MMM July issue on-sale now!

[Lucie Cranfield]

Hello All,

 

The July issue of MMM is on-sale now! It includes a FREE 32-page guide to Dorset and Hampshire complete with information on beaches, days out and campsites.

 

There's also £2,200 worth of prizes up for grabs including TVs and antennae, awnings and show tickets. Plus £1 off the Midsummer Motorhome & Caravan Event at Exeter.

 

Plus great travel in Kent, Covelly, Anglesey and Aquitaine and active adventures in Snowdon, the Swiss Alps and southeast France. And Andy Stothert rides again in Brittany.

 

We also take a look at Adria's new 2014 low-profile, reveal the results of our first test of the Laika Kreos 3008 French bed, and further tests on the Dethleffs Globebus I4, Hymer 700 and Bessacarr E560. And much, much more.

 

MMM is on-sale in all good newsagents -or you can order it today by clicking here - http://tinyurl.com/p9exme

 

If you are travelling away in your motorhome, why not get a digital copy for just £2.49 - http://tinyurl.com/paw9wkw

 

Thanks,

Lucie :-D

[Tomo3090]

Is it true that they editor has published letterd from people claiming to be gassed in their van? I only ask because that's what is claimed on Motorhomefacts. It's supposed to be on page 12. If it's comfirmed as true then that's saved me a few bob because I'll never be wasting my money on a comic that prints such rubbish again >:-)

[Keithl]

Tomo3090 - 2013-05-30 10:57 PM

 

Is it true that they editor has published letterd from people claiming to be gassed in their van? I only ask because that's what is claimed on Motorhomefacts. It's supposed to be on page 12. If it's comfirmed as true then that's saved me a few bob because I'll never be wasting my money on a comic that prints such rubbish again >:-)

 

Yes just had a quick glance at my copy and sure enough that appears to be the subject of the letter!

I'll read it properly over the weekend.

 

Keith.

[Derek Uzzell]

Tomo3090 - 2013-05-30 10:57 PM

 

Is it true that they editor has published letterd from people claiming to be gassed in their van? I only ask because that's what is claimed on Motorhomefacts. It's supposed to be on page 12. If it's comfirmed as true then that's saved me a few bob because I'll never be wasting my money on a comic that prints such rubbish again >:-)

 

The two letters in July's MMM respond to an earlier letter in the April issue (Pages 18/19) that contained the statement

 

"...I find it incredible that we still hear the myths about gas attacks in motorhomes... etc."

 

Neither the April letter nor the July letters have an editorial comment, and all three letters reflect MMM readers' valid views.

 

I'm an atheist and I believe religion is gobbledegook, but millions of people believe otherwise. On the basis of probability everything tells me my belief is correct, but there's always the remote possibility I'm wrong.

 

The Out&AboutLive forums used to include a long thread on 'gas-attacks' in which it was persuasively argued that the probability of it happening was very small. Nevertheless, the possibility remains that it does (or, more to the point, COULD) happen.

 

The April letter dismissively rationalises the likelihood of gas-attacks actually occurring . Both of the July letters refer to personal experience of being robbed while asleep in their motorhomes in the south of France and both advocate a 'better safe than sorry' policy of fitting a gas-detector.

 

If you favour the April letter's view that's fine - clearly the writers of the July letters do not. But I don't understand (particularly as you have apparently not read the April MMM letter, nor the July responses) why you should think printing the July follow-up letters should reflect badly on MMM magazine.

[Tomo3090]

Because its an absolute myth with no basis in fact! Articles and letters that fail to explain without any shadow of doubt this is impossible fail their readership. Especially when they exist to promote the lifestyle of motorhoming.

 

MMM is there to do just that. If genuine people want to write in worried about using their motorhome abroad because they have heard of these myths then read of such rubbish in this outlet, without it being decried by the editors and writers, they will start to believe its possible.

 

I'm sorry Lucie but I belive the magazine is in an ideal position to educate and inform its readership, which it does on all other topics, but in this instance its failed them badly.

[Derek Uzzell]

I'm prepared to believe that introducing narcotic gas into a parked leisure-vehicle by criminals is a possibility - in fact I'd go further and say that it's an obvious method that might be tried.

 

How do you know "...its an absolute myth with no basis in fact"? Plenty of people have claimed that it has happened to them - are you suggesting they are all liars?

 

This article discusses the issue

 

http://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/magazine/articles/motorhome-gas-attacks/

 

but the writer (despite the expert-opinion statement attached to the article) still has the good grace to say "I personally think that the gassing stories are an urban myth" rather than take your adamant stance that "it's an absolute myth".

 

Much of the 'factual' information posted to this forum won't stand up to even mild scrutiny - it's just opinion masquerading as fact. This is equally true of letters to motorhome magazines and it's evident that MMM recognises this as there's the following footnote to the "Your letters..." section:

 

"Opinions expressed are those of letter writers. MMM does not necessarily agree with, nor endorse, their comments..."

 

If you choose to believe that 'gas-attacks' CANNOT happen, then you are wrong. If you believe that they DO NOT happen, then you are probably right.

 

As far as I'm aware there appears to be no concrete evidence that attacks have happened (eg. no gas cylinders have been found, no holes drilled in the motorhome, nobody has died), but that doesn't preclude the possibility that, amongst the many first-hand reports of gas-attacks, none have taken place.

 

I don't consider MMM's "Your letters..." section to be an educational platform - it's just where people can spout off. There will be letters that merit an editorial comment but not the July gas-attack ones.

 

If you feel really aggrieved about this, I suggest you write to MMM and demand that the magazine publish your letter.

[Tracker]

Tomo3090 - 2013-06-01 9:39 PM

 

Because its an absolute myth with no basis in fact!

 

 

So is religion but many people believe in it - and I don't knock those who do believe - in either!

 

Any discussion on this emotive topic is good as one day when the purple pigs are flying directly overhead we might get to read about definitive proof - one way or the other - and about gas attacks too!

 

Disagree by all means - but meanwhile I feel it is not right to criticise those who do believe or to criticise MMM for publishing balanced points of view just because one happens to disagree with one side of them.

[Tomo3090]

It's impossible to prove a negative! So I suppose you're right I can't "prove" they don't happen. But are people seriously expected to believe they do happen with absolutely no evidence to back them up?

 

My argument with MMM is that to print such stuff gives these myths credence. A lot of people buy this magazine to get help and factual advice about motorhoming. By printing and publishing unsubstantiated, unproved and untested "evidence, from any source, is surely not helping people get proper advice and help.

 

I can write an opinion based on ferries, aires, campsites, van types etc and it is mine. But any allegations and issues I bring can be easily proved otherwise by journalist and other writers. So why should people make these opinions public and not be questioned? Or the magazine not be critised? They started the forum so that people could comment without having to write to the magazine anyway.

[malc d]

Tomo3090 - 2013-06-02 4:13 PM

 

 

My argument with MMM is that to print such stuff gives these myths credence. A lot of people buy this magazine to get help and factual advice about motorhoming. By printing and publishing unsubstantiated, unproved and untested "evidence, from any source, is surely not helping people get proper advice and help.

 

 

 

Seems to me Tomo that you are taking a letters page in a magazine too seriously.

 

I don't think that people buy the magazine to get " factual advice " from the letters page - after all they are just the correspondents views and opinions.

 

 

;-)

[Tracker]

malc d - 2013-06-02 4:41 PM

I don't think that people buy the magazine to get " factual advice " from the letters page - after all they are just the correspondent's views and opinions.

 

I think that is true about the entire magazine, apart from the adverts!

 

It's all a matter of somebody's opinion and the 'findings' of some of the road tests and award winners often seemed quite bizarre when we used to read the mag!

 

Not that any other magazines are any different!

[Tomo3090]

 

A statement from The Royal College of Anaesthetists about Motorhome owners being gassed then robbed.

 

 

"Despite the increasing numbers of reports of people being gassed in motor-homes or commercial trucks in France, and the warning put out by the Foreign Office for travellers to be aware of this danger, this College remains of the view that this is a myth. It is the view of the College that it would not be possible to render someone unconscious by blowing ether, chloroform or any of the currently used volatile anaesthetic agents, through the window of a motor-home without their knowledge, even if they were sleeping at the time. Ether is an extremely pungent agent and a relatively weak anaesthetic by modern standards and has a very irritant affect on the air passages, causing coughing and sometimes vomiting. It takes some time to reach unconsciousness, even if given by direct application to the face on a cloth, and the concentration needed by some sort of spray administered directly into a room would be enormous. The smell hangs around for days and would be obvious to anyone the next day. Even the more powerful modern volatile agents would need to be delivered in tankerloads of carrier gas or by a large compressor. Potential agents, such as the one used by the Russians in the Moscow siege are few in number and difficult to obtain. Moreover, these drugs would be too expensive for the average thief to use. The other important point to remember is that general anaesthetics are potentially very dangerous, which is why they are only administered in the UK by doctors who have undergone many years of postgraduate training in the subject and who remain with the unconscious patient throughout the anaesthetic. Unsupervised patients are likely to die from obstruction of the airway by their tongues falling back. In the Moscow seige approximately 20% of the people died, many probably from airway obstruction directly related to the agent used. If there was a totally safe, odourless, potent, cheap anaesthetic agent available to thieves for this purpose it is likely the medical profession would know about it and be investigating its use in anaesthetic practice."

 

Now will people stop believing its even remotely possible? perhaps MMM, and anyone else, might like to add this at the bottom of the letters page!

 

 

 

 

:-)

[malc d]

Tomo3090 - 2013-06-02 6:14 PM

 

 

 

.................... perhaps MMM, and anyone else, might like to add this at the bottom of the letters page!

 

 

:-)

 

 

Yep, that might might be an idea - at least the opinion of the college that this is a myth - is an informed view.

 

;-)

[Tomo3090]

It's where I got mine from! :-D

[Derek Uzzell]

Tomo3090 - 2013-06-02 4:13 PM

 

...So why should people make these opinions public and not be questioned?

 

The two letters in MMM July issue questioned the letter in the April issue.

 

Never mind whether 'gas attacks' are a reality, I ask myself why you tagged your original posting on to Lucie Cranfield's heads-up about when the July issue of MMM would be on sale.

 

Ms Cranfield is MMM's marketing brand-manager and her remit won't include what's published in the "Your letters..." section, nor will it involve the magazine's editorial policy. If you wanted to comment on MMM's publishing of the gas-attack-related letters, you could have started a new thread as was done by graham101 regarding the driving-licence age-70 advice.

 

I'm doubtful that Ms Cranfield will respond to your comments (Why should she?) but, if you'd addressed your views to the editorial staff you might (as happened with the age-70 posting) have obtained a reply from the people who control the magazine's content.

[747]

Derek Uzzell - 2013-06-02 9:03 PM

 

Tomo3090 - 2013-06-02 4:13 PM

 

...So why should people make these opinions public and not be questioned?

 

The two letters in MMM July issue questioned the letter in the April issue.

 

Never mind whether 'gas attacks' are a reality, I ask myself why you tagged your original posting on to Lucie Cranfield's heads-up about when the July issue of MMM would be on sale.

 

Ms Cranfield is MMM's marketing brand-manager and her remit won't include what's published in the "Your letters..." section, nor will it involve the magazine's editorial policy. If you wanted to comment on MMM's publishing of the gas-attack-related letters, you could have started a new thread as was done by graham101 regarding the driving-licence age-70 advice.

 

I'm doubtful that Ms Cranfield will respond to your comments (Why should she?) but, if you'd addressed your views to the editorial staff you might (as happened with the age-70 posting) have obtained a reply from the people who look control the magazine's content.

 

Or you could write to MMM. It could be published in the 'Readers letters'. :D

[Derek Uzzell]

It's noteworthy (though hardly surprising) that the Royal College of Anaesthetists statement concentrates on medical anaesthetic agents such as ether being used in 'gas-attacks'. There is, however, another possibility that might be considered - that carbon monoxide gas is being employed.

 

The symptoms of mild carbon monoxide poisoning include headache, nausea, dizziness, light-headedness, fatigue and sleepiness, often accompanied by a general feeling of malaise - which generally matches how people say they feel after a 'gas-attack' incident. It seems (from on-line information) that carbon monoxide gas is not difficult to obtain or produce.

 

A posting on a MotorhomeFun thread on the subject says:

 

"Gas attacks are not a myth. My good friend (a HGV driver) got gassed while on the Continent in his HGV. The first he knew was being woken up by the Police. He says when he woke his doors were open and all his stuff in the cab was gone - laptop, satnav, money and so on. When I saw his face the day after if was a mess, bulging eyes and a funny colour: it took a few days until he could drive again. They had done most of the truck park. But the tragedy is, although the gassers don't want to kill anyone (they leave the doors open to let the gas escape afterwards) they had gassed a truck with special door locks which the attackers could not open. My friend saw the body carried from the truck."

 

It's well known that carbon monoxide poisoning can produce facial reddening, which lends credence to the MHFun report.

 

 

[Tomo3090]

Derek, if you suffer CO gassing to the extent you become unconcious simply leaving the doors open won't be enough to bring you round. CO is 4 times more attractive to the haemoglobin in your blood stream than oxygen. The only way to remove it and start your lungs taking in oxygen again is to apply oxygen therapy. To render enough CO to a person, or two different people of different body types by an untrained person would be immpossible to achieve with any degree of acuracy. Aires and parking areas would be littered with bodies!

 

How would anyone know where in the motorhome these people are sleeping? Are they in the luton bit over the cab? Are they in a rear bed transverse to the chassis, a bed along the length of the van but which side of the van is the bed? Could it be twin beds?

 

Did this person in the truck,or his "witness friend" ever see medical or police paperwork confirming the "gassing"? I doubt it, not one single person who claims to have been gassed ever has done! Which "Continental country was this supposed to have happened in? How did the witness know the truck where the fatality supposedly happened had special locks that couldn't be opened? How did they introduce this gas into the trucks? The list of uncertainties with this story is endless and can't seriously be your argument to the possibility of gassing happening. Can it? It's no more "evidence" than any other recounted "eye witness" story doing the rounds.

 

No insurance company has ever added a clause to a policy saying it will apply a restriction on paying out for gas attacks. And they would if it had happened. No police force has ever been round aires or truck parks putting up signs telling people to beaware of being gassed. Being robbed yes but not gassed and robbed.

 

Someone on the thread running at the moment on Motorhome facts has done a trawl through foreign motorhome forums and there isn't a single mention of this happening anywhere else except to British vans!

 

It is quite simply a myth, to be treated with as much serious thought by grown ups as fairies at the bottom of the garden, The Loch Ness Monster and Father Christmas!

[Tony Jones]

Tomo3090 - 2013-06-04 4:14 PM

 

It is quite simply a myth, to be treated with as much serious thought by grown ups as fairies at the bottom of the garden, The Loch Ness Monster and Father Christmas!

 

Now you're getting REALLY controversial Tomo. You'll have offended the whole section of the OAL community who DO have fairies at the bottom of their gardens!

[Derek Uzzell]

Tomo3090 - 2013-06-04 4:14 PM

 

It is quite simply a myth, to be treated with as much serious thought by grown ups as fairies at the bottom of the garden, The Loch Ness Monster and Father Christmas!

 

Well, I'm reasonably sure fairies don't exist, though millions of people happily believe in angels with big feathery wings (Tony may wish to provide expert opinion on this) and it seems unlikely that a large prehistoric creature lives in Loch Ness, but surely you can't be suggesting that there's no Father Christmas?

 

I think it's most unlikely that gas-attacks have taken place and I offered the carbon monoxide 'theory' and the MotorHomeFun link because they amused me and I wondered if anyone would be prepared to take them seriously.

 

As I see it, the the content and policy relating to the "Your letters..." section in MMM is an editorial issue and will not involve Lucie Cranfield.

 

It's also a Freedom of Speech matter - the April letter said "I find it incredible that we still hear the myths about gas attacks in motorhomes..." This - as could easily have been predicted - provoked the letters published in the July MMM. All the letter-writers are entitled to their opinions (be they plausible or not) and, as the content of none of the letters can be considered offensive, there's no realistic reason to have prevented them being published.

 

It would appear from your first posting that you are only an occasional reader of MMM and, when you made that posting on 30 May, you had not read the July letters that seem to cause you so much distress. If you've still not read those letters and the April precursor (all of which were headed "MAKES YOU THINK") you might consider doing so.

 

What's printed in MMM's "Your letters..." section has little if anything to do with Lucie Cranfield's original posting and I see no reason why you should expect her to react to your comment:

 

"I'm sorry Lucie but I belive the magazine is in an ideal position to educate and inform its readership, which it does on all other topics, but in this instance its failed them badly."

 

If (once you've read the letters) you still feel that MMM has done its readership wrong, you could address your views to MMM's editorial staff who might well choose to publish them in a forthcoming issue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Brian Kirby]

One should bear in mind that an absence of evidence for, or against, something is not proof positive of its existance, or non-existance. It is simply an absence of evidence.

 

Personally, I am hugely sceptical of these reports, and cannot understand how any narcotic could be administered by untrained amateurs to a whole vehicle, in just sufficient quantity to anaesthetise the occupants, irrespective of where inside they might be sleeping, and of their individual body masses, without at least one of them dying. After all, all motorhomes have gas drops and the like, they are not hermetically sealed chambers, and the experts say such attacks would require vast amounts of gas, and would be highly liable to result in deaths. Despite the reports of gas attack robberies (many of which seem no more than repetition of a very small number of claimed instances), I am struck that no-one seems yet to have died. Were narcotics actually being used, I am pretty well certain that we would have heard of as many deaths, as there were robberies where all victims survived.

 

Personally, I think we are hearing the consequences of alcohol, extreme tiredness, or carelessness, over which the victims wished to draw a discreet veil when it came to making an insurance claim.

 

However, I prefer to maintain an open, though sceptical, mind, since new substances are continually being developed, as are new ways of using substances not intended primarily for anaesthesia. To say impossible, or never, is, to my mind, going too far. Were I Warners, I should therefore be very circumspect in making authoritative statements along those lines. They publish magazines on camping and motorhomes, so can reasonably be expected to have some expertise on those subjects, but I doubt they would wish to claim any expertise in the field of narcotics. The wise do not make themselves hostages to fortune! :-)

[747]

What Tomo failed to mention about the MHFacts thread is that a member posted that they HAD been victims of gassing. At last, a first hand report. :-D

 

Of course they were howled down by disbelievers, some of whom were very nasty in their posts. This is probably why nobody else will ever mention gassing if it happens to them.

[Tracker]

747 - 2013-06-05 6:40 PM

 

What Tomo failed to mention about the MHFacts thread is that a member posted that they HAD been victims of gassing. At last, a first hand report. :-D

 

Of course they were howled down by disbelievers, some of whom were very nasty in their posts. This is probably why nobody else will ever mention gassing if it happens to them.

 

There have been several reports over the years but unless a doctor is seen soon after and blood tests taken to corroborate there never will be any definitive proof - if indeed a blood, or any other medical test, would show anything definitive?

 

Meanwhile I neither believe nor disbelieve and as long as the topic is kept high on the agenda and in the public eye there is always hope that better information will gradually appear from both truckers and campers who may or may not have fallen victim.

[747]

A few threads on various forums have turned contentious. It must be the silly season for motorhomers. The gassing issue is usually 'lively' but even more so this time round.

 

I am getting to the point where I am asking myself "Is it worth using internet forums". It just seems a convenient place for someone to start an argument and hurt other members feelings.

 

That is why I don't use Chatterbox, I am far too delicate you see. :D

 

I expect I will get over it. ;-)

[Guest pelmetman]

747 - 2013-06-05 7:26 PM

 

 

That is why I don't use Chatterbox, I am far too delicate you see. :D

 

 

Wimp :D.............................dunno what the fuss is about *-).....................Sue gets gassed most nights whether in the camper or not :$

[Derek Uzzell]

I vaguely recall a report years ago (I think in "Motorhome Monthly" magazine) claiming that the passengers in a 'hotel bus' (example here)

 

http://www.gizmag.com/rotel-hotel-on-wheels/14625/

 

had been victims of a gas-attack while sleeping and some people had died.

 

For non-readers of MMM magazine, one of the July letters about gas-attacks relates to a 2nd-hand incident, while the other letter describes a personal experience. Both letters refer to parking overnight on an 'aire' in southern France: in one case it was definitely on a motorway aire and, in the other case, it was probably on a motorway aire. Both letter-writers recommend fitting a gas alarm and the writer who was robbed had added anti-theft equipment to his vehicle.

 

Ignoring the practicability of gassing methodology being used to 'drug' people sleeping in a motorhome, adding a gas alarm and beefing up a motorhome's security are no bad things. Motorway aires have been repeatedly identified as places not to hang about at (never mind overnight at), so the MMM letters may also encourage motorcaravanners not to do this.

 

I don't know how much editing is carried out on MMM readers' letters but, if a letter contains a mixture of useful information and (what Tomo3090 might consider to be) drivel, it won't be easy to remove the 'drivel' and keep the good stuff without mutilating the letter's construction and rationale.