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!’.

Forecourt Forage

I recall, more fondly than a Frenchman dunking a poncy biscuit into a weak, Gallic, beverage, childhood car trips up to Scotland to visit family.  This would involve a long drive from the Wild West Midlands through Birmingham, a stage of the journey that took us on a section of elevated motorway through a city of tower blocks, like Mega City One but without the glamour, and with Brummies instead of Muties,

The journey was broken by two pit stops, both at motorway service stations.  The first stop was at a motorway service station that was probably just north of Birmingham but could have been anywhere in England back then, a classic 1970s (oxymoron alert) boxy affair on each side of the motorway, linked with a bridge spanning the traffic.  Facilities were duplicated on both sides of the highway, an early example of cloning and so the bridge was either an unnecessary architectural flourish or a meeting place for intelligence officers, or both.  I couldn’t pick it out of a line up today but I could, I think, identify it by smell; classic leaded petrol, diesel fumes and warm tarmac.

I have no idea what the catering and dining facilities at this place were like, according to nostalgia sites on the inter web they were famously awful, because we always took a packed lunch.  This consisted of cheese sandwiches, cheddar on white bread, augmented if you were a child by adding salt and vinegar flavoured crisps on top of the cheese.  This early example of fusion cuisine tasted divine and to this day I think a cheese sandwich lacks something if it does not crunch when eaten.

This was paired with Thermos Tea.  Thermos Tea is distinct from tea from a Thermos.  Tea from a Thermos could be boiling water from one Thermos, tea bags added separately, milk added from another Thermos.  Thermos Tea is tea first brewed in a pot, then poured with milk into a single Thermos flask to provide a brew with that particular tang, especially if served from a Thermos that has been well seasoned.

The one facility patronised was the loo.

The next stop was in the Borders I think.  I don’t recall much about this service station, beyond it being surrounded by scenery that was so jaw droppingly spectacular that these days the hills would be crawling with location scouts for fantasy epics.  The hills, I recall, were always topped with mist, so presumably we were across the Scottish border by this point.  This is usually where more Tea was taken for the final push to Glasgow.  Tea which had now been maturing for some five hours and was probably the beverage equivalent of crack.  It was also here where the facilities were used, and I would usually be the beneficiary of the service station shop, a book bought to keep me quiet for the remainder of the journey.

We probably also used the loo here.

I should say that while service stations are all very well, I remain a devotee of the roadside cafe, a caravan located in a layby where a hungry trucker can get a bacon buttie, a cup of tea in a non-biodegradable cup, and a hand job from a tranny, and still have change from a fiver.

Garages, back in the day, used to sell three things; fuel, oil, porn.

Today, things have changed somewhat, although roadside cafes remain a bastion of tradition.

Motorway service stations have followed the airport terminal model and become, essentially, out of town shopping centres with a petrol pump attached, and you have to look bloody hard to find the petrol pumps, and when you do there’s probably a Costa outlet there as well.  As well as what is essentially a food court offering many varieties of fried snack, there are mini-supermarkets on site that would not disgrace an upmarket camp site.

Garages have changed too.  You can still by fuel and wine gums, but the porn has been replaced by ‘Hello’ and many garages now come with the obligatory mini-mart attached.  One near me has an M&S outlet.  That’s right, the poshest place to buy groceries near me is the local garage.

English eccentrics - Car Pets

There’s a certain sort of person who keeps soft toys on their bed.  These people are called children.

Anyone else with a stuffed toy on their bed is to be approached with caution for a number of reasons.  In ascending order of things you have to worry about; least sinister is that the soft toy is a container for something, such as a sex aid or recreational drugs, and is owned by a person unfamiliar with the concept of draws, or the socially acceptable receptacle for contraband, a hollowed-out book (why else do they issue Clarkson in hardback?).  Or it could be some sort of surveillance device, which is OK if it’s owned by the adult who will shortly be using it to keep an eye on the nanny, the cleaner or her cheating dirtbag husband, or by somebody who has their own website, less OK if it was a gift from somebody.  Worst case scenario, it’s a soft toy purchased and owned by an adult, who has given it a name.

The exception to the soft toy prohibition is if the soft toy was a gift from a boyfriend either purchased as a token of affection ‘to keep you company when I am not here’ (Translation: ‘I don’t trust you, you skank’, or won at a fun fair through a game of skill although, frankly, if you can win a soft toy at a fun fair, the thing deserves to go in the trophy cabinet in the chap’s front room, not sit on a pillow.

The sort of person who keeps a soft toy in their car is a different class of nutter entirely.

Again, the only acceptable owner of a soft toy resident in a car is a child.  Such soft toys are not only useful for playing games with and sleeping with or resting one’s head on, but are jolly useful for striking a sibling.  Warning: such toys quickly achieve character which, if not offset by frequent laundering, can develop into personality.

Adults keep soft toys in cars because…fuck knows.  If they are a bloke and don’t have children, it’s probably because they are a peado.  If they are a woman, it’s probably because they have run out of space on their bed.  Again, acceptable uses include a bear-cam to keep an eye on the chauffeur, or as a head rest on a long journey, or a short journey back from the pub, but otherwise you have to wonder.

Having said all that, the sight of car pets makes me smile, and I have been known when travelling in a car with car pets to put on an impromptu puppet show.

Top tip: always remember that the driver, who has the power to screech to a halt and order you out of the car, will have great affection for her car pets and is unlikely to find any one-act play that concludes in frenzied furry sexual congress accompanied by hoots and grunts nearly as amusing as you do.

Merry Christmas

This should have been all brussel sprouts.  Instead, it's mostly trout.

With the flooding hitting so many people and so many travel plans, it’s clear to see that for many, the pre-Christmas periood is about getting home to see your family, because wherever you live , your home is where your family is.

This migration home was evident on the motorway at the weekend.

One of the best train journeys I ever had was on a Christmas Eve, the carriage looked like a scene from a seasonal Hallmark made for tee vee schmaltsfest, with the luggage rack silver and gold and green and red with wrapped presents poking out of plastic bags, and the travellers either glad to be going home, or glad to be going home for Christmas.  Possibly the general atmosphere of goodwill towards all men was assisted by the noble English tradition of opening the booze at twelve sharp on Christmas Eve, especially if intending to use public transport, but so what?

On the motorway, instead of the usual lone traveller in their car, one could peek into mobile bubbles of Christmas, making their way to relatives.  Back seats were crammed with kids and boots were crammed with presents.  The journey gave rise to an impromptu game of awarding the best presented back sill of a car.  If you are going to totally obscure your rear view, you may as well do so with some jolly packages.

And while a strong contender for most Christmassy car was the one where the lady in the passenger seat had a large, beautifully wrapped box on her lap, the winner without a doubt was the large car with the parents in the front, the kids in the back and the presents and a dog in the large rear boot space.  The dog was well out of sight and reach of any humans and was just beginning to realise this, as it started to carefully shred the wrapping on the box nearest to it.

Loaded cars are part of Chjristmas.  I have friends who make a journey between various family members, clocking up many miles and many hours of radio listening.  They call packing the boot ‘loading up the sleigh’.

With the floods and the rain and the weather stopping trains in the south and ferries in the north, it’s taking some people a lot of effort to get to their loved ones. But weather your present is beautifully wrapped, or in the dog, or just their presence, it’s worth it.

Here's to all the travelers - may they arrive safely to a warm welcome.

Merry Christmas!

Postcard from Yorkshire: On the road

A day out exploring the area, essentially going up hill and down dale via whatever attractive looking coffee shops appear to be open and serving cake. As the dry stone walls run like veins across the fields, so the narrow country lanes that appear to pass for B roads in Yorkshire wind like arteries, connecting villages, usually following the flow of some river or other.

The villages themselves are usually arranged around a triangular green or square and the houses and shops sit huddled together, as if for warmth in a landscape that can be as cold and hostile as the locals are warm and friendly. But these are not abandoned villages only inhabited by tourists at weekends, they are busy and occasionally surprising places, like the place we passed with a racehorse stable on the edge of it, and returning to the stable was one frisky looking horse and rider and one positively manic looking four hoofed menace being led by the stable lad while the diminutive jockey walked alongside, clutching crop and saddle, rubbing an evidently sore arse and looking for all the world like he was not at all pleased with new rules on whipping meaning he could no longer legitimately thrash the beast who had unseated him on the training run.

This makes driving a bit of a challenge, as the scenery is spectacular and, after a good deal of rainfall, dynamic as rivers tumble in waterfalls and cascades, all very diverting which is not a good idea as you try to negotiate a tricky turning which will, in all probability, have something interesting coming the other way.

This could be a local driving at nutter speed in their landie. Or it could be a tractor, or it could be a tractor pulling a trailer piled dangerously high with some sort of root vegetable that could really put a crimp in your day and a dent in your lap if it were to make a guest appearance through your sunroof. These twisty turny uppy downy roads are also home to the lorries that zoom from farm to farm and village to village.

Tiny villages and enormous lorries abound, the latter squeezing through the former sometimes one suspects because sat nab is no respecter of road width but also because this is where the road goes and the lorries have to go on the road. This was certainly the case of the lorry hauling sheep that looked if anything considerably more relaxed than the pedestrians trying to get out of the way in the village of Hawes, as it squeezed down the high street. One often wonders what goes through the minds of sheep at the best of time, but god alone knows what they think when being transported, presumably they are under the impression that are going on some sort of trip, possibly to Alton Towers. This is almost never the case.

As well as lorries and deluded sheep Hawes is home to a rather nice cafe and art gallery, which sells the work of local artist Peter Brook.




It also sells a rather nice print of 'The Butcher's Dog'.



This is a painting of a Westie looking out of the upstairs window of the local butcher's shop. Looking up from my latte, I saw a butcher's shop with a Westie looking out of the upstairs window, life imitating art imitating life.

A Road England

Motorways have changed Britain, and not just by concreting over large portions of it. For instance, they allow yogurt to travel more miles than a comedian turned traveller can rack up filming an entire series of taking a quirky journey while taking a sideways look at the locals, they allow for family bickering to take place in a controlled enclosed environment for many hours and, of course, they provide an opportunity for the driver to look into the people-pods passing left and right and make judgements about the travellers within, based on how many windows are blacked out with holiday gear and children packed into the back of the family saloon, how loved-up the couple making their way to a mini-break look, or how that mini-break went based on how far away the passenger and driver are attempting to get away from one another while remaining in the same car on the journey home.

They also provide the opportunity to eat an entire packet of wine gums in one go and spend the next two hours wondering if its possible to sweat sugar. They have given rise to the motorway service station, somewhere to pee and eat warm sandwiches in the car park while wondering if the crab paste smells funny or if it’s just the diesel fumes making you a bit queasy. They do have their charms, such as service stations and the occasional decent view, but set against this you have a seemingly endless ribbon of tarmac, only decorated with the occasional tyre debris where stimulation is rare, if you are lucky you can play games such as ‘what the hell language is that on the back of that truck’ or ‘having been sat in a roadwork filter system for an hour, how angry am I that the roadworks appear to be unoccupied?’.

In-car distractions have developed. As well as radio, tape and CD, there are in-car DVD players, the only things more stimulated than drive-time DJs are lab monkeys with electrodes inserted into their thalamus and of course those knights of the road, the long haul truckers, have sex with prozzers in laybys to relieve the monotony. Sometimes they even close the curtains in the cab first.

Motorways have changed Britain. Before motorways we had main roads, now known as A roads. A-road Britain is a slower, more picturesque and, I think, kinder place that M-Way Britain. Motorways may be a great way to get from A to Z quickly, but the M can often stand for ‘misery’ and, what’s more, there’s a lot to be said for visiting B to Y on the way from A to Z.

Driving to Blenheim Palace I kept seeing signs to Evesham, very near my next destination, Malvern, and somewhere it takes another hour to reach by M-Way. I was rather wondering if the M40 takes a bloody huge loop out of the way, possibly there’s some sort of geographical rift allowing more or less instant access from London to the Cotswolds. Thinking that a fold in spacetime sounded more exciting than the M40, I decided to take the A road route.

And so, I rediscovered A road Britain. This is the way to travel, armed only with an AA book of the road from 1957 and a sense of adventure, one travels at a more human pace than one does on the motorway, and is not shut off from the world by culverts and landscaping. Instead, one passes through towns and villages, under the arms of sheltering trees. One follows road signs and tractors, not the instructions of the sat nav.

There is a lot to see. Oddly, although the journey is probably longer, it feels shorter. There’s a lot to do too, with time to study ones surrounding, you can play ‘name that road kill’. Seeing more flat fox than shredded lorry tyre adds to the rustic appeal of the journey.

And it has to be said, travelling through the Cotswolds is a pleasant way to spend the day. One makes one’s way through villages where each is progressively prettier than the last. Just when you thought that the last village, with its Cotswold stone houses, lovely pub, charming shops and good looking population was just the most charming place ever, you happen along the next village and realise that the one five miles back was, by comparison, a right shithole. All of the villages seemed to be thriving and I wanted to stop at book shops, knick-knacks shops and charming pubs.

One of the villages we went through was Chipping Norton and so, naturally, I was relishing the opportunity of bonneting one of the ‘set’ and doing the world a favour.

But, I pressed on because I was on a mission. The summer had ripened fruit to perfection and in the Vale of Evesham one fruit reigns supreme at this time of the year; the plum. I was looking for a roadside stall selling not so much PYO as PBL (Picked By Lithuanians). I didn’t see a stall but did spot a farm shop and screeched to a shuddering halt as I pulled in (apologies to the no-doubt surprised driver behind me and may I also take a moment to congratulate him on his lightening reactions. Congratulations too to the staff of the farm shop who were unruffled by my hasty entry to their car park, safe to say they have probably never seen a car come to a halt that quickly without it deploying a parachute out the rear).

The Wayside Farm Shop was something of a find. There was a selection of fruit and veg by the door (and yes, plums), but out the back was, basically, a delicatessen. It sold Teme Valley Brewery beer (rather lovely, they do a beer called ‘This’, a beer called ‘That’ and a beer called ‘Wotever next’. Seeing these bad boys lined up, one has to purchase the set. Verdict: oh yes! They also had cider on tap, bring your own bottle. Actually don’t bother with the bottle, they recommend that you bring along your empty plastic milk container and fill that up, as it holds more. Classy. There were cheeses, breads, cakes and, best of all, meringues the size of dinner plates hanging from the ceiling. One of these, a punnet of strawberries and a large pot of cream meant desert was sorted. Went in for a dozen plums, did sixty quid. Farms shops. Not threatening Lidl for market domination any time soon.

Travelling the motorway one arrives quickly but somewhat frazzled and smelling of stress and wine gums. Taking the A road, I arrived relaxed and happy with a box of (bloody expensive) fresh veg in the back of the car, not to mention the beer, which I’m drinking while I write this. Overall, there’s something to be said for taking the road less travelled.

Postcard from Oxford

Oxford has a reputation for being car-unfriendly. It’s not. It’s driver un-friendly. The city has adopted, in the city centre at least, a Dutch traffic model where they remove all of the street furniture and drop the kerbs so that the pavements and pedestrians are at the same level as the road and traffic, with no bars, railings or other rational safety features to protect people from cars, or cars from bloody tourists too intent on photographing and gawking to watch where they are bloody going.

The theory is that this makes the driver more cautious, slower and safer. In practice the result was a bloody terrifying experience, not just because after a day being buzzed by acrobatic aircraft and weaving round airshow entrance fee-dodgers lining the rural roads of Oxford I was a little wary of pedestrians, but because while there is no street furniture or kerbs in the centre of Oxford, what they do have is a plethora of the sort of road signs that you normally only see right in the back of the Highway Code, the ones you don’t even memorise for the test and you only ever expect to see again in a waggishly photoshopped picture with the caption ‘Evel Keneveal ahead’ attached to that one of a motorbike on top of a car.

These signs had circles, times, cars, busses, lorries and confusing arrows on them. I wasn’t worried about hitting a pedestrian, I was worried about driving into a sixty quid, three point street that I should not have entered between three thirty and the end of Michalmas term.


Once I had safely parked and stopped shaking, sweating and sobbing, a quick shower, some jazz and a decent meal, and a nap, and I was ready for a walk round Oxford. It is, without doubt, a beautiful city. I suppose this is one of the benefits of the colleges owning a lot of the land here, they can actually make more money from the fees from their foreign students, and operating a meth lab in the chemical tutorials, than they can from flogging the estate and relocating to Milton Keynes. What you have as a result is a series of fantastic buildings that rise tall on either side of the street, allowing plenty of room for intimidating architectural features and looming.


It was a night-time walk around the city, possibly the best way to avoid all the tourists. Two things were apparent, that there is enough money in the surrounding area to support the short of shops that sell cashmere shorts and that Oxford likes to hide their pubs up narrow alleys, with twists and turns in them. While elitism, obvious wealth and looking down on anyone without their own large haydron collider might me acceptable, the consumption of pork scratching and a decent brew apparently is not.


I wandered around soaking up the rich cultureal heritage of the city; Morse and Lewis.

Oxford has an odd high streeet. It’s from 2008. They have Oddbins, they have a Waterstones with a Costa in it (why never a Costa with a bookshelf sized bookshop in it to return the favour). I was expecting to see a Woolworths.

Stayed at the Old Bank Hotel. Great staff, great rooms, free wi fi and jazz floating up from the courtyard.

Birthday cards

There are certain reliable images that you can have for birthday cards. Cake is good, so is booze, and some kind of gaily wrapped prezzie is always an acceptable image.

Then you get the cards that break down on gender lines, or rather gender stereotypes.

For women, shoes feature a lot. As do those amusing cards featuring either a black and white photograph of some 1950’s housewife and an amusing caption along the lines of ‘Daphne knew she was growing old when she only got off her tits on ketamin at the weekend’, or a cartoon of a woman and a caption about binge drinking or binge chocolate eating being more fun than anal.

For men, sports are where you can traditionally turn. Vintage golfing images or images of footballers in long shorts and longer moustaches from the days when they were happy to play for half a crown a week and people thought ‘superinjunction’ was something to do with Crewe railway station.


Vintage is still big business, taking a vintage travel poster and slapping ‘happy birthday’ on it usually works a treat, because men, by and large, are genetically programmed to like trains, boats and young women in flimsy dresses drinking alcohol in foreign parts far removed from the restraining influences of vicars, aunts or anyone who knows your reputation.

Browsing the racks there’s another sort of card that appears as a genre – the image of a sports car racing the steam train. The sports car is usually in the foreground (winning the race?) with the train in the background.


This is the perfect card for a gent. He may not be getting a train set or a sports car for his birthday, but he’s got a card that shows both and he can imagine himself behind the wheel or on the footplate, as his temperament dictates.


Quick quiz – if you were presented with such a card, would you consider yourself to be driving the car, driving the train or as a passenger on the train? And what about the person who gave you the card?

It depends to an extent on the illustration. Is one alone in the car or does one have a lady companion? Does the train look like it might have a really good restaurant service?

a) I am driving the car. I have personal freedom and I like the smell of petrol. And I don’t mind paying lots for it. And I quite like petrol garage sandwiches. And porn.

b) I am a passenger on the train. I appreciate the idea of swishing through the English countryside knowing that, according to all the books I have read and films I have seen, it is only a matter of time before I am embroiled in a murder or an act of espionage. I will use that time to drink an entire bottle of claret.

c) I am the driver of the train. I am not on strike because it is a steam train and I am an enthusiast. I am also not on strike because as well as coal I am feeding into the boiler any evidence from the bank raid it took to fund the restoration of the steam engine.

d) This is the one I always go for. I am racing in the car to intercept the train at the next station, its final stop before it crosses the border. On boarding the train I will take my seat in the restaurant car and smile to myself as my car, now driven by a close associate who just happens to be a world class racing driver, sets off with some vile foreign agents in pursuit. The secret plans are safely in my possession, the wine list looks acceptable, my sleeping berth is a double and a woman who looks JUST like Gillian Anderson has just taken the last available seat in the restaurant car, opposite me.

I concentrate more on the idea that the woman looks JUST like Gillian Anderson rather than the fact that the seat opposite me was the last one to be taken.

Of course, thanks to a section of society that likes to take things that are great, and turn them into things that are shit, the last restaurant car on a regular service is now a thing of the past. Apparently first class passengers will now be served ‘airline means’ at their seats. I can see how this is cheaper than running a kitchen and providing tablecloths, service, china and civilisation, but it was interesting to note how everyone pronounced the words ‘airline meal’ in a certain tone.

I am sure that in business class and first class travel on certain airlines it’s possible to still get a decent meal with china and food you could identify. Personally, I love the idea that when you fly you get little trays of plastic with food in them, plastic cutlery, and sachets of salt and sachets of sauce. It adds to the novelty and, to be fair, nobody expects a working kitchen at 35,000 feet. But a train, a train is different, on a train the expectation rather than the exception should be a dining car.

(It’s got to be time to fight back and here’s how. First Class picnics. OK, you know your flight or your train or whatever. Waiting for you at check in or the ticket barrier will be your First Class picnic. A box of delights that will contain all you need to make your journey a transport of delight. For trains you get a small linen tablecloth designed to fit across your table or seatback tray, along with china and cutlery. For aeroplanes the only concession is plastic cutlery and that your bottle of decent red comes in the form of a dozen or so tiny plastic sachets that you can take through security.)

What the card does not show is the motor car racing a steam train across a level crossing – or trying to. A few tonnes of athletic metal and flesh vs several hundred tonnes of flaming, smoke-breathing steam train and heritage? Inside illustration: a single wheel, on fire, rolling down the road.

Driven to distraction

The thing about being off work is that you get to be around and about during the day when you normally wouldn't be. What the bloody hell is everyone doing driving round in the middle of the day? Going to Tesco by the look of it. The sheer volume of cars constantly on the road is staggering. The thing is that with the global economic meltdown, folk will be hanging on to their old motors, but will still, presumably, be driving like loonies. The whole thing will be like the shittest version of the Goodwood festival of speed ever.

Norfolk notes - parking

As well as large buses on narrow roads, the other thing we encountered with the car was the posh car surcharge. While the majority of beach car parks are standardised pay and display jobs, there are one or two independents who vary their price according to season, weather, time of day, whim and, of course, whether they can be arsed spending the day in a shed. Examples of fluctuating prices include one where the chalk board announcing the discounted parking price included 'end of season sale'.

Ah, and a car park near some golf links. Since I've been coming here it's been looked after by a bloke in a caravan. The same bloke. The area is also home to, arguably, the best golf links in the world and I recall the time he advised me 'not to park at the far end, because that's where the helicopter will be landing because some golfers want to play this afternoon'. In that sentence the word 'tossers' is silent, but he managed to convey it.

Normally, my ride of choice is an ageing three door job. Nothing special. What it does do, however, is get you a discount. Discount is also available if you have a couple of cars, where he offers a group rate in exchange for the first one always offering to pay for both cars at full price. Such offers of generosity are rewarded. I've also seen posh cars (of which there are many in this part of the world) turn round rather than pay full price, I guess you get a posh car by being tight.

When we rolled up in the Beast, we got whacked for the full charge for the day. Luckily I had my wee bag o'change and was able to stump up, but wondered if I would have been charged the same had I been in my little motor. Maybe he charges by the foot, like they do with canal moorings. In which case God knows what the driver of the coach that delivered the school geography party would have had to pay.


Mostly though, it was standardised charges, paid for at a sort of parking totem that depending on your point of view and location, either ripped you off totally for a short brisk walk on the beach, amazed you by allowing all day parking for a florin or was shameless in trying to attract custom to competing seaside towns by giving you the first half hour for tuppence, just long enough to visit the bank, post office and many tat shops the place boasts. Somebody, somewhere is making an awful lot of money (a lot of it mine) out of owning a patch of gravel that just happens to be near a beautiful beach.


At least now they've stopped all that 'enter your number plate' nonsense, meaning a return to the charming scenes of people with ninety seconds left on their ticket trying to give it to somebody who has just arrived and hence score a small but important victory over those that, despite our most charitable instincts, we still can't help but suspect are ripping us off.

More important than the charges though, more important than the opening and closing times, more important even than knowing if anyone is in the little shed today collecting money or if you are going to thrillingly park for free is the small sign at the start of the beach road that you ignore at your peril and states 'beach road floods at...' then gives a time. This is certainly a reminder that one is a visitor to strange parts. This isn't 'road liable to flooding' or even a temporary sign reading 'flood', this is a sign telling you that this road is going to flood tonight and you had better be gone by then. You had also better hope that the guy in the shed is not nursing a grudge against all you folk in your posh cars and that he can read tide tables correctly.

Norfolk notes - the rented car

This holiday, I decided, would be one where we travelled in style. This was to be Norfolk in October and so I wanted something that would accommodate the entire family and a wet dog with half of the beach clinging to it in comfort, where we could all sit together in damp anoraks waiting for the rain to cease and not have to worry about catching Legionnaire's disease from the condensation running down the inside of the windows. Also, it allows family members to be a comfortable distance from one another during any cooling off period following disputes about who gets to sit up front, choice of music and so on.

As it happened the weather was great, but having a big car brought other benefits, like legroom, being able to take a mountain of picnic with us and using a single car all the time, thus saving at least a tenner on parking, which was useful to offset the exorbitant cost of the rental.

The Chrysler Grand Voyager is, as the name suggests, big. It's so big that the rear passengers are in a different time zone to the driver. So big that the people in the back have their own climate controls, although what's really required is an intercom. It's so big that the middle row of seats fold down to form a picnic table and that, for me, sealed the deal.

There are other interesting features. For instance, the rear doors slide open instead of swing open and are electric, operated by the key for or buttons inside the car. For years, I have been opening and closing my own car door manually, like a mug, like a second class citizen. The Americans have realised that this, like any exercise that you don't pay to do, is demeaning and have simplified the whole process. Of course, a contributing factor to this labour saving luxury is that the damn doors are about as heavy as barn doors and to open them manually you need either a team of horses or a bloody good run up.

While the size was a bonus, I'm not sure it was a great idea in retrospect to. Choose that car for a trip to Norfolk that entailed daily jaunts along the narrow and winding road that runs along the coast, especially in the 'Stiffkey squeeze' and especially not at harvest time with so many tractors and other really, really large bits of agricultural machinery sharing the roads. It's when you hear all the passengers breathing in at the same time that you realise you've just had a narrow squeeze. That, and the fact that the wing mirror has been folded flat back against the car when you brushed that wall. Mirrors are like cats whiskers, if you can get them through a gap, the rest of the car will follow. Of course that's buggger all help if you've already firmly wedged the bonnet of the car be teen a wall and a chap on a mobility chariot.

With the wide seats to accommodate the larger posterior and the electric doors that hinted at a certain idleness, it comes as no surprise to learn that the car was designed by those conspicuous consumers, the Americans. Wide seats, lazy doors and it being an automatic rather than having manual gears I can deal with (even if I did try and change gear with the hand break for the first half hour) but even I was surprised by the number of beverage holders the thing had. There was even a beverage cup holder that flipped out of the side of the rear passenger seats! Is dehydration a feature of travel by road in America? I can understand if you want space for your big gulp if you are, say, driving across Death Valley, but how much fluid does one person need when they are popping to the shops.

Britannia Week – the solution to holiday car hire

Of course, once you get to the island you have to be able to get around. This is the 1950s remember and the motor car had not yet extended its polluting reach to every corner of the globe. Like decent booze, if you wanted something, you had to bring it from home. And what could be more practical to carry on a ship and use to ferry Royal passengers around dirt roads than a Rolls Royce Phantom.

You may have been impressed by the ship, but just imagine if the first car you ever saw was a Rolls Royce Phantom. Anything after that is going to be a massive anti-climax; if some joker rolls up in a jeep a few years later and tries to impress the natives about the wonders of civilization, they might politely point out that yes, your toy car is very nice, but it lacks a walnut dashboard and where the hell is the decanter in the back?

Postcard from Spain - Build me up!

The Spanish love concrete almost as much as they like to stuff anchovies into olives to make tapas, or like to serve up cattle in wafer thin slices after killing them in traditional fashion…in a sawdust covered ring wearing very tight trousers (the matador, not the cattle).

In the southern Spanish province of Andalucia, building materials are at a premium – wood is required to, well, grow from the ground, come accessorised with fruit and is used to feed your family. The Spanish had already mastered building in adobe with red clay tiles (actually both local phrases for ‘posh mud’) but when concerete arrived on the scene, they must have thought ‘jackpot!’.

The olnly thing they like more than concrete is tarmac, this explains their love of roads…that and the fact that the little EU sticker in the corner of the banners announcing a new glorious six lane motorway through this region means that Northern Europe is paying for it.

The motorways are glorious though…and they are not even open yet. The Spanish have just finished building loads of two lane motorways…to use while they build the three lane ones! In a spectacular show of job creation (the party ruling in Spain at the moment has its roots in the region, hence all the investment) they appear to be building roads just for the hell of it – roads that divert miles out of their way to span spectacular gorges or bore through tunnels. The practice of naming every bridge and tunnel after somebody means that there will soon be more names highway structures than there are people to name them after.

Driving on them is fantastic. The roads are brand new – the black-top is smooth and unmarked as cake icing. And it’s not environmentally damaging…because there are very few cars. This is a poorish part of Spain and while everyone that drives a car does tool round in a new little three door hatchback or something, there just aren’t that many cars. This means that driving up and down the M-way is like driving in England in 1958, except all the lorries are transporting tapas rather than flanges, grommits or other wonders of British manufacturing.

The problem is not ‘Christine’

I’m pretty sure that, automobiles that have been possessed by malicious spirits excepted, cars are not actually evil. It’s just that the drivers of cars are stupid.

On my jaunt from office to railway station, I have to cross a few roads, thankfully with the aid of pedestrian lights. The problem is that some drivers think that it’s okay to sit in slow moving traffic right across the pedestrian crossing bit. I presume some of them have passed their driving test and so know the Highway Code prohibits this. One would also assume that they have a degree of common sense and are able to think ‘a-ha, a coloured strip in the road between traffic lights with a crowd gathered on the pavement, I will stop short of it so that if the lights change, I won’t obstruct anyone’.

Which is why, when the sort of gormless, drooling, self-centred arsewits do stop across the crossing, they must be either so stupid that they shouldn’t be in a car or incredibly self centred. Possibly it’s a result of being exposed to the sort of radio programmes that air at ‘drive time’, or maybe there’s some chemical they put in dashboards that make people stupid.

It probably doesn’t do to get too worked up about this sort of thing, after all, I can skip lithely along between traffic, while they sit there and fume in fumes.

I do occasionally wonder though if they behave like this in all aspects of their life, do they stop with their shopping trolly in the supermarket doorway, or stand in the entrance to a crowded tube platform? I really hope the latter, because if they try that shit in London your average commuter would simply push them under the next available train - and if one wasn’t available simply kick them to death. It also makes you wonder to just what extent the flickering intelligence they exhibit allows them to get any joy out of life - do they know how to cook? Read? Programme the video? Doubtful.

Disco roads

Technology has come to the village in the form of a couple of those road signs that light up with the words ‘slow down’ if you are driving at over 30 miles and hour.

Given the level of fuckwittage on the roads into and out of the village, the things are illuminated so often it’s like disco light show some mornings - bordering on strobing. I’m rather hoping that the signs are solar powered, because if not there will be a council tax hike to cover the soaring electricity bills the things will generate.

I like these sorts of signs. I first came across them in the US, years ago. Driving through the Rockies in the wee small hours, I was alert for the usual dangers of the road - carjackers, big rigs, nutters and sharp bends, I was alert for the local dangers as flagged in my guide book - bears, wolves, 17,000 tonnes of snow sliding towards you, I was even alert for the sort of dangers that you start to ponder on a lonely road in the dark, specifically - werewolves.

So when I saw a sign light up warning me I was doing over 55, it was quite a surprise and I adjusted my speed accordingly.

In recent years these signs have started popping up in Britain and I have to say I like them. There are quite a few in Norfolk, where the narrow roads are not really suited to speeds greater than a well laden donkey can manage. This does not stop hoorays in 4x4s driving like maniacs though. The specific problem there is that the women driving these cars can’t drive properly, and that they are laden down with so much booze and food for the weekend that once they get up momentum, they can’t stop.

The traffic going through the village and causing the sign to flash like a pervert in a park fell into two categories of speeder - school run mums who are simply too thick to realise that there is a speed limit, and chavs in ‘pimped out’ (i.e. a ten quid body-kit from Halfords) chaviots getting the sensation of driving really quickly by doing 40 in a 30 zone.

I think the signs need to be developed to do number-plate recognition and flash up the plate number while telling you, yes YOU, to slow down. Either that or they should get one of those cannons that the Predator has mounted on his shoulder and stick it on the top. Five miles over the limit gets your car shot with a paintball. Ten miles over the limit gets your tyres shot out. Anything more than that combined with tinted windows results in an energy burst that leaves nothing but a crater and a spinning, smoking Burberry baseball cap.

My mission before the summer is over - trip one of the cameras while on my bicycle. Strongly suspect it will have to be the one on the way out of the village, as the road there is downhill.