I have just purchased a new car. It is a make I have never had before and only looked at because I had seen it when looking for a new car for my mum. Driving it is like being in the cockpit of a plane. There are pop-up screens, built-in sat nav, bluetooth, alarms and a multitude of buttons – most of which I have no idea what they do. I was, I thought, tuning the radio earlier in the week but managed to ring my mum instead. It took me five minutes to work out which stalk the rear wiper was on but I did flash a cheery greeting to a number of passers-by whilst looking for it.
When I collected the car and was given the guided tour (which I clearly didn‘t listen to closely enough) I asked about popping the bonnet. “You won’t need to do that,” came the reply. He didn’t mean it in a ‘You should be at home knitting kittens little lady.’ kind of way – what he meant was that no ordinary mortal would even be able to access the engine behind its shiny case, let alone identify parts. Only a highly trained robot is allowed into the world of the modern car heart. This is a disappointment to me. My first car was a Renault 5 (well worn when I got it but full of character) and it was like a Lego car. I could practically take the whole thing apart on the drive – polish it – replace it – and put it back together. Not only did I love that car with all my heart but I knew how to look after it. When the fuel got too low there was so much rubbish in the tank that it would start to feed into the engine. The way to cure that was a high speed trip along a country lane, a bang and a cloud of black smoke and the blockage was cleared. The fact that the country road cut through the middle of the local golf course just added to the fun as the Saturday morning crowd teed off in their plus fours and Pringle jumpers to see a spluttering, backfiring bright red Renault 5 reach the heady heights of 60mph!
When it was time for Sebastian (that was his name!) to be upgraded, I remember looking at a car on a forecourt and the salesman telling me it had electric windows. “Oh no,“ I said, “that’s just another thing to go wrong!“. With my new car I barely need to be present for it to go. It does a little series of checks, puts the lights on if it’s dark, takes the automatic parking brake (American surely) off, puts doors to manual, gets permission for its path from the control tower (I may be exaggerating slightly) and we are off! The gearbox is a dream and driving it is a joy but that is where my involvement ends. I sit comfortably in my leather chair, adjusting the trajectory occasionally and hey presto – I have reached my destination – and am told so by a nice lady who lives in the dashboard. If anything ever does go wrong I shall immediately produce my Kitten Knitting card and get one of those flash orange vans to help
– how liberating!