Mr Mist’s Blog

It says in the news and on Google and on the Earth Hour Web site (if you can get to it) that today we are meant to turn off our lights for 1 hour between 8 and 9. The idea is to highlight the threat of climate change. I may try to do it here, though I am a bit confused as to who we are highlighting the threat to. I mean, the people who do it, they will already know. The people who don’t do it will either not care, or probably not know why the lights have just gone out. The politicians do whatever they like anyway.

At least we have a greener car now.

We dotted off into town today (in the shiny new car) and had Chinese at the recently raided Jumbo Chinese restaurant The prices have increased very slightly since the raid, related? Who knows? Still very nice though, which is what counts really. Then we just went for a random drive around, checking out Thoresby Market (it was closing, so we didn’t stay) and an antiques shop we happened across on the way (didn’t buy anything.)

The 118 drives quite nicely. It’s very different to the Vectra, obviously. With the runflats you can feel bumps in the road, but anyone who claims the ride to be firm has never ridden in a “sports-suspension” Vectra, which is something akin to a rigid-body The 1er has it just about right in my opinion. It’s been snowy these past few days, so no photos at the moment. Still getting used to the gears and the idea of having the engine automatically turn itself off whilst we stop. It’s quite bizarre, but at the same time satisfying because you’re not wasting fuel and whatnot.

Meanwhile back at home we have been playing Wii Big Brain Academy, to expand our brains. I don’t know if it is working

We settled on the 118 in the end. The original guy who we had a test drive booked with sold the test car??! So we embarked on a search to find someone with a 118i to test, and eventually found one in Leicester - well, technically not because it was actually an old style 120, but they are similar. We trekked off to Leicester and - surprisingly given some of the dealers we have had the fortune to meet recently - he had actually done some work for us and managed to find the 118 3 door for us to test after all. It drove nicely, I thought. Quite effortless. The automatic engine-off will take some getting used to, as it is freaky to have the car go silent. Should be ready some time next week. woo!

In other motor-related news, the new F1 season kicks off this weekend, and Hamilton took pole position for the Melbourne race [news.bbc.co.uk]. Wonder if he can start the season with a win?

This weekend I would like to take things easy because we have been dashing all over the place lately getting this car business sorted out.

So basically, because my car is getting long-in-the-tooth now, and so on, we’ve been looking at replacement cars. Firstly I was looking at teeny cars like the Nissan Micra C+C but this has pretty much been rejected for being impractically small. A shame as it’s rather funky, but I suppose we do actually have to drive around in it, as well as just look at it in a showroom. Amongst other cars that were considered too small were the renault megane CC and the Mini. The smart forfour was an ok size, but for some reason they don’t make them any more, and the used ones that we saw were quite basic. A bit too basic for me because I like a few gadgets. So the remaining runners are the volvo c30, the Astra Twintop, and, rather oddly, the BMW 1 series. The 118 SE comes in at the same price as the Astra diesel. They’ve drawn up a reasonable deal for the Astra without really trying, so next week we will see what BMW can come up with. We have a test drive planned. Really my only reservation is the social stigma attached to the badge, which might make edging out of junctions a more difficult prospect. Otherwise the 1 is fairly well gadget-laden (once you skip to the SE model anyway, the base is less specced up) and pretty economical for what seems to be a reasonably quick engine (the drive should confirm I suppose.) Sadly my current car has lost loads of value since buying. I am somewhat hopefull that these others will not do so, but who knows.