Lockdown is eased today! Which I initially thought: what the fuck??? Like, why announce last wednesday that easing will take place in 5 days time? Why not ‘now’? Why not ‘from tomorrow’? Ahhhh, its to stop people gathering on the beach at Bournemouth over the weekend, ahhhhhh. And how did that work, exactly? Oh, there were crowds! People in their millions! Sunbathing! Swimming!!! So-sha-lize-ingggg!!!! Didn’t they read the small print? Or in fact the big print which said, and I quote: “gatherings of up to 1 person can still meet anywhere anytime except in a hairdressing salon. Two or more people can pass within 2 metres but one has to be shot immediately afterwards. Three people’s a crowd. Four people from 2 families can meet up at no less that 45 yards for no more than 14 minutes. BUT NOT TIL MONDAAAAAAYYYYY.”

Unfortunately this doesn’t allow for ‘the Cummings factor’. Which basically took all the previous rules, from number 1 to number 21,547, and gave them all, together, separately and sequentially, a big FUCK YOU!!! Altogether now: “I’ll do what I want, I’ll do what I waa-aant, I’m Dominic Cummings, I’ll do what I want”. Works with “… everyone hates me, I’ll do what I want” as well.

So yesterday. A day premature. We went to visit Mel’s brother. Because he’s old and needs some caring. Even though he’s her younger brother. Not the point. We needed to offer care. From the required distance of 2 metres (UK) or 1.5 metres if he’d moved to Holland or just 1 metre, almost kissing distance, in Berlin.

Ok, I didn’t so much go to care for the bro-in-law but to check the wellbeing of his E-type Jag. It’s very old and has ‘pre-existing conditions’. Well it had pre-existing conditions in that a woman (no judgments, no comments, just a fact) ploughed into it while being driven round a roundabout. So 18 months and a full, back to metal re-paint and straighten, it has been reborn. Into a world ridden with coronavirus!!!

And as much as I adhere to the greenest of all possible world scenarios, personally fund anti-emission causes, only walk, cycle or hug trees and store farts in little jars in case I increase methane gas proportions in the atmosphere, I love a fucking monster car.

And the E-type just perfectly fits the bill. Because as well as being universally regarded (me AND Austin Powers) as the prettiest, sexiest, most gorgeous car ever conceived, when they upped it to 5 litres of fastness and 12 cylindricals of wonderment it qualified as an official monster supercar. One of the first.

It’s fast. Very fast. Not new Ferrari fast, not new Porsche fast but 1970 amazingly fast. Which you’d have to term ‘dangerously fast’. In that it has no drags, no 22 inch low profile tyres, no ground-hugging optimisation. It just has… power. It does have brakes but they feel very 1970 as well. Braking was never the point of this car. And it shouldn’t be now. You drive for the power, the brakes are other people’s problem. Social distancing wasn’t a problem in that era, so we may have been within 2 metres for some of the ride. Possibly.

Wind up windows, a non-motorised soft-top and a four-speed manual. 5th gear wasn’t invented until 1982 and the other 6 never came til last week.

But it is beautiful. Eye-wateringly beautiful.

Happy day of new freedom. Phah!

A xxxx