The Black Bullet is in the hands of a local mechanic, Roy, at his backwoods motor shop across from the Williams F1 HQ. If this were a city it would be a ‘backstreet’ garage, but Roy’s shop is genuinely set back in the woods, near a canal and a rail bridge - an old transport hub, gone to sleep.
Although stamping kits are available on eBay, a botched job is unlikely to impress the DVLA and after all the hoops I’ve jumped to satisfy them, I want the new frame number to be crisp and certain. If anyone’s likely to go ‘thwack’, followed by "doh!" it’s me, so I’ve handed the responsibility to a man who’s done it before (or who at least has the official capacity to f@#k it up).
I maintain that the overstamp of one digit of the old frame number – the existence of which I’ve never denied, or tried to conceal – is just as likely to have been a result of such a cock up. A distracted worker reaching for a three and picking up a seven, or an odd match of engine and frame made good on the production line (if there was such a thing)? But that was over fifty years ago and everything’s so damn serious and controlled now. We do it to ourselves, it seems, we just can't help it.
The REOC dating officer has replied, quite quickly this time. The tone of his letters is increasingly taciturn but not without reason, I feel, and he’s not getting paid to be polite. “I cannot state it more clearly,” he says, “the number on the frame and that on the engine are six months apart, according to factory records.” So, once Roy has done his work and produced a receipt for it, I’ll take my growing bundle of papers down to Humourless at the Local DVLA office, hopefully for the last time.
Everything is coming to the boil. The guitar supposedly arrives tomorrow, which is a big deal for me, it's like a religious icon on tour. The Ryder Cup begins, I should get the bike back and there's cider-making this weekend, the first real autumn festival as far as I'm concerned. It’s all going on, full throttle.
