Old Dutch

We've been together now for forty years,
An' it don't seem a day too much,
There ain't a lady livin' in the land
As I'd "swop" for my dear old Dutch.

Miserable Old Git

Oh dear! The first comments on the all-new, action-packed "Rumbling" blog are coming through. "Gawd, he sounds so sad, so down-in-the-mouth, so gloomy". Yuk, I'll make a big effort to try and cheer up then ... maybe a winner or two at Cheltenham will help.

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..

Grin and Bear It

With each passing day we all grow older. With each passing day our planet changes. Thus it has always been and always will. Icecaps melt, tidal waves and hurricanes destroy livelihoods, forests burn, birds and animals become extinct, and we have an earthquake rumbling in Folkestone.

The Prince of Wales (bless him) is warning us all that the next eight years are crucial, and if we don’t take action within this time-frame then we’re doomed. He’s probably right. But aren’t we doomed anyway. Hasn’t mankind always been doomed, ever since he discovered fire and the means to kill?

I try to do my bit. I’ve sold the “gas guzzler” and drive a more economical car. But the “gas guzzler” is still roaring around neighbouring Leigh Park with its new owner. I’ve taken to switching things like the TV off at the mains when we go away - but in all honesty this has more to do with saving money than saving the planet.

Princes and politicians make great speeches, but none are prepared to advocate the kind of ruthless action that would be required to radically slow down climate change. Here are a few obvious steps that might be taken universally:

i. A total ban on the selling of all motor vehicles (new and old) which do not comply to very strict emission limits. Non-compliant vehicles to be taxed at fifty-times current rate.

ii. A ban on all wood and coal burning – albeit domestic or power station.

iii. A total ban on aviation.

iv. Increased use of sail at sea.

v. Cancellation of all public service refuse collection. All rubbish to be taken to proper recycling points by users with charges made for unrecyclable items. Criminal offence not to comply.

vi. Electricity rationing.

So, you see, it’ll never happen. We’ll continue to hurl McDonalds wrappers from our car windows as we burn up the miles in our over-powered cars. We’ll continue to jet off on holiday; to light a good log fire on a cold winter evening; and to buy over-packaged food that has been flown thousands of miles to reach our supermarkets (which never close or turn off their lights). Enjoy it while we can.

Me No Likea

So what if one in ten Europeans were conceived on Ikea beds? So what if business is so good that main branches stay open until midnight every weekday? So what if the new Southampton store had cordoned queues during its opening fortnight just to get through the front door?

The place just makes me rumble.

Ikea is so smug. It treats customers to the quarter-mile slog as you have to walk through every damned department in order to reach the checkout (worse than the Hampton Court maze), and the stuff they sell seems to be of increasingly poor quality. When you buy a lamp - wouldn't it be nice if they included the (difficult to source elsewhere) bulb? Why was my hot dog cold?

I shouldn't rumble like this really as I am a believer in good, practical design; and Ikea often delivers that. But I do feel that the place should be subjected to some serious competition.

There is perceived value in Ikea - the paper napkins at a pound per large pack, and the very cheap glassware. But much of the furniture on display seems extraordinarily expensive - bearing in mind the very cheap materials used. The oven trays we bought were cheap, but cheaply made too (in Britain oddly), and much poorer quality than similar trays we purchased five years previously.

A great idea. Get the customers to actually build the items of furniture themselves, and still charge premium prices. By cooing on about how environmentally friendly and energy efficient everything is you are lulled into feeling how marvellous all this Scandinvian lifestyle furniture is. But it just makes me cross that our attempts to emulate the Ikea-phenomenon (the late MFI and Woolworth for kitchen stuff, and furniture stores like DFS and Harveys that sell credit rather than furniture) are so pitiful.

Cross Channel Values

It is 11.00 on a Friday morning and I am in the Sainsbury booze store in Calais. I'm looking for value - some gin for instance, a few bottles of wine. But there are no bargains, nothing at all tempts me to purchase. The car park is empty, there are no other customers.

Visitors to France hoping to pick up shopping bargains are out of luck at the moment. With the euro trading at near parity to the pound it is difficult to spend time in Europe nowadays without feeling the financial pinch. Everything costs so much more than a couple of years ago - specially food and drink.

On a visit to the Wine Society premises at Montreuil a few weeks ago the story was the same. It was early evening and we were only the second customers of the day (Wine Society gin at around 9 euros a litre still tempts me); the previous Tuesday they had had no customers at all.

A clothes shop in Le Touquet was having a clearance sale "everything must go - huge reductions". Indeed many of the shelves were empty and there was a pleasant enough shirt on display. How much after the 75% discount? Sixty five euros. Ouch!

A (very) small beer was four euros, a pint of guinness was six euros. Expensive rounds.

But it is not just monetary values that seem to be hurting at the moment. Restaurants in the North of France are serving up really poor food and still charging exorbitant prices. We visited a brasserie at St Valery-sur-Somme, packed with French people, and serving up poor quality food all round. Our bill was the best part of £100 for four for which we got a couple of bowls of moules marinieres (each served with a mean portion of sad looking chips), a ficelle picarde (ham and cheese pancake) which was distinctly meagre, and a small plate of seafood (prawns, whelks and six oysters - no crab or lobster). We drank (or at least I drank) half a bottle of Muscadet. There was a bottle of Evian and one other small beer. No starters, no desserts - the French table adjoining ours left their puddings they were so bad - £100 and the oysters are still rumbling two days later.

That lunch was not an isolated incident. On our last trip to France an expensive meal at Chez Perard, a famous seafood restaurant in Le Touquet, was so awful that I felt obliged to write a review on "Trip Advisor"; and, at another Le Touquet restaurant, my steak was simply inedible (not to mention it being served mysteriously with tartare sauce).

No wonder the Channel Tunnel is doing so little business, and that Speedferries went bust. But sad, too.

Empty Beaches - Sunny Mornings

There's something great about seaside resorts on sharp, sunny winter mornings. Yesterday at Frinton I seemed to have the whole place to myself. Low tide, glistening water, sandy beaches, soft colours, silence apart from a few cawing gulls. That's the life.

But is there something missing? Something with four legs and a wagging tail who might also revel in the moment? Now there is a business opportunity - Rent-a-Dog - ideal for people like me who love the occasional company of a canine friend, but who tire of dog hair everywhere, the relentness need of food and exercise. Simply turn up at the beach and select a dog from the man who rents out deckchairs in the summer months. Pay him a pound for an hour's rental of a good-natured setter or elkhound. But I rumble...

Postscript. After writing the above I visited France. Another sunny morning. Another deserted beach. But the French have rules about dogs.


Dogs are seemingly allowed to poo all over the pavements. But the beach in winter? Non!