Getting along nicely…

Jolly motoring tips!

What do you look for in a new car?

Let me see now… A floor to sit on. A wheel at each corner. Breakdown cover in case the wheels fall off. That should do it. Just about.

What do you mean you want more? Okay let me rephrase the question:

What do you NEED in a car? See? So much simpler. Focus on the task in hand. Not the fripperies.

When I was a kid we took a piece of wood, put the four wheels on, and a piece of string for the steering. Voila! A perfectly functional vehicle. Why do we think we need more just because we are adults? It is, after all, much more fun to be a kid.

Okay I can see you are not entirely convinced. So lets just go through a few things on your list.

First, steering wheel. Does exactly the same job as the string. Can you see any difference? Apart from, I mean, it looks nicer. No you can’t. Unless you’re one of those sad people who is always impressed by appearances. The rest of us will surely agree that there’s nothing wrong with a nice piece of string.

Humans have been using string for umpteen billions of years. We used to make it out of windblown oddments lying around outside. And for this reason string comes in lots of different colours. And you can cover it in leather if you really want to look oh-so-sophisticated. Just strip some off a cow’s backside. It’s very environmental. So you’ll be really in with the in-crowd. If perhaps not with the cow.

The truth is there really is no rational argument against stringy steering.

Next, brakes. Have you forgotten the joy of childhood? Remember? When your feet were your brakes? Of course you do.

How about seats? Just raise the floor. Or turn your bucket upside down. You do have a bucket on board don’t you? Buckets are even better than seats because they double up as in car toilets.

Does your current posh modern all-mod-cons car have an on board toilet? No. Thought not. So you see now? You’ve just upgraded!

And you can pull up and empty your bucket into a farmer’s field by the side of the road! The farmer will be delighted by the free fertiliser. As long as you don’t accidentally throw it through his window of course. And you will be helping the national food growing effort. And getting more environmental brownie (as it were) points.

Buckets are such wonderful things. But just be careful the showroom doesn’t try to charge you extra for that. Just tell them firmly but politely that you prefer to supply your own bucket, thankyou.

How about gears? Again, remember your childhood. Your feet get you going, your heels slow you down again as required.

Nowadays of course some cars are automatic, i.e. you don’t have to fiddle with a gear stick. But there is still another sort of stick you have to fiddle with. So what’s the point? And since everything else on the modern car is automatic why shouldn’t gearing be?

For example, you don’t have to climb outside and work the window wipers yourself. It’s automatic. In the same way just about everything in the modern car is automatic. It just happens. So why are gears not automatically automatic too? And why do they force us to work the gears ourselves in most cases and then tell us that that downgrade is better for us? Everything abut a car is automatic. That’s the point. It’s automatic movement.

Similar arguments apply to the windscreen (feel the wind in your hair!), the wipers (no windscreen = nothing to wipe), the boot (get a trailer if you need one) and most of the other bits.

And please don’t get me started on alloy wheels. Virtually everything nowadays, all around us, is made of alloys of one sort or another. Don’t be fooled.

The radio (focus on your driving) lights (stay at home at night) heating (wear a coat) and so on are all the same. Namby-pamby nonsense for softies.

Of course the government has just about got round to banning mobile phones en route, but all these other distractions are still legal even if they are pointless. Avoid the temptation and stick to the basics. If it rains, that’s a free hair wash!

Ultimately we are going to have self driving cars, or so they tell us. When that happens you won’t even have to hold on to your piece of string. And you will be able to spend as much time as you like on your bucket.

In the longer term perhaps the real answer is to just stay at home. If you want a hair wash you can stick your head out of the window.

That is of course if your house has any windows…