4CV lead-in model

Readers of popular Chinese papers were apparently delighted to learn of Citroen’s latest 4CV car.

On Consumer Rights Day – a day when Chinese people rebel against cheap foreign imports - national tabloids published photographs of a Citroen C3 being towed to a garage by four cart horses. According to its disgruntled owner, the Citroen ‘…exploded for no reason’. But even a cursory examination of the photograph reveals the obvious fact that the car had been in an RTA.

And that set me thinking about the recent BBC Watchdog features concerning Renault Clio bonnets that allegedly open of their own accord. I wonder if any of the eager young researchers at Watchdog thought to ask whether any of the plaintiffs’ cars had previously been in a shunt – a shunt that might have weakened the bonnet catch? From the footage I saw, I should think it’s pretty likely.

Bluetooth headset

I’ve just got back from the Race Retro historic motor sport show; it was well worth the trip but I’ve been reminded about a certain type of person I’ve never quite understood. Go to any big event and you’ll see them, shuffling round among the crowds, invariably wearing a bum bag and a sweat-stained T-shirt. They are the men (and it is always men) who feel the need to wear a bluetooth headset as they’re walking.

For no explicable reason, these blokes either think it’s cool or somehow necessary to wear a headset as they amble round. They must need to keep their hands free for something, but what could that possibly be? Then again, perhaps we’d best not go there…

Because they’re impossibly sad, nobody ever calls them; their head sets probably aren’t even switched on. I’ve never actually seen anyone talking into one of these devices – maybe these weird men don’t even have mobile phones, just a head set.

Still, at least it’s possible not to look a complete idiot while using a bluetooth headset; you simply drive a car while speaking on the phone. Okay, so you still look distinctly odd, but you know what I mean. If there’s one way you can’t escape looking like a total berk, it’s by bolting one of those universal rear wings onto the boot lid of your hum drum family saloon. I feel a regular spot coming on here; naff things that drivers do…

Our latest pride and joy, a shiny new Suzuki Swift Sport, is sitting in the drive. Trouble is, we’re not the only ones excited by it. There’s a demented blue tit that spends every daylight hour pecking frantically at the wing mirrors. Flap him away and two minutes later he’s back. Pecking. The only way to stop the little tit – and prevent the bird-poo that has to be washed off almost hourly – is to wrap plastic bags around the mirrors every time we park and secure them with rubber bands. It’s becoming a real faff. 

The oddest thing of all is that a sparrow seems to have taken pity on the tiny bird, and brings it food. The sparrow carefully drops seeds on the edge of the mirror and then backs off and watches, presumably urging the blue tit to eat something. Can anyone offer an explanation?

Lexus jam sandwich

Am I the only one who feels uneasy if there’s a police car on my tail? I can be below the speed limit, driving in a faultless line down the centre of the road, knowing my car is in perfect condition – and still be convinced that I’m about to get pulled.

Actually, I know I’m not alone because I was with a friend recently, who was driving along a main road when a police car pulled out behind us and followed for a couple of miles. My friend was convinced that she was going to get pulled over, despite doing nothing wrong. In fact she was so nervous that she turned off, just to lose the jam sandwich, before getting back onto the A-road that she’d just left.

I was intrigued, and asked her why she’d made such a manouevre. Her answer was simple; she no longer trusts the police, feeling that the odds are now so heavily stacked against drivers that in the event of a tug she’d have to prove her innocence, rather than the feds having to prove her guilt.

I was rather alarmed that such a young person (she’s in her mid-twenties) should hold such cynical views, but perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised. After all, on a daily basis we hear such worrying tales of how drivers get stitched up by courts that appear to know the verdict before the case has even been heard. Have you been caught out?

Some daffodils in my garden. Totally irrelevant to the story, but a lot less offensive than the alternative.

Oh goodie. This morning’s post brought another press release from the RAC Foundation. They’ve been my favourite, ever since the one about supernaturally evil cars which asserted that “the Archduke Ferdinand was killed in an accident which triggered the First World Ear”. Thus I not only learnt that Archduke Ferdinand died in a car crash, rather than being shot by a Serbian terrorist, but I also heard tell of an aural marvel which still gives me unusual dreams.

And here they are again this morning, the good old RAC Foundation, with a fascinating survey on vomiting in cars. The survey “throws up some interesting results,” we’re told, such as the remarkable fact that 30.75% (to the nearest two decimal places) of survey respondents pack a leak-proof container before setting out on a journey. Extraordinary.

The press release also informs me that “the findings of this research may be freely quoted provided reference is made to Stugeron 15”. There. Job done.

Not the Prius

If EU legislators get their way, by 2012 average CO2 tailpipe emissions will have to be reduced to 130 grammes per driven kilometre. Cars that fail to meet the standard will be ‘fined’; or in other words, car buyers will have to pay yet another stealth tax if they want to guzzle gas.

Toyota will be one of the few mainstream manufacturers that might just scrape under the bar. The Aygo, and, of course the Prius, are pretty frugal in matters of CO2, and are regarded, even by rivals, as halo products. Personally. I’d rather push a Land Rover than drive an Aygo but I will admit that Toyota’s city car makes a lot of sense in the present climate (political and otherwise).

Yet Toyota is not as squeaky-green as you might imagine. In America (where else?) it has decided to nudge GM’s rear fender with a massive truck – or pick-up, as we call them. Poised to overtake GM as the world’s largest car maker, Toyota has upped the ante by re-launching into GM’s back yard the Tundra, which it has stuffed with a 5.7-litre V8 developing 381 horsepower and returning an urban fuel consumption of just 14 mpg.

But according to the official Tundra website, ‘…Toyota encourages responsible operation to protect…the environment.’ So that’s all right then.

"Don't drink and drive."

Thank you to the reader who alerted me to the breaking news on urinal cakes. These vital accessories, fitted in men’s toilets in American bars and restaurants are, as far as I can work out, activated by a stream of urine at which point the ‘cake’ issues a verbal warning on the dangers of drink-driving. 

The sermon begins, “Hey there, big guy. Having a few drinks? Listen up. Think you’ve had a few too many? Then it’s time to call a cab or ask a sober friend for a ride home…”

Admirable advice. However, it brings to mind a warning I saw in a public toilet, emblazoned across the device which produces a never-ending loop of towel. The warning read, “Do not insert head in towel loop”. Until that moment, I hadn’t dreamt of doing any such thing – but once warned in such stern terms, the notion became irrestistible. WHY shouldn’t I insert my head in the towel loop? What could go wrong? It can’t be THAT dangerous, surely?

There’s a point at which nannying advice has the opposite effect from that intended. I think that point is surely reached when you’re given advice by something you are, at that moment, pissing on?