COMMANDO ACCELERANDO

It was 1971. I was fully 16 years old and I had my very first motorcycle; 50 quid very well invested on a fiery bolide, the legendary 1965 BSA Bantam 175 D7. But what I really really wanted was a BSA Rocket 3, one of the Flash Gordon ones with ray gun silencers, metallic red paint, 130mph and everything. One day, it would be mine.

It was 2021 (tempus really does fugit like the flaming clappers). I decided on a capricious whim that I would shift my perfectly working and fully usable Triumph TSS 750, together with my BSA B25. They were flogged on unmercifully to finance the machine that was my adolescent flying fastness.

I visited the good offices of a well-known internet auction site, together with my good friends Mr Macallan and Mr Walker. Always convivial soulmates those two, they had never let me down. In all fairness, they had, in the past, also been a pair of right old scallywags, but clearly I was now a seasoned, salty seadog with a steady hand on the tiller. Fully in charge, no more naïve and immature juvenile impulses. What could possibly go wrong?

Jusht another glash of 10 year old…