2-wheeled Fiend
I was about 6 (mid-70s), and me and my best mate used to go everywhere on our bikes (Tomahawks - I got a Chopper later and felt all grown-up, much cooler than that twat in Whizzer & Chips).

Anyway, we found it was fun to ride our bikes down a steep main road in our village (kids - born with a death wish, aren't they?). After a while it lost its edge, so we started doing it no-handed (looks cool, everyone knows it impresses 6 yr old girls, so of course we were gonna do it). Then we added a new twist - two-thirds of the way down the hill was a turning on the right, into an estate containing an old-people's home (I'm sure they we're retired Nazis, actually, given the warm and loving response we got any time we set foot in there). The twist was this - without slowing at all, you had to turn and cross 2 lanes of traffic - whilst still doing a no-hander. And to top it off, we came up with our own little catchphrase, which you had to yell at the top of your voice.

So, we give it a go. It was a red-hot sunny day, so there goes the shirt (revealing little sausage arms covered in 'lick & stick' tattoos - more things that we were convinced made us look attractive to the neigbour's daughters). We race off, picking up speed. A third of the way down, time for no hands. Now we're bombing it down this road, no-handed, and the right-turn is coming up. But here comes a red Morris Marina in the opposite direction, what to do? I do the only thing a 6-year old knows how to do, dammit - I lean my weight over to the right, make the bike cross the lanes, stare at the Marina driver as I whizz past (who I can still see, shitting himself) and scream "SCIROCCO SPECIALLLLLLLLLLLL"".......and crash into the pavement, sending me flying into a wall, lips-first - OUCH.

We shot off to me mate's Mum, who cleaned me up and said "Don't worry, soldiers have big lips - you look just like a soldier now!" (in that way that all Mum's have of making you feel like, actually, even though I look like the Elephant Man, I feel okay about it). Then I went home, and saw me Dad. "Hey Dad" I spluttered "Look what happened - I look like a Soldier!", at which point he clouted me round the back of the head and said "Don't be so bloody stupid". He'd worked out that HE'D get it in the neck from me Mum when she saw me, even though he had precisely frig-all to do with it. And then I got a right clouting about a week later, when the shop owner who lived opposite the old-people's home told him what I'd done whilst they were in the boozer, the big fat gobshite.

I see the occasional episode of Top Gear every now and again, and whenever I see a mad stunt, I think to myself "Whoa....Scirocco Special"....
(Apathyman Prepare to be underwhelmed..., Fri 13 Feb 2009, 10:35, Reply)