April Fuel

Found myself reading this Car+Driver article today about this man:

His name is Nygârd Lünd.He is a giant, Norwegian-born, billionaire who grows apricots and orchids and wants to re-invent the car.

Or would be if he existed.

It is a brilliantly written article, definitely worth a click.  I didn't initially think it was an April Fool joke because, well - it isn't April yet.

But the clues are there.

Like, "From the April 2016 issue" and, when discussing the neighbourhood where all the research goes on, “It doesn’t even show up on Google Maps.”

And the fact that as you read on, it becomes less and less plausible.

This guy is supposed to have developed a fuel derived from using apricots in elctrolysis to generate power.

An "Apricot Fuel" as it were.

Story Time

ITV News got very upset by this picture today:

The story is here.  They claim it shows a parent driving along the M62 Motorway whilst reading to his children.

An un-named female passenger (passenger, yeh right!) in the car in front said,

"It was ridiculous. He hadn’t been looking at the road for a good five minutes. “My partner was driving, he looked out of the rear window mirrors and I glanced over then saw him. There were three kids. There was a child seat so they were quite young. “I couldn’t believe it. He was right behind us, his attention was on the book not the road. We were worried he would go into us.”

I would have put quotation marks around that lot but there are already too many in there - and not where they should be either.

The picture is credited as "MEN SYNDICATION "  which is nothing to do with gay porn.  Those of us in the North-West of England know that the MEN referred to here is the Manchester Evening News.  Their version of the story is here.  You can clearly see here where ITV News cut-and-pasted their story from - including the excess quotation marks.

The MEN highlight the word "driving" by putting it in capital letters.

I don't think they should.

I think that if the woman was genuinely concerned about the DRIVING going on there, she would be even more concerned by the TAILGATING going on there - both by the story-reading parent and by the lorry-driver behind him.

I think they are stuck in a traffic jam.

I think they are not moving.

and I think she is jealous of his Range-Rover.

Hawking British Intelligence

A day after I commented on Professor Stephen Hawking's EU Membership views I find him promoting something very British (even if it is Indian-Owned - but then again, India used to be effectively British-owned).

I loved the Jaguar ads from last year pointing out how all the best baddies in American films had British accents.

I particularly loved it because I have a Jaguar AND a British accent.

Now they've gone one better and got a British genius (and yes I am using that word correctly) to advertise the Jaguar F-Pace:

Now I know he does have an American accent and appears in American shows like The Simpsons and The Big Bang Theory.

But you would have to be a complete moron to think he was American.

I wonder how many readers of Investor's Business Daily didn't bat an eyelid in 2009 when, in an editorial, they claimed that he "wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."

Who is the More Stupid?

 

So asks some journo I've never heard of in The Mirror.  He calls himself Fleet Streetfox although the silhouette looks more like a woman but then it would be "She calls herself Fleet Streetvixen".

Whoever it is, they really have got it in for Chris Evans and, to a very, very slightly lesser extent, for Jeremy Clarkson too.

Maybe he/she/it is jealous of the success & wealth of the duo. He/she/it does comment upon the £5 Million Evans is getting for taking over TopGear.  Like the many people who complain of the millions of pounds the Top Gear stars get from licence-payers funds, they don't mention the considerably more pounds that come in to the BBC coffers as a result of the show.

The event that has caused Fleet's vitreol is filming around The Cenotaph in London including Ken Block doing doughnuts around there.  An error of judgement that I learned about this morning listening to Chris Evans apologising for on his radio show.

Quentin Willson has helpfully come out to say how it wouldn't have happened under Jeremy's watch.  Not sure why he is telling us this but it is on the BBC's own youth-oriented Newsbeat so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume they asked him for his opinion.

Jeremy, meanwhile, has been showing his softer, more liberal side...

I've not looked at the ins and outs of staying in or out of the European Union yet.  But I have been noticing the sort of people giving us their views.  The outies include Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Ian Duncan Smith and, of course, Nigel Farage.

This makes me want to stay in.

The innies include Professor Stephen Hawking (good start there), David Cameron (Oh dear), Jeremy Corbyn (Jury's out and don't mention The Cenotaph again) and now - Jeremy Clarkson!

Surprised me that one.  But he's never actually said he hates Europe - just all the people who live there.

the Independent report his Sunday Times column, (which I'm not linking to because it costs) in which Jeremy claims to want to be part of a properly functioning EU - “Isn’t it better to stay in and try to make the damn thing work properly? To create a United States of Europe that functions as well as the United States of America? With one army and one currency and one unifying set of values?"

The article continues,

Warning of a world order which saw Trump set against Putin, Clarkson emphasised the need “to make the continent work the way the Continent should – as a liberal, kind, balanced fulcrum in a mad world”.

At that point I wondered if he was taking the mickey.

But I don't think he is.

Reading his stuff from the '80s and '90s shows a very right-wing Clarkson but I did notice when the Star in a Reasonably Priced car was Alistair Campbell and again for John Prescott we had a much more even-handed, almost sympathetic Clarkson.

And I know I'm worried by Putin & Trump.

So it looks like Jeremy is siding with his mate the Prime Minister and not his boss Rupert Murdoch who's views on the EU have been reported by the Evening Standard's Anthony Hilton:

“When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.”

'87 V6 Capri For Sale

And that IS a 1987 Ford Capri.

Although it's not for sale.

Because it sold.  At auction.  For £54000.  The This Is Money story is here. (Looking remarkably like the Mail Website)  Part of the value is in that it has only got 936 miles on the clock.

A few less than my own car which passed a big milestone today:

 

 Which only has 3073877 miles to go to catch up to this Volvo P1800S:

'96 Hybrid Phaeton For Sale

Hang on a Mo'.

All Volkwagen experts, together with those of us who have access to Wikipedia, know that VW didn't start making Phaetons until 2002:

And, they've never produced a hybrid version.

But, of course, I never said it was a Volkswagen - nor did I say 1996.

No, this car coming up for auction is a 1896 Armstrong Phaeton:

 

Fox have the story here.

I had assumed that Phaeton was just another model name (like Escort and Cedric) and Wiki helpfully informs us that "The name Phaeton derives from Phaëton, the son of Phoebus in Greek mythology."  But it also helpfully informs us that "A phaeton is a style of open automobile or carriage without weather protection. It is an automotive development of the fast, lightweight phaeton carriage."

Which sort of explains why Wayne Carini keeps encountering them in "Chasing Classic Cars".

In fact it looks like in the 1920s and 1930s you could get Ford, Packard and Buick Phaetons to name just three of many.  Go back to 1910 and you get this:

 The VW Group have come full circle - that's an Audi Phaeton!