Notes From the Hard Shoulder - James May [37]
But no worry, because, as with most posh car showrooms, the Lamborghini one provided a selection of painted metal strips and upholstered squares with which the discerning customer can experiment with colour combinations before signing the order form. Playing with these is a pretty good game in itself, and almost as much fun as trying on the frames in Specsavers.
So, out of interest, I tried the green/black paint with the orange leather. It was awful. It made me think of coffee mugs with 'world's greatest golfer' written on them, or 'amusing' doorbell chimes. On the other hand, the orange paint with the creamy pale perforated leather looked like the colour scheme of a man who didn't give a bull's arse about what other people thought, and this, I decided, was what Jezza should have.
So I gathered them up and dived between him and the salesman, waving them around. But he snorted, and then continued talking to the dealer about the price of the cup-holder option.
So I tried the bathroom-blue paintwork with a dark-blue plain leather, which I can assure you would look utterly glorious. Again I approached the man with the Bang & Olufsen mobile, only to be dismissed because he was deep in conversation about service intervals.
In desperation, I even tried white paintwork with the black leather. I found him discussing residual values. I really do think the man may have lost it entirely and turned into an executive.
This is the first time I've ever failed at this game with someone I know well. I have a recurring dream in which Jeremy is on fire and I have the fire extinguisher but can't get the pin out. Even so, I can't stand by and watch him buy the wrong Lamborghini.
So it's over to you. Write to Jeremy at the Top Gear magazine address. You don't even need to include a letter. Just remember to mark your envelope, 'James is right, as usual.'
THE RANGE ROVER OF OUTSTANDING NATURAL BEAUTY
Today, from the window of my office, I have an uninterrupted view of my 1992 Range Rover Vogue SE. I think it may be the sort of thing WB Yeats had in mind when he wrote of 'All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old'.
In case you weren't reading two years ago, or you have since found something more interesting to contemplate, I should explain that the Rangey was bought in strict accordance with my principle that one's biff about car should not cost more than £1 per cc of engine displacement. Not the mintiest Range Rover in the world, then, and definitely not the most aromatic.
And I have never neglected a car quite like I have Old Stinker, which sits there looking positively doleful as I walk on by, averting my eyes from its cack-encrusted flanks and the pastie wrappers piled on the dash and visible through the windscreen. I'm beginning to believe that everything I have ever taken into the Range Rover is still in there, and that includes a bootful of old building materials that I was supposed to take to the dump several months ago. Trouble is, the Range Rover is the dump, and if I parked it with the windows open it would soon, like any other skip left around here, be full of my neighbours' garden rubbish.
This is most uncharacteristic. I carry a Hoover around in the Bentley, just in case, and I keep a small, stiff paintbrush in the Porsche for removing dust from those little crevices around the switches. When I drive the Boxster I adjust the air vents and heater controls not for my own comfort, but so that the overall arrangement is symmetrical. I also polish my shoes and wash up while I cook. I can't stand muck, filth and disorder, and yet I've somehow allowed the Range Rover to become completely feral.
One reason for this is that it offers a welcome opportunity to escape the rigours of modern urban life and roll about in my own ordure like Neanderthal man. This office is somewhat similar: an oasis of dirty cups, empty beer bottles, waste paper and general squalor in an otherwise spotless household, like a dog's egg in the middle of a croquet lawn. But there's a better