Canaries - Fuerteventura Jan 2020

Ray Cowles Motorcycles Pontypool

I've lived in South Wales for the best part of 25 years, and for the first few years lived near Pontypool. I used to drive past this shop every day on my way to work in Cardiff. I didn't have a bike license at the time, so it didn't much interest me - but it always struck me as looking as though it was lost in time. Roll on a quarter of a century and even though I don't live near it now, whenever I pass through Pontypool I've found myself taking the side road to see if its still there. I must have said to everyone a thousand times, "I've got to go and take a look" after all, surely it wont still be there next year.... So, at last, welcome to Ray Cowles Motorcycles of Pontypool. When I eventually popped in last week and told him my little story he laughed. It happens quite a lot apparently, people popping in to take pictures.He doesn't mind at all and says hes never been busier - apart from when he was a Honda main agent a few years back. (Hes ...

My Question for IS

Two things you're never meant to discuss in public - politics and religion. Well I've had a crack at politics recently and so hot on the heels of that, I have a question about religion. My little space on the internet is normally filled with holiday snaps, pictures of my latest car or a good moan about my football team. I never attempt anything particularly serious and actually I’m a bit worried about posting this – but if you’re reading it I guess I have. . I shouldn’t be worried. I live in the UK. I can say what I want and believe what I like so long as I don’t deliberately offend anyone or break any laws. That’s one of the best things about living here - generally speaking, despite all our faults, we usually rub along really well with our neighbours. We do, don’t we? So the question is: Why? I’m not a racist, or as far as I’m aware, not any sort of ’ist’. I guess I’m fundamentally a liberal. I try to see anyone’s point of view. I can see and...

Opinion: Why boxing should be banned.

No boxer tries to win on points. Everyone goes for the haymaker. As far as I’m aware this is the only sport where the deliberate intention is to cause potentially fatal brain damage to your opponent - because that’s what a knock-out can do. Twenty five years ago I read an article in a local newspaper where Nicky Piper’s wife, when asked about her opinion of the dangers of her husband’s profession (he was a well-regarded middleweight boxer at the time) said that “it’s safer than crossing the road”. She may have been joking, but in those pre internet or social media days, that was the only occasions I’ve ever felt the need to write to a newspaper with a strongly worded letter. To vent my spleen! Recently the Scottish boxer Mike Towell died following a bout and of course, those who know far more about boxing than me will be aware of the probably countless other boxers who have been killed either in the ring, following bouts, or who over the years have succumbed to bo...

Mike Packwood

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