I once knew a man who was an Eddie Stobart spotter. He was a retired lieutenant-colonel and wholly conventional, save for his hobby, which was to note down the name of every Stobart lorry he passed in a special notebook he kept in his car for the purpose.
Eddie Stobart, for the uninitiated, is the Cumberland haulage contractor who gives his hulking great green 40-tonne artics delicate and inappropriate ladies’ names, such as “Dolly” and “Cynthia”. My friend’s ambition, for some unfathomable reason, was to record them all. His wife and children found his pastime infuriating, but I regarded it as a harmless but amusing eccentricity. How could a successful, grown man find such delight in such a banal, meaningless pursuit?
Rather to my concern, however, I have recently found myself tempted to follow in my friend’s obsessive path. Every morning, I walk to the House of Commons as the Pimlico Plumbers fleet is setting out on its daily rounds. Pimlico Plumbers is the hugely successful business founded by the millionaire Charlie Mullins, Britain’s wealthiest plumber. Charlie’s shiny blue VW vans are a familiar sight around Westminster, racing to plumbing crises all over the capital, and no doubt making a mint for Charlie – remember Woody Allen’s observation: “Not only does God not exist, but have you ever tried to find a plumber on a Sunday?”
So, as I walk to work, I usually eyeball at least one PP van. They are notable for two things: they are always extraordinarily clean and they have special, personalised number plates. And what brilliant numbers they are. So far, I have spotted, inter alia, BOG1, W4TER and DRA1N. Charlie must have spent a fortune on the plates, but they certainly get his vans noticed.
Today, in PP spotting terms, was a red letter day. I had the rare pleasure of sighting two PP vans in quick succession. Their numbers were B101LER and LAV1. I jotted them down in my mental notebook.
A few weeks ago, my wife was canvassing in Kinmel Bay during the Welsh Assembly elections. She saw a PP van parked in the driveway of a house she visited. The lady who lived there told her that it had been driven there by her son, who worked for PP in London and was visiting her for the weekend.
When my wife told me about the encounter afterwards, I asked her what the van’s registration number was. She gave me an odd look. The sort of look my friend the Eddie spotter used to get from his wife.
Eddie Stobart, for the uninitiated, is the Cumberland haulage contractor who gives his hulking great green 40-tonne artics delicate and inappropriate ladies’ names, such as “Dolly” and “Cynthia”. My friend’s ambition, for some unfathomable reason, was to record them all. His wife and children found his pastime infuriating, but I regarded it as a harmless but amusing eccentricity. How could a successful, grown man find such delight in such a banal, meaningless pursuit?
Rather to my concern, however, I have recently found myself tempted to follow in my friend’s obsessive path. Every morning, I walk to the House of Commons as the Pimlico Plumbers fleet is setting out on its daily rounds. Pimlico Plumbers is the hugely successful business founded by the millionaire Charlie Mullins, Britain’s wealthiest plumber. Charlie’s shiny blue VW vans are a familiar sight around Westminster, racing to plumbing crises all over the capital, and no doubt making a mint for Charlie – remember Woody Allen’s observation: “Not only does God not exist, but have you ever tried to find a plumber on a Sunday?”
So, as I walk to work, I usually eyeball at least one PP van. They are notable for two things: they are always extraordinarily clean and they have special, personalised number plates. And what brilliant numbers they are. So far, I have spotted, inter alia, BOG1, W4TER and DRA1N. Charlie must have spent a fortune on the plates, but they certainly get his vans noticed.
Today, in PP spotting terms, was a red letter day. I had the rare pleasure of sighting two PP vans in quick succession. Their numbers were B101LER and LAV1. I jotted them down in my mental notebook.
A few weeks ago, my wife was canvassing in Kinmel Bay during the Welsh Assembly elections. She saw a PP van parked in the driveway of a house she visited. The lady who lived there told her that it had been driven there by her son, who worked for PP in London and was visiting her for the weekend.
When my wife told me about the encounter afterwards, I asked her what the van’s registration number was. She gave me an odd look. The sort of look my friend the Eddie spotter used to get from his wife.
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