“Kick the tyres, light the fires, the last one up’s a sissy” (or words to that effect) is a phrase from my days flying jet aircraft in the RAF, used to describe one’s feeling when, dismally hung over after a late night and contemplating foul weather, the time came to take to the air. It came back to me recently and inspired the name of this book. The procedure was to clamber into the cockpit, strap yourself in (if necessary with help from the ground crew), switch on the oxygen to emergency high flow and start the engines (again with help). As the aircraft started to move forward one’s head miraculously cleared and all was well with the world again. Roughly what this country needs at the moment!
Torquil Norman