Red lorry, yellow lorry

Why did Suzuki call its new car something which no native Japanese speaker can pronounce? If we’d not had a written invitation to the press launch earlier this year, I’d have been convinced that the new mini-MPV was called a Sprash.

It’s cruel. A bit like a manufacturer employing an MD with a name like Bernd Pischetsrieder, a let’s-put-British-motoring-journalists-in-their-place-so-they-daren’t-ask-for-an-interview sort of name. At least he’s now firmly out of the pichsture.

Expensive tastes

In the Moto service area on the M23 at Pease Pottage, I recently paid £2.35 for a very ordinary cup of coffee. Just black: beans and water, nothing else.

Never mind, I would add one of those little pots of creamers. “We don’t do no creamers”, explained a bored assistant. Instead she pointed me to a skip of half-fat white stuff, which to milk is what a burger is to fillet steak.

I rang the police and asked if I could report a case of daylight robbery but apparently there’s no law against it.

I should like to know if any readers can top £2.35 for a plain coffee at a service area or any other roadside facility outside metropolitan London.

Picturesque West Drayton. You would miss this on the M25.

I live in Surrey, a few miles south of Junction 9 of the M25. From time-to-time, I visit our production studios in Kentish Town, and since part of my usual back-doubles route via Hammersmith, Lissom Grove and Elgin Avenue has been absorbed into the London congestion zone, I thought I would try a couple of alternatives.

So when I set off yesterday I headed for the M25, which I followed, via the Dartford Crossing, to Junction 24, and from there, straight down the A1000 to Highgate, where I branched off to Kentish Town. Total journey time: 2 hours, 15 minutes – most of which was spent on the motorway.

For the return leg, I went north to Finchley then west via Wealdstone, Mill Hill, Stanmore, and Northwood to Uxbridge. From there the route home was almost due south via West Drayton, Hatton Cross, Hampton, Sunbury, Walton-on-Thames and Cobham. Total journey time: 1 hour 45 minutes. The route was free-moving with only occasional delays, even though I set off from Kentish Town at 6pm, in what might be called the height of the rush hour.

I am not sure what the latter route proved, other than the fact that satellite navigation is no substitute for knowing your way about. And that switching off your sat-nav and using the stress-free roads of leafy suburbia doesn’t necessarily mean that you will fall off the edge of the earth; although West Drayton…..