The Socket File: Fuel’s Gold
Those of you fortunate enough to have been through the Socialist education system far enough to have gained some literacy will remember that many moons have passed since I turned in my trusty Francis Barnett Autocycle and mounted an all-new Honda C90 Interstate four-stroke.
The decision was not an easy one. The Francis Barnett had given me many years of trusty service and had covered a massive 289.6 kilometres a year for nearly 40 years. Those few occasions every week, when it would either break down at the roadside or fail to start in the first 25 minutes, were inconsequential compared to the ease with which my man could quickly dismantle the motor, locate the fault and reassemble it.
On a mere eight occasions, the trusty soul had a new engine fitted at the roadside in less than four hours.
So you’ll understand how I was loath to put the F-B out to stud and leap aboard the modern contraption.
At this stage I must mention that my choice of a Honda was purely selfish. I find it hard to get along with rubber-stamp boards of directors or namby-pamby Socialist state-owned corporations.
When I started researching the market for a new machine and discovered there was no Mr Kawasaki in charge of Kawasaki, and no Mr Yamaha in charge of Yamaha, I gave them a miss. But when I discovered the wonderful Mr Soichiro Honda was still at the helm of his little empire (and that he had the good sense to leave a spot in the management of the company for his son), it had to be a Honda for me.
The only reason I still keep my Austin Sheerline is that Herbert Austin was the man in charge and the man with his name on the bonnet.
Yes, my friends, free enterprise, with the founder at the wheel, is the only way to run a company. Otherwise, people like me have absolutely no idea who we’re talking to when we ring up. It’s so much better to ring Ford in the USA, for example, and speak to Mr Ford. Not a faceless lackey.
All this silly nonsense about giving the money to the Arabs is too tiresome to bother with. But, as you don’t move in the same lofty circles as myself, I’ll explain why you shouldn’t worry about oil money going to the Arabs.
As a matter of interest, I have met many Arabs and some of them are very nice people indeed. Gamel Nasser was a fine, well educated gent. So is Moyshe Dayan, although I believe their religious differences mean they cannot be friends even though they do come from the same side of the world.
No, the Arabs have yet to find a way around the two ultimate weapons of the free enterprise world: Inflation and war. If they charge too much for their oil, we in the western world simply devalue our currency against theirs and we end up paying the same amount in real terms.
War is self explanatory.
It surely couldn’t be any more expensive to hire the US Marines to clear the topsoil than erect a tower in Bass Strait.
The more oil we use in our transport, the bigger the profits made by the five sisters (a cute name for the major oil exploration and distribution companies).
The more profit that is made by trading a commodity, especially a necessity like oil, the more money there is for the rich to employ servants and tradespeople like your good selves.
So, fresh from its restoration, the F-B is now touring the streets of Sydney and using three times the oil and petrol of the Honda.
I haven’t burned all my bridges. The Honda is being retained should it become necessary for me to pay for my oil supplies instead of having them kindly donated by an oil corporation executive I know in return for certain taxation services I perform for his company.
But at least my heart is in the right place. I’m now helping the circulation of more money by consuming more oil.
Think how useful oil is to the motorbicycle world. Young riders would never have the chance to hone their skills (nor those of the fine emergency services) unless copious quantities of oil were dropped on the road by their larger four-wheeled brothers.
Imagine how soft and lily-livered we’d all be if the air above our highways was as clean and pure as the countryside.
We’d build up no resistance to disease because a strong challenge is the only thing that makes the human race improve. Besides, there would be nowhere worth getting away to if our city’s air was as pure as the hairy ecologists would like it to be.
They, the misguided Labor-voting conservationists, are only jealous that they cannot afford a journey into the fresh clean air of the country. If they cut their hair and did a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay, they’d soon have the cash to afford a trip to the country once a year.
I would exhort and beseech you all to transfer your allegiance, however strong, to the world of two-stroke motorbicycles.
You will all profit in the long run. As your fuel bill rises, so more money comes into circulation and there’s a chance we can end some of this tiresome unemployment. Not for those who won’t work, nor those who are needed as a reserve labour force, but for the 200 or so genuinely unemployed people in this fine wide land.
Use more fuel and oil for a stronger Australian future!
Bernard St. Francis Whitworth Socket, Esq.
By Brian Woodward. Two Wheels, May 1981.
