Kerb appeal

Sometimes blip is really frustrating with the one image per day thing. My brain races through a lot of stuff in 24 hours, and choosing which thought to relay can be a nightmare.

I went to a BBQ held by my French ex-girlfriend (visiting from Brittany for a few days) at the house of one of her friends in Edinburgh this afternoon, and got to finally meet her current (also French) boyfriend, now of several years. I am often struck by how much previous portions of my life feel like they happened to someone else and how distant from the events I now feel.

T and her daughter R were there too, so I spent most of the time playing hide and seek and generally regressing in the garden. I am OK at making polite chit-chat with people I hardly know, but I'd rather swing five-year-olds round by their arms any day.

Afterwards, I headed off towards the Botanic Gardens via Holyrood (where I took what I thought would be today's blip - several drunken neds were being entertained by one of their party splashing about in the water features: ah, what a glorious nation we are) but hadn't realised the gardens close at 7pm (I was sure it used to be 'until dusk'?).

So instead pootered about in the streets nearby and then headed down to Portobello - I thought I'd maybe find a Sea Urchin shot or two :). Enjoyed the cool browns, greys and blues of the sandy flats and the neon noise of the amusement arcades (and I did get my SU pic).

But you don't get to see any of that. Instead, you get to see my £800 second-hand Daewoo Matiz SE Plus parked in front of a brand spanking new £54,000 Range Rover. Here are some stats:


Range Rover

new from £54,117

3628cc V8
max.torque: 640Nm @ 2,000rpm
power output: 271PS @ 4,000rpm
Maximum speed: 124mph
0-60mph: 8.6 seconds
Turning circle wall to wall: 12.6m
Fuel consumption: Urban 19.6mpg / Extra urban 31.2mpg / Combined 25.1mpg
CO2 emissions: 299g/km
Kerb weight: 2717kg
Length: 4.97m
Width: 2.19m
Ground clearance: 22.5cm


Daewoo Matiz (now Chevrolet)

new from £6,865

796cc
max.torque: 69Nm @ 4600rpm
power output: 50.7Ps @ 6000rpm
Maximum speed: 89mph
0-60mph: 16.5 seconds
Turning circle wall to wall: 4.5m
Fuel consumption: Urban 33.6mpg / Extra urban 54.3mpg / Combined 44.1mpg
CO2 emissions: 161 g/km
Kerb weight: 853 kg
Length: 3.49m
Width: 1.49m
Ground clearance: 17cm

You can see the front of my car is a bit bashed, from the numerous times I have taken it down some narrow country lane and reversed, ripping the plastim trim off (that annoying lack of ground clearance, a whole 5cm less than the 4x4 giant). I would put money on that Range Rover never tackling anything more hazardous than a high kerb. Yet it weighs over three times more and has oodles more torque.

My Matiz whizzes me round the Borders countryside from job to job at a perfectly acceptable 60+mph. Admittedly I have to wait a whole extra eight seconds to reach this velocity from standstill, but in town the Range Rover will never go above 30. My car typically consumes less than half the petrol per mile that the Range Rover will use as it bounces peasants off the bonnet on the local school run, and emits almost half the CO2 of the Chelsea tractor.

For every two parking lengths the new Range Rover occupies, you could fit three little Daewoos, and they could turn round in almost one third of the space.

Both cars can carry up to five people from A to B.

So why in God's name could you pretty much cross Edinburgh by leaping from one 4x4 roof to another?

After writing this, I found this. My point exactly.