The thought’s been simmering this past week and it’s reached boiling point . It could have been triggered by the journalist in a national newspaper featuring her driving lesson. I’ve turned into a boy salivating over scalextric or even earlier, Tonka. Today’s car buying day.
I hire a streetcar and we journey to the largest car showroom in Britain; Cargiant in West London. Sounds like it should be said with alot of echo – CARGIANT. What my GPS says is an half hour journey from East London actually takes nearly one and an half hours. ONE AND AN HALF HOURS. By the time we get there, via a single traffic jam, the idea of buying a car is making me wretch. MAKING ME WRETCH.
Okay, enough with the echoey voices. We arrive at the giant. There’s thousands of them: Imagine IKEA for Cars. Apparently I cannot get a convertible ‘cause “they are not safe.” This drives me slightly crazy and an argument ensues. Then there is the serious consideration of CO2 emmissions . The journalist finds a website which will tell us how green a car is.
Apparently Scalextric is no longer a viable present for a child’s Christmas due to the air miles it took the manufacturer to bring it from China and a Tonka Toy is a waste of resources. And they take up too much space in the home which could be used for more ethical purposes. ETHICAL PURPOSES.
Daytime changes gear to night. And we enter a delirium from the fumes in the warehouses. The wind has been taken from my sails (car sales) and what was simmering is simpering. I give up the ghost and we drive home in the streetcar with little intention to buy as much as fluffy dice.
hey lemn
and the traffic out without the dice is bicycles as much as cars
we wrote a lovely song on Saturday when talking about how life could be better in this city of 16 million souls and the image that we held was that ' we need a hill in shanghai' reminded me of Afrians great poem Heaven is a hill called Hampstead… my my my I iss his great soul… saw THIS IS IT last night … and I miss his slighty mad but mad dancing soul seaking great soul… look at my blog on thelongwalk.info to see pics and stuff man.. see you at the QEH if not before… i need you here with me NOW !!!!
Hey Lemn, a convertible is only unsafe if you crash it. Fugh it all , go for it ,the wind in the hair ,the flies in the teeth, the smells, the being part of it all instead of cocooned in tin-can hermetically sealed isolation.Best of all is night time with the roof down ,the heater on full and the stars above. Priceless!
I used to visit car shows and to drive in my breakaway Honda just to enjoy the view of beautiful cars placed in one place. Off course the traffic is awful but I think “one and an half hours” is not so “much” in London, if you enjoy car shows.