Spotty Car

I saw a TV Commercial at the weekend for Spoticar and because I wasn't properly watching thought they were saying "Spotty Car".

Spotty cars look stupid:

But then I noticed it was for Spoticar.

So Spotify are going in to the Used Cars game?

Apparently not.  What I hadn't noticed from the advert was that all of the cars were from the Stellantis Group and today, Autocar revealed what it was all about.

Spoticar has been running in parts of Europe since 2019 but presumably doesn't have the same zitty implications in French or Spanish.

Just let's hope the buyers don't make any rash decisions.

Big Chicken!

A phrase that really needs to be spoken in a strong Scouse accent.

Like John Bishop's.

It looks like he is very happy about having just been arrested.

However, he hasn't been arrested and he probably isn't very happy.

Apparently, if you are involved in a car accident with no other vehicle involved, you are supposed to say, "Didn't you see that bloody dog? It just ran out in front of me!"

If you are convincing enough, someone living nearby will be able to tell you who the dog belongs to - even though it never existed in the first place.  This story from May springs to mind.

In John's case, covered in this BBC story yesterday, there really was an animal - the "big chicken" - and John had to swerve to avoid somebody else who was avoiding it.  We know the chicken didn't survive so there is a body for evidence (if it hasn't been eaten by now) but that does imply that the crash was unnecessary.  Shame given the damage to John's car:

It looks like the police gave him a lift to ferry he was trying to get to - bet they wouldn't have done that for you or me. 

The story describes him as "Doctor Who's John Bishop" which seems strange as he's only been in it for two minutes so far - I'd have gone with "Comedian John Bishop" but I am looking forward to seeing how the Daleks cope with his accent up in that there space.  Maybe they'll have an episode where he meets some big chicken people.

It's Going Home

Well, it's not actually - not if it's stuck in a mega-traffic jam on the M4.

In sweltering heat.

So what do you do?

You get a football out and have a kickabout.

OK, so it could potentially distract emergency vehicles sweeping down that carriageway en route to the lorry fire that caused the tailback and probably added a couple of degrees to the heat.  But emergency vehicles tend to be very noisy things that you can see from a distance giving you time to pick up the ball and clear off to the side of the road like we had to when we were children and a car came along.

I don't see the problem myself.  The BBC reports Inspector Mark Freeman of Wiltshire Police not being very happy though.

The only thing missing from this for me, is more drivers and passengers from other vehicles joining him for a proper match.  Like Christmas in the Trenches in World War One.  Paul McCartney could have written a song about it.

Sprinting Ahead?

Today is the British Grand Prix.

Years ago I would have been very excited by this event.

Today. Not so much.

I gave up on F1 when they sold out to Sky and from what I've heard and read on the subject, the races themselves became more processional and therefore more boring as the years went by.  If you look back at my posts around 2011 you see how disgruntled I got.

However, I found myself in a pub yesterday afternoon and the they were showing the inaugural Sprint Race Qualifying - and it felt a bit like a single-seater Touring Car Race:

That is a good thing.

OK, most of the action happened at the start they they settled down to more of a procession.  But at least there was some action - and there were still some decent overtaking moves later on.

Here's the take of the BBC's Chief F1 writer Andrew Benson.

I struggled recognising the Teams. I suspect it is still the same ones as when I used to watch but they've been renamed.  Alpine is obviously Renault while AlphaTauri seems to be Toro Rosso.  Meanwhile, Haas seem to be the Cannon-Fodder-Team-Making-Up-The-Numbers Team who go bust every year to be reborn again.  And always come last.

So - do I watch the race today?

Not unless I find myself in a pub.

Dirty Plates

So who has got the dirty mind in this Fox story?

A Tennessee woman has been told  that she can't keep the personalised licence plate that she has had for ten years because it is "offensive".

Is it?

Can't see anything offensive in that.

I suppose it is a reference to the sexual position widely known as a "sixty-nine".  But there is no mention of that in the story.  Are they afraid to mention sexual positions or do they really believe that the woman is a keen astronomer celebrating the year of the Moon-Landing?

Meanwhile, the PWNDU is supposedly gaming-speak for "Owned You" in the context of thrashing somebody in a game.

I would never have spotted anything offensive in that plate - even if I'd just lost badly at Grand Theft Auto.

But then, I don't have a dirty mind - unless you include the registrations I made up in this article.

The Fox story links to another one from last September about a licence plate:

As you can see, somebody has made that himself.  I think it is good enough to fool people if it is on a car whizzing along a road at any reasonable speed.

Except the Kentucky man who drew it, forgot to add in the tax stickers that you can see on the Tennessee plate above.

And it turns out he was also driving with no insurance and with a suspended licence.

It doesn't say whether or not he was jailed for his misdemeanours.

But if he was, I bet they had him making licence plates.

Electric Light Vans

Interesting article on the Autocar site today.  It is about Swindon and the effects of the forthcoming closure of the Honda car plant there.

It seems it won't be completely bleak for the workforce.  The Brexit that caused the closure (despite what they claim) has also left a shortage of workers for other industries so there will be other jobs in the area.

Meanwhile, it's all looking bright for Sunderland.  Nissan's car plant was in similar danger of closure but they have announced an expansion to build electric cars and a new plant building electric vehicle batteries.  The Government have negotiated this a part of a deal involving a large input of public money.  Nobody will admit how large but given that it is in the North of England where the Tories are ingratiating themselves with the voters, we can safely assume that we are putting a huge amount in.

The battery plant will be vitally important for the future of the British car industry - trying to import large numbers of batteries from Europe or elsewhere would be a logistical nightmare.

The other site in danger is (or hopefully "was") Vauxhall's plant down the road from me in Ellesmere Port.  It looks like the "Home of the Astra" will become the "Home of Electric Vans".   Not particularly exciting but a sensible move in the current climate.

More exciting would be building a different electric vehicle.

This I really like:

Although the eyes are a bit scary.

It is an E-Legend EL1 - modelled on the Audi Quattro.  There will only be 30 of them and they will sell for about £1 Million each - shame - it's just out of my price range.

It mustn't be confused with the Honda Legend which, unlike the Civic, Accord, Jazz and CR-V, has never been built at their Swindon plant.

And now, it never will.