Safety Fast
This morning I was up at a quarter to three and on the road to Dover by twenty past. The road was dry, the weather was clear, the full moon was shining, the hood on the Lotus was down and there was little traffic. Except for the road works on the M25 between the M11 and the A12, there was nothing to hold me up. Even the tolls at the Dartford Crossing were free! Is there another crossing in the world, with a bridge one way and a tunnel the other?
So I pulled in to the docks at Dover at five past five after just one hour forty five minutes of travelling. The car may be seventeen years old, but it hasn’t lost its verve and long legs.
The title of this topic is the old slogan that MG used to use with their sports cars and saloons for many years. It is still the name of the MG enthusiast’s magazine. My father had many MGs in his time from pre-war Midgets to mid-fifties Magnettes and thought it was a slogan that suited the now-gone marque. I like to think that I drove the Lotus that way both to Dover and afterwards on the three hour trip to Holland.
The ferry was half-an-hour late due to a mechanical problem, which was a first for Norfolk Line, and the captain apologised, but I still had visions of hairy and oily mechanics trying to replace big-ends or something even more serious. But they did make up some of the time and I left Dunkirk exactly on half-past-nine by European Time.
In front of me on the ferry was an AC Cobra. Not a copy, but a genuine one from the 1970s and we started off in convoy towards Ostend. He was going to the Nurburgring, to see a classic Grand Prix. One day, I’ll take the Lotus there on one of their experience days. Sadly it won’t be this year, as someone has a wedding on that day.
One thing that was a bit wrong, was that the couple in the Cobra were using a Sat-Nav. Surely that is wrong!
But is it wrong that Colin Chapman named his car after a flower, with names that showed spirit, like Elan, Esprit and Elite? Not for him Cobra, Miura, Panther or Thunderbird, which exudes power, but something that is more about class and agility.
A word of warning here. If you are taking a ferry to Dunkirk, don’t do it with an almost-empty tank, as filling stations are some way over the Belgian border. The Cobra stopped in the first one and I carried on to Ostend. The fuel also seemed expensive at €1.41 a litre. So perhaps fill up at Tesco at Dover.
At Ostend the fun started.
The traffic along the coast had been light and generally proceeding at about 120-130 kph. But after the Ostend traffic joined the road was very busy and Mercedes and others were storming about at well over the legal limit. It is in traffic like this that the agile Lotus comes into its own.
With the top down, you have perfect vision in all directions and because the road-holding is so good, you can almost drive sideways to avoid someone who isn’t looking. In one instant a big 4×4 pulled out on me and I’m sure he was looking right over the top. And the Lotus is bright yellow! Norfolk mustard is the actual name.
Gent and Antwerp followed in succession without any holdup and I was quickly through the latter city and on the road to Breda and Rotterdam. And just as the road had got angry at Ostend, it calmed at Antwerp. It must be the Belgians.
And whilst on the subject of the Belgians.
Can they please use consistent road signs with the same name for the same city throughout the country? I don’t care if they call Bruxelles, Timbuktoo, but please be consistent. I wish the Welsh would do the same too. I don’t care what name, but every town and village in Europe should only have one name. To make things fair it should be chosen by those that live there.
The last part of the journey past Breda, Dordrecht and Rotterdam was busy, but again my speed was well-up and I finally arrived in Den Haag (Note the Dutch name!) just three hours and five minutes after leaving Dunkirk and eight hours fifteen minutes from home. I could have gone quicker by easyJet from Stansted, but I couldn’t have taken as much luggage and especially my Brompton. The difference is probably three hours.
Incidentally for most of the last part of the journey I was listening to the late great Dusty Springfield on the CD player. Wonderful! Especially, as through the Drechttunnel, with the top down, I was playing one of her songs at full blast and it was reverberating off the walls.
I did get slowed on entering Den Haag, so I turned off the motorway and followed the signs to Scheveningen. If you ask the locals how you pronounce that town, the answer is now very non politically correct, as it refers to shaving someone described by an N-word. But it is linguistically correct.
Why I Drive a Lotus
Last night I drove into town to buy my supper at Waitrose. I was in the Lotus Elan.
It is quite a twisting road and I was probably doing fifty around the bends, which is perfectly safe and the sort of speed that everybody does. Where I cross the county border, there is a gentle bend to the right, with a very small side road. A black Mercedes convertible was waiting to turn onto the main road, but he was obviously dithering as to whether to turn left or right. As I approached to within about thirty metres or so, he pulled out straight in front of me.
Why? The guy must have seen me coming, as the Lotus is bright yellow.
But he didn’t and just kept coming.
I couldn’t go straight on as I would have hit him side on, so I braked hard and dived up the side road, missing him by perhaps three or four metres. An easy move for the Lotus, but one that even the Jaguar might have had difficulty performing.
The guy just drove off and then stopped fifty or so metres on the other side of the road, on the inside of the bend. Perhaps, he wanted someone else to run into him.
Travelling in Style
This picture shows the typical way I travel.
Lotus Elan, Brompton Bicycle and a Paul Smith Case
The Elan was built in 1991-92, whilst the Brompton was made around the turn of the millennium. The case is newer and was a present from my son.
There is space in the boot of the Elan for a lot more than just the Paul Smith case and the Brompton. I actually think that you might get two Bromptons into one Elan.
What is my next trip? Not sure, but I really would like to circumnavigate the Baltic, taking in St. Petersburg.
Saving Fuel and the Planet
I have two cars; a Jaguar Estate and a Lotus Elan, which I use depending on the weather and who I want to impress or show up. Is that wrong?
But turn up at an engineering company in the Lotus and you get a crowd of people admiring it. I should say that it’s Norfolk Mustard or bright yellow and it does stand out. It’s also a very cheap car to run, as it does over thirty to the gallon, is very simple, has a very good Isuzu engine, so servicing is cheap. As an example, in the seventeen years my late wife and I have owned the car, it’s only had one new exhaust, a couple of of window motors and I think a brake cylinder. To cap it all the insurance is well under £300 a year. Depreciation is probably about zero and the car is still worth about £8-9,000.
You could argue that this is a truly green car (so it’s yellow), in that it’s lifetime carbon emmissions would actually be very low, because the car wouldn’t be scrapped after a few years. How much carbon dioxide is emmitted making a car? Actually not that much according to this report, but others disagree. But because Lotuses use plastic bodies, do they actually capture carbon?
The Jaguar is a workhorse and allows me to move the bits and pieces I need. I don’t really need it now, as it is too big for just me and my basset hound, but I probably won’t change it and just drive it a couple of times round the clock.
Normally, around the UK, I drive the Jaguar within the speed limits and typically would return about 44 miles of so to the gallon. On trips on continental motorways, driving at about 60-70 mph, I regularly return the mythical 10 m iles per litre. Now there’s a really crazy measurement, but it’s a good level for all cars to achieve.
On my last trip to Holland, I got stuck in traffic around Rotterdam and in the first hour, I did just about 25 miles. So to get the ferry with ease, I stepped on the gas (diesel) and drove at about ninety all the way to the ferry. And then on the trip up from Dover, I went with the traffic which was about eighty, rather than a legal seventy.
Now, the interesting thing, is that I returned only 37 miles per gallon. This was a sixteen percent increase in consumption.
So perhaps we should encourage people to drive to the limits to help save the planet.
Home Safely
On this trip I took my Jaguar Estate rather than the Lotus Elan.
I’m glad I did, as I drove from Dover to home in heavy rain, thunder and a lot of lightning. Not that the Lotus is bad in that type of weather conditions, but all Elans leak a bit!
But I made Dover to home in an hour and three-quarters. Something you can’t do at any sane time of day. At least though the Dartford Crossing is free between ten at night and six in the morning, so I didn’t have to find any money.
Zopa as a Lender
I have been asked by several of my friends how I feel about Zopa, and how do you get started.
I should say that I would never tell anybody to use the site, before they have researched it in full. There are many excellent articles by respected financial journalists on the Internet. Some have told me that they have even invested themselves.
I only invest what I can afford to lose on Zopa. Most of my intial investment actually came from the sale of my late wife’s Porsche Boxster and the site has certainly performed better than that car would have. I used to love my two 911’s but a Boxster is like a fat pig compared to the gazelle of my Lotus Elan.
I started with small amounts of under a £1,000 and made sure I got the workings of the site under control, before I upped my levels to what they are now. You must do this, as you need to do the following.
- Check rates every morning, so that you are tracking the rates in the way you want.
- Check returned money every night, so that you make sure you are offering money for lending and it’s not sitting in your holding account.
- Make sure you understand the rules on how money is lent. For instance, note how lending offers inter-relate and that you can lend from two offers to the same person.
Did I make any mistakes?
Yes!
As I said in an earlier post, I set my limits too high at first and ended up with a bad debt of £200. I now have a maximum limit set at a thousandth of my total money, but that is probably a bit low. Somewhere between £50 and £80 would be a safe limit for most people. But this would be too high if you were only lending a total of say £2,000.
I am trying to get my average lending per lender down to under £50.
I would also make sure that you construct your lending offers, so that you can’t lend from two offers to the same person. I didn’t do this at first and I ended up lending far too much to some individuals. So now, I have one lending offer to A* and A rated borrowers and another for Youth. The two lending offers can’t lend money to the same borrower.
But as with anything to do with money, be careful. I would have used prudent, but Gordon Brown has long since proved that his definition of that word, is not the same as mine.
Clarkson Rubbishes the Mercedes SL Black
Just watching the repeat of last Sunday’s Top Gear on BBC2.
Clarkson has just said that the new Mercedes SL Black is not worth five times a standard one.
He’s right. Anybody who buys the car needs his head examined. My Lotus is a hell of a lot more practical and I can’t see the Mercedes still being around in twenty years, like my little yellow friend.
Newmarket July Meeting – Day 1
Today is the first day of the Newmarket July Meeting. The weather won’t be as nice as it has been, but I think I’ll take the Lotus.
Here’s my PlacePot for the day.
- 13:30 – Cumana Bay, Balaagha
- 14:00 – Shamwari Lodge, Run for the Hill
- 14:35 – Capercaillie, Habaayib
- 15:10 – Goldikova, Spacious, Rainbow View
- 15:45 – Emerald Commander, Liquid Asset
- 16:20 – Beauchamp Xerxes, Manifest, Reportage
My late wife was a dab hand at PlacePots! Over a year she always won something.
I’ll post the honest results later.
- 13:30 – 1 place
- 14:00 – Nothing
- 14:35 – Nothing
- 15:10 – 2 places
- 15:45 – Nothing
- 16:20 – 1 place
A complete disaster.
But then if I’d got it right I’d have won £1965.20 for a pound stake. As I only bet at 10 pence a line, this would mean I’d have won £196.52 for each one. These are very high dividends as a lot of the placed horses were outsiders.
I’ll try again tomorrow.
Drivers in the Rain
I came down the M6 in heavy rain from Manchester.
It wouldn’t have been my preferred route, but on leaving the Trafford Centre, I lost the signs sending me eastwards on the M60 and hence over Snake Pass, which is an ideal road for a Lotus Elan. It used to be on my route to Liverpool University from where I lived with my parents in Felixstowe. Today that seems strange, but remember in 1965, there was no M6 from the M1 to Stafford and no M62, so you had to go round the major traffic jam that was the Midlands.
Yesterday, the traffic was heavy on the M6 and I drove most of the way sensibly in the middle lane on the legal limit for most of the way.
What got me was the number of 4x4s that were driving at perhaps ninety in the outside lane. The Lotus was handling the conditions well, but a 4×4 handles several times worse and I would not have felt safe at that sort of speed in such a vehicle. Perhaps they feel safe with all metal around them.
But no wonder why there are so many accidents. In fact, it was more by luck than judgement that I didn’t meet any, as several motorways were closed.
But you need some luck sometimes and I got home safely just before seven.
Trafford Centre
In my view there is only one good reason to go to the Trafford Centre in Manchester and that is to go to Carluccio’s for some nice gluten-free pasta. The place was designed straight out of the if it’s got crap statues on it, then it must be good school of architecture.
The Trafford Centre
Look at them all around the roof.
At least I had a chance to take a picture of the Lotus in the car park.
Lotus Elan at Trafford Centre
I’d been to the Trafford Centre before and then I’d tried to buy something in Selfridges. So I’d asked where the Store Directory was and was told that they didn’t have one. Either the girl was having me on or they have one of the most warped marketing philosophies I’ve ever heard of. And then there was the shop where I wanted to buy some new shoes for real tennis. I use indoor court shoes and he couldn’t show me anything at all, so I left.
No wonder retail is in meltdown with methods and training like that!
But still on this visit, I saw some wannabe footballers wives preening themselves outside the restaurant. I didn’t like the pink stilettos.
The Anonymous Widower 