Why I Should Never, Ever Buy A Car Again

I miss my Jeep. For all its faults – and it had many of them, mostly expensive – it was a great, go anywhere, do anything car.

But it did cost an awful lot of money to run. It appeared to be magnetised to any petrol station, and you couldn't actually turn it on without being in the radius of a fuel station for fear that it might empty the tank just trying to get itself started.

And so, last month, I made the decision to trade it in, and replaced it with a Renault Vel Satis.

This seemed, at the time, like a good idea. The Vel Satis met all my needs: it was quirky, and different, which I like, and it was loaded with extras: satellite navigation, dual-zone air conditioning, cruise control, automatic lights, automatic wipers, six-CD stereo system with MP3 input. Everything that could tick a box on my wish list, it had.

Even Jeremy Clarkson said it was the most comfortable car he had ever driven.

And, despite having a 3.5 V6 engine (the same as they use in the Nissan 350Z, and thus making it quite quick too) it uses half, literally half, the fuel that the Jeep used.

This, coupled with a good deal from the garage I found it in, made it seem like a sensible buy. It only had 60'000 miles on the clock, came with a service history and was only going to cost me physically £900 to change. Which meant I didn't have to take out a loan to buy it. I worked out that, at the mileage we do, it would have saved that nine hundred quid back in about six months compared to the petrol the Jeep used.

I even quite liked the way it looked. It's not the prettiest car on the planet, admittedly, but it's quite handsome in a sci-fi sort of way at the front, if perhaps a touch Queen Latifah from the rear.

Safe, too. With its five-star Euro NCAP rating and a bazillion airbags, in the event of the unthinkable the family and I would be cocooned in a great big cushion of softness. It's not so good for pedestrians, mind you, only scoring one-star for their safety – the sharp lines of its front evidently designed to dismember anybody foolish enough to jaywalk in front of it.

All was well, therefore, in Daniels' Carworld, for about five minutes. Then it was actually delivered. And it all went horribly wrong, which probably won't come as a surprise.

The problem appears to be that, because this car is completely governed by computers, it has developed a bit of a personality complex and that, therefore, makes it monumentally useless. Pushing the start/stop button is a bit of a gamble: you never know which Vel Satis is going to wake up.

For a start, it can never work out which gear it wants to be in. Pull up at a set of traffic lights and the automatic box will select fifth. Or first. Or perhaps third. It would be funny, if it wasn't happening to me...

Thankfully, it never selects reverse, although when you do put it in reverse it's supposed to drop the passenger mirror to allow you to see the kerb. What it actually does is point one mirror up and one mirror down, like a cross-eyed wombat, and then refuses to remember where it's supposed to return them to.

Then there's the satellite navigation system, which refuses to believe you are parked anywhere other than the North Sea. Just off the coast of Haarlemmermeer. Every now and then it'll remember you're in England, tell you to turn left, then shout at you for having deviated from your fishing route before returning to the ocean.

All the while this is happening, the external temperature gauge remains convinced you are parked near the North Pole, and constantly reports that you are experiencing -38°C. And because it's so cold outside, it refuses to allow you to switch on the air conditioning. Even when the temperatures are tropical.

As a result, the car has, understandably, been back and forth to the garage a number of times. Last Wednesday, I returned it to the garage with the instruction: “don't give it back to me until it works.”

And they haven't.

In fact, eight days later, they are also now not talking to me on the telephone.

I'm beginning to think I might have just bought the world's most expensive 1997 1.6 L Nissan Primera...

Alcohol Mandatory Code: Spoiling It For The Majority

The Government are at it again, interfering with our daily lives as if they haven't got anything better to do. This time it's all about selling alcohol responsibly and basically means that to stop you, the sensible drinker, from enjoying yourself on a Saturday night they're trying to make the default size of a pint of beer half a pint instead.

In order to find out what all the fuss is about, last week I attended the "Cambridge" leg of the Home Office's Big Alcohol Tour.

Struggling in to my suit, cursing as I realised that I'd put a few more pounds on than I'd thought since I last wore it, I swore again when I looked up the post code of the event's location and discovered that, although it said Cambridge on my invite, it was actually taking place in Wisbech, some forty odd miles further north of the city. That's a bit like trying to catch a flight to Rome on RyanAir.

It also added an extra half an hour to my journey and meant that I would have to use the B1104 Prickwillow Road, a road so blighted with subsidence and pot holes it makes going for a ride on The Nemesis at Alton Towers positively Sunday Afternoonish. But I managed to make it on time.

The proposed new code does make some sensible suggestions when you look at its overview, and ask any sensible, law-abiding member of the public what they think and they'll probably say that it should be brought in forthwith, and flog anybody who begs to differ. But it's not as simple as that.

During the presentations I heard one of the speakers say that "the Government thinks that people are drinking too much and that this shouldn't be allowed to happen." There is a gossamer-thin line between the democracy we apparently live in and the communist state that's being created and it's being trod on very firmly.

The proposed code aims to ban irresponsible promotions, enforce signage that tells you alcohol isn't part of your five-a-day, and bring in smaller measures. It's been widely publicised that all on-trade outlets will be forced to serve wine in a 125ml measure, but what has been less heavily publicised is that it also calls for half a pint to be made the standard measure for beer.

I appreciate that one of the goals of this new code is that it aims to reduce alcohol-related violence, but if my local builder walks in at the end of a busy day and says "IPA please, Mark", as he often does, and I only pour him a half because he didn't say 'pint', as the proposals appear to suggest, he will punch me on the nose.

Do we really need a whole raft of new legislation in our already overly-bureaucratic industry when Common Sense should prevail? I've already received an e-mail stating this new code could potentially cost the industry £58million in its first year. A hefty figure for a trade already so beleaguered.

What stood out most, however, was how heavily biased this new code is to the on-trade, whilst the off-trade are able to sit quietly to the side, whistling to themselves and hoping that nobody will point out that some of their offers clearly fall under the loosely termed "irresponsible promotion".

Simon How, Senior Public Health Programme Manager of the East of England Public Health & Social Care Directorate (I couldn't help but wonder how large his business card must be), presented a series of results from a survey of 7000 members of the public that showed pie charts all displaying that the vast majority of people in the East of England drink, and that some of them even class themselves as Heavy Drinkers.

But, when I asked him what percentage of that demographic purchased their alcohol from supermarkets rather than pubs, he admitted they hadn't asked that question during the survey. So, in a consultation process based upon curbing the excess sale and abuse of alcohol, it didn't seem logical to ask where the alcohol was being purchased from in the first place?

Clearly not.

Mr How did, however, admit that their survey showed that the vast majority of younger drinkers pre-load - in other words, they purchase alcohol from the off-trade and drink it before heading out in the evening because it is a cheaper way of getting in the mood than sitting in a pub all evening before hitting the clubs.

Even a student in the audience put her hand up, got the microphone, and stated to the panel that, at university, her and her friends 'pre-load' before going out for a night. My own barmaid tells me that's exactly what she and her friends do at the weekends when she is at university.

Yet, when asked, the Home Office panel said that the code did not fully incorporate the off-trade because there was little evidence to support the fact that supermarkets were part of the problem!

Indeed, all their code really asks them to do is put a sign up somewhere in the building stating the health risks of drinking alcohol and they can carry on selling twenty-four cans of Stella for ten pence.

Meanwhile, the on-trade have to put signs up, bottles have to be printed with health notices, measures have to be restricted to half pints, smaller glasses of wine and - potentially - 25ml spirit measures only. And, to top it off, we're not allowed to run promotions to try and attract new business like the supermarkets can.

The code seeks to address the problems caused by a small minority of people, whilst the majority of us will have to pay for it. Sadly, despite the best efforts of the bureaucrats, those rogue licensees that wish to flout the law will continue to do so, and the consumers who wish to drink themselves stupid in the first place will also continue to do so. And they'll just keep on getting their booze cheaply from the off-trade.

Indeed, I didn't feel attending the event was a waste of time because, as the day drew to a close, I was able to get the microphone and tell the panel what I thought: and that is that this whole exercise is an expensive waste of time.

Mad Scientists Apply Within…

On holiday last week I decided it was time for my eldest son to choose what sort of career path he’s going to follow.

If you ask any self-respecting five-year-old what they want to be when they grow up they’ll usually reply with words like fireman or astronaut.  By the time they reach ten they’ve developed an obsession with guns and want to join the Army so they can shoot things.

Malachy is nine and, so far, has expressed all the interest in growing-up as I do of getting in to a cage of hungry lions.  And I can’t blame him really, given that we spend every day being told that there’s no point carrying on because the planet is melting and we’re all going to die from Swine Flu, but I decided I’d press him on the subject anyway as it’s about time he really started to understand that his lessons and his times tables are, actually, quite important.

So when I asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up, he immediately replied with “be a Formula One driver.”  I knew, straight away, that this was a lie.  Malachy has about as much interest in motorsport as I do in sticking my hand down a blocked drain, but I do like Formula One and therefore he figured if he said something he knew I’d like I’d shut up and leave him to play with his Nintendo DS.

But I wasn’t going to be perturbed and pushed him on the subject.  So, after some thought, he came back to me one rainy day in Cornwall and said he’d like to be an inventor.  “That’s great!” I enthused, immediately thinking ‘engineer’ or ‘mechanic’ or, at least, something he could do that would turn in to a career or a vocation.

We got talking about what topics he needs to concentrate on at school and out of Maths, English, Science and Art – all good founding subjects for somebody who wants to ‘invent’ things – it turns out that English is the only subject he doesn’t actually like.

And to me, that’s okay.  When I was his age – and even now at 37 – all I ever wanted to be was a Formula One driver.  Unfortunately, my Dad pointed out he couldn’t afford to buy me a go-kart so I decided I’d be a writer instead.  English, therefore, is my strong(er) subject, while I’m somewhat rubbish at all the others.  I’ll leave those to his mother. 

I set off in life wanting to be a journalist in the field of motorsport, and then promptly left school and became an Estate Agent – just as the recession in the early nineties destroyed the housing market.  My mum got me a job working for the fraud department of the Benefits Agency and then I joined the world of the Internet, where I remained until 2005 when I bought a pub.

The closest I’ve ever got to writing anything is a blog on the website of one of the trade’s leading magazines.

So I want to encourage Malachy to put his DS down and focus on something he’s interested in.  Recounting the conversation with my friend James, he quickly pointed out that he has a bike that is in reasonably good condition, but needs some work to get it roadworthy again.  James has very kindly donated this old bike to Malachy for him and I to work on during the summer holiday, which starts next week; the theory is that Malachy will learn the basic mechanics of bicycle gearing, brakes, steering and so on and hopefully develop his passion further.

I would say watch this space for updates but, as I have never – in my life – been able to even repair a puncture on a pushbike, it could all go horribly wrong…