How to get into a Caterham Academy car and drive off

Plenty of room.  Don't know what you mean?

The car is very simple indeed, with no unnecessary fripperies to distract you. So, getting in and driving off is perfectly simple and straightforward. As I will explain.

Go to the car, and unbuckle the sidescreen so that you can get a leg up from the chassis bar to climb over and lower yourself in via the top of the rollcage. Lean in and spread the harness straps - especially the big buckle, you don't want to sit on that. Climb up and lower yourself in vertically.

Stop halfway down when you remember that you need to take the steering wheel off. Pop it in the passenger side for now.

Carry on down so that your legs go into the footwell and you drop neatly into the seat. Pull the shoulder straps down over you, pull the buckle over and join it to the shoulder straps. Fumble around underneath your backside to look for the other lap strap. Release the shoulder straps so that you can lean to the left to let yourself grab the remaining lap strap, then settle back down as you latch it into the buckle.

Unlatch it from the buckle and sort out the twist in the strap. No, you need to untwist it the other way. Latch it again. Then latch the shoulder straps. Tighten them up nice and snug.

Now it's time to start the car. Get the ignition keys which are... oh, yes, they're in your trouser pocket. Undo the straps and arch your back in the seat so that you can retrieve them. Put the ignition key in the barrel and re-do the straps. You'll need to loosen them first so that they reach, that's ok, now you can buckle up and tighten them.

Loosen the straps again so that you can reach into the passenger footwell to retrieve the steering wheel. Lock it in place, and pull the straps tight again. Turn the ignition key, release the immobiliser, and hit the starter button.

Now we're ready to pull away. You just need to buckle up the sidescreen, so reach over your shoulder for the popper - no, not that far, you'll hurt yourself. OK, let's loosen the shoulder straps first and then buckle up the sidescreen. That's right. Now you can pull the straps tight.

Pop it into reverse and ease it out of the garage. Close the garage door with the remote keyfob - which pocket is it in? No, not that one. Try the other one. Or is it in your jacket? Yes, it's the jacket pocket, the one covered by the shoulder strap. Yes, you do need to loosen it first. Close the garage door, and you're ready to go. Once you've tightened the shoulder strap of course.



Does that feel like rain to you?

A petition worth signing

Someone has put up a petition calling for a British version of the Nurburgring.  I've signed it, and I think you all should too.

As the petition says,

The Nurburgring in Germany has been a roaring success for the region. Tourists come from far and wide to do a lap or two of the famous public racetrack. We propose that a similar road be opened in a deprived area in need of rejuvenation. This would be a good idea because it would be a centre for the public to explore speed in a safe environment, instead of on public roads causing harm to themselves and others. It would also bring automotive tourism to the area, and potentially would make money for the department through a toll system.

Anyone who has been to the Ring can tell you that it is a huge money-spinner for the locality and provides huge support for the local economy.  Even the tree-hugging watermelons should like it, as it would mean there would be excuse for high-speed antics on public roads.

Do go and sign.

A Spartan Weekend

Last Sunday, Mr Clarkson gave us his thoughts on the new 2011-model Nissan GTR. It is loaded with every bit of technology available to sport-cars manufacturers, built to the finest level of precision that is currently possible, and the result is a car which comprehensively outperforms supercars that are two to three times the price. Clarkson loved it. He loved its ability to produce stupendous performance, enough to drag his (albeit somewhat flabby) features off to one side of his face as it drove him round corners and impossible speeds, inflicting impossible levels of g-force, faithfully monitored by the on-board g-trace screen.

I would hate it. OK, if you offer me a test drive, I'll gladly take it and I'll have fun for a few hours. But there's no way I'll buy one.  There's no way I'll want one for keeps.

Why? The hint is in my first paragraph. The GTR drove Clarkson round the corners. Not the other way round. Now, Clarkson is a skilled driver (whatever you think of him), and so he should be - he's had enough practice by now. But he didn't need that skill. He just needed to turn the wheel and the car did it for him. Then the car produced a wiggly line on a computer monitor for him, so that he could see how well the car was doing.

But, it strikes me that if you're really concentrating on driving a car to its limit, you won't have time to look at a monitor on the dashboard. So if there is a monitor to tell you your g-trace, that tells you that you're not the one doing the work. You weren't the one with the skill. You aren't the one that should be proud of a lap-time. If I may be crude and Clarksonian for a moment, it would be like being proud that your wife is satisfied because you were the one that bought the massive vibrator and held it there for her.

I know this because last weekend I borrowed a proper sports car.  One that is not provided with electronickery to do all the work for you.  One that just has what it needs - a chassis, an engine, steering, and brakes.  There you go, say its makers, now get on with driving it.  What was it?  Well, it was a Caterham:

I know Caterham don't have many models, but let's be specific and say that it is a 7:

In particular, a Caterham 7 Roadsport:

No, not the SV, I may be middle-aged but I can still fit in a standard 7, thank you.  That is, of course, the first line of thought that strikes you when you first encounter a 7 - isn't it tiny! Will I fit in?  And if I do fit in, how exactly am I going to get into it?  (Only later do you start to wonder how you are going to get out.)

But that is the 7's hidden advantage.  It is tiny, therefore it is light, therefore it is fantastic to drive.  Also, that is the one way in which it is practical - it could (for example) be squeezed into a garage that already had one proper car and the garage-clutter of a family of four:

Who are you looking at?

Just squeeze into this half-space, here...

To illustrate my point about the equipment levels, this 7 was fully loaded with all the options.  Yes, this one had a roof!  In its own bag - look:

The interior is spartan, bereft of fripperies.  But there is nothing that you really, really need in order to drive the car that is absent:

The interior is, err, snug:

but has all it needs to keep you there:

BMW would call this interior "Piano Black", and they would hide the rivets.  But that would just make it pretentious and slower.  And why do you need anything more secure for the door than a leather strap with a popper?  After all, it's not as if there's any room in there to leave anything valuable behind...

Yet I loved it, and I loved the aesthetics.

and, joy of joys, it has a big red button which you press to start it:

Who could fail to love a machine with a big red starter button?

Philiosophising Wikipedia

Today's xkcd cartoon has an interesting alt-text.  It claims that:

Wikipedia trivia: if you take any article, click on the first link in the article text not in parentheses or italics, and then repeat, you will eventually end up at "Philosophy".

In discussion, it seems that this is mainly true, although there are isolated examples of start pages that lead to an infinite loop.

What surprises me is that people find this surprising.  Thinking about it, if you have a finite set of pages (such as Wikipedia: it is not yet infinite, it just feels that way) which include links to each other, then logically speaking if you keep clicking according to a particular rule then you must eventually start to loop.  OK, it may take a long time - at the time of writing this, Wikipedia has 3,643,714 pages so at 1 click per second that is slightly over 42 days (assuming neither your mouse nor your index finger break during this time) but the claim has no limit of time or clicks.

By then, you will have been to every page, so you must start looping*.  Therefore, every start point must lead to a loop.  So the real question is, which loop will you reach first?  Or, given that the "Philosophy" page is itself in a short loop (Philosophy, Reason, Rationality, Philosophy), why that loop?

The answer to that is quite simple, I think.  Human nature, and the style of Wikipedia articles, is to start an article along the lines of "[Subject] is a type of [genus] in which....".  So the first link will usually be to a more general, less specific subject.  And what could be more general or less specific than philosophy?

(Of course, my example might fail if people are creating new pages at more than 1 per second - in that case a human clicking away might theoretically never reach a loop.  But the rule is absolute, and allows for a period when Wikipedia is static, or for some kind of automated searcher that could click away at a near-infinite speed, so I have discounted this slight problem.  POSTCRIPT: As of 14:49 on 27 May, Wikipedia had added 1,437 pages after 191,880 seconds, i.e. about 133 seconds per new page...)

(*this assumes every page has a link.  In Wikipedia, I think this is a reasonable assumption, at least of the pages that another page links to.  It is also an assumption made by the claim that we are considering)

Stuff the secularist anti-Christmas, anti-joy mafia

I love this:

Lateral Thinking

Yesterday, I went on a Caterham Experience Day.  How did I feel once I'd finished?


Well, my arms hurt. My neck hurt.   My back ached.  I was utterly knackered.  It was horrendously cold all day. 

In summary? I'd had an utterly brilliant time.  We spent all day driving around in exactly the way that you're not meant to, in one of these:

The cars were unregistered 1.6 Roadsports, specially set up for the drift days. The front suspension was made as hard and low as possible, with the anti-roll bar completely removed and good sticky tyres fitted. The rear suspension and ARB were set as soft and high as possible, and rubbish tyres were fitted. 16 of us shared 3 cars. They had 5 cars in total, two were for spares (we used one of those up...)

The venue was the huge flat(ish) car park just on your left as you go into the main entrance at Silverstone. We had to get there for 8:30, flash our driving licences, deal with the witty comments about the quality of our mugshots, get some coffee & biscuits (prudence said not too many...), and then we were outside for the briefing at 9am.

Initially, the cones were set up to define an in & out hammerhead plus a mini-roundabout on the way back. The instructions were to go into the hammerhead, drift around both ends of the head before coming out, do a rolling donut around the mini-roundabout and then back into the "pit" (which was actually just more cones!). A special yellow cone was provided at the pit entrance where we had to stop and touch the cone. This was for health & safety reasons - first, it made you actually stop rather than sort of stop (safety), and second it reminded you to breathe out again (health).

The course was demonstrated very ably by Sam, the petite long-haired blonde daughter of one of the organisers. After watching her, we all looked to see if there was somewhere we could go to surrender our Man Card.

And off we went. Each of us went round once, then back to the pits while the other two cars went, then one more lap before getting out for someone else. The typical routine was to head slowly and jerkily towards the hammerhead, go into the first turn, stay entirely stable with no drift, try the second turn, spin, stall, restart the engine, and head for the mini-roundabout. Here, the quick learners really shone - they managed not to stall while spinning it. Then back to the pit for a second try.

By the second try, we had mastered the art of understeering wildly away from the cones. This is a huge improvement, because there is no need to restart the engine.

(A note on re-starting; this is done by pressing the red button on the left of the steering wheel. Not, and this is very important, by pressing the black button on the right of the steering wheel. That button is the horn, and will reduce all the watchers in the pit lane into fits of laughter.)

By halfway through the morning, we were getting the hang of it. With the car set up as it was, on cold damp tarmac, getting it loose was not really a challenge so we were able to try to look for some connection between what the car did, and what we did with our wildly flailing arms and madly stabbing feet. It seems that there is, which was a welcome discovery.

As we had got the hang of that track and were beginning to enjoy it a bit, they changed it to a figure-of-8. Sam demonstrated. We drooled (at her driving abilities...). The instructions were "Keep going round until you see the flag. Then come back." The instructions were not "Keep going round until you are in the zone and completely unable to see the flag that we have been manically waving for the last few few laps and we have to start running towards you to get your attention." However, I think a few people misunderstood. Easily done.

Then lunch. Lunch had one aspect which was hugely welcome. It was warm. Soup, baked potato, rice, garlic bread, korma, chilli, tea, coffee and biscuits were all there to choose from. By now we were quite cold, having been outside and mainly standing around waiting. So the chance to warm up was very welcome.

Then we went back out into the cold, to find that a fiendishly difficult track had been set up. We were meant to go out of the pits, then through a right/left/right/left/right slalom away from the pits, across to a mini-roundabout, back toward the pits via a right/left/right slalom, then onto a final mini-roundabout then back in. Sam demonstrated. Some asked if the Caterhams had satnav.

And off we went. Some proved that they did indeed need the satnav that was unfortunately not present, which was almost as funny to watch as someone trying to restart an engine by use of the horn. We carried on until about 3:15pm, and then stopped to be told we had one more practice then we were being assessed on our second laps. Ulp.

Scoring was that we started with 100, lost 25 for each spin, 10 for each cone we collected, and 10 if we didn't touch the yellow cone at the end. There was also a finer grading based on Sam's subjective assessment of drift quality. Oh, and you lost 30 points if you weren't aggressive enough.

After that was done, back into the warm for tea and prizes. Yours truly scored 82, which I'm quite pleased with as that put me about 4th or 5th, the winner scoring 85. First prize was a bag of Autoglym make-up, second a Caterham hat, and third a Caterham mug.

Then off home. I figured that it was actually medically impossible for me to get any colder, so I left with the roof down. After all, why not... (I managed that for about 20 mins before realising that it was medically possible to get colder, it is called being dead)

The trip home was via the M40.  It was its usual Sunday evening state, which led me to wonder - when filling out an application form for a firearms licence, when you get to the question which asks why you need a gun, would an acceptable answer be "Have you seen the lane discipline on the M40"?

All in all, a fantastic and well-organised day that I thoroughly recommend to you all.




I'm now kind of thinking, a Caterham is so small... surely I could hide one somewhere without anyone noticing?

Too much fun

This is more fun that should be allowed, surely? The AnalyzeWords site will look at your (or anyone's) Twitter feed and comment on your personality, based on the words you use.

Apparently, emotionally I'm Upbeat, Worried and Angry. Socially, I'm Plugged In, Personable, Arrogant/Distant and Spacy, and my thinking style is Analytic. That is somewhat uncanny...

Right, I'm off to look at the rest of you lot!

The Best 4x4xfar (Ctd...)

If you recall, one of my New Year resolutions was that I was going to use the Land Rover to get out and get active. Well, I have progress to report!

I've now obtained a Maxxraxx cycle carrier, and it fits the Landy perfectly. I can heartily recommend the Maxxraxx; it is sturdy and holds the bikes rock solid (unlike most racks I have tried). It is also completely secure; the rack is firmly locked to the car, and the bikes are firmly locked in place on the rack. I feel confident to load up and then leave the bikes in place while I sort out other stuff (again, unlike most racks I have tried).

Here it is, in place on the Landy:

So, with three bikes on the rack and one in the cabin (Little Miss P's bike is too small for the rack), we all clambered in and set off for the nearest woods.

The next step is the iPhone app from these people, giving me OS 1:50,000 maps on my iPhone, together with that most crucial bit of any map that is always inexplicably omitted from the paper versions, a little flashing blue dot to show where you are:

Very useful for exploring woods you aren't familiar with.

Anyway, much riding later, and many deep mud patches later, we got back suitably tired and with the bikes showing the inevitable side-effects:

Back home, and we laid the bikes out, took one look at them and hosed them down very thoroughly. Then we took one look at the children....