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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