bookmark_borderBayerische Motoren Werke

I’d love to say it isn’t.

It’s really really not a personal thing, and I do know a few of them so I KNOW they aren’t ALL bad. It’s just that 8 times out of 10, when I finally see the badge, it’s one of them.

I’m willing to concede that it might be one of those things, you know, when you are more attuned to something inevitably you see more of it than you had before.

Yet there does seem to a mindset and, let’s be honest, it’s not just me saying this, the type of people who buy them seem to be of similar personality.

Brash, aggressive, impatient and inconsiderate. I could go on, but their driving style speaks volumes. Every single time I have some twat driving 2 feet from my bumper, when they finally swoosh past (just as we approach a corner, or small hill usually) it’s the blue and white badge that glares back.

This driving style is all the more baffling given the current weather conditions, and it’s just scary having a big 5 Series bearing down on your bumper with ice and snow bordering the roads.

Not only that, but of all the cars I’ve seen that haven’t been de-iced, or de-snowed, in the past couple of weeks, it does seem to be either BMWs or Jags.

Now I’m pretty careful when I de-ice my car, mainly because I like to have clear windows. Visibility whilst driving is a big thing for me, yet apparently somepeople, quite literally, jump in their car, run it for 5 mins and drive off.

You can recognise this particular brand of idiot because bar a small section of the windscreen, all of their windows are frosted up or still covered with snow.

It baffles me how anyone can think this is ok, and that’s from a common sense point of view, let alone it being a legal requirement.

So, taking all this into account, imagine my glee at spotting a nice big BMW sitting on the hard shoulder last night, it’s rear window completely frozen, and the policeman standing pointing at it whilst the driver looked on, the twat.

It’s moments like this that convince me there is such a thing as karma.

bookmark_borderWhat is my culture?

There is a long rambling post that refuses to tumble out of my head. It’s centred around how what I digest forms my own “micro-culture”, and whether the fact that I don’t really identify with any single “macro-culture” means that I’m cultureless?

Gosh, doesn’t that sound like something awfully twee and if I were to try and write it all down I’d probably disappear up my own arse, so I’ve paired it down to the following few thoughts, presented in now particular order.

~ Culture is such a large facetted entity that I always struggle to get a grip on it’s component parts other than realising that what I digest, the inputs, form a part of who am I, what I believe and think, and are largely responsible for the micro-culture that I maintain.

~ Ohh and I’m working on the presumption that we all have our own unique micro-culture. You are what you consume.

~ I’d do one of those “overlapping circle” diagrams (a la indexed) but I fear they are already fading into obscurity. In fact that’s one aspect of culture tracking that niggles, the speed of change which the internet has brought about.

~ Apparently the iPod is in danger of becoming ‘uncool’ because it’s so ubiquitous. Top Gear made the same argument about the BMW 3-series, arguing that as the BMWs were everywhere, buying a Ford Mondeo would be the cool(er) option as they were considerably less abundant on the roads. THAT, ladies and gentlepeeps, is some flawed logic. Yet it does help make the point that, as consumerism rises and we becoming increasingly materialistic, what chance does

~ The inputs, the defining factors of my micro-culture are largely chosen by me, but the reasoning behind their choice may suggest that I’m trying to create a false impression of what that micro-culture is. Why do I buy books by renowned authors then labour my way through a trashy ‘thriller’? I WANT quality inputs but not at the price they demand of my intellect? Or do I fear that I either won’t be able to understand them, or that they will not leave my ‘micro-culture’ as enhanced as I’d like? Are they, in this example, TOO niche?

~ Defining moments occur in every culture. Is 9/11 mine? It sometimes feel like I have no culture, I don’t identify with the 80s particularly strongly, nor the 90s as it’s only now that I feel I understand myself well enough to be comfortable. I feel like part of an in-between generation (or merely an undecided micro-culture?) that is awaiting the next phase of change. So much has changed, in every facet of life, in the past thirty years that I wonder if the concept of a generations will ever really hold true in the future?

~ My culture is what I digest. Yet I embrace all that I can, old and new, controversial and staid, so is that why I cannot identify with the macro-culture of others? There is always an overlap, always, but never enough to sustain.

And so on and on and on…

Now, if anyone can make any sense of that I’d welcome your input. Hmm this might catch on, a “get your readers to write your post” feature, how typical of the “want it now” culture.

bookmark_borderIncitement

We were driving through to the in-laws caravan on Sunday, along the A811 which is a typical windy country road when, as we approached a blind bend, some idiot in a red Honda Civic decided to zoom up behind me and overtake, causing me to brake to let him back in – lest he be left in the wrong side of the road as, say a large tractor came round the corner and ran over his silly little car. I spotted him starting this maneouver (in some disbelief from both Louise and I given the short distances involved) and voiced my displeasure with an elongated blast of the horn as he zipped past me and narrowly missed the nose of our car.

Of course he took great umbrage about this, slowed down and made a sign that looked like he was auditioning for those old Nescafe adverts, you know, the ones where they put the coffee beans in their hand and shake them. Or he was trying to signal that I was wanker, I’m not entirely sure. I laughed it off. As we drove on, with him “stuck” in front of me, we ended up stopping at some lights. I could see him staring at me in his rearview mirror, and he started with the hand gestures again. All very boring but I felt he’d made his point so I gave him the “hands out shrug” to indicate that he could stop this nonsense any time he liked. I shook my head a little as I did this.

Seemingly this further incensed him, as he spent the next mile or so alternating between braking suddenly and those coffee bean hand gestures. Most tiresome and it was quite obvious that this was a young lad in a high powered car (it was a sports edition) who fancied himself as a BMW driver or something. Yawn.

As we approached our turnoff, I flicked on the indicator. Lo and behold he suddenly turns in, very aggressively, where I was indicating to go. Bugger that, I think (I’m no fighter I don’t mind admitting it) and I flick the indicator off and keep driving. This caused some mirth in our car. We round the next corner and are brought up short by some roadworks. I look into my rearview mirror and round the corner, behind the two cars sitting behind me, comes the little red Honda. Slamming on the brakes he screeches to a halt. Oh dear. I’ve made him angry.

The lights at the roadworks change and I’m now trying to figure out where I can turn around as, frankly, this is very boring. Next thing I know a red blur whizzes up behind us. Now I’M beginning to get hacked off. However he holds his ground, I don’t get any more gestures and as we turn in towards Drymen he flies off up the road out of sight. We turn round and head to the caravan in peace.

Rather than pondering on what could have happened, we decide to laugh it off, especially the inspired “fake turning” manoeuver which I’ll have to remember for the future (I also wonder if he has conceded that I’ve tricked him fair and square and that he was being a bit of an asshole.. but I seriously doubt that).

As for the silly little man in the red Honda, I hope he wraps his silly little car around a very large tree, although I will feel some sympathy for the tree involved.