Boss Radio

There's something insidious about loosing your hair. You can see little bits of it falling out in front, but you can't see the top so you think it's alright. You continue to exist in your little 'I'm still pretty hairy' world because no one has that cruelty gene to the extent that they will call you a slaphead until it's obvious, even to you, that the bits disappearing from the front are joining up with the bits that you can't see from the top. In my case things are complicated still further by the fact that some of my hairs are refusing to fall out, instead they continue to sit atop my head, necessitating the occasional cut and comb. All hail the mighty Silvikrin Hair Tonic .

There are those that try to maintain that Silvikrin hair tonic was merely charlatan's potion and that it had no real effect upon the human bonce, but I think that my little flag wavers up there and the fact that more and more people are getting balder quicker younger these days proves that the mighty little bottle did indeed have secret mystery resorative powers no longer availble to man.

Alas the mighty super-gro food for the head and the hair that should grow upon it is no more, and thus it was that I went to buy a new car.

I may not have mentioned this lately, but my mother had problems with her old car, especially in hot weather, which we've had quite a lot of recently, so my sister and her husband rather generously offered to buy her a new one and last wednesday they came around to take us out to look at a few garages. It looked slightly overcast outside and the thought of taking a hat/cap with me never entered my head (More evidence, were it needed, of the damage being done to my upper extremety by the lack of any kind of hair-assistor-stuff). Naturally the sun came out, in spades.

As soon as we stepped out of the first showroom to wander around the yard I knew I was going to be in trouble. It felt really silly walking around looking at cars with my hands over my head but they were the only protection I had, so I wandered around looking like a prisoner-of-war trying to make sensible evaluations of over-priced second hand transportation that I could hardly see for the sun reflecting off their super-polished outer shells.

The second salesroom was a bit better, it had lots of trees that I could stand under while I pretended to analyse the array of features spread before me in the guize of everyday cars. Alas, we drew another blank. Even 2nd hand cars it seemed were now out of our price range. Then on our way to the third "Previously used vehicles" venue we spotted a garage with lots of price signs on the cars parked outside. We stopped to look. The prices were just so much better...

It was now just turned mid day, internet standard time, which meant that the sun was at it's zenith as we wandered around the lot looking at car after car. The guy doing the selling thought I might be interested in a nice red Mazda sports (Vroom vroom...) which indeed I was, I like the sound of Mazda engines. Where other engines tick over the Mazda hums. There was a problem though. Only the driver's seat was fully adjustable, and mum couldn't see over the dash. Salesmanguy's suggestion that she could use a big cushion didn't go down too well with me. For over one and a half thou' I don't expect to have to buy a cushion.

So we looked at other cars, and others, and more others, and all the time the sun was beating down upon my poor old achin' head.

Bottom line, when we finally got home I was in pain. I splashed water all over my head, several times, then smothered it in aftersun cream, a few hours later I went to bed.

Yesterday I awoke and my head had gone crisp. It was dry and hurt like mad if I tried to flex the skin at all. I spent the day complaining about it.

Today I looked at myself in the mirror. I have a bright red head. A bright red head that looks really silly. A bright red head that looks really silly and hurts.

Where's the Silvikrin hair tonic when you need it?

...but you won't enjoy it...

Drizzle. Gah, I hate it. I like weather that can make up its mind. Drizzle doesn't know what it is, it probably doesn't even realise that it's annoying. Mind you, I guess for the people who live along the upper half of the river Thames it's a much more preferable option to real actual rain, being far less likely to cause any real actual flooding, but when you're driving - I say it again, "Gah."

It hits your windscreen and your wipers don't know what to do. They wipe the screen and half the time there's not enough moisture on there to make it worthwhile, all it does is leave a smear right across where you're trying to look out of the window, and it makes a ghastly scraping noise as it does so just so's you know that damge has been caused, even if it is too fine for you to see. Just yet.

So I opt for manual use and sit there driving along with the screen slowly fogging up in front of me and suddenly realise that I can't see and bash to 'wipe-NOW' lever and clear it. Occasionally the fog is actually caused by my having turned off the the demister because it's blowing hot air around the top of the car and my head is telling me to go to sleep, but usually it's the drizzle.

I did think that using the windscreen-wash function would be my best option for screen lubrication and cleaning purposes, but it would seem that there is a hairline gap of some kind in my windscreen reservoir. All summer it's been full of plain old H2O, but come the cold weather and I put some of that expensive special windscreen-wash-only anti-freeze in there and the water thins out just enough for it to squeeze out of the crack, wherever it may be.

We were supposed to be out enjoying ourselves as well. We British take our pleasures very seriously. I only had to go and pick up a parcel that the courier had apparently been unable to deliver, but having been without the car for a couple of days while it was being road-worthiness tested, mum wanted to come along for the ride, and soon as I picked up the parcel she said "Where are we going now?"

Good question. Not 'home' it would seem. So I suggested visiting a nearby town and doing a spot of shopping at their posh supermarket. Unfortunately it was drivetime and the roads were crowded, hence I was driving down what should have been little-known backroads and other cars were following me, sometimes they even followed me from in front, or in the other direction. It's a pain. I go to all the trouble of discovering all these little alternative routes and other motorists promptly do the same, so the next time I go thataway there's other traffic on the road. On my road.

I don't know where they get the gall.

But as if trespassing on my special route wasn't enough, some of these miscreants put their lights on, thinking for some reason that it's a bit dark. It's not dark you planks, it's rainingdrizzling, and all you're doing is shooting out jets of light that hit the little drizzle drops and burst into a thousand stars before my very eyes while I'm trying to see where I'm going. I would put my lights on just to show them the error of their ways, but then they're just going to think 'Ooh, this is bright darkness, I'd better put the foglights/main beam on' and I wouldn't want to encourage such asinine behavior. The way I see it, if it's actually getting dark two things happen, firstly I can't see what speed I'm doing, and secondly, the street lights come on. Yes, someone somewhere went to all the trouble of inventing these light sensors so that the lights would come on whenever they're needed and what happens? People still decide to decide for themselves whether it's getting dark.

And flash me because I dare to disagree. That's the bit that gets my goat.

Then, as I was driving right on the speed limit down one of these roads I found I was being pursued by a tailgater. This not only got my goat, it got my whole herd of sheep and a pair of elephants that had wandered into the room. Now I not only had to deal with oncoming traffic, I had twinkles coming at me from the rearview mirrors too. Meanwhile ahead of me there was a bend coming up, I eased up on the accelerator a little to navigate the bend. This was more than the guy behind me could stand and as a gap opened up in the traffic coming the other way he floored it and overtook me right ahead of the bend.

I'm a mild mannered guy. No really. You might not guess it from reading this missive but I'm a really calm person in real, none blog, life. So I sat there with my foot paused on the brake pedal because I didn't know any better than this idiot if something was going to come around the corner, and I suddenly found myself wanting something to come around the corner. I thought that if was to accelerate around the corner (Which is as a matter of fact what I normally do) he would be trapped on the outside and have a full frontal. That'd teach him.

Fortunately nothing did come around and moments later he jumped the red at a set of traffic lights just a little further down the road, so I lost him and relative calm befell me again. By the time we reached the store I was a picture of zen. Compared to sharing my own bit of road with a bunch of maniacs with my name painted across their chests, shopping was a walk in the breeze.

By the time we left the store it actually was dark and we set off down the road lit up like a Christmas tree. Well, a well illuminated motor vehicle anyhow, and I was determined to enjoy the return trip whatever happened. So the engine started 'missing'. Actually not so much missing as misfiring and occasionally not-misfiring. I started thinking cheerful thoughts and revving the engine a lot, then we hit a series of mini-roundabouts.

As I started across the 1st one the engine cut out.

Don't you just hate it when that happens? We sat there with the emergency lights on trying to start the thing while a 5 mile long queue of traffic that wanted to come around the roundabout began piling up opposite. I had it in mind that I would roll back if the guy behind me would just come around and get out of my way, but he patiently waited to see what I would do. I had pretty much decided that I was going to have to get out of the car and direct traffic when I hit on the idea of turning off the headlights and trying the starter again.

It caught.

I revved like a lead footed obese drag racer on speed and shot off. Behind me someone honked.

Ungrateful swine. It's not like I did it on purpose.

It was a hard ride home, between the car misfiring and me not being able to see where I was going half the time I was finding it difficult to reamin cool, and my mother suggesting that if I was going to keep on panicking like this we'd better sell the car didn't help either.

Halfway home I realised that I had only put the parking lights on.

Some times you just can't win.

It looked like it was going to be a glorious day so we gathered together a little wodge of stuff to take with us and went out to the car ready to drive to wherever the fancy took us. I turned the ignition, the engine turned, but it didn't fire.

That happened once before, the thing ignored me, so I ignored it for about 10 minutes and off it went, good as gold.

Not this time. I was assuming the heat had gotten to the engine (Although it wasn't that hot), so under the bonnet I went...

This is the first car we've had that had an engine management system. I was screwed. It took me a couple of minutes just to work out where the petrol came from and how it wended its way to the engine. Heck, I wasn't 100% certain I even knew which bit of that mess of metal actually was the engine.

I eventually located the plugs, which didn't look like any plugs I've had the pleasure of dealing with in the past, but since the engine was turning that was unlikely to be the problem, nevertheless I checked them... once I'd worked out how to get them out...

The thing is, my first car was a beautiful old Morris Minor. It had a really simple engine that almost looked lonely in all the space allocated to it, and even I could work it. Unfortunately it wasn't the ideal vehicle to pass your test in, so I sold it to an idiot who promptly crashed it.

It was a Morris Minor you plank! A split screen Morris Minor!!!! How could anyone drive a car like that in such a way as to not just crash it, but spin it around on its roof? Oh well, I signed up with an instructor so's I could use his car to take the test and having passed I bought an accident victim Triumph Herald (You're starting to get the picture that I like old cars now, aren't you?).

Herolds are great for working on, not only did they have really simple engines, but you could lift the lid right out of the way and stand in the engine bay if the fancy took you. It also had a terrific turning circle, something that I really missed when...

After the Herald went the way of all motors I bought a Land Rover. A really old series 2a diesel. Diesel wasn't all it was made out to be, I was out doing a New Year's Eve gig, and when we left at around 3 in the morning snow was falling and the diesel had frozen. Apparently diesel doesn't do that nowadays, but back then, let's just say that a lorry driver advised me to light a fire under the fuel tank. He said he did it all the time.

I took a less drastic course of action, and bought a series one petrol Land Rover. Within days a guy offered me a profit on it, so I sold it and bought another series 2a. I may not have had the series 1 for long but I had noticed that they weren't very warm and they were very noisy.

Land Rovers are great. They have really simple, almost bulletproof engines, and once again you can climb in besides them to work on them. When my sister got married I gave her and her new hubby the Land Rover as a present and bought another one. Yup. A 1962 series 2a, but this one was ex-army and the previous owner had modified it somewhat.

He'd put a bed in the back.

For several years that vehicle did all our shopping, took us on holiday and acted as a hotel when we got there, carried my gear to gigs, and occasionally helped friends and relations to move house. It was the ideal 'everything' vehicle. Then my mum's uncle died and left her a car...

Since then we've been a two car family and the Land Rover gets very little use, but with the refusal of mum's current car to take us out it seemed like the perfect time to get it running again. It's never failed to start.

And it didn't this time. One turn of the key, two coughs, and it was going.

Unfortunately some idiot or idiots had covered all the windows with stickers from a local ice-cream cafe and they didn't peel off. The cafe have denied that it's their responsiblility to come and get the danged things off, but the manager is going to ring me back when he gets in. Oddly enough the cafe would have closed two minutes ago, and he hasn't rung yet.

I guess he didn't go in to work today.

It's getting cooler now so I'm going out to see if the car will start, not that it'll be a lot of use if it does, it's way too late to go sightseeing. What I want to know is, who was it that looked at a car engine and said "Hmmm. Needs a computer"? Have these people never owned a computer? Have they got no idea what these things get up to when we're not looking? Questions, questions, I've got dozens of them, but I seem to have run out of question marks.

Why don't they make engines which you can see what they're doing any more [question mark].