Pasta Their Best?

This week is a week of anniversaries.

It is 15 years to the day since myself and Mrs.Metro walked down the aisle.

It is 20 years +1 to the day since Former policeman Roger Reynolds turned on Britain’s first-ever speed camera on the westbound A316 on Twickenham Bridge in Surrey. The Gatso camera was in a 40mph zone but was set to 60mph and caught nearly 23,000 drivers exceeding 65mph in 22 days. Good. Alledgedly. MSN Cars have the story.

I'm not a fan of speed cameras but driving at 65 in a 40-zone is silly. Also, they are so well signposted now, and painted bright yellow, that you shouldn't really get caught by one.

When I looked for a good picture of a Gatso, this strange-looking car kept coming up:I'd forgotten that Gatso himself was a rally-driver who had invented the speed camera to measure his own racing speeds. I guess this Gatso 4000 Roadster was one of his inventions too. It might have looked OK without the Davros "third eye" thing going on.

I don't know if there are any speed cameras on Gravelly Hill Interchange but...

...it is 40 years to the day since Spaghetti Junction (as Gravelly Hill Interchange is better known) opened. Hence the pasta title and picture of the 1957 spaghetti harvest.For most of those 40 years, I have wrongly thought that spaghetti junction was where the M6 intersected with the M5. It is actually junction 6 of the M6. What a noodle! - all those times I've driven through Spaghetti Junction and thought I hadn't got there yet.

The BBC covered the anniversary quite thoroughly here and here.

Spaghetti Junction was useful for linking bits of Birmingham but not of much interest to New Yorkers who would be more interested about this day in 1883 when...

...The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City was opened to traffic after 14 years of construction. Can't really comment on it but I have driven over The Queens Bridge or, as it should be more correctly named, the Queensboro Bridge or the 59th Street Bridge. Groovy. (Some kudos for anyone who can see what I've done there)Not that anyone crossing Brooklyn Bridge would be too concerned that it was opened on the 53rd anniversary of...

...the publication of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" by Sarah Josepha Hale.

OK, I've officially run out of ways to end this now.

Honda Uni-Cub

I'm not sure this should be in a Car Blog but Autoguide pointed me at it and it is about a Honda vehicle:It is a very funny video in a "this is laughable" sort of way.

The "thing" is controlled by leaning but can also be controlled using a little TV remote control unit that you hold in your lap. I suppose it could be fun if you got hold of someone else's remote control. It would probably also be fun to race a couple of them around a building - until you came to a set of stairs - which is where you get to the conclusion that I was reaching more and more as every second of the video passed.

WHY NOT JUST WALK!?

Really lazy people might think it is a good idea but I suspect that they would be too fat to use it. Would it benefit disabled people? Doubt it - I reckon there would be issues about staying on if you couldn't use your legs.

To be charitable, I suppose this is more of a research exercise - and it has to be admitted it is very clever how it works without tipping over but...

...if you want to drive about indoors, Jeremy has already provided us with the solution:

Top & Jerry

News today from Autoguide that Top gear USA is back for a third series.They've still only shown one-and-a-half series of it over here - they interrupted the run of series two to show repeats of Doctor Who.

Now I like Doctor Who - a lot - but not enough to watch repeats of it.

Anyway, today's story, on the back of the one about Top Gear (as featured on my Facebook Page yesterday) means that there will be plenty of Top Gear Action around in 2013.

The Autoguide story also covers a story in "The Daily" about a proposed new show which will be a vehicle (excuse the pun) for Jerry Seinfeld (big Porsche fan judging by the pictures of him in Google Images) to spend time with other comics discussing cars.
I hope it gets picked up here - I love cars and I love comedy...

...which is probably why I love Top Gear...

...and writing daft car-blog posts.

Madam, I'm Adam

Another stupid car-name story. This spy-shot has been released today by Vauxhall of their new baby car along with the announcement of its name:

The VAUXHALL ADAM!

Some sections of the motoring press have been having some fun with the name. Car Magazine covered it thus while Top Gear have been comparing it to other cars with people's names although some of their examples are a bit tenuous - like Cressida and Silvia - they didn't even think of Marina.

So who is the Adam named after? 1980s pop icon Adam Ant?or perhaps soap heartthrob Adam Woodyatt?or, perhaps more likely, Top Gear USA presenter Adam Ferrara?Vauxhall won't say that it is named after Adam Opel, founder of Opel but it is named after Adam Opel, founder of Opel.