James May
James goes commando
The worst night's sleep I ever had was, perversely, as a guest of the SAS.
I should have felt perfectly safe. I'd spent a pleasant day looking at trophies, mucking around with kit and firing their ‘weapons' (they're never guns) at cardboard cut-outs of fleeing insurgents. There then followed an evening of drinking and good-natured ribaldry, and, provided I remembered not to call anyone a poof, I knew I was in good company.
And then it was time for bed. I was given one of the officer's rooms, which meant a simple affair of army bed, stiff sheets, a sink, a mop and bucket, and a stand-alone wardrobe big enough for one set of clothes, but a lot posher than the communal blocks the lads slept in. I slipped gratefully between the regimentally arranged bed linen and closed my eyes. ‘Well,' I thought to myself. ‘They're not going to let me get away with this, are they?'
Obviously, they'd wait until I was asleep and then burst in wearing balaclavas and throw thunderflashes all over the place for a laugh. So I braced myself in the inky darkness to make a break for the door and lock them in. Ha!
Nothing happened. Then I realised that, obviously, they were planning something better than that. I heard a noise outside my first-floor window and decided that they were going to abseil in through the glass, hold me at gunpoint and steal all my clothes, and then demand a donation to the mess account before giving them back in the morning. So I hid them under the bed.
The night continued, the moon smiled benignly at the dozing world, and nothing continued to happen. I'd now been in bed for several hours, which is exactly when they would strike. That's what I would do if I was in the SAS and some ponce from the telly had blagged the best room in the barracks. An owl hooted in the distance. That was clearly the signal to attack.
"I arranged the pillows in the bed to look as though I was still in it, and then hid in the wardrobe so I could escape after the SAS had gone"
What they were going to do was come through the door, throw stun grenades, hood me, tie me to the bed and then lift it through the window. A helicopter would carry me away and then deposit me in the nearest town square so I'd have to walk back naked. Then I'd be told I couldn't have my clothes back until I'd retrieved the bed.
So, having watched some spy films, I arranged the pillows in the bed to look as though I was still in it, and then hid in the wardrobe so I could escape after they'd gone, but before they'd discovered the deception. Still nothing.
And so it went on, my fevered and lager-addled imagination concocting yet more elaborate SAS ‘jokes' in which I was the victim, while outside the window everyone else in Britain slept the sleep of the just and good, knowing that people like the SAS were there to protect them should the tranquillity of our ordered society be threatened in any way. When a perfectly pleasant and totally unarmed man came at Oh-Christ-hundred hours to ‘wake' me with a cup of tea, I almost rammed the mop bucket over his head and bolted for the gates.
"How come," I asked over breakfast, "you didn't blow me up in the night for a laugh?" The man in charge of the force fully occupied in combating extreme terrorism looked at me incredulously. "Why the bloody hell would we do that?" he asked.
In fact the enemy I presumed to be outside the door was actually in my mind, which made not being blown up by the SAS for a laugh a very effective form of psychological torture. And this brings me to the point I actually want to make, and with which I may need some help.
Often, I ride along on a motorcycle perfectly happily all day long. But sometimes, I ride along on a bike, especially one I've put back together, and I think to myself ‘What would happen now if the front wheel bearing suddenly seized?' This sort of thing simply doesn't happen except in some corner of the mind, but once the idea has lodged in my head it won't go away, and I ride home at 5mph.
Similarly, I own an old Triumph saloon on which the brakes once failed completely at the end of a long dual-carriageway stretch, requiring buttock-quivering evasive action. It's been fully and expertly repaired, but sometimes I drive along in it and wonder if they've gone again. Once that idea has burst into the room I have to put it away until I've forgotten about it.
Does anyone else do this? I hope not, because it's totally ridiculous. You may as well drive around worrying that the SAS is about to burst out of some bushes and throw grenades at you.
And, take it from me, they're not.
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I ride moto's, the KTM 950 Adventure being my current mount. I often think about the front wheel collapsing, where the spokes break apart and the front forks dig into the ground. Thus, send me ass over tea-kettle whilst doing 140kph down a gravel road! I've played this scenario over and over in my head; however, I reach the conclusion that the engineers who designed this bike know what they're doing. So I crack the throttle a little more and powerslide the big bike around the corner!!
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i have this all the time i wont sleep for weeks on end glad to know im not the only one
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I do, I have a complete mistrust in anything engineered, from fairground rides to cable carts and airplanes. Even on my bicycle sometimes when i go past 20mph or so. Having a nack for engineering doesn't help I think.
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Do you remember the Ogri strip where Malcolm rebuilds his bike and then worries himself about what could go wrong ? 'Ignition advancer - retarded!' Big end - gone little!' Now, a tyre blowout -that will give you a problem , at least with mechanicals there's usually some warning
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Welcome to the 3rdWorldMindset, James. It requires you to wake up at the slightest noise & go downstairs ready to kill someone. Of course you rarely get to actually slap someone to death with your shoe, but going through the motion once a week does kind of reconfigure the mind. I hate waking up to "who do I have to kill now", but being South African, I might as well get used to it, right?
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Once wen i was at thorpe park someone told me to forget the film final destination, which of course made me think more of it, just before getting on the ride i started to sort of imagine that the ride was gunna break apart in the sky and kill us all, obviously not thinking about the brilliant engineering of the rollorcoasters builders, i went on that ride and it was FANTASTIC :D, Stealth and SAW the BEST RIDES EVER! you should try it james :D x
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If your business card said anything other than what it does - James May, Financial Advisor, or James May, Time Traveling Motor Enthusiast, I would agree that you were both drunk and ridiculous. But, because you are James May, Top Gear Presenter, I feel that being hogtied, kidnapped, and carted away by the SAS to some rendezvous point with a camera crew is a perfectly reasonable expectation.
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sadly i have to ride a two wheeler coz im not old enough to drive yet,and when im going as fast as it will go(which is like 35 mph) i think what if the bearing ceases?....and then think "what the hell its just 35mph...ill get away with a few scratches"
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and to think im doing that while my dad drives his supercharged xfr....boohoo!
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It's completely natural to feel that. I've had some relative misfortune from a few of my cars. I've had many flats while at speed (over 100km/h). I've had the whole rear rim and tyre come off my car at 60, and possibly the most unnerving experience was when I was doing 120km/h and the rear cross member of my old Honda Civic completely broke apart. After each experience it took a while just to feel confident enough to drive at any sort of speed. Driving with the radio on was out of the question as I strained to hear every noise as a sign of impending catastrophe. It's always back there in your mind, but I still drive...
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Oh yeah. Irrational worries are my speciality. I find myself doing the whole ?what if? thing far too often. It?s annoying but I?m glad I?m not alone. xxx
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I sleep with a bayonet, so this isn't too much of a problem for me. As for things breaking down, well, either they will or they won't.
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i restored a 1958 bsa super rocket and am always thinking what could go wrong when riding it but it has never let me down and has took me to europe and back numerous times
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Yes, I do this. However, I usually end up asking myself, while driving on a highway at 70 mph, "What would happen if I suddenly yanked the key out of the ignition?" or "What would happen if I suddenly pulled the parking brake?" Scenario 1 is, I believe, not possible, but the thought has occurred to me nonetheless.
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TOC, TOC!!! happens to me all the time!! But I guess it is perfectly normal for a doctor-engineer to think and rethink everything that may go wrong.
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Open Car Bar
Seb123 commented on this article
02 November 2009
Have you ever answered those questions to yourself? What if a wheel comes off? what if the brakes don't work? The worst possible thing that can happen to you is that you'll die..which we all will some day. I'd rather suddenly die in a crash in a vehicle that I love than pay 20p to a doctor that will tell me I've got about 22 days to live in painful suffering before they burry me six feeth under.
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