Now stop that. This is all far too silly

A large number of complaints have been flooding in from oop North (thanks Morag) and down Souf (much appreciated Mr. B) that the artist formerly known as Phantom has been, well, how can I put this, a bit sensible lately. And for that I must apologise. To be fair, try applying skin whitener and leaving it on overnight.

What with tragedies, late night delivery runs (a 500km / 310 mile round trip last night) desert recoveries, badly broken cars, incorrect parts et cetera, et cetera, I have to be honest and say my funny bone has been badly bruised for the last couple of evenings. But fear not, lovers of Phantom Philosophy, for tonight, "I be back".

To err is human, to Aaaarrrrr is pirate.

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to begin. When you read you begin with A-B-C, when you rally you begin with 200 right 4 flat into left 2 tightens over crest Caution! Don't cut. And thus the prologue began, as evidenced by these here photos wot was taken by my talented assistant Mr. Ansell. Quite what his talent is, other than making flatulence impressions under his armpit, nobody knows, but he's claiming it anyway. As usual there was a gale blowing, causing endless misery for the spectators and indeed, for the spectres (we Phantoms notice these things.) But Ian drove steeringly, Sheila co-drove navigatorily, and thus the car went from one end of the Special Stage to the other faster than some of the cars and slower than some of the others. What's important is that they competed, and everyone got a rosette, regardless of how fast they drove.

RUBBISH! What's important is going faster than your competitors, embarrassing and belittling them and kicking sand in their face. And thus, the politically incorrect fairytale of Newtrix Racing blasted on to Day One. Which is the second day of the competitive part of the rally. Are you following? Well you would be if you were slower than Ian & Sheila.

Following the prologue the dynamic duo were interviewed by Larry King and Angela Rippon. Actually that's not true but I don't know the name of their interviewer so Larry King will have to do. What was quite hilarious was watching a cameraman who stood about 5' 3" tall, raising the tripod sufficiently to interview 6' 4" Ian. Take a look at the photo. I have no idea if Ian was even in the camera shot because frankly, neither had the cameraman or sound engineer. (If you describe yourself as a 'sound engineer' are you bragging, or understating your potential?)

Anyway, I digest.

So Day One  (the second day) consisted of Ian driving fast, Sheila telling him to slow down a bit, Ian ignoring those particular instructions, other people's cars breaking down, "Richy Ricky Kate" sitting around counting their toenails (Kate helped Ricky with the big numbers) and PB in the office scratching his elbow. At least I think it was his elbow. The Dogs finished, Richy Ricky had too much to drink, Kate and I had a late night rendezvous (woo hoo, see "Was That It?" magazine for details) and a lot of people snored.

On Day Two (which is Day Three) Ian decided to put in his application for the Australian Rally a few months and several degrees of latitude too early. Had he started out the day inverted, things might have had a softer ending. But you know how that story goes, so where did we leave the story last night. Oh yes.....

As I left the bivvy at around late o'clock, Sheila was looking for a man. Not just any man, but an FIA inspector, who all simply love being woken up and dragged out of their warm beds to be shown a badly bent car and asked 'is it OK if we race this tomorrow?". Clearly said FIA man was disinclined to accede to this request and went back to bed to count rule changes, but come the morning a different gentleman, the slightly more awake  Mr. very very nice Lionel (yes, he's a nice, helpful, charming and ever so nice Frenchman. I know. But he is named after Richard the LionelHeart so perhaps he is really English but has a funny accent.) said "bert off cours you can race mon leetle Cherie, juust straighten ze bodywork and she weel be as right as pleut". I told you he had a funny accent. But he is nice.

So while Sheila made the nice Mr. Lionel a soup bowl of onion and snail flavoured black coffee, Kate fluttered her eyelashes at him and buttered his baguette (you know what those French, possibly English guys are like in the morning) Ian dashed into town to buy some brake lights, because the old ones were completely braked, Richard "I've got a tool for that crushed bodywork I 'ave" Bailey and Rick "I may not be much help but I'm a bloody good shot so don't argue with me" Carless started hitting things very hard with large hammers, and I had a lie in.(Well it was a VERY tiring drive!) By lunchtime, Lionel had finally finished his cup of coffee (OK, so he is French) Kate's eyelids were exhausted and Sheila was topping up her tan. Ian was telling rude jokes to the medical staff (they'd heard them all before but morphine is wonderful stuff when you've got a tough crowd) Richard "nothing flusters me I'll just make a new roof out of this baked bean tin and some duct tape" Bailey was still hitting things and Rick "Are we there yet" Carless was shouting bad words at the pigeons. So just another day in the bivvy then.

By 7pm the car was sorted, Lionel was 'appy' (thanks for the morphine Sean), Ian and Sheila were besides themselves with Joy. Joy was besides Ian and Sheila, Richy Rick was knackered and so was the engine. Oh yes. The engine. Bad news. It knocks like an Emirates hostesses headboard, despite having access to far more lubricant. So after all that hard work, it appears that excrement may have struck the rotary airflow displacement device with considerable velocity. All indications are that 'it's reet buggered' as Rick would say, if only he'd stop eating for 5 minutes. And you know when people are using indications in the UAE, something's seriously wrong. Nobody uses their indications.

So that's that. I'm awaiting more news from t'bivvy but there's trouble at t'mill. And on that bombshell, here's a joke.

A grasshopper walks into a bar, jumps up onto a bar stool and asks the barman for a pint.

"Blimey" says the barman, "why order a pint when we've got drink named after you?"

The grasshopper looks at him quizzically and says "Seriously, you've got a drink called Graham?"


And on that note, I'll get my coat. Aaaarrrrr.