Top Fear

How can things get so complicated just to make things easier?

As we now spend much time driving a reasonable distance, we thought it high time to update the wheels. The old faithful warhorse was beginning to get tired. Its last medical revealed some extra fumes in its exhaust which, although controlled for the purpsoses of passing out fit in the way a drug can hide a symptom in humans, we felt that the long term prognosis was one of increasing concern for the engine.

So, after much internet searching, we decided to kick some tyres. Car buying is not a confident field. I know little about the things and generally work on trust in a very large way. We had a budget beyond which we would not budge but we wanted some quality. We did not want new. Quite happy to appreciate someone else knocking off the massive depreciation cars achieve within 100 metres of the showroom.

Armed with this catalogue of desires we went ahead. Oh, we wanted Japanese. Trevor, our man who advises, was impressed with the words Toyota and Mazda, but added, there being no real British car manufacturer, a BMW to our shortlist to balance up a world view. As they make the Mini, the name of the great icon of Britain when Britain was post war great, it sounded almost like an British car.

We ended up with a Honda, but what we got was the ultimate, for me, in in-car specifications, none of which we expected to achieve ownership of as we strolled the car show grounds - well the large tarmac areas outside the show rooms where cars have their boots open and have balloons attached, to make the car buying process jolly and carefree - not quite the lightening of the atmosphere I experienced. I often wonder what they might do at balloon sales.

But to go back a way. My very first car was a ten year old 1964 Morris Minor Traveller. Compared to this latest purchase, the Morris had climate control. No, it had a heater and............ No, that was all. Its sole contribution beyond the basics to driver in-car convenience was that it had a heater. Even the screen washer was operated by a foot pump. I have had this new car a week and there are buttons I have not dared to touch and this from a man who is no technophobe. The instruction manual runs to 506 pages of A5 paper - and the navigation system has its own sub book of 100 pages. From a person who ignores instruction books a rule, its very hard to take an approach of total disregard for once. More fool you I hear the chorus.

It has taken me 30 minutes to pair the HFC system via bluetooth with my mobile phone. Hardly anyone rings me on it when I am at home, so why they should when in the car. Buts it's magic. I am wholeheartedly adopting the technical enthusiasm of Uncle Bryn from the television programme 'Gavin and Stacey'.

But, it is very comfortable, very quiet (at least until I fathom out the sound system) and very, very nice. Not quite the hyperbolic Clarkson review, but understatement is sometimes enough.
My next project is get the car to understand me. Occasionally, she - for it is a female voice- does not get my drift. I do not want to know that the air conditioning is off as I am asking for the CD to play track 4. Perhaps she does it deliberately because I have, on occasions, ignored her directions and she has had to re - calculate.

Oh my word! I am actually talking to my car. After all, humans always understand each other when they talk, don't they?