From £125 Wreck to Motorcycle Trailer

There are bargains, and there are things you buy because you convince yourself they might eventually become bargains. The motorcycle trailer I collected from Usk for £125 fell firmly into the second category. It was an elderly, rather hideous contraption consisting principally of a ladder-shaped steel track, two wheels, a tow hitch and a collection of enormous gaps seemingly designed to swallow motorcycle tyres.

Nevertheless, beneath the ugliness was something worth preserving. The steel chassis was substantial, the trailer sat reasonably low to the ground, and the wheels were carried on independent suspension units. A little experimentation, including bouncing my 80-odd kilograms on the rear, established that the suspension actually worked.

The question was whether I could turn it into something suitable for transporting my Yamaha Virago XV535 without spending more than the finished trailer was worth.

The original trailer was essentially a narrow steel ladder, with transverse cross-members supporting the motorcycle's wheels. Two particularly large openings appeared to have been intended as wheel pockets, presumably to stop the motorcycle moving backwards or forwards once aboard. The front opening measured approximately 50 cm and the rear one about 40 cm. Given that the Virago's front and rear tyres are approximately 66 cm and 56 cm in diameter respectively, both wheels would drop considerably into these openings. That might locate the motorcycle quite effectively, but it presented a rather obvious difficulty when the time came to unload it.

Motorcycles don't generally have reverse gears. Hauling a substantial motorcycle backwards over a steel cross-member, while balancing it on a narrow track above the ground, struck me as an excellent way of discovering whether my insurance covered stupidity. Fortunately, I had some scrap steel plate, approximately 4–5 mm thick, which I cut to fill the offending openings. The existing ladder provided the structural framework, so the additional pieces simply created a continuous surface along which the tyres could roll. It wasn't particularly elegant, but it solved the fundamental problem.

The motorcycle could now be rolled backwards without first having to be excavated.

A £30 Wheel Chock and an Angle Grinder

Having eliminated the wheel pockets, I needed something to locate the front wheel. I bought a commercial rocking motorcycle wheel chock for approximately £30. These devices have a pivoting cradle which rocks forwards as the front tyre enters, helping to hold the wheel in position while the motorcycle is secured.

Unfortunately, the chock came with four substantial lateral feet designed to make it stable when standing independently on a garage floor. They were considerably wider than the trailer's central ladder, so I initially considered fabricating additional supports before realising that I was trying to preserve a feature I didn't actually need.

The chock would be permanently installed on the trailer, where the steel chassis could provide the lateral support that the freestanding feet had previously supplied. Out came the angle grinder. I cut off the four projecting feet, leaving the chock's longitudinal members intact. The modified assembly dropped neatly between the two rails of the original ladder, where I welded it directly to the steel chassis. It fitted beautifully, and naturally I was impatient to try it.

At this stage, I hadn't fitted any foot platforms. The trailer was still essentially a narrow ladder with a rather splendid wheel chock at the front. Nevertheless, I decided to ride the Virago aboard to see whether the chock worked.

This was not one of my better ideas. The front wheel entered the chock exactly as intended, and the rocking mechanism did its job, bringing the motorcycle to a halt. Unfortunately, it did nothing for the rider, whose feet were now searching unsuccessfully for somewhere to land. With nothing on either side of the narrow ladder to support them, my feet flailed about in mid-air while the motorcycle and I performed an increasingly inevitable manoeuvre to port.

We both fell off the trailer.

Fortunately, the front crash bars absorbed most of the impact, sparing the motorcycle anything more serious. The rear left-hand indicator, however, was smashed. A complete replacement set of indicators was ordered for £26, while the injured indicator was reconstructed with superglue and returned to temporary service.

There was another irony. I already had a set of rear crash bars waiting to be fitted, which might have prevented the damage, but installing them requires unloading the rear suspension because they attach at the suspension mounting points. That meant acquiring a motorcycle lift, and Facebook Marketplace duly produced an almost-new Garvee motorcycle jack for £50, with a lifting capacity of 650 kg. More than sufficient for the Virago, and a useful addition to the workshop.

Thus, my impatience had cost £26 in replacement indicators and prompted another £50 purchase. More importantly, it had settled the question of whether the trailer needed foot platforms. The chock itself had worked perfectly. The rider was the defective component.

Somewhere to Put My Feet

The Virago isn't a lightweight trials bike, and the trailer has a noticeable rise at the loading end. Pushing it aboard while walking alongside wasn't particularly attractive, so riding it aboard under its own power remained the practical solution. What I needed was somewhere for my feet to go when the motorcycle stopped. I decided to fit aluminium chequer-plate platforms on either side of the central wheel track, turning the narrow ladder into something approaching a proper ride-on trailer.

Rather than covering the entire trailer with a heavy rectangular sheet, I cut the plate into two oblong sections. At the rear, the plates are supported by the substantial main axle cross-member. Further forwards, I installed two transverse supports made from approximately 50 × 25 mm aluminium box section, bolted to the central steel chassis, and secured the chequer plate to them with large pop rivets. The arrangement is surprisingly rigid without the weight of an entirely steel deck.

There was another requirement. The Virago's side stand projects approximately 35 cm from the motorcycle's centreline, and I wanted to be able to ride aboard, put my feet down, lower the stand and dismount before arranging the securing straps. The left-hand platform therefore had to be wide enough to accommodate it.

With the motorcycle leaning perhaps ten degrees from vertical, the stand carries only a proportion of the machine's weight, considerably less than my own 80-odd kilograms, which the platform supports quite happily. A small pad to spread the concentrated load beneath the stand foot would be sensible, but the supporting structure itself is reassuringly solid.

Most importantly, I now had somewhere to put my feet, a feature whose absence had already proved rather expensive.

Keeping the Virago Aboard

The original trailer already had two substantial red anchor points near the main axle, attached directly to the steel structure and conveniently positioned for securing the rear of the motorcycle. At the front, I fitted a separate transverse steel member, approximately 40 × 20 mm box section, welded directly to the original ladder, with a D-ring welded to it at each end. There is also a smaller 20 × 20 mm steel T-piece at the extreme front. The important distinction is that the motorcycle's securing straps attach to the steel chassis rather than to the aluminium decking or its supporting outriggers.

With four widely separated anchor points, I could arrange opposing straps to keep the motorcycle upright and restrain movement. The front wheel chock provides a substantial physical stop against forward movement, while the straps secure the machine as a whole.

At the motorcycle end, the front straps attach around the chrome crash-bar structure, while the rear straps use the grab-rail area close to the rear suspension mounting points. These fittings and their attachments must, of course, be suitable for the loads involved, with the webbing kept clear of hot surfaces and sharp edges. I may also add a separate short strap securing the front wheel to the forward T-piece, providing an additional safeguard against the tyre climbing out of the chock.

The result is a straightforward restraint arrangement using the existing chassis and relatively inexpensive fittings, without requiring elaborate mechanisms or additional proprietary trailer equipment.

The Second Attempt

Eventually, there comes a point when you have to stop cutting, welding and measuring and actually put the motorcycle on the trailer. Again.

This time, I connected the trailer to my Ford Galaxy, positioned the six-foot loading ramp and rode the Virago aboard. The difference was considerable. Instead of my feet searching helplessly for something solid, they landed on the chequer-plate platforms. The front wheel settled into the rocking chock, the rear wheel rested on the continuous ladder, and I could lower the side stand and dismount normally. No sudden manoeuvre to port, no damaged indicators and no need to inspect the ground from an unexpectedly intimate distance.

The motorcycle fitted neatly within the trailer's available length, with the front wheel securely located and the rear wheel properly supported. There was one further test. With the Virago aboard, could I still open the Galaxy's tailgate? Yes, although only just. The clearance is narrow, but it's there, and the motorcycle's position is effectively determined by the available geometry. There is no useful room to move it forwards or backwards, but none is needed.

The final practical question concerned the loading ramp. At six feet long, it needed somewhere to live while travelling. I considered mounting it beneath the trailer or strapping it to one of the chequer-plate platforms, before discovering that it would fit inside the Galaxy. Problem solved. Sometimes the best engineering solution is not to engineer anything.

The Financial Reckoning

So what did the transformation cost? The original trailer was £125, the rocking wheel chock approximately £30, and the steel and aluminium chequer plate another £40. That makes £195 for the completed conversion, including a continuous wheel track, proper foot platforms, a welded wheel chock and four widely separated securing points. The work was done using inexpensive materials and my own labour, so the economics would obviously have been rather different had I paid commercial workshop rates.

Of course, there was the small matter of the accident. The replacement indicators added £26, bringing the trailer-related expenditure to £221. The £50 Garvee jack took the total amount spent to £271, although the jack is a reusable workshop tool rather than part of the trailer. Had I exercised a little more patience, the additional expenditure might have been avoided. On the other hand, I now have a useful motorcycle jack and a complete set of replacement indicators. Every cloud.

Was It Worth It?

Absolutely.

The original trailer was an ugly, elderly contraption with a design that made loading and unloading unnecessarily awkward. But its underlying structure was sound, its suspension worked, and it provided a perfectly reasonable foundation for modification. By retaining the useful components and changing only what needed changing, I've ended up with a compact, low-loading motorcycle trailer tailored to the Virago.

The continuous ladder allows the motorcycle to roll aboard and backwards off without its wheels dropping into enormous holes. The chock locates the front wheel, the chequer-plate platforms provide secure footing and somewhere for the side stand, and the steel anchor points allow the machine to be strapped down without relying on the aluminium decking.

The old running gear, bearings, tyres and coupling still warrant the usual checks before regular road use, as do the securing arrangements. Modifying a trailer doesn't magically make its original components younger. Nevertheless, the basic conversion is complete, and the motorcycle has been successfully loaded. What began as £125 worth of agricultural-looking optimism has become a practical motorcycle trailer for £195. It carries the Virago, fits behind the Galaxy and even allows the tailgate to open. Just.

The only serious mishap occurred when I tried to use it before I'd finished building it.

The chock worked perfectly. The rider was the defective component.

The Algorithm Needs Strangling

A few months ago, I bought a 1999 Yamaha Virago 535 motorcycle. Before buying it, I'd naturally spent some time looking at other Viragos on Facebook Marketplace, comparing prices and generally satisfying myself that I wasn't buying a complete wreck.

As it turned out, that last bit was rather optimistic.

The motorcycle developed an infuriating intermittent misfire. One moment it would run perfectly well on both cylinders, the next it would decide that one cylinder was quite sufficient, thank you. Particularly when it warmed up. At times it would barely manage 64 mph, accompanied by assorted popping and backfiring that made the whole experience rather more exciting than Yamaha probably intended.

So began a succession of visits to the motorcycle repair shop. The mechanics were convinced the problem was fuel-related, and initially I agreed with them. The carburettors were rebuilt, adjustments made, plugs replaced and various fuel-system problems investigated. Each time there was some prospect of a cure. Each time the damned thing eventually reverted to its old habits after half a day of riding.

To be fair, the carburettor rebuild was entirely justified on a 27-year-old motorcycle. It needed doing anyway. But when the intermittent misfire persisted after all that attention, the fuel explanation was looking increasingly unlikely.

So I changed my hypothesis. Perhaps the problem wasn't getting fuel into the cylinder, but getting a spark to ignite it.

I replaced the ignition coils and HT leads, which proved rather less straightforward than anticipated. The original coils were mirror images of one another, but the replacements were two identical units, meaning the terminals were now in different positions.

This caused a certain amount of head-scratching, although fortunately the connectors were idiot-proof. Even I couldn't connect them incorrectly.

Having sorted that out, I confidently anticipated two functioning cylinders.

No joy.

Finally, I replaced the spark plug cap on the offending cylinder. £5.

Bingo.

After all the investigation, the replacement parts and the repeated trips to the workshop, the fault had been lurking in a component costing less than a decent pint of beer. There is a certain satisfaction in solving something like that yourself, although it is somewhat diminished by contemplating the money already spent getting absolutely nowhere.

But throughout this mechanical saga, another piece of machinery was demonstrating its own peculiar form of stupidity.

Facebook.

Having spent some time searching for a Yamaha Virago, I had apparently convinced Facebook's advertising algorithms that I was developing a lifelong ambition to collect them.

And despite having bought one, repaired it and spent rather more time thinking about its internal workings than I ever intended, Facebook continued bombarding me with advertisements for more Yamaha Viragos.

Not workshop manuals. Not spare parts. Not even the occasional useful accessory.

More bloody motorcycles.

Perhaps it thinks I need two. Or three. Maybe it imagines I'm planning to corner the international market in elderly Japanese motorcycles. Presumably, if I buy enough of them, I can eventually assemble one that runs properly.

What's particularly irritating is that these systems are supposed to be intelligent. Technology companies spend billions developing algorithms that analyse our behaviour, predict our preferences and supposedly anticipate our needs. They can track what we look at, how long we look at it and what we might conceivably want next.

Yet they apparently cannot grasp the elementary distinction between somebody looking for a motorcycle and somebody who has already bought one.

Of course, I understand the technical explanation. Facebook doesn't necessarily know that I've completed a purchase, particularly one made privately. But surely there ought to be a little more intelligence involved than endlessly repeating the same advertising proposition until the customer dies of boredom.

An experienced motorcycle salesman would recognise that someone who has just bought a Yamaha Virago probably isn't in the market for another one. He might, however, be interested in something that would help keep the first one running.

A £5 spark plug cap, for example.

And there's an interesting commercial absurdity here. Somewhere, someone is paying Facebook to advertise motorcycles to me. Facebook is happily taking the money, congratulating itself on having identified an enthusiast and delivering precisely the wrong advertisements.

The advertiser gets an impression. Facebook gets paid. I get another bloody Virago.

Everybody wins, except the advertiser and the intended customer.

We hear endlessly about artificial intelligence transforming commerce, making marketing more efficient and anticipating consumer demand. Yet a great deal of what passes for intelligent advertising appears to consist of recognising that someone has looked at something and then pursuing them relentlessly with more of the same.

Perhaps that's the real triumph of the algorithm. It has managed to persuade businesses to pay for its inability to distinguish between interest and intent, never mind a completed purchase.

Meanwhile, my elderly Yamaha is finally running properly. The mechanics spent weeks pursuing a fuel problem that turned out to be electrical. I eventually followed the evidence, changed my hypothesis and found the fault.

That's what intelligence is supposed to do. Recognise when an explanation no longer fits the facts and try something else.

My motorcycle had an intermittent misfire, which I eventually cured for £5.

Facebook's algorithm has apparently been misfiring for months, and nobody seems remotely interested in fixing it.

Cornwall: The Place That Marketing Built

I'm becoming thoroughly sick of television documentaries about Cornwall. Not Cornwall itself, which is a magnificent part of the country, but the endless procession of programmes masquerading as documentaries when they're little more than extended advertisements for the tourist industry.

You know the formula. Sweeping aerial shots of rugged coastlines, fishing boats bobbing in picturesque harbours, and presenters wandering around in a state of perpetual astonishment. Everything is wonderful. Everyone is fascinating. Every little business is a triumph of local ingenuity. Apparently, nobody in Cornwall has ever opened a café or baked a cake without demonstrating some extraordinary connection to the county's ancient and mystical heritage.

What makes it particularly amusing is that so much of the Cornwall they're selling us was created, developed or popularised by people who weren't Cornish in the first place.

Take the Eden Project and the Lost Gardens of Heligan. Both owe an enormous debt to Tim Smit, a Dutchman. The Minack Theatre was the creation of Rowena Cade, born in Derbyshire. St Ives owes much of its international artistic reputation to incomers such as Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo. Daphne du Maurier, whose novels helped establish the romantic image of Cornwall, was born in London.

And then there are the surfers. You could be forgiven for thinking Cornishmen had been riding Atlantic breakers since the Bronze Age, such is the enthusiasm with which surfing is presented as part of the county's natural identity. In reality, it's an imported sport with Polynesian origins, subsequently transformed into an entire Cornish industry selling the experience of freedom and escape, complete with wetsuits, surf schools and accommodation packages.

Rick Stein, born in Oxfordshire, helped turn Padstow into a culinary destination, complete with restaurants, shops and television programmes. The town even acquired the nickname Padstein. Here we have the perfect arrangement: a celebrity chef promoting the delights of Cornwall on television while operating a substantial commercial enterprise in precisely the place being promoted.

And we haven't even reached the pasty and ice cream barons.

Ginsters, that great commercial expression of the Cornish pasty, was developed into a national brand by the Midlands-based Samworth family. Kelly's of Cornwall, with its wholesome imagery of local dairy herds and traditional Cornish cream, owes its origins to an Italian immigrant and now belongs to an international food conglomerate. The pasty itself acquired protected geographical status under European Union law in 2011. An ancient Cornish tradition, commercially developed by outsiders and protected by Brussels. Rather splendid, really.

None of this diminishes Cornwall. Quite the contrary. These are examples of enterprise, imagination and outside influences contributing to a distinctive regional culture. Cornwall has its own substantial history, of course, particularly its mining and maritime industries. But the modern tourist image is something else: a carefully cultivated commercial product.

And the business of manufacturing the Cornish dream is hardly new. More than a century ago, the Great Western Railway was promoting the Cornish Riviera, selling an exotic escape from ordinary British life. Its objective was straightforward enough: fill the trains with paying passengers.

Modern television has simply taken over the job. Where the railway had posters and guidebooks, broadcasters have drones, celebrity presenters and lavish production budgets. The underlying message is much the same. Come to Cornwall. Spend your money. Discover something authentic.

Cornwall isn't unique, either. The Lake District has its literary romanticism, Scotland its tartan and Highland mythology, and the Cotswolds their honey-coloured cottages and apparently inexhaustible supply of artisan bakeries. Entire regions have been transformed into commercial brands, their complicated histories reduced to a collection of instantly recognisable images.

There's nothing wrong with promoting a destination, but these relentlessly cheerful programmes seldom explore the less picturesque consequences. Seasonal employment, housing affordability and communities increasingly dependent on visitors don't fit comfortably into the narrative. The cottage that looks delightful on television may be entirely beyond the means of the people working in the café next door.

I don't begrudge Cornwall its visitors or its commercial successes. What irritates me is the pretence that these programmes are exploring real places and real lives when so much of their content functions as destination marketing. There needn't be any formal advertising arrangement for the result to be promotional.

The great irony is that much of the supposedly timeless Cornish identity being celebrated was shaped by people who arrived from elsewhere, bringing ideas and enterprise. Yet television keeps selling us the finished product as though it had emerged fully formed from the Atlantic mist.

The Great Western Railway, at least, had the decency to admit it was selling tickets.

The Corner of a Handkerchief

Kitty has something wrong with one eye today. I know because she is keeping it closed. She does this from time to time, perhaps every month or two, more often in summer, and as far as I can tell her entire treatment plan is to close the eye and wait. Usually, a day or two later, whatever was irritating it has gone and she is back to normal.

That made me think, which is always dangerous.

If I get something in my eye, I can do rather more about it. I can blink, wash it, pull down the lower lid, look in a mirror, ask someone else to have a look, or use the corner of a handkerchief to fish the offending speck out. If all that fails, I can go to an optician, a pharmacist, a doctor or A&E. It is such a trivial little nuisance that we barely think about how much intelligence, dexterity and co-operation sits behind solving it.

Another cat may be sitting six inches away, perfectly healthy, perfectly alert and entirely useless. It will not peer sympathetically into Kitty’s eye, lift the eyelid and say, "Hang on, you've got a bit of grass seed in there." It will not fetch a damp cloth. It will not improvise a tiny swab. It may wash its own backside while the patient suffers, but that is about the limit of the available medical service.

Dogs are no better. They have paws, teeth, excellent noses and a considerable ability to communicate that dinner is late, but they cannot perform even a simple act of delicate assistance for one another. A dog with grit under its eyelid may rub at it, make it worse, scratch the cornea and then simply carry on being a dog. There is no canine casualty department. No Labrador produces a first-aid kit.

The difference is not that we are somehow nobler creatures. It is that we have fingers, language, tools and the peculiar habit of helping each other with tiny practical problems.

A handkerchief is not much of an invention. Neither is a pair of tweezers, a mirror or a bowl of clean water. Yet put them together with opposable thumbs and the ability to explain what hurts, and you have practical civilisation at the scale of a speck of dust.

We are surrounded by these small triumphs and barely notice them. Splinters, thorns, something stuck between two teeth, a knot that needs picking apart. Minor problems to us because another human being can understand what is wrong and intervene with precision. For most animals, the available strategy is largely to scratch, bite, lick, shake or wait.

Kitty’s strategy is simpler.

Close the eye until Tuesday.

Civilisation is sometimes no more complicated than somebody saying, "Hold still, you've got something in your eye," and then removing it with the corner of a handkerchief.

If a Bird Shat on Your Head

I was once discussing toilet habits around the world with my old Dad.

Britain, naturally, has always regarded itself as a reasonably civilised country. We have indoor plumbing, sewage systems, bathrooms and an almost devotional attachment to quilted toilet paper. We therefore tend to regard some foreign lavatorial practices with a mixture of curiosity and mild suspicion.

My Dad listened to all this and then demolished the entire argument with one sentence.

“If a bird shat on your head, would you be satisfied with wiping it off with a piece of paper?”

True wisdom.

Because when you put it like that, our national devotion to dry paper suddenly looks rather less like civilisation and rather more like something we simply got used to.

If you had mud on your hands, you would wash them. If you trod in something unpleasant, you would not polish your shoe with a tissue and declare the matter closed. If, as Dad suggested, a passing pigeon deposited its breakfast on your forehead, nobody would hand you a sheet of Andrex and tell you that hygiene had now been satisfactorily restored.

You would use water.

Yet move the same basic problem a couple of feet down the human anatomy and large parts of Britain become strangely attached to the concept of dry wiping.

Other cultures reached a different conclusion. Bidets remain commonplace in parts of Europe. Across much of Asia and the Middle East, washing with water is entirely normal. Japan, having approached the matter with the usual Japanese enthusiasm for engineering, decided that merely supplying water was insufficient and built lavatories apparently capable of preparing for orbital launch.

Meanwhile, we British have spent decades improving the softness, thickness, fragrance and embossing of the paper.

There is something wonderfully British about that. Faced with a fundamentally imperfect method, we did not reconsider the method. We simply developed increasingly luxurious versions of the imperfect method.

Four-ply. Aloe vera. Quilted. Extra soft.

Still paper.

None of this means civilisation can be ranked according to lavatory equipment. Human beings have devised all sorts of perfectly workable ways of dealing with the unavoidable consequences of digestion, usually depending on climate, plumbing, religion, infrastructure and tradition.

But it does illustrate something broader.

We are remarkably good at assuming that whatever we grew up doing must also be the sensible way of doing it.

Food, driving, measurements, plumbing, social customs, even the correct way to make tea. Familiarity quietly disguises itself as logic.

Occasionally somebody asks a very simple question and the whole edifice wobbles.

My Dad's question has remained with me for years.

If a bird shat on your head, would you really just wipe it with a piece of paper?

Exactly.

When Sex Meant Gender

I was watching Anastasia, the 1956 film with Yul Brynner and Ingrid Bergman, when Helen Hayes, as the Dowager Empress, came out with this:

“To a woman of your age, sex should mean nothing but gender.”

Brilliant.

I actually stopped at the word “sex”, because this was 1956. Hollywood was still operating under the Production Code, and you tend to imagine that even saying the word would have had someone in a dark suit reaching for a red pencil.

But apparently not. The word itself was not the problem. The Production Code itself used it repeatedly. What mattered was what films actually did with the subject. Explicit sexual treatment, excessive passion and anything considered obscene or too suggestive were another matter altogether.

Which, when you think about it, probably made the writing better.

The line is plainly about sexual desire. There is no mystery there at all. The Dowager is telling another elderly woman that, at her age, her interest in sex ought really to have become academic. But she gets away with it by switching meanings halfway through the sentence. Sex as activity becomes sex as classification.

That is the joke. Nothing more is needed.

And that, oddly, is what struck me most. The audience is simply expected to get it. Nobody explains the double meaning. Nobody pauses to establish definitions. Nobody wanders in afterwards to point out that sex and gender are not quite the same thing, or that attitudes to ageing and sexuality have moved on, or that elderly women are entitled to have desires too.

Of course they are. That is not the point. The point is that the joke is allowed to exist.

We have become very odd about language. In some ways we are vastly more relaxed than people were in 1956. You can show and say things now that would have given the old censors palpitations. Yet at the same time we have become far less relaxed about words themselves. Everything has to be unpacked, qualified, contextualised and checked for ideological contamination.

A line like that now would be dissected before the audience had finished laughing.

Somebody would want to discuss the distinction between sex and gender. Somebody else would object to the implication that old people cease to be sexual beings. Then someone would point out that the joke relies on binary classification. By the time everyone had finished being correct, the joke would be lying dead on the floor.

And perhaps that is why so much old dialogue feels sharper. Not because people were cleverer then, and certainly not because censorship was a good thing. It plainly was not. But restriction forced writers to imply rather than announce. They had to trust the audience to hear what was actually being said beneath the respectable wording.

That requires rather more skill than simply saying everything out loud. The Dowager Empress does not explain herself. She does not qualify the remark. She reaches for one meaning of a word, replaces it with another, and demolishes the poor woman in a sentence.

And the best bit is that the line is not really about sex or gender anyway. It is about age, and the magnificent assumption that desire ought eventually to pack its bags, leave quietly and confine itself to administration.

I am not entirely convinced it does.

Village People

I live in a village, so I have a perspective on what people mean when they talk about protecting village life. I moved here myself, although I married someone whose family history in the area goes back to pre-Conquest days. That does not make my opinions more valuable than anyone else’s, but it does make me wary of people claiming to speak for “the village” as though everyone in it wants the same thing.

 Many people who grew up in villages find that the work and housing they need are elsewhere. They move to towns and cities, while houses back home are bought by people who can afford to commute from them or retire to them. The new arrivals have every right to be there. But it is a bit rich to arrive for the peace and quiet, then insist that nothing should change, even when change might give somebody else the chance to stay.

Of course, a proposed development might be dreadful. Some are. But when someone says it would be “bad for the village”, I want to ask: bad for whom? For the person who might get a proper job close to home, or for the person whose view of the fields might change?

A community needs more than attractive houses and people willing to organise the fête. It needs somewhere for younger adults to live, and work that pays enough for them to do so. Otherwise the village gradually becomes a pleasant place to sleep between trips to an office, or to spend a comfortable retirement. The people who grew up in it come back to visit their parents, if their parents can still afford to live there.

None of that means every field should be built on or every employer welcomed with open arms. Roads, noise, pollution and the nature of the work all matter. Residents are entitled to raise those questions, and should expect proper answers. But “we moved here for the peace and quiet” is an argument about the life you bought for yourself from a catalogue. It does not automatically settle what is best for everyone else.

What particularly grates is the claim to speak for the village. Often the people with most at stake in its future are missing from the meeting because they have already had to leave. They cannot object to a lack of housing from a house they cannot afford.

So by all means ask what a proposal will do to village life. Then ask whose lives are being counted. If protecting the village means keeping its view while losing its young people, we ought at least to be honest about what we are protecting.

The Nelson Loaf Incident

It began, as these things often do, with a body.

The deceased was found at approximately 05:55 hours, lying several inches from a partially eaten slice of Nelson loaf. There were no obvious signs of a struggle, although the victim was on its back, which in fly circles is rarely encouraging.

The first question in any investigation is motive.

The Nelson loaf had one immediately. It was sitting there, flagrantly displaying seeds, grains and assorted nutritious debris, the sort of thing calculated to attract attention from any passing insect with poor judgement. Whether the fly intended theft, trespass or merely an opportunistic breakfast remains unclear.

Opportunity is rather easier.

The fly was in the kitchen. The bread was in the kitchen. I was also in the kitchen, which technically makes me a person of interest, although I reject any suggestion that my possession of both a bread knife and a fly swat constitutes evidence of premeditation.

There are several possible theories.

The first is natural causes. Flies do die. Indeed, compared with most criminal suspects, they do it with suspicious frequency. The victim may simply have reached the end of a short but presumably fulfilling career involving windows, lampshades and repeated attempts to escape through perfectly transparent glass.

The second possibility is death by misadventure.

Nelson loaf is formidable stuff. This particular specimen contains enough seeds to establish a modest agricultural holding. Perhaps the fly landed expecting ordinary bread, encountered a sunflower seed the size of its torso and suffered some sort of catastrophic dietary event.

There is also the possibility of foul play.

The slice itself cannot be ruled out. It had means, opportunity and, arguably, motive. Being gradually eaten alive must engender resentment. One can imagine the bread lying there silently while the fly approached, waiting for precisely the right moment before deploying a strategically positioned pumpkin seed.

Forensic examination of the scene revealed crumbs scattered over the chopping board. These might indicate a violent struggle, although they might equally indicate that somebody had cut bread on it. Investigators are keeping an open mind.

There were no witnesses.

The toaster declined to comment.

The butter dish is believed to have information relevant to the inquiry but has so far remained refrigerated and uncooperative.

A nearby kettle was interviewed and became extremely heated.

One troubling aspect remains the position of the body. The fly is several inches from the bread. If the Nelson loaf was responsible, how did the victim travel that distance?

Did it stagger away after the attack?

Was the body moved?

Or are we looking at something darker still - a carefully staged scene intended to implicate an innocent loaf?

Detectives are now examining the possibility of a second slice.

Until toxicology reports are available, the cause of death must remain officially unexplained. But one thing is clear.

Something happened in that kitchen.

And Nelson loaf knows more than it is saying.

The US of Irritation

I have a small linguistic irritation. Nothing serious. No letters to The Times, no campaign group, no need for a referendum. It is the habit some people have of saying USA instead of America. For reasons I cannot quite defend, it jars.

“I went to the USA.”

Did you? Were you attending a trade delegation, filing a customs declaration, representing Britain at the United Nations? Nobody says, “I spent three weeks driving across the UK,” and produces the same reaction. UK is perfectly normal. We use it without thinking. We live in it, complain about it and occasionally threaten to leave it. And yet USA somehow sounds as though it ought to be printed in block capitals on the side of a shipping container.

This is, of course, completely illogical. The United States of America is abbreviated to USA. The United Kingdom is abbreviated to UK. There is no sensible linguistic principle by which one should sound natural and the other faintly ridiculous. But language is not sensible. It is a collection of habits which have somehow survived long enough to become rules.

Perhaps the problem is that America already has a perfectly good short name: America. The United Kingdom does not quite have one. Britain is close, but technically it leaves Northern Ireland standing awkwardly by the buffet wondering whether anyone remembered to invite it. Great Britain is the island. England is absolutely not the same thing, although this remains news to quite a lot of Americans and, occasionally, the English. So UK has earned its place.

USA still feels to me like unnecessarily unpacking the full title, then carefully folding it back into three letters. Oddly, “the US” is fine. “The US economy.” “The US president.” “I’m going to the US.” Perfectly ordinary. But “I’m going to the USA” sounds as though there should be fireworks, a bald eagle and somebody singing very loudly in the background.

And then there is “the good old US of A”, which is worse. Having abbreviated the country to two letters, somebody apparently felt the need to put “of” back in, as though the phrase had lost too much grandeur in the trimming. Less geography, more branding. You can almost hear the country music starting.

I realise this is entirely irrational, but that is language for you. We happily say UK, tolerate US, prefer America, become vaguely suspicious of USA and regard “US of A” as evidence that somebody has started performing their nationality rather than merely stating it.

There is probably a doctoral thesis in it.

Which is exactly the sort of thing the USA would fund and America would ignore.

What If Fairford Wasn't the Target?

Five terrorists with bombs heading for an American airbase.

Perhaps.

But indulge me in a thought experiment.

Take RAF Fairford out of the equation.

Three white vans on a country road in the middle of the night. Hooded or masked men. Some apparently running into fields when disturbed. Farms nearby. Fishing lakes everywhere. Suspected explosives.

Around here, that screams rural crime.

And rural crime is rampant. Agricultural machinery, plant and vehicles are valuable and relatively easy to move. Only this month an operation targeting organised rural crime across Gloucestershire and Herefordshire recovered more than £300,000-worth of suspected stolen machinery, vehicles and equipment.

Then there are the lakes. Whelford sits in the Cotswold Water Park, surrounded by them. Explosives and fishing lakes inevitably made me wonder about illegal fishing. Perhaps completely wrongly, but it was another perfectly mundane possibility.

Then put RAF Fairford back into the picture.

Suddenly everything changes.

Suspected explosives have been discovered close to an American airbase being used during a conflict involving Iran. The police would have been negligent not to assume the worst. Counter Terrorism Policing became involved, bomb-disposal teams arrived, homes were evacuated and five men were arrested on suspicion of preparing a terrorist act.

Quite right too.

Unfortunately, while the police were investigating, others had already solved it.

Nigel Farage announced that he had been warning for months about Iranian agents arriving in Britain in small boats. Robert Jenrick also drew a connection with small-boat arrivals, while Richard Tice demanded to know the suspects' identities, arrival times, provenance and residence status.

Then Counter Terrorism Policing supplied one rather awkward fact.

All five are British nationals, aged between 23 and 25, living in London.

Perhaps there is an Iranian connection. The police are investigating precisely that possibility.

And yes, I'm speculating too. That's why I called it a thought experiment rather than a press conference.

I'm not claiming to know where the breadcrumbs lead. I'm asking whether there might be another trail worth following.

Which brings me to the breadcrumb that bothers me rather more.

All five have now been released on police bail.

They haven't been cleared. The investigation continues and terrorism may ultimately prove to be exactly what this was.

But five men arrested close to an American airbase after suspected explosive devices were discovered are no longer in custody.

That makes me considerably less certain about the story we started with.

And there is a fascinating line in Counter Terrorism Policing's own statement. Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor pointed out that threats can sometimes first appear as small-scale criminal activity committed by people whose primary motivation is simply making money. Police are keeping an open mind and considering the incident from every possible angle.

So am I.

Perhaps Fairford really was their target and the evidence will eventually demonstrate it.

Or perhaps these men were up to something completely different and had the spectacular misfortune to be caught behaving suspiciously, with suspected explosives, next door to one of the most sensitive military installations in Britain - an installation they simply weren't even aware exists.

Imagine setting out to nick a tractor or illegally stun a few carp and discovering by breakfast that you're suspected of working for Iran and plotting to attack the United States Air Force.

Perhaps the evidence will eventually lead straight back to RAF Fairford. Until then, there's one question worth keeping in mind.

What if Fairford wasn't the target at all?