Quote Of The Day

"Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake - Chessmaster Savielly Grigorievitch Tartakower (1887-1956)"

Thursday, May 01, 2008

RIP Bessie Boo-Boo...

The garage phoned yesterday. The gearbox trouble that my car was suffering will take £3,105.08 + VAT to repair(!) Or rather, it won't. The car is only worth £500 or so and it's not as if I use it much. So it looks like Bessie Boo-Boo is off to the scrapheap Authorised Treatment Facility after all to be recycled.

Those of you with long memories may remember when I bought Bessie back on 15th October 2002 I had very good reasons not to own a car. I reproduce some of those reasons here (most of which still hold true today) to make myself feel a bit better:

- cars are expensive to buy
- cars depreciate quickly
- cars are expensive to run #1 car tax
- cars are expensive to run #2 insurance in London is ridiculously high
- cars are expensive to run #3 need a parking permit to park outside own front door
- cars are expensive to run #4 petrol is expensive - working in oil I should know!
- cars are expensive to run #5 congestion charge
- cars are expensive to run #6 car parking / parking meters for very expensive
- cars are expensive to run #7 annual MOT
- cars are expensive to run #8 regular servicing costs
- I don't have a garage
- cars get scratched by yobs
- I can't drink and drive
- I can't drive a car to work
- there is very good public transport in London (taxis, buses, tubes and rail)
- I'm always too tired to drive after work or at weekends to drive
- I can never find anywhere to park a car anyway
- I rarely go out of London
- driving a car is dangerous (to me and to other people on the road)
- cars cause pollution
- London is one big traffic jam (and not just during rush hour)
- the new traffic calming schemes slow things even more
- London has road works aplenty
- bus lanes slow traffic to a stand still
- red routes mean you can't park cars outside shops anymore
- cars bring on road rage

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