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F E AT U R E<br />
Tanks, but no tanks!<br />
JACK REGAN, A CREATIVE AT TITAN. THE ADVERTISING AGENCY IN BIRMINGHAM, TAKES A MORE<br />
ADRENALINE-FUELLED APPROACH TO LIFE. THIS MONTH’S HE’S DOING BATTLE... WITH A TANK<br />
Good God Almighty, but this is all a bit too far<br />
above and beyond the call of duty, for a chap of my<br />
vintage, is it not?! No, no, no this is just not cricket at<br />
all.<br />
I'm driving a fifteen ton tank, for crying out loud!<br />
Yes, A TANK! Gone a bit mutton jeff, here,<br />
sorry! SORRY, VICAR, IT'S THIS INFERNAL<br />
BLOODY RACKET! Flat out, pedal to the metal,<br />
bouncing about like a pinball inside this growling,<br />
hulking behemoth, the sweat cascading out of me<br />
and some war-torn, 'Nam fixated commander type<br />
nutter shouting and bawling directions at me down<br />
my headphones while two lily-livered pansies behind<br />
me are whimpering into their comfort blankets about<br />
the quality of my driving, fcs! The fumes in here are<br />
potent enough to KO Zammo McGuire offa Grange<br />
Hill and, to top it all off, there's some sniggering posh<br />
boy careening, spiral-eyed right behind us in another<br />
tank, trying to bazooka us all to oblivion or beyond!<br />
This is a blitzkrieg to the senses like few experiences<br />
one could ever dare imagine.<br />
And it's just so aggressively deafening and effin'<br />
and jeffin' LOUD in here too. And everything's too<br />
smotheringly, overbearingly close around you. It's...<br />
actually it's a bit like being trapped inside a drunken<br />
American, is what it is. Sweet, I suppose, if that<br />
American's called Kardashian but not if it's called<br />
Sherman! No siree!<br />
But I'm trying to chill. I am! I'm trying to focus here.<br />
Just bare with me here for a tick ‘til I, y'know, ‘til I<br />
sort myself out a tad.<br />
It's all a bit frantic this armoured vehicle lark, isn't it?<br />
All a bit frenetic and discombobulating when you're<br />
used to driving a clapped out Prius, like me.<br />
Sure, yes, it had all sounded like good clean fun when<br />
the column was suggested too. All very sedate and<br />
Dad's Army and all that.<br />
The tanks are from the Seventies, so I reckoned<br />
there'd be more chance of the steering wheel falling<br />
off than of one of these things ever working up a<br />
decent head of steam again.<br />
Now I have a heavily bruised coccyx to prove just<br />
how wrong I was about that. And, yes, that's every bit<br />
as painful as it sounds, thank you very much. Matter<br />
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