You wouldn’t know it if your reading was confined to the extreme
Right of the blogosphere.
Bolt, Akerman, Catallaxy, and Blair have completely ignored
the event. I wonder why?
Contrast this eerie silence with Bolt’s rush to print when
the news broke, as he initially canvassed the slaughter to be connected with Islamic
terrorists.
Could it have anything to do with the ideological proximity
of these fearless opponents of multiculturism, and Breivik’s manifesto?
To quote the cited article –
It wasn't just harder rightwingers such as Melanie Phillips, Mark Steyn and Pamela Geller who tried to deny the connection, but many more
moderate writers and politicians.
I would add those Australian bloggers listed above.
This week I'm on a five-day job taking me as far North as Tambo.
That's about due West of Bundaberg.
Schools
out this way are a long way from service centres. They usually adapt to
these circumstances, by picking and choosing their support irrespective
of its origin.
It reminds me of my time in the
North-West based in Mt Isa. Most schools in that area worked this way.
As a result, kids with disabilities in these small schools often do very
well.
This tends to be despite inflexible support
structures that are based on metropolitan concepts, and is a credit to
the personnel and communities in these small schools.
If you're on the extreme end of the service infrastructure, you will take support where you can get it.
The country is drying out fast. We've had a month with no rain after three good seasons in a row.
I’ve been a petrol head ever since I was old enough to see
over the dashboard of my father’s Standard Vanguard.
Our Vanguard was a sedan, and an earlier model than this one.
As a teenager, I’d contrive to get myself to circuits like
Lowood and Lakeside to race meetings featuring amateurs who were in it for fun,
not to make money. I must have been determined, as there was no way in a fit my
father would take me, and I had to rely on older (and wealthier) friends and
rellies to get me there.
MX5 club waiting to get in.
I even did a stint as a flag marshal, overcoming the fear
created by standing with my back to the direction of the cars as was necessary
in some positions – usually those occupied by the most junior volunteers who
had not established status on the pecking order.
There were some beautiful old cars displayed. This is a Healey 100/4.
Later, when I had my licence and owned a car, I participated
in the most rudimentary form of the sport – sprints.
And some ugly ones. This is a Bolwell Ikara.
At the time I owned a VW beetle. Sprinting in a 1200cc
beetle? Enough said.
Still, it did teach me how to control oversteer.
Attending the Leyburn Sprints, therefore, is both an
exercise in nostalgia and a return to the days when motor racing was a sport
instead of a business.
A 1937 Ford Special.
To
quote someone who learned about this a long time ago –
"The curse of commercialism is the ruin of every sport and the degeneracy of motorracing as a sport is due to the financial issues now involved in each race - the immense value of victory and the commercial disasterof defeat."
This was not written recently. It was penned bya pioneer British racing driver, Charles Jarrott (b.1877), who went on to say when writing hisbook Ten Years of Motors and Motor racing, 1896-1906 -
"I have raced because I love it, but a race of the present today would offer none ofthe charm which a race of five years ago afforded. It would have none of the sporting feeling orgood comradeship between the fellow competitors".
Leyburn exudes charm. You can walk in amongst the cars and
talk to the drivers.
MX5s were represented.
The format is simple – one car at a time in order of
numbers. The circuit is tight which is a great leveller. Skill becomes as
important as power.
I was 15 the last time I saw this racing (Lowood 1962).
A well-driven special is as likely to win as an expensive
supercar.
