Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Anarchists. Maybe

The elusive "Bristol Citizen" asked us why we forgot to mention anarchists as the cause behind the riots. Good question.

It's hard to see theft of LCD televisions as somehow aligned with the Anarchist cause. Indeed, it's hard to see a complicate blackberry-and-facebook based Command-Control-and Communication Infrastructure being operated to co-ordinate such thefts. Sitting in a pub like The Hare on the Hill cheering on rioters out on ninetree hill -that we can accept.


Planning a mass rising of the population in Croydon. Unlikely. Croydon? It's not exactly the Bastille or the Battleship Potemkin, is it. If you are going to plan a revolution, pick somewhere dramatic to be celebrated in cinema and art for centuries. Not Croydon.

Who then? Well, we also forgot to mention Rave Music. - music described in the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act as "sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats". A music so dangerous that they had to ban rave gatherings, out of fear of groups of people wearing lime green t-shirts dancing to A Guy Called Gerald threatened society -or at least the alcohol revenue of clubs, pubs and national supermarket chains.

There's another issue: where did all the balaclavas come from? There's only one group of people who go round the city with Balaclavas and facemasks, geared up for a mass uprising and already showing an affectation for consumer toys. Yes, the cyclists.

With the face gear, the fingerprint-protecting gloves and the riot-ready helmets, along with the nimble wheeled subversion-mobiles, these are the real criminals in our society.

What to do? The obvious answer is to show that we aren't intimidated, to place our range rovers firmly in the cycle paths and say "we will not be intimidated!"
Praise L008YXR for being the first of the true citizens of our streets to drive over to the bike paths of Montpelier and show they are not afraid. Already you can see how the passing cyclists look threatened and unhappy!
Tesco would like to us to remind you that they are still open.

Mercury Custom Woody

No technical specification available

(click images for a larger view)





Spa 91

771

 acrylic on paper 6x12"

Schumi Jordan Spa


Bizzarini 5300 GT Strada

V8 / 5.354 cc / 370 PS / 376 ft/lb (510 Nm) @ 3.500 / 0 - 62 mph (100 km/h): 6,4 s / Vmax: 165 mph (266 km/h)

(click images for a larger view)










The new Land Rover Defender



IT'S been a long time coming, but it's finally happening. A new Land Rover is on the horizon!



To understand why this picture of the DC100 concept - an official image drawn by someone working at Land Rover, not an Auto Express-style artist's impression - marks such a momentous occasion in motoring history you have to understand the context.



The outgoing hardcore Land Rover, the Defender, has been with us in one form or another since 1983, and is the direct descendant of a string of off-roaders going all the way back to the original Series One of 1948. The fact that its styling and off-road ability have barely changed in more than sixty years mean it isn't just a Land Rover. It is the Land Rover.



It's a big deal to me personally because I've been brought up in a family of Land Rover lovers - two Series Twos, two Range Rover Classics and a 110 Station Wagon, if you're interested - you should care too. Travel to say, Shropshire or Somerset and every cattle auction, rural police station and country pub car park is brimmed with Defenders. The proper Land Rover, with its no-nonsense design and the obligatory horsebox, is just somehow part of the landscape.





Do I like the new one? It depends on whether Land Rover make a Horlicks of it or not. I actually quite like the styling and think it moves the car on, in the same way Jaguar managed with the XJ last year, but the secret to the old one's success was in its ability to do a thousand different jobs.



That's why, to make it work, Land Rover would need to make the DC100 not just in the shape you see above, but with an endless array of other bodystyles and in several different sizes to make it appeal to the Defender's customers, which is everyone from school run mum to the British Army.



Designing the new Land Rover is an awfully big deal, because it's an iconic off-roader that's been doing sterling work in some of the world's remotest places for more than 60 years. Replacing the Defender is one of the toughest tasks in motoring, and Land Rover knows it.



No wonder it's taken them 28 years to come up with it.





Tuesday, August 30, 2011

PaveParker of the Week! PaveDriver and Bollard-Thwarter WVM TN07RNS

There used to be a TV ad for the Ford Tansit van: "Backbone of Britain" was the tag-line. The ad's not been on for a few years now - but we were heartened to see that WVM is keeping up the "Backbone of Britain" tradition on Aberdeen's Holburn Street. That's where we spotted this week's PaveParker of the Week - the White Van Man driver of Ford Transit TN07RNS gets this weeks award for teaching the layabout underemployed pestestrians (or "odd footpeople", as we now like to call them) a damned fine lesson.


Extra credit is due to our WVM PaveParker for also demonstrating a bit of PaveDriving and a hint of Bollard-Thwarting, all the while extending the empire of the motorised into the impoverished hinterland of the odd footpeople. Let's wipem out! Yeah! Now that the count-down's under way to the start of work on our exciting thrilling new orbital motorway, let's be sure and have no-one walking the streets of "The Granite City" when it opens to traffic in 2012, 2015, 2019, 2025.



H1 and a Chevelle...

Sweeet... Thanks Cody!

Bentley Continental Mansory Vitesse Rose

W12 / 5.998 cc / 560 PS / 479 ft/lb (650 Nm) @ 1.600 / twin turbo / AWD / 0 - 62 mph (100 km/h): 4,8 s / Vmax: 198 mph (319 km/h)

(click images for a larger view)









Monday, August 29, 2011

Tardis in found Redland?

There's a new series of Dr Who on the TV, so we thought we'd see if we could find a Tardis. 

We're not sure if we did, but we did find what appears to be a hidden, space travelling vehicle, in Canowie Road in Redland. Whether it can travel in time as well is a moot point, but as we live in a four dimensional world, we suspect it can.


It could be a Tardis, probably parked on it's side, and quite well camouflaged. It could be hiding from the apparent aliens that play tennis nearby. Of course, it may not have an Inter Dimensional Tax Disc, which don't come cheap, so may be hiding from the Gallifrey DVLC Tardis clampers.


It seems, though, that  the invisibility field is not functioning correctly and has been spotted by one of the residents, who has stuck a small and polite notice on the field, probably using a sonic screwdriver (although it looks a bit like Selotape):


We wanted to know what was under the camouflage field, but we had suspicions that this could be a Dalek prank, or worse still, THE MASTER, so we hid behind the sofa for a while.

By the time we dared to come back to look, though, the whole thing had disappeared. 

Be assured, however, that if August 2011 ever comes round again you can be sure we'll be hiding in the bushes, and will report back.

At first we were worried...

... but then we realised what was really going on.

We're talking about the local "joint project" - GetAbout - their stated aim is to create a "better transport system... in Aberdeen City and Shire."

News reaches us that GetAbout are floating the idea of a bike-sharing scheme for Aberdeen, similar to London's so-called 'Boris Bikes', or "Boris's Bikes" as GetAbout would have it. Well, of course we were worried. But then, on closer reading, we realised the subtlety of what was really going on here. From the GetAbout web-page:
Is Aberdeen ready for a scheme like Boris's?

What do you think? ... Perhaps you think it's just not safe to cycle, or as a driver you are worried by cyclists. Maybe Boris's Bikes sound great for use on old railway lines and in the parks, or may be they sound an ideal way to get around town. Would your staff use them for business trips or to get to work from the Union Square Transport interchange?
(Our emphasis)

It's subtle and very clever. What appears on the surface to be a pro-cycling bit of quango-work is actually framed very carefully in an anti-cycling context with anti-cycling language and imagery. We therefore congratulate GetAbout, for spending their greenwash budget on an intitiative which drives home the usual messages:
  • that cycling is not safe;

  • that cyclists worry drivers. Indeed, for the menace cyclists might scratch our nice cars as we roar past them, or - when we run into them after they've "just come out of no-where" - they jeopardise our no-claims bonuses. And we already pay quite enough for car insurance, thank-you very much;

  • and that cycling is not really a mode of transport at all, it's fine for the old railway line or in the park and that's about it.

Then, and only then, do GetAbout ask whether we should consider cycling for getting around town or business trips or commuting? GetAbout mention this only after first framing the question with the three previous anti-cycling points, thus ensuring that - when we consider getting about town by bike, or commuting by bike or doing a business trip by bike - we first consider that it is not safe, that it worries drivers, and that it is in fact, just a childish leisure activity for weekends or summer evenings. So GetAbout have ensured that the answer will be: "No, cycling does not sound like an ideal way to get around town, to commute, or to use for a business trip - are you mad?"




Just look at the  picture which GetAbout have chosen to illustrate their press-release.
She is not a high-powered business-person, unlike the people in Aberdeen who mostly are.
And she is wearing a  full-head crash helmet, thus demonstrating danger.
And the bikes, look at the bikes. They are not in use. Good. Let's keep it that way.

We think its brilliant that GetAbout have managed to propagate this pro-motorcar message while spending their budget appearing to promote cycling and maintaining plausible deniability.

In their press release they asked:
Is Aberdeen ready for a scheme like Boris's?
By framing their question the way they have, they have helped ensure that, in Aberdeen "City and Shire" the answer to that question will remain for the forseeable futue a resounding "NO!" and have helped to keep the dangerous menace of cycling off our roads. We congratulate GetAbout for their kung-fu skills. Brilliant!

Peugeot 405 MI 16

S4 / 1.905 cc / 158 PS / 131 lb/ft (177 Nm) @ 5.000 / 0 - 62 mph (100 km/h): 8,6 s / Vmax: 137 mph (220 km/h)

(click images for a larger view)










SALAM AIDILFITRI 2011 DARI PROTONCLUB

Assalamualaikum, saya mewakili kru ProtonCLUB ingin mengambil kesempatan ini bagi mengucapkan SELAMAT MENYAMBUT HARI LEBARAN dan ada salah dan silap selama dalam berblogging ini, kami pihak ProtonCLUB menyusun sepuluh jari memohon ampun dan maaf andai ada salah dan silap. Semoga lebaran kali ini lebih bermakna buat anda semua.



Akhir kata dari kami, PANDU CERMAT JIWA SELAMAT. Ingatlah masih ada yang menanti kepulangan anda... =)~

Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG "Hawk" by Hamann

V8 / 6.208 cc / 636 PS / 502 lb/ft (680 Nm) @ 4.850 / 0 - 62 mph (100 km/h): 3,6 s / Vmax: 199 mph (320 km/h)

(click images for a larger view)