Hurrah!

Hurrah!

Now we have

No car

Yep, it’s gone.   We have finally achieved a state of carlessness.  No more car insurance.  Car tax* .  Depreciation.  MOT tests.  Repair bills.  Servicing.  Tyres.  Wiper blades.  And all the rest.

No more washing the thing, vacuuming the inside, checking the tyre pressures, checking the oil and the coolant, de-icing it on a winter’s morning.  No more getting stuck in traffic.  Road works.  Speed cameras.  Finding a parking space.

No more £6.30 a gallon for diesel.

And that’s just off the top of my head.  From now on we walk, we get on our bikes, get on a bus, get on a train or phone for a taxi.

Or we stay at home.

* For the benefit of our overseas readership I’d better explain that in the UK, car owners pay a car tax based on engine size and C02 emissions.  For most ordinary cars it’s £100-150 a year, and its proper name is vehicle excise duty.  Some people call it “road tax”, particularly when they’re shouting at cyclists, who they think have no right to be on the roads because cyclists don’t pay “road tax”. 

This amuses many of the cyclists who are shouted at, because apart from anything else, there is no such thing as “road tax”.  True, at one time, Brit motorists bought an annual Road Fund Licence which did indeed go towards paying for roads, but that was abolished in 1937, since which time road building and maintenance in the UK has been financed from general taxation.

Anyhow … I had a look at the stats for this blog last night and was amazed to see that we’re now getting a consistent 400+ page views a day, with visitors from literally all over the planet.  What surprised me even more is that we now have 201 followers, so by way of celebration of that, here’s a great rendition of “Sweet Georgia Brown” …

Have a good weekend, folks 🙂