Expensive Is An Understatement

It has to be said that I quite like my Jeep. It ticks every box in the list of what I need from a car right now, which is basically that it has to be capable of carrying all my outside bar equipment, or other heavy loads, when I need it to and it’s got to be able to move us, as a family, around in something akin to bit of luxury. A car, to me, also needs to be a little bit different and adept at taking us somewhere that we wouldn’t ordinarily be able to get to.

My Grand Cherokee does all of this, and more, but it is – and this is probably the understatement of the year – a little bit expensive to run.

In fact, my end-of-year accounts show that the Jeep cost me an average of £380 a month to run between August 1st 2007 and July 31st 2008. And that’s without a loan on it.

It is time, therefore, to consider changing it. Not because I particularly want to, but because it is no longer financially viable. The four-litre straight-six engine is as addicted to petrol as Amy Winehouse is to cocaine and, thanks to newspapers telling us that off-road style vehicles are more deadly to the planet than the Daleks, it is worth less than the two-day-old penicillin-covered dregs of tea in the bottom of the teacup on my bedside table.

But what should I change it for? Leaving aside its proven capabilities of taking everything in its stride before being driven up the side of a mountain, it is equipped with almost every toy I ever desire in a car. Dual-zone climate control actually uses an infrared sensor to measure the body temperature of passengers so that it can figure out whether to use the air conditioning or not and memory-controlled wing-mirrors and heated-leather seats move about to the right setting depending on which key is used to unlock it. Even the radio tunes in to Radio 4 when I push the unlock button on my keyfob, despite whichever random local radio station Ali might have had it tuned in to the last time she used it.

And when the business needs it, I can drop the rear seats and load it to the hilt with every single bit of my outside bar equipment, plus several 11-gallon kegs of lager, and it’ll drive off up the road without a note of complaint. It ain’t heavy, it’s my beer...

Despite all this, and my fond penchant for oil-hungry American cars, the current financial climate requires something a little more economical – but I really don’t know what to go for. I could, right now, pop off down to the local Lexus dealership and order an RX400h on finance, but it’s probably not the wisest thing to do with recession looming.

Instead, I’m thinking it would be far more sensible to go for something practical, large and reliable, powered by a carcinogenic diesel engine that will allow me to drive to Hawick and back without emptying the fuel tank four times.

And here in lies the rub. Using a budget of no more than £8’000 – which would buy me something sufficient for the next two years, after which I hope business would have picked back up enough to allow me to look at something I really like once again – I have given both the Ford Mondeo estate and the Vauxhall Vectra estate significant consideration. Then rejected them again.

The Volvo V70 is a great car, ideal with its load carrying capacity and level of specification, but still too expensive on anything newer than a 2001 model. BMW’s 5-series, like the Mercedes E-Class estate, is beautiful but ridiculously expensive and anything with a four-by-four connotation is anathema to the tax man.

This leaves me with a bit of a dilemma. The most sensible car for me to buy, right now, is one that I’m quite happy with, but Ali hates. It is both vast in load space and yet equipped to the highest level of specification you could hope to find. It is quirky to the point of being so different that none of my friends have one whilst simultaneously being comfortable and smooth on the open road, and its diesel engine is one of the most economical – yet powerful – you are likely to come across.

But thanks to a skewed perception it has depreciated dramatically, which means you can pick a reasonably new one up well within my budget.

Unless you can offer me a truly viable alternative, that will carry all my stock easily and will move my family around in comfort and which will not cost more than the rate of Zimbabwe’s inflation to fuel, I think that for less than £8’000 you cannot beat it.

Don’t laugh, but it’s the Citroen C5 Estate.

Stephen King's "N"

Guinness Is Good For You

Sticking to my adult oriented theme involving fellatio and other erstwhile acts of sex, I came across this wonderful advert for sharing a Guinness or two with friends...

Fellatio: Not just tongue-in-cheek humour

Every now and then a great piece of valuable research is buried by the powers-that-be to thwart the efforts of every man on this planet to explain the real reason we like blow jobs.

Now there are no more excuses for needing to explain that it contains zinc or proteins or that it will bring everlasting love and adoration. Instead, you just need to read the article linked below which shows, quite seriously I'm sure, why fellatio isn't just an act of under-the-duvet love.

I can't believe this didn't receive more attention when it was first published.......

Simply click here to read the report: Fellatio may significantly decrease the risk of breast cancer.

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[Disclaimer: this is taken from a humorous e-mail recently forwarded to me. It is designed for amusement; if you are easily offended by topics of oral sex please do not read further.]

Edinburgh to Hawick - a public transport nightmare

This weekend I have to drive to a little place called Hawick to celebrate my brother’s wedding. It’s going to be a funfest orgy of family and friends, many of whom I haven’t seen for a very long time, all set in the quagmire that has become of my Uncle’s back garden thanks to the heavy rain they’ve endured recently. This muddy field means that apparently I have to wear my wellies, which I’m sure will go well with my Morning Suit, and will probably put a whole new spin on FMBs for the blushing bride and her entourage.

But first, I’ve got to get there.

Hawick, it seems, is a small place just the other side of the Scottish Borders, in a county known as Roxburghshire. It’s also in the middle of nowhere.

And, because it’s in the middle of nowhere, it means that nobody in charge of this country’s public transport system has bothered to think how anybody might actually have to get there.

Because August is technically the pub’s busiest period and because of staff holidays and rota changes, I cannot travel up until Saturday morning – the wedding is at 1:30 – and then I have to travel back Sunday afternoon to be back at the pub in time for the evening session. I have to travel on my own, and we only have the one car.

Understandably, then, I decided to look at how our great network of planes, trains and automobiles might spirit me along in comfort to get to my destination, and ensure that I get there without having to sit on the A1 stuck in traffic. The whole exercise was a shining example of why nobody in this country wants to embrace public transport.

Firstly, there is only one bus that comes to and from our village. It leaves from just outside my pub at 10:30 in the morning on a Tuesday and goes to Newmarket; it returns again at 1:30 the same day and then doesn’t bother turning up again until the next Tuesday. So whichever mode of transport I choose, I’m going to have to use my car to get there first.

Using Easyjet, their only flight from Stansted to Edinburgh leaves at 7:30 on Saturday morning – the next available flight means I’d miss the wedding. Returning Sunday, the round trip will cost me £185.48 – and that doesn’t include the £1.64 I can pay to offset my carbon footprint for the journey. It also means I will have to leave home before five in the morning to make sure I get to the airport on time and be checked in.

And it means that when I get to Edinburgh I’ve got to get to Hawick which, it seems, can only be achieved by using a bus. There is a bus service from Edinburgh Airport to Hawick but I haven’t yet figured out how long the 60-mile journey will take, how much it will cost or why, according to the operator’s website, it appears that the driver must call at each member of his family’s homes along the way for a cup of tea.

Having spent what must have been three hours studying bus routes from Edinburgh airport to my destination I gave up and looked at trains.

Ely is my nearest station and the earliest train I can catch leaves at 05:28 and gets me to Carlisle, of all places, at 11:10. From there, I’ve got to get on a bus which will get me in to Hawick with less than an hour to spare before the wedding starts. A return ticket will cost me £93.80.

According to my car’s satellite navigation system, as long as we don’t get stuck in traffic I can get there in my car in five and a half hours – without speeding. The round trip will cost me roughly £110 in petrol, I will be able to listen to my own music, I will not have to smell the sweat of a drunken reveller returning from a stag-do and I will be able to stop in Northumberland National Park and admire the view if I choose to.

I can also always beat the time set by the Sat Nav which would mean, if I were feeling a touch brave, that I could actually leave comfortably at 7:00 and still be there before the train/bus service would have got me there.

I’m not going to do that though – I’m going to leave earlier and then, if I’m making good time, stop for breakfast. And if I’m not, I’ll speed up a bit.

Tragic Magic's Bad News Day

Politicians are famous for using ‘bad news’ days to sneak out a bit of information they don’t really want you to know about but have to make public.

I knew I was going to have a bad news day this morning when I woke to the sound of rain lashing against the window. It was so cold and windy outside that I actually had to get up and put the heating on which, with the cost of oil these days, was bad news indeed.

Dressing in a pair of shorts and my Dennis the Menace sweatshirt I headed to the Jeep, already loaded with my mountain bike, and drove the few miles to Fordham where the car was to be left for its annual service and MOT. Having booked the car in last Friday, Paul the mechanic had advised me that it would cost roughly £170 for a basic service and the test.

Looking around the car as I left it with him he tutted and whistled and then pointed out that it needed three new tyres.

“I know it probably needs tyres,” I told him, “but I thought I’d get it tested first to see what it needed before I spent all the money on it.”

“I wouldn’t even bother putting it in for the test without the tyres on it, mate,” he said.

Grudgingly, I told him to get the price of the tyres for me and give me a call, before getting on my bike, pulling my hood up against the lashing rain and cycling home. Ironically, the first track my MP3 player picked to lighten my mood was Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars...

The telephone was ringing even as I walked back in through the door of the pub, dripping wet with mud up my back and my sweatshirt clinging to every available inch of skin. The caller ID showed it was the garage.

Paul merrily told me that the Bridgestone Duellers I wanted for the car would be a nice £120 each, and that I definitely did need three. Thank God he hadn’t looked at the spare. “We’ve given it a pre-MOT check, too,” he gleefully informed me. “Unfortunately, you also need an exhaust clamp and some bulbs and, according to your service manual, this thing’s due for a major service.” He also babbled on about the transmission oil needing to be serviced but this had to be done through a special tube and the transfer box needed some attention too.

I lost interest and simply asked how much it was all going to cost.

“Well,” he said, sucking breath in through his teeth in the time-honoured tradition of all village mechanics. “With labour and VAT, I reckon you’re looking at at least six hundred quid.”

I felt like inserting the phone up his rectum. “Keep it to no more than six hundred quid,” I told him, “and that will be fine. If it’s going to cost more, don’t bother doing it. I’ll get the car off you later.”

“That’s the other thing, Mark,” he muttered down the phone. “Some of the bits won’t be in until tomorrow morning, so you can’t have it back until tomorrow afternoon.”

I wondered how far inside him the phone could be inserted. The boys were looking forward to a trip to the zoo with their mum tomorrow. “Fine,” I hissed through gritted teeth, and wondered how I could break the news to Ali. Maybe a cup of tea with a fine rose plucked from the garden, or with my head through a noose?

Seeing as I had nothing better to do, I decided to get on with cleaning some of the washing equipment. The dishwasher, being fairly new and having just set us back the best part of £2000, was fine, but the glasswasher, being old and somewhat obstreperous, didn’t want to switch on. I flicked the on/off switch repeatedly but nothing happened; the only sound was that of the solenoid clicking in and out, so at least I knew the power was working fine.

I took the machine to pieces and gave everything a good clean, checked the lines and the connections and generally broggled about with anything that looked remotely like I might be able to break it, but still no luck. The machine would just not switch on.

Eventually, I gave up and rang the engineer who willingly told me he would come out for a nice hefty call-out charge. With no choice but to agree, as I couldn’t get the machine to work, he happily arranged to pop out before the pub opened at 5:30 this evening.

At 2:30, the regional manager from Greene King arrived to have a friendly chat, tell us he was leaving and to see if there was anything we needed from him. After a friendly chat that seemed to last most of my spare time this afternoon, he eventually sat down and pushed a sheet of paper across the table towards me.

“Now then,” he said resignedly, “you know the smoking shelter you had built last year? Well, it appears that we forgot to invoice you for the heating and lighting that was installed.” In front of me was a pleasant little bill for £400.

“Of course,” he said helpfully, “we can split this down in to weekly payments for you.”

Wondering if I could fit him up the exhaust pipe of his brand new Lexus IS250, I genially escorted him to the door and bade him farewell, fervently hoping that his next job involved an awful lot of manure.

Finally, with just minutes to go before the pub opened and me still wearing my damp Dennis the Menace sweatshirt, the glasswasher engineer arrived. “Is this the machine that you seem to be having problems with?” He asked, pointing to the ageing Classic Eco2 in the corner.

“Indeed it is,” I said, nodding my head and then watched in horror as he strolled over to the machine and pressed the on button. The damned thing roared in to life and filled with water.

“Seems okay to me,” he said, stroking his beard. “Here’s my bill for the call out charge.” And, with that, he left.

All I need now is for Ali to tell me she’s pregnant and my bad news day will be complete. There’s still five hours to go...

Sexism Ain't Dead, It's Just Become A Survey

Some of you may know that I occasionally write a blog-style column for The Publican magazine which, given its title, is unsurprisingly a magazine for publicans and the licensed trade in general.

Usually, when I feel I write something there that is quite good, I duplicate it in this blog too, but that, I fear, is a little wasteful.

So what I have decided I'll do now is simply link directly to that page whenever I feel I've put something up there that's quite good.

Today's article is entitled Sexism Ain't Dead; It's Just Become a Survey. Click here to read it.

British Motorshow 2008: In Need Of An Electric Starter

As a child one of the highlights of my year was the trip to the British Motorshow with my Dad. Year after year we’d traipse to one of the biggest shows in the world for automotive erotica, ogling such delights as the Ford Cortina, the Citroen CX and the Austin Allegro.

The year that Ford released the Granada Crusader, I thought my Granddad was going to wet himself with excitement.

For years I remember visiting this show that was full of hedonistic automotive memorabilia, that glittered with everything from the innovative Mini Metro, which British Leyland hoped would do for them as the Mini had twenty years earlier, to the riotous Lamborghini Countach, and every connotation of wheeled transport in between.

Scantily clad girls would drape themselves over the bonnets of squared off concept cars and pretty models employed by manufacturers would hand out bags of goodies with sweets and badges and branded memorabilia for the kids to take home.

And then there would be the brochures. Thousands of them, stuffed in carrier bags or handed out willy-nilly or simply sitting on the seats of open models for you to pick up and walk off with. I would spend hours when I got home, pouring over the plethora of paperwork that I’d been able to bring back, armed with my pencils and pens, marking the cars that I wanted to buy when I grew up.

Back then, motor manufacturers knew what the motorshow was about: you needed the concept cars and new models to launch in order to show off to the press. You needed the barely-dressed blondes for the dads to letch at. But you knew who you were selling to: the children.

It’s fair enough launching new cars and showing your genitalia in an attempt to better your competitor, but few people bought their cars at the motorshow. Instead, the manufacturers knew that they had to get the attention of the kids, to sow the seeds of desire at an early age, and to give them lots of posters of cars to adorn their bedroom walls with because they hadn’t figured out what Samantha Fox was all about yet.

The motorshow was the event of the year that fed my fascination with four-wheeled transport. I learned to love all shapes of cars there, I developed a love affair with Ferraris and it was at the motorshow that I set my dream of owning a BMW by the time was twenty one. It was the motorshow that set my step-brother on the road to a career with Daimler-Chrysler and that made my best mate want to be a traffic cop, and it was the motorshow that caused damage to the structural integrity of one of my friend’s houses, such was the volume of Vauxhall and Ford brochures that he came home with every year.

Today, the British Motorshow couldn’t be more different. In comparison to the days of my childhood, it’s sterile. Gone are the latex-clad lovelies that would tempt men on to even the Lada stand, replaced with a uniformed army of salesmen that wouldn’t look out of place in the window of Taylors Estate Agents.

Gone, too, are the goodie bags full of treats to keep a sceptical eight-year-old occupied. Instead, the bag that costs you £3.00 on the entrance includes the Daniel Silva novel The English Assassin, a ‘rich, multilayered and compelling tale’, according to the Denver Post, while the Washington Post announces it as an ‘exceptionally readable, sophisticated thriller.’

You can no longer grab handfuls of brochures, either. Instead, you will be pounced upon by a sales rep who will produce a handheld computer and immediately take your details. After floundering about for five minutes – during which time your eight year old has grown bored and wandered aimlessly on to the next stand only to get lost in the throng of other people waiting to have their details fed in to the virtual world – they’ll eventually garner enough about you to know where to send lingerie for your wife to, and despite their promises of the information going no further you will be contacted by the local dealership within two days, offering to sell you one of their shiny new cars.

Also missing were most of the manufacturers. BMW, Fiat, the majority of the Volkswagen group, Jeep, Ferrari – to name but a few – weren’t at this year’s British Motorshow. A Ford stand full of new Fiestas just isn’t enough to excite an amoeba, let alone children and grown-ups, and the hype over the new Vauxhall Insignia just left me deflated. The Cadillac BLS is a much more attractive car.

The concept cars still exist, of course, but these days all the manufacturers are postulating over electricity and hydrogen, all with results that wouldn’t look out of place being driven by Noddy in Toyland.

As far as electric cars go, only the Lightning Car Company really seem to have got the idea right: a car that can do two hundred miles on just ten minutes of charge, that can produce an estimated 700bhp and apparently has the performance to rival many of the masters. And it looks stunning. The only thing that seems to have passed this innovative company by is the fact that supercars are supposed to sound as if they’re capable of blowing up the moon – and this one will probably sound like a Moulinex Mixer.

“We’re going to get round that,” one of the chaps on the stand told me, “by fitting speakers internally and externally that will replicate the sound of any motor you like.”

I sincerely hope he’s joking, because otherwise that would be just like jumping in to bed with Jennifer Aniston and discovering that she’s got false boobs.

The British Motorshow left me cold and disappointed and wondering what hope our children have got of enjoying an exciting automotive future; if it’s a future with the Nissan Cube Electric then they might just as well all form an orderly queue for the bus now...

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You can see more photos from the Motorshow by visiting this link: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/mjdaniels/BritishMotorshow2008