Left, Right?

Back at the start of Summer, I posted about Alexei Sayle becoming a motoring correspondent with The Daily Telegraph.I think I don't particularly like his motoring writing - his latest piece, on the Paris Motor Show, is quite short and quite vague. It does, however, really wind up a small number of Telegraph readers who like to vent their spleen in the comments section. This amuses me very much and I enjoy their annoyance.

I have made the point myself in the past that the better motoring columns tend to be found in the more obnoxious right-wing media - Fox News, The Telegraph and The Mail.

But, then again, I hadn't really looked in the left-wing media.

So I took a look in The Mirror.

I did find two of my favourite correspondents, Richard Hammond & Quentin Willson. But overall, it is quite a disappointing site and very rarely updated - it's had the same couple of stories including one about an electric car called "The Lightning" on its header for at least three weeks now - and some very intrusive advertising.

Socialist Worker doesn't appear to have a motoring section.

I think they should.

Now, who on Earth could they possibly get to be their star guest motoring correspondent?

Flasher Caught by Police and Found Guilty

I saw this story yesterday and considered commenting on it but only thought of a good title for the post this evening.

The story centres around Grimsby man Michael Thompson, 64 - don't know why his age is relevant. He saw a Police Speed Trap and did something that I, myself, often do when I see one - flashed the headlights to warn cars approaching from the other direction. I guess he must have been spotted by another officer who pulled him over, had a heated debate, and charged him with "wilfully obstructing a police officer in the course of her duties".

He was fined £175 and ordered to pay £250 costs. He was also ordered to pay a £15 "victim surcharge" whatever that is - I don't see any other victims here unless the policewoman operating the speed trap didn't achieve her capture bonus.

I'd have thought that the Police would have been in favour of preventing law-breaking - this is what he was doing by slowing down speeding traffic. Anyone not speeding wouldn't be affected and anyone who didn't spot him would deserve to be caught because they weren't being very observant in their driving.

Anyway, according to the Highway Code, flashing your headlights means "I am Here" - so he wasn't warning anyone about anything, he was merely advertising his presence.

Quentin Willson added his two cents today thus.



Mr.Thompson is appealing - which isn't a word I'd use to describe the arresting officer.

Carpool

I'd never heard of this before but a new series starts on the Dave channel this Thursday involving Robert Llewelyn (Red Dwarf, Scrapheap Challenge) driving a different celebrity guest around in a Toyota Prius each week whilst interviewing them.

It's actually not that new because he's being making these shows for ages as Internet-only shows. I found his site and found a whole load of them to view. I watched the Phill Jupitus one and the David Mitchell one which were enjoyable - the PJ one was too sweary for inclusion in my Blog so I've embedded the one where Robert interviews my favouritest smarmy person - motoring journalist Quentin Willson:

There's a lot of pro-electric car stuff in that episode but it's done in such a way, by at least one petrol-head (Willson), that you can actually see the logic in the arguments and if the loony eco-mafia types had this sort of mentality instead, there'd probably be a lot less scepticism and disdain and milk-float references aimed at the whole electric car movement.

The previous guests on his show seem to be a varied mix of people with Sir Patrick Stewart probably the most famous. There's also nearly the full set of Robert's colleagues from Red Dwarf - so next time I've half-an-hour to kill, I may just give this a go.