My old driving instructor
December 23rd, 2006 at 20:01

Have I ever told you about my old driving instructor? No? Then gather round, kids.

He was a funny old man. He was 64 when he taught me to drive, and he had all of the age based stereotypes to go along with it. He complained about his ailments, complained about the youth of today- telling me how being a student is a “waste of time” and how I was just “leeching off the state”, and he was a bit racist too.

I say a bit racist: he’d point out black people when he saw them and draw comparisons with monkeys, that sort of thing. Yeah, I thought comments like that died out in about 1930 too. He once spent an entire ninety minute driving lesson telling me racist jokes, and this is unfortunately no exaggeration.

“What does God say when a black person is born?”, he’d say (he told me this joke a number of times)…. “Whoops, burnt another one”- and then worst of all, he’d wait for a reaction, and sort of lean towards me expecting me to burst into fits of laughter.

The trouble was, I didn’t know how to react. I mean, do I confront him over his horrific views? Bearing in mind he was basically in charge of my life, as I was trapped in a car with him, and I was driving around small country lanes ideal for dumping a body, or around towns I was unfamiliar with. I generally opted for a sort of “groaning” noise, as if to say “that’s not funny, you awful racist”, but in a fun way.

What made it worse that on the few occasions where I actually considered what was going on: the fact that I was trying to pilot an automobile through town centre traffic whilst an old man made comments that would look out of place in a BNP manifesto, I actually laughed at him. The absurdity of the situation was funny- the trouble is, he interpretted this as me saying “I find your jokes that perpetuate racist stereotypes amusing, please tell me some more”, so he dutifully complied with my, er, request.

He’d protest when he sensed that I was perhaps not enjoying his humour as much as him “I’m not racist”, he’d repeatedly tell me, “I know as many white jokes as black jokes”, he’d say, before telling me yet another ‘black joke’. This happened constantly.

He was a bit sexist too- he’d often make comments like “look at the arse on her” towards women aged anywhere between like, 14 and 70. He’d also point out the opposite: “look at her, she’s built like a brick shit house“, he said to me on a number of occasions. Needless to say that I tried to remain focused on the task at hand (driving!) as much as possible.

Once, he made me pull up at the side of the road so that he could point at a pedestrian walking along and ask me “do you think he’s gay?”, based entirely on the way in which the pedestrian was walking. Seriously.

I suppose the worst part is that he wasn’t even a very good instructor. It was 15 months before I attempted my first test, and I failed that anyway. I got a new instructor a few weeks later. I think I’d blame his teaching equally as much as my ineptitude at driving for it taking me far too long to learn to drive.

He was a weird old man.

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People at work
November 25th, 2006 at 02:10

The other day, I was talking to a guy at work who explained to me how he’s going to Tanzania for eight months to help a kid with his dyslexia. That’s a pretty incredible thing to do- and even more so from my point of view, as I don’t think I’d last eight minutes. He explained how he’d set up this trip after talking to his priest, and how it was an inter-churchy thing.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t until after the conversation had ended that I realised that throughout the conversation with a guy who must be a pretty hardcore Christian, that I’d been repeatedly exclaiming “God!“, to sort of illustrate how impressed I was with what he was doing (I don’t sound as camp as this makes me sound).

Now, I blaspheme all of the time. In fact, I’ll go out of my way when conversing just so I can slip in a “Christ on a bike!”, or a “Jesus!“, but I feel a bit guilty about breaking a major Christian rule in front of a Christian. I’m not sure why though- I don’t feel guilty about, say, talking in front of silent monks or break-dancing in front of the disabled.

Thankfully, he didn’t react by damning me to hell or anything- even when I asked him if he had an emergency contact out there, before answering the question myself with “…I suppose that’s God”.

It also turned out the other day that since starting work in September, I’ve been working with someone who is a former hypnotist. Lee (from work) told me that someone was a hypnotist a few weeks before I found out his identity, so it was quite a shock when I found out that it was the guy who sits about two metres away from me. He didn’t look too pleased when I asked him if his former occupation is the reason he passed the interview.

Today at work, I had quite a bizarre revelation. One of my colleagues explained how she travels around in her friend’s sports car at 100mph without wearing a seatbelt. I was shocked. I was at a loss to explain this incredible lapse in safety, so my reaction was mostly a series of half-words punctuated by my gaping mouth hitting the desk.

She seemed surprised that I wear a seatbelt- and she went on to explain that she’ll only wear a seatbelt in her car, if she’s driving. What the fuck?

The worst thing was that a number of my colleagues seemed to agree with her about not always wearing a seatbelt, claiming they won’t on short journeys, or if the driver is a “good driver”. There was even a derisory snort when I “admitted” that I wear a seatbelt whilst sat in the backseat of a car!

Am I missing something? Has it suddenly become uncool to wear a seatbelt? Is it the done thing to not bother wearing a seatbelt as long as you trust the driver? Is wearing a seatbelt whilst sat in the back that mental?

Readers, do you wear a seatbelt? Or am I alone in trying to remain vaguely safer?

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Massive Damage
October 25th, 2006 at 13:58

Yesterday at Uni, I parked in a nearby multi-storey carpark, which I’ve parked in many times before- by the time I got back to the car it was later in the evening, and it was nearly deserted. After paying an extortionate £6.40, I got into the car and began driving around the series of ramps to exit the building.

The way the car park is designed means that you have to take a lot of narrow 90 degree turns to go down the ramps. I’ve never been very good at maneuvering the car through tight spots. Going from floor 6 to floor 5, I turned the wheel a hard right, and nano-seconds later heard a screeching sound. The concrete pillar at the side of the ramp was coming into contact with the back of the car. Shiiiiiiiit.

I parked up on the next floor down to observe the damage. Before sending a picture message of it to my parents:

Y’see that big black indent just right of the wheel arch… erm, that shouldn’t be there.

This wouldn’t be so bad if it was my car. It’s my mum’s.

This morning she took it to a garage to see how much it would cost to fix… its going to be over £1000.

I think its a good thing that I’ve got a relatively well paying job. And some free money (student loan) coming into my account in the next few days.

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Broken Car
August 14th, 2006 at 23:42

My parents are currently on holiday in Torquay, for some reason, and I’ve been left at home in charge of Lucy (despite having the 5th most popular dog’s name, she’s my sister) and the car. Unfortunately I’ve managed to successfully break one of them. The one that’s more valuable, and the one that the family need to continue our daily lives. The one who provides the parents with a legacy and makes up the numbers at family occasions.
The car.

I was just about the pull off of the drive, Propagandhi already playing loudly, headlights already on. I put the car into reverse, and then took the handbrake off. Literally.

It made an enormous creaking noise and then it made what I can most technically describe as “bad car noises”.

The annoying thing is that it’s going to be hard to deny that it was me.

The funny thing is – for months there’s been a little blinking light on the dashboard, the purpose of which was unknown to me. I’m guessing it was indicating that the handbrake was buggered. I just assumed it meant that the car was powered up, or something.

On the plus side, it turns out that it now looks like I’ve got superhuman strength, as I can push the car along the drive way, just like Superman would. I’m just a bit worried that it’s going to roll into the house overnight.

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Leftover Crack
August 13th, 2006 at 01:38

I’ve had another excellent evening. This time I was watching yet more live music. I went to the Milton Keynes Pitz again to see the delightfully named Leftover Crack. As you might have guessed by the name, they tend to do shouty punk music about politics and that. Most of their songs seemed to be about killing policemen.

Getting there was slightly easier than last time – this time Bouff and I had satnav at our disposal. On the way there, Bouff wanted to stop of at McDonalds, before, erm, going to see a band who have an album called Fuck World Trade. So we told the satnav to find it.

Now, I love technology- I love forfeiting intuition and paper and putting my life in the hands of microchips and satellites. It’s just a bit of a shame that the satnav took us to an unfinished junction. ‘Lisa’, the voice of the TomTom, told me to “turn right”, so I did without looking to see where I’d end up- there was literally a brownfield site, devoid of life, with only a skip and a few builders tools. I knew I shouldn’t have changed the voice from Tim to Lisa- women can’t navigate, and computerised women are clearly no different.

We finally got to the Pitz, after a terrifying journey that took us essentially blind through a number of residential areas. The first two bands on were both from Leeds… The Mingers and, erm, some other band, the name of which escapes me. They were both rather good.

In fact, here’s a picture of the guitarist of one of the supports doing his thing (ie: playing the guitar):

And here’s a picture of the back of the lead singer of Leftover Crack’s head:

He turned around just as I was taking the photo. Leftover Crack were really good. And they really got the less than half capacity crowd going. Unfortunately, I hadn’t listened to them enough to say “it’s excellent they played x” or “I was rocking out to y”, but they played a good set. The encore had them inviting on stage the other bands and their “roadies”, and having them sit on each others shoulders whilst singing the chorus to the final song. There was almost a party atmosphere- despite the lyrics being about drugs or Nazis or something.

The song wasn’t about how trying to describe a spontaneous act of enthusiasm during a punk rock show sucks any sort of energy or life out of the moment, that the reader didn’t experience anyway.

If it’s a guage of how good they are: I bought two CDs at the end.

At the end of the show, just as we were leaving, the most weird and potentially murderous thing happend. Two girls who were also leaving started shouting at Bouff, who was urinating into a bush at the time, and they asked him if we were going to “[somewhere I've never heard of]“. We wern’t.

“We’ve got satnav! Hop in!”, Bouff cried, whilst my weak willpower forced me to merely make a mental note of where all the valuables in the car were. So I ended up driving at least two miles to a residential area, with people in the car who I didn’t even know. They could have been murderers. I could have been a murderer. They wouldn’t know. They must be mental to have got into a car after blagging a lift from a guy with a ginger afro who was pissing in the street. I don’t think they stole anything- although I havn’t checked the seat pockets in the back, to see if the petrol receipt and Sainsburys carrier bag are still there.

I’m currently taking bets on whether Bouff will log on to their myspace (which he obtained, being the myspace whore that he is) to find out that their hobbies include rape, karate, and car theft. Or more realistically: “music n clubbin & my m8z”.

If the news is anything to go by, they could have been carrying liquid explosives, and have been planning to blow up my car mid-journey.

It was fairly surreal to say the least. I think I’ll require everyone who gets into my (erm, mum’s) car in the future to fill in a basic information form (name, DOB, frag count, etc).

Leftover Crack were good though- and that’s the main thing to take away from this evening. The next gig on my big calendar of gigs is going to be Less Than Jake supported by Capdown and Jessie James, down in Bournemouth. I can’t wait.

I’m going to that one with my dad. Rock on.

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Emergency Stop
July 26th, 2006 at 20:24

I was driving through town earlier on my way back home from the Co-Op. It was a lovely sunny day, so my windows were down, and I was in an excellent mood- so I thought I’d turn up the volume on the car stereo. Yeah, Rock for Sustainable Capitalism by punk/thrash trio Propagandhi is the perfect summer tune.

The secondary objective of this was too look damn cool by listening to rock music whilst driving a car. My mum’s Ford Ka, in fact. Cough.

I fully intended to stop at traffic lights, lean back in my seat, one arm on the wheel, the other perched out of the window. All I’d have needed were sunglasses and a left hand drive car, so I’d be next to the pavement and able to say things like “Yo!” and “Sup!” to pedestrians.

As I was turning up the volume on Propagandhi all the way to ‘13′, I looked up and saw a the rear end of a car hurtling towards me at some speed. Moments later I realised that I was the one doing the hurtling, and I was a collision course with the car in front.

I’d been training for this moment ever since my driving instructor first cried “Stop!”, and tapped their hand on the dashboard. I slammed my feet on to the break and clutch as fast I could, and with a mighty screech, the car began to slow down a bit. After I’d floored both of the pedals, for what felt like hours but was probably just a fraction of a second, the car continued rolling. I was powerless to do anything as I saw the car in front continue to approach me, albeit at a constantly decreasing rate.

At the last microsecond, just before I rolled into the back of the car in front, causing the world’s most gentle collision, my car came to a halt. After spending a few seconds worrying that I might have done something wrong (like nearly causing an accident), I looked out of my right hand window to see an old man. He was a very stereotypical old man- he had a walking stick, was wearing a shirt and you could only see his lips when he had his mouth open, as if old age had sucked his skin slightly more into his mouth.

I was mortified. Here I was, the youth of today, driving apparently wrecklessly, listening to loud popular music. I’d just reconfirmed what the Daily Express has been telling him about the state of Blair’s Britain, and I was no better than a kid with an ASBO, or a chav with a car modified to have (illegal) blue lights, 50 wheels and a batmobile fin. I consider old people to essentially be the zeitgueist when it comes to judging young people, and I didn’t want this guy to think that he’d died in some war to let me drive dangerously whilst listening into unpatriotic music.

In a bid to patch things up, I looked at him, and he looked at me- he understandably looked a little surprise having just witnessed quite an exciting people of motoring. I raised my arm in what would have been a wave if I’d rotated my hand a bit and shouted “Sorry!” in a half hearted way. The fact that I’d not nearly crashed into him seemed irrelevant.

Thankfully, he raised his hand and walking stick and did what could best be described as an “old people smile”.

“Phew!”, I thought, “The reputation of young motorists everywhere, saved“.

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[spunge]
June 3rd, 2006 at 00:18

Last night was excellent- I went all the way to Loughborough Student Union to see who a music magazine may prefix as “ska punksters”, [spunge]. The lowercase and square brackets is how it’s spelt- like Newsnight’s fashionable new logo now uses entirely lowercase. I dragged JD along too, as I knew that as a professional sound technician and someone who can play practically every instrument ever invented, he’d love three chords and shouting.

Getting there was a nightmare in itself- I assumed my photographic memory would perfectly remember the route that Google Maps plotted for me. In practice, I ended up driving through all of the “rough” parts of Leicester (you can judge roughness by the ratio of England flags to houses), and got a scenic tour of the ring-road. After coercing the surprisingly laid back JD into having a look at the map book, he managed to expertly guide me out of Leicester and back on to the A6. We got lost in Loughborough (or, Loogaborooga, to American readers), too. In all we (I’m unjustifiably spreading the blame) turned a journey that should have lasted an hour and a quarter into a two hour marathon.

We finally got to the venue at 10, thinking that we’d missed the support act. As luck, and an elected committee of lazy students who probably get up at around tea time, would have it, the thing didn’t kick off until quarter past ten.

Gandhi’s Flip-Flop, a band made up of seven people, three of whom played brass instruments, kicked off with a cover of Less Than Jake’s Gainsville, Rock City. As you may have guessed from my film reviews in the past, I’m not exactly Captain-Adjective when it comes to describing things. Essentially, it was good, as was the rest of their set: some original songs, another LTJ cover, Five State Drive, and what I assume is a cover-of-a-cover of Reel Big Fish’s cover of Take On Me. They ended on a cover of RBF’s Sell Out. I realise this means nothing to you if you don’t like modern American ska/punk, or are a member of the deaf community.

They were good, and I would probably have bought their CD had they had one on sale (for cheap), although the damning critic within me questions the choices of cover songs, as they don’t appear to be very relevant to the band performing. I mean, I like to imagine the band playing the song have the same “passion” for the lyrics the original band did. I can’t really imagine the seven piece British band going on a “five state drive” or singing passionately about their hometown of Gainsville in America. And they don’t strike me as a band that have had the opportunity to Sell Out yet. I could be wrong.

But don’t get me wrong, if you’re in this band and are searching Technorati for people talking about you, you were good! I enjoyed your set immensely! Well done!

[spunge] though, they were another story all together!

Yes, that’s right! Another positive story about seeing a good band!

I can’t remember what they opened with, but what I can remember was that they came on stage nice and earlier… quarter past eleven. They did a number of songs that I recognised. Prior to last night, I didn’t own any [spunge] albums, and was going on the strength of their one song I’d heard more than once, Jump on Demand. Throughout the show, they kept taunting the audience with arguably their most well known song, Kicking Pigeons. They’d play the introduction, then abruptly end just as the audience got “going”.

And “got going” they did. At the start, JD and myself were standing right in the middle of everyone, only a few feet from the stage. After their first song, the lead singer encouraged the audience to start a mosh pit. As their second song started up, people to the right of me started jumping about, so I shuffled to the left as I was being thrown about a bit. Unfortunately, the group of people to my left started doing the same, and before I knew it, I was surrounded by nutters “moshing”.

Needless to say, I fell over. It was terrifying. Thankfully, there appears to be a kind of moshing-ettiquette, where others around you help you back up, which was nice. This said, I still moved as fast as I possibly could to the sidelines.

Other songs they performed include Ego, Roots, and a punk cover of No Woman, No Cry.

They were dead good- and as I predicted, finished on the fantastic Jump on Demand, which had the audience going mental.

Well, almost all of the audience. I think I’ve got some sort of horrible problem. I can’t seem to express any sort of enjoyment when watching live music (publically, at least). I really enjoyed watching Spunge do their thing, but because I don’t get drunk, and have abnormally large amounts of dignitons (units of dignity), I couldn’t express this in the form of nodding my head, shouting “Wooo”, or even by cracking a smile. I’m just glad that the rest of the audience wasn’t like me, otherwise it’d be quite demotivating to see a couple of hundred people looking “appreciative”.

Long story short: [spunge] = excellent.

By the time we left, it was about half past one in the morning- this may not seem too late by seasoned concert-goers standards, but considering I was facing a lengthly drive home, I was tempted to either pull over in a lay-by and sleep, or attempt in a matter of minutes try and adapt my personality to be more out-going, make friends, and “crash” at some local’s “pad” overnight.

The drive back was much easier- for a start we followed the road signs. Part of the problem on the way there was that I decided to go right at a roundabout rather than left, contrary to the signs, because my mental image of the satellite photo I’d viewed hours earlier suggested turning right to go north… towards Loughborough.

It wasn’t without it’s problems, however- we ended up going through the centre of Leicester through the seemingly never-ending buses only area, including all the way through the bus station. I was quite concerned in case a pig, or indeed any other farm animal or even an officer of the law was to stop us. We were technically breaking traffic laws, and I don’t really want to get points on my license or end up in traffic-prison. Imagine the tailbacks on the queues in the cafeteria!

I got home in the end… at half past two. It was all good though.

Hopefully I’ll be going to see Capdown in a few weeks, so you can look forward to another thrilling gig report soon!

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The Jukebox
April 26th, 2006 at 20:03

I drove into Leicester last night for the second time, with Bouff and JD, to go to a studenty pub or two. Yeah, my life is just one long party.

In terms of driving, it was alright- even navigating the inner-ring-road was okay, apart from some last minute lane changes, which probably broke a few traffic laws. At least my driving was better than another car we saw on the way back- it ran a red light and the camera watching it flashed to take photos. It was excellent.

We got to my university’s area, and I realised that I might have to park at some point. This terrified me as the only parking I’ve done in the past has been either on the drive at home or in a car park where I could just drive over two spaces so that I’m facing outwards again. The only space we could see was on the side of a road, and a space that I’d have to parallel park to get into. Terrified, I got Bouff to get out and watch from the pavement, and I put the car into reverse. I waited until the back of the car had passed the car in front of the space before going into a full left-hand-lock. When the road had disappeared out of the back window and Bouff’s trampled corpse was causing the car to raise up from the ground in an irregular way, I went back into a right-hand-lock and the car was in. Textbook. I even made the cars in front and behind a little more sporty by compressing them a bit.

I’m aware that last paragraph is probably the most tedious parallel parking anecdote you’ve ever read, but it’s the only way I can really communicate my joy at successfully doing this. Much like the surrounding cars literally were (wern’t), I was figuratively on fire.

We went to The Graduate, which you may or may not remember from when I went to see Robin Ince. In the graduate, there an amazing jukebox. It’s hooked up to iTunes or something, and as such has access to practically every song, ever made, ever. So we set ourselves the challenge: who can play the most unbearable or obscure music to everyone in the pub?

We managed to get the following played:

• Vicious Battle Raps by DJ Format
• Straight Edge by Minor Threat
• The introduction music to Planet of The Apes, which is essentially just sound effects
• Ante Up by Bane

And best of all, The Only Good Fascist is a dead Fascist by Propagandhi. Aside from the excellent tune and lyrics (“Swastikas and clan robes, sexist, racist, homophobes!”), the version on the jukebox had about two minutes of telephone-quality spoken word rambling about politics either side of the one minute song.

Everytime a new song came on, all of the other patrons got up and went over to the jukebox to see what the hell was playing. The plan for next time is to get some of the (eighteen minute) background music from The Matrix playing. Or Format’s Il Culinary Behaviour. I won’t rest until the whole pub is deserted because the music is so unbearably obscure/left wing.

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Highland Jaunt
April 13th, 2006 at 15:57

Yesterday I took Heather for a drive- we wern’t aiming to be anywhere in particular, so we just burnt finite oil reserves, releasing the fumes all over rural Leicestershire.

For her first time in a car with me driving, she was surprisingly at ease- even when I showed her my “going fast around hair-pin bends” trick.

The navigation, much like the controlling of the motor vehicle, was not without its flaws. I promised Heather that I wouldn’t paint the female race in a bad light in this blog update, but we somehow, with a woman navigating, we managed to end up in Scotland.

Well, sort of. There’s a tiny hamlet in Leicestershire called Scotland… and just to clarify, Heather was an excellent navigator, and the previous paragraph was merely for comedy value. Honest.

We reached a point in the road where we had two choices- left or right. Right would lead us up a tiny, narrow, uphill dirt track, which as watched we saw a tractor come down (it was that rural), and the left had a road that was made out of tarmac.

Or so we thought.

We headed down what looked like the busier of the two roads. On one side of the one-car-width-wide road there was a tall hedge on top of a small wall, and on the other side, solid brick walls containing houses. As we went down this road, it began to dawn on us that it might not have been a good idea. The main problem with it was that it just came to an end, right in front of a muddy bog of a field. So we were trapped- there was certainly no possibility of being able to turn the car around, and driving into the field facing us to turn around would almost certainly destroy the car- afterall, I was driving a Ford KA, and not a Chelsea Tractor.

After crying, and checking the road atlas only to find the road wasn’t big enough to even be a dotted line on the map, and then crying again, I Heather decided that I had to act. I wasn’t going to let it turn into a sitcom. There would be no instant cut to nightfall with us still sitting, facing on to this field, there would be no irate farmers and no farcicle solution that was staring us in the face all along.

So I reversed about 100m- breaking almost every traffic law in existence, eventually having to pull into someone’s drive to do a three (seven) point turn.

We must have visited every little village in Leicestershire- now nobody can claim that I’ve never been to such exciting places as Tilton, Goadby and Cranoe.

There was one road (with a speed limit of 60mph) that you had to go over a cattle grid to get on to. Scarily, there were sheep standing on the side of the road, with no fence stopping them going in front of the car. It was like going through Woburn Safari Park, albeit with more boring animals.

It was a fun drive really, although I think now I’ve seen enough of rural Leicestershire to write a Thomas Hardy novel.

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Driving: The Full Story
March 31st, 2006 at 23:24

As you probably know by now, I’ve passed my driving test. Hooray! This brings to an end a story arc that has been dragging on for a staggering 21 months. On my test, I got five minors- a couple for speeding, one of hitting the kerb whilst parallel parking (a maneuver I don’t think I’ll ever do again), and another for hitting a child, or something (gears).

I’d like to thank my instructor Sue, my mother, and my original instructor, Bob. And my excellent limbs.
The test itself was largely unremarkable- so when I describe it, I’m going to add in one made up event to make it more exciting.

I apparently had the nice, friendly examiner. Unfortunately, the rain was very “on and off”- this meant that I was unsure whether or not to use the wipers. In the end, I just remarked on the strange weather and sped off, telling the examiner that I was hoping to “outrun the rain”.

My first maneuver was to parallel park. I did it terribly. I swung the back of the car in and didn’t even attempt to straighten the car up- on a second attempt, I did the same again, and essentially gave up on my test.

After a perfect three-point-turn, I did a wheely down a narrow alleyway and knocked over some boxes that happend to be stacked up in it. The examiner said this was so cool he erased some of the other minors I’d got for hitting pedestrians (deliberately).

I was quite worried when I got to a bus lane- unlike the rest of the traffic I drove right into them, because they only operate during certain hours. I’m sure this was more exciting at the time than reading it on my blog- especially as you know the outcome (I passed).
Back to the test centre and I’d passed. To celebrate this moment, I was given a souvenir magazine: Drive On (2006 Edition), which I read on the bus home (!). It’s just like an in-flight magazine, only slightly more focused. It had the same vaguely written articles aimed at having a broad appeal- although it was talking about drink-driving rather than wines of the Mediterranean.

One article in it I did like was the driving abroad one- it was essentially a collection of tips about what you need to do, like carry warning triangles and “Did you know in Belgium it is an offence to race ostriches on a public highway?” (true). My favourite quirky fact was this one: “In Germany drink-driving is less of a problem since Hitler introduced the death penalty for it“! Just thrown in, as if Hitler was a moderate German leader and these laws still existed today. (No, I didn’t think I could go one blog entry without mentioning Hitler either).
Upon getting home, I literally ran (walked) to my mum’s office, where I requisitioned her car keys and drove home on my own for the first time… and it felt normal. Three trips into town and back later and I’d got a tape-adapter to get my iPod going through the car speakers. Needless to say, I put some RATM on loudly, wound down the windows, rested my right elbow on the window frame, and stalled at some traffic lights.

36 hours on, and I’ve done lots and lots of driving. I’ve managed to get lost in the town I’ve lived in all of my life (and had to three-point-turn to get going again), I’ve been to Leicester Odeon, to see if I can navigate the complex system of ring roads, and I’ve been to Kettering Odeon to see if I can go on the A14 without being killed. You can guess how that turns out (I could be writing this from beyond the grave).

On the way back from Leicester, there was a Land Rover going along a dual carriage way at 20mph- I had to go into the right hand lane to overtake him and everything. Looking back at the driver to swear at him, I noticed that it was an old man, and this got me thinking. At what age do people think “Hmm… I’m old now so I’ll drive dangerously slowly”?

That’s right, less than 48 hours in and I’m criticising other motorist’s driving. Hooray!

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