One of our favoured tea stops when we are out filming is at Wisley in Surrey. The tea bar is located in a wooded area, and served by ample parking, arranged in bays.
Last week, there we were, sitting quietly at a picnic table, enjoying the autumn sunshine, when onto the grass drove a BMW X5, which stopped a few short feet from our table. I say ‘on the grass’ as distinct from ‘in one of the many empty parking bays’.
When the driver got out I politely pointed to the bays and asked if she wouldn’t mind using one of them, rather than park two tons of German mean-machine on the fragile chamomile- and clover-studded grass.
In reply, she suggested I do something physically impossible, then trounced off into the woods with her designer dog, which looked every bit as arrogant as its owner.
Incidentally, the BMW looked rather like the one in the photo I took at the time. I hope you can read the number.
|
Motor Sport magazine regulars might have noticed that the letters page has become increasingly devoted to correspondence from people who merely want readers to know that they once brushed shoulders with the great and wonderful: “…and I once nearly got on a plane with Sir Stirling Moss”, that sort of thing.
This kind of tosh belongs in a celebrity magazine, not among the hallowed columns of Motor Sport. I mentioned this over lunch with Michael Schumacher, and he agrees with me.
|
I live quite close to the farm in Surrey that featured recently in news stories about the outbreak of E-coli.
But during a recent trip to another part of Surrey I encountered an outbreak of another sinister visitation, namely E-bygum. In the coach park of a famed beauty spot I noticed a Yorkshire-registered coach, the occupants of which were marveling at things we take for granted: sunshine, trees, and the whiff of rich pasture land – land that once was farmed but which now is merely owned by the rich.
This set me thinking. What kind of carbon footprint would be left by this 400-mile round-trip? And what would be the cumulative footprint of hundreds of such excursions every weekend, not only by coach, but by car as well?
We are urged to live green, and reduce our individual carbon footprints, yet we allow people to roam freely – far from home and in total disregard of the environmental costs of mere recreational travel.
Although I am a keen environmentalist (in fact, I have just sold a V12 car and replaced it with a V8) don’t get me wrong: I’m all for a weekend drive, but do we have to travel so far? I have written to George Brown and suggested that Britain could lead the way in reducing our CO2 footprint by insisting that tourists be confined to the county in which they have chosen to live and work. I appreciate that some counties have little to offer tourists however well they might know the area, so I have suggested that residents of certain counties be allowed to visit contiguous counties: for example, that Lancastrians be allowed to visit Yorkshire; or that folks from Bedfordshire might be allowed to nip into Cambridgeshire or Northants, but not Hertfordshire in case they could not be persuaded to return home.
In one fell swoop we could cut our CO2 output by millions of tonnes each year, our roads would run more freely, and in these credit-crunched times people would spend less on fuel and have more money for bingo. Enterprising caterers could offer a form of virtual tourism; pubs in Leicestershire could serve Cornish pasties; tea shoppes in Yorkshire could serve Devon cream teas; and Surrey restaurants could serve potee chaud du Lancastre. Indeed, with a little imagination an entirely toponymic menu could be contrived.
But to be fair, people must first be given a chance to choose the county where they must work, rest and play, so I have suggested to George the idea of a ‘transfer window’. A period of six months during which people could up sticks and move to the county of their choice. Unfortunately Surrey and Sussex are full, but I’m told that Northumbria has one or two nice spots.
|
As the August bank holiday approaches, no doubt the good folk of Exeter are anticipating another nightmare weekend of traffic as the Exeter by-pass grinds to s standstill under the onslaught of Brummies heading to or returning from the West Country. The same will be true of pinch-points throughout our trunk-road network.
Of course, the problem is that our roads suffer from the classic 80/20 syndrome. 80 per cent of drivers try simultaneously to occupy 20 per cent of the nation’s road network. And that happens every day.
I seldom use motorways or trunk roads. Instead I mainly use minor and unclassified roads that weave their way alongside arterial routes and are often the ‘old’ roads to the selfsame destinations but which progress has relegated to mere capillaries.
Yet they still represent some 80 per cent of our total road mileage, but occupied at most by only 20 per cent of the traffic, and, quite frequently, none at all.
OK, so using minor roads might mean a few more miles, but I would bet that my zig-zagging, traffic-free routes use less petrol. At least for every squirt of the injector I cover a few more yards, rather than merely adding another puff of CO2 to the atmosphere without any corresponding benefit.
And I would also bet that my journeys take no longer. For sure, motorways and trunk roads (A303 excepted) can at times be faster, but most times they’re not. And whereas drivers see only trucks and tail-lights, I see tall skies, open countryside and pleasant people who are not forever on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
You can keep your sat-navs – at least I know where I’m going. When
most of you arrive at your destination you have no idea how you got there. I dream of the day when Uncle Sam pulls the plug, and millions of British motorists suddenly find themselves with no more idea of their whereabouts than the apocryphal tribe of short people consigned to live in long grass.
|
Those of you with Series 1 and early Series 2 Lotus Elises will no doubt be familiar with the perennial steering rack problem.
Check with any Lotus dealer and they will quote at least £312 plus VAT for a complete rack, when all most of us need is a tie rod and a couple of Delrin shoes, although these components alone are seemingly impossible to buy from a Lotus dealer.
I have some good news. If you contact Titan (the makers of the steering racks) they will supply the precise bits you need. There is a minimum charge of £25, but that will buy you a tie rod and the shoes. You can also buy a complete rack for £289.00 plus VAT, and Titan also offer a refurbishment service. Needless to say, they also supply ‘quick’ racks for track use.
In these days of expensive, disposable car parts, what a refreshing change to find a company that will supply you parts to enable a REPAIR rather than simply fob you off with a new unit.
You will find all the contact details here.
|
I seldom listen to the radio when I’m driving, but on a really long journey I might break the silence with a few bars of Marriage of Figaro. But I can’t sing to save my life, so I eventually put on a Mozart CD instead.
Mozart was a genius, and few have since been equal to this inspired tunesmith. However, this generation has a near equal – the trumpeter Wynton Marsalis - whose eclectic performances range from classic baroque to home-spun jazz compositions from his own prolific pen. He’s not a bad poet, either, and his latest album ‘He and She’ explores in a myriad of jazz forms, the lines and themes of his poem of the same name.
He reads snatches of the poem throughout the recording, which concludes with the whole piece as a single track. Marsalis has a mellifluous, hominy grit voice that sounds for all the world like that of the big coloured guy that used to wander about in an overcoat and a floppy cap telling us in a poetic manner why we should bank at Barclay’s. (I think).
Somebody bought me the He & She album as a birthday present (I am six and a quarter, today, June 12) and I would love to play you the whole thing. However, the best I can do is point you at this YouTube trailer and invite you to taste a morsel of the Marsalis genius.
You will hear only a snatch of the poem, and miss one of the best bits: “One plus one make two, Like you and me before becoming we.” I wish I could write like that.
|
|
| You would hardly know it was there |
|
There I was, nursing a coffee in the evening sunshine, minding my own business in a pub garden, when from round the corner I heard these three noises: a revving engine, screeching tyres, a loud CRACK!
A CRACK? I put two and two together and to my dismay it made five, at least. Some muppet in an Audi, showing off to his mates, had dropped the clutch in reverse and barrelled across the car park straight into my hitherto oh-so-pretty Lotus Elise Type 49.
“Sorry, mate,” he slurred, viewing the Lotus’s cracked clamshell with an unfocused eye. “I didn’t see it.”
What’s red, white and gold, sticks out in a car park full of silver cars like a red balloon at a Tory conference, and now is in bits?
“I’m really sorry, said Mr Audi. “Send me the estimate, and I’ll pay it straight away.” I did, and he didn’t. Watch this space.
|
Lewis Hamilton and Steve McQueen in the same film? I you haven’t already seen it, go here.
|
Those of you familiar with the A29 will know that north of Billingshurst there are several stretches of ruler-straight road along the line of Stane Street – the old Roman road from Chichester to London.
During the day, the A29 is often all but deserted, and so when I came up behind a Toyota Boring pottering along at about 40 mph in a 60 limit there was no problem in overtaking – the road was otherwise entirely clear. Another car was driving behind me and just as that went to overtake as well, the driver of the said Toyota at the very last moment swerved to the right to block the road. This he did three or four times although there was no approaching traffic and the national speed limit applies to the entire stretch of road in question.
Both of us were driving sports cars, so the second overtake would have been as swift and painless as the first. Instead, the Toyota driver’s sanctimonious enforcement of an imagined speed limit created unnecessary danger and the risk of a major accident.
If you happen to be reading this, Mr. Smug Toyota Boring driver, I was driving the Lotus that first passed you. Please get in touch, as there is something I should like to discuss with you; as would my wife, who was driving the other car.
|
As far as I can make out, this new ‘scrappage’ scheme’ to encourage the purchase of new cars is entirely futile.
The £2,000 ‘grant’, derived jointly from the government and the vehicle maker will be made available only to owners who scrap cars more than ten years old.
I imagine there a few people driving 10-15-year-old cars out of choice. They do so because they can afford nothing newer, either because their income is too low, or more probably, because their circumstances prevent their achieving the necessary credit rating required to by a new car on hire-purchase.
Moreover, we are in the middle of a recession in which credit-worthy customers are struggling to obtain credit – let alone those who do not come up to the line.
Moreover, if there is a car sales boom now, there will be a consequent decline in a couple of years’ time: the trade is famously cyclic and troughs always follow peaks, and vice versa.
As for doing our bit to save the planet, this is palpable nonsense. China already increases its CO2 output each year by an amount equal to the entire CO2 output of the UK, and is opening a new coal-fired power station every five days. And the energy race and boom in cars sales in China has only just begun; as it has in India. And since both these nations give any notion of a global pact on CO2 emissions a stiff finger, any effort on our part is entirely nugatory.
|
|
|
