Austen Allegro

Well, it’s been a while since my last post, but I didn’t really think I’d get as far as I have with writing this blog anyway.

I love writing, but I never seem to be able to keep it up. Believe it or not (why would you not? It would be the crappest lie ever), there are about 5 other blog pages floating around in cyberspace that I’ve both started and discarded, untouched and I daresay unread since I last looked at them.

I find that thinking about this leads me down an eerie path.

In December 1947 we began to discover fragments of parchment in a cave on the shoreline of the Dead Sea in Israel (‘we’ as in people, not ‘we’ as in me and you. At least, I don’t think I was there…… 1947 was a bit of a blur if I’m honest)

These pieces of manuscript were to make up what are now referred to as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest accounts to date of Jewish biblical history in writing. They apparently date back to around 150BC, which, without wanting to labour the point, is fucking old.

Why mention this?

Well, because of our incessant need to modernise (‘our’ as in people’s, not ‘our’ as in mine and yours. I still think file’o’faxes are a good idea), in two thousand years from now – long after every computer and every server in existence has crashed or died – unless it has been successfully copied, the vast majority of digitally written information we currently hold will be lost…… forever!

No one is going to dig up a Kindle in 2,000 year’s time and be able to use it to discern anything about how we lived over two millennia ago.

The same goes for pictures. We’re going to lose them too.

Hardly anybody makes hard copy prints of pictures any more. Photo albums are already becoming a thing of the past. As we plough on and continue to digitise everything that we produce, in 2,000 years there could well be no pictorial or written evidence that a civilization from our great grandchildren onwards ever existed if we don’t successfully copy the information we produce.

While the thought of this is slightly unnerving, thankfully it does mean that in 4012 it’s likely that no one is going to stumble across my mainly pointless internet based musings, and use them to construct a model of 21st Century life. I wouldn’t be doing us justice.

So, safe in the knowledge that my cyber ramblings will not survive the test of time, I will continue to brain-spew every now and again as fancy takes me.

I’m beginning to regret being so specific with this blog. I can usually think of a ton of stuff to drivel on about, but to try and squeeze it into a framework that involves cars, something that I don’t actually care about that much, has really managed to stifle my creative juices.

Whilst I fell in love with the idea for this blog, the trouble is that while I do get to drive a load of motors, 90% of them are just average, run of the mill, boring cars. Who wants to hear about an old VW Passat? No? What about a Vauxhall Zafira? Hmm? How about a Ford S-Max? I’m boring myself here.

I’ll give you an example of how much of a poor choice cars are for me to write about:

My grandma had an Austen Allegro when I was growing up. I have such fond memories of that car. It was green with a rectangle steering wheel and I used to sit on the bonnet (when it was parked, I hasten to add……. Not as some kind of dreadful punishment). That is my review of the Austen Allegro in its entirety.

I recently briefly considered purchasing an Austen Allegro for purely nostalgic purposes, only to discover that The Sun ran a public poll in 2008 which voted the Austen Allegro as the worst car ever made. Ever Made! That’s how ill suited I am to writing about cars.

So what is to become of this blog?

Well I reckon I’ll keep writing, and report on fancy/interesting/unbelievably shit cars as and when I get to drive them, but I think that widening the spectrum of content will do wonders in my ongoing battle against writing apathy.

So from now on you can expect erratic whimsical opinion pieces on pretty much anything that falls out of my cranium. I will try and cram cars into as many posts as possible though. For example, I was thinking of writing a post about Jeremy Kyle, and what type of car I’d most like to run him over with.

I’ve had some really good feedback about this blog, so I hope this change of direction doesn’t dishearten you my dear reader.

I’ll leave you for now with the immortal words* of the great Jerry Springer:

“Until next time, take care of yourselves….. and each other”

*Not to be confused with his other phrase:

“Somebody get me some more Viagra. I can feel my heart slowing down and I’m not red enough”

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Jaguar X-Type (via IKEA)

I went to IKEA on Monday. I hate going to IKEA. It's not the store itself I detest (although there is only so much pleasure one can derive from flat-pack furniture made out of heavily laminated chipboard with novelty Scandinavian names, which I swear are just fabricated at Head Office by making up a word with too many hard consonants and shoving some dots on it).

It's the journey there and back that makes me want to punch the whole of humanity in the face.

When you live in Brighton and you have to - one surely never truly wants to - go to IKEA, you have 2 choices of destination:

1. Up the M23 until you hit Croyden (described as 'London's Garden', mainly by arse holes).
2. Up the M23 and round the M25 until you hit Thurrock (as well as nearly every other car on the road).

Both journeys invariably turn me into a seething ball of coiled rage.

It's said that society is three square meals away from anarchy. If this is true then it would appear that no one in Croyden has eaten in over a week. It’s a place where every car becomes 'The Enemy', road markings are to be ignored at any cost, and traffic lights are just things that happen to other people.

Then there's the parking when you get there.

Whenever I go shopping I find immense joy in parking right at the back of busy car parks, where I always have a choice of spaces. Nothing could be better described as 'smug' than my face as I walk the relatively short distance from my car to the supermarket, as other drivers who got there before me are still swarming round the entrance desperately trying to park as close as physically possible to the fruit'n'veg aisle.

However, because IKEA is constantly so bloody busy, there is always the inevitable game of 'Hunt the Space' to be played, regardless of where you are in the car park. It's fun for all the family.

"THERE'S ONE, THERE!"

"that’s the bit where you park your trolley Ebs"

"ok..... THERE'S ONE, THERE'S SOMEONE LEAVING"

"No, that other car's waiting to get in"

"oh..... THERE'S ONE"

"that’s the trolley park again Ebs".......

So that's Croyden in a nutshell.

Should we head for Thurrock then and take the M25 instead?

The M25. A place where the tail-gater is to be found in his natural habitat, majestically leaping from car to car in an apparent desperate attempt to mate with them.

I used to think that I was being really clever by saying "I hate people who say they hate people for having just one flaw in their character" (I know, I'm a complete prick), and while I still stand by that rather wanky piece of pseudo-philosophy, you've got to work pretty bloody hard to get into my good books if you are partial to tailgating or use your phone while driving.

I shouldn't have to explain why tailgating makes me angry. Bottom line, if you do it all the time there's a chance you're going to kill someone one day. I'd very much not like it to be me thank you very much. The same thing applies to using a phone while driving.

In fact, the sight of a driver guilty of either of these Offences (and they are Offences, with a capital 'O') makes me want to abandon my own journey, follow them home, and put dog shit through their letterbox (which while also being an Offence with a capital 'O', would be Satisfying with a capital 'S').

However, despite making the 126 mile round trip up to IKEA (we settled on Thurrock in the end, as I just wasn't up for crawling through 'London's Garden' in the Bank Holiday traffic), we didn't buy anything!!

The reason we went in the first place was to pick up a set of shelves for Ebony’s bedroom, but I knew that once we were there Mrs W would no doubt want to ‘get her shop on’. I was all ready to dutifully shuffle round the aisles with my customary fixed grin and my boredom fully suppressed.

However, to her credit we headed straight for the shelves and, with a small pit-stop to service a leaking baby, then ploughed through to the warehouse at the end to claim our novelty named laminated chipboard prize.

The moment we saw it in all its flat-packed glory we both knew it would never fit in our car. There may have been some swearing.

Back on the road empty handed then. More tailgating, more phones and for some reason, lots of personalised number plates. I don’t get the thinking behind personal plates. If you want me to know that you like to waste money, why not just throw a handful of tenners out of your window every few miles?

Well, that's me done for this rather ranty post, but I guess I’d better mention a car before I sign off seeing as that’s the whole reason why this blog exists in the first place. 


Let's see, I drove a Jaguar X-Type for the first time last Saturday. It was alright.

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Porsche 911 Carrera

What’s your dream car?

Because I know nothing about the intricacies of motoring, my own answer to that question has no choice but to creep into the realm of fantasy.

What’s my dream car? Well for a start it would look like an actual rocket. The seats would be made of that memory foam that no one can afford. The top speed would induce time travel and it would be more fuel efficient than the sun. Oh, and it would fly.

Well, last night I may not have driven my dream car (which, now I read that back to myself, is essentially the DeLorean from Back To The Future), but I did drive what many consider to be one of the ultimate luxury cars, the Porsche 911 Carrera.

I don’t get nervous about driving posh cars any more. Throw me an £80,000 Range Rover and I’d happily rag it around country lanes like it was a wooden go-cart. Give me a Jaguar XK and I’ll drive you home blindfolded*. But there’s something about a Porsche, something that says “please be careful with me”, which is why I was slightly shaking as I turned the key.

After the initial excitement of driving through central Brighton in a proper sports car, I settled down and started to pay attention to some of the finer details.

For a start, it was a lot heavier than I was expecting. The steering wasn’t exactly hard work, but it wasn’t feather-light either. This meant that while the car is beautiful and elegant to look at, it feels meaty and solid on the inside. It’s the car equivalent of a Beef Wellington.

The engine made all the proper grunty noises when I finally got to open up on the duel-carriage way, but it wasn’t as poky as I was preparing myself for it to be. I found myself sitting in a Porsche 911 Carrera actually being disappointed by its performance. I felt like such a tosser.

I did really enjoy the ride. It was mega comfortable and there’s a certain amount of ego inflation that can’t be avoided in a car like this. I didn’t just overtake cars, I overtook cars. That’s not to say that I was speeding (of course I wasn’t) but there’s something to be said about knowing that you are definitely driving the fastest car on the stretch of road you’re on. It’s quite a sensation.

The dashboard looked like KITT from Knight Rider and this made me very happy.

For a reminder of both that dashboard and David Hasselhoff’s abysmal acting, please watch this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb6dswG-nKw

So, in conclusion, I like the fact that I can say I’ve driven a Porsche 911 but I think that ultimately the full experience was wasted on me. I’m sure there are a million people out there who would happily sell their own grandmother for a car like this, but I’m just not one of them.

It’s just a car!

That said, I’ve driven a Porsche 911 Carerra. Ha!

*may not be 100% factually accurate.

 

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Bauer FX3 Roller Blades

It’s been a bit of a quiet week in the world of Chauffeur Monkey. Last night I did the same job for the same people in the same cars as my last post, so there’s not much to say that I’ve not already said (except I got back later because the Dartford Crossing was closed at 2 in the morning – riveting stuff no?).

However, seeing as I’ve been well and truly savaged by the ‘writing bug’, I thought I’d have a little meander off the beaten track and talk about my roller blades while I’m waiting for another posh car to dribble over.

Now, pray excuse my impending self deprecation……

I don’t think I’m actually very good at anything. That’s not to say I can’t do anything, I can do loads of stuff. I can juggle, play the guitar, do card tricks, converse with old people, make daisy chains, put up shelves, do a Scottish accent, you know, all the essential stuff. But I’m not very good at any of it.

It’s quite a depressing train of thought to get bogged down in, and it happens more often than I’d like to admit. However, every now and again I chance to recall that there is one thing I can do that may be an exception to the rule….. I’m actually very good at roller-blading.

I’m not world class or anything like that, but I reckon I’m better than you.

I’ve been skating since I was 13, but unlike most grown ups, I have a real problem with letting teenage pastimes go (I’m also still well into computer games and not talking to my parents).

More to the point, I’ve been skating in the same skates since I was 13. My beloved Bauer FX3’s were purchased in 1993 and remain one of my most treasured possessions. To put that into perspective, I’ve been skating in these bad boys since the days of Boom! Shake the Room, Spliffy Jeans and Mrs Doubtfire.

The wheels have undergone numerous changes and I have long since removed the brakes – brakes are for losers (and people who like to stop), but aside from that they’ve never let me down and - at the time of writing - I’ve only fallen over in them twice since I bought them, once in 1994, and the other in 2011. Both times were in front of an unnecessarily large group of obnoxious piss-taking teenagers. I managed not to cry on one of these occasions. I’m not saying which.  

At 13 years old I was convinced that girls loved guys with wheels on their feet. 19 years later I’m starting to think I may have been barking up the wrong tree.

Many a summer’s evening would find me at the local Travis Perkins speeding up and down in the car park whilst wondering what made me look cooler, my skates, my Spliffy Jeans or my new haircut – short at the back, curtains at the front, with tramlines shaved in the sides.

Well, the hair and trousers may have changed – I was going to have to have sex eventually – but the skates, battered and bruised as they most definitely are, have stayed with me and despite my comical age for such activities, I can’t quite let them go.

I know I look ridiculous in them. I know that other parents in the park aren’t looking at me with quiet awe, wishing in their hearts that they were as cool as me. I know they’re making sure they can see their own children and estimating my immediate proximity to them

I know this, but I just can’t let them go yet.

Why? Who knows, but I reckon I should probably set some sort of deadline for when I finally yield to adulthood. I know… When I’ve got more hair on my back than I have on my head, I’ll stop.

……… Hmm, looks like I’m nearly due for my last ride.

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The Mercedes E Class Cabriolet Vs a Honda Jazz

Warning! This post contains trace amounts of ironic sexism. Please do not take literally, there’s a love. In fact, what are you doing reading this anyway? Shouldn’t you be doing the ironing or something?

Every now and again I’m required to do quite long haul chauffeuring work for Chauffeur Monkey, which involves getting picked up in a car, being dropped off at the start point, driving the customer home in their car while the other driver follows behind, and then being driven home again.

Such was my job last night in a Honda Jazz and an E Class Merc respectively, except I opted to drive in both cars purely for research purposes.

The Mercedes E Class Cabriolet is a big, sexy, slick, convertible fanny magnet. That is to say that it’s a convertible car that attracts fanny, not that it's a car that attracts convertible fannies…. Well it might do, but to be honest I’ve no idea what a ‘convertible fanny’ is.

I’ve not said fanny this much since I was about 13.

The Honda Jazz on the other hand couldn’t repel fanny any quicker if it tried. It’s as atheistically pleasing as a skip, only smaller and with less engine power.

No contest, the Merc every time right?

Well, yes and no. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to look unfavourably on a car just because it’s a tad out of my price bracket – between £35,000 and £55,000 for the Merc depending on what buttons, whistles and bells you want thrown at it – but while it may be of enormously high quality and display technical excellence, I wouldn’t know nuffink about any of that, and it’s certainly not perfect in my book.

For a start, the driving seat is so low it actually feels like your arse is under the road. This can make for some sporty fun as it feels faster than it goes (and it goes fast), but bear in mind that I do most of my work in the small hours on empty roads. This thing would be a positive nightmare in rush hour traffic. All the windows are really narrow and in the model I drove, they were tinted too. This meant that not only did I feel like a massive pimp, I couldn’t really tell how close anything was behind me before I pulled out to overtake. I just didn’t feel safe in it.

The Honda Jazz by contrast may as well have no windows at all. In fact, there were times last night in the wind and rain that it felt like it didn’t. The whole thing started shaking if I went passed 70mph, but I don’t really mind if a car does that. It reminds me that I’m travelling too fast, and prompts me to slow down. That’s not a bad thing.

I was surprised to discover that the Merc does on average about 47 miles to the gallon, which I'm reliably informed (by the interweb) isn’t half bad for a car of its size. However the Jazz is obviously better in this department. In fact, I’m lead to believe that the new Honda Jazz Hybrid runs at about 70 miles per gallon on a combination of tea-tree oil and sheer willpower.

The new Honda Jazz also boasts a feature whereby “the rear seats lift up, fold over and lock down in one easy movement”, which they describe as “design flexibility at its simplest. We call them Magic Seats.” http://www.honda.co.uk/cars/jazz/magicseats/

My Fiesta’s rear seats do pretty much the same thing, but I just call them ‘seats’.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang has magic seats. A Honda Jazz does not.

So which car did I actually enjoy driving the most?

Well, the Merc was a fun, fast, flashy fanny magnet. That is to say it’s a flashy car that attracts fanny, not a car that attracts a flashy…… never mind.

However, the Honda Jazz was the car that took me the 95 miles home to my wife, my kids and my bed, and at 2am in the pissing rain, that’s exactly where I wanted to be. I enjoyed that journey, and by proxy, that car the most.

Fanny!

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Ford Fiesta LX (1996)

They say that inside every adult is still a child wanting to get out. This is especially true of me, and it just so happens that the child inside me is the illegitimate offspring of Ray Mears and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Give this inner child free reign, and I would be skinning rabbits, making dens and brewing my own beer out of stinging nettles and grass before you could say “Who are you? What are you doing in my garden? IS THAT MY RABBIT?!?”

Luckily I live with someone who has a mutual love of all things ‘outdoors’ (maybe not all things – we’re still working on wasps), but it’s hardly surprising that we have quite a lot of conversations about what kind of car we’d ideally need to accommodate us and all the camping gear we’ve accumulated over the years.

So, last year myself, my good lady wife and our daughter Ebony were having an ever-so-grown-up discussion over breakfast about which ‘family car’ we might look into getting at some point in the future.

The conversation went along these lines:

“I like the Citroen Picasso”

“Yeah, me too…. Looks like its got loads of room. What do you think Ebs?”

Now I know that children are the adults of tomorrow. However, there are still a few good reasons why they should be excluded from certain avenues of discourse before they’re absolutely ready.

A look of deep thought flashed across her face before she shouted excitedly:

“We should get a Limousine. NO…. WAIT…. CAN WE GET AN ICE CREAM VAN?”

I wouldn’t actually be opposed to driving a Limo. Say what you like about the trio of Smirnoff Ice swigging lady torsos that seem to be permanently attached to the roof of every Limo in every town across the UK on a Saturday night. Nobody thinks the driver is a twat.

An ice cream van on the other hand would be an absolute nightmare. Sure, it’d be pretty roomy and you’d have ice cream literally on tap, but you wouldn’t be able to stop anywhere for more than 30 seconds without attracting a swarm of awful little bastards hassling you for a 99 with six flakes and a cider lolly for dad.

She just wasn’t thinking it through, so I sent her to her room.

We have these conversations more regularly since I started working for Chauffeur Monkey (never a dull moment round our gaff) and although I have now driven most of them, I still don’t really know what family car we should go for.

“But the Ford Fiesta LX 1996 isn’t a family car” I hear no one shout.

Correct. However, it’s the car I currently own and the one I regularly stuff – there’s no other word for it – my family into for various trips and outings in and around East Sussex. It’s not a big car. In fact, it’s kind of like the anti-TARDIS what with it being smaller on the inside that it would outwardly appear.

It’s due for its MOT soon and I’m dreading it. I’ve done nothing to maintain it since I bought it for £500 last year. No, that’s a lie. I topped up the windscreen washer fluid about 3 months ago. Not that this makes a blind bit of difference as the windscreen wipers are so old that they’ve grown thin strips of vegetation along their length. I think that every time I use the jet I’m actually just watering the wiper-garden.

There’s no power steering. I guess I shouldn’t complain about this, as performing 3 point turns may well be the only effective exercise I currently do, but it’s just not right in this day and age. I mean it’s got a tape deck for fuck’s sake (although this has meant that I’ve been able to continue listening to a tape of me doing an old school rave DJ set on a local pirate radio station in 2001. With the exception of my children, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever made).

Despite all of its shortcomings, I’ve not had a problem with it in the year that I’ve had it. Considering it’s nearly 17 years old, the engine always starts and it gets me from A to B. It would justifiably wear the classified ad slogan “Ideal first car”.

I think when it finally dies I’ll miss it in the same way that Ebony missed her late Hamster Martha:

“Ebony, I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news…. Martha died last night”

“……..*sniff*……..”

“I know its sad darling, but she died in her sleep so it was quite peaceful”

“……..*nods*………. Can we get a Gecko?”

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Range Rover Vogue SE TDV8

When I first started at Chauffeur Monkey I genuinely hoped for 2 things:

• I hoped that I never have to drive a left-hand-drive car, as I’m convinced I would instantly crash it; and

• I hoped I wouldn’t drive too many big tank-like 4x4’s

I can happily report that the former hope is still intact – I’ve yet to drive a leftie - however the latter hope has well and truly been dashed against the rocks.

I don’t like 4x4’s!

To kick off the first of many anti-Clarkson type rants I expect I’ll have, I think climate change is a very real thing and I’m all up for people and companies taking personal responsibility for it. The Range Rover Vogue TDV8, like most 4x4’s does about 25-30 miles to the gallon at best. A quick Google search reliably informs me that the average UK car miles per gallon is about 37.

To me, this can mean one of three things. The average 4x4 owner:

1. Knows the effects that driving their car has on the environment, but doesn’t care
2. Doesn’t believe in the effects of Climate Change, so doesn’t care
3. Actually needs a 4x4

Seeing as the average 4x4 driver is not, in fact, an arable farmer, I wish to have option 3 stricken from the record m’lud.

That said, I have now driven more 4x4’s than anyone I know. I’d like to tell you that I offset this affront to all the morals I hold dear by planting a tree, or adopting an orphan, or something equally ethically worthwhile every time I drive one.

I’d like to, but I can’t.

I can’t, because the truth is…….. hold on….. the truth is……wait……I can’t quite seem to swallow this bile…. the truth is….. I.. quite… like…. driving them.

(With the exception of yours Ange, sorry but it’s horrible. Clutches should not have to be depressed with both feet – No wonder your knee is buggered).

I like driving them first and foremost because I feel safe in one. The Range Rover especially is, as previously ranted about, a tank. And tanks are safe.

Another quick Google lets me know that an actual tank will set you back about £30,000,000 so the Vogue TDV8 is a snip at about £80,000 for a second hand one.

I wouldn’t try and invade Afganistan in one though.

Secondly, every one I’ve ever driven is ridiculously comfortable. It’s like driving a sofa. This might not actually be such a good thing as I can imagine that there is a real danger of falling asleep at the wheel on long journeys.

The dashboard is unnecessarily digital. That is all I have to say about the dashboard.

It’s got all the bits & bobs & whatnots that you’d expect from an 80 grand car including:

Automatic lights (and auto full beam lights as well – that freaked me out), automatic windscreen wipers, rear view camera, in-built SatNav, in car hands-free phone connection, heated seats, rear DVD player and a device which performs felacio on you as you drive (well, it might as well have).

With all that in mind, I think the question you really need to ask yourself is:

If I had £80,000 would I spunk it on a Range Rover, or would I go on holiday…… forever!

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Who am I? Why should you care?

I’m a nobody. A statistic. A blip on the radar of existence. I’ve wandered aimlessly through life’s more labyrinthine corridors searching for ‘That Certain Something’ that would send my life into vertical takeoff.

Perhaps ‘searching for’ is too strong a phrase….. ‘prodding around lazily for’ might better suit my general level of apathy.

In other words, I’m probably you! (that is if you happen to be a married 32 year old father of two called Jake from Brighton. If not then I’m probably a bit like you.)

I hope you haven’t formed the impression that I’m a miserable sod. Far from it… I’m just a realist.

For a start, despite the clichés pertaining to ‘the old ball and chain’, and the perceived perpetual life ruining properties that children seem to posses, I’m very happily married and I love my kids. I just don’t do anything!

I have friends who do things.

Take my mate Luke for example; Speaks 2 foreign languages fluently and will forever speak English better than me.

He lived for a few years in Japan (one of his fluent languages…. I know, what a twat). His work and hobbies there included: Teaching kids English, jogging in the mountains, snowboarding, karaoke (a dubious pastime but he assures me it’s a hoot), making new friends, you know, doing something.

Then there’s my friend Johnny; Works in Africa as some sort of charity coordinator. He comes home every now and again and it’s always a real pleasure to see him, but I can never feel totally at ease in his company. The man exudes too much job satisfaction for my neuroses to deal with. If a man’s wealth could be measured by the amount of lives he has touched then Johnny would be one of the richest people I know. He does something!

I don’t do anything!

Well, that’s not strictly speaking true……. There is this one thing……..

Bit of background; about a year ago my wife and I discovered that she was ‘with child’ again. After a 9 year gap between then and our first child in 2002, we were slightly more relaxed and at ease with the situation, and positively warmed to the idea of the pitter-patter of tiny feet.

By contrast back in 2001, when we first discovered we were going to be parents, we were both only just out of our teens and I think it’s fair to say that I spent the first 3 or so years of fatherhood joining my daughter in the act of continually shitting myself. That’s why I was so thin! (to those who knew me then and are witness to the sack full of kebabs, pies and gravy that I have become).

Anyway, here we were again in 2011 facing ‘Mt Parenthood’, but this time we had all the right equipment, and weren’t attempting to climb it in shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops.

Now children don’t come cheap (this is not actually true, they don't cost that much to acquire - some can be purchased for as little as 5 WKD Blues. However, it’s the maintenance that can be on the pricey side).

In order for my wife to take a full year’s worth of maternity leave, muggins here had to look into getting a second job to pay for it……. But what a job I found.

By day, I’m a Pointless Desk-Based Pleb (official title) for the public sector. By night (and weekends), I’m a ‘Chauffeur Monkey’

www.chauffeurmonkey.co.uk

Here’s how it works – You’re out and about anywhere in East Sussex and you drive to your favourite country pub/restaurant/golf club/brothel/etc in your own car. You then get as smashed as you like, call Chauffeur Monkey and I turn up on a modified Honda Z50 Monkey Bike.

The bike breaks apart, folds up and goes in bags, which I then throw in your boot, and drive you home in your own car.

It’s the best job I’ve ever had!!

Since starting last year, I’ve now driven quite literally hundreds of different cars. But here’s the thing….. I still don’t know anything about them!

That’s not to say I can’t recognise different cars apart from each other. I know the shit out of that now, much to the continued and ever increasing annoyance of my wife.

“That’s a Skoda Octavia…. I’ve driven one of them”

“That’s a Toyota Corolla….. I’ve driven one of them”

“That’s a BMW 5 series….. I’ve driv-“ “SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!”

“Yes dear”

No, it’s just that I don’t know anything that one probably should know if they did the sort of job that I do. What’s ‘torque’? No idea!, What’s the meaning of having a bigger litre engine? Buggered if I know!, ‘traction control’? Don’t know, but I know that if you turn it off the car instantly becomes much more dangerous to drive….. why did someone invent that?

So now I reach the point of this blog…

Last week I was enjoying a rare outing to the pub and I fell into the now familiar conversation with a friend.

“So Jake, what’s the nicest car you’ve ever driven”

“Jaguar XFR100” I said without hesitation, expecting the quiet awe that the answer usually provokes…….mainly because no one has heard of the XFR100, but I said ‘Jaguar’ so it must be a top notch motor.

But instead my friend said something I wasn’t expecting at all – “Why?”

I was stumped. It’s certainly the quickest car that I’ve ever driven, but does that make it the nicest? Probably not!

So what does make a car nice to drive? Speed? Comfort? How many cup holders it has? What celebrity voice the Sat-Nav directs you with? I have no idea!

“You should write a blog” another friend says, “You could be like the Anti-Clarkson”.

I instantly fell in love with the idea…. A blog of car reviews written by someone who knows bugger all about cars. I’d read it!

So here goes…. From now on I’m going to be taking notes on all the cars I drive for Chauffeur Monkey and letting you, my faithful reader, know what’s hot and what’s not in the world of motoring-without-a-clue.

Welcome to Bottom Gear!

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