That was a good read Blue - I respect Mat Oxley as a journo - he's been at it a long time.
In the early 80s I was on a ferry going over the Channel to the Bol d'Or at Paul Ricard in the south of France. It was a Tuesday and there was a bloke on the ferry reading the MCN - the MCN was always out on a Wednesday and once we got chatting it transpired he was Matt Oxley from MCN going to the Bol with a group test of Yamaha LCs. I was on an ol' Beemer R80 and we coincidentally met the strokers in service stations on a few occasions on the way down. They were going flat oot and refuelling every 80 miles - the tortoise was doing less than half the number of stops.
There was a press office at the circuit and we'd arrived early for the weekend so with a bit of a brass neck we went into the office and said I was Matt Oxley, could I have my billet s'il yous plait? We even got another one, seemingly Oxley had booked 2 tickets. That was the cheapest Bol d' Or I'd ever been to plus access to all areas to boot. We never saw Matt or his cronies all weekend but I guess he got in somehow 
Giving your age away a bit though 
