Blogs and Babbles

Marketing Against the Real Competition - Dealing With the Inconvenient Truth

2011-11-18T21:08:00.002Z

Al Gore and Upton Sinclair spotted it: we ignore those facts that make us uncomfortable. Gore's compelling documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" left most of us nodding sagely and promising to do better by our planet.

But we still leave the TV on standby and drive to the newsagent.

Upton Sinclair, that flawed but brilliant polemic, made a comment even closer to home for those of us with a sale to make: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

If you worry about losing sales to your competition, you need to understand what, not who, is your competitor. It's not that bunch of cowboys who keep undercutting your prices; it's not the market leader with its stratospheric market budget. It's inaction.

Here's an exercise for you to try: pull out your prospect list for the last twelve months. Look at the sales you didn't get. How many of them were lost to competitors? How many of them just never happened at all? How many of them are still on your list, but the project's on hold?

See what I mean? Who's your main competitor now?

While I'm asking questions, how often do you come out of a sales pitch feeling it was a complete disaster? Pretty unusual isn't it?

You have a compelling, logical proposition; it makes perfect sense for people to buy from you. If that weren't the case you wouldn't survive. So you usually feel that your presentation went well. You probably heard encouraging comments: "That's very interesting; it's something we do need to do." Your prospect list is full of customers who definitely will buy from you. One day.

As for the environment, so for business-to-business purchases: the action happens when the desire for the outcome outweighs the personal inconvenience.

Like it or not, your solution almost certainly creates a measure of discomfort. It's unusual these days to deal with a dedicated purchasing department. You're usually talking to a departmental manager or director, and they have their own jobs to concentrate on. They'll consider your swamp drainage proposals once all these alligators are out of the way. Another inconvenient truth is that your customer's principle personal driver is the salary continuation scheme. If your solution involves risk of exposure to criticism, you're pushing string uphill.

The logic behind your proposition is important; of course it is. It'll be used when your customer justifies the purchase to his or her peers. But the spur to make the purchase will come from the desire to acquire the personal benefit you identified.

Business-to-business marketing is effective when it's as personal as a LadyShave. You have to get inside the head of the individual you're dealing with, not just find features and benefits for their market sector. Most people don't do this; it's easier to churn out a lot of formulaic rote. Why? Because the personal approach might be more effective, but it's also more inconvenient. So you're as guilty as your customers.

Give up; I've got you surrounded.

In sales and marketing, desire trumps logic every time. That's why we'd rather drive a Ferrari than a Toyota. The reason those stalled sales are still on your prospect list is quite simple: you showed them what they needed, but you didn't make them want it enough. If you can get your head around this single mechanic you might well double your sales

Are you on the job with Twitter?

2011-11-14T17:13:00.002Z

Maybe I'm getting cynical, but I keep seeing a parallel between the mid-nineties Website fervour and today's obsession with social media. Back then, everyone was clamouring for "an Internet presence", but few had a clear idea what to do with it. Cross out "Internet" and insert "Facebook", "LinkedIn" or "Twitter" and that last statement has a disturbing resonance in 2011.

I'm not about to give you yet another list of killer social media techniques; if you have something to say that Tweets well, then go to it. What I do want to do is put this 21st Century mania in its proper context for B2B companies.

First, here's a new concept for you, I call it On/Off the Job Marketing.

When you're selling B2B, your customers tend to focus on their own daily tasks far more readily than they do on your proposition. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to involve them deeply enough that they come to want your solution. The best way to do that is to help them with their job, not just tell them that you're going to do something splendid for their company. People become involved with your proposition when they can see it making their life easier right now, not producing a corporate benefit sometime in the future.

And right now, they have a job to do.

It's true that social media can encourage involvement, but they're not central to your clients' business. They'll look at LinkedIn when they've got time. Are you sure you're talking to them and engaging them effectively when they're actually doing their job?

One of my clients asked me to help with their social media marketing recently. This, with their permission, is an extract from their Website content:

XXXX is a leading supplier of YYYY, with a first-class portfolio of products and services for architects and specifiers. We are pleased to provide detailed information to support your specifications and client proposals. We hope that you'll contact us for help with your next project*.

Excited? No, nor me.

My question here is: does it make sense to invest energy and expenditure on entertaining potential clients in their spare time, when we're doing little to engage them when they're concentrating on their job?

Instead of trying to think of something witty to say on LinkedIn, or complaining about the M6 traffic on Twitter, the priority for this client is become involved in his customer's actual work, not their social life. So we're putting our energies into creating tools that help those architects and specifiers to create and present their specifications. That's what I mean by on-the-job marketing.

If you already know what you want to say on social media, as I've said, go to it; I'm not disparaging an unquestionably powerful medium. But if it's on your list because everyone else is talking about it, think carefully and decide if it's really the next priority.

If, deep down, you feel it's a distraction from your real job, remember that your customers may have exactly the same opinion.

* Don't bother searching for this text - I promise you we killed it very quickly.

Shut up and listen!

2011-11-09T16:03:00.001Z

Do you remember those bloody awful sales videos you had to sit through in the 80s and 90s? The ones that had you drawing a line down the middle of the page; that made you remember the alternative close, the puppy-dog close, the assumptive close, even the ludicrous Duke of Wellington close. It took you, maybe, two sales pitches to work out that none of them worked.

Sales pitches account for the majority of presentations, and presentations probably account for the majority of books, how-to Websites and general win-new-clients-and-look-sexy training courses.

Amazingly, in the enlightened 21st Century, we're still stuck in that groove of someone's theory of how the world ought to wag. So we hear about "information-loading colours", "optimum bullet weighting" and God knows what other bananas.

About the only sales training tip I ever picked up that's been useful is the old one about the ratio of ears to mouth. Good sales, we're told, stem from listening twice as much as we speak. And most of us are willing to accept this as fact.

So when was the last time you made a sales presentation this way?

Unless you're as relentlessly vigilant as a wheel clamper at the Olympics, presentations have a habit of becoming didactic lectures. Their whole structure encourages you to talk at your audience rather than with them. I've had clients comment, "Sure, but we'll have a proper conversation afterwards".

Great, let's hope there's time.

This is fresh in my mind after a pitch presentation I made last week for a Web project for my Internet business. I'd put together something that looked professional and slick - there'd be something wrong here if I didn't. But the whole production was presented as a discussion document, not a "Here's what we can do, aren't fabulous?" propaganda attack. It took two full hours to work through around 15 slides, because all of us were talking in detail around each point. Except that they talked a lot more than I did. In those two hours we advanced beyond where we'd usually be at the end of the second meeting.

We got the deal (smug mode ON <k-dzzz>). Not only that, we got it on the day and before the end of the presentation.

So here's a thought: Drag out your most-used presentation deck and ask yourself how you could make it more like a conversation.

Your best presentation tools are stuck each side of your head.

Rules? What Rules?

2011-11-09T12:08:00.001Z

Anyone who's attended a presentation techniques seminar will have been indoctrinated with pretty much the same set of edicts: Speak in a lower register, rehearse exactly what you're going to say, don't read off the screen, minimise farting and nose-picking and so on.

Well, in fairness, you wouldn't hear much of that stuff at one of my seminars*, but you know what I mean.

Today's post follows a seminar I attended yesterday by Calloway Green, and presented by Andy Calloway. They're experts on search engine optimisation, and the seminar was a revelation, not least because Andy's either never seen the rule book or decided to use its absorbent qualities for personal use. He turned his back on the audience and mumbled at the screen; he digressed, swore, lost his thread and wandered between his own presentation, somebody else's, a few strange Websites and the unpredictable scrawlings he effected on the whiteboard. If he'd prepared his speech, he clearly changed his mind a few times.

Know what? We loved every minute of it. He had the audience completely enthralled. For three hours.

I came away buzzing with ideas, not just about SEO, but about my whole Web strategy. Was it despite Andy's bizarre style or because of it? Without doubt, the richness of information and obvious expertise made the seminar useful, but it was the enthusiasm and humanity that carried the day. We'd have listened to a three hour dissertation on Oxo cubes with just as much attention.

Beware presenters' rules; they make robots. Your SatNav delivers great information, but you'd rather listen to Chris Moyles**. Get enthusiastic, relax and have some fun and the audience will come with you.

Go to one of Andy's seminars and you'll see what I mean.

* Especially the farting and nose-picking, which I encourage.
** Thinking about it, this analogy isn't as clear cut as I intended. I rarely want to punch my SatNav in the face.

The Case in Point

2011-08-07T12:34:00.001Z

OK, I admit I tend to bang on about not starting your presentation by telling people how great your company is. But reading back I realise I’ve highlighted the problems and not spent a whole lot of time on solutions. Dale Carnegie would turn in his grave.

So, with a respectful nod to Mr C, here’s a suggestion.

Your case studies are a goldmine of credentials. Here’s a chance to brag about what you do best, and the results you deliver, but stay relevant and interesting.

As long as they’re relevant and interesting.

Anyone who neglects their case studies is missing a huge presentation opportunity. What could be more convincing than proof that what you’re offering really works? So spend some time on them; make them sell, not just report. Tell a coherent story, and be consistent in your format. For each study:

· Create a headline – a short, concise statement of the result you delivered. (Not just what you sold them)

· Briefly outline the customer’s position and requirement

· Show how your proposition answered this need

· Where relevant, mention implementation time

· Explain any problems that were encountered, and how they were resolved

· Highlight the beneficial results, including (or even especially) side benefits outside the original requirement.

You’ll notice that I included problems in the list; clearly I’ve lost whatever grip I once had on reality.

Except that it works.

I’ve always maintained that inaction is your biggest competitor. It’s almost always easier and safer to do nothing than to take on the risks associated with making a major purchase. By explaining problems you’ve jumped a number of hurdles:

· You’ve demonstrated your experience and resourcefulness

· You’ve proved that you can deliver, even in the face of setbacks

· You’ve reassured them that they won’t be left personally exposed and endangered if something goes wrong

· You’ve shown integrity and honesty, bringing greater credibility to your whole pitch

Your case study library should be updated every time you achieve a significant result for one of your clients. Many of my clients have case study forms that are distributed regularly to their sales force. This gives you a great source of material for PR stories and internal communications, as well as building an unbeatable bank of proof.

Great, so that’s the magazine loaded, now how do we fire the bullets? In my next post I’ll be looking at how to use your case study library to make your audience ask all the best questions.

Don't throw out the bullets with the bathwater

2011-07-11T16:53:00.000Z

Search the Web for presentation tips and you'll find a pretty consistent condemnation of bullet points. So you should never use them, right?

Hang on a minute though; just because people inflict paragraphs of garbage on us, each prefaced by a little dot, does that mean a global moratorium? Should we forbid music players because people sometimes use them to play Jedward? Don't mistake me here: I'm just as set against bullet points as a means of non-surgical lobotomy as the most militant PowerPoint adviser. But sometimes they're the right thing to use.

Let's look at the popular alternative to bullet points. You'll often see advice to put one concept on screen at a time. You'll usually be told to add a relevant graphic, and sometimes it'll be suggested that you leave the text off altogether.

No need for bullets when... there's no need for bullets

It's good advice as far as it goes. And following it will usually leave you with a clear, attractive slide with plenty of visual impact. But beware of another important factor: presentation audiences often have the memory capacity of a goldfish. If you want to put over a series of closely related statements, there's every chance they'll have forgotten the first before you get far down the list.

In my not particularly humble opinion, a short list of bullets is often the best way of developing a single specific area of your proposition.

What's so painful about these bullets?

Bullet points are brief headings, not a substitute for the presenter. If the audience could read and understand them without you present, e-mail them the presentation and save yourself a lot of time.

Used correctly, bullets work absolutely fine. Here are a few guidelines to keep away the atrocities (in bullet form of course):

No more than four or five to a screen
Keep them very short
Never try to cover more than one information thread per screen
Don't build your whole presentation on bullet point screens

I'll talk about what the presenter's doing while the bullets are flying in another post.

Bullet points are a Bad Thing when you don't consider the alternatives.
Bullet points aren't in themselves a Bad Thing.

Why John Wanamaker should have listened to Tommy Cooper

2011-07-08T11:07:00.000Z

You’ll like this; it gives you the chance to do impressions. Tousle your hair, stagger slightly, put on a gruff, slurred voice – if you like you can even wear a fez – and when you’re ready, say the following:

“I went to the doctor’s yesterday. I said ‘it hurts when I do this’. The doctor said, ‘Well don’t do it then’.

OK, so you sounded more like Arnold Schwarzenegger doing dalek impressions, but that’s not the point. The point is that today I’m going to hold up Tommy Cooper as a marketing guru. And on the way I’m going to make the same deposit on John Wanamaker that pigeons outside the British Museum make on Horatio Nelson.

John Wanamaker, so we’re told, originally coined the phrase “I know half of my advertising dollars are wasted, I just don’t know which half”. If I’m lucky enough to be remembered when I’m gone, I hope it’ll be for something less fatuous. If Tommy Cooper had been around in 1886, he’d have fixed Wanamaker with that glorious bloodshot, gap-toothed stare and said, “Well don’t do it then”.

This thought came to me on the road to Damascus. Well, OK, the road from Barnsley to Stafford, using that really cute road across the Peaks – you know, through Warslow and… sorry, back to the plot. I’d just been to see a new client who showed me the adverts they’d been running in trade magazines.

What I saw was typical trade magazine fare – quality, customer service, excellence, all the words to fill your BS Bingo card. I asked how well they worked and braced myself. Sure enough “I know half my…” etc. Suddenly I sensed the ghostly figure of a 6 foot three drunk magician at my elbow and, with all the conviction of Derek Acorah preparing to make Yvette Fielding’s pupils dilate even further, I grunted “Well don’t do it then”.

This client sells to multi-million pound players in a clearly defined market. He has maybe 100 potential new customers in the UK, and any one of them can add a million pounds to his annual turnover. To meet his growth targets he needs two new clients a year.

So why is he advertising? If we take his existing marketing budget – of which apparently 50% is wasted – and turn it all to bear on that small, defined market, surely we can win two new customers in the next twelve months? If we spent, say, £1,000 on a drop-dead pitch to one new customer, what conversion rate could we expect?

Obvious, yes. But don’t judge my client too harshly. They’re running one of the most successful businesses in their industry. They’re smart people. But they’ve fallen into a trap that I see at least once a month. They’ve seen what other people do in their marketing, and simply done the same.

Don’t do this. If Tommy Cooper had done it he’d have been just another reasonably competent magician. John Wanamaker made his millions the same way: he looked at what other people did, and told people about what he did differently.

When my clients look at their marketing, do they realise they’re being advised by a comedian?

Oh I hope so.

Turn the Camera Round

2011-07-07T11:41:00.003Z

It happened again the other day.

One of my clients called to say they'd won a big deal, using a pitch that we'd built together (Smug mode ON - Tzzzt!).

Now these guys are smart enough to ask why they won, and this was the response:

"Well [competitor one] came in and talked about [competitor one]; [competitor two] talked about [competitor two]. You came in and talked about us."

What baffles me most about this is the fact that it should be unusual. But if there's one battle I fight more than any other, it's to strive against the presentation format that begins with "About Us".

"Yes, but people want to know who they're dealing with!" comes the protest.

You won't like this, but I'm afraid they don't. Not yet, at least.

I've alluded to this in an older post - Smile for the self-portrait - but it's worth pushing the point a bit further. The problem appears when you put the corporate story ahead of the reason why you're here to present. They're waiting to hear what you can do for them; instead you're banging on about your commitment to excellence, your customer focus, and that new high-capacity intracombifenorealisator you've just bought.

Turn the camera round. Paint them a picture that makes the result of what you're offering completely real. Talk about cost savings in terms of the result they - not you - will have produced for their company. Show the marketing director how your environmental benefits can be used in his^* PR campaigns. Explain to the production director how he will be able to simplify manufacturing procedures.

What you're doing here is changing your pitch from something that makes logical sense into something that they want. And what we want always wins out against what we need, otherwise we'd all spend our money on fewer holidays and more life insurance.

So is the corporate story irrelevant? Anything but. Because some audiences will want to know what authority you have to say you can deliver all this great stuff. So they chip in with, "Could you tell us a bit about your company?".

Now you can tell them how fantastic you are, and they'll actually listen.

* Sexism versus readability: I don't suggest that women are any less able to fulfil the role of marketing director. But I refuse to keep typing "he or she", "his or her", or "their" because it looks horrid. Anyway, if sexual equality actually existed I'd dare to answer back to my wife, so get over it.

Act of Uniformity

2011-07-06T11:36:00.001Z

What d'you mean it doesn't fit?

Thankfully, I was born too late to get called up for National Service. That's probably why I spent so many of my formative years listening to the Incredible String Band while wearing loon pants and the outside of a yak. As a result I was spared the joys of a uniform that fitted (and itched) where it touched, and was almost capable of ambulation without its conscripted occupant.

Thinks: Maybe I'll try The Hedgehog Song next

Today the one-size-doesn't-really-fit-anyone approach is found only in Italian driving seats, baths and - yes, you knew I'd say it - presentations. The first two can be ignored because Armitage Shanks has a long tradition of employing alien life forms in its design department, and Italians can justify Fiat by pointing at a Ferrari.

But presentations? No-oo I think not.

Most of your marketing materials have to be fairly generic; you can't afford to change them for every possible customer. But the people in your audience are as individual as the architecture in Orangi Township. A presentation is a rare opportunity to craft your message to fit perfectly.

I regularly hear people refer to their slide "decks". "We'll use our leisure industry deck for this presentation", they announce glibly, and the customisation is complete. But the Financial Director in their audience has more in common with the FD of a double glazing company than with his own IT Manager; where did we get this idea of industry sector being the lodestone of our pitch?

Everyone in the room with you has opinions, biases and agendas. They're the things you have to deal with if you want a successful outcome. So a beautifully logical explanation of the lifetime cost of your proposition won't float the boat of someone who's thinking about this quarter's VAT bill.

Most of the time, your biggest competition comes from inaction, not from your biggest competitor; it's usually easier to do nothing than to take on a huge upheaval to achieve the end you're proposing. To get the decision you want you have to make everyone in your audience want what you're offering enough to put up with the inconvenience of making a decision. That means it needs to be as personal as a LadyShave.

But most presentations are less bespoke than the grey overalls in Fritz Lang's Metropolis. They deal with a few features and benefits, sure, but mostly they're concerned with telling you about the people behind the pitch.

Which means you might as well have sent a fax.

Look, you're going to spend a couple of hours in front of an important customer. That's costing you a lot of money. And someone's putting aside a similar amount of time to listen to you, and that's costing them too.

So talk directly to the people who'll be there, not just their market sector. Think of what you have to offer them, personally, to make their lives a bit - or a lot - better. Make it fit.

If you don't, all they'll feel is a slight itch where you touched the spot.

Going Logo

2011-07-06T11:08:00.001Z

How would you feel if I treated your logo like this?

Should you include your customer's logo in your presentation?

The jury's still out on this one; just recently a few of my clients have referred to embedding a logo as "a bit nineties". I'd be fascinated to know where this came from, because it seems to have gone viral.

I'm still a fan of displaying the logo; it's a small signal that you've put some thought into personalising the presentation. But if that's all the personalisation you're going to do, it ain't enough. Both you and your audience are making a big investment of time, so you owe it to yourself as well as them to make it look as though you made the presentation just for this pitch.

I'll deal with personalising the content in another post. For now let's focus on the logo. Most companies have invested a lot of money and time into their visual identity. A lot of them have corporate ID manuals that set out rigid rules for how their logo can be displayed. You're not going to stamp all over that flower bed are you? No, of course not, because - like people who never move out of the overtaking lane - it's only other people who do that.

One of those other people came to pitch their product to me recently. The logo at the top of this post came from his presentation. Know what he was selling? Print and design services.

So just to make sure you don't get mistaken for one of those other people, here are a few play-safe rules for using your customers' logos in your presentations.

Scaling Down=Good. Scaling Up=Bad
When you go looking for your customer's logo, you'll probably start with Google's Image Search. That's fine, so do I. But make sure that the logo you use is at least as large as you want it to be in your presentation. If it's too big, scale it down to the right size in Photoshop, taking great care not to alter its proportions. You could paste it directly into PowerPoint and scale it down on screen, but doing it that way bloats the file size, uses up system resources, and may not look as crisp as a properly resized version.

Never ever scale a too-small logo up by more than around 10%. When you scale down, information in the image is lost, but Photoshop cleverly smoothes everything out so that it looks fine. When you scale up, nothing can put that information back. Individual pixels become large blocks, and it all goes horribly wrong.

Don't take risks with the background

Unless you're very sure of your ground, always put your customer's logo on a white background. Many corporate ID manuals specify allowed background colours - and anything that isn't specified is prohibited. But I've never yet seen an ID that prohibits white. Don't risk it: white is the safe background.

That doesn't restrict your presentation palette; just make sure you leave a white area that will hold the customer logo. And please make it look as if it's meant to be there - a floating, closely cropped white rectangle insults your customer's brand almost as badly as a poorly-rendered logo.

Dropping the logo into a lozenge - one of PowerPoint's built-in shapes will work fine - and setting the border to match one of the colours in your customer's logo makes everything look as if it was designed-in. Make sure the logo has room to "breathe" in its holding shape.

...And don't ignore your own logo
It should go without saying that your own logo deserves the same respect as that of your customer. But it's amazing how often I see text and graphics that overlap the presenter's own logo. As a rule of thumb, leave space around any logo equal to the height of one of its principle elements.

Am I being precious here? Quite possibly, but companies spend a lot of money on their brands, so they may well be equally precious. You're there to get them to listen to you, not sit seething about what you've done to their logo.

In a Packed Programme Tonight...

2011-07-06T09:47:00.001Z

Simon Cowell leans back, pokes his pen into the side of his face and leers, "So Tarquin, what are you going to do for us today?"

"Well Simon, first I'm going to tell you a bit about my training as a street dancer, then I'll be looking at the growth in street dancing over the last five years. Then I'd like to explain why my dancing is different, unique and dynamic...

BZZZZZZZZZZZ!

The guy in the black tee shirt might always be impatient, but not everyone with a short attention span wears a black tee shirt. If you draw this on a Venn diagram you'll uncover the possibility that the people in your audience are as attentive and patient as Alan Sugar at a cake-icing seminar.

I've already covered getting straight to the point in my post I've got something you're interested in, but first..., but today I want to mention my absolute pet hate.

It's called The Agenda.

Where do you think the audience is looking?

I'm sorry, I have no idea where the idea first developed that this was a Good Thing. OK, I know that most of you are now muttering "tell 'em what you're going to tell em, tell 'em, then tell 'em what you've told 'em". Fine, but you don't have to tell 'em the stages involved.

"Hi Simon, I'm a Street Dancer."

"Oh good, we're really short of those at the moment."

You beat your competition by being better than them, not by making your presentation look hideously long and boring.

So stop describing the act and start bloody dancing.

PowerPoint: There IS a substitute for rehearsal

2011-07-06T09:45:00.003Z

In my last post I talked about that embarrassing shuffle when you can't remember how many bullet points you put on that screen. As promised, here's Daniel to show you how to get PowerPoint to warn you automatically when the last point has appeared.

Before you get too impressed with his technical brilliance, let me just point out that he used one of our free PowerPoint templates - and didn't notice that there's already an automatic slide marker in there. So eagle-eyed viewers may spot two warnings that the slide is ending.

You just can't get the staff...

It'll Be Alright on the Night

2011-07-06T09:43:00.002Z

Listen to any seminar on presenting and they'll all ram home the importance of rehearsal. They're clearly correct, and so we all devote several hours to getting every gesture, every pause prezactly right.

Don't we?

Oh, OK, I'll agree that there are just a few people who never seem to have the time to do more than run through the slides half an hour before. Good job you and I aren't among 'em, eh?

So this morning's post is for that vanishingly small minority who wing it every time.

Bullet point screens often give me trouble. Sorry, I mean I know someone who often has trouble with bullet screens. It's that moment when you can't remember whether there are any more points to reveal on this screen. It looks about full, so you do a big wrap-up, ready for your next topic. Then you click the mouse and another bullet point sneaks in, leaving you mumbling "Oh yeah, and that as well."

The alternative's no better. You convince yourself there's another bullet point to come and click the mouse. The screen clears and your next big topic pops up. "Ah," you stammer, "I didn't mean to go onto this yet, let me just go back for a moment to the last screen."

So slick; so polished; so don't.

This person I know- the one who doesn't rehearse properly - gets round this problem by making a small, barely noticeable marker appear after his last bullet point. It'll be a tiny change to the screen that the audience is very unlikely to spot, but that tells him the screen will change next time he clicks the mouse.

We build markers like this into our Configurative presentations, and it's easy to add them to your own PowerPoint; just add a small block or other shape after the last bullet point on each slide. In fact you can even set this as part of your template by building it into your master slide. Daniel's just recording a video to show you how.

Fortunately I never need it because, just like you, I rehearse my presentations to perfection.

And that ranks alongside "There's a cheque in the post", "Of course I love you" and... the other one, among the greatest lies of all time.

Presenting the Numbers

2011-07-06T09:40:00.002Z

I'm wearing my serious trousers today, so let's get straight into talking about stuff.

There's a distinct type of presentation that causes alarm, despondency, terror, global warming and scrofula wherever it's encountered.

It's the one that includes numbers.

Numbers are scary. You have to walk into the firing line and hold your hands up. You have to say something concrete and measurable. One slip and you'll go down like Willem Dafoe; and thanks to multimedia technology, you can even pipe in Barber's Adagio.

It's OK though. If you use the usual approach and paste in an Excel spreadsheet, no one will be able to read or understand any of it anyway.

This is a shame. We recently put together a numbers presentation for one of our long-standing clients. They wanted to show one of their major clients just how much money they could make for them. It was a big story, with more than twenty separate propositions, each with its own financial model. If the customer went for half of the suggestions, this would be a massive win for everyone in the room.

We could have pasted in twenty-odd spreadsheets. All the numbers would be there, and if the audience wanted to challenge any of them, they could even be changed on the fly.

But that's not a presentation, it's a maths lesson.

So here's how we approach numbers presentations. You start by splitting the models onto separate screens; typically this means you'll end up with a page for assumptions, one each for the current and proposed situations, and a final summary.

A typical - though in this case deliberately anonymous - numbers presentation

All of the background workings are kept out of the picture, so it's easy to see and understand, and your big proposition isn't lost in a mass of identical figures.

Audiences tend to challenge figures. If you've put your case together properly there's no need to fear this. In fact it's worth encouraging them to explore the what-ifs; they'll become more involved and enthusiastic. In the case of our client's big numbers pitch, their customer green-lighted every one of the propositions.

Daniel shows us how to leave behind an edited copy of the presentation

If all's gone well, you should have succeeded in turning the presentation into a planning session. Instead of telling your audience what you want them to do, all of you're all already talking about how it'll happen. That's serious progress.

Now's when they'll ask you for a copy of the presentation, so make sure you're able to load up a memory stick with numbers that reflect what you achieved together.

Shameless plug warning: With a Configurative presentation, this is easy...

I've got something you're interested in. But first...

2011-07-06T09:36:00.001Z

So there you are, leaning on the rail of the cruise liner, musing on the infinite, when somebody floats by below you. That must be what caused the splashing noise.
Let's lay out your solution in bullet points:

What you can offer:

Unmatched Experience in the Provision of Lifesaving Hardware to Drowning Voyagers.
A Lifebelt.

So you explain this to the flagging passenger as he goes under again. Obviously, your experience is important to him; how else can he judge your ability to save him? So as his head briefly surfaces, you tell him that you've

rescued more than twenty people in the last ten years, and that...

oh hang on, he's sunk again.

Then a flailing hand breaks the surface and grabs the inflated hot water bottle that the guy next to you just threw in. The guy with half your experience and a solution he made up on the spot - and yours had a British Standard Kitemark and everything.

I think I've probably made my point.

Presentations nearly always start with a grinding exposition of your company's credentials, experience and approvals. And pretty much ignore what use all of that is to your customer.

Please, just get to the point. They'll want to know who they're dealing with after they've decided they want to deal with you. Give 'em what they want first and everyone will have a nice easy voyage.

OK, so nobody's going to drown while you meander to the point of your presentation, but your audience's interest will have gone down for the third time, and you'll have got all wet for no good reason.

Copy and Paste - Your Embarrassing Assistants

2011-07-06T09:29:00.000Z

If there's one thing we British dread above everything else it's embarrassment. We can stand losing at sports we invented; it's the humiliation we struggle with. We don't really mind that Robert Green couldn't win a game of catch, but we'll never forgive him for letting those upstart transatlantic revolutionaries believe they're our equals. We'll eat sautéed cockroach in a restaurant, and assure the disinterested waitress that "everything's lovely, thank you".

Because otherwise people might Look.

Which is why presentations baffle me. How do you feel when you know your audience is so bored that they're considering eating their toenails? Can you really be entertaining, witty, urbane and persuasive when you feel like Howard Hughes doing a last-minute replacement speaker spot at Nuremberg?

Two words that changed their meaning somewhere in the early nineties have a whole lot to answer for: their names are Copy and Paste.

Try this for starters: how many people does it take to produce a new brochure? I’ve seen brochures that have involved input from more people than the client actually has on the payroll. Aside from the armies of designers, consultants and copywriters, we also show draft copies to the sales department, marketing, accounts, the cleaning staff, the bloke at the golf club who knows a bit about marketing, and next door’s budgie. Meanwhile the corporate identity police have the Agency’s visual strapped in a chair in a basement while they positively vet the Pantone references and… ha! I thought so! The white space around the logo isn’t exactly one third of the height of the third “J”!

The new Website tends to develop a similarly inflated supporting cast. Steven Spielberg made Saving Private Ryan with fewer people and in considerably shorter time. In fact you can replay the scenario for pretty much all of your marketing exercises. God can make a universe in six days. Humans can make more humans in nine months. The impossible we can do at once. Marketing takes a little longer.

Unless we're going to turn up in person.

All your marketing time and expense led up to this. Someone actually wants to listen to you. So the day before the presentation you start thinking about what you're going to say. But you're a bit busy, so you'll get your friends Copy and Paste to help. OK, so this means that your new customer's going to listen to a bunch of stuff that only marginally applies to them, and get to hear you saying "actually, that last point there isn't strictly true anymore", but they'll also catch the odd glimpse of their main competitor's logo, so that's alright isn't it?

No it bloody isn't. If you're British, this sort of embarrassment is as painful as watching Jedward perform The Comedy of Errors. With John Prescott as Emelia.

This blog is about taking the pain and embarrassment out of presentations. They're arguably your most important communication. You're there in person, and you're going to get listened to. So don't waste the opportunity by recycling something you spent five minutes putting together a couple of months ago. Create something new, relevant and persuasive.

And if that feels too comfy when you present it, you can always moon the audience at the end.

You embarrassment junkie you.

Smile for the Self portrait

2011-07-06T09:24:00.000Z

I’d like to tell you how fabulous I am. No, seriously, you’d be amazed what a rounded, caring, all-round amazing guy you’d be talking to if we ever got to meet. In fact I’m going to put my e-mail address at the bottom of this piece, because you’re going to need it. I’m just that good.

Still reading?

If you’ve reached this paragraph, it’s either because I’ve convinced you, or you can’t believe this garbage is for real. And I’m betting on the latter. So if it’s such outrageous twaddle, why do you present your company this way? Come on, own up, you know you do. I’ve seen your brochures – you’re unique, you’re innovative, you’re focused on customer service, you tailor solutions and, unless I’m mistaken, you’re one of the leading companies in your field.

If any of those statements do appear in your brochures, on your advertisements or on your Website, call every one of your customers in turn and apologize for the time they had to waste either throwing them in the bin or looking for a more interesting site. And if they turn up in your presentations then get out. Now. I mean it. When you’re done apologizing, join the Caravan Club. It’s full of people who point their cameras in exactly the wrong direction. They hook their Sprite 14 (whatever that is) to the coathanger thing on the back of the Maxi and chug off to an area of outstanding natural beauty. Then they park in front of it and take a picture of the caravan. “Here’s Ethel and me completely obscuring the view across Loch Stochanbarel”.

If I’m being unfair to you, congratulations: you’re one of those rare people who’s learned which way to point the camera. How come my opening paragraph gave you a picture of an egotistical twerp suffering from terminal “I” strain? Could it be that you’d rather form your own opinions?
The core of good presenting points its camera at the customer. It puts him at the centre of a picture that shows exactly where he wants to be. As soon as you move the caravan out of the way, the view behind it becomes clear. I work with a client who prints barcode tickets for retailers like Next and Arcadia. It would be easy to focus our camera on those tickets, and the (genuinely excellent) service behind them. But how much quality do you need in a piece of cardboard that will be thrown away anyway?

Now look at what the ticket does: without that piece of card, the whole supply chain stalls. If the tickets aren’t right, how much is lost in missed opportunity? If market reaction can be speeded up, how much extra profit can we drive to the bottom line? The benefit that my client brings to his marketplace carries the focus completely away from the product he’s selling, and into a world that’s real and persuasive to his customer.

The bad news is that this takes more thought than throwing out a few more “experience to deliver” and “customer-driven” clichés. But put that extra thought into your presentation, and you’ll immediately pull ahead of 90% of your competitors.

And your holiday pictures will be more entertaining too.

But that’s enough about you, let’s talk about me…

Jem Shaw - jem@jemshaw.com (Told you I would)

Follow Tom at first Hand

2010-02-15T11:07:00.003Z

As many of you've commented, activity on this blog as all but ceased. I'd painted myself into something of a corner, as I didn't want it to become TomBlog, but at the same time, his fight has been a major part of our lives for the last few years.

Thankfully, Tom's recovery has reached a point where he can take up the baton on his own account, and you can see the result on http://tumourfun.blogspot.com/. Bear in mind that each of the posts takes a very long time, and you'll get some idea of the fire driving this guy. It's not an easy read, but you'll begin to see how stupidly and unjustly skewed is the health service so admired by Barack Obama.

Please, Mr O, follow your principles, not our idiotic, administration-overloaded, self-serving travesty.

Sandy Oldrod - My New Alter-Ego

2009-05-18T12:42:00.007Z

I've just posted this piece of nonsense for a client as part of a viral marketing campaign. On the basis that the camera adds ten pounds, that puts me no more than 30 pounds overweight. I'm also concerned that the camera apparently subtracts 10 inches of height.

Daniel seems to have played it ever so slightly camp, but it's so subtle that you might miss it.

Wig? What wig?

P.S. The client's on www.burofloor.com, with some more silliness on www.rqsonline.tv.

Blinded

2009-04-15T00:44:00.002Z

Just put this video together for a bunch of young guys with, I think, a significant portion of talent. Couldn't resist sharing it here.

See what you think - and be warned, the riff will haunt you for the next 24 hours.

The Boy's Back in Town

2009-03-29T21:26:00.006Z

Tom and Kaz enjoy open motoring in an English winter

Somebody seems to have slipped nearly a year past while I was looking away.

The world looks very different from the way it did in June. Back then, the laptop you'd bought for a fortune was worth 30p two months later. Now that's true of your house. A four-bed detached house is about fifty quid, but you can't buy it because you put yours up for sale back when people still had jobs. Nobody wants it anyway, because the rolling fields that provided a fecund outlook from your front window have been replaced by a new housing estate. Those houses are unaccountably going for half a million, despite having Growbags instead of gardens.

But you want to know about Tom, don't you? I know you do, because of the bollockings I've been getting by e-mail.

Tom's house doesn't have downstairs facilities. Fortunately it has a 30ft garage, so plans were laid for converting it into a bedroom and en-suite bathroom so that he could go home and start the process of building a life.

The expense was to be met by Social Services. Great news, except for Catch-22. They wouldn't schedule the conversion until Tom went home. And he couldn't go home until the work was done. Our wonderful welfare state once again demonstrates the rules that make all such schemes so much worthless window-dressing.

So we started the job ourselves. How hard could it be? Tom's brothers, Daniel and Adam, and I were the core team. Based on known abilities with Lego, Plasticene and embroidery (strange chap, Daniel) we set to work.

In November, just under a year after his operation, Tom returned home to a room that's still standing, and a bathroom that's still working. We've had tremendous help from a host of great people, but I still get a big kick every time I walk into the place. From Tom. You'd think he'd be more grateful.

Tom never stops getting better. He's noticeably recovering his balance and posture (the cerebellum is principally responsible for these two factors). His daily walking exercises now involve a Zimmer frame with minimal support from helpers.

One breakthrough in Tom's recovery has come from the Bobath therapy supplied by Manchester Neurotherapy Clinic. Anyone who needs a miracle would do well to investigate these guys. Before Tom's first visit, walking required the full support of three physios. Within an hour, Lynne Fletcher had him walking across the room with nothing more than steadying from her alone.

Meanwhile Tom's speech therapist, Barabara Molteno, continues to bring more coherence to Tom's talking and writing. He can now speak at more or less normal speed, but slowing down a little brings clarity, and we're starting to hear his old voice reappearing.

Tom's never lost focus on where he's going. He works without let-up on beating what could have been an appalling level of disability. And it's working.

He's going to get it all back because, in his own words, "This is unacceptable".

Recovering Tom's Insanity

2008-06-14T11:31:00.008Z

Laura bravely withstands Tom's appalling sense of humour

I've tried to avoid this becoming TomBlog, but the result of this endeavour is that I don't post anything at all. Having received an e-mail from Neil and Cheryl in Australia this morning I realised two important facts:

That the Internet makes it possible for us to have friends we've never met.
That a lot of people genuinely want to know how the boy's coming along.

So with this in mind I ask their indulgence in allowing me to share some of what I've told them.

LONG POST WARNING: This is going to take ages

Looking back I see we're six months behind on news. So here's the lightning "previously on this programme" update.

Following the re-location of the cerebellum, Tom made good and rapid progress. His responses became coherent and it was possible to get real yes/no answers from his nods and shakes. His temperature was all over the place, so the nursing staff equipped him with a fan and huge red push switch that he could use to switch it on and off. He couldn't operate it well, but it was a small step towards controlling his environment.

An alphabet board was provided, but not successful. Tom's eyes were badly unsynchronised, so he couldn't really see it, and his left hand movements were so spastic that he couldn't point at a letter. If we read out the letters his thought processes were too slow to alert us when we reached the right one. If we slowed down, he became frustrated. On one occasion Tom made it clear that he needed urgently to tell us something. Yes, he'd try the alphabet board. He spelt out "Remove", the first complete word we'd seen. Our excitement steadily increased as we saw the appearance of the first constructed communication in two months.

"Remove wall pin."

We look at each other uncomfortably. "You spelt out 'Remove wall pin', is that what you meant to say, Tom?" Tom nods fervently. Extended questioning brings no enlightenmment. We're faced with the conclusion we dreaded: something's seriously disconnected, and communication is gibberish.

It was about this time we were summoned to meet Dr Soryal (apologies for approximate spelling), the head of rehabilitation. He's a lovely, warm-hearted man, who tells us gently that the prognosis is fairly poor. There's no voluntary control of the right hand side of Tom's body, and it's unlikely that there ever will be. "But you must understand," he explains patiently, "that this young man still has a quality of life ahead. The important thing now is to get him into specialised rehabilitation, where we can make him the absolute best he can be."

Inevitably, we were shattered. We'd held to the belief that Tom would somehow bounce back to perfect ability. To contemplate that this helpless shell might be all the future held was unsupportable. "You must also understand," insisted the doctor, "that Tom could astonish us all. We're not planning for anything but full recovery, however unlikely that might be. You should be prepared for serious disability, but be ready for the miracle."

We vowed to be ready.

February: Haywood Hospital

Tom was transferred to the rehab unit at Haywood Hospital in early February. By now he'd begun making small movements with right hand and foot. We were seeing signs that he might confound the experts. All of us expected great things now he was in specialist hands.

They didn't happen.

Within a few days it became obvious that Tom was deteriorating rapidly. His responses became erratic, and finally ceased altogether. All of that wonderful progress was evaporating; we were losing him.

An MRI scan revealed that intra-cranial pressure was building rapidly and dangerously. An urgent transfer to North Staff Hospital allowed an emergency operation to install a permanent shunt. It was hoped that this would restore Tom to his previous recovery path, but there was the possibility that further brain damage could have occurred.

Recovery over the next couple of weeks was slow but unmistakeable. He was recapturing lost ground. Then he started moving his right arm and leg. They were weak, but he could move them.

The miracle was beginning.

March: Proposals on the Communication Super-Footpath

As Tom became stronger and more confident he started to ask for the alphabet board again. Dreading the reappearance of the wall pin puzzle, we complied. It worked! Sentences flowed, if not like spring water, at least like lumpy custard. Tom would insist on spelling out "yes" and "no", rather than using his accustomed nods. His pointing accuracy was roughly equivalent to you or me attaching a laser pointer to the end of a fourteen-foot fishing rod, and using the red spot to play "Where's Wally?" using the book at the other end of the football stadium. He'd spell out "ye..." and completely ignore our increasingly desperate prompts. "Yes! Yes! YES! FOR GOD's SAKE YES!" we'd scream as he doggedly consumed another two minutes trying to locate the "S".

One evening we left Tom with his partner Laura for a few moments alone in the conservatory. When we returned, both were grinning broadly. Via the alphabet, he gave us the news.

"I've just asked Laura to marry me."

Later I spoke privately to Laura. Had she accepted because she felt trapped? I assured her we'd understand if that were the case. "It's what I've wanted for ages," she told me, "Typical it takes a bloody brain tumour to get him to say it, but no, it's what I want to do." Throughout this whole ordeal she's remained constant and balanced. What can I say? She's astonishing.

Late March: And the first words are...

So far, Tom had made no real attempt to speak. He'd whispered "Four" once, while correcting me on a rugby score, and he'd very occasionally hiss "fan" if he couldn't operate the switch for his fan, but no sign of real words or sentences.

The dam burst in a way that's quintessentially Tom.

Eva offered me a mint. Tom had by now progressed to sipping thickened liquids, but certainly couldn't cope with Softmints. He constructed a forlorn expression and reached for the packet. "Oh, I'm sorry," said Eva, "That was really insensitive, I'll put them away."

Daniel, Tom's eldest brother, couldn't resist the moment. "Ooh, I really fancy a cool refreshing mint, Mom, can I have one please?"

Tom started to chuckle silently. Laughs at this point consisted of rhythmic expulsions of air, with no vocal sound whatsoever. Daniel started to laugh and continued to taunt his youngest brother. "Oh no, want a mint do you? Wish you could have one? Bet you wish you could tell me what you really think.." and so on.

Tom's laughs started to gain momentum. We all moved seamlessly into hysteria as Daniel stood up and began accompanying his taunts with antic gestures. Suddenly we all stopped and listened. The laughs had begun to be audible. We could hear vocal chords kicking in. Finally the pressure blew a safety valve somewhere and Tom finally found his voice.

"F-f-fuck off!"

Sue, one of Tom's favourite staff nurses came into the conservatory to see what the whoops, laughs and, yes, tears were all about. We explained that we'd just heard Tom's first words, and broadly outlined what he'd said. She put her arm around her patient and said "You wouldn't say that to me, would you, Tom?"

He turned and smiled sweetly up at her. "Fuck off, Sue".

April: Depression and Frustration

We'd been warned that Tom's now meteoric recovery would slow. That's inevitable when you consider that early progress might be that he could move his hand an inch further than he could yesterday. He became deeply depressed, and would frequently become stuck in illogical converstional loops. He became obsessed with his face. It was enclosed in some sort of huge square box. He'd insist that he could come home now, there was no reason for his being kept in this hideous prison. The nurses were cruel; they enjoyed making him miserable; they loved to humiliate him.

None of this, of course, was true. We were seeing the inevitable depression and confusion brought on by serious brain injury.

The hospital assigned Tom a clinical psychologist named Michael. He has the empathy and human understanding of a pork pie. Michael reported that his patient “seemed absolutely fine”. When challenged on this, he came out with a stunningly insightful comment: “Well, I asked Tom if he felt OK and he said yes”. We explained that, though we fully respected his years of training and experience, life had led us to the belief that people don’t always tell the truth about their feelings. He seemed quite surprised by this information.

A change of medication is prescribed and an immediate up-turn in Tom's mood results.

Although occasionally confused, Tom was clearly cognitively intact. Yet Michael kept saying that “Tom seems to understand most of what’s said to him”, as though the lad were seriously impaired. On watching Tom’s behaviour as a detached observer I suddenly saw the reason for this misapprehension. Tom will suddenly point at someone at random, grunt “Nobhead” and dissolve into helpless giggles. Or he’ll break off from a serious conversation because he’s seen a pigeon land on the bird table. “Fat pigeon!” he explodes, and roars with laughter until he chokes. Michael looks on and shakes his head, mourning for the devastation of an intelligent young mind. We roll helplessly around, in similar straits to Tom, knowing that we’re seeing the re-emergence of the glorious madness that imbues all of us Shaws. Making Michael understand this would be like explaining Wittgenstein to a dog whelk. So we don’t.

May: A Sense of Humour in Freefall

We Shaws have an absurd appreciation of humour. It's difficult for balanced humans to understand us because we don't really have that good a grip on reality. We try to focus on higher things, but for us Man is the creature that laughs. So we laugh. A lot. At everything.

Tom's appalling sense of humour hasn't improved as a result of the crisis. As a result, he's funnier than ever. This is somewhat akin to Robert De Niro becoming a better actor. It may be fuelled by one of the symptoms that Tom suffered during the months leading up to his operation: he couldn’t laugh without searing pains in his head. Now that he can guffaw without restraint he takes every opportunity to do so, and it’s the rest of us that suffer the pain. Every visit at some point sees us all clutching sides, jaws or backs-of-heads, complaining of agony while we cough, splutter and weep in unsustainable levels of gigglage.

June: Where are we now?

Six months on from the worst night of my life we're watching the miracle so many people prayed for. A couple of nights ago I watched Tom sitting normally in his wheelchair, holding his guitar. His left hand confidently shaped some simple chords, while his right hand - the one that would never have voluntary movement - made its first halting attempts to finger-pick. He saw me looking at him and turned his ludicrous beaming grin in my direction.

He still has little feeling in his right leg, but it's strong enough to support him. The physios are confident that, in time, he'll walk again.

Later this month he and Laura are going to see the Zutons in concert.

Home is still probably some months away, though visits are likely within the next few weeks. These will become overnight stays as Tom's ability and independence increase. He chatters non-stop in a voice that daily becomes more like his own. We've begun taking a laptop into the hospital and one of the best Web developers I've ever seen is beginning to re-discover his skills.

I've just been reading Richard Hammond's book. His wife Mindy writes honestly and clearly about an experience that parallels our own with uncomfortable accuracy. Her strength brought the Hamster back, and I'm sure has given similar strength to thousands of others who've had to contend with the unimaginable devastation of brain injury.

I'd like to add my own humble contribution to what she and Richard have written. From the viewpoint of last November, the future was beyond contemplation. The reversals and bereavements seemed more than any of us could accommodate. If this is where you are now, only those who've experienced it understand the sheer agony you're experiencing.

But there is always a future. As Tom once again drops in a well-judged but completely left-field remark; as we once again fold into helpless paroxysms, leaking fluids from every facial orifice, I begin to glimpse what really makes us human. He's come further than any prognosis could foresee through sheer bloody-minded indomitability. We're hoping he'll come all the way to full ability.

But whatever the final destination, he's already achieved greatness.

It's Not Easy Being an Infidel

2008-01-12T13:04:00.000Z

Norwegian Dream: 50,000 tons of licensed premises

That rant in my last posting reminded me of how religion can really land you in trouble. A few years back, my friend Mohammed asked me to join him on a corporate booze cruise. Now if you're unfamiliar with the concept of such things, it works like this.

An event company books a bloody great big cruise liner. It then sells space on the ship to companies who want to put their proposition in front of important people. These places cost around £10,000 a go. The event company then invites captains of industry for a four day cruise, all expenses paid, entertainment and alcohol abuse thrown in. The captains of industry merely have to consent to a 15 minute interview with the people who've paid for the jolly.

Food and fine wine play a large part in this, especially the latter. In fact fine may be the wrong adjective. Copious might be more apt.

Mohammed, as his name suggests, is Muslim, and therefore forbidden to purchase alcohol. I, on the other hand, am some undefined form of agnostic. It's perfectly reasonable therefore to regard my soul as doomed anyway. So I was asked along to fulfil the role of disposable infidel.

Dinner each evening was a black tie affair, accompanied by several bottles of a certain age. It was my job to do the corporate entertaining. Now I am to heavy drinking what Paul Schofield is to Up Pompeii. The small hours each night saw me strolling calmly back to the cabin to which Mohammed retired at a sober ten o'clock. Most nights I was OK as long as no one trod on my hands.

Then comes the Saturday night gala party. Oh no. By 10 o'clock, Mo's outline is already becoming unfocused. He stands and politely takes his leave. I stand and politely knock sherry trifle into my neighbour's lap. "Oi! Garcon! Encore de bleedin' vino ici, pronto! Comprende?"

At 04.30, having impressed everyone with my witty urbanities, profound social insight and stale knock-knock jokes, I make for the cabin. Note to ship designers: bad move to make all the corridors look the same. And if people don't lock their doors I can't be blamed for getting into bed with them. Finally finding the one containing the right sleeping Asian I stumble into bed. Unconsciousness rises to meet me.

It's strange that, whatever time - and whatever state - I go to sleep, I wake at 6.30. Today the creak as my eyelids open is deafening. There seems to be a dead toad in my mouth. I stagger to the shower praying for an ultimate fate that's swift, painless and - ideally - someone else's.

The hot water turns into a wadaiko band on my skull and I put my hands up to lessen the pain. Hang on, hair shouldn't be sharp should it? I appear to have grown stalagmites. I'm going to have to risk opening my eyes all the way.

Oh shit. I've turned brown.

Streaks of hardened bilirubinous material cover 70% of my body. Just how drunk was I last night? Is it possible to be so drunk that you... no, the concept's unthinkable. I complete the most thorough shower of my life with thoughts racing. Somewhere in there it occurs to me that the bed must be in a similar state.

Oh shit.

Back in the cabin, Mo sleeps on, snoring righteously in his neatly turned-down bed. My own is less well-presented. Only the pillow is visible, but there are brown stains visible even on that. This isn't looking good. With predictable trepidation I gingerly pull back the sheet.

Oooooh shit. I replace the sheet

What to do? If I can hide it from Mo then that's one embarrassment avoided, but what will the cabin staff think of me? I'm stuck on this ship for another two days yet for God's sake!

Oh-kay. Take it one step at a time. If I can strip the bed and get the sheets into the bath, then all I have to explain is why they're wet. It's not a complete solution, but it's a start. I start to pull off the bedclothes.

And find the chocolate wrapper.

One side effect of last night's anaesthetic is that I forgot that the cabin staff come in each evening to turn back the top sheet and place a huge chocolate truffle on your pillow. Despite a hangover bigger than a darts player's shirt front I love the cleaning people and want their children. In a ship regularly filled with drunks like me, this must be familiar territory for them. I put the wrapper on the pillow where it can't be missed and add some money as a tip along, with a note saying "sorry for the mess".

When Mo wakes he's amused, unhungover and unsympathetic; he makes maximum noise as we head for breakfast. Over the next couple of days I meet the cabin staff in the corridors, and get the distinct feeling that they don't like me very much.

Predictably, the occurrence becomes one of Mohammed's favourite anecdotes and last week he told it to yet another of his business acquaintances who might otherwise have become one of my clients. I mentioned that I seemed to have become unpopular in the remaining days on board the Norwegian Dream.

"Didn't I tell you?" he grinned, "As we left the cabin I took the chocolate wrapper."

The Road to Hell is Paved With Bad Inventions

2008-01-12T12:29:00.000Z

Well then, that's the festive season over and done with. You'll notice, of course, that I call it the festive season, not Christmas. This is so that I don't offend anyone.

Well bollocks to that, because everyone should be offended by man's second worst, and most divisive invention: political correctness. The only thing that Orwell got wrong was the year.

The signs were there though, even back in the eighties. My wife banned me from school parents' evenings for getting into a fight with a teacher who wouldn't let me say "blackboard". In answer to his accusation of racism I asked him why he considered black to be bad, and it all went downhill from there.

But our twenty-first century world is threatened by an unholy alliance between political correctness and man's worst invention: religion. God must indeed have infinite patience to tolerate the atrocities we perpetrate in His name. We used to have Crusades and Jihads, now we have institutionalised fear and suspicion.

So our Christmas cards now say "Season's Greetings" in case we offend Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Jedi Knights or other groups who really aren't that upset that Britain contains the occasional Christian.

Last Festive Season I walked into the studio on Festive Season Eve to find everyone wearing Santa hats. Everyone including Javed, a devout Muslim, who'd sent Christmas cards to everyone else in the company. To Javed, Christmas was an important festival commemorating the birth of a great holy man. To the so-called Christians around him it was a good excuse for a piss-up. Whose sensibilities are we protecting here?

We've already proscribed our national flag, and by doing so created a rallying symbol for extremist white twats. Every victory for political correctness strengthens their armoury and brings the Thought Police closer to power.

Yet Another Update

2008-01-12T12:19:00.000Z

OK, you win, I'll post another update. But then it's definitely time to get this blog back on track.

Tom had a further operation to seat the left side of the cerebellum more naturally in its compartment. This had an immediate effect and we've seen a slow but steady improvement since the op. Unless he gets tired, he'll now do the hand squeeze thing whenever we ask, and he's also added nose and eyebrow wiggles, thumbs-up and smile attempts to his repertoire.

The biggest step came on Wednesday when Eva asked Tom to wrinkle his nose, the resulting grimace made us laugh, and Tom responded with something that looked very like a smile.

Slow, slow progress, but it's all in the right direction.

How's the Boy Coming Along?

2007-12-20T11:29:00.000Z

Tom in typical Christmas pose - The wasted drunk to his left is elder brother Adam

Sorry for the long silence. I particularly wanted to avoid turning this blog into a stream of news about Tom. The kind thoughts and cards I've received from you all have been magnificent, but I need to be careful not to wallow in it all. We're not the only people with problems, and many are far, far worse than ours. So I'm putting in this update purely to respond to the scores of you who've asked for news of Tom, not as more "poor me" stuff.

The return to consciousness hasn't been the eye-flicker, hand twitch and "I'm really thirsty" episode we've all seen on TV. The transition has been all but undetectable. But I think we have to agree that Tom is now conscious. He has difficulty getting control of his eyes, but once he's stopped them rolling around independently he can focus on our faces within a limited field of view. He'll also respond about 50% of the time to a request to squeeze our hands, and some questions are answered with very slight nods or shakes of the head.

Physically he's progressing well and he's now out of Critical Care.

We don't know at this stage how complete his recovery will be, but 100% is still a possibility.

Thank you again for all the wishes, hopes and prayers. You're a splendid bunch.

The Other Side of the NHS - And a Small Confession

2007-12-01T09:37:00.000Z

Just looking at Rosie's comment below it struck me that I've been too one-sided in my criticism of the NHS. As she says, the parts of it that involve personal commitment are quite exceptional. We're seeing this part right now. The Neuro Critical Care Unit at the Birmingham Queen Elizabeth Hospital is full of dedicated, patient and caring people who also happen to be superbly trained. Professor Cruickshank's team of consultants - and particularly the Prof himself - are painstaking about giving us clear, understandable information, and the attention and respect Tom's receiving are faultless.

It occurs to me that I need to come clean about Tom's age. Eva and I have been touched and greatly comforted by the daily flow of good wishes, prayers and healing energy that comes in via this blog. I can't thank you enough for that. But then Eva pointed out that you may be under the impression that he's a little boy.

So now I feel a fraud.

Tom's 24. He's foul-mouthed and irreverent, and therefore incredibly funny. He's also one of the sweetest-natured guys you'll ever meet. He lives half a mile away with his partner Laura. One thing I'm looking forward to is the return of a series of sounds that always make us laugh: A car drives up outside. The kitchen door opens. The fridge door opens. We hear rummaging. The fridge door closes. The kitchen door closes. That would be Tom popping in to see us then.

(In fairness, once the comedic effect has settled, he comes and sits in the living room with us until he's digested whatever he's stolen).

Tom's still unconscious, but responding now to requests to squeeze our hands, nod or shake his head. The strongest response so far came when Laura mentioned Jessica Alba. Tom's eyes opened noticeably. Laura commented that she should be offended that JA was granted more reaction than she was, but under the circumstances she'd let him off - as long as she could be involved too. Tom's eyes came fully open, he turned his head and squeezed Laura's hand. We both got the distinct of Joey in Friends nodding and muttering "Coo-ool!"

That's my boy, and he's on his way back.

Update

2007-11-27T11:16:00.000Z

This blog was always intended to amuse rather than to attempt any sort of profundity, but the response from so many of you regarding Tom's operation has been so remarkable and moving that I feel I owe you an update.

Tom's improving slowly following an operation that turned out to be significantly less straightforward than expected. Put baldly, it looked as if we were going to lose him.

We didn't.

Following the repeated delays of the NHS, the decision was taken to follow the route of private treatment. My unbelievable brother made this possible and, as a result, almost certainly saved Tom's life. The operation was scheduled for Sunday morning under Professor Garth Cruickshank. He discovered an abnormal blood supply to the tumour and made immediate arrangements for transfer to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham.

Attempts to embolise the tumour were only partially successful, but Prof C's judgement was that it had to be removed, at the risk of a fatal bleed, as leaving it in place was a significantly greater risk. Tom left for surgery at 9.00am. At 9.30pm a visibly exhausted Professor explained that the operation was complete, the tumour excised, and that the next 24 hours would be critical.

We're past that now; Tom's stable and no longer critical. He's still unconscious at the moment, but we're assured that this is normal. In the next few days we should see him back.

I'm sorry about the length of this post, and the fact that it hasn't made you laugh. But the messages of goodwill, healing and prayer that have been coming in from you guys has been unbelievable.

We apologise for the temporary fault in our sense of humour. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Thank you all.

Ulp...

2007-11-20T10:28:00.001Z

It's not often I'm left not knowing to say. Today's blog won't be particularly coherent and it may become uncomfortably sentimental, so be warned...

You know that horrible old cliché: "A stranger is just a friend I haven't met yet". It's trite, it's banal,

And it's true.

Caroline, Robyn, Maranta, and so many others of you who've sent your thoughts to Tom, you've finally succeeded in taking my words away. If ever we needed confirmation that the Internet is more than just an information resource for paedophiles, an insult forum for brain-donors on YouTube and a route to market for V1agr@ and C1al1s, it's staring us in the face.

The world isn't going to hell in a handcart after all. There are good people all around the world with the energy, the compassion and the power to pull us all back from the brink. People who are your friends even though you may never meet.

Thank you guys. You give me hope for our stupid little species.

Thank You Robyn

2007-11-18T13:33:00.000Z

I've just received a response from Robyn (alias Zimble) to my anger at NHS waste and callous administrative cuts. It made me cry.

Take a look at her blog on http://beattiebabble.blogspot.com/ and look for Sunday, 18 November 2007. Robyn's eloquence and literacy always make her comments worth reading, but it's her honesty and openness that make it so moving.

Robyn, thank you from the other side of the world. Never doubt what you do.

Health & Safety Costs Lives

2007-11-17T23:55:00.002Z

If this wasn't criminal it would be funny

As I write this my youngest son's in hospital awaiting surgery for a brain tumour. This follows weeks of bullying doctors to agree that unsupportable, disabling head pain merits something more effective than paracetamol. But our beleagured National Health Service can't afford to use its MRI scanners to save patients' lives.

Fortunately though there's plenty of money to pay consultants to create the ludicrous, pointless crap in the poster above. We can't afford to treat patients, but we can afford to educate them in the difference between an accidental fall, an anticipated physiological fall and an unanticipated physiological fall. Click on the image and read the text. I promise you this is real.

Money - your money if you live in the UK - is being spent on "Desk Awareness Training" to make sure that the NHS's overmanned administration departments don't get backache, while trained, dedicated and outnumbered nurses work in unforgiveable conditions for insulting wages.

All the signs indicate that Tom will make a full recovery, and I thank God for that. But the people we pay to keep us safe have failed in their duty and endangered my son's life. And for that they have to be exposed.

The (Relatively) Sensible Face of Blogging

2007-11-03T16:35:00.000Z

Bearing in mind that I'm supposed to be earning a living somewhere in all these rambles I've decided to start a new Blog to run alongside this one.

The new one, Marketing Mutters, will centre on my somewhat distorted view of how marketing works. Don't worry, it won't be too serious. I don't believe you should ever take marketing too seriously.

If that puts prospective clients off working with me it's undoubtedly for the best - you probably wouldn't have liked the way I do things anyway. One great bonus of what I do is that I get to work with people I like. It's what keeps me as near sane as I ever want to be.

See what you think.

Looking up at the Ground

2007-11-01T20:07:00.000Z

Just got this picture e-mailed from my Dad. Couldn't resist posting it up here. It depicts me preparing to commit aviation in Paul Bennett's Stearman. Edited out for effect is the ever-lovely Bruce Monk who was pilot in command for a great trip over Norfolk.

Bruce flies my Brother's Stearman (now back in action at last) for air displays, so he's more than reasonably familiar with the old brutes. We were drinking Old Buckenham coffee when Bruce mentioned that he needed to take Paul's plane back to Priory Farm, so did Dad fancy a breath of (very) fresh air? Dad's 85 going on 17, so he was strapped in and impatient before the rest of us had reached the tannin stains at the bottom of our mugs.

He's actually older than the aeroplane, but in even better condition

Martin and I drove to the farm, with me trying to act pleased that I was making the trip on four wheels. But on arrival, Mr Bennett (may his tribe increase) suggested that Bruce and I might fancy a further aerial jaunt. Oooooh yesss.

Once aloft, Bruce handed over to me so that I could make a total arse of myself trying to fly the thing. The Stearman uses 220hp to achieve almost exactly the same performance that a Tiger Moth produces from 95. So you expect it to be big, numb and American. What it actually is, is amazingly delicate and responsive, asking none of the stick-waving needed to persuade the venerable deHavilland to change direction. To an experienced pilot this is a delight. To someone with the airborne prowess of a dog-whelk it's like trying to adjust the temperature in a TraveLodge shower. After 15 minutes the aeroplane feels sick. Oh but I had such a lovely time.

Paul's Stearman is unique. The intercom works. So on handing back to the man who can, I hear Bruce's voice asking me if I fancy a loop.

OK, it's time to fess up. I've never done that. My feeling about flying is that if God had meant us to go inverted he'd have given us some sort of system to keep us from falling out. Oh, these straps? I see.

You can hear it can't you?

Let's do it.

We're into a steep dive. This big Boeing needs plenty of velocity to coax it over the top, and the only way to get that is with plenty of downhill vectorage. Up to 120mph and a big pull back. I get shorter, which I can't really afford to do. As we come fully inverted I feel all that weight come off. Looking directly up I can see Norfolk spread from horizon to horizon. There's a strong feeling that, but for this harness, I'd be spread to a similar extent.

A few pops and farts from the noisy bit at the front registers the Stearman's protest; it doesn't have an inverted fuel system, so everything stops working for a bit.

Back right-side up we do a few lazy wing-overs and stall turns and then into another loop. He knows what he's doing does our Bruce.

So that's another long-standing fear dead and buried. Until now I've felt that flying should be carried out, as far as possible, straight and level. The idea of doing anything the wrong way up filled me with abject terror.

But you feel very safe with a flying Monk.

Time for a Walk

2007-10-31T19:48:00.000Z

This is definitely one for the caption competition

Now that my daily exercise regime consists of lifting an electric toothbrush I've noticed that I'm seeing less of my feet each morning. I've been promising myself that I'll get my legs moving for weeks, but there's just no time. So I made some.

I'm lucky enough to live within five minutes' walk of Stafford Castle so it's boots on and off into the green stuff.

It's not that impressive as castles go. What's visible now is actually a Victorian folly built on the original 11th Century foundations. But who cares? There were squirrels, buzzards, even a jay giving me accusing looks from the branches of a beech tree. I think it was a beech. Could have been a rhododendron to be honest. Or a giant hogweed.

There's no point whatsoever to this blog today, other than the picture at the top, which made me chuckle even if no one else sees the humour. But it's worth mentioning because today's walk in the woods made me realise there's always time. Nothing disastrous happened because I was away from the phone. No one died because I didn't pick up my Skype messages.

So go. Tomorrow morning, do yourself a favour. I promise you'll come back in a better mood than before you started.

James Blunt, misunderstood artist or rhyming slang?

2007-10-20T12:31:00.000Z

Give the Boy a Break!

The notion that Chris De Bergh could have a spiritual successor may be as believable as Gordon Brown's smile, but I feel that one has emerged. And as such , in my unhumble opinion, he deserves something other than the general opprobrium that surrounds his name.

You see, like the five-foot, rolled-sleeve eyebrow gnome, I think he's the victim of our need to be cool.

When Phil Jupitus commented that, on the basis that Radiohead allow us to download their new album for what we think it's worth, James Blunt should be paying us, we all laughed dutifully, "Oh that James Blunt, he's just such a perfect gadget, do not you think, Camilla?". Then we all snuck off and made it the number one selling album.

As I write this, I'm listening to Mr Blunt's new offering. There, I've said it out loud. Good afternoon everyone, my name is Jeremy and I... I... I'velistened toJamesBlunt!

D'you know what? It's really not that bad at all. In fact when I stop being prejudiced there are some good songs in here. Trouble is, because the guitar-strumming, lyric-based genre was established by a Duluth-born bloke from Minnesota, we presume to judge anyone who can't create a line like "Dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free" as a pretentious git. This is like condemning Albinoni because he wasn't Vivaldi (which a lot of people do). It's just a bloody pop song for God's sake!

Back in the eighties, my wife caught De Bergh's Syndrome, and the house resonated to Lady in Red and Tender Hands. I shut all the windows in case the neighbours heard, opening them only when she'd gone out and I could redress the balance by playing Tom Waits. Then I caught myself singing along with Last Night, or admiring the Gilmour-like guitar solo in What About Me.

So the point of this entry - if there is one - is that everyone has the right to like or dislike any bloody music they want to, and the people who produce it have an equivalent right. So James Blunt has an androgynous voice? No one seemed to have a corresponding problem with Nina Simone. Don't listen to it if it threatens your sexuality.

I do accept that You're Beautiful is pretty dire though.

The Excitement of Vintage Aviation

2007-10-13T12:33:00.000Z

Any modelling contracts on offer?

The target for today is Cherbourg. We're taking a group of enthusiasts over to Northern France for a tour of the Normandy Beaches. What better way to do that than in a Dakota? I'm tagging along for the ride because we'll be spending most of the day giving pleasure flights in Plymouth.

So it's an early start from Coventry, with an unscheduled aircraft change because G-AMPY isn't feeling very well this morning. We transfer lifejackets and catering to G-AMRA. There's some sort of philosophical relevance to the fact that we're loading inflatable clothing that will do us no good whatsoever should we make an unscheduled landing, as well as chocolate muffins that are doing us no good whatsoever whatever happens, but at least don't smell like polystyrene cement.

I'm buggered if I know what it is though.

The new merchandise clothing has arrived, so I'm wearing my white Classic Flight baseball cap with pride ("White? Why the bloody hell did you order white?" "Because white won't boil your brain on a hot day" "Sod that, I'd rather have sunstroke than look like a pouf").

We take off and I'm asleep in seconds. Tom Everitt takes a photo of my sartorial sleeping elegance which he feels we should use to promote the new headgear. I try to show him how funny I find this, but unfortunately the slipstream prevents me getting him all the way out of the exit door.

Nicole asked me if I wanted a muffin when I woke up. I know that's not what she meant, but in my half-asleep state...

(note to non-UK readers - this schoolboy humour only works in English).

What Price Bushido?

2007-10-13T10:56:00.001Z

This all happened within living memory. The human race has little to be proud of

This was a big one. We were planning to fly the Dak from Plymouth Airport. As part of the advance publicity campaign, and with the help of the airport's PR agency, I arranged a competition through the Plymouth Herald. The idea was for those with powerful memories of the Dakota to send them in to the Herald. The response was overwhelming, but among them was a simple, unembroidered account of Alf Baker's liberation from the Japanese at the end of world war two. His account of flying to freedom in a Dakota, with his stretcher mounted near the forward window, was an obvious winner, and so I invited Alf to join us on board the Dakota.

Alf's a quiet, pleasant-natured gentleman, so when he kindly sent me a copy of his book What Price Bushido I had few defences ready for what I read. He was one of 600 artillerymen captured by the Japanes and transported on one of the infamous hell ships to Rabaul. When he was liberated three and a half years later he was one of only 18 survivors. Alf's story is one of the most powerful accounts I've ever read, not least because it's told without drama, heroism or intention to shock. He's written it in the third person, with "Blackie" Baker as just one of the cast. As he explained to me, "I didn't want to include 'I did this' or 'I thought that' because it isn't my story; it's the story of all of them, all those people who fought disease, famine and cruelty to stay alive".

One of the great privileges of working with Classic Flight through this summer has been the opportunity to speak with people like Alf.

You can buy his book - and I recommend strongly that you do - by sending £12.50, plus £2.50 post and packing, to

Rev Alf Baker

The Anchorage

111 Trelawney Road

Peverel

Plymouth PL3 4JZ

What happened to the Summer?

2007-10-13T10:45:00.000Z

Following a few prompts from Caroline Van Gysel (thanks Caroline - nice to know that someone finds this stuff vaguely interesting), I'm appalled to find that my last blog entry was in July.

So what happened in the last months? What's my excuse for zeroBlog? Who invented concatenatedWords? WhoDecided where theCapitalsGo? Who givesAToss?

I feel I need to catch up, even if it's only to remind myself what's been going on. It's been a hell of a summer and I don't want to lose it to hardening arteries.

Unréal Coventry

2007-07-04T23:20:00.000Z

Couldn't resist this. Following Nicole's encounter with geriatric bladder limitations at Liverpool (see Old Man's Piss, below) it seemed the logical way to continue the relentless harassment. She's got it blue-tacked to her computer screen, so she must think it's funny.

So why am I convinced she's plotting revenge?

The Trouble With Cruise Control

2007-06-28T23:14:00.000Z

1200cc of untamed power, a big exhaust and a wagging fist

It happened again today. My son Daniel and I were heading for Wimbledon (To visit a client, not to hear Cliff Richard showing that there's something worse than sitting on wet bleachers). The cruise control is set. Everyone we overtake either speeds up as we pass, or overtakes immediately after the manoeuvre, only to slow down again.

On Sunday a woman and her passenger in a Corsa made onanism-related gestures because I had the audacity to drive at a constant speed. I have 80mph dialed in, and we cruise gently past the little Vauxhall. By the time I've resumed the left-hand lane she's already overtaking me; she's accelerated by at least 15mph. Then she's in front of me, and she's slowed to around 75. Still set to 80, I pass her again. She does exactly the same again, with rather more aggression, then slows down as soon as she's in front.

After four repetitions, she swerves sharply into the right hand lane, much to the dismay of the Golf that's just about to overtake her. The Corsa finally attains a consistent velocity and, barping incontinently through its big-bore exhaust, bounces into the distance. The occupants treat me to what Patrick O'Brian called "antic gestures".

I don't know the moral of all this, unless it's that cruise controls have no ego.

Old Buckenham Airshow is a No-Rainer

2007-06-28T21:55:00.000Z

There'll be a few scraps of video here when I get time to edit it all together.

Old Buckenham bribed the weather gods to give us a great display on Sunday. It all began pretty inauspiciously with a cloudbase you could reach by standing on a chair. The rain would have dug holes in the umbrellas if it had further to fall. Then it was time for Denny Dobson to start the displays and - tzing - 10,000 feet of fresh air.

I had a few battery challenges, so I managed to miss some great moments. When Will Curtis took off and flipped his Sukhoi inverted less than 20 feet above the runway, I wasn't filming. When the Swift sailplane induced collective respiratory suspension as it tail-slid, flip-flopped, made an impossibly low final and fast-taxyed by us, to gently drop its wing next to its service truck, I wasn't filming.

But the camera was turning over as Gerry Honey, Bruce Monk and Dave Bagshaw showed their mettle in the Stearmans (Stearmen?). It was sad to see Martin's No 26 looking wistfully up at its skymates, grounded by the weight of CAA paperwork. Dave, Bruce and Gerry showed their customary mastery. Various problems meant that their only rehearsal was one single practice the night before the display. It didn't show.

BBMF displayed their Dakota. It seemed strange to see a non-Classic Flight Dak flying by, but the Coventry boys received some good mentions from the commentator for overhauling the BBMF Lancaster, and for their imminent restoration of the Dak.

Peter Lawton was distressingly accurate in the Bucker Jungmann, but typically modest on the ground afterwards. Hopefully the video will show what a great job he did.

The day finished with the impossible calisthenics of Will Curtis in the Su26. It was during this performance that the battery finally died so the final madness as he hovered, hanging from the prop, is missing. The man has no respect for physics.

Old Buck's a small, aero club airfield. But Paul Layzell and his team put together an afternoon that would have done credit to the major national displays. We saw superstars like Hurricane, Mustang, Spitfire, and Seafire, along with beautiful performances from world-class local pilots.

As well as a great day it was a demonstration of what determination and resourcefulness can achieve.

Old Man's Piss - Because I'm worth It

2007-06-28T21:12:00.000Z

The toilet is old technology too

We flew the Dak from Liverpool over the weekend of the 22nd-24th. The old girl behaved impeccably and we were lucky enough to be able to play host to five of the guys who worked on her when she worked for Starways in the 50s. They made me laugh immoderately with a comedy script that Richard Curtis would kill for.

An example:

We're sitting on the tarmac prior to departure. It's raining hard outside so G-AMPY, in true Dakota tradition, is dripping gently into the gangway. A few passengers look slightly concerned: is it supposed to leak? One of the Starways guys, hearing a whispered comment from a nearby seat, responds, "Don't worry love, this is a good one. On most Daks you'd be drier outside."

Then, as we land, another ex-engineer leans across to his workmate and says - just a little too loudly - "If these wheels don't come down I'm holding you personally responsible."

Best comedy moment, though, was after the landing, as we waited for the bus to collect the passengers. An elderly passenger approaches Nicole, the Cabin Services Manager. "Excuse me, how long will the bus be?"

"I'm afraid we don't know - that's up to the airport."

"Trouble is, I really need to go to the toilet."

Nicole delivers welcome news: there's a camping toilet in the tail. Not the height of luxury or technology, but fine for an emergency. She installs him in the rear compartment, where he stays for some time.

The tail space of G-AMPY does have a toilet. It doesn't have a wash basin.

The passenger returns, mission successful. He places his hands on Nicole's cheeks and declares his undying love. Somehow her smile doesn't drop by a millimetre, but the eyes scream for help as he pats and strokes.

After the bus leaves she makes a hurried check on the type of transaction that has been carried out. Huge relief - it's a number one. She's had a urine skin treatment, not an organic mudpack.

Naturally we're all sympathetic. In the hotel Signals Bar (we decide there's a lonely dyslexic endlessly waiting at the bar) it's my round. Want a drink Tom? John? How about you, piss-face? By the end of the evening we're doing L'Oreal commercials. "My skin has never felt so hydrated. Thanks to P-Uro nanosomes my face is wrinkle-free, vibrant, invigorated."

Old Man's Piss by L'Oreal. Because I'm worth it.

Mods Hit the Road

2007-06-17T22:34:00.000Z

A Vespa Sportique. Even Gordon Brown couldn't create a greater swing to the right

Just received an unexpected comment on the blog from Andrew Greenwell, an old friend from nearly 40 years ago. Andy and I went to the same school - Aldridge Grammar - so it'd be interesting to know if he emerged from its strange view of reality as twisted as I did. The English teacher was an American, and the woodwork teacher had a bizarre line in sadism - known as the Titchenor Knock. This involved being summoned to the front of the class. "Cherub" would then mug extravagantly at the expectant throng before driving his knuckle vertically down to the top dead centre of the cranium. No wonder we developed behavioral anomalies.

Following school we both ended up as apprentices at Birlec, where the training school was run by a failed sergeant major irresistably reminiscent of Fulton McKay in Porridge. I took Andy on the back of my Lambretta down to the clocking-in station. This thing was the ultimate in 1968 chic. Front and rear crash bars, flyscreen, backrest, even an aerial with a fur tail at the top.

I gave the scooter a fistful of throttle and about 12hp of raw Italian power kicked in as, with razor precision, I laid the machine over on its silencer box. This was called scraping. What followed was called falling off. Given that I was easily the most talented Lambrettist in the northern hemisphere, I blamed Greenwell for his mediocre pillion skills.

I'd previously sold Andy a 1964 Vespa Sportique, a 60s icon maybe, but certainly the absolute nadir of man's design insight. You see, when the Vespa designers first laid out their new masterpiece, they forgot to leave space for an engine. So they put it in the right hand side panel. Now this thing has to balance on two wheels, so what did they put in the left hand side panel? Nothing. Nada. Naff all. Vespas were unbeatable at turning right, but entering a roundabout took some skill.

So, Andy, my 38-year-late apologies. I sold you a scooter with the poise and balance of Stephen Hawking auditioning for Riverdance. Then I treated you to 30 feet of gravel-rash.

It was good to hear from you.

Shrapnel Holes in the Rain

2007-06-17T21:22:00.000Z

The Americans call them Gooney Birds. They deserve a better name

Interesting day at Liverpool on Thursday. Classic Flight are flying the RAF Transport Command Dakota from John Lennon Airport next week (22-24th June). Richard Parr and I drove up on Thursday to brief the local media. Paddy Green kindly gave us the run of his immaculate C-47 so that we could give the press a preview of what it feels like inside. Keenair looked after us as well as they look after the Dak. One of the great things about aviation is that it brings you into contact with some great people.

And speaking of great people...

Classic Flight's Dak used to be owned by Starways, a Liverpool-based airline that disappeared in the early 60s. We put the word out for ex-Starways employees to get in touch, and on Thursday we met four real stars. Bob, Bernie, Tony and Cliff were engineers on G-AMPY in the fifties and 60s. I could have listened to them all day. The standard Christmas present from the Starways management was "a pork pie, a bottle of jungle juice and your cards". You got your job back in the new year, hence saving holiday pay.

Paddy's C-47, like all Dakotas, isn't particularly watertight. But this one has some extra leaks, courtesy of German anti-aircraft. There are jagged shrapnel holes still clearly to be seen in the unlined fuselage walls. There are patches outside, but the rain in Liverpool would find its way into a submarine.

Good coverage on radio and papers, so a successful day. Here's hoping for lots of pleasure flying bookings next weekend.

The Lady Sings the Blues

2007-06-17T20:37:00.000Z

Time to do some catching up here. The blog's been ignored for a couple of weeks - been busy - so here's a few days' worth to be going on with.

I went to see my niece Sophie fronting Blue Harlem, a great swing band that's well worth checking out when they're in your area. Sophie's an amazing singer and great to jam with, but seeing her with a seriously good band behind her was something else again.

Sophie asked if one of us could shoot some video on our phone. As it turned out I'd got the MiniDVD camera in the boot so she got this. It's camera sound, so don't expect too much on the audio front but you'll get the idea.

What struck me as I looked around the audience is that we need to re-define our definition of sad. We call people who dress up sad. We call trainspotters sad, in fact we call anyone with an interest that we don't share sad. On this night I was surrounded by people in 40s dress, doing 40s dances. There were GIs, land army girls, even a couple of spiv black marketeers. And the only sad person in the room was the dork with the video camera. I was the saddo looking on while they had the time of their lives.

Next time you see someone dressed up in a uniform from another period, don't give it the pitying head-shake routine. Ask what you need to do to join.

Paines-Taking Triumph

2007-05-27T21:49:00.001Z

My white bicycle. I miss it

My business partner and good mate Matt Paines has been blogging his two-wheeled odyssey to Le Mans for the Moto GP. You can read his story here.

I'm envious. He's been in one of my favourite countries, doing something I can't do anymore. There are several things I can't do anymore, but motorcycling is the only one I can confidently say that Matt can still accomplish. His Triumph Daytona is always indecently clean and gleaming - I also envy his patience; every bike I've ever owned has developed a patina of road film and insect corpses.

As the weather improves I'm missing my Buell. OK, they're not the fastest bike on the planet - in one dimension. It's an American 1000 with the straight-line performance of a Jap 600. But go playing in the twisty bits and you come back with flies in your teeth and a grin like James Coburn. And the noise! It's like Louis Armstrong accompanied by the zipper on the fly of God Almighty. Sadly, that famously powerful front brake couldn't quite rein it all in before we hit the tractor.

Matt's sat-nav dramas brought to mind yet another triumph of fashion over sense. Why are the latest TomToms wide screen? OK, I can see the sense of a widescreen TV. I'm less convinced by widescreen computer monitors. But widescreen sat-nav? If your car had headlights that illuminated the fields each side of the road you'd get a similar effect.

So Mr T. Tom, go and pick up one of your new models and turn it through 90 degrees. See? Yes, tall screen, that's what we need. Rotate your screen display and give us something practical instead of fashionable.

Then go and sack that designer with the plasma screen telly.

Hello, Who have I telephoned please?

2007-05-27T21:26:00.000Z

Obsession with security has taken over our lives. On Friday I received another of those bizarre promotional phone calls, this time from Orange. A couple of days before I'd had something similar from Sky TV. In fact it's happened a few times now. The telephone rings and a strongly accented voice says "Hello, is that Mr Shaw?"

"Yes, speaking"

"Hi Mr Shaw, this is XXX from YYY. Would you mind confirming your address and postcode please?"

"Why?"

"So that I can confirm your identity."

"And how do I know who you are?"

"I'm XXX from YYY."

"So you say. Would you give me your date of birth and home address please?"

"I'm sorry Mr Shaw, I'm just trying to confirm I'm speaking to the right person."

"BUT YOU'VE JUST BLOODY PHONED ME!"

I'm not a big fan of identity theft, but I can't see the threat in someone else getting my spam phone calls.

I'm a CAA Approved Test Pilot!

2007-05-18T18:39:00.000Z

Old Buckenham's CFI, Gerry. A great pilot, but clearly not in my class

Forgot to mention this; had an unusual phone conversation with Gerry Honey yesterday. My phone rang and Gerry's crisp, Battle of British crackled over the airways. "Hi Gerry Honey here, do you know much about Stearman 26?"

26 is my brother's Stearman, that was parked upside down by another pilot two and a half years ago. I admitted some knowledge of the matter. "For various reasons, the CAA won't accept the test flight that I did," said Mr H, "They say that they want you to do it."

Gerry has over 1,000 hours on Stearmans alone, so I'm understandably flattered that my aviation skills are so highly rated by the CAA. They may, however, have overlooked the fact that I lack a couple of the necessary certificates. A license for example.

"That's great Gerry, I'd be delighted. But, er, I don't think you've phoned who you think you have."

"Who's that then?"

"Martin's brother"

****LONG PAUSE****

"Well, hello old boy, how the devil are you?"

You probably had to be there.

Stampe Fly-in

2007-05-18T17:47:00.000Z

A Stampe: It's sort of a Tiger Moth, done properly

Received some interesting posts from Caroline in Belgium. She alerted me to the site on www.stampe.be - well worth a look, and the Stampe Fly-in looks like the place to be this weekend. There's also a Chipmunk meet in Zoerst from 16-20 May. Details on www.chipmeet.com.

Caroline's looking for CDs by Amazing Blondel. I thought I was the only person who remembered these guys. I used to go to see them in the 70s. Very British, with a faux-Elizabethan style. I thought they were great, but I also rated the Incredible String Band and Lindisfarne so don't be guided by my tastes. It was AB and ISB that gave rise to my collection of flageolets. We were a folk-rock band called Fern (v. fecund) and later Summatz Grappen (v. stoned) and I used to emulate my multi-instrumental heroes by switching from guitar to ukelele to mandolin and other more obscure instruments. I'd often do this in a single song, to the acute bewilderment of the audience, most (or sometimes both) of whom I knew.

Le Mans or Bust

2007-05-18T14:19:00.001Z

Matt's bolide, ready to roll. probably

Matt Paines, my co-director in XSEO, the search engine optimisation specialists, is off on an adventure of his own this weekend. He's saddled up his Daytona and headed for Le Mans for the MotoGP. The Daytona decided to eat its own instrument lights yesterday. This is less than ideal for a night trip. By six o'clock last night the front of the bike looked like John Hurt after his unscheduled caesarian in Alien.

He's bought a sat-nav for the journey. He's going to need to learn to spell Le Mans (heh heh)

Check out Matt's blog here.

Madeleine McCann

2007-05-18T13:29:00.000Z

This needs no further comment from me. Do everything you can. If you're outside the UK call +44 188 373 1336

The Flapping Rapide and the Dove that Doesn't

2007-05-17T22:22:00.000Z

It looks lovely. Pity so much of it fell off on the way home

That last post was actually from last week. I've caught up now and this is today. Interesting week. Classic Flight has a new Rapide. Romeo Papa has a good pedigree and Jon and Trevor flew confidently down to the south west to collect it. It looked v. pretty on approach, but as it taxyed in I couldn't help noticing that the fabric on the sides was flapping like a beach towel. Captain Corley looked like he'd limped a flak-damaged Lancaster back from Dresden. "It needs a bit of attention" he muttered, looking at the holes left by the bits that had fallen off on the flight home.

Not quite up to our standards of maintenance this one. Off to the engineers for some TLC.

We have an at-home day at Coventry this weekend. The public can walk around the planes and point, and they can try a ride over Warwick Castle in the Dakota, Rapide, Twin Pin or Prentice. We've been hoping to add the Dove to the list. It's been in the hangar for extensive maintenance for some months so it was great to see her rolling out into the afternoon sunshine.

Yes I know it's really a Devon. Your anorak's undone

She's in fine looks. The Dove's a very pretty plane, and it looks amazingly modern for a 40s aircraft. This is an ex-military version, so strictly speaking it's a Devon, but only people who wear Kangol and speak like John Major really care. (Oooh I'm going to get some stick for that comment).

The right-hand engine burbles happily to life, but the one on t'other wing isn't interested. Apart from a few flatulent chuffs (not the sort Bill Oddie watches) it just doesn't want to burn petrol.

We're going to be a Dove down this weekend.

Thank You Exeter!

2007-05-17T22:03:00.000Z

It worked! People are telephoning and requesting their Exeter Shopper discount. Suddenly the rainwater down the back of our necks seems worthwhile. Given half-way decent weather this weekend we should take a few people flying...

Waterproofing Exeter

2007-05-16T15:16:00.000Z

Having collected Will (designer extraordinaire) from Kidderminster at some ungodly hour, I was feeling fairly sanguine about the whole giving leaflets out deal. Exeter is considerably closer to the equator than Stafford, so there's plenty of time to eat Welcome Break breakfasts, subject young Jarman to my eclectic musical taste, and try to digest Welcome Break breakfasts.

We reach Exeter more in the form of a splashdown than an arrival. The sky's sprung a leak. God appears to have left the bath running.

We find the Guildhall Shopping Centre and go bravely to work. I hand out leaflets to strangers, Jarman forms several deep and meaningful relationships and appears to have more fun. Then security chuck us out for dirtying their lovely Devon floors with our nasty Midland shoes. We withdraw to the deluge and within an hour we're squelching up to bemused shoppers and handing them unidentifiable pieces of papier maché.

At lunchtime we join the rest of the guys who've brought the Dakota and the Rapide down from Coventry. The cockpit of the latter isn't completely water-resistant. Jon would have arrived with drier feet if he'd come down on a bike. The passenger compartment's dry and snug though. Nobody bothered too much about the driver in the thirties.

We complete the afternoon by pushing wet blotting paper through 500 Exeter letter boxes. I'm sure they didn't bite back when I was a paper boy. We retire to the pub with bleeding knuckles. Everybody in the bar is nervously polite.

Why Doesn't Exeter Like Flying?

2007-05-09T18:18:00.000Z

It's the 70th anniversary of passenger flight from Exeter International Airport this weekend. The first aircraft to land here in 1937 was a deHavilland DH86. There aren't any of those left outside museums, so the nearest equivalent today is the DH89 Rapide. Classic Flight now has three of these magic biplanes in flying condition so it made sense for the mayoral recreation of the event to use some of Coventry's hardware.

A Rapide, A Dakota and some sort of Volkswagen

Tango Mike, Classic Flight's blue Rapide is one of my all-time favourites. She's a lovely old girl with a sweet nature and an amazingly comfortable cabin. She's going down to Exeter with her old friend G-AMPY, our Transport Command Dakota. We're offering pleasure flights to all comers for just £65 a head. Usually you have to fight people off with a mucky stick, but this weekend - where's everybody gone? We've done the advertising, the press releases, the radio interviews... And the forward bookings look like the AGM of the All-Sahara Apathetes League. On a wet Tuesday.

As I'm in charge of marketing, this is slightly more than mildly embarrassing.

So I'm driving to Exeter tomorrow morning with a car full of flyers. I'll be handing them out to shoppers, smiling, cajoling, pleading and, if necessary, buying them a flight.

It's a bloody long way to Exeter, so all you lot in the South-West, make sure you appreciate what I'm doing for you.

Because if you don't come and fly with us we'll fly over your house and drop bombs.

The steery bits of the Rapide. If you came to Exeter this weekend you could even waggle some of them

Easter at Classic Flight

2007-05-06T20:55:00.000Z

If you're of a certain age you'll remember those press-out cardboard models you could buy. When I was three my elder brother made a whole fleet of cardboard aeroplanes of the day. His favourite was a tiny de Havilland Vampire that he crafted with ten-year-old dedication and I burnt with three-year-old vileness. The guilt has pursued me ever since.

When I started working with Classic Flight I mentioned the fact that they fly a restored Vampire. Martin replied "Bloody hell, they'd better not let you near that."

Over Easter weekend I was able to pay back the debt. With the kind co-operation of Classic Flight and conspiracy from Jon Corley, their chief pilot, we were able to get Martin aloft in the Vampire.

Maiden Flight: Bruce Dickinson at the controls of the Twin Pioneer

And what a great day it was. There were pleasure flights in a DC3 Dakota, a Scottish Aviation Pioneer (with Bruce Dickinson at the controls), a de Havilland Dragon Rapide and a Percival Prentice. It was a real thrill to see war veterans step out of the Dakota with tears in their eyes. One ex-paratrooper commented that he's taken off in a Dakota lots of times, but this was the first time he's landed in one.

Jon and Martin put the Vampire through its paces in the afternoon sun, finishing with a low, high-speed fly-past that drew a few gasps from the crowd. It's easy to say that the Vamp's not fast by modern standards, but not when it comes by you at 50 feet, doing around 400mph. Martin gets out grinning like James Coburn.

I scuttle around getting on everyone's nerves with Jon's video camera and put together a little film to remember a great day

It needs music. I ask my son Adam to put his musical talents to work and he comes up with a stunning semi-classical piece. I edit it in wide-screen and then realise that YouTube operates in 4:3 format. One day I'll find the time to re-edit it, but in the meantime at least it makes everyone look thin.

Epilogue: I Can Still Break Your Toys!

2007-05-05T16:32:00.001Z

There's an important job still undone. At least, I think it’s important. The whole flying experience has been vicarious for me; now I can have a turn. I buckle into the front seat of the Cub; at last, I get to play with Mart’s new toy. Now, shall I scribble on it with a biro or just throw it in the fire?

After 2,000 miles, it's my turn at last

The take-off is… interesting. Adrian’s at the controls – not something you’d usually have any concern about. The initial roll is a little wobbly, but the wind’s not straight down the runway, and this is a Cub after all.
Then it turns sharp left. Within a second we’ve got one wheel on the grass, meanwhile the tailwheel has dropped, leaving us with minimal visibility ahead. Adrian, fearing unseen edge markers, puts the Cub up on one wheel. We gather speed, recover our dignity and rise a little raggedly into the air. “Sorry about that old chap”, says an unruffled voice from behind.

Meanwhile, on the ground, everyone’s assuming it was my fault. “How many hours has Jem got on taildraggers?” is the question on everyone’s lips. “No more in my bloody plane” is Martin’s clenched-teeth answer, his mind dragged inexorably back to all the other toys I’ve broken.

A hint of untidiness on take-off

Meanwhile, overhead, I’m having a very good time. Adrian has handed over to me and we take a gentle afternoon cruise over Norfolk. He tries to correct my inability to recognize anything on the ground and I finally manage to identify Martin’s house and the runway at nearby Shipdham.

Returning to Old Buck my sky blindness returns. Adrian’s talking me back towards an invisible runway. As I cut the throttle for turning final, I still don’t know where we’re going. It’s something of a relief when “I have control” crackles through the intercom.

In the last few weeks we’ve seen old pilots, cold pilots, even bold pilots. Finishing with an old blind pilot burying the plane would be just too much of an anti-climax.

AHC admits it was all his fault

As we touch down (silk-smooth greaser from AHC, no wonder we all hate him), there’s a row of interested faces along the railings. Everyone wants to know exactly how I screwed up the take-off. We decide it would be best for Adrian’s air-cred if I take the blame, but he can’t cope with the mendacity and owns up. He puts it all down to rotating too soon, possibly with a binding brake. He’s been noticing a certain amount of wobbling and swerving in Mart’s take-offs, and now he understands why.

All I know is we walked away from it, and the plane didn’t pick up any tarmac rash. There were edge markers along the runway, any one of which could have pulled a wheel strut off and tipped us over.

On that basis, the boy done bloody good in my book.

Two of the nicest guys I've ever known. And Martin

The only problem now is, what next? I’ve spent a series of extended weekends in the best company anyone could ever wish for. We’ve fallen in love with a country that does nothing to deserve the reputation we choose to give it. Our adventure might have lacked the glamour of a Bugatti Veron screaming through French tunnels. But Clarkson didn’t get the chance to meet the people we did. Jean and Mary’s eccentric but warmly genuine hospitality, Ully’s gloriously bad taste in humour, Robert’s generosity, and the welcome we found virtually everywhere we came to rest.

It’s an experience I’ll never forget.

Thank you guys.

Day Two: Dieppe to Old Buckenham

2007-05-05T15:53:00.000Z

As dawn breaks I go in search of a boulangerie for breakfast. We recce’d several last night and ascertained that they open between 6.30 and 7.00. It’s 7.15 and they’re all shut. I eventually locate the only one that doesn’t lie about its opening hours and buy fresh chocolate croissants, warm raisin bread and some outrageous pineapple tortes. The Cub’s going to be heavily overweight today.

Adrian goes to get the meteo

Weather at Dieppe is looking OK, and improving rapidly. The Cub just might be going home today. It’s cold but clear, and the angle of the windsock steadily decreases as the morning breeze settles down.

We’re seeing the birth of a perfect flying day.

Clear skies and a drooping windsock. The trip is on

Flying over water in a single-engined plane calls for thorough preparation and a healthy regard for procedures. When everything within gliding distance contains fish, the last thing you want is an embarrassing silence from up front. Adrian and Martin are always conscientious about safety checks, but today there’s a definite sense of added thoroughness.

Adrian checks whether there's any fuel in the water

We’ve got starting down to an approximate science, so AHC confidently pours a sightglass-full of fuel into the right front inlet manifold. After only 20 minutes of cranking we’re rewarded by the mechanical clatter of a happy Continental.

Adrian risks a few more fingers

The Cub taxis away and I climb into the Jeep, pausing to watch the little yellow kite make its characteristically lazy ascent into a violet sky. As the Continental snores into silence I point the Jeep’s nose homeward.

Take-off from Dieppe

I’m alone with the Grand Cherokee. It’s a strange mixture; the 2.7 litre diesel pulls it along at a highly creditable gallop, and you can’t fault the comfort or equipment. It’s just a shame that the steering seems to be transmitted through knicker elastic. I had a 1960 Morris Minor that required almost this much sawing at the steering wheel. The built-in Traffic Master system would benefit from a little more thought. “Your route of 476 miles will take you along the…” by which time you’ve missed the turning and it has to recalculate. Then it says it all again, by which time you’ve missed another turning. I turn on my TomTom and the two squabble all the way home.

Mart announces imminent arrival at Le Touquet. Or Margate

Up above, navigation’s a more straightforward affair. Adrian’s contention is that technology can go wrong; maps can’t. This pre-supposes that you can recognize ground features. My own abilities in this area are modest, so I’m always impressed when pilots convince me they aren’t really lost.Whether they’re secretly using their GPS receivers or not (they’re carrying one each – so traditional), Le Touquet comes up on the nose

Notice to Airmen: The right-hand runway is a bit soggy

I get a call as I approach Le Touquet. They’re on the ground and refuelling for the cross-channel leg. The Cub’s behaving beautifully and they’re enjoying perfect flying conditions. They’ll be airborne again before I get there.

I’m settling down with the Jeep’s directional numbness and finding considerable diversion in Martin’s choice of on-board CD entertainment. I descend under the channel to the accompaniment of the Malcolm Sargent/Huddersfield Choir version of the Messiah. I know it’s not authentic; I know purists say the choir’s too big; I know Handel didn’t use clarinets. Know what else? I don’t care. Elsie Morrison knows that her redeemer liveth, and right now she’s got me convinced.

Those cliffs are twenty miles away - much too far to glide

Life jackets in place, the boys start the crossing. The Continental O-170 is a wonderfully simple – and hence reliable – engine. It’s extremely unlikely to fail, but the channel still looks very, very wide. I can attest from personal experience that when the big fan on the front of a Cub stops turning, the plane has more of a trajectory than a glide angle.

As soon as the French coast falls behind, the engine note switches to automatic rough. Every change in noise, revs or glide angle is suddenly keenly noticed.

Martin see something slower than the Cub

At 75mph there’s plenty of time to look around. The channel’s one of the world’s busiest sea ways, so there’s always something on the surface to look at. The Cub can race ships. It can even beat some of them.

D'you know, I think we're catching him!

The Continental snores happily over the channel and Dover’s soon passing under its flared nostrils. The hop fields of Kent slide smoothly by as the nose turns towards Headcorn.

Overhead Dover. Normal respiration resumes

The landing strip at Headcorn has the consistency and colour of thick Bisto. The cub slithers to a halt in a corner of some English field, covered in most of it. Floats might have been a good idea.

As I pull out of the Eurotunnel terminal I receive a text to say that Adrian and Martin are on the ground at Headcorn. The Cub’s back in England!

Headcorn - quality English mud

Pilots and plane need refuelling. Adrian celebrates his return to Blighty with a bacon and egg sandwich in the airfield café. You can tell a good one by measuring how far up your elbows the yolk runs.

French cuisine may lead the world, but sometimes your arteries need a good British breakfast.

International gourmet and his bacon and egg buttie

I’m back on British motorways. You can tell because everyone drives on the right. I sit in the interminable fast-lane traffic and yearn for French roads. The Cub’s on the last lap, heading for its new home in Norfolk. As usual I’m behind and, impressively quick though it is, this Jeep hasn’t quite got the power of the trip one and two conveyances. They’re going to beat me again.

I pull into the car park at Old Buckenham. No sign of the Cub. A scout round the apron, hangars and bar confirms it: they’re not here yet. Is everything OK?

Ten minutes later, a dot in the sky resolves into a yellow crucifix. G-BFBY is coming home. With his club mates watching, Martin takes extra care with the landing and produces a creditable greaser.

Lots of man-hugs and back thumping ensue. The odyssey is over, and the Cub has a new home.

We did it! The aircrew at Old Buckenham

Next Chapter>>

Cub Trip Three: Jeepster

2007-05-05T15:39:00.000Z

Diaries have intervened and it’s been difficult to get the team together for our third-time-lucky attempt. Martin’s had several opportunities to bring the Cub home thanks to other flying friends, but he’s held out so that the original three amigos can complete the job. What a splendid chap.

We’re back with General Motors for this trip. We’re using Martin’s Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland. It’s an interesting package, of which more later.

Did I mention we’re videoing this? We’ve carried a video camera with us through all of the trips with a view to recording the experience for the future boredom of dinner guests. Martin tries to do a piece to camera on the Eurotunnel train, but it’s impossible because of a deaf van drivers’ outing immediately in front of us. They stand next to their transit with their faces three inches apart, bellowing obscenities and emitting barking laughs throughout the journey. If the rumours are true, and the English aren’t popular abroad, then the reason why is parked 6 inches in front of us.

Mart primes a hand-grenade for the transit drivers

On the previous visit I attempted to find Dieppe airport by programming TomTom with the latitude and longitude. It failed due to TomTom using Celsius for co-ordinates, while I’m more used to avoirdupois. AHC and Shaw senior were unsympathetic. Mart tries to demonstrate his superior technological grasp by programming our destination correctly. Our route provides us with unparalleled opportunities to take in the Bois de Boulogne, the Ruhr Valley and Easter Island.

Martin achieves level 2 on Super Mario Brothers

Eurotunnel runs smoothly this time and we’re soon sub-Manche and southward bound. My unerring directional talent puts us on the road for Paris – after all, I’ve done this trip a few times now.

But we’re going to Dieppe.

The few moments of irritated silence soon dissipate and within a few minutes we’re singing Tom Tom Turn Around again.

Adrian has an old-fashioned belief in maps. He has no sense of adventure.

AHC identifies where they went wrong in 1944

Martin’s at the helm as we head down past Le Touquet. The weather’s fine, but gusting to 30mph. Each time we pass a truck or cross one of those astonishing French valley-spanning viaducts, the Jeep lurches alarmingly across the carriageway. The steering-wheel swerves like a slowed down Michael Schumacher in-cockpit video.

There’s plenty of room in the back so I perform a few druidical sacrifices to various weather gods. It’s a 4x4, so it’s easier to hose the blood out than it was in the Bentley. I set aside the liver of an unblemished goat for Adrian’s tea.

The original Willis version had rather less wood and leather

We’re back in Dieppe in time to visit the Cub. It’s still sitting where we left it, looking expectantly at the hangar door. There’s a definite expression on its face. If it was a spaniel it would have its lead in its mouth and a look of pleading. Weather permitting, we’ll go walkies tomorrow.

What’s this? L’Auberge Clos du Normand is fermé! With tears in our eyes we go in search of an alternative. It’s off-season and the choices aren’t extensive. We eventually locate a small hotel in the centre of Dieppe. Not picturesque, but clean, friendly and serviceable.

Time for a cold beer. The Pirate Bar in Dieppe harbour has beer so cold it hurts the back of your neck. It also boasts a pleasantly pneumatic barmaid who endures our unsubtle geriatric slobbering with charm and balance. Music’s alright too.

Who invented the riff? The Beatles, Stones or Chuck Berry? Discuss

Hungry now, we begin the customary quest for vegetarian food in a country that believes you can get a good meal out of a pond. After examining every menu in Dieppe, Hall-Carpet nominates one as being the pick of the bunch. We’ll go in, explain to the patron, and he’ll cook us something delicious. We try it. It’s true! There really is a Gallic shrug! The restaurateur helpfully offers three choices: meat, fish or someone else’s restaurant. He directs us to a pizzeria. It’s shut.

We’ve now walked every street in Dieppe. Hall-Carpenter is looking at pigeons and licking his lips. Of all the lives in all the world, he had to get involved in ours. We try to cheer him up by pointing out that he’s no longer Monsieur Vrai, having been wrong about the restaurant. But every time we point at him he bites our fingers.

Desperate, tired and ravenous we return to our hotel. We reason that, as we’re guests, they have to feed us. I ask the waiter if he has anything for vegetarians. He turns the menu over and shows me the vegetarian options.

AHC just ate the table display, and people are staring.

Dusk in Dieppe. A good city to walk around. We know this.

Next Chapter>>

Day Four: Defeated Again

2007-05-05T15:36:00.000Z

Once again, the weather gods have farted in our general direction. It’s even worse than yesterday, so we’re going home on tarmac once again. My hopes for flying across the channel are dashed, and Martin’s Cub still can’t come home to Blighty.

At least the train works this time

As we’ve come to expect, the French aviation guys are terrific. Gerard, the tower controller, assures us that the Cub is welcome to hangar space. He’s embarrassed that he has to charge a landing fee because the airfield is owned by the chamber of commerce. It’s far cheaper than Britain, but he discounts it anyway.

As we sit dejected in the tunnel train (which works this time), we realise we can’t wait to get back to this fantastic country.

Trip three beckons us.

Episode Three: Invading Normandy by Jeep>>

Day Three: Dieppe to... Dieppe

2007-05-05T15:20:00.000Z

I left the French doors (What do they call them I wonder?) onto the gallery open and I'm awoken by the dawn chorus. I'm absurdly warm and comfortable and watch the day develop through the frame of the curtain. Meanwhile Martin uses the single bath-full of hot water that the aging boiler can provide. My swimming-pool sized corner bath is to go unused. I sluice myself with an icy jet from the shower and seethe inwardly.

Like a bleaker version of Morecambe in February

The weather is appalling. The windsock is horizontal and the clouds are shouldering each other aside in their haste to dump icy rain down the backs of our necks. Flying today is as attractive a prospect as eating a spaghetti dinner with John Prescott.

We tinker with the Cub’s radio then put it away and prepare for a day’s R&R.

Lunchtime in Dieppe harbour, and we’re importuned by a restaurateur in a rococo shirt. It’s magnificent – a shiny turquoise-purple with swirls and arabesques of metallic thread. The collar points are half way down his chest. He assures us that our gastronomic perversion is no barrier and cooks us a great leek pie. A few glasses of vin de maison and we’re feeling gloriously relaxed. Martin doesn't drink so he qualifies automatically as nominated driver.

Another great meal. I love this country

Unfortunately the restaurant is closed tonight, and Le Clos Normand doesn’t serve dinner on Mondays. Monsieur avec le chemise magnifique offers to open it for us specially. He’s just flown in from the States and is seriously jet-lagged so we let him off. He recommends the Restaurant du Port.

After stooging around Dieppe for the afternoon we arrive at the Restaurant Du Port. Shirtman has phoned ahead to let them know we’re coming. If anyone ever criticises the French again in my hearing, I’ll hit them. Sadly, the meal is… bad. Adrian’s sea food platter looks impressive, but he reports that it tastes more Birds Eye than briny. Martin and I get some cold boiled vegetables and a plate of soggy chips. Ah well.

See the green phone box on the end? It's less inspiring than it looks

Planning for tomorrow includes the suggestion that Martin or Adrian drives the car so that I can get some time aloft. Now we’re talking.

Next Chapter

Day Two:Coulombiers to Dieppe

2007-05-05T14:47:00.000Z

Dawn breaks over the Crewe Cruiser and Crew

It’s freezing cold, but clear and still. Looking good for the flight home. We load up the Bentley and take our leave of Le Centre de Poitou, knowing we’ll see it again someday.

It’s still early when we arrive at Niort and Martin and Adrian start layering up to withstand the cold.

Two old, cold pilots

Robert arrives, ever cheerful and unlocks the hangar. The Cub’s snug and safe, and Robert has had his mechanic change the oil and re-route a couple of HT cables that were in danger of chafing. He absolutely refuses payment for the service work or hangarage – un vrai gentilhomme.

Robert demonstrates true entente cordiale

We already know she can be a bitch to start. Today she really doesn’t want to get out of bed. After two hours of sweating, Adrian (by now christened Monsieur Vrai) concludes that fuel doesn’t flow uphill. He removes an inlet manifold and squirts some petrol up the pipe. The Cub starts second pull.

AHC (Monsieur Vrai), about to make another correct guess

They’re airborne and I’m allowed to get to know the Bentley without distraction. It’s lovely. There’s this gigantic, unhurried 6.7 litre V8 purring gently to itself up front. Back here on the bridge I’m surrounded by the finest cow wrappings, highlighted tastefully with polished rain forest. The chromed ventilator knobs slide home with an indecently tactile schluck. I find The Best of Fleetwood Mac in AHC’s CD changer and spend a happy 100 miles in duet with Stevie Nicks.

The boys beat me to Le Mans, refuel, and press on north to Bernay. I programme the TomTom with Bernais and head determinedly south. It’s 20km before I realise my mistake, by which time I’m heading the wrong way down a toll road. I pull off, negotiate the péage booth, turn round and get back onto the same toll road, ready to pay again.

In an attempt to catch up, the Bentley and I violate French airspace at speeds somewhat in excess of the 130kph speed limit. I love driving in this country; the roads are uncrowded and the standard of driving puts our own lane-hogging pig-ignorance to shame.

Once again, the airborne bath chair has won the race. Martin and Adrian land in Dieppe a good half hour ahead of me, even after the illegal velocities.

TomTom doesn’t know where Dieppe airport is. I call Adrian who asks the locals at the aero club. I’m in Martin Eglise, about five miles away. They can’t give me directions from there as it’s too difficult. Later, they recommend an auberge in Martin Eglise, to which they give us detailed, concise directions. Am I the only one who can see the logical inconsistency here?

But I’m being churlish. Once again, we find the locals friendly, welcoming and accommodating. They volunteer hangarage for the Cub; We explain that we’ll be back tomorrow. They tell us that the club will be deserted - and give us the keys.

Auberge du Clos Normand

The president of the aero club recommended Auberge du Clos Normand. And he was right. It’s a beautiful old building, with the guest rooms in a separate galleried farm building. The chef-patron is welcoming and congenial, and once again, vegetism is no problem. The meal doesn’t quite soar to the gastronomic heights of yesterday, but it’s a damned close thing. I somehow bag the best room, with a gigantic corner bath, but we all have a view of the river and garden, and the birdsong is world-class.

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Cub Trip Two: The Bentley

2007-05-05T14:30:00.000Z

Day One: Norfolk to Coulombiers

Engines, start your gentlemen

It’s 8.00am on Saturday, and a venerable Bentley crunches the gravel outside Martin’s house. It’s a 1993 Turbo R, lovingly preserved by Hall-Carpenter as part of his campaign to show what we British could build before the Germans finally conquered us. Adrian has added me to the insurance so that I can take charge of her. I’m flattered.

I like music, OK? So I need a lot of CDs. Adrian doesn’t understand why the six-stacker isn’t enough for the miles ahead. Hall-Carpet, you have no soul. He tells me that the 217 essential CDs I’ve pre-selected have to be reduced to avoid infringing import/export regulations. Does he think I’m that gullible? I’ll check when we get back…

The last time Adrian was ever wrong

This time we’re all travelling together. Adrian takes the con down to the Eurotunnel, then hands over to me. We’ve booked ahead to save time, but computer says no. The terminal’s on all systems crash and it’s every man for himself. In the confusion we somehow arrive at passport control before being issued with tickets and get turned back to the terminal. We all need food and caffeine by now, so I’m all for buying it at the terminal. Adrian is confident that there’ll be full facilities the other side of passport control. My contention that there weren’t any when I was here two weeks ago falls on deaf ears and, ticketed up, we head for customs. Again.

This time they search us out of revenge.

Tunnel-side there’s, of course, nothing. AHC finds a coffee machine, but this doesn’t qualify as refreshment facilities. This is significant – it’s the only time I’ve ever known him to be wrong. The relief to find he’s human after all is profound.

I’ve been extolling the virtues of the Eurotunnel. It’s slick , it’s reliable, it’s cheap…

It’s broken.

This is one tunnel that would have defeated Charles Bronson

After an hour and a half of minimal information delivered by a surly youth with more pimples than IQ we’re told we’re being “rotated”. What does that mean? The shrug may be Gallic, but the accompanying “Dunno mate” is pure Essex. Ah, how Europe has made cosmopolitans of us all!

It transpires that rotation means moving to a train that isn’t broken. We park for a further thirty minutes on the platform while Adrian does some telephone research and begins to explain the concept of customer service to Eurotunnel. Apparently their terms and conditions relieve them of any responsibility actually to convey anyone anywhere. The typing in the background sounds like an infinite number of monkeys preparing their next legal waiver of common sense.

With 100km to go before Niort we take to the back roads, once again in search of the elusive quaint auberge. This time, in Coulombiers, we find it. It’s called l’Auberge Centre de Poitou.

l'Auberge Centre de Poitou. Go there. Now.

First impressions of my room are favourable. It’s small and cosy, with comfortable sofas and homey décor. I open what I take to be the door to the bathroom. And find the rest of my suite. Vast, indecently comfortable bed, beautiful bathroom, separate bog. Nice.

Downstairs in the restaurant we broach the subject of vegetarianism. Pas de problème m’sieur! We leave it to the chef as suggested. Madame brings us a huge basket of fresh truffles to sniff. The wine list is distinguished, service is cheerful and attentive. This is good. We like this. The food is just glorious. My starter is delicately herbed scrambled egg, with generous shavings of fresh truffles. Martin declares his vegetable soup to be the best he’s ever tasted, while Adrian earns charlatan Brit points by requesting Tabasco with his oysters.

The main course for the cranky veggies is an astonishing assiette de légumes. It’s made up of individual delights like warm pickled red cabbage with chestnuts, unbelievably light and crisp potato slivers and an astounding creation of leek strips with more truffles. All this accompanied by a lovely, light, cherry-flavoured red Sancerre (A little too light for AHC - he likes wine that congeals. I suspect that he fears sunlight). Adrian’s lamb and foie gras folded inside a cabbage leaf comes close to challenging the principles of les vegetablistes.

Food, wine and service of this quality are rarer than steak tartare and we begin to fear the bill. They've seen the Bentley haven't they?

L'addition comes to 300 euros, which seems eminently reasonable for food of this quality. Then we realise it includes the rooms and breakfast.

This place is very special. It's one of those hotels that you look forward to visiting again. And again.

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Day Five: Dunkirk Again

2007-05-05T14:11:00.000Z

This is double-plus ungood. The weather has closed down and we wake up to landscape as grey as John Major’s maiden speech. Drizzling, chilling rain, biting wind and scudding leaden clouds. Manchester would look sub-tropical by comparison.

Sky the colour of a church roof - not ideal

Flying today is out of the question. The only high spot is Robert’s kindness. Of course the Cub can stay in his hangar – he’ll get his mechanic to look it over to make sure it’s in good shape for when we return. A dejected trio piles into the car and we start the retreat. Dunkirk lives again – the Brits are defeated.

But we’ll be back.

Episode Two: Going Gently in the Bentley>>

Day Four: Berdoues to Niort

2007-05-05T13:49:00.001Z

Oh, but look how pretty...

The head’s feeling a little battered this morning. The boys were righteously abstinent last night, so they’re well fettled for the flight. Jean and Adrian continue the argument they started last night about continental navigation. If this was a school playground, we’d be marking the height of the urine stains on the wall.

As a diversion we wheel the Cub out into the chill February air. Time for detailed pre-flight checks. No need to check for condensation says Jean, there isn’t any in his hangar. Adrian does a discreet fuel check anyway. Old pilots, bold pilots…

Loose struts aren't a problem. On the ground

We find a loose jury strut. Not actually as big a problem as it might sound, but much nicer to discover with your feet on tarmac.

The Cub was built in 1943, so she’s looking pretty good for an old lady. Ully Shuhmacher has looked after her with devotion and there’s a definite un-Teutonic wetness to his eyes as he watches the preparations. Ully is a great John Cleese fan and keeps mentioning the war. Anyone who says Germans have no sense of humour has never heard Herr S in full spate. I laugh until my head hurts (even more).

Ully Shuhmacher mentions the war

This is an L4 Cub, the military variant of the J3, so it has much more glazing in the cockpit than the civil version. It was used extensively in WW2 for artillery spotting. This involved flying very slowly and predictably above enemy anti-aircraft guns. Heroism is far too small a word. It’s widely acknowledged as one of the world’s sweetest-flying aircraft, with an honest simplicity that’s hard to resist.

747s have more dials than this. So does my watch

The last dogfight in WW2 was won by a Piper Cub! Nicknamed Miss Me, it was an unarmed L4 whose two-man crew attacked a German Storch with pistols. They forced the enemy plane to crash-land, landed alongside and took its crew prisoner. Nowadays, when someone rescues a trapped kitten, we call them a hero…

Healthy morning exercise, Piper style

Herr Shuhmacher admits sheepishly that she can be “a bit of a bitch to start” An hour later, when everyone’s arms are aching from swinging the prop, we’re all too knackered to hit him.

Finally, the old girl decides we’ve suffered enough and deigns to give a stately cough, a discreet belch and the daintiest of farts. A puff of white smoke marks the transition from lifeless metal to 65hp of unbridled muscle. That’s about the same power output you get from a Nissan Micra. Or a Flymo.

A slow grin spreads across Martin’s face, Ully’s head emerges from his collar, and Jean explains that we should have listened to him from the start.

The engine warms and settles to a steady, well-maintained beat. Ully steps forward to pat the Cub’s tailfeathers affectionately as she taxis gently out to the airstrip.

And zero she flies as the morning sighs (with thanks to Al Stewart)

The Cub’s not a rocket ship climber when solo, and with Adrian’s six feet four crammed into the back seat (he actually can’t get into the front at all), plus fuel, maps and hand luggage, the climb-out is decidedly leisurely. AHC gives us a laconic wave as Martin settles down to get the feel of his new baby.

I’m trapped for another hour by Jean and Mary’s fantastic hospitality. Last night’s urinary competition reappears when Jean insists that the guys were lost from the moment they took off. They followed the wrong river, he insists. I nod stickily through the home-made marmalade and perfect coffee.

As it turns out, the wrong river leads to the right destination, and I get a call from Adrian to say that they’ve reached Ste Foy Le Grande while I’m still driving out of Berdoues.

It’s Sunday. I’m in rural France and low on fuel. This slowly turns from a worry into a problem. Then it pales into insignificance as last night’s minestrone, basil and garlic make a bid for freedom.

Dites en français: There are few petrol stations; there are no public toilets.

Suddenly sunlight breaks through my mental thunderhead: Kaz’s survival kit! Andrex to the rescue! A lay-by with a hedge and… there is a corner of some foreign field that is forever England.

Feeling more complaisant by far I find a petrol station that, through some oversight, is open. I roll in as the final fumes are sucked through the injectors. As I fill up I remember the fifteen gallons of gas in the jerry cans in the boot.

I’m now well behind and the guys arrive at Niort over an hour ahead of me. This is to be our overnight stop. Jean has called ahead to his friend Robert who kindly finds us space for the Cub in his hangar.

Robert kindly finds the Cub a room for the night

Another publicity photo - an hotel as characterful as a community centre

Time, once again, to find the elusive characterful auberge. The Hotel les Ruralies comes highly recommended so we book in from the airfield. If concrete has character, then this place has plenty of it. It has three stars, but then, so did Game For A Laugh. It also has the similarity that no sane person would ever spend a night with any of them.

We go in search of vegetarian food. Adrian is ready to eat road kill. We eventually find a pizzeria with fantastic three cheese pizza. Martin and I trough two each. A modicum of vin is consumed and it’s back to the hotel and bed by 9.30. Such party animals.

Next Chapter>>

Day Three: Paris to Berdoues

2007-05-05T13:40:00.000Z

A word about Vauxhall Vectras. Ignore Clarkson, they’re an underrated gem. This one is the 3.2 GSi and it’s long-legged, comfortable, quiet and just plain sorted. So yah boo to you, you self-opinionated, pube-haired, nicotine-marinated Munster (says one of your biggest fans). Even after an uneasy night on a Formule 1 shelf there’s a pleasant absence of NBS (numb bum syndrome) as I pull, scratching at suspicious bite-like lumps, into Bergerac International Airport, comfortably on time to meet the boys.

A modernised arrivals hall is planned. In an even bigger tent

Bergerac is an international airport in the same way that a Shepherds Bush flat is surprisingly spacious. If it were a garden, the estate agents would describe it as easily maintained. Watching a RyanAir 737 braking on a runway shorter than my front drive is a spectacle to be viewed from outside the aeroplane. There’s a slight delay when it gets caught at the traffic lights in a nearby village.

Rare shot of a pilot praying to the great god Ferodo

Apart from minor whiplash injuries, Mart and Adrian have had a comfortable flight. Their last for some time I suspect. A couple of hours’ gentle cruising along French by-roads and we meet Jean - who owns the Cub’s home hangar - opposite the church in Berdoues. He leads us to his superb house on a private air park. Here we meet up with Ully Schuhmacher, the Cub’s current owner, and Jean’s wife Mary.

A candlelit one-course dinner

Mary has diction from Brief Encounter and vocabulary from The Commitments. She doesn’t completely approve of Martin’s and my choice of diet, “Oh my God, you f****ng vegetarians, what the f*** do you eat?” Adrian’s pleas of dietary conformity don’t do the job, and he’s condemned to joining us.

The first course is an exceptional home-made minestrone. This is accompanied by a mélange of basil and garlic. Magnificent. What was she worrying about? Can’t wait for the main course…

You just ate it. Several bottles of wine later I go to bed and eat the duvet.

Next Chapter>>

Day Two: Norfolk to Paris

2007-05-05T13:31:00.000Z

The squirrels in the loft go on duty at 5.30am. I was ready for an early start, but now I’m contemplating lingering over a fried rodent sandwich with my Shredded Wheat.

We load the jerrycans, luggage and the 231 CDs required for the journey into my Vectra and I’m ready to go. For this first leg, Martin and Adrian are flying RyanAir to Bergerac so as to be fresh and rested for their own flight. So I set off for Dover.

This turns out to be the disabled lane

No major dramas ensue and I’m sitting in the disabled lane at the Channel Tunnel. Disabled? Well, doesn’t an inability to understand road signs count? I limp convincingly to cover the error and am allowed onto the train.

As evening falls, hunger sets in. Time for one of those famous French gastronomic delights. Trying to explain vegetarianism in pidgin French requires a certain degree of indulgence from the restaurateur. But I’m an Englishman, I’m not far from Paris, and therefore deserving of punishment. I’m rewarded with a plate of dry tagliatelle.

And I thought renaissance was a French word.

Formule 1 publicity shot. The reality is even worse

Now to find a picturesque auberge. Or not. There was an appalling song in the 80s called “Tom Tom Turn Around” by, I think, some curly-haired porn stars called New World. Over the next hour I find myself humming it as the computerised lady in the dashboard constantly repeats “Turn around when possible”. TomTom obviously developed their European mapping as part of the 1944 invasion force. Update now a trifle overdue. At somewhere around midnight I give up and install myself in one of Hotel Formule 1’s hard plastic cupboards.

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Cub Trip One: The Vectra

2007-05-05T13:25:00.000Z

Day One: Norfolk

Pre-flight planning in Adrian's kitchen

Over to Martin’s house to pick up the jerry cans, luggage and Kaz’s survival kit. Kaz is Martin’s significant other, and this survival kit’s typical of her gloriously mad understanding of the world. She hands me a party bag in which I find:

Two bars of Green & Black’s chocolate
A toilet roll
Some moist wipes
A ballpoint pen
A notepad
Four party poppers
A balloon
A puzzle book

If she’d been Scott’s quartermaster in 1911, Amundsen wouldn’t have stood a chance. Martin makes one of his epic curries and we lay plans for an early start tomorrow.

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The Cub Comes Home

2007-05-05T13:16:00.000Z

When Clarkson, Hammond and May pitted a 140mph Cessna 182 against a 250mph Bugatti, the car won. We pitched a 75mph Piper Cub against a 154mph Vauxhall, then a 155mph Bentley, then a 120mph Jeep and only the one with knicker elastic in the steering beat the plane home.

The Background
It’s a Shaw family tradition to be fascinated by old aeroplanes. My first attempts at graphic design consisted of attacking my brother’s 1942 copy of Aircraft of the Fighting Powers with a biro. (I also threw his model of a de Havilland Vampire into the fire; another Shaw tradition is that I’ve always been an evil little git). The brother in question bought a Boeing Stearman some years back. Predictably he wouldn’t let me near it with a ballpoint or a lighted match, so all was well until someone landed it ungently on its top wing. Two years on, the CAA still can’t be convinced that it should fly again.

A sad, sad Stearman. Blessedly, no one was hurt

So Martin started a quest for a Piper Cub. They’ve suddenly soared in value, so after looking at a lot of high-priced projects he felt himself very lucky when he found a genuine beauty for sale at sensible money.

In the foothills of the Pyrenees.

A Cub can stay airborne for a safe two hours or so. At around 70mph, that puts your fuel stops no more than 140 miles apart. So the plan was born. Adrian Hall-Carpenter - unfeasibly tall, but a true gentleman for all that - was recruited for his flying experience, boundless cheerfulness and willingness to listen to profound bollocks for a thousand miles at a stretch.

My job was to provide ground support in the form of jerry cans full of fuel and baggage porterage. You’ve seen the films – you know I’m the one who’s going to get eaten by the lions don’t you? Yeah, right…

It took us three tries, but gave us a great experience to look back on. What follows is the blog I texted back to the UK. The photographs were taken on my phone, so quality’s not a strong point.

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