Eccles Kayak

OK - it's not happened in Eccles.

But it's nearer to Eccles than to Dundee or Genoa or Madeira or other places famous for cake.

It's a bit of a non-story really - a motorway obstruction for half-an-hour early on a Sunday morning.

But I'm a bit surprised at the BBC headline - "Canoe in M1 fast lane stops traffic flow"

Firstly, I don't believe flow was stopped (apart from briefly when they physically moved the boat)

- but calling it "The Fast Lane"!?

There is no such thing as "The Fast Lane"

May I suggest, "Canoe in M1 third overtaking lane causes minor disruption to traffic flow".

Told you it was a non-story.

Bye Bye Bernie, Bernie Bye Bye

Well,

It's finally happened!

Good riddance to the horrible little man.

 

I bet they thought he would be there forever.  He's 86 and still going strong.

But not as chief executive officer running Formula 1 any more.

I can see what he was trying to do - make Formula 1 (and himself) richer and richer by various means including expanding it out to larger markets.  But to do that, he was alienating the existing markets.

Like the UK.

Obviously I've made no secret of my dislike of him - or his deal to take F1 off free-to-air - which brought in more Sky money but lost F1 many UK viewers.  Similar things have happened abroad.  I've pointed out his lack of morals.  I've also reported on his bribery charge.

But the five foot two-and-a-half inches tall dictator seems to be able to get away with stuff.

Unlike this six foot seven inch prat from Newcastle:

 

The story is here.

"I'm an excellent driver but I was advised to plead guilty to get it over with."

Yeah, right!

The court heard Elliott had 12 previous convictions for driving while disqualified.

Talking of Charging...

Which I was with my previous post.

Anyway, it looks like I'm going to have to pay to see yet another good car show that was always free to view.  Variety have the story here about how Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee is going over to Netflix.

Bugger.

I watched the latest episode today involving someone called Cedric The Entertainer and a 1958 Bentley.  I am not familiar with Cedric but he did indeed seem entertaining.  Last week it was Norm MacDonald - I am a big fan of Norm and his work but was a bit shocked how old and portly (great word that) that he has become:

I've always watched Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee via the Website - I suspect Netflix won't permit that in future and I don't envisage myself getting a subscription.  Mind you, I have successfully watched all of The Grand Tour so far using free trials - I fear I may have to stump up £5.99 for the rest of it though.

I think I can afford that.

But it would be easier if Netflix bought my blog.

Talking of Donald Trump...

I've never posted twice on the same day before but Donnie's favourite news channel covered a car story about his favourite activity.  (That's Fox News and Tweeting, by the way - Meryl Streep overrated? - what a childish prat he is!)

Anyway, I'll not post the link to Fox because they have taken it word-for-word (albeit correctly crediting the item) from this Newser story.

The gist is that a Twitter user complained to Tesla founder Elon Musk about people leaving their cars at charging stations after they had charged up which prevented other electric car drivers from using the stations to charge up their own cars.  Within minutes, Musk replied: "You're right, this is becoming an issue. Supercharger spots are meant for charging, not parking. Will take action."

Six days later he had introduced a 40-cents-a-minute charge if the car is left there once charged up (with a five-minute grace period). This doesn't sound a lot but works out at about £10 for half-an-hour which I most certainly wouldn't pay for car-parking.

Hopefully enough to stop the selfish twits.

Will Donald Halt The Trumpchi?

We know that the next President of the United States is no fan of the Chinese - even though they own most of the US debt.  But would he really want to prevent them importing cars called Trumpchis?  Judging by this  Car+Driver coverage of their appearance at the Detroit Auto Show, they could be appearing on US shores at some point during Donnie's time.

And they look like they may sell:

They may want to change its name in the Northern States though.

Future Proof

Back at the end of 2015, there was speculation about a new car company called Faraday Future.  I speculated upon it myself.  Most of my speculation was about who was behind this ambitious electric car start-up. Apple was a contender but there was also much consideration of The Chinese.

The latter turned out to be the case.

There was also speculation about whether or not they would actually be able to produce a vehicle.

Well they have.  They launched it last night at CES in Las Vegas

Autocar have it here.  Autoguide here.

It looks quite nice.

in a Peugeot/Citroën Crossover sort of way.

Although it is huge.  And probably very heavy.

The BBC go into a bit more detail about the launch, the backers and ensuing awkwardness therein.

I have no doubt that there will be potential buyers out there but now the speculation has moved over to whether or not they will be able to build it in big-enough numbers.

It should be fast.  According to the BBC, pre-recorded footage showed the car accelerating from standstill to 60mph in 2.39 seconds - that's faster than the competition from Tesla.  Autoguide say it can do 500mph which sounds unbelieveable unless you read it properly and realise that it can get enough charge for 500 miles in one hour.  It doesn't say what sort of charger they are using.

If you're interested, it's a $5000 deposit now and another $175000 when if rolls off the production line.

They are speculating 2018 for that.