6885/19805
Congrats to James Acaster for his Nobel Prize win. It's amazing what that lad manages to fit in. Still he's never won Taskmaster, has he?
It was photo day at school for the kids so we tried to make them look as smart as possible, even though half the fun is looking back at these years later and seeing how scuffed up your hair was (or if you're me, how fucked up because you'd attempted to cut your own Fringe the night before). I told them that they'd be looking back at these photos in fifty years and to remember this day and me telling them that I loved them, but they didn't seem too bothered. I just want them to remember me. And for me to be the last person they remember in their lives, like my grandma's dad was for her. So that the memory of me survives for about another hundred years. Is that too much to ask?
Foolishly I'd booked in a test drive for a new electric car this morning (I really have to knuckle down with the scripts) and took a VW ID3 out for a spin. It's a lot better than my current car, but unsurprisingly given everyone has realised that they can't get any petrol any more, there is quite a mark up in price for electric vehicles and the waiting list for a brand new one is about 6 months and the second hand ones cost as much as the new ones (maybe even more because you don't get the government discount on those).
On the plus side I have an electric car to sell and it has retained more value than I expected, so I am considering my options.
I guess because of Covid I got to take the car out on my own, so I could have just driven off in it and kept it. They would probably have tracked me down as I'd just given them my licence which has my address on it. But what if I'd gone off to start a new life somewhere else? Free car. Until I was caught when a camera spotted the number plate. But I'd have at least half an hour of freedom before they sent the cops after me.
The new car has futuristic displays on Digital screens and looks like a space craft, but as far as I could tell it doesn't fly, which was disappointing. But you could talk to it and it would do what you wanted. When I told my wife about this she worried that it might be like Siri or Alexa and constantly interpret regular conversation as a command and suddenly brake or explode (I don't think that's an option, but to be fair I didn't test it out). She is more suspicious of new tech than I would have thought. I remain enraptured by it. I don't really care about the performance of the car (though it seemed good and the mileage from a single charge is a step up -plus you can preheat the car via an app, whilst it's charging so you can conserve battery power on cold days) and am more excited by how good the entertainment system is and whether it makes me feel like I am in a space ship.
I was promised a game changing 260 miles per charge (going down to 230 miles if the air conditioning or heating is on) but we're approaching a range where this could become a practical tour car (you know if tour bookers were sensible and didn't put 400 miles between each gig).
I do recommend electric cars, though appreciate that they are pricy and hard to find right now.
