Messing About on the Water

Poshboatz of Ferry Meadows have been putting the winter lay up to good use, with a complete revamp of their website. The new site features all of the Grumpy Git Productions videos, as well as photo galleries of Ferry Meadows Country Park. If you’re planning a day out and fancy something different, a boat trip on Poshboatz’ unique (to Britain) luxury craft is well worth considering. With leather seats and cupholders (it’s always the gadgets that appeal!) the boat is available for turn-up-and-go lake trips, or can be hired for private charters that venture out into the River Nene. It’s a fantastically relaxing experience to slowly cruise up the meandering river with a glass of chilled Chardonnay in one hand and a custard cream in the other – living the James Bond lifestyle to the full - and follow this with a high speed blast down Overton Lake to finish off with.

In addition, links to the many activities offered throughout the Park enable visitors to virtually plan a whole day out. Where else can you take a boat cruise, ride a steam train, play golf, windsurf, go on horseback or cycle to name but a few of the activities on offer, under one roof? Well, sky. You can even walk on water! For Tony Blair this is nothing new, but now anyone can take part by jumping into a hydrosphere, which is a flash way of saying plastic bubble. But it looks fun and has to be worth a go. There are cafes and children’s adventure play parks located within the 50 miles or so of footpaths and cycleways that run through the park, and with easy access from the A1 and parking for around £3 a day at peak times, you can’t really go wrong. Which is why I seem to spend so much of my free time down there.

Photos: Ferry Meadows in Summer

Photos: Ferry Meadows Winter Wonderland

Poshboatz have also launched their own blog to keep everyone informed about news and developments.

Would You Buy a Used Car ...? Part 1

All this recent talk about the cars at work and the problems that usually occur with them has prompted memories of my own personal vehicles, so I thought it would be an interesting exercise to trawl back through the mists of time and draw up a Grumpy History of Motoring – a sort of used car CV detailing the many vehicles that I’ve owned, loved but mostly despaired of over the years. I should say whilst I’m an avid fan of Jeremy Clarkson as a presenter and writer, I do not share his passion for cars – they are simply there to do a job, or if they’re French, sit on your drive and give a Gallic shrug when you turn the key. So you won’t find a Bugatti Veyron or Maserati Quattroporte on my list; my cars are to the motoring world what beige cardigans are to haute couture. The cheapest and most practical transport I’ve ever owned was my British Rail Student Railcard, which says it all. You won’t hear that from Clarkson.

I was a late developer in driving terms, and didn’t hit the roads of Sunderland on my 17th birthday. Therefore the boy racer phase rather passed me by, although I did fantasise about getting my hands on an Opel Manta GTE. What a car! Indeed it was 1985 before I had enough cash to start driving lessons, while my Gran put up the readies for my first car to learn in – this magnificent 1972 Ford Cortina XL that was mine for £240 of Gran’s pension.

Who remembers cobbled back lanes? And dustbins?
And Councils who would actually empty them?

It was in great condition as can be seen, and featured such luxuries as the obligatory vinyl roof, four gears and a whopping 1.6 litre engine. It was a heavy car to drive, having the turning circle of Tesco and needed three people to turn the wheel. But it drove nicely and could pull off the lights in fourth gear, which as a learner was something that happened quite regularly. Sadly, after a couple of months, I was offered a job that required moving away to Stratford Upon Avon within a week. It wasn’t practical to keep the car as I hadn’t got my licence, so it was quickly sold – yes, of course I regret it!

And that was my motoring for a while – I worked in a variety of hotels in Stratford, followed by Windsor and then London. There was no opportunity, or any real need, for driving in those days as Britain still boasted affordable public transport. Hotels often provided live-in accommodation for full time staff because of the hours worked, and as such, every night was party night. Consequently there was little need for a car, and to be honest, I was rarely in a fit state to drive one anyway. Indeed after one particularly raucous party I spent an entire night on London’s Night Bus network, desperately trying to get home but equally desperately trying to remember where the hell I lived. But all that is an article – perhaps even a book – in itself, so I’ll leave it parked up for the moment.

It wasn’t until 1988 when I was living in London that vehicles became important again. My brother and I came up with a half-baked idea of buying cheap cars in the recession hit North East, and selling them at a premium to the cash rich Londoners. We were inspired by Minder, which rather indicates the level of research that we carried out. The first run was with a ‘V’ reg 2.8 litre Ford Granada Mk3 in metallic gold, a popular colour at the time, rather similar to this one (ours didn’t last long enough for a photo).

Elegance, style and luxury ... it said in the brochure.

Of course, we had no idea what we were doing. The car was purchased in Ryhope, and I would drive, with my brother who actually held a licence, to London. Unfortunately, somewhere in the Luton area, the automatic transmission developed a fault. Gear changes became rather lumpy, and then when the car was slowed to a halt, it would die. Entering London like this was madness, so we stopped at Toddington Services for several hours and spent as much on coffee as we had on the car (2 cups each) before setting off under the cover of darkness to lurch and limp home. By now the car would only start by revving the engine like mad while holding down the brake pedal, then releasing it quickly so that the car shot forward. Put the brakes on, slow to less than 20 mph and the engine died. This wasn’t the easiest way of negotiating the streets of North London, and needless to say, we got hopelessly lost. The car was deteriorating by the minute, so eventually we did the only thing possible – abandoned it in a bus stop in … I don’t know. We hailed a cab, and confused the cabbie by asking where we where, instead of where we wished to travel to. This turned out to be in Edgware. As I lived in Islington (this was long before Tony Blair had been invented and made it fashionable and unaffordable) it was a long and expensive ride home in said cab.

The following day, Brian returned up north the sensible way – by Inter City 125. This left me with the Inner City 125 bus route to Edgware. Despite having abandoned the Granny at a bus stop in North London without locking it, not one petty crook had had the inventiveness to nick it. In daylight, everything became much clearer, and it turned out that the Granada’s journey had ended not 100 yards from a Ford dealership! I went and explained my plight to the service department, who, it has to be said, were remarkably helpful. A Rastafarian mechanic walked over for a look, and once he’d stopped laughing, said maybe he could do something. Back to the Ford dealers, and a long wait followed until he emerged with his boss. They offered a deal – they’d recover the car (couple of £ hundred) and fix it (sell a couple of limbs) and I could have it back. In a week or so. If they weren’t busy. And if they could get the parts. Oh, great. Or … option 2. The mechanic quite fancied the car for himself, and had the means to fix it. So, if I gave him the documents and keys, I could walk away right there and then and never have to see the beast again. Well, what would you do? It was a no brainer, of course. If I didn’t accept the deal, I’d be responsible for recovery one way or another, plus the repair and then still have to sort out a sale. Far better to get rid of it there and then, quickly and cleanly. I readily accepted the deal; the mechanic saw me right and I was on the bus home before you could say, “Would you buy a used car from this man?”

Unfortunately from my bank’s point of view, but fortunately for the sake of creative writing, I rarely learn from mistakes and this incident was merely the tip of the iceberg. More to follow in a slow news week…

A Winters Tale-Back

The cold spell (if you live in the north) / deep freeze (south of the M25) has certainly made work interesting and not just a little complicated. What is most of note, however, seems to be people’s attitudes to the problems that this weather brings.

On Monday, the big ‘back to work’ day, everyone set off with good intentions, except for the Council Managers that decide when to send gritters out, who were still tucked up in bed with a great smirk on their smug faces. The inevitable happened and everyone got stuck. At work we decided it was pointless trying to compete with that lot, and concentrated on the more local collections instead. This provided problems of its own, and a string of accidents and blockages meant that road after road was closed as the day progressed. One of our artics made it to Doncaster without problems, but took four hours to get back after the A1 was shut due to an accident. Another went to a car dealer who had best not be named for obvious reasons (Worksop), but after being stuck in traffic for 3 hours, turned round and headed for base. This took another four hours, as the aforementioned A1 was closed. So imagine how pleased we were to find out that the staff at the branch were so worried about their ability to drive 2 miles to their homes that they had simply come in, had a coffee and voted to go home. In their haste it didn’t occur to anyone to telephone us and say, “We can’t be bothered to do any work today; we’re going home. Don’t send a truck.”

The rest of the week was actually quite pleasant, because a great many people saw the snow as an ideal opportunity to extend their Christmas holiday. Of course, some areas are well and truly snowed in, particularly rural and remote locations. But if you watch the TV News, it is these people who tend to get stuck in and deal with it as best they can. Life tends to go on in the countryside, more inconveniently and uncomfortably, but it carries on nonetheless. These are the people who drive 4X4’s because they need them, and not because they look flash on the school run. On the rare occasion that the school is actually open, of course.

You won't catch me trudging through six feet of snow like humans.

Turn to the large urban conurbations, and a lot of people look out of their window, see an inch of snow on the roof of the Volvo and call in sick. They have absolutely no idea what to do, so do nothing instead. It tends to be the people who work in nice big shiny glass and steel offices (and schools, of course) who don’t bother going to work, because I’ve noticed that shop staff, postmen, delivery drivers, dustbin men (oops, environmentally aware recycling global saviours), bus drivers and factory workers all manage to struggle it in to work, presumably because they’re employed in a job where they actually serve a purpose. On the Jeremy Vine Show (Radio 2, Weekdays at Midday) there was a story about a girl in her mid 20’s who works as a restaurant supervisor in Consett, County Durham. She couldn’t get her car out to drive 15 miles to work, so set off at 6:30 in the morning and walked instead. You have to admire determination and a work ethic like that. Especially as it’s so rare these days.

Cartoon by Peter Brookes

When it comes to driving in snow, incompetence takes on a whole new meaning. Idiots who make no allowances for the weather are especially annoying. Their sole concession to an overnight snowfall is to wipe a small patch of snow off the windscreen and set off with no vision and obscured headlights. They hunch over the steering wheel, staring through the letterbox with no side or rear vision. They brake too rapidly when they finally glimpse a stationary car ahead of them, so the two-foot of snow on the roof then slides over their letterbox view of the world. Blinded, they crash. I’ve lost count of the number of shunts I’ve seen this week, caused by this stupidity.

Coming up after the break - the insurance claim

One issue that requires clarification came to light on the Jeremy Vine Show when the weather was being discussed on a phone in. Some idiot – probably a stay-at-home hedge fund manager who ‘couldn’t ‘ get his Audi A6 to the shiny glass and chrome office that employs him - wanted to know why all the lorries were setting off on journeys in such difficult circumstances, and then getting stuck. Well, my son, how do you think your ciabattas and pastrami slices end up in your local Waitrose then? Are mocha lattes and Sauvignon Blanc delivered by levitation and mind control? No, they arrive on the back of a Scania in conditions like this, so that you can stay at home, put your feet up with your Sky+ box before relaxing after your hard day in your Jacuzzi. I did text in a comment to the JV show, but Jezza didn’t read it out. I think the batteries in the bleep machine didn’t have enough charge.

We go further so you don't have to. And what thanks do we get?

The A3 fiasco, where hundreds of motorists were trapped overnight in their cars, was a simple case of a lack of forward planning and southern arrogance. Does that sound like a generalised sweeping statement? Well, consider this. Everyone had seen on TV and in the papers the feeding frenzy that the media has had about snow in t’north. Dire warnings about heavy snowfalls across the south were given out by weather-guessers (sorry, forecasters) on every news bulletin – yet how did people respond? By carrying on as normal, because it wouldn’t happen to them. Well, it did, and when TV reporters interviewed these people who’d spent the night trapped in their cars, none of them carried a winter kit in their vehicle – no flasks, no shovels, no sand or grit, no towrope, no extra clothing – nee nowt. That says it all really. They did have laptops and copies of Heat! magazine, though, which is just great –“I lost one foot and two fingers through frostbite but it doesn’t matter because I caught up on the 2009 Fiscal Strategy Report and I know who’s in the Big Brother house this season.” Oh, well as long as you've got your priorities sorted out, that's fine, then.

After this, of course, the mood of the country changed course and an unofficial national holiday was declared – a sort of general strike by the middle classes who were too afraid to venture out onto the now cleared main roads. As a result, work has been a pleasure – well, the driving around bit has. The roads from Durham in the north to Peterborough in the deep south (we don’t cross the equator located at the M25) have been clear of traffic, as around ¾ of the population are not using them. East to west has been fine, as we’ve done collections from Hull to Liverpool, and met few problems. Of course almost every school is shut in urban areas, but those in more remote and snowy places have managed to stay open. I don’t get it either. The three highest schools (as in feet above sea-level as opposed to Gordon’s all important league tables) in Yorkshire all managed to open up in around 10 feet of snow, while those in cities with a smattering on the playgrounds shut their doors. Not that school closures surprise me, I know of one school in the North-East that closes if it’s cloudy. Still, I can’t complain, because with all the yummy mummies and daddies staying at home, driving around cities is so much easier without these motorists clogging up streets with their non-essential twice-daily two-mile round trips anyway.

Truly a sign of the times.

Generally, any issues we’ve come across have been localised and either caused by accidents or inconsiderate idiots, such as at Rochdale. Two of us went up on Friday, and took one of the lads from the yard as backup as we expected problems with the cars, and an extra pair of hands would be handy. We had a lovely clear run on the almost empty M62. On arrival at the car dealership, we found a BMW 318 dumped right in the middle of the lorry turning circle. Requests to the uninterested staff elicited no help or response, so we held what I believe is known as a Crisis Meeting to work out a plan. It was a very short meeting, as we didn’t have a PowerPoint presentation, whiteboard, coffee break, group role-play session and post-meeting appraisal before retiring to the watercooler for some pushing-the-envelope and blue sky thinking in order to arrive at no decision whatsoever following 7 hours of bollocks. Presumably this is the reason why so many companies have decided that they don’t need to open this week, because they don’t actually accomplish anything anyway. Shame that the bankers hadn’t stayed at home last year.

While we were deciding on our plan of action, another car drove in and parked right in the turning circle. When we remonstrated with the driver, his loud American wife began mouthing off that they couldn’t possibly get into the car park (15 yards beyond the turning circle) because it was too far, and in any case we were blocking the entrance to it. At which point a Kia Sedonna drove past our truck and entered the carpark without any problems at all. Mrs Gobshite wouldn’t accept that as a valid reason to move though, because she was now parked and that was that. Trying to explain the basic facts of life to an American is impossible; with their self-assured arrogance they only cotton on to things after the event, as airline passengers know only too well. “Did you pack this bomb yourself sir? Gee, that’s just fine and dandy; be sure to have a nice day and if I can be totally patronising and in any way annoying, you go right ahead and jus’ call me d’ya hear?”

Cartoon by Schrenk

We told them that they could do whatever they pleased (in a kind and politically correct manner, of course) and off they went with the woman grating non-stop whilst leading her presumably mute husband (or maybe he just gave up speaking years ago, realising that there’s just no point). I could still hear her several hours later halfway down the A1. You have to make allowances, I suppose – we’re talking about the nation who thought that Dubya Bush would make a great world leader. Twice.

The decision was made to take the artic through the carpark and turn it round at the end on a bit of snow covered waste ground. Guess what happened next? Shovelling the bugger out took an hour – it would have been quicker but some thoughtful, considerate person had stolen the bag of grit off the trailer at the previous night’s auction. I was driving the rigid Atego and didn’t fancy going down that route, so instead turned the truck round in a nearby gateway – and that’s all I’m saying on the matter.

Loading the cars had all the usual car loading problems – first scrape off the snow simply to identify them. Try and get in – through doors, tailgates, boots – anything that would actually open. Then get the 10% that would start running, followed by jump-starting the rest. The non-runner was a nightmare – the nominated tow-car was a Peugeot 206 as it was the most reliable of the bunch that had a towing hook – and that’s saying something for a Peugeot. They hardly ever start, because in order to save money Peugeot fit them with batteries out of smoke alarms. The Pug tried its best, which predictably wasn’t much, but all the snow just caused the wheels to keep spinning and the clutch to start smoking and smell like a Gauloise cigarette, which added a nice touch of French authenticity to the situation. But it didn’t budge the non-running Renault (a non-runner Renault – surely not! What a surprise!) The only option was to push-and-pull with a Citroen Saxo. We chose the Saxo because it’s named after salt, so we thought that it would have more grip than other cars. The Saxo rammed the Clio, at which point the Pug was floored to give it some forward motion to jerk the Clio forwards. Then ram it up the backside again with the Saxo; repeat until the Renault was freed or reduced to scrap. Although it could be argued that all Renaults are pretty much ready for the scrapyard as soon as they leave the production line. In this manner the Clio was transported to the back of my truck, where it was winched aboard. I felt as though I’d just been on the dodgems. With the cars on board they could be strapped down – while doing this, the snow on the cars on the top deck slides off and lands on your head before sliding down your back as you work underneath them. That’s fun.

All of this had taken several hours; there wasn’t even time to cook up a sausage-and-egg butty on the Peugeot’s smoking clutch before we decided to get going in case we hit trouble on the way back. Which for once, we didn’t – and how often can you say that about a trip on the M62 and A1 on a Friday afternoon?

Oh well, before you know it, it’ll all be over and Gordon Brown will be introducing a whole new range of taxes to combat global warming.

Cartoon by Andy Davey