It took an hour yesterday to buy a used car. Last week it took longer than that to buy a toner cartridge for the printer.
Georgina quickly took on board that I am an ingenu in the car-buying department. When Alan was rebuilding the kitchen he always gave me a choice. If I made the wrong choice he’d “park” it and bring it back at the next meeting with an unpalatable alternative. Georgina gave me a choice of cars; a new grey one or a used green one. The former was a little dearer and I am enchanted with the continuity of keeping to green and it was the car I took for a test drive on Saturday; but my first car, a Morris Minor 1000, was Battleship Grey – not a colour name that would appeal today.
Did you know that motor racing was illegal on public roads in England in 1903? That’s why the Gordon Bennett Cup was contested on Irish roads; Ireland’s first international motor race.
The route consisted of two loops that comprised a figure of eight, the first was a 52-mile loop that included Kilcullen, The Curragh, Kildare, Monasterevin, Ballydavis (Port Laoise), Stradbally, Athy, followed by a 40-mile loop through Castledermot, Carlow, and Athy again. The official timekeeper of the race was Mr. T. H. Woolen of the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland. Ninety one Chronographs for timing the race were supplied by the Anglo-Swiss firm Stauffer Son & Co. of La Chaux-de-Fonds and London. Competitors were started at seven-minute intervals and had to follow bicycles through the ‘control zones’ in each town. The 328 miles (528 km) race was won by the famous Belgian Camille Jenatzy, driving a Mercedes in German colours. (Wikipedia)
The British team raced in shamrock green in tribute to their hosts. It became known as Racing Green and that’s the colour of Bertie’s wheels.
I now have to make sure that Toby (the Westie) no longer reads your daily posts -I just know that he’d be agitating for a Racing Green car and might start trying to keep up with Bertie which, by the sound of things so far, could be challenging.
I worked for a year or so in an advertising agency on Chancery Lane and would often take myself and my tawdry lunch into the grounds of Lincoln’s Inn. The doorways and staircases leading into the various chambers are fronted by wooden boards upon which are writ large the names of the legal luminaries within. Sir so-and-so, Lord whatever, Professor this, that and the other.
One such board stood out for me. It boasted the name ‘Gordon Bennett’. This routinely made me chuckle. I’ve often wondered if he ever served as a duty solicitor and, if so, if there might have been an occasion when the miscreant to whom he was assigned uttered ‘Gordon Bennett’ as an an oath when told that Gordon Bennett would be representing him in court.