On The Road | Head Rambles

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Harnessing the dog

Grandad July 13th, 2011

I went shopping yesterday.

Sandy came too. In fact she drove to the shops as the warm weather was making me sleepy.

Normally, when we get to the shops I get out and Sandy stays in the driver’s seat. She is very proud of that seat and will sit there huffing at people as they pass by, Quite often she draws a small crowd – “Ah! Would ya look at the dog! It thinks it can drive.” This pisses Sandy off mightily and quite often she will run those people over on the way home.

Anyhows, Sandy usually only comes with me when I am going to the coffee shop.This time was different. I had decided to buy her a safety harness as she has this habit of smacking her nose off the dashboard whenever I stop suddenly or run into someone. Naturally I had to buy her one that fitted, and that meant bringing her into the shop with me. Unfortunately she got the idea from somewhere that she was at the vet so she wasn’t very cooperative.

After several fittings, we found a harness that fitted her perfectly. Then I saw that the shop also sold those poo-gathering yokes. It occurred to me that one of those might be handy in France as we shall be staying in rented accommodation and it don’t want to leave it full of crap. I’m thoughtful like that. There were two types of poo-gatherer – a short handled version and a long handled version. I asked Sandy which one she preferred and she said that quite honestly she didn’t give a shite either way. I bought the short handled one.

Before heading home, I put Sandy’s new harness on. I had to drive as she now couldn’t reach the pedals. She sat there looking rather annoyed as I drove home.

On the way, I decided to test the harness. There was no point in just jamming on the breaks, as I knew Sandy would just brace herself. So just to catch her on the hop I ran into the back of an old biddy in a Fiat Punto. The harness worked perfectly, which is more than can be said about the Punto’s rear bumper.

Sandy has become very attached to the harness now and insists on wearing it all the time.

She is already muttering about going back to the shop for matching accessories.

She can fuck off.

Typical bloody woman!

No charge

Grandad June 13th, 2011

I’m having a wee spot of bother with the old motor.

Last winter, I occasionally had to charge the battery. There was nothing strange in that as quite often I wouldn’t drive far enough to recharge it after a cold start.

Winter passed into spring and I was still having to give it a bit if a boost with the old charger. It became a fortnightly chore. As the weeks passed fortnightly became weekly and lately became daily.

I don’t mind having to charge it, except that I occasionally forget it’s on charge and leave it out there with the engine open to the elements. After a few rainy nights, I now have a nice clean engine.

The time has come for a new battery.

One thing that struck me about all this faffing about with batteries – what the hell happened to the good old starting handle? In the Good Old Days, if the battery was dead, you simply rammed in the starting handle, gave it a couple of cranks and away you’d go. Also there used to be a wee ammeter on the dashboard that warned you if the battery was charging or discharging. And if they say that there is no need for these gizmos these days as batteries are so reliable, then I would like to point them in the direction of my car.

Of course the Brain Dead and the Alarmists are constantly shouting these days about electric cars. They are “the way of the future”.

Hah!

I’ll tell you one thing.

If the car of the future runs on batteries like mine, then we are all fucked.

Bongs and bings

Grandad May 4th, 2011

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had a new SatNav.

For various reasons, I haven’t been travelling too far, so I just brought Roger with me so I could practice shouting at him.

Last weekend however, I found myself travelling somewhat further abroad, and it involved some motorway driving.

I was merrily pootling along and wasn’t too far from the exit I was aiming for, when Roger gave a loud BONG. Nothing else, just a single BONG. I gave him a dirty look, and then realised why he had BONGed – the screen was now showing a picture of the exit ahead, and it showed dirty great arrows in the lane I was supposed to take. How the fuck did it know what the junction looked like? Don’t tell me that it has pictures of every fucking junction in Europe because I would find that very hard to believe. The picture was pretty accurate except for one thing – it didn’t show the Oul Biddy in her Toyota that I carved up before swinging across and making my exit. So it’s not that smart. Hah!

Another thing that annoyed me was that it kept binging at me. BING BING BING in quick succession. It was irritating to say the least. What’s more I couldn’t immediately find out why it was BING BING BINGing all the time. Every couple of hundred feet it would merrily BING BING BING for no apparent reason whatsoever.

Then I realised what was wrong with it.

The little fucker was complaining because I was exceeding the speed limit. The little fucking shit. It’s bad enough having the Nanny State moaning constantly on television that ‘speed kills’ but now Roger is in on the act too.

Somehow I am going to have to try to find some way of overriding that speed limit BING. It’s too fucking annoying.

My SatNav has become a SatNag.

Wojah weebawn

Grandad April 21st, 2011

One or two of you may remember that I wrote recently about the death of Roger.

For the one or two of you who give a shite, Roger was my SatNav who faithfully navigated me around Ireland and France, and did his best to kill me in the process.

I decided I needed Roger as we will be trotting off onto the continent again this Summer, and I confess I find it quite difficult navigating motorways while reading a huge Michelin map at the same time. The map tends to obscure the view.

The new Roger arrived the other day. The main reason I chose the model is that it has a larger screen, but it does have some other interesting features. One of those features is voice recognition. Naturally I had to try this out.

“Howya Roger” I shouted at it.

Nothing happened.

I tried a few more times, and eventually Roger responded, but only when I was holding the yoke in front of my mouth and yelling at the top of my voice. Not good.

I tried it again yesterday, while our K8 was in the car. Naturally she wasn’t impressed. She rarely is. She asked if I had to train it, and I said that no, it was supposed to understand me straight away.

“Maybe it’s your accent?” she suggested.

I pointed out that I don’t have an accent.

She replied that maybe that was the problem. She asked what options there were. I replied that I was given a choice of a load of languages including English [American] or English [British]. She asked if there was an English [Ireland] and I confessed that there wasn’t.

“There’s your answer” says she, “Try using an English accent”.

I tried that out last night. I tried a Geordie accent. No joy. I tried a Brummie accent [reputed to be the ugliest accent in the UK] and fortunately that didn’t work as it gave me throat ache. I ran the gamut of the various accents from Norfolk to Cornwall and eventually Roger started responding.

The English have a peculiar habit of losing their Rs, unless they are from the West Country. [No jokes about knowing their Rs from their elbows, please…] I ended up sounding like a Public School Jonathan Ross on steroids.

“Aaah yoo theyah, Wojah?” I would shout. And Roger would respond. Every time.

“White Wojah! Diwect me to the jolly old pub” I would shout. Roger would resume his muteness.

I can see I will have my work cut out training Roger.

Or maybe I’ll just go back to tapping the screen.

*sigh*

Safety my arse

Grandad April 19th, 2011

There was an item on the news last night about those fucking “Safety Cameras”.

I never heard such a load of horsecrap in all my life.

“These vans are there to save lives and not raise revenue”

Bollox.

Those vans haven’t saved a single life and they never will. Motorists aren’t going to change the habits of a lifetime just because of the off chance of being caught by one.

Time and time again, I have argued that speed does not kill. Bad driving kills and that has fuck all to do with speed. Which is worse – a driver doing 60 in a 50 limit on a clear stretch of road, or a driver overtaking at 30 on a blind bend? Speed is only dangerous if it is inappropriate under the circumstances and those circumstances cannot be determined by some jobsworth in the local council who decides to introduce a limit.

The idiot in the film is delighted that they have increased ‘detection’ by 60%. Of course he is delighted – that is a 60% increase in revenue. And have they saved a single life? Of course not. Not unless a bloke was just about to do something reckless and stopped when he saw the van.

The authorities know damn well that the vans are just money boxes on wheels. Why else would they be going to such pains to tell us that they are not? We have that irritating advertisement showing lifebuoys that turn into cameras to try to convince us that they are to do with safety. They just call them ‘Safety Cameras’ to try to give a cosy cosy impression that they are there to help us and keep us safe. If anything, they are liable to cause accidents, as drivers will be concentrating on the possibility of a trap instead of concentrating on the road.

What a load of shite.

van1
Money box on wheels