Category Archives: Messaged from the Outhouse

Beautiful, maligned Essex

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Essex has a pretty bad reputation. Unfortunately so called ‘celebrities’ (people who are known to people who watch a lot of TV) don’t particularly enhance the county’s reputation, and the folklore around Basildon and Southend (though at times deserved) doesn’t help. But once you get your head around the fact that place has 28000 hectar environmental sensitive coastal land, 350 miles of coast line and a pretty low population density once you escape the commuter belt around London, you start to realise that this is in essence a coastal, rural county. I live in one of its hidden beauty spots and the fact that I can just walk out of the house and pop down to the estuary is pretty darn cool.

So when I meet people from Kent, Sussex, Surrey, or the other counties bordering greater London who snigger about my proletarian choice of living, I pray to the great teapot in the sky that they haven’t decided to clutter my countryside.

I am an All Black

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So, I am an All Black. Well, not really, but I can play rugby like an All Black. Ok, that’s a lie, but I am built like an All Black. Plus the beer gut. Ok, so I look like a retired All Black. With a teeny weeny bit of extra kilos.

Oh, ok, you rumbled me. I look like a retired All Black with a weight problem. Without the cauliflower ears, the sports car or the gambling habit, but at least I lived in North Otago for 6 years, and I know the sister of an All Black.

But today I feel like an All Black. Because today the All Blacks played one of their best games ever (with abysmal kicking, but what can you do) and I watched it on an Ipad, in bed, with the best ever girl friend cuddled up to me, hurtling abuse at Australians (her, not me).

So today I am an All Black. Me and the other million exiled Kiwis in London.

New car, greener household

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So I bought a new car. The Lada was starting to give me a little bit of grief, and to be honest, it was not particularly easy on the fuel. I nevertheless miss its Soviet goodness on my driveway, and it was certainly a car that created plenty of amazed onlookers. The happiest were always gentlemen of a certain age with an East European accent, who would come up to me and say ‘Why do you drive this piece of shit?’ but then proceed to have a look around it and a certain romantic look would appear on their faces, and a soft ‘I used to drive one of those in the eighties, never let me down’, and they would make cooing noises when looking inside and admiring the communist dashboard chic.

The gentlemen from the dealership that sold me my new car had a similar response: seconds after I abandoned Ivor (that was the Lada’s name) on their courtyard a gaggle of mechanics gathered around it, popped the bonnet and made excited sounds.

What did I get? Well, I didn’t want to spend a lot of money, I wanted the car to be a 5 door hatch and it was supposed to be as frugal as possible. Enter the Suzuki Alto, a small, reasonably priced hatchback that had moderately good reviews all over the web. It’s made in India by Maruti but nevertheless has a good track record for built quality. The price was definitely competitive: 6800 pounds for the whole shebang, including the more expensive paint job.

So, what do you get for the money? Well, its build quality is inferior to the Kia Picanto (our last hatch), but then the new Picanto is 1500 pounds more expensive. The doors and the rear hatch certainly lack that ‘heavy’ quality feel that the KIA (yes, I know, it’s funny) and the interior seems smaller and certainly doesn’t have the finesse of the Picanto, but:

the drive is fun, it’s quick of the mark, it certainly is great on country roads (where it will mostly reside), the stereo is excellent and it looks quite cute. The best girlfriend ever is certainly happy to pass the Jimny over to me (not quick enough, she says) and I’m happy that I have a small and reliable 4WD to take me to the station in the morning.

But I will miss my Lada.