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Steve Orme

Trinity Mirror Regionals Driving Force columnist STEVE ORME gives his take on everything from the car with the biggest cup holders (Ford Edge, 20oz) to congestion charges and how your money is spent getting toads safely across the road. It's motoring but not as you know it ...

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March 2007 Archives

The Gord giveth and the Gord taketh away

Posted by Steve Orme on March 22, 2007 11:29 AM

The path to a career in journalism is paved with the cow pats of innumeracy. I have never met a hack who didn’t go a lighter shade of pale green when presented with the need to do sums. Expenses excepted, obviously.
At school I would faint when ever I hear the words: “Now class, if Janet has 13 lemons and Jack is a Khazakstani yak farmer ...”
However I am proud to say this has stood me in good stead to explain the budget.
If Gord-con has 13 sweets and you have 13 sweets and he gives you his sweets and you give him yours you are no better off than before.
That is unless you have driven to school in a large portions 4x4 or a Bentley Fat Wallet. In which case as you were concentrating on your sums, the Last King of Scotland kicked you in the continentals and ran off with half your sherbet lemons.
This, I imagine, he has been told to do by the science teacher in order to make the sky better.
The higher rate of VED is not a green tax. It’s a vote for Gordon tax. A slimy attempt to pander to the masses who have been taught to hate 4x4s. The victims of poor sciece and The Guardian.
It will not take a single luxury car off the road. Because if you can afford to pay for a Range Rover HSE you can afford another fiver a week in tax. Which actually nicely covers the sort of money you will have saved in income tax. You don’t have to be mad to work here but...
I own a Toyota Hi Lux. I won’t pay any more. Why? Because it’s pre-March 2001 and so like a huge number of big 4x4s used by people like me for recreation it is not subject to tax banding. So people on bicycles wearing banana hats can smirk as much as they want but I haven’t been hurt.
As for you Master Brown, take 500 lines: You can fool some of the people some of the time...

Heading in the right direction.

Posted by Steve Orme on March 21, 2007 12:44 PM

Every so often there is a technology that promises the full digital experiece in your pants and threatens to do away with what we have been used to.
Sat nav, the answer to the prayers of all lost souls. The end of the road atlas industry. Publish no more, book man.
Ah, yes, well not quite.
The Phillips Sat Nav Road Atlas is claimed to enhance your outer space experience. It gives 'overviews' and explains how to get the best from your box of tricks.
Sounds to me like the £9.99p book may be an essential for those drivers who really want more than anything to kick the living daylights out of their navigator.
Like that Wogan chap has listeners called TOGs or Terry's Old Geezers, I say we set up a suitable name for drivers not in the first flush. MODs say for Mainly Older Drivers or COGs, Cars Of Grans. Entries please on anything you fancy but on line will work best.

No surprises there, then

Posted by Steve Orme on March 20, 2007 10:24 AM

Yet another essential and world altering survey by an insurance company concludes that men and women disagree which sex is the better when it comes to driving. Actually I think that should have been gender, 'which sex' puts the debate in an entirely different position.
In the survey of 4,000 drivers almost a third of men thought they were the better drivers and intended to prove it by driving very quickly with only one hand on the wheel.
Only five per cent of women agreed and said they would prove they were right by withholding nookie quota until the men saw sense
This is staggering news, considering that around 100 per cent of men and women can’t even decide what colour the sky is most of the time.
And there is no recorded case of men and women even being in the same room when it comes to decorating and 90 per cent of men say the only question they have been asked about a new kitchen is ‘can you pass the cheque book.’
Needless to say science, you know the old global warming boys, is used to prove the conclusion that women make better drivers because they can switch more easily between stimuli. Which, lads, are not a type of bedding plant.
This is down to hormones. And no, she doesn’t want another cup of flaming tea, you moron, my mother was right, that’s all you ever think about, blah, blah,blah.
Men will respond that their role as hunter-gatherers is essentally reflected in a more agressive driving style and an inclination to show the guy who bought the Skoda just what a 315.5XK Blrt can do.
Latest road accident statistics from the Office for National Statistics show that in 2005 almost 172,000 male car drivers were involved in car accidents in
which someone was injured, compared with just over 93,000 female drivers, proving conclusively that there are still, even in the 21st century, there are too many u
What, in fact there are 100 uninsured statistics about.
What there us 100 percent of is too many of is pointless motoring surveys.



Chancellor employs shock taxes - man sheep to die

Posted by Steve Orme on March 19, 2007 10:23 AM

IT is said that for a healthy heart it is good to give yourself a bit of a fright each and every day.
For drivers of four -wheel drives and agreeable large luxury cars today’s morning news went beyond this to defcon 3 heart stopping.
The man who would be king, Gordon Brown, was reported to be thinking of increasing the level of road tax for large cars to £400 per annum.
This on top of council tax bills that seem to support the theory that an Englishman’s home is his castle, or at least a large stately home.
Of course we will have to wait and see but should it be true I can see no more clear an indication that this government’s environmental concerns are not so much about making the sky better as raising taxes for another raft of diversity outreach co-ordinators and NHS key target managers.
Environmental groups - people who still mourn the passing of Che Guevara and think Billy Bragg is Britain’s best ever poet- say this is not enough.
Well it won’t be, will it? Hatred is a terrible beast to satisfy. And that’s what it is about. Hating people in big cars who may have big houses.
The thing is that demonising 4x4s is giving credibility to a lie. Most are no more polluting than an average family car and considerably less harmful than a clapped out Orion form a Castleford housing estate.
Certainly when you get up there among the Bentleys and Astons emissions are on the large side. But then is really conceivable that an extra £200 a year is going to have any effect on that market?
It will have an effect on some poor sod trying to scratch a living hill farming in Cumbria. A Toyota Prius may be good for some things but working the land is not one of them.
The only Panda that is happy in tall grass eats shoots and leaves and I really don't see a Corsa diesel being the choice of a man who relies on healthy carrots for a living.
The HUMMER brand is arriving in the UK with the opening of the first dedicated HUMMER showroom this week. HUMMER will begin selling a right-hand-drive H3 in the summer.

Bob Lutz, GM vice chairman, global product development, unveiled a prototype right-hand-drive H3 during an opening ceremony at the Bauer Millett Hummer facility in Manchester. "Hummer's iconic design and unparalleled off-road capabilities appeal to a wide audience globally. We are determined to build upon the brand's unique recognition in Europe and especially here in the UK," said Lutz.
Great said everyone who loves big 4x4s and likely to make eco-pixies hide under their toadstools.
Hippies everywhere will drop their juggling balls and fall off their unicycles as GI Joe’s taxi comes to town.

Let’s go on with the show

Posted by Steve Orme on March 16, 2007 2:04 PM

Life behind the five-course lunch and other tales of daring do, part three.
Motor shows. Oh my God. Do you know how painfully tedious motor shows can be? Like spending a day at the Trafford Centre only with more food.
Every PR wants to see your grinning sprocket on show day. Every PR wants to feed you as surely as were you a starving refugee.
Oh sure, because it’s press day you can wander about making your own piece to camera uninhibited, although you would be surprised how may 11-year-old ‘journalists’ turn up.
This week Geneva has been the destination of choice. And a few choice words have been written about its lack of PC credentials.
Believe it or not some car makers had resorted to the old favourite; bare naked ladies. Well almost naked.
This had some hackettes up in arms.
However, by far the most serious complaint came from Russell Bray of the Mail on Sunday and WI Gazette.
Mr Bray wrote, “Wandering around the halls of Geneva is a bit like a motoring version of Life on Mars – you’re thrown back into an alien world where all people seem to worry about is having a good time. It can’t last.”
And how good was this time being had? Some people, it turns out, were smoking. Imagine that.
As well as smoking, Mrs Bray pointed out the amount of exposed female flesh draped over the show cars. How very 1970s. Bray, not the girls.
Before the show Nissan sent a note pointing out that its stand was directly below that of General Motors. For a moment I had terrible visions of bloated hacks dispensing with the last unwanted decorative nibble without due care and attention and the funniest Scotsman in the west, Wayne Bruce, Nissan press office boss, getting his kilt in a twist. Och aye the cocktail sausage!

Out of tune in Europe

Posted by Steve Orme on March 15, 2007 2:45 PM

I don’t know what winds me up more, the Eurovison Song Contest or constantly having to dodge the runaway global warming bandwagon.
Do we really want to be associated with people who think it is perfectly normal to dress up in strange outfits and belt out folksey, insular songs about cattle and feckless women? However, enough about the Americans.
There is something worrying about nations using a singing competition to indulge in jiggery pokery to show their disapproval of the UK’s involvement in some of the more difficult world situations. You know, like how to avoid incoming from your allies.
It’s a Knockout was a much better way to sort out tribal differences. Jeu Sans Frontiers, the chance to stick one on a Belgian postman dressed as a playing card. All good fun if you could understand the language. Did anyone understand what Eddie Wareing was saying?
To the best of my knowlege there is no Eurovision entry that deals with sticky, or at least that’s what it may be, underarm of global warming.
If there was you could bet it would blame the UK.
Come to think about it, we are the only European - I use the term loosely - country that does much bleating about homeless polar bears and soon-to-be extinct Columbian beetles. And it’s not us that sets all the sheep alight.
As a matter of note I’ll just tell you that the most carbon-creative car in production is a Lamborghini Diablo and Aston Martin have two models in the top ten as named by the Environmental Transport Association or ETA.
Well done you two!
I don’t know if it has occurred to ETA that without carbon dioxide trees would have nothing to breathe but no matter. I’ll accept that there is a 50-50 chance the planet is gettng warmer what I won’t accept is that you can tax it back to cooler times. Especially if it is not man who is causing the problem.
Still, who are we to stand in the way of a good old bandwagon.

Life in the fast lane

Posted by Steve Orme on March 14, 2007 9:31 AM

Life on the grid is warming up for another Formula One season. A revs fest of skimpy tops and wasted Champagne.
And what better news could I bring you than how to own a Ferrari for less than forty quid. As if that’s not enough for another tenner you can also own your own Michael Schumacher! What a fantastic idea to keep the kids away from the fire.
The only drawback could be acceleration because these F1 masterpieces are made from Lego. Yes, we know all the jokes.
The car, with mini driver and engine is £39.99 while the full garage set up is £49.99.
So why would you want one? Well it’s a good way to while away the time waiting for the Australian GP to start in the rain.
When you’ve put together all 700 pieces here is some Grand Prix trivia to further entertain the family.
On average a driver loses five pounds during an F1 race. On average my mother-in-law loses £5-60p during a horse race.
F1 cars hit 60mph in 2.5 seconds - slightly slower than that lad down the street with the seven-pipe Corsa GTi Asbo.
Downforce technology is so good you could potentially drive an F1 car upside down. I once tried this with a Vauxhall and it’s not the same.
Tyres are the most important variable and are filled with nitrogen. Commentators, on the other hand, are filled with hot air.
GP drivers can quench their thirst by pressing a button on the steering wheel that feeds them water from a tube in the helmet. This, of course, would be an offence at your nearest traffic lights.
Speaking of traffic lights. Races are started by a series of lights on an overhead gantry. That’s a good way to use a gantry.
The one I pass under every day might as well be giving out last nights football results. Not a word about conditions up ahead but constant nagging about mobile phones and seat belts.
Here’s my offer. Post me to most pointless, badly composed or downright stupid messages you have seen and I’ll endeavour to find a prize for the best that’s better than a DVD press pack from Mazda. Watch this space, or somewhere close.

Who ate all the pies?

Posted by Steve Orme on March 12, 2007 4:12 PM

shakira.JPG

Someone called Shakira writes on a pie for charity watched by Erich Schmitt who I have never met, either


I am indebted to Seat for broadening my knowlege of both popular culture and foreign languages.
World renowned, except to me, songstress Shakira autographed a Leon ‘Pies Descalzos’ for charity at the Geneva motor show.
On the face of it I might have thought the car was named after a Spanish food shop in Wigan. On the other hand I have never tasted Spanish pies. I am not even sure if Spanish cuisine features pies. Perhaps the closest they come is paella, which is not a pie at all but a combination of rice, meats or seafood but never, authentically, seafood and meats.
Similarly I have never been offered a Barcelona pasty or a Seville roll. Almost certainly this will turn out to be an upsetting inaccuracy for some region or other of that fine country. Doubtless I have overlooked the famed Bilbao suet pudding, combining offal products and Atlantic shellfish in a centuries-old Basque separatist sauce and once banned under the Franco regime.
Shakira is not Spanish. She is Columbian and it tuns out that Pies Descalzos means bare feet and is the name of a charitable foundation. Text SEAT to 81161 and for £1 you could win the purple Cupra while helping raise funds devoted to finding and providing opportunities for children who are victims of the violence.
I have also now learnt that Shakira’s European tour, which comes to Wembley on Sunday, is called Oral Fixation after her new album.
I don’t know if this is something to do with dental hygiene or eating pastry.
Seldom a day passes when I don’t praise the miracle of existence and wonder at the fine hand life has dealt me.

Are you being serviced?

Posted by Steve Orme on March 12, 2007 9:57 AM

I’m offering my speaking services to the Townswomen's Union of Pram Club Ladies Guild Institutes.
You can get away with murder. One group recently reported an uplifting talk on a gentleman’s replica crown jewels which had to be handled with surgical gloves. The meeting ended with all present concurring that they enjoyed the ‘crown jewels experience.’
Last week the Association of Really Nice Ladies held - and I quote - ‘a sit down fly-past to the theme from the Dambusters’. On my count girls, arms up, chocks away!
They would be sure to enjoy the illustrated presentation entitled A Knocking Bottom End and my anecdotal tale of being shunted up the rear by a man in a BMW.
Cars and motoring are fertile meadows in the landscape of double entendre. The recently deceased John Inman could have had a fine old time with Mrs Slokeham’s big ends and grease nipples had they set Are You Being Served? in a garage. They could have called it Are You Being Serviced?
Meanwhile I leave you with the tale of the man who went into his local service centre looking for a 710 filler cap. Confusion was rife until one of the staff asked him to point out on a customer’s car where this part could be found.
And there it is. Under the bonnet. OIL.

The open road and a 'little' embarrassment

Posted by Steve Orme on March 9, 2007 8:41 AM

End of the week again and another peek behind the dusty veil discreetly drawn over the Champagne-soaked torment of the motoring hack.
Clearly driving and drink do not go together. Not even remotely. Not even as remotely as speed cameras and safer driving.
Therefore the modern car launch is a sober affair often held at the local Friends Meeting Hall over strong tea and a cream bun.
It was not always so.
Have you ever had a Spanish Sunday lunch? It takes hours. A mountain of food is floated off on a sea of red wine and two dry sherries. The last thing you want to be told at the end of this is that there is driving. To a hotel 150 miles away.
So I found myself with my co-driver of too many years Jon Smith, then of the Daily Mail, deciding to sleep off swordfish poached in olive oil with two small glasses of Fanta, on the beach.
One snag. He had brought a cozzie, I hadn’t.
In a flash of special forces genius I decided to put a spare pair of boxer shorts on top another set, reversed so as to protect the innocent.
We walked onto the beach. A young lady, only partially clad, walked towards us. She smiled at the two handsome Englishmen. Her smile broadened until it was almost a laugh. Good Lord, she was laughing! At my front spoiler.
Do you know the Spanish for ‘last turkey in Sainsbury’s?’ She did.

Flatpack houses will be a Mini adventure

Posted by Steve Orme on March 8, 2007 10:17 AM

Do you believe in love at first sight? Sometimes, just sometimes, a test car smacks you hard between the eyes. It is simply right. Intuitively you know this one is a licence to increase market share.
Enter the Mini Cooper delivered on Tuesday.
Now I know there are those who see the Mini as a car that should have been preserved in aspic along with a pair of Mick Jagger’s jock-strangling strides and a Quant mini dress but what a shame it would have been to only have memories of the infamous sub frame and the even more infamous front seats that tilted forward then slammed down on unsuspecting back seat lovers.
The new Mini Cooper is a masterpiece of exterior design with an interior as dramatic as falling off a bridge. Oh, and top engineering with a flawless drive. To find out just what is so special you’ll have to track down one of my columns. But let’s just say it would have been interesting to see, had the 1945 result gone Germany’s way, what they would have done with the Spitfire. The fighter not the upside-down Triumph sports car which was about as clever an idea as naked sunbathing in Basra.
The fact that the Mini’s design, especially its porthole speedometer, striking switchgear and radical use of scrap plastic garden furniture shows how tastes are more adventurous today.Once concept cars were shown to shock. Today I have seen pictures of three from Geneva. The Toyota Hybrid X looks like a tadpole’s head. Seat’s Altea Freetrack is almost old fashioned but the Vauxhall GTC Concept is simply desirable and no madder looking than a Nissan 350ZX.
Anyway sorry, I hadn’t meant to write about cars. Ikea in Gateshead is selling flat-pack housing. No doubt it will be called something like Fishblder or Blashburger. I think they should name the houses Politikat. Or Prescott.
You know, one misplaced screw and the whole cabinet goes wobbly.

What price using the roads in future?

Posted by Steve Orme on March 7, 2007 12:42 PM

Saturday dawned like thunder out of China across the bay. Not because of the party on Friday, because the vision for road pricing had been leaked.
Right, this is how it will work. It won't.
It's all about bands, inner city band, outer and inner suburban bands rural bands and for those driving a Honda Jazz the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. You will be billed for miles driven in each one. So inner cities will be £1.35 a mile, inner suburbs a bit less and outer suburbs less still. The countryside will be billed at 2p per mile for cars and 1p for horse drawn vehicles depending on hay-per-hour consumption and emissions.
Cars will be tracked either through GPS-linked black boxes or more likely the same sort of tags used by regular commuters through tunnels and across toll bridges.
Now here's the really unbelievable bit; all in all, says the transport department, it won't add to the average motorist's annual bill. Why then are we bothering?
More importantly, Friday's 21st birthday party. Not once was I asked what car to buy but there was the obligatory 'what the lad did as a child' story. In this case the twins. They washed dad's car with turps. Got any similar stories to tell? Tell 'em here- but not the ones about video turps

Green, green grass of Honda

Posted by Steve Orme on March 7, 2007 9:48 AM

What a splendid green initiative from Honda Racing. This season, instead of the more usual plugs for fags and condoms, the team livery is a world map made up of the names of environmentalists, albeit microscopically.
See, saving the world can be fun. especially at 200mph. Jensen will still have his mitts on a five-to-the-gallon V8 but he will be making it clear to everyone with very good eyesight that the sky is dying and any day now the Gulf Stream is going to flow down the middle of your street.
Of course cynics are claiming this is the equivalent of Caesar getting the Christians to sponsor a lion. One critic said it was like tobacco funding cancer treatment. Which is exactly what it does. We call it tax.
Honda has been accused of simply getting on the green bandwagon. And why not. Everyone else has. Those who want to have their name on the car can make an environmental pledge or donate to a green charity. Driver uniforms and transport will still have cash generating corporate sponsorship. So don't worry Ruben Barrichello will not be taking his own sandwiches to practice.
Team boss Nick Fry says climate change is the biggest worry for us all and F1 is not immune. I would argue that his biggest worry is probably Renault and maybe Ferrari.

At last it’s poets day

Posted by Steve Orme on March 2, 2007 10:09 AM

What I think we should do every Friday is take a look behind the £50,000 Audis and five-star car launches at the reality of life as a motoring hack.
For instance, Seat press office rang yesterday to ask if a driver could collect the Altea XL as early as possible. What Car? needed it pronto so it would have to be valetted, fuelled and not least driven to the south east.
OK, meet me at 8-15am at our Ormskirk office and I’ll get the Titfield Thunderbolt into Liverpool.
The collection driver started ringing me at 6-35am. Sadly for him my mobile was switched off until 7-50am. Somehow he had received the message that I would be meeting him at 7am.
At 7am I was busy meeting Kelly Brooke on a dreamy silver-sanded beach.
Eventually we met up. He with a bacon butty, me with a set of keys. Done deal.
Er, not quite. Just after the Morning Murder Express pulled out of the station he rang me: “Did you notice anything about the tyres?” Oh, yes, nothing gets past me. There were four of them. All black.
“It’s just the one of them is a bit flat, well a lot flat.”
That will be what we in the trade call a puncture.
“I’ll have to try and change the wheel.”
Correct. I can’t quite reach from here.
On this performance I reckoned the last people who would get a call would be at Seat so I tipped them off.
And sorry to the lads at What Car? if they had to hang around after lunch. Next time I’ll sleep with my Bluetooth in clutching a puncture repair kit. Just in case the pneumatic Ms Brooke rings.

Who’s afraid of the big bad Brown?

Posted by Steve Orme on March 1, 2007 11:19 AM

To Buraston, Derbyshire, a golf course with a Toyota factory tacked on to it. Chancellor Golden Brown is launching production of the Toyota Auris, which is rather like employing a fox to open a chicken farm.
Imagine all those taxes, Gordon, because this is a car that will be a major seller.
Confident? I have even told my mum to buy one. The last car I told her to buy was a Chrysler Neon. The name was the only bright thing about it. Parts of that car went rusty if you let the kettle steam for too long. Its alloy wheels developed acne. They were more pitted than a bombed runway. It was an automatic and would run away with itself if the air conditioning was on. Imagine that, something with the performance of an electric scooter running away with itself.
It did have a nice spoiler, though.
She has started to talk to me again but only because there has been a Lexus since then.
Build quality, reliable engines, good consumption and residual values all go to make the Japanese successful in the world car market.
However this is not the real reason for their consistency.
Clean toilets are the key to good business.
This week a book has gone on sale in Japan explaining that a well scrubbed bowl and gleaming seat will bring good fortune. Look after your throne and the yen will look after themselves.
The book is supported by testimonials from people who say a healthy Toilet Duck habit has changed their lives. One woman claims added Vim in the bathroom got her pregnant. Another correspondent said he won the lottery after lathering the loo.
Enough already. You could get bogged down in this story.
And finally....there are some things we take for granted in 21stC UKPLC. Turn the tap on and you can drink the water. There is always gas in the pipes and usually electricity in the wires.
So how come we suddenly can’t trust the petrol?
Motorists will do anything to save a bob or two on juice. The trouble is cheap spot market petrol can be like junk food; It fills you up but won’t do you any good.
Mrs Orme once managed a petrol station. There are standards that not all fuel reaches. Usually you can trust the big names - even if they do have your pants down on the price.