BY ALEX STORY There are many paths but only one can be trodden. The human condition is thus forever reduced to considering the colour of one’s neighbour’s grass. Is mine greener than his? His greener than mine? So many doubts. Sometimes, though, we come across a neighbour’s whose grass is deep in the brown and at the sight of which envy dissipates like chaff in … Continue reading We Can’t All Be Fred Astaire
BY JAMES CAMPBELL My remit on Country Squire Magazine is to supply “mechanical porn” and I trust I have lived up to my responsibilities, even if I have occasionally featured some old British rust buckets and perhaps too often displayed my undying love for Land Rovers in the magazine’s pages. This week I cannot fail to disappoint. This time with a boat. Well, a hydroplane … Continue reading Ferrari Arno XI
BY JAMES CAMPBELL In the last twenty years, there have been new UV companies popping up across the world to cater for the super rich, who seem to want to own as many toys as they can get their hands on. Some quite ridiculous vehicles have been built including luxury tanks. I keep my eye on the development of luxury golf carts, as I am … Continue reading Duruxx: Get Out with a Bang
BY JAMES CAMPBELL What do you get if you combine my love of the sea and diving with my passion for cars? Amphibious cars and underwater cars. Bear with me. I am not barking mad. Nowadays there are some genuinely decent vehicles in the class. Arguably the first proper car that could go from driving on the road, to ‘driving’ in the water, was the Amphicar, … Continue reading Amphibious Cars Become Cool
BY JAMES CAMPBELL New Rolls Royces are so beautiful and splendidly engineered that I’d feel nervous getting into one, let alone driving one. The Dawns, Ghosts, Phantoms and Wraiths are the cars of Queens and oil-rich Sheikhs. They are all perhaps a tad too luscious for the likes of me. Even wearing a chauffeur’s cap I’d feel like I didn’t quite belong in one. I … Continue reading Which Rolls Royce?
BY JAMES CAMPBELL The Jaguar XKSS was a road-going version of the Jaguar D-Type racing car. When Jaguar withdrew from competition at the end of the 1956 season, a number of completed and partly completed D-types remained unsold at Jaguar’s Browns Lane factory. 12 of 16 Jaguar XKSS sports cars ever built reunited at Pebble Beach To recoup some of the investment made in building … Continue reading The XKSS Dream Machine
BY JAMES CAMPBELL The Great British Countryside is already missing the Land Rover Defender. Not only is there an emotional attachment between this rugged four-wheel drive workhorse and country dwellers, there is a practical side to the Defender that other car manufacturers have failed to cash in on. Yes, there are still plenty of Land Rover Defenders on the market but production did cease, after … Continue reading Listen Up, Land Rover!
BY JAMIE FOSTER On the 10 July 1997, for the first time, I engaged my democratic right to peacefully protest by carrying my 2 month old daughter in my arms on the Countryside Rally. At the time I didn’t believe that even a Labour Government would pass such an illiberal and discriminatory piece of legislation as the Hunting Act turned out to be. I didn’t … Continue reading A Passion for the Hunted Hunter
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN I confess I am now an abiding fan of Chocolate Labradors. I grew up with an omnipresent Golden Retriever as the principal family pet. However, I decided when I moved to the real countryside as an adult, I wanted a shorter-haired hound from the charming retriever family who wouldn’t get so tangled in the brambles, pick up so many burs or require … Continue reading Chocolate Delight
BY ALEXIA JAMES Spend any time with a certain football fanatic I know and you realise this man is the Football Google. Whereas most blokes spend the occasional evening with the Mrs, this fellow is Football itself. I have not been in the man’s bedroom but no doubt it is bedecked with Leeds United paraphernalia, his wardrobes bulging with Gremio shirts and his duvet cover … Continue reading Football Anoraks
