Just returned from the pub to watch speedway on Sky. I don’t think I was mistaken but, did I see Chris ‘bomber’ Harris, he who was famous for invoking the legacy of Air Marshal Arthur Harris and embracing the RAF target symbol as his personal motif, sporting a baseball cap with World War II German/Nazi insignia?
Still not sure I actually saw that but, either way, these are crazy, confusing and, yes, cryptic times, that’s for sure!
Never clocked it this evening, but I have noticed Harris sporting the Iron Cross insignia previously. A quick check sows it belongs to one of his sponsors - West Coast Choppers - who happen to be a Netherlands based company, which adds to the IRONy
Lets hope his Daytonas haven't been replaced with Jack Boots ;D
I didn’t know that, mervjankefanclub, but it would certainly explain why Chris was wearing what still appeared to be rather disturbing garb, the Iron Cross being historically associated with the German military including, of course, during the Nazi era, 1933-45 (it wasn’t a Maltese Cross, by the way, which has its own distinctive design).
Yet to my mind at least, this issue only raises more troubling questions:
1. Am I to assume that my fellow bikers, though reasonable and lovely deep down they must surely be, are somehow more susceptible than most to the insidious influence of once fascist symbolism?
2. Apart from seeking brand recognition and tax efficiency, is there something darker in this company’s sponsorship than meets the eye?
3. Indeed, has the person of Chris ‘bomber’ Harris become the unwitting battlefield within which a conflict between two competing nationalist ideologies is being fought-out?
4. If so, that one single body has hosted these two supposedly incompatible emblems, could that in itself be indicative of the RAF target and the Iron Cross existing on more-or-less the same kind of plane?
5. Will this paradox finally be resolved if we just keep voting UKIP?
6. Is the salvation of Chris Harris’s soul ultimately dependent on an instinctive need to keep turning left in whichever race his emblematic presence is destined to appear?
7. Am I being driven steadily insane by all this nonsense of which I write?
8. Is it now time to forget about all of this for good and just go fishing?
Well, don’t make the mistake of thinking I’ve written this to mock Chris Harris or his sponsor, West Coast Choppers. Chris Harris is a rider whose evident skill, tenacity and dedication I admire greatly while WCC is clearly a very successful and valuable player on the biking scene, and produce some amazing bikes, by the way.
No, the (word-)playful questions I’ve raised above speak to a proposition a good deal more profound than pointless, unfounded insults, the realisation of which came to me via a vision from on high through the Sky (or more precisely, up on an interior pub wall in Partick three pints in, ‘hic, hic, hic’) one Monday evening (27th May). The proposition?...
Yes, that’s right…we are all, that’s all, Mr. Chris Harris now!
Walshie.
PS: I realise this post is somewhat off-message and may not meet with everyone’s approval, the principal subject matter appearing to concern the welfare of a Brummie rather than a Tiger (in fact it’s meant to concern us all). A further case made for the introduction of a general topics category on the forum, perhaps?
Whatever, I’m sure this fine, eclectic thread will continue with the sort of ‘joie de vivre’ we could all do with a little more. But I’m off to visit the library in Ephesus now (not really, of course, just virtually). It’ll still involve an element of time and there’s always the chance of not even re-emerging from such a lofty wormhole.
In the meantime, beginning with the threat of Comets, good luck to the ‘super furry animals’ (you know which I’m talking about), though please don’t get me wrong: still bearing a terribly tender soft-spot for the (re-formed yet baseless) Heathens and (bordering on exclusion below us – subject to referendum, of course!) the Bandits…ouch!!