Shout out to the two taxi drivers who ran through the red light at the crossing while I was crossing the road. Particularly to the second one, who not only came within inches of killing me but angrily honked his horn at me afterwards.
I wish you only the messiest and most unpleasant of deaths.
Why is it that in a place where there are no fewer than five Starbucks outlets within ten minutes' walk of where I work, I can't find a single shop which will sell me an ordinary sugared ring doughnut?
I've looked, believe me. The in-store bakeries of Tesco and Waitrose. All of the little food shops in the area. None of them sell ordinary sugared ring doughnuts. They're all iced, or filled, or dipped, or glazed, or fruited, or some ghastly combination of the five.
Don't get me wrong, I'm actually quite fond of apple doughnuts, but some days you just want a plain, ordinary, tasty, sugared, ring doughnut. And you can't bloody find one.
I blame the “donut”, nasty americanised thing that it is. Soon in the area a branch of Krispy Kreme (which, when spelled correctly, is a concept I find rather disgusting) will be opening, selling another thirteen kinds of doughnut I won't want to eat. And all of them glazed. Glazed rings, glazed crullers, glazed and filled with this or that, glazed glazed glazed. STOP GLAZING THINGS!
Then there's the item on their menu which says “creme flavour filling”. To me this means “Artificial cream flavour flavour”. It's all FAKE! It is ARTIFICE AND FLIM-FLAMMERY!
The quest continues.
Slightly bizarre lunch today at “Scu-Zi” – mexican-style calzone. That is, chili beef and tomatoes and cheese, in a folded pizza base thing, served with guacamole, tomatoes, and sour cream. A bit odd.
Nice, though.
There be a mighty wind a-blowin' about the Wharf today.
Aaaand, they were doing on-the-spot test drives for the RX-8 at the expo this week, and there just happened to be a slot available right at the time I was there, so, what the hell, off I went.
Bonus feature – the free slot was for the less powerful of the two versions, but the guy next to me was under 30 and they wouldn't let him drive the more grunty one, so we swapped. Woo!
Probably the most memorable bit was the acceleration from standstill to the 8500rpm redline in first gear without any noticeable flat spots. It was just, wooooooosh, 38mph.
“Don't do that in second”, said the bloke. I concurred.
The RX-8 is now on my christmas list.
I found and photographed more lovely shiny cars. Yesterday, in fact. Here are the results.
Mercedes SLR McLaren: Lovely car. Gullwing doors, engine the size of Tokyo, anything you could want in three hundred grand's worth of motorised transportation.
TVR T400R Le Mans race car: Fresh from the circuit this week. You can tell it's a real live racing car because it's covered in filth and duct tape.
And that's it from my motorexpo report, really. There were other cars there, the standard selection from all the usual manufacturers, the Range Stormer which is just weird. The Rolls-Royce Phantom, for the guy who wants to say “Look at me, everyone! I'm driving a BUILDING!”
And we're halfway through the week and I've got this far while only booking one test drive. Which, for me, is commendable restraint.
Anyway. Back to your regularly scheduled tirades about the incredible crapness of Lotus Notes next week, no doubt.
Today the Mercedes SLR McLaren had the lid open. I have driven entire cars which are smaller than that engine.
Apparently this week sees the “Daily Telegraph MotorExpo” in Canary Wharf – not that you could tell from their web site.
I therefore spent some time wandering around all of the shiny cars and taking pictures with my phone, several of which I have now inserted into this post.
You may, of course, not care one whit about cars, in which case I suggest you move on.
Highlights:
Porsche Carrera GT, winner of the “World's Biggest Brake Calipers” award.
TVR Sagaris. It looks completely mad and has a ground clearance of about two inches.
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII MR FQ-340. Anything with that many letters and numbers bolted to the name kind of speaks for itself.
Aston Martin DB9, both Coupe and Volante versions. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Mazda RX-8, which seems to be a car which polarises opinions. Nobody around was heard to say anything like “Well, it's quite nice”, or “It's OK.” People either loved it or thought it was the worst thing ever. Me, I liked it, particularly in the shown red metallic finish, although my knees do bang into the steering wheel. The back door thingy is kind of a gimmick, albeit a useful one – without it you'd have to have very long front doors to allow anyone into the back seats.
And there were some old Ferraris and Porsches and a collection of motorbikes and the new BMW 6-Series convertible and all of the other manufacturers were there for those who prefer them. Very nice.
I like cars, me.
