It’s 11pm. I should be in Bristol. Unfortunately, I’m still in Glasgow. This is, I think, indicative of just how badly today has gone.
It started with Word losing four hours’ work on me, and progressed through my spending in excess of 2 hours in various and sundry queues. In shops. Somewhere in the middle there I managed to book a room in an hotel that, on closer inspection, turned out to have quite the worst reviews I have ever, ever seen. Dozens of them.
Then there was the argument with the car hire company, who tried to claim that a Daewoo^H^H^H^H^H^H Chevrolet Matiz is ‘exactly the same’ as a Fiesta. Their argument rather fell apart when they attempted to demonstrate the luggage area with the rear seats folded, only for the rear seat lever to shear off in their hand.
Once I had the Fiesta home, I managed to do the exact opposite of locking myself out of my Smart. See, it has a flat battery, so the only way in is the secret squirrel handshake dipsy-doodle. That I happen to know said maneuver is lucky, since the handbook describing it was locked inside the car. Deftly I did the … thing … and retrieved my road atlas. Then I tried to do the reverse thing, only to find that it doesn’t work. Contrary to what the manual says (easy to check, at this point), you can’t actually lock the car that way. Huh.
Several hours later, I finally managed to get the doors locked again via the slightly more brute-force involvement of a charmingly accommodating chum, his Alfa, and a set of jump leads. It’s a sad day when you have to use an Alfa to jump-start a Mercedes, but there we go.
Somewhere in the middle of all this my PowerBook spontaneously powered off, I think because there’s something screwy with the power adaptor.
But really, I should have been in Bristol by now. Oh, damn.
So, tomorrow:
Early start, M6. @Bristol (if you see a man blundering about with a camera, that’ll be me. Please say hi. Or buy me coffee). Thence to Bath, and what gives every impression of being a glorious little family hotel (as opposed to the shit-hole I’d previously booked). Hopefully I’ll be refreshed for my first school on Wednesday. We’ll see.
Wish me luck. And no, don’t worry — I’m not going to drive tired. If I am, I shall stop. If that means I don’t make it to @Bristol tomorrow… well, tough. They’ll survive.
Erm good luck, stay away from black cats, and for goodness sakes don’t walk under any more ladders, you hear!
a propos an earlier post, what with SMG selling off kit, I’m looking for a half decent tripod for the Z1, seen anything about? Just back from Kosovo, where the Z1 performed excellently. Now I have to get up to speed with Final Cut. Let me know if you see any tripods going for the proverbial song…
SMART? Which one? My missus has an 03 plate For Two Pulse Cabriolet in Bay Grey with a silver tridion. I have to say, that the sequence of thingys to do pretty much anything (like drive it or park it) drive me nuts. I do, however, enjoy standing up in the passenger area with the roof off and pretending to be a commander of a very small tank. Great for spotting parking spaces in supermarket car parks or for escaping from U2 gigs.
I have a smart roadster coupe. It’s an absolute blast – nothing wrong with it that a proper gearbox wouldn’t fix. Oh, and maybe a slightly higher steering ratio. But anyway it’s a terrific concept – small, a heap of fun at 30mph, upwards of 40mpg under pretty much all conditions, surprisingly good on the motorway, more luggage space than seems reasonable (albeit an odd shape)… slow sports cars: they’re the way of the future.
Crap dealer service, however, completely knackers the whole thing, in my experience. I can’t begin to say how awful the main dealer here in Glasgow has been. Then again, if you Google ‘smart roadster Glasgow,’ part of my tale of woe is in the first page of hits…