MOTOR-BLOG from Coventry

I’ve been away for a few days at an event in the lovely town (City?) of Bath. As you can probably tell, I don’t know much about the place but I do know this, it is lovely with lots of interesting shops and pubs. It’s also beautiful with a great atmosphere and the sense that stuff is going on - so in short, it is pretty much everything Coventry is not.

Coming from a place like Cov is a strange experience - the place is steeped in history and has contributed in many important ways to the betterment of the world - far more than building a few curvy terraced houses I can tell you, yet it is never looked upon highly. 

The Invention of the Jet engine, the differential gear, the bicycle, the list goes on and on, all were invented here - but Cov retains little evidence of these feats and is far from pretty thanks to the Luftwaffe in a small way, and the zealous town planners of the 1930’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, 00’s - well you get the picture, in a large way.

The war can be blamed for many things - especially in Coventry, but how many other cities can boast that they have demolished an ancient building in the last year? We did last year, when a medieval building was levelled in Walsgrave to make room for, wait for it, flats. What a surprise.

We also demolished at least one more that I know of this century too - the Alhambra pub in the city centre. When they were knocking it down they discovered it to be timber framed and possibly ancient. Instead of stopping the demolition as most people would I’m sure, they flattened it and sent the timbers off for carbon dating. The result? The timbers were between 500 and 600 years old. There is still nothing standing where it used to either. Nice one.

So two more of Coventry’s once numerous ancient buildings have bitten the dust in the last 7 years. Would York do this? Would London? Would Newcastle? I rather think not. In fact, Coventry has demolished more medieval buildings since 1950 than York actually has to this day. Not a record to be proud of.

So it comes as little surprise the reaction you get when you meet someone for the first time and they ask where you are from. The best reply you’ll get is ‘Oh Coventry, I’ve never been there’, the worst - ‘Oh Coventry, I went there - ONCE’ So what is this little mini rant about I hear you ask? Well I’ll tell you.

Having been back in Coventry for a mere few hours, I have already been cut up once by an idiot in a Focus C-Max (what is it with those cars?) and less than half an hour ago, my neighbour had her rear windscreen put in by someone in our car park. They must have been quick, or using a catapault or an air rifle, as I was at the window within seconds of hearing the smash, but there was no-one around.

My Nans 106 was less than a foot away and Helens Volvo was parked next to that, so it was a close call for our cars, but luckily, my colleague Keiths lovely 1979 Vauxhall Cavalier sprotshatch which he has kindly leant to me while the SAAB is off the road, is safely parked up outside my parents house in a distinctly better part of town.

Welcome back to Coventry. Isn’t it great? But I’ll tell you one thing, I’ll not have anyone else from outside the city walls slag the place off - that activity is strictly reserved for Coventrians…

Some utter bastard has stolen the radio out of my half of my 50% owned Range Rover. Unfortunately, Keith has also had something stolen from his half  - namely a sat-nav, which is obviously much, much worse. Swines.

 At least they didn’t break the windows to get in - the bloody doors don’t lock do they. All this happened when it was parked in our supposedly secure work car park that is reputed to have 24hr security patrols and remotely monitered CCTV. Hmm I have evidence to the contrary in the form of a ripped out lower dashboard…

Well that was a good start to the year wasn’t it? Also, have you noticed that the petrol prices have all gone up again in the last couple of days. Funnily enough, it seems to have coincided with Mondays big ‘everyone back to work after Christmas’ day. I filled up at my preferred station end of last week (BP since you ask) and it was an eye watering 99.9p/litre, as it had been for the two and a half weeks previously over the Christmas break.

Today when I needed to fill up again it was up to 101.09p/litre. I noticed that all of the other stations prices had gone up too. Coincidence is it that the prices have gone up just in time for the commuters to be stung after a long period of price stability? Hmm. I don’t think so.

I was driving a press car today - a Skoda octavia VRS turbo diesel. Very nice too, although the best I could manage out of it was 45mpg - not great for a modern oil burner - and I was driving it like a granny. 60MPH in sixth gear up the A1.

I managed to get over 40 mpg in a VW Phaeton 3.0 V6 Diesel driving similary, and that car is much bigger and heavier, so that gives you an idea of how the Skoda could do better. Mind you, having said that, the lowest figure I got out of the Phaeton was 17.9mpg and I won’t be revealing how fast I was going to achieve this…

I have come to a conclusion though, now I regulary drive brand new luxury cars - in the case of the Phaeton - all £56,000 worth , I now know why people in modern cars drive as they do. The brakes are so good and the cars are so quick that older cars (even within ten years old) really are a world apart. This is both a blessing and a curse. It’s great if you own a new top end motor, but not so good if you don’t. If you drive a classic it’s down right scary how new car drivers treat you. I’ll leave it at that for now…

Helen had a bit of a scare today whilst driving to work - she bagged her first kill. A pretty wood pigeon swooped down in front of her and smacked itself into the top of the windscreen - right in the middle too. Now ‘Lady Vi’ is sporting a rather fetching greasy impact mark and subsequent grease trail right across the roof.

The poor little blighter, I only washed it the other day…ÂÂ