I once played in a sunday morning tennis tournament which was a charity fundraiser. The sun even shone, great event, people playing tennis at Haberdashers’ School, cos they have lovely tennis courts and lots of ’em. Great day. I’m gonna say me mate Jane and I came 12th. Possibly 7th, maybe 23rd. Irrelevent other than for the obsessively competitive. Because it was a Sunday morning and no kids were around, we all parked up next to the courts. And after one of our matches we came to find a great throng of peoplage all around the cars. And there, parked up, top down, gleaming redder-than-red, was a Ferrari. I don’t know which model so I’ll say it was a Tossa-Rossa, which pretty much fits them all. And a smug man with a big grin (and probably a very small penis) was walking up to his car to… to… well, just to lay claim to it, I suppose.

Except the crowds weren’t actually around Turin’s finest. They were in fact gawping at the car next to it, which was also red, and a Bubblecar. One of those fabulous little 3-wheelers that arose in the 60s just to make chain-smoking Europeans look more eccentric in movies. And so cute, the front side opening outwards as the single door. Just fabulous.

And today I saw that in an auction there is one of the ‘other’ 3-wheelers up for sale this week. The Messerschmidt one. As in the German fighter plane of the Second World War, Messerschmidt. Because when the Hun finally realised that Johnny Englishman was not going to let him get away with his tricks and once Douglas Bader had jumped back into his Spitfire to send Bertie Bosch back from whence he came, the Messerschmidt factory had nothing to make. And yet, presumably, loads of parts left over. So they made some little cars. But short on design ideas, they just used the existing plane model but put wheels on it instead of wings. So these Messerschmidt cars actually had a cockpit, with two seats, one in front of the other, just like in a plane. Well, I suppose its just like in the old war films; Germans never actually speak to each other kind of conversationally, they just scream orders to be obeyed. So sitting like that is just fine.

I’ve always loved these old 3-wheelers, from a day before health-n-safety ruled our lives. Seat-beltless death traps. Where do I bid?

Amazing coincidence last night. Went out for a quiet curry with Mel, dinner plans having been cancelled at the last minute. Fine. Love a curry. Went to our local in East Finchley. Great place, dead quiet on a wet tuesday night. Food’s fab though. And we were duscussing the show Sunny Afternoon, the musical history of the Kinks, who I loved as if they were little German 3-wheeled cars. Because they were always a LONDON band. If not THE London band. Anyway, the show’s now moved from Hampstead to the West End, blah, blah, blah.

Then the door opened, I looked up and in walked Ray Davies. Of the Kinks. But much older. My jaw dropped, (probably spilled a bit of biryani, if I’m honest) and he smiled. Muswell Hill boys falleth not far from the tree, then. Amazing.

Happy Wet Wednesday (where does all this rain come from?????)

A xxxx