Chi-Chi

In a Mad Max style post-apocalyptic future, Chi-Chi here would be very highly valued. She is a 1992 Fiat Panda with an astonishingly reliable 750cc engine and really good ground clearance. She is almost an all terrain vehicle; she will tear up mountains and on the rare occasion when she has stumbled into a ravine, she has done so without rolling nor injuring her payload. She wears her scars with pride. She has lived her entire 25 years on this island, she has 145,000km on the clock, which is almost 5,000 times the distance from one end of the island to the other. She has been our pride and joy, our runabout, our little workhorse since February 2005. She has brought any amount of building materials to our house and more recently has been used to store whole bales of hay for the sheep as well as providing Nanouk with personal sanctuary during her Garbo moments.

But we don't live in a Mad Max style post apocalyptic future; instead we live in a rampant consumerist present where “Out with the old - In with the new!” is pumped into our veins like some kind of life-support drip. We have “Contracts” with “Service Providers” who convince us that they have allowed us to have the latest sexiest phone “Free”. We pay them a flat fee per month and in return they feed our addiction for phenomenally expensive portable technology, follow where we go, watch what we do and plaster our lives with “Targeted Advertising”.

Big business now controls “Democratic” governments and even if he weren't President of the United States, Donald Trump and his ilk would be are directing legislation. Massive global corporations control our food, our fuel and our health. What freedom is left?

New laws imposed upon us have meant that we must today put Chi-Chi on the ferry to take her away to be destroyed, for the good of the planet, no, the govt, no, the big car manufacturers. We actually have to pay for this service, plus the ferry ticket. Scrap value? You're having a laugh! Hopefully the destruction and de-registration fee will be less than the fines for those who refuse to comply, but there will be several Mad Max characters who continue to drive vehicles without fenders let alone plates and somehow get away with it, probably.

Parting with Chi-Chi was a very sad moment for both of us, but we have a secret deal with the guy at the car funeral parlour and in a few weeks, maybe, her battery will come back home.

Separately; congratulations to Wells for Zoe and to Kimberly Jones for fighting back and trying to make this a better world.