Car Trouble

You know when summat's up with your car engine when suddenly it sounds like a VW Beetle. As Ralph Schumacher would tell you, Beemers run like clockwork. That's the deal. Quality product.

Except that on the way home from work the chugging started. And that mysterious 'check engine" light popped on.

Yeah right.

Like I know what the blimmin' 'eck is going on under that shiny bonnet. I'm all on to figure out where the power steering fluid should go, let alone flashing lights telling me to check stuff.

the next morning the engine thing is still going on. The temptation was to drive through it and hope the rest of the world can't hear the racket. But we didn't want to risk the damned engine conking completely so it was on the phone to the local BMW fixers.

Result. A walk to work. Dude shows up with a tow truck and its shanks pony for a week.

No big deal. The trip to work is a few miles through town and I could do with the exercise.

Have to admit I've got right into it, especially the walk home. I'm one of these weirdoes that believes in hard work. That old adage "Under Promise, Over Deliver" is a big deal to me. So I'm there well after dark. Not because I think the boss deserves that Porsche he swans about in, but because I do top work. That's my product. The personal branding shtick. You never know who will notice...

Anyroad this all means I end up walking right through town on on my way home. Always an anthropological experience at the best of times, as you get to see each night's flotsam and jetsam as they frequent the bars and the cafes and the phone booths of the 21st century town centre.

I do like a bit of people watching. It's fascinating to see who's creating all the litter that blows around the next morning. The KFC / McDonalds / Booger King confetti that festoon the town like barnacles on a barge and keeps the municipal barrow boys busy in the early hours.

Being a pedestrian gives you a whole new perspective on life.

As a driver, you slaver over car ads - especially the ones that show how safe you're going to be if you crash into a solid brick wall at 40 mph with all the air bags and crumple zones in full effect. I like the idea that I can crash into a motorway overpass and the bridge can come crashing around my ear, the world can end but I'll be perfectly fine. If I'm going to career into a stray baby buggy I need assurance that my shiny German muscle car is going to emerge without a scratch.

Become a pedestrian you start to notice that those trendy bull bars are going to do YOU far more damage than the speed freak behind those smoke tinted windows.

If I'm going to be some statistic in some high tech car ad I want to know what the pillock behind the wheel actually looks like. My spell in hospital as they extract bits of Toyota paintwork from my glutimus maximus will be better spent knowing what the bugger who put me in this situation actually looks like so I can pick him out of the lineup.

I'm now a born-again pedestrian. United. Reformed. Born Again.

Never will I drive down a street splashing puddles over poor defenceless buggybirds. No more razzing though yellow lights and freaking out those poor suckers who thought a green man on that pelican crossing meant "walk". No more reliving scenes from Bullitt though the streets of Holmfirth.

I'm car free and coping.

You know the twelve step program? I'm on step three. I can yell at taxi drivers without the protection of solid steel and tinted glass. The buggers can't hear me, but wow do I swear blind!

B