‘Pafo’ is doctor’s shorthand for ‘Pissed and fell over.’ ‘Picnic’
is computer nerd’s slang for ‘Problem in Chair, not in Computer’. Pisnib?
Problem In Saddle, Not In Bike. Some years ago I set out, heavily laden with
luggage, on a longish journey on my Velocette Venom. I’d hardly gone five miles
when the bike seemed to run out of petrol, so I reached down and opened the
other fuel tap. No go. I shook the bike from side to side and heard plenty of
fuel sloshing around in the tank. Then I delved for a plug spanner and checked
the spark – yes. Now in my not very long book spark + fuel = engine runs. So I
kicked the engine over and away I went.
A few miles
later it happened again. This time I didn’t bother getting the plug spanner
out, I just waited a few minutes and set off again. It was a hot day; could the
engine be overheating, causing magneto failure? I hoped not.
When it
happened again after another five miles I happened to be on a very quiet
stretch of road, and I noticed a gentle hissing sound. Oh, no; not a puncture
too? The hissing subsided but the tyres seemed fine, so off I went again.
And it
happened again. This time I simply sat on the roadside bank, lit a cigarette,
and had a think. (It is not yet as widely realized as it should be what a
disastrous effect the current disapproval of smoking is going to have on Man’s
inventive capacities.) There was that hissing again. I prodded the tank bag.
The hissing stopped. I re-arranged the tank bag so that it no longer covered
the little hole in the fuel cap. Problem solved.
Simon Darragh.
This is actually someone else's Velocette Venom; I can't find any pictures of the one I used to have.
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