White van passengers

Standing by the side of the road, waiting for the lights to change, one has plenty of time to survey ones surroundings. But sod that, it's much more fun to stare at the occupants of the cars whizzing by. Someday, somebody is going to author the definitive spotters' guide to the British diver, with descriptions and illustrations of the School Run Mum, The Commuter, The Angry Man, The Fun Car Driver, The Soft Toy Farmer and so on and so forth. Next month, they'll start work on updating the guide, that's how definitive guides work.

A particular sub-set of traveller is the white van driver. Lots has been, well, not so much written as said about white van drivers. True, the vast majority of it is not social commentary in the formal sense, but rather along the lines of immediate feedback on the white van driver's skill at, say, filtering, usually delivered by somebody in a neighbouring car to an audience of an empty passenger seat.

And while much has been said and shouted about the white van driver, less has been said about the white van passenger, which is a shame. Because I think this is a particular social type that could stand some examination. Looking at white van passengers, you can't help but think that there is a story there. They occupy a special place, and not just to the left of the hand break. Rather, like the girlfriend of a a provincial gigging DJ who keeps other women away from her man simply through the power of sullen glower, they have a purpose of their own. Often, of course, this will be to load and unload crates of fanta, but there's something else going on there too.

The passengers essentially break down into three types; mates, girlfriend, family. Mates are there to help shift stuff from the van or to the van. A mate can be identified not just by posture - they are happy to sit in companionable silence for long periods - but by the little nest they make on the passenger side of the van to reinforce their sense of identity even though they are not the driver. The base layer is constructed of coffee cups and tabloid newspapers, further than that it's at the discretion of the mate except that before the invention of the Internet there would always be at least one soft core porn mag.

The girlfriend is rarer, but easily visible when present because her posture manages to convey 'I want to spend more time with you and if I have to spend Saturday in a van with you, I will, although it will not be pleasant'. The van driver's originally chirpy mood will be ground down throughout the day, turning very bleak indeed when he realises about three o' clock that his planned evening of drinking cider with his mates is unlikely to happen.

The family member is about the best. Specifically, small boys and dogs. Small boys, or girls, in a van are always uplifting. Somehow taking your kid to work in a van goes beyond the normal 'I have fucked up the child care arrangements, again' that typify the appearance of a child in an office. The kid is normally excited beyond even the power of haribo to induce giddiness, because they are finding out what happens to their parent during the day and, when you're a kid, there's nothing quite like seeing your parent at work and realising that other people do not call him 'Dad' and riding high above the rest of the traffic. You conclude the day learning that his name is either 'Geoff' or 'wanker'. You also conclude with a free tray of fanta but you're not to tell anyone.

The only family member more pleased than a child to ride in the passenger seat of a white van is a small dog, usually a terrier, usually with its head stuck out of the window looking happy beyond reason because surely there is no greater thrill than accompanying your dad on a job, unless it's sticking your head out of the window and letting your ears blow about in the rush of wind.

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.

Postcard from naples - traffic

When we were disembarking at Naples airport, the elderly (but sprightly) gent in front of me remarked to the stewardess that the last time he had been in Naples was 65 years ago.

Personally, having a rifle in your hands and the British Eighth Army behind you is still the best way to see the place. We were flying home, but first we had to get from the hydrofoil port to the airport. This meant a taxi, or, as I like to call it, a near-death experience.

Naples traffic is truly astonishing. I don’t think we saw much of it on the way out, but we certainly saw plenty of it on the way back…much of it less than an inch away from the taxi. Chaos does not do justice to Naples traffic. It’s a free for all. Ever been on the bumper cars at the funfair? It’s like that, all the time, at speed. Everyone has a shitty car, all the cars have bumps and scrapes and the only people not with cars are either pedestrians wandering onto the road without looking or scooter types zipping in and out of non-existent spaces. I actually saw a bloke texting while riding his scooter.

Driving like this only happens in staunchly catholic countries with a strong belief in the afterlife.

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.

Life (and death) in the fast lane

Travel in the modern world is, with a few exceptions, a pretty dreadful experience. Away from magazines whose pages have a glossy petrochemical sheen that makes you doubt their recyclability (unless its into other glossy magazines) and who link travel with first class air tickets or expensive cars, your average journey is usually just the dull bit between setting out and getting there.

Even the most luxurious modes of travel try hard to convince you that you are not actually travelling. Seats on aeroplanes now fold into beds to fool you that you are in a very small dorm room and allow you to studiously ignore the couple having sex in the next bunk, while cruise liners do their very best to pretend they are not ships at all but merely hotels with hulls. Why else would a ship have a pool? You’re in the ocean! The ‘this way to swimming’ signs should be pointing over the side.

Even if you’ve got an incredibly posh car, it’s unlikely that you’ve got a private motorway and so you are likely, at some point, to be stuck in roadworks, counting cones and watching the family in the car in front squabble. Luxury cars are not designed to make driving a pleasure, they are designed to make driving that bit more bearable.

The only way to really enjoy travelling is to be on a boating holiday where the whole objective is to get from A to B as slowly as possible, punctuated by many visits to waterside pubs, or get a push bike. The bicycle is the best travelling device ever - something that allows you to move swiftly from location to location while feeling gratified that you are getting their under your own steam. It also means that, unlike car drivers, you can have a flexible attitude to the interpretation of the Highway Code with especial reference to mounting pavements, haring across green spaces and being able to go up and down stairs.

The mode of transport I’ve never been able to understand is the motorbike. The motorbike seems to combine all that is worst about a bike - exposure to the elements, lack of a glove compartment, vulnerability in traffic - with all that is crap about a car - can only go on roads, costs lots to run. As I see it, the only reasons for owning a bike are: you have a beard and need an excuse for it, you are a man over 40 and as such the only leather you are now allowed to wear is a biker outfit or a gimp mask; or you have just turned 40 period.

Bikers have always annoyed the hell out of me - either as couriers in town or, worse of all, the way in which they thread between slow or stationary traffic on motorways. Maybe there was a time when a bike could do that and not be a nuisance but today, with bikes roughly the same size as an overstuffed sofa, it means that you have to move your car to let them through.

I recently learned the secret of surviving traffic - snacks! The last time I was in a traffic jam I had a cool box stuffed with crisps, chocolate and cold drinks. 45 minutes sitting in the fast lane? No problem, just listened to some tunes on the iPod and consumed about 40,000 calories. If I had not been thus occupied and, it’s true, reduced to a dazed state by all the fat and flavourings I was getting down my throat, I would probably have been able to register annoyance at the behaviour of the occasional biker shooting left and right of me.

This then, is the most probable explanation for the murder of a biker on the M40 last weekend. A biker was shot and the whole motorway was closed for a few hours. Inconvenient for those in the traffic, very inconvenient for the biker. Police think he may have been shot as the result of a biker feud after attending a biker rally. Me, I think that the guy spent a weekend with his biker mates and, on a high and considering himself king of the road, undertook and overtook and pulled all sorts of cheeky manoeuvres on the way down the motorway until he pulled that shit on somebody with a short temper and a long barrel on their illegal firearm.

Police intend to spend the summer visiting biker rallies and will probably complete the investigation short of suspects but with plenty of new gear for the cycle cops. As a line of enquiry it’s a pretty good one, certainly better than working on who has a grudge against bikers - they can start with pretty much the entire DVLA database. Me, I’d look for the car with the sticker on the side in the shape of a silhouette of a biker’s helmet.