China's Trumpchi Car Company Ridiculed into Possible Name Change

Well who could have predicted that?

Me for one.

The unsurprising story is here.  Although I suppose it is a little surprising for Fox News to actually admit that "in the United States the level of opposition to Trump is high."

Sat-Nav Test

On December 4th, the practical bit of the British Driving Test changes.

The BBC tell us this here.

It sort of makes sense - bringing in the distractions posed by modern technology including switching on the rear-window heater while driving along. Hmm.  Not sure about that last bit - surely extracting CD 2 of Now That's What I Call Music 39 and playing Track 6 while driving along would be more realistic.

(and no, I picked it at random and can't be bothered looking up what that track actually is)

Another part of the new test will be taking orders from a Sat-Nav - I hope all Driving Instructors choose the Brian Blessed voice for their Sat-Navs.  It would be nice if the Sat-Nav could also include an instruction to turn on to a railway line to weed out the drivers who would just blindly follow it anyway.

There's no actual evidence that these unfortunate ladies suffered a Sat-Nav misdirection so I'll take you back to 2011, when my Blog was still young, for a few.

Racing Home

Monaco-style Grands Prix events could be hosted on English roads under new laws coming into force on Monday.

So says the BBC.

Well that sounds good.

Apparently, a spokesman for London Mayor Sadiq Khan said: "In considering whether to support a Grand Prix in London, the mayor would need to see what the impacts are on air pollution."

Sounds too PC to me.

Certainly too PC for a GP.

He then went on to say that the mayor was in discussion with Formula E over whether a race involving environmentally friendly electric-powered cars could be held on London's streets.

Maybe the mayor doesn't know that Formula E races have already been held in London - albeit not on the roads.

The article is a bit confusing as it uses cycling as an example - "We had the Tour de France here, we had a Grand Depart in Yorkshire a couple of years ago and roads were closed as part of that event and thousands of people came to watch it."

OK.  But if that worked so well - what is so different about this coming Monday?

Anyway, in anticipation of Monday, I have devised my own GP circuit a walking distance from my house:

I believe that this will be particularly challenging for Lewis Hamilton and his chums because it contains a nice Monaco-style Bus-Stop chicane plus a hump-back bridge and a level crossing meaning that every quarter of an hour or so, the cars will have to wait for some trains to pass.

Bernie would be turning in his grave if he were dead.

Fools Seldom Differ

It's been April Fools Day today.

The Express decided to make up a story about how the EU want us all to swap out EU Registration Plates after Brexit for "safety reasons".

Incidentally, I've always wondered about the Irish system like this example - I mean if you saw a car with this registration, how could you tell if it was built in 2005 or 1905?  Daft eh?

It was probably just an excuse for the violently pro-Brexit "paper" to spout a bit more anti-EU propaganda to its readers who happily lap it all up.

And they did - as reported in The Independent's Indy 100:

And, apart from the guy who only has two short words to say, NONE OF THE COMMENTER'S CAN SPELL.

I'm afraid it's a sad indictment on the world we live in today.  It sort of explains Brexit and Trump that there are lots of gullible people out there who would rather just take in the bile espoused by the Express, The Sun and, the worst of them all, The Mail rather than do a bit of simple research and look for the truth.

Meanwhile, on a completely unrelated note, Lotus announced their new range of crash helmets for cats today: