How To Drive A Broom-Broom Car Like A Grown-Up Adult
A super special bonus newsletter celebrating twelve months of being able to vroom about like a big champ
I passed my driving test a year ago today, at the astonishingly young age of 40. I know — imagine them letting a young whippersnapper, a mere slip of a lad like me, a plucky young upstart with barely a whisker and his whole life ahead of him, behind the wheel! It’s like giving a puppy a drill.
In the subsequent 366 days, I’ve no idea how much I’ve driven. There have been a lot of short local journeys (particularly when my wife had a broken leg and couldn’t get anywhere on her own) and a few chunkier ones, topping out at about three and a half hours. I’ve started the car, I don’t know, 500 times in the last twelve months? I’ve done a few really, really stupid things in that time, like:
Turning my hazards on with my bottom in an underground carpark while doing my daughter’s seatbelt from the front, then getting really confused about what the hazards were, and jabbing about at all the levers coming off the steering wheel and having to phone my dad, then after he explained it to me, confidently driving out of the carpark into the darkness of Cambridge with no lights on because of my panicked jabbing and getting so beeped.
Spending far too long waiting for a chance to pull out into a road near my house, letting a big queue form behind me, getting really stressed about the queue and lurching out at the worst possible time in front of such a big truck and getting so beeped.
Mistaking a queue of traffic for a row of parked cars and driving past them all on the wrong side of the road then sliding in at the front right as the lights changed like the rudest rotter in the land and feeling really awful while getting so beeped.
But it’s good, mostly. I’m glad I can do it — I am of an age where one doesn’t acquire new skills very often, so it was pleasant to realise there’s just enough neuroplasticity left in me to still pick up new things. It’s a pleasure when I go through areas that were, not that long ago, the low point of a lot of lessons. There is a roundabout in the village of Milton — famed locally for being smellier than the other villages in the area — that brought me close to tears on several occasions as a learner while my driving instructor, who escaped from Afghanistan as a young man by clutching to the underside of a truck, looked at me with justifiable disdain.
Being able to drive has had a few probably positive side effects as well. I drink a lot less than I used to, because I don’t want to be unable to do something helpful due to having an unnecessary bored beer earlier in the day. I went to a few things in the summer that would have been really hard to get to and from without driving, saw people where I otherwise wouldn’t have and had fun without being on the pop. I drove home just at the right point, when people’s faces were starting to do that thing they do. My daughter and I have explored a lot of places, seen a lot of animals and had a lot of lovely experiences we wouldn’t have otherwise. On occasions when I’ve been driving alone, I’ve said things about other road users which have been so, so rude that I’ve found myself slightly excited by my own outrageousness (I lead, and I’ve said this before but it always feels worth pointing out, ever such a small life).
But there’s still something about it all that I find quite uncomfortable. I hate the environmental impact, and the idea that 2,000kg of metal has to be propelled around because I want to buy a sandwich. The buses where I live are pretty rubbish, but if they aren’t used enough they’ll get even worse, and I don’t want the lazy decision to drive instead to be part of that. There are journeys I used to do on foot or by bike that I drive without thinking now. A lot of the time it makes sense in a way, in terms of efficiency at least (and I like singing loudly while driving, something you can’t do on a bicycle without being locked up in a hospital for the truly mad), but I still feel like something’s been lost. In 2025 I want to strike more of a balance — more buses, more walking, more cycling, fewer short unnecessary drives.
But look, you’re not here for my thoughts, you’re here for some rubbish jokes about cars. Specific gags about General Motors (he and I go way back, by the way, I knew him when he was just Captain Motors). Less pontificating, more Pontiac-pun-creating. Less autobiography, more automobile-big-laughy.
1
“I’ve just hit a sheep in my big truck.”
“Dodge Ram?”
“Oh, if only I had.”
2
“Any colour, as long as it’s black. Also I’m very racist” — Henry Flawed
3
“The snake from the Jungle Book was very mocking about my motorbike.”
“Kaa was sarky?”
“No, it’s a Yamaha.”
4
“I’ve just been out in my car and learned that one of the most famous canals in the world shares traits with the Addams Family.”
“Suez ooky?”
“No, I was in my Honda when I learned that the Panama Canal was spooky, kooky, neat, sweet and petite.”
5
“I’m driving my car to the shop to buy a semiaquatic mustelid plaything.”
“Toy otter?”
“No, that has a flat tyre, I’ll drive my Daihatsu… to buy a cuddly weasel.”
6
“I’m driving my car to audition actors for a production of one of Shakespeare’s plays. A famous extraterrestrial from the fictional planet of Melmac is auditioning for the lead.”
“ALF, a Romeo?”
“No, it’s a Honda Civic.”
7
“I won a car at a party on a Scandinavian inlet.”
“Fjord fiesta?”
“No, a Fiat Punto.”
8
“I’m travelling through time to work out what I like better, a herb related to celery or the cricketer ‘Beefy’ Botham.”
“Dill or Ian?”
“No, I’m using a Tardis.”
9
“Let’s all pile in my car: Larry from Gavin & Stacey; a Star Trek baddie that lives in a cube; the author Ms Blyton; the lead singer of the rock band Eels; a member of 5ive and Alice the comedy film writer.”
“Lamb? Borg? Enid? E? Abz? Lowe?”
“No, we won’t all fit.”
10
“The famously unethical reporter Mr Mahmood, famous for posing as a ‘fake sheik’ for stings in The Sun, has launched a new creative career and used the profits to buy a supercar.”
“Mazher arty?”
“Yeah?”
My book There’s No Such Thing As A Silly Question is in shops and on websites now. The more people buy it, the more books I’m asked to write and the less time I have for nonsense like this: everyone wins!