Martyn Moore, journalist

Screens replace print? Can't see it myself

2010-05-11T09:55:00.002+01:00

AT risk of sounding old fashioned, again, I struggle to imagine a time when screens completely replace print. I'm not saying it won't happen, just that I struggle to imagine it.

I had no trouble imagining a time when robots would ring me up during the day and offer to upgrade my Sky package. I look at Terminal Five or the amazing big TV screens around King's Cross and think, "yes, this is what the future was supposed to be like". Bladerunner, that's what it's like.

But my much-predicted "paperless office" is piled high with the stuff and I get some comfort from that. I spend about ten hours a day looking at a screen, so when I move into the other room, put on a table lamp and relax with The Word magazine or a Peter Robinson paperback, my eyes literally pour out their gratitude.

There are whole swathes of the population that seldom see a screen. I've worked in a factory with people who have little contact with and no interest in computers. I know people in Yorkshire who laugh at the internet. They are amused, not bemused, by it and lead culturally-rich, rewarding lives without it.

Sometimes I think we live in an iPad, iPod, Blackberry bubble that's not as big as we think it is.

Not sure if I've told this story elsewhere or not, but at Christmas time, my 12-year-old daughter finished poring over the festive edition of the Radio Times and announced, "Dad, this magazine is brilliant. They should bring it out every week. I'd read it."

And she does, paying for it most weeks out of her pocket money. She wouldn't consider paying for anything online, though. Her iPhone apps go on my account.

Today's most meaningless headline

2010-04-15T13:01:00.000+01:00

THIS could be the start of an occasional series, the most meaningless headline on an emailed press release. Today's contender:

"TENBAC GOES LIVE WITH NBIS FROM HICOM"

Must mean something to somebody, I suppose...

What happened to EvaEva? Could it happen to you?

2009-12-30T10:53:00.002Z

PEOPLE in one of my LinkedIn groups recently received a message from a member called EvaEva.

EvaEva (left) is a musician and artist living in Brooklyn (click here to see her website). She has used social networking very efficiently to promote herself and her work.

A couple of months ago, she says, she was thrown off LinkedIn. She says the site accused her of inviting too many people to her network who then said they did not know her. I assumed connecting with people you don't know is an important aspect of networking, but maybe I'm wrong.

EvaEva's suspension from LinkedIn got me thinking about the number of entrepreneurs and small businesses that are growing to rely on online social networking tools. I have picked up work via these websites and I'm sure that some media/tech/sales operators would not exist and could not survive without them.

So, how are we viewing the terms and conditions of membership? Do we care that LinkedIn can withdraw its services at any time, without having to give a detailed reason? That, of course, is LinkedIn's prerogative. It has to protect itself from misuse or abuse of its services.

I sent a message to LinkedIn on behalf of EvaEva. I asked the site to give me its side of the story as I prepared a newspaper article on the businesses and individuals that rely on social networking sites. As I write this, LinkedIn hasn't replied to me but (and here's the good news) EvaEva's profile has been re-instated. I've asked her to tell me how it all worked out.

In the meantime, if you are totally dependent on this kind of media, I'd love to hear from you.

The corporate dilemma

2009-12-03T11:52:00.003Z

I HAVE two very lovely clients (actually, I've got more than two but I'm only referring to two of them today).

One wants me to run its blog, Twitter for it and explore the possibilities of LinkedIn and Facebook. Great. Sounds like a lot of fun work, and the client pays well.

A second client is not so keen on social media. This doesn't matter to me so much because my work there is different. But it leads to some interesting conversations. Client two has read a survey that says 87% of Twitter content is described as "shite".

Client one wants my Tweets to be firmly in the 13% said to be interesting and useful. Looking at the types of followers we have attracted and my client's core business, that should be fairly straightforward. And 13% suggests to me that a lot of Twitter traffic is interesting and useful. If the journalist's role is under threat, maybe the editor can find more work than ever.

Client two was telling me last week about the growing number of companies that ban ALL their employees from ANY activity on social networking sites at work AND AT HOME. This follows a number of high-profile cases where individuals have made negative comments about their employers.

You don't have to look far for the low-profile cases where individuals describe long, tedious, stressful, miserable work. Even counting down the hours to Friday afternoon could be interpreted by an employer as negative.

From my point of view, the companies frightened of Facebook might be better off addressing the stress, tedium and misery first.

More than half of companies (54%) already ban Facebook in the office and some are now starting to write "no social media" clauses into their employees' contracts. If you're caught on Facebook, at work or at home, you're out.

What do we think of that?

STOP PRESS (we must keep these terms alive!) This was just sent to me. It's apparently a screengrab of a Facebook post, said to have been written by the daughter of ousted General Motors boss Fritz Henderson. Can a Facebook ban be extended to forthright family members?

Great response from the council

2009-11-18T16:08:00.001Z

ON Monday I suggested a few improvements to Peterborough City Council's website and shamefully didn't expect a reply.
Well just to prove me wrong, they did reply to me the next morning with this excellent response:
"Thank you for your email, this is exactly the kind of feedback we were hoping for and I wanted to take the time to write back to you personally, to thank you and to explain what we will be doing with your comments. I hope you will find this helpful.
I will be taking these suggestions forward with feedback we have received from others to see how we can best move forward. Ours is a movable and continuously developing site so all suggestions are welcome and will be considered as the site develops.
I really like your suggestion regarding comments, complaints and compliments so I will be looking to change this as soon as possible. I will call our customer service centre today to see what we can do.
I will take forward your other ideas as mentioned and I will share them with the rest of the marketing team.
Thank you again for taking the time to be so constructive.
Warmest wishes
Kathleen McGrath

Marketing Manager

Peterborough City Council"

Thank YOU Kathleen!

Interfering with the council's business

2009-11-16T20:37:00.006Z

IT'S not like I'm short of work at the moment. In fact, I'm blessed with a bulging order book. But sometimes I just can't help myself.

Today was set aside to research the photographic industry and I was seized by the greatest risk of online research – random curious clicking – by 09:15. My first cup of coffee was still warm and already I'd lost my focus.

The amble through hyperlinks that led me to the Peterborough City Council website is too tedious to describe here, but that's where I ended up.

I was greeted by a new layout and an appeal for feedback.

The short email I composed, with bullet point suggestions, became a stripping down, literally, followed by a reassembly of the homepage. The whole message, together with screengrabs follows.

How long before they write back to tell me to get knotted?

"Hi there City Council

I hope you don't think this is cheeky, but I have taken the liberty of redesigning the homepage using only elements that are already there. You did ask for comments, and I think you got it nearly right.

My suggestions finish it off for you and I hope you will consider taking them on board.

This commentary goes with the attached image.

1. Make better use of the space at the top of the page by compressing the masthead and then arranging the text above and below the green swirl.

2. Get rid of the welcome message and then re-arrange the elements in its place, as per the example.

3. Get rid of the Did you know? vote until you can come up with a meaningful poll.

4. Replace 'Features' with 'news' and put it at the top. Link it to news from the press office and put a comments facility on each message - have a conversation with your citizens! (Pay me to monitor and moderate the comments.)

5. Get rid of the building shapes from the 'Do it online' panel to avoid repetition with the page footer. Make it a plain tint (don't have time to do it in the example, but you know what I mean).

6. Finally, in the comments, compliments and complaints section, the department and the email address both use the word 'complain'. People don't need that kind of encouragement, put more emphasis on compliments and comments by using a better word or phrase: 'feedback' or 'howarewedoing' or 'helpusimprove' or 'makeitbetter' are all more positive than 'complain'.

Hope you like the ideas. They're all free!"

Original site (click to see full size version):

My ideas (click to enlarge):

No good for Bike, but still worth a read?

2009-08-26T14:37:00.011+01:00

THIS is a strange one.

Back in March Bike magazine asked me to write one of its regular 'On Any Sunday' features. It wanted me to report on life on Westgate Road, better known to Newcastle motorcyclists as "The Hill".

During my research I discovered that most of the motorcycle shops on Westgate Road are closed on Sundays, not ideal for a feature called On Any Sunday. Undaunted, I rescheduled for a Saturday and headed for Newcastle.

Spring had not yet reached the north-east and this particular Saturday, March the 28th was very cold and very wet. In fact, there was also sleet.

Westgate Road was all but deserted but inside the various shops I received a succession of warm welcomes from diehards of the Hill, all keen to tell me what a shitty day I'd chosen for my visit.

I did my best with the story, but there was no saving the bleak photos of an empty road. The magazine apologised and told me the feature wouldn't be published. The editor, a fine, honourable man, paid me my expenses and a "kill fee".

Having sat on it for five months, I've decided to post the article as a blog entry. I don't like to see work go to waste. Somebody might find it interesting...

[COPY STARTS]

On any Sunday*

*you might consider changing to Saturday, it’s all shut on Sundays

Westgate Road, Newcastle

BIKE SHOPS HAVE LINED ‘THE HILL’ FOR HALF A CENTURY AND TWO NEW ONES HAVE OPENED THIS YEAR

WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARTYN MOORE

THERE'S a wind of change blowing down Westgate Road in Newcastle, and on the first Saturday of spring it’s bitter, blowing hail and sleet off the North Sea.

That wind catches the rasp of a race can as a mechanic brings a bike round from Armstrong’s workshop to the front of the shop. It’s the only moving motorcycle along the famous half-mile of ‘Wesgit Hill’, the greatest concentration of motorcycle shops in the north-east.

To the north is open land prepared for development. The Tyne Brewery brewed its last bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale here in 2005 and whatever replaces it will impact the residents and tenants of ‘The Hill’. Modernised houses and flats on the north side of the road contrast sharply with some of the scruffier bike shops.

The big dealership on The Hill is M&S and, bizarrely, each franchise has its own premises. You have to wonder if this makes financial sense, with several sets of rates and utility bills to pay, although with the Honda concession about to open opposite the Suzuki shop, M&S seems committed to The Hill.

But it’s the independents that give The Hill its character, like Classic Motorcycles in the former cinema. A stained glass MGM lion still adorns the dusty shop window, a Vincent engine sits on the counter and stuffed bird looks down from a cupboard. Owner Grahame Craggs gets letters from the council.

“They tell me about new workshops with low rent and rates on an industrial estate. They don’t want the new development looking down of the backs of grotty places like this,” he says.

But it’s not grotty, and putting Classic Motorcycles in a ‘unit’ would be like brewing Newcastle Brown Ale in Gateshead. Oh dear, bad analogy.

Back on the street a small group stands at the window of O’Neil’s newsagents, looking at postcard adverts for used bikes. Next door, the steamy second-hand shop window is full of bike boots, helmets and electric guitars. A couple in matching Dianese jackets, collars up and leaning into the gale, don’t want to stop to chat or have their photos taken. Who can blame them? Today, the only chatting is indoors, over a mug of hot tea at Joe Joe’s bike breakers.

“You should have been here last week, man,” says Joe Burns – information that will be given, word-for-word, a dozen times more today. “The street was packed on both sides. One lad pops a wheelie right up the hill with a squad car comin’ the other way. By the time they got turned round he was probably in South Shields.”

You’ll hear this banter in bike shops everywhere, but along Westgate Road it has permeated the walls like the smell of oil and tyres. Incidentally, these men shouldn’t have to go outside to smoke a roll-up. Not today or any day.

“The heyday was in the 80s,” remembers Joe. “The crowds parted like the Red Sea to let bikes go up, often on the back wheel. They’d let buses up, too, but it wasn’t a street for cars.”

Today a CCTV camera sits at the top of the hill with a clear view down to the Opera House. There’s nothing to catch today.

“Some of the lads rigged flip-up numberplates just like James Bond,” Joe says. “They’d run a cable to a choke lever and when they wanted to have a bit of fun, they’d pull the lever and the ’plate would flip up out of sight.”

Lunch arrives from the chip shop as a customer hands over the cash for a header tank and comes up short. “Drop it in next time you’re passin’,” he’s told. And you know he will.

The diversity of the shops means there’s no rivalry. If a trader can’t help you, he’ll send you to someone on The Hill who probably can. Would he be as quick to send you to an industrial unit on the edge of town?

Go to Westgate Road on any Saturday and help preserve part of the north-east’s motorcycling heritage. Don’t go on Sunday though, that’s when the crew on The Hill will be riding their bikes.

For more information go to www.westgatehill.com. Special thanks to Jack Armstrong of Armstong’s and Carl at Custom Lids.

[689 words]

Panel, extended caption 1 (use with pics 035, 038, 039, 040 or 041)

After more than 40 years on The Hill, Joe Burns’s enthusiasm for it is undiminished. He started out in 1966 polishing bikes at Ken Robinson’s – one of the Hill originals – and worked in several of the shops before starting up on his own. He’s proud of his Aladdin’s cave of used spares and edging up some narrow stairs he recalls a letter he got from an old woman in New Zealand who was born on those steps and lived most of her young life in the former flat. What she’d think of the racks of carefully labelled top yokes that have replaced her bedside cabinet is anybody’s guess, but she would surely be impressed by Joe’s idea to sell spare wheels to track day enthusiasts. “Getting a tyre changed at a track day can be expensive and time-consuming,” he says. “I’ll sell you a spare wheel for £50 and you can put your wet weather tyre on that.”

Panel, extended caption 2 (use with pic 047)

New businesses are moving into Westgate Road. The Trading Post has been open since January and is doing good business being the only shop on The Hill catering just for cruisers. The Harleys and Aspencades bring more variety (on a warmer day) to the ‘solo motorcycles only’ parking that lines the street.

From the left, this is: Maria, Carole, Maurice and Joe.

Maurice Savage is the director, he’s also a skilled saddler so the shop provides an outlet for his leathercraft. “We’ve got off to a good start,” he says. “Our affiliation to various clubs and support of events in the region is a big help.”

Panel, extended caption 3 (use with pic 016)

Sounding a lot and looking a bit like ‘the cast of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet meets the Likely Lads out for a blast’, the NE Road Bandits MCC are five of the very few riders braving the bitterly cold weather. From the left, Keith, Ray, John, Ian and Kevin are from “out of town” and here to see what’s going on. Not much, fellas. They were keen to promote their Easter Sunday ride-out to the Washington Wetlands bikemeet via Whitby on April 12. We hope it went well, guys.

[COPY ENDS]

Comparing the comparison sites

2009-06-08T08:55:00.005+01:00

TAKE the time and effort out of buying car insurance, that's what they promise to do. But if my experience last evening is anything to go by, they don't work very well.

I needed to insure my two-year-old Saab 93 - fully comprehensive, business use, me and wife to drive less than 10,000 miles a year.

I hit the price comparison sites: comparethemarket, confused, moneysupermarket and Tescocompare. Quotes ranged from £490 to £2,400.

Disappointingly, Kwik-Fit, who had recently insured my motorcycle for an astonishingly low premium, either didn't want to quote or were far from the cheapest, depending on which comparison site I was looking at.

With just enough time to fill in the quote form for the fifth time before the final of The Apprentice, I decided to try Kwik-Fit's own site. Every detail was added in an identical fashion: the driving experience, the lack of no claims bonus, the unfortunate speeding points.

Yet when the machine presented my quote it was just £356! Delighted, I paid, pronto.

What does this say about price comparison sites? None of them saved me any money.

I wonder what I would have got if I'd taken the cheapest quote from the comparators and then gone direct to that insurer? Oh yes, and the insurance I bought through Kwik-Fit was provided by Provident.

Confused.com? Very.

Is it me?

2009-06-06T21:58:00.005+01:00

I WENT into the O2 shop in Peterborough today for some mobile phone advice. I have an O2 phone.

I was shown to a chair at a table where I was joined by a casually-dressed assistant who listened to my problem.

His advice?

Call 202 from my handset and speak to a "human". He actually said that; advised me, while sitting across a table from him, to call for help from a human.

And do you know what's even more stupid than that? As I got up and left, I said "thank you".

Things I learned while unemployed:

2009-05-08T20:32:00.005+01:00

£64.30 a week can go quite a long way.

All the people that work at Job Centre Plus seem really nice.

Most of the people that use Job Centre Plus seem really nice.

The dozens of security people at Job Centre Plus are there for the ones who aren't nice.

There is a queue outside the pub before it opens at 9am.

Some of that queue will meet the security people at Job Centre Plus later.

Listening to nearly 100 Word Magazine podcasts in two months messes up your head.

£1.50 bus fares add up.

Dogs aren't great conversationalists.

A clean shirt can last all week (if I put a clean t-shirt on underneath it every day).

Too much refreshing tea is counter-productive.

Only one person in the tech support department of my web hosting company knows what he's talking about and it sometimes takes seven calls to get him.

3pm comes round quickly.

My wife does all the shopping for about £100 most weeks and we don't run out of anything.

When I did the shopping it cost £180 and we ran out of bread, milk and eggs by Wednesday. We're still OK for beer, though.

Start as you mean to go on

2009-02-14T10:52:00.004Z

TODAY was supposed to have been the first day for 21 years that I woke up without a job.

It wasn’t. Paperwork needed amending right up until last evening, so it didn’t get signed on Friday the 13th (I’m not superstitious. I avoid ladders only because things tend to fall off them), so I remain employed until Monday the 16th. At least I keep a car for the weekend.

I don’t need to worry about money, and for the first time in years I have plenty of that most valuable commodity of all - time.

So why do I have this restlessness feeling?

I get up between 6.30 and 7am every day, including weekends. Today it’s the same. I make breakfast, turn on the computer, take out my filofax and start to make lists: people to contact, software to find, a new design for Peterborough Business, equipment to buy. "This is good", I’m thinking. "Straight down to business. Start as you mean to go on."

I scribble and think, scribble and think for, oh, maybe 15 minutes. Then I look across at my guitar...

Oi! Fergie! Shut your mouth!

2009-01-19T22:37:00.002Z

OF all the things my mum would instill into me, none was enforced stronger than chewing politely.

"We don't want to see what's going on in there," she'd say. "Keep your mouth closed when you chew."

Forty years later, I'm using it to judge your character. If you chew with your mouth open I'm going to think that maybe you're a bit common, lacking in manners and, perhaps, have other unpleasant habits.

The most public open-mouthed chewer is Sir Alex Ferguson (left), one of the greatest football managers of our time. If you were to ask my mum what she thinks of his game strategy her analysis would be incisive: "I wish he'd keep his mouth closed when he chews."

Jaguar bail-out? Not again.

2008-12-18T19:14:00.000Z

THE UK government seems to be considering a cash bail-out for car makers Jaguar and Land-Rover.

These are the brands that were only recently bought by the Indian conglomerate Tata. Other parts of the Tata empire seem to be doing OK, financially. In fact, the company has just announced it can afford to throw money into the sponsorship of the Ferrari F1 racing team next year.

Personally, I'd be angry if some of the tax I pay is used to subsidise Jaguar/Tata. And I drive a Jaguar. It was built in 1972, though, when Jaguar was part of British Leyland and my parents' income tax subsidised cars like this:

(Nice, though, isn't it?)

Ban it, then we'll all have a look

2008-12-08T23:15:00.000Z

UP until early this morning I don't think I had ever seen the picture on the album cover of Virgin Killers by the Scorpions.

Then I heard on the radio that a number of British internet service providers have banned access to a copy of the image apprearing on Wikipedia. The censors had decided that the image amounted to some kind of child pornography and were denying their customers access to pages on the online reference site.

Curious to know what all the fuss was about I typed "Scorpions album cover" into Google Image search and got three hits. Adding the album name produced dozens more.

I've decided not to include a copy of the image here, but it would be easy enough. I don't think the picture is pornographic – it's not likely to corrupt or deprave anybody, in my opinion – but it is an uncomfortable photograph to look at. It's certainly provocative and I think it's distasteful. But I don't think it should be banned.

So what has been achieved by cutting off subscribers' access to Wikipedia? Not much, really. Apart from thousands of curious people like me who have clicked on links like the one above, just to see what all the fuss was about. Like you did.

In fact, more people will see the image as a result of the censorship and the Scorpions will get a nice boost in album sales in the run up to Christmas.

I can't keep this a secret any longer

2008-11-08T00:07:00.006Z

Confession time. I'm turning into a geek.

I've always been a bit obsessive about computers. Years ago I got a lovely new Toshiba Tecra laptop computer (left): nippy little 366MHz Pentium II processor and a whopping (for 1998) 6GB hard drive.

I remember once becoming so obsessed about a tiny little 50kb file, that I knew was redundant after uninstalling some software, that I sat up all night trying to work out how to delete it. That kind of behaviour falls in the same category as washing your hands too much and believing someone will die if you don't see a blue car in the next 30 seconds.

For a few years real life re-asserted itself and I have enjoyed stress-free relationships with Windows XP desktops and a smart titanium AppleMac PowerBook G4.

But earlier this year I started a personal online project and decided it would be quite nice to run the whole thing from the PowerBook. So I set about stripping out all the software I didn't want and cleaning up the hard disc to create lots of space for my project files. Aware of the PowerBook's classic status, I started to seek-out lightweight, fast-running applications to get the most from its 800-ish MHz processor.

I also started thinking about 'cloud' computing, where files are stored and programs are run on somebody else's computers on the internet.

I only properly broke the PowerBook once, trying to stop it displaying my employer's logo at startup, I managed to erase all the really important startup files, too. Fortunately, my employer's IT staff work occasional Sundays and respond well to cases of beer.

With the Apple as juicy as I was ever going to get it, I left it alone for a few weeks. The project was going well. Very well, now I wasn't spending so much time fettling the laptop. I needed to tinker again and remembered the lovely old Tosh in the garage. And that annoying 50kb file...

The Windows 2000 Pro operating system took about 15 minutes to boot up and I slowly checked to make sure I had copied all the important data onto the family desktop before abandoning the Tosh in the garage. I like the deep sound the keys make. Laptop keyboards don't sound or feel like this anymore.

Over at the 'big' computer in the study, I started a bit of research. I'd heard a bit about a free computer operating system called Linux and how it can breathe new life into old, low-spec computers. Googling led me to something called Puppy Linux and what I learned from its website left me so excited I could hardly speak.

The Linux community is extremely helpful when it comes to things like removing Microsoft Windows from computers and within half an hour I was loading a CD burned with DBAN NUKE into the Tosh, holding down the 'C' key and watching it wipe the hard disk in a manner acceptable to the US security services (it says on the website). It took all night and although I did go to bed, I didn't sleep well. I had finally deleted that 50kb file that drove me crazy in 1998.

At work the next day, I kept sneaking a peep at the Puppy website and printed a sheaf of installation instructions. At 5.30 I rushed home more eager than I ever did from school and burned a Linux Puppy installation CD on the family desktop.

Bursting now, with excitement, I put the disc into the Tosh, pressed the power button, held 'C' and my breath. Everything worked exactly as the website said it would, even the old Belkin wireless network card in the PCMCIA slot. What's more, it works like greased lightning, booting up in less than a minute and skipping from app to app and task to task like a brand new computer.

I've experimented with browsers and keep coming back to Firefox. I'm learning to edit images with GIMP. It's all too much fun. And free! I don't ever remember enjoying a new computer as much as this.

There is one small problem. After uninstalling one of the unsatisfactory web browsers I noticed a small file had been left behind in the system that I can't seem to delete. It's not very big, as a matter of fact it's about 50kb...

After the tone...

2008-10-29T06:26:00.001Z

THE Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand ‘scandal’ has prompted me to revive this long-dormant blog.

First, let me declare my interest. Russell Brand makes me laugh, although he can sometimes be a bit over the top, and I enjoy Jonathan Ross on both TV and radio. I worked with him on an awards presentation many years ago, that he has almost certainly forgotten, but he seemed a really nice bloke.

Now let me declare my position. I am a journalist, editor and occasional radio broadcaster and if I did anything like this in any of these roles, I would probably be sacked. If, as a member of the general public, I left offensive messages on someone’s answering machine and that person made a formal complaint, I would expect a visit from the police.

Messers Brand and Ross are no different, despite their professions and irreverent personalities.

Where the situation does differ is that Mr Brand and Mr Ross were being paid by the taxpayer at the time of their indiscretion, so are deemed fair game by anyone with an opinion, an axe to grind or something to gain from whooping up the hysteria.

Just look at the timeline of events.

The whole thing kicked-off with a phone call from a journalist on a Sunday newspaper to the agent of an actor I haven’t seen on TV for a while.

A couple of days later the papers are filled with photos and stories about a sporty-looking girl (left) who seems to want to be a performer, but who last week virtually nobody had ever heard of.

There’s always a queue of people ready to lay into the BBC because they’re uncomfortable with its influence and power (compared to their own?). Although I think Gordon Brown should keep out of this little row and concentrate on his, rather bigger, challenges.

And of course there are the books to be sold in the run up to Christmas. Click here to be reminded of the ironic title Jonathan Ross has given his autobiography.

Orbital Outlaws

1998-07-20T17:02:00.000+01:00

Night races around the M25 really happen. Martyn Moore talks to the men who play dark, dangerous games

01707 646963.
It's a payphone at South Mimms services, where the A1 meets the M25. We'd been told to ring it at 9pm every night for a week and let it ring 15 times. On Wednesday it was answered on the eighth ring and a man's voice gave another number. We didn't know where that phone was but it was answered immediately by 'Chad'. That's what he said we could call him.
  Chad has a Porsche 911 with twin turbos and a radar detector. He also has some very serious friends. They race around the M25 for kicks and the occasional side bet - a couple of hundred at a time, nothing heavy.
  Rumours of racing on the 117-mile London orbital have been circulating faster than the traffic since the motorway was finished in 1986 and we've poked around for evidence of the lap record for years.
  Our call to Chad was the result of a series of messages passed through an acquaintance of a former Met copper. Friend of a friend of the filth, Chad would say.
  He described his work as 'pharmaceuticals distribution' and his friends, including ex-smokey bacon, play various roles in his organisation. 'You don't want to know about my business,' Chad told us. In four clandestine phone calls that's all we got.
  Most of the time Chad wanted to talk about cars and high-speed circumnavigation of the capital. He explained how the M25 allowed entrepreneurs like him to extend their manor, or work someone else's, and move around very quickly. 'There are 30 junctions on the M25,' said Chad. 'Each one represents potential customers.'
  He really wanted to tell us about the cars. Six cars make up his posse: the 911, a Nissan Skyline, an Escort Cosworth, a Sapphire 4x4, a 5-series BMW and a big old Rover Vitesse. Stealth is important so none of the cars is anything to look at; rasping intakes and exhausts are out.
  But each car has a £500 Valentine radar detector, hands-free mobile phone and an ICE install to die for. The ICE plays host to the outlaws' adopted band, Orbital. It's a bit obvious, naff even, the way Chad latched onto the trippy techno music for the name of the band. Now dreamy dance albums like Snivilisation and In Sides are the soundtrack to his antics on the M25.
  'We all wear Orbital stuff,' Chad revealed near the end of our first phone call. 'A T-shirt or maybe a small badge. And all the cars have a little Orbital sticker tucked away somewhere.' Hmm.
  We spent a week scrutinising Porkers, Cossies, Beemers, Skylines and old Rovers for Orbital logos. We didn't see any.

Second thoughts

Chad said he wanted to talk to Max Power but he also wanted to play games. The South Mimms payphone wasn't answered until Friday on the second week. The anonymous voice gave another London number where Chad kept it short. 'I've had a busy week and one of the lads had a problem with his motor,' he said. 'I like the magazine but I'm not sure if I want to get into this now. Give me a couple of weeks.'
  Two weeks later, when we'd decided Chad was a bit of a wanker, he phoned us. 'Let's talk about the racing,' he prompted.
  Okay, Chad. Let's. We asked him about his lap record.
  'You're having a laugh, mate,' he said. 'If you tried to race all the way round you'd never get off the road. They'd have all the exits sealed tighter than a camel's arse in a sandstorm. I might be a little bit crazy but I'm not that fuckin' crazy!'
  We were pissed off. We'd waited a long time for this conversation and we'd been drawn into Chad's web of intrigue. If he sensed our disappointment he didn't show it and kicked off with an account of their first ever race.
  'It all started as a bit of a laugh,' he began. 'When we're moving a lot of gear around we always send a couple of cars ahead to check out the route.
  'We keep in touch by phone and we've invented this kind of code language for warning each other about unusual situations - anything dodgy like police and familiar motors. Like rival ice cream vans keep an eye out for each other - avoid confrontations and that - we do the same... and we know a lot about our competition.
  'It gets a bit fuckin' edgy sometimes and one night we'd had to get out of Romford fast. The Skyline up on the motorway told us there was a pig snoozing above the shoulder up ahead so we had to stay cool.
  'I was bricking it 'cos I was sure we'd been followed so I floored it. Sometimes the cops are the least of our worries and we'd just finished our last delivery so we were clean.
  'Anyway, we were making ground on the front look-out and he was staying cool 'cos of the cop. But he knew I'd kick his fuckin' arse if he didn't wind it up a bit and suddenly I was on him. We'd left the cop asleep so my mate in the Skyline pulls ahead and the next thing you know is we've got a 911 and Skyline pushing 140 talking to each other on the blower!
  'We laughed like fuck, man. It was all the tension from the drop and that.'
  We were shocked by this irresponsible behaviour and no mistake. So does he make a habit of it now, we asked.
  'It's a release, a bit of a laugh,' explained Chad. 'And you've got to understand we're on the fuckin' top of our game. We don't miss a fuckin' thing and the cars are sorted - okay, the Rover's a bit rough but it's sound.
  'We go out to play every night after work and now it nearly always results in a dice. The bets are just a sideline thing, a couple of the boys try to boost a night's earnings and every now and then we let the Rover win. We're just letting out a bit of pressure, you know, but it's not like some spotty little twats in clapped-out hatches tearing past fuckin' Burger King.'
  Steady on Chad, those are our mates you're dissin'. You're making what you do sound acceptable, we suggested.
  'It is acceptable,' he maintained. 'The filth wouldn't agree but we've never been pulled.'
  Never?
  'Never. There was one night we was lucky. The quietest stretch is heading south from the [Dartford] bridge and me and the lad in the 5-series were moving stuff down to Weybridge - he had the gear. The Escort was looking out for us up ahead and the Rover was behind.
  'A Volvo patrol car swooped up from Swanley and tucked in in front of the Rover. He was moving fast and would have been on us if I hadn't gunned it. We saw his blue lights come on just too late to make the Farnborough turn-off.
  'Man, I was pumped and the twin turbos were really singing, but I stuck behind the Beemer all the way to the Sevenoaks interchange - where it feels like you come off the M25 to stay on it.
  'The BM went straight on and down into Sevenoaks, disappearing into town like we'd agreed. I took the pig with me, getting too close for comfort, and made that sharp curve on the slip road on the fuckin' limit, man. The back was well out of shape and I don't mind admittin' I'd broken a sweat.
  'Once I was back on the main carriageway I wound it round to 150. Everything snapped sharp: lights, the music, I could feel the road through my arms. Adrenalin's the only fuckin' drug you need and that's rich coming from me, pal.
  'There was no sign of the cop so I flew into Clackett Lane Services and sat tight for an hour. My boy in the Beemer was on his way home and the Rover swept right past and back... saw nothing. Somebody slipped up that night or they were never after us in the first place. Who knows?
  'But it'll happen, probably with the help of that helicopter. In fact I fancy one of those bastards myself one day.'
  Racing on Britain's most famous motorway carries incredible risks. The gang improves its odds with fake plates fixed over the real ones with Velcro strips. Stacked against them is the network of closed-circuit television cameras monitored 24 hours a day by police officers.
  Police will deny any knowledge of a bunch of outlaw drivers nightly flouting the speed limit for a modest wager. They're anxious to see that such behaviour isn't glamourised. Too many impressionable young kids out there might think it's clever.
  But the same law enforcement agencies are making video footage available to sensational TV shows locked in ratings wars.
  The programmes are thinly disguised as warnings with harsh condemnation from a po-faced presenter. Keep watching, and if you ever catch a glimpse of an Orbital sticker on a car or driver in big, big trouble, you'll know he had it coming.

Motorway Madness

* The 117-mile M25 was finished in 1986 at a cost of £1,000,000,000 (thousand million).
* Some sections see 200,000 vehicles a day.
* M25 gritting lorries spread 400 tonnes of salt to rot your motor every winter.
* One old gimmer spent two days circling the M25 looking for his daughter's home. A retired dustman slept in hedges when he too became hopelessly lost.
* Police rescued an elderly woman cycling the wrong way along the outside lane. She was holding her hat on with one hand as oncoming vehicles dodged her.
* A couple spent their wedding night in a coach with honeymoon suite, rocking it from side to side as it whizzed round the M25.

Goodbye Guv'nor

1996-12-13T12:42:00.002Z

Terence Donovan 1936-1996
INTERVIEW BY MARTYN MOORE

When Terence Donovan met me for lunch, a few weeks before he died, he was as happy and as ebullient as ever. The great fashion photographer chose my food for me, ordered me more beer than I needed and took our interview along his preferred route. There was the occasional detour – ramble even – but they were the thoughts and words of a man still obsessed with creating pictures after more than 30 years of doing it.

Terence Donovan was never ordinary and no conversation with him ever could be. He told me he didn't like the way articles portrayed him as a chirpy Cockney, and then he talked like one for two hours. He asked me not to print his swearing, and then turned the air blue. He told me I have lovely teeth. Three times.

Enough has been written about the big guy, the Guv'nor, since he took his own life in November 1996. This was his last interview and so the rest of the words are his:

"I'm interested in illustrating the upbeat things of life, I'm not riveted by the downbeat. I know a lot about the downbeat but it doesn't intrigue me to record it.

"I like the glisten. I know it's irrelevant but it's hopeful, quite harmless, quite cheerful.

"It's a nice time in my life, actually. I'm enjoying it and I'll tell you why: I'm not grinding away like I used to. I don't want to do that. There's a thing in the film industry called Tamar Productions - Take the Money And Run. You think, I'll do that because that'll pay the rent, but then it sticks to you like napalm. I'm quite careful what I get involved with. As a young man, in my diary you'd see four assignments a day. As I got older I learned that in order to do something well, you've got to really want to do it.

"Advertising is getting lazy. You see it, man, all this endless regeneration of old material, '60s music and old American cars going off into the desert. That's not the answer. I'm not saying you should cold-bloodedly set out to be original, and I'm not saying you don't absorb things osmotically, in the aesthetic sense. What I am saying is that you must engage your own brain and I don't think people do it enough.

"There's a lot of difference between an advertising photographer and a photographer. When I used to work for Elle magazine in France, the art director never told me what to do. You had to work it out for yourself. In Paris and there was Helmut Newton in one studio and Guy Bourdin in the other. They're photographers, man. They weren't nicking anything off of anybody. I watched Guy Bourdin and there's no more way I could take a photograph like Guy than fly.

"When I did my 900th interview about that Robert Palmer video Addicted to Love someone asked me where I got the idea from and I said, 'I did something rather odd... I thought of it!' It seems to be a rather old fashioned thing to do.

"I was speaking to The Association of Photographers and I told them to be careful with these digital images because they have a deadness to them. I was looking at an advertisement for a plate of salmon and I realised that there was about nine images joined up there. Well, I remember taking a picture of a plate of salmon for Aer Lingus on a lake in Connimara in the '60s and we just photographed it. And mine was actually a better shot because the background was slightly out of focus. They'd got everything razor sharp and a non-photographer can sense when something's wrong.

"Serious musicians like to hear their music played on LP as opposed to CD. Whoever's in charge of the show upstairs, he's got a wicked sense of humour because as they give it to you, the progress and new ideas, they take something away. You know what I mean?

"You can't stop technology, you don't want to stop technology. But if you get one of these advanced modern cameras and you're photographing a girl in a black suit against a black background you'd better switch everything off and get out the meter and take a reading. If you don't do that, old love, you're snookered because most of those guys that design cameras, one thing they never do is use them.

"I saw the prototype of an East German camera at Photokina years ago and I said, Have you tried to use this? Just wind ten films through it and you'll find your fingers bleeding. They changed the design.

"Amateur photographers have got a problem because they've got no reason to take a picture. They're kind of equipment junkies. When you look at a picture that Cartier-Bresson took on a 50mm...

"When I first started, I thought that if I took enough frames, I'd get a good picture. Photographs are taken with the brain, the camera records it, but it's a meta-physical process because what happens in an image is beyond what you see. And the problem with amateurs is that they're too busy with the technical side. It's the head that makes pictures and the cameras record the thought. You've got to be able to read the images.

"You have to make it look easy when you're photographing people; have a dialogue going. You can't hide behind your camera. When I was 15 I was shy, so I used to make myself go up to people to photograph them. I'd do anything that frightened me. And now I say to young photographers, 'Don't try and sneak pictures on a 100mm lens, get a 35 on and walk up to them.'

"I was taught by hard men, really tough. I was a blockmaker, making printing plates and it taught me the fundamentals of exposure. On any film shoot, in any situation, within reason, I'm never more than a stop out. I can look at anybody's face and say, 1/30 at 2.8. And if I am out, it will be a stop over, which is always the right way to be. And that was all from that training.

"I used to get up at eight o'clock, work in the studio from nine until seven at night, go out and have a bite, come back at nine, develop all the negatives of the day, contact them and go home at 1.30. That's how you learn how to do the job. You know what they say in the SAS, 'Train hard, fight easy'.

"Our society has become soft. You've got to get weaving and not expect society to look after you. I loathed going into the British army but I'm glad I did. There's never been a situation in my life that even got remotely near cracking me. When you've painted half a ton of coal white with a toothbrush and then painted it back black again, you're not too fussed about much.

"Photography is a militaristic operation, you've got to be organised. Most people aren't organised.
"What you've got to understand about Bailey and me is, we were fantastically hard working. Bailey and I never wanted to be successful photographers. That wasn't the plot. We weren't ambitious, ever. We just wanted to do it.
"My first darkroom was a cupboard and I couldn't afford a red light so I used to have a bit of cloth handy and the cloth used to catch fire. But by God I wanted to do it.

"You've got to try hard not to develop the vague notion you might be of some consequence. 'Cos if you manage that, you're free from the tyranny of it. You see that a million times, people that really think they've cracked it and then it comes slamming out of the woodwork at them. Judo teaches you that, some skinny little bloke you think, Oh, he's nothing, and the next thing you're lying on your back. It's much more to do with the philosophy of life than anything to do with photography.

"I've been very interested in religion all my life. I've mixed with the richest people on this planet and I know that real money brings no happiness at all if you're not buzzing.

"Don't do it if you want to be famous. As long as people leave college and they don't want to buy a car out of photography, or don't want to get a flat in Mayfair, if they just want to be photographers... If they have passion and if they have got something to say, they'll make it.

"When you're young, you go on assignment, somebody steams into your pictures and it tears your guts out, you know. And you defend them. I don't defend my work, never again. I hope you like it, I've tried hard. I've tried my best but if you don't like it...

"I've tried to keep my eyes and ears open in my life, be a bit receptive. That's why I go and photograph where all those kids are dancing. It's interesting. Too many people of my age are too locked off. You can look old, but you don't have to be old. Parkinson was 73 but he was not an old man, he was a wild man, sparky.

"Salgado, Irving Penn, Mapplethorpe was a wonderful photographer but probably he was a spectacular marketing job, aided hugely by death, Helmut Newton hasn't lost it.

"It's always been a tough job, Cecil Beaton was a tough old boy, Parkinson was a tough old boy, Eve Arnold's a tough woman. Not a job for somebody light on bottle, I'll tell you, photography. Not when you think of what can go wrong.

"I have the advantage of having a bit of mileage on the clock. You know at the end of the show it comes out fairly alright, otherwise you'd go crackers. If I slashed at my wrists with a razor blade at every image I've had ruined or nicked...

"We're not going to be around for ever and I don't know who will take over from us. I'm sure, as we speak, there is some bloke enrolling at some college in the north-east of England who's going to. Because we'll all go, we'll all be on the great stage in the sky at some point."

Art

"Photography, for me, isn't art. It's specific. You can have things in photographs that are emotive, a crying child by a car crash or something, but that's not the photograph, that's the content that's emotive.

"Because I paint and take photographs, I think photography is a craft because it doesn't attack you. That's why I don't have many exhibitions. I think exhibitions are quite dull, personally. I don't know why. I like photographs. I like looking at them but how many times have you come out of an exhibition and gone Phew!?

"When old Avedon had that exhibition of stuff, you know, 15 foot high prints, well it was just graphics to me, and the weakness of graphics is it's studied. Whereas if you look at a painting by Lucien Freud, skilled as it is, there's a bit of mad vibrancy about it all. Or Bacon, insanity on the paper, but I love it because I don't know where it came from and it mystifies me."

Commitment

"I gave a lecture at a camera club not too long ago and when I'm speaking somewhere at seven o'clock I turn up at six and then disappear. Then I come back at two minutes to seven to start. The place was filled with amateur photographers and I'd never seen a group so enthusiastic. Well, it turned out they'd seen me walk past the hall at six and thought I'd had a look at the place and thought, 'I'm not speaking there' and done a runner. No wonder they were pleased.

"Then few weeks later I was at the Royal College of Art and after I'd studied their work in the morning we had some lunch and then sat down to talk. And then a girl got up and I said, 'Where are you going?' And she said, 'To get coffee.' So I said, 'You've just had lunch.' And then the German next to me said, 'Zis isn't ze military now you know.' And so I said, 'And you can f*ck off as well!'

"But do you see what that illustrates?"

1995-03-13T17:12:00.000Z

Career climax

SEX AND BIKES. That's what it's all about really isn't it? But what about sex ON a bike? Now there's a challenge.
One I reckoned I could, er, rise to - bragging to the lads in the pub at least.
Whilst planning my last issue at BIKE, an attempt at the ultimate ride took on an appeal beyond the obvious. It could be my parting shot - going out with a bang, if you like. It was rude and extremely risky, but what a wild way to hand in your notice!
A long-time acquaintance needed several vodkas before she would even consider my proposal but deep down I knew she'd go for it.
Everything finally came together - and it did - at a chilly Bruntingthorpe proving ground in October.
I'd abstained from carnal pursuits for a fortnight because

I thought that might help. The vodka came along too but not for me, I needed to keep a clear mind on two jobs.

The position was worked out, with much fumbling, giggling and the delicate modification of my old Furygans with a Stanley knife, before we attempted a couple of 'dry runs' for the photographer. I decided I could still hold it all together at 60mph.

We wobbled down to the end of the runway and turned as the photographer moved further into the adjacent field and made his final adjustments.
"You're not going to manage it," she tittered. Up the 'box: first... second... "This is silly." Third... "You can't get it... Oooo!"
The pictures weren't as sharp as I'd hoped. The photographer was only using one hand.

No mean city

1994-11-13T16:33:00.005Z

On the streets of New York the best protection is a two-year-old child
A YOUNG GUY in baggy jeans and a hooded sweatshirt broke from a huddled group and stepped into our path - a tree-lined path through New York's notorious Central Park.

We stopped as he leaned towards our two-year-old daughter in the pushchair. My heart stopped too. "Cute kid, man," he said and handed her some candy.

This was typical of the many surprises New York threw up to contradict its reputation as a city of rude people with little time of day to give. 'Avoid eye contact' is the advice given to nervous tourists. I'd like to see you try it whilst trundling along with a tot and the entire sidewalk going gaga.

Sporty-looking girls turned their rollerblades on a dime to retrieve a dropped teddy; bankers and lawyers smiled as they pulled their briefcases out of the line of fruit-juice fire, and the frantic service in the Grand Central Station Coffee Shop ground to a halt as waitresses told us about their grandchildren in 'Noo Joisey' and brought bananas and milk, "No charge."

When Charlotte wasn't eating free she was riding free, but she bought her Mum and Dad the freedom of the city. The buses are 'stroller friendly' and there was always someone to lend a hand. Waiting for a downtown bus on Sixth Avenue, my accent led me into a discussion with a native New Yorker about Northern Ireland. On seeing Charlotte, the ill-informed old lady's icy attitude melted to moisture in her eyes. Warm childcare advice replaced chilly politics.

"This city loves my baby," I thought, "I love this city!"

A&S Plaza. Lunch time. Hundreds of sharp-suited executives discussing power deals waited for the express lift to the food hall. The elevator doors hissed apart and the crowd surged forward, only to be held back by the uniformed attendant.

"I see a baby carriage, gentlemen. Please step back, they got priority!" he bellowed.

Irate expressions turned to bemused smiles as Charlotte rolled through, giving them the royal wave.

New York's shops are wide-aisled and roomy - even Mothercare can be a squeeze for prams in Britain - with plenty of ramps and elevators. Barnes and Noble's Manhattan bookshop has a huge kids' reading section where the much-fingered pop-up books must surely be consigned to the rubbish skip at a frightening rate. At FAO Schwarz, the massive toy store, a tired-looking sales assistant took a Barbie doll from me, body in one hand and head in the other. He smiled down at Charlotte with a look of total forgiveness - as well he might, it was me who stood on it.

Charlotte will not remember the day she drew a crowd in a Times Square record shop, bopping wildly to an old Detroit Spinners song. "Man, you are blessed!" the cashier told us. We will not forget the Big sweet Apple.

Deep pan alley

1993-02-13T17:19:00.002Z

Martyn Moore in Brum with Britain's most picked-on bikers

WE THINK WE get a rough deal. As bikers we think people have it in for us. If they're not pulling out of junctions into our paths then they're trying to legislate us off the road.

But compared to one small group of specialist motorcyclists, we don't know we're born. Victimisation? We hardly know the meaning of the word. Hostility? We can't imagine the scale of it.

I've seen riders swerved at and run off the road by jeering yobs in cars. They ride underpowered, unstable machines against the clock into some of the toughest neighbourhoods in Britain. They were ridiculed by those I spoke to when planning this article. They ride for low pay in all weathers wearing flappy oilskins and trainers. They deliver pizzas, and garlic bread.

Orders are coming in faster than usual for six o'clock on a Thursday evening. Perfect Pizza, Cotteridge, south Birmingham is getting busy and both cars are out delivering when I turn up. Paul Cooper is the manager. He looks young for a boss but he's been with the company six years. His gap-tooth smile makes him look like a cross between Arnie Swarzenegger and David Mellor. "I didn't think we'd need the bike much tonight but it looks like you'll be busy," he tells me. "Lee! Get your kit on!"

Lee Jackson has blond hair which parts in the middle and flops sideways like a footie player or some indie pop star from Madchester. His 'kit' is a bright yellow waterproof jacket and trousers; it goes on over a jacket claiming Emporio Armani and covers his button badge of Chubby Brown with the phrase "You girls have the pussy". He jams a red polycarbonate helmet on and lifts the opaque visor to see where he's walking. The gloves are damp and only part leather; Lee holds them up between his thumb and forefinger like they're manky. "I asked the boss for some new gloves 'cos one of the other blokes eats 'em. He gave me a tenner," he says. "It's all the fancy toppings, yer see. If we have four pizzas on the bike and the bottom one has lots of extra toppings, by the time we get to the house they've all shaken to one side and we have to spread them back on again... No, I'm only kidding!" But he wasn't.

A Honda C90 Cub is wheeled round to the front of the shop, its aspect dominated by the enormous box behind the single seat. Before I can scribble any more the meal is in the box, the bike starts first kick and Lee flies off down the pavement. Members of the bus queue look on approvingly as the CBR600 and I filter towards the roundabout in a civilised manner. Lee is just disappearing down the hill over the second roundabout.

He flies down the dual carriageway, his yellow sou'wester flapping like Captain Bird's Eye in a storm. Giving chase I'm surprised to see him indicate his lane changes and sit in queues at junctions. It's the only way I can catch him.

We sit at a pelican crossing beside a park. Street and festive lights pour their glow over a wall and nearby shouting attracts our attention. A group of seven or eight youths are in turn kicking someone on the ground and whooping around like Red Indians. The lights change and we charge up the hill, turn onto an estate and ride straight to the first drop.

I ask Lee what was happening in the park. "They was givin' somebody a right kickin', that Christmas tree looked pretty," and just a comma separates the two statements.

Drizzle falls and three more boxes are sitting on the counter when we arrive back at the shop. Paul looks angry as we stand outside the shop for a minute and I take out my pen. "You've got 12 minutes to do these three," he glowers.

Deliver each pizza within 30 minutes of the phone call or you get it a quid cheaper, that's the deal and the kind of pressure the riders are under. Perfect Pizza doesn't give away many pounds but customers examine their watches carefully at the door - disappointed they haven't caught us out.

The night is soon a blur of council estates, tower blocks and posher residential areas. I long to savour that warmth greedily held behind abruptly slammed front doors and, gazing into cosy living rooms, wonder what homely sitcom makes those screens flicker.

I give up on my note-taking at the shop and trust a tape recorder to capture the surreal snippets of conversation in the fag room between runs.

"Some of the lads think they're Barry Sheene. They make all the noises and everything," says Paul. "They're not bad bikes really; they're work horses. A mechanic comes in twice a week to do tyres and stuff. We go through gearboxes like nobody's business and the clutches go."

Lee starts to get excited. "When you come to an island in third and you're givin' it a bit of stick, like, and you got to get round and you see a car coming... if you flick it back into second you get a bit of power don't you? It's like a little turbo cuts in. I think its great!"

Paul tries to moderate Lee's enthusiasm. "There is a knack to riding and getting the best out of them."

Apparently the gearboxes need fixing every couple of months. Michelin gave them tyres for a while as some kind of test and about three years ago Honda came and took a bike away to see what had broken.

Then I'm desperately trying to keep up with Lee again, my CBR sliding on leaf-coated streets, his C90 (no taillight or L-plate, though he hasn't passed any kind of bike test) swinging left or right, two or three junctions ahead.

Lee paddles to get going quicker, the Cub wheelies impressively changing from first to second with three family sized on board. The handlebars are loose, the mudguard's cracked and the ohc single smokes like a two-stroke.

Kids in cars pick races and deliberately force him off the road - this I see with my own eyes. They jostle and jeer at lights and hurl cans at him. Kill the pizza boy is becoming a national sport. And it's not as if he needs any help. But he's the fastest guy in town, especially when he's following a fire engine. "If you get one going down your street, you're sorted."

Lee has worked at Perfect Pizza for two and a half years. "You get to be like an A-Z. You get to know the short cuts too. You can sometimes go quietly through people's gardens and that."

Paul looks worried. "You mean walkways, Lee. And paths and that, don't you Lee?"

But Lee is oblivious. "Naaa, gardens! Up Primrose Hill."

"Well, we've had a few brushes with the law riding on the footpath," says Paul, "your sister Lee, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, she was unlucky. Mind, she was doing 45."

"OK," admits Paul, "we do speed, but we don't take the piss."

The shop tries not to use bikes after dark but sometimes it can't be helped. A busy night can mean 30 pizzas go out on a vulnerable motorcycle. The most popular order is the Mexican Heatwave - the kind of pizza that burns twice, the second time up to eight hours later. Typical single orders are worth £10.50 and you can squeeze four pizzas in the box. A sticker claims riders only carry ten pounds cash but Lee doesn't agree.

"It's more than that," he says.

Paul raises his eyes to the ceiling. "Not on bikes Lee," he cautions with a sigh.
But Lee's off again. "Oh yeah we do, sometimes were too busy to drop off the float so we just take it out again with the next one."

"Well no more than thirty pounds on a bike, eh Lee?" Then Paul changes the subject. Kind of. "In Milton Keynes they strung a rope up between two lampposts and knocked a bloke off that way and nicked his float."

Lee's excited now. "I was mugged in Masshouse Lane looking for this house and these two lads jumped on me and started beating me up, kicked the bike on the floor, nicked me money out me pocket, had me pizza out the back of the bike and I give one of them a smack with me helmet. By this time the chap I was delivering the pizza to heard the commotion and came out with his dog. These two lads see this big black geezer and his dog and he chased 'em round the block.

"We make people in tower blocks come down to meet us now. We used to go up ten or 12 floors and while we were in they'd nick the bike and the pizzas. Sometimes you can leave a bike outside a house and lads will come along and push it away. We get calls at the shop from people saying I'm sure there's a bunch of lads pushing one of your bikes down our road. So we went to sort it out and one of the lad's dad tried to do us for GBH! Honest! I tell you, we have some laughs here.

"In Hawkesley, on bonfire night they were firing rockets at me! You could see all these sparks on the top of tower blocks and then these rocks and bricks would be landing in the road. It was like a war zone and you had to ride, like, down a passage through it. It was like Beirut!

"I've had people come up to me with a knife and say Give us your pizza. I just say Here you are, have it mate, I don't get paid enough to die for it."

A pizza man like Lee typically earns £120 for a 40-hour week which includes three evenings until midnight, riding up to 50 miles a night. But there are compensations.

"There's this woman who fancies me and I really fancy her, right?" brags Lee. "She comes to the door, I swear to God, the first couple of times she used to wear pants and that, with a nightie up to her thighs, here. But this last couple of times I've been going you can see her little tuft and I thought 'Great', like, you know. And I love going down there because you get, like, really talkative and sometimes she'll say 'Have you got to rush off?' And you start shaking and go all white and you say 'I'd love to stay', but you can't 'cos you've got a couple of pizzas in the box and they're gonna go cold."

It's Paul's turn to get excited. "I've seen them fighting to deliver to the massage parlours!"

But there's no stopping Lee. "There was one down in Sparkhill when I was at Acock's Green and they used to say Instead of us paying for the pizza would you like a massage? And they don't give you a massage they give you, like, full sex!"

So you've always said No then, Lee?

He hesitates a second too long. "Er... yes, sometimes."

The hills are alive

1992-11-13T17:05:00.002Z

Alive with the sound of two-stroke engines. Learn to ride a motorbike – up a Welsh mountain

When learning to ride a motorcycle off-road, Geraint Jones says, complete novices make the best students. Several faces in the group relax.
    "But road riders tend to be a bit stiff and don't like the loose surface," adds the ten times British motocross champion. The faces are tense again.
    We are gathered at Geraint's farm near Llanidloes, Powys for the Yamaha Off-road Experience. We have put on the bright motocross garb and chosen our bikes for the day – mine is a relatively docile WR200 (above).
    All leisure activities involving powered vehicles have to start with a tedious briefing session – the kart marshal with a string of well-rehearsed but naff jokes and a patronising line with women is the worst – but Geraint Jones's briefing is surprisingly short. All too soon we are mounted and heading out of the farmyard, the chickens eyeing us nervously.
    We follow a track up a steep hill and Geraint sets an easy, bimbling pace. A few hundred yards beyond the hillside wood we burst out onto a hilltop like something from the Sound of Music, curved mountains slope away at the perfect pitch for Julie Andrews to achieve lift-off. Terrified sheep remind us this is Wales.
    With most of Wales below, Geraint starts to teach us the fundamentals of off-road riding: sit forward on the saddle when cornering, elbows up, looking well ahead; stand leaning forward at the waist, legs locked-out straight. We learn throttle control first, then braking and all the time Geraint is getting our measure – he won't ask us to try anything beyond our ability.
    But as the day progresses, river beds and forest trails lead inexorably to a quarry racetrack with double jumps, whoops and berms, and we start to think that maybe there isn't anything we can't do.
    We discover what we can't do the next morning. Having found entire new muscle groups and pounded them all day, we can't walk.