Angel Eyes - or so I thought

My friend Cratchit has an Audi A4. It's a venerable T-registered vehicle known to its friends as the Dog Cart. It was in the Dog Cart that I was driven around World War I memorial sites in France and Belgium last year. It is a sensible, reliable and economical car, and I later purchased a slightly more modern (2005) version of the Audi Dog Cart for myself. Like Cratchit's A4 mine has all the usual switches and levers and driving it is hardly a learning experience.

Unlike Cratchit, who services his Audi himself, I need professional help, and so this week I ended up driving a more modern (2008) courtesy Dog Cart (or at least the saloon version) provided by the local Audi dealer. Although the borrowed car had the same engine as mine it didn't have quite the same "pull" (different chassis apparently), and I discovered that there is an awful lot less for the driver to do. The lights for instance are automatic and make their own mind when to come on. My old friend the "handbrake" has disappeared and in place of the ratchetty old lever is a small switch with a red light that you simply flick to apply the brake. To release you just drive off (making sure that your seat belt is applied). There is no ignition key - rather a gadget-thing that you insert in a slot and then push to start (and later to stop). The windscreen wipers too have a mind of their own.

Then there are the strange lights, those odd headlamps which comprise lots of little, bright projector bulbs set in a sort of eyebrow curve. It needed Google to tell me that they are called Angel Eyes and that the logic (if there is any) for them is that if one of the little bulbs blows, then there are plenty to replace it. Car enthusiasts apparently do not like them, but I imagined the feeling of superiority I'd get when cars move out of the way on the motorway - just in case you are driving an Audi R8.

I was a little put out then when I realised that the slanting lamps on the modern A4 are not proper Angel Eyes. They are, as the all-knowing Cratchit would have pointed out, high visibility LED daytime running lights. So many new things for an ancient rumbler to get his brain around - and all designed to make life simpler and safer..