The 4x4 Conflict Scale

I’ve previously suggested that the service a 4x4 is being pressed into is a fairly good indication of the level of conflict, or lack thereof, in a particular location.

It’s a theory I’m developing (as I drink/write this) and I’m fairly sure it’s just a refined version of a wider picture.  If the most sophisticated vehicle in your village is the bicycle that the district nurse uses for her visits, then there is probably going to be little to distract you from your everyday life of goat herding and plotting how to get the fuck out of this place.  If your experience of automobiles is a Morris Minor Traveller then either you live in Halcyon, are a Vicar, or restore classic cars, or all three.  If, like some in the Commonwealth when the Queen used to cruise her dominion on Britannia, your first experience of a car was a Rolls Royce with a lady wearing a crown sitting in the back then yes, everything after this is going to be a disappointment.

4x4s.  If you live in the country, they are a good idea.  If you live in the city, you are obviously worried (some would say unnecessarily) about being charged by a rhino in the Waitrose car park.

Half tracks and tanks.  Remember the days when all we had to worry about was being charged by a rhino in the Waitrose car park?

It occurs to me though that 4x4s are actually a pretty good indication of how peaceful or otherwise a location might be.

The 4x4 Conflict scale

1.  Pristine Landie in a Waitrose car park.  All is well, owner will hesitate to move it for fear of having to find such a good parking space ever again.

2.  Filthy ancient Defender used as all purpose farm vehicle.  All is well.

3.  Ancient pickup with half an inch of loam, some building supplies and two dogs in the back.  All is well.  Also, fishing invite imminent.

4.  4x4 on school run, double parked, morning.  Could be trouble if mummy gets stressed.

5.  4x4 on school run, afternoon.  Could be big trouble if mummy has been drinking at lunch, or if that bitch Jointy parps her horn one more time and I think Simon is fucking his secretary and it’s all so fucking, fucking intolerable.

6.  Pristine Land Rover on a shoot.  Trouble for the other guns, owner may not know what he is doing and possibly got his money, and his invite, because of his proficiency with a shotgun in other circumstances.

7.  Filthy Land Rover on a shoot, back of Landie looks like two working gundogs live there.  They do.  No trouble at all, unless you are a game bird.

8.  BMW 4x4.  Drug dealer.  Beware.

9.  Convoy of 4x4s heading towards the airport at speed.  The President-For-Life is fleeing the country.  So is the contents of the Treasury.  Beware rebels/freedom fighters/glorious liberators.

10.  Pickup with two hound dogs in the back and a bumper sticker expressing forthright opinions about race/religion/abortion or showing support for FOX news.  Fuck!

11.  White 4x4 with UN written on side.  Fuck!  Fuck!  Also, alien invasion!

12.  Red pickup with a heavy machine gun welded into position in the back, manned by teenage boys not in uniform, one sporting a Manchester United shirt, parked near a Land Rover with BBC on the side, both taking fire from an abandoned cement factory nearby.  There goes the neighbourhood, and probably the country.  Bloody Civil War.

Finally.

13.  Like 12, but the kid’s wearing a Chelsea shirt.  Worse.  Failed State.

Some attach importance to what they drive.  Back in the day if you said ‘penis extension’ to somebody they would think you were making a comment about a man owning a sports car, whereas now the internet has ruined the ability for us to feel superior to a man who own a Porche.

Certainly we have the proliferation of metal boxes with wheels to thank for ‘Top Gear’, a show that started out reviewing cars but ended up as, essentially, a 60 minute long aftershave commercial, if every episode had concluded with Clarkson shoving a bottle into the camera and shouting ‘Bloke!  For men!’.