The Money Pit

I'd like to introduce you to the gas guzzler itself. I've had a minor motoring issue this morning and decided to blip the thing that takes the second highest amount of cash from me (because I couldn't get Cameron to sit still long enough).

33mpg. 33. As in not even close to the 47mpg I used to get out of my 2 litre turbo diesel Vectra. With hindsight buying this little bad girl was a bad decision. The Vectra had heated leather seats and a CD player. Mind you those leather seats don't half leave a nasty friction burn on your bare ass legs if you wear shorts.

Still 'It's better to regret something you did, than something you didn't do', and therefore I'd rather regret owning a boyracers car than always wonder what it would have been like. I always wanted to own something with GTI in the name and alloy wheels that hadn't been purchased from a scrap yard.

As a kid I had a variety of really shit cars. I had an Astra 1.3 (in brown) that died 45 miles after I bought it before breaking down. I had a Micra that could only travel about ten miles before cutting out (and driving it made me look a proper cock). I leant the Micra to Fat Mandy over the road (41) and she let her boyfriend Richard (16) drive it home from Lincoln via the back of a tractor. In the end she compensated me with £10 worth of class B drugs: seems a fair swap looking back.

There was an Escort I bought for £200 cash off an associate of Fat Mandys called Vic. I bought it at night though and in the morning I discovered the wing had been filled with newspaper. I ran it aground and ended up using it as a place to have a cheeky smoke with my mate Bowler. Eventually the council towed it away. As for Vic.... that's another story. He currently enjoys the hospitality of one of Her Majestys Hotels courtesy of an unhealthy interest in the under 16 age bracket. He was aided there by a group of vigilantes who smashed up his car the day before he was due to report to a bail hostel in Nottingham. Those enterprising young men even made a threatening letter out of newspaper headlines: I am led to believe it was quite witty and grammatically correct.

There was the 1.2 Nova Saloon (with faeces coloured upholstery) that failed an MOT on.... everything. Mind you the handbrake cable snapped so I took to never driving anywhere that had a slight incline. I still owe mental Sophie £100 for that (after 14 years oops).

I had a 1 litre Fiesta that had been made to look like an XR2, even sporting the pepperpot alloys. There was a small problem with that though, 20mpg. I bought that off Fat Mandys dodgy cousin Daft Pete who later got busted for cultivating the good stuff in his greenhouse.

My favourite car was my first car, a 1.3 Mark 3 Ford Escort in Diamond White. That car and me saw some really good times. I once got it stuck in some woods near Bardney at 1am in the morning and had to get my female accomplice to help push it out - not the dirty end to the night she expected. Her old man was a Police Chief in Skeggy and he hated me, not least when his daughter turned up back at home covered in mud up to the ankles and looking slightly dishevelled.

Yeah anyway I love my Golf even if it does have the same petrol consumption as Cuba. I've decided I definitely look cool in it. However one issue I do encounter is music.

You see I like loud music. I like loud music in my car. However I don't like repetitive beats that make me sound a tool. I like to blast music with meaning, passion and feeling out. This morning as I pulled into the car park I was blasting this absolute diamond from 1993.

The song is primarily about Billy Corgans disfunctional relationship with his parents, and deals with abortion as well.

Somehow I can't see Cascada or Freddie Le Grande quite managing to write something that meaningful. Or meaningful at all.

In other news - Sad to report that Michelle whom I met up with on Friday has had a bit of an accident: she fell off her horse last night and has broken her back. Ironically she is now in the same ward as Clean was back in April. Looks like I'll be a regular visitor to Stow Ward once again.