What have you done today with your Austin Seven

[Steve kay]

Splendid Duncan! So the next time us lower orders are allowed on to the Lawns, when the plummy commentator’s voice tells us that ripping calico is about to be heard on the hill, I will wander over and tap on the doors of the commentary box. “ Excuse me”. I will say “ but that is just a four wheeler from Molsheim, and not a two, or possibly three wheeler from Yorkshire.” Duncan, you certainly have today’s BTH so far, but many hours yet.

[Alan]

Has anyone actually ever torn some calico?

[Ivor Hawkins]

Scott motorcycles yowl and I think Steve’s correct Bugattis do the ripping calico bit...I still think a 16 cylinder BRM takes some beating, when it comes to sound.

[Steve kay]

Thanks to those who read the forum and then email suggestions, I have looked up Tim Nicholson and Julian Hunt. So a correction. The abbreviation of Best Three Hyphen should be BT-H. To avoid magneto confusion obviously. Not challenged yet, Duncan.

[Tony Griffiths]

My 1926 Flyer racer with an open exhaust and Silk Engineering tuning did sound a bit like that when flat out (it would just crack 100 mph). Sadly, my current 1922 3-speed "Super" is not really as audibly exciting - more a gentle burble, burble-burble.

[Steve kay]

Assembling a clutch this afternoon, was I using G cramps or G-cramps?

[joe]

G Clamps.

Silly Suffolk

[Bob Olive]

Agree that Scott motorcycles ‘yowl’ and Bugattis exhaust was famously likened to the sound of ripping calico. I think the link between the two is that Scotts were once described as ‘the Bugatti of motor-cycles’, a phrase which stuck.
Those uf us who reside in the Royal County - and further south - are reminded of ripping calico in the lyric of the matelot’s boozing song ‘Be I Berkshire, be I b.gg.ry, I comes from down in Fareham, that’s where the girls wear calico drawers, and I knows how to …’ ( and I’ll leave it there…)

[Duncan Grimmond]

Slightly contrived but none-the-less true, when I was twelve I operated a horse-drawn mower-binder under-age in a Thornton-le-Dale wheat-field.
Septuple hyphen?
I'll get me coat...

[Graham Barker]

Took my Ruby out for a run and brought her home in disgrace for conking out after a lot of misfiring and spluttering. 
I removed the carburettor bowl at the roadside and checked the jets. They were clean. The fuel pump was working fine. 
On restarting, it ran for about a minute with some misfiring and then conked out again  Hence the tow truck. 
The distributor cap has a crack up the side, so have ordered a new cap in case that is the culprit.

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Oops attached the wrong photo. Ruby in disgrace.