Posts
2010 marks the 60th anniversary of the launch of the PMC. Yes, it's impossible to believe, but that's because it is impossible. To mark this auspicious occasion the PMC will be taking a retrospective of some of the outstanding posts of the past six decades. From Cold War to Coldplay and from Ban the Bomb to Ban the Burka, every decade will be represented, and includes highlights from some of the most talked about of contributors...Bertrand Russell, Hunter S. Thompson, Roman Polanski, Roald Dahl and Limahl from Kajagoogoo, to name but a few - none of them contributed to the PMC's pages (oh, hold on a second, Limahl had a regular section in the early 80s).
January 1982 saw the arrival of a new contributor to the PMC. Benedict Francis-Kentigern, or BFK as he immediately became known, was a budding motoring journalist who had risen from the humble beginnings of Stowe public school and an old Austin Healey Sprite that his stockbroker father had bought him for his twelfth birthday, to become motoring correspondent here. He also worked for Motorsport magazine, and in fact was known for merely scaling down his offerings there somewhat and simply posting them here.. as if any serious journalist would do such a thing.
An early excerpt from his work, the then-never-popular 'BFK's week', shows us that the young BFK was no slouch when it came to painting a vivid picture of his glamorous lifestyle without ever resorting to cliche..
First published on 1 July 1982..
Hi all - BFK here. I've just been driving the new version of the XJS from Jaguar. It's got a lot more kick to it now, with a 5.3 V12 high efficiency engine which has squeezed out nearly a hundred more bhp than the old version, and you certainly feel it, as I did winding my way through the leafy lanes surrounding Great Missenden in my native Bucks. It was a cabriolet I was driving, and the moody looking clouds that were gathering over High Wycombe direction initially provoked a little bit of concern, before pulling over to close the automatic cloth top, which worked like a dream. Forunately I'd donned my best black roll neck Simon Templar jersey and was closing the window just as a hot looking brunette drew parallel with me, in a gold cabriolet Golf Gti. She fluttered her eyelids at me whilst I managed to half raise my eyebrow (using my finger to help). I was about to suggest coffee at a little hostelry I know nearby, before she let out a terrible estuary 'see ya, graaandad'..my goodness, it was none other than Lorraine Chase! I was tempted to give chase myself but decided to play it cool, easy enough to do when you're driving by far the smoothest thing to come out of Coventry, not that that is saying much.
I was getting a bit peckish so pulled over in the next village to buy a Cadbury's finger of fudge and the latest issue of the 'classical composers partwork'. It was Shostakovich this time. Must remember to leave the LP and accompanying booklet on my glass coffee table, just in case Lorraine should pop round to borrow a cup of sugar. It'll make me look as sophisticated as Christopher Cazenove, almost.
I soon got stuck behind some old biddies in a Morris Minor, and it wasn't going to be easy to get round them on a single track lane in the Chilterns. I just chilled out, slapped on the latest Police album on the cassette player (which has an auto-reverse function and Dolby reduced hiss!) and let it all wash over me.
Back at the ranch, I ran a sponge-mop and some Flash over the black and white tiled hallway floor, which was designed for me by Terence Conran no less, before settling down to catch what little of Wimbledon the rain hadn't spoiled.
Plugging into my Acorn Electron and losing off a fax to New York, in which I propsed to run a few ideas up the flagpole with our American co-publishers, I felt a wave of satisfaction come over me. This is 1982 and anything is possible, especially with your truly involved, and I pushed my red rimmed specs up my nose with an air of smugness I'd seen on a recent episode of 'Triangle'.
