I love my little car. It gets me from A to C. I’ve never been to B. What’s it like?
My car is getting old. Indeed, they stopped making them a good few years ago. But the little beastie is fundamentally sound in itself, even if the repair bills mount as parts wear out.
I wonder if it’ll become the philosophical conundrum that was PG Wodehouse’s typewriter: with every part replaced at some point, was it the same typewriter?
True, my car could do with an upgraded music set-up, instead of my having to lug CDs about. I’ve only recently managed to get music on my mobile phone, which I think links in to the sound system in modern cars.
But, at the time of going to press, the music on my phone only works about 25 per cent of the time.
Apparently, adding something to “your library” isn’t the same as downloading it. And you need a master’s degree if you want it to work offline.
What a palaver. Nothing is simple nowadays.
You used to just press an off-switch to get the television. Now you must press this, then that, then this again then that, then connect this to that, and that to yon, and yin to yang, all before getting a message saying: “No signal” or “Not connected” or “Nae luck, pal”.
Mates with more modern cars get constant dashboard messages: “Hello, big nose”; “Your tammy’s oan squint”; “Toothpaste on beard alert”; “Get a life.”
I wouldn’t like to have any more computer messages on my car dashboard beyond the irritating ones I already get, such as: “Your service is now yonks overdue, skinflint.”
Mates with more modern cars get constant dashboard messages: “Hello, big nose”; “Your tammy’s oan squint”; “Toothpaste on beard alert”; “Get a life.”
I haven’t driven another car for six years, and would be fearful of doing so. That said, modern ones have warning beeps for reverse parking, which I might appreciate.
Can’t reverse park to save myself. And I don’t mean “parallel” park, I mean even just reversing straight into an empty car park space.
FOR – that’s fear of reversing
It doesn’t matter how I angle my side-mirrors – up, doon, left, right – I can never see the white lines, and so am virtually reversing blind. Come to think of it, I can’t even drive forward into a parking space. Always squint.
Fear of reversing leads me to avoid single-track roads. I’d be in a ditch within seconds.
Why put ditches at the side of country roads anyway? Is it to punish us?
You can see videos on yonder YouTube of folk making a hash of reverse parking. I’ve just watched one of someone taking eight minutes to do it in a carpark.
The secret is not to panic…
Cruel films now humiliate drivers making a right mess of it on single-track roads (where the local recording the film declines to reverse himself).
I’m told the secret is not to panic – easy for you to say – and not to keep changing direction with the steering wheel.
However, the main aid would be for your car not to have mirrors supplied by a fairground, where all distances are distorted and you can’t see the ditch until you’re in it.
Ah, the joys of motoring. I love my little car. But when they bring out a self-drive version, I think I might go for that upgrade.
