From Beginning To End

THE COMPLETE CHESTER J. CHADWICK

The life and good times of Britain’s most eccentric motoring writer.

     INTRODUCTION

If, like my good self, you are interested in the world of motoring, that is to say the fun bits minus the corporate fairy tales, mind-numbing chassis engineering details, airbag count and other irrelevances, you might be interested in what will appear in the following columns.

You may have come across Chadwick’s ramblings in some lesser publications. Some of these are quite respectable, but others, (and he was alarmed when he found out about them), are little more than the kind of things that wll have you ordering a new pair of glasses.

And please take note that Chadwick does not wish to be confused with any of those desert-booted, approved school escapees who scribble incoherently in the monthly fast car magazines and gibber furiously on appalling television programmes purporting to be about motoring. 

He is a gentle soul, properly mannered, who has managed to build a long and successful career as a motoring writer by steadfastly refusing to conform. Quite probably he is the last in a distinguished line of such rascals. 

The industry’s public relations officers will no doubt be keeping their fingers crossed………

Keep motoring fun and enjoy yourself. Nothing else in this life is really worth doing.

Jim Currie, April 2005

Chapter One

STICKY BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 

“At last,” beamed Dr. Patel. “Ever since I was a schoolboy dreaming of becoming a great doctor I have wanted to open my waiting room door and find a little boy with a saucepan stuck on his head. Thank you so much. That will be ten pounds.”

Must ask to see his certificates someday. I could be placing myself in the hands of a charlatan and therefore be at some risk of being the subject of bizarre medical experiments involving limb swapping and crepe bandages. I have seen some of those late night films and they are quite alarming.

“Anyway,” I said. “It isn’t a saucepan; it is a tin of high gloss paint. At least that’s what it used to be, but the gloss is now all over my shirt as well as in the Mitsubishi Colt that is parked outside with the small crowd of people sniggering at it. And those scissors have ruined my hair, so you can charge this one to the National Health.”

Exactly how I managed to fall into a paint tin and transfer a significant proportion of its contents to the Colt is something I prefer to gloss over, (couldn’t resist that one), in case anyone from Mitsubishi HQ should read this and despatch an invoice.

I was quite interested in the Colt, principally because we have one lying around the premises somewhere, albeit from an earlier vintage, and the previous ‘new’ version arrived minus one cylinder and plus a lot of interior furnishings that could have been designed by Jasper Conran. I ended up hiring it out to the secretary of the Taffeta Tutu Club who used it as a prop during the club’s Kylie Minogue Tribute Evening.

So when the young delivery driver dropped off the Mirage version I decided to carry out a more thorough investigation than usual. The Colt is, as small boys in anoraks and pebble glasses know too well, not assembled in Japan but is put together in the Netherlands by guttural chaps in orange boiler suits.

This particular example appeared to have all four cylinders in place and the interior was almost presentable, if you can happily trundle around in a black car with upholstery the colour of red salmon that has been out of the fridge too long.

Mitsubishi cheerfully says it is 60mm shorter and 30mm lower than the five door model I sampled last year. To me this means less car for your money, but they craftily wriggle out of any accusations of short changing by countering that less car means a more sporting stance and better dynamics. I had to go and have a short lie down after this little bout of technological interchange.

Although the engine is in the tiddler class at 1.3 litres, this is good enough for a top speed of 112 mph. Given that it thrashes like my washing machine at anything over 45 mph, this should be enough to deter some younger rascals from driving at inappropriate speeds as youngsters don’t like the caps to fall off their teeth en route to wherever they go after dark.

But apart from the interior din the car seems very well put together. In fact Chadwick Even More Minor was a bit miffed to discover that the mirage badges on its flanks resisted all attempts to make the becoming ‘lost’ by accidentally dropping off. I suspect he wanted to affix these to our own car in place of the solitary rubber thing currently stuck on its rear end.

He was similarly unimpressed by the stereo system which cannot be spirited away without the entire fascia and several miles of blue and red wiring coming with it. Won’t go down too well with some of his more nocturnally acquisitive friends, was his verdict.

Personally I am all in favour of integrated bits and bobs of this nature as I occasionally fall victim to the light fingered brigade. At the moment we appear to be missing a Ford and a VW, but as I haven’t the faintest idea when I last clapped eyes on them it will probably be a waste of time reporting their disappearance to the constabulary. 

They don’t like vague answers such as “sometime since the Christmas before last and Aunt Agatha’s birthday” when they ask you to pinpoint exactly when something or other was spirited away.

The Colt also features electric windows that will not trap the dog’s nose, (excellent piece of kit), and an airbag deactivation kit which can be deployed should you be carrying rich Uncle Silas in the front passenger seat , all the while gleefully anticipating striking a stout tree at an interesting velocity.

.

I can understand why people may want to inflict trees on rich uncles, but I have some difficulty in understanding Mitsubishi’s Reinforced Impact Safety Evolution system. They explained it by saying it ‘electronically integrates every aspect of the Colt’s safety systems to ensure that they operate at their full potential – an all-encompassing holistic safety pack that protects occupants in the unfortunate event of an accident.’

This sounds wonderful, (I just wish I knew exactly what it means), and I am very impressed, but as always I have one or two nagging doubts about just how this system was tested by the chaps in the orange boiler suits before they cried ‘Eureka’ and rushed off to collect their bonuses.

I mean, who at the factory thought to study the possible effects of placing a quart tin of high gloss paint on the rear parcel shelf and then braking suddenly from a speed of 60 mph?

None of ‘em, I’ll wager, which is why I have just received a demand for ten pounds from a crazed GP who fantasises about children with saucepans firmly attached to their crania.

  

DOWN TO THE SEA IN ALL SORTS OF CRAFT 

This being the start of summer, a drive in the country was called for. Hence the sight of Madame and self, rain having soaked through the wax of our jackets after dashing from a Peugeot 206 HDi Sport to a closed tearoom, (we forgot that in this country we welcome visitors by closing tearooms), and back to the car in something approaching a monsoon, frantically using the heater to dry ourselves before the onset of trench foot and terminal sniffling..

Car manufacturers would probably do rather well in this country if they marketed their products complete with what their advertising people could term ‘super power blow dry heating systems.’ After all we weren’t alone. Others were struggling through the mud to their cars - some looking much worse than us because they had dashed to the hotel (also closed) which was a hundred yards further on. Must patent the idea and become extremely rich.

As tea was out and the hotel owner seemingly on a Barbados golf club, complaining bitterly about business being slow, I hailed a passing son of the soil and asked what we could do in the few hours we had left before the Grim Reaper came to call.

Scratching his head and other, more disturbing parts of his anatomy, (causing Madame to momentarily close her eyes), he suggested driving five miles along the coast to watch the yacht club worthies launching their craft in readiness for a season’s drowning.

Excellent idea. As we are a great nation of horny handed seafarers, the launching of the yachts is a tradition not to be missed. If you haven’t witnessed one, here is what happens. Actually the same thing happens every season, so mark it down as a ‘must see’ in your diary.

Lots of chaps turn up in Land Rovers and Shoguns dragging seagoing craft of various sizes behind them. Some of the 4x4s don’t have anything behind them, causing their drivers to mutter things such as: “I was sure I heard something like a clattering and scraping noise when we came round that corner ten miles back …”

The wretches who have managed to lose their boats en route to the jetty then form a small convoy and go off to search for them, much to the amusement of various knots of small boys who have already looted these craft of anything not nailed down.

Back at the jetty there is much debate as to who should have the honour of the first launch. If the commodore is present he usually has first go, painstakingly reversing  towards the water while his better half walks backwards, all the while bellowing instructions.

Inevitably she slips on a patch of wet seaweed and falls into the briny, the resulting splash accompanied by the kind of language that ladies of a certain age don’t normally know. 

Meanwhile the commodore, confidence boosted because the “left hand down a bit, you silly sod” cries have stopped, simply carries on reversing until his boat falls off the jetty, dragging the Land Rover with it.

Once the assembled yacht club members have got over the disappointment of finding that he is still alive, albeit wet and clearly shaken, a vigorous debate on how to avoid similar incidents ensues.

Those who survived last year’s launch are prompted to tell how they did it, but as they had to a man been maddened by drink at the time, few can remember.

The process then becomes one of trial and error. Some try the jetty rout while others simply back down the shingle as far as they can, drop off their boats and drive back up to the high water mark in the sure and certain knowledge that the incoming tide will have their boats bobbing about in a jiffy.

After an hour or so the local breakdown truck is summoned to drag out three sunken Land Rovers, two Shoguns, a Mitsubishi Animal and a Fiat Punto.

The driver of the Fiat wasn’t even a member and didn’t have a boat. He was a visiting Italian who simply thought that this was some sort of tradition that occurs whenever the tearooms are closed, so he enthusiastically drove into the water at great speed.

But things, well some things, begin to look up when we approach high tide. Some of the yachts left lying on the shingle actually right themselves before being filled with water. Unfortunately others don’t and are swamped, which is a cue for large Dutch chaps who just happen to have a tug parked round the headland to claim these as salvage. I don’t like large Dutch chaps.

Shore side, people are examining the fish trapped in the Land Rovers and Shoguns. One member claims six mackerel, two starfish, some shrimp and a copy of last year’s Tax Return belonging to a local young lady who only works after dark. Thankfully no names are mentioned

Others aren’t so lucky, having scooped up noting but sand, weed and some very doubtful looking stuff mixed with sodden paper. Never did like those outflow thingys. They don’t ever work properly, one reason why we will never beat the Australians at the old Olympic swimming lark.

Once heads have been counted to the satisfaction of the club secretary the commodore opens the yacht club and the members splash in to enjoy a tincture or two and tally up the damage.

Good fun - and certainly better than sitting at a creaky table covered with oilcloth attempting to eat stodgy scones. Madame and I have decided to do it again in October when the boats come back out again, but in the interim we have a bit of a problem. The nice man is coming to collect the Peugeot tomorrow and as yet we haven’t been able to locate it.

Someone mentioned that an Italian chap had been taking an interest in it.

JUST PASSING THROUGH

Getting to Monaco for the Suzuki Swift launch was easier than expected, apart from falling into a litter bin at the airport and being given a dressing down by security staff. Why do they have to point automatic weapons at unfortunate citizens who, through no fault of their own, have suddenly become festooned in chewing gum and cigarette ends? I mean, it is hardly a matter of any importance, except to my good self, as even yet I am extracting bits of Spearmint from my thinning locks.

The new Suzuki Swift

But credit where it is due, so my hat is raised to the waitresses on our EasyJet flight to Stansted. Not only did they not chide me for looking like Catweazle, but they made clucking sounds of sympathy and directed ferocious frowns at passengers who made loud sniffing noises as they passed me by. I may travel with them again.

Our hotel at Stansted wasn’t bad either. There were no Colombians in the bar and Robbo the Honey Monster, when he heard of my litter bin trauma, generously ordered up drinks in quadruple measures. True, he charged these to Suzuki’s account, but we discovered many years ago that if you don’t help the PR people to spend their budget in its entirety it gets cut the next year. I can report, therefore, that Suzuki’s publicity machine should be in excellent financial fettle come April 6^th.

We briefly left the bar to watch the Honey Monster scoffing his way through a comprehensive menu. Too late now, I suppose, to draw his attention to the usual restaurant form, namely that when you get four main courses listed you are expected to choose just one of them. Little wonder that his totter back to the bar was a bit on the slow side.

Mine was worse. At one point I could see a young lady hanging upside down from the ceiling, which was a bit unnerving. In my experience young ladies don’t normally go in for this sort of thing unless they happen to be trapeze artistes, so the logical answer was that she was on her feet and I was more horizontal than vertical.

It was only when I asked the barman if he would be so kind as to help me to my feet that the truth emerged; she was indeed hanging upside down as she was operating a wine tower. This started at floor level and went all the way up to the roof, so whenever someone ordered a bottle of Burgundy, circa 1948, she shot skywards. This is what happens when architects forget that 99% of us live at ground level. Someone should take their pens away and send them back to college to study something more useful, such as designing bins that people won’t fall into.

We arrived in Monaco in the afternoon, so it was closed. In fact it always seems to be closed when the roundy-round isn’t on and the hotels are full of Banjo Ecclestone and his cheque book. This accounts for the unusually warm welcome extended to the Monster. His presence at least ensured a profitable two days for most of the principality’s eateries.

The Swift presentation was given by a Japanese gentleman who spoke in incomprehensible English. Normally this would be a cue for the more unruly members of the audience to start making paper aeroplanes or to feign small heart attacks in the earnest hope of being carried to the bar to recover, but as his name just happened to be Suzuki we listened attentively. After all, there would be minibar accounts to be taken car of in the morning.

The driving next morning was shared between me and the urbane Gentleman Jim. Normally he is completely unflappable, but on this occasion he began to simmer dangerously after we had been cut up by about two dozen locals who buzzed around us on their Piaggio scooters like angry bees.

Clearly rattled, he twice drove into the wrong lanes at motorway pay stations and had to reverse back out again. The effect, couple to the knowledge that the coffee and bun stop was still sixty miles away, meant that several scooterists were very lucky indeed not to suffer a premature end their buzzing, drifting in and out of consciousness in the back of a vehicle with flashing blue lights and a loud klaxon.

The Swift turned out to be quite an agreeable machine. We only got lost twice, didn’t suffer the loss of any wing mirrors, (quite a feat in Monaco), and managed to find our way back to the hotel five minutes before the bus left for the airport for the return trip,

We were too late for lunch, but this was academic as the Monster had been in the dining room for several hours, so there was nothing left that hadn’t already been gnawed.

At Nice Airport I was deemed to be a suspicious character and had to make several passes through the metal detecting machine despite the fact that I am very careful never to have such materials about my person, particularly if they happen to be pound coins.

A severe body frisk, carried out with what I thought was unnecessary enthusiasm by a smiling young man with a suspiciously maritime walk, was followed by the contents of my bag being spread all over a table by a security lady with an unfortunate face.

Happily she didn’t discover any contraband, but things got rather tense when she complained loudly to the gendarmes that some substance uncannily like ancient chewing gum had stuck her fingers together and ruined her suit.

She probably travels to work every morning astride a Piaggio.

POUR LES OISEAUX

Perching on one’s roof, simultaneously scrubbing moss from the tiles and wondering just where exactly does the torrent that fills the attic every time it rains manage to squeeze through is an activity fraught with danger.

 Le Oiseau de Chadwick

Occasionally you drop the wire brush and, in a desperate and inevitably futile attempt to avoid having to clamber down the ladder to retrieve it, (wire brushes always slither slowly down the old Marleys and then hop over the guttering), you fall into next door’s pick-up truck with a loud clatter and, before the impact takes your breath away, several expletives.

The first time this happened there was much sympathy from my neighbours and a snort of something pleasingly strong to help me regain my composure. Unfortunately the process has been repeated to often and I am now on a final warning. If I do not stop my skydiving antics the truck will be taken away and replaced by a piece of harvesting machinery with deadly spikes pointing skywards. A sort of lethal hedgehog.

Hence this week’s piece of stout rope tied around my waist more securely than anything worn by young Mr Tensing on his ascent of Everest. Very secure it turned out to be although it restricted lateral movement somewhat on account of it being fixed to two solid objects rather than one. This meant that I could only move in a straight line - and slowly at that.

The local oiseaux, surly looking seagulls with an arrogant strut and large yellow beaks, soon twigged, mounting an audacious raid on my carefully prepared and undefended sandwiches, scoffing the food and then being ungrateful enough to drop the wrappings into the aforementioned vehicle. As well as being condemned to hunger I could see trouble on the horizon.

But I could also enjoy a rather unusual view of this week’s test car, the latest version of Skoda’s excellent Octavia. It has a lusty diesel engine boosted by a decent turbocharger, lots of interior space, a boot that would have coped admirably in my youth, when red blooded chaps spent their summers hunting elephants in Africa rather than mini-skirted ladies in Newcastle, and lots of seats. Viewed from above, it also has elegant lines not fully appreciated at ground level where the view of the car is dominated by a large grille more suited to drawing in plankton than cooling the radiator.

I have had a soft spot for Skoda ever since the time when they took me on a forced march around their factory in Prague. I wasn’t going to go at first, having seen lots of factories, but beforehand they craftily showed me around the Museum of Torture in Prague.

This is a splendid establishment if you want to find out how to impale people like that old rascal Vlad, or remove toenails as deftly as the KGB. The latter, I was told, eventually tired of carrying out free pedicures and took to throwing unfortunate members of the local citizenry out of windows on the upper floor of the town hall.

This sort of thing went on until around 1986.  I wonder if any were lucky enough to land in the back of a pick-up before making contact with the cobblestones below and, if they did, were they shouted at by its owner and threatened with spiky things. Looked at in this way, the old toenail punishment didn’t seem so bad after all.

At the Octavia factory I met a young fella who was employed to sweep up the bits and bobs that landed on the floor during the assembly process. I offered him a snort from my flask, telling him that in our decadent western factories we always make sure that things don’t fall off our cars until after the customer has driven them away.

Igor, or whatever his name was, couldn’t quite grasp this despite being a university graduate, (every Skoda employee has a degree in something or other), and thought it added up to bad business practice. He said he wanted to work in the UK as he was only getting fifty pounds a week for his brush and pan duties.

I took his name and said I would get him to tap out the odd column or two for me for a tenner whenever I was incapable, which isn’t an unusual occurrence. He was very pleased and gave me the wire brush, which I keep dropping from the roof, as a souvenir.

During a week’s spirited tootling from place to place, absolutely nothing has fallen off the Octavia. My local taxi operator has been so impressed by it that he has ordered several to replace older versions of this model on his fleet and even my deadly adversary from next door has asked to have a look at it.

I may allow him to do so, but only if he agrees to leave the Caddy parked where it is and to put something soft in the back. The roof is leaking again and I am much too young to make my exit from this life in traditional Prague style.

A MATTER OF GOOD SERVICE

Getting things properly fixed nowadays is fraught with problems.

Nobody ever visits Mr Zimmerman the watchmaker anymore. Morry Zimmerman is an excellent chap who has spent almost half a century looking at life through a magnifying glass powerful enough to chart craters on the moon.

In fact I have it on his authority that those American chaps who supposedly played golf on its surface thirty years ago never set foot on the old Creamola fairway. Morry spotted them having their ‘moon landing’ pictures taken in Arizona just next to that rock Randolph Scott used to hide behind whenever Geronimo was after him.

I put it to Morry that he would need to lower his prices in order to attract more business, but he says that when cheapskates such as me buy timepieces from WalMart for five dollars then why should he waste his time fitting it with a new battery costing twice as much?

I suppose the old rascal has a point but he still uses his magnifying glass to observe Miss Goodbody from the library as she slips in and out of her little Mazda MX5. Perhaps he should manufacture magnifying glasses, call them Goodbody Specials, and forget about watchmaking altogether.

The decline in servicing standards has, alas, become universal. I have spent many years locking horns with various members of the motor trade over this thorny question ever since I took my trusty Austin Atlantic into a garage to have a new light bulb fitted and tottered away several hours later with a bill for a complete engine rebuild.

                

An Austin Atlantic rebuilt time and again.

The mechanic chap had started the engine, put the sharp end of a long screwdriver to the block, listened carefully at the handle end and pronounced that major mechanical surgery was needed to avert disaster.

In fact he dismantled engines all the time; even when you attempted to thwart him by taking a tyre in to have a puncture repaired he would tell you that he needed to wrap the car around it to ‘get the balance right.’ Against your better judgement you would toddle off to fetch the car and end up with another rebuild.

When I finally decided to cut my losses and sell the Austin on a prospective customer told me he would have bought it but was afraid he couldn’t because ‘the head has been off that engine so many times that it is obviously suffering from something terminal.’

For a while things seemed to be getting better. Some chap in a ginger beard invented computers while waiting for his car engine to be re-assembled and in no time we had wonderful diagnostic machines capable of pinpointing even the most obscure faults in a jiffy. Suddenly screwdrivers with long shafts were redundant.

I got so excited about this that I foolishly asked my local garage chappie how they worked. “Bring your car into the workshop and I’ll show you,” he said. This was very kind of him so I wheeled it in and watched in amazement as little electronic probes were attached to its vitals.

He then switched on the engine, peered at a lot of wavy lines on a monitor and said “Come and have a look at this.”

I did, but there was nothing to be seen except wavy lines and, at the bottom of the screen, a lot of moving numbers arranged in the same incomprehensible manner as those Miss Carol Vorderman scribbles on her board in Countdown.

“What does all this mean?” I asked.

“Don’t quite know yet, but it could be that there is a little problem,” said the technician, (they aren’t mechanics anymore), before toddling off into a dark corner of the workshop.

When he returned he was carrying a screwdriver and wearing a look of excited anticipation on his visage.

Dismayed, I looked on as the plonked the sharp end on the side of the engine block, listened intently to the handle and pronounced “I don’t think we are going to be able to fix this without a complete engine rebuild.”

I like modern technology. It is the same as it always was, but nowadays you get to look at wavy lines prior to having your pockets emptied.

Nowadays of course, being much worldlier than of yore, I simply charge everything up to Ford. I started doing this on the occasion when I lost all of my spare cash at Le Mans in 1987. Well, I didn’t lose it, but spent it in several quaint little French bars near the circuit.

“What do I do now?” I wailed.

My companion and mentor, a gent known as The Bishop, said I should simply open a tab on behalf of Ford and charge everything to the company. He had been doing it for years he said. I heard recently that he only stopped five years later when he became the subject of what is known in the tabloids as a Dawn Swoop.

On one memorable occasion he was my co-driver on a trip around northern Italy organised by Fiat and the Italian Tourist Board. Having managed to blag our way into the country residence of the great composer, Verdi, after swearing on oath that we wouldn’t touch anything that had belonged to the master, he toppled into Verdi’s four poster, having been overcome by the twin devils of summer heat and a surfeit of the falling down water.

I still have a vivid recollection of being pursued through the grounds of the house by a large lady with a no-nonsense look on her face and a very sharp kitchen knife in her right hand.

The Bishop, meanwhile, made his escape through a small garden gate and, after shaking off my homicidal domestic, I found him snoozing triumphantly in the back of our Fiat Croma.

It wasn’t until the next day that I discovered he had made off with a bottle of Verdi’s best cognac. I would have done the decent thing and posted it back, but as I hadn’t seen him for at least fifteen minutes it was too late. The bottle was empty.

The Bishop would have been due for parole very shortly, but I heard he had lost quite heavily in a poker game involving three other inmates - one of whom is very big in London’s gangland - and the prison governor. I suppose it wouldn’t have mattered too much except that he tried to charge his losses up to Ford.

Old habits die hard, but at least nobody set about him with a long handled screwdriver.

TAKING LONGBRIDGE BY STRATEGY

The first I knew something was up was when I attempted to borrow a Rover prior to a home visit from the Inland Revenue man.

He comes around every few years, usually to ask how I have managed to survive the winter on the 25P which, according to my tax return, is all I allow for essentials such as food and electricity each week.

True, it can take a bit of explaining, but it helps if you clear the driveway of all but the most dilapidated of cars. The super fast Nissan goes, as does the Golf GTi and Minor’s new van complete with a squillion quid’s worth of sound system and double DVD player. Leaving them in situ could lead to several toenails being vigorously removed during the inquisition.

This is why something from Rover would help. Even Inland Revenue men will get a pang of “there but the grace….” when tripping over a 200 covered in seagull droppings and with a clutch of chickens inside, pecking quite happily at the upholstery. 

Anyway I am in a bit of trouble now that the Chinese are swarming all over Rover’s UK headquarters, waving their little red books and generally lowering the tone in adjacent restaurants by sitting down to dinner in boiler suits and plimsolls.

At least when the sons of Nippon held a fair sized chunk of the company equity, visiting bean counters wore suits and bowed politely. It may have been a preamble to inviting the local citizenry to help them build a new railway through Burma, but at least their shoes were polished and they left a decent tip at Chez Bert and Maude.

Having spent a part of my youth in China as a spy employed by HM’s government, (never did find out just who or what I was supposed to be spying on), getting my hands on a set of forlorn looking wheels really shouldn’t have been a problem. A quick telephone call asking to borrow a “Lovah 75 lickshaw, leather seats, chickens for the pecking of,” would normally suffice, but as yet my call hasn’t been returned.

Perhaps the deal has fallen through and our friends from over there haven’t been able to come up with the fiver or so that would give them outright ownership. Or again they may be complaining that the present management team got it for a pound and have done quite nicely out of it, notably in million pound salary and bonus payments to themselves plus pensions handsome enough to pay all of my annual parking tickets. There would even be enough left over to buy a round or two down at the Ferret and Trousers on karaoke night.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the long run. After all, there is a G8 conference coming up shortly and as far as I know the Chinese won’t be invited as they don’t have enough in the way of loose change to tip the chap in the kilt who parks you car when you check in.

G8 conferences, if you don’t already know about such things, are where elected and unelected citizens representing the world’s wealthiest countries gather together to drink Champagne and wring their hands about how poor everyone else is – and then sit down to work out ways of making them even poorer.

It is rather like the Scottish Parliament in better suits. Our G8 friends don’t have to indulge in such demeaning nonsense as having to drive a Skoda three times around the world to inflate their expenses claims. They get their chauffeurs to do it. Good wheeze. I think I’ll join.

Once a member I could sort out the Rover business while simultaneously making it illegal for bits and pieces of bodywork to fall off my Citroen Saxo. It has got to the embarrassing stage when the postman delivers my mail each morning together with assorted blue front bumpers, door handles and wing mirrors that he has picked up en route. Very soon he will start asking me if I have fallen on hard times and offer to get his wife to make a pot of soup for my children.

I could even become the new Rover CEO, attend night school to learn Mandarin and appoint myself top marketing banana.

Every Rover 75 would come complete with a wok, a bottle of fiery sauce, three sacks of rice and a little man called Kato who would leap out of the boot and karate chop any parking wardens who dare to approach the vehicle while its owner is engaged on business or in Zimbabwean discussions with Miss Goodbody from the library.

 

Rover 75 – You will get free chickens with each car

There would also be a crate of chickens, (every car in China has poulets pecking at the back of the driver’s neck), and a resident amah who will iron your shirt while on the move. If build quality isn’t any better than you used to get in a Maxi or Ital, she will hop out every now and again to retrieve the bits that have fallen off. Should you get stuck at traffic lights or on the M8en route to the office, there will be an origami set and a self-assembly kite to relieve the boredom.

Aha, I hear you say, what will drivers of something more humble, such as a City Rover, find in their on-board goodie bag.

Frankly, not a lot. There really is no virtue in poverty, (see, I am getting to grips with this G8 stuff already), so they will have to rub along with a used boiler suit, a copy of The Ying Tong Song (Sellers, Milligan and Secombe), and a signed photograph of a ten pound note.

Meanwhile I shall be very rich and may buy one of those rather nice Citroen C6 machines that were unveiled just this week. I’ll get a red one. That should confuse the postman.

Chapter Two

VXD BY MATTERS OF TXT

Attempting to keep my telephone line clear is becoming increasingly difficult. Once every half hour the nice lady who keeps trying to give me a free Mercedes-Benz or Caribbean holiday rings. In between there is the equally personable lady who wants to feature our kitchen in a glossy magazine. Then there is the bank person from New Delhi expressing a desire to discuss my rapidly diminishing fiscal reserves.

Time was you went to a showroom when you needed a car, used next door’s kitchen when yours got too cluttered and were dragged into your local bank branch for a severe talking to by the manager after a particularly bad day at Newmarket.

This is why I have been spending a lot of time behind the wheel of the Avensis Verso which the man from Toyota delivered the other day. I like the people at Toyota, simply because they never call me at all.

In fact it has just crossed my mind that the last time I saw anyone from the company was when the Avensis was first launched around ten years ago. On that occasion we had to meet up in Monte Carlo and I happened to make a basic navigational error when leaving Nice airport. I turned left instead of right and ended up in a bar full of sailors in Marseilles.

Not exactly a red card offence in my book. After all, sailors at that time wore full beards, smoked Capstan full strength, sported tattoos and wouldn’t be seen dead in the Taffeta Tutu Club, an establishment which – as a senior RN spokesman revealed this week – is currently frequented by as many as 2000 of his own mincing matelots.

Toyota had spent a lot of boodle shipping in Japanese engineers to explain to simple people such as myself how the Avensis worked. They spent almost as much again on a hotel room, which I didn’t use, and booked dinner for me at a restaurant I couldn’t find.

This probably explains their unwillingness to grab the vacant slot between the Mercedes lady and the bank person to have the occasional chat about this and that, but at least they sent me the Verso, which is quite a decent machine.

It has lots of room inside and I am using it as a mobile office before tottering off to hire a morning suit for Chuck and Cilla’s wedding. Young Chuck had a beard when he was serving in the Navy as a boat driver, but I don’t know about the Capstan full strength. Possibly he sent his allowance back to Cilla.

The invitation should arrive any day now – probably from a mailing office in Calcutta – as no high profile set of nuptials could be considered complete unless graced by my good self. I may give them the Verso as a present. Could hasten the old knighthood and I’m sure the sons of Nippon could do with the publicity.

Meanwhile I am perched in the Toyota, merrily twiddling with my mobile telephone in a bid to master this texting business.

Apparently an ability to abbreviate language to the point of extinction demonstrates that one is a cool dude, as is owning a complete collection of Val Doonican gramophone records and a kipper tie. Two out of three isn’t quite a pass mark, hence the rush to get to grips with this new technology before it is replaced, (probably next week), by something even more complex.

To date I have managed to peck out two practice messages, albeit with mixed results. The first, to the local florist, resulted in Madame’s bunch of flowers being delivered by mistake to Miss Goodbody at the library. Bit of a job explaining that one away as Madame now wants to know just how Miss G and I managed to cross paths when I don’t have a library ticket.

The second attempt, I’m afraid, was even more of a botched job. I had been reading about online banking and related matters and thought it would be a bit of a wheeze to access my account by text.

Unfortunately my abbreviations seemed to cause a bit of a misunderstanding at head office. Last I heard, three gents with Ulster accents were arrested in a dawn swoop and the bank manager’s home is now being guarded on a round the clock basis by the Special Branch. Must lie doggo for a few days.

Meanwhile I’ll need to do something about trying to re-establish contact with Toyota on a one to one basis as I have encountered a bit of a problem.

In 1998 I was driving an Avensis and couldn’t get out of it because it had some sort of child lock system that old buffers such as me have difficulty in fathoming. I had to pursue a police car and wave down the occupants to request that they facilitate my escape from the blasted thing. They were not at all impressed as they prefer to do the reverse, such as locking citizens up. It took several puffs into their little Technicolor machine to prove my sobriety before one reached inside the car and flicked a switch which I hadn’t noticed before.

I’m afraid it has happened again and the dog, trapped inside, is gnawing eagerly at the upholstery. Not only that, I have just received a txt message reading “ U R fried. Ed.”

Nice to know others are having the same sort of trouble with txts.

THIS SPORTING LIFE

So enthused am I at the prospect of London hosting the 2012 Olympics, (even though I shall be deceased by then), that I have started to train for the great event.

I totter out of the house each morning and, all going well, climb into a little Clio kindly provided by Renault for the occasion. Granted it has been very dark recently and I have sometimes driven off in different machines altogether. For the most part their rightful owners have taken this as just another of my harmless little eccentricities, but there is always one who summons the constabulary. Difficult question and answer sessions thereby ensue.

But what has a Clio got to do with sport? That’s an easy one. We Brits are exceptionally good at breaking all sorts of records or winning medals at events which do not require any physical endeavour. In short we like to participate while in a seated position.

We sit in little boats and let the prevailing wind take us from start to finish while we read a magazine or write postcards to Aunt Enid in Brighton. If the breeze happens to be strong enough our arrival at the finishing post will be a matter of great media attention and we could end up on Richard and Judy. Meanwhile our agents will be signing contracts guaranteeing the odd million pounds or so for having a book about our epic voyage written by someone else.

Anticipating that our great leader, Lord Blair of The Plain Brown Envelope, will ensure that the Olympic programme is tilted in our favour I have been running the rule over some events that may well be included.

There will undoubtedly be a pie eating contest. On current form the favourites would necessarily include Messrs McConnell and Prescott, but that Charlie Clarke also has the look of a pie man about him and could be worthy of an each way flutter.

Then – and I like this one – we could have a gold medal for clocking up the most impressive mileage in a Skoda Fabia without actually driving it anywhere. On paper this isn’t easy, but I understand we have a strong candidate, (albeit currently in hiding), who has already demonstrated considerable expertise in this long neglected skill. I shall flush him out courtesy of a thick brown paper envelope and Royal Pardon.

Using the Clio I have been examining just how easy or otherwise it is to collect a potentially winning number of speed camera fines. My accountant says I am getting better on a daily basis.

Then there is the police pursuit. This is an exciting event which is initiated by driving quite quickly past a police car while ostentatiously taking a bite out of an apple and swigging lemonade from a can originally designed to hold a popular brand of Super Lager. The vehicle’s stereo system should be cranked up to full volume and be playing something tuneless from Miss Petula Clark or that Peter Andre chap who seems to spend altogether too much time wrapped around that young Miss Jordan of the impressive flying buttresses..

The object of the police pursuit is to claim false arrest, (you chuck the apple out of the passenger side window before being apprehended), and subsequently sue the local constabulary for trauma, distress and perhaps the small pummelling dished out when Constables McNick and McNab  find no trace of the aforementioned lager in your can.

The Boy came up with a variation on the 100 metre sprint, this one involving scampering over the course with a video recorder under each arm. Competitors get a five second start over a police dog and have to cross the finish line before being playfully gnawed by the chasing German Shepherd. 

According to The Boy, who lives in a rough area, this is a very popular sport among the lower orders and occurs in his street on a daily basis. If we can work out a way of doing it while seated it could be a highlight of the Games – and we should be better at it than those pesky Australians. Few of them have seen video recorders as I hear they don’t have electricity landward of the Black Stump.

 

The Boy in typically alert mode.

Little ‘Banjo’ Ecclestone will say we should have motor racing, but he would only want a cut. Anyway we aren’t very good at it any more as most of our likely contenders are far too busy running hotels or chasing after grid dollies whenever their own ever-lovings go off to the shops.

But we could have a contest whereby the winner will be the lucky motorist who manages to get a car manufacturer to carry out a repair under one of those five year warranties without insisting that whatever caused the engine to explode into a million pieces of shrapnel could be classified as fair wear and tear.

We could also have an event involving putting a car salesman in a box, the object being to get him to reveal, preferably in under a week,  exactly how much it will cost us to change from a 2004 Mondeo to a 2005 machine of similar manufacture and specification.

Meanwhile I shall don the old track suit and get back into my Clio. Today I shall attempt to find a space in the car park outside my local Inland Revenue office that is not occupied by the Jaguars, BMWs and Mercs which would appear to be the staff vehicles, tootling around to terrorise the lieges for, favoured by even the lowliest of clerks.

Perhaps I may even get someone in the building to give the nod to my completed accounts. That really would be worth a gold medal should I manage to pull it off.

OH LUCKY ME….

A nice man has been calling me every second day or so to tell me that I have won a Mercedes-Benz, alternatively £10,000, (not such a good deal), or an all expenses paid two-week holiday in some dreadful place frequented by poor people in shell suits. All I have to do is to ring back at £10 per minute and have a long and expensive conversation with a metallic voice. Then it will be into the Merc for some meaningful tootling.

This is all rather splendid, especially since they have taken my Renault Modus away. Something about charging huge amounts of petrol to the company, not to mention the hoof prints on the roof lining caused, no doubt, by The Boy in frisky mode.

I have always wanted a Mercedes as it is by far the best machine for hauling golf clubs around. In fact the boot is so large that I occasionally stand in it of an evening and chip some worn Dunlop 65s in the general direction of the clubhouse. Always raises a laugh from the newer members and some purple-faced ire from the captain.

The problem is that Mercedes-Benz won’t give me a free car. I put it to them that everyone else who is at all famous gets free transport even if, like young Miss Kournikova or Mr Henman, they aren’t very good at anything other than getting their pictures in the paper once a month whereas mine is in them every week. Sometimes I even get some extra paragraphs in court reports.

Oh no. The rascals want me to dig up my garden, unearth my cheque book from the time capsule planted there when I buried the cat, (it was dead at the time), and help to pull the German economy out of its current mess.

Not likely. The last time I did anything quite so rash as spend more than a fiver I ended up with a Citroen Saxo, so if our leather-coated friends want to become wealthy again they can put their wall back up and stick all of their Trabant and Wartburg owners behind it where they belong. No room for sentiment when it comes to protecting one’s supply of the old folding stuff.

Anyway I don’t need them now as according to my notes I am, or soon will be, the proud owner of a dozen Mercs. Perhaps they will come in different colours. If so I shall park them round the edges of the lawn. This will save me from planting flowers in the Spring.

I may even register one in the name of the motoring editor and leave it parked permanently at a meter, moving it every time I am unable to find another space. He gets so many parking tickets already that he will just pay up once a month. If the worst come to the worst and the thing gets dragged away by the constabulary I shall come up with Plan B.

This is a particularly good one, but for reasons of security the details must remain sketchy. Suffice to say it involves a white Mercedes, a senior policeman’s hat, showgirl’s garter and a membership card allowing the holder and one guest admittance to the Taffeta Tutu Club. That should keep Constables McNick and McNab at a distance.

All I have to do now is to engage the metallic voice in conversation to arrange for delivery of my various prizes. This is proving rather difficult as every time I try to say something he simply ignores me and comes up with another promise.

Come to think of it, he reminds me of a lot of PR people in the industry. Half of them show signs of having been abducted by aliens at one time or another while the rest bear an uncanny resemblance to some of the turns we get at the Ferret and Trousers whenever we stage an Elvis impersonator’s evening.

But before anything much happens I shall have to make some space in the driveway. There is a Ford Scorpio there with just three thousand miles on the clock and I don’t know whether it is a demonstrator that Ford neglected to take back, (one could hardly blame them), or a getaway car dumped by some felons fleeing from Constables McN and McN.

We also seem to have acquired a SEAT Ibiza which has been similarly orphaned. I have asked around the various people domiciled here, but to date there have been no takers. Shame really, it is quite nice.

Still, they will have to go as soon as I can retrieve the keys which were inadvertently welded into the undercarriage of our Nissan Pulsar when Minor simultaneously sneezed and burned his thumb with the sparky thingy during a spell of routine body maintenance.

Could have been worse. Last time we attempted to weld anything we cut through the main power supply to the house. No dinners for three days and a ticking off from the man from the electric. He seemed to suggest we had botched an attempt to bypass the meter. I believe this is quite a common practice in some areas. Red faces all round.

The plan is, or was, to shove a few cars in the garage, hide another behind a fir tree and lend some out to neighbours in order to make room for the new arrivals, but things have now become rather complicated.

Madame, flushed with excitement, has just informed me that she has won half a dozen new kitchens as well as several holidays to dreadful places, the news being relayed by someone with a metallic voice and that she needs to store some in the garage to keep them clean for whenever the vicar happens to call.

This could be a bit tricky. I wonder if the neighbours will take in a kitchen or two while I unweld those blasted keys.

OVER THERE

Dateline Tampa.

“Where ya from, Boy?”

Boy? Not the sort of brusque query with which one opens a conversation in more civilised countries, but in Mr Bush’s little colony it is used as a starter for ten by your chief quiz inquisitor, the duty immigration officer.

Like deserves like, so I responded with an equally abrupt “Over there,” indicating a spot in the queue between a man from Japan carrying the ashes of his ancestors in an earthen urn, and someone dressed as a pink rabbit.

It didn’t go down too well, which is why I was still being interrogated long after the rabbit had been allowed to hop through. Getting into the USA has become very difficult lately and as they never did understand the meaning of droll, or irony, smart ripostes are not on.

Happily young Bush fell off his bicycle shortly after I was grudgingly allowed out of the airport so justice was done. Why someone who left school ages ago and is currently in charge of the whole world yet has not learned to ride a bicycle is quite worrying. And why were the grazes on his chin, fingers and knees immediately treated by a doctor who just happened to be riding with him?

I mean, Dr Patel knows me better than most, but he hasn’t yet reached the stage where he lurks in the bushes as I pass by in the hope of picking up a little business. And young Bush, being a foreign chap, isn’t authorised to dish out knighthoods to toadying medics, so what can be in it for them except perhaps a slice of Iraq or the contract to write sick notes for prisoners of war?

Lest I forget. Just before falling off his bike, the young feller was at some university graduation bash in Louisiana, reading a speech written for him, (you could tell, it had several big words in it), and warmly congratulating all and sundry on their academic achievements.

Remind me not to send les enfants to this establishment. One of the graduates was a freshman in 1939 and although maths was never a strong point with my good self, it was obvious that this gentleman, a Mr Simmons, wasn’t in the 100watt class when it came to brightness. I expect he will now find a job in the Dept. of Immigration if he can get his application in before the grim reaper comes to call.

Talking of himself, I was distressed to find that he had only last week swooped on Mr Alf Valentine, a neighbour of mine here in Florida. Mr Valentine had spent his twilight years doing good work amongst the local poor, but those of you of a certain age may remember him as a member of the first cricket team from the West Indies to defeat England on their own patch.

Such was the fame of Valentine and his bowling partner, Sonny Ramadhin, that a calypso marking their exploits entered the UK charts, thanks to massive sales north of Carlisle.

I heard the sad news en route to collect a Chevrolet Cavalier from a nice man at the Alamo desk in Orlando airport. As he had just handed in his novice he didn’t even blink when my admittedly colourful driving record popped up on his computer screen.

The Chevrolet Cavalier is faintly reminiscent of the Vauxhall of the same name, but it has been subjected to an even more haphazard building process. Lights come on during the day and go off at dusk.

Sometimes the interior light would come on long after I had parked up for the night which is why I kept being quizzed by security personnel who occasionally found me wandering around the parking lot at three in the morning, clad in pyjamas and carrying a flask, screwdriver, high intensity torch and a Cavalier Drivers’ Manual.

They thought this very droll, not to say suspicious and issued frequent warnings as to my future conduct. There are lessons to be learned here, namely that hiring a Cavalier is a bad move. So is paying even more for a Dodge Stratus, but at least that one didn’t illuminate the night sky on a frequent basis – albeit because it didn’t have a bulb in the roof. I know this because the rascal at the hire desk made me pay for a new one when I took the car back.

  

It doesn’t look too shady in a bad light, but the GM Cavalier is a real clunker.

Experienced drivers don’t worry about such trifles, but the local sheriff doesn’t like it one bit. In fact he stops me at least once a day and tells me to go and get a replacement car or he will put me in the cells with Bubba of the ever-ready pyjamas and penchant for wandering around in his sleep, smiling sweetly at whosoever else comes within range. Very odd sort of chap.

But I’ll hang onto the car until today when I take my driving test. This should be good. I toddled into the Office of Scowls and Transportation to make an appointment and was greeted with: “Where ya come from?”

“Over there,” I said, indicating a tubular framed seat with one short leg and the remains of the Juicy Fruit bubblegum not currently sticking to my Daks on its upper surface.

“OK Smartso,” she said, (for it was indeed a she, although not many of my friends could have identified her as such), “Friday mornin’ written test; Friday afternoon drivin’.

“Thank you kindly Madame,” I grovelled. “And what, pray, are my chances of success?”

“None and less than that”, she retorted.

Oh dear. Perhaps they do understand irony after all.

Chapter Three

     READ IT IN THE OZARK MOUNTAIN NEWS

Someone has been fiddling with the calendar again.

February used to be the month when exciting things happened. You could switch off your headlights for several hours at a time; wax the old Barbour jacket in preparation for summer and settle down to watch the first of the year’s roundy-round events on Mr Baird’s box.

This time the Australian Grand Prix seems to have gone walkabout, so apparently there will be no opportunity to amuse myself by speculating on which of the rather fetching grid dollies will be canoodling with that ruffianly Colombian chap come nightfall.

I always used to enjoy this part before settling down for a nap while young Herr Cobbler trundled to yet another hollow victory, adding a squillion marks to his bank account in the process.

Never could understand this Formula One nonsense. In horse racing they at least have the good sense to handicap the faster beasts in an attempt to keep the interest going. Even the dog likes the gee-gees; especially since I pointed out to her that the poor nag that finishes last may well feature in her dinner next year. She now drools all the way through the 3.30 at Kempton Park.

They organise things much better in the States. You can qualify last of 30 runners in a NASCAR event and still win it if you get rid of the chewing tobacco during the first couple of laps and the brim of the obligatory Stetson doesn’t flop into your line of vision.

The runners and riders have better names too. I mean, can you imagine someone like the Great Hotelier, aka DC, being called Fireball?

I kid you not. A gent by the name of Fireball Roberts took the Pepsi 400 title at Daytona in 1959. He did the same in ’62 and ’63, beating off some stern opposition from the equally exotic Smokey Yunick and Banjo Mathews along the way.

The Daytona fans loved Fireball and Smokey. At least they would if they had bothered to watch the race. Unlike their European counterparts they get into their pick-up trucks and turn out in huge numbers, (200,000 is an average gate), to park up, drink beer and pick assorted dead animals out of the transmission.

Then Daisy-Lou and Maybelline get the barbecue going and everyone dines royally on tasty pieces of racoon before the menfolk get around to serious stuff, such as demonstrating their new spray paint guns on an adjacent Porsche 911 or attempting to control the indigenous wildfowl population with Winchester rifles.

The Sheriff tends to make himself scarce around this juncture, being quite averse to getting the windscreen of his Ford Crown Victoria reduced to shards by large gents called Bubba, (they are all called Bubba in the NASCR parking lot), with Winchesters, black teeth, wild eyes and arms like Popeye.

Three days and the odd divorce or homicide later they all get into their trucks and head back to the mountains to re-stock before the following weekend’s race, Daisy-Lou and Maybelline busily scanning the Ozark Mountain News for the name of the winner. The OMN doesn’t give out much more information than that. In American motorsport you have a winner and all the rest are losers. This is why the organisers don’t bother with a podium.

They also like to keep things in the family, which is understandable since you can raise eyebrows in the parking lot by announcing that young Elmer has just gotten married to his second cousin.

“Why the second cousin? Doesn’t he get along with his first cousins? ‘Sides, ain’t his sister just the cutest thang you ever seen?”

Keeping it in the family is also a great American motorsport tradition. This is why you can study a programme, (sorry, program), and find that most everyone is a Jr. There are Andretti Jrs, Dale Earnhardt Jr. A.J. Foyt Jr and even Junior Johnson, who probably only has a vague idea as to who his Sr. was.

Another thing (thang) that doesn’t add up to a hill of beans is how young or old you are. If you can rustle up the entrance fee and possess a driving licence that hasn’t been stolen from another Bubba you can be in.

Just last month young Paul Newman celebrated tottering into his 81^st year by taking part in a sports car race at Daytona where you can cause a serious tailback if you are unable to turn in 200 mph lap times.

Incredible? You bet. It was a 24 hour sports car race and Mr Newman, as he has done pretty well every January since Hannibal crossed the Alps, finished right up there with the big dogs, but that still wasn’t enough to rate a mention in the Ozark Mountain News.

If they had bothered to insert a paragraph or two I would have sent a copy of the report to Sirs J.Y. Stewart and Stirling Moss.

They may even have been goaded into making a comeback. If we could get them, plus the aforementioned Mr Newman, (should he be spared), into next January’s Daytona thrash it may be enough to lure the legendary Fireball Roberts and Smokey Yunick out of their Tennessee trailers.

I am so excited by the prospect that I may even pen a note to Little Bern (Banjo) Ecclestone to the effect that he has finally been rumbled.

MODUS SCHMODUS

Having someone offer me a real job is the stuff of nightmares but if penury bites any deeper and I am forced to rub shoulders with poor people on a regular basis, a billet at Renault might do nicely.

They seem to have a lot of fun there, especially in the design department. I mean, who else but the Renault cartoonists could have got away with the Avantime and Vel Satis?

Gloriously mad machines aimed at a non-existent market sector, they arrived to a fanfare of raspberries and slipped into the bargain bin in less time than it would take David Blunkett to jump out of his pyjamas.

 Renault’s Avantime driving off into the sunset

Collectors with a few large notes rustling around in their pockets could have snapped up the last Avantime for less than the price of the car I am currently using to take away my empties, the little Renault Modus.

It too features the trademark Deep South rear end and a snout like the new Mitsubishi Colt. This is what happens when you have one team working on the top floor and the other in the basement, forgetting to tell either what they are supposed to be doing.

Even better, it is the first vehicle to be assembled using the small car platform developed jointly by Renault and Nissan, (acquired for a few centimes because they were sort of broke), and to ice the cake it is built in Spain by chirpy senors and senoritas wearing David Beckham shirts.

You couldn’t make it up. Unless, of course, you had just tottered out of the Renault boardroom after a particularly jolly Christmas party at which some of your colleagues had been handing round odd-looking cigarettes while listening to the Beatles’ White Album.

The end result is a joyful little machine which possesses oodles of charm and makes you forget that, like the Avantime, it appears to have no real place in the great scheme of motoring things.

I mean, what other public relations department, briefed to make a list of a car’s selling points, could come up with such gems as “the cleverly appointed interior has numerous stowage compartments….not to mention the 11-litre glove compartment.”

Brilliant. Everyone who wears eleven litre gloves has had his or her prayers answered and will now be able to park their giant mitts in the car rather than leaving them at the top of the beanstalk every morning.

It also features what Renault calls “high ergonomics “ which could be the clincher if you can ignore the strange variable assist power steering set-up which gives the impression that it wants to turn into a gyroscope. Just getting it round a corner is a bit like wrestling with a young octopus.

But just when I was contemplating giving the delivery driver a call to ask him to remove the Modus earlier than scheduled, the weather closed in and the car redeemed itself by displaying some unsuspected qualities.

The apparently feeble little petrol engine cheerfully thrust its way through gale force winds and driving rain without protest. It climbed steep gradients without needing anything other than minimum help from the gears, swallowed whole groups of sodden workers I picked up at various bus stops before they developed trench foot – and everyone seemed to think it was cute.

Cute? I stepped out during a break in the monsoon and had another walk around it. The rear still didn’t look as though it would appeal to anyone other than the cast of Deliverance, but those big lights up front seemed to flutter in a manner some might call seductive. Must have been an after effect of that bottle of fine vintage port consumed in a desperate bid to avoid the contrived frolics on Mr Baird’s box at Hogmanay.

Dr. Patel had obviously been on the same medicine. I had a chat to him after he patched up Chadwick Minor’s hand, broken as he kindly stopped me from toppling off the roof during yet another bid to adjust my aerial to receive anything other than the Outer Mongolian Home Service.

“That’s a nice little machine,” opined the good Doc. “It doesn’t look very French, but neither does your Saxo, especially now that the front bumper has disappeared, but there is definitely a touch of flair about the Modus design.”

“The rear end. I like the way the stylists have created a straight back which then eases out in a sensuous curve. It reminds me of my receptionist, Miss Gill, when she is in imperious retreat mode.”

Sometimes I worry about Dr. Patel. He may be the bee’s knees when it comes to picking chainsaw teeth out of shins, but he once mentioned that when he was taking a degree in something to do with orange badge frauds, he often wished he could have afforded a Morris Ital in his youth. Lucky he didn’t get struck off.

With Minor safely patched up I returned home, being careful not to engage the cruise control thingy unless it propelled me into the harbour at an indecent rate of knots. I have been in there before.

“Nice little machine,” opined Minor. “And by the way, who is that amazingly attractive receptionist who works for Dr. Patel?”

I am obviously missing something, but the Modus will be in my care for another week. I’ll have another look at that rear end before having it taken away.

ON THE ROOF AGAIN

Now that the great rains have stopped, I am back on my rooftop perch.

The intention was to take down the hundred or so leaky tiles which were replaced several months ago, but they seem to have disappeared. Hopefully this has nothing to do with the lines of cars parked outside the local coachbuilder, most of them with impressive dents on their superstructures. Still, if anyone asks if I am short of a few tiles I shall keep mum.

Anyway I am on lookout duty. The delivery driver is due to bring some sort of BMW today and I have been scanning the policies with my trusty 8x50 binoculars. If he turns up with anything wearing an unsuitable paint finish I shall duck down behind the gargoyle and pretend I’m not at home.

Driving around in cars that look as though they have been dropped into a plate of custard is not much fun. Stroppy letters from the golf club captain and hoots of derision from apprentice hooligans tend to mark my shamefaced progress.

The old brown paper bag trick doesn’t work either; not unless you are prepared to keep it on your head until after you have parked and put some distance between yourself and the offending vehicle.

Last time I did this I completely forgot about it until the constabulary, alerted by a CCTV camera operator, arrived to ask me what financial establishment I was proposing to plunder, and would I care to be enthusiastically pummelled where I stood or be dragged off to the station for the full works.                                            

Even if the BMW is a modest silver, (most of them are), it may be best to keep well away from it. What with helicopters from Northumbria flapping around after me to ensure I don’t eat apples, drink, smoke, engage in Zimbabwean discussions or play my Val Doonican CDs too loudly while driving, it just isn’t worth it.

And then there is the dog. Not content with gnawing leather seats and rendering me very poor courtesy of my having to stump up for the damage, she has developed a trick whereby, whenever we see a police car, she climbs all over me and proceeds to lick my face with great glee.

Again this leads to some uncomfortable question and answer sessions; flashing lights and occasionally a yelp from one of my tormentors should he get too close to the pooch’s fangs. A Dobermann will get very upset if you brandish notebooks at its owner and speak to him in a manner they consider threatening.

Best to stay up here. In fact, for a change of scene, I have been considering the purchase of a small apartment in the capital where I can observe our beloved MSPs going about their daily duties. This, according to recent newspaper photos, should include a few sightings of the first Minister making frequent trips to the pie shop with the occasional toddle into the local Thomas Cooks’ thrown in.

Then there will be that wretched chap with the Skoda Fabia furiously circling the Lego building in a desperate attempt to put five million miles on the clock before the auditors arrive. If he gives me a call I shall pass on the garnered wisdom of years with regard to the old expenses – but not for free of course.

Also in line of vision will be assorted members of the citizenry enthusiastically scampering in and out of wine bars before the Minister of Po Faces Are Good For You, (if we don’t already have one he will be in place sometime soon), decides that having any sort of fun is not PC – especially if it involves wine bars - and passes new legislation to this effect.

But not just yet. My Carl Zeiss starboard lens, (the other one dropped out during the blitz and was never recovered), reveals that the dog is currently facing a multiple choice of fun things to do. At the moment she is lurking under a bush, jaws slavering, keeping a watching brief on the red squirrel collecting nuts under a hazel and the approach of the postie with, just a few yards to the rear of his van, the BMW delivery man.

I shall open a book on this one. Third favourite to get the sudden dash and bared fang treatment is the squirrel. The dog has tried this before and knows that the furry little creature will be at the top of that tree before she gets into her stride. Likewise the postman is an old foe who wears rough trousers and doesn’t taste very good due to his habit of wearing the same Daks while mucking out his pigeon loft.

That’s it then. The BMW man is now odds on to become today’s victim. I shall call my local turf accountant from behind the gargoyle. Could be on a nice little earner here if I can persuade him to give me better than evens. It may also be prudent to alert Dr. Patel to incoming business.

Meanwhile I have a small problem. The man from next door has just borrowed my ladder and I could be stuck up here for some time. I wonder if those Northumbria Police chopper wallahs do rooftop pizza deliveries.

I’ll call them anyway.

NESSUN DORMA

You can waken up now. The latest in this season’s seasons of soporific roundy-round races was won, as usual, by that little German cobbler chap with the personality bypass. Young Coulthard again failed in his eternal quest to pass someone – and the nice Dr Patel has managed to chip the last of the concrete from my left arm.

I shall flee the country before his bill arrives. In fact I was going anyway since once again I was snubbed by my peers; this country’s great and good motoring writers having awarded the annual Jim Clark trophy to that Dymock fella from the Sunday papers.

Nothing against him – he even has more facial hair than me – but just because he is clever, witty, owns an island and writes three books a day doesn’t mean a thing. I mean, could he simultaneously wrestle with a large dog, a wayward concrete mixer and the bailiff who called this morning to examine my television licence?

I can and did and am of the opinion that such dexterity deserves better than the half promise of a knighthood from young Blair who, I greatly fear, may not be around next dubbing season. Perhaps I should toady up to the lugubrious Mr Brown before he hears about Dymock.

However I am sorry about missing the presentation. I like St. Andrews and am on rescuing terms with the Coastguard chaps down at the boat house. Every time they fish me out of the briny they always take time out for some cheerful banter before handing me over to the relevant authorities. One even took the trouble to write to the court on my behalf, testifying that there was no malice about me at all. I was simply barking.

The bar staff at the hotel are similarly nice. They never rat on me when I charge my drinks to someone else’s room, don’t stick to the ridiculous ‘single absinthe’ rule applied elsewhere and are very good looking. Some of the female staff are reasonably presentable too.

Anyway, I am off to the colonies to acquire a new driving licence so that when my current tally of penalty points finally dips into the red I can still tootle around in the UK without the threat of incarceration.

It is always a good thing to have as many licences from as diverse a selection of sources as possible. Gives m’lud a dreadful headache and causes the fiscal to fly into a splendid rage. He is nearing madness already; one more little push and he will be a goner.

And being out of the country means I will not be blamed for the forthcoming peasant’s revolt against rising petrol prices. Personally I am of the opinion that if you run something like a Range Rover without the assistance of a siphon pump then you have only yourself to blame. Better to acquire one of those little Korean thingies they sell for five pounds and a couple of Yorkshire terriers. From what the locals tell me, they will run on fresh air so even the siphon pump could be safely left at home on occasion.

There should have been a Subaru or something in my driveway this week, but it didn’t turn up. I suspect someone has tipped them the wink about cement in the boot, Havana cigar stubs in the ashtray and the occasional grouse putrefying quite splendidly in the floor well. Manufacturers nowadays complain that my test cars are very difficult to sell on – other than to tramps and persons with no sense of smell – after I am finished with them.

It never used to be like this. In the days when PR people were grizzled ex hacks who had been fired from every newspaper in the land and had nowhere else to go, they used to ring a chap up with a cheery “We’ve identified the smell, but where have you hidden the carcass next time?”

At Christmas they would send you a bottle of falling down water, the deal being that they would tell their bosses that you had taken delivery of a full case. They would then scoff the rest themselves and drift into a coma, failing to send any press releases for the next three months.

Today only the German cobbler and his sheepishly following band of inept Grand Prix contestants can induce a similar state of  “who cares” leading to such a deep sleep that concerned relatives occasionally summon paramedics to ascertain whether or not there could be an inheritance pending.

    REMEMBER FUN? 

Anyone who is handy with skeleton keys and can get to Manchester Airport in a hurry could become the proud owner of a decent Toyota HiAce.

The vehicle’s owner, a pilot, is temporarily incarcerated in the local calaboose following an attempt, thwarted by Inspector Entwistle’s finest, to fly a plane load of people to Karachi while under the influence of the old happy water.

The jobsworths from the Ministry of Not Getting Anywhere Very Quickly take a dim view of pilots taking the odd snort and are inclined to fish for a P45 at the first sign of a silly grin. Then they ring the local magistrate, deliberately timing the call to coincide with a vital putt on the 14^th  which could have secured for him the Monthly Medal, to slap on the black cap and do the old “You will be taken down and….” intonation.

On the other hand, had I been a passenger you wouldn’t have got a peep of protest out of me. I have been to Karachi and, quite frankly, a flight involving a couple of  spells upside down at Mach 1 followed by a couple of scary spins would be a lot more enjoyable than actually getting there. I may pen a note to the hapless flyer’s defence team to the effect that I am willing to appear at the assizes as a character witness.

I once boarded a flight to Hong Kong and ended up spending four enjoyable days in Manila when our Australian pilot got so guttered that he turned right instead of left when leaving Bangkok.

But this week’s events have spurred me to put the fun back into motoring. We used to get quite a lot of it, such as winding up silly PR persons who were inclined to offer prizes to those drivers who could wring more miles out of a gallon of petrol than anyone else.

Arch funsters, Mr Angry and Supermac, show off their Village People moustaches at the 1987 Le Mans 24 Hours race.

Not too many people other than myself ever realised that this was a devious trick to keep the assembled scribblers from finding out that the wretched car either couldn’t attain a decent motorway speed or, if it could, would fall apart before making it back to base.

My riposte was to stick the wretched thing in first gear and then howl off, foot flat to the floor, steadfastly refusing to shift up through the box before the cylinder head gasket came through the bonnet. Then I would summon help and sit by the stricken vehicle, by this time a heap of smouldering rubber, molten metal and hissing steam, feigning acute shock and distress.

This was always a preamble to a few bottles of the best firewater being slipped into my valise by way of compensation. Worked that one quite successfully for a couple of years before a po-faced co-driver ratted on me.

Another good trick was to turn up at car launches to which I hadn’t initially been invited. All I had to do was to sit in my car until my more favoured colleagues set off on the driving exercise, adding an hour or so by doing the crossword in the morning paper and then strolling into the hotel where the pre-lunch or dinner drinks were being readied for the return of the others.

A few quick quaffs of champers would be followed by a trip to the reception desk where I would announce myself as a guest of the company and demand a room.

Occasionally someone would scan a list of invitees and announce that my name wasn’t on it. At this juncture I would express outrage, demanding to see the manager, or preferably the owner should he be on the premises.

Most receptionists, fearful of making a dreadful mistake which might jeopardise the huge profit to be made out of the event, would cough up a key to one of their better rooms. Once inside it was simply a matter of raiding the minibar and priming the room service wallahs to appear with replenishments at steady intervals.

Escape meant an early breakfast – again in my room – and wandering off into the dawn before any of the PR people realised they had fallen victim to my wiles.

Occasionally they would send me a letter demanding to know what I had been up to, but these were always binned in the sure and certain knowledge that they wouldn’t report the breach of security to their bosses. You don’t get any brownie points for allowing creatures such as Chadwick to make you look silly.

Splendid times – and overdue for a final flourish before the rapidly advancing PC brigade draw a line under car launches altogether.

I shall toddle off to Monaco soon as a guest, (legitimate this time), of Suzuki. Their people are a decent bunch and I shall behave myself while in their presence. The truce does not apply to the hotel.

I was once almost pecked to death in this establishment by numerous oiseaux of the seagull variety who flew into my room and ate everything in sight, including the Toblerone from the minibar (left open while I was performing my ablutions) as well as the complimentary chocolates left on my pillow.

Protests to the management produced nothing more than Gallic shrugs and just the trace of a sneer at my discomfiture.

I propose to have my revenge, assuming the pilot is sober enough to get me there in the first place. Manila is a long way from the south of France.

DYNAMICS OR INERTIA – NO CONTEST, REALLY

Inertia is my favourite word. Its various interpretations include: ‘the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest.’ Sheer poetry. Quite often I fall into a blissful sleep just thinking about inertia, a wonderful word that occurs on the dictionary page just a column below inebriate. If you can find someone with a fat wallet, inebriation and inertia blend into one another like tired feet into those soft camel skin slippers you somehow or other acquired while being shown round someone’s stately home. The aristocracy certainly has its faults, but their lordships know a good pair of slippers when they see them.

But I don’t like dynamics – and for very good reason. I mean, the only calamity likely to befall anyone in the thrall of mental inertia tends to occur when they are doing something inappropriate to the mood, such as driving an aeroplane or feeding the gorilla down at the zoo. Causing your mind to go blank while engaged in such pursuits can have quite fatal results.

I know this because I have an arm partially encased in concrete.

It happened on Monday morning when I was helping Chadwick Minor on one of his building projects. He is always at it. In fact he once left a party early so that he could brick up the door and trap the other guests; in particular a dreadful young woman with large teeth, in the flat until Sid and Bert, the local handymen, could be summoned the next day. Minor says they let everyone out except the lady with the teeth, who they promptly bricked up again.

Anyway, as I was engaged in something very technical, (mixing concrete), and noisy, I switched my mobile phone in order that it would vibrate, rather than ring, should young Blair call about my pending knighthood.

As I had never before experienced the sensation of something vibrating in my shirt pocket, when it did so I got quite a start. I nudged the throttle control with my left elbow as I attempted, unsuccessfully, to prevent the oscillating phone from jumping out of my shirt and into the soup. Or, in this case, the concrete.

To Sid and Bert this would not have been a problem, but as I am not an artisan, things went rather awry. The mixer was now running at full speed, the phone was being churned around in the wet cement and, seized by madness, I stuck an arm into the thing and attempted to rescue the Nokia which, I should add, was growing larger by the second.

This was a mistake. My sleeve got caught up in the paddle that pats the sand and cement into a pale fudge and I momentarily impersonated a crashing helicopter as I accepted my fate, wondering who among my friends would be strong enough to carry me from hearse to crematoria should I be turned into a concrete obelisk.

Happily my sleeve came off and I was able to disentangle myself, but while I stood shaking against a tree, dynamics came into play. The mixer had wheels. The engine running at full throttle caused the whole plot to roll off, slowly at first then with increased velocity, coming to halt against the rear bumper of a VW Golf parked in my driveway with the rear hatch open to take advantage of the warm sun.

You may already have guessed the next bit. The mixer’s loss of forward motion and the dynamics of wet cement and a blue sleeve whizzing round at full speed added up to yet another calamity, the result being a VW  boot filled with three bags of Blue Circle’s best Portland mixed in a three-to-one ratio with building sand.

As yet I have to inform the chap who kindly offered the car to me for test driving purposes of my little accident. He is probably in his garden, playing happily with the children and thinking that all is well with the world.

It would be churlish of me to ring him and spoil anything quite so idyllic. He may even have his phone in his pocket and be jolted into his own little Doomsday experience should it go off unexpectedly.

Anyway I will need to acquire another telephone as mine seems to be terminally inoperable. Chadwick Minor says he will lend me the money. He has also kindly offered to take me to see the good Dr. Patel at my neighbourhood casualty unit.

     THE GREAT AUDI DO

It was nice of Audi to lend me an A4 to use on a recent night on the town in Glasgow. Normally even the hint of an evening of bacchanalian mayhem with my little band of chums causes nervous PR personnel to opt for a less demanding career path, such as acting as spokespersons for New Labour. But the good folk at Milton Keynes are made of sterner stuff, so I swept into the city in some style.

Parking in a leafy square, (the hotel didn’t have a car park but judging by the price of the room, were saving hard for one), I set off on the trail of my chums. Some passers-by indicated the Drum and Monkey, an agreeable establishment much like my local, the Ferret and Trousers, but boasting a higher proportion of people in the vertical position.

Several large hallos and a few glasses of something or other later and we settled down for a pleasant dinner with some people from Land Rover. They generously offered to pay for my haggis and neeps, but paled visibly when I enquired about the availability of a Freelander for my next trip to young Bush’s rebellious colony.

Seems they had heard about the Ford Excursion which went missing at the 1999 All-State Hog Callin’ contest in Warm Springs.  It was eventually traced to Mexico where it had been purchased in good faith by a Tijuana farmer. Unfortunate, but these things happen.

Farmer Ken dragged us off to the Pot Still bar for several large ones and then asked to be locked in at closing time while the rest of us drifted off. We eventually fell into a little club populated by very fierce bouncers and friendly ladies with not very much on. They slid down poles for a living, which I found rather puzzling.

This was also quite alarming, so I only stayed for a few hours before making my excuses, demisting my bifocals, and tottering up the hill towards my hotel.

Following a hearty 7.30am breakfast I rustled up some loose change for the parking meter and strolled along to the square, the idea being to leave the car while I spent an hour or so shopping.

Although it was still early a small group of people had gathered and there was much animated chatter. It looked like the preamble to a Friends of the Earth tree hugging session, but as I got closer it became apparent that it was my borrowed Audi that had attracted the attention of the citizenry.

It certainly is a handsome car, but unfortunately the sweeping roofline had dipped somewhat under the considerable weight of a very large park bench which some rascals had hoisted on top of the car while I snoozed - and just how or when this had occurred was the topic under discussion.

This was a job for Inspector Clouseau, so I strolled around the corner to a handily positioned police station and rang the bell for attention.

“I wish to report that a park bench has fallen on my car during the hours of darkness,” I said to the lady at the desk.

“Then you will have to go around the corner,” he replied. “This is Police HQ, not a police station.”

Silly me. I should have known the building was much too large to  function other than as a place where people handed other people bits of paper and tut-tutted over suggestions that the custodians of law and order are not what they were in the days of the Blue Lamp, PC Dixon etc.

I dutifully made my way to the real police station and started again.

“Where exactly is your car Sir?” asked the officer at the desk.

“Just a couple of hundred yards away,” I said. “It is under the tree full of Teddy bears and little fluffy pink dragons.  Oh - there are also two lambs and an angel with a broken wing.”

It is occasionally a mistake to give too accurate a description of what the lads in big boots term the locus. For the second time in half an hour a small crowd began to assemble, this time made up of uniformed chaps absent-mindedly fingering notebooks and those little machines full of crystals which sometimes change colour when you blow into them.

Eventually a brace of constables took lots of notes, had the little Teddy bears in the tree pointed out to them and then said that as a victim of a crime I was entitled to counselling.

This was a splendid idea. I may take up the offer after I ring Audi with the bad news.

     Chapter Four

     YOU’VE EITHER GOT, OR YOU HAVEN’T GOT STYLE

I had intended to use the introduction of Jaguar’s new S-Type diesel in Monaco to launch a new career. Given that it occurred only a month or two until the Cannes Film Festival, a bit of self-promotion seemed appropriate.

In and around Monte Carlo this usually involves nothing more than strolling through Casino Square looking worldly, suave and sophisticated, all of which I do rather well. Then Bob de Niro or some lesser creature leaps out from behind a pile of hangers-on and offers you lots of big ones to star in his latest moving picture.

But it all went painfully awry. Looking sophisticated when you have just tottered out of a helicopter that has spent the previous twenty minutes attempting to fall into the sea in a force eight gale is something of a non-runner. The prospect of perishing in water full of squid and appalling things from The Boy’s bathroom tends to make your barnet flop around like Sir Bobby Charlton’s in a force nine gale.

In addition your carefully knotted tie swivels around through 180 degrees. This is the point at which people think you are approaching them when in fact you are perambulating in the opposite direction. One hapless wretch stepped out in front of a taxi in a bid to avoid my retreating personage. I shall buy him some grapes.

To put it bluntly, in anything other than fair weather I tend to resemble a back bencher during a tense meeting with the house committee examining bogus expenses claims. This is not what young Bob is looking for.

My embryo career as a matinee idol well and truly scuppered, I checked into young Coulthard’s  splendid  Monaco B&B. Being determined to get to the bottom of his lack of significant successes in the roundy-round business, I would question him while simultaneously conducting an in depth examination of my minibar. Unfortunately I did the latter first, giving the young fella a bit of a head start. Never did catch up with him, so he can still shift a bit when needs be.

Once I had got down to the Pringle’s crisps there was nothing for it but to wander off to have a look at Prince Rainier’s car collection, which naturally included lots of Jaguars. Far be it for me to suggest they had been planted there for my benefit, but it did seem rather odd that there were no Mercs or Beemers on parade. I meant to ask someone about this, but forgot.

Knowing that I usually don’t have a pen about my person and that my memory isn’t what it once was, the Jaguar people very kindly provided me with a copy of every word that would be spoken at the presentation of their new car. I would quote some of it here, but lost the folder when they closed their innings and declared the bar open.

There was the usual unseemly behaviour at my table during dinner. The Boy, having had about as much success in nocturnal shenanigans recently as Mr Coulthard on the track, was strangely well behaved. Happily another of my little band of brothers lowered the tone quite splendidly. I believe he is currently being sought after by a gentleman who has mislaid his spouse somewhere or other. I shall make no further comment. Proceedings pending and all that stuff.

Next morning the Jaguar people insisted that we drive some cars. Fair enough, since they had gone to all the trouble and expense of getting them there, so we dutifully took off into the mountains.

In fact the exercise took around three hours and, remarkably, passed off without incident, other than my co-driver, Mr Angry, bellowing in what I considered too much of a rage at the hapless lady driver of a Fiat Multipla, who impeded our progress to lunch. If it wasn’t for the fact that she looked even worse than her vehicle I would have apologised with impressive sincerity.

The Jaguar diesel comes with twin turbos and a whole lot of interior and under bonnet hush. As expected, it is the best car in its class by a distance. Hopefully that one little sentence will be enough to guarantee the arrival of one for Christmas.

With the wind having dropped to severe gale force, the deluded Jaguar staff attempted to get us to leave the restaurant and take a trip in a speedboat. My own table demurred, smelling a rat, (together with more squid and even worse stuff deposited in the briny overnight), but sent The Boy to what we were convinced would be a painful end while we polished off yet another crate of Cheval Blanc. Could be a film in it for Mr de Niro. Must remember to dash off a screenplay and give him a call.

THE WHOLE NINE YARDS

      Last time the good people at Honda allowed me out on my own in a Civic Type-R was on the Isle of Man On that occasion the police thoughtfully closed the roads in order to prevent anything dreadful happening to the local citizenry should I make my usual hash of things.

       This was an excellent piece of forethought, I opined to myself as I descended from Kate’s Cottage at an alarming speed, got the whole thing in something of a knot and shot backwards into the car park at the Creg-ny-Baa hostelry, causing various lieges to faint and others to run away. Some haven’t been seen since.

       This and other things considered, inviting me to St. Andrews to play with the latest Type-R, which is a splendidly fast machine, must rate as an act of some generosity - or rank foolishness, depending on your viewpoint .

       And so it was that I arrived in the Auld Grey Toun wearing a reassuringly sombre expression on my recently washed face, the object being to persuade Honda that I am a reformed character and that sedatives in my tea would not be required. They didn’t work when I was in the RAF anyway.

        I stopped en route to the hotel to watch visiting hackers attempting to tear up the Old Course, especially the Road Hole. One man in mauve trousers, (he had to be American), was determinedly excavating all of the contents out of a greenside bunker with his sand iron. He must have been there for some time as his caddy was snoozing peacefully in the rough while the chap thrashed and muttered, his face an even deeper colour than those dreadful pants.

        I could never understand the need for golfers to take 146 strokes to get out of this particular bunker. Chaps such as myself take three gentle shots from the tee onwards, skirting the hotel wall and laying up nine yards short of the green.

        Thereafter a dainty little pitch and run followed by two putts means escaping with a six. That’s better than many professionals manage, so perhaps I should be invited to appear on the Golf Channel to explain my system to a worldwide mauve audience for a very large fee.

        Anyway I snorted disdainfully at the flailing rascal, suggested he would be better off hiring a JCB for a couple of hours, and scampered off to my hotel before he summoned the constabulary.

        Having been billeted at St. Andrews Bay several times before, the act of registration involved giving a false name, explaining that I was a last minute substitute for Mr Chadwick who had been detained on account of having to be measured for a morning suit, knighthood for the receiving of, etc.

        Newly anonymous, I dropped my bags in the room and explored the minibar. Thankfully it was fully stocked. Some miserable car manufacturers have these things emptied in a desperate attempt to save money, but I have their names and never attend any of their functions.

        Selecting something suitably wet and muscular, I offered up a silent toast to Honda and promptly fell into the curtain, causing it to slip its moorings and wrap itself around my person quite tightly. It was while I was rolling around on the floor attempting to disentangle myself from this piece of drapery while simultaneously protecting my glass from spillages, that the maid entered to turn down my bed.

       It was pointless attempting to explain my plight, but from the way she sidled very quickly out of my suite it had become clear that attempting to organise room service later that night would be an exercise doomed to failure. Hotel staff tend to be wary of guests who are found doing strange things while enveloped in soft furnishings.

       Happily it was too late to do any driving as someone or other was scheduled to talk to us about the impressive amount of boodle the company was raking in worldwide, so another snifter or two before toddling off to the bar was in order.

       My colleagues seemed to have been of the same mind, except they had started before me. Mr Grumpy had infiltrated a group of Swedish gentlemen dressed as accountants and was talking to them in tongues. It was apparent he had struck up some sort of rapport with them. Not only that, they seemed to understand him. This was remarkable as I have known the man for several decades and we still have to communicate via scribbled notes and passing tinkers.

           Capital Jim, meanwhile, was sipping something that would have been quite acceptable at a Morningside wine taster, so either he was wildly off form or he was up to something. I sincerely hoped it was the former. Last time he was in sipping mode he ended up dousing his Antarctics in a washbasin. As he happened to be in the ladies’ loo at the time, distress flares were fired and he had his name taken.

         Anyway the Honda chaps spoke at us and I would have written something down out of politeness, only I couldn’t be bothered and then we had dinner, some of which was properly cooked. Much later we were all embraced by the Swedes and enjoyed a learned discussion on white fish quotas before being sent to bed.

        In the morning birds twittered outside my window as I awoke, feeling a dreadful tightness in my chest while hyperventilating furiously. Wild thoughts of last wills and whatnots raced through my grey cells before I realised that I was in the curtain again.

        Oddly enough, the cars had all been hidden away when I finally freed myself and stumbled out into the fresh air, so I never did get to drive them. Just as well.

THE LOST ART OF NAVIGATION

The nice people at Toyota, long aware of my fading faculties, kindly provided me with a document, (nicely illustrated in colour), explaining just how to start the Prius hybrid that I have been using this week.

I was very impressed. In fact it took me no time at all, after Chadwick Minor had reduced the number of syllables in each word, to get the thing fired up. I was even able to restart it on a number of occasions without having to call out the AA, so perhaps this time I won’t get the annual warning letter about abusing the service when my membership is renewed in December.

The Prius, which was probably invented at Nobiro Akihito san’s leaving party after lots of sake and some very doubtful cigarettes wrapped in brown paper, is an intriguing machine. It draws its power from both a conventional petrol engine and a battery powered motor. Quite why it should do this is something you are not supposed to ask; at least not until someone at the company has come up with a couple of reasons why we should all regard it a Good Thing and shower its designers with awards.

Some of the more impressionable scribblers, (no doubt angling for a free trip to Tokyo), have waxed lyrical about the car’s fuel economy and the fact that it produces fewer noxious gases than my Dobermann.

I will grant the bit about the dog, which tends to get contentedly pungent an hour or so after gnawing at someone’s leg, but according to my carefully documented figures (which I subsequently lost in the Ferret and Trousers) I only got 51.7 mpg out of the car after having driven it very gently for a week.

This is considerably better than one might have expected out of a Scania 44-tonner, but I can match it in my own non-hybrid Saxo - and wring even more miles per out of a half-decent 1.9 litre turbo diesel – especially if it is one of those currently produced by VW.

Furthermore, switching on what should be the satellite navigational system produces nothing more than a couple of graphic displays from the BBC’s Jon Snow Swingometer cupboard. One uses a whole lot of bar graphs to let you see that you are indeed achieving 51.7 mpg while the other has little green arrows flowing either to or from a set of wheels. Prod the accelerator and the little green arrows are replaced by brown arrows flowing from the engine to the wheels while the green ones retreat into the battery.

I demonstrated this to a forlorn looking man standing outside the Ferret and Trousers, the idea being that he would be able to provide a second opinion. Unfortunately he had had a few, thought the Prius was a taxi and climbed in the back, ordering me to take him home and wait while he explained to his ever loving spouse that he was leaving her. Then he was violently sick.

This was most alarming, so as soon as he got to his gate I slipped into drive and crept silently away without even waiting for my fare, but by now was hopelessly lost in one of those giant clusters of houses that various councils erected in the days when we used to have builders who could supply two rooms and a kitchen for a fiver.

It took me ages to get away from there, finally rounding a corner and finding myself outside an establishment proclaiming itself to be a nautical college.

This was more like it. I approached the front desk, announced myself as a seafaring gentleman, (I use car ferries thrice weekly), and asked if someone could get out a sextant and direct me to my home.

“We don’t do navigation any more,” said the receptionist. “But there are courses on socio-economic arm wrestling and advanced tile fixing. Just recently we introduced a post-graduate degree in leg waxing. It is very popular with elderly gents such as yourself.”

“But this is where, for generations past, men with stout hearts, forearms like Popeye and a yearning for adventure came to study for their master’s certificates, (foreign going), and suchlike,” I countered. “You didn’t get the likes of Cap’n Bligh going about with towels and leg wax, challenging the bosun to a bout of arm wrestling or tile cutting.”

“I know,” she said, “but Britain doesn’t have any boats nowadays. “Or cars,” she added, with a scornful look at my Prius. “The board of governors has had to examine other options.”

On reflection I think I might come to like the Prius. It looks like the machine that young Indian fella makes in the television commercial by getting an elephant to sit on his old Hindustan after he has run it into a wall. It has a satellite navigation screen with nothing on it but pictures of little arrows, doesn’t function other than adequately and is generally a bit redundant.

Rather like myself, come to think of it.

DIESEL JUST NOT DO

When I announced my intention to leave my small estate and have a look at how poorer people are faring these days, Jaguar kindly offered to lend me a machine they deemed suitable for the purpose.

   After all, when you want to make the jackbooted drivers of Mercs and Beemers feel like utter oiks, nothing does the trick like a good old Sir Michael Jagger finished in British Racing Green.

   Or that’s how it used to work. Someone down Coventry way obviously had a party hat on while processing my transport request, sending me an XE 2.0 litre diesel when what I really wanted was an XJ; preferably with something dead, such as a New Labour politician, draped casually across its bonnet.

   A diesel? It was alarming enough to discover that Jaguar had plans to drop such a dreadful piece of clanking tomfoolery into its range, but much worse to actually take delivery of one. I had to wait until nightfall before uplifting it from the dealership and driving it home. Didn’t wish to either frighten the neighbours or somehow give them the impression that I had been duped into appearing on one of those television reality thingies.

   Worse, it had a manual gearbox fitted to it. I mean, one expects to slide gracefully into a Jaguar, casually light up a Black Russian, shift into drive and purr gracefully off in the manner of a Cary Grant, preferably with the delightful Miss Goodbody from the library in the passenger seat.

   I had to summon a young fella from the workshop to explain the rudiments of working this Mondeo-type arrangement and to give me some advice on how to fend off the expected hurtful, if well meaning questions which would dog my tracks when other motorists saw the occasional puff of black smoke from the exhaust. Things such as: “I would take it back if I was you” and “Do you know your big ends are rattling?”

   Happily all that happened was that one member of my club simply stroked his chin and wondered aloud if Jaguar had been trying to recapture the bad old days of British Leyland ownership when they released this model. “It will be an anniversary sort of thing, I suppose” he said.

   I was exhausted when I finally managed to wrestle the car into my driveway. That blasted gear change would do more for a person’s upper body development than a year’s supply of Nandralone - and at rather less cost.

   Perhaps Jaguar could flog a few of them around athletic clubs this summer. I don’t suppose sticky manual gearboxes have yet made it onto the list of performance enhancing items currently banned by the various international athletics watchdogs. Mind you, it probably won’t be long.

   Actually it is probably all my own fault. Jaguar went to great lengths and considerable expense to deliver a splendid XK-8 Platinum Convertible to a Florida airport for me a year or so ago. The intention was that I could tootle around in some style, encouraging the inhabitants of our former colony to become so envious that they would demand reinstatement as loyal subjects of Her Majesty - and beg a pardon for earlier small treasons.

   Unfortunately, due to a combination of forgetfulness and the generosity of the in-flight waitresses when it came to dispensing drink, I forgot all about it and took a taxi to my hotel. Next morning I hired some awful American car complete with a full set of chromium teeth where the front grille should have been and blended in with the local herd.

   Someone said later that it cost Jaguar almost as much to retrieve the car from its two week sojourn in the executive car park as it did to build it in the first place. Shouldn’t be at all surprised.

   But it was rather droll of them to send me a diesel instead of the usual invoice which I would have examined carefully before consigning it to the waste paper bin. After all, little mistakes are what make this business the fun it is. On the other hand, old Rudolf Diesel wasn’t kidding when he got all excited about creating an engine that could waken John Prescott from his front bench slumbers during PM’s questions.

   Had old Sir William Lyons still been at his desk I would pen him a note of protest, but rumour has it that he became extinct sometime after the aforementioned Herr Diesel fell off a boat. Funny how the people responsible for most of our present ills never stick around long enough to suffer like the rest of us……

   I think I’ll go outside and turn over the engine. The deer are at my tulips again

EARLY OISEAUX AND TARDY AWARD ENTRIES

Odd sort of week. Firstly I should have been using a Chrysler Crossfire to take me to the airport in order that I could visit the MINI factory and look at people working. This has always been a hobby of mine as I don’t really have a proper job and reality television has always struck me as being too rehearsed to be worthy of the name.

Anyway, as usual, things went rather awry. For starters I had to decline Chrysler’s offer to drive their car, (have you seen it? the thing has a front end like Larry Adler’s harmonica), on account of their insurance demands. According to my reading of their terms, had I parked the car at the airport and it had subsequently been rammed by a drink-maddened, uninsured HiAce driver with a dusky complexion, the nice man at Chrysler would ask me to pay for a new one.

I am not really in the business of playing wealthy uncle to foreign motor manufacturers and, if the truth be told, consider that £28,000 or thereabouts is a bit too steep for a mouth organ, even if it does have alloy wheels and a valid tax disc.

Hence the Crossfire sat forlornly at the Chrysler dealership with the breeze conjuring up little tunes from its chrome reeds while I tootled to the airport in my trusty Saxo.

I almost travelled in next door’s pick-up truck, having toppled into it from my roof during the great excitement caused by Team GB winning yet another gold medal for sitting in things. This time a young man sat in a boat and received top marks for doing so rather more stylishly than the Brazilian chap parked next to him. Madame says that if the London bid for the 2012 Games is accepted we can introduce an event for falling off roofs and that I will be odds on to have the national anthem played over me as I am being laid to rest.

But this airport business. Actually I went there last week, handing over my ticket and asking the conductress if the aircraft was on time and had it been properly cleaned, bar replenished and the crew acceptably sober in readiness for take off. She affirmed that all was in order, but pointed out that my ticket wasn’t valid for that day and that I should come back in a week.

This was very distressing and I thought of telephoning the travel agent to enquire about suitable compensation for having had to don the old Daks at three in the morning to set off on something of a wild goose chase, but they would only have said that it was my fault for not looking at the date on the ticket. You never win with these people.

I was still smarting twenty four hours later when I turned up to sample Land Rover’s all-new Discovery. Perhaps the bi-focals need replaced again as it looked awfully like the old Discovery at the front and a Ford transit Connect from the rear. Someone pointed out that Land Rover and Ford are now one and the same and it is only logical that various bits should be interchangeable. If they buy Chrysler there could be a come-back on the cars for those old variety hall troupers, Morton Fraser and his Harmonica Gang.

Land Rover’s plan was that a few of us should team up to drive the Discovery for an hour as they only had one and later on there would be other, lesser scribblers present. We would then have dinner.

A decent enough plan on the face of it, but the driving exercise was mid morning and dinner would be at eight, so I informed them that although I would be kind enough to have a tootle in their Discovery Connect, I would not be available for dinner.

We went off to Farmer Ken’s place, ignoring the squawks from a young Land Rover chap in the rear who said we shouldn’t take it off road (!). Ken, feigning deafness, drove into a field and proceeded to put the computer-controlled transmission system (it has a zillion settings and an impressive graphic display) through its paces.

Selecting low ratio, he pointed it at a gentle, grass covered slope and we made enthusiastic sounds that quickly faded as the car climbed for a few yards and then totally ran out of traction.

The graphics were still working nicely, so we amused ourselves by looking at them for a little while before taking the car back to the main road where it seemed to drive very well. In fact it is every bit as good as the previous version and I told the young Land Rover chap as much in order to stop his bottom lip from trembling.

The object of this exercise as I understand it was to have the new Discovery slotted in as a late entrant for our annual Car of the Year award. The Land Rover chap seemed to think it has a good chance of getting the nod.

At first I was inclined to disagree, but there again it has got lots of seats and other people are getting meals for sitting in or on things in Athens. Put this way, an inability to cope with wet grass seems irrelevant.

Chapter Five

MONEY LAUNDERING MISHAPS

     If it hadn’t been for Mr Brown this would have been just another quiet week. It started off peacefully enough, what with me on the roof, (more storm damage to put right), and the dog in the garden gnawing contentedly at the postman’s leg.

     With the last tile firmly in place I responded to the postie’s cries for help, called off the pooch and warned the unfortunate fellow not to play with strange dogs in future, pointing out that mine is very strange indeed, especially when it comes to people attempting to stuff bills and final notices through our letter box.

     She isn’t too fond of delivery drivers either, which explains why the unfortunate chap who dropped off a Lexus RX300 fled before he had a chance to explain how the thing works. I am not too good at modern technology, resorting to help lines whenever I am unable to find the fog lamp switch or, (in the case of a recent Daihatsu), turn off the radio.

     But I am without fear, so I decided to have a quick tootle in the RX300 in order to familiarise myself with the basics. Things can get very droll indeed when you find yourself unable to restart a vehicle after stalling it when the dainty Miss Goodbody from the library skips across in front of you at the traffic lights.

     Switching on the Lexus was straightforward enough and, although fitted with one of those dreadful semi-automatic gearboxes it also had a straightforward auto option, apparently specially designed for the American market. Our colonial friends, like myself, don’t like to have to fiddle with levers once under way. They need all of their concentration in order to keep the thing in something approximating a straight line.

     But I was intrigued to find that selecting reverse gear switched on a screen showing, in brilliant colour, just what I was about to crash into unless I could find the brake in the next second or so. Nissan fit something similar in some of their products, but the screen resolution is similar to that we all remember from the days when we watched Miss Sylvia Peters and ‘Quite Contrary’ on Mr Baird’s box. In other words it is pretty useless when all is said and done.

     This one was much better and I was very disappointed when the picture disappeared as soon as I engaged a forward cog. In fact I was so disappointed that I pulled over and immediately rang for assistance.

”Is that the Lexus Helpline?”

”Could be, unless your name is Chadwick, in which case that will be five pounds please.”

“For what, may I ask?”

”For ringing me while I am watching the Budget speech. I am worried about my portfolio.”

     That’s the problem with luxury car marques; they can afford to employ wealthy people to do the most mundane jobs.

     But at least he had reminded me of the necessity to scamper off to the bank and withdraw what is left of my rapidly diminishing pile of cash. Whenever Mr Brown gets on his feet I develop a Dickensian outlook, imagining myself begging for pennies outside the Lexus Helpline call centre or fighting with the dog over the last scrap of Post Office offal. I would also have to purchase a siphon pump in case he raised the price of petrol again. Last time you couldn’t get a pump for love nor money.

     ”Chadwick’s in,” announced the young bank clerk to the rest of the staff. “Must be budget day again. Where would you like us to hide your fifteen pounds this time? Uzbekistan perhaps?”

     Appalling manners. Never did like the chap. His smooth cheeks and suspiciously wavy hair conjure up visions of the type of person who wears white loafers and lurks on the common at dusk, usually within striking distance of an ice cream van.

     ”Just hand over the cash,” I said. “I shall hide it in a hollowed out copy of the Lexus RX300 owner’s manual. Not even Hawkeye Brown will find it in there.”

     Back at Chadwick Manor I brightened a little when I discovered that the Chancellor had raised taxes on some things I had never heard of and nothing with a malty taste that I consume on a regular basis, but my feeling of euphoria disappeared when, several hours later, it became apparent that the Lexus keys had vanished.

     ”Hello. Is that the Lexus Helpline?”

     ”Absolutely not. Try looking for your keys in the hollowed-out owner’s manual. That will be forty five pounds.”

     ”What? I rang you not half a day since and you only wanted a fiver…”

     ”I know, but you already owe us for a defaced handbook from last year and we really cannot keep paying for your eccentricities. These items are very expensive to produce. They have coloured pictures in them, not to mention a plan of the Melbourne underground railway network.”

     ”How absolutely splendid. Do the colour pictures disappear when you are moving forward?”

       Click. Brrrrrrrr……

PLEASE DON’T EAT THE TULIPS

       Spring is here at last.

        The sun has peeped out from under what has been an almost permanent cloud cover since the days of the abdication and, in the garden, some rascally deer have started to nibble at my embryo tulips. Venison anyone?

        One or two other things will require my attention before priming the old blunderbuss; items such as replying to various invitations with regard to new car launches. I used to look forward to such events, principally because there would be free drinks and cigarettes. Occasionally a nice young lady would be hired to do interesting tricks with a python and a good time would be had by all before the hotel burned down.

        It isn’t the same nowadays. For starters you get stuck in a no-smoking room and have to risk life and limb hanging from a rone pipe every time the urge to light up a Woodbine becomes irresistible. Doing this while well fortified isn’t too bad and even the occasional tumble rarely turns into something fatal. It is well known in medical circles that drunks bounce while sober sides simply clatter to the ground and expire. And a good thing too.

        But there are moves afoot by some manufacturers to persuade scribblers such as myself that drinking is a bad thing, and that no good ever comes of it.

        I perceive the dead hand of the company accountant here. Never did like these Johnnies. Anyone who makes a living counting other people’s money and who cannot appreciate the amazing dexterity of the common or garden python must lead a very unhappy life. I may visit some of their wives after hours to cheer them up.

        This is what makes selecting which launch invites to accept and which to toss in the bucket such a chore. I have put myself down for the upcoming MINI Convertible bash as the people there don’t really know who I am and just invite me because they are too polite not to do so. This blind faith will be rewarded. I will not take any matches with me or sneak off in the middle of the night to call on Mrs Frustrated Accountant while enjoying their hospitality. Neither will I say anything about the company’s stifling habit of emptying the minibar prior to my arrival.

        Same goes for Jaguar, who will be launching something or other around the same time. This company has treated me splendidly over the years and can always be relied upon to come up with whatever bail money may be required should I get into difficulties with the local gendarmerie.

        Jaguar once hosted a birthday party for me at which I was allowed to run up the biggest bar bill in the history of the hotel – any hotel in fact - and this in an establishment regularly frequented by emperors, kings, pop warblers and New Labour MPs on bogus fact finding missions. Jaguar makes pretty decent cars too.

        That’s two fixed up. But some of the others look a little less inspiring. The old back has been playing me up a bit of late, so invitations from the Sons of Nippon have to be considered very carefully. All that simultaneous bowing and grinning isn’t too good for the creaking vertebrae. However a flat refusal generally means some poor PR person being given his cards and having to seek out a tall building from which to end it all. Don’t really want any of that sort of thing on my conscience.

        I shall therefore put in an appearance at next month’s Honda bash at St. Andrews and deliver an ‘excused deep bows’ note from the duty medical officer. With a bit of luck they will leave me in the bar while they all tootle off to do the formal business. Might even get nine holes in if the weather holds up.

        The rest? Well, they will have to try again next year, especially if they happen to be French or Italian manufacturers. One of the former recently started to take detailed notes as to what and how much each guest consumes in the bar before and after dinner, compounding this lack of good manners by circulating their findings amongst other manufacturers. Clear breach of the Data Protection Act if you ask me.

        Very droll, and not in the spirit of the Auld Alliance. I may run off a spoof Death Certificate and post it to them with an accompanying note from Madame to the effect that I have expired due to a lack of inner lubrication and that legal correspondence will follow. That’ll larn ‘em.

        The Italians? I really have nothing against them except that they try to assassinate me at least twice a year and their wine is appalling. They also serve up plates of little sparrows at dinner time.

         Being a gentle soul, I find this practice quite distressing. If there is one thing guaranteed to bring a tear to the eye, it is cruelty to little oiseaux. Besides, the glue they use to stick the aforementioned oiseaux to tree branches prior to their execution plays havoc with the old gnashers. This is why the dinner table chatter in Italian restaurants tends to dry up after they serve the sparrow and chips.

        Hang on a minute; those damned deer are at the tulips again. Hand me that flintlock and cover your eyes if you are one of those sensitive souls still sniffling over the fate of Bambi’s mum……and make some room in the deep freeze while you are at it.

LOOKING AFTER THE NEW MAN

I had just packed my pyjamas and hip flask in readiness to head off for the smart ForFour launch in Rome when my editor, a dreadful little man in a Hessian shirt and droopy underpants, rang to say that someone else from the paper would be travelling with me.

As he hadn’t been on a car launch before I was to drive with him, make sure he didn’t get into any trouble and to keep any loose wimmin at arm’s length. Most of all he should be absolutely forbidden to charge anything of a liquid sort to the office.

Such burdens do not sit easily with me. The last time I had to entertain someone other than my regular chums in a car he turned out to be quite mad – and probably dangerous.

He was collected in Barcelona where he ignored my large hallos, sniffed disdainfully and climbed into the passenger seat. Various attempts at conversation met with no response whatsoever, so I concentrated on getting to the hotel as quickly as possible in order to check the health of my minibar.

That was Plan A. I didn’t really have a Plan B, but it seemed my morose friend did. While we were stopped at a traffic light he rolled down the car window and mouthed not very nice words at a member of the local Garda Civil. I don’t usually make snap judgements as to a chap’s character, especially a stranger, but I thought this unprovoked behaviour quite odd.

So did the policeman, which is why he invited both of us to accompany him to the local Bastille for what could best be described as a spirited chat with several burly police officers dressed in hats, large sticks and guns. The experience was particularly distressing because my companion, having expended his daily vocabulary ration on the hapless police officer, then declined to say anything else.

Trying to explain to foreign persons with sharp sticks and blunt revolvers that you haven’t the faintest idea who your companion is can be quite difficult, especially when the only Spanish phrases you know are those uttered after nightfall to members of the opposite whatnot, all the while hoping their dads aren’t in any way connected with the constabulary.

Have you noticed that all policemen can knit their eyebrows together when you don’t come up with the expected response to their questioning? It is not a skill exclusive to Catalonia, but this lot were so adept at it that Messrs Pringle could have adapted their forehead designs and created a nice pullover for young Mr Faldo.

About two pints of perspiration later a representative from the car company arrived and took charge via his wallet. We were freed, but scuttled from the calaboose acutely aware of lots of narrowed eyes under tangled brows observing our departure.

The industry man apologised very sincerely for inflicting all of this upon me and asked if there was anything he could do to make things better. I suggested throwing the madman off the nearest motorway bridge, but he declined, saying such retribution would only lead to another bout of eyebrow knitting. Best to let the man’s editor deal with him later.

I graciously indicated that I would set aside my claim for compensation should I be excused boots for the rest of the trip. This would allow me to perch at the hotel bar while everyone else headed out into the noonday sun in cars which, when all was said and done, weren’t very interesting.

The company was only too happy to accede, so I bade my friends farewell, scuttled into the lounge and immediately began to strike up a rapport with a burly waitress from Andalucia.

After an hour or so the drinks bill was looking quite impressive, especially as it was a case of ‘have one for yourself’ every time the waitress filled my glass. Naturally she didn’t drink anything, (she wouldn’t have lasted more than an hour), but pocketed the cash equivalent of each offered cocktail. I heard later that she purchased a small hacienda with the proceeds.

Alas, it all went pear shaped when Mr Morose lurched into the bar. Whereas I had negotiated a non-driving day, the car manufacturer had grounded him. Locked in his room he had demolished the minibar, leaving only the Toblerone and crisps unscathed, escaping into the corridor when the maid arrived.

Pointing at a bottle of Wild Turkey on the gantry he grunted ferociously. This was a bad omen.

Making my excuses to the Andalucian waitress, I slipped through to the sun terrace and settled down with a newspaper.

I heard later that my erstwhile companion had simply and quietly slipped into a coma in the bar without causing any other disturbance, but I am still a bit worried about having to drive with a stranger on this smart launch. May well turn out to be the same chap.

      MEN IN WATCHES

They have taken my Audi TT quattro away.

Zwei herren, resplendent in company jackets and watches, swooped just after dawn to reclaim a machine that had wormed its way into my affections for a number of reasons.

Firstly it is entirely unsuited to shopping trips or transporting large dogs, (leather seats mean lunch to my Dobermann), and so all of my trips in the car came into the ‘fun’ category. It is also very fast indeed, but safe with it, although explaining this apparent paradox to a couple of burly representatives of Strathclyde’s finest took all of my diplomatic skills.

What they were doing on the Rest and be Thankful at three o’clock in the dark time (More to the point, what were you doing there? Madame.) remains something of a mystery. There are no houses to burgle for miles around and I must confess to having missed any drug dealers who may have been plying their dubious trade while tending to the sheep.

I would have kept the TT had there been any way of acquiring legal title to it other than handing over a large pile of boodle. I have always been averse to dipping into the old reserves except when standing my round at the golf club, but on this occasion I was sorely tempted.

The TT has been fixed since the original launch. On that occasion I complained to the officer in charge about the lack of headroom, pointing out that some of the good burgers of Allemagne are almost as tall as myself – especially when wearing hats – and may not take too kindly to having their toupees rearranged while driving.

My words of wisdom appear to have struck a chord. The sub frame has been lowered to accommodate a more aristocratic type of owner and things are now much more pleasing, especially when Miss Goodbody from the library goes through her carefully choreographed exit routine.

Being a kindly soul I often stop to pick her up rather than have her spend her hard-earned sharing a charabanc with those uncouth rascals from the adjacent building site, some of whom look more dangerous than Chadwick Minor.

The car was in my charge for seven days and was due to be passed on to Capital Jim thereafter. Knowing full well that he would smoke, drink and carry fish suppers in it, I appealed to Audi for a lease extension, but was rebuffed.

I took a note of the refusenik’s name and forwarded same to the German Chancellor, pointing out that I used to be in the RAF and that had I possessed better navigational skills, he may not have a house to go home to after a hard day’s Chancelling, like the unfortunate Sid and Elsie Wiggins who used to have a nice little bungalow near Dover.

It has been five days now and he has still not replied. Must give Prescott a shake down at the club and tell him to re-examine the terms of the forthcoming Euro accord that he and young Blair have been trying to slip through without the sans culottes noticing.

Still, there is always next week’s car to look forward to. It is a Toyota Prius which Chadwick Minor says is some sort of hybrid and it will therefore be a waste of time attacking its fuel tank with the old siphon pump, but the battery could be a good ‘un.

Meanwhile I propose to get some of my own machines off their blocks, (Chadwick Even More Minor is building a wall), and put them back on the road, new tax discs, insurance documents et al.

But this time I shall proceed with caution. Last year’s Spring activity saw me spending ten days restoring a Ford Escort to something approaching pristine condition, an exercise which involved the purchase of many new parts as well as lots of head-bumping, knuckle grazing labour.

It was only when I stood back to admire my handiwork that it struck me that a Ford Escort is one of the few cars I do not actually own. Mind you, my neighbour was so grateful when he returned from a business trip to find I had worked so hard on his behalf that he has withdrawn almost all of his letters to the Council, notably the one relating to his deceased pet rabbit and the satisfied expression on our dog’s visage.

Even catastrophe can have its lighter side, but I’ll still miss that Audi. I have left my toolbox in it.

     COUNTRY LIFE

The opportunity of an autumn weekend in the country has always had a certain appeal, so a summons from Land Rover to try out their latest models in deepest Perthshire saw myself and a small platoon of faintly disreputable friends settling into the brand new wing of a luxury hotel.

I think the owners had built the extension just for us as we had accidentally broken other bits of the establishment on previous sorties. In fact Madame and self nearly drowned in our bed a year ago when a somewhat ratted gentleman in the room above toppled into his bath and fell asleep with the taps running. 

This time I had just settled in when three fire extinguishers mysteriously appeared on my doorstep. I discovered them when en route to examine facilities in the bar; tripping over one and hurtling through a set of double doors at alarming speed, frightening an elderly gentleman in the process. A surprise extinguisher delivery seemed very odd as none of my rooms have combusted for ages, but it was nice of the management to think of my safety.

The Land Rover people had brought along just about everything in their current catalogue, plus the first 4x4 they ever built. One of them – possibly new to the job – recklessly said I could take the latter out for a drive, but I refused, probably saving his career.

The most expensive of the current Range Rovers was obviously more suitable, so I trundled off in that before switching cars with The Boy. He had a Defender, a vehicle that must be very good at something since oodles of them have been purchased, sometimes by quite sensible people. Just why anyone would buy one, other than for someone they don’t like very much, baffled me, so I handed it back and went off-roading with The Boy and Mr Angry in a Discovery.

The plan was to topple it on its side on a downhill section and then run away. However it wouldn’t tilt far enough so we had to admit defeat and go back to the hotel, finding the bar open and a wedding in progress. We like weddings as there are always bridesmaids and ladies in hats in attendance, some of whom get very giggly indeed after a tincture of two. Endless possibilities for late night canoodling.

But before this we had to defer to our host, ‘Officer’ Dibble, and join him for dinner, faces washed and trousers pressed. Some of the chaps had even shaved, and we managed the whole four courses without making a mess of the table, propositioning waitresses or stealing the cutlery. In fact I took some photographs of us not stealing anything and will show these to my grandchildren when I get some.

This outbreak of good behaviour pleased the Officer no end as he is a sophisticated chap, recently returned from the United States, where he was in charge of everything that had anything to do with FoMoCo. In fact as big cheeses go this man is vintage Camembert. I may allow him to become my friend.

Some polite conversation ensued, such as you see in pretentious television plays, then we were free to sidle away to seek out more earthly pleasures. W persuaded the Officer to sidle with us in order that he could take care of the drinks. Doesn’t pay to charge too much to your own room. Embarrassment at check out time tends to occur if you open a bar account and then forget to close it before all sorts of Japanese chaps from the Burmese Railway Corp. swarm in and take advantage.

Rumour had it that Ms Ivana Trump was around somewhere. Apparently she possesses a lot of money, so we had a small fight among ourselves for the honour of escorting her to the nearest cash machine. Sadly she didn’t make an appearance. Life is full of little disappointments.

Around this time Madame was beginning to make big eyes at the Officer, proclaiming him to be as good-looking as Mr Hugh Grant, but much taller. Recognising the danger, I gently led here away and tucked her up in bed with a good book, returning to the fray just in time to witness the arrival of a platter of bacon sandwiches. This sparked off a small scuffle when some interlopers started to steal them, but we fought them off and even scored a small victory by having them charged to the account of a passing American gentleman.

Come two in the morning the Officer had lost all touch with reason and was telephoning Mr Grumpy at his home. We could hear some very rude language on the cell phone, so it seemed a good time to creep off to bed.

Anxious not to disturb Madame, by now sound asleep, I slipped the key card in our door and attempted to creep into the room, clutching my shoes to my chest.

Unfortunately the fire extinguishers were invisible in the gloom and, tripping over them again, I launched myself into the room and ended up entangled in the drapes, surrounded by various pieces of dislodged furniture. I fear it will be many moons before Land Rover sends out another invitation.

Chapter Six

NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOWBUSINESS

The British Motor Show will have to rub along without me as best it can this month. Instead of trudging around Brum in the rain I shall be splashing my tootsies in a Florida bayou, keeping an eye out for alligators and reflecting on life’s great mysteries, such as why politicians are totally unable to find themselves a decent tailor.

Anyway, motor shows aren’t all they are cracked up to be and attending them can get you into trouble. At the first bash to be held in the NEC I took the precaution of travelling by sleeper. Trains used to run in those days, give or take the odd group of flying pickets snarling at you as you bought your ticket.

Sans the responsibility of driving and therefore having to stay sober, I launched myself into the proceedings in the sure and certain hope of falling down around lunchtime.

After a hearty breakfast of egg and bacon with Volvo I encountered Frank (now a Sir, while I am still a Mr) Williams, boss of what was then billed as the Saudi Williams GP team.

Frank and his driver, world champion Alan Jones, wanted to find the Austin Rover stand as a sponsorship deal with that company meant they had to drop by and say large ‘Hallos’ every now and again.  I kindly offered to escort them round there but when we set foot on the company’s stand we were told to sod off, as it was too early for visitors and all of the cars were covered in dust sheets. Actually that was the best place for them.

This explained why, just a few minutes later, three figures of international importance could be seen playing happily with remote control racing cars supplied by the more hospitable Ford people – drawing an impressive crowd of autograph hunters in the process. I believe the idiot who dismissed us from the Austin Rover display made his motor industry exit that very morning. He is probably in politics now.

Nissan lured me to their place with the promise of champagne and a bit of leering at someone who was famous for appearing in downmarket newspapers wearing next to nothing.

Conversation with this young lady was well nigh impossible as she appeared to have spent hr schooldays applying eye shadow instead of doing sums. So I had a brief but well-mannered leer and politely asked Nissan if they were making a few bob despite not being involved in the Burmese railway industry anymore. Must have hit a raw nerve. Relations between us have been somewhat strained ever since.

Anyway, they used to have what are termed ‘personalities’ at these events, which was always a bit of a downer as meeting them and exchanging frivolous chit-chat tended to get in the way of the bar service. Still, Mr Terence Wogan was nice. He does something on radio which, for younger readers, is a device that preceded Mr Baird’s box and is the much the same except there are no pictures on it.

By this time I had taken copious notes and managed to blag a whole pile of stuff, which was getting heavier by the minute. Something had to go, so I ditched the notes and continued my tour, by this time rolling from side to side like a sailor. Others were in even greater distress. One young chap from Paisley crept into a horse-drawn wagon filled with hay for a quick snooze. He quite understandably assumed that this was a static exhibit. It wasn’t and he ended the day in some knacker’s yard in Coventry. He didn’t have any notes either. 

If you are going to sleep anywhere, do it in a car. With a bit of luck you will waken up in Paris or Amsterdam as the thing is moved on to the next show. Saves you a bundle in airfares.

Set lunches on the stands are best avoided. Someone in a double-breasted suit and an American accent always gets up and makes a state of the nation speech just as you are exchanging addresses with a burly waitress or arranging assignations in the bar. The speeches are always the same, so you take notes at one and use it for all of the others, just changing the name of the speaker and ensuring you don’t accuse him of being a big chief at GM when he works for BMW. For some reason this distresses them no end and you are inclined to get fierce letters over the next week or two.

That first year I managed to stay awake for the entire day, took a taxi back to New Street station in plenty of time to catch the return train, climbed into my bunk and slept blissfully.

Next morning I awoke in Bristol. All things considered, I would have been better off in the Coventry knacker’s yard.

SOUNDING THE ALARM

I hate car alarms. In the first instance they alarm everyone except those rascals going about the unlawful business of nicking vehicles from the populace at large, while simultaneously getting innocents such as yours truly into dreadful trouble with the gendarmerie.

En route to Barcelona for the launch of Kia’s new Rio, (yes, I know the original is still only a year old, but ‘new and improved’ looks better in the ads), I let my little Peugeot snuggle up to some other machinery in the airport car park. Before locking the door I absent-mindedly placed my valise on the bonnet of an adjacent Saab, thus setting off a deep-throated barking of terrifying volume.

The sudden attack of decibels caused me to leap backwards, thumping the flanks of a BMW which promptly chipped in with its own protest, this one sounding uncomfortably like a police klaxon.

Before I could scuttle off I was surrounded by impressively alert security personnel who proceeded to look at me in a manner that suggested a starring role at the next assizes. Protestations of innocence followed, backed up by the feigning of a knee injury sustained as a result of involuntary contact with the BMW, but I still had to wait while my name and address went into several notebooks.

This was an unusually long process. Two of the chaps were barely literate while the third possessed only the stump of a pencil, which could only make impressions on the paper, rather than proper characters. Probably not admissible in court, which provided a crumb of comfort.

Anyway, by now officially on parole and awaiting the possible arrival of a summons, I was allowed to totter off to the check-in desk, arriving much too late to have the usual dawn stiffener with The Boy in the VIP lounge.

The waitresses on the aircraft were splendid, the two-stage flight, (40 minutes ashore in Birmingham), being punctuated by frequent deliveries of champagne served up with food of some description.  All of which led to a rather unsteady landfall in Barcelona, so The Boy decently took over first day driving duties rather than allow me to rot in some Moorish prison, the deal being that I should return the favour next day.

Being ultra-professional we both attended the pre-dinner press conference at our hotel. We should probably have asked a question or two, just to stake out our territory, but as we hadn’t the faintest idea what anyone was talking about, we kept mum.

More champagne was unearthed and then we were transported to one of those appalling Gaudi-designed buildings for dinner. Gaudi must have been a champagne drinker of some renown as he survived in the old architecture trade for years without ever learning how to do straight lines.

Unhappily the chef had inherited a similar inability to cook. Undaunted, we opted for empty platters and full glasses, whiling away the time smug in the sure and certain knowledge that we would snooze peacefully at night, leaving our fellow diners to explore the delights of the hotel’s post-Gaudi Armitage Shanks.

But not before raiding a disco. Oh yes. I had promised The Boy an opportunity to leer at Slovenian lady journalists, but they hadn’t turned up. His only tongue-lolling opportunity arose when a Portuguese gentleman with a doubtful taste in evening attire rolled up with two very tall ladies in tow.

These he described as Canadian models. Bah! I know full well that the only models in Canada are very rough looking chaps who pose for pictures in Gun and Elk World wearing loud check shirts and brandishing chainsaws. The ‘models’ in our disco looked like more like professional ladies to me, so I summoned a carriage and made my return to the hotel to check that my wallet was still intact.

Greatly relieved to find everything in order, I opted for an early night, neatly hanging my clothes in a wardrobe which – in the grey light of dawn turned out to be the television cabinet – and entered the Land of Nod, my stash of euros safely under the pillow.

Enquiries over the breakfast table as to the welfare of The Boy brought the alarming news that he had been last seen snoozing peacefully on the floor of the hotel bar. As there was no sign of him when I went in there to check, a search party was immediately organised. Three hours later I stood them down when he materialised from somewhere or other looking interestingly pale and delicate, so I gently poured him into a car and completed the second phase of the driving exercise without mishap. Mind you, he did furnish a Korean engineer with a comments slip containing the immortal line; ‘car very good, but couldn’t find the steering wheel.’

I found it and it worked very well. The Rio is a very decent machine, which is simultaneously a lot cheaper – and better – than the new Fiesta, so I hope someone will buy me one.

Back at the airport, I put my bag on an adjacent car and set off another damned alarm. I have been told to expect a letter – but I knew that already.

      ON AVOIDING SPORTING DISASTER

There is only so much humiliation a man can take hence my decision to flee the country 24 hours before England’s rugby union warriors arrived to demolish whatever fifteen our inept Australian coach has managed to coax into dark blue for the occasion.

Anyway I have better things to do, such as taking part in the All-State Hog Calling Festival in Florida. Yodelling at hogs is a bit like watching rugger at Murrayfield. Someone wins, everyone else loses and then we all go to the nearest barn and get blissfully plastered. Even the hogs get a bucket of Bud. Makes them taste better.

The difference is that sports writers over there do not analyse the event in minute detail the next day. In fact it takes a week for the results to be published, by which time everyone has gone back to Georgia and arms of their ever lovin’ Mary Beth of the twin-toothed smile and big hair.

Better still, as Florida news doesn’t feature in the Appalachian Times, every southern housewife is told that their redoubtable Cletus or Aaron has triumphed yet again. There are more fake hog-calling champions in Atlanta than there are Baptist clerics. I like this kind of gentle parochialism.

There will also be some more serious matters to be dealt with. This being election year, the system of counting votes in Florida will have to be addressed. Last time it was just too close and the Yankee press gave the delightful Ms Katherine Harris a rough time, suggesting that she was in cahoots with Governor Jeb and that his promise to Dubya that ‘I will deliver Florida’ was somehow out of order.

As I know Ms Harris and Mr Jeb personally and can vouch for the fact that they are above reproach. Ms Harris is very beautiful and has a degree in something interesting, such as painting toenails. Mr Jeb? Despite being in possession of a suspicious hairdo he must have some good qualities or he wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near her office.

But to get to Tallahassee I will need a car. In the good old days people from Ford or Jaguar would leave a limo at the airport for me. Sadly they don’t do this anymore, possibly because I lost the last one. To their credit however, they didn’t make a song and dance about it.

This leaves me to arm wrestle with the lady at the airport rental desk. Previously a glance at the distinguished photograph adorning my passport would suffice. Alas the procedure now is that things such as a household bill, (to check that my home address is kosher), and a social security number must be produced before being allowed to drive off in a Daewoo or Hyundai worth about $50 at today’s exchange rate.

In my case this is quite alarming. Household bills delivered to my home are usually embossed with phrases such as ‘Final Demand’ – sometimes in red lettering. This is not the type of document one wishes colonials to peruse. Also, we don’t have social security numbers in the UK as far as I know. The nearest equivalent is the National Insurance thingy, but when you have adopted several different personas in a bid to evade the clutches of the Inland Revenue, locating the genuine article can be difficult.

Rental clerks also get a bit uppity when you ask for the services of several people stationed at 400-yard intervals to direct you safely out of the airport. Just before last Christmas this seemingly mundane process took an hour and at one point I was pulled over by the Sheriff and invited to explain why I had been circling a parked Wells Fargo truck in a manner deemed to be highly suspicious.

Having to stand, legs akimbo, next to a Daewoo while a deputy pokes around in the region of one’s Antarctics with a big stick is not at all dignified. I offered to have this procedure carried out at their Ford Crown Victoria, but no – they made me stick to the Nubira.

Madame said that if I hadn’t been such a cheapskate we could have had had a Lexus or even a Cadillac to use as a backdrop to this ritual humiliation.

Careful booking of our flights, taking in stopovers at Manchester and Washington, means our Florida landfall will occur an hour after sunset. Should a repeat performance be on the cards my face will be hidden from any passing All-State Hog Calling participants and my precious anonymity preserved.

Mind you, I may not get as far as the rental desk. An accident while shaving means that my top lip, hidden under a splendid moustache for many decades, is now as bare as a baby’s whatnot.

Further more, attempting to repair the damage by removing said ‘tache from my passport photograph wasn’t the best of ideas and has gone dreadfully wrong. I fear the worst.

PERIL IN THE PARK AND NOCTURNAL NOISES

En route to bid farewell to Vauxhall’s eccentric PR chief last week, (interesting chap, but dashed if I can recall his name), I was accosted in a park.

This doesn’t happen to me very often, especially in a city such as Glasgow where even a sideways glance at a total stranger generally gets you on speaking terms with some nice nurses and doctors down at the old A&E. But accosted I was – and by a cyclist.

Normally I don’t speak to pedallers. For starters they tend to be poor, dining alone on lentils and being envious of persons such as myself. They also dress badly, favouring silly hats and anoraks when not mincing around in Lycra. 

Happily mine wasn’t wearing skin-huggers, (unless these were concealed under his trousers), but he sported the hat and a little backpack, no doubt containing that morning’s copy of the Guardian, a slice of cheese, biscuits and water.

Had he played his cards right I may have given him a pound or two and instructions on how to find an interesting pub, wherein he could perhaps discover new things, such as fun. But he ruined his chances by complaining in a very loud manner that I had committed the unspeakable act of overtaking his velocipede. Not only that, but I must have exceeded 15 mph in order to so do.

Good grief!  I reasoned that a swift blow to his Antarctics followed by a playful biff on the beak would put a stop to a tirade, which was causing great anxiety among a group of elderly ladies taking photographs of a Highland cow in an adjacent field.

However Madame was with me, therefore I could do nothing more vigorous than to firmly point out to the dreadful creature that I was in a car and he was on a cycle. The road therefore was mine whereas the parallel cycle path, (constructed at great expense courtesy of my taxes), was his. Complaint dismissed. He could now go and mutter over his paper, but he wasn’t going to get any money for the pub.

This exchange had been witnessed by the young chaps hired by Vauxhall to direct our little band of scribes to the tea and buns. Their dismayed expressions signalled that they were aware that more of us would shortly be arriving, possibly at speeds in excess of 15 mph, and that a dangerous precedent had been set.

Their fears were groundless. It was all sweetness and light thereafter. Mr Grumpy had brought along his new dog, so we dutifully chuckled it under the chin and made clucking noises. Our newest chum, Miss Scarlett, then turned up and employed a withering glance to dissuade The Boy from attempting to do the same with her chin, or any other bits of her anatomy, come to that. 

Vauxhall offered up a decent selection of cars to sample, including a Wyvern from the 1940s as well as possibly the only Victor MkII that hasn’t yet been eaten by rust. Having owned both models in my time I left them to Mr Grumpy and Capital Jim to wrestle with. In the interim Madame and I toured the city in a Corsa SRi and a rather splendid Astra Convertible, whiling away a few hours before dinner by not crashing into anyone.

We were billeted at one of those trendy new city centre hotels that used to be some sort of hospital, so I carefully checked under the bed and in various cupboards for cadavers or stray organs before enjoying a pre-dinner wallow in the tub (£299.00 at B&Q, ‘cos we priced it earlier).

As wossname, the Vauxhall PR person, toured the bar protesting that he had taken early retirement and had not been fired, and giving farewell speeches to all and sundry, I enjoyed a brief spell as stand-in host. This explains a champagne bill that may well scupper GM’s plans to take over Daewoo and Fiat. It certainly explains why some of the assembled company managed to be rather unsteady on their pins as they made their way to dinner.

In addition I made lots of new friends courtesy of widening my circle of hospitality to take in some bar patrons who weren’t actually with us, but who looked nice. I have always been a very generous sort of chap as well as being adept at getting car manufacturers to pick up my tab. Even the poor ones have lots of loose change lying around in odd corners, such as the Cayman Islands.

Dinner was excellent and there was a certain amount of banter in the bar afterwards, meaning a very deep snooze indeed, once I had found my room.

However Madame, most alarmed, woke me at one point to say she could hear what sounded like screams coming from the alley outside. Perhaps something appalling was occurring among the bins?

‘Go back to sleep,’ I counselled. ‘It will be The Boy.’

‘The screaming is much too high-pitched to be him,’ she protested, clutching the duvet to her chin in terror.

‘Don’t worry.’ I countered. ‘He does a splendid soprano when seized by the Antarctics. He has either attempted another chin chuckle on Miss Scarlett – or has been bitten by Mr Grumpy’s dog.’

In my experience there is a rational explanation for everything – except cyclists.

      ENTER THE HOOK AND LADDER

The fire chief was very nice about having to visit Chadwick Manor again.

After all, it had been months since I had last troubled him and his merry men, so I was perfectly entitled to some axe brandishing and hose unreeling during those quiet hours when there is nothing much worth watching on Mr. Baird’s box.

Their arrival was preceded by a fairly unremarkable preamble. I had finally finished putting my Escort XR3i together again and noticed the engine oil level was much too high, so I started the engine with the intention of warming up the sump before draining it of a litre or so.

All appeared to be well. I noted with some satisfaction and no little pride that the previously clattery engine (Ford should trademark clatter) had begun to purr like a pedigree kitten. Better than that - the bumper-mounted foglamps had given up their usual jitterbug and now the only movement from them was an almost imperceptible shimmy every time the rhythm of the engine varied.

For a moment or two I considered selling my engineering expertise to Mr. Ford, but a glance at their accounts for the past couple of years  suggests that payment, if any such would be forthcoming, was likely to be  little more than a handful of drachmas.

However, when things are going very well, according to Murphy’s Law, they very soon go wildly wrong. And they did.

The first smoke seepage from under the bonnet was put down to accumulated oil spills of uncertain vintage burning off, but then the intensity of the smouldering became quite alarming, especially since it was accompanied by an ominous crackling and a visually impressive shower of sparks.

Being very quick to spot trouble on the horizon (regular readers will be aware that I have wide experience of conflagrations) I scampered off to fetch a fire extinguisher.

I was scuttling back with this implement at quite a gait when the telephone rang and I totally lost the plot - I answered it. On the line was the Ancient Editor, complaining about having to rewrite his report of the Rally of Argentina as the gauchos kept changing the result - no doubt limbering up for a little bit of mayhem at the forthcoming World Cup where they will probably tweak young Mr. Beckham in an unmentionable place while simultaneously feigning childlike innocence.

Being a polite sort of cove, I listened to all of this and made clucking noises of sympathy. After a few minutes I suddenly remembered that the Great Fire of Flywheel was raging and signalled to Madame that perhaps she should call the chaps with the big red Dennis truck and yellow leggings, but as I was on the line she had to wait until I finished my conversation.

Editorial duty done, I rattled off once again with my extinguisher while the troops were turned out. I am not very good at figuring out how to work these things, but the handle suggests a downward push should do the trick. It didn’t’t - you have to pull it up to release the powder. I discovered this when accidentally knocking the thing while rather foolishly having the nozzle pointed in the general direction of my good self.

I was now to all intents and purposes a snowman. Covered from head to tootsies in the white stuff, I finally managed to empty the rest of the cylinder over the fire, the family cat and Madame’s prize petunias.

The last of the flames spluttered and died just as the Dennis boys screeched to a halt, grabbed their axes, and looked around for things to chop up.  They were none too pleased to find that I had put the fire out.

There were even suggestions that I might get a letter from their union along the lines of “Fires - Unauthorised Tackling Of...” but by and large they were a decent bunch. Their chief took a few notes and they all brightened up when I reminded them that as well as getting the afternoon off from their regular jobs (they are all part-timers) there would be a call out fee involved.

Off they tootled, all waving cheerily, just as the constabulary arrived. Yes, you always get the full set, just in case you have been working the old insurance scam, where you set fire to cars, or to old sports coats, and then attempt to claim ten times their worth.

Notes were taken, some reproachful looks dispensed, and off went the custodians of law and order for a quick game of cards back at the station.

It was at this point that Madame arrived, bearing a pot of tea and six cups. She is always dreadfully tardy when catering for an emergency situation.

ORDINARY PEOPLE

There is nothing like the arrival of Spring to put a bounce in the old step. One blink of sunshine cancels out months of overcast misery and even old buffers such as myself positively gambol - at least when out of tut-tutting range of Madame.

So, full of the joys, I graciously condescended to go and collect an MG ZS 180 saloon, since poor old MG, unlike most other manufacturers, hasn’t the wherewithal to have the thing delivered to my estate. Perhaps I should purchase a share or two, just to give them a little lift.

Anyway, brogues burnished and the regulation three quarters of an inch of sparkling white collar showing above my jacket, I embarked on the great adventure, one which would have me travelling by boat, train, tube and Shanks’ pony. I was quite looking forward to it despite not being awfully good at collecting cars.

Last time I did so was when I was rostered for a VW New Beetle. I toddled off to the dealership, presented my credentials and sped off, only to be telephoned an hour or so later by young Caveman, an otherwise agreeable chap who works for one of those awful organs that  regards Mr. Beckham’s toe or Miss Minogue’s derriere as being more important than the results of the Captain’s Cup at my golf club.

Seems he was due to have the Beetle that day and I should have collected something else. There was, of course, no way of knowing this beforehand without consulting my diary and as this little book has virtually nothing in it, consultations tend to be pointless. I spluttered my apologies and promised to return the thing next day. My young friend agreed to this and said not to worry, which is what football club chairmen say to their managers while Elsie is making up their P45.

Lesson learned, I telephoned in advance this time and spoke to a gentleman with a better diary than mine. Yes, I should drop in anytime and the car would be waiting for me.

The sea crossing went well enough and I managed to find a train that had its full complement of staff on board, one driving and the other scowling at passengers such as me who have been using their tickets to make origami likenesses of the aforementioned Miss Minogue.

I embarked on the tube train and found myself in a compartment with just one other person, a young man who looked like a student, albeit not a very clever one. Probably studying divinity or one of those social studies courses involving naming the entire cast of last Friday’s ‘Coronation Street’ and you get a first.

“Good morning,” I said, still in the grip of bonhomie.

“Sod off or I’ll give you a kicking,” he replied.

Oh dear. Not only a divinity student, but probably one of young Caveman’s readers to boot, if you’ll pardon the expression.

Five stations and an icy silence later, I reached my stop and puffed my way up the escalator. This is what you do when exiting tube stations. The only escalators that never, ever break down are to be found in Moscow, capital of the most broken down country on the planet where escalator repairmen don’t get paid huge amounts of money for fixing things. Hence they have no incentive to sabotage the equipment in the first instance.

Much puffing and vowing to stop smoking ensued before I reached street level and draped myself around a lamp post to let my lungs recover. Slightly weakened, I tackled the half mile walk to the dealership in reasonable humour. After all I had escaped a kicking.

Rounding a corner I came upon a little shop with a notice in the window proclaiming “HAIR EXTENSIONS - £10.” Too good to miss. I strolled in and was agreeably surprised to find myself in the company of several very nice young ladies.

“Can I have one of your hair extension specials?” I enquired. “The old cranial moquette is getting rather thin.”

They stood in a line, chewing gum and looking at me through long eyelashes, startlingly coloured.

“Pervert.” one of them said. The others nodded solemnly.

Fleeing before the arrival of the constabulary, I picked up the MG and tootled off, wondering why ordinary people can be so dreadful to harmless old coots like me.

The MG, by the way, is an excellent piece of kit. £14,000 plus gets you a canary yellow finish, and the biggest spoiler to be fitted to any vehicle since Jody Scheckter was rampaging around Spa.

It doesn’t’t go as quickly as the body kit suggests, but who will ever know. Buy lots of ‘em and next time I may get one delivered. It will keep me well away from the general populace.

Chapter Seven

BUSY DOING NOTHING

About once a week, the Ancient Editor rings to ask what I’m doing. What he really means is, am I doing this column, or not, but he is too polite to say so.

He wasn’t always so reticent, but that was before Catalonian bandits stole his sports jacket and tore it into thin strips - Basques for the garrotting of - and preferably under cover of darkness.

Usually I report that I am not doing anything much and will dutifully go and have a peck at my keyboard, but this week we had a change of scenario.

For hours my legs had been peeping out from under Rufus Minor’s Ford Orion, engine now painstakingly rebuilt and just some suspension tweaks before it is returned to HM’s highway. Occasionally I would slide out from there to attend to the sump gasket of Even More Minor’s XR3. This should have been a simple job, but when you are underneath cars, especially those belonging to my various Minors, you find all sorts of dreadful things. On the case of the XR3i, there was the disconnected speedometer cable and a twisted anti-roll bar that had allowed the drive shafts and gearbox to approach total destruction when cornering.

Given the complexity of each task, I had a toolbox for each job, meaning I only had to move myself back and forward as I shared my time between tasks. But around noon I made the fatal mistake of sliding out from under the Orion and, instead of arriving under the front end of the XR3i, I missed and landed under the Nissan Pulsar GTi-R. Before having the wit to close my eyes, I noticed that the inside shoulders of both front tyres were wearing badly. The entire suspension had been lowered two weeks ago and Minor had forgotten to adjust the wheel offsets in his anxiety to get out there and shave some Tarmac off the county’s roads.

I was now up to three toolkits, five grazed knuckles, two bumps on the head and a pair of terminally torn Daks. The bump count went up to three when Minor rang from London to say he would be back the next day and could I free the seized brake callipers on his Nova SR as he had booked it into the paint shop.

Having rooted out yet more tools I drew up a sort of mental work roster, deciding to work on each car in turn for half an hour. This worked out quite nicely at first, and then Madame arrived on the scene to say the forecast was for rain next day and I had better cut the grass. While doing so, she added, I might have a look for the corpse of next door’s dog, which disappeared without trace some months ago.

Panic! My lawnmower was broken down and I had run out of tools. There was nothing for it but to dash to the nearest garden centre and therein acquire a new one.

“I’ll take that one, with the Briggs & Stratton three horsepower engine, and can you slap on a few STP stickers to give it a bit more garden cred” I said. The young assistant looked rather spiffily at me, noting the bloodstained hands, torn trousers, tousled hair and egg-shaped cranial extensions. It took much brandishing of gold cards before he would allow me out of the store with my purchase.

Naturally some assembly work was arrived before it would work, so I was now spending my time between four cars and a Briggs & Stratton GT grass muncher. Perspiring freely by this time, I was aware of the approach of Madame, never a good omen in mid-afternoon.

“When you have finished the grass, can you take a look at my Peugeot?” she asked. “My nearside headlight isn’t working and the window washers are clogged up. By the way, you look incredibly scruffy - you haven’t shaved this morning.”

I had a rummage around in the Orion’s toolkit, but the only thing I could find that would remove whiskers was a Stanley knife with a rather doubtful blade. I briefly considered having a go with it and then began to worry about tetanus and other nasty ailments which would be an inevitable result of any small nick with this instrument. My current wounds were extensive enough, so I returned to grass cutting and car fettling, finishing just before sundown.

Tottering into the house, I just about managed dinner then lapsed into a coma, only to be awakened by a call from the Ancient One.

Through the fog of dreams could I could hear her saying “No, he isn’t doing anything except lying on the sofa. That’s about all he ever seems to manage on Saturdays.”

I am beginning to feel put upon.

THE PROCESSION AS AN ART FORM

Although not impressed by today’s breed of Formula One driver, (half of ‘em being Playstation graduates), a deep sense of duty forced me to watch the start of last week’s Catalonian frolics.

This season’s roundy-round being even more dire than usual, I prepared myself by stretching out on the sofa, soft pillow behind my neck and glass of malt to hand. Perhaps something exciting would happen, such as a paper bag blowing onto the track, or even a frenzied spectator being summarily executed by the police for shouting ‘Rubbish!’ as Herr Schumacher trundled wearily towards another ten points and umpteen squillion euros for not having to try awfully hard.

Predictably, nothing had happened by the tenth lap, so I allowed myself to nod off for a few minutes. The Circuit du Catalunya has that effect on you even when driving on it. I piloted a  ‘hot’  (please don’t laugh) Vauxhall Vectra round the place a few years ago and  was roundly chastised by a marshal for parking on the exit of the next but last corner and toddling off to get a Fanta from the little shop under the grandstand.

My explanation that I was dreadfully bored by the whole experience and would rather be mowing the lawn didn’t’t go down too well and I was sent back to my Barcelona hotel in something approaching disgrace.

Anyway, Madame gently shook me from my somnolent state to say that the brutish Colombian fellow with the eyebrows had run over his mechanic, a gentleman dressed in the type of apparel they wear in the inner city when robbing the off licence. 

I explained that this is a Colombian thing that occasionally happens when the perpetrator has mislaid his firearm and is unable to commit anything more interesting - and anyway the mechanics are so poorly paid that they need a nocturnal job to keep the bailiffs from the door.

But I propped open my keekers, feigned interest, and had a look. As far as I could see, when most of the chaps were starting their last lap Herr Cobbler was sitting down to dinner.

Mind you, Messrs Irvine and de la Rosa lot had already eaten and were out on the town by then. Next time the entire Jaguar team should wear jester’s hats with bells on them, as the only plausible explanation for their continued presence is to give spectators a chuckle.

But as a procession the ‘race’ had a certain charm. People politely waved others through while they were otherwise occupied, such as sending text messages to the young lady in the third row of the stand or surreptitiously mulling over crosswords stuck to their steering wheel.

I have taken part in more exciting funeral processions. One such happened eight years ago. We were en route to the crematorium and some stray motorists got caught up in the inevitable peleton (Tour de France expression. Look it up). Decorum insists that should such a thing happen to members of the public, they will stay in line and make their escape once the hearse has reached its destination.

The cars we collected adhered strictly to this rule at first, but one got a bit miffed travelling at five mph and decided to break ranks. Unfortunately he elected to do so when halfway round a corner, hauling the steering wheel to the right and promptly colliding with one of those data express type vans that seem to be in the thick of every accident that occurs nowadays.

Our impatient friend then bounced from the side of the van and into the rear of the hearse, causing the doors to swing open and the newly deceased to be propelled backwards and into the bonnet of the limousine containing the chief mourners.

Things got quite interesting at this point. With nobody seriously injured - especially the deceased - and some of the mourners having been allowed early access to the bar, a small fight broke out.

Gentlemen of a certain age, splendidly attired in morning suits, were feebly flailing at the unfortunate motorist who in turn was being vigorously pummelled by the van driver. Naturally several ladies in black coats trimmed with fox fur joined in, generally striking their own menfolk about the head with rolled-up implements while proclaiming themselves mortally embarrassed.

Personally I think you can avoid mortal embarrassment by not getting involved in any such fracas, especially when it occurs on the Queen’s Highway.

Interestingly enough, when the constabulary finally arrived and order was restored, the only arrest they made was the driver of the hearse who turned out to be quite uproariously drunk.

Personally I thought he had behaved with great dignity throughout. But nothing is ever what it seems. 

ANOTHER OPENING, ANOTHER SHOW MISSED

The advent of winter is always an alarming time of year. Young ladies dress as Eastern        European military personnel for the next six months, the house heating fails, roofs leak - and the motor industry does its annual Mickey Rooney impersonation, dragging out C-list showbiz creeps and deciding to stage appallingly bad motor shows.

Reason enough to flee the country for a week or two, which is why I hired American Airlines to transport me to Florida via Chicago.

The AA waitresses, (flight attendants, they call themselves) wear men’s suits and are quite bossy. Even feeding time has you a bit edgy when these creatures arrive with the trolley and nasally ask “Wha’ you wanna eat?”

One look at the proffered mush and you wave them away. A nibble at the old shirt cuff is preferable - and probably more nutritious.

But they did manage to get me to Chicago on time, transfer me to a smaller aircraft, supply another burly waitress and offer me more food - albeit I would have to pay for it this time. I refused and started on my second sleeve.

What seemed like several days after starting out, I found myself on the familiar springy turf that is Orange County and went out to enjoy a stroll in 90 degrees of heat, completely forgetting that walking in Orange County is not something the local law enforcement agencies can begin to understand - especially if you are not back indoors by nightfall.

To LeeRoy and BillyRae, the very act of not being in a car is a signal that you are about to commit an act of rascality such as relieving old ladies of their Halloween pumpkins or taking part in an illegal bout of alligator wrestling, possibly with a certain amount of drinking thrown in, turning misdemeanour into felony.

However they know me well enough by now and I got away with it, suffering nothing other than a blister. At least I thought it was a blister until I switched on Mr. Baird’s box and was confronted by a local GP promising to rid my feet of fungus, odour and fatigue while simultaneously perambulating in magic carpet fashion.

As I had forgotten to collect a Jaguar XK8 Platinum Convertible that was awaiting me at the airport, courtesy of young Dibble, foolishly hiring a Daewoo Lanos instead, some walking would be necessary - if only to get the red flush from my features.

I would consult the good Doc. Brushing off Madam’s protestations that my feet didn’t need a blast of the old fungicide, (oddly enough she didn’t mention odour), and I tootled forth.

“How are you today?” enquired the affable tootsies fixer. “And that will be forty-five dollars.”

This was a registration fee, charged in advance in case I listened to his wise counsel and then did a runner. Lots of his patients do this, he told me, his smile disappearing in favour of a more lugubrious expression.

“Good feet,” he said. “Especially for someone so venerable. I don’t think you need any anti-fungus potion, but you do need more substantial footwear. My brother has a shoe shop nearby and will fix you up. That will be another forty five dollars.”

“This is dreadful,” I spluttered. “The only person who ever charges so much for so little is my psychiatrist - and she only gets away with it because she looks like Miss Melinda Messenger.”

The Doc, being a foreign gentleman, required some sort of description of Miss MM. By the time I had finished we were both in acute tongue-lolling mode and I was able to negotiate a reduction often dollars. The Doc, in turn, proceeded to negotiate some after surgery dalliance with his secretary. It is nice to bring some sunshine into other people’s drab little lives.

Anyway, this is how I came to be wearing the kind of footwear much favoured by the young whippersnappers who write (very badly, it has to be said) on motoring for less August publications than this one.

I didn’t like ‘em at first, but sort of grew into them. In fact they were something of a snip at forty five dollars plus a registration fee.

Unfortunately they cause me to drive rather erratically in the Daewoo. It is an automatic, our American friends not being able to grasp the complexities of shifting gears using hand and foot at the same time, so planting a size eleven on the pedal means getting both at the same time. Simultaneous braking and accelerating comes a second nature to the likes of Colin McRae, but on Interstate 4 is considered very anti-social indeed.

LeeRoy said as much when making enquiries into why a Daewoo came to be parked in a little piece of swamp outside Uncle Ruben’s Confederate Delicatessen when the aforementioned establishment has a car park the size of the 18^th fairway at St. Andrews.

I didn’t tell him about the boots. He probably has a brother who is a cobbler - and I don’t have another forty five dollars to hand.

A FINE MADNESS

The doctor has kindly allowed me to resume pecking at my keyboard in exchange for a substantial cheque, so I am now able to report on the launch of SEAT’s new Ibiza range.

Optimistically I left home with no real idea as to my final destination, other than that it was in Surrey somewhere. This turned out to be a grave error on my part. A driver collected me at the airport and 45 minutes later delivered me to a place that seemed disturbingly familiar.

It was Wittering Hall, an establishment that had been used by Citroen last year and wherein I had blotted the old copy book, unwittingly of course, but rather spectacularly.

Some subterfuge was obviously called for otherwise recriminations would follow, so, the old coat collar turned up, I booked in as ‘John Smith’ hoping against hope that there had been a 100% staff turnover since last summer.

It seemed to work. A nice young man showed me to my quarters and was kind enough to refuse my offer of a generous tip, to be charged directly to SEAT. Resolving to be on my very best behaviour I presented myself on the parade ground, motor cars to be driven and that sort of frolic.

The SEAT people turned me loose in a variety of cars, from 1.2 litre petrol driven thingies that sounded quite asthmatic, to a full-throated, 130 bhp, 1.9 litre  diesel that made more noise than Pavarotti down at the old cantina on karaoke night. The latter was such a splendid machine that I took it out twice, frightening lots of livestock and a rather precious young male pedestrian in very suspect trousers.

The SEAT people seemed impressed when I enthused over the car and then rashly promised to buy one. They invited me to the bar, which was of course what I had been angling for all along. The barman, a sturdy Canadian, was persuaded to unearth the bottle of absinthe that I remembered as being hidden round the back of the refrigerator. With my glass charged I settled down to an evening of bonhomie and chat with a young lady journalist who seemed to be new to this motoring business, as she didn’t’t know who I was, but clearly thought I was important. Nice lady. Should do very well.

It was an excellent evening except that it went a bit sour when the clock struck midnight and my request for a night cap was refused, politely but firmly.

“Can’t let you have any more,” said the barman, “you have already exceeded the amount I am allowed by law to sell you. Another snort and madness could result, not to mention impotence.”

“Too late,” chorused my jolly companions, “the old coot has been both for years.”

Must remember to find new friends. Anyway I tottered off to my room, sprawled on my cot and happily watched lots of exotic butterflies emerging from the wallpaper and fluttering gracefully around my tootsies. Good stuff, the old absinthe.

Came the dawn and the butterflies had disappeared but my toes were still there. I stumbled across the courtyard in search of breakfast, realised it was only six o’clock and changed tack, taking a constitutional around a nearby lake.

The chef reported for duty at eight and I was already at the table, knife and fork firmly in my grasp, as a brace of waitresses hovered around. In fact they never stopped hovering. Every time I twitched one or both would approach to within a couple of feet, watching my every move.

One of them smiled a lot and on occasion seemed to be permanently on the verge of a fit of the giggles. I surreptitiously checked my apparel and found everything to be in order, but all of this hovering was beginning to cause some comment among the other breakfasters, so I resolved to get to the bottom of things.

“You think know who I am, don’t you?” I said.

She nodded. “You are the gentleman who was seen going into the underwater ballroom (yes- the place has a ballroom under the lake) at midnight last year. Next morning the grounds man discovered the ballroom was flooded and we had to call out the fire brigade to pump it out. It has been closed for repairs ever since.”

Oh dear.

I hastily finished off the toast and scampered back to meet the SEAT people, claiming I needed yet more driving to complete my assessment of the new cars. They exchanged sideways glances and arched eyebrows, but acceded even though they knew deep down that my motive was on the ulterior side.

“Great car,” I said when I returned and immediately began to get ready to escape in the direction of the airport.  “Really must buy one.”

“You said that yesterday. We didn’t believe it then either. By the way, do you happen to know anything about that water being pumped out of the ballroom? There has been some talk in the dining room.”

“Absolutely not,” I replied. “And I never touched your butterflies.”

THE UNINVITED GUEST

I should have been off to Brighton or some such watering hole this week as a guest of the sons of Nippon.

They sent me a cordial invitation, to which I replied in similarly convivial vein, promising to turn up, face washed and trousers neatly pressed, to help them launch their new range of Primera family saloons. I know, it was jolly nice of me, all things considered, but with men in suits still launching themselves off the top of tall buildings in Tokyo as a result of being suddenly rendered very poor, a bit of a leg up seemed to be in order.

I was therefore in somewhat of a righteous mode when I toddled off to Bracknell to have a sniff around the new BMW 7 Series machinery, the pre-publicity for which suggested it would be a whole lot of fun.

All relative I suppose. If some people think fun is sitting in a lay-by for half an hour trying to get to grips with the most complicated system of electronic control gubbins ever devised by people who are not certifiably mad, then fine. For my part I could have done without it, especially since I couldn’t even get the satellite navigation system to work properly.

This was a great disappointment as I had cunningly suggested to my co-driver that I should do the morning stint and he could drive us back in the afternoon. Licence to get totally ratted at lunch, topped off by a snooze in the back seat and a peaceful flight home in the afternoon. Would have worked too, except for my inability to master the electrics that BMW say they have installed “to clear up the proliferation of knobs” cluttering up today’s dashboards.

Actually I like knobs. All you have to do is press or turn them and something happens, even if it is only the bonnet springing open when you are in the fast lane of the motorway. Keeps the old adrenaline pumping.

Anyway, I was dreadfully sober and quite lacking in self esteem on my return to Flywheel Towers, but immediately cheered up when I remembered that all I had to do was to put on a clean shirt and head for Brighton for more driving and, possibly, an opportunity to try out my new binoculars down at the nudist beach.

But then it all went lopsided. I checked my e-mail and found a terse message from the sons of thingy to the effect that, since one of their new cars was being delivered to me that very day, perhaps I could amuse myself playing with that instead of joining them for driving, dinner, drinks, binocular testing etc.

Bad form. I mean, you don’t invite a chap to a place like Brighton and then uninvited him a couple of days later, even if you suddenly remember that the last time he turned up  the hotel mysteriously caught fire or there was some unpleasantness involving a late night visit from the constabulary.

Mentioned as much to old Buffer down at the Elvis Impersonators’ Club that evening and he said not to mind, I was invited to a party on the same day.  It would also be a much more lively affair than tripping over the ancient theatricals and boatloads of bedraggled foreigners asking the way to the nearest Social Security office that you encounter on the south coast these days.

It was too. Most of the people there hadn’t clapped eyes on me for three decades or more, so although they had a deep-seated feeling that they should be settling old scores, they couldn’t quite remember what these were about and ended up buying me drinks instead. After all, not many people can number A-list rascals among their party guests, so by and large I was very well received.

Some even took an interest in my new Primera, asking all sorts of technical questions about it such as where I parked it at night and was the area well lit, texting the answers on their Nokias to someone called Sid, or perhaps it was Bert.

I explained that, like the BMW, it had all sorts of valuable electronics on board, half of the functions being completely incomprehensible to persons such as myself who had never been in the trade, but that I had found the car ideal for taking artefacts to the local skip. It had even swallowed a refrigerator, so there was definitely a market for it out there.

Apparently Sid and Bert are very much into the business of nocturnal transport, occasionally carried out at high speed and without lights, and were very impressed to hear of this. The sons of whatnot driver is due to collect the car tomorrow. I hope he won’t leave it too late.

REINVENTING THE WHEEL

Having been instructed by Madame (last warning to this effect) to become as rich as I am famous, I have taken to the basement. It is my intention to invent something or other that will provide me with almost as much satisfaction as it does cash. Thereafter you may contact me c/o Mustique Post Office. Failing that I will be billeted in Raffles Hotel, Singapore.

The reason why I have decided on invention rather than some more physical form of toil is that it is something of a passing skill. When we were at school our heads were filled with nonsense about who invented what, when and where. Usually the correct answer to the old “Who invented the….?” examination question depended on where you lived. If the subject was television then you could select from Baird in Scotland, Rosing in Russia or Ives, Jenkins and Farnsorth in the United States. 

All of these gentlemen worked independently of each other around the same period, but it was Jenkins who first demonstrated a working television, in Washington, in 1925. Baird produced a remarkably similar model, but with added sound, four months later.

Nowadays, of course, nothing gets invented. Items such as video recorders, Morris Marinas, digital cameras, John Prescott and the internet just sort of accumulate in dusty corners, so it is time we took the process back to grass roots.

It helps if one is totally mad, of course. Edison was a fruit and nutcase who publicly electrocuted stray pooches in order to prove that his direct current form of electricity worked better than the rival Westinghouse AC system. Similarly an elephant was felled (after a great deal of effort) in order to persuade some American states to invest in electric chairs, naughty persons for the efficient despatching of.

My favourite was Goodyear, of sticky rubber fame. He spent years and several fortunes (none of them his) flailing around in an attempt to make something useful out of the black stuff. His best effort before blowing up his wife’s kitchen was a rubber mailbag, but his laboratory work suffered due to an unfortunate knack of getting thrown in the clink every now and again for owing sundry citizens large amounts of cash. He never did invent the car tyre that nowadays carries his name, but he was good fun while he was around.

One of the few who wasn’t completely unhinged didn’t actually invent anything at all, but made plenty of the folding stuff nevertheless. He was George B. Shelden, an unscrupulous patent lawyer. According to Bill Bryden’s excellent book ‘Made in America’ Shelden overheard tales of people beavering away in workshops in an attempt to create an automobile. Realising that such a creation would be a winner, George B. took out a patent on something that didn’t exist called a ‘road engine.’ When cars finally did make it to the streets he enjoyed royalties for the best part of two decades on something that had nothing whatsoever to do with him.

They are still out there, except for the gent who tied a rocket to his back in Nevada a couple of years back. He got the forward propulsion bit to work, but forgot to devise a method of stopping. He is still embedded in the side of a mountain and has become something of a tourist attraction. People eat burgers underneath his imprint and remark on its similarity to that of Wile. E. Coyote.

Sadly, most of the best ideas have gone, especially in the automotive field. When I was but a lad, the neighbourhood was awash with crafty gents who could make cars run on water. Their photographs used to appear in the local newspaper, along with the usual “I Saw it Work - Exclusive - by our Staff Reporter.” This was always the prelude to a visit from the nice man from the oil industry. Tea would be taken, a substantial cheque handed over, and water would revert to being stuff that Mum put in the washing machine every Friday.

It doesn’t work anymore. Last time I heard of the old heavy water trick it was the Red Army who were after the payola. They invited one or two of our more unsteady friends from the UK motoring press to sip a vodka or two while watching soldiers adding 50% water to the diesel tanks of their trucks. These vehicles would then be driven for a hundred kilometres or so before the first of the “I Saw it Work” pieces were filed. It was all to do with the sub-zero temperatures and the differing densities of the stuff in the tanks. Run for any more than 100 kilometres, the trucks would seize up. Many did, and have become tourist attractions in various parts of Siberia, although they are not as interesting as our Nevada rocket man and you can’t get a decent burger anywhere in the vicinity.

Anyway, enough of this nonsense - I have work to do

      Chapter Eight

TYRANNOSAURUS CHADWICK

“Do you realise,” my companion muttered from the depths of his magazine, “that we are the dinosaurs of this noble profession  (he thinks pecking at keyboards for money is noble) as, according to the latest dismal sales figures for newspapers, our heirs and successors will be forced into real employment?”

Of course I realised. In fact I have been waiting to be rumbled for the past 30 years or so, but being some sort of dinosaur sounds fine to me. In fact I may borrow a lot of money under a false name and buy a Dodge Viper, the nearest thing you can get to a mechanical brontosaurus... With such a machine I could single-handedly pollute an area the size of Milton Keynes, simultaneously hastening the end of the world’s reserves of fossil fuels.

It could be an enjoyable last hurrah. Madame has been carefully recycling cans, bottles and newspapers for years, seeing it as her sacred duty to leave the planet in good shape for our great-great grandchildren. On the other hand I don’t give a fig for the possibly pending rascals. After all, I don’t know them. I would probably not like them very much if I did, as no doubt they would do all sorts of dreadful things to my frail self, such as screwing down the lid of my commode or using my best white wines to make a sauce for their Big Macs.

Anyway, while we have been po-facedly going about our politically correct business in silly things like the Ford Ka or Perodua Nippa, our American friends continue to have all the fun. Their government has wisely opted to have nothing to do with saving the planet. The Americans are upping their 75% share of world pollution each year by more than those earnest nations peopled by citizens wearing beards and sandals save by switching off the fridge in winter. My good friends Cletus and BillyRae, being patriotic Sons of the Revolution, putter happily around Orange County on law enforcement business behind the wheel of what was originally a standard a Police Department Ford V6. They turned into a V10 in Crazy Sven’s barn, courtesy of converting a few speeding tickets into dollars. I admire their style.

I mean, did Ug and Og, two Neanderthal gentlemen who used to live in what is now Macedonia, worry about us when they chucked their spears at the world’s last woolly mammoth? Of course not. And when did you last hear anyone in the member’s lounge bewail the fact that he had a red setter when he really wanted a mammoth instead?

Just last weekend Madame and self attended a Mazda driving exercise in the People’s Republic of Scotland, which Mr. Blair, having had no success in sorting out Zimbabwe, is currently attempting to have expelled from the Commonwealth.

En route to our chambers we encountered a couple of large white animals with impressive antlers. They weren’t doing a lot other than sticking their heads out of the wall, having been rendered extinct by a previous owner of the establishment, circa 1937.

I have no idea what species they are/were, but they looked perfectly happy with their current situation, given that their natural fate would have been to perish in a forest somewhere and then be nibbled at by wolves - possibly before they were ready to be nibbled.  I put it to the members of my little club over dinner that we could similarly preserve The Boy and Mr. Grumpy for future generations, but someone pointed out that the constabulary might not be pleased. Besides, neither has antlers and one is not very pleasing to the eye, even if he does have all his own teeth.

The Mazda people are very nice and their chief representative, shortly before being plied with drink my our ensemble and lapsing into a coma, allowed me to venture out in a selection of machines, from the little MX-5 two-seater, to a 323, Premacy and Tribute. Dropping an engine from each of them into the aforementioned Ford still wouldn’t have equalled its sheer muscle, but they offer people such as you and me a reliable means of tootling to the shops without either becoming over-excited or worryingly poor.

In fact our Japanese friends are very much into saving the planet and all its creatures, unless you happen to be a whale or a dolphin, in which case you are allowed to be sceptical. Their cars nowadays are nudging the 100% recyclable goal which - when achieved - means that instead of looking on tearfully as it is dragged away to the scrap yard at the end of its automotive equivalent of three score years and ten, you can eat it.

Far fetched? Not a bit of it. After all, Eddie Irvine (yes - in a Jaguar) has just managed to grab fourth place in a Grand Prix while Minardi, by virtue of finishing third last, sparked off the wildest celebrations Australia has seen since Kylie Minogue announced she was moving to England.

There are sillier things out there than dinosaurs wearing straggly moustaches, believe me.

GOODNIGHT, MR MILLIGAN

Back in the early days of evolution, when I was The Boy, rather than the comfortable old curmudgeon I have since become, I can recall setting off on one of my first-ever vehicle launch assignments. Nothing as glamorous as the introduction of the Austin Allegro or Talbot Horizon, but a trip to Spain to drive a new Ford Transcontinental truck - all 38 tonnes of it - from Valencia to the Fiesta plant in Bordeaux.

It would be a relaxing venture, the Ford people assured me, adding the rider that I shouldn’t stop in Pamplona because the regular driver was wanted in that burgh as a result of some indiscreet dalliances with local senoras of the heavily married sort. Best to keep moving. Valuable cargo of transmission parts much needed at the factory - that sort of thing.

As it was to be an early flight to Spain I was billeted the night before at the Savoy in London, which was an agreeable sort of arrangement. Unfortunately, being rather unworldly, I was totally unaware of the prevailing form. I didn’t know that I could dine in the hotel for free (in fact I half expected to be handed an enormous bill for the room) or even do dreadful damage to the minibar without financial penalty, so I decided to tootle off to the Covent Garden area, there to seek out a modest brasserie and, with a bit of luck, acquire some new friends of the, ahem, variety.

It was a pleasant Spring evening and the office workers had all gone off to their bijou little council apartments in Acton, leaving the city centre to road sweepers, opera patrons, pimps, comic singers and strolling about-to-be truck drivers, sans HGV licences,  such as myself. I dined modestly on Danish open sandwiches (quite fashionable in those days) at a pavement table and enjoyed a cup or two of Italian coffee so genuine that it made your eyes briefly water and then pop out as if on stalks.

As it happened I didn’t meet any senoras, but was quickly accosted by a gentleman wearing the type of garb favoured by colourful chaps such as Mr. George Melly. He introduced himself as chairman of the Covent Garden Resident‘s Association, pre-empting the obvious question by stating that not many people knew the area had any residents, apart from the odd cauliflower or bag of sprouts left behind after the market chaps had gone home. He would show me around.

Naturally I was on my guard, given the cut of his jib, but he seemed too frail to pose any real threat to my well-being and besides, it was still daylight, so I relaxed and let him take me on the grand tour, pointing out who lived here, had lived there and couldn’t afford to pay their mortgages anyway since the rates were stratospheric because London was run by the KGB.

Occasionally I would try to propel him towards some interesting little establishments featuring photographs of alluring ladies outside, but he would have none of it, steering me carefully through a sort of cultural ‘Down your Way.’

After a while I decided that things weren’t really going to get much better, so we dropped into a bar near the opera house and had a tincture or two with people in dinner suits who mingled happily with scene shifters, front of house operatives and sundry other representatives drawn from the local theatrical scene.

Come throwing out time we were back in the street, bidding each other farewell, when a Mini whizzed round the corner and then stopped opposite, its cessation of movement punctuated by three distinct lurching movements, each removing significant slices of life expectancy from the front tyres.

A thin, vaguely familiar, figure emerged from the passenger door, the other having resisted his half-hearted attempt to open it, dragged himself upright and, holding up one hand to stop any following traffic, pointed the other at my good self in dramatic style. “Arrest that man,” he shouted to the populace at large. “He is committing the worst moustache I have ever seen.”

I was quite alarmed, especially as the landlord was by now bolting the front doors of his hostelry, so there was little prospect of downing something to lessen my shock at this unwarranted verbal assault on my upper lip.

“Not to worry,” smiled the landlord. “He doesn’t mean any harm. Just his little way of having fun.” He snapped the last bolt into place pulled the other half of the door outwards, turned a large key in the lock and waved cheerfully at my tormentor.

“Goodnight, Mr. Milligan.”

“Goodnight, George.”

Spike Milligan said his last goodnight this week. George, myself, and many others will miss him terribly.

PHARMACEUTICALS AND THE RETURN OF MADAME

While Madame was off cavorting with our Maori friends, I made a bit of a mess of things on the domestic front.

I now know that you don’t put a whole packet of powder into the washing machine every time you need a clean shirt. Similarly it is a mistake to purchase a month’s supply of steaks and expect them to keep, unfrozen, without becoming very poisonous indeed.

Which is why Madame (who is now back) is not pleased and I have been unwell for weeks. Such is my feverish state that a scheduled overnight stay after sampling the latest Kia Shuma had to be abandoned. I bravely managed the car driving bit, but the 1.8 SE just didn’t respond to my robotic style of shifting gears and lethargic twirling the steering wheel. After an hour of this it gave up and adopted the manner of an ancient donkey, doing just enough to get me wherever I wanted to go, but demonstrating little appetite for the trip.

I’m sure it was all down to me. After all, Kia has managed to turn out some very tasty machinery over the past year or so, so once I get back to rude good health I shall have another bash at it.

Anyway, good job I sloped off home when I did. The Kia exercise coincided with my birthday and word filtered through to the effect that Mr. Angry and The Boy planned to debag me after dinner and had arranged transport to somewhere dreadful, such as a lap dancing establishment. Had they succeeded and Madame got wind of it, my only recourse would be to dash to the Afghanistan Embassy and ask for asylum.

And so it was that a night on the town metamorphosed into an evening spent in front of Mr. Baird’s box, nursing a glass of mulled wine, all the while fervently hoping that Madame would not notice the depleted state of the drinks cabinet.

Our American friends were hosting a little jamboree in Salt Lake City and doing what they do best - winning without any grace whatsoever. Someone should tell them that this could be one of the reasons why they are not universally popular. In fact I was just about to do so when one of their skaters, destined for a silver medal for being best loser, took a blatant dive and managed to get the Korean winner disqualified. Bad form. Chaps have been thrown out of my club for a lot less.

Still, we had lots of fun scanning the Mormon Tabernacle Choir  for Chrysler PR people and trying to catch a  glimpse of Cletus, who had e-mailed to the effect that he would be at the Grits n’ Moonshine stand just under the ski jump. Assuming, of course, that he could find out where Utah was in relation to Tallahassee. Don’t think he made it. Come to think of it, he has never found Tallahassee.

I brightened up somewhat when the inevitable doping stories broke. Even going downhill on two planks nowadays seems to be impossible unless you have been rendered glassy-eyed, so I scribbled down what the French sawbones at the press conference said they had been scoffing. It has been added to my shopping list and may be taken before my next encounter with the Shuma. I will ask the Kia people to lower the suspension and fit racing tyres.

Should have been at some Ford do or other last weekend, but was still under the weather and had to content myself by reading the annual interview with young Mr. Coulthard, who says, (as he does every year at this time ),  that  the F1 title will be his come the end of the season. Don’t blame the young chap at all, especially after witnessing that Australian fella at the Salt Lake pharmaceuticals taking a gold medal for watching everyone else in his race falling down and then daintily stepping over them on his way to the podium.

When miracles such as this occur, there must even be some hope for Mr. Eddie Irvine. Our little syndicate is currently running a sweep, the object being to guess the precise moment when he will disappear into the kitty litter at the upcoming Australian GP. Most of the chaps have opted for the first bend, but as I detected a little improvement in his form towards the tail end of last season, I have given him three laps.

Anyway, must go. Madame, feeling peckish while I was on Kia business, ate one of my steaks and has now taken to the four-poster. She is quite poorly, more than somewhat grouchy, and has demanded to see the household accounts for the past month. The grilling could be the most intense since that endured by Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. I could be in a bit of trouble.

HOME ALONE

I should be penning this piece from Sardinia, where Fiat is currently allowing people to play with the new Stilo, but I’m not. Last week there were hundreds of Italians shooting at me on the outskirts of Rome and I have heard that their Sardinian cousins are even better with the flintlocks. So, head down, Sam Browne belt tightened, I am on the ramparts of Chadwick Manor instead, awaiting the arrival of a smart car. Those German fellows who make it, (wish they had a font with capital letters on it so’s I could write ‘Smart’ instead of ‘smart’), have threatened me with yet another one. Apparently they didn’t like the last piece I wrote and are about to exact dreadful revenge.

Normally I would just dismiss such threats out of hand, but at I am in a weakened state. I haven’t eaten for three days, which is not like me at all.

Chadwick Minor was summoned and instructed to ask Madame what was going on or, more accurately, not going on, in the kitchen. He returned some hours bearing news that she has gone off to some Southern Hemisphere colony or other. Family business to attend to, that sort of thing. Actually I wondered why the nights have seemed a little chilly of late, what with nothing under the duvet on which to warm my tootsies.

Anyway, seems she has kindly left a map giving the precise location of some electric cooking instrument, so Minor has gone to find it. Chadwick Even More Minor is outside. He is equipped with a blunt instrument and has instructions to bludgeon to death any passing creature that looks edible. We are a resilient lot.

Still no sign of the smart, which means there is time to make the brown paper bags, (essential wear when driving one of these things), even more elaborate. Rufus Minor has given mine an Oliver Hardy haircut, sticky-on ears and little black moustache. It looks splendid and can be adapted for use on this weekend’s Barcelona frolic with Honda.

If you happen to pick up a Catalonian Sunday newspaper and read that the aforesaid Mr. Hardy has been arrested for setting fire to that dreadful Picasso museum you will know it is really me. My defence fund is permanently open in case you feel like sending a cheque.

The last time I encountered a smart car it was full of Chinese people. There were fifteen of them living in it, which I thought rather dreadful and telephoned the constabulary. This dismayed the smart people no end as shoehorning lots of foreign people into the car turned out to be some sort of publicity stunt. I would like to see them try the same trick with sheep. Inspector Giblet of the RSPCA would be right round there with his pencil and notebook...

In fact I may ring Giblet when the car arrives and have the gearbox put down - you will know all about that little bag of tricks from my earlier ramblings. Suffice to say you won’t find it being slotted into young Mr. Coulthard’s McLaren Mercedes this year. Might make him go too quickly.

Meanwhile, bad news from below stairs. Chadwick Minor has located the cooker thing, but Madame seems to have hidden the ship’s biscuits. The only food we have managed to discover has been stored in something called a Frigidaire. This is a metal box that must have been left outside during the recent cold spell as everything inside is frozen.

Even More Minor isn’t doing much better. To date he has come up with nothing other than several snails, a few grubs and a decomposing seagull that he found in next door’s coal shed. Looks as though we may have to resort to robbing the cat’s dish - if we can find out where the cat has hidden it.

‘What about getting some of your friends round,’ whimpered Even More. ’Some of them are quite worldly and may know where ordinary people go to buy food.’

Hah! Inviting that lot round would be a sure-fire method of being dragged up before m’lud. The Boy would enter into serious ahem with the lady next door, probably without her consent. Messrs Angry and Grumpy would make off with the entire contents of my wine cellar - and possibly a car or two - while the rest of ’em would destroy my new roof. Better to suffer stoically.

But what’s this? The smart delivery driver has telephoned to ask for directions as to how to approach our policies. We have furnished him with same and given him a list of grocery items to collect en route. He says he knows how to work supermarket trolleys. What’s a supermarket?

Wonder if he knows how to light the gas on an Aga - I can’t seem to find the ignition switch anywhere. And there’s another thing. Have you ever seen what you have to do to fire up a smart?

But that’s another story. Meanwhile it looks as though I’ll make it to Madrid after all.

OF SEAWEED, DAISY CHAINS AND PARALLEL DEER

Normally I quite like storms. In fact I have been known to tune into those obscure satellite television channels showing endless re-runs of Caribbean hurricanes, Yangtse Delta floods and suchlike with something approaching interest before slipping into the Land of Nod. There is something wonderfully soporific about waves lashing on shingle and looters happily emptying Sid and Bert’s Beachfront Hi-Fi Emporium.

But just the other day I awoke to find that my newly reconstructed roof was making a determined attempt to remove itself to the next county, aided and abetted by winds gusting up to 140 mph. This was quite disturbing, especially since I had an urgent appointment in town.

A call or two to the local ferry operators confirmed that there would be no sailings that day. Something about the pier having disappeared and several small artefacts, such as ships, being unaccounted for.

Damned bad show if you ask me. You don’t get our friends in Allemagne bleating every time a barge shoots down the Rhine at high speed and beaches itself on Greenland. Not a bit of it; they simply build a new one and attach a stout rope from its stern to the town hall.

Anyway, much muttering later, I loaded myself into a Nissan X-TRAIL 4x4 and embarked on the perilous road route from my little estate to the city. At first all was well. Very well, in fact. The car was running so splendidly that frequent dabs on the brake pedal were required to keep it from reaching supersonic speed. Most unusual.

Dodging fallen trees and crazed men wielding chainsaws I soon reached open country where the footbrake had to be augmented by the handbrake in order to keep the prevailing velocity to a level that would be acceptable to M’lud.

And then came the dream sequence. Firstly a deer came bounding past my offside, travelling in the same direction as myself at a rate that would put it well beyond the claws of the nearest cheetah. Deer aren’t supposed to do this, so for a moment I considered the possibility of harnessing this wonderful animal, whipping off its horns and entering it in the St. Leger as an Irish-bred four year old. Young Frankie Dettori could ride it and I would be wildly rich. After all, the starting price would be very much in my favour.

Couldn’t catch the thing though. It flew over a fence and into the trees as I swept round the bend and ran into the sea!

I had a perfectly valid excuse in that the sea wasn’t where it normally is, but had shifted from the bit full of fishes and shrimp to Mrs. Merriweather’s garden. This involved crossing a road and any X-TRAILS that happened to be negotiating same.

Quite alarming, especially since the sudden ingress of salty liquid rendered the braking system momentarily dead while simultaneously depositing an impressive quantity of crustaceans on the bonnet. It was  to be some miles before the last of the debris fell off. By this time, however, I was high in the mountains and everything else was rapidly going downhill.

A truck in front of me suddenly raised both of its offside axles and impersonated a large dog when it encounters a particularly attractive piece of shrubbery. It then fell on its side, which dogs never do, and those of us behind it slithered to a stop and gallantly sprang out of our vehicles in a bid to assist the hapless driver.

By this time the wind wasn’t a wind anymore, but a natural phenomenon. Several of us found ourselves, snouts in a bog, about 100 yards east of the stricken vehicle as a result of being blown off our feet as we attempted to affect a rescue.

We quickly introduced ourselves and worked out a plan involving crawling back the way we had come on all fours, something a cluster of sheltering sheep seemed to find most amusing. I heard later that one of these animals had tried to mate with the gentleman at the rear, but it seemed rather indiscreet to ask if this was in fact the case.

We made it back to the truck, knees sodden, jackets flapping and with the loss of one toupee and the top half of a set of false teeth, to find the emergency services had arrived and were briskly crawling about their business.

At this point there were a couple of loud explosions, like close-range gunfire, that sent us toppling into the bog again. “Italians,” I shouted. “Beggars have been after me ever since the Hyundai launch in Rome.”  

There was a period of lying doggo, exchanging business cards and promising to pass on final requests to loved ones should any of us survive, before a large policeman approached on all fours to report that a Nissan X-TRAIL had lost its tailgate window and should be removed before those on its flanks suffered a similar fate or some sheep climbed in and gnawed at the upholstery.

I did as bade, turning tail and running for home, again shipping water as I passed Mrs. Merriweather’s garden, acquiring a seaweed necklace as a large wave swept through the void at the X-TRAIL’s  nether region. Wind? It may be on the Discovery Channel later.

I shall gloss over the subsequent telephone call to Nissan’s press office.

Chapter Nine

UNDER SIEGE

It isn’t very often that you get a queue at an hotel reception desk at three in the morning, but en route to Rome for a Hyundai Coupe bash last weekend there was just such a gathering at my London nesting spot.

“I require another room,” I said to the young lady who finally called me over.

“Is yours not satisfactory Sir?” she asked, sounding suitably concerned.

“Actually it is very nice,” I replied. “Unfortunately it seems to be on fire.”

Half an hour of activity involving fit young men in yellow waterproof trousers ensued. I was most impressed by the manner in which they sprang up the stairs with athletic ease, dragging hose reels. So much so that I resolved to write a note of commendation to the Home Office or whichever of Mr. Blair’s departments deals with such matters.

Everyone was very nice afterwards, but they took away all of my combustibles before allowing me entry to a bijou little place next to the air conditioning unit. I also had to promise not to return - ever.

At least it was a proper hotel. When we got to Rome I found myself locked in a mock castle which, I suspect, had been hastily designed by Walt Disney and completed the previous week.  My accommodation was a minimalist cell containing not much more than some firewood. I have to report that it wasn’t until I had burned most of this wood that I realized it was the furniture.

There was also a window much too small to make an escape from. Happily it was two doors away from that of my travelling companion Mr. Grumpy, who was being particularly sullen. He had spent most of the day keeping the carabinieri away from Mr. Angry. The latter had been up to his usual tricks, roaming around various airports shouting abuse at the passing citizenry, a sport frowned upon in many countries nowadays. Still, once tranquillised by drink he became agreeably harmless.

We had driven all of 50 miles to get to the castle, which was quite a feat considering our parched state.  The Boy took the first stint at the wheel and tried very hard to find some young ladies to impress, but the only ones we came across were provocatively stationed in the type of remote location that suggested they may have been business persons. Being the senior man I bade the youngster to avert his gaze and keep moving. I have to fund several tins of paint this month and have not allocated any spare cash to get involved in frolics that include ahem. Fiscal prudence and things.

The new Coupe is a decent excellent machine, especially when wearing its bigger 2.7 litre engine. It still sounds a bit muted, however, which is a pity. Mental notes were compiled involving Blitz filters and dump valves, rounded off by a fast road cam - all blowing through a big-mouthed Mongoose. Now that would be a top specification when attached to almost three litres of grunt.

Still, the Coupe remains competitively priced and is eminently suited to persons who may occasionally wish to travel quickly without coming to too much harm. I said as much to some of the Hyundai people on the ground and suffered no retribution. Some other companies have removed my Minibar key for much less.

Perhaps it was the natural politeness of persons from the Orient or maybe it was because at that precise moment a small war seemed to break out in the area. We heard staccato shots from the south and then an immediate answering volley from the north. By the time our flanks came under heavy  attack Mr. Angry had begun to organise a retreat - or at least a surrender involving attaching a white flag to The Boy and hoisting him above the parapet.

The approaching gunfire was most alarming. We found a suit of armour in the vestibule and briefly fought over it before discovering that it was bolted to the wall. So were the pikestaffs that went with it. No point in being totally stationary and unarmed  when under fire, so we took refuge in the bar where a waiter explained that the apparent mayhem occurring outside was  simply caused by the townspeople shooting blackbirds for dinner. Seemed a bit extreme, but it is always bad form to criticise local customs - especially when they involve firearms

We sought out The Boy to tell him the good news, but were too late. He had already fallen in love with at least six of the young ladies in the oasis and was convinced that his luck was in. Naturally it wasn’t. Five cruelly dumped him almost immediately while the sixth, (although she denies it vigorously) disappeared to enjoy Zimbabwean discussions with a young fella who does something or other on television.

However we have decided to put an end to The Boy’s suffering. I have booked an appointment for him to see my veterinary surgeon. The ol’ vet knows of an operation which will simultaneously take away unfounded hopes of success as well as the dreadful fear of rejection. It only costs fifty pounds. Well worth it if you ask me.

Got to go to Madrid now. Do they shoot things there too?

WITCHCRAFT AND ALL THAT JAZZ

Atishoo! Excuse me.

With two cars to launch this month Honda decided to save a few pesetas, stick them on the same bill, and whisk us off to Madrid.

It isn’t one of my favourite Spanish cities. For starters it is a bit like Rome, either magnificent or run down, with very little in between. It also has the most active graffiti artists on the planet, rascals who turn up at things such as bridge building projects, eagerly spraying colourful messages on each row of bricks almost before the mortar has set. Ol’ Franco would have had the tickly bits off the lot of ’em - mark my words.

The new Honda Jazz is such a delightful little machine that you tend to propel it along rather briskly. After all, it is considered extremely bad form on car launches to return to the oasis with things such as ’Viva Ronaldo’ sprayed on the vehicle’s flanks, no matter how attractive the lettering.

I enjoyed the Jazz so much that I even stayed awake during the sections undertaken by my co-driver, devotion to duty on a scale so impressive that the Honda people appeared to be genuinely moved. They offered me copious amounts of refreshment and platters of food (albeit tasting so dire it could have been prepared in one of Chadwick Minor’s old sports shoes).

Après paella we tootled off to a little jazz club in the city centre. This was more like it. The place was peopled by interesting citizens wearing hats and dark glasses. They spent a lot of time falling over bits of furniture as a result, even toppling into my lap on occasion, but that’s the price you pay for looking cool.

We were entertained by a little troupe called the Larry Martin Band. The band blew instruments at us, picked guitars and made a double bass go plonky-plonk. All very clever, but we only had eyes and ears for the singer, a dusky maiden with a voice that was a cross between Sarah Vaughn and Dinah Washington. There followed a falling in love session, full tongue-lolling, ga-ga stuff  on a scale unseen since the attempted seduction of that Russian dancer with the steel teeth who strutted her considerable stuff in the Monte Carlo Casino - and that was years ago.

Anyway my hosts decided that, in my maddened state, it would perhaps be better to have me dragged back to the hotel, but not before I managed to collect her number, a CD, (currently playing in my left ear), and signed photograph. I shall enjoy surreptitious glances at it on those occasions when Madame is somewhere else.

Back at barracks I somehow or other fell into the company of a very strange lady who turned out to be a witch. So she said anyway, and she certainly looked the part, what with pallid skin, big hair and all-black outfit. Quite why I seem to attract such unusual people is beyond me, but I am a civil sort of cove, so I said I was quite willing to let her cast a spell on me.

“What would you like me to do?” she asked.

I suggested going my room (314) where we could empty the minibar and perhaps discuss the current political situation in Uganda. An icy silence followed. Then there were muttered incantations, some peering into the middle distance with glazed eyes, (that was me), and a lot of shuddering, (not me), before she pronounced the spell in place.

“I have given you something of myself,” said the witch, “because I like you. I will, however, have to pay a forfeit as anytime I give anything of myself it is taken from me forever.”

By this time it was five in the morning and this was too deeply philosophical for me. Besides, the barman was asleep and we were due to have breakfast in two hours. I tottered off to my apartments, removed my shoes and fell into a warm bath. Unfortunately I was still partially clothed which was rather droll since I didn’t have another clean shirt with me.

I think I fell asleep, because all of a sudden the water seemed rather cold and I was fully awake. Mr. Angry was on the telephone demanding to know what time I proposed to make an entrance in the lobby and I had what was unmistakably a virulent attack of influenza.

We drove the Honda CR-V for the rest of the morning. I didn’t like it as much as the Jazz, but was greatly heartened when, halfway round the designated route, we came across the wicked witch dumping the residue of last night’s paella by the side of the motorway.

She had given me the sneezes and - as she had predicted - I had taken away something from her. OK, so it was only a pretty duff paella, but somehow it gave me a wonderful sense of satisfaction. After all, as I demonstrated a couple of years ago on my return from New Orleans, my voodoo really is a force to be reckoned with.

Besides, my heart belongs to Larry Martin’s singer. Pity about her name though. I mean, Doris Cales doesn’t have much of a ring to it.

Atishoo!

BOOTLEGGING AND HORIZONTAL DRIVING

I have just revisited the Cotswolds to have a prod at the new Citroen C3 and issue large hallos to all of my friends in what is a very affable company. They have good reason to be cheerful, having sold squillions of cars this year, trousering sack loads of euros while other unfortunates, such as Ford and Vauxhall, contemplate empty bank vaults and a lack of soap in the executive washrooms.

Having a poke around the new Citroen is all we were able to do as they don’t yet have any ready for rascals such as our little group, made up of my good self, Mr. Grumpy and The Boy, to rattle around in, all the while breaking off bits of trim and exciting the local constabulary. So, having dutifully stroked our chins at the static exhibit, we toddled off for dinner and a selection of chasers.

The meal was quite civilised, the highlight being the cabaret staged by a group of strolling players rejoicing in the name of Cosmic Sausage. They sang, danced, played instruments and then emptied my wine glass and nicked six cigarettes out of my travelling stock. This frolic was quite droll and much appreciated by the rest of the gathering. Personally I would rather have shared my cigarettes with a chanteuse such as young Miss Ellis-Bextor or even Miss Dido, (careful how you sub that one), but they are more expensive, even if they would probably bring their own supplies.

Mr. Grumpy was bemused by the whole thing as he has never quite grasped the concept of entertainment, but he didn’t hit anyone, which was nice. The Boy, possibly sensing an early night, had cleverly smuggled a very nice young gel into the establishment. Unfortunately the Citroen people discovered her and sent her into permanent exile. Understandable from their point of view, I suppose, but a bit of a shame nevertheless.

Anyway, our little band worked out a dastardly plan wherein she and The Boy would sneak off and have the first floor drawing room to themselves, for chatting and things. They would be supplied with drink at regular intervals by yours truly, while Mr. Grumpy kept the gendarmerie amused in the public bar. This worked very well for a while, but on my third run with refreshments I was intercepted on the stairs by Mme Clouseau, who demanded to know where I was going.

The explanation that I was a secret drinker taking refreshments to my chambers for nocturnal guzzling was met by an arched eyebrow and a look of ill-disguised disbelief. When you have acquired a reputation for doing certain things in public, protesting secrecy never goes down very well. The premises were promptly searched and that was the last I saw of The Boy until the next morning. I never did encounter the young lady again, even after looking around until five o’clock. Perhaps I imagined her.

It was all downhill after this. No sooner had I toppled into bed than it was time to get up for breakfast, to which I was summoned by a very loud telephone I stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom which, alas, turned out to be the corridor. By the time I realised as much the door had snapped shut behind me and there I was, sans clothes in a very public place.

For an hour or so I darted from cover to cover, desperately attempting not to alarm the general populace or - even worse - to be taken away by the authorities. In the end I was rescued by a maid who, being French, was quite used to nude gentlemen stalking the corridors. She let me back into my chambers and didn’t tell anyone. I shall send her a Christmas card and a handsome tip.

Safely home, I collected a MINI Cooper in which to carry my Christmas purchases. This turned out to be a cute and cuddly, (I’m still wondering where that young lady ended up), little machine, so much so that I briefly considered buying one with my own money.

Happily this notion didn’t last long. In fact it lasted about as long as the driver’s seat which, when the accelerator was prodded, immediately collapsed and propelled me backwards into the space normally occupied by rear seat passengers.

This was an alarming experience necessitating a degree of dexterity not usually found in persons of my longevity and I desperately struggled to regain a vertical position before colliding heavily with the scenery.

A period of mechanical examination and adjustment followed, but to no avail as I didn’t have a hammer.  The back rest was down and would not get up again. Of course the problem could have been solved by a visit to the Army & Navy store to acquire a periscope. However, although I was perfectly willing to place my trust in such an instrument, there were nagging doubts that traffic policemen, few of whom have served as submariners, may not take kindly to this style of driving.

I had to complete the journey to my little estate in a semi-standing position, head rubbing the roof lining, one elbow out of the window and an embarrassed expression on my handsome countenance. This was not me at all. I would have been better occupied staying in the Cotswolds, in the nude, sharing cigarettes with a group of strolling troubadours and waiting for that nice young woman to break cover.

THE PERILS OF IN-CAR SNOOZING

The current fad for people carriers, sport-utility vehicles and suchlike has spawned a whole new breed of advertising copywriters ready, willing and anxious to demonstrate just how many variations on the seating theme can be played in these oddball machines. If the truth be told, most were more practical when they were vans, as their original designers intended.

But occasionally you get a comfortable one, even if it isn’t capable of the 30 or more different seating combinations allegedly on offer in the Vauxhall Zafira.

I have been rumbling around this week in a splendid Hyundai Santa Fe, a rather odd vehicle designed in one country, built in another and which utilises systems created all over the place by companies such as Porsche. Must be a nightmare to work out production costs, but the net result is rather good.

In fact it is so comfortable that, on returning from a recent meeting of my fellow scribblers at some unearthly hour, I drove onto my usual late night ferry and proceeded to snuggle down for some deep breathing. The crossing generally takes about half and hour, so I instructed the young seaman who directed me to my parking place not to disturb me until I was ready to disembark.

Two minutes later I was in the Land of Nod. It subsequently transpired that I remained comatose for longer than anticipated, because when I arrived at home either someone had put the clocks forward by an hour and a half, or the rascals on the boat had ferried me back and forth several times in strict adherence to my instruction not to be disturbed.

This type of considerate behaviour makes a welcome change. In my experience - and no doubt yours too - pulling into a lay by and reclining the driving seat of your car is regarded in some quarters, notably the nearest calaboose, as a sinister act that requires immediate investigation.

I am convinced that we are all being watched by satellites strategically sited over even the most remote of stopping places. It is undoubtedly part of this Star Wars system that Tone and Dubya are developing, the idea being that they can hold snap elections as soon as a substantial number of the opposition are snoozing by the roadside, or scoffing in a Little Chef sited some distance from the nearest polling booth. Prescott probably masterminded this.

Whatever, to pull over means becoming instantly visible, as I have discovered. On one recent occasion, having driven the best part of three hundred miles through appalling traffic and equally dreadful weather after attending a car launch, I very sensibly decided that a rest was in order before I inadvertently drove off the road into the nearest bayou, there to be scoffed by some fierce creature with sharp teeth.

It was nearing 4 am; I was around 50 miles from the nearest hamlet and hadn’t seen another vehicle for about an hour. I coasted into a stopping place switched off the engine, pulled my coat over my head and began to drift off.

Only I didn’t get very far past the beginning bit before a posse of policemen surrounded the car, shining million watt flashlights in my face, poking around in the boot and all the while inviting me to blow into their Acme Mk II breathalyser. Where had they come from? Had there been a traffic department card school in the nearest thicket?

Naturally my breath was clean as a whistle, as I am a law-abiding citizen when driving around, especially at night, so they couldn’t get me on the old Section Six. This disappointed them no end, so they then embarked upon a thorough examination of the car’s lights, tyres, indicators and anything else likely to offer them the opportunity to drag me before m’lud - and this on a car no more than a month old!

Then came the Spanish Inquisition. Why was I where I was, what was I doing, didn’t I know it was the middle of the night and did I always wear a yellow necktie with cartoons of Tasmanian devils on it?

I patiently answered all of their questions to the best of my ability and then rather foolishly added that perhaps, somewhere in the vicinity, there were charlatans breaking into houses, abducting Susans, playfully hitting citizens on the head with blunt instruments and other anti—social wheezes, all of which may require a police presence.

Very bad mistake. One is apparently not allowed to suggest to the constabulary that they would be better employed keeping the peace than waking up any member of the citizenry who prefers to take a nap when it is prudent to do so, rather than carry on driving until the inevitable accident ensues.

I am too smart for my own good, they informed me. My card is marked. They know my number. They will be watching out for me etc.

I’m not too bothered, but I would still like to know why they ALWAYS manage to materialise from nowhere within minutes of a car’s ignition being switched off. Next time I am in court I shall approach the bench and make enquiries.

Anyway, I am home now and will have a little nap, always assuming I can do so without being wakened by Madame..!

     Chapter Ten

     M. HULOT REMEMBERED

Driving the new Kia Sedona people carrier, (third top of the best-seller charts here), to Deauville for the weekend seemed like a decent enough wheeze.

I travelled with Madame, The Boy and Mademoiselle Fiona in the sure and certain knowledge that frolics awaited at journey’s end. I was therefore in jovial mood when hauled over by Sid and Henri at the customs shed located this side of the Channel Tunnel. You used to just get Sid, but now that we are in cahoots with our Gallic neighbours you get one Englishman and one Frenchman at either end of the Great Hole. Matter of mutual distrust, I suppose.

“Do you know why we have stopped you, sir?” asked Sid.

“No idea, unless you think I have filled this vehicle with drugged illegal immigrants and am taking them back to Calais,” I replied.

“Explosives,” said Sid. “We are looking for explosives.”

“Splendid idea,” I replied. “Have we time to creep off to the bar while you poke around, or do you wish us to wait here in the chill wind while you decide whether or not to call in the sniffer dogs to examine our trousers?”

“What we can do,” he said, “is to take your vehicle apart if we so desire. Then you will have to reassemble it yourself.”

“Feel free. I have millions of them. Look - there are another two heading for the train with all sorts of interesting cargo on board.”

Sid, in his wisdom, decided that we were going to be more trouble than he wanted on a Saturday, so he waved us through. Unfortunately Henri still had his head somewhere under the bonnet at the time and could have been prematurely deceased had I been less alert.

The state of alertness only lasted until we scoffed our sandwiches on the train. Thereafter it was down to the quicker reflexes and superior vision of The Boy, (I am still breaking in my new glasses), to get us the 180 miles to Deauville before the rest of the party wolfed all the Champagne.

I am glad to report that he did so in admirable fashion. In fact I understand we completed the journey at an average speed of 109 mph - an excellent feat considering the Sedona’s quoted top whack is slightly less than that

Deauville was reached some time in the early evening and we were greeted at the door by a magnificently liveried porter wearing one of those French moustaches that come in two sections. I think they sell them in the local shops. He raised an eyebrow just a fraction as I attempted to enter the establishment by pushing the revolving door the wrong way and, having finally gained admittance, tripping over his baggage trolley.

There was just enough time to tell the nice man from Kia that the new Sedona was a top class machine, (a little praise here and there does wonders for the bar service), although for the life of me I couldn’t discern any real difference from its predecessor.

Then we had dinner, which took an awfully long time,  and got down to some serious socialising under the eye of Two Moustaches, who always just happened to be at my elbow whenever I fell over something or attempted tricks with matches. This became rather stifling after a while, so I retired quite early, around 3 am, as Madame and self had decided on a stroll along the boardwalk in the morning.

This was accomplished in some style. If you recall the English couple who appeared in almost every scene of M. Hulot’s Holiday, the husband always several yards behind his wife, you have the approximate demeanour of Madame and self taking the air.

Deauville is one of those very affluent but little known Normandy resorts that still has bathing huts on the fringe of its wonderful sandy beach. Each  bears the name of a famous film star, such as Charlton Heston and Kim Novak, the link being that they have an annual American Film Festival at which people from Hollywood are relieved of their small change and, as there is a casino, sometimes their homes.  Interestingly enough only the one with Jack Nicholson’s name on it was minus a door. Perhaps he took that axe with him when he went swimming.

We looked at people exercising polo ponies, enfants being dragged along by their ears, (used to be legal here too, but isn’t anymore), and noted to our surprise that all of the locals were better dressed than us. - and - as you will recall I am quite an elegant old cove.

Gazing back at the front of the hotel I could just pick out Two Moustaches watching us from the drawing room. Surely he couldn’t have counted the ashtrays already?

Mais non. As he took our bags down prior to check out, he whispered, conspiratorially, “Do you remember the English couple in M. Hulot’s Holiday who...?”

Saucy devil.

UNDER MY SKINS

When it comes to examining the capability of modern car stereos, I am your very man. Chadwick Minor has a whole boot crammed with woofers, sub-woofers amplifiers and pre-amps. This little lot could fill the Albert Hall with a greater cacophony than anything ever produced by Sir Malcolm Sargeant’s mob. But it isn’t all sited aft.  Up front there is more of the same, plus tweeters.

His five-door hatchback will now just about take my cigarettes and lighter as cargo. Everything else will have to be transported by sea if ever we decide to move house.

He takes it after me. Long before our ears were assailed by caterwauling, thin-voiced bimbettes scarcely out of nappies and prancing ‘boy bands’ of contentious gender, I would while away the long miles on the road by listening to some hefty sounds produced by real men.

Drummers were the stars back then. No popular music programme on the radio, (we didn’t have CDs, DVDs or even cassette players in cars), was complete without at least one of the big rhythm kings giving it large.

And what names they were. Think of Mr Gene Krupa, Mr Louis Bellson, and Mr Buddy Rich. These gentlemen were such masters of their craft that it is unthinkable to even write about them without putting Mister before their names. Mr Krupa was my favourite, simply because he was so good that he was as mad as a hatter. Mr Krupa spent more time on his local funny farm than the chickens, but just try to imagine the Benny Goodman Orchestra without him. I remember the legendary evening when he brought five thousand people in Madison Square Garden to their feet with a 10 minute solo – unscripted – on ‘Sing, Sing, Sing’ allowing the entire trumpet section to nip out for a tincture in Madigan’s next door.

OK, the nice men in white coats came for him again, but film of that performance was shown on newsreels worldwide and even today you can catch an occasional glimpse of it on satellite television.

I mention this because on my recent foray to France with Renault we stopped in a little town about 60 miles north of Paris where I had the great good fortune to find a CD of the world’s greatest drummers in a bric-a-brac shop. The proprietor was a big band fan and he said he still does airmail orders to – of all places – the United States, where the shortage of good music is even more acute than ours.

Gleefully slotting this prize into a Renault Trafic’s CD player, I created a mobile boom box that frightened motorcyclists all the way to the Channel Tunnel. The CD even has some of the more modern practitioners on it, from the late lamented Mr Keith Moon, (every bit as mad as Mr Krupa), to the eminently sane Mr Charles Watts, who sits behind Messrs Jagger and Richard on those Rolling Stones tours organised by Saga, or some other organisation charged with providing entertainment for the elderly and confused.

It was around 1962 that the age of the drummer finally ended. The Beatles sacked Mr Pete Best for being too good looking and nicking all the best Susans from Lennon and McCartney. The British big bands simultaneously tooted their last, so it was also farewell to Mr Jack Parnell, Mr Basil Kirchin and Mr Phil Seaman, all of whom were better than good.

Anyway, whereas the Renault Trafic’s in-car entertainment system coped admirably with the mad ministrations of Mr Krupa in full flight, the much more expensive system installed in JR’s Nissan Pulsar failed miserably. I attempted to reach full volume on a recent return from the city and got within a mile or two of Chadwick Manor before the explosion occurred.

It must have registered about 5.2 on the Richter scale, but I missed it, having already been rendered deaf by the previous four tracks, courtesy of Mr Krupa.

Madame has written me a note to the effect that the boss of our local Coastguard station wants to have a word with me, probably because of the numerous calls he received from a concerned citizenry claiming that a munitions ship had exploded offshore, probably with great loss of life.

If he is the same chap I saw at last year’s soup and sandwich fund raiser, he will understand, being of similar vintage to my good self. If not then I shall feign madness. It worked for Mr Krupa.

SUITS YOU SIR, SUITS YOU

Things haven’t been going to well in the old optics department recently. No, not the ones above the bar, more those perched on top of my nose.

It all came to a head last Thursday when I clattered out of bed and reached for my horn-rimmed Gregory’s. Normally these are stationed on the bedside table, but on occasion they lurk in the sleeve of my discarded shirt or even nestle snugly in one of my shoes. All depends on one’s physical condition when tumbling into the eiderdown at lights out.

In quick succession a book was knocked off the table, quickly followed by my alarm clock, (which went off prematurely, waking the entire household), and a yelp from the cat as its tail somehow or other got under my toes.

This was very distressing. No specs on the table and I was unable to find a light switch in order to examine the contents of my clothes. It was time, I concluded, to take the advice of myriad driving partners over the past year or two and pay a visit to the old optician, bearing cheque book and pen.

But how could I, I reasoned, when my existing bifocals, next to useless as they are, were nowhere to be found? Luckily I came across them immediately thereafter, their discovery being signalled by a crunching noise from under the foot not occupied by the cat’s tail.

It was a subdued Chadwick who donned the severely crushed specs and climbed into my borrowed PT Cruiser. Spending drachmas on interesting things like food and fine wine is one thing, wasting it on geek clobber something else entirely.

But I managed the 80 mile tootle from my policies to the premises of Optical Express without causing any damage, handed over the ‘£40 off’ voucher with which Madame had thoughtfully provided, and announced that I had come to give myself up.

Actually they were very good. A nice young lady looked out my file and strapped me to a large machine. I thought this was a very promising start and waited with a degree of eagerness for the warm custard to be poured into my shoes, but it turned out that OE don’t go in for such fun. All I got to do was to look at some vague little designs in the machine’s innards and have a few sharp puffs of air blown into my keekers.

I was then handed over to the optician chappie who gave me the equivalent of a total service, complete with ‘Tsks’ as he noted exactly how long it had been since my vision had been cranked up. As I recall, it must have been 1992, but it could have been earlier.

“How did you get here?” he asked as he made some lens adjustments. “PT Cruiser,” I replied. “Nice machine. Goes rather well even if the automatic gearbox is something out of the ark and the people who make Chryslers don’t like me very much.”

“You drove here. All by yourself?”

Oh dear. I decided to keep mum in case he summoned the constabulary or made a citizen’s arrest. Right to silence, that sort of thing.

Half an hour of tests, filling in forms, more tests and a stoical silence on my part followed before I was released into the custody of the aforementioned young lady while the company technicians were handed the biggest challenge to face the optical trade since biblical times. Furious grinding, interspersed with expressions of disbelief could be heard from time to time.

“What sort of frames would you like?” the girl enquired.

“I don’t know. Please pick something you think suits my handsome visage. Do you think I look like a young Gary Cooper, all square-jawed and intense, or am I more the louche Cary Grant type?”

“Try these,” she said, handing me a splendid set of Harry Potters.

“Is this really me?” I asked plaintively. Young ladies nowadays really know how to hurt a chap’s feelings.

“Definitely,” she said.  “Suits you sir, suits you.”

A considerable sum of money later, (well, the frames are by Lacoste), I was back in the driving seat of the Cruiser. Astonishing piece of kit. Didn’t know there were so many interesting items of equipment in it. I have found cup holder and power points that I swear weren’t there before. And do you know something? It is much better at proceeding in a straight line. The windscreen too is much clearer.

Damn. Perhaps I didn’t need new specs after all.

EVO WRASSLIN’ WITH FARMER KEN

They let us back into one of our favourite watering holes at the weekend to play with assorted Mitsubishi Pick-Up trucks, Shogun Pinins and the as yet unreleased Lancer Evo V11, a car that is scheduled to go on sale here early in 2002. This was a splendid gesture on the part of the owners of the property because I seem to recall that on our last visit some structural damage occurred, for which apologies were definitely in order. Perhaps there was even a ceremonial handing over of cheques.

Anyway the advent of yet another Evo is good news for the lads who work for the roads department, because if ever there was a vehicle destined to bring down a few lamp standards, this is it. There will be overtime galore to help our gallant road crews stave off the coming recession.

On the first day I whiled away the time happily driving the Pinin on top of a mountain and getting towed out of a very deep bog before being transferred to a pick-up with proper off-road tyres. I was on my best behaviour, taking notes and even issuing large hallos to Mr. Grumpy whenever our paths crossed. All in all we got quite a lot done in an afternoon and as a reward were allowed to perch in the drawing room and order things from the bar.

Then there was dinner, which was first rate, followed by the usual harmless squabbling with the manufacturer’s Big Chief. When the steam cleared there was another visit to the drawing room and a home made cabaret that would have passed muster at Balmoral had we thrown in a game of charades. Altogether a civilised sort of evening reminiscent of those the old house had no doubt witnessed in times past, except we didn’t summon the peasantry to use for archery practice, manacling to wild bulls, or any of that stuff.

In no time at all, or so it seemed, I had my matches confiscated and was despatched up the wooden hill to bed. If the truth be told I sort of skipped the latter, or else fell out of it, because when I awoke I was on the carpet and the bed was somewhere else. Someone said at breakfast that I had been maddened by the sight of a dolphin tattoo on a delightful young lady’s stomach and had threatened to summon a taxi and seek out maidens in the nearby village, but this was clearly a playful libel. Madame would never countenance such frolics.

It was just my luck that in the morning the cards dealt me Farmer Ken as a co-pilot for our sortie in the Evo. You never got people like him when we drove Talbot Horizon diesels and other assorted clunkers.  The Farmer has a driving style best described as unique. He sneaks up on the car when it isn’t looking, springs inside and then attempts to wrestle it onto its back.

Apparently our friends in the countryside community do this a lot, but mostly with large animals, which is why the only vehicles robust enough to stand up to life on the range tend to be called John Deere, Massey Ferguson or even Euclid. These green-wellied chaps scratch themselves with the backhoe of their JCBs.

But I am nothing if not brave, which is why I snapped on my seat belt and spent what seemed like a year praying in as many religions as possible in a frenzy of penitence that would have impressed the Spanish Inquisition. Funny how you have an urgent desire to continue your miserable existence when the old fella with the scythe comes to perch on your shoulder and hand you the Black Spot...

One of the prayers must have worked, because we arrived back at base with all panels intact and no dead things attached to the radiator. This was a great relief, as I don’t generally hold with bodies plastered over the bonnet. The car wash chappies get upset and throw sponges and plastic buckets at you.

Our hosts, recognising that I had conducted myself with a degree of valour not normally witnessed on such occasions, kindly allowed me to totter into the drawing room and have a lie down while my bruised innards reshuffled themselves.

It has all been too much. That makes it eight launches in a month and I have an uneasy feeling that somewhere along the way my luck is about to run out. It could well be the next one. I am scheduled to drive to Deauville with The Boy on Kia business. The plan is that we will drive out, then leave the car there and fly back, but it is the bit before embarking on the Focke Wulfe that worries me. Black Spot time again.

Perhaps I could get Farmer Ken to throw him to the ground and pin him there while I scamper off on a solo run.

     Chapter Eleven

     ABSINTHE AND THE GARGOYLES

Hyundai’s launch of their new Matrix MPV was sandwiched in between the smart do in London and a foray to France to wrestle with Renault’s latest dCi engines, dropped into both the Clio and the Trafic van to keep us from nodding off.

The company had taken over a large part of a grand establishment in Castle Combe for the exercise, but as there were also real people staying there we were warned to be on our best behaviour. Naturally we made solemn promises to this effect, even if fingers remained firmly crossed and a mild panic set in. It is extremely difficult to act completely out of character - even for 24 hours.

Mr. Grumpy was my travelling companion, therefore some careful pre-planning was in order. We opted to make a good impression by actually volunteering to drive on the first day. This always goes down well with manufacturers and can open a few doors, such as the one that leads to the bar.

Hence we went on parade, shoes gleaming, trousers pressed and nasal passages emitting nothing but puffs of legal gases albeit liberally flavoured by cigarette smoke. There were ‘No Smoking’ signs in the car but as the vehicle was equipped with lighter and ashtray these were ignored. After all, it is our solemn duty to test any and all fitments and we are nothing if not thorough.

One kippered car later we returned to base, reporting that the Matrix diesel was an excellent machine. The engine is a titchy 1.5 litre unit, but it pulled well on hills and could keep up with more powerful machinery on the straight.

Smooth too, which is unusual for any oil burner under two litres. There is also plenty of room inside, a high standard of furnishings and with prices starting at measly and edging up to not much more than that, the Korean company could be on a winner. I shall ring my stockbroker and ask him to buy a few shares.

Exhausted after 50 miles or so of jousting with Royal Mail vans and John Deere tractors, we begged admission to the bar where a young Italian chap had been assigned to look after our needs. Dressed in a magnificent claw-hammer coat and striped Daks, he sported specs and slicked back hair that made him a doppelganger for Harold Lloyd, the silent movie star. Think of Harold hanging from that clock above Times Square and you will get the big picture.

Our Harold was probably a trainee waiter, as he seemed to think there was something curious about a customer ordering both a single malt and Marguerita for simultaneous consumption. It was gently explained that this was a traditional pre-dinner scoff in the UK and that he should try it himself. I think he may have done so, for he disappeared shortly afterwards and wasn’t seen again.

Just as well. He could never have handled the after dinner frolics that saw a whole cocktail of potions downed, each punctuated by a dip into the old bottle of absinthe that we had found smouldering under the bar. Some of the ordinary people who drifted through were horrified to find a selection of scribblers huddled round a flaming teaspoon. I imagine the constabulary must have been telephoned at some point, but by then we were safely tucked up in our cots.

Not for long. At some point in the night I awoke to find a tremendous electrical storm raging. Flashes of lightning, rolling thunder and incessant rain gave rise to the thought that perhaps we had slept through autumn and summer had come round again. I prowled around restlessly, several times emptied the bath of wood lice and grass spiders and peeked out of the window, observing in the flashes of light, half a dozen gargoyles on the roof playing croquet with loose slates.

“That’s it,” I said to Mr. Grumpy next morning. “No more of that absinthe. I saw gargoyles playing croquet on the roof last night.”

“Ah,” he said. “So that’s what they were doing. I thought it was football.”

It took a hearty English breakfast, several pots of coffee and some careful self-testing on breathalyser kits kindly supplied on the previous launch, (I never did ask why), before we passed ourselves fit enough to venture out on the road again.

It was a relaxed sort of drive - this time pressing the petrol-engined version of the Matrix into service - that involved a trip to Sudely Castle for yet more coffee and pastries and then on to lunch at a delightful little establishment where the repast came in the form of curried chicken soup followed by a heaped plate of bangers and mash. Grand hotels could learn a great deal about customer satisfaction by keeping things copiously simple, well cooked and tasty.

Anyway, we acquitted ourselves so impeccably that we were emboldened to solicit references as to our behaviour from the good people at Hyundai. These will be framed and hung after sufficient photocopies have been made for distribution throughout the rest of the motor industry.

I’m still a bit worried about those gargoyles, however, and confessed as much to Madame on my return.

“Must have been some of your friends,” she remarked. “Most of them look like that.”

OMAR AND THE ACROBATS

On Monday I came down from the roof (it is still leaking) to prepare my overnight bag for a trio of car launches, the first of which took place at Wembley Stadium where we had an opportunity to drive some of those dinky little smart cars in right hand drive format.

There was nothing much happening at the old green sward, except for us and a forlorn looking gentleman dressed in long johns sporting a rather large rosette wandering around.

Enquiries were made and it turned out that he was a member of the Countryside Alliance or suchlike and was staging a one-man demonstration in favour of the right to hunt with hounds. I know that foxes have taken to rummaging through London’s bins at night, reading people’s bank statements, but a pack of hounds accompanied by florid gentlemen and plump ladies, complete with trumpets, galloping through Brixton in after dusk would surely constitute a breach of the peace. Told him as much, but he was already too drunk to take it in.

Anyway, the smart presentation was rather jolly, even if it was pitched at dealers rather than old cynics such as myself. Two bits were enjoyable. The first was that one of the young lady hostesses was a former beauty queen from my part of the country, so we shared reminiscences and things. Then there was splendid interlude when our hosts said they would attempt to set up a new world record by cramming as many people as possible into one of the cars, (two feet shorter than a Mini), and let a man from the Guinness Book of World Records authenticate same.

Blow me if they didn’t manage to get 16 people in and the doors closed for the mandatory ten seconds. I counted them as they tumbled out. Fourteen very pretty girls and two young men wearing very large smiles! True, they were Chinese acrobats from a visiting circus troupe, but I still imagine the record will stand for a considerable time.

It got even more bizarre. Up popped a team of gents from the Royal Marines who proceeded to drive a fleet of these little cars through a furious series of complex manoeuvres that seemed destined to end in an interesting accident.

Nothing of the sort happened, of course, as the Sergeant Major was a highly visible and terrifying presence in the background; tickets to Afghanistan, bad drivers for the use of, clutched in a giant paw.

As I was once a rather distinguished member of HM Forces myself, the lads gave me a signed photograph of themselves. Oddly enough, in between Sid, Bert and Jason (in the Marines?) was someone called Me. Must be one of those SAS chappies, else he has done a runner from his missus and is lying doggo. Mum’s the word.

Pocketing the telephone number of Susan, the aforementioned beauty queen, and some scraps from the buffet table, I made my way to Paris to take part in a Clio/Trafic diesel economy run. Normally I don’t go in for this sort of nonsense, but the good citizens of the French capital are always glad to see me. Besides, there was a bottle of Moet cooling in my room.

We stayed at a rather grand establishment wherein my old nodding acquaintance, Mr. Omar Sharif lurked. He was surrounded by a bevy of Susans, so I simply nodded and left him to it. Better that way. In between fun of this sort he has been known to take money off people at the card table and if there is anything worse than someone having more Susans than you, it is losing money to him at the same time.

So I affected a jaunty air and ventured out for an evening stroll down the Champs Elysees, issuing large Hallos to the citizenry. It was a balmy evening with the temperature hovering around 70 degrees and Paris is the only place you can get away with this unsolicited bonhomie without getting your name on some sort of register, so it was all very pleasant.

I even went on a giant Ferris wheel and later took a trip through the city centre on a Renault bus of pre-war vintage, standing on the open platform at the rear and acknowledging the polite applause of those people who were privileged to witness my regal progress.

Alas, the following day’s economy run didn’t go too well. We had to average 50 mph from Paris to London and somehow or other I managed to mess things up and complete the journey at almost twice this speed. Rumour has it that the winning Clio averaged better than 88 mpg. My vehicle’s fuel consumption may have beaten that of a Cadillac Seville, but not by much.

Still, I have thought up a wonderful wheeze for my next birthday party. It involves a Citroen AX Gt, my good self and 16 pretty ladies from the Chinese National Circus. This time the grinning lads can stay in the Big Top and play at dropping The Boy off the high wire.

Third of my trio of launches? That’ll be the Hyundai Matrix, more of which later...

MEN IN SUITS

It is very quiet here in the doghouse. I am on my last and final warning to behave myself when in company, according to Madame, who is in fierce mode.

The latest round of trouble started at a car launch held in one of those mock Sir Basil Spence establishments that people throw up as soon as they have managed to wrestle their first million to the floor. I had been wandering around aimlessly, wondering if the oil paintings would run if I dipped a cotton bud in my champagne and tried to remove some of the more offensive beards from the portraitees, (made that one up - use it on Countdown and impress Miss Vorderman), when I was approached by a man in an ill-fitting suit.

He probably belonged to the car company as only employees wear such garb. Unless, of course, they are of the same dinner variety I occasionally don, complete with soup stains and pockets containing small works of fiction, such as receipts.

“Ah, old boy,” he said, with too much familiarity and nary an introduction. “Tell me - where are you from?”

He grabbed my digits and shook them with such bonhomie that the glass in my other hand began to empty itself prematurely. This was most alarming. For starters I hadn’t the faintest idea who he was, and the rapidly draining glass contained a venerable whisky that deserved a much better fate.

I made up my mind that I didn’t much like the chap. “I am from over there,” I said, gesturing towards the bar, “and that suit you are wearing is dreadful. Are you very poor?”

His smile turned thin, petering out altogether as he skulked off to join other men in suits in the corner. There was a lot of conspiratorial muttering and glancing in my direction. The room temperature dropped several degrees and stayed that way all through dinner. Immediately it was finished they left, presumably to go to their chambers and write memos - or perhaps even to telephone various editors.

All of this had slipped my mind, as it wasn’t very important, until a week or two later, when an invitation from my erstwhile hosts to visit a Mediterranean island and play with new cars plopped on my doormat. Some time ago Napoleon got just such an invite, except for the bit about cars, and look what happened to him. I wondered if he had similarly insulted someone in a suit - or a whole regiment of Hussars who had suffered at the unskilled hand of a short-sighted tailor using rough material. Perhaps hemp.

By this time the little warning lights in my brain had switched to amber and there was a strong smell of rat about the place. People have been known to fall off islands - especially those in the Med - under mysterious circumstances, splashing into the water at night and getting inextricably entangled in bits of wire and concrete blocks. Then they get earnestly nibbled by fishes.

A reply was drafted in which I feigned deep regret, illness, looming unemployment and even a possible period of incarceration at Her Majesty’s pleasure. It was carefully crafted, put in an impressively embossed envelope and slipped into the mailbox.

With the nights drawing in I took to the roof, the plan being to finally trace the leak that has been annoying Madame for the best part of the last decade. I had bitumen, a roll of felt, heavy duty scissors, bucket of cement mix, (three to one and not too dry), trowel, a supply of food, some books to read and a change of clothing in case the weather became inclement.

It was peaceful up there. Over the next few days roof tiles were removed, examined and replaced in their little beds of cement under which some bitumen and felt provided the type of seal that would withstand anything, including a dramatic rise in interest rates or a change of government. I even managed a nap or two.

Eventually, the food having run out, I returned to terra firma to find the postman had delivered two letters from the company that was organising the sunshine scuba diving interlude. The first expressed great regret at my plight while offering the services of a top flight legal team to help me retain my freedom, tipping me off about some interesting job vacancies and giving some splendid advice on how to cure just about anything courtesy of herbs only found on Mediterranean islands of the type I was not going to.

The second envelope contained a photograph of the man who had caused me to spill my drink, the accompanying story pointing out that he was heading off to a well-deserved retirement in Vermont and would probably never shake my hand again.

The lesson has been taken on board. In future I shall not judge a chap by the cut of his jib, but by his ability to take me away from this damned roof. It is now leaking in at least three more places and the seagulls have made off with my replacement provisions.

AUDI, HIRAM, DONNA AND THE BOY

Audi managed to smuggle us into St. Andrews while the Special Branch men looking after that young HRH university student with the splendid teeth and rather goofy expression were otherwise occupied, although what they do when they are not grappling with innocents such as myself is beyond me. Perhaps they read books (Don’t be silly. Ed) or while away the long hours making plasticine models of people they would much rather be looking after, such as Miss Jennifer Aniston.

Anyway we managed to avoid their RayBan stares and settle into a splendid new establishment perched on a cliff top. Not much chance of subsidence, I would have thought, but every prospect of ancient guests suddenly toppling into the briny while on their evening constitutional. Madame said not to worry - she had already alerted the coastguard and anyway my premium is paid up.

Having driven an Audi 3.0 litre A4 automatic to the event I had a decent excuse for not venturing out again, especially as I had been allocated a 1.9 TDi for the return journey next day, but I dutifully attended the press conference as being marked absent would have meant forfeiting dinner.

Happily some kindly soul had left a bottle of champagne chilling in my room, so getting dressed for the afore and after-mentioned events was quite a jolly experience. The champers may also have had something to do with why I disappeared under the table during the presentation, just as we got to the A4 sales projections for the full year. I’m not really into the soothsaying lark so the carpet was probably the best place for me, especially since it was new, squeaky-clean and had a decent pile.

Would have got away with it too had The Boy been able to suppress a loud guffaw as soon as I started to play tunes on the nasal trombone. Must drag him into the officer’s mess one of these days and explain the protocol pertaining to prone persons - especially senior ranks - on the Axminster.

Anyway I was rumbled good and proper and had to drag myself back onto a chair and sit to attention during the next bit, which couldn’t have been too riveting as I have already forgotten it, before being turned loose with the cutlery.

Dinner was an agreeable affair and afterwards a gentleman from Philadelphia told jokes, did card tricks and was altogether very funny. In fact he was so good that I was yellow-carded by Madame for guffawing too loudly. Seemingly you have to wait for the punch line before lapsing into chest-heaving paroxysms when in grand hotels.

However the man from Philadelphia didn’t mind a bit, even going so far as to declare his delight at appearing before a live audience for a change.

Rumour has it that we visited the bar afterwards. In fact I’m sure we did, because there were other people milling around with drinks in their hands. With Madame safely tucked up in her snoozer I was afraid of going outside in case the cliff top was nearer than I remembered, so I simply drifted around from place to place, adding a touch of class to the lobby.

It was full of eccentrically dressed couples such as Hiram B. Katzenbuller and his good lady, Donna of the same ilk. They were preparing their daughter for a meeting with the young lad with the teeth, which they were sure they could swing because they are pretty big in something or other back in Idaho. If you have any presentable sons you want rid of and who can do impressions, let me know. I have their address.

Something must have happened to the night. All of a sudden it disappeared and I was attempting to wrap myself around breakfast. The plate was easy enough to find, as was the bacon, but chef had forgotten to prepare any eggs.

I amiably enquired as to what day the hens went into laying mode and was chased back to my table - again having sit to attention like an errant schoolboy. Could have been worse; I think The Boy had been thrown out altogether. Madame said perhaps we should peer over the cliff to se if he was lying around on the shingle, but as there were people walking dogs down there I felt sure someone would stumble across him.

I have a note here from Audi that says something about remembering to mention the cars. I will, as there is nothing else to tell because the Ancient Editor arrived on the premises after breakfast and immediately put a stopper on any further frolics.

The 3.0 litre thingy has a splendid engine, but came with one of those automatic boxes with a manual override - presumably for sad customers who are unable to make up their minds whether they want to shuffle cogs or to let the car do it for them.

I much preferred the diesel. Manual box, hearty under bonnet rumble and tiny fuel bills. I shall use it to go and look for The Boy. He is still missing. Perhaps Hiram and Donna have spirited him off to Idaho.

     Chapter Twelve

     AERIAL ANGST AND A RENDEZVOUS WITH MISS ALLISON

Those of us unfortunate enough to travel on UK domestic flights on a regular basis have long since become accustomed to the British Airways ‘sandwich in a bag’  the company has now adopted as some kind of culinary democratic badge in these hard times.

Pay economy class and you get the same inedible rubbish as those who have been silly enough to fork out for a business class ticket that affords absolutely no privileges over wiser souls who are canny with their cash.

Hence my little sortie to Birmingham via Air France for last week’s VW 2002 range review. Air France has always been a cut above the rest when it comes to the old NAAFI fare.  According to my in-flight menu dinner was to start with Mixed Leaves with Balsamic Vinaigrette and warm rolls. then we would get our fangs wrapped around Supreme of Salmon with Char grilled Peppers and Pesto Sauce - all nestling among New Potatoes and Asparagus (forgive all these capitals, I am in strict menu tempo).

And there would be more, such as Roubillac with Herbs and Cheddar Cheese, Wheat and Charcoal Wafers topped out with Black Grapes. And, just before lapsing into a satisfying snooze there would be an opportunity to select from Chablis, Champagne or Morgon before the arrival of coffee and chocolates.

Our chief steward was called Patrick and he smiled charmingly as he placed my meal before me. “Bon appetit.” he said. “Bon nothing of the sort, garcon,” I responded, glaring at the pitiful little object on my table. “What do you call this?”

“We call it ze Cheeses and Onion Roll,” (waste of capitals this), he replied. “Wrapped in Cellophane, but I will be back soon with ze Coffee in ze Plastic Cup.”

With one expressive shrug of his shoulder he was off, leaving me to organise a mass filling-in of complaints slips which even now, I suspect, are being uncaringly recycled somewhere outside Paris.

Little wonder that I was still incandescent on arrival at Fawsley Hall, a restored laundry or some such near Daventry wherein I was to be billeted for the night.

Had there been anyone around in a bad suit, as at the Nissan do the other week, the resulting fire would still be raging.

However the VW people are very nice, especially young Miss Allison who has an older sister who looks 18 and is exceptionally good-looking, but not nearly so as Miss Allison (Creep! Ed.)

Sensing my distress, she led me to the dining room and bade the staff fix me up with a delicious repast that took almost three hours to devour. Unfortunately she forgot to take me to the bar afterwards, which is how I came to be pottering around my room before midnight, under the malevolent glare of a lady in a 19^th century portrait that overlooked my bed.

This was one of those paintings with eyes that follow you everywhere - even into the bathroom - and after switching off the lights I could still sense it peering at me in the darkness.

Waking up in a cold sweat at 3 am I switched on a lamp and clambered up on a chair in order to reach the offending portrait and turn its face to the wall. Unfortunately its fixings must have been listed among the as yet unrestored artefacts of the house, so the damned thing fell down with an almighty clatter, neatly impaling itself on a slender glass ornament inconsiderately sited on a table just below.

The plummeting picture was followed by a toppling scribe as the chair leg broke. Then came the sound of people knocking furiously on the door, demanding to know what I was doing and whom I was doing it with!

After a fitful night spent repairing the painting with Sellotape and a black ball point, I tottered sleepily down for breakfast before being sent out to drive various Volkswagens.

I was very good, dutifully taking on a 1.8 Beetle with a turbocharger and frightening myself no end. I exchanged this for a TDi Bora that was just as quick through the gears but didn’t have a silly flowerpot attached to the dashboard, so I felt quite comfortable in this one.

On returning to the Hall I attempted to sneak off for a snooze, but the arrival of the chap I tried to set alight last week meant some lurking in the bushes while he announced his presence to Miss Allison. When his back was turned I grabbed another car - this time a Beetle with the impressive V5 engine installed - and spent the next hour or so touring the countryside before summoning a driver to take me to the airport.

“Would Sir like ze dinner?” enquired Patrick, recently returned from Paris. “Sir would like nothing of the sort,” Sir snorted. “Sir has been caught out on this one before.”

Which explains why I spent the rest of the flight in surly silence while my fellow travellers tucked into a full meal and scoffed the Champagne should have enjoyed the day before. Perhaps I should stay at home for a while.

SNOWBOARDING IN MILTON KEYNES

“Wiggle your toes,” said my psychiatrist. I did just that. Wiggle, wiggle.

“Now I will hold up this card illustrating the three foot pedals most commonly found in motor vehicles. Kindly identify them from left to right.”

“OK. Clutch, brake and accelerator.”

“Excellent. That will be fifty pounds.”

Sometimes I wonder why I bother with that woman, except that she looks terrifyingly like Miss Melinda Messenger and we are all entitled to a little bit of terror every now and again.

I have just tottered back from Milton Keynes where, in between counting roundabouts, I had an encounter with Nissan’s new X-Trail on/off roadster. Actually the off road bit was supposed to take in snowboarding and some whooshing around on skis, but more (or less) of that later.

Getting to Milton Keynes was almost the best bit.  I disembarked from a BA aircraft at Heathrow and was ushered onto a bus driven by Bert. He was supposed to finish at five o’clock, but said he had been ordered to stay put until we arrived safely. I think he was after a tip, but the only one he was going to get was to sod off at five in future and let someone else drive his bus.

Bert took us on a splendid tour of Heathrow. We saw the baggage compound, a man stealing a suitcase, the catering truck, the Lufthansa aircraft I should have been on last week but wasn’t and  some cute little underground roundabouts under the International terminal. All of this took fifteen minutes and then we stopped at a door marked ‘Arrivals.’ Looking over my shoulder I was agreeably surprised to see our aircraft also sitting outside the self-same door. I pointed this out to Bert, but he said the rules said we had to use the bus, so we had used the bus.

This was exceedingly droll, but as there was to be no driving that evening we were whisked off to some little market town or other to join an organised pub crawl which was scheduled to culminate in dinner at an Indian restaurant.

Naturally I was excited to the point of being agog and an hour or so later found myself in a cute little bar downing something from a pint glass. Not for long. The main party arrived and dragged me out to some other pub where I got to pat a dog and order (but not drink) a glass of Chablis before being hauled out again. In pub number three I ordered another pint of something that looked promising before getting the dreaded tug on the sleeve and force-marched into the restaurant. First time I have been in three hostelries without getting more than a single sinker. 

By this time I was in advanced snarl mode and took a huge and immediate dislike to a gentleman in a pantomime suit sitting across the table. He started to nag me about smoking before I had even started. It was suggested to him that he might like to sit somewhere safer, but he was obviously a Guardian reader and/or part-time social worker out to ruin someone else’s evening. As he was much too old and frail to pummel I decided to set fire to his trousers, but was gently dissuaded by a very large colleague. There was nothing for it but to cede victory to the dreadful creature and exit stage left, ending up in my bed with a petted lip and no dinner.

Naturally there would be repercussions, so I sneaked down at seven in the morning for a hearty breakfast. After all, it could have been my last.

But nothing much was said and I was allowed out to drive the X-Trail with Mr. Grumpy, as The Boy had either died in the night or been taken away by the gendarmerie. I suspected the latter.

This is where the bit about the pedals came in. Mr. Grumpy did the first stint and then handed over the controls to me in somewhere or other called Shepton Sheepy or suchlike. I sprang lithely into the driving seat, fired up a decent-sounding diesel, released the handbrake, engaged first gear - and stalled. Then I did the same again - and again - and I would still be there if Mr. Grumpy, (first time he has been seen to laugh since his aunt fell off the roof), hadn’t pointed out that I was using the brake to accelerate.

The ensuing red face must rank with the all-time beetroots. It was almost three hours before my visage returned to its usual colour, but I fear there will be constant reminders of my so-public humiliation.

A great pity, as the car itself is a top class machine, beautifully styled, excellently kitted out and an absolute steal at its starting price of £16,750. Buy one now and say you are doing so at my behest. There could be a bit of commission in it for me which will help pay my psychiatrist’s bill.

The snow? Never found it. Anyway there are no hills in Milton Keynes.

HONDA = TWO MINUS ONE

I should have just completed a Honda double visit this week - one trip to the Isle of Man and another to Frankfurt - but as is the norm with me, things went somewhat awry.

The Isle of Man frolics worked splendidly, starting with a flight to Douglas in what seemed uncannily like an airborne bunk bed, except there were 20 people in it. Naturally we got to know each other quite well on the trip. Addresses were exchanged, promises of future correspondence were made and a young chap in an adjacent seat gave me a biscuit.

It got better. The Manx Police - a stout body of men and women, (especially the latter), had very kindly warned the local populace of my arrival, closed the roads to the public and made sure everyone kept their dogs and enfants inside while I hurtled past in a very hot Civic Type-R.

The Civic isn’t a car that immediately springs to mind when talking whoosh, but anything that enters a corner at 70 mph and emerges - backwards - at not much less than that is a whole lot of fun, so I was most reluctant to give it up at close of play. It took the Honda people several telephone calls before they located me, (I was in the bath), at my apartments. They wanted the car back. Seems I shouldn’t have taken it to the hotel in the first place.

Still, we remained on good terms and I was even allowed out to watch young Duggie Lampkin do totally impossible things on his trials motorcycle. This involved climbing a cliff face, descending same on his front wheel with the rear in the air, leaping over fences and large concrete breakwaters from a stationary position and generally causing much eye-rubbing among the onlookers. The youngster is only 25 and already has ten world championships to his name. Had he possessed big thighs, worn an England football shirt and scored against Germany, he would be the next BBC Sportsview Personality of the Year. But he doesn’t and won’t, being much too accomplished to rub shoulders with the footie scufflers.

Anyway I was almost as impressed with the Type-R as with young Master Lampkin. It is a nicely understated piece of work that will attract a lot of business from frustrated young rascals who got married too young and are not allowed by their wives to have a Scooby or Evo - at least not until the conservatory is paid for or the spare room furnished.  Neat piece of marketing that.

As I had almost behaved myself, Honda felt encouraged enough to invite me to join them in Allemagne for the Frankfurt Motor Show and, of course, I graciously accepted since there would be schnapps and flaky pastry on offer.

I left home very early in order to catch a flight to Manchester where the plan was that I should join the noon Luftwaffe (Shouldn’t that be Lufthansa? Ed.) sortie to Germany. The first bit went quite nicely, albeit we were in those bunk beds again, but the pack of cards collapsed in the home town of Posh and Becks.

The nice man at the transfer desk said the flight had been oversold and that he would have to arrange another carrier to take me to my destination. Gazumped? ‘Fraid so. Apparently it is quite legal in the aircraft industry to sell the same seat to as many people as you like and have lots of fun watching several ticket holders indulging in spirited fisticuffs over 34 inches of legroom.

The chap, (his name was Frank), said not to worry as there was a British Airways flight scheduled to leave at the same time and this would arrive ten minutes before the creaking old German Focke Wulfe, thus allowing me to be first into the bar at the other end.

Excellent. I told him this was a wonderful wheeze and to go ahead with the booking while I leered playfully at anyone in the departure lounge who wasn’t of the male gender. Frank got busy with the old dialler, but unfortunately drew a blank. British Airways had no room, even for such an august personality as myself and despite my exhortation to throw off anyone who looked sickly, they wouldn’t budge.

Frank said we should speak to the ladies at the Lufthansa desk and personally escorted me there in case I strayed into the nearest bar and became incoherent. He explained the situation to them while they edged ever nearer the door in the sure and certain expectation that I would leap over the counter and molest them with something approaching vigour.

I foxed them by doing nothing of the sort, simply putting on my saddest expression and asking them to arrange a flight home for me.  Shaking with relief they arranged this, handed over a pile of compensatory boodle, and made Bavarian clucking noises of sympathy. One even gave me a hug.

There are times when it pays to be nice. They have promised me the red carpet treatment next time our paths cross.

I just wish I could believe them.

GREYFRIARS CHADWICK

Where was I? Ah yes - Edinburgh - for the launch of the new Jeep Cherokee which - whisper it - looks uncomfortably like a Suzuki Jimny on steroids.

In fact if it wasn’t for the fact that the thing drives exceptionally well, I don’t know why they should have bothered with this makeover. It has resulted in lines that will appeal to people who get plain brown paper packages in the post and who subscribe to magazines bearing front cover pictures of young men with moustaches instead of Miss Kournikova or Miss Aniston.

You also get a quarter lopped off the previous engine, bringing it down to a measly 3.7 litres of V6. There are even - horror of horrors - smaller units in the pipeline. I am going to write to young Bush about this. I’ll bet he has a full-sized engine in his Cherokee for when he and Laura tootle down to the Arapaho Creek Pork ‘n Beans Liquor Hall for the old Thursday night line dancing jamboree.

Well, perhaps I am grumpier than usual, but things in Scotland’s capital didn’t quite go to plan. To be fair, we got off to a bit of a flyer as I had dinner in the company of Jeep engineers who looked like friends of Jerry Springer but were a whole lot more entertaining and much too wealthy to live in trailer parks. I like engineers, probably because they don’t like me and are generally too well-mannered to say so.

They are strong chaps too, helping me to totter from the dining room to an upstairs hideaway where we fell into the wonderful company of a young feller with a BSc in whisky sniffing. He wasn’t bad at the old dispensing either. In rapid succession I was invited to tuck into three rare varieties, ranging from 10 to 24 years of age and proofed from 56.5% to 64.9%.

It looked like the start of one of those all too rare nights of raucous debauchery that kicks off with a philosophical debate of Freudian standard and then rapidly descends into Neanderthal grunting, but the Jeep people in their blue coats spotted the danger signs and had me whisked back to the hotel as a precaution.

I did escape momentarily and ordered a dry white, but the waitress placed it before me while delivering an admonition to the effect that smoking was not allowed in the lounge and that I could put out my cigarette and stay, not put out my cigarette and leave the room, or go to bed in disgrace.

Opting for the latter, I haughtily stalked off to my quarters and slumbered under a dark cloud.

Naturally such coarse treatment deserved similarly rascally retaliation, so in the morning I opened a window as wide as it would go and left a note on the bed saying I had decided to end it all and it was their fault. Then I sneaked off on the driving exercise without checking out. As I had been billeted on the top floor I expect they are still poking around in the basement area for my corpse, all the while living in fear of legal missives from Madame, demanding large sums of boodle as recompense for the loss of a loved one (me).

Despite the Cherokee’s new look and my dislike of same, the car performed splendidly over 100 miles or so of fast motorway driving followed by some hair-raising, (for those in the party who still had hair), off-road work where we were sent into deep ravines, swollen rivers and all the other nasty places that buyers of these cars would never dare to tackle.

Somewhere along the way our little convoy managed to pick up two punctures and lose one tyre completely, but the Jeep people said not to worry, as they had lots of spares and even if we mislaid a complete vehicle the lads back in the US would knock up another one in jig time. This was very nice of them. When Land Rover belonged to British Leyland we would all have received invoices had we inflicted similar damage on any of their cars.

There was even lunch at a cute little castle, as one of the engineers described it, where the resident baroness served us some delicious biscuits, coffee and bacon rolls. She also allowed me to chuckle her pet guinea pig under its chin and graciously turned a blind eye when I fed the family dog with bacon butties.

Regular readers will know that I like the aristocracy and that I am about to become one of them myself as soon as young Blair gets to grips with his in-tray and cashes the cheque. Must make a mental note to get a guinea pig. I already knew that a dog was mandatory.

All in all it was a decent enough launch with the Jeep people turning out to be very friendly. In fact take away the small fracas at the hotel, which was not their fault,  and it would have merited  ten out of ten on my personal Richter scale.

By the way, I saw on this evening’s news that they haven’t found my body yet. Madame says they probably aren’t looking too hard.

    Chapter Thirteen

    TONTO AND THE CHEROKEE

I will tell you all about it next week, but I am about to wax my moustache and head off to Edinburgh on Jeep Cherokee business - something about  an important new gearlever knob or whatnot.

You may remember me telling you about the Chrysler Jeep,  or DaimlerChrysler Jeep, people. Rum bunch with corporate blue overcoats, half smiles and a propensity to look at you sideways like BillyRae’s pet alligator. I think they are part of some strange religious sect from Area 51, but as they have always been quite generous with the refreshments I shall tootle along.

They are holding their little soiree in Edinburgh, which I don’t like at Festival time and usually vigorously avoid, but I have been assured that the earnestly pale-faced young men with the strange walks have started to leave. Panto season coming up - tutus to be pressed.

However, I shall take precautions. Just in case any of them are still lurking in the vicinity of Arthur’s Seat, I shall send The Boy out on a recce. The Lone Ranger used to do this. Every time he came to what looked like a dangerous town he would send Tonto in to buy a paper and have a quick look around. Tonto, not being too well blessed upstairs, invariably got himself tied up and pummelled, often quite playfully, but never complained.

He would simply make his escape at the start of the second reel and stagger back to the Lone Ranger’s camp fire, minus one spur and muttering “Men in black hats, kimmo savvy. Bad medicine.” And then topple unconscious into the pork and beans.

He did this for years. Anyone else would have knocked the bejesus out of the masked one, nicked his horse, (he always had the best horse too), and head off to sign up with Geronimo.

The Boy won’t do this, of course. He is much more likely to run off with Miss Ivy Benson’s All-Girl Orchestra and have a wonderful time.

I quite like the Jeep Cherokee. It isn’t tall enough to sport the Victorian conservatory look of the Range Rover and it has too fierce a grille to appeal to the aforementioned palefaces. In other words it is a man’s machine and therefore suitable transport for persons such as myself, who can outgrizzle Gabby Hayes - and spit just as far.

It also has big, meaningful engines that growl, splutter and generally intimidate all of the other puny little units you encounter out there on our titchy roads.

Last time I drove one I got my name taken for arriving back at base with a 300 lb piece of granite lodged between the back axle and floor pan. I would have got away with it had I just parked the thing and said nothing, but as I had been complaining rather loudly about the car’s handling and demanding copious quantities of  drink to calm my shattered nerves, questions were asked. In fact the scope of the inquisition subsequently widened to take in deep scratches along the flanks, bits missing from two tyres and a report from some shepherd or other about someone driving across his ranch at warp speed.

Altogether it was a close-run thing, but apart from a curiously silent dinner and slower than normal service from the bar, nothing much came of it, but the glances became even more sideways and the half smiles turned into barely discernible quarters.

Even so, I will need to be on my best behaviour this week. This is why I need The Boy to cover my rear, so to speak. If he can come back with a copy of the route with the approximate positions of HM constabulary, men with funny walks, large lumps of dangerous countryside, shepherds, (In Edinburgh? Ed.) and Area 51 personnel in coats carrying binoculars, I should be well sorted.

I may even demonstrate my gratitude by taking him on a fact-finding mission to a little hostelry of my acquaintance that has become a firm favourite of visiting international rugby teams over the years. Frolics occur therein - especially after closing time when it becomes a ‘friends of the manager’ private function.

Sneaking away should be a simple enough matter. I can have someone tell the Ancient Editor that two Spanish gentlemen have been seen in the vicinity of the Castle - one of them wearing an ill-fitting sports coat of doubtful tailoring. That always gets him up and running. There was 50P in the pocket when it was nicked in Catalunya.

MEMOIRS OF WING COMMANDER CHADWICK

BMW’s invasion of Glasgow on MINI launch duty didn’t go at all well for the defenders of the dear green place.

For starters we were not at squadron strength. Even as a detachment we had a distinct lack of cover in midfield as only myself, Mr. Angry, The Boy and a couple of territorials had been charged with seeing off the Bavarian hordes.

First blood to them. They held us prisoner in a minimalist city centre hotel that had apparently been designed by someone who had once seen a picture of a front room in Osaka. This meant twisted little Bonsai trees thirsting away in piles of stones, a sawn-off bed and no air conditioning despite the cloying atmosphere. The bar staff were in hiding somewhere, the rooms would have failed to meet size requirements as laid down by the Geneva Convention and there was no bath. Don’t even ask if there was a minibar!

There was a hand basin of sorts, but if any of us had attempted meaningful ablutions in this object, the taps were sited in such a manner that facial damage would almost certainly occur, so we undertook the first part of the MINI driving exercise in a state of sullen grubbiness.

Our German friends had issued us with maps of the city and sent us out to take Polaroid snapshots of strategic locations in and around the city. I suspect these may be used for a sinister purpose if the Tooth Fairy and his fat friend renege on their promise to take us into Euroland.

The Boy, of course, twigged immediately. He and Mr. Angry set off for a different town altogether, returning several hours later with a portfolio of snaps featuring a dozen splendidly leggy young gels in geometric poses.  Definitely officer material that lad.

For my part I escorted an equally leggy BMW lady around lots of sparsely populated areas with devious intent. She also twigged immediately and spent the entire trip talking about the MINI, a topic guaranteed to dampen all but the most desperate of ardours. Our photos, therefore, were strictly second rate.

After driving we stormed a private club which occupies what were previously the old Sheriff Court chambers. I had been there before, pleading guilty before m’lud to charges arising from a combination of myself, a Lambretta scooter, Zebra crossing and 14 schoolgirls. Fines and stern words were handed down.

Given all this nostalgia there was nothing for it but to command my men to drink themselves senseless, which they did in an act of heroic patriotism unmatched outside a bad, (make that worse than bad as they were all the former), Dickie Attenborough film.

As a punishment we were sent to bed sans dinner. We tried to cheat by ringing room service only to be told the chef ‘wasn’t on.’ This was hotel speak for the fact that he was raging drunk somewhere in the alley with the dumpsters. Perhaps he should have been a motoring writer. It is less stressful.

In fact our first sighting of real food for 30 hours came next morning at breakfast time when the troops assembled - all nursing bleeding noses and bent dentures caused by those damned taps - in the dining room.

There followed a small mutiny before our overseers once again got us on the move, this time on a 178 mile round trip that went worryingly close to the boundary of one of my properties. Hope the Polaroids didn’t come out.

En route I collected the Ancient Editor, safely parked his Zimmer frame, and helped him into the driving seat, instructing him not to do anything silly, such as getting in the way of other traffic while I had a nap. He is well into his dotage now, but coped remarkably well, even to the point of finding the lunchtime halt where we noshed on mussels, oysters and baked salmon liberated from a nearby fish farm.

It was over this excellent repast that the surviving members of our troop reluctantly agreed the MINI is a splendid little machine - something I had already discovered on an earlier trip to Italy - and may well break a whole lot of sales records.

In fact, unlike its predecessor, it could even make some money. I understand from the Intelligence Corps that the engine is assembled in some third world location for about seven and sixpence in old money. That should get it off to a flier as the units in the Renault Clio cost at least twice this amount.

Meanwhile the escape tunnel is almost complete. Once we get out we are heading 30 miles south to take on yet another lot of Germans, this time from the Audi UK Korps. Despatches will follow.

THE THEORY OF KINESIOLOGY AND KINETIC ENERGY GOES PHUT

Some things have been puzzling me lately. I know they shouldn’t be doing so, but having neatly sidestepped this week’s punishment exercise by not driving a Toyota Previa people swallower, time has weighed heavily.

This, as you will know only too well, is when your head fills with useless things, such as thoughts. Meaning of life stuff, and why four lunatics should be publicly embarrassing themselves by contesting the leadership of a dead political party.

Anyway, since I normally use as little energy as possible, short of actually stopping breathing, the whole subject of movement occasionally intrudes into my consciousness. Damned nuisance too, if you ask me.

This week it has to do with kinesiology and kinetic energy, which seem the same, but aren’t. Sort of New Labour and Liberal Democrats since we are making political analogies.

Normally I am all in favour of moving mass with as little effort as possible and I am very puzzled when it doesn’t happen as expected. For instance, next time you are in an aircraft travelling at 600 mph, (this rules out the ancient crates operated by EasyOasy and Buzz), sneak out of your chair when the waitress isn’t looking and jump up in the air, being careful not to put your cranium through the roof. This will upset the driver no end.

Now what should happen if kinetic energy is all that it is cracked up to be is that you will hurtle backwards at 600 mph and disappear out of the rear end, probably falling on a city and hurting yourself.  But you don’t, because I have tried it on so many occasions that I am on my final warning, according to the head waitress on my regular BA flight.

I mentioned this to a learned friend of mine who manages to hold down a real job. He smokes a pipe and drives a Volvo and is obviously so clever that he walks on the edge of lunacy. He is excellent at explaining just about everything, except why he mixes with people like me.

He says that, because the aircraft is pressurised, leaping up in the air is simply jumping up and down in a vacuum, so the chances are that you will always fall back into your seat or - if you haven’t quite got the old launch right - in the lap of the large red-faced lady across the aisle. Should the latter happen, pretend to be having a fit. It is your only hope of avoiding being dragged before m’lud and getting your picture in the papers.

This vacuum explanation seems quite rational, but I have found a flaw in the argument. Instead of the airborne vertical spring, try it in a train travelling at, say, 75 mph if you can still find one that can attain such a velocity. Logic says you should hurtle backwards at the same speed and become entangled with the delightful lady in the carriage behind. Alternatively while you are up in the air she will travel forward at 75 mph and become similarly entangled; only this time it will be her fault.

Back to my Volvo driving friend. Same explanation, but he still couldn’t explain way the hypothesis about it being summer and the windows in the train are open, other than the lame excuse that the air inside the train is travelling at the same speed as the locomotive. In that case, if you repeat the leap while facing the delightful lady in the next carriage, you should be hit by a blast of heavily perfumed air travelling at ditto. But you aren’t because again I have tried this and the railway police have my name in their little books.

I am no nearer a solution to the puzzle, but I will have to stop thinking about it and drive the damned Previa to my local outpatients to have bits of me reassembled.

This is what happens when you are building a garage and thinking abstract thoughts while cutting through dense concrete blocks with a Stihl saw. Kinetic energy and such implements combine to form awesome forces which will certainly do you a great deal of harm if you go in for the old daydreaming games.

I shall have another peck at this keyboard with my remaining digits when Dr Patel has given me the usual stern lecture about not watching what I am doing when playing with power tools.

“You spend altogether too much time working out silly ways of landing in other people’s laps,” he will say. “At your age you should just be grateful you can still muster a vertical jump. If you go horizontal there will be no saving you. By the way, that’s a really nice Previa, how much does it cost?”

    Chapter Fourteen

OF BOATS AND A CAPITAL ENCOUNTER

You would have thought me rather dashing this week, what with my cheeks freshly shaved, jaunty walk and commanding stance on the top deck of a great ship, (well, small boat if you insist on accuracy), as it cruised the Thames from Windsor to somewhere else and back again.

As usual, the seven days since my last column started out very promisingly and quickly went downhill. We had spent the weekend sampling some new vehicles from Kia, a thoroughly splendid motor manufacturer whose UK-based personnel do not tell you porkies about how many customers they expect to lure in a fiscal year.

Where other industry rascals would forecast 10,000 sales of the Magentis, Kia’s people shrugged and said they would settle for around 700. This makes them very fine chaps indeed - and honest.  I might cultivate them.

And not just because they allowed me to graze in my Minibar without invoking penalty clauses. Oh no. The Magentis, all 2.5 litres of smooth V6, stylish body, fine workmanship and lots of top flight furnishings, is probably the best value for money on the market today. It costs from a measly £12,500 or thereabouts and makes one suspect that anyone who buys any of its competitors should be patted gently on the head and sent to Hartlepool. There they can rub shoulders with the 23,000 poor wretches who, in the election frolics, voted for Mandelson in the mistaken belief that he was Mr. Mantovani who used to feature on the Light Programme.

I would have bought one of these cars on the spot. In fact I nearly did, but Madame whispered in my ear a warning to the effect that handing over a cheque to my new-found friends would be no way to commence a cordial relationship. Rather the opposite in fact.

But a Magentis has been pencilled in. It will be purchased sometime after the VAT people have been despatched, the roof fixed and my sons happily married off to nice young ladies who look like Miss Jo Guest. Oops! Just been chided for pecking at this keyboard with my tongue hanging out!

Where was I? Ah yes. Das boot.

All at sea. Mr. Grumpy and Gentleman Jim on the lookout for poor people

It was a decent enough craft which, someone said, had come here with the Vikings, but this was patently nonsense. The Vikings were very adept at the old coracle building, but were useless when it came to fitting them with loos that smell like the souk in Marrakech.

On the bright side this vessel had a dining room and agreeable waitresses who served generous amounts of drink. The food I shall gloss over as some of you might be of a nervous disposition or be reading this at the dinner table.

Repairing to the top deck to escape the ministrations of the chef and enjoy an al fresco Chablis or several, my chums and I whiled away the nautical miles by toasting poorer citizens sailing south on smaller craft. Later on, when we were sailing south, we toasted more poor people sailing north. Sometimes they were the same people we had toasted earlier. This is what boats are all about. Very jolly.

Unfortunately, when it eventually docked and we were put ashore, I made a beeline for the hotel bar, completely forgetting Madame, who was still on board, searching for me in all the usual places, such as under the table and wherever the waitress happened to be.

There were ructions. In fact they were still rumbling quietly in the west wing a day later, which is why I jumped at the chance of escaping to Edinburgh to play with those little smart, (yes - that’s how it shall be written), two-seater things that Mercedes-Benz sell in a sort of arm’s length marketing exercise. Buy one and they will wrap it in plain brown paper or deliver it after dark so that the neighbours won’t start banging on about tumbling property values.

Edinburgh, of course, is where the Scottish Parliament nestles. Some of its members also have seats in Westminster, which means they get two salaries and no doubt have expensive boats parked on the Thames, complete with wine waitresses and a dinner table. I might have been on one of them for all I know.

The trip went quite well by my standards. Got within sight of the little beggars before being stopped in my tracks by the County Sheriff, or whatever police constables are termed in the capital.

‘Can’t park here.’

‘Don’t want to park here. Want to park there.’

‘Can’t.’

‘But I have a letter from the owners of the little smarties inviting me to park there.’

‘Don’t care.’

Things got rather heated after a few pages of this initially cordial dialogue, but the upshot was that all that was on offer if I didn’t behave myself was bed and breakfast in the local Bastille. I would just catch Happy Hour, (manacles, fingernail extractions, fires under the feet, that sort of thing). Alternatively I could look suitably chastened and go away, totally humiliated but otherwise unharmed.

Putting on my suitably chastened look, I turned around and began to wend my way through buses full of Japanese tourists back down the castle esplanade, pausing for just a moment to ask the driver of a smart car heading up the hill to pass on my apologies to our German friends. This he graciously agreed to do, asking if he could also have my lunch.

So I have yet to drive a smart but I once had a Lambretta scooter. I suppose they are much the same.

AN INVITATION TO NUMBER 10

So that’s it then. Peter Snow has put away his Swingometer and has been escorted back to Jurassic Park by the nice nurse. Mr. Hague can take up his former job as the Mekon and chase Dan Dare and Digby around the universe, (See Eagle comics, circa 1950s), and I will shortly be moving into No. 10.

It will be a little cramped after Chadwick Manor, but as leader of Britain’s largest political party, the ‘Who Cares?’ organisation, it is my solemn duty to take up residence therein and assume custody of those little brown envelopes from Messrs Ecclestone, Robinson et al. Naturally I shall tear these up and throw them on the fire.

The carpet will have to be replaced. Mr. and Mrs. Tooth Fairy have, according to reliable sources, a rugrat crawling around the Axminster. Rather droll for such a mature couple perhaps, but one could hardly expect political creatures to take the feelings of their older children into account before getting all Neanderthal after a port or two.

The election threw up some surprises. For example, Hartlepool can now lay claim to not just one village idiot, as in most hamlets, but a staggering 23,000 of them. This is extremely alarming, so mark the place on your road map and be careful to stay well away or they will swing from your window wipers and gnaw your Michelins.

Regrettably, the young Miss Jordan of the prominent frontal approach didn’t manage to get in. Perhaps she should have gone for more than her usual (alleged) three-in-a-bed, although squeezing in 23,000 might be regarded as rather dashing, even in these relaxed times. A year or so ago she spent an entire evening plying me with vodka miniatures from a bandolier which was her only visible piece of upper attire. Very pleasurable experience, as I recall. I would have voted for her, but in the end I couldn’t be bothered.

Wallpaper should be no problem as the butler says Lord Irvine has a few hundred rolls stashed away in his cellar. Apparently these can be snapped up at a reasonable price. There will also be an opportunity to swipe some crockery from Buck House during the old presenting of credentials, especially if Herself isn’t wearing her specs, so consider yourself invited for tea anytime you happen to be in town. No appointment necessary. Just slip the policeman at the door a small cheque, (the name of the charity will be added later), and you are in.

The Galaxy will have to go, of course. No self-respecting PM should let himself be seen being transported around in a van. A nice little Dodge Viper will do nicely for official functions, backed up by a Flareside pick-up for those essential trips to Oddbins. This will impress Dubya no end and do wonders for the old ‘Special Arrangement’ thingy. There could be free Hershey bars in the post and maybe even an invitation to meet his delightful daughters. I believe they take a tincture or two.

Getting rid of the dead wood is proving to be a problem. The local Job Centre says there is not much call for failed cabinet ministers these days, especially those whose only experience of the real world involves being on the squat side and serving dinners on a boat. Perhaps the Tooth Fairy wasn’t too far wrong with his espousal of ‘education, education, education,’ even if it did begin to sound tedious after awhile. Anyway, surely he could have got ol’ Blunkett to knock up a few GCSE certificates for the troops on the No. 10 Xerox, thus saving them all a great deal of embarrassment. Forward planning, that sort of thing.

Some have fallen on their feet. Madame says she will keep the nice Mr. Cook around. Something about letting him stand in the garden, holding a little fishing rod. She thinks he will look quite cute.

Oh. Applications are now being received for gongs in the New Year’s Honours List. Usual terms, etc, involving invisible ink and the Biggs and Capone, (Offshore), account in the Cayman Islands. Keeps the books clean.

Already pencilled in are; a knighthood for that Welsh chap who was good enough to keep my opponents supplied with fresh eggs on the hustings, peerages in lieu of money for my creditors and a zoo for Hartlepool where, by the way, we will shortly be opening a new Taffeta Tutu club.

Got to go. The men from Pickfords are here….

     Chapter Fifteen

ON NOCTURNAL RAMBLES AND PLAYING POSSUM

Vauxhall has been in the business of manufacturing cars for more years than I have existed, (Really? Ed), and possibly should have known better than to summon Madame and self to play with their new Astra Convertible before it could be slipped safely into UK showrooms.

But I had promised, as I always do on these occasions, that I would behave myself.

We made our way to the ancient Kingdom of Fife for this exercise and immediately impressed our hosts by sipping just one quick coffee and nibbling a biscuit before scooting out in the Bertone-designed machine.

The first problem to arise was that no problems arose, if you get my drift. The car behaved impeccably, so much so that I suspected, (fully paid up member of Cynics International etc), that the car had been set up just for the day by the best brains in Vauxhall’s engineering department, namely Eric and Bert, who share a bench next to the tea machine.

If this was indeed the case then the lads had excelled themselves. Thus encouraged I took out some other cars, notably the Astra Coupe Turbo and a cute little Corsa Elegance, all 1.4 litres of raw power, and still had an almost empty notebook at the end of play.

True, the available grunt in the Coupe makes for some interesting up-front pattering when fed in by a heavy right foot. In fact there were occasions when the steering seemed to be struggling to keep up, but as very few owners can drive quite as badly as I do then this shouldn’t really be an issue.

The convertible, however, is a very quick but user-friendly machine. So much so that even my great uncle James, who once crashed a boat into Africa, would have come to no harm in it.

Anyway we were grateful that Vauxhall had provided us with a pre-launch opportunity to drive their latest ragtop and - showers permitting - to play with what is one of the easiest up and under top removal systems in the business. All it takes is a single push of a button and you can take full advantage of every blink of sunshine. However if you buy one and the mechanism sticks five years down the line, don’t come bleating to me.

The technology packed into the latest Astra is a far cry from what was offered when it was originally launched and the price reflects this relentless drive upmarket. It takes a whopping £17,495 to put a 1.8 litre version in your driveway and you will have to add another £1,500 or so to get your hands on the livelier 2.2 litre car.

Vauxhall say it is a full four-seater, but we suspect those rear seats would become more than a little wriggle worthy on a long journey although up front there is no lack of leg, shoulder or headroom.

And the soft top’s heat insulating properties and aerodynamically correct design means real warmth in the winter and a blessed escape from the annoying flapping that occurs in most convertibles when driven quickly in windy conditions.

The lines of the Bertone-designed body give the impression of a much larger, lower car than the Astra actually is, but there is nothing illusory about the equipment list.

Every worthwhile safety feature and driving aid, from a dynamic safety chassis, through ABS and traction control system is augmented by an (optional) electronic stability programme and other, even more incomprehensible gubbins. Have the full set fitted and there will be no excuses for any unexpected visit to the hedgerows.

Those prices, however. Think of what else you can get for that kind of money. You could play several rounds of golf over the Old Course; acquire a modest Merc, possibly a brash Beemer - formidable opposition indeed.

Came the end of the test session I was so impressed that I simply had to go to the bar and wind down. This wasn’t as easy as it seems. The nice young waitress, (so young she should have had a note from her mum explaining that the family knew she was out), had never heard of my current tipple, Chablis laced with Red Bull. I therefore had to settle for a rather ghastly house white in the dead hours before dinner.

I will gloss over the lamb course, simply because my definition of same involves an immature sheep, rather than an ancient ram that had been the unfortunate victim of a traffic accident, but I have eaten worse, I think, so mustn’t grumble. At least I recognised it. Nothing else was in any way familiar.

Après-dinner entertainment in hotels these days invariably involves someone in scruffy clothes playing violent music at the assembled guests. This time the decibel count was such that any conversation was only possible with the aid of an electronically boosted megaphone, so I simply gave up until the musicians went away. In fact one was literally carried off by his friends at the conclusion of hostilities, courtesy of spending much of the evening dipping into a secret stash of drink hidden in his drum kit.

This was more like the thing. With Madame safely tucked up in bed and The Boy desperately exercising his charms in a corner in an attempt to impress a splendid young companion, (of whom I heartily approved), myself and a few chums took a bottle of eight-year old blended whisky for a midnight stroll through the shrubbery.

The stroll turned into a struggling ascent of a small mountain topped with impressive trees. One of our little group managed to find a use for one of these leafy things by ascending it almost as athletically as those South Seas chaps when they are after the old coconut harvest.

There was much staring and pointing skywards, wondering where he had gone and whether he would come back at an alarming rate of knots, accompanied by crashing and tearing sounds. A young lady in the party took photographs. This was appropriate since her normal occupation involves producing snaps for the police (crime scenes, disembowelments, that sort of stuff). We earnestly hoped this would not turn out to be any such thing, so were mightily relieved when our friend descended in one piece.

By some miracle of navigation we managed to rediscover the barracks, entering said premises at 0200 hours. I arranged myself atop a stout piece of Victorian furniture to gather my breath, wakening later to find myself encased in a white sheet and with several candles perched on my chest, burning eerily.

Naturally I thought I was dead, and quite possibly the subject of a set of snaps by the aforementioned young lady, but then the night porter arrived and proceeded to subject me to a stern tongue-wagging. This was very embarrassing, especially as there were other people about, principally wedding guests in smart suits and delicately patterned frocks.

Suitably chastened, I apologised to one and all and tottered off to my apartments to wake Madame.

“You will never believe this,” I gasped, flushed with excitement, “but I really must tell you. There was this big tree, drink, photographs, white sheets, spluttering candles, I was momentarily dead and there was a red-faced porter shouting rude things.”

She was not at all impressed.

“Go to sleep,” she said. “And take that excited look off your face.”

SAVING THE PLANET

As part of my everyday duties I have to study the learned ramblings of certifiable professors, most of whom are in grave danger of toppling over the thin line that divides genius from lunacy. In addition there are press conferences hosted by men in suits. I don’t like suits, much preferring the antics of our wild-eyed academics.

Most recently this devotion to duty has involved attempting to read a dreadful publication compiled by a whole army of under-employed people at the Ford Motor Company’s world headquarters in Detroit, Michigan.

Weather watchers will have noticed that this is the self-same city that was buried under ten feet of snow from November to February, so  perhaps the heating failed and they did it in an effort to keep warm.

It is full of all the forbidden phrases listed above as well as several hundred more that we don’t have room for in a serious newspaper, but the title, Connecting with Society gives most of the plot away. Ford, says the book, is absolutely convinced that by building millions of cars each year it is actively  contributing to the well-being of the planet, its assorted citizenry, the environment and the happiness and health of creatures as diverse as penguins and gorillas. On top of all that there is a pledge that the customer will always come first and …. Oops, nearly fell into that trap.

Anyway, if anyone out there has finished this morning’s crossword and is in thumb-twiddling mode, or needs an effective alternative to sleeping pills, the book is within easy rummage distance of the top of next door’s wheelie bin.

Saving the planet and its precious fuel resources is all the rage at the moment. This is why car manufacturers have decided that we should try dual-fuel vehicles. Somehow the logic of using gas  either in tandem with, or instead of petrol escapes me, simply because they are both valuable natural resources and therefore using one, the other, or both simultaneously isn’t going to make a jot of difference in the long term.

Or even in the comparatively short term. The nice men in suits who addressed me in between slumbers at the Volvo UK plant in Daventry did their very best to explain to me that the world’s fuel resources would dry up within 40 years. This will mean, among other things, that you won’t be able to move about the city without being accosted by Saudi Arabian sheiks down on their luck, touting copies of the Big Issue.

In between snoozes I countered that I will be similarly extinct in 40 years, and so will they, so let’s party.

And, if we take note of the blindingly obvious, which is that the price of LPG is currently 40% lower per litre than that of petrol, and switch to gas, the flinty-eyed gentleman currently residing at No. 11 Downing Street, (or his successor), will almost certainly have done a similar calculation and will be poised to rake in some more boodle by way of taxes when the agreed price moratorium on gas expires in 2004.

However, as a responsible seeker after the truth, I agreed to drive a Bi-Fuel Volvo around for the day, an exercise that proved the vehicle will tootle along quite as happily on gas as it will on petrol, and vice-versa.

The really interesting bit is when you come to refuel the gas tank. Firstly, you have to find an establishment that actually stocks the stuff. This takes so long that by the time you arrive you have used all your petrol as well as gas, so two tanks are in imminent danger of caving in.

All of us are accustomed to the simple, if pocket-emptying routine attached to replenishing the old Unleaded reservoir, but gas? What happens is that you connect a thing that looks like the extreme end of a fireman’s hose to a docking bay and press a button. Easy? Of course, until the gas tank is filled and you unsnap the connection.

This is when a very exciting WHOOSH! occurs and a blast of LPG hits you in the countenance with a force best described as unreasonable. Also, for the next few hours you become a walking time bomb, mortally afraid of the man across the street who is either smoking a cigarette or looks as though he is about to.

I am too nervous to handle this, so after taking the car back to its rightful owners, I went back to my hotel room for a quiet cower under the duvet.

Things didn’t get all that better when I shaved, showered, liberally sprayed on a light covering of Versace Blue Jeans, and stepped out into the big world again. Waiting for me was a delightful young lady of my acquaintance who looks after the smart, (yes, that’s how they like it written), cars marketed here for a laugh by Mercedes-Benz.

These titchy little two-seaters will again save the environment, ensure penguins live happily ever after etc. Turn one upside down and it will make a useful kayak for Eskimos. Unhappily they look very silly indeed and even although my young friend is very nice and would render me maddened by lust if I happened to be a few decades younger, I turned down her offer to drive the car, citing residual gas and a fear of explosions in such a confined space.

Cute, but only if you are a hairdresser or are someone in the theatre.

It worked, after she had an exploratory sniff of my shirt, but only on a temporary basis. I have promised to drive the smart in Edinburgh next month when the cabriolet version is launched. This is very worrying, because if it isn’t raining they will insist on having the top down. The prospect of having to enter Leith and there negotiate knots of small boys in full mocking mode has already turned my cheeks the colour of vintage port.

And this hardly bars thinking about - there could even be sailors there who may misinterpret my moustache. I mean, what is heroic RAF to one generation is Village People to another.

POSTCARD FROM PERUGIA

It has been seven days, six aircraft, four hotels and two car launches since I last pecked out this column, so if I suddenly doze off, please fill my glass and prod me with a rolled up cheque.

BMW were first out of the traps this week with their new MINI.  The upper case MINI actually made its first appearance at some motor show or other back in ‘97, but it has taken them all this time to get the lads out of the Elvis Prescott Memorial public house in Oxford and back to the production line, where they had to learn the ins and outs of building something that wouldn’t fall to bits before it left the factory.

Our German friends kindly waited for me to draw up a chair in Perugia before telling the assembled hacks and hackettes that they were very proud indeed to have produced something that reflected the unique heritage of the British motor industry.

Most of the assembled scribblers were much too young to understand this heritage business, so I gently explained it to them in words of as few syllables as possible, helping them with the spelling of anything over six letters.

Even then I had to fib a bit, because a closer examination of the MINI’s components revealed that only around 40% of the car has anything to do with Britain. The more meaningful stuff, such as the Brazilian-built engine, is shipped in at night when the local MPs are busy rehearsing for their next appearance at Prime Minister’s Question Time, where they will ask; “Will my right honourable friend agree that he is our most able leader since Alfred the Great, and is even better looking?”

It won’t work if they are after the old ermine. I tried it years ago.

Anyway, I digress, (jet lag, grappa aftershock, that sort of thing), but I can reveal that the new vehicle is a fine steed, as it should be after such a gestation period. My good self and even better co-driver desperately attempted to drive it into submission over two days and many kilometres, but to no effect. All we could muster were a few fluffed gear changes in between drawing admiring glances from hundreds of Italian motorists. We didn’t mind adoring gazes from the local ladies, but became a bit worried when the men started it as well.

In truth the MINI is an absolute stunner, even allowing for the fact that it is bolted together in this country, and I forecast that it will be the next European Car of the Year, so dart down to your local turf accountant before the odds shorten.

They may already have done so as I had to help some television people write their scripts in between doing radio broadcasts of my own. I was about to offer the same assistance to Miss Gail Porter, who was in attendance for some inexplicable reason, but she scurried away.

On a different tack. Be careful not to gamble more than ten pence each way on bi-fuel cars becoming a familiar sight on our roads. My good friends at Volvo whisked me to exotic Daventry in a bid to persuade me that this was the case. They even lined up several gentlemen in suits to speak at me for several hours on the viability of various gases in a desperate attempt to gain my support. Unfortunately I nodded off in the middle of all this, (jet lag, grappa etc), and must have missed the more convincing parts of the presentation.

I did, however, drive a dual fuel Volvo around for a few hours and found that it performed very well, but so do the same cars when given a drink of petrol which, of course, is much more readily available. Petrol-engined cars are also more socially acceptable in that being able to afford to run one gives their owners a certain social standing not enjoyed by poorer citizens whizzing around on stuff that should be deployed in the kitchen, thus depriving their children of hot food.

Still, Volvo’s UK people didn’t take offence at my ramblings and even let me borrow a car, (petrol driven), in which to trundle round to the industry test track at Millbrook. This is where earnest youngsters from the lesser publications are rendered all of a twitter at being allowed a rare opportunity to drive Ferraris, Jaguars and the like without having to go out and steal them under cover of darkness.

Having gone through this phase ‘way back when I had to treat my spots with proprietary lotions from Messrs Boots the Chemist, I contended myself by drawing up a chair, basking in the warm sunshine and munching a Nissan-sponsored bacon roll.

Various motor industry chiefs stopped by from time to time, either to exchange pleasantries or else to invite me to a playful scuffle behind the luncheon tent. Old scores, that sort of stuff.

But that’s the charm of Britain in summer.

Chapter Sixteen

THE GREAT NISSAN MINIBAR MYSTERY

I made my jaunty way to Gleneagles to investigate the proceedings billed by Nissan as it’s “See the Changes Tour”.

It was also something of a reunion, as the Nissan people and I had not crossed paths since the launch of the original Almera in Amsterdam some years ago. That was a rumbustious do, culminating in a small fight when with a trio of transvestites offering to throw me in a murky canal simply because I suggested their frocks were a bit on the tarty side.

But the Nissan sense of humour is rather more robust than that of the cloggies. I had set out a list of demands that must be met before my appearance at the Perthshire bash could be guaranteed. These included the provision of certain “home comfort” items in my room, to wit: a Teddy bear, current copy of the Beano, two Scotch pies and a bottle of Bovril (I have sophisticated tastes), all of which were supplied, plus a couple of bottles of champagne for good measure.

Funny how people change for the better once they start building cars rather than getting Tommies to construct full-scale model railways in steamy locations. I was hugely impressed.

Naturally, all of this kindness demanded a certain professionalism in return, so while Madame splashed happily in the bath, I rumbled around the countryside in a selection of machines. These included such as a 4x4 Pick-up, a freshened-up Terrano, a Tino and one of the new Almera saloons which I checked carefully in case it should contain any Dutch persons wearing doubtful apparel.

The Almera I have always touted as being one of the best cars in its class, a judgement that has caused a few lips to curl elsewhere, but I have never been a great fan of the Terrano, with its choppy ride and too high stance. Better to scrape together a few more bob and go for its bigger and better brother, the splendid Patrol, which has earned its spurs in tough places such as the Oz outback and every desert from the Kalahari to the Gobi.

 Nissan’s oft-pilloried Almera is OK.

The Tino? The jury is still out on this one. It drives smoothly and seems to share the same sound build quality of the other Nissans, but its looks remind me of the dreaded Prescott when he smiles, which not often but is extremely worrying when it does occur.

That leaves the Pick-up, easily the most practical, impressive and desirable of the quartet. Fitted with a double cab and a 2.5 litre turbo diesel engine, it does everything your average family hack will do - only better. It also returns around 30mpg overall and doubles up as a skip. The grounds around my palatial residence are now almost Balmoral-like when it comes to tidiness. Every home should have one of these things.

So it was a busy day, but in the evening came a tour of, and dinner in, the world’s oldest working malt whisky distillery. It would have been a good time and place to switch the lights out on a glittering career, being the nearest I’ll ever get to heaven.

But I was still in mid-frolic when we got thrown out at midnight, returning to the hotel cocktail lounge prior to doing earnestly expensive things to my Minibar. The first part went well, what with sparkling conversation, semi-accidental soakings from upset wine glasses and a courteous ushering from the room just before the bar staff died of exhaustion.

This is where a Minibar comes in handy. After all, when you change into the old pyjamas and have a Beano to get through before lights out, what better than yet another glass of bubbly?

Alas, that Nipponese sense of humour I mentioned earlier had manifested itself by having the staff empty my room of everything except sparkling water. The rascals. If it hadn’t been such a splendid bash I would have gone into a prolonged sulk, but they had even thought of this.

My ear trumpet detected scuffling and clinking in the corridor and, as I pretended to sleep, in tiptoed a maid who silently replenished the hitherto empty drinks cabinet.

The old emptying routine has been worked before, notably by the pre-BMW Rover mob and, just the other month, by one of the more miserable French companies. We won’t mention them, as I said to Teddy before slipping peacefully into the Land of Nod, but it wasn’t Renault.

Next week I shall be in Italy with Miss Gail Porter, a delightful young gel who looks much better than my usual co-driver, a decent enough chap from one of those wordy broadsheets people carry under their  arms en route to job interviews, but never read.

I have secreted some samples of Nissan hospitality in my valise. A picnic in Umbria is on the cards.

AN OUTBREAK OF UNWANTED TECHNOLOGY

This column is being smuggled out of Chadwick Manor by pigeon, as I am presently confined to barracks. Foot and mouth, bathing one’s tootsies in disinfectant, that sort of thing.

Actually, I don’t have any cloven-hoofed creatures around the place, unless you count the deer that come round every morning to eat my embryo tulips. All I can muster are three cats, a red squirrel, lots of grouse (grice?) and the occasional marauding dog from three doors away. In other words, I am a pretty low risk, but it is probably better to stay indoors. Beats working, for starters. Anyway - there has been no sign of Prescott since the emergency began. Hopefully some trainee vet has culled him.

Test cars still filter through, of course. The latest is a Ford Mondeo, new style, which looks a whole lot like the old style apart from being endowed with a toothier front end. Oh - the interior is also different. There is an eccentrically shaped clock from the Ka and . . . well, that’s about it, really. For some odd reason Ford has opted to go all minimalist, kitting out the cabin in that studiously unfinished style so beloved of our German cousins.

This means acres of dark grey vinyl spreading from dashboard to door trim and seat coverings. Wonderful if you are into eye-watering Russian literature and three-piece suits, but overly droll should you be a fun-loving creature like my good self.

Most of the meaningful technical stuff in the new Mondeo, according to Ford advertising, is tucked away under the bonnet and around the nether regions of the chassis. What it is designed to do is to make  the driver semi-redundant, what with ABS, ESP and - for all we know  - a sort of built-in Mystic Meg to soothsay what is round the next corner and instruct the car how to behave accordingly.

Clever, but I often wonder how much this adds to the basic cost of the thing and - more importantly - whether it is really necessary. Get in any modern car with a racing or rally driver, and they will immediately switch all this stuff off and resort to the traditional method of welly and adrenaline.

I can understand their reluctance to trust little boxes of silicon chips. I am still trying to come to terms with electrically powered windows. They never stop at the desired half-open position without a whole lot of up and down jerking and - if you live by the sea like myself - they can bring about an unwanted introduction to Davy Jones.

Drop your car into the harbour, (it happens), and you will get the big picture. You sit there waiting for the interior to fill with water to the point where interior pressure equals outside pressure. The theory is that when equilibrium is achieved, (a rough guide is when your pockets are full of squid and a jellyfish perches on your shoulder), you lower the window, slither out and gently bob to the surface.

Except the window won’t open because the electrics have gone phut, the door is too heavy and you have neglected to carry a sledgehammer, windscreen for the smashing of. I shall draw a wet veil over the next few minutes.

Aha! you will say. Not too many people attempt to drive around on the bottom of harbours, even if we are a maritime nation. No? Take out a subscription to the Wittering-on-Sea Gazette and count ‘em. You will be surprised.

Other things I hate are those pesky stereo systems with controls so titchy that only Japanese children possess fingers small enough to operate them. What is wrong with an on/off button and parallel tuning knob, both preferably made of grippy Bakelite?

Spare wheels? Bet you don’t even know where yours is lurking. My last puncture was sustained in the inky blackness of a moor so remote that I would have stood a better chance of summoning an AA man in Wagga Wagga. I was driving an unfamiliar car at the time, and it took a full fifteen minutes to locate the fifth Michelin. Naturally, I got very wet in the prevailing monsoon, and also had to fend off some advances from a lonely ram with something of a shoe fetish. It was an unsettling experience.

But I am not anti-everything. In fact, I am a huge fan of satellite navigation systems, which should be compulsory in every car. In my time I have left the Geneva Motor Show, pointed my car at the Channel ports and ended up in Brescia with a gentleman in a silly hat demanding to see my passport. Brescia, as it happens, is quite deep into Italy. I have similarly made friends in Poland when I should have been in Hungary.

This type of directional dyslexia could, in the days of Berlin walls and stuff, have meant an unpleasant interview with the Stasi or other sinister group comprising gentlemen in long overcoats. Incarceration, false confessions, toenails tampered with and other worrying experiences.

I tried out a satellite navigation system on a recent visit to the United States. It not only guided me gently through some bewildering Superbowl traffic, but also deposited me at the exact address I had keyed in. It was so accurate, in fact, that it signed off by telling me on what side of the road my friends lived.

But otherwise all cars should come with no extras other than seats. This would mean a £15,000 machine could be purchased for around half this sum. Then we could, if we felt inclined, add any bits and bobs considered necessary, such as cocktail cabinets and a change of dinner suit.

I shall put this to Ford if and when the foot and mouth business comes to a satisfactory conclusion, and I am free to resume my scampers.  Shame about Prescott.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SUITABLE ROOFING

If I have been quiet of late, it is simply because I have been spending a lot of time on my roof.  Book to hand, sandwich box tucked under arm, hammer and nails - that sort of thing. We have had a leak for the past decade, but nowadays when it rains the experience is akin to standing under the Angel Falls in July. It was just this kind of deluge that had Madame sending me aloft with instructions not to return until we were watertight.

But on dry days I have been able to sneak down, sometimes even attending driving functions. I used one such interval to attend the launch of the new Mercedes-Benz C-class Coupe. Glad I did. The example I got was fitted with what our Teutonic friends call a Sequentronic shift, a sort of quasi-automatic box so hilariously inept that I am convinced Mercedes-Benz has opened the doors to Polonez engineers down on their luck. I was still chuckling when I resumed my perch on the slates several hours later.

Last weekend I descended once more, again at the bidding of Mercedes-Benz. I anticipated trouble, but this time it was serious. Not only did I receive a summons, but they wanted my entire tribe to present themselves, presumably so they could be photographed and entered in some register or other.

In the great Third Man tradition we were billeted in a theme park called Alton Towers, which is somewhere near Derby. It didn’t have a Ferris wheel, but there was a machine called Nemesis and something else called Oblivion. I was fed, watered and taken to these instruments of torture, tied down and sent hurtling off on a journey of sheer terror. Later in the day it got even worse, what with itinerant musicians hired to play at us throughout dinner, an exhausting disco dance and a dizzy coach ride back to barracks where I found a wedding and joined in after tucking Madame up in bed.

I am now a dear friend of the groom, so he tells me, but his new missus seemed a bit upset that he never made it to the bed of nuptials, even though I explained there would be many other nights for that sort of thing.

Next morning Mercedes-Benz played their trump card, setting me out on the public highways behind the wheel of a long-wheelbase A-class thingy, (you see them at the airport with EasyOasy Car Hire stickers on them), fitted with the Son of Sequentronic.

Yes! Yet another of those semi-automatics that only sort of semi-functioned.  Determined  not to be beaten, I wrestled the thing up to Manchester and back south to Wolverhampton, all the while growing redder in the face at my complete inability to come to terms with a bag of cogs that insisted on going up when they should have been coming down - and occasionally not doing anything at all.

Taxi drivers gesticulated furiously, truckers aimed their Magirus-Deutz bonnets at my rear and on one memorable occasion I was out-accelerated by some leering youths - presumably escapees from the nearest List-D establishment, in an F-registered Fiesta.

Needless to say, I was ruffled in extremis by the time I returned to the Stalag where the welcoming party stood around, scuffling their shoes and trying not to laugh as they asked what I thought of the car.

“Wonderful,” I replied. “I especially liked the silky precision of the gear shift which, allied to fantastic acceleration and limpet-like road holding, makes this the very best car I have driven since next door’s dog died.”

I tossed what is left of my once flowing locks and stalked back to the hotel to claim my valise and check out. Sneaking a glance over my shoulder I could see my interrogators scratching their heads and poking at things under the bonnet. They knew the dastardly plan had gone wrong, but not being blessed with any sort of imagination, could not fathom out just how.

They did get one little dig in, however. I had extras to pay for when settling up. Apparently if you have an egg and bacon with your breakfast you will be asked to fork out another £4.95 to add to the 139 drachmas it has already cost for the room.

I am now back on my roof, conversing with the seagulls. You meet a superior class of creature up here and, when there is a break in the clouds, can see Boeings full of returning American holidaymakers heading for Baltimore and Detroit.

“Guess what?” you know they are saying. “We had to pay an extra seven bucks in that darned hotel for ham and eggs. And Jeez - did you hear the gears mangling on that little Mercedes the ruddy-faced guy was driving?”

LE CHAT ET MOI

Not having attended any BMW frolics for almost a decade, I felt something of an obligation to show up at the German company’s M3/X5 extravaganza in Provence, especially since the flight was departing from RAF Northolt. I remembered the old camp well, having been briefly incarcerated there following a spirited bout of National Service naughtiness way back when the world was young.

It has changed. In fact it seems nowadays to be little more than a gateway used by VIPs arriving and departing in private jets as they dodge the snappers at Heathrow and Gatwick. There were very few airmen to be seen. David Jason, the actor chap, tottered across the Tarmac as I made my way out to the Dornier. Happily he looked splendidly decrepit, sufficiently so as to make me appear moustache-twirlingly young. I warmed to the man.

Our aircraft was piloted by a young German lady in curls, while refreshments were served by the equally admirable Victoria, who didn’t have curls, but compensated by dispensing the vin blanc in generous measure. I can feel the Ancient Editor twitching at this point, so perhaps I should point out there was to be no driving that day.

In fact all we did on arrival was to wander through the picturesque little village of Nimes to a rather agreeable restaurant where white fish accompanied by what looked suspiciously like cockroaches topped the menu. I did ask the waiter if these creatures were what they seemed, receiving no more than an enigmatic smile by way of reply. Perhaps I should have tipped in advance. They certainly tasted as though a blast of DDT was required.

After dinner was the best time. That’s when we were given an audience by the hotel cat, a magnificent grey-striped creature that went round each of us in turn, tasting our earlobes and purring seductively. Funny how French females of any species have the old seductive purring down to a fine art.

Anyway, le chat used to be a stray, but is now very much an aristochat, dining only on white fish and langoustines. I made an offer for the delightful creature, but the waitress said it would not be happy in a country like ours. Very wise, cats are.

Next day it was down to business. We drove a magnificent M3 in the general direction of a nearby racing circuit where we assessed the track’s daunting contours and opted to give any high speed stuff a miss. After all, when you have recently dined on cockroaches, any wrestling with G-forces could have a disastrous effect on the leather upholstery.

So we struck out for Calais and the Channel Tunnel which, in our usual foolish manner, we thought was reachable by nightfall. Alas, even running at a steady 100 mph, the last train departed without us. It had been some time since my last sud-nord traverse of France and I swear it is now much bigger than it used to be. Probably they have annexed part of Belgium and used it as a buffer between themselves and Angleterre in a desperate bid to keep F&M at bay.

The car, however, performed admirably, even if it had a prodigious thirst, and delivered us to our Calais hotel, the on-board computer protesting that we only had enough fuel for another two kilometres.

We dined at a restaurant called the Café de Paris, a curious establishment in which Sid and Elsie rubbed shoulders with Henri et Sylvie. It was more Blackpool than Calais in character, but the natives were friendly. So much so, in fact, that two dowagers at the next table gave us a bottle of wine when my companions turned up their noses at the Chardonnay I had ordered. I imagine the ladies were after some playful ahem, but all they got was a gracious ‘thank you’ and a replacement bottle of the same in return.

After reveille my co-driver took the wheel and I sternly instructed him to find a filling station within 400 yards of the hotel otherwise we would be in serious trouble of the hard shoulder trudging variety, carrying cans and looking decidedly sheepish. Instead he put on his best Mr. Angry face and set off in hot pursuit of our companions in the X5, all the while flashing lights, blowing horns and bellowing in his best Anglo-Saxon that they should stop immediately because we were low on petrol. This was very droll. I mean, what did it have to do with them? They had a bigger tank.

A small outbreak of in-car fighting ensued as the computer indicated that the BMW’s oasis was drier than a dead possum’s nether regions. At this point we had already entered the Tunnel environs and were beginning to envisage having to push the Beemer onto the train, but we spotted a filling station hidden behind a row of Volvo Globetrotters and managed to trickle onto the forecourt just as the engine gave a dying cough and shuddered to a halt.

Many francs later we did an about turn and headed off to the Calais supermarkets where we filled the boot with cases of wine, (you should never accept the carrying capacity stated in the manufacturer’s handout. Much better to fill it with real cargo). Then it was onto the train for the trip to the UK where we were given the traditional welcome afforded all of our continental friends, namely lines of traffic cones, potholed roads and no fewer than 27, (we counted them), speed cameras in the first 50 miles. Did I hear someone ask why our tourist trade has dwindled away to little more than a few truckloads of Albanians every day?

Mr. Angry dropped me off at Heathrow where the nice man at the BA check-in desk immediately upgraded my ticket and gave me a card for the Executive Lounge. This is one of the perks of looking aristocratic and having a clean visage.

Unfortunately this was Saturday afternoon and I had told Madame to expect me on Friday evening, so when I finally swept into the magnificent environs of Flywheel Towers, search parties were already poking in the undergrowth and Madame had looked out all of my insurance policies.

I really hope BMW appreciate all of the effort I put into attending this function - and I really did like that cat.

The car? Splendid. Steal £38,000 and buy one.

Chapter Seventeen

 

BREAKING QUARANTINE

 

I’m out! It took a dawn tiptoe through the old Lysol to escape from Chadwick Manor and scuttle off to the Citroen C5 launch at Melton Mowbray (ye olde Red Melton ale being a powerful lure).

Just as well I wasn’t at home as yet another of my recently visited establishments went up in smoke. This time it was a castle, (quite old and valuable), so there will no doubt be questions asked, DNA testing, grim-faced inquisitors asking about insurance policies - that sort of thing.

Regular readers will know that this outbreak of mysterious edifice combustion started around the time I failed to tip a Creole waitress in New Orleans. Normally I am very generous, but when someone dumps hot coffee in your lap and then attempts to ease the pain by rattling chicken bones and an assortment of unidentified gizzards over your head, trouble almost certainly follows. Mark my words. Being on the receiving end of serious voodoo is worse than appearing on Blind Date and winning a weekend in Barbados with Ms Helen Liddell. Well, perhaps not, but you get my drift.

Anyway, the Citroen people received me rather well, two of the welcoming party of four even bestowing kisses on my ruddy countenance. The other two were men, so they didn’t dare.

I was even spared driving on the first day, so there was ample opportunity to don the smoking jacket, ( I know, chancing my arm a bit), and taking up station in the library with one or two books and an interesting selection of  falling down waters. Some of this little haul mysteriously found its way into my room as I discovered on waking before dawn. Most welcome it was too.

But it was a respectably sober Flywheel who headed into Rutland at the wheel of a C5 V6 immediately after the old bacon and eggs. The Citroen people, who had been eagerly awaiting my verdict on their new car, a replacement for the Xantia, were a little dismayed when I said I didn’t like the suspension, because I spent too much time in the air after attacking a hump-backed bridge with considerable aplomb. They are very fond of this setup, having spent oodles of euros developing it so that it raises and lowers itself depending on the terrain being traversed. I felt a little guilty, especially when faced with the threat of a dry lunch, so I was quite pleased when they sent me out on a diesel with, they promised, a firmer ride built in.

“How was that?” they asked when I returned. “I still don’t like the suspension very much, but otherwise it is a magnificent machine and I shall attempt to persuade the Ancient Editor to buy me one in lieu of wages,” I offered.  Several frowns later, another version was wheeled out and duly sampled, but with the same result. More long faces. Had Citroen been a Japanese company there would have been much donning of Samurai clothing followed by heroic disembowelments in the suspension department. Alas, the French have lost their sense of theatre. They simply shrugged.

After a lunch, sans wine as expected, and conducted in a polite but stiffly formal manner, I was put in the rear of a Synergie and taken to the airport, but not until I had managed to steal another three pecks from the ladies. I can be very gallant, even when the circumstances are less than favourable.

Anyway, I sneaked back into Flywheel Towers shortly after closing time, only to be confronted by Madame, bearing an important-looking document.

“You have to go to France on Friday,” she said. “These are your tickets. Make sure you wash your face and wear a clean shirt.”

“Good grief,” I said, jaw dropping. “I only complained that I didn’t like the suspension. No need for an official summons, incarceration in the Bastille, dragging a cross through Montmartre when the bars are closed, or any of that sort of unpleasantness.”

Happily I had jumped to the wrong conclusion. I have to go to France to play with some M3 BMWs. Hope our German friends have been tipped the wink by Citroen to get their suspensions well sorted as I see from the itinerary that there is a racetrack involved.

There could be trouble ahead.

BEFORE AND AFTERSHOCKS

(Note for new readers: . . . oh, what’s the use? Ed.)

Spring is just around the corner. I know this because I have just electrocuted myself while attempting to kick some life into my strimmer. The shock wasn’t at all pleasant. It was a bit like finding that Madame has invited Prescott to tea.

Anyway, instead of my usual George Galloway of Baghdad see-through style, I now have stand-up frizzy hair like Charlie Chuck. He’s the manic northern person in the purple suit who advertises chocolate biscuits on television by stamping around on a bus, demanding a Persian rug.

It will take too long to explain this if you haven’t seen it, so I won’t bother, but the old barnet is looking extremely 1970. I could get into one of those New Romantic pop groups and leer at Toyah Wilcox.

I was going to use my new look to frighten people on Mallorca last  week, but had to skip the Hyundai bash for several reasons, not  least the fact that the kick-off time made it impossible for me to  get to the airport before the BA waitresses closed the doors and  started bossing people around.

In addition, I would probably not be welcomed too warmly at the hotel. I was there last year, complaining loudly about the dreadful  lack of facilities (no Minibar) and the fact that my room may once  have been used by a Mr. Michael Zeta Jones, who is apparently well  known to those sad persons who don’t have television sets and have  to go to cinemas instead. Mr. ZJ, you may recall, once confessed to an addiction of the type that makes it advisable for sensitive souls such as myself to check in to the next hotel - preferably in a different town.

But it wasn’t entirely a wasted seven days. Ford hosted a dinner in Perthshire and needed me to trot along in order to give the proceedings a lift. Young Robert Reid, who has the unenviable task of co-driving on World Rally Championship business with Richard Burns, was on the receiving end of a major award for his endeavours.

His partner, a most agreeable young lady, drew a shorter straw and had to put up with me all through dinner. Credit where it is due. She listened attentively to my ramblings without a flicker of disinterest. Mr. Reid is a lucky man indeed. I might challenge him to a duel.

Ford had brought along some appropriate automotive machinery for us to play with. Two of them - a Transit and a Ranger - were tricked up with all sorts of sporting kit following the rally theme. Think of a Transit with fly-off handbrake, the slickest gear change you ever encountered, ground-hugging suspension, full safety harness, rollover bars and more street cred than a Scooby.

Got the picture? I want it - even if I did myself an injury attempting an entry à la Dukes of Hazzard - and if necessary will don a balaclava and make a late night sortie to the company’s Meaningful Tweaks Department in Brentwood in order to spirit away. I know the address.

More mundane, and therefore making more commercial sense, was a Focus fitted with Henry’s new Duratorq common rail diesel. The engine is apparently quicker, smoother, more economical and altogether better than its predecessor.  So it proved, but at the moment it is broken. I managed to test it to destruction in just 40 miles, getting the fuel to spray all over the place rather than just into the cylinders.

Ford could do worse than to employ me in its research and development department. When it comes to the old destruction frolics, I am both thorough and cheap.

Between breaking things and occupying the bar by force (it had been taken over by the Grand Order of Grocers), I checked out my room. It  was the same one in which I nearly drowned in December, courtesy of  a portly gentleman in the apartment above managing to transfer the contents  of his bath to my duvet in a piece of nocturnal wallowing worthy of  a major part in Free Willy.

Happily, my room was by now both acceptably dry and suitably refurbished. I assumed, wrongly as it turned out, that my previous trauma would have qualified me for a free go at the Minibar. I am presently mulling over an account of heroically jaw-dropping proportions.

As regular readers will know, I am very keen on fitness and that sort of stuff, so I lunched next day in the pool and gymnasium area. The Ancient Editor accompanied me in a bid to keep the bill within reason and almost fell victim to the disappearing sports jacket syndrome for the second time in as many years.

A waiter, darkly  foreign and in all probability from Catalonia, made an attempt to  spirit the garment away in case it frightened the other guests, but  in the end had to settle for some friendly verbal abuse and a minuscule tip.

The Ford people in attendance at the event were remarkably affable, given my track record of ruining their carefully laid and sometimes expensive plans, not to mention their cars. Unhappily, one of my best Ford friends, the exceedingly tall and urbane Michael Callaghan, is moving on to greater things after seven years of escorting me from one oasis to another. He will be greatly missed, especially as he has thus far failed to introduce me to his leggy sister.

His replacement is known to me. Unhappily, I am also known to him. We may have reached the end of an era.

FINGS ARE WHAT THEY USED TO BE

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be, according to the under-employed and overpaid pundits who litter the GMTV sofa of a morning, frightening my cat and sidling to within green monster range of the delicious Penny Smith.

But they are wrong - all of ‘em - and I can prove it. The Manor is full of nostalgic artefacts, from Ivory Joe Hunter recordings to Fiesta seats, a dynamo from my first Triumph Spitfire  and a collection of bills (unpaid) from creditors who mercifully pegged out before I got round to stumping up.

It isn’t just me, either. I was much heartened to read a recent report that, in America, the total number of known Elvis impersonators has reached 85,000. Better still, these splendid lunatics are multiplying at such a rate that one in every eight people on the planet will be wearing sideburns and a white jump-suit by the year 2050. Naturally, I shall be one of them, albeit an early convert, as 2050 is well outwith my allotted three score and ten.

As something of a preamble to learning the complete Leiber and Stoller songbook, I was chatting to the Ancient Editor about the good old days of car ownership, when we could buy five gallons of  petrol for a pound, there were no MOT tests, traffic police travelled around on Raleigh bicycles, and car dealers were not salesmen, but engineers.

I recall one such chap, ostensibly a Citroen main dealer, but still very much a dungaree-clad spannerman who liked nothing better than to spend his days immersed in used Castrol, preferably full of metal shards and dangerously near to boiling point.

He could fix anything. In fact, he took great pleasure in fixing things that others had deemed unfixable. It was to him that I would take my Austin A90 Atlantic whenever it refused to function, an occurrence which, in its dotage, became distressingly frequent.

The Austin was manufactured in the heyday of the throwaway society.  In other words, it was engineered to run reasonably well for a year and not so well for another year. After that you were supposed to consign it to the scrap yard and buy a new velocipede.

I thought this was manifestly unfair, which is why I cheated and drove the thing for so long that spares for the beast could be obtained only by donning a mask and breaking into the British Museum under cover of darkness.

An unsatisfactory state of affairs, of course, and not wholly practical. Instead, I resorted to asking my Citroen man to work miracle after miracle, which he did in truly Biblical fashion.

When my clutch went and no BMC dealer in Europe could come up with a replacement, it was he who adapted a Jaguar unit to fit - and charged me a modest £10 for the repair. But even when he was seemingly beaten, he always had an ace up his sleeve.

On the introduction of MOT testing, my Atlantic failed miserably on account of the fact that you had to turn the steering wheel twice before anything happened down there at tyre level. . This made cornering very interesting, but the MOT inspector thought otherwise. Alarming, socially irresponsible, deadly and quite probably criminal, were just some of the terms he used when announcing that my beloved steed had failed his piffling little test.

I needed a steering box. BMC said I couldn’t have one. The British Museum had increased its security spending, and as there were no other Atlantics still running at this point, the deft use of spanners in the local NCP was not an option.

Enter M. Citroen. Having examined the offending part, he shook his head and said it was an outside job. By this he meant the local heavy engineering works, wherein apprentices were taught to bend metal in a classroom, in between making tea for the foreman and learning all about strike pay, clocking in by remote control, unemployment benefits and stealing things, etcetera.

He presented the dead box to the instructor and challenged him to make a copy, to the original tolerances, betting him £25 that it was beyond the expertise of him and his pimply crew.

For such a sum the teacher would have turned the entire class into Bolshoi-standard ballet dancers, or even heavyweight boxing championship contenders, so I got a brand new steering box within the month.

Wouldn’t happen now. In fact, the provision of a towing eye cover for my 1991 Nissan Sunny GTi-R speed machine is apparently much too difficult a proposition for either the manufacturer or its 75 UK dealers. It is, after all, an incredibly complex piece of glass fibre, two inches square and painted gunmetal grey. Not nearly as easy to supply as a brand-new car.

I must therefore conclude, remembering my miracle worker, that there is nothing at all wrong with nostalgia. It is the present that is the real problem.

Hand me that Gibson guitar. I feel a twelve bar blues coming on. I wonder if Ms Smith is impressed by Billy Eckstein shirts and slightly sparse Perry Como hairdos . . . got to be worth a try.

ANDALUCIAN ANDANTE

Car launches are funny old things. I thought, as our Chrysler Voyager almost fell off a precipice for the third time in as many miles. Why do otherwise rational motoring writers need to drive like some sort of Nipponese off-duty suicide pilots whenever they are making their way from one bar to the next?

You don’t get Joe Ninety, alias the boy Coulthard, going as fast in a Grand Prix. In fact, had Joe been invited to the Voyager launch, he would still be in Madrid while we were sacking Ronda.

I like Ronda. It has a little bridge which spans the deepest chasm you ever saw. On a good day you could have seen the Sydney Olympics for free had you peered into its endless nothingness.

Naturally, the Spaniards - clever devils that they are - invented a sport with which to amuse themselves in between the stabbing bulls - another sport that originated in Ronda.

They would round up some citizenry from nearby hamlets and attach them to ropes, which were then swung over the bridge, depositing the hapless prisoners on a ledge under the main span. As ledges go, this one is pretty decent. The victims could stroll around quite happily and maybe even play a cautious game of football. What they couldn’t do was get back up

In time they would get hungry, which left them with but three choices. They could kill each other for grub, starve slowly to death or throw themselves into the Olympic Stadium several million feet below. It was a bit like these reality TV thingies we are subjected to almost nightly on Mr. Baird’s box, but much more interesting

Locals would gather at the bridge each lunchtime in the hope of seeing some wretch, maddened by the lack of drink, launch himself into the abyss. It was a jolly pastime, and was much appreciated by all and sundry (except the sundry on the ledge) right up to the end of the General Franco era.

Unfortunately, the communists then took over and the fun stopped. Communists never did like fun, unless it involved wearing hair shirts and talking about the redistribution of wealth - mostly among themselves.

I had hoped the old sky-diving might be enjoying something of a revival during my visit, but alas, it was not to be. Instead I wandered into the bullring to see if I could find any toros being enthusiastically prodded by picadors. There was none of that going on either so there was nothing left to do but engage the barmaid in conversation.

Her name was Imogene and she was blue-eyed fair-skinned, quite unusual in these parts. She also had the beginnings of a decent moustache, which is not unknown in southern Spain and indeed is considered quite sexy by the aforementioned picadors.

Imogene wasn’t too taken with them and was even less impressed by the matadors. She said they are all a bit camp and very prone to dressing up in girlie clothes, and that they never go in for the old post-sundown frolics. This probably explains why Ernest Hemingway was a frequent visitor to the town.

Ernie wasn’t into ye olde chasm plummeting, probably because it was too butch and invariably came with its own sudden ending. Check Ernie’s books. As well as having indifferent beginnings and turgid middies the endings are positively dire.

The Chrysler Voyager used to he likewise, (butch, not turgid or dire), but now at has gone all effete. To protect your fingernails when opening the sliding rear doors and/or tailgate, these functions are now carried out electronically. A development engineer who looked unnervingly like Mr. Saddam Hussein explained how it worked, with the commendably misplaced enthusiasm that comes with an impressive title and a decent salary.

I fretted at the edge of a less than enthralled knot of thirsty scribblers, wondering how he would react to some Brocks fireworks in his back pocket. By the time he got to the amazing cup holders my throat was grittier than the Kalahari Desert. Thoughts of small explosions had given way to wondering as to the going rate at the local court should I try a punch on the beak. Probably a quick dangle over the bridge, knowing my luck

Still, the Voyager is a decent enough machine to drive - even at alarming velocities - and after a lunch of oxtails complete with squid, 1970s vintage chicken and a selection of odd creatures -  thankfully all dead - which looked like dung beetles it was time to scoot happily back to Malaga and a sortie into the duty-free shop.

Before I escaped, Saddam said the Voyager has been manufactured for 17 years. You would have thought they would have run out of things to add to it after all this time, but any day now I expect to be summoned to sample the latest version - the one that has electronically controlled cup holders and self-emptying ashtrays.

Someone should explain to car manufacturers that the gizmo age peaked when Rolls-Royce had the blessed good sense to invent the on- board cocktail cabinet It has been downhill ever since

Anyway, I am now back home dealing with some semi-urgent matters, such as writs and invitations to visit the local Inland Revenue office, but I will be in touch soon.

     Chapter Eighteen

NOTHIN’ SHAKIN’ BUT THE LEAVES ON THE TREES

(Note for new readers: To make any sense of Chadwick’s world, it may help to refer to the voluminous archive of his previous columns.  Mind you, that’s never helped me much. Ed.)

I’m worried about Joe Ninety, the square-jawed racing driver fella for that German cigarette company. According to the fish and chip wrappers, his engagement is off, either permanently or just for a little while. Last year he was announcing imminent nuptials with Miss Unpronounceablename, a delightful young gel who always looked as though she should be squired around by someone much more interesting. Me,for instance.

Anyway, Joe promised he would slip the old wedding ring on her finger as soon as he had claimed the F1 title. Between you, me and the door post he has as much chance of getting his paws on that prize as Cletus has of running off with   Ms Katherine Harris, up there in the Tallahassee Grand Old Party Recount Dept. Anyway, if there is any running off to be done with Tallahassee’s first lady, it is myself who will be fastest out of the blocks.

Come to think of it, put Cletus in his patrol car, take away his drink, acquire an F1 driver’s permit from that printing plant in Colombia, and watch him go. Unlike Joe Ninety, ol’ Cletus wouldn’t have the nerve to trundle around all summer, not smoking his sponsor’s cigarettes and just keeping out of the way of the big dogs. He would be running with them, barking and snarling with a degree of panache unseen in Orange County since Crazy Sven, the woodsman, shouted “Y’all watch this!” and base-jumped off the Court  House roof. He was half-ways to the hospital before his parachute opened.

BillyRae told me about Sven while we were driving to Cocoa Beach in my borrowed XJR Sport. We had some stuff to collect at the Ron Jon surf shop, then there was a scheduled stop at a gentlemen’s club (yes!) for some refreshments while we listened to Jimmy Buffet music and did some playful leering at the table dancers. Had we been younger it would have been Plan A, but we are now at the stage where even leering is considered pretty rascally...

We couldn’t stay long, because the Canadians were in. They speak a strange sort of pidgin French and indulge in curious rituals, which mostly involve losing their trousers and hugging stuffed animals.

“Never did see a Canuck but he wasn’t half-ways nekkid,” snorted BillyRae. He says they spend too much time in the woods.

I’m also worried about myself. I have become grumpy, which is not my usual style at all. The Ancient One, speaking with all the wisdom of  a man wearing a replacement sports jacket (courtesy of Pamplona Insurance Services plc), says I am suffering from some sort of seasonal depression. I should get a grip on things; otherwise he will stop my cheque. Normally the bank manager attends to this small task, but it was kind of the old fella to offer.

He could be right about the depression. I flew home via Amsterdam and was dismayed to find that things in the UK remain much as before. Prescott is still around, as is the Tooth Fairy, but Mandy appears to have gone off to sulk in the Taffeta Tutu. Best place for him.

However, things are definitely looking up. This week I am off to Andalucia on Chrysler business. Naturally there will be some driving to do and presentations to attend before they hand out passes for the bar - there is a downside to everything - but after three weeks of knocking back Mississippi Mud and Louisiana Lightning, I can wait.

The Chrysler people look a bit strange and tend to wear blue raincoats, as if they come from Salt Lake City, but mostly they are a decent bunch. And, of course, I have a real fondness for southern Spain. The men are gloriously moustachioed and surly, probably because the women all have bandy legs and even better moustaches, but this is fine. Some of the waitresses will be acceptably robust.

Last time I drove anything sculpted by Chrysler - the PT Cruiser - I was held captive by the Ancient One and consequently was not allowed to behave normally. This worried my friends at Chrysler, some of whom took the trouble to ring and ask if I was ailing and, if so, would I be good enough to leave them a car or two in my will.

I found this very touching and look forward to shaking off enough of my seasonal thingy to conduct myself in a more reassuring manner this time. I may even ruin the press conference by asking just what arrangements the company is making to adequately recompense those 20,000 citizens of Detroit and Chicago who are about to be rendered redundant. After all, every PR person I have ever met insists that management like to be asked meaningful questions.

But seasonal thingy or not, I haven’t completely lost my touch. Before I put the assembled suits on their collective back foot, I shall have ensured that my return ticket is safe and my valise has been stocked with a sufficient supply of purloined miniatures to get me through any awkward silences.

Anyway, I am worried about . . . (That’s enough worrying. Just go to the damned launch! Ed.)

EXILE ON SIMPLETON STREET

Being an exile isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Old Napoleon probably had a great time on Elba before the guards spiked his porridge with arsenic. He would get up every day around noon and go for a stroll down to the beach, washing his tootsies in the unpolluted briny before whiling away the afternoon with a few holes of golf.

It must have been a whole lot better than standing in the snow outside Moscow with a hole in his boot and not a lounge bar in sight. But even though he was in the kind of secure environment where there were no enfants to cackle at his propensity for wearing a homburg sideways, he may not have fully appreciated his lot.

I certainly didn’t think that having been sent into the wilderness for just over a decade by Peugeot was anything more sinister than a touch of bad form on their part. The last time the sons of Bonaparte and my good self crossed swords was around 1989 when the company decided - mistakenly as it transpired - that there was some sort of market out there for a quick version of one of its 405 saloons fitted with four-wheel drive.

If I remember correctly, several small fights broke out, there was a brush fire and the local carabinieri (we were billeted just outside Cagliari) took exception to someone having filled a small motor boat with potted plants, starting its engine and pointing it in the direction of Morocco.

Nothing much came of this little frolic, m’lud being left undisturbed, possibly after some lire changed hands, but it was not until just the other week that Peugeot deemed it prudent to recall me for the launch of its latest cabriolet-type thing, in St Tropez.

Being a magnanimous sort, I agreed to turn up, solemnly promising not to get up to any mischief.

First of all I had to fly to Luton airport then stay overnight and join a specially chartered aircraft for the hop to Toulon. Anyway, the arrangements seemed fair enough, except that, for a laugh, the rascals had booked me onto EasyOasy Airlines (as seen on TV).

On this latter-day doodlebug you have to buy your own food and drink at extortionate prices, all the while running the risk of being bawled out by the waitresses if you dare to close your eyes during their safety presentation, which involves how to be killed very neatly in the event of a crash. If you happen to be last off you also get to sweep up.

This was most alarming, but worse was to follow. I stumbled out into the dark evening and hailed a cab in order to reach my hotel, hidden somewhere in the outback. Hailing a cab in Luton means you get the Bengal Lancers. My Punjabi has slipped a bit since my RAF days, but the driver did eventually manage to find the hotel, albeit after I had become part-owner of his FX4.

Next morning I made the trip in reverse and purchased the other half. Or maybe this is not quite accurate, as it was a different cab, driven by a different member of the regiment. So perhaps I own 50% of two taxis.

But I caught the Toulon flight, arranged a co-driver, and we had some fun lowering the roof of the 206 cabriolet-type thing. This works exactly like a German model already on the market, but Peugeot thinks it is somehow unique, so we didn’t let on we knew any better.

Anyway, as soon as the top disappeared into the boot, the rain came on. We fiddled with various bits and bobs, and managed to re-erect it before the water level inside the car hit the Plimsoll line, setting off for St Tropez rather quickly in case we developed trench foot before finding the bar.

At the evening press conference, although I protested that the car’s interior was so violently coloured the design must have been nicked from Ms Anne McKevitt’s first-year Wick Art School (life drawings of sheep a speciality) portfolio, it turned out that Bonaparte thinks this car is the bee’s knees.

Impossible sales predictions were aired with the same sort of confidence we last heard two years ago at the launch of Volkswagen’s New Beetle. Remember it? My own prediction is that the New Boney will suffer the same fate unless one in every three European hairdressers trade in their Tigras.

But because we didn’t break into wild applause at the end of the presentation, we were frog-marched to dinner where dreadful things were put on our plates. I managed to escape early, ravenous but unbowed, and repaired to my room (no drink in the Minibar) to have a gnaw at the duvet. I donned the old pyjamas and patted Teddy on the head at 10pm - yet another first for me.

Next morning it was still raining, only more earnestly, and we didn’t get another chance to transfer the roof to the boot.

Nothing much else happened after that, except that we left Toulon safely and arrived in Luton at 1015. Alas, the young ladies at the check-in desk didn’t know which computer buttons to press in order to get me onto the 1100 flight, rather than have me wait for the 1430. I therefore waited for the 1430, which didn’t show up until 1630, by which time it was sharing runway space with the 1600 heading for the same destination.

Naturally, this later flight took off before ours, probably so that  it could be listed as having landed on time, therefore keeping the airline’s punctuality record just this side of a sine die suspension  notice from the Department of Late Aircraft, one of the sinister Prescott’s less well-known charges.

Bad show. In the good old days of this business, a young lady from the company’s PR department would have stayed by my side, bought me lunch and perhaps even hired a stripper in order that I wouldn’t be  left twiddling my thumbs among men in suits and other dreadful creatures, some of them in shell suits.

I will raise this at the next meeting of the Elk lodge.

NEVER MIND THE ENTRANCE - COP THE EXIT

Attempting to gatecrash an office party held by my employers to celebrate their achievement in reaching circulation figures of 100 copies per day or some damn thing (I am the esteemed, but now very indignant motoring editor), I was intercepted by a large gentleman who looked altogether too ugly to get into the Pontypridd front row, and firmly propelled from the premises.

“Bad show,” I protested. “I am a personal friend of the editor - and much more than that to his secretary. I shall have your Day-Glo jacket, you mark my words.”

I have been thrown out of better places. In fact, my throwings-out have occasionally been more spectacular than the greatest film entrance of all time. Cast your mind back to Omar Sharif on that camel, bearing down on the wimpish Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia and you will get my drift.

Once Omar had trotted up, flashed that gap-toothed smile and let his limpid eyes wash over the lens, O’Toole was done for. And he knew it, allegedly taking to drink before the final credits.

Some of my exits have been a bit like that. No, not the one where I descended much too swiftly through the bougainvillea in Brescia in order to avoid any debate over my Minibar account. That was a routine sort of vamoose.

Much better was the time, just a year or two ago, in the heady days when Volkswagen used to have some spare cash lying around the office. They sometimes got rid of this before the end of the financial year by sponsoring musical extravaganzas. This would guarantee there would be nothing left for the accountants on April 5.

Just in case, they would invite me along to mop up any spare boodle. In fact, on that occasion they also invited Madame, should I need some assistance. This is how we came to be piloting a borrowed Honda Accord to Sheffield. Normally I wouldn’t go to Sheffield under any circumstances, but in this case the circumstance was the Voodoo Lounge tour starring the Rolling Stones.

Older readers - those who have clung on since last year in the earnest hope of seeing some improvement on these pages - will recall that I am something of a voodoo guru, having utilised it to fix cars  and render people impotent (Publisher’s Note: see How Do You Voodoo?  for all the distressing details).

Anyway, we parked at the Don Valley Stadium, which is where rugby league cuddling and communal bathing take place on a Saturday during the frisky season.

I had timed our arrival to coincide with the opening of the bar, in order that we could have a decent snort before they turned up the amplifiers. I was in great good humour as I sauntered up to various security persons, showing them our multi-hued passes and inviting them to conduct us to our designated position in the hospitability unit.

.

This they did, in relays, until finally we were ushered through a door and into a cosy little room decently stocked with falling down liquids.

Tempus fugit, as Nero and his chums used to say, and Madame began to grow more a little restive. After her hundredth nervous glance around the room, she tugged at my sleeve and whispered: “Are you sure we’re in the right place? I don’t recognise any of these people as VW personnel, or even as your more disreputable colleagues.”

“Course we’re in the right place,” I said, soothingly, trying a glance of my own. Sure enough - familiar faces. I beamed. “Hi, Keef. Hi, Mick. Give it large, Charlie son. Got any more of those cigarettes, Ronnie?”

Yes, we were in the bat cave of the Stones, wolfing their drink and cheerfully scoffing their canapés. Probably would have got away with it too, if we hadn’t drawn attention to ourselves.

“I blame you,” I said to Madame as we were ushered out into the corridor. “If you had kept quiet we could have nicked a Stratocaster.”

The men from Rock Steady Security were very nice about the whole thing and didn’t hit us once. They took us instead to another, much more luxurious room, wherein we found our VW host people, who greeted us with outstretched drink.

Later in the evening we got our very own gatecrasher when Roy Hattersley, at that time the local MP, arrived with his tongue hanging out and demanded food and drink. We gave him a sausage roll and engaged him in idle chit-chat, until he too realised that he was in the wrong place and became simultaneously agitated and flustered.

“I’m really sorry,” he said, making to leave. “I seem to be in the wrong place.”

You know me. Hospitable to a fault. “No, no, stay where you are, old chap. Simple mistake. Most of us have done the same thing ourselves from time to time.”

It got much, much better. Madame returned from the ladies and whispered to me that the cat-suits the waitresses were wearing were not suits at all, but were only spray paint, ‘cos she had encountered one of these charming creatures in the ladies’ washroom, muttering about her suit being wiped off every time she brushed past a table.

I spent the next few hours gleefully brushing past waitresses to great effect. It was the best concert I have ever attended, made all the better by having been thrown out of Keef and Mick’s gaff. They didn’t have any waitresses at all down there, especially of the unclothed variety.

Chapter Twenty

 

PICTURES OF THE ANCIENT ONE 

Remember cameras? They were the things people used to point at you in the days before camcorders and other digital whatnots took over the universe. The Japanese still have them.

Cameras manufacture items called photographs. The constabulary is very fond of these, especially when trying to ascertain just who you are whenever you fall incoherently into their clutches at closing time.

You still get photographs, of course, but usually they pop out of your computer, which is why you really shouldn’t invest in companies such as Leica unless, like me, you are prone to the occasional bout of nostalgia.

I was rifling through some old boxes recently in an attempt to find photographs of long gone exotica, such as the Talbot Tagora, Borgward Isabella, NSU Sport Prinz and others, when it suddenly struck me that I have never seen a picture of the Ancient One who allegedly edits these pages, except the shot of him on a motor tricycle which, though a reasonable likeness, is probably a fake. Of course, it could be that His Stinginess knows that 19^th-century three-wheelers are no longer subject to Vehicle Excise Duty and are therefore worth acquiring.

I have seen himself, of course, most recently at a SEAT do, where he was strolling around looking very wary of any swarthy Catalonians in the back-up crew who may have been planning to make off with his jacket.

But he has never been captured on celluloid or any other medium apart from cave drawings, which means that we could have some difficulty throwing together a proper obituary when he shuffles off into extinction (won’t be long now, by the look of him).

And if I don’t have his portrait, chances are none exist, for in my youth I was the very man for pointing my Voigtlander VitoB at people and snapping them, particularly if their husbands were somewhere else, such as on the night shift at Longbridge or Dagenham.

Mostly my subjects didn’t mind, unless they were Chinese, in which case they would claim I was stealing their souls and was therefore worth a punch on the beak. Avoid taking pictures of Chinese persons, if you possibly can. They are devout fans of Jackie Chan and know all the most painful beak punches.

The Japanese are more fun, even if they sometimes turn ugly and make you build railways for them. You can have photographic fencing matches with the sons of Nippon, snapping them and ducking behind bits of furniture as they attempt to snap you back. Passes a few minutes in boring places such as museums featuring Picasso’s infantile daubings.

But this business of the old fella continues to intrigue me. We once shared a Jeep Cherokee on a demanding off-road route which involved hurtling into a very deep lake that was more mud than water, scrabbling through as the cloying gunk began to ooze through air intakes, and then climbing gratefully out the other side just before the engine succumbed.

There was a photographer on hand to record all of this in case of accidental drowning, coroner’s inquest, insurance, severe censures from Chrysler’s PR people and other unpleasantness.

As I had whoopee’d into this little lot faster than anyone else, the photographer became wildly excited and took a whole series of photographs. These were forwarded to me some days later and, on examining the prints, it transpired that I had to all intents and purposes been driving solo. You could see the front passenger seat, but there was only upholstery and a rolled-up newspaper where Methuselah should have been sitting, white-faced and begging for mercy.

I am therefore convinced that he is either a vampire (Christopher Lee’s pictures don’t come out either) or an alien escapee from Area 51. This could have some connection with the numerous sightings of crazed Catalonians strangely attracted to his outer apparel.

Whatever. We are talking lots of money and an earnest trip to the Green Room on the Jerry Springer programme here - and maybe even an Arthur C. Clarke spin-off, together with follow-up interviews by Larry King on CNN.  All it needs to be the perfect money-spinner is some sort of Elvis connection . . . (Editor: CUT!)

TRAVELS WITH CHESTER

It was a funny old arrival in Florida. Nothing much happened at first, as I was asleep following a wrestling match with airline timetables. But the second-day fire alert at my apartments would normally have had Cletus and BillyRae round before the hook and ladder.

Unfortunately, there was nary a sign of them. It was left to me to explain to the nice men who knocked on the door bearing axes that I always take charred toast for breakfast, and if the rest of the guests felt compelled to huddle in the car park wearing pyjamas, so be it. A date with the judge, Ms Melissa-Mae Lopez, could be imminent.

Oh - and the local Seminole Indian tribe has taken to scalping Palefaces again. As owners of a whole bunch of real estate on which federal law does not apply, they have been able to open, in cahoots with those pesky varmints from the Hard Rock Café gang, a rootin’ tootin’ casino.

Apparently it is doing very nicely, thank you, with free firewater being served to the high rollers and - I presume - losers being carried off into the Everglades by alligators on munch duty.

Touches of the wild frontier certainly linger hereabouts. Shortly after I had purchased my daily paper from the corner store across from my hotel, it was robbed at gunpoint. A couple of blocks away another shop is selling sunglasses which it claims will stop a .22 calibre bullet fired at close range.

Comforting news indeed, but only if you can persuade your potential assassin to shoot at your keekers - and he is a good enough marksman to be trusted so to do. Personally I prefer a bullet-proof vest.

Apart from armed robbers there are other interesting characters doing the rounds. I encountered a hillbilly trucker who had driven more than 1000 miles overnight from Illinois, mostly through deep snow, stopping only for diesel. A lady who had covered the same sort of distance in her Pontiac Sunfire arrived at 2am and, after a couple of hours in bed, ran a charity marathon which started at dawn. As soon as she finished the course she showered, changed, and took her two children on a tour of the local theme parks. They breed ‘em tough up there on the Great Plains.

On the car front, the top seller in the U.S. for the second year on the trot is the worthy, if deadly dull, Toyota Camry. Even worse, rental companies have replaced their home-grown products with fleets of cheapos from Daewoo, Hyundai and Kia. It comes as no surprise, therefore, to find that GM and Ford have cut production due to a sharp fall in domestic sales.

Rumours also persist that DaimlerChrysler is to shed up to 20,000 American workers in a bid to stem crippling losses. The Germans are being typically tight-lipped about the affair, which has enraged a country in which secrecy generally only applies to sensitive military matters and lunchtime frolics in the Oval Office.

Ironically the Chrysler PT Cruiser seems to be the hottest thing on the streets this year, but will this be enough to save the jobs of the people who build it? 

At the North American Auto Show in Detroit, the 8,000 (count ‘em) press visitors had to struggle through several feet of snow to reach the exhibition area. It was worth the effort. On display were such diverse newcomers as BMW’s Mini (I can’t be doing with the all-capital version of the name) and a pick-up truck from Cadillac.

GM’s flagship brand is desperately trying to change its owner profile following jibes that the last thing Americans do before the grim reaper calls is to buy their first Caddy. I eagerly await the inaugural sighting of a retired New Hampshire stockbroker driving one of these machines complete with “Live Free or Die” bumper sticker and built-in gun rack.

The Mini, or MINI if you prefer it, is a no-hoper, according to local experts. I dropped in to Detroit, but didn’t like the cold and straightaway opted to fly south with the migrating Canucks.

Meanwhile, down the road in Washington, Dubya was doing the rounds of eight balls held to celebrate his ascension to the White House. Tickets originally went on the market at $175 but the more enterprising guests decided to give entertainers such as Latino warbler Ricky Martin a miss, and advertised their invites on the Internet. Sad people with nowhere better to go snapped them up for $2000 - I suspect the sinister Prescott bought some - and they still had to pay for champagne served in paper cups.

The invitation specified “black tie and boots”; presumably because Dubya’s down-home Texan friends don’t own shoes. This was OK, as it made the appearance of Florida’s own first lady, Katherine Harris, something to behold. Ms Harris, whose mathematical dyslexia did more than anything else to see off the Democrat challenge, headed by the indescribably boring MechanicAl Gore, had splashed out $9000 on a delicious halter-top gown. Picture that over cowboy boots and you get serious gorblimey. This lady has class. She didn’t catch her hair in the fan, not even once.

Katie will get my postal vote if she runs in ‘04, but only if Dubya steps down. How can you lightly discard a man who says his favourite film star is Jack Nicholson, and who sings along to Buddy Holly and Van Morrison?

Anyway, the Democrats are already done for, thanks to the Rev. Jesse Jackson getting caught at the old ahem when his real job is amen. Nice one, Jesse. Your cheque is in the post.

But shock, horror, probe. According to the local tabloids, our own Prince William is secretly dating one of Dubya’s twin daughters, or maybe even his niece. We have seen pictures of the trio and approve heartily. Stand by for Queen Barbara (or Jenna, or Lauren, ‘cos we don’t know which one he has homed in on) souvenir mugs if Wills makes it to the throne before Tony Blair‘s little Leo.

Elsewhere, sadly, the all-American motorised leviathan is officially dead. Today’s US-built cars are European in size with design cues straight from the Japanese school of automotive uniformity. I did see the occasional ‘70s 20-footer bouncing gently along on too-soft springs, but most of America’s new cars are leaving the assembly lines in sawn-off form, albeit with bigger engines than would be practical in Europe.

Look out for the first mass-produced and heavily manufacturer-subsidised hydrogen cars within the next two years if - and it is a big if - they can get the things to run properly. Ford released a prototype for press testing to coincide with the Detroit extravaganza. The reports were hardly encouraging. The car apparently has a tendency to coast to a halt for no apparent reason.

It will be an expensive business, especially for Ford. Henry’s outfit saw its profits dip by 54% last year. OK, so the bottom line ($740 million) wasn’t exactly hay, but there are big lawsuits pending. The Explorer/Firestone tyres business was always unsavoury. Nearly 200 people died when the Wilderness tyres on their Explorers shredded and flipped the cars on their backs. Both companies initially ducked out on a recall. Their cash flow in the next year or so looks like going just one way - to America’s lawyers.

Still here? Yes, I know there is more car stuff here than I usually allow into my columns, but it is the only way I have of ensuring that the Ancient One picks up the tab for my travels. And it won’t be a petty cash job either.

For my tootling around in the States I have commandeered a Jaguar XJR, complete with supercharged V8. I swear I can hear it sipping petrol while it is parked, but the hotel doorman now greets me by name and does me small favours, such as ejecting unruly enfants from the dining room in case they annoy me while I am rattling into the old bagels.

Cletus likes it too. He tried and failed to get me a siren and flashing blue and red lights - but actually did manage to produce a ticket to the Superbowl in Tampa. But the New York Giants versus the Baltimore Ravens? Spare us! However, a swiftly arranged Internet auction netted me a handy profit.

UK SUR MER

Readers unable to leave their manor houses due to flooding, county court judgements and other calamities may recall that a few months ago I offered to solve Britain’s road accident problems.

Most of these, I insisted, could be avoided by the simple means of banning right turns. This would apply to all of us except Mr. J. Straw, who would be allowed to throw a right every time his chauffeur spotted a “perceived threat” to his speeding majesty.

Unfortunately, the sinister Prescott has thus far failed to acknowledge my genius or even send a cheque, which simply underlines the fact that he is an absolute shower.

But you know me. I bear no grudges. Therefore, I have now come up with a master plan which will - at a stroke - solve the nation’s growing traffic congestion, even now threatening to block access to my golf club every day except Sunday, and the bar doesn’t open until noon on the Sabbath.

So pour yourselves a vintage port or two and gather round. The great soothsayer will substitute simple for complicated, easy for impossible and, hopefully in the short term, receive the thanks of, and much largesse from, a grateful government.

Unlike Deutschland and other such backward countries that are glued to their neighbours, we live on an island. This makes for perfect traffic management. What we have to do is to shift all of our factories, distribution centres, Social Security offices, shops, public houses, theatres, massage parlors and other essential buildings to the coast.

They will perch right on the edge of the briny. All goods and other stuff currently stuck on the M6 will be transported by sea. We shall build extra boats for this purpose, if we can remember how to do so. There will probably be drawings in the library.

Naturally, the business of importing and exporting things, cars from overseas and Royal Family tea cosies from here, will become easier and cheaper.

So, having ringed the coastline with places of employment, we follow up with an inner circle, just half a mile behind, of houses for the workers and other poor persons. They can improve their general health by strolling to office or factory every morning, safe in the knowledge that they will not be squished by a 38-tonner, or the BMW from next door.

There will be no need for trains, Stagecoach buses, taxis, Morris Marinas or even motorcycles, which means we will not only eliminate congestion, but the air will be cleaner for golfers such as myself who have asthmatic tendencies, especially on Sundays when they aren’t open.

I can see expressions of amazement and wonder on your shiny little faces already, so I shall continue.

We have now created a super maritime state, and with it hordes of matelots in striped jerseys and tight trousers. This will be enough to lure any stragglers away from Clapham Common or other such places where they currently run a grave risk of being propositioned by people with peculiar desires, such as politicos of various hues.

Those in the House with maritime backgrounds, such as the dreadful Prescott, a former waiter on a ferry, will have an opportunity to wax nostalgic for the days when the lads from the National Union of Payola used to rifle through exotic cargo.

Little Leo will earn the grateful thanks of the nation by burying  Daddy in the sand, preferably well below the high water mark, as he discovers the delights of the crab pool, the broken sewage pipe and any leftovers from the Spanish Armada not yet confiscated and sold off by Gordon Brown.

Aha! I hear you say. Now that we are all permanently on the old cod and chips, resplendent in Kiss Me Quick hats and getting our fingers sticky while eating Sunderland or Liverpool rock, what about the interior?

We will leave that to my fellow owners of country seats, together with the nation’s farmers. The latter will be charged with producing food at cheap prices, especially hops for the brewing industry. But as the red-faced straw-chompers will have all that extra elbow room, there will be no need for government subsidies.

Lots and lots of golf courses will be easily reachable by hang glider, which should make for some fun in the skies when the bar closes.  HM prisons will also be in there, carefully sited in the bleaker areas, with the bread and water delivered each morning by parachute. There will be no satellite television in the cells, conjugal visits leading to ahem! or any of that soppy liberal stuff as espoused in the Grauniad. Wales, of course, will simply be boarded up.

You may now offer a standing ovation, forward cheques if you must, and ensure that my peerage is delivered to Flywheel Towers within the week. And yes, I am leading by example. The clear waters of the western approaches already lap at the foot of my driveway, for I have always been a visionary.

TAKING TIGER MOUNTAIN BY STRATEGY

            

Culture? I am your very man for the stuff, which is why I cheerfully turned up at the Daewoo wake, (sorry, party), held a few days back in a London hotel. Ironically - and we all love a touch of irony - this establishment sits in the self-same square mile into which most of Daewoo’s cash reserves are currently sinking.

But whereas the Japanese celebrate going bust by holding synchronised jumping off very tall buildings and making a dreadful mess of the pavements, the Koreans are made of sterner stuff and, like the Irish, tend to turn any disaster into an excuse for celebration.

So, shoes gleaming, cheeks glistening, bow tie twirling and Madame dressed up to the nines, we made our way to the dining salon for the formal commencement of frolics. Our host for the evening was my old friend Mr. Kim, a thoroughly good egg - and this has nothing to do with the fact that his daughter is positively stunning - who bosses Daewoo’s UK operation.

Mr. Kim and my goodself are old sparring partners, initially meeting just a year or two ago when I emptied Austria of schnapps on the Nubira and Lanos double header. In fact I was later cast into the wilderness by the then Daewoo PR person for my part in that affair, but he has since gone and I was free to return in something approaching triumph.

I mentioned culture earlier, so a brief setting of the scene is in order. Mr. K. had laid on before and after-dinner entertainment. The before part consisted of his delightful daughter playing a violin at us. She is apparently studying the old Yehudi machine at the Guildhall, just around the corner, and is very good at it, having been sawing away at the catgut since the age of six.

The plan was that she should play three pieces, with piano accompaniment, and then the waitress gels would bring in the soup. Unfortunately, I got carried away and applauded so enthusiastically that others joined in and we got a damned encore, which meant the waitresses (already in the room) having to return to the kitchen where they got a good shouting at by chef.

In fact, he must have turned off the cooker in a fit of pique, because all of the dishes to emerge from the kitchen during the evening varied between lukewarm and raw. Next time I’ll smuggle in a small Primus stove and secrete it under the table.

So, while the others scoffed away furiously, I had to twiddle my thumbs in between visits from the wine waiter. I tried a quick leer at Miss Kim but she didn’t leer back, so Plan B was mentally shredded. I tried another leer, this time at the lady saxophone player in the second band. She leered back encouragingly, so I made mental plans for midnight.

In fact, I had a lot of plans for the evening, having limbered up for the event by re-reading Mao’s Beijing epic Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy. In the days of the Cultural Revolution, when you could have your bits tweaked for not being in permanent possession of a Little Red Book, this was a hit all over China. In fact it was seen by more people in a week than have visited Broadway this century, probably because it was compulsory to slip on the boiler suit and go three times a day.

But oddly enough it was quite good. It also gives you a fantastic edge at pretentious parties where you can stun your fellow guests by asking them for their views on the philosophical juxtapositioning of idealism, morality, community values and monetarism as depicted in the seventh act by the big fellow with the beard and cutlass.

It separates the eggheads from the oiks, most of the latter never even having made the acquaintance of the Brian Eno musical version, far less the original Mandarin score complete with gongs and heroic posing.

When the after-dinner band struck up, flared trousers and all, those of us of a certain age locked our wives in their rooms and headed for the bar. Unfortunately, the aforementioned lack of food and surfeit of fine wine made the walls of the establishment begin to close in on me, so after an in-depth grilling of Mr. K. on the progress or otherwise of merger/takeover talks with General Motors and Fiat I went into something of a decline.

I didn’t even get an opportunity to write down his answers, because someone had stolen my pen. I also have no idea what he said, because the drink simultaneously played tricks with my memory. Come to think of it, I was lucky I didn’t toddle off to the next hotel and demand access to room 641.

It wasn’t altogether a wasted encounter, however. We toasted Colonel Puff frequently and reminisced over Austria which, my subconscious reminded me, was about the time Daewoo started to hit the financial buffers.

Earlier in the day Madame and I drove the new Matiz - all 800cc of it - from London to a delightful little village 30 miles and three hours away (where did all that traffic come from?) where we dined royally on bangers and mash in one of those real pubs that used to dot the English landscape before the arrival of Irish-themed establishments.

The nice Daewoo people tell me the car has a different appearance features all sorts of cosmetic and safety improvements, and is genuinely a great leap forward from the original. Really? Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward wasn’t half as illusory. I won’t buy a Matiz, but I may acquire one by strategy (ninth act - sung by the little chap 23^rd from the left, in red pyjamas). Low cunning runs in my family.

Chapter Twenty One

A LETTER FROM CLETUS

Ol’ Chester

UK Trailer Park

Yoorop

East of Maine a ‘ways.

Hi y’alI, you ol’ coot.

This heah letter is from yore ol’ friends Cletus, LeeRoy and BillyRae back here in Orange County.

Well from me (Cletus) really, as LeeRoy an’ BillyRae have took the truck (a ‘99 Ford Flareside) and gone to Tampa to see the Bucs play the ‘49-ers.

LeeRoy and BillyRae are up front, with Bubba, Henry One Eye and Seminole Mae in back with the beer and Henry’s Winchester, just in case they meet one of them big ol’ ‘gators when they steps out to recycle the Milwaukee firewater.

Given good weather and no shakedowns from the Polk County Highway Patrol, they should be home Tuesday night.

LeeRoy bought the truck with the money he got from those good ol’ boys from Arkansas who aksed him to put some boxes of ballot papers under his porch until after the Dade County recount. BillyRae would have gotten some too, only his porch collapsed last week, kilIin’ all but two of his dawgs. Then his ever-lovin’ wife Clarissa caught her hair in the fan and had to be disentangled by the fire department and ol’ Doc Martinez. BillyRae says next thing you know, the Bucs will go on a losin’ streak.

Clarissa was real lucky. The Doc was arrested on Sunday for personatin’, which means he isn’t a real MD at all, even if he was always up there with the best in the county when it came to disentanglins.

Anyways, Clarissa is doin’ real fine and taking the hormones the Doc prescribed to make her hair grow back.  It seems to be working’ as she is sportin’ new whiskers, has gone up two shoe sizes an’ is talkin’ ‘bout takin’ up wrasslin’.

All of which leaves me temporarily in charge of the calaboose. This is OK, coz nuthin’ much happens at this time of year, least until the Canucks find their way out of the woods and start a-hollerin’ and a-drinkin’.

Oh - and I found my ‘48 Chevy when I cut the grass out back Thought I had lost the darned thing on that trip to Louisiana for the Millennium Hog CalIin’ Finals which, as you will recall, LeeRoy won when he caught hisself on the barbed wire fence.

The boys say to tell y’all that we is sorry ‘bout your missing lordship. BillyRae has still got some stuff, whisky and weed mostly, which he uses to get convictions in difficult cases, such as when they ain‘t no other evidence a‘layin‘around. He says if you give him this dude Prescott’s license plate he’ll get him on as many misdemeanors as it takes. Bubba might chip in with the ol’ sexual molestation accusation, which always works well in Ms Melissa-Mae’s court. Her daddy bein’ a Baptist an’ all.

Just to lighten things up a bit. Cletus Junior has taken to drivin’, him havin’ just turned thirteen. We’re gonna get him a John Deere for his Christmas. He will be safe in that while he gets some experience of the downtown traffic, which can be a mite scary for a kid.

Spoke to the taxidermist yesterday an’ he says yore possum is ready. He managed to get the tire marks off of its face and used a balloon to get some shape into the body. You can adjust the size of it by increasin’ or decreasin’ the amount of air in the balloon. The aperture fer doin’ this is under its tail.

Y’all remember Father Manny Rosenbloom at the Church of St. Theresa? He done disappeared about the same time as the Broward County Sheriff came for the Doc. We were all more’n worried for a while, but BillyRae’s sister got a postcard from him in Bethlehem, which BillyRae says is in California, so he seems to be just dandy and the collection box is ditto.

Got to go now. Someone says my Mama has done lost her Elvis pitchers. This makes the third time in the last year that they have been stole. Father Manny confessed to haven’ took ‘em last time, but Mama didn’t press charges, her bein’ religious to a fault

Keep drivin’ sober, yuh heah?

See y’all in Janyooary. We’ve done put a clean bunk in the jailhouse.

Yours truly,

Cletus,

Lawman in (temporary) charge of Orange County Jail

    THE BEST OF DAYS

I have been grooming my successor.

Ol’ Chester has been noticing just a few signs of late that immortality may turn out to more elusive than I used to imagine, especially without some sort of biblical edge. There have been one or two nights when, in the stillness of my room, the next breath has been difficult to catch. It will soon be time, I feel, for someone else to don the jester’s cap and go forth, to wander the trail of life over which it has been my privilege and pleasure to skip.

We were, he and I, discussing this and other spiritual matters recently as we parked up and dangled our respective tootsies out of the east and west windows of a Renault Laguna, (new improved variety, allegedly).

Things can get very philosophical when you can’t be bothered to drive any farther and it would probably be deemed imprudent to return to base too early - even for something as pressing as a raging thirst.

“If there is to be a Best Day,” said The Boy, “how will I recognise it?”

Ah. Not an easy one. The obvious answers would be a wedding, a birth, or running over John Prescott’s foot while taking your HGV Class 1 test, but often it turns out to be just a day that starts out like many others and then blossoms into perfection.

Mine happened on August 14, 1998. I disembarked from a cruise ship in New Orleans an hour after dawn and wandered ashore, before the shipyard gates opened or people began scurrying to offices. As I reached the French Quarter the temperature had already soared into the nineties. The humidity was such that flowers in the myriad of window boxes hanging from balconies all along Bourbon Street dipped their heads as though the air was just too heavy for them.

But just as the sun cut through the morning haze, I rounded a corner and walked straight into heaven. It was an old square with, on one side, a small Spanish cathedral and several other imposing buildings, obviously governmental, dating from Colonial times.

The other three sides were made up of more modest apartments featuring, on the ground floor, a host of little plain-fronted shops. Not the usual tourist tat, but establishments housing Creole dressmakers, artists, musicians, doctors, dentists, bakers, booksellers and the like. The square was actually a self-contained town in miniature. You could live there for years and never need to go anywhere else, for anything.

In the centre was a magnificent garden, full of sweet-scented magnolias and other exotic flowers, impossibly extravagant and wonderfully coloured. And the people . . . there were artists at their easels, landau drivers grooming splendid black and brown horses that tossed their heads and lazily swished long tails at invisible flies.

There were soft-drink sellers and a large coloured road sweeper with a glistening, smiling face, who warned, in a soft baritone, “Scuse me, ladies an’ gents, po’ boy comin’ through,” as he approached with his brush, deftly sweeping minute specks of litter into a pan.

And then came the singer. He carried an ancient acoustic guitar which constant usage had rendered devoid of lacquer around the area of its strings, holding the instrument protectively to his chest as he shuffled to a bench seat where he sat down, acknowledged the greeting of the roadman and started to sing.

Everything and everyone stopped. The people in the square had apparently been waiting for him, and they gathered around the little old man, with his wiry grey hair, long black fingers and half-closed eyes, as he sang in perfect pitch, his voice so pure and sweet it could have belonged to a child.

It was a spellbinding performance. Young couples hugged each other, and mothers hushed their children. A down at heel priest paused on the steps of the cathedral, afraid the clatter of his shoes on the stone steps would spoil the moment. Apart from the occasional chirp of a bird in the trees, there was hardly a sound to be heard, other than the guitar and the soaring voice of the little old man.

“Can you sing Spanish Harlem for the po’ boy, please suh?” begged the road sweeper. The singer smiled and nodded, working the song so beautifully that several people in his audience dabbed at their eyes with handkerchiefs in a vain bid to hold back the sobs that came with silent tears. A lady tiptoed into the garden and returned with a single red rose which she gently laid in the empty guitar case.

We had listened to someone’s heart and had been allowed, just for a few precious minutes, to look deep into his soul. He, in turn, had touched ours.

“Best day?” I said to The Boy. “Don’t look for it. When it comes you will know, and every time you remember it, the magic will intensify.”

He waggled his feet at a passing Citroen and suggested we should get back to the hotel and persuade someone to open the bar. He is beginning to get a grasp of the basics. The rest will come with experience.

   SANTA HAS JUST LEFT THE BUILDING

According to my Gregorian thingy, we’ve just had Christmas. And about time, if you ask me.

On the other calendar, another 365 days have sped past, and as yet there is no sign of the Ford Edsel I demanded last year (or my peerage, come to think of it), not to mention the navy blue sock needed to complete the present my Great Aunt Agnes sent in ‘76. One half of that pair got lost immediately after the package was unwrapped, which may or may not explain the sudden demise of one of my cats around the same period.

Anyway, my wish list was written out some weeks ago, in order to allow for postal strikes, dot.com hiccups, the toppling euro, war and pestilence. There can therefore be no excuses for any of this lot not turning up on the morning of the 25^th.

It is a modest sort of document. The Edsel is still there. I have even thrown in some either/ors, such as a Pontiac TransAm, ‘57 Chevrolet and Lotus Carlton. The business of acquiring suitable transport has lately assumed some urgency, now that a neighbour has acquired a ‘65 Mustang which he parks in full view of our drawing room window, clearly just to annoy me.

Being a world-renowned expert on the digestive habits of our native oiseaux, however, I have taken to feeding these creatures with lots of “quick through” food in order that they may bombard the offending automobile as they exit my policies. One has to play dirty at times.

I shall also be pleased to find in my stocking, which is a very commodious piece of fabric, one tanker (full) of Super Unleaded, an extinct John Prescott, and the sturdy waitress who served us bangers and mash at the Mason’s Arms, Wrigglesworth.

I can explain the waitress away by telling Madame that she will be an excellent help around the house. No need to mention nocturnal plans involving creeping along corridors sans shoes, tongue lolling, etcetera.

Also gratefully received will be the entire spare parts inventory from the (failed) Nissan World Rally Championship bid circa 1990, as my road rocket is not very well. The dastardly Sons of Nippon have thus far been unwilling or unable to assist me in the matter of its repair. A full rebuild looks like being the only answer, since even I would not be able to position a Wellington over Tokyo without being spotted.

Oh - it would also be nice if someone could get me a regular programme on Mr. Baird’s box. I have done steam radio, of course, but there are no perks attached to being invisible. A televised motoring programme, perhaps slotted in between Eastenders and Who Wants to be a Total Pain? Should open the door to lots of freebies, such as a Ferrari, a Jag or two, and maybe even an invitation to some future Toyota launch.

I would be very good on the box, charming the lady viewers out of their apparel and perhaps ensuring the drinks cabinet in the Green Room is replenished on a daily basis.

A letter to that strange Dyke cove should do it. I can do everything he needs to get his ratings up, such as dressing up in a Roland Rat suit, walking like a sailor and - if the drachmas are laid out on the table in sufficient quantity - wearing pink shirts.

If everything goes to plan, this could be a very Merry Christmas indeed. I shall celebrate my good fortune by sending the Ancient Editor a new jacket to replace the garment kidnapped by those Catalonian Freedom Fighters mentioned a few articles back. By this time they will have wrestled it to the ground and perhaps killed it, so any hope of its eventual return to Ancient ownership would appear unduly optimistic.

But what’s this? Some ol’ whiskered fella in a red suit has just done a runner, claiming it will be easier to put a smile on MechanicAL Gore’s face than to meet my modest demands.

Never did believe in the rascal anyway . . . !

    NIGHTS OUT WITH BUFFER AND OTHER FRIENDS              

As you will probably be aware, I am very soon to be elevated to the House of Lords, the aim being to raise the tone of the place, so naturally I have been taking a keen interest in what my future chums have been getting up to recently. And overall they seem to be a quite splendid bunch of chaps and chapettes.

A news report says that peers celebrated rising for the Christmas recess by passing what a junior Home Office minister called the “boogie on down, bop till you drop” order - a splendid piece of common sense legislation that the fat ship’s waiter would never even have considered, which is why he is doomed to spend what remains of his wretched career with the barrow boys and other ruffians in the Commons.

New Year’s Eve revellers have their lordships to thank for clearing away an ancient piece of repression, thus enabling public events involving such exciting pastimes as dancing to go ahead. Junior Home Office minister Lord “Buffer” Bassam of Brighton said the Deregulation (Sunday Dancing) Order 2000 gets rid of provisions of the Sunday Observance Act 1780 prohibiting putting on the old pumps and topper and dancing on Sundays.

Buffer said everyone would be able to dance on New Year’s Eve, whether it was the last waltz or boogieing to the latest dance.

For his part, semi-professional musician Lord “Hit Me Baby” Colwyn, (Conservative), praised the initiative on behalf of thousands of musicians who earned their living by playing instruments at the populace during such events. And for the benefit of any peers still planning their end-of-year parties, young Colwyn added he was still “free on New Year’s Eve”.

Well, he would be, being Welsh, but obviously his heart is in the right place.

As an associate member, so to speak, of the Upper House, I shall don the ermine blagged from Al Fried, the portly Egyptian chappie who runs a little souvenir and takeaway sandwich shop in the West End, and get down to some serious tongue-lolling boogie with that leggy Baroness Jay woman. I’m in with a great shout there, as I know her brother. He is something at Ford.

It will get me away from the automotive silly season. Yes, it is upon us already, with global manufacturers closing factories for a jape and those insufferable Grand Prix people coming up with their annual guff.

Young Mr. Edward Irvine, as always, has been first out of the traps. He says he will lead the Jaguar team from their present position as pre-event warm-up comedians to genuine championship contenders.

He also says - with nary a sign of tongue pressing against cheek - that when he was making up the numbers at Ferrari, they didn’t ask him for any input on the technical development front. He apparently found this surprising.

I mean, when you have the brilliant Mr. Mick Schumacher taking stuff home to examine with a leftover Stasi microscope, would you really want to delve into the mindset of yer maun? Witness the fate of Mr. J. Y. Stewart, who went from dynamic, thrusting, youthful team boss to Dorian Gray, courtesy of a single season in charge of his Irishness.

But the best is yet to come. Any day now we will have Mr. ‘ Joe Ninety’ Coulthard saying that he is approaching the new season with steely determination, extra fitness and a total will to win that will see him whisk past those pesky Sauber and Prost machines at a great rate of knots.

He will have the championship wrapped up by late July and will  therefore be able to fulfil last year’s promise to marry Miss Unpronounceable name - probably at Skibo Castle - with Miss McDonna and her husband, Thingy, as principal guests. Mr. Sting will warble and drink will be taken, but not by Mr. Coulthard, who seemingly has absolutely no fun about him.

But what we don’t expect to get this year, because we haven’t since 1990, is what used to be the automotive Press Release of the Year.

It always arrived in December, breathlessly informing us that the top 16 F1 drivers had, by an amazing coincidence, decided to purchase brand new German luxury saloon cars in the same week.  Even more amazingly, they all picked the same model from the same manufacturer, a piece of solidarity not witnessed since those unanimous decisions to go on strike at Longbridge when old Red Robbo, who was numerically dyslexic, was charged with counting the hands.

It was myself who put paid to this nonsense by suggesting, quite bluntly, that these cars were what Mr. Martin Bell of the white suit would term payola.

“Not so,” squeaked a PR person who proceeded to tell me lots of porkies, but once I had twisted his arm and threatened to play Sir Cliff Richard’s greatest hit at him, he broke down and confessed.

The dodge was that the drivers got two cars for the price of one. Then the manufacturers’ dealer network purchased the second car at the full list price. Work out the sums for yourself, as my abacus is still broken.

Anyway, Buffer and Hit Me Baby have just called to collect me. We are tootling off to collect the leggy one and will then boogie on down to Mr. Irvine’s little place (I think it is called Ireland) where fun will be committed.

The fat ship’s waiter has not been invited. He can stay at home and wallow in seasonal misery.

Toot, Toot!

     Chapter Twenty Two

     BACCHANALIAN EVENINGS AND IN-BED SURFING               

(Note: During an editorial board meeting where sweaty palms were  much in evidence, but from which Chadwick himself was excluded - although he could be heard hammering at the door and shouting: “Lily-livered sons of bitches!” before being dragged away by security staff - it was decided to change all the motor industry names in this column.)

(Another note: I have put them back in. Chester)

The Christmas party season got off to a better than expected start when the good folks at Catalonian Motors, aka SEAT,  turned up with a DJ, lithe young ladies, food, drink (!) and only a few little forfeits to play.

We had to drive their new models  (lots of year 2001 twiddly bits) but they had done the decent thing by leaving the dreaded Alhambra MPV back in Milton Keynes or whatever Gulag the company’s UK arm calls home.

I don’t like Alhambras. For starters, I keep falling out of them. And   they are a bit like those conservatory things that eager young pups try to sell you via the electric telephone - usually halfway through dinner. However, a conservatory is probably a better bet. You can fill it with wheelbarrows and assorted elderly incontinent aunts and disreputable friends barred from the family home by Madame.

The Alhambra can only take the wheelbarrow if you throw out most of its seats first - and you then need a conservatory to keep them dry during inclement weather.

Where was I? Oh, yes. The SEAT party. I believe I acquitted myself rather well, what with turning up at noon to claim some lunch: Toulouse bangers and mash washed down with a couple of bottles of a dainty little Italian white. This allowed time for an afternoon nap before togging up for the serious business of getting on down, as my sons describe it.

Normally I like disc-jockeys even less than Alhambras. Think Jimmy Saville, Wolfman Jack or Tiger Tim and you will get the drift. But ours - the modestly named Simon P - seemed a decent chap. In fact, he had hot-footed it to our little soiree straight from entertaining that Austrian eejit, Arnold Schwarzenblagger, who is apparently big in motion pictures and Californian politics. Well not exactly big, as he is almost a midget, but he is sort of wide, mostly around the head and biceps.

Young Simon, clearly delighted to have moved upmarket, played gramophone records at us and had us all take part in silly little games in return for bottles of champagne. Naturally this Pavlovian exercise went down rather well, especially as our team won the champers.

A gentleman from an adjacent table, maddened by an earlier intake of drink, and his failure to win the meaningful stuff, exchanged his collar and tie for a Freddie Mercury jump-suit and proceeded to bulge from his lower regions in a rather alarming fashion. I though this rather droll, and said as much, but the ladies seemed to like it. Thus encouraged, he disappeared for a second time, returning as a nude. I kid you not. Full Monty, free dangling - with no censor’s interference.

Now, I am all in favour of being thoroughly prepared if thoughts of serious ahem! are on the agenda, but this was altogether too forward.  I mean, whatever happened to subtlety? You never got Cary Grant looming over the object of his desire and dangling bits and pieces of inside leg at her. A smouldering glance was all he required before getting his left foot on the floor (older film buffs will understand this reference).

Having thrown out the son of Bacchus, we creaked our way around the disco floor, doing incalculable damage to knees, hips, lower backs and ankles. Funny how the pain threshold seems to become lower with the passing of the years.

There was also a decent amount of leering going on, in between Abba songs, especially at a lady wearing a gold top and skin. There was another lady wearing even less of one and more of the other, so we shared the leers around. Happily Madame missed all of this, as she is too vain to wear her bifocals when the Rolling Stones are on. She has noticed that Mr. Jagger never makes passes etcetera.

Overall it was a splendid occasion, so much so that there was no need for me to crawl into the public bar for afters when the management pulled the plug on all of this jollity sometime before dawn.

I tottered instead to my room, found it first time, pausing for a quick leer out of the window at any passing gold tops before crawling under the duvet.

Shortly afterwards, someone in the room above attempted a Steve Redgrave impersonation in the bath, with dire consequences for Madame and self. We had to ring Dave, the night porter, (Madame had called him earlier to report phantom music in the dumb waiter, so we knew his name), to complain that we were extremely wet, and covered in soap suds and a loofah. Not only this, but the chandelier was emitting sparks and bubbles in a spectacular, if slightly worrying, display of hydro-pyrotechnics.

Dave worked out the room number most likely to be the source of the offending waterfall and said he would deal with it forthwith.

“Who would be wallowing in an overflowing bath at this ungodly hour?” he asked, as he made towards the door. I gave him a full description of The Boy, but it turned out to be someone else entirely. I sometimes wonder if The Boy is really fulfilling his earlier promise.

     DUBYA’S ADDRESS TO LUTON

“Fellow Lutonians, it is mah privilege and pleasure to take some time an’ a few hundred bucks to address y’all on this historic occasion as we celebrate yore redundancy.

“As the Republicans among y’all will know, (reverential pause for US national anthem and two beefburgers), God and the Supreme Court have been on our side. We have seen off the dark forces of MechanicAL Gore and his commies, and have returned the first Bush to the White House for eight whole years.

“Daddy says ah kin have mah ol’ room back and bro’ Jeb is sending up some cheerleaders from Floriduh. He says they is better-lookin’ than the Arkansas trailer trash ol’ Zipper used to have around the place. One even has her own teeth.

“But ah’m real genuine sorry ‘bout y’all losin’ yore jobs, especially with it bein’ near Yuletide an’ all. But yore bros. on the Detroit lines sez they is real grateful fer yore sacrifice, which means they will have turkey this month even if’n y’all have to settle fer the cat’s Whiskas.

“Anyways, yore cars wuz always rubbish, what with bein’ too small and the name bein’ too difficult to spell, less’n yo wuz an Ivy League man like me.

“Daddy says he done tol’ young Blair ‘way back when the Bears last won the Superbowl that Opel wuz a whole lot better bet, bein’ jest four letters. Yore kinfolks back home likes four-letter words, which they find most expressive. Jus’ ax anyone in Texas. Las’ time we went fer five wuz the Alamo, an’ y’all know what happened there.

“So mah message fer y’all today is that shit happens, ‘cept when you’se me an’ y’all jus’ got a great new job an’ all them cheerleaders. Mah advice to y’all is to git out an’ buy sunbeds. Then get yo’selves a good tan, learn Spanish, build a boat an’ do what the Pilgrim Fathers did, such as landin’ off Miami an’ sayin’ y’all is Cubans. Bro’ Jeb will then get y’all registered as Republicans an’ mebbe a vote in ‘05. That’s the American way.

“But don’ go abusin’ our hospitality by buildin’ no mo’ cars. As ah said, jalopies such as the Astra an’ Vectra is about as much use to the average American as a chocolate chainsaw, so count yo’selves lucky that good ol’ GM has bin payin’ y’all big bucks for the last three centuries - mebbe more - an’ remember Jack Smith in yore prayers next Thanksgivin’. He is a fine Republican an’ a God-fearin’ Baptist who has done mo’ than ol’ Zipper to keep y’all in decent trailers.

“Anyways, mah ever-lovin’ Laura wants to see yore fabric shops ‘fore the factory closes. She sez that since we are here anyways, we kin pick some real cheap stuff with which to cover the seats in Air Force One, an’ mebbe have some left over for the twins’ inaugural ball dresses.

“See - we’re still balin’ y’all out, just as we did back in the days of Dubya Dubya Two when you ran out of Hershey bars an’ gum.

“Y’all git that boat built and come an’ see us, yuh heah?”

     XMAS PARTIES AND MS KATHERINE HARRIS 

As Yuletide approaches and with it the prospect of parties, endless headaches, memory lapses and possibly even a temporary loss of consciousness, I have decided to get this little lot out of the way before donning the glad rags and sallying forth.

Bitter experience has taught me that when you scribble things down while in merry mode, names get named, dark secrets are revealed and writs written. In other words. I am playing safe, like the wise old coot I can be at times.

The serious rascality commences next week with an evening hosted by SEAT. As I have previously said in these columns, the Spanish-based German company has a keenly developed sense of humour. I mean, how else could you explain the Alhambra and those, (happily now defunct), original Ibizas with their laughably inept System Porsche plumbing. These clunkers made the Morris Marina look technically advanced.

SEAT’s Christmas hooley is now an annual event, but as the frolics have become increasingly raucous over the years, it can only be a matter of time before it is raided by the Anti-Fun Squad (J. Straw, Prop.).

Last year we had people swinging from crystal chandeliers, senior company personnel wandering through the public bar in less than their scants, soldiers of the Black Watch being forced to raise their skirts and show off their nocturnal tackle in equally exposed corridors, while several beds were mysteriously spirited from room to lawn. Some of these cots were occupied by writhing couples at the time.

All of this in a five-star establishment once noted for its discreet charm and olde worlde elegance. Some of HRH’s lot stays there from time to time, but they probably don’t pay anyway. So it would be out of order if they kicked up a fuss.

Last year we also had a man doing tricks with burning things, but an astute SEAT PR person tipped him the wink that there was a professional arsonist in the company, and he put all his bits away. Not securely enough. I now have several interesting items in my desk drawer.

Keeping out of the old hoosegow under such provocative circumstances will not be easy, but I have promised Madame that I will be on my best behaviour, thus protecting her considerable financial stake in our January visit to George Dubya Bush’s little republic. Getting bail over the holiday season, what with so many m’luds still incoherent in massage parlours, and therefore not at the bench, can sometimes be a little awkward. Discretion will be used.

In fact I propose to do the decent thing by driving and carefully appraising every model in the SEAT range before tackling the falling-down water, so look out for some sparkling prose in the New Year - especially if they forget to bring an Alhambra with them.

Meanwhile, I have a confession to make. I have fallen desperately in love with Ms Katherine Harris, she of the big hair (hope she stays well away from BillyRae’s ceiling fan), tiny waist, sharply cut suits, neatly turned ankles and Mercury sedan. Being Florida’s Secretary of State she is also worth a few bob, which makes her even better looking than otherwise. 

Also, the achingly gorgeous Tallahassee ice maiden has managed to succeed where Ms Lewinsky failed, by leading the Democratic Party, (the Wild West equivalent of New Labour), to the edge of the political abyss and then applying a gentle nudge. We are talking southern class here. She even kept her clothes on the whole time which she wouldn’t have been able to do at the SEAT party.

So it’s goodbye to “Zipper” Bill Clinton and to MechanicAL Gore, a man who makes David Coulthard seem interesting. . At least ol’ Ronnie Reagan had some excellent things going for him, like having a chimpanzee as a co-star and the ability to fall asleep in his chair whenever Thatcher or Gorbachev came a-calling.

Likewise Jimmy Carter had his brother Billy, the straight-from-the-can front porch philosopher, and a splendid mama who knew Abe Lincoln, but again they were from the real south, not Arkansas, which is the other side of the swamp.

I have informed my friends in the Ford press office in Atlanta (I know, it’s in Jawjuh, but they don’t have a gaff in Florida) that I will be most honoured to tootle around in a black Mercury during my upcoming visit to the Sunshine State. Whatever is good enough for Ms Harris will do me very nicely indeed. Madame has already ordered hair extensions and a cherry red suit from Giorgio of Beverly Hills.

The boys in Orange County’s Highway Patrol are similarly showing signs of excitement. Cletus and BillyRae have said they will make a ceremonial arrest (it is election time for them in May), while BillyRae’s ever-lovin’ Clarissa has promised to fell a hog in my honour. There will even be people coming in from Polk County, bringing glass bottles carefully wrapped in brown paper bags. Polk folk are sticklers for the liquor laws.

As I said at the outset, I am your man for letting the good times roll. The invitation to Ms Harris is already in the post.

Gentlemen, start your engines . . .

      MR CHESTER REGRETS

No doubt you will all have been glued to your Bairdboxes over the past few days as the world-famous warbler Miss McDonna and some fella or other, (who is he exactly?), plighted their troth at Skibo Castle near Dornoch, which is somewhere in Scotland. Death us do part, roller-skating lady vicar, large settlement if caught at extra-marital shenanigans, CDs at cash-and-carry prices etcetera.

If you missed seeing me, it was precisely because I wasn’t there. Regretfully, I had to sell my invitation to the nice man from NBC television. I don’t do this sort of thing as a rule, dreadfully bad form, but he offered drink as well as oodles of boodle. Window of opportunity and all that.

Actually, I would very much have liked to take up the offered position in the second row, but I have been to the castle on several previous occasions and my Barbour jacket, previously clinging to a very shaky nail indeed, has now hit the floor with a dull thud.

However, I shall give you a virtual tour of the place - and some of its history - so that you can impress your friends while waiting for a drink at the current round of parties.

Firstly, Skibo isn’t a castle at all, but a rather expensive sandstone detached pile knocked together a few years ago by Messrs McWimpey (Antigua) Ltd at the behest of a citizen named McAndrew McCarnegie. He was a cheerfully doubtful character who slipped across to Dubya’s republic on one of those cheap passage deals, (bring your own oars and a vacuum flask full of soup), which were very popular in Victorian times.

If you believe the official fable (we believe, oh we do!), he arrived on Ellis Island, New York,  with five bob in his pocket and found a bureau de change wherein this modest sum was immediately converted into several billions of dollars. One can only assume the counter clerk had been a student at my old school, where the classroom abacus, purchased by the headmaster at a camel boot sale in Cairo, was none too reliable courtesy of three missing beads.

Anyway, a delighted McCarnegie immediately went out and bought a T-bone steak, and had a concert hall built in New York in order that he could listen to music, CDs not having been invented at the time. I have to assume there was also some sort of tax incentive. I mean, who really needs a concert hall?

But the aforementioned auditorium turned out to be a dreadful mistake, there being no Mr. Frank Sinatra or Mr. Tony Bennett around at the time, so McCarnegie got fed up and decided to return to the land of his birth, where he would buy a house and read books, no doubt hoping this intellectual activity would impress the local Picts - and perhaps encourage them to appoint him as their chief.

He commissioned the castle, built a library well out of earshot of the screams of stonemasons falling from the scaffolding, and sat down with a few decent tomes as he waited for the man from Ikea to position the furniture.

I think he died shortly after the local council awarded the Habitation Certificate, as there has been no sign of him any time I have been rampaging through the corridors. In fact, the place is now in the hands of a gentleman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Brian Blessed, the actor chap. He is a decent enough cove who greets you at the front door and hands you a glass of splendid malt. You are then relieved of your money and escorted to your quarters where someone else hands you another glass of malt before drawing two (count them) baths. Seemingly you scrub in one and rinse in the other. You have to be awfully clean before being allowed into the dining room.

After a dinner eaten to the skirl of bagpipes there are yet more  opportunities to explore the contents of the cellar, but the pièce de resistance, that little touch which separates a superior drinking establishment from the rest, comes at teddy bear time.

There is a splendid red carpet along which to crawl en route to your chambers. Then there is an exceptionally easy-to-negotiate great stairway, and more deep pile takes you along the corridor to your quarters, where the door handle is situated at hands and knees height!

Honestly. You don’t need to climb to your feet to get in, a brilliant idea which, if Mr. McCarnegie had ever got round to patenting it, would have made him even more billions. He could have thrown up concert halls and libraries all over the place.

In the extensive policies, recently alive with 150 security men on round-the-clock pummel duty, is a championship standard golf course. I got lost on it once and missed a presentation given by Ford’s top bananas on the bug-eyed Scorpio, a car so wretched that not even my seal of approval could have saved it, a proposition I put to the Ford people as they chastised me ferociously for my tardiness.

However, please be careful when seeking to have your glass charged in the clubhouse. I snapped my fingers at a green-sweatered lackey and demanded a port, only to be deeply insulted and offered a square go in the deep bunker at the 17^th. Turned out to be the club professional.

Still, Miss McDonna probably doesn’t ever go outdoors, never mind play the sport of emperors, so she should be spared his towering wrath.

I raise a glass to herself and wossname, and wish them well. I like weddings.

     Chapter Twenty Three

     KENSINGTON BERTIE              

Winter will be a little late this year. And the year after this, if the beardies at Britain’s meteorological centres are to be believed. It is Prescott’s Global Warming that has caused the leaves to stay on our trees until late November when, if memory serves me correctly, they used to parachute to earth from October 1.

I don’t mind. It isn’t too often you get an opportunity to stroll around one of London’s more interesting areas, sans Barbour jacket, a couple of weeks after Al Fayed has put his Christmas stock on display at his little corner shop, Harrod’s, or something.

But stroll I did - just a few days ago - and in the company of one of my favourite ladies of the theatre, Miss Angela Down. Naturally the old brogues were polished to perfection, the moustache in best military trim and shoulders pressed firmly back.

Miss Down has that effect on gentlemen, especially those of us who remember her smouldering moodily in some of those Frederic Raphael thingies that should never have got past the censor up at Shepherd’s Bush but, to our delight and titillation, did.

Miss Down still smoulders very well, albeit in more mature fashion, but that is fine by me.

We were in Kensington, which is rather outwith her territory (she has a little place in Battersea), but she knows all about the goings-on that went on behind those facades with their twee little blue plaques announcing that Sid Spon lived here, 1901-32. Dates which mean Sid either pegged out in ‘32 or the tipstaff came round because he had forgotten to pay the rent, but usually the former.

Our perambulation commenced at Kensington Palace, where we agreed to look proprietorial and posed with great dignity while Japanese tourists took our photograph. Next stop was at the Round Pond, where elderly children were sailing some rather splendid yachts, the quicker ones being pecked at quite angrily by swans, clearly upset at being rammed by these mini-America’s Cup craft.

Shelley, according to Miss Down, used to mince down here of a morning to sail his little craft, but his were made out of banknotes treated with some grease-proofing material. Naturally he was very popular with the other yachtsmen, especially when he forgot to retrieve his boats before going home to write really bad poems and stuff.

Oh - I should explain that all of this strolling and reminiscing was done during a sortie to the capital organised by Kia Cars. Rum bunch. Didn’t have any cars for us to drive, but staged a presentation at which we were exhorted not to drive at all if our journey wasn’t strictly necessary. You never heard ol’ Henry Ford coming out with anything as radical as this. Anyway, this should explain how I came to be taking the air with Miss Down.

Where were we? Oh yes, the Round Pond, from where it is but a short tack to the Albert Memorial, which was recently tarted up at a cost, (to you and me, dear readers), of £11 million. Aren’t taxes put to such splendidly good use by our caring overlords?

We left old Bertie in rather a hurry, as my plan to scrape some of the gold leaf off his tootsies was thwarted when we discovered that his size nines were protected by laser beams which, if triggered, would mean instant incarceration in the Tower.

Just across the road we came upon the last residence of Sir Winston Churchill. It is a surprisingly modest brick-built affair, two up, two down, in which the old fella spent his retirement after his second spell as PM. When he finally slipped down the greasy pole of life to the point where the chap with the scythe came a-knocking, crowds apparently gathered to read the daily bulletins posted to his front door. These said things like: “Sir Winston spent a comfortable night” and “Two pints please, milkman.”

Miss Down told me lots of things like this as we wandered around in the gathering dusk, by which time I was beginning to feel quite rascally. But then Madame - who can read my mind from a great distance - hove over the horizon and summoned me to my Ovaltine.

Thank you Kia, and thank you Miss Down, for coming up with the best no-car launch of the year. I sincerely hope the idea catches on.

DEAR TONY

The Right Hon. Tony Blair, MP, PM, KGB, Fettes College and Sparkling Teeth

10 Downing Street

London

Europe.

Esteemed PM,

It has been some time since you received my application, complete with cheque, for the knighthood that Mr. Albert Entwistle, trading as Acme Currency Recycling Ltd, said you would be glad to furnish on his say-so.

I realise you have been busy, what with the new baby and the rampant Browns making alarming nocturnal sounds on the springs next door, but something has obviously gone awry.

I am not a man to hold a grudge, however, so let’s up the ante, as they say down at the Roadman and Whippet. I’ll add a nought or two to the cheque, and even sign it this time, if under the new self-nomination system you will be so kind as to arrange a small peerage for me - and perhaps a seat in the Lords next to that delicious Baroness Jay woman with the legs.  I am a friend of her brother.

Play your cards right and I may even scribble a column or two to the effect that the petrol tax is a Good Thing. It is too, as you and I know that it will get the riff-raff off our roads, thereby leaving room for your Galaxy, my own road rocket and that nice Mr. Prescott’s fleet of Jaguars.

As I am a stout citizen who has uncomplainingly stumped up my taxes every year (except when the Tories were in power and these were manifestly unfair) I will not put you under any pressure with regard to the exact form of address to be attached to my social elevation.

I know the tabloids will be on us like a flash if I suddenly become a duke, but there must be a few vacant earldoms up for grabs. Get someone to prod the occupants of the chesterfield in the Garrick to ascertain just who has become recently deceased, preferably some old buffer without issue.

Mr. Entwistle, (by the way, he does a good rate of exchange on the old Italian folding stuff), says I will need to furnish the names of some referees. No problem, squire. I give you Elvis Presley, Madge the barmaid down at the Duck and Parrot, Chief Inspector Collar of the Yard and the entire chorus line from the winter revue now playing at the Casino in Monte Carlo.

Believe me, Tone, the one second from the left is a little cracker, but don’t let on to Cherie, nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more.

As a small sweetener I’ll throw in two sets of alloys to fit an ’84 Ford Orion, an unopened Peugeot 607 press pack and a boxed set of Jimmy Young’s Greatest Hit. If the Browns want cut in I have a splendid collection of miniatures amassed on my extensive travels.

Naturally I don’t expect a result tomorrow, as you will have to dish out the odd bit of ermine to those road haulage union wallahs who didn’t let their drivers join the recent convoy to London. However, I am scheduled to be in Florida for the month of January to oversee the absolutely final count in the presidential election (you want Gore? I’ll fix it) and Cletus and BillyRae will be dead chuffed to be able to arrest a real lord.  It will give them the opportunity to have a run at being Sheriff come the May vote in Orange County.

The New Year list is OK by me.

Regards to Cherie and little Leo (did you name him after the SEAT?), and if ever the older boy wants to know how to get stuck into the falling-down stuff without getting his name in the papers, just give me a call, I am your man for the discreet tippling.

Anyway, must dash. They’re open.

Your grovelling servant,

Chadwick of . . . (please fill in the blanks).

      DAYDREAM BELIEVER              

One of my biggest failings, according to Madame, is that I am one of nature’s wide-eyed souls who believe everything they read and hear. Tell me my peerage is in the post and I am like a little collie, sitting in pathetic expectation on the doormat as the postman stuffs the usual collection of bills through the letterbox.

In fact, I am worse than the collie. He, after all, is hoping the postie will stick his fingers far enough through the aperture for them to come within biting range. Dogs are like that.

So it will come as no surprise to you gentle people out there in  reader-land to learn that I am of the opinion that we will all soon be running around in water-powered Edsels hopefully finished in a nice green over cream two-tone. This blissful state of affairs will come about thanks to some atomic wizardry called cold fusion, which is a bit like hot fusion, only without all the bodies littering the wintry landscape.

I believe this will come to pass because the man peddling the idea in the United States is a professor, and we all know that professors are much too cerebral to tell fibs - even in America.

As yet I haven’t seen any pictures of him, but he probably drives a Citroen 2CV (or its American equivalent, a brown Ford Pinto) and wears a cardigan. He will certainly have a full set of whiskers, such as would put the John Player sailor to shame. In addition he will smoke a pipe, still have three kaftans in his wardrobe, and go to campus parties with the Beatles’ White Album tucked under his arm.

The good professor is the heroically named Edmund Storms, who has single-handedly built a different kind of fusion reactor. It consists of ordinary laboratory glassware, off-the-shelf chemical supplies, two ancient Macintosh computers for data acquisition, and an insulated wooden box the size of a kitchen cabinet that probably houses ancient copies of Playboy. All Heath Robinson stuff, but Storms says his system works and that he can prove it.

Alarm bells only start to ring loudly when we read that the professor is not an anti-establishment scientist pursuing a crackpot theory. Such gentlemen are, of course, the best kind. For 34 years Storms was legitimate, part of the establishment itself, employed at Los Alamos on grand wheezes such as developing a nuclear motor for space vehicles. This probably means he wholeheartedly endorses the Roswell incident, is convinced that Buddy Holly lives on as Al Gore, and he will have voted for Groucho Marx in the recent presidential election, not knowing he is dead.

.

None of which makes him a bad person. He insists you don’t need obscure degrees or billions of dollars to fuse atomic nuclei and yield energy. “You can stimulate nuclear reactions at room temperature,” he says. “I am absolutely certain that the phenomenon is real. It is quite extraordinary.”

That’s our transport problems solved then, so what are old Prescott the Sailor and all those precious tree-huggers ranting on about? They would be better off going to night school to learn how to chisel out coracles and knit reeds into Manchester United replica strips instead of popping up nightly on my television to tell me I am a Really Bad Man.

How can I be? I’m almost an earl. I rang Cletus and LeeRoy, my Florida Highway Patrol friends, to ask if they knew Mr. Storms. They don’t, as apparently he has kept his nose clean in Orange County, committing no Federal misdemeanours or doing anything else that would get him put up in front of judge Ms Melissa-Mae Lopez, she of the errant husband.

“Good ol’ boy sure sounds like a Kentucky mountain man” mused Cletus. “What kinda trailer thang he have up thar?”

Perhaps I should explain. In Orange County your social status is determined by two thangs, sorry, things; whether you have or do not have a trailer made out of a dead Greyhound bus - having one is best - and by how many times you have appeared on daytime television with Mr. Jerry Springer to ask if it is legal to marry two of your sisters at one and the same time. One appearance is no use. Everyone in the county has been on once - even Ms Melissa-Mae Lopez got an invite following her own conviction for stalking Bill Clinton.

So I am no further forward with Professor Storm’s credentials, hence I will continue to believe in his vision of cold fusion, at least  until two vehicles powered by this method collide head-on during the morning rush hour in Tampa. No mushroom cloud and Eddie boy will get a whole Jerry Springer Special to hisself, especially if he is wise enough to claim his father was Elvis.

Madame says I am suffering from terminal delusion, an opinion she has held about me since the day I got all excited about ol’ Buzz Aldrin and the guys playing golf on the moon. She - ever the doubting Thomasina - insists the crackly pictures the world witnessed on that momentous occasion were coming from the Nickelodeon studio back lot in California.

It gets worse. She thinks Elvis really is dead. I’ll let her go on paying through the nose for Super Unleaded while I get my regular fill-ups from the kitchen tap.

Let’s hear it for good ol’ Eddie Storms.

      WITHOUT YE OLDE WOODLICE 

That ancient editor cove has been at the book of fables again if he says the Seat Alhambra SE is a decent velocipede, a libel he has recently committed to print. He should stick to more robust literature.

It is nothing of the sort. I have it at the moment and am growing increasingly anxious that by the time the nice man comes to collect it there will be the mere bones of a car to drag away.

Fairly decent looking, as vans go, the Alhambra nevertheless reminds  me of those grand old days when SEAT assembled Fiats for intellectually challenged Catalonians who - because of misplaced national pride - would never be seen dead in an Italian car. They thought Fiat had been nicking SEAT body styles for years.

Their elders and betters were no more enlightened. I remember, while in the act of being thrown out of the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, observing the mayor of that fair city clambering, resplendent in gold chain and passable suit, into the rear of the Spanish equivalent of the Fiat 124/Lada1200/Polski Fiat ditto.

Damn thing looked like a Wilson perambulator perched on pneumatic tyres. Sort of thing we used to build when we were lads, steep hills for the hurtling down in, as we attempted to strike up an heroic relationship with the gels in our local casualty department.

The sight of His Worship tootling through the city streets in this preposterous machine was a bit like the King’s New Clothes. But only Italian tourists seemed to get the joke, there being no tourist trade at that time from Russia or Poland, where the annual holiday still meant six weeks in a Gulag, scoffing cabbage soup and getting walloped around the privates by secret service Johnnies.

Perhaps I digress (but at 10p a word I have a valid excuse). This mobile greenhouse currently lowering the tone of a very douce neighbourhood nestles in the car catalogues at the cheap end of the Alhambra/Sharan/Galaxy section. And with good reason. It has cupholders that rattle incessantly and a damned useless system of blips and bleeps designed to stop you from nerfing other cars outside the Coach and Horses which - in reality - only bleeps or blips meaningfully when you have actually demolished the landlord’s BMW.

Okay, I can see some sort of point to having these things fitted if you are Blind Pugh and you have to dash out and issue some cowering wretch with the Black Spot. But if the old peepers are as useless as that, then surely you should be searching your conscience before taking to Her Majesty’s highway. I mean, you wouldn’t expect Mr. Ray Charles to walk off with any prizes at Bisley, would you?

And another thing. You can fall out of the Alhambra. I have done so twice, and without any help from Ye Olde Woodlice bottle, namely the absinthe smuggled in from Prague. Two pairs of crumpled Daks will now have to be satisfactorily explained to Madame, who no doubt will suspect that I have invented some new kind of frolic which involves grubbing around on one’s knees.

And yet another thing (I have lots of yet another things available at the current 10p rate). The front bumper has shed a little piece of plastic from its uppermost surface. I have peered at the resulting hole and deduced that what has become detached is a cover of sorts designed to keep the rain off a water reservoir which serves the headlamp washers, if indeed such items are fitted.

I know what this means. It means repercussions, forms to be filled in, coins of the realm etcetera. A month or so ago I lost one of these things from the rear of a Ford Puma. It took ages to locate a spare and then, naturally, this had to go to the body shop to be painted the same colour as the rest of the car as it comes in just one shade of primer. Not quite as straightforward as rebuilding an engine or straightening a chassis, you see.

As I said, boodle - lots of it - changes hands every time you lose one of these things. I have just been quoted £37 plus painting to fit one to my personal road rocket. That makes three of ‘em vanishing in three months. Someone, somewhere, has ‘em on his mantlepiece. I suspect Prescott.

Or maybe Portillo. After all, he is a Spaniard, albeit he doesn’t live in Pamplona or some other tough place where they have signs up which say “No Mincing While the Bulls Are Running. It Tends To Annoy Them”.

I can just see him using his connections to arrange for collapsing SEATs to be shipped into this country. Two good reasons; it ensures that joining the Euro is a non-starter and it makes up for Man U.  getting hammered by Barcelona, albeit in a childish sort of way.

I like Barcelona. It has very friendly maidens and the transvestites are easily spotted - even at night - so you can get around safely. They also have a very gentle way of ejecting you from museums when you say that Picasso was a fraud who couldn’t get a job on Carole Smillie’s television programme. You get dumped in the doorway, rather than being pitched headlong into the traffic flow, as in Berlin.

I like places where they treat you with a certain amount of respect. Besides, the local citizenry once mugged the Ancient Editor and stole his jacket. They left his car though, probably because it was a SEAT.

Note: In the interests of strict accuracy - a concept unfamiliar to Chadwick (our now 5p per word contributor, and damned lucky to get that, if you ask the editorial us) - it was a Mondeo. Ed.

    Chapter Twenty Four

    APOCALYPSE SOON 

I was watching one of those religious programmes on Mr. Baird’s box the other day as a couple of escapees from some institution or other were banging on about reincarnation. They seemed to think it would be a Good Thing, which was reason enough for every brain surgeon in the land to brush up on his frontal lobotomy technique.

Imagine. I could come back as ‘Il Sinistre’ Prescott. Instead of the handsome, distinguished, dashing, sanguine me, I would be a universally reviled, bad-tempered, ill-dressed, lumpy ex ship’s steward possessing a wife with big hair.

OK, so I would also have two Jaguars, four houses and access to Number Ten, wherein my application for a knighthood, (small cheque attached), is currently yellowing in young Blair’s in tray. But would this be compensation enough for what is about to happen to the Pontypridd back row of Prescott, Brown, Blair and their sundry boot-lickers if and when the petrol crisis resumes?

I think not. In fact I am sure they have already siphoned enough of the stuff from their official cars - and possibly even Mr. Mandelson’s - to get them to Mr. Robinson’s villa in Tuscany.

If so our paths might cross. I am heading to Toulouse soon to play with Renault’s new Laguna. I shall take some cans with me and buy up some duty-free Unleaded from my Gallic brothers. They are all splendid fellows who manage to get governments to do what they want without even threatening to wheel out Madame Guillotine. I may apply to become one of their number.

Now this would be reincarnation with some sort of meaning attached. I could  dine with Nathalie Baye, enjoy some fine wine with mon ami, the bouncer from the Moulin Rouge, and perhaps get to explore some meaningful ahem backstage while the comedian is on. There is much more to being French than doing up creaking farmhouses in Provence.

Last time I was there I read in Le Monde that  Blair of the perma-grin has secretly instructed senior police officers to ensure that citizens lawfully protesting outside refineries and other establishments, such as William Hill’s, should be arrested post haste or even quicker than that.

The calculation is that a few cracked heads, followed by an appearance before m’lud on trumped up charges ranging from breach of the peace to making paper aeroplanes without a licence, will get the rest of us in order sharpish.

He has even given some thought to the fact that nowadays most of Britain’s policemen are only four feet tall, wear specs, walk with a mincing gait and claim early retirement whenever they are told to polish their boots. They are also afraid of large farmers and truck drivers sporting lurid tattoos.

This is where the army will take over. After all, what is the point of having a standing army that never gets the chance to hit people? The IRA is too tough, as are football supporters; so bank clerks, primary school teachers and call centre operators are fair game.

In other words there is trouble ahead. The grinning one has inexplicably informed us that any cut in fuel duty will mean higher mortgages and fewer jobs. This claptrap was faithfully reported on every radio and television station and repeated in the daily blatts.

Whatever happened to REAL journalists? Did none of them have the wit to ask him to explain the link between fuel duty and the price of your house, or how making British industry more competitive will result in job losses?

I despair. Is this why I served my country in Bomber Harris’ team? We should have lost that game and then we would all have leather coats, drive Mercs, (much better than rusty old Jags), and get to speak in a fierce language. In addition the Royal Navy would have submarines that work. We would win the World Cup every twelve years and be able to gain access to Mme Baye’s apartment simply by knocking on the door and demanding to see her papers - preferably at midnight on a Friday when she has her bath. Then we could have a chat while I slipped into some comfortable handcuffs and swung from the crystal chandelier.

OK, just for the moment I’ll put off being French and opt for being German.  ‘Flywheel uber Alles‘, as they say down at the old Bernard Manning Arms. Meanwhile, keep filling those cans.

MYSELF AND THE WILLYS

Have you ever, without realising that you have been dreaming, sat bolt upright in bed, blinded by a flash from the past that is almost biblical in its intensity? Sometimes you even get a few bars of Bach to go along with it.

It happened last night. I launched myself from my pillow in a sort of somersault with half pike, degree of difficulty 4.5, and bellowed: “I remember. I do. I remember!”

“Don’t care if you remember,” mumbled Madame, from somewhere under the duvet, “you’re too old to do anything about it now. Go to sleep.”

I couldn’t. Oh, the excitement of it all. I had seen a vision of my old Willys convertible, the car I hadn’t as much lost as forgotten I had ever owned in the first place. And yes, before all you horrible little 14-year olds in bottle glasses and pimples write snotty notes to the effect that Willys never made convertibles unless you count the Jeep, I KNOW that.

But I had one. In fact it was myself, Bob Nash, Geordie Phillips and Speeks Mitchell who made it. Well, we sort of committed it rather than made it, because it started out in life as a saloon - a taxi even - and we contrived to make the roof collapse by using it as a launching pad, catapulting RAF personnel over high walls for the use of, the alternative being an extended holiday in the glasshouse. You sometimes have to take extreme measures when seriously AWOL.

(Editor’s note for the bottle glasses and pimples brigade: AWOL, old military slang for being absent without leave. Correct - the military can’t spell.)

Anyway, we got into camp undetected, but the roof suffered terminal damage. The only thing we could do was to get out the old tin snips and render it into a convertible which wouldn’t convert because we didn’t have anything to convert it into, not having a ragtop to throw over it, so it was a permanent convertible, if you get my drift.

Yes, I know I’m rambling, but the excitement still hasn’t worn off. You see, what happened next, well a couple of weeks later, was that I lost the car. No, it wasn’t stolen, it was just that self, Speeks, Bob etcetera had ambled into Wanchai village on a top secret mission of the ahem! variety, which naturally you don’t do as a group - not unless you are in the Royal Navy and it is your turn to be in the barrel.

Anyway, the plan was that whosoever got lucky and took longest would drive the car back to camp, the rest would get taxis, and we would sort things out at reveille. This was a simple enough plan, but as with everything else planned by RAF personnel down the years, it went slightly awry.

Bob, a musician, seemingly spent his afterwards playing with a modern jazz combo in a club that had fleas. They said he was very good and would he like to join them on a tour of Japan. So he did, and was never seen again.  Meanwhile Speeks, who wasn’t very adept at the old fighting, but didn’t know it, somehow or other managed to fall foul of the entire crew of HMS Belfast and came to so much harm that he was flown home immediately after emergency surgery.

That left myself to fly solo, or would have done, except that I had also wandered off, got a job on a radio station and simultaneously found myself engaged to be married and living somewhere that was not anywhere near Little Sai Wan, which HM Government insisted was my official address.

Naturally there were repercussions. Come to think of it the repercussions had repercussions. These were so serious that until last night I had managed to banish them from my mind - especially the beating up part and being made to eat crunchy cockroaches. “Shouldn’t have joined if you can’t take a joke,” said the RAFP Corporal, who was not a nice man.

You sort of don’t think about Willys saloons with fresh air where the roof should be when all of this trauma is going on, but I did last night when I stumbled across an internet site on which someone (hope it isn’t that Corporal) has announced the formation of an Association for us, the Class of 57-60, 367 Signals Unit, RAF Little Sai Wan and absent without leave. Reunions and stuff.

I must have been thinking about this as I slept and the revelation about the car hit me. If Bob didn’t take it to Japan, and it wasn’t shipped home in the ambulance with Speeks, then it is still there.

Yippee! I even remember the address. 4107 Nathan Road. I wonder what the penalty is for 40 years on a double yellow line. Anyway, I’m off to get it. I shall send you a postcard if you promise not to let Madame know that I am betrothed to another.

     THE PRESCOTT CRISIS 

“Come and have a look at this,” I said to Madame. “El Sinistre, the fat sailor, he of the wife with the Tammy Bakker hairdo, is being given the old one-two by some bit of fluff on GMTV.”

It was indeed a glorious sight. Prescott, eyes darting from side to side like Tom the cat when he is about to be hit over the head by Spike’s shovel in the cartoons, was attempting to defend the indefensible - the Government‘s part in sparking off the fuel crisis.

He was so far behind on points that even a Las Vegas fight referee would have raised the fair hand of Miss Fiona Phillips, with whom I am now deeply in love. In the end it didn’t need to go to the judges. It was a TKO.

Regular readers of this column will know that the downfall of the Deputy PM has been partly of my making, what with the voodoo and the ancient curses found in a Gaelic translation of Chaucer’s choicest bits.

And I haven’t finished yet. Next to get the chicken bones rattling is Dr. (of what, exactly?) John Reid, a man so grey and miserable that he makes Gordon Brown look like Mick Jagger on the old white stuff. Reid, Junior Minister for Benbecula or some other unfortunate hamlet, was wheeled out during the petrol brouhaha to fend off the beasts of Her Majesty’s Press while his bosses lurked in the cellar.

His failure was almost as spectacular as Prescott’s, although not such good fun. But I’ll slap a spell on him anyway.

The petrol shortage business has, in one respect at least, been a good thing. At last even the toothy Blair has dropped the preposterous claim that punitive taxes on mobility can be justified on environmental grounds. As cars have got progressively cleaner, the hole in the ozone layer, now reportedly the size of North America, continues to grow.

There are, of course, many reasons for this, but our own contribution was largely in the dim and distant past, coming through the burning of fossil fuels all the way from the Industrial Revolution to the early 70s. Nowadays we don’t have enough industry left with which to start a half-decent revolution, but our recently liberated brothers in the eastern part of Europe have taken up where our grandparents left off. Take a look at the skyline around Smolensk on a still day and you will get the general picture.

There are also massive fires burning 24 hours a day in the South American and Asian rainforests, oil and coal-fired power stations belching forth noxious fumes everywhere else and - last but by no means least - those appalling bus things that the Sinister One thinks we should all sit in so that we don’t get in the way of his fleet of Jaguars. Give one of them a decoke and you could manufacture enough Coal Tar Soap to wash a whole generation of school kids. Excuse me a minute while I rattle the bones at some Stagecoach and Arriva depots.

So the problem is out of our hands, as I said to Madame. I also suggested that we break open a bottle of vintage port to celebrate the end of Blair, Prescott and “Just Married” Brown, when she put a damper on the whole thing.

“Who,” she asked, “will we get in their places when they have the strait-jackets slipped on and are taken away by the nice nurse?”

Ahh. I hadn’t thought of that. Just recently we have had Young 14 Pints condemning everything to do with fuel prices, but refusing to say that if we vote him in at the next election, he will actually cut them. Ditto Ginger Kennedy, Principal Dame at the Liberal Democratic Pantomime HQ.

Damn. I suppose we’ll get no help from the Greens, who all ride bicycles and suffer premature ageing thanks to a surfeit of carrot  juice, or from the Communists, none of whom are allowed to own cars, unless they are Ladas.

That could only have left one possibility (apart from myself, of course), namely Mr. Screaming Lord Sutch. Nothing he could ever have dreamed up would be dafter than anything we have already endured. Besides, some of his records were quite good. I still play a few occasionally on my Dansette.

Alas. The noble Lord is nowadays extinct and has not named a natural successor.

     TROUBLE ON INTERSTATE 4

I have to report that this year it will be perfectly safe to take your good selves and your squalling enfants on that holiday to Florida, buy les enfants ice creams, order a T-bone or two and visit the 34^th Annual Elvis Impersonators’ Free-Fall Parachuting Convention in Tampa.

As I have delayed my annual visit until next January, Interstate 4 between St Augustine and Clearwater will be clear of hazards. True, you still stand an almost even chance of being gruesomely murdered in your motel room, but who said life was an easy ride?

According to the sturdy LeeRoy, Deputy Sheriff of Orange County, crazed Elvis wannabes, stoned Vietnam vets, big hair evangelists and even Republicans are easier to deal with than yours truly - especially out there on the highway.

LeeRoy and I had occasion to meet on three successive days back in ‘96 and several times since. He now allows me to get out of the car without putting both hands on the roof and standing with legs akimbo, so well has our relationship matured. In fact, he rarely even pulls his gun, which in Florida means I have been cleared to run for the post of Orange County Judge in next year’s election. I shall probably allow my name to be put forward.

That first meeting involved me hurtling along Interstate 4 in a Lincoln Continental with the bonnet standing fully erect, like a less than elegant sail, or a bull elephant in the rutting season. . LeeRoy didn’t like that, considered it dangerous and kindly offered to put me in jail.

I pointed out that I could see perfectly well by sliding down in the seat until almost prone and peering through the bonnet hinges. This was such a crazy premise that he didn’t really want to write it in his book for fear of what the lads back at the precinct - ol’ BillyBob, Cletus and BillyRae - would have to say when it was typed up.

Next time it was the alligator that had come out of a levee and made a beeline for the highway to chomp Goodyear tyres. LeeRoy admonished me for giving it a close range sandwich, delivered a small but stern lecture to the effect that alligators have been known to trot at up to 20mph when in hunting mode, and walked away, shaking his head sadly.

By this time I was becoming known as “that crazy Snowbird” who arrived every year around Thanksgiving and caused mayhem all over the State, but usually in and around Orange, Metro Dade and Polk counties.

Fair enough, but last year things almost got out of hand. I was rumbling back from St. Petersburg, hoping to make it to the safety of our hotel before the local good ol’ boys came out to play in their pick-up trucks, shooting at traffic lights and anything with an out-of-state licence plate. Mine said Detroit, so the chances were that I might spark off a re-enactment of the Seminole Wars.

I whizzed past the last rest area on I4 in my trusty Ford Excursion - 7mpg overall and £200 to fill its 55-gallon tank in this country - before realising that the call of nature would have to be answered long before we hit the Orlando city limits.

I had little choice but to temporarily adopt French nationality and encourage some growth in the local shrubbery, an act which regular travellers will agree becomes all the more pleasurable with every degree of pent-up desperation.

So, on returning to my truck I was in jaunty mood, which probably explains why I didn’t see the dead bird until I had fallen over it. A bird? I hear you say. How can anyone fall over a bird?

It was a big ‘un and took a bit of effort to lift. I was looking at it and wondering how something of this size could possibly get airborne without some assistance from Pratt & Whitney, when LeeRoy and Cletus rolled silently to a halt in their Ford.

“What you got there, boy?” snapped Cletus, who was never quite as affable as LeeRoy. At my age, however, it is always quite nice to be addressed as “boy” by someone in his thirties.

“Dead bird.”

“That a fact? Accordin’ to what ah see, that’s no bird, that there’s a bald eagle. The bald eagle is a protected species.”

“This one wasn’t protected all that well. It is my considered opinion that it is deceased,” I said.

“Ah kin see that, but you got trouble, boy, yuh heah?  Killin’ a protected species is a federal misdemeanour punishable by a term in jail as determined by Judge Ms Melissa-Mae Lopez. An’ Ms Melissa-Mae is wrasslin’ at one an’ the same time with her hormones an’ her ever-lovin’ husband, who has been steppin’ out with Daisy from Walgreen’s. All things considered, you really got trouble.”

He was serious. Luckily for me, LeeRoy had been examining the big budgie while all of this was going on and his initial findings pointed to the bird not only having been dead for some time, the maggots being a clue,  but also having met its demise courtesy of a projectile fired from a  hunting rifle.

“Prob’ly one of them Canucks,” he said. “Whole load came in from Toronto last week.”

I never did get to meet the calaboose turnkey or Ms Melissa-Mae, but last Christmas I got a card from LeeRoy and BillyRae. LeeRoy said Cletus would have signed it too, ‘cept he was still sulking. They said they would run into me next January.

Maybe I should go to Tampa instead. Do any readers have an old Leiber and Stoller songbook? I can get my hands on the jump suit easily enough.

      AWAY GAMES

Remiss of me I know, but I completely forgot to mention that I recently rumbled off to Paris for the launch of the all-new, ever so exciting and superbly appointed Ford Galaxy.

The Galaxy is, of course, a van. Nothing to be ashamed of, but why Henry insists on describing it as a pukka MPV, people carrier, leisure vehicle or whatnot, I’ll never know if I live to be as old as my father would have been now, had he not got fed up and shuffled off.

And Ford knows full well it is a van, which is why it invoked Ye Olde Launche Acte (Velocipedus) of 1427, which decrees that if what you have up your sleeve is little more than a hairy forearm, throw a huge party and the oiks won’t notice.

They threw a huge party. We were billeted in the Versailles Palace Hotel, which is the sort of establishment where - unless you are that frisky young couple called Posh and Becks, or something - the little man who drags your valise to Room 462 gives YOU a tip.

I warmed to the place immediately, especially the healthy Minibar and titchy little balcony. From this fragile structure, if I climbed over the edge and dangled by my fingertips, I could almost see into the grounds of the other Palace of Versailles, where each evening during the Revolution the lads used to gather for wine and canapés as they pondered the next day’s beheading roster.

But there was the usual downside to this launch, principally the threatened speechifying by some of the company’s top bananas. Again, you only get the senior officers when the product is seriously iffy, so I decided to avoid driving the car if at all possible, have a quick dinner and leg it to Montmartre for a light perambulation before catching the last show at the Moulin Rouge.

Unfortunately the head honcho from Ford’s press office has known me for many moons and had put a man-marker on me. My minder was a youngster on a temporary contract and this was his big test. If he could keep me from wandering off into the night, pockets clinking merrily courtesy of lots of filched miniatures from the Minibar, he would be offered permanent terms - and maybe get to wear a suit.

He was good. I’ll give him that. Came two in the morning and we were the only creatures still standing, everyone else having tottered off on pyjama duty. I congratulated him on a job well done and said I surrendered. At this point he keeled over and I made my escape.

It had been two years since my last Paris visit and in the interim someone - probably Chirac - had moved Montmartre. I didn’t find it, but managed to locate the very rue down which the splendidly raddled but desperately sexy  Françoise Sagan used to hurtle in her Renault 5, deftly removing at least a dozen wing mirrors from the cars parked on either side of the pavé, on the way to yet another nocturnal liaison.

It was around this time that I fell in with some very strange characters, one of whom was impersonating a statue, all white sheet, white face and sticky-out bits of a similar hue. I wondered if he was a Ford man in disguise, but to my great relief he was simply a local drunk and part-time art enthusiast. Paris is full of such wonderfully droll chaps.

So me, he and several autres ordered up some fine Burgundy and whiled away the time until the sparrows started chirping, discussing everything from . . . were all Renaissance painters charlatans? . .  . to more pressing topics, such as whether or not Zinedine Zidane is as good as Pele, and who will be the first to commit after-dark frolics with Miss Britney Speirs (Spiers?)Spears?), who is apparently a chanteuse of some description.

It came as something of a surprise to me - and no doubt to my Ford hosts - that I made it back to camp in time for reveille. I even drove the Galaxy, discovering en route to Chantilly and other equally obscure places that it really does have an exciting new feature. It has mini-screens built into the rear of the front seats to enable les enfants to enjoy mobile games of Pokemon en route to B&Q of a Saturday. But you have to pay extra for these.

Otherwise, it is still a van.

     A STATESMANLIKE PROPOSITION              

I was riding my high horse before a captive audience just the other evening. We had enjoyed a brief tour of - and subsequently dined in - the oldest working malt whisky distillery in the universe courtesy of Messrs Vauxhall.com. A thoroughly agreeable location, as you may imagine, and one that none of us intended to leave before they summoned the burly security gentlemen to escort us to our coach.

Between liberal samples we indignantly discussed our distress at the finding, on a long, straight road unused by pedestrians since the last Roman invasion, of a newly installed speed trap cunningly concealed. Yes - our lords and masters had, in the name of road safety, (and revenue gathering), had decided to protect us from driving at warp speed and fatally colliding with low-flying aircraft rather than enjoying our more normal style of motoring, which involves sitting in traffic jams listening to Mr. Jimmy Young.

Personally I think Mr. Young died on the same round of golf as Bing  Crosby and the BBC is simply rehashing his stuff in order to avoid taking on a replacement, but that is by the by.

We got to discussing accident statistics and how to make Britain A Safer Place, the kind of conversation you have with old friends in order to avoid asking them whether their wives have stopped indulging in ahem! with Eric next door and are back at the hearth.

Anyway, I put forward the notion that I could reduce the toll by two thirds, virtually overnight, by the simple expedient of banning all right hand turns. Naturally this legislation would follow some hefty investment in road engineering in order to render such manoeuvres unnecessary.

Given that my audience had a collective IQ which almost matched Mike Tyson’s and furthermore were very drunk, they concurred, called me a genius, (which of course I am), and plied me with another dram or two.

One even let his wife sit on my lap. Then someone spoiled it by suggesting I should become a politician.

Moi? Can anyone really imagine a man of my breeding and integrity having to converse with ruffians such as Two Jags and Tone? The mere idea gives me the vapours. One of them wears two bad suits at once while the other dresses as if he was Jeremy Clarkson. Strewth!

I have been studying these creatures and their motley cannon fodder quite a lot recently on Mr. Baird’s electric box and think I have discovered just why they think, act and speak as they do. They are all plug ugly. So much so that they are embarrassed to venture out into the real world.

OK, they have several very fine bars in the House and I understand that each day young gentlemen in red braces infest the corridors, generously handing out brown envelopes stuffed with pesetas, but even this wouldn’t compensate for having to sit for ten hours or more, trying to avoid the ‘come on big boy’ signals from desperate harridans on the opposite side of the chamber.

It was this nightmare scenario that caused Sir Winston Churchill to spend half his career hopping from party to party, attempting to find some sort of view that would not dull his faculties and destroy his lust for life. This is also probably why he took to drink and got involved in regular skirmishes with our old friends from the Bundesliga.

The Great Man knew that even if the worst came to the worst it was better to be in the hands of the pigtailed Helga than that dreadful woman three rows back from the Opposition front bench.

I wonder why he never thought of the no-right-turn solution to our accident problem . . .

      SURFACING IN ST TROPEZ

Seeing ourselves as others see us, according to an obscure Celtic bard, is a worrying experience. It certainly worried me as, catching sight of some old duffer reflected in a shop window - haggard, careworn, first signs of a stoop, etcetera - I realised that this shuffling creature was no less a man than myself.

I looked like a Big Issue seller who hadn’t shifted any copies since last June. It wasn’t just the posture, but the facial expression sans sparkle. Where was the old glint in the eye that signalled latent rascality? Where indeed was any raison d’etre whatsoever?

My first thought was that I should apply for a decent billet in some friendly Old Folks Home, preferably one that offered nurses with short skirts and Minibars by the side of the bed, nearer than the commode.

But I decided against that, in case I got into trouble. Short skirts and Minibars can be simultaneously lethal and very expensive. Instead I went in for the old self-analysis, the stuff you do to while away the silent hours between your local hostelry closing and then re-opening.

I decided that redemption was possible. The root cause of my trouble has been work of the nine to five variety which I have been committing since early August. Since then I have been accosted by lunatics of all shapes and sizes, creatures Madame tells me are collectively known as “The Public”. Ghastly characters, all of them.

They have been hanging round my coat tails ever since they discovered I was editing their blasted local newspaper; demanding that I mention their names when they haven’t done anything to merit publicity, or offering varying degrees of violence when they do appear in print - especially following a heavy session with m’lud.

Dammit, they even ruined my trip to St Tropez for the launch of the new Ford Mondeo. This had looked like being a splendidly convivial affair, especially since one of my cohorts managed to secure a bottle of absinthe while we were en route to France.

We eagerly downed this  and enjoyed some wonderful experiences, such as imagining we could walk through plate glass doors (couldn’t - got a sore proboscis), seeing butterflies in our dinner and - best of all - being able to conjure vampire bats out of the wallpaper in our rooms!

It was like old times. We set up camp in the Hotel Byblos and went out for a promenade down by the old harbour, where a regatta of sorts was taking place. There were teams of sailors in too-tight white trousers, which was a bit worrying. After all, the old ten-second dash for 100 metres is well without my capabilities these days - even after a bar of Nandralone chocolate.

But we came to no great harm, and even managed to persuade Mr. Ford to let us drive his machines the following morning. Quite good, too. Possibly a bit too much like the VW Passat stripped of its interior furnishings, but with decent engines and a remarkably smooth suspension.

Even so, I didn’t manage to stay up beyond two in the morning or get up to any of my usual tricks. Nothing went on fire, the gendarmes down at the local Bastille had no guests for breakfast, (although The Boy mustered a decent attempt at making off with a motorcycle), and I didn’t even merit the attention of a Ford Official Minder such as was assigned to me in Paris recently.

It was obvious I was losing it. The reflection in the shop window merely confirmed this, so on my return I marched straight into the office, berated the staff for being useless, untalented, lazy, ugly and poor  - and trotted out again, resignation nestling on the proprietor‘s desk..

I am now straight and tall. My cheeks are shaved closer than two ferrets in a bag, and already wicked thoughts are swirling around in my brain.

I have looked into the abyss and survived. But it was a close call.

    Chapter Twenty Five

    ON THE DEMISE OF THE MINI

I know I have been absent from these pages for some time, but I have come up with several perfectly valid excuses.

In the first instance I have been fretting over my missing knighthood, still somewhere near the bottom of young Blair’s in tray, probably wedged between  Banjo Ecclestone’s cheque and little Leo’s Furby.

Then there has been the drink, or lack of same. It has been several weeks since I toppled into the shrubbery or attempted to gain entry to Number 124 after midnight, in the mistaken belief that it was Flywheel Towers. I am glad. You should see the lady at six score and four. Dreadful woman. Buys the Guardian. Looks like a stripped down Foden eight-wheeler, only not as pretty.

In other words, I have not been my usual jaunty self, what with the drought, the writs and the day job (yes - I am temporarily reduced to grubbing around in an office with the poor people in order to raise sufficient boodle to put an Edsel in my driveway).

But the news that the last Mini will roll off the Longbridge production line today has cheered me immensely. Other cars - when they are the last in a long line - drive out of the factory gates with something of a flourish, usually with Miss Jo Guest at the wheel for the benefit of Red Top snappers in dirty Macs, or old rascals such as yours truly.

I suspect the final Mini, like the umpteen million before it, will require a push from some burly Brummies before coughing into asthmatic life and then falling to pieces in a rusty heap, just to the left of the factory gate.

As one of the world’s leading authorities on the Mini, I can state categorically, brooking no dissent, so put your Biro away, that the damned thing is a dog, a howler, a bowfer, and altogether a fitting monument to the now all but defunct British black art of motor manufacturing. Like our Italian counterparts we never did build PROPER cars, even if we thought we could.

I shall now present my evidence for the prosecution. Firstly, the Mini’s creator was given a knighthood, (this was in pre-Blair days, so you didn’t have to pay for them), for his efforts. Likewise Sir Clive Sinclair got one for making computers that didn’t work, as well as a three-wheeled car that ran only occasionally - and never for any more than 500 yards at any given time - on old Hoover parts.

That perpetually grinning Sir Branson Pickle also got one for failing to break any hot air ballooning records, giving us trains that don’t run at all and an airline staffed by bimbos in the type of uniforms that went out with the old Odeon and La Scala cinema chains. Pshaw!

Even Sir Cliff Richard got one, (presumably for still being alive at his age), and others have been dished out to people who possess suspicious walks and a tendency to sneak up on other chaps from a north easterly direction at sundown.

The customer list for Minis was hardly more distinguished. OK, excellent chaps such as  Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan ran Minis, but both had finely  honed senses of humour allied to terminal manic depressiveness, or whatever the correct medical term is, so they would hardly be seen in anything else.

Enzo Ferrari allegedly had three Minis, presumably to prove to his customers that someone out there was building cars that were even more unreliable than his. John Lennon? We are talking Timothy Leary time here, man. He thought it was his Roller.

My only excuse is that I was poor. I was so poor that there were occasions when I had to save up for months before wintering in more favourable climes. Sometimes I went for a week without purchasing anything at all from Messrs Armani or Versace and I was strictly ‘B’ list when it came to society parties. The recollection of it all brings a flush to my cheeks.

So not only was I forced through circumstances to buy one of Red Robbo’s motorised roller-skates, I almost got my ownership tally into double figures by owning nine of ‘em in all. They were all total bowfers. You couldn’t sit properly in them because the steering wheel was somewhere over next to your passenger and the ashtray held three dog-ends, which was just about enough to get me three miles from home.

In addition the bottom radiator hose could only be changed by a man in Queensland standing on top of a tall ladder.

The wheezing engine, despite running with virtually no weight to pull, could just about manage a paltry 40 mpg on a good day. Rust? The only way to stop the car vanishing completely in six months was to have the Ziebart technician apply his sticky stuff to exterior bits such as the roof, doors, bonnet and boot lid after he had done the underneath.

Dammit - you couldn’t even have ahem in the thing either, unless you were Dudley Moore and had pulled someone about the same height as Lulu!

The Mini has been in production for around three centuries, or so it seems, and the original faults still pop up to infuriate the mentally challenged who nowadays stump up almost nine thousand notes in order to buy one of the things. There is the untraceable oil leak from the engine, the rusting body seams, the brakes that don’t work, ditto suspension - I could go on and on.

In fact I deserve my knighthood just for having been forced to spend 14 years of my life wishing I could afford a Skoda. What’s that chap Blair’s address again? Somewhere in Italy, I believe . . .

       HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF

I want a Ford Edsel and, in a roundabout sort of way, will explain why.

When I was but a spotty youth, or maybe it was before the spots arrived, I read books, listened to my elders and believed everything they told me. My history teacher, Miss Spencer, was too self-confidently ferocious to need to fall back on fibs - not while wearing those tweeds.

Similarly Miss Hamilton, with her huge sad eyes, delicate Irish complexion and glorious red hair, needed nothing other than truth with which to create her own little heaven on earth. She certainly created one for me.

And even the masters weren’t bad, in between hitting me for attacking Smith Minor, throwing fireworks at the janitor or stalking Miss Hamilton at playtime with my tongue hanging out. Innocent times, indeed.

But later in life it became obvious that I had totally wasted my time in the classroom. Not only did Christopher Columbus not discover America, he never got anywhere near it, while Mr. Stalin wasn’t a nice man. In fact he turned out to be much worse than Herr Hitler, but, to give him some credit, he had a superior moustache.

Elsewhere, Mr. Baird didn’t invent the talking box in order that we could all swoon at the very sight of Miss Penny Smith. Well, he may have, but it was also “invented” by Messrs Herbert Ives, Charles Jenkins and Philo T. Farnsworth in the United States - and by Mr. Boris Rosing in Russia. Old Philo really deserves the kudos, having the best name, but we have to give the Crackerjack pencils to Chuck Jenkins, who demonstrated his television in Washington in 1925. Mr.  Baird’s version was unveiled in the same year, but several months later.

And the race to build the first car wasn’t won by either Daimler or Benz, but by Nicholas Cugnot, who sped through the streets of Paris in his steam-driven car in 1770.

Even our literary heroes told porkies. Mark Twain (itself a false moniker) claimed the first book written on a typewriter was his The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but the rascal really pecked out Life the Mississippi  on his upright Remington before twigging  that Tom Sawyer had a better chance of getting him on the Oprah Show.

So history, as Hank Ford memorably pronounced, really is bunk. This is one of the reasons why I want an Edsel, because if you believe everything that has been written about the car, it was a dog of the first order - a growler straight out of the Morris Marina, Talbot Horizon and FSO Polonez school of junk transport.

I mean, the car even had a pedigree second to none. Think of that badge, for starters. When Ford decided to create its secret E-car, as it was codenamed, it commissioned the advertising agency Foote, Cone and Belding to come up with a suitable name. They did, putting forward 18,000 for consideration, to which Ford’s own employees added another 2,500.

Hilariously, the company gave poet Marianne Moore a great dollop of cash to create something with a classy ring to it. She promptly banked the loot and then suggested, among others, Mongoose Civique, Pluma Piluma, Pastelgram, Resilient Bullet, Varsity Stroke and - my favourite - Utopian Turtletop.

Ms Moore was very lucky indeed that the year was 1952. A couple of centuries earlier she would have been whisked away by Detroit’s church elders and given a right good seeing-to in the local duck pond!

Anyway, after all this daftness, Henry Ford II, in control of the company by that time, decided on Edsel, which was the name of his  late dad, and the famous horseshoe-grilled monsters started to roll off the production line. The Edsel could and should have been a howling success, but deadly rivals General Motors donned their black hats and played dirty, coming up with the Jasper Carrot of the day, Mr. Bob Hope, to rubbish the Edsel.

Bob at that time fronted America’s most popular television show, pulling in audiences that have never been equalled since. He was the biggest star on the planet by a distance - and his show was sponsored by GM.

All week, up to 25 of the best scriptwriters in the business worked to churn out Edsel jokes, with Bob delivering them every Saturday night. It was devastatingly successful. The ‘50s Edsel became the ‘80s Skoda and died on its wheels.

And that, dear friends, is why I simply must have one. Together we would become the two biggest flops in history - super under-achievers. It is also an achingly beautiful creation - just like Miss Hamilton.

Unfortunately, others have beaten me to the idea. The originally unwanted Ford Edsel is now fetching anything up to $100,000 on the classic car market. I think I’ll dig out some of those old jokes from the Bob Hope Show and send them to Mr. Jim Davidson.

What worked once might just do the trick again.

      A NICHE MARKET TOO FAR

“We should have a wheelie bin,” said Madame.

Coming right in the middle of my musing as to how I could persuade the Inland Revenue to accept massive bar bills as legitimate business expenses, this threw me completely off guard.

“Why should we have a wheelie bin?”

“Because the next-doors have one and it will keep the seagulls from scattering the contents of our plastic bags around. I don’t want all and sundry to know we eat own-brand beans.”

A certain amount of tactful logic was required here. I pointed out that we lived at the top of a very steep hill. We normally take our rubbish down in the car on Tuesday morning. If we had a wheelie bin it wouldn’t fit in the car. This means we (me) would have to walk down, probably in the rain, struggling to keep the bin from running away and crashing into some innocent dog-walker. Besides, I like own-brand beans, the consumption of which is nothing to be ashamed about in Mr. Blair’s New Britain.

And even if the wheelie thing happened to go down the hill without incident there would be a return trip after the bin men had been. It would still be raining. Perhaps the dog I startled on the way down would be waiting for me on the way back, fangs bared menacingly. The wheelie bin would fill with water and be heavier on the return trip.

Gravity being the powerful force it is, it might escape again and this time attack some schoolchildren, which would mean we (me) would find our names on some sort of Register at the Social Services Department. I would be named and shamed in some ruffianly Sunday newspaper. People - mostly overweight mothers in shell suits - would assemble outside Flywheel Towers at night, shouting slogans and putting dreadful items through the letter box.

Ace in the hole time. On top of all this the wheelie bin would have to be paid for. This was manifestly unfair, given that these pieces of apparatus exist only because they allow the bin men to keep their hands clean - in fact, they could wear Armani suits to their work as they don’t even have to lift the receptacles  anymore. All they do is roll them into a little set of claws at the back of the truck. The stuff is then lifted automatically upwards and tilted. When emptied it is returned to terra firma, wheeled back into position by our man in the suit and left for us (me) to collect before someone steals it.

There are probably hundreds of wheelie bin thieves out there, just watching and waiting for an opportunity to lay claim to a kite-marked Council Approved Dustmaster MKIII, nabbing it, giving it a quick respray and making a right few bob at car boot sales some way out of town.

I rustled the paper to add emphasis to my concluding statement: “There is absolutely no way we are buying one of these contraptions. They are just another way of raising money for the Council and will mean job cuts, mark my words. Besides, if the sinister Prescott is ousted before next Tuesday I could be in the Cabinet, finding out what has happened to my missing knighthood and telling that Ghosn, or Spook, fella from Nissan where to get off with his euros or drachmas. I’ll lay odds the Japanese don’t have wheelie bins. They probably don’t even have Men from the Council.

“Yes, dear.”

I have to stay in tomorrow. Madame is going to her aerobics class and the Man from the Council is delivering our new bin. You should see his suit.

      ON ESCAPING INCARCERATION

As you all know, when it comes to being a law-abiding citizen I have few peers. Not for me the dubious mortgage advance in order that I can keep a Brazilian toy-boy in some style. In addition, my sons do not make a habit of getting arrested by the Metropolitan Police for being ratted, or for smoking strange brown cigarettes.

I did once, (smoke brown cigarettes), but it was in the immediate post-war period of shortages and these weeds were called Pasha. I shudder even now at the memory of their awfulness. Furthermore, on the odd occasion when Madame is allowed to drive me to my club, she never quite manages to wring 102mph out of her geriatric Peugeot 205. (See J.Straw reference below.) In fact, she doesn’t even insist on being driven the 200 yards from Sharon’s Salon to Flywheel Towers whenever she has her hair done. (Recall previous story about the sinister Prescott).

OK, so I must hold my hands up to having been resident in several hotels that just managed to self-combust after midnight, my unfortunate habit of toppling into canals while enjoying nocturnal strolls is similarly well documented, and I was once a day late paying for the licence which allows me the odd glance at Mr. Baird’s box, but by and large I am a paragon.

Just the other day I was tootling around in a custard yellow Hyundai Coupé and not really enjoying myself. The steering was deader than Jimmy Hoffa, and someone seemed to have stuffed wads of cotton up the exhaust, so asthmatic was the engine.

Anyway, I decided to find out if it could be forced or cajoled into a playful little sprint, so at the next set of traffic lights I upped the revs to 3000 on the red, 5000 on the amber and then timed the dropping of the clutch to perfection, shooting off on the green at an almost impressive velocity. On reaching the speed limit, I touched the brake to help shave off the extra power and settled back into tootling mode.

It was at this point that the nondescript green Saab immediately behind began to flash blue lights from its radiator grille and several quick headlight flashes invited me to pull over.  Constable Simpleton, all pimples, embryo Village People moustache and ill-fitting cap, materialised at my window.

He went through the usual sniffing procedure in a desperate attempt to ascertain that a certain amount of drink may have been taken, but then had to fall back on Plan B when it became apparent that I was as sober as the aforementioned Mr. Hoffa, who hasn’t had a drop since he became part of a bridge support in 1968.

The oaf proposed, rather unkindly I thought, that I had been speeding. I invited him to show me some evidence of this on his in-car Playstation, but it was not forthcoming, probably because I hadn’t exceeded 40mph, adhering rigidly to the 39mph suggested by m’lud.

Some routine badinage followed, punctuated by the constable’s trips back to his patrol car to confer with his colleague. Finally there came the inevitable admission of failure, worded as: “Just be careful. We’re going to be watching you.”

Oh, dear. All of those nightmares could be about to come true. I may end up in a tiny cell with a broken light bulb and a very large companion called Bubba who will no doubt turn out have some very strange ideas as to what makes for a satisfactory session of ahem!

But perhaps not. After all, the nation’s entire police force has already spent several weeks failing to capture seven asylum-seeking Romanians, two of them heavily pregnant, who despite being unable to speak English have been cheerfully and successfully robbing shops in five counties.

I would have thought - and it is quite a reasonable presumption - that what amounts to a sawn-off travelling circus clad in strange attire and Balkan whiskers would be fairly conspicuous. Inspector Morse would have them banged up in fifteen minutes.

That this merry troupe should still be rampaging around is what you call a spectacular failure on the part of Plod - as I said to old Lucan down at my club. In fact it is ineptness on such a scale that I just know that if I shed all my clothes, set fire to my custard yellow Hyundai and drive past Police HQ throwing empty whisky bottles out of the window, our splendid Roberts will  fail to spot anything out of the ordinary - especially if I don’t accelerate too noisily.

Bubba can wait for Jack Straw’s driver to take up that spare bed.

    Chapter Twenty Six

    ANOTHER OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES

Regular readers of these columns, (usually Sid and Eric from the lounge bar), will recall the trouble I have with birds. No, not the Miss Melinda Messenger or Miss Jo Guest variety. I never have that sort of luck, even if I did engage the latter in conversation at a party in London last year.

It was a necessarily brief encounter, as it is difficult to retain even a degree of lucidity when the old salivary glands are working overtime. I ended up spouting the kind of gibberish which might have secured a senior ministerial appointment in Mr. Blair’s ragtag army, but it cut no ice at all with Miss Guest. She made her excuses and left.

I have had more frequent encounters with the feathered variety of oiseaux, mostly in Monte Carlo, but occasionally around the Algarve. The usual scenario is that I feed them with room service leftovers, and they express their gratitude by pretending to be Stukas, bombarding my Burberry with recycled langoustine whenever I pop my head over the parapet.

Mostly I don’t mind, accepting it as a sort of game and scuttling from doorway to doorway in an effort to dodge incoming missiles. Sometimes this works out rather well, as on the occasion when I hurtled into a family’s front room, thinking it was a shop. I was made welcome, given wine and cheese and - on my departure - an all-enveloping hug from the lady of the house.  She also told me, why I don’t know, that her husband worked every Tuesday from noon until 6 a.m. the following day. This little gem of information was accompanied by a coquettish wink.

But enough is enough. On a recent railway journey les oiseaux turned up en masse, flew ahead of my coach and lay in wait at the terminus.  I emerged from the train and strolled towards a dangerously exposed place - a harbour - where I became fair game.

The resulting bout of carpet bombing, raucously sustained for five minutes and deadly accurate, would have done credit to the crew of a Flying Fortress.

I am now putting le chat Flywheel through a rigorous training process that will include a short dash followed by a 25-foot spring, teeth and claws bared. If he catches any oiseaux he will get extra Kit-e-Kat and maybe even a soft seat in front of the television. He particularly likes Sir Trevor McDoughnut’s news programme.

At the moment things are going well. Le chat may look sort of anciently pathetic, with some missing molars, but he has learned to spit convincingly - especially when prodded in the rear by a pointed instrument. It is only a matter of time before his full potential is released upon our feathered friends and citizens such as me will once again be able to walk the streets in safety.

I was idly contemplating this scenario, some days ago, when accompanying a colleague on a test drive of the new Chrysler PT Cruiser. We trundled from Manchester to Wales, which I was distressed to learn, is still open. On a brighter note, the locals seem to have stopped plastering themselves with woad and are comfortably ensconced in passable houses with roofs and satellite dishes.

Anyway, it was one of those rare trips on which nothing happened. No collisions with other vehicles, outbreaks of fire, confrontations with the gendarmerie, writs from other writers or barneys with the barman. In fact there was no bar.

What we got instead was an American diner serving hamburger and French fries, even if the hamburger turned out to be more Safeway than Seattle. On a brighter note, there were nubile young ladies in too-short skirts whizzing around on roller-skates in order that we couldn’t catch ‘em, and a sales director who forgot he was talking to a bunch of gnarled old cynics and regaled us with his next day’s speech.

This wonderful script was clearly intended for his dealers who, if they believed what they were to hear, must live in fairy castles. All of these frolics took place in a hangar-like construction which serves as a sports centre or some other correctional institution - and it had a roof.

This meant no oiseaux which, by this time, I was beginning to miss very much. I could have given them my hamburger and watched contentedly as they disappeared in the general direction of Rockall only to drown just north of the Isle of Man as the contents of the burger attacked their vital organs.

I shall make enquiries as to the source of this food substitute. Le chat is off the hook and can go back to sleep. I have found the perfect oiseaux deterrent.

      STREETS WHERE I LIVED 

I was distressed to read in one of the many organs in which my work appears, that the rustic old fool who edits it has been rummaging around in people’s streets, peering through net curtains and - in all probability - searching dustbins for clues as to the habits of the incumbents.

This type of behaviour, if it catches on, could prove embarrassing, as I lived in a couple of streets myself during my poorer days. In fact, people unfortunate enough to be still in residence there may remember me and demand details of my present abode in order that they can alert their lawyers. I could get letters.

I was even born in a street. Well, in a house actually, but my hatching took place in a two-bedroomed terraced dwelling rather than in some luxury maternity hospital like today’s soft generation.

These were hard times. I can remember my maternal grandfather toiling for 12 hours each day as a miner. Like all real miners he was very small and also very fierce, with forearms like Popeye. For some reason, never satisfactorily explained, he carried a hammer around with him all the time.

It didn’t do him much good, for if he dared venture over the doorstep in his dusty boots my grandmother would flatten him with a saucepan or other such domestic implement. She was also very small. It was a happy little household.

My grandfather expired when I was in my early teens. As was common in those days, they laid him out in his box, dressed in suit and tie, and invited people round to have a drink and a last look at him. I was upset to see that the undertaker had prised the hammer from his fingers. And it came as something of a shock to discover that grandfather wasn’t, (as I had imagined him to be all my life), a coloured gentleman. In fact he looked quite pale with his face scrubbed.

With one notable exception we didn’t have any famous people around, other than the odd character who would be the subject of an occasional animated conversation in the local police canteen. The exception was an immensely skilled boxer who latterly became World Flyweight Champion. This was in the pre Don King days when there were only seven weights and seven champs on the entire planet, so the title really meant something.

I mention him, because despite his fame and considerable fortune, he wasn’t the first person in our neighbourhood to own a car. I was, which is probably reason enough for the editor to come a-roostering and a-snooping. Well, snooping. He’s a bit old for roostering.

If he snoops long enough the ancients may tell him of the occasion  when I rounded the corner from Robertson Street at an impressive velocity and the forces of gravity propelled me from the driving seat out of the door (faulty lock, m’lud) and into Mr. Harrison’s garden. The car, an Austin Sheerline, was subsequently found nuzzling a lamp standard on a nearby trunk road.

Or they may recall the Christmas Eve frolic when I was intercepted by the constabulary while en route to a party in the next town. I had shoehorned nine friends into an Austin 16. Another two were perched outside, one on each front wing, while our precious cargo of firewater was securely stowed on the roof.

Stern words of admonishment were spoken, notes taken, and my mother had an attack of the vapours when the story appeared in the local press. Do anything like that today and they will send you to enjoy a cuddling session with Bubba in the local Bastille.

That was a memorable winter. Just a month or so later I went to see the Monte Carlo Rally pass through our town. This is true - the competitors used to start from various points in the UK and drive all the way to the Med - and took up an excellent vantage point on a bridge parapet.

Yes - I fell off, landed in a river immediately adjacent to a sewer outlet and had to be rescued by a group of miners going home from their shift. If any of them had been like my grandfather and possessed a permanent hammer, I would never have lived to become famous.

I shall now stop, because it gets a whole lot worse. Just hope ol’ Ed. never gets to hear about it.

      HANKERING AFTER WARM SPRINGS

The reason why estate agents and other creatures of the night are and always will be rich is that we humans have built-in wanderlust.

It comes with the genes, like freckles and a squint that lets you see round corners. Mostly we manage to suppress it, succumbing to its siren call just once or twice before the old fella with the scythe shows up.

It struck me again the other evening, halfway through a dinner held by Citroen to celebrate the launch of their splendid Picasso MPV. Nothing to do with the car, or the company - agreeable in extremis - but the ol’ brogues began to shuffle under the table, signalling that it was time for another look at the atlas. Not that I need to. If and when I up sticks again I am heading for Warm Springs, Georgia.

This little burg consists of one street with high boardwalks on either side, a general store run by the mayor, a railway track with a lone carriage permanently parked on it, a brick-faced hotel, Donna’s Ice Cream Parlor and The Little White House.  Er, that’s about it.

President Roosevelt used to take time out from plotting the downfall of Herr Hitler and General Patton in the Little White House and its five tiny apartments. But he did other things too, setting a trend enthusiastically endorsed by every succeeding president except (perhaps) Messrs Carter, Reagan, Ford and Bush.

As the cultured Mrs. Roosevelt consistently declined to go anywhere near Jawjuh, this left old FDR free to leap from his wheelchair and enjoy uninterrupted games of Appalachian ahem! with his ever-loving secretary, Miss Lucy Mercer.

Apparently this went on for many years, but Warm Springs is smack dab in the middle of the Baptist belt, and its citizenry have been able to develop a polite form of tunnel vision whenever presidents descend on the place for a few frolics.

I’m surprised Bill Clinton - a typical southern gentleman - didn’t figure this one out. Or maybe he did, but then so would Hillary, being from the South herself.

Anyway, I want to live there, if only because the good folks who scratch a living from the red clay are the only ones I have ever met who are as eccentric as myself and gentle with it, even if every pickup truck does carry His ‘n’ Hers rifle racks.

I was last there on a Mazda 626 driving exercise and spent an entire morning attempting to seduce Donna on her own premises. I have never been so politely or charmingly rebuffed. She even gave me a free ice cream and offered up a pearl-handled revolver for five dollars, presumably in case I felt so devastated by my failure that I wanted to go out into the woods and do The Decent Thing. Now that’s what I call old-fashioned southern class.

The mayor was similarly splendid. Well, perhaps not, in that although he had a larger chest than Donna’s it was sort of arranged differently, starting around his middle and descending simultaneously downwards and outwards.

He had been summoned by Donna’s staff, who were intrigued by my accent and that of my co-driver, (he was Irish), but far too polite to ask us outright just where we hailed from.

Mr. Mayor locked up his general store, neatly dodged the 10.30am Chevrolet truck with its “Shit Happens” bumper sticker, and took up station a couple of tables away from us. He cut an imposing Boss Hogg figure, cocking an ear and listening intently to everything that was said while three teenage waitresses, chins cupped in hands and elbows on the counter, chewed gum and looked on in wide-eyed wonder. We began to understand what it must have felt like to be Elvis in Chingford.

When satisfied, Mister Mayor ambled up to the bar, hoisted his ample rear onto a stool by the soda fountain, pushed his hat back on his head and delivered the verdict: “I got it figgered,” he said. “Them ol’ boys is from up east.”

He also tried to sell me a weapon, this one a hefty Smith & Wesson that was rather more expensive than the little pearl-handled job. It was going to cost me seventy-five bucks to kill myself with this beauty.

“Use ‘em mahself. Yes suh,” he said. “Best thang a man kin have in his truck if’n he needs to do business with any good ol’ boys who come a-roosterin’ and a-callin’ on his womenfolk, especially if them boys is from out of state. Or even from up east. Yuh heah?”

Funny how the two word Southern Question is much easier to grasp than Tam Dalyell’s West Lothian Question. I could live very happily in a place where you can get by on a couple of sentences a day. And if it turns out that Donna has become Mistress Mayor since I last rode into town and taken her flying buttresses across to the general store, well, one of the waitresses wasn’t bad at all.

And Madame has never expressed any great desire to visit Jawjuh.

      SPRINGTIME IN BERLIN

It was nice to be in Berlin for the launch of Mazda’s Demio mini-MPV, if only because the last time I was in the city half of it was occupied by burly lady swimmers who dressed to the left and wore handsome moustachios.

The men - generally smaller than the wimmin - were adept at scowling and demanding papers. In fact, this was all they could do for fun, as it is no laughing matter to go home to someone who serves up testosterone stew, and whose idea of nocturnal shenanigans leans more towards strangling next door’s Alsatian than thoughts of, ahem !

As it was also daylight I had some difficulty in finding my way around. RAF personnel such as myself generally only visited the city after dark, but I bought a map and attempted to look Japanese.

Even so, I didn’t like the place then, but I have to say I do now. It is seemingly nine times the size of Paris, but with a smaller population. There are several reasons for this, including the casual immigration laws which used to apply in Argentina, Chile, Brazil and all points out of the grasp of vengeful chaps from Minsk and Milton Keynes.

In fact there are so few genuine Berliners left that you actively have to seek them out whenever your glass needs topped up. Ask an Albanian waiter for neat whisky and you are likely to get something very droll with a toilet brush sticking out of it.

Come to think of it, we have the same problem in Birmingham, and there aren’t too many of that city’s original denizens lurking in various rainforests. Perhaps it’s just something to do with today’s service industry.

Anyway, I used the car (excellent little machine) to have a lengthy tour of the city, taking in the Olympic Stadium, Reichstrasse, Stasi HQ, Helga’s Joy Machine Shop and anything else left over from my  time in the RAF.

It was all rather jolly and - despite the absence of bar staff - I managed to smuggle a bottle of champagne into my bath, pre-dinner snorting for the use of.

Dinner was an agreeable enough function which took place on a river cruiser, but we were regaled throughout by an oik with a microphone. Turns out he was some ex-pat scribbler or other who had recently settled in the city, knew everything boring about it and considered it his solemn duty to share this guff with us.

At one point a small mutiny broke out, and the hectoring fool came within a few seconds of having a brick tied round his neck and being dropped over the side in time-honoured fashion, but a dyed-blond  (there goes another illusion) wine waiter saved the situation by plying the mutineers with copious amounts of  ‘95 Chablis, a perfectly acceptable tipple.

Anyway the boat, ship, canoe or brigantine went somewhere or other and, as boats tend to do, came back a few hours later with a full complement still on board, so no harm was done. We disembarked and tottered en masse to some bar or other near our hotel, there spending a few pleasant hours sampling the local firewater before the falling down games were officially declared open.

I think the gold medal was awarded to my good self, as not only could I not find my room, the hotel or even the street it was in, but for some odd reason began to imagine I was in Paris. Perhaps I had been a Tiger tank driver in a previous existence.

It took considerable patience and no little physical effort on the part of one of the Mazda personnel (thank you, Sharon) who found me in the street impersonating a stag beetle stranded on its back, to restore both my dignity and my equilibrium.

I wish I could tell you how I managed to be put to bed in the correct room and to awake four hours later in another - and on a different floor. To be honest, I have absolutely no recall. In fact I didn’t even notice until I tottered off to have a shave and couldn’t find my Bic. Then I couldn’t locate my suitcase - or my trousers - and slowly the realisation dawned that I was in dreadful trouble.

But I am safely back at Chadwick Manor and all is well.  The Doc has had a good prod at me and says that as far as he can ascertain, I haven’t been tampered with, Bubba-wise, so to speak.

Madame asked how the trip went, and was informed it was mind-numbingly boring.

“Hmm,” she said. “So you disgraced yourself again.”

In some ways I suppose I did, but what else is there to do in Berlin in late Spring? Next week I shall be in Bristol. I wonder if the wimmin there also have moustaches.

      ON INCOMPLETE COLLECTIONS AND TECHNICAL WIZARDRY

I was rooting around in the attic the other day, desperately trying  to locate my secret cache of vintage Meccano magazines, when I came across a scale model of a 1948 Vauxhall Wyvern.

Manufactured by Mr. Dinky out of substantial metal and finished in black, as were almost all model cars of that vintage, it is a splendid little piece. You may see it and me someday on “Antiques Roadshow”, with my good self attempting to get the bow-tied presenter to say it is worth half a million drachmas. I will then sell it and give him the usual commission when an unfortunate buyer comes forward with the boodle.

But over the years many things like the Wyvern have come into my possession, lingered briefly and departed. Usually they have been stolen by my friends, (I have some very untrustworthy companions), taken away by the constabulary in plastic bags or else have been buried in the garden with dear departed cats, hamsters, rabbits and the pedigree Shetland collie from No. 28 that bounced off my car two days before I could arrange insurance.

Mind you, that was in 1958 and my offence is probably now time-expired, hence the confession.

I should have been more fastidious and kept all of this stuff, albeit not the dog, and I could right now be penning this piece from a beach in Phuket.

Even my cars, practically worthless when originally acquired, would now fetch a right few bob had I been able to store them in a barn like that Mason fella, him from Pink Floyd, who became a millionaire through simple persons like myself buying his albums in the mistaken impression that they were good.

Mind you, his cars are nearly all Ferraris, while the crates I have owned, run, loved and lost over the years represent an almost complete collection of the post-war automotive industry’s greatest failures.

My first was a metallic blue Austin Sheerline with sit up and beg Lucas headlamps finished in bright chrome. Only one light worked as I couldn’t afford a second bulb. I got by, courtesy of swapping these around every weekend and expressing surprise and shock whenever the constabulary pointed out that one of my peepers wasn’t operating.

The Sheerline was replaced by a ‘48 MG Y Type saloon, complete with flaking maroon paint and a hole in the cylinder block. For years I was convinced that this hole was there for some mysterious technical reason. It never occurred to me that the block was knackered. Oddly enough, I managed a right few thousand miles in between pouring several hundred gallons of oil into the bits that weren’t leaking.

It was all downhill from there, me wrestling vainly with an Austin Atlantic, Ford Anglia, Vauxhall Velox, Vauxhall Victor, Fiat 600, Humber Hawk, Singer Vogue, Victor Estate, nine Minis, a brace of Triumph Spitfires, two Ladas and a Peugeot 205 over the next three decades. All except the Peugeot were absolute junk, but they afforded me endless hours of alternating fun, misery, poverty and occasional invitations to the local Police Court.

But the Sheerline took the biscuit. It was a remarkably sophisticated machine for its time and came with a wonderful electronic jacking system that I didn’t discover until I had owned the vehicle for six months.

Under the carpet on the driver’s side of the car was a foot-operated switch which would - depending on how you set it - either lift the two front wheels clear of the ground or, in the event of several punctures incurred during a cross-country run through barbed wire, allow all four paws to rise into the air.

This was the best toy I could ever have imagined, and I played with it so much that eventually I broke it. Unhappily, this failure occurred at a set of traffic lights in a busy city street.

I had been amusing my fellow drivers by lifting first the front, then the rear wheels and finally all four off the ground. It was at this point that two things happened simultaneously. The Sheerline’s battery went flat and the traffic lights changed to green.

What happened next is almost too painful to recall, but all of the cars behind me were en route to the Real Madrid-Eintracht Frankfurt European Cup Final. Now, because the road was effectively blocked, they couldn’t get there.

That evening Messrs Puskas and di Stefano conjured up what is generally acknowledged to be the best display of football ever, while down at the retired police officers’ club it is fondly recalled for the massive outbreak of street fight involving German and Spanish fans, all sparked off by some idiot and his airborne Austin.

M’lud subsequently fined me £10 for bringing the city to its knees, but kindly pointed out that the jacking system in his newer Princess was much more refined, and that I should trade up.

      Chapter Twenty Seven

      IN REFLECTIVE OVERDRIVE

It struck me the other day that the next three pages in my diary were blank. Nothing to do, nowhere to go until I was scheduled to play with the latest range of metallic monsters from the Mercedes-Benz stable. If the Australian aborigines could have their Dreamtime, then I was surely entitled to some serious thumb-twiddling. Equal opportunities and all that.

In order not to get under Madame’s feet, or within range of barbed remarks concerning the new carpet that remains still polywrapped and rolled up in the great hall, I ventured out of doors.

We have a red squirrel, but there was no sign of him. Neither was I honoured by the presence of any of my cats. They prefer to nestle in front of the fire until the GMTV weathergirl, (recently married, dammit), announces that the thermometer has hit 25 Celsius. Come to think of it, they don’t appear to have been outside since last August. I must check under the furniture for droppings.

But I did get a surprise visit from next door’s dog. He is a scruffy black thing called Callaghan, or Chaplin, or something like that. Silly moniker for a pooch, but he is good company when you are in reflective mode.

     “Good boy,” I said.

      “Arf,” he replied.

     “Cats,” I teased.

      “Arf, arf, arf, arf.”

     “Squirrels.”

     “Arf, arf, arf, arf, arf!”

           

Funny how you can quickly tire of such pleasant but essentially shallow conversations. I threw a stick for him to chase and then legged it inside while he attempted to unravel himself from the wire fence he was dozy enough to get entangled in. Dogs are awfully like most of the people I know. All arf and no sense.

I decided to do something productive, such as going into my den and writing an in-depth history of the British motor manufacturing industry, but my agent is always telling me the market for humour doesn’t exist outside university gates, and that students have no money left for books once they have paid for their beer and doubtful liaisons with persons of the opposite, ahem.

“If you have nothing better to do, and the carpet still gives you the horrors, why not telephone that news editor and ask when he  is going to pay you for the new car supplement he published in February?” said Madame.

Apparently other people do this, usually on the day after publication, but as I am a crafty cove I prefer not to stick my head above the parapet. Editors never actually read your stuff until they receive requests for outstanding boodle or fierce letters from m‘learned friends. Then they decide it is all rubbish anyway and issue Editorial Bulls that commence: “Dear Contributor, I regret to inform you that we no longer have any requirement for.  . . “That sort of thing. Better to play possum.

Around five minutes slipped away until, above the noise of crockery clattering in the pantry, Madame’s voice could just be heard as she demanded, “Well, what did he say?”

“Arf,” I said. “Arf, arf.”

It really is a dog’s life at times.

      MAYAN CULTURE: AN APPRECIATION

Not much has happened on Sardinia since the Phoenicians settled there sometime before the Blessed Maggie bade us scrub off the woad and exchange groats for shares in the Woolwich, BT, Virgin trains and Pokemon cards.

I have made a series of inspections of the island, starting with the Ford Sierra launch in 1983 and taking in sundry bun fests hosted by Audi, VW and - just recently - Vauxhall Opel, or Opel Vauxhall if you are a realist.

I half expected a red carpet when I plonked my loafers on the Tarmac at Cagliari International, but the locals either have short memories or their leaders were attending to more urgent business, such as the kidnapping of industry bigwigs and judges who, it has to be said, usually turn up extinct once the ransom is paid. Those who survive invariably return to their loved ones sans ears, digits or other bits of cosmetic anatomy.

I therefore instructed Madame that on no account should she raid the piggy bank if she received a note in Italian. Her response was rather more eager agreement than reluctant obedience. Must make a significant change or two to my last Will and Whatnot.

The Opel Vauxhall team made me very welcome, took away my matches, and billeted me in a hacienda near the beach, far enough away from the main hotel building to minimise any damage should I be maddened by the heat or the sight of sturdy waitresses bearing firewater.

They also made me drive cars: firstly the new Astra Coupe, (surprisingly splendid machine with interesting steering), and then the Agila, which is really a Suzuki Wagon R without the +. It is exceptionally droll and will appeal to gardeners who spend much of their day mounted on those motorised Honda lawnmower thingies. I believe Ms Imelda Marcos has ordered several to be used as shoe receptacles.

I asked an Opel wallah why the Agila was different in almost every respect except external appearance from the machine produced by his former allies and he said it was because it is manufactured in Poland, (probably for sentimental reasons), while the Suzuki is being properly assembled in Hungary.

Prices had not yet been revealed at this juncture, but would be cheap otherwise we will all be in danger from lead balloons, tumbling share prices, pickets and all the other paraphernalia surrounding spectacular failure. Mr. Kellogg may even stuff them into his packets of breakfast cereal.

I told the Opel man as much, but the only response was a thin smile and a request for my name, which was entered in a notebook. That evening my dinner was markedly smaller and colder than those served to my more diplomatic colleagues.

A marketing man said the expectation was that the Opel Vauxhall, but not Suzuki-badged trundlers, would sell at the rate of 100,000 this year and even more in future. I was aware of several cold stares aimed at the back of my neck and said nothing, but later I went down to the edge of the water and chuckled out loud. I can be the very devil at times.

On the second day we dutifully went on something of a cultural tour, visiting broken buildings in Cagliari and an artist’s studio somewhere else. I had a laugh at the paintings and sculptures and fed my lunch to a couple of stray cats. They are probably dead by now.

But as occasionally happens, things perked up on the return journey. The Crossair stewardess hailed from Mexico City, so we whiled away the air miles by discussing Mayan ruins on the Yucatan Peninsula. I said they were much better than the Phoenician ruins in Cagliari and she deftly slipped a bottle of champagne into my overnight bag while the other hacks were pecking at their laptops, oblivious to the opportunities presented by some carefully constructed small talk.

I fear for the future of my trade. The up and coming generation simply doesn’t have what it takes when it comes to getting the most out of a strictly defined set of parameters.

      A TOAST TO ‘YER MAUN’

Ever since I was marking time in the RAF, forming escape committees, being berated by warrant officers, bawled out by squadron leaders and - on occasion - used as a heavy punch bag by sadistic members of the RAF Police, I have insisted upon finding a bright side to everything. What use is this journey through life if it cannot be undertaken with the inevitable blows being punctuated by smiles and laughter?

Now, I just don’t know.

I picked up my daily paper and found, tucked away on page five, a couple of paragraphs filed from Estonia which told of the death of Joey Dunlop at the age of 49.

It had to be a mistake. Joey Dunlop, five times an F1 world champion, 26 times a winner over the Isle of Man TT course and without any shadow of a doubt the greatest ever racing motorcyclist. How could it all end for him at a no-account race in a little motorsport backwater such as Tallinn?

Joey could and should have been a multi-millionaire. He was one of that breed of gloriously cheerful Irishmen (and believe me there have been many in the world of motorcycle racing) who would race anywhere, anytime just for the crack, the fun and the thrill of it all. If they could find someone to pick up the travel expenses and the hotel bill then that was a bonus, but it wasn’t something they expected or demanded as their right.

Dunlop was one of the last of the men who would simply shrug off one victory, no matter how heroically achieved, and go straight to the fixture list, anxious to get his entry in for the next event. He never saw himself as the superstar he was, didn’t willingly socialise with the rich and famous, flatly refused to cut his hair or clean his fingernails for the PR men and image makers.

He didn’t want to be anything other than the man he was and - to his eternal credit - managed to do just that and simultaneously stay at the very top for 30 fantastic years. And during this time he was the only person in motorcycling who didn’t believe he was the greatest of them all, but he was. Oh yes, he was.

Every June, when 40,000 motorcycling pilgrims made the trip from all over Europe and beyond to the TT races on the Isle of Man, Joey and his brother Robert would prepare their machinery and slip across from Ireland. Invariably one or both would carry off the week’s biggest prizes, modestly accept their trophies at the Villa Marina presentation, have a party with friends and family, and retreat once again to their own quiet little corner of the world.

This is where they were supremely comfortable, just serving up drinks in their bar, gently and wisely encouraging younger riders who wanted to follow in their wheel tracks, or mooching around doing nothing at all - until the next race day.

And now it has all come to an end. Joey Dunlop, the free spirit who would smile that shy smile and turn away whenever his countrymen adoringly referred to him as “Yer Maun” has been taken from us, just when we were beginning to think that he would become the first to beat odds which - if we are to be realistic - were always stacked against him.

He competed in the most dangerous branch of motorsport and on the most difficult tracks, shunning the Grand Prix circuit as being too boring and bereft of a real challenge. Life, according to Joey, was nothing at all without a challenge, but 30 years living ‘way beyond the edge was just too much. Eventually the aces have to run out.

If you will forgive me, I will go and open a bottle. There are times when a smile is not enough to get you through the day

      HOW DO YOU VOODOO?

As regular readers will know, our Nissan road rocket has not been hale and hearty over the winter months. In fact, it has been costing a great deal of the old folding stuff, which is very depressing indeed, especially with Mr. Brown’s revenuers currently pressing me for my Income Tax Return.

Garages have proved to be singularly useless when it came to fixing the problem, (disappearing volts), but plurally excellent at charging for their failure.

Similarly, the manufacturer, whose more senior personnel I suspect used to be more gainfully involved in railway construction, fell at the first technical hurdle. In creating my car they managed to build something completely outwith their ken. Too much saki, I suppose. Their engineering head honcho attempted to help, but turned out to know less about his product than I do, which is quite alarming when you think about it.

So just before advertising the blessed thing as a minter, in the sure and certain hope that somewhere out there is a demented soul ready to turn a routinely miserable existence into a Greek tragedy, I decided to have a rummage through my New Orleans bag.

I brought it back from the Delta some time ago with malice aforethought. In fact, there was also some afterthought involved, as the original bit of malice was to be directed at my editor. Latterly the deputy editor moved into my sights. You will find the dreadful details in the newspapers quite soon, or have them read out to you by Sir Trevor McDoughnut on Mr. Baird’s Box. It will be grisly - and I will have an alibi.

The aforementioned satchel contains lots of smelly powders and other stuff, some of which - principally gizzards, heads and feet - used to belong to living creatures, but you will be glad to know that they have been divorced from their misery for many moons.

There are also printed instructions on how to do various tricks, such as raising people from the dead, getting them to give you the deeds of their houses, (and their daughters), frightening alligators via beams of high intensity evil from your eyes, and all sorts of other excellent wheezes. You should get a bag of your own.

I made up a cocktail of what seemed the most noxious potions, including the resurrection stuff, a cure for impotence in stallions, some powder which keeps the bowels regular, and a few grammes of bat’s wing, which stops you from inadvertently colliding with trees if you are out late at night.

Rather foolishly, I tasted it once it had reached the proper temperature, (just below boiling point), and have acquired markedly different sleeping habits, but my bowels are in tremendous form.

Anyway, all of this was applied to various key parts of my horseless carriage, from the battery cells to engine and gearbox oil, turbo, fuel injectors and front passenger seat. Don’t quiz me too closely about the latter, but its most regular occupant has a horse.

To complete my scene setting, we are talking about a car that had refused to start for a week, and had never, but never, managed to get through more than four days without dying on its Yokohamas.

Okay, so it was a case of jumping in, turning the ignition key and - Elvis is King! - the old boneshaker fired up like, well, like a REAL car. That was eight days ago and it is still running perfectly.

I am clearly on a commercial winner here and will start up a  www.voodoo.com site as soon as I can get my hands on a regular supply of raw materials, preferably recently extinct cats, dogs and budgies. Perhaps I could do a deal with my local vet which involves black bin bags being spirited away from the surgery under cover of darkness.

Now then. Let’s see. What can we do about my editor and his deputy dawg? A little bit of surprise rumbling in the old nether regions during editorial conferences would be a suitable starting point. Then we’ll go for the shrinking appendages, nasal hair, an inability to write anything other than four-figure cheques, and the surrendering of their daughters.

And afterwards we’ll get nasty.

      MOBILISATION

As soon as the pigeon arrived with news that the Hun had finally done for Rover, the entire personnel at Chadwick Manor went on full war alert.

I have unearthed my RAF tie and Donald Duck gas mask from the basement. Down there among the empties, the tie has been securing fifty yards of garden hose since Harold MacMillan was bumbling around No. 10, culpably failing to spot the Misses Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies sipping champers and winking seductively at receptions for trade delegates - and no doubt writing things in notebooks, such as addresses, telephone numbers and professional fees.

That was when I first began to harbour doubts as to our ability to remain an influential power on the international stage. When lowly representatives of third-world countries such as Russia could  divert the PM’s attention away from some odds-on hanky-panky, the  writing was firmly on the wall

Madame has had the tie dry cleaned and it looks rather splendid when worn with the tin hat blagged last year from Renault on a tank driving exercise (funny how such seemingly pointless activities take on a whole new perspective when hostilities threaten).

My military ensemble has been rounded off by a Sam Browne belt last worn in my motorcycling days, and the NAAFI card I have been keeping for my heirs and successors. One can never be too careful - especially with the sinister Prescott still in office.

During our last major scuffle with the Axis hordes, the same elderly rascals who have been bellowing loudest at every BMW Annual General Meeting for the past few years were attempting to strike respectable people such as myself about the head and body with all manner of things, from V2s to bits ripped from old Borgwards.

Never did like the beggars. Square-jawed types with Bobby Davro hairstyles, rimless specs and full-length leather coats such as would never be allowed in my club.

Anyway, if they were so worried about their pfennigs they wouldn’t have bought Rover in the first place. Shouldn’t have joined if you can’t take a joke, as they used to say in our billet when some poor wretch was put on jankers for the third time in a week.

You didn’t see the little bespectacled fellas from Honda falling over themselves to pay anything up to 25 yen for the home of such marvellous examples of British engineering as the Montego and Maestro - and they have worse eyesight than Jerry.

Even the prospect of being allowed to take groups of workers on forced marches into the woods around Birmingham couldn’t tempt ‘em. Wily little devils. Never liked them either, (and I’m just about to set off to the launch of the new Mitsubishi Shogun). But I’ll be discreet. Walls have ears. Rufus has a thirst.

The aforementioned military stuff will stay in the trunk until next month when I visit Berlin on Mazda business. Mazda’s representatives have a distressing tendency to inflict opera and other horrors on my sensitive ears. I intend, therefore, to play hooky from the caterwauling and instead pay a sentimental visit to the Reichstag, dressed in my full military regalia.

I understand from Fräulein Overnighter, who converses with me on an 0900 number from time to time, that the old ‘stag was mysteriously reduced in size around the time of the arrival of the Red Army and  is now a Portakabin or some such inspirational edifice.

Never fear. I shall declare it a National Monument and sell it to the board of BMW. Given their past purchasing record I could be on a nice little earner - unless they have finally got the original joke.

      Chapter Twenty Eight

      ILL MET BY CHARABANC

Reports are coming in to the effect that sales of what are termed full-sized MPVs have hit the buffers. Best place for the damn things, if you ask me.

These overpriced, multi-seated vans always were an abomination. I offer proof. That young rascal Blair uses one to ferry his rugrats to and from elementary school, adding the high-speed dash, complete with outriders I have paid for, to deposit Mrs. B’s pay cheque in the bank every month.

I have written to the rotund sailor chap, Prescott, pointing out that his boss’s Grand Voyager gulps unleaded at the rate of one gallon every 16.3 miles around town, and asking him what he is going to do about it. He has yet to reply, but Madame reports two strange men in bad suits photographing Flywheel Towers and taking notes. I feel a Council Tax banding review coming on.

In any case, as the inventor of the MPV I am in a privileged position when it comes to assessing their worth. The first of them I put on the road in 1957. It was a Thames Trader acquired at a knockdown price because some oik had stolen its interior fitments.

This was rectified courtesy of my aunt’s redundant, (she had recently expired), dining room chairs. These were lodged in position by driving six-inch screw nails through the floor of the vehicle. A sofa was similarly arranged behind them in case I got lucky. This configuration worked splendidly and is to be credited for the straight back I possess to this day.

Naturally there was the occasional mishap, such as the time when I braked sharply to avoid a loose greyhound - we were poor and lived in a bad area - and all four chairs uprooted themselves.

As the G-Plans were occupied at the time, this meant four burly personages making an involuntary attempt to stage a mass break-out via the front windscreen. Thankfully, the sofa was not in use at that precise moment otherwise there would have been salacious stories in the News of the World - and maybe some photographs.

Selective memory loss prevents a totally accurate recall of just what happened next, except that my friends suddenly became friends of a spotty youth who owned a real car, and I received a bizarrely-worded summons to appear before the Court, bringing with me sufficient drachmas to avoid summary incarceration in the local Bastille, where I would have been forced to spend some time among over-friendly fellows with a penchant for sleep-walking.

I have loathed and despised charabancs ever since.

       LES OISEAUX SANS HITCHCOCK

I’m off on my travels again, this time to Monte Carlo. A pity, really, as I had faithfully promised Madame that I would sandblast the south wing just as soon as the old Karcher kicked into life.  It did just that on Sunday, so I had to move fast, packing away the even older dinner suit and bib, and claiming urgent business in the Principality.

Monaco is a rum place. It is about the size of my eastern policies and is ruled over by an odd little fellow with a hangdog look who assumes the title of prince and seems to do nothing much other than present an annual trophy to Herr Schumacher.

Quite why anyone would have the nerve to accept a pot, a cheque, oceans of champagne and his pick of the pit lane ladies for winning a race at an average speed that would cause tailbacks on the M25 is beyond comprehension, but so is Monaco.

Nevertheless, I like it. There are showgirls galore, even if they tend nowadays to be Russian and have steel teeth. There is a fine casino, lots of excellent wine and ladies who tend to be rich, widowed/divorced, lonely and available all at once. You can come to a great deal of enjoyable harm in such company.

The hotels are also first rate. You won’t find a Travelodge or Comfort Inn within a country of the place. Instead, you tend to be billeted either in the Hotel de Paris or Loews, which changes its name every other week and for the duration of my stay will be labelled the Monte Carlo Grand Hotel.

I have been assured the rooms will not be infested with bogus asylum seekers from Afghanistan or Wales, which is very heartening.

My memories of the hotel are rather fond. I have never managed to set fire to it, and my losses in the casino have been modest, usually because by the time the locals come out to play I have already done five hours in the bar and have started to fall down fairly spectacularly, the wine having an adverse effect on a tendon I damaged when toppling out of a tree in 1978.

The dawn aspect from the balcony is quite splendid, but there is  a notice on the railings, couched in French to confuse Elsie and Bert, offering you several nights in the  Bastille if you feed les oiseaux with peanuts and Toblerone filched from next door’s Minibar.

The first time I was domiciled in the hotel I somehow or other managed to have three breakfasts delivered to my room: two at seven o’clock, (I must have had company the night before, but memory fades), and another half an hour later.

Now, I am not a great devourer of food, even if it has escaped the mad ministrations of French chefs. Not even they can make nouvelle anything out of bacon rashers and scrambled eggs without seeming very silly, so it is generally safe to eat breakfast, although not in huge quantities.

In order not to waste the resources of the planet, I rather foolishly ventured out onto the balcony with my leftovers and surreptitiously started to fatten up a few sparrows.

Bedlam! Almost immediately the sky blackened and there came a flapping of wings like thunder, as larger and fiercer oiseaux - principally of the yellow-beaked seagull variety - descended on the hotel, on me and the lace curtain. A few even managed to strut into my room and peck at things.

More bedlam! Lights flashed on in other rooms and Gallic oaths rent the air. In the street below I could distinctly hear the familiar, (very familiar to me), whistle of the local Clouseau. Panic stations. Full alert.

I threw the rest of the food into the swimming pool, rushed back into my room, hopped into my pyjamas and re-emerged, red-faced and shouting things in my best French, along the lines of what bloody idiot has been feeding these oiseaux, and who do I see about a refund?

I got away with it that time, but only just. The receptionist gave me her full repertoire of sighs, shrugs, “tsks!” and enigmatic smiles as I checked out later that morning.

She seemed familiar. Perhaps she should have been the mysterious recipient of the second breakfast.

      ON PROMENADING AVEC APLOMB

I am your very man for the old perambulating around Europe’s hot-spots. There I was, brogues polished to a level that would have satisfied the OIC Household Cavalry, in majestic strolling mode as I exited the Monte Carlo Grand and headed off into Casino Square.

Fred Astaire would have approved my jaunty step, and if I had been wearing a hat I would have raised it in salute to the many elegant ladies and their delightful daughters encountered on my constitutional. Whatever happened to hats, except those worn by ruffianly bookmakers and diminutive Irish horse trainers at Newmarket?

Anyway, you will have gathered that I was in excellent humour. This state of affairs came about following a successful sortie to the hotel casino where, for the first time in living memory, I didn’t lose my shirt. In fact I even managed to add to my collection of exotic ashtrays, this one bearing the legend “Borrowed from the Monte Carlo Grand Hotel” on its rump.

This is why they don’t have any crime in Monte Carlo. If some young rascal makes off with your Ferrari Dino, the local gendarmerie log it as “borrowed”. Keeps the slate clean.

And les oiseaux on the balcony were also on their best behaviour. I didn’t get pecked once, except by a young Suzuki lady called Sandy, who obviously has a penchant for living on the edge.

Admittedly, we had to drive cars, Suzuki Wagon-R variety, mostly through manic rush-hour traffic on the motorway, but elsewhere taking in some modest little villages full of real French people - not many of them in Monaco -  who carried fresh baguettes, played boules and didn’t laugh at the titchy little Clouseaumobile I was piloting through their territory.

All in all, they were an agreeable bunch, for foreigners. Even the normally ferocious lady at the péage treated me tolerantly when I confessed to having no loose change and offered to pay my five francs by Gold Card. Wouldn’t happen here.

But I digress. During my little walkabout I found myself with my nose pressed to the window of a shop which sold Versace menswear. Lo and behold.  And especially behold. Therein was a suit which would be eminently wearable - even by someone respectable such as myself. Was Donatella losing her grip, or was it old stock?

I decided to ask the salesperson if it would fit me, (it is considered bad form to ask the price in such establishments, that shock coming at the end of the month when Amex demands your card back), and was just about to enter when I was distracted by the approach of a local resident.

And no ordinary council house dweller recently arrived from Nice either, but none other than the last of the supermodels who knew how to walk properly, Miss Helena Christiansen.

Had there been time to compose myself,  or even to have my moustache trimmed, I would have been in with a chance of charming her into my apartments for champagne and Toblerone, but all I had time for was a mumbled “Bonjour, Mam’selle Christiansen,” a greeting which sent her into a fit of giggles almost worrying in its intensity.

It is not often my large Hallos have this effect, even in Monaco, but a glance at my flustered reflection in the shop window told its own tale. I mean, how often do recently retired supermodels find themselves being accosted in the street by red-faced old duffers sporting a large oiseau plop on their blazer collars?

But the charming Miss Christianson somehow or other managed to stop giggling long enough to return my felicitation. Funny how even a simple “Bonjour, M’sieu” can put a silly grin on your face that lasts for a week . . . if it comes from the right person.

      ON THE LINKS 

As part of my daily driving duties I have just revisited the 16^th best golf course in the world, this preposterous rating having been accorded to Turnberry by our American cousins who, quite frankly, haven’t the faintest idea as to what constitutes a real championship links.

It was on the self-same spot in 1973 that, maddened by drink, I stood in the driving rain and fading visibility, and watched in shivering appreciation as Long Tom Weiskopf strode up the 18^th en route to collecting the old claret jug, the one and only major championship he was to win in a relatively brief, but hugely distinguished career.

Now there was a man. No sooner had Tom pocketed the cheque, and made a polite speech to the assembled Royal and Ancient blazers, than he was off to spend the rest of his life hunting elk, fishing and generally killing things in the trees as our American friends  like to do when there aren’t any wars on.

Not for Tom the television chat show appearances, lucrative contracts to endorse Rupert Bear trousers or the millions of dollars that accrue from such shenanigans. No sirree, there were elk on the Canadian border that should have been on his wall, and he was determined to get ‘em.

A similar sort of attitude should be compulsory in motor sport. One F1 Championship title and you would be packed off with instructions to enjoy your dotage, preferably by buying persons such as myself the odd tincture or two, as well as learning how to work a Flymo and arrange tiles on the bathroom wall in such a way that they don’t fall off when you have guests staying for the weekend.

The boy David would endorse this. I see from the tablets that young Joe Ninety Coulthard has reportedly done the decent thing by asking for the hand of the exceptionally pretty Miss Unpronounceablename in matrimony. I heartily approve.

But perhaps Miss Wossname should negotiate a new contract as Joe has been quoted as saying the nuptials will have to wait until after he wins the World Championship. This is a most unlikely scenario.

The groom-to-be-or-not-to-be has had the services of the best cars and backup teams on the planet since he arrived on the F1 scene. This makes his total of six wins in almost as many seasons risible.  In our club he would be given an 18 handicap and told to stay well out of the way of the better players.

But under my scheme Herr Senior Schumacher and the droll Finnish fellow with the facial expression of Tom Weiskopf’s beagle would already have departed the scene. This would leave just Mr. Irvine and the serried ranks of useless Japanese and South American track fodder in the way of Miss Blondielocks’s visit to the Emmanuels’ wedding dress establishment.

And, if Mr. Irvine could be gently removed from the fray (I have friends who can arrange gentle kidnappings at reasonable prices) then by this time next year we could see the happy couple splashed over 73 pages of Hello! magazine.

Then the boy could afford to buy a shirt bearing the legend “I am not an elk” and go for long walks in the forests north of Lake Michigan, where he might encounter a very happy man who, incidentally, never promised anything he couldn’t deliver.

Chapter Twenty Nine

      GREGORIAN RANT              

As I have been unable to find even a tenuous link between Prescott and the rather splendid Ford Transit calendar that adorns my desk, I shall have to aim this diatribe at Pope Gregory XIII, whose title indicates that there were a dozen other Popes of that ilk before he started tinkering with leap years and stuff.

Still, when you are the thirteenth anything, (does anyone out there really know that many people called Gregory? I think they made it all up), you tend to struggle a bit to make your mark. Anyway, our Gregory came up with this confusing system whereby the year is divided into 365.2425 days, but only when averaged over a 400-year cycle. Hence the need for a leap year every now and again.

Personally I would have settled on a round 100 days, which would mean earlier retirement, more frequent holidays and extra pensions  for the lot of us, but since I am never likely to be on the receiving end of the white smoke, you will all have to work until you drop.

Where was I? Ah, yes. There I was, abluting furiously in the throne room and ordering the troops to seek out my passport, pyjamas, Alka-Seltzer and other essential items for my Mitsubishi Shogun trip to Barcelona. My bags packed, I then started to hunt furiously for airline tickets and any information as to where I would be billeted in London the night before kick-off.

It is always something of a dead loss trudging round Heathrow hotels asking young receptionists from Thailand if I have a booking, perchance. They invariably look at me as if I am mad, and occasionally go as far as to summon the constabulary, fingering me as That Man from Last Night’s Crimewatch. I much prefer to know in advance where I am going, what time the cocktail bar opens and how comprehensive is the Minibar stock, who will be responsible for the final bill - things like that.

But tempus was furiously fugiting and - convinced that I would miss my connecting flight - I went into gesticulation overdrive, berating my staff for their total incompetence. Things were becoming potentially ugly until I discovered the offending tickets and attached orders of the day in my pocket, wherein someone had deposited them while I was out in the garden keeping a wary eye open for the arrival of reconnaissance aircraft from the BMW-powered New Millennium Luftwaffe.

It was Chadwick Minor, with a touching display of youthful innocence, who gently pointed out that the flight was not until the following day, or whatever that was in Gregory’s calendar. We had a moment’s reflective silence while Madame sniggered into her handkerchief, and then the bags, passport, Teddy Bear and other kit were put aside in readiness for tomorrow’s alert.

But I had - as always - an ace in the hole.

“By the way,” I said. “While you were out, your sister telephoned to say your aged aunt has taken a turn for the worse, and the family will be summoned anon. Seems she has become even more forgetful than ever. Doo-lally in fact. These things happen when you reach a great age and your faculties . . .”

I never did get to finish the message. For some peculiar reason, the entire household became convulsed with merriment of an unusually raucous nature. Thoroughly bad form, if you ask me.

      THE BLESSED FINALITY OF FAREWELLS              

The French, who don’t often get things hopelessly wrong, should have known better than to come up with au revoir. It isn’t final enough, not for Morocco, which this week I entered and then exited for the last and final time.

In fact, if I wasn’t a tough old coot I would still be lying there in the desert, wild dogs picking at my flesh and Berber children making longbows out of my ribcage.

Normally foreigners just try to poison me, which is fair enough. I quite like little games of chance, such as the secreting of sheep’s eyes in the custard and stuff like that, but this time they excelled themselves.

I visited the accursed sand-pit in order to drive Renault’s new Scenic oddball, the RX4, which looks a whole lot like an ordinary Scenic on stilts, wrapped up in Ford Ka bumpers with - as an afterthought - a spare wheel carrier attached to the rear door which could have come straight from a ‘36 Buick Roadster.

The RX4 is one of those machines young public relations bucks recently graduated from the Sid and Dick Polytechnic describe as a MAC, or Multi-Activity Car. I drove it over a piffling little desert route of some 20 kilometres, a test which wouldn’t have been beyond Madame’s Peugeot 205 XE, and was supposed to be impressed because it didn’t break down, get stuck on various carcasses or fall down a waterhole. Pshaw!

Anyway, Morocco. Like this country, it is feudal and infested with a royal family. The king apparently ventures out on his stretched camel every now and again to chuckle at the poor, which is why I was forced to deviate from Sid and Dick’s route and, instead of finding myself at the French Consulate, where there was rumoured to be drink, ended up in the souk.

This is where a nice man with a set of Draper pliers hauls your teeth out for fun, people decapitate lambs and chickens in public, your ankles get chewed by king cobras, and HiAce owning rascals pick your pocket, which is why I fill mine with unwanted Isle of Man currency when abroad.

So it was a long time after the bar opened that I was able to wrap myself around some Glen Grant, but not long enough to avoid the bit where Renault’s marketing people spoke at me. I didn’t take notes, some urchin having stolen my pencil, but, as I recall, the company expects to sell about six RX4s in the UK this year.

If you should be offered any of these and it seems exceptionally dusty, look out. I seem to recall being sick in one of ‘em.

Anyway, we were hauled off, through gangs of curly-knife-carrying people dressed in blankets, to dinner. I can’t tell you what we ate, because my psychiatrist says it is sometimes better to be in permanent denial than to face the horrors of total recall.

So I have forgotten the rest. Except that I vowed never to return. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is final. (Publisher’s memo: check the contents of that box of “Sweetmeats Oeil de Chameau” Flywheel gave me as a present on his return. I didn’t like his smile.)

      MOROCCO BOUND

Trying to decide whether to pack a light or medium weight dinner suit for this weekend’s bash in Morocco, (the weather can be unpredictable in winter), a thought suddenly struck me. This would be my third visit to the souk and I had yet to encounter Messrs Hope and Crosby - or even Miss Lamour.

To be honest, Bing and Bob could go and take a running jump, but Miss Lamour looks like a comfortably built gel.

I mentioned this to Madame and she volunteered the information that nearly all of them were, to her knowledge, extinct. She couldn’t remember exactly which ones had turned up their tootsies, but as the Ginger Evans creature had not played a re-mixed disco version of White Christmas over the festive season Mr. Crosby was definitely in the frame.

She could be right. Haven’t seen him at the golf club for ages. Anyway, the cabin trunk was almost ready when I scanned my briefing papers and noticed that I should have injections for something called Hepatitis A-Z or some such. I found this faintly alarming, but checked with young Crippen at the Health Centre  who said that, as far as he could ascertain from his files, I have already contracted every disease known to science and as I am not already playing the ninth cloud with Mr. Crosby another bit of bug exposure would do me no harm.

The first time I went to Maroc was when Talbot committed the Tagora, an awful machine that hastened the demise of all who sailed in her -including the company. For good measure they threw in a three-seater sports car, the Matra Murena, which we threw straight back.

On that occasion I was incarcerated at an oasis in Ouarzazate run by something called Club 18-30 of which I know very little other than it seems to be some sort of caring organisation that exists to provide opportunities for sex among those too ugly or stupid to find any in the real world. The editor probably goes there.

We had oranges and . . . er, that was about it. For cooked stuff we were spirited away to a mock-Bedouin tent and offered sheep’s eyes. I declined and immediately wrote my vengeful copy on the napkin, decrying the cars as abominable, the company personnel ditto and the local sand as being absolutely no use for anything other than restoring the bunkers at our club after a visit from a bunch of 24-handicappers from the nearest council estate on a rehabilitation exercise.

.

The rest, they say, is history. This time around it should be better as the show is being organised by Renault, a decent bunch if ever I met one, which I haven’t - not in the car trade anyway. But I see from the aforementioned Orders of the Day that on Monday we are to be dragged away by Beau Geste and his friends to have dinner at some mock-Bedouin oasis in the desert.

Damn it. Hand me that blasted napkin. I feel another Tagora story coming on.

      ON DRESSING UP              

When it comes to the old sartorial elegance, I am your very man.

Granted, my usual garb when swanning around Flywheel Towers may be jeans and T-shirt, but the jeans are by Ralph Lauren and the shirt by Armani. Elsewhere on this little outfit are paint splashes by Dulux, cooking fat donated by Elsie at Eric’s Takeaway, and one or two dramatic contributions courtesy of Mobil, Essolube and the Big Start batteries I wrestled with on a daily basis during the traumatic weeks when my car was desperately ill.

But this weekend I shall be the bee’s knees, the cat’s pyjamas, and king of the hill. Trendy youths will treat me with all of the respect due to someone of my standing, and may even be heard to shout “You the man!” as I skirt their various rough neighbourhoods. Come Friday evening I am on dinner suit duty. An annual awards ceremony beckons, and I propose to be there (if I remember the name of the hotel).

Funny things, dinner suits. Most people start off by hiring them, which is a splendid idea if you plan to be sick, get involved in a fight or otherwise enjoy yourself. Come return day you simply stuff them through Moss Bros’ letter box before they open and do a runner, hoping your forfeited deposit will cover the damage.

Later, when all of the dress hire people have your name in a little black book, it is time to buy your very own togs. This is an event on a par with a bar mitzvah, a 21^st birthday bash or a passionate encounter with her across the street, who always got better marks at school and called you hurtful names at PE before coming to her senses and falling in love with you.

My penguin outfit is a modest Pierre Cardin ensemble of doubtful vintage. I have forgotten when it came into my life or how much it cost. It may have cost nothing at all. I could have found it somewhere.

But it has become a faithful friend, travelling companion and security blanket. Once donned it makes me the equal of, or the superior to, everyone else around. Even the occasional mishap which, if committed in a lounge suit, would have been the stuff of nightmares, can be shrugged off when you are disguised as a king penguin.

My finest hour was at the annual Tipcon truck and trailer festival at Harrogate ‘way back then. I was en route to dinner and engrossed in conversation with a colleague as we passed through one of those spa things they put in very large greenhouses and bolt on to the side of hotels. A leisure centre, would that be the name?

Anyway, it had a swimming pool with wealthy people dotted around its waters or sprawled on sun loungers by its fringe. Unfortunately I somehow or other  strolled into the shallow end instead of skirting around it and found myself up to the waist in chlorine, drink still clasped firmly in my hand.

It would have been easy to flee the scene in red-faced disorder, but that would be an admission of defeat. Besides, wasn’t I clad in a dinner suit?

I graciously nodded to the open-mouthed throng and elegantly side-stroked my way down the length of the pool, climbed out at the other end, toasted my audience with champagne and made my way into the dining room with the sound of warm applause ringing in my ears. Or maybe that was just the water.

I was back at the same venue recently and one of the committee, unhappy with the efforts of the band, was heard to say, “Pity we couldn’t get that comedian who swam about in his dinner suit.”

I was almost tempted to announce that it was none other than me, settle on a substantial fee and repeat the performance. But Madame has just mentioned that our Friday hotel has a leisure centre. I shall have to tread warily. She gets embarrassed very easily indeed.

      DREAMING OF GRETA GARBO              

Neatly avoiding the latest Northern Ireland hooley in case someone should decommission me, I flew to Nice for the weekend.

I used to go there rather a lot, but was finally rumbled in 1992.  Since then it has become increasingly difficult to get permission to go ashore, but thanks to my thinning hair and new teeth I managed to slip through unrecognised this time.

Ostensibly I was present to test Volvo’s new V70, but as the Ancient Editor had made off with the office notebook I left him to handle the official engagements. For my part I drifted around from here to there and back again, issuing large Hellos to various earnest-looking Swedes, one of whom wore flared trousers and Helloed right back, even if it wasn’t as large as my greeting.

The one with the John Travoltas sported a Greta Garbo bob, but before you dash off to demonstrate in favour of Clause 28 retention I should explain that it was a she. A very nice gel too, with nary a tattoo in sight, and apparently responsible for designing the interior furnishings of the S80, which were quite splendid.

The rest of the car similarly passed muster, but one or two of my more critically adept colleagues muttered darkly about wishy-washy dampers, woolly steering and things like that, most of which was beyond my comprehension.  One enthusiastic chap even attempted to try out the airbags by pointing his test vehicle at the oncoming traffic, but missed, so there could be something in the steering thing. Even so, as I was in the car at the time I thought his reckless action to be very droll indeed, and told him so.

At dinner we were served the usual Gallic unspeakable stuff. It started off with what appeared to be nuts wrapped in reindeer droppings and slid rapidly downhill via putrefied camel to some sort of dessert manufactured from old vests and filter tips. It really is time France had another revolution, this time wheeling out Madame Guillotine for its accursed chefs.

Still, my apartments were acceptably grand and I even had a private swimming pool as I discovered when I tumbled into it while retracing my steps from the bar. They should have left a note somewhere.

Being wet through I decided to stay away from the after-dinner chat as someone would surely have mentioned my apparel and asked awkward questions, as is the form when Neanderthal journalists are present.  I therefore repaired to my barracks, leaving a symmetrical set of Man Fridays on the coffee-coloured tiles, combed my moustache and awaited the soft knock on my door that would signal the arrival of Miss Garbo.

I must have drifted off and missed her, because the only thing that happened was dawn, which at least meant I had survived another day without coming to too much harm.

      Chapter Thirty

      A FADING ROMANCE              

Remember the romantic image of the fog-shrouded aircraft, eerie lights and roar of propellers at half throttle when the heart-stoppingly beautiful Ingrid Bergman took her leave of Bogie in Casablanca?

Not a dry eye in the house. Even the usherette with the ice cream tray developed a fit of the sniffles - the self-same harridan who only five minutes earlier had threatened to throw me out because I tried to pass off an Irish sixpence under cover of darkness.

And you don’t even get fog in Casablanca. In fact you don’t get it all anywhere nowadays, except in San Francisco, which is fine by me as it looks better when you cannot actually see it. But the aircraft was spiriting Miss Bergman away from danger and into the gentle, peaceful world we all hoped we would find someday. It was a wonderful scene. We didn’t feel obliged to question the presence of fog at all. Belief suspended, that sort of thing.

Many years later, when we were to take our own first flights, the sense of romance and excitement remained. The pilots were rakishly handsome, all air hostesses were tall, pencil slim and uniformly gorgeous, even if they tended to drop meals in your lap and serve you lemonade when you had asked for something more robust. There were no stewards with lisping voices and suspicious walks either. That calamity was still a few decades down the road.

Stewardesses had a certain authority about them. I fondly remember flying over the Himalayas at dawn in an Argonaut belonging to BOAC. We were bound for Hong Kong and all of my fellow travellers slept blissfully, as most people tend to do when there are interesting things happening outside.

I sipped slowly on a Jack Daniels and idly observed the port engine, which started to leak little rivulets of oil over the fabric of the wing before bursting into a cheerful conflagration. This was the first of many occasions on which I have caused things to mysteriously combust - and one of the most dramatic.

The senior waitress was immediately by my side, drawing the curtain in a matronly manner and - as she deftly re-filled my glass to a generous level - ordering me not to mention the flames in case I alarmed the other passengers. No doubt they would have sat up and demanded drink.

Actually we got out of our predicament quite simply. No need for Charlton Heston to climb out on the wing with an extinguisher, just a gentle nosedive after the driver isolated the offending engine and all was hunky dory.

Sadly, air travel has since come full circle. I commenced my most recent Monaco odyssey by using a UK domestic flight to get me to Stansted. Naturally I had insisted on a top price ticket in order to take advantage of the beverages on offer in the VIP Lounge, so I was more than a little distressed when I was eventually incarcerated in a ghastly yellow thing with the word “BUZZ” writ large along its flanks. We are talking brown bags over red faces here.

Buzz is one of those fledgling airlines specialising in flying poor   people to Rio, Penge and other hotspots for a flat fare of about ten quid and presumably it had been chartered on this occasion because my regular airline had mislaid its own aircraft.

No harm to them, there is a market for everything, and I nearly voted Socialist once, but they really shouldn’t be transporting august personages such as myself when there are lots of untidy people in working men’s clubs who might appreciate what they have to offer. You wouldn’t get Ingrid Bergman and her double-breasted raincoat in one of these things.

I got a curly sandwich, coffee and a seat next to a dreadful woman with a squalling infant. The plane didn’t even have air hostesses, it had fierce tea ladies. That was my £278 worth.

I blame Prescott and his appalling New Labour transport policies. Come to think of it, the portly rascal looks like the holder of a Buzz frequent flyer card.

I am not an unkind person, but I hope some large oiseau strafes his Jaguar.

      CONVERSATION WITH ROOM 132

In my experience, hotel rooms have a distressing tendency to self-combust shortly after I have taken up residence therein, a phenomenon which has nothing whatsoever to do with my normal routine of smoking in bed, in the bath, while doing handstands, shaving, or pressing my Daks. Oh no.

These rooms can be very dangerous indeed, especially if they are of the non-smoking variety and precipitate a deluge from the sprinklers, together with the chirping of an alarm, every time you light up a Marlboro.

I tend to be wary of such apartments even when no sprinklers are in evidence, which explains how I made the acquaintance of the man from room 132.

I was on Vauxhall launch duty and whiling away the time between Minibar and dinner. Having just showered, and not wishing to get a second dose of chilled H2O, especially with no malt in it, I opened the window, lit up, placed both elbows on the sloping roof and idly contemplated the row of windows across the quadrangle.

“This is like that French film, The Light across the Street,” said a voice. It was a kindred spirit, a fellow puffer, the man from next door. As I was 130 he must be 132.

“No”, I said. “I remember it well. Brigitte Bardot was about 18 and in a permanent state of white cotton underwear, while her husband, Raymond Pellegrin, wore a vest and was going mad with the old frustration because he had been injured in a truck accident and rendered impotent. This is Luton. Lust never reached here, and if it ever did it would be banned thanks to some sort of town hall ordinance.”

“He wasn’t really impotent,” said 132. “It was just that he was stuck in the wheelchair. If he had got one of his friends to rig up something involving a block and tackle he would have been well away with the old l’amour.”

“But he didn’t have a block and tackle”, I countered. “And his friend Pietri wasn’t going to get him some anyway, as he was meeting Brigitte in places you couldn’t get to, especially in a wheelchair, and being very attentive and other things when the light went out.”

“Anyway,” said 132. “It’s just like across there, ‘cos I can see into the room, and what is going on is just as you described it, but the light hasn’t gone out, just as it never did in the film which is why it was called The Light across the Street.”

“You mountebank,” I said. “You’ve got a better room than me, a veritable tongue-loller. How did you manage that?”

“Because I’m with Vauxhall. I’m only out here with my elbows on the tiles because of them across there.”

“Is yours a smoking room?”

“Of course, but I don‘t smoke. Not allowed in our office, old boy”

At that moment it became my considered, unbiased and wholly professional opinion that the Frontera might not be the best 4x4 ever built. The man from room 132 had it in his power to change that by offering to change rooms with me - and he blew it.

      WHITE VAN CHADWICK

To dispel any misconception that ol’ Chester has become a snob, I ducked out of the French launch of Toyota’s 53^rd and latest Corolla (why the hell can’t they think up a new name?) and  instead went to Jerez to play with Ford Transits.

Yes! Rolled up redtop, bum cleavage, clanking lemonade bottles, desert boots - the full Monty. I even practised leering at wimmin beforehand (an art long forgotten) but the Spaniards had locked them all up for the duration of my visit and I was left with nothing to leer at except a cocktail waiter with a doubtful walk.

In fact Ford’s PR team turned out to be exceptionally droll, billeting me in a hotel which offered interesting films in-house, but inviting Madam along to ensure I didn’t get to see them.  I shall pen a small chastisement later.

Oh yes, the Transit. In fact there were several to play with, offering new engines of 75, 90 and 120PS respectively, all of them exceptionally smooth, powerful and promising to be longer-lived than that in my son’s van, which recently detonated so spectacularly that the Coastguard embarked on a search and rescue mission on the stretch of water opposite our modest mansion.

I just happened to mention this to Ford’s Director of Commercial Vehicle Operations, a hitherto nice man who retaliated by having me served veal for dinner. Madame says I should learn to be more diplomatic, or get myself a spin doctor, like that nice Mr. Campbell, to keep me out of the khaki.

Anyway, I didn’t crash into anything or run over any toros, which in and around Cadiz is no small achievement. The Transit also scored highly in the chassis and suspension department, as witnessed by Madame, who wasn’t sick once.

Apparently 14 million or so of the Southampton rattlers have already been sold, so they aren’t exactly fiddling with the worry beads back at Dagenham, in fear of what I may write about the latest versions.

Expect another batch therefore, complete with friendlier snouts, to fill your rear-view mirror very shortly.

Oh - nearly forgot. Dined at the private residence of Sr. Manolo Domecq, of Tio Pepe and Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry fame. Splendid fellow He can trace his ancestry right back to when most people didn’t have any, unless you count baboons and such.

Not only is Queen Isabella of Columbus fame hanging from his family tree, but so are some assorted Gordons and Cunninghames from the time one of his great, great, great something-or-others went on a school trip to Dundee.

I shall cultivate him. His warehouses contain slightly more than100, 000 barrels of Spanish nectar, the capacity of each cask being 500 litres. This is a man well worth knowing. In fact I may even buy him a Transit next Christmas as a small token of my affection.

(Publisher’s memo: Flywheel actually knows some respectable people?????)

      WHO’S BEEN SLEEPING IN MY BED?               

There are things we really shouldn’t have any desire to know, such as the where, when and how of our eventual demise, what Gordon Brown actually does with our money, and who have been the previous occupants of our hotel rooms.

Only in cases of acute financial distress do we purchase second-hand beds. There are good reasons for this. People are conceived in beds, get sick and die in them, and - if they happen to be children - perpetrate even more abominable acts between duvet and mattress. Used beds, like used Morris Itals, are strictly ughsville.

Which is why I spent last Thursday night perched on a bar stool in Mallorca after a hard day spent piloting some new Hyundai Coupes around. Yes, I admit that a certain amount of drink had been taken, but it is common decency to have a glass in one’s hand when occupying such valuable real estate. Commerce is commerce.

And, a fondness for the malt apart, the reason for my attempt on the world stool-perching record was to be found in a piece of parchment placed in my apartments by a fawning management.

This document proudly listed the distinguished and less than respectable citizens who had at various times stayed at this particular establishment, owned by that Branson fella with the airline,  and may have kipped on my couch.

The King and Queen of Spain, I could accept. A handsome young couple, no doubt very fastidious in their habits, who would even be welcome guests at Chadwick Manor. Similarly, I would have no objection to the Emperor and Empress of Japan, who might have been able to get me some bits for my Nissan and who have promised they will never drag us off to Burma to build railways again.

But what about M-People? My God, there are about six of them. That adds up to a serious orgy. The springs would undoubtedly be fatally weakened. Then we have the mysteriously listed but probably even more numerous “Team of Discovery Astronauts”. What were they doing in the Balearics? Had there been a crash?

Squeezing as many people into the room as possible appeared to be commonplace, as Sir Trevor McDonald “and family” were mentioned. So were Stacey Keach and Pierce Brosnan, both of whom were similarly credited with “family” status. Elsewhere we had Bob Geldof and Paula Yates, Michael Douglas and something called Sting, which worried me a little. Perhaps the establishment was going through a rough patch around that time.

Others, it has to be conceded, could have prised me away from the bar had they come a-calling and a-roostering. Goldie Hawn would certainly have managed it, so would Bianca Jagger, Caprice and Kate Moss; but Annie Lennox, Tanya Bryer and Ruby Wax would have had to send down for a hot water bottle. A chap has to draw the line somewhere.

Perhaps the oddest thing about this name-dropping is that future guests will probably see, tucked between Roxette and Peter Bogdanovic, the name of ol’ Chester himself. But there will be nothing to the effect that I never actually got between the sheets. (Publisher’s memo: In that case, delete one hotel night from Chadwick’s expenses.)

      A MATTER OF STYLE              

Some of my younger colleagues, in between the soup and the main course, have been heard to remark that there are no bad cars manufactured nowadays.

These young bucks tend to use aerial quotation marks and finish each sentence with a question, as in: “I went down the pub yesterday, right?”

I tend to avoid such rabble and to stuff a napkin up my ear trumpet when in their vicinity, but is the case for today’s production vehicles correct, or are we all beginning to succumb to the constant barrage of blah! from the PR industry?

I have encountered one or two truly awful cars recently. Granted, the worst of ‘em - the Mini - hardly counts as new, although at the preposterous asking price of half a semi-detached in East Cheam it should be. And all this current trouble in Chechnya came about because the Russians have been insisting that the poor wretches who live there should buy more Ladas, a dreadful machine still turned out by the million in Siberia or some other unsavoury neighbourhood.

We tend to think of the Mini as being cute, cuddly, splendidly British and worthy of the first mechanical knighthood, (no sign of mine yet - must still be on that young cove Blair’s desk somewhere), when the reality is we should be glad to see the back of it.

Damned things always were useless. Had nine of them myself - strictly because of my poverty-stricken situation - and have to confess I would have been better off with a six-pack of huskies and a few planks of well-greased wood.

Then there are the Nissan Serena, the Vauxhall Frontera, Daewoo Musso and other assorted clunkers, all of which are sold to demented creatures cast out into a cruel and savage world by the Care in the Community scheme.

And even some mechanically passable machines are carefully styled to look ridiculous, in order to mark their owners down as socially imperfect. Take a look at the Ford Ka, Vauxhall Tigra, Hyundai Atoz and Renault Kangoo. All are pitched squarely at pre-pubescent Spice Girls fans and their older male equivalents, the type of persons who lurk on the Common at dusk and have frequent morning appointments at your local assizes.

Bah! to the lot of ‘em. Bring back long bonnets adorned by sharp mascots on which pedestrians can impale themselves. Let’s have running boards, manually operated windows, suicide doors up front, straight sixes, unsilenced exhausts and, (yes - I’ll be there in a minute, nurse), ashtrays deep enough to hold a least six half-smoked Havanas.

I worry endlessly about today’s crop of car designers, most of whom seem to have learned their craft while working for Janet Reger or that Versace fella, while the good ol’ boys who gave us the Ford Pilot and Jowett Javelin are in exile, building armoured personnel carriers for our Middle-Eastern friends. And jolly good luck to them. (Publisher’s memo: find out how Chadwick, of all people, could possibly have heard of Janet Reger!)

      SOARING TEMPERATURES, THEIR CAUSE AND EFFECT

Things at Chez Chadwick have not been at all normal in recent weeks.

The dreaded Y2K bug struck early, manifesting itself as a particularly virulent strain of influenza and savagely attacking me from behind the dashboard of a Mazda Premacy. I know for a fact that the car is involved, because the scribbler who took delivery of it immediately after my good self was similarly stricken and has taken the trouble to telephone me with tidings of an imminent writ.

Bad form, especially as neither of us have had anything whatsoever to do with the collapse of the Japanese domestic economy and its subsequent effect on Kodak and Disneyworld share prices or, come to think of it, the sale of blue pleated skirts and white socks.

In fact, we have been very kind to Mazda - and especially the Premacy - describing the company as being full of Good Chaps and the car as an excellent proposition, especially if you want to spruce up the colour scheme, add some chimes and use it to dispense ice cream to the huddled poor of our inner cities.

OK, so we have occasionally been a mite critical of the tendency of the company’s in-house publicity people to drag us off to bad operas or museums and allow us to start small fires all over the place, but this hardly merited being consigned to our beds, sans drink, while we wondered if we might live or die.

It was touch and go for a time, the plague striking on my 30^th wedding anniversary (poetic justice, some might claim) and sweeping the legs from under me as effectively as a mashie playfully brandished by Mr Tiger Woods.

As delirium took hold, maudlin messages were scribbled to my Children; little things along the lines of “Now you will have to pay for your own damned car repairs!” and other Dickensian fatherly endearments.

There was also a note to the pathologist pointing the finger at an ex-editor, suggesting he had been known to dabble in untraceable poisons, often in cahoots with local car dealers, all of whom were named.

In the end, however, the spirit prevailed, aided and abetted by a snort or two of Lucozade, and rude health - or something approximating it - has returned to this column. Er, can I have my next month’s cheque in advance? The delivery man from Oddbins is expected any day now. Besides, I could have a relapse. (Publisher’s memo: let him have . . . the latter.)

      AMONG MY SOUVENIRS

That’s about it, then. Another millennium has whizzed by, its final Christmas is upon us, and still we have failed to progress very far from the Stone Age. We work, pay taxes, (when HM Inland Revenue insists), and in the field of transport only spacecraft manage to rub along without using the humble wheel. Well, boats, sledges and so on - fair enough. But generally it is a pretty poor return for 1000 years of cerebral effort.

Still, 1999 wasn’t all that bad. I lifted the floorboards last night and examined the haul of booty spirited away from various car launches during the year. Some of the stuff is actually quite interesting.

I have a Wehrmacht helmet, which may prove useful should our friends over there get a better result next time they take us on in a 15-rounder. By way of extending my options I studied German at school until she objected and reported me to a senior member of staff, but I can still do the accent.

Under the tartan cushion, (where the hell did that come from?), and nestling next to the Queen Anne commode, I unearthed a doorknob and splintered piece of wood complete with Do Not Disturb sign. This must represent a particularly violent frolic, but for the life of me I don’t recall anything about it. Selective memory loss, the nice nurse tells me.

Lots of books of matches probably explain the pyrotechnics that have lit my tracks from Santander to Bruges, but the half-eaten candle seemingly procured from a Gothic cathedral in Prague is something of a mystery. Perhaps the hotel food was so awful that I gnawed it in protest.

The large bug, once very fierce but now dead, is a souvenir of a fairly disreputable establishment visited during the Seat Toledo launch in Catalonia. When it was alive I took it to my local veterinary surgery to have it identified, but left in some confusion when several people in the waiting room objected, claiming I was making light of their beloved pooches’ illnesses. To date I have no idea exactly what species it is, but it could have something to do with all this BSE stuff we’ve been reading about.

There is also the windy-up radio that exploded the first time I attempted to use it, the bottom half of a gent’s suit, a tooth, a tin of saddle soap, an unopened packet of something or other with Italian cooking instructions attached, and what looks like a glass eye. (Publisher’s memo: how can a glass eye look like anything other than a glass eye?) .

Next month, when I get my passport back, there will be opportunities to acquire yet more stuff, in Jerez, Majorca and Nice. Some of it may even be quite useful.

THE END