The Avengers pale into…

Insignificance when compared to The Professionals. For my Septic friends, in fact, anyone who was not a teenager in the 1980s with access to LWT, I will elaborate.  Close your eyes and imagine it’s 1977, the Mull of Kintyre by Wings (don’t say who Septics, it’s Paul McCartney and Wings for feck’s sake) is at No1 in the UK Top 40, it’s the Queens Silver Jubilee, and it’s the year Punk hit the London scene with mohawks and DMs everywhere.

It was also the year the producer of The Avengers (no, not that band of mutant Marvel weirdos but the TV show ya numpty!) starring Patrick Macnee (the bloke sporting a bowler hat and cane) and Honor Blackman (the sex goddess of teenage boy’s dreams) came up with The Professionals.  The series ran from 1977 to 1983 on LWT (London Weekend Television), and all 57 episodes starred Martin Shaw and Lewis Collins as CI5 agents – oh, CI5 was Criminal Intelligence 5, alluding to the real-life MI5 and CID. But it wasn’t that the stars were dressers or that the pair wore Old Spice to entice the ladies, but they drove 1978 Silver Mk3 Ford Capri 3.0s. Nothing short of unadulterated automotive distinction manifesting itself in driving excellence that defies its iconic status by traversing the fourth dimension with a blatant disregard for personal safety.

I will put my last statement another way. When Willian Bodie, played by Lewis Collins, gets behind the wheel of that Capri he could get from Wembley (North-East London) to Heathrow (West London) in about 10 minutes. Mere mortals like my good self would take about 30 mins as long as the traffic lights are in my favour and the roads are as quiet as a scene from some post-apocalyptic disaster film, BUT Bodie could drive through rush hour London like that Capri had a flux capacitor. To a teenage boy, this epitomises COOL, and we all wanted to be Bodie and drive a Capri. They were the days my global audience when the threat of global devastation at the hand of Russian nukes could not overshadow The Professionals.

Fast forward to 1991, and I have secured my first job in Civil Engineering, enabling me to get a car loan. Now take a wild stab in the dark as to my chosen investment in vehicular transport…..yes, a Capri. I bought a 1984 White 1.6s Mk3 Capri with pepper pot alloys – oh yeah, baby. This fine example of 2nd hand car sales more than made up for what I lost in horsepower compared to The Professionals motor with my pepper pots. With that, I will digress slightly to tell you about my first run-in with the Law.

It was on the old Roman road linking Scotland to London, the A1. For my Septic readers, a Roman road has several characteristics, but the main feature was born out of the Roman wanting to get from A to B in the quickest time. All Roman roads are straight and in the general direction as the crow flies. Now the A1 is a single carriageway or one lane going North and the other South, which presents a problem for cars to overtake. To combat this design floor, two overtaking points were introduced, allowing cars to pass slow-moving vehicles. It was the 22nd of December, and I was travelling from Scotland to my home town of Corby, and in front of me, the first of the overtaking lanes approached. Seizing the opportunity, I dropped a gear and opened up the Capri. Then the blue flashing lights of the Police, full of Christmas joy, decided to pull me over. Per police protocols, I was invited to sit in the back of their car, where they read me my rights. You know the one ‘…..everything you say will be taken down and can be used in evidence in court…..’.

NOW at this juncture, most drivers would say nothing and cop a fine and the accompanying demerit points, but not me. For some reason I cannot recall, I decided to reply, ‘can you be so kind as to stop hitting me, officer’ now I don’t know if it was my delivery the officer took a dislike to or my churpie chappie smile that got up his nose, but they were not happy. They asked me to disembark from their vehicle, where they did an extensive search of the Capri and wrote several tickets for various non-descript reasons, emptied my boot (or trunk as the Septics refer to it ) and arranged its contents on the side of the road. On completing my summons to report to Corby police station to show every piece of vehicular documentation I could lay my hands on, they drove off, leaving me to pack my car in the rain. May this be a lesson to all my global audience – the police will not stand for smart arses regardless of the time of the year, bah humbug!

Back to the plot, so The Professionals can get from one side of London to the other during rush hour in 10 minutes without Google maps, so why the feckin hell do my metropolitan journeys resemble that of Phileas Fogg.  I will explain for those of you who feel slightly bewildered. I don’t live in Sydney but work there and have to travel twice a week, not just because working from home can be detrimental to married life but because I have to show my face at the Head Office of one of Australia’s big banks. Sydney is much like London apart from the Kray’s, jellied eels, the greatest footballing side that is QPR, but it does have a road structure based on what can only be described as that of the East End during the reign of Queen Victoria.   My journey resembles the flight of a honey bee and not one as the crow flies. My point is that the Sydney road system is less complicated than London’s (even though Australia is full of England’s ex-cons), but it has an abundance of Toll roads. Don’t get me started on Toll roads, for feck’s sake, but they facilitate the quickest route. So why is it that the sat nav built into my Audi takes me through every feckin Victorian back road and rat run that even The Professionals would not use.

And with the final bounce – where the feck has all these fast food delivery mopeds come from, the little feckers nip in and out of everywhere as if they owned the joint. They are all feckin students trying to earn a few bobs whilst studying some non-descript degree they will never use and will not progress humanity. That Uber Eats is for you, but they are not alone there is feckin, DoorDash, feckin Deliveroo with a feckin stupid logo. And another thing, the little feckers don’t even acknowledge you, which is another problem, lack of respect – I blame the parents!

Now I know I said I would write more often, but I have been waiting for Netflix to call about turning Badger & Batbottom into a mini-series. Alas, no call has been made nor message sent, so Prime, here I come.

Before I wrap up another thrilling instalment of Badger and Batbottom, I will bring the curtain down with a memorable snippet from my past – Sham 69. Where’s the relevance I hear you cry. Well, I’m always waiting around for the women in my life, so to make a point and to get on their nerves, I started singing Hurry up Harry until I got a response. I always got a response more akin to abuse I would say, but my outburst would always leave Lo bewildered and confused, especially when the Minister for War and Finance pogos around the living room. It is safe to say our daughter thinks her parents are stark, raving mad. but at least I do not work for Uber!

With that, be safe people, respect our front liners, choose life, stop fighting and for pity’s sake, look after each other! – SAVVY!