A mere twelve months ago I was celebrating not being quite dead yet. Roll round to right now and another year has been happily scratched in the side of the virtual casket.

Physically things aren’t quite so good. Ankle is mostly recovered from stupid running accident, but the left knee isn’t quite so clever. The right one has recently shoved into my litany of injuries with a worrying creak. It might be suffering the extra half stone I’ve failed to shift since my ‘lifestyle change’ of drinking beer in hotel bars and eating chips failed to bring forth any weight loss at all*

Still alive tho, and the ride before the actual birthday found us racing the night on loamy trails marked ‘best present ever’. First we had to climb to the start of them simply, if painfully, delivered via a fifteen minute yomp up a handy fire-road.

I made a bit of an effort what with being in decline denial and riding the hardtail.  Arrived behind a couple but in front of a few more. One of my best times ever apparently- an achievement somewhat offset by the parlous state of my legs and lungs as I collapsed weakly over the bars.

No matter, the effort unlocked a first trail snaking between and over four fire-roads. Tonight we rode it as one section on pretty much perfect dirt. More than enough grip to push the tyres hard into turns, but not so much to prevent flicking the rear out with judicious use of hips or – if you’re lazy like me – a gob of brake.

Injuries and girth not withstanding, I don’t appear to be getting any worse at riding a bike. Tonight I felt good, confident, reasonably strong and happy to be out with my mates. Which was good as the next trail is a proper step up.

And step down, some stepping sideways as well. The formidably named ‘Rockadillo’ dispenses with the standard forest trope of hard dirt and soft borders. Instead it’s rocks for breakfast, lunch, tea, supper and possibly hospital. They might as well name it ‘punctured spleen’ and be done with it. Absolutely nowhere to fall that isn’t going to hurt lots or impale a vital body part on spiky granite.

I’ve never ridden it clean. I’ve walked bits of it. On the RipMo. Shouldn’t be a problem then in the twilight as night dragged away the day and we dived under the trees. Still what you can’t see can’t hurt you. Until it can. Not on my pre-birthday ride tho, I remembered just enough to death-grip the front brake while picking lines where there were no discernible lines.

Deep breaths and trust get you through. Still didn’t clean it tho after clattering on a rock before the last obstacle. A fallen tree happily placed above a pool or rocks shining dully in the dipping sun. Ah fuck it, not carrying over it, push back up, get settled, pick a spot away from the scary bits and plop the hardtail over with absolutely no attempt to jump those rocks.

Big chubby wheels help here. It’s not a fast rock-smash, more a pick-and-mix line choice. Precision is good, recklessness is not.  Wise words from an old man- surprised it was me really. Whatever, we’re through and it’s a hoon to the valley floor back on hero dirt. And a climb where one particular hero was regretting his earlier epic saga on that first hill.

It’s getting proper dark now but we’re not ready to fire up dusty lights just yet. So there is no time to hang around as we drop into our final trail. Starts with a fast chute with nothing other than trees guarding the ribbon of singletrack. Cresting a rise changing everything; now it’s stumpy rocks hanging off steep hairpins.

Peering through the gloom, I make a decent stab at it maintaining enough speed to float and not enough to pitch into something sharp and unforgiving. Having solved the rock maze, all that’s left is a nasty three foot drop off a rock which merely requires a rolling manual to dispatch.

Only one issue. I can’t do rolling manuals. Fuck I’ve tried. Practised for ages. Earth bound misfit is how it always ends. Swerved this obstacle too many times. Bollocks to it,  these are the moments which separate being 51 and 11. Roll in, make a half hearted attempt to pedal kick, panic as – predictably – nothing happens, so wrench the bars upwards, brace for impact and we’re down and mostly safe. If a little creaky in the knee department.

Rolling to the pub, Jim somehow managers to ram a blameless rock on the family trail and do himself some damage. He refuses to ‘Stella-rise’ the wound with an appropriate lager, so we have one for him. And one for my birthday. And maybe one more.

Feels good. More than just still alive. Feeling properly alive. Struggled to sleep that night not because of my standard mortality fear, more reliving that ride and wondering if the next might be nearly as good.

I’ll take that. Roll on 52!

*I know. It’s bonkers. Everyone I see in that bar most weeks are also pretty fat. I think we’ve been mis-sold 😉

There are a collection of noises you wish remained silent. Clustered around aural stimuli triggering involuntary gasps, cries of pain and classic anglo Saxon verbiage rhythmically assembled around the extensive use of the word ‘fuck‘.

Instant awakening to a night creak on the stair, dread comprehension of a car/immovable scenery interface and the sound of ligaments tearing themselves from their biomechanical norms.

What a noise that is. Somewhere between the creaking of a Man-of-War tortured under full sail and the snap of a door slamming. Other senses tumble in; the sharp flash of pain, the smell of the earth rising towards your stumbling frame, the view of the world going sideways.

It’s gone sideways alright. In more ways than one. And while this extends barely past a second of misjudgement, the story starts some ten days before. A happier time when an uninjured Al ran 15 kilometres at a pace that’d easily meet the goal of a sub two hour half marathon. After which the whole ridiculous enterprise, of a fifty year old man pretending there were still athletic achievements worth striving for, could be firmly shut down and never spoken of again.

Riding bikes – people who fail the risk/reward test say – must be dangerous. Well yes and no. Yes because the chance of physics and geography coming together in a bone crushing manner tends to the probable, but no as that’s mitigated by the experience of twenty years gaining adequate skill to avoid doing so.

Running though is essentially Russian roulette with no empty chambers. Metabolising diesel fumes in the traffic offers a similar level of serious injury as lying in front of it may provide. There’s a one to one correlation between my last two runs and the number of limbs seriously compromised.

Firstly that 15km had consequences; the visible one being a pathetic limp when my left knee took umbrage at ground pounding, so striking out in a slightly different direction to the rest of the leg. I’m not a medical man but I’ll do my best to describe it. Scrape-y – each step sanding a little off the wonky bit of my patella.

A weeks recuperation based entirely on a Christmas cheese and wine diet failed to ease the abrasion, so my long suffering physio was called in to deal with this latest incident of hypochondria. The summary of that diagnosis was ‘being old but not wise enough to stretch properly‘ and a caveated green light to go and try again.

Rather than risk a further ninety minutes of asphalt percussion, I collected my proper running mate Ian and his ridiculously rapid tiny mutt in an eight legged assault of the lower slopes of Penyard woods. Woods that have been the subject of brutal logging leaving a barren landscape of ankle deep mud and fallen trees.

The latter represented my nemesis. The former merely pissed me off for the 40 minutes or so of us making slow progress* on flooded trails abruptly terminated by felled trees and trench like double track. We headed away from the arboreal carnage choosing instead some choice singletrack laced with happy two wheeled memories.

Not anymore. Now when I think of this trail it contracts my inside as synapses zap dendrites taking me right back there and THAT noise. The one following a stumble over a fallen log, a desperate attempt to stabilise a falling body, a moment of disentoriationas my head torch illuminated first the ground and then the stars, followed inevitably with my entire weight rolling my right ankle to ninety degrees.

I wasn’t going to run this off. But I had to try as the option was to give up, limp to the road and wait for Ian to fetch me back. He’d have been fine with it, I really wasn’t and the bloody dog was giving me the eye. So we jogged gently home, I grabbed a bag of ice and a box of Ibuprofen and some internet self diagnosis.

Really not required. When your frankenankle(tm) is the size of a grapefruit and you can barely get a sock over it, it’s probably reasonably to assume bad things have happened. Not quite sure what. The full horror will be revealed when my on-speedial-physio can do a proper evaluation once the swelling subsides.

Until then the best case scenario suggests 2-4 weeks. The worse case one… well let’s not go there as that suggests riding bikes in Spring might be happening to other people.

What it definitely means is no half marathon for me next week. I’m genuinely pissed off because a) I was on course to be on the course for less than 2 hours and b) I’ll have to carry on bloody risking injury to run the same race sometime in April.

I could just give up. It’s not like I don’t have form here. Not going to happen. For a few moments in the last two months I’ve genuinely enjoyed making progress by foot. And I’ll be buggered if all the horrible bits interspersing those flashes of a runners high won’t count for something.

Whatever. That’s for later. Right now I’m reflecting on what a stupid bloody idea it was to give up drinking this month.

*that’s pretty much my running pace. Ian could easily lap me at least once but is far too good a mate to even suggest it. His bloody dog looks keen tho.

As a nation, we’re increasingly shunted onto the global railroad towards autonomous cars. I find myself pretty much unconcerned about that as an end goal, but my personal crossings are flashing orange at the interim states considering a marketed future and the chaos of right now.

Much of this is a recognition that I am not a good driver. See what I did there? Admitting a deficit in a capability which is normally grouped with ‘being great in bed’ and basically ‘operating as a proper bloke’. Shielding that truth is for younger fellas; I’m far too aggressive, make poor decisions under pressure, have fists of ham when it comes to understanding handling and balance, and really can’t park for shit.

Technology may rescue me. Handing over a suitcase of cash for the ‘Bavarian Bomber’ triggered a couple of things; firstly, being blindsided by the salesman who’d secured his commission, then receiving all sorts of media based introductions to our new car.

One of which was a 25-minute video on operating a mechanical contrivance of which I’ve driven derivatives around a million miles in the last 30 years. The first 90 seconds helped the educationally troubled unlock the vehicle, while the remainder attempted to resolve a juxtaposition of mechanical savagery versus a number of computer systems which thought they may now better.

Most of which were controlled by what I’m calling the ‘Wheel of Fortune’.  A bonus of such definitional amusement was how it upset the product guy in the passenger seat, who’d been on all the training courses while missing out on how fucking annoying the old bloke might be. Ignoring his exhortation that it’s important to follow a terribly German process, I was more your dialling, flipping and random selection of options seemingly mostly marked ’self destruct’

Things happen when such digital anarchy prevails. Probably not the things you want to happen or things without unforeseen consequences but certainly things. It is kind of intuitive though, so I fully expect to learn it fully on the exact day the car is due to go back.

There’s much more, but that’s missing due to my inability to click on options for which BMW charge you an arm and leg, before demanding a deposit of the rest of your body at a very reasonable rate of interest. What’s left is an app attempting to insinuate itself in your life worryingly similar to HAL logically explaining ’I can’t do that Dave’*

An app for a car? Oh yes. Confirming things that your mark one eyeball does for free. Are the windows closed? Did I lock the car? Have I had my tea? Oh fuck off. Shall I warm the car up for you before you have to leave? Shall I send your life story via the onboard SIM so I can market the shit out of your for evermore?

We’re deep into decadence being served up by technology while worrying if our privacy is being violated for the privilege.  As a data guy, this worried me a bit until I realised that ship had long sailed with Facebook, twitter and the Apple ecosystem.

So instead let’s focus on the shiny; a satnav that is almost sentient, a needy interface which grabs your phone before striving to do way more pipe the audio through hidden speakers. There’s even a CD Player allowing me to burn all my rubbish 80 rock onto the internal hard drive. Hidden further behind many clicks are further pointless apps built entirely because BMW took an insane decision to write their own code for news, places of interest etc. You’re never going to view those while you’re driving, and once you’re stopped then a useful smaller device connected to the whole web resting happily in the centre console. So Meh.

What else? A start button. Really? Is this some kind of pointless fucking F1 trickle down? In the Skoda there’s a handy receptacle to usefully hang keys from the steering column. Now I’m wasting time and space attempting to find a repository for the loaf sized key that’d ruin the line of even the cheapest suit. This doesn’t feel like any kind of upgrade.

There’s a final technology solution which you can’t even see. It’s a network of sensors and cameras monitoring the space around the car to perform threat analysis. Meaning if a pedestrian randomly stumbles into the road, the car will brake at about half a G before you’ve even had time to utter a ‘where the fuck did you come from?’

I’ve summarised this technology for you. It takes far to long to get to this point, and that point is when you’ll need to abandon the motherlode of the dealer. Which involves pressing this, tapping that, ignoring the other so aligning multiple computers allowing you to start the car.

And when it does, it’s quite the thing. Our current Yeti is probably the best car I’ve ever owned but this one has 55{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} more horsepower and 60{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} more torque in exchange for a small weight increase. Diesel is demonised now but this is a brilliantly muscular engine paired to a seamless 8 speed auto box. I did drive the nutter version accessorised with a hyperspace button and a donor card. Decided it wasn’t for me.

It’s also two foot and change longer than the Yeti. And re: previous comment on parking I’m bloody glad it has amazing sensors visually and audibly warning you that yes indeed you cant park there. The really posh ones have auto parking which would have been a) great and b) financially aligned with buying a space shuttle which the computing power allegedly matches**

There is one thing I really don’t like. A driving mode which essentially critiques your ability to anticipate events beyond the edge of the bonnet. It chides you for braking late or accelerating early. Icons flash and carefully modulated tones direct you towards being a safer, more economical driver. While I’ve fine with friends and Carol – especially Carol as that poor woman has endured 25 years of my lack of special awareness while riding shotgun- telling me I’m not a great driver, I draw the line at a 4 wheeled iPhone with the smugness package installed.

So I’ll put a bit of tape over that switch. That’s my kind of fix to a technology solution for which I’m struggling to find a problem. I’m feeling increasingly analogue in a digital world. Maybe I’ll get some kind of tin foil hat.

BMW branded of course 🙂

*if I have to explain this, you’re wasting your time here. Stanley Kubrick is your man and he’s both a) dead and b) far more worthy of your eyeballs.

** and the price. I’m massively disappointed it won’t launch itself into orbit

….. which best summarises my thoughts on viewing video of my tragic middle aged jogging. Third time I’d been ejected from the treadmill into the orbit of a lovely fella, who promised the application of running technology – and a splash of cash – could magically upgrade my running style to something beyond its current incarnation as an ‘amateur pantomime hack milking the scene where he’d just been shot in the back’

We were lucky to get this far. Well I was certainly after peering through the product festooned window of the local running shop with dread in my heart. Sure any vestige of dignity was exhausted many years ago, but it still required an effort of will and a muttered ‘fuck it, it’s just a shop’ to get me through the door. I mean someone was going to start laughing very soon and it probably wasn’t going to be me.

No danger of that as the amusingly shonky treadmill accelerated from 0 to 8 MPH at a velocity that’d shame a mid sized sports car. Thirty seconds later my flailing limbs faced the opposite challenge of a stop sequence best thought of as smashing head first into a wall.

All of which was more dignified than viewing the video of my gait. ‘Ah what you have here sir is a classic case of over-pronation‘ soothed the man knee deep in expensive running slippers. He’s the expert, but to me it appeared a triumph of biomechanics not to have catastrophically tripped over my own feet. Each stride ignored any forward motion- instead converting that effort into kicking myself in the opposite butt cheek.

It wasn’t pretty. Three pairs of increasingly othopedic footwear sabilised the image past the point of me caring how much the bloody things cost. Just don’t put me back on that rocket powered treadmill or present another video of my big arse. We parted happily – him with a chunk of cash, me with a pair of something that may once have been called shoes before the marketing thugs beat up on it.

They have DNA’*, blown foam** and a 10mm midsole drop apparently all in the pursuit of responsive cushioning, quick transitions and the ability to launch into low earth orbit. Only one of those things isn’t true. Well not written down on the instructions accompaning the shoe. Yes indeed we live in a world where shoes need instructions, What a time to be alive.

Clearly all total marketing bollocks. I was especially keen to prove that hypothesis after their sniffy response to my current choice of running footwear. There was much blowing through hipster beards, some pointing, the occasional pointed question mostly answered ‘I like the colour’ and ‘they were bloody cheap’,

What we need here is a race. Marketing V Me. Emperor wearing no clothes V me wrapped tight in appropriate gear to repel the 40 KMH winds and fat rain joining us for a run. Which greeted my proper running mate Ian and I as we tacked away from his front door.

I can deal with the fact Ian is a way better runner than me. He’s younger, way more athletic, has actually run some proper races, and has insufficient body fat to allow his fatter mate to get a decent draft. What I struggled with was his tiny dog clearly modelled on a mouldy bog brush, with barely finger long legs, also showing me a clean pair of heels.

Splashing through a wild night*** Ian was comfortably maintaining a decent pace and an untroubled conversation, while I was acting as a human turbine sucking in wet gusts and blowing them out of my arse.

The remaining 51 minutes and 42 seconds are mostly lost to middle aged memory and expensive therapy, other than the encouragement of my fellow lunatic and that bloody dog giving me a ‘is that all you’ve got fatboy? Man that’s lame‘ look every time I staggered dangerously.

Lame is nearly where I ended up after some fucked up atmospheric mechanics matched that headwind to our every turn. The last 2km were particularly unpleasant where my conversational contributions were mostly grunts interspersed with ‘fucking hell, is this ever going to end?‘

It ended eventually. Some 2 minutes faster than I’ve ever run 10km before. 5 minutes in I’d forgotten the shoes, but after a brief lie down in Ian’s kitchen I recalled my scepticism to the bullshit psuedo-science and suddenly didn’t feel quite so sure.

It didn’t really end there because today there were hill sprints which I’ll not dignify with a description other than bloody hateful, and an extended visit to my sports physio who declared I have the hamstrings of a 9 year old. In length, rather than flexibility.

57 days to the race. As ever I’m being pointlessly melodramatic. No change there. More worryingly I’m starting to relish the challenge. I’ve dumped beer in the week and salad into my pie’n’wine diet. I’m not massively missing night rides in the mud. My plan is to go full cold turkey Jan 1, so to just run myself into some kind of 2 hour form before the 21st.

After which I’m going to get properly shitfaced. The consequence of which is likely to be a very expensive bonfire of the stuff required to every consider contemplating anything so bloody stupid every again. I hope so anyway as there’s a nagging worry this running stuff may become become habitual.

We can’t have that. It’s even worse than being a roadie.

*Crick and Watson are rolling in their graves. Probably in the arc of a double helix if the universe has any sense of humour.

**Don’t google that. Not if you’re at work anyway.

*** Which triggered another expense. A bonkers clever light that comes with it’s own app. No really it does. I’ve no idea why either.

An oft asked question which, in the netherworld of work, is generally met with groans, passive-aggressive tuts and a weary request from the allegedly knowledgeable old bloke to declare the meeting over as we’re merely bayonetting the dead.

Back in the real world, I’ve mostly been about the marathon. Many reasons – a lack of athleticism being the root of most of them. But as a weedy asthmatic at school, cross country running was happening to the similarly untalented leaving me to play football* with the gifted kids.

So running – other than chasing down pub closing hours – has been a fairly desultory activity subsumed to the proper sport of Mountain Biking. While arguments may rage over whether riding round in muddy circles is a sport, it bloody well qualifies when compared to my middle aged jogging.

And it is in this middle age that running has been downgraded from ‘utterly hateful‘ to merely ‘bloody hard work’. Into this window of apathetic acceptance, I have chucked an entry to the Gloucester half marathon (not a proper marathon, sure I’m an idiot but not completely bloody nuts) a mere terrifying two months away.

Other events are available. Ones not likely to be materially affected by snow, ice, freezing winds, hypothermia or possible be-nightment. However, none of these would in any appreciable way mitigate my bacchanalian approach to the lauding of the sky fairy. 4 additional kilograms of anything marked high cholesterol or fortified wine is about standard for that two week period, where I only leave the house if we’re running dangerously low on Stilton.

Never run 13 miles**. Never run more than about 8 if I’m absolutely honest. After which various members of my family were wondering if to call an ambulance or a mortician, as I lay face down and unmoving in a flowerbed. No point worrying about that now, so reverting to type I’ve ignored any kind of actual training and have instead gone shopping.

First order of business – running slippers. Who knew there are at least four shoe types in a million variations accessorised by miracle material promising to shave literally microseconds off your piss poor performance? For which deranged individuals are prepared to be fleeced well over a hundred quid for.

Clearly that’s ridiculous. When did running get this complicated? Back in the day a pair of plimsolls*** and a flappy t-shirt passed muster as race kit. All of which led me going on a bit about how gullible those runners must be to get caught up in such shallow marketing nonsense. At which point I was quietly reminded a similar MTB related search returns around 500 different mountain bike tyres.

Yes but that’s different. Look it just is. Anyway I too have become a believer- almost booking into something called a ‘gait analysis‘, before imaging the horror and sympathy of staff and customers alike as a man apparently only recently introduced to a pair of legs falls off the treadmill.

It’s hardly going to be a dignified spectacle is it?

Instead I’ve downloaded a training plan. It appears to require bending of space-time in at least two directions, one to halve my age and the other to add six months to the training duration. So I’ve deleted it and instead installed blind optimism supported by my almost sentient Garmin which tells me my mean SPM is 173, my vertical oscillation a majestic 8.3cm and my ground contact time averaging out at a spectacular 256ms. On those stats alone, I think we’re good to go.

Except one thing, apparently it’s almost a religious observance to have some kind of target. Hard metrics seem to be very important, finish under two hours, maintain a consistent pace, achieve perfect form and some kind of bloody karmic balance all while not sacrificing an efficient stride length****.

I’m not interested in any of that shit – instead I’ve set myself just two targets. 1) finish on my feet not in an ambulance and 2) never attempt anything so stupid again. Obviously with it being Gloucester, an implicit goal based on location is ‘don’t be mugged or eaten‘ by the locals for only having five digits on a single hand.

On reflection, a further target should be actually turning up at all. I don’t have an unblemished history of appearing on the start line of races when faced with the potential of cold/damp/occasionally difficult. I expect the prospect of eternal self loathing shall probably get me out of bed, plus the companionship of other hardy individuals. Who I am desperately hoping suffer a similar temporary bout of insanity to sign up, so keeping me company/being available to administer the last rites.

Currently I’m torn between ‘how hard can it be?’ and ‘hold my beer and watch this’. Mostly tho I’m working out how best to go long on cheating and short on training.

Best go out for a jog, I do my best thinking there.

*only not really. The only coaching advice I ever received was basically ‘tackle anyone heading towards our goal and then pass it to someone wearing our strip who is a proper footballer‘.

**well I have. But it was so long ago I’m fairly sure I was racing against real dinosaurs not ‘characters‘ in suits 😉

***or if you were a proper Yorkshire, bare feet. While chewing on a coal nugget.

**** I wish I were kidding. A single browse of ‘Runners World’ has made it absolutely clear it isn’t mine.

Conversations. Marvellous things. A triumph of sentient behaviour. Except not really – as the recipient has no truck for considering the loquaciousness of the speaker, because they’re far too busy spooling up far more important stuff waiting for clear air to broadcast*

Car salespeople are like this. They’ve ignored the two hour ‘listening to customers’ seminar on induction to whatever shiny brand they are pedalling. Instead they embark on the questionable strategy of ignoring everything the pointless old bloke offering real cash may consider important.

Even if this irritating individual refuses to be swayed by prepared speeches on brand values and unique selling features, instead opening a small notebook and stabbing repeatedly at stuff that has the power to keep him right here. As opposed to option b) which involves beating that salesperson to death with the glossy brochure before flouncing off with a ‘I’ve done the gene pool a favour‘ thrown over an insouciant shoulder.

Fuck me I’m bored of this. As are the salespeople, but that’s their job. Rather than adopting a confrontational strategy of striding into the showroom demanding an interaction with ‘someone old enough to shave as long as no obvious beard grooming is evidenced, and absolutely no waistcoats, I want to buy a car not a fucking country house‘, I’m all about guerrilla tactics.

Mostly this involves turning up in the cheapest clothes I can find**, poke about in expensive cars with a tape measure, wonder out loud if a mountain bike wheel would fit in there, prod, poke and scratch expensive fabrics until an individual from the candy crush generation wanders over and asks what I’m interested in.

At which point I gleefully awaken the kraken of requirements carefully recorded in a notebook until boredom overwhelms them and they offer me a test drive. This activates phase two where I insist on pairing my phone with the i-think-you’ll-find-sir-this-infotamenet-system-is-class-leading before unleashing my dreadfully uncool play-list.

Not because I’m even peripherally interested in the quality of the audio system. No, I just want to see them squirm as a track 1 of ‘a 100 hits of the 80s‘ blasts out of 10 speakers. God I cherish that moment, but they soon get their revenge explaining virtual cockpit this and four wheels steering that which are essentially narrowing pathways to me signing my life away for Coke can with an ego problem.

Once the test drive is done, we move onto numbers. An area I’ve had about 30 years experience which is 29 more than the beard oil postulating bollocks opposite. He offers averages, I counter with standard deviation and regression to the mean. Not for any other reason than I’ve lost control of any possible transaction on walking into a 26 million ‘brand facility‘ which clearly this conversation may end up paying for.

I’ve also become increasingly suspicious of my motives. For all my ‘oh fuck off, really it’s just a car‘, I could easily buy something for half the price that’d be better than functional and nowhere near as financially destructive. Driving breaks down like this; 15{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} running the kids around on a daily basis, about the same transporting me and mucky bikes to places Matt’s van isn’t going with the remaining 70{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} navigating to end points of our wonderfully diverse higher education sector.

For that you need a car that’ll reliably get you there, not make you look like a dick if you’re offering a lift, not mirror my fiscal insanity when considering mountain bikes, take one of those inside in an emergency and act as a family transport when I remember that’s my tribe.

Rationally I’m all in with that argument. The problem – possibly unsurprisingly to regular readers – is indeed mountain bikes. I have so many of those whose form trumps their function, and even that’s not something I’m pushing at the edge of. So much as my amusement when confronted with ‘advanced ride dynamics‘ has led to many awkward moments when one person looks shocked and the other is doubled over pissing themselves laughing, the guilty truth is I’m almost as much a tart for cars as I am for bikes.

If the car after this will be electric, I might as well have one last fling raging against the light. Due diligence sprouts many spreadsheets with pivot tables. Graphs are prominent. Statistical hypothesis inerpret the raw data. Which tells me everything and pretty much nothing.

But I need to do something. The Yeti is accelerating towards the contract hire event horizon. They really want it back. I really not want to give it back. Only one person is gong to win that argument, so Ive decided to avoid having to step into another of those matrix-style showrooms instead putting all our money in a bucket and inviting those wearing the suits of shiny to bring their trinkets for review.

It’s not going to work of course. But it’ll work better than hiding under the duvet thinking dark thoughts about one sales-dick who was keen to explain that ‘buying one of our cars sir will certainly make you look quite a lot more important’.

I don’t feel important. Manipulated possibly. Confused definitely. Enthused not at all. I am genuinely concerned if and when we need to move house I may have to renew my shotgun license.

*for those at least tangentially aware of social norms. Those lacking an iota of self awareness are pretty much in permanent transmit mode.

**Or as I like to think of it my ‘everyday wardrobe’