Notes From the Hard Shoulder - James May [6]
But for what? Khoury's Cosmopolitan, a fine drink in which 'flavour is more important than alcoholic content, absolutely', will either fall out or snap the device clean off. In the BMW, the base of the White Lady glass can be coaxed past the sprung lip intended to hold your king-size Americano in check, but then, because the lip is like a barb, cannot be extracted unless it is turned on its side. It can't be turned on its side until the contents have been drunk. We are now in a cup-holder Catch 22 situation, and the only answer seems to be to turn the car upside down and empty the peerless beverage into a bucket.
This whole cup-holder thing really hasn't been thought through properly. All credit is due to Citroen, then, for maintaining, with the Pluriel, an immutable that was established with the Mini – namely, that the door pockets should be broad enough to accommodate a wine bottle. But for the glasses? Nothing.
There are two conclusions to be drawn from this impromptu investigation into cup holders. The first is that the amount of wit and ingenuity being discharged in the design of them is out of all proportion to the import of their function. There isn't a car out there, no matter how good, in which the same effort couldn't be applied to something more important.
But the second is more encouraging, especially to those who, rightly, are engaged in campaigning against drink driving.
Relax. It's pretty much impossible anyway.
BROWN'S GREEN TAX – A BIT OF A GREY AREA
There are a few simple things I require of government ministers. Taking a broad view, I would be quite interested to know what they are going to do about the funding of the NHS, since it's a very complicated business and I won't pretend for a moment to understand it. A few of them have made it their lives' work, so I'm prepared to defer to them on that one.
On a more personal level, and since they are ultimately responsible for the people who might possibly be able to help me, I'd like to know what government is proposing to do about the bloke who climbed through my window and nicked my portable telly.
There are other issues that are no doubt their concern: the pensions crisis, benefit fraud, the war in Iraq, gay vicars (no, not gay vicars) and what the Monty Python team called the baggage retrieval system at Heathrow. These are all worthy of detailed study by suitably qualified people.
But what I don't need is politicians setting me an example, unless it's Charles Kennedy, since he likes a drink and so do I. I especially don't want them wasting valuable Commons time worrying about what sort of car I should drive, because I can work that one out for myself.
Apparently, some of these people are being offered the option of a ministerial Toyota Prius or a bio-fuelled Jaguar, while at the same time supporting a special tax on 4 x 4 cars in the interests of the environment. Nothing could be more irrelevant.
Let's assume, for the purposes of argument, that global warming is a real threat and that energy consumption is at the root of it. So that would make big, overweight and thirsty 4 x 4s a bad thing, obvious-ly.
And what difference, exactly, is a tax going to make to that? If you're rich enough to run a big 4 x 4, a bit of extra tax isn't going to bother you. More to the point, how does tax save the planet? If 4 x 4s are such a bad thing, why doesn't the government simply ban them? I conclude that they don't want us to stop driving them at all. They just want some more money.
And the same goes for smoking. If lung disease is such an issue, and the government feels duty bound to do something about it, why isn't smoking illegal? Taking heroin is illegal, after all. The answer must surely be that smoking is ultimately good for the nation's coffers, and that nobody really wants us to stop. Same goes for binge drinking