I’m on the plane flying back from CT at the moment. I was down doing a talk for the nice (very nice actually – they hearted me!) people at Struik publishers. It was a rad trip. When I arrived at the venue I was met with a sunset that was killer by any standard.

The rental I got from Avis (where Tony really did try harder – respect!) was that new BMW 1. I’m generally

not a fan of the brand, or actually the drivers, but figured it was a nice chance to try something new. I’m glad I did too, ‘cos now I know that this car is absolutely, positively… arb. Other than the look, which I admit was really nice, I found the car to be pretty damn boring. The sound was loud, but not crystal clear (my wee Alfa has Bose factory-fitted, not the loudest, but man it’s sexy).



The dash designer was lazy at best, it has the most irritating non-tactile indicator, and as far as features go, there was only one I really worth mentioning – an auxiliary audio jack input for external devices – all cars should/will soon have this.

An acquaintance assures me that this was simply due to the fact that this was a low-spec model, a cheapie, and that other models have features-a-plenty. Which poses the question, what the fuck are BMW thinking? All they have is the arrogance of their brand advocates, surely watering this down with el cheapo versions of their car is mad? Sure, have a cheaper category if you must, but keep the standards up. However I’m waxing lyrical, the beautiful people will buy it en masse.

I can’t really complain though, the car does go fast, I even managed to get up to 125km/h in a (sneaky sneaky) 75km/h zone, as was pointed out to me by a polite member of the traffic constabulary. R1200 later he wouldn’t even let me keep his pen ( a lightly-chewed bic), and there was no chance of playing the “I’m just a poor struggling guy, gimme a discount” card in the beemer.

This was long, sorry, flying is boring…!