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Fast Food

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caldrail

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By some fluke of economy I was left with ten pounds the other night. A crumpled tenner in my hand is a gateway to pleasure on a scale unimaginable to ordinary dole seekers like me. So immediately I rushed out into the street with a maniacal grin on my face, braving evening traffic and revellers in a mad dash for the kebab shop across the road.

 

I made it! Safe and sound on the other side of the road, I entered the bright interior of turkish takeaway cuisine. I think I had some vague intention of buying a kebab for consumption at home. Eating kebabs in the street is an art one can only acquire by practice, and even then, you litter the pavement in scraps of vegetables.

 

But no, as I surveyed the illuminated menu with entires in some plastic font or crudely scrawled on in red marker pen, I saw the glossy colour advert tacked onto one end. Turkish pizza? Erm... You sell those?

 

"Yes Boss." He replied with a genuine turkish smile. Such jolly fellows, especially when you're about to order a meal.

 

Then I'll have one. No, just one. Yes, a bag is okay. No, no sauce. No nothing else. No, really, that's all I want.

 

And all for less than three pounds! What a bargain. So I ran back across the street with a maniacal grin to consume my fortuitous purchase. Unlike an Italian offering, with a deep pan crust and cheesy tomato tang, the turkish pizza is a wafer thin pitta bread with a savoury topping. More subtle perhaps, but very pleasing nonetheless. Yum.

 

What Is That Noise?

For once I can't blame my neighbours for the annoying noise, but of late there's been music audible outside the back of my home. It sounds as if the source is very loud and thankfully not too close. Nor for that matter do I recognise the songs or artists, but considering I gave up listening to the charts in 1979 that's hardly suprising.

 

Fast Car

There's a car dealer not far from where I live. The entire forecourt is packed with little buggies in all shades of grey. It's hilarious, it really is. Why on earth would I be even remotely interested in walking into that showroom? What could the salesman persuade me to believe? That the latest model has go-faster cup holders? Or that the styling is state of the art? Have you seen the Nissan Juke? Nissan Joke more like, it looks like a kit car that's been polished up.

 

Now regular readers will know that I like my sports cars. Who cares how fuel efficient a vehicle is, or how many safety stars it has, or how practical it is, if it can't go faster than anyone else? I wish manufacturers would show some common sense and revitalise the market with cars that people might actually drool over.

 

Well, okay, enjoyable cars are somewhat out of my price range for now, but I notice a go-faster car is coming to Swindon next weekend. Apparently Mr Noble is trying to raise the land speed record again. According to the local paper...

 

The 12.8m-long, 6.4-tonne Bloodhound SSC will travel faster than a bullet fired from a rifle and will accelerate from 0-1,050mph in just 40 seconds. And at its maximum velocity, the pressure of air bearing down on its carbon fibre and titanium bodywork will exceed 12 tonnes per square metre.

 

Brilliant. It really is. Now that Swindon is the first borough in Britain to junk the speed camera, it's also the first place in inland Britain to host a world land speed record attempt, in a what is basically a wingless jet fighter the size of an articulated truck.

 

No, I do exaggerate, the car is only on display, as an inspiration for young aspiring engineers to design cars that people actually want to buy. I'm waiting...

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Turbo button? Is that for real? How pathetic is that? Gimme power! Now! I want instamnt throttle response, not a five minute search of the dashboard before discovering I'm off the boost and the button does nothing.

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Or worse yet...the turbo fails (which, being an electronic element, is possible), and you think you're going to beat that 911 off the line...*wah wah waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah*

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The turbo isn't electronic at all. It's a little round thing whizzing around inside an exhaust pipe. Okay, yes, sometimes they do fail, and car electronics these days are designed to be completely impossible to operate when you're old enough to drive.

 

But coming second to a 911? There is no excuse for that, ever :D

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Back when I was an aspiring musician, our band manager had a thing about porsches. He just couldn't see past the badge. To him, the Porsche represented everything about motoring that was ever likely to be desirable. Suggest an alternative? He would poo-poo the idea and suggest you do no more than buy a Porsche. He even had some strange idea that owning one was a guarantee of success.

 

I drove his Porsche once. After our Red Jasper days were done, he tried to get me to work for him. As if I was likely to make that mistake again! But I took his beloved car around the leafy lanes of Wiltshire one night and to be honest, I wasn't that impressed. The gear change was clunky, the car felt heavy, and although it did gather speed remorselessly, it never felt fast, nor for that matter did I get out thinking it was brilliant. It just wasn't.

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I just have never liked the look of them. The same is true with Jags, for the most part...they just don't look good to me. And while BMWs tend to be my choice, I can get past the badge. For example, the Z4...ugly. It looks like a shoe...or better yet, it looks like Goldmember's car, just without the 'tail'.

 

Now, the M5...ooooooh daddy....

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