The Unflushable Turd

It returns once more.

This week, the odious tax-avoider, gun-smuggler and bribery-accused has been mouthing off with some more demented BS.

He claims that his friend, Russian Prick and gay pin-up, Vladimir Putin is "the guy who should run Europe" and that Putin didn't start "this whole [Ukraine] business as a war".  He also reckons President Zelensky "could have stopped the war by negotiating with Putin."

Maybe the clueless imbecile should have tried negotiating with the four muggers who stole his watch in 2010.

The disfigured testicle, also, rather than condemning the racially offensive terms recently used by Nelson Piquet about Lewis Hamilton, stated that he was "surprised Lewis hasn't just brushed it aside."

Apparently, "people say things, and people talk about people if they happen to be little bit overweight, or a little bit undersized like me. I'm quite sure people have made remarks about that. If I'd have heard it, I'd have been able to deal with it myself without too much trouble."

You're not "a little bit undersized" Bernard, you're a maggot.

Now I know he is into cars, but I suspect that he doesn't regularly catch up on Metro's Car Blog - very, very few people actually do.

But, if he does catch this article where I am somewhat rude towards him, I know he will be able to brush it aside and deal with it without too much trouble.

This Week I have Been Mostly Driving...

 ...a Triumph TR7, A Reliant Robin and a Bentley 8.

Actually, I've mostly been driving my BMW 320i but I have had a go in all three if those too.

The TR7 was fun -  but considering how small it is, it was still a shock to have to deal with steering without power-assistance.  And it was an even bigger shock to find out that the brakes didn't really work.

The Robin was awful to drive - but I can't say I wasn't expecting that.  The seat adjustment had failed so I was struggling, being a short-arse, to reach the pedals.  Meanwhile, the gearbox had mostly failed - I had to leave it in second once I'd got it there.  The course involved a little slalom around some cones and I have to admit that the Reliant did actually cope OK with that - in fact it handled all cornering in the same way a car with the correct number of wheels would - and now I can say that I've driven one.

I somehow managed to save the best until last, the blue car in the background is the Bentley.  The size was a little intimidating but it felt lovely to waft around a small industrial estate and the slalom was fun.

So why was I driving these vehicles?  Because I paid some money to Drive Dad's Car, part of the Great British Car Journey - a museum of British classic cars in Derbyshire.

The indemnity you have to sign is a lot scary but you shouldn't come to much harm where you are driving.

The museum is excellent for the British car fan of a certain age.

A got close up for the first time ever with a Gilbern:

And also a Bristol:

Ugly, isn't it?

I can't decide whether or not the Jensen 541 is ugly or not - from some angles (they had a couple of Ford Anglias there) it looks a lot like the Mercedes 300SL:

So I looked up the facts to see who had been copying who.  Turns out both cars appeared in 1954.

They also have two Morris Minor Millions there - one in the museum and one out to drive.  This was a special edition of the Morris Minor (also known as the Morris 1000) from when Morris didn't do special editions. It celebrated the millionth Minor produced. They are a strange pinky-lilac colour with a twist on the usual "1000" badge:

Meanwhile, where else are you going to see a McLaren parked next to an old Mondeo?

The Great British Car Journey of course!

Bad Driving Caught on Video

The BBC today have a story about an impatient van driver killing another driver by causing a head-on collision.  The incident was caught on a dash-cam (is it called a dash-cam if it is rear-facing?)  and the dead man's family wanted the footage releasing - presumably as a warning to other impatient tossers.

This particular impatient tosser was jailed for three years and four months.

Good.

I've not included a link as I would be uncomfortable doing so.  So instead, here is a link to another BBC story about a miscreant caught on dash-cam (is it called a dash-cam if it attached to a cyclist?)

In this case, an Audi Q8 driver has been ordered to pay more than £1,800 after passing a cyclist too closely.  Now to be fair, the Q8 driver's seat was probably so far away from the cyclist that he didn't realise that the other side of the car was within 1.5m of him.

I don't like Audi Q8s - I don't see the point of them.

I also don't like this particular Audi Q8 driver - he was initially offered a driver awareness course or a fixed penalty notice so he only has himself to blame.

He said, "The fine is absolutely appalling. I am 77 years of age and the last fine I had was 35 to 40 years ago."

All that proves is that he hasn't be caught very often.  And what has his age got to do with it?  I'd be keeping quiet about that if I was him or people may be questioning whether or not he should be retaking his test.

Now, if you've got five minutes to spare, you can watch MY dash-cam footage (from a real dash-cam).  The car to watch is the car in front of the car in front of me.  It is a black Mercedes A-Class being driven by, I'm guessing here, someone very much of the age of the Audi Q8 driver.

He insists on driving in the outside overtaking lane at approximately 10mph under the speed limit UNTIL he comes out of the 50mph roadworks section.

I have had to split that into two to get it uploaded to Blogger and it is during the second half in which you get the high-pitched expletives from me.

I think he only stopped messing about at the end because he saw the two Traffic Womble cars and thought that they were Police.

Meanwhile, to finish off on a lighter note, here is yet another BBC story with footage of an example (like this one from February) of a fork-lift driver getting the better of a low-life.

Sexy Cars

Honda HP-V anybody?

Now there's a car that doesn't seem to deserve to be in a Post entitled "Sexy Cars"

How about a Mondeo STi?

Now that's a bit more like it.

But wait...

...haven't I got those car names a little wrong?

That's a Honda HR-V (an SUV with all the allure of a sexually transmitted infection) and a Ford Mondeo ST TDCi (although the ST Fords have been referred to as STi in the past - sexually transmitted injection perhaps?)

So why am I suddenly linking sexually transmitted diseases to cars?

Because Trevor Noah and The Daily Show have just caught up with this story.

A Missouri woman has been awarded $5,000,000 (yes five million!) after catching HPV from her boyfriend in his car which was insured by big American Insurance company Geico.

He didn't tell her that he was infected and needless to say - he is now her ex-boyfriend.

But that's hardly the car's fault (a Hyundai Genesis apparently) - if they had had sex in his bed, would be claiming on his home insurance?

It turns out this is more to do with a point of law and Geico not putting forward representation when given the opportunity - the BBC have a slightly, very slightly, more sober account from 4 days ago here.

Anyway, for her cheek alone, this woman should be given a clap.

"I know you are - but what about me?"

I'm sorry, but if you have got involved in a police chase, driven 60mph on the wrong side of the road, run a red light and driven across a busy junction without stopping.

then...

crashed sending the other vehicle into a parked car, then struck a fence, another car, flipped and landed on your roof.

while...

driving without a licence and driving without insurance.

You may need to consider that it isn't the judge who is the helmet - IT'S YOU!

Metro (the newspaper) have the story but have tried to spice it up by pointing out that the "helmet" insult MIGHT (only "might" notice) add to his sentence.

He has been jailed for 14 months which seems very lenient given that he has 10 previous convictions for 26 offences - so maybe the judge IS a bit of a helmet.

There are no pictures available from inside the Courtroom so instead here is a picture of two other helmets:

Black Logos Matter

Ford US put out a cryptic tweet on Tuesday:

Circle, pawn, square, golf hole, spade, sunglasses, cross

That makes about as much sense as the emojis round in Richard Osman's House of Games.

Turns out that the only significant thing about the emojis is that they were black - like Ade Adepitan in that Osman clip.

The teaser, as Carscoops points out, is for a new "Black" package for the Mustang:

It even has a black logo.

Black packages and variants are nothing new, Mercedes Black Series is supposed to

"represent the performance limit of a model range, where everything possible is drawn out of that model. This creates a new quality standard. Black Series bring together everything that can be achieved in terms of driving technology at a certain point in time and put it on the road."

Ford want us to come up with a name for this new black accent package.

How about "The Car of the Black Horse?"

I'm banking on that winning but can't be sure why that idea popped into my head.