Oh they do have a laugh here in Umbria: 'Just take the road from Palazzo de Pero It's only about 11 kilometres and you'll be there in no time at all. Squint at the map. Damn. Reading glasses in the Luis Vuitton strapped on the boot of my 8-litre III Bastardo Superleggerra Coupe and I'm not getting my suede romper suit soaked in the sudden downpour. 'Darling,' I moan at my new assistante, Mavis, 'could you possibly make head or tail of the map and see how far it is to Poggioni from Palazzo de Pero.' Doesn't need glasses. Young, you know, horribly young. Possibly illegally so in certain countries. But not Italy. (I checked).Mavis, who is tired, clicks the pewter beaker of apricot schnapps into one of III Bastardo's burred walnut cupholders, takes the map, squints. After a long 90 seconds, she says. 'Well dahlink' (don't you love assistantes who call you 'dahlink' ?), it looks a bit squiggly, but it's certainly quicker than going via Castiglioni Fiorentino.'
Two hours later we pull out of the murk and into Ricardo's villa. (His real name is not, of course Ricardo, it is Luigi). I am dripping with sweat even III Bastardo's air-con cannot temper after thrashing through a series of, oh perhaps, three trillion hairpin bends. Mavis is asleep, comatose from the schnapps. There will be no midnight dictation for this boy tonight, then. Damn, and double damn. But they do like a laugh, these Umbrians, when it comes to mis-directing Johnny Foreigner down unbelievably twisty mountain passes.
The gimlet-eyed amongst you will at this point be asking, 'What the flip has this got to do with motorbicycling and, more to the point, flogging the damn things to an uncaring public? We want our money back.' Well bear with me, and I shall tell you.
Not the world's most exciting 'bike, but a 'bike nonetheless and though it is hard work twirling the 'bars through the bends, my god this is fun. Even Mavis is stirred by the experience, demanding dictation when we get back from lunch. The restaurant hoves into view, or rather the Beta trials bike, an apparently new-ish Beta trials bikes from my scant knowledge of such things, that's bolted to the roof of the restaurant just as Ricardo (who I took to be lying about this) said it would be, hoves into view. And I'm not making this up, either. And I am also ready for Big Time Pasta.
What seems like hours later, well in fact it was five hours later, we are barrelling merrily back the 11 klicks to the house where Mavis urgently needs to brush up on her dictation. What's better, she's in luck. For proving the maxim 'You Can Run, But You Can't Hide', there in Ricardo's fax machine is an urgent demand from My Editor.
'Motorcycle trade in turmoil,' it reads. 'Sales going down the toilet (I paraphrase of course: he'd never use such coarse language). Try and come up with something to revive the troops' flagging spirits.'
And even though my little Italian sojourn with Mavis is meant to be a much-needed holiday (but with added dictation), how can I resist... especially when my monthly paycheck depends on it? And fortunately the answer to the motorbicycle trade's haemorrhaging sales occurs to me immediately. In fact it occurred to me after I'd just collected Mavis from an Anne Summers party at the Dorchester and begun our race to the car ferry in the Superlegerra. for right at Hyde Park Corner some little squit in what looked like an Audi TT cut me up.
And I say it 'looked' like an Audi TT because it was actually shrouded in a figure-hugging cotton envelope with holes cut out for the windows and lamps, overprinted with some Audi logos and Germanic slogans.
I base this assumption on the fact that car magazines, and in particular Car magazine, have long been obsessed with 'spy shots' of forthcoming models photographed by intrepid lensmen in far-flung proving grounds - usually the Antarctic or Mexican deserts. Nowadays, although still heavily disguised (often with cotton sheeting) these 'clandestine' snaps are actually leaked by factory marketing men to entice readers, readers who might be punters in six months time.
And the lesson here is obvious. Bike manufacturers don't have the same opportunities to re-vamp their ranges in such a dramatic fashion as their car building brethren: what we get if we're lucky is a new paint job and revised footrest hangers for five years, or until the R & D budgets have caught up with new emissions legislation. And recalling the intense reader interest from my Motorcycle International days when we published scoop photos bought from Japanese trade mags, I reckon all the importers have to do is clad some ER-5s or a GSX750Fs in moody black gabardine with badly stencilled maker's logos on the sides and pay some twerps to ride 'em around our major cities all day. Intrigued motorbikers would be falling off their ST4s and Roadkings trying to get a look-see, and MCN would of course dutifully fall for the ruse and print appropriate pics, followed shortly thereafter by the monthlies.
Result? Massive interest and 'triffic showroom traffic enabling your (that's you, Mr Dealer) slick sales-types to pounce and convert bug-eyed fascination into firm sales.
But whilst a grateful industry fires off bottles of Bolly and open cheques to me at Trader Towers, I'm afraid I must attempt to rid Mavis of the disguise she seems to be wearing - one of youthful innocence - and giving her a thorough dictation session.