Rocket Crash

Look at the aftermath of this accident!

 

Some of those cars have been reduced to small, crumpled cubes of metal.

The story has been unfolding in The Liverpool Echo today.

Actually, they already looked like that before the accident.  They were being carried on a scrap metal truck which got caught up with another truck and a few other vehicles.  Both the trucks overturned causing traffic chaos around the Rocket Interchange (named after the Rocket pub named after the steam locomotive) at the end of the M62 motorway in Liverpool.

I bet some of those cubes have now been in two serious accidents.

Fortunately it looks like no significant injuries were sustained.

No idea yet as to the cause of the crash.

maybe one of the drivers got distracted by a nearby advertising board.

Arthur Daley, Little Dodgy Maybe?

And I'm not just talking about the awful cardboard cut-outs:

 

Two stars of Minder are up for sale.  The story is here.  There's no doubt about the Capri - I remember it played a big part in the opening titles. But that isn't the reg no. of Arthur's Daimler that I remember.

Now I'm not sad enough to remember all the number plates from the cars of my TV youth.

But I'd know them if I saw them again.

And I knew this one when I Googled "Arthur Daley Daimler":

I ran a quick MyCarCheck on DYO979V and it isn't on the books.  VDU342X is.

So then I tried the Government's MOT History Website. I have been aware of this site for a while and tried it out once on my Jag when I saw a link on Facebook.  Then a blogging chum of mine inspired me to look at a car I used to own.

I found out that my old Merc is now a taxi.

And still has a lot of the niggling problems that Mercs built around the turn of the Century had that made me get shut of it.

And it confirmed that DYO979V is not on the road.

Although VDU342X only seems to have been around since March 2014 when it's Front Exhaust had a minor leak of exhaust gases.

However, I found a fan-site which seems to offer a solution to the mystery.

Now, even though I'm a Jag man, I'd rather have the Capri that Dennis Waterman drove in the series.

Actually, I 'd rather have the car he drove in New Tricks:

 I could be so good for you.

Footballer Involved in Car Accident

Stephen Fry has left Twitter.

He got a load of grief after making a joke at a friend's expense at the BAFTAs.

He'll probably be back.

I don't tweet.

I've got nothing against Twitter, I just don't use it.  So I don't know how easy it would be to send a picture of an Scoupe by accident from my pocket.

Not that anyone would be that bothered about a picture of an old Hyundai.  I have accidentally 'phoned my wife a couple of times from my pocket. But only because by phone allows me to by-pass the screen lock with calls to my ICE contact.

But I've certainly never sent her a picture of a car.

Now, imagine if I were a famous Premier League footballer.  And I had just played in a game - as a defender - for the team languishing at the foot of the table.  And in that game, we'd been stuffed 6-0.  At home.

Then it probably wouldn't go down too well to tweet a picture of a Mercedes S coupe. (OK S-Class Coupé but near enough)

 

Well that's what Aston Villa player Joleon Lescott managed to do.

Here's his Twitter feed.

In it he apologises for the result and also apologises for accidentally tweeting the photo.

To his credit, he's left the photo there and kept the responses it garnered.

Such as, "Does this car go from 0 to 6 in 90 minutes?"

As part of his apology, he says "I'm not one for tweeting after games whether it's a good, bad or indifferent result..."

I'll mostly give him that although at the start of the Season he gave us, "Honour to have made my home debut (Boyhood dream) just gutted with the result. No time to mope tho with the biggest game of the season ahead." This was just after losing 1-0 to West Brom and then "Only thing that matters in a derby game is the result, glad we came out on top." just after beating Birmingham City.  None since though.

I wonder what Stephen Fry would say if he were still tweeting?

Actually not a lot, after all Villa are favourites to take up one of the three relegations spots.  Which means one less for Fry's team Norwich to end up in.  My own team is down there at the moment too so Joleon,

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

The Magnificent Seven

So here it is...

...in Chris Evans' own words...

The new Top Gear line-up!

Not bad - not sure I'd go as far as "magnificent" (but that's probably only because I've not heard of one of them)

Eddie Jordan was a pleasant surprise - I enjoy a dour expert who isn't afraid to put over his point and get a good argument going.

Obviously, LeBlanc came on board this time last week.

I'm also very pleased that the lovely Sabine Scmitz is in there but I also know that the "politically correct" comments will have begun - especially since the unknown guy is a "gentleman of colour" - am I allowed to say that?  I'm sure these choices will wind up many people who thoroughly deserve to be wound up.

Tough.

So, roll on May.  (not James May)

Car Matt

After much speculation, we now know the name of Chris Evans' first co-host on new Top Gear.

It's Matt LeBlanc!

This is a major departure for him.

This is because he has never starred in a show with more than one word in the title before.

Speculation in December concentrated on the names Sabine Schmitz, Chris Harris & David Coulthard.  I guess that speculation didn't look far enough away from Europe.  I would be happy if any or all of these three joined the show - it doesn't have to have exactly three presenters after all - and these three are racers or motoring journos, my favourite two categories of people to present TV car shows.

Something that Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc are not.

But Top Gear is not so much a TV car show so much as an entertainment, nay comedy, show with a big car content.

I'm very happy.  Both have proved themselves car-wise and Matt led the Star-in-a-Reasonably-Priced-Car leaderboard for quite a while.

It was always going to be a very difficult job replacing Jeremy, James and Richard. They seem to be going about it the right way.  Very impressive casting.

Now we need some very impressive writing.

Wonder if Matt knows any good comedy writers?

Viral News

Mike Brewer's been getting a bit of stick today.  But only from a couple of people who you would never invite to your party.  It involves this picture which he posted on Facebook with a comment about how Curt should have asked for a replacement jacket.

Many hundreds of his fans reassured Mike and posted suitable comments against those with a sense-of-humor by-pass.  I deliberately spelled it like that because it seemed to be Americans who didn't get the joke.

I say "seemed" because it was actually two English blokes who put the main comments up there.  They claimed children could be upset at the joke.  Well children under 13 shouldn't be on Facebook and children 13 and over would have found it funny.

So there.

I guess it must have had an effect though because today he said, "What a day! trolled because of a guys name badge, abused cause I post too many times! and angered people who didn't get an answer in a clearly posted 10 minute Q&A which went on for 12 minutes with over 50 questions answered...please..if you don't like this page/me or what I do..please unfollow me.."

He does post a lot.  But that's fine by me.

Anyway, the fans reassured him some more.

Don't know if there was enough activity to call it viral though.

So here's some really viral news:

Tata to rename Zica car over virus woes

It is the headline to this BBC story. Tata are having to rename their new car being launched at the Auto Expo in New Delhi because its name sounds like the virus affecting The Americas at the moment.

 Meanwhile, it looks like an MG.

This is perhaps more horrifying news, MG are going to be selling an SUV!  Here's the MG section of carnewschina.com where the story can be found.

It will be called the MG GS Rui Teng or maybe something different if it comes to British shores.  Which I hope it doesn't.  I've got nothing against the car per se.

Except IT'S AN MG SUV!


The name Zica, meanwhile, is meant to be short for "Zippy Car" so how about they rename it "Highly Intense Vehicle"?

Or HIV for short.