Apparently China (now there's a big society) is offering the Chelsea Tractor a reprieve.
Apparently increasingly high disposable incomes and boredom with the family car is making the SUV the transport of choice to delight the emerging Chinese middle class.
Of course there are other justifications, terrain, weather, Tibet and Outer Mongolian holiday destinations amongst them.
But it does seem to me that in the matter of getting from A - B there is still little or nothing to beat climbing into your own car, on your own drive way, starting the engine and driving away in your own time and at your own pace, always assuming that the M1 has reopened for business!
Two recent trips have rather confirmed this for me.
Carlisle to Genoa can be achieved reasonably easily on paper. A lift to the station. A one hour train journey, a two hour flight, another one hour train journey and a short taxi ride and that's it, four hours and you're there.
Except.
You have to be at the station at least half an hour early, then there is the bus to the Airport. Then you have to be at the check-in two hours before the flight, which is delayed, that adds nearly three hours waiting at the airport, as Mr and Mrs Cameron discovered at Stansted.
Then you have to be treated as a potential terrorist, shoes and belt removed, through the gate, frisked, water bottle and nail clippers in the bin, you tell yourself, as I am sure that Mr and Mrs Cameron did, that it is in the interests of your safety, but at the same time you just cannot help wondering .....
Finally you are seated, the aircraft takes off and you reset your watch and land, and, well the train actually goes from another terminal, so three quarters of an hour later, having missed your connection, you are waiting for the later train and suddenly it is mid-night and you have been travelling for sixteen hours.
It certainly is a big society.
As a teenager I used to hitch hike with my copy of On the Road in the back pocket of my jeans imagining I was Jack Kerouac or Cassidy, then a I graduated to buses, always cheaper than trains, now I prefer my own personal transport option whenever possible.
And I have to admit that it is neither an electric car nor a mini.
For my Birthday I have a new T Shirt with the a slogan that will delight the emerging economies of both India and China, it says: On The Eighth Day God Made Land Rover.
There are all sorts of reasons for owning a Chelsea Tractor and all sorts of justifications can be made from Tibet to Outer Mongolia to the Cumbrian winters, but the best reason of all is being able to step out of your own front door and climb into and drive away in your very own, personal, Tonka Toy.
Apparently increasingly high disposable incomes and boredom with the family car is making the SUV the transport of choice to delight the emerging Chinese middle class.
Of course there are other justifications, terrain, weather, Tibet and Outer Mongolian holiday destinations amongst them.
But it does seem to me that in the matter of getting from A - B there is still little or nothing to beat climbing into your own car, on your own drive way, starting the engine and driving away in your own time and at your own pace, always assuming that the M1 has reopened for business!
Two recent trips have rather confirmed this for me.
Carlisle to Genoa can be achieved reasonably easily on paper. A lift to the station. A one hour train journey, a two hour flight, another one hour train journey and a short taxi ride and that's it, four hours and you're there.
Except.
You have to be at the station at least half an hour early, then there is the bus to the Airport. Then you have to be at the check-in two hours before the flight, which is delayed, that adds nearly three hours waiting at the airport, as Mr and Mrs Cameron discovered at Stansted.
Then you have to be treated as a potential terrorist, shoes and belt removed, through the gate, frisked, water bottle and nail clippers in the bin, you tell yourself, as I am sure that Mr and Mrs Cameron did, that it is in the interests of your safety, but at the same time you just cannot help wondering .....
Finally you are seated, the aircraft takes off and you reset your watch and land, and, well the train actually goes from another terminal, so three quarters of an hour later, having missed your connection, you are waiting for the later train and suddenly it is mid-night and you have been travelling for sixteen hours.
It certainly is a big society.
As a teenager I used to hitch hike with my copy of On the Road in the back pocket of my jeans imagining I was Jack Kerouac or Cassidy, then a I graduated to buses, always cheaper than trains, now I prefer my own personal transport option whenever possible.
And I have to admit that it is neither an electric car nor a mini.
For my Birthday I have a new T Shirt with the a slogan that will delight the emerging economies of both India and China, it says: On The Eighth Day God Made Land Rover.
There are all sorts of reasons for owning a Chelsea Tractor and all sorts of justifications can be made from Tibet to Outer Mongolia to the Cumbrian winters, but the best reason of all is being able to step out of your own front door and climb into and drive away in your very own, personal, Tonka Toy.
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