Jane’s little Honda does what a car should and causes no fiscal pain. It’s an unrefined and comparatively sluggish drive but what you get for making this compromise is longevity and economy. A practical person, ignoring the popular myth that you are what you drive, will appreciate this. Less so if he is keen to identify himself as a ‘consumer of goods’, which is, to my mind, what a brand focussed lifestyle aspires to. “Hi, I’m Dave and I’m a consumer, strictly designer outlet though, dude.”
Dave could be quite urbane and funny, of course he could, and intelligent to boot but I’d worry if he really thought that a particular set of wheels could really improve his life and make him happier and more attractive even. And yet, if his girlfriend turned out to be prettier than mine, and she admitted that she asked him in for a nightcap because his wheels sang “alpha, alpha, alpha” all the way home, I’d have to ask myself the question again.
This brings to mind a female comedian in Brixton telling of a guy in a wreck tailing her down the street after she paid him no mind, whereas the next dude to hang out of the window of a flash car made her giggly and coquettish. The irony, she said, was that the guy in the wreck was probably a home owner whereas the dude in the Benz...well, that car probably was his home. She said she knew it at the time but rounded the story off with, “you know how it is girls...” I guess those flash guys do too.
Brixton - a world away for me now, as I tow a trailer fan up the M40 early on a Sunday morning. It’s September but there seems to be lot of holiday traffic on the road - cars packed with boxes and duvets, clogging up the centre lane. I’m not allowed in the outside lane with a trailer, so I find this quite annoying. On the Warwick bypass I see a sign for the university and it all makes sense. Grey haired mums and dads are delivering their offspring to university. Most of Middle England is on the move and one day I suppose this will be me, taking my place in the centre lane at 66, years old and miles per hour.
“You’ll be alright,” I’ll offer, to break the pregnant silence.
“Yes, I know dad, it’s only university,” my son will say, hoping I’ll just shut the fuck up.
Later on, the younger one will despise him for a stream of parting tears. But he’ll come back changed and she’ll wonder where her brother has gone. No more tears, like baby shampoo.
But back to the car thing. Motorway driving is so unutterably dull that I find myself looking at cars passing and weighing up my next purchase, even though I’m not planning one. Being bored makes me want to consume, like some kind of flying couch potato. I can’t wait until private car ownership is a curious old-fashioned pastime, which was as bad for your health as smoking and just as expensive.
I’d like to see curvaceous columns erected along the central reservations of the motorway network. A friction-free magnetic monorail installed to transport people swiftly and reliably from hub to strategic transport hub. An electric car/bicycle hire system set up to make up the final/first leg of each journey. There would be no need for a compulsory land purchase scheme, development of greenbelt land or an outpouring of NIMBY protestation.
In this utopian vision, the tarmac below would become a wildflower haven awash with bees. In reality it would probably become an ugly, bellowing truck race, unless the primary function of the monorail was switched, for freight. Shipping containers slipping gracefully through the treetops, putting an end to the heavyweight contest of the slow lane and putting a little pleasure back into car driving. One bumper sticker I saw recently proclaimed, Without Trucks You Get Nothing!, which is in itself a more tantalising and radical proposition.
