Lights are twinkling in windows, Jona Lewie is on the radio and my notebook still has a load of column ideas in it that I haven’t yet managed to write about this year.
Some of those I’d like to get ticked off before 2024.
Such as: “What’s the point of a car with a long range?” That’s what I was asked after I wrote about my Alpina D3 S Touring and how I could get 628 miles out of its diesel tank.
“But surely you’d have to stop at some point during that distance anyway, wouldn’t you?” Of course. But there’s something about the choice of stopping when you want to, rather than when you have to, that makes a long road trip roll by more pleasantly.
A healthy range in a car is a factor that works for me and several other high-mile drivers I know, even for the weekly commute. It’s all about time management, I suppose.
Time is one of the reasons why people would drive along a Nottinghamshire road with a river crossing in it called Rufford ford. It’s longer to go around, so they would drive through, sometimes to comical effect.
Videos of people attempting to ford the river and flooding their vehicles have become an internet staple.
One famous clip shows a motorbike rider approaching the ford at speed and, to be fair, making it out the other side – just without his motorbike. Anyway, because of people like him and crowds with camera phones, we can’t have nice things, so, presumably to the relief of the locals, the crossing has been barriered off.
I wanted to write a longer column about a politician who earlier this year said that cars were “for the elite”.