Sheene The Movie

Looks like there's going to be a biopic (to use the popular portmanteau) of Barry Sheene. I spent a day with him once, at Donington, very memorable. And Sideburn's deputy ed, Mick P, spoke to him on a monthly basis for a few years, as he ghostwrote his column for Bike magazine.

It's hard to tell how far the movie is into production, though reports say casting hasn't started yet. The film's official website, sheene.com says...

A NARRATIVE FEATURE FILM ON THE MOST CHARISMATIC AND INFLUENTIAL MOTORCYCLE CHAMPION OF ALL TIME
• Based on the book “Barry: The Story of Motorcycling Legend Barry Sheene” by Barry’s team mate and good friend Steve Parrish and MotoGP commentator Nick Harris
• A British / Australian CoOProduction produced by Will Stoppard (Deep Springs Pictures GB) and Rod Morris (I. O. Films AU) • Acclaimed writing team of Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement (“The Commitments”, “The Bank Job”, “Across The Universe”) attached to write the script

Guido and Sue - the end?

This time, the hapless perma-nerd Guido might have blown it for good. Anyone familiar with the shenanigans of this pair over the years will know that Sue has tried everything but imprisonment and assault to get into Guido's... affections, but the bloke just can't see the wood for the trees. It's a lesson to us all.

With apologies to original authors and journalists Guido Bettiol and Vic Willoughby, and artist George Domenech. MP

Splash It All Over

Not even Barry Sheene can look cool smearing Brut onto his boobs while a gone to seed boxer looks on. G

Information Graphics

Penthouse Pet, Stephanie McLean, Barry Sheene's wife getting the message across in a nice clear font that can be read at 135mph. BP

Digger

A virtually unknown Wayne Gardner came from Australia to race in England in 1981. He raced the Moriwaki Z1000 and slept in his car. Towards the end of season he went to Olivers Mount, a public road/park circuit in Scarborough, and beat former two-time World Champion, Barry Sheene, who was on a factory Yamaha GP bike. I'm assured that's Bob Smith tucked in behind Sheene.

Gardner became a hero to a generation of British riders overnight. G

Guido and Sue, pt1

In the first of an occasional feature, we meet Guido and Sue. In fact, we first bumped into this pair in March last year. Poor old Guido, Sue is clearly hot to trot, but he just keeps missing the point. It's a sobering reminder to all us petrol heads.
As culled from 'Motorcycles. Maintain Your Own Machine' by top journalists Guido Bettiol and Vic Willoughby, with artwork by George Domenech. MP

Oliver's Mount by Adi

I'm still writing the monthly roads column for Bike in the UK and Adi at 99 Seconds is illustrating it. This is the one he did for this month's Oliver's Mount story. Cool eh? G

A pile of Barry Sheene

Inspired by Gary's Notebooks and Tickets posts, I dug under the bed for these microcassettes (remember them?) from the three and a bit years I spent editing Barry Sheene's monthly column for Bike magazine between 2000 and 2003. I'd call him up at his house on the Gold Coast in Australia a couple of times a month and we'd have a chat, which would end up as the 1000-word column. I'd sometimes fax him possible ideas ahead of time and, quite rightly, he'd studiously ignore them. Much of it is fairly straightforward stuff, but there were certain outbursts that were never fit for publication and some funny moments. One went something like this:

Sheene: ... yeah, and so... er...
[PAUSE]
MP: Barry?
[LONG PAUSE]
MP: Barry? Are you still there?
Sheene: Eh?
MP: You were saying...
[PAUSE]
MP: Barry?
[HUGE PAUSE]
MP: Barry??
Sheene: Oh, yeah, sorry Mick, there was this gorgeous couple of birds on the telly. Right, where were we?

I keep meaning to transfer the tapes to digital, so I at least have a back-up, but seven and a half years after Barry died of cancer, I've still not got round to it. Mr 'Get On With It' himself would be appalled. MP