Andy, tell me about it! at the min im collecting confi paper for shreadding! lil truck dinking about. BUT i have the itch again to drive drive drive.
There’s something about the open road, a full tank of diesel, and and a warm truckstop on a winter’s day that gets you every time. If you think about it the journey’ usually better than the arrival!
Laurence
Is Breakfast in Babylon posted anywhere to read?
I remember the story quite well, the bit where you told the border guard “no fiki fiki, too old” in relation to your passenger made me chuckle!
BuzzardBoy:
LaurenceIs Breakfast in Babylon posted anywhere to read?
I remember the story quite well, the bit where you told the border guard “no fiki fiki, too old” in relation to your passenger made me chuckle!
I think Dreva posted a scan of it BB 
He did post it and after a quick skim of the lappy I seem to have #cough# borrowed them so…
To put this in perspective we (Orient Transport) donated a prize to BBC Children in need entitled “Breakfast in Babylon” The DJ on Radio 2 who held the auction was Adrian Love and he came along to a champagne send off at a Heatheow hotel. The truck was Peter King’s and of course we had the bonus of that very fine journalist and driver Laurence Keily who looked afte our winner all the way through.
I don’t know if it’s in the story but our Istanbul agent, Necdet Akar, never knowingly sober after lunchtime,
Took them out to dinner by the Bosphorus. He was a great character but you has to get used to his habit of kissing everybody in sight. After he’d embraced our winner he set about Laurence who was having none of it and all but decked him! Luckily Necdet as usual was ■■■■■■ and didn’t take offence.
Necdet was a millionaire and a bit of a Michael Winner! My wife and I were out with him on the Bosphorus one night when we had starters, mains, sweets and after dinner drinks all in different restaurants as Necdet took offence at something in each one! In the first he didn’t like the music, in the second the waiter annoyed him and so on.
Great days.
billybigrig:
BuzzardBoy:
LaurenceIs Breakfast in Babylon posted anywhere to read?
I remember the story quite well, the bit where you told the border guard “no fiki fiki, too old” in relation to your passenger made me chuckle!I think Dreva posted a scan of it BB
Cheers mate, I’ll have a read of that shortly!
BuzzardBoy:
LaurenceIs Breakfast in Babylon posted anywhere to read?
I remember the story quite well, the bit where you told the border guard “no fiki fiki, too old” in relation to your passenger made me chuckle!
Billybigrig has just done me a huge favour by putting a scanned mag copy up. I too have the mag but could not for the life of me find the slides. But now after getting off my backside have located most of 'em. But if you guys are content with what you’ve got now on this thread, great. If not coz the text is a bit blurred, no offence meant - mags never do produce quality images whatever equipment is used - I’ll textbridge the lot, scan the slides and upload it as the original mag feature appeared.
In the meantime, thanks for all your compliments.
Laurence Kiely
Jazzandy:
To put this in perspective we (Orient Transport) donated a prize to BBC Children in need entitled “Breakfast in Babylon” The DJ on Radio 2 who held the auction was Adrian Love and he came along to a champagne send off at a Heatheow hotel. The truck was Peter King’s and of course we had the bonus of that very fine journalist and driver Laurence Keily who looked afte our winner all the way through.I don’t know if it’s in the story but our Istanbul agent, Necdet Akar, never knowingly sober after lunchtime,
Took them out to dinner by the Bosphorus. He was a great character but you has to get used to his habit of kissing everybody in sight. After he’d embraced our winner he set about Laurence who was having none of it and all but decked him! Luckily Necdet as usual was ■■■■■■ and didn’t take offence.Necdet was a millionaire and a bit of a Michael Winner! My wife and I were out with him on the Bosphorus one night when we had starters, mains, sweets and after dinner drinks all in different restaurants as Necdet took offence at something in each one! In the first he didn’t like the music, in the second the waiter annoyed him and so on.
Great days.
Andy, you’re right, Necdet did have a liquid brain after lunch. Ernest Gardner was the winner of that Breakfast in Babylon escapade - he was in his sixties then if I recall correctly. After that send off from a very posh Heathrow Hotel, forget the name of it, I don’t really think poor Ernest knew what to expect. But, he was a gentleman who loved adventure and didn’t mind a drop of ale himself!
Have thanked Billybigrig for putting a scanned mag copy on this thread so if you are all content with that, great. If not will try in the foreseeable future to upload as near as original as I can get.
Was it Gist out of Faversham you worked for? If so I went there once and their agency turned me away for two reasons. Firstly they did not want limited company agency drivers and secondly I was ten minutes early for the pre-arranged interview!
Oh well, you can’t please all the people all the time.
Good luck
Laurence Kiely
Laurence:
I too have the mag but could not for the life of me find the slides. But now after getting off my backside have located most of 'em. But if you guys are content with what you’ve got now on this thread, great. If not coz the text is a bit blurred, no offence meant - mags never do produce quality images whatever equipment is used - I’ll textbridge the lot, scan the slides and upload it as the original mag feature appeared.
In the meantime, thanks for all your compliments.
Laurence Kiely
Laurence,
If you can post that article again it would be great mate, then i can save to my PC for future enjoyment. Also the pic’s, if you have them and can post in a larger format it would be really good, in particular the one of Ian’s rig, the infamous “Snodtrotter”. I have told many people over the years about Snoddy, what a character he is, but i have not a single picture of his trucks. I used to service, maintain and paint them and also i built the high roof conversions which he had on two of his trucks. I think it was Peter King, or possibly Kenny Ward, who first nicknamed them the “Snodtrotter”, and they were known as that for evermore. Also mate, any other pic’s that you may have of the Snodtrotters would be great, maybe you have a frontal shot hidden away in your archives ■■?
Ian Snodgrass, another of lifes great characters. About the only driver to ever leave Tolemans in the days when they earnt a bloody fortune for doing very little. He bought an old 280 MAN and an even older car transporter trl and done the job as an O/D. That is when i first met him and started to do his maintenance work. Then he got the bug to try his hand at the ME and continental work, Kenny Snooks done a bit of driving for him in Snodtrotter ‘2’, an MAN 22-321, and Snoddy drove the old 280 himself, which had to be abandoned in Iraq at the outbreak of the first Gulf war.
On my last visit to the UK, October 2010, i tracked Snoddy down and we had a few pints in Colchester, he had not changed at all, and was in the process of moving lock-stock and barrel to some farmhouse in France, i expect that that is where he is now settled.
Regards to all, Steve.
M&C steve:
Laurence:
I too have the mag but could not for the life of me find the slides. But now after getting off my backside have located most of 'em. But if you guys are content with what you’ve got now on this thread, great. If not coz the text is a bit blurred, no offence meant - mags never do produce quality images whatever equipment is used - I’ll textbridge the lot, scan the slides and upload it as the original mag feature appeared.
In the meantime, thanks for all your compliments.
Laurence KielyLaurence,
If you can post that article again it would be great mate, then i can save to my PC for future enjoyment. Also the pic’s, if you have them and can post in a larger format it would be really good, in particular the one of Ian’s rig, the infamous “Snodtrotter”. I have told many people over the years about Snoddy, what a character he is, but i have not a single picture of his trucks. I used to service, maintain and paint them and also i built the high roof conversions which he had on two of his trucks. I think it was Peter King, or possibly Kenny Ward, who first nicknamed them the “Snodtrotter”, and they were known as that for evermore. Also mate, any other pic’s that you may have of the Snodtrotters would be great, maybe you have a frontal shot hidden away in your archives ■■?
Ian Snodgrass, another of lifes great characters. About the only driver to ever leave Tolemans in the days when they earn a bloody fortune for doing very little. He bought an old 280 MAN and an even older car transporter trl and done the job as an O/D. That is when i first met him and started to do his maintenance work. Then he got the bug to try his hand at the ME and continental work, Kenny Snooks done a bit of driving for him in Snodtrotter ‘2’, an MAN 22-321, and Snoddy drove the old 280 himself, which had to be abandoned in Iraq at the outbreak of the first Gulf war.
On my last visit to the UK, October 2010, i tracked Snoddy down and we had a few pints in Colchester, he had not changed at all, and was in the process of moving lock-stock and barrel to some farmhouse in France, i expect that that is where he is now settled.
Regards to all, Steve.
Okey Dokey, Stevie Boy, I’ll see what I can do.
Cheers mate
Laurence
Hi Laurence as M&C Steve asks could you post some pics of things never posted in the mags? What you might think of as not the best would be of interest to us guys, cheers. John
Jazzandy:
I will be posting lots more but I really can’t get my head round the problems with posting photos. Not like Facebook where you just click and post.
If the pics are already up on facebook, open up facebook and trucknet, go to the posting section on here, when you want to put a pic up click on img, then go to the facebook pic and right click on it, click on and highlight the url from properties, copy that and paste it onto the trucknet page, it’ll automatically go in between the img bits and your pic will show up, sounds complicated, but once you do it you’ll see it’s a lot easier than it sounds 
Hi Newmercman,
Thanks for the advice. I’ already already posting photos on the Iran Container Co and OHS threads and wiill post some here when I get the time!
Jazzandy:
Hi Newmercman,Thanks for the advice. I’ already already posting photos on the Iran Container Co and OHS threads and wiill post some here when I get the time!
I hope you find time soon then, in the absence of decent pics to look at I’ve had to post a load of my old bollox on here, you can protect the poor trucknetters by shutting me up with some photos
Hi all you guys, sorry about the delay 
but have found five pics of Ian Snodgrass and his ‘Snodtrotter’ as M+C Steve calls it. Here is one below. The rest are on http://www.laurencekiely.co.uk in the Picture Gallery section. Sounds a bit long winded but on that site you can get a much bigger picture by clicking on the small one. Might be handy for your own records as Snodders was indeed a truly great character and I hope he still is!
Have found + scanned most of the slides for the Breakfast in Babylon piece so will post that shortly.
Take care and thanks for your patience
Laurence Kiely
http://www.laurencekiely.co.uk
That’s the man, the infamous Snoddy !!
That pic’s quite a few years old now, but he still looks exactly the same now, well 18 months ago when i last met him …
Thanks for your time in finding / posting them Laurence, come over here and i will buy you a few cold ones.
Regards Steve.
Hi All, Breakfast In Babylon is now on line
Could not locate all the old pix so jazzed the piece up a bit.
Link is here
http://www.laurencekiely.co.uk
Just click the big pic on home page and the rest will show up.
Cheers for now
Laurence
An excellent read…RDF
Laurence:
Hi All, Breakfast In Babylon is now on line
Could not locate all the old pix so jazzed the piece up a bit.
Link is here
http://www.laurencekiely.co.uk
Just click the big pic on home page and the rest will show up.
Cheers for now
Laurence
Hi Lawrence,
I’ve still got the original Truck mags with the story.
Also somewhere I’ve got the publicity shots we did at the Sheraton hotel Heathrow which I’ll post as soon as I can find them.
Great tale well told!