The Lake District: a police state, apparently

ONE of my mates is convinced we’re living in some brutal and unfair police state.

She’d felt the full force of the police – that’s a £60 fine to you and me – for breaching the laws of the land, and reckons it’s all the fault of evil, target-hungry coppers. The only problem is, I agree with them.

Her crime was not being bothered to belt up, which I honestly think is one of the riskiest things you can do on the road, short of being drunk or drugged up. The last thing I’d want to do is pretend I’m a brilliant driver dancing around gingerly on the moral high ground – I’m not – but a £60 fine probably wasn’t enough.

I took a break from being a Champion reporter last Friday (even journalists get holidays sometimes) and headed for the Lake District, and at least twice on the rutted rivers they call roads up there I remembered why cars have seatbelts at all.

The old chap in Hawkshead who reversed his van into the side of a line of traffic – my car included – luckily didn’t do any damage, but I still breathed a sigh of relief that nobody was hurt. I had a couple of words with him about his breathtaking stupidity, but I don’t think he liked either of them.

But worst of all was Mondeo Man, who dawdled onto a busy dual carriageway somewhere near Barrow. Despite it being a 70mph road, he stopped dead in the outside lane, and I’m glad my usually hopeless drum brakes actually worked for a change. The consequences of ramming a modern motor with a machine made mainly from rust and gaffer tape doesn’t bear thinking about.

I don’t believe speed is the main cause of accidents – usually it’s hitting things – but I know I’d want to be strapped in if my luck ran out. The boys in blue weren’t being unfair to my Facebook fury friend, but trying to save her life.

£60 to stay alive? Probably a price worth paying.

F1? Pah, this is much more exciting

I'VE just missed F1's most exciting race in ages.

Ferrari clutching its first win all season, Brit favourites Button and Hamilton both out in the early stages, Brawn's dream-come-true turning slightly more sour; I saw none of it, and I don't care.

While all of you were cheering Jenson on from the living room, I was stood in a mucky field just outside Carnforth, being rained on. My palms were plastered in the rubbery filth you only ever find on the tyre treads of decades-old HGVs, and my eardrums were knackered, destroyed from hours of sonic bombardment. Yet I was missing F1 for something much more exciting; banger racing!

Warton Stock Car Club is like some Arctic Monkeys ripposte to the stadium-rock smoothness of the F1 world tour, and about as noisy. You stand by some terminally rusty steel fencing - forget anything so sophisticated as seats - scoff chips, and listen to what used to be Ford Capris blow your ears to pieces.

And that's just the warm-up act.



Sure, sitting down to watch Brawn win is a nice afternoon, but if you want a great one you want to see fifteen caravans get torn to pieces in a matter of seconds. Actually, you need to, because no televised motorsport is this much fun. It's not big and it's not clever, but I haven't laughed so much in ages.

A friend our little group had gone along to support had spent hours decorating a dying Volvo V70 and stupidly-named caravan - Rapier Sprite or something - in the sort of dazzingly bright colours that haven't been seen in F1 in years. Both were ruined beyond recognition within a minute, and the crowds loved it.



Forget watching F1 from the sofa. Get out there, watch the Sierras and Granadas go out in style, and laugh yourself silly.

Or tape the Grand Prix, and do both...

Gearing up

EARLIER this week I was given the Holy Grail of aspiring car scribes.

It's hardly got the most exciting title but The UK Motor Industry Press and PR Guide 2009 has got something any upcoming Jeremy Clarkson desperately wants - the names and numbers of every motor maker's press person.

While it's hardly Lord of the Rings it does it excite me in my own slightly sad, media-orientated way, because it means arranging test drives is no longer akin to picking up molten lead with bare hands. It's also - at £85 a pop for non-journos - pretty exclusive stuff.

It's amazing how hard test drives, which I arranged a lot of when I worked at the Daily Post in North Wales were, simply because I dealt with dealers rather than press offices.

One Volkswagen review I did was shot down in flames by an over-eager salesman, who said I couldn't possibly point out that the Scirocco's rear visibility isn't as good as the Golf's. Another, working for a BMW dealership, insisted a test drive of a Z4 could be done entirely from the passenger seat. I did eventually get behind the wheel, but only after a lot of persuasion.

Yet many others - Toyota and Ford in particular - were more than happy to throw the keys my way and let me come to my own conclusions. Incidentally, I told their salesmen that while Toyota's IQ is a fantastic car, the bigger Urban Cruiser isn't, and they accepted my thoughts.

Hopefully my latest little book will let me into a world where I'll be able to tell you more about new cars without being pestered by car dealers more worried about image than honesty.

I also got sent a second book, called simply So you want to be a motoring writer.

That could come in handy, I feel.

Hope and glory

AN ATTEMPT this week to break the land speed record for steam machines isn't quite as irrelevant as you'd think.

Sure, steam stopped being in vogue for cars sometime in the '20s but there's something ever so British about a plucky bunch of blokes heading out to the desert, determined to break a record with what's essentially the world's fastest kettle.

You can just imagine these chaps tinkering away in the sheds, James May style, to create the contraption, and despite the last steam record being set an awfully long time ago - 1906, in fact - you just can't help but love them for trying. The fact that one of them is Donald Campbell's nephew only adds to it.

It's people like these chaps who go on to create hovercrafts and Concorde and penicillin, so they need all the encouragement they can get.

Chinese takeaways

WORD this week that Volvo is on the verge of becoming a Chinese takeaway has got to be a worrying way forward for the Swedish company.

I've always had a fondness for the Gothenburg firm; after all, the first vehicle I ever travelled in was a Volvo 340. Stylish it wasn't, but it was safe and dependable in a stodgy sort of way, which is exactly what you'd want if you were a newborn baby.

Everything from the turbo-nutter craziness of the '90s V70R to the C30's annoyingly cool darkened glass bootlid has left me with a liking for Volvo's products, even if some of them look a bit strange. Yet that's the problem; people only like them.

I can't think of any Volvo, past or present, which I'd buy over its immediate - and better - rivals. Even my mechanically minded flatmate, who usually buys anything if it's cheap enough, turned down the chance to buy an S40 for a paltry £100, because better cars were on offer.

And you can forget any illusions of throwing wardrobes in the back; since the Citroen Berlingo and its ilk were invented a decade ago, antique dealers no longer need Volvo estates.

Personally, I hope Chinese car giant Geely gets a better deal out of Volvo than Ford did (although a surprise buyout by IKEA would've been hilarious). Even if it's only for the safety innovations and appeasing frustrated police officers, the world still needs Volvo.

Silly but brilliant

DOES anyone have £20,000 I can borrow?

I only ask because I've completely changed my opinion on Aston Martin's forthcoming city car - no, really - codenamed Cygnet. It's not so much as ugly duckling as an utterly brilliant idea.

Behind the blu-tacked DB9 grille and silly bonnet vents is actually an IQ, Toyota's 67bhp solution for anyone who wants to look stylish in a traffic jam. Its boot is laughably tiny and it costs more than its (far roomier) Aygo sister, but it's brilliant.

The IQ, with its full foursome of seats, is so much smarter than a two-seater Smart, and there's something about its silly dimensions that makes it more fun to hoot about in than Ford's Ka or Vauxhall's Agila. In fact, the only thing that would come close to me writing a cheque for ten grand is Fiat's 500, but for very different reasons.

The Cygnet, though, costs twice that, and blending the IQ with Aston's DBS is like putting roast beef and sushi on the same plate. Either that or a very bad hand at Scrabble. The working title's not exactly racy either; DBQ, anyone?

Yet somehow, in a slightly chintzy sort of way, I still want one. It's just a shame then that even if I did have £20,000 I still can't have one, because they're all going to existing Aston owners.

Never mind. I'll just look forward to seeing Bond chasing baddies in Fiat 500s at the helm of his DBQ...

RIP John Phillips

I WAS shocked to read a story earlier this week from my former colleagues at the Daily Post in North Wales about John Phillips, who was tragically killed at a rally last weekend after being hit by a competing car.

Judy, John's wife, worked with me from the same office in Llandudno Junction when we were both reporters for The North Wales Weekly News, and I can't even begin to imagine how she and the rest of her family must be feeling at the moment.

I know from her that John was a passionate motorsport man and committed petrolhead - one of his most prized possessions was an Escort Cosworth - and the number of tributes left directly underneath the Daily Post's story show just how much he will be missed by the rallying fraternity.

I've also been told that a full tribute to John is going to be published in this week's North Wales Weekly News, due out on Thursday (August 6, 2009), which serves John's home town of Llandudno.

My deepest condolences go out to Judy and her family, and while it goes without saying that motorsport is always going to be a dangerous sport, he died doing something he loved.