Category Archives: Random Stuff
The Rotties 2012
In line with everyone else at this time of year, I’m going to be handing out awards to my favourite cars. The Rotties have to be the least prestigious awards in the automotive world and I can’t imagine that terribly many Rottie laureates are going to be all that chuffed to be on the winners’ …
An Inadvisable Spectacle
I was recently at Sytner’s BMW dealership in Nottingham. I was doing my usual thing of wandering around, daydreaming uselessly. Dealership staff must be used to people like me who stroll around. I try to take up as little of their time as possible in case a real prospect should come in. I’d hate someone …
Octaviaaaaaaaaargh, Part 2
Okay, stop sniggering at the back there. The fastest two litre, forced induction production car in the world is a Skoda Octavia vRS with the mother of all turbochargers, scaffolding in the back and a set of moon discs on the wheel. evo journalist Dickie Meaden drove it to a two-way average of 227.070mph at …
Rotter, The Driving God Of Low Tyre Wear.
Everyone* remembers Richard Hammond yelling “I am a driving god!” when being more than usually exuberant in a Bowler Wildcat. He was hooning around somewhere. It might have been a quarry. Whenever the Beeb does anything with stretches plausibility, there’s a quarry involved. Okay, it’s usually a Dr Who set and there really isn’t the …
Men Are Weak
Some people are suckers for pictures of kittens doing cute things. In the last week alone I’ve been tickled by a kitten trying to fight its own reflection in a mirror, another kitten having a bad attack of the mads on a bed and surprised kitty. That last one worried me after a while …
Cars For Runners
I’m on the blag. Sort of. Some of you may know that in another life I’ve become a bit of a runner. (Insert joke here about posh bloke saying how chins run in his family and much less posh bloke telling him that noses run in his. Only if you think it’s funny, mind.) If …
Avoiding Miss Whiplash
A Nissan Navara is a big old thing. It’s high and wide and mighty and weighs as much as a small planet. I like it. It’s another one of Those Things I Shouldn’t Really Like Much But Actually Do. Other things on the list include Ginster’s pasties, running until I’m nearly sick and John Prescott. …
Three Peaks, Three-Pointed Star
Some of the staff from Green’s Gym in Cambridge are doing the Three Peaks Challenge today to raise money for the Variety Club. For those of you who don’t know, the Three Peaks involves climbing the tallest peaks in Scotland, England and Wales in 24 hours. On the Rotter Scale Of Stupid Things To Do …
Getting Heavy
I was walking past a car park in Sheffield recently and noticed that one of the restrictions on parking was that vehicles in excess of 30cwt were not allowed to park there. That is just over 1500kg. It was half-empty but that part of Sheffield is more or less one huge car park anyway and …
Swede Dreams Are Made Of These
I sometimes find it difficult to sleep. I can’t be the only one. I know I’m not, in fact. My Twitter feeds are as alive at three in the morning as they are at three in the afternoon and it’s not just my American friends who are still up and wittering on – Twittering on? …