"I'd get to within a yard of that door you walk through and the thing would go mad. I used to carry an X-ray in my briefcase, to show them. But I had all the metal taken out"
About this Quote
A yard from the door and the thing goes mad: Barry Sheene compresses the whole late-20th-century celebrity condition into a mechanic's anecdote. He’s talking about metal detectors, sure, but he’s really talking about how fame turns your body into a problem that other people’s systems have to solve. The door isn’t just an airport threshold; it’s a modern checkpoint where authority gets automated and suspicion gets outsourced to a beep.
Sheene’s intent is half brag, half grimace. He leans on the absurdity of it - a world champion reduced to producing an X-ray like a backstage pass - and that’s exactly why the line lands. It’s a joke with teeth: he has to prove he’s not a threat because his injuries made him, literally, a collection of hardware. The punchline, “But I had all the metal taken out,” reads like casual macho housekeeping. Subtext: he’s tired of being stopped, tired of narrating his own wreckage to strangers, tired of the little humiliations that come after the big crash.
Context matters. Motorcycle racing in Sheene’s era was glamour stapled to catastrophe; survival often came with screws and plates. So the detector’s panic becomes a cultural tell: the same society that thrills to risk and spectacle is also obsessed with control and screening. Sheene, the celebrity who made danger look effortless, ends up negotiating bureaucracy like everyone else - except his legend triggers the alarm.
Sheene’s intent is half brag, half grimace. He leans on the absurdity of it - a world champion reduced to producing an X-ray like a backstage pass - and that’s exactly why the line lands. It’s a joke with teeth: he has to prove he’s not a threat because his injuries made him, literally, a collection of hardware. The punchline, “But I had all the metal taken out,” reads like casual macho housekeeping. Subtext: he’s tired of being stopped, tired of narrating his own wreckage to strangers, tired of the little humiliations that come after the big crash.
Context matters. Motorcycle racing in Sheene’s era was glamour stapled to catastrophe; survival often came with screws and plates. So the detector’s panic becomes a cultural tell: the same society that thrills to risk and spectacle is also obsessed with control and screening. Sheene, the celebrity who made danger look effortless, ends up negotiating bureaucracy like everyone else - except his legend triggers the alarm.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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