Boss Radio

...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.