Our chest freezer cars have never been more dull… it would be even worse if I was still presenting a motoring show
AS I’m sure you know, Top Gear has reached the end of the line. And I’ve now made my last ever Grand Tour.
Which means that, for the moment, the world doesn’t have a top-flight car show.
This has puzzled my old mate James May. He went on the radio this week and said cars have never been more interesting.
He pointed out that we now have electric cars and hybrid cars and fuel cell cars.
And soon, we’re told there will be cars that don’t need a driver.
Plus of course, there’s the whole debate on how cars should be used.
So I sort of see what James is saying. But naturally, I don’t agree with him.
Because I think cars have never been more dull.
I’ve got some kind of hybrid BMW on test at the moment and, instead of an exciting engine noise, it plays “music” which was composed by Hans Zimmer.
At first this is amusing but pretty soon it becomes annoying.
I mean, I like Common People, by Pulp. But if you played it to me over and over again, for hours, I’d quickly get tired of it.
It also doesn’t take that long to tire of the other features that are now mandatory on cars.
Bongs that sound when you stray over the speed limit.
Brakes that come on if a panicky sensor thinks you’re going to crash.
Driving is now a chore
And an invisible hand that takes control of the steering if you change lanes without indicating on the motorway.
These features can be turned off, but the EU insist that to do that, the driver must perform “a sequence of events”.
You have to go into the on-board computer, find a menu and select a sub menu and so on.
And frankly, it’s easier to stick to the bloody speed limit.
Some cars are even fitted with a bonger that sounds if you’re not sitting up straight.
It’s like driving along with your mother in the back seat.
The fact of the matter is that TV car shows appeal mostly to people who like cars.
But it’s a struggle to like a modern car. It’s a struggle to review one as well, because if it’s electric, it’d be like reviewing a chest freezer.
And it’s not just the cars that have become annoying, so has the act of driving.
Because if you do find a stretch of open road it’ll have a pothole on it. Or a 20mph speed limit. Enforced by average speed cameras.
Or you’ll have to pay an extra tax if a woke idiot at the local council doesn’t like the type of fuel you’re using.
Driving is now such a chore that many would probably jump at the chance of owning a car that drives itself.
Yeah, well good luck with that. They haven’t invented a robot yet that can fetch me my slippers, so we are a long way off a car that can drive itself round that complicated roundabout in Swindon.
Mind you, if I was currently on a car show, it’d be a giggle to borrow one and give it a whirl.
Mercifully though, I’m not.
BLOWN AWAY BY ROOF
I WAS surprised to wake after this week’s storm had passed to find that most houses in Britain still had a roof.
I recently built a house.
No. Let’s be accurate here. I recently paid someone to build me a house and I could not believe how they attached the roof to the walls.
My carpets are fastened down more sturdily.
Apparently, it’s normal to hold the multi-ton roof in place using what appear to be the nails you get with a picture hook.
Which is why I’m always astonished after a storm that my house hasn’t become a convertible.
ON the Friday before Christmas, £62million was taken out, in cash, from the nation’s post offices.
Why?
Some say cash is still favoured by old people, but I’m not sure that’s true.
I’m old, and while I don’t have digital banking or Apple Pay, I do use a debit card to buy stuff. Not a wad.
So who was it that needed so much cash as they headed into the Christmas party season?
In other news, I see that on the global chart, Brits are now the second highest users of cocaine.
We have a worse coke habit, it seems, than Colombia.
TUBE SUCKS
FIVE years ago, boffins set up a company which would develop a new type of tube train that would run in a vacuum, where there is no air resistance, at 700mph.
They said passengers would be able to get from, say, London to Edinburgh in just 30 minutes.
I pointed out that there may be some issues with this.
Like if it accelerated to 700mph instantly, the staff wheeling the trolleys down the aisle would struggle to stay on their feet.
And what would happen when it got to a corner?
Well this week the boffins realised that I may have had a point. And shut the company down.
It baffles me there should be a ban on the lock of love
IF you want just one bit of news that sums up what’s gone wrong with the Western world these days, try this . . .
Tourist chiefs are trying to ban young lovers from securing a padlock to the railings on bridges then chucking the key into the river below.
The practice, which has been commonplace in cities around the world since the 1980s seems to me to be completely harmless.
I mean, yes, in Paris a couple of years ago, a bridge collapsed because of the weight of all the locks on it, but apart from that, it’s less harmful than picking your loved one a bunch of flowers. And no-one is trying to ban that. Yet.
I just don’t understand how we’ve arrived at a point in time where the authorities believe they have the right to stop people making a romantic gesture.
Spray painting a massive John Loves Jane heart on the side of a police station. Maybe.
But a simple padlock? No.
BOND’S STILL A HUNK
WILDLIFE enthusiasts were cross with Pierce Brosnan this week after my favourite Bond visited protected springs at Yellowstone National Park.
They say he should have stuck to the footpaths and that he might have to go to prison.
From which he will escape using a fountain pen full of acid.
A picture emerged of him during another spring visit, and I must say that is what upset me.
But for a different reason. I was jealous.
The man is 70 years old, for crying out loud. And he appears to have the torso of a teenager.
Have a happy new Keir…
NEXT year we will get Sir Starmer as Prime Minister, so I can’t imagine it’ll be very happy.
But let’s try our best eh?