So a widow phones the Jewish Chronicle to place an obituary for her husband.
What would you like to say?
‘Morry Goldberg. Died’
That’s it?
‘Yes’
No ‘loving father, wonderful husband, missed by…’
He was a terrible father, awful husband and everyone hated him.
Well you might as well say something else, the first 6 words are free.
She pauses then says:
‘Morry Goldberg. Died. Volvo for sale’

I love that joke. And Volvo was the car of choice for orthodox Jews for many years, particularly before they invented ‘people-movers’ in which the inevitable 12 kids could all fit. Before that it was the classic Volvo ‘Estate’ car. The older the better.

And now Volvo announce that after 2022 they will no longer make petrol/diesel ONLY cars. They’ll make hybrids and they’ll make electric but no purely oil-burners. Good for them. Other manufacturers will doubtless follow. Its the way forward. The inevitable. And I don’t mind. Its progress. Doesn’t mean I have to drive a milk-float, however you dress it up, but I like problem-solving, I like technology and I like change. Long as I don’t have to use any of it.

Pollution’s the problem. Well, it is round here, not so bad in northern Scotland. But even a petrol-head like me is sometimes appalled by the shit in the air in my City. It makes my shirts dirty. Though I’m still really not convinced about the whole global warming stuff. Remember the last Ice Age? Of course you don’t, but it happened. The world froze up. You could walk from Alaska to Siberia across the Bering Strait. Which would have been the Bering Highway if they’d had cars, or even people, at that time. Then the world warmed up again. Phew. No cars, no factories, no nothing. Just wooly mammoths farting (methane, high in carbon) but not enough to affect anything.

And now its warming up again. Whether natural cycles or ‘man done it’, who knows. But its created a quantum shift in car technology, along with many others, all to reduce our dependence on burning carbon fuels.

The irony is that, until the ridiculously over-priced (and getting over-pricier by the day and it hasn’t even started yet) Hinkley Point nuclear power station, we are burning fossil fuels to make ‘lectricity. But the biggest issue is; there aren’t anything like enough charging points for all-electric cars. People with garages and drive-ways are fine. But most people live in flats, terraces, and sometimes park half a mile from home. Where do they plug in? The answer, of course is ‘driverless’. Then it ain’t your problem. Even though its very depressing.

I promise that if I see you by the roadside one day looking for a pack of double As because your Nissan Leaf has died, I won’t laugh too loudly as I wave, screaming past in a plume of toxic emissions.

Don’t use electric, convert to Nitro-methane. 10,000 drag-racers can’t all be wrong.

Happy Green Thursday

A xxxx