath caked finger nails with the end of a vernier.
These types are thoroughly nice fellows. Indeed, some are known to have a
doormat outside their houses with the words "Here lives someone who is
exciting to know!"
See one of them in your travels, and you will instantly know you are in
true Triumph country. This is a land where it never rains, where the sun
shines 365 days a year, taxes are not necessary and everyone is happy.
Then there are others who have got the bug rather bad and who will happily
spend endless hours scouring the mating faces of a transaxle spring rather
than hear fine music or enjoy the highest standards of international
cuisine. These individuals are known to talk to themselves in a contracted
form of Pitmans Shorthand and the more obscure dialects of Ancient Hebrew.
This language is known as "Canley" for no other good reason than it was the
Lingua Franca of the people who built the cars themselves and who had the
foresight (when it was lacking in other rather more critical areas of build
quality and sound engineering practice) to put an everyday phrase book in
the glove box alongside the Owners Instruction book, Terms and conditions
of an indecipherable warranty and a list of dealers that had been
terminated some five years previously.
Finally, you come to those, such as myself who are terminally mad - for the
simple fact that when they were too young and not alert to the ways of this
wicked world, they embarked upon a career in selling Triumphs to the
unsuspecting and easily led. Such people are so badly afflicted with the
long term exposure to the virus, allied to the effects of long term
dermatitis, fiddling around in rear hubs and welding on odd bits of chassis
(which had fallen off before they should have done) are no longer of any
use to this world. Thankfully, for the rest of humanity, such creatures are
a rare and rapidly vanishing breed who now spend many hours in distant
rural locations sitting in front of a computer screen, singing hysterical
songs and writing utter drivel - just like this.
Such people in the final category can be safely left to their own devices
and should be encouraged to apply their lateral thinking skills(?) to the
develpment of miniscule turning circles for lawnmowers. I feel reasonably
sure that allowing them to develop a treatise on how to fit a Spitfire body
to its chassis using only a heavy hammer and foul language will see a
worldwide demand of precisely one copy sold.
John Macartney
"They're coming to take me away ha-ha, to the Happy Farm where I can play
all day"
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