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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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May 2007 Archives

Back from the land of sheep and sharp bends

Posted by Steve Orme on May 31, 2007 12:33 PM

I'm back. Duddon valley if you must know. More on this later and my love affair with an Audi Allroad Quattro.
As a rule of thumb and forefinger I don't tune into the news on holiday. Often as a result we have returned home to find our village devastated by an earthquake/nuclear detonation/council election.
With no small amount of heartfelt joy I tuned into HM Government's BBC Radio 2, or the Home Service as you may know it, and heard on the 08.00hrs news that the Automobile Association was raising doubts about the green credentials of alternative fuel cars, based on the premise that we actually know four fifths of sod all about long term effects compared to the more efficient petrol or diesel engines now being built.
Good Lord, ten days up a moist Lakeland valley and there is an outbreak of good sense to come home to.
Much of the biodegradable data comes from computer models. Which is fine.
Except that wandering the hills in the Allroad it’s computer sometimes told me the diesel engine was achieving 240 miles to the gallon. Clearly not the truth.
Needless to say the AA’s opinion was rubbished immediately by friends of the cormorant or something who once again made the point that there is no sustainable alternative than the bicycle powered ox cart.
Incidentally the same bulletin revealed that the Dartford warbler had returned to Essex now that summers are warming up.
Er, that means that once they were even warmer than now. Then they cooled and the birdies warbled off.

A piece of cake

Posted by Steve Orme on May 18, 2007 1:39 PM

I have always worked on the premise that I will not publicise adverts by car manufacturers until they publicise columns by me. However, just how much did that Skoda ad cost? The one for the new Fabia. I have to say it is entertaining and inspired me to book a test car.
Only on the grounds that there is nothing I enjoy more than a slice of sponge bumper and licking buttercream upholstery.
Clearly making me a suitable case for treatment. So I'm off for a week or so. No, not far, just a long lie down in a dark room.

Strange but true

Posted by Steve Orme on May 17, 2007 10:22 AM

Strange things happen. Like newspapers printing did you know? fact files that come under the title Sybil and the bleedin’ obvious.
One I spotted yesterday breathlessly told the world that among the animals most likely to fall from the sky are...wait for it...birds. No guano Sherlock.
Apparently you also get strange things like frogs and fish raining down. This is called global warming. Well everything else is.
What is really unusual is seeing a young Brit like Lewis Hamilton heading the F1 drivers’ championship.
A couple of years ago he and his family and friends were on the next table lunching at a race meeting. What a splendidly measured and well balanced young man he is. As indeed is Jensen Button. And so was Jackie Stewart who, after a couple of laps sat next to me at Oulton Park generously explained that he didn’t really know where to start pointing out what was wrong with my track style. And gave me a copy of his book.
I have found over the years that racing drivers are approachable and generous with their time and comments. Surprising when they get asked questions like: “What does it feel like being rammed up the backside by Barrichello?”
Or listening to gems like Jack Burnicle talking about Colin Edwards's tyres on World Superbikes when he said: “Colin had a hard on in practice earlier, and I bet he wished he had a hard on now.”
Quite. Now I'll just pop out and see if there are any cod in the garden.

Camera phone has a new meaning

Posted by Steve Orme on May 16, 2007 11:15 AM

Police on Merseyside have a splendid new idea for curing the modern disease of driving while using a mobile phone or d-mobing as it is not known.
Using head mounted cameras to comply with hands free walking and sitting health and safety regulations, they will film phone users breaking the law by driving at the same time as telling the office they are in the car.
But here’s the genius of it. Pictures of people caught will be published in a name and shame campaign. Imagine that! How shameful is it to be seen in public with an old coal and steam Nokia never mind appearing in the newspapers without a chocolate zip-top razor ming-zinger (wap enabled).
I will never defend mobile phone use while driving. Even hands free just makes you look like a Billy no mates talking to himself. But at the same time I will also condemn animated nattering especially if it necessitates turning round to make a salient point to Doris in the back.
Cars aren’t for talking, they are for tuneless singing and nose picking.
While we are at it, using a mobile on the train should be a public order offence. Some journeys are a cacophony of noise that rivals twenty chimps making guest appearances for the Liverpool Philharmonic. Or even being trapped in a lift with Mika.
Mobile hones should be fitted with a small explosive device which detonates when ever the words ‘I’m on the train,’ are registered

Beanz meanz nonsenze

Posted by Steve Orme on May 15, 2007 4:48 PM

Like buses you wait months for press releases about number plates then swarms of them turn up at once.
DVLA is putting its 57 plates, millions of them, up for viewing before next month's release date.
This year they have a theme. Beans. Well, no, not beans exactly but beanz. As in Heinz. And kilohertz but not spatula. I would like to see a number plate that spells spatula.
Using every ounce of the imagination it takes to turn your driving licence application around in five weeks, the agency suggests that lovers of ketchup would pay pounds Stirling for SA57 UCE while those keen on baked Boston beans can bid for BE57 ANZ. Wow, imagine the social benefits of a mobile warning that your favourite dietary item is so high in fibre.
Apparently the most desirable plate would be coveted by H. J. Heinz himself - HJ57 HNZ. The trouble is he's dead.
Still, plenty for everyone. Please feel free to search dvlaregistrations.co.uk for anything remotely like ravioli, spaghetti, sponge pudding or my all-time favourite salad cream.
This is plainly mad. Like carrot cake. Carrots? In a cake?

Luddites - we shall overcome

Posted by Steve Orme on May 14, 2007 12:33 PM

Last week friends of the mud or save the sky or whatever came up with the stunning news that bio-fuels were bad for the planet.
We really should have seen this one coming.
Here is my prediction for the future. Just so long as it involves the continuation of personal transport, hippies and grass weavers will always find a reason for rubbishing any fuel alternatives until we are all back telling folk stories around the camp fire and riding unicycles.
The latest argument goes that by giving over acreage to growing maize and grasses to make fuel we are starving the starving people even further.
On top of that bio fuels will use up all the world’s water.
Well hold on a second. Ultimately the best crop for bio fuel will be grass, that’s grass like the stuff that grows wild across the prairie and tundra wastes of the world. It is hardly likely that Exxon will site the first field on the outskirts of Darfur.
And with regard to H20. God does the watering in these areas, have a word with him.
I can hardly wait to read the environmental objections of BMW’s news that next week a fleet of eight hydrogen powered cars will be delivered to the UK.
Almost no emissions and one of the by products is water.
Perhaps we can collect this in buckets and pour it over the heads of Swampies who think we should all be living up trees singing we shall overcome.

Top tottie or number one slapper?

Posted by Steve Orme on May 10, 2007 12:27 PM

After yesterday’s bellicose tirade against the stupidity of paying good English pounds for personalised number plates that make about as much sense as drunken Scrabble, I followed a good example on the way home.
To the blond girl in a gold Golf, index number tango-sevener-zehro-tango-echo-yankee do you really want to be known as misspelt T7OTEY. Just rearrange the letters and squint to conjure up a vision of Tim, nice but dim.
She was attractive, young had good taste in cars and was, I don’t doubt, an exceptional home maker, keen on needlecraft and the holder of an honours degree in advanced stellar indexing. So why drive around telling planet testosterone you consider yourself to be a vapid clothes horse with a catholic taste in men? Would she have bought a plate that spelt SLAPPER? That, by the way would be S14- wrong way round 9-PER. Geddit? No, me neither.
Oddly enough at the same time Chris Evans was ribbing a captain of industry who imagined his far from exclusive registration plate - on a Bentley, mind - starting NGE would let everyone know is name was Nigel. How?
It could easily mean national grid engineer, no gears engaged or indeed that the car it was originally on was first registered in Northampton. Now there’s an idea.
Only his family would realise it stood for Nigel. And it’s a sorry family that can’t remember your name until you run them over.
Car industry press fleets have some neat indexing. Vauxhalls are all VXL, Nissan trys very hard, the Qasquai I have just driven had the plate X2O VER for ‘crossover’ and they own L1UST on a 350ZX, which sums it up nicely. Porsche once owned A 911 and probably still do and Ford had plates CAR 1 and CAR 2.
Generally speaking, though, personalised plates are just that, meaningless to others and as intimate to you as your medical records. And you wouldn’t stick them on the rear window would you?.
And if you have a personal plate and I’ve upset you sorry, but I have also just upset my mum, who has the plate A1LMA. My mother wants people to think she’s a lama?

You're having a laugh

Posted by Steve Orme on May 9, 2007 12:30 PM

Some PR agencies are cute, some are just downright cheeky. I don’t mind people stretching the point if there’s a laugh line in it but simply trying to get full-face free publicity is taking the proverbial.
And so to Slater PR of Blackburn, Lancashire. Home of 4,000 holes. The firm is bidding to get a plug for someone selling the number plates CEO 1 and CEO 2 on an internet site won’t credit because they never credit me.
Look lads, these plates are worth a fortune. Buy some advertising space if you want their details in the newspapers.
Generally speaking I am not a supporter of personal plates. PM 1 or similar makes sense but most of the interpretations of letter and number combinations are both illegal and frankly puzzling.
And if it’s only yourself who knows the relevance what’s the point?
In the US it is permissible to make up your own plate, FATTY for instance or DOH! if you live off Pennsylvania Avenue.
Slaters could have CHEEKY.

Qashqai is a cross dresser

Posted by Steve Orme on May 7, 2007 1:08 PM

Now that owning a 4x4 is considered an eco-crime, punishable by ideological reconstruction through self criticism and also banging on your car roof, there is clearly reason to own cars like the Rav2. It looks like a 4x4 but is front wheel drive so you get the image without, er, well without what?
The truth is that 4x4s are unjustly maligned and the real objection , like fox hunting, is based on envy and the class politics of the student union bar.
Still, someone thinks the idea of a non off road off roader is a good one or Nissan would not have launched the Qashqai.
Personally I can’t see the point in driving around incurring the wrath of the Swampy tendency and being pelted with cat poo if your car lacks the mechanical hardware to spearhead a small military insurgence. What do you do, hang one of those diamond shaped signs in the back: ‘Only 2x2, please don’t shout at me?’
Against this backcloth I wondered about the Nissan Kumquat. Top-of-the-range two-litre models are available as a 4x4 option but the1.6 litre Cashcards are front-wheel drive.
The thing is they look like crossover 4x4s, side scuff guards, elevated body and a general butchness.
So expect angry cyclists to hammer on the roof while lacking the ability to follow them home and plough up their herbaceous boarders.
Now, you may think the Qashanova is spawned by one of those weird Tokyo show concepts like the Bongo Bongo Friendee but was designed in Paddington and engineered in Bedfordshire. Nissan says it is where the family hatchback is going.
Brilliant.The future isn’t garlic bread, its environ-mentalist bile pie.
Actually, this is a clever car. Here’s why.
For a start the Qashqai is far from boring inside or out and that’s not true of its competitors.
Then there’s the space gained from using a crossover body shape. Yes, it may not have seven seats and a flip up kennels but there is ample room for five and a very good boot area.
No family car is complete these days without places to stow essentials like small children and Game Boys. Qashqai has a massive glove box and underseat storage as well as a central box.
The Qashqai is hardly likely to attract buyers for its performance, the entry level 1.6 takes a leisurely 12 seconds to 60mph and , like the Irish cricket team, only just breaks the100 mark. But it will return over 40mpg which is family friendly in the extreme. And so is the £15,000 price tag for the middle of the range Acenta.
On the road? Smooth, quiet and comfortable with surprisingly good handling.
Of course, the question of just what sort of animal a Qashqai is should be addressed to Nissan. But if we take our answer from the advertising campaign, it’s a skateboard.

Brewing up a stove fest

Posted by Steve Orme on May 4, 2007 1:22 PM

Following on from the Merseyrail knickers assailant and unsavoury though this information may be, ten per cent of British men admit to wearing the same pair of underpants for more than three days.
I don’t know if these men have some kind of pants rota to pass the briefs between each other but it certainly is something to think about as you contemplate bank holiday death by barbecue or garden centre bankruptcy.
In the olden days this May holiday saw my family’s first real rush to the seaside. Of course, there being no global warming in those heady days of the 50s and 60s, we could be assured of unseasonably high winds, thunder, lightening and occasional nuclear exchanges. But not before a brief pocket of sunshine in which to get sand in the egg salad butties and for my grandfather to set the car boot alight with his Primus.
He had an uncanny resemblance to Mahatma Gandhi, face leathery as a horse’s saddle and with about as many teeth, having worked out east in the oil industry. Basra, in fact, where men were men and there was no question of shared undergarments.
Later in life, now a widower, he took to riding out his rediscovered freedom to misbehave on an electric scooter along Blackpool prom with four other hell’s pensioners. The wild hair bunch. Queasy rider.
If it turns out mankind is responsible for making the sky ill my grandfather will have some answering to do.
Not because his labours kept the crude flowing. Deary me no. It was his forty-a-day camping stove habit.
To this day I could describe to you every layby on the A59 and A6 as far north as Lancaster. As a child I thought a day out was about test driving kettles. Perhaps it wasn’t years of Iraqi sunshine that turned him brown. Maybe it was the gallons tea trying to get out.
Invariably we would get to The Lakes just in time to brew up and start home before the rain struck. Or possibly a small earthquake.
“Have you had a good day,” mother would ask. “Two sugars please,” I would reply.
Recently I inherited the last of my family’s extensive collection of camping stoves. This weekend I think it may be a good idea to give them all a test run. Along with a couple of my own. Its a genetic thing, don’t concern yourself.
Tomorrow night our back garden will look like a Sahara valley full of Tuareg camp fires. That or a blazing Kuwaiti oil field.
Anyway, back on Monday with news of a 4x4 that’s 2x2. If I don’t set it on fire.

Knickers to that idea

Posted by Steve Orme on May 1, 2007 5:21 PM

This week there are a couple of trips on the train. Can’t be helped.
One of the worries of late night rail travel is your common or garden assault.
Now you tell me how often you are likely to get assaulted sitting in your car with the windows up and doors locked? No, right.
Well I can tell you it happens with too much regularity for my palate on the chuffa.
Hence this true appeal from British Transport Police following a incident on the Merseyrail line I use:
“The offender is described as a white female, aged approx 16, of slim build. She had long brown hair with a thick black hair band around her head. She had a fair complexion and spoke with a Liverpool accent.
She was wearing a maroon coloured boob-tube top over her clothes and, distinctively, she wore a white strapless bra on the outside of her clothing, blue jeans with a white thong over the outside of them, and grey stiletto shoes. She also wore a pair of white knickers on her head and was holding a small bottle of Evian water.”
That, m'lud, concludes the case for the automobile.

This page contains an archive of all entries posted to Driving Passion in the May 2007. They are listed from oldest to newest.

April 2007 is the previous archive.June 2007 is the next archive.

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