Automatic cars. Can someone remind me why you’d ever actually want one? Are they purely for people who don’t really like driving? The same people who, when asked what they’d do with a lottery win say “I’d hire a chauffeur”? Pah. OK, I can see the advantage if you happen to drive round London a lot, where the average trip requires approximately 23,477,435 gear changes (with 3rd never getting a look in), but out on the open road they’re a menace. Accelerating from 65 to 70 means standing on the go-pedal and revving the proverbials off the poor engine – it’s impossible to accelerate gently, as the car thinks I either want to drive at a constant speed or zoom off like a nutter. As for overtaking on a country road – now there’s a scary experience… I know now NEVER to take my foot off the floor, as the car thinks “Oh, he’s stopped accelerating, I’ll put it back into top gear”. “No!” I shriek, and floor it again. “Ah, he wants to accelerate again, I’ll put it back into 3rd… in a minute… when I’ve finished whatever it is I’m doing… After all, it’s MUCH more important than getting Matt past this truck…”.
For those who like to know – I was in Spalding yesterday (hence the hire car). It’s still desolate up there. The only discernable landmarks being two huge great chimneys at a nearby factory, and the alarming number of huge, flat buildings. I suppose when you have that much spare land it doesn’t make much sense to worry about stairs and stories…
(PS – is it a bad sign when you search for an error code and the only site that Google pulls up is your own? Yes, I thought so…)
huh! it’s as if driving’s a skill…
that comment, of course, comes with a “;0)”
;0)
You know that funny stick thing in the place where the gear lever would be in a proper car? Well there’s no law that says you have to put it in “D” and leave it there. You can use it almost like a proper gear lever and hang on to a lower gear when you’re doing something interesting like overtaking.
And they are useless in London too. If you drive a manual car gear changes are just part of driving (and on a motorbike they are almost synaptic).
The last automatic car I had almost ran me into the back of a bus. It was snowing. The bus stopped on a gentle downhill stretch to pick up some passengers. I slowed down to about 5 mph then the front wheels locked and the rear wheels kept driving me forwards. Luckily I had time to work out what was happening and knock it into “N”.
“Twenty years of schooling and they put you on the day shift”
All that expensive education and you still can’t spell. “Storeys” makes sense, “stories” doesn’t.
Ahh but you see he went to a GIRLS school, thats the problem (LANGTON RULES)
Hey, it was a girls’ school until the year I went there… and then it turned into a plain old ‘school’ (with petty rules and bad IT lessons…) And as for the storeys/stories thing – their are’nt that meny speling misstakes on this bloog, do’nt I get a few for free? ;o)
yeah but’in my day’ it soooo was a girlies school.As the lady said IT is to teach the Girls that the computer wont blow up if you touch it!!!!!!!!!
I an amazed you can spell at all.
Lern to spel at ver gerls skool.
We always knew that his education had scarred him in some ways, but this was enough to make us all cry…..
As for automatic cars, hmmmmmm, it could be argued that I love driving and I love automatics too. ‘Hi Bob, what ‘C’ am I?’
Yup, that’s right, a contradiction…. Eh? Whaddya mean you thought ‘CU (censored for the public good…)
PS Me and the cat will be back in Kent on Weds!!!
PPS Obviously, it’s only ‘back’ for me, Thomas has never been there…..
“Where are you going with that *thing*?”
Well I hope you’ll be informing all homosexual-cat owners of Tom’s arrival. Such court cases can run into millions, you know.
PS – your penchant for all things 4-wheeled is well known. Show me a car you *don’t* love ;o)