Planet Bonkers Read online

1. Actually a funny book. ‘Sh*t My Dad Says’ by Justin Halpern and published by Harper Collins.

  2. “Lessons will be learned” – my arse.

  1 - Road Junctions

  A manic consideration of why road junctions are always quiet with little or no activity, until I get in my car and attempt to travel anywhere. At which point, whatever particular junction I arrive at becomes a scene of complete mayhem. Where the probability of being able to proceed on my way becomes zero, but the likelihood of a monumental obliteration of me, my vehicle and all its contents becomes an absolute certainty.

  “Is it just me? Am I paranoid? Or is this all real?”

  You see, I have this thing about driving, traffic in general and road junctions in particular. Especially the junctions I tend to use a lot. Like, for example, at the end of our driveway. Or, even, the end of either of our driveways.

  We live in a quiet village, in a remote country-side setting, in rural Oxfordshire. My youngest son’s playroom happens to overlook our front drive. A drive that is surfaced in gravel and is also very steep and narrow.

  Now, I can sit in that room for minutes, hours, indeed days on end and gaze out at what will always be a completely empty road that the drive enters. I have done this many times just to make sure my observations are statistically robust and can therefore be legitimately used as the basis for this sound and reasoned argument. Rather than the following paragraphs being potentially interpreted as an ad-hoc rant by a bitter and twisted grumpy, miserable old git.

  Occasionally, the odd car passes in one direction or the other, but only one at a time you understand. And the time between vehicles is measured not in minutes or hours, but on a geological timeframe. This quiet tranquillity is maintained, on and on, monotonously so.

  Until, that is, until I find the (very occasional) need to go out somewhere in the car. And then, what is known, universally as the Monitor Activities and Immediately Screw Tony Up Completely (MAISTUC3 for short) system springs into action.

  Now, because I work most of the time from home I never EVER, elect to venture out between 07:45 and 09:30 am, 14:30 and 15:45pm or 16:30 – 18:30pm. No, I understand to avoid these chaotic and mad sessions where the probability of not coming home with all four limbs still attached to your blobby bit in the middle approaches one.

  So, instead, I do my bit for reducing congestion at peak times, easing other peoples hassle. Because I’m like that: nice, laid back and considerate. I go out at quiet times. Times when everybody else will be safely locked away in their offices and certainly long back from the school run. Times when I can ease my modern and highly efficient V8, gently along, minimising my CO2 and other pollutant emissions in my compliant, politically correct manner.

  However, despite all of my detailed forethought and planning, in the time it takes me to leave the house, lock the back door, open the garage, get into the car, start the car, reverse out of the garage, close the remote garage door and drive round the front of the house and down the steep, slippery gravel drive (about 1 minute 17 seconds, approximately), the drive that happens to have ZERO visibility in EITHER direction, MAISTUC will have sprung into action.

  Without fail, the great MAISTUC system will have managed to notify, demand the presence of and teleport, every mobile transportation device in south Oxfordshire, including but not limited to:

  - Bike riders.

  - Cars.

  - Vans.

  - Buses.

  - Taxis.

  - Farm tractors.

  - Delivery vehicles (including but not limited to Tesco’s, Sainsbury’s, all Amazon and EBay couriers, post office personnel, builders merchant delivery vans and associated plant hire vehicles).

  - Combine harvesters and other farm machinery (but only the ones you understand that are within 0.0000003mm less than the width of the road that I need to enter).

  - Portable home transporters.

  - Caravans (love them - please see the chapter between 8 and 10).

  - Ship transporters (again only those moving things for Russian billionaires that are twice the length of Oxfordshire and can carry at least three private jets and half a dozen helicopters).

  Not only this, but MAISTUC will also have directed that every vehicle MUST, when passing the narrow cutting at the end of the impossibly steep and slippery drive, with ZERO visibility in EITHER direction, travel at no less than 128.7 miles an hour.

  Drivers will also be required to maintain a distance from the vehicle in front of no more than 0.03 mm. MAISTUC will give each vehicle and driver the ultimate ability to be able to achieve this, including all mammal propelled bikes with big flashing lights. All mammals on two wheeled devices will also be mandated to be wearing fluorescent Lycra in either yellow green or pink.

  MAISTUC will also have ensured that all powered vehicles will be fully fuelled up; completely free of charge. All manually powered vehicle riders will also have been fed on a high protein diet for at least the previous 15 months in full readiness for their contribution to the extravaganza.

  As a result, the entire vehicle population of south Oxfordshire will be able to enjoy the morning sunshine and do lap after lap of a neat little circuit that takes in the outskirts of the main local town and three adjacent villages. This scenic circuit will of course include THE END OF MY DRIVE where it enters the steep narrow cutting of what in the back of beyond is supposed to constitute a road; but doesn’t, not anywhere close.

  Now, I can guarantee that even though every one of the vehicles in the convoy will be exceeding the speed limit through our village by a factor in excess of four, and even though I can’t see them before they flash past at 128.7 miles an hour but they CAN see me, not one, not even part of one, will either slow down by 0.001% of their current speed or increase the distance from the vehicle in front.

  The upshot of all this is that EVERY SINGLE TIME I want to go ANYWHERE, it will take me about 3 ¾ months to even stand the faintest chance of getting more than 77 feet from my front door.

  However, every single driver in the convoy will make time to glare. A glare that says:

  “Don’t even start to remotely consider the possibility of allowing your arse to venture out and interrupt our 128.7 mile an hour convoy; otherwise, you, your vehicle, your missus and all your kids will subsequently need pressure water jetting off of the surface of the tarmac.”

  Now, it so happens that I can get round this very minor little irritation. Yes, you see we happen to have another drive. One that exit’s onto an even quieter lane at the rear of the house. This rear drive is again very narrow, steep with walls on either side and meets a narrow lane which also happens to be set in a cutting. The narrow drive and the lane are at perfect right angles to one another. Thus, all the elements for MAISTUC are again present.

  It would actually be no problem getting out if you could drive to the end of the drive and straight into the lane, then lift your vehicle vertically up 6 feet, turn it through 90 degrees left or right and plonk it down again facing up or down the lane. Unfortunately, the ability to do the vertical lift and turn through 90 degrees bit is normally not available. So conventional turning has to be the order of the day.

  Now, turning left down the lane is not too bad. You tend to get a real good clearance of about 3.75 mm if you judge everything perfectly right. If you don’t judge everything perfectly right, MAISTUC ensures that you will as a minimum rip ¾’s of the passenger side of your car down to bare metal. My wife is particularly skilled in this manoeuvre.

  Being the rational, calm, collected and considered individual that I am, I normally take such events in my stride with an:

  “Oh well, never mind the small scratch (again) dear”.

  Followed up with a considerate:

  “At least nobody is injured - we can always mend the car (again) dear” for good measure.

  Okay, so these might not be my exact selection of words and I might possibly be thinking:

  “Jesus Christ
I should take out shares in that local body shop or at least get a special reduced rate for an advanced regular schedule of 12 annual visits” - but you get my drift.

  Of course, whilst turning left is relatively easy, it does have the slight disadvantage of requiring a minor detour around the village to loop back up to the main road. That’s the road with approximately 100,000 vehicles travelling at 128.7 miles an hour with the width of a cigarette paper between each one. And, when I say minor detour, although it’s never been measured precisely, it must be of the order of 575 miles and at the very least requires 2 complete tank-full’s of petrol to be sure you’ll make it.

  If you do manage to make it back to the main road, you will have the advantage that at this point the main road is straight and visibility is good in both directions. If you are attempting to turn left into the road, immediately, and I do mean IMMEDIATELY, you get onto the main road the kind souls from OCC have elected to site a pedestrian crossing there. (I can’t even be bothered to explain the OCC acronym – please look at the glossary at the back). What this means is, that to be able to get out onto the main road you will need at least 420 bhp and 298 lb ft of torque to be able to propel your arse from zero to 128.7 miles an hour in 0.04 seconds, so matching your speed to that of the intergalactic convoy that is participating in the MAISTUC event. You will also require carbon ceramic disc brakes at least 4 feet in diameter that can take you back down from 128.7 miles an hour to zero again in the 2.65 feet there is from the junction to the pedestrian crossing. This is because the lights to the crossing WILL have turned to RED. Trust me, they will. They ALWAYS DO.

  In the time it takes you to assess that there is a gap wider than a cigarette paper in the convoy, make sure the crossing is clear and the lights are on green, engage and dissipate launch control to get up to full speed in the necessary 0.04 seconds, what is the MAISTUC system will have ensured that at least 1500, old nearly dead people each with a minimum age of 145, will have appeared, pressed the button on the pedestrian crossing and caused the lights to go to red. I’m never sure how the 1500 people with a minimum age of 145 appear and act so quickly within that 0.04 second window, but they always do.

  And so you WILL get hit from the right (since people coming from the left will have stopped at the crossing before they have reached you). Look on the bright side. This is a slight positive, because, having just ripped the left hand side of your car to pieces coming out of our rear driveway, you will now have decimated the right hand side as well. So your car will now at least look equally shitty from both sides.

  Because visibility is good you’ll have also had a nice clear view of the vehicle that hit you, in the driver’s side (where your arse used to be located), at about 128.7 miles an hour. You will have also had a fine, slow-motion, hi-resolution Technicolor demonstration of every hand and finger expletive gesture that has ever been invented, anywhere, world-wide, in any language.

  You may now need to pause and swap names and addresses with the kind intergalactic soul that took the time and effort to readjust the aesthetic styling of your pride and joy. Not to worry, you will have plenty of time.

  First and foremost, the OCC lighting system that manages to react from green to red in 0.04 seconds will now take a bit longer to get back to green. Well, maybe a bit longer than a bit longer. Okay, depending on the time of day, somewhere between 117 minutes and a couple of weeks.

  I think the lights like to stay on red for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the cars, now being stationary, tend to switch their engines off. OCC think this is good and helps cut CO2 emissions, as well as also pissing everybody off. Secondly, although the 1500 nearly dead personnel now using the crossing appeared and reacted so rapidly initially (to change the lights to red), this initial exertion will have now caused them to slow down a bit. Okay, quite a bit. Okay, a lot.

  Again estimates vary, but typically a few of the individuals could possibly become slightly extinct in transit and the rest of the survivors should eventually make it across somewhere between the 117 minutes and fortnight that the lights are on red. (The non-survivors then have to be carted off down a narrow lane to where there’s a nice grassed area where people dig deep holes to stuff ex-people in). If there happens to be a few slow coaches who need a bit longer than a fortnight to cross, it’s not a problem (for them). Because there are so many nimble 145 year olds in their gang, if the lights start to change before they have all completed the 17 feet 4 inches across the road, there will still be plenty of mates at either side to press the button and make sure the lights stay on red. Stick with it and stay calm and collected like I do. Or do your nails, lipstick and mascara like my wife. Eventually you should get moving.

  So, turning left out of our rear drive also has its minor disadvantages and can lead to slight delays. And a minor rearrangement of the mechanical and structural components of your entire vehicle; and your own and any passengers arses.

  So, what about turning right out of our rear drive? Well, you’ll just have to trust me on this. If you EVER visit our house at any time, day or night, any day of the year, including Christmas day at 04:47 in the morning, never ever, not in your wildest dreams, even think about trying to turn right.