I was feeling a lot better today just in time for the tour to recommence, though after 45 minutes on stage I realised I wasn't quite back to full energy. I was back at the Cambridge Junction (which is for me forever associated with the bogey on the shower curtain in the hotel opposite) and the show was a sell-out and I was driving home afterwards so didn't have to encounter anyone else's dried nose juice. Just my own. Giles seems to have caught the same bug so I did have to contend with him juggling mucus in his nasal cavities, but as long as I didn't have to wash myself near it then I was happy.
It was the first major run-out for the new car. It runs so smoothly and quietly that I sometimes forget that I am actually driving it. It's so advanced that it's a bit like a sentient being. The handbrake is now a thing of the past and works automatically, coming on every time the car stops and the engine also shuts itself down and starts again when you put your foot on the gas. It's slightly disconcerting. There is also a sensor at the front of the car which you can set so that it's impossible for you to get within a certain distance of the car in front. I am not convinced I've set it up correctly and am a bit nervous of putting it to the test by deliberately accelerating into another vehicle. So I hung back for now. I felt a bizarre mixture of terror, awe and love as I drove this incredible futuristic horseless carriage, but mainly it made me realise how close we are getting to the self-driving car. I had to do so little of the actual work (this is another automatic) that it sometimes felt like I was sitting back and letting Kit make all the decisions. I had to occasionally snap myself out of the reverie and remember that it was important to steer and check my mirrors. I felt like a man transplanted in time and if you want to experience the giddy confusion of a time traveller then I recommend that you drive the same car for 12 years and then upgrade to a new one. The difference in technology is head-spinning. And if I keep this car until 2025 (which there's every chance that I might) then I wonder what changes I will see. It's possible that it might go the other way and unavailability of fuel and environmental issues might mean that my next car will be a cart.
Or the next generation of cars will all synchronise computers and drive the lot of us over a cliff at the same moment and save the world from the scourge that is humanity. I so love technological advances that I think I might actually enjoy that moment. Look what our cars can do now. Rise up and destroy us for the good of the planet. Aces.
Don't forget today is International Wassocks' Day (now officially 15th March thanks to
this week's Metro article. The delight of seeing one week's column printed in the paper and published online is tempered somewhat by the fact that it means I have to write another one pretty damn sharpish. And the only idea is about how a fart is a perfect analogy for a joke, as well as also being the funniest joke. I may have to run with it.
